Enabling urban development in India through technology: making change effective

Purpose – In the increasingly global world, there will be additional pressures on urban infrastructure, societies and organisations. Many factors cause these additional pressures, such as compression of time, competitiveness of organisations and economies and the demand for higher levels of transparency. Under these circumstances, a focus on sustainability becomes even more important than in the past. Evidence from several developed and emerging economies shows that technology can enable efforts towards sustainable urban development. However, in order for such efforts to yield results, the focus has to extend well beyond technology to balancing economic, environmental and socio‐cultural issues. The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors critical to making the additional investments required for sustainable urban development worthwhile in a country such as India. Design/methodology/approach – There is not much documented evidence of such urban development projects in India. This paper explored two cases of large‐scale, multi‐year systems implementations in the public sector, in the expectation that lessons learned from those projects would be applicable to urban projects too. The findings are primarily based on interviews with senior government officials involved in such projects. Findings – While technology no longer poses major limitations, the return on investment of such projects is determined by large‐scale adoption. Most issues raised in the course of this research study pointed to a lack of robust change management in the implementation process. The framework and principles followed by organisational transformation initiatives are seen to be applicable in such cases too. Differences in scale and approach are highlighted in the analysis. In arriving at the return on investment, an approach using a “benefits index” is also proposed. Research limitations/implications – Further research would involve in‐depth study of many more instances of such projects. While this paper looks back at the projects several years after their inception, ongoing longitudinal studies taking an in‐process view might also add insight. Practical implications – This paper proposes that in such projects, as much focus must be placed on human transition as is placed on the technical aspects of the project itself. Originality/value – There is hardly any documented evidence of such large‐scale public purpose projects in India. There are, however, several such projects planned or being executed. This paper is an attempt to identify the issues likely to be faced, so that there might be a higher probability of success for all stakeholders – government, citizens and private companies alike.