How India Inc can embrace digital transformation at every part of the value chain

With disruption becoming the new game in modern times, India Inc’s digital transformation has also picked up a rapid pace, and it is no more about a customer-first challenge. However, it has become an utmost important necessity for businesses to decode their digital progress and make an informed decision on realizing the future steps. With tech giants across the globe investing highly in studying developing technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT) the attitude to adopt these emerging technologies is seen greater than ever at every step of the value chain. Flowing from top to bottom. Right from workspaces and office culture, to employees to business strategies, and then to customers; everyone is equally involved in this process of transformation. With this unprecedented access to game-changing technologies, a huge business opportunity is within grasp. In fact, enterprises of today are reimagining their business models in order to stay agile, resonate better with their customers, as well as stay competitive. But there are a string of impediments in the digital transformation funnel, such as if all the stakeholders share the digital-first vision, or how to become agile or getting right talent on board etc.  Hence, to discuss the challenges and how businesses can make transformation real, as well as drive human progress and promote inclusion, CNBC TV18, in association with Dell Technologies, hosted a special panel discussion on ‘Digital Transformation: Inclusion, Innovations & Investment’ at Connected CIO forum on October 15 at Grand Hyatt, Mumbai. The panel discussion saw participation by some eminent panellists namely Kamlesh Rao, MD & CEO, Kotak Securities; Manoj Chugh, President, Enterprise Business, Tech Mahindra, Member of the Group Executive Board; Shilpa Kumar, MD & CEO of ICICI Securities; Sharad Sanghi, MD and CEO, Net Magic, NTT Communications; and Kush Bahl, Senior Partner, McKinsey & Gold and each of them deliberated on why businesses should be putting digital transformation at the top of their business priorities. “Barriers are three-fold. First is strategy, second in mindset, around both agility and customer obsession. Finally, there is a barrier of finding the right talent. Because transformation real, it requires a special talent,” said Kush Bahl. The panel, moderated by Mridu Bhandari, Editor (Special Projects) Network 18, discussed digital structures and the transformation. This panel highlighted how fintech firms have forced Indian businesses to innovate, address cybersecurity & privacy concerns and offer different models to their customers. “IoT is an important foundational technology. Whether it is building factories of the future, building smart homes, or just reaching out to your customer in retail, every sector is impacted by IoT,” said Manoj Chugh. Indian businesses, today are willing to invest in these pillars to bring about significant changes. They aim to become agile, ever-evolving and competitive, in a nutshell: digital-first. “Google, AWS, Microsoft, IBM, Ali Cloud, etc., including domestic players have decided to give customers the flexibility and have created a multi-cloud platform, which allows consumers to choose the cloud of their choice and provision it dynamically. Also, consumers can now monitor as well as manage their infrastructure, cost optimisation across all cloud platforms. Multi-cloud is definitely a reality now,” said Sharad Sanghi. Meanwhile, customers are exposed to multiple options, high interface and less friction in their digital journeys. Therefore, businesses have to analyse data, become more intuitive, and quickly bring changes to the market. Data analytics is, thereby, also the need of the hour. “What has changed is the ability to use data to keep changing as per your customers and eventually how quickly you can wire that into your business action,” said Shilpa Kumar. Therefore, it is clear that technologies will have to work together and in order to implement them, a right kind of workforce is required, which is another major challenge for firms now. Upskilling the existing workforce, driving the culture, educating them on positive changes are a few things that can help in collaborating and creating an ecosystem. “It is about small innovative processes that change the life of people. Be it is sales, backend, operations, etc. Today, it’s all about collaboration. The whole process of digital transformation is exciting as long as the lives of user is becoming better than before,” said Kamlesh Rao. Therefore, as of now, the task at the hand for organisations is to overcome the major barriers. Indeed, the need of the hour is to fail fast, learn fast and stay ahead of digital disruptions and innovations to make businesses digital-first. This is a partnered post.