Ahmedabad, is located in north-central Gujarat, on the banks of the River Sabarmati and is the largest city in Gujarat with a population of more than 5.2 million. Most of the units are either own and own -cum - loan licensees manufacturing formulations though some have backward linkages and have been producing certain bulk drugs also mainly for captive consumption. It is estimated that there are around 450 Drugs & pharmaceuticals units in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, and nearby units. Around 50 of these units are in medical disposables while the remaining are formulations including big firms. The cluster consists of 7 big firms, 25 medium sized firms and the remaining small firms.

            Ahmedabad cluster is mainly a horizontal cluster with most units into similar or competing products, mainly formulations. MSMEs at Ahmedabad have been observed to be slow adopters of ICTs being extremely price-sensitive due to their size as also due to their lack of requisite infrastructure & budgets. Lack of an appropriate exposure to technology also partly explains their shyness to the new ICT technology. As a result, these SMEs have been observed to be interested in ICT solutions like an adhoc arrangement keeping in view just the immediate market gains, thus missing out on the long-term benefits of the solution.

            The Footwear industry, as it exists in Agra, remains deeply rooted in traditional methods of manufacturing. Most of the work is done by hand and hardly any mechanization exists. All process control is manual and all records are kept manually as well.

            Though a lot of ISVs are available, majority of the ISVs are not coming forward to supply products due to apprehension about non acceptance of the product by the industry on cost considerations. Therefore, a fuller utilization of the ISV skills is needed for which ISVs’ capacity building and development of a sustainable soft ecosystem appears imminent. Most of the firms used computers for managing finance and accounts. The next area was customer relations, marketing and managing inventory. The area where it was least used was supply chain. Most respondents during the diagnostic feels that however felt that ICT can reduce the communication time. The other major areas explained for ICT adoption are improving market prospects and sourcing of information related to technology and market

            The e-action plan for bridging the ICT gaps in the cluster would comprise streamlining the exploitation of E - Business Tools for the Ahmedabad pharma cluster, appropriate use of e-Tools for the industry, besides involvement of cluster actors in planning and implementation of the whole exercise. It will be endeavoured that the new solutions developed in the cluster are demand driven by creating linkages with the help of enhanced social capital in the cluster. Somehow, this thought is still to permeate into the pharma cluster at Ahmedabad, which has been one of the crucial factors in its lack of capacity to push competitiveness as a theme. Specifically, the survey concluded that these pharma SMEs, would require ICT applications to improve efficiency in quality assurance & control, for adherence to regulatory requirements for operation & testing, improving batch tracking & expiry date tracking, optimizing credit & logistics control, consolidating sales promotions, discounts, purchase-sales-inventory analysis, and optimally tracking consignment sales. They would also require ICT solutions for managing their distribution network through various stockists across the country for minimization of their inventory costs.

            In crux, the SME pharmaceutical market in Ahmedabad appears quite large and has a tremendous potential with a large part still remaining to be tapped. It is essential that these SMEs are convinced of the benefits from adopting a long-term strategy so that they can gradually adopt complete solutions.

            There are number of proactive government institutions in supporting cluster like Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC), Gujarat Cleaner Production Centre (GCPC), The Food and Drugs Control Administration (FDCA), Gujarat Industrial and Technical Consultancy Organisation Ltd. (GITCO), Central Institute of Plastic Engineering and Technology (CIPET). Among education institutions a number of private sector players like LM College of Pharmacy (LMCP), PERD Centre, Ahmedabad, Private Laboratories.