Digitally transforming India’s Workforce

This article was originally published in BW SMARTCITIES - Source Link
BW SMARTCITIES
“With the recent merger bringing on table the strengths of KPIT's IT businesses, particularly in SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards and other related areas of manufacturing, along with Birlasoft's existing core strengths in custom application development and maintenance in digital, sales force, data analytics and testing, combined with leading edge consulting capability.

Birlasoft is now poised to deliver a much wider suite of capabilities” asserts an optimistic Sangram Kadam, Vice President and Head (APAC and META), Birlasoft in a tete-a-tete with Poulami Chakraborty of BW SmartCities. Excerpts below:

Please elaborate to us how Birlasoft has been able to build its business empire in India in an established competitive market of the same domain?

Digital transformation is profoundly changing the way enterprises are functioning today, as companies look at creating business networks for the future and delivering real-time value to their customers. Keeping in line with the pace of the industrial evolution, Birlasoft has always believed in evolving to better fit in the industry by inculcating new and emerging technologies. Birlasoft works with focused industries to transform operational processes, improve stakeholder experience, and discover new business models. Birlasoft helps customers to realize quick value, streamline operations, improve compliance, and better manage assets in the factory, on the field. Today's organizations function in real-time, integrated ecosystems where quick decisions must be made based on a steady stream of information from sources like wearable devices, smart assets, and intelligent machines. The complexity of integration has increased dramatically, but the expectation to provide access to intuitive, uninterrupted and safe technologies for operations persist.

With the recent merger bringing on table the strengths of KPIT's IT businesses, particularly in SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards and other related areas of manufacturing, along with Birlasoft's existing core strengths in custom application development and maintenance in digital, sales force, data analytics and testing, combined with leading edge consulting capability. Birlasoft is now poised to deliver a much wider suite of capabilities.

We are one of the few companies who have focussed on domestic business and have done investments, we are helping leading Indian organisations and global organisations who have business in India for last 2 decades.

What strategies of operations has Birlasoft adopted for sustaining the competition in the highly populous IT industry?

Birlasoft - Enterprise to the Power of Digital has been our top priority and has helped us deliver better to our customers. Birlasoft is uniquely positioned to help customers unlock their digital potential, Birlasoft has created a unique blend of enterprise solutions and digital capabilities that will enable clients digitalize and transform their systems through multiple interventions such as customer experience, connected devices, predictive analytics through automation and machine learning.

With the adoption and of AI, ML, Cloud Computing, Blockchain, 3D Printing, Cyber Security and others. Digital transformation is profoundly reshaping the boundaries of competition.

Technology, employees and customers were the center for us and inevstments in these areas have helped to sustain.

Transforming automation work force digitally has emerged as the current industry trend. Is India that future-ready? Your views

India is a country that has manoeuvred its way through tough times and hurdles; sometimes slowly, often rapidly, but always moving forward. India is experiencing a digital revolution that is triggering transformative changes in areas like e-payments, e-health, digital literacy, farming, financial inclusion, geographic mapping, rural development, social benefits programmes, language localisation, and much more. Making an enterprise digital, as we often hear, is more than implementing new digital technologies or merely modernizing existing ones. Rather, digital transformation is about changing every business process and function in such a way that a specific set of new technologies most relevant to a business are used to improve operational efficiencies to deliver tangible business value and stellar customer experiences. This is the time for cooperative and collaborative decision-making with our eyes firmly on the goal of bringing real change for our people and making India a true world leader.

Reskill and cross skilling is the essence of time. We are investing in our employees to get team ready for current and future needs.

Your opinion on 5G in India?

India still not ready for 5G, the new technology revolution, both technologically and commercially. But size of indian market will help it to ease out.It will have positive impact on machines and facilities. Smart city initiatives, connectivity can be improved a lot. It will play a major role in smart governance. India need to partner with technology players and can India bet with China or USA or others, need to be looked. Ultimately India has to adopt and make it affordable.

How is Data protection Bill going to affect Indian IT and telecom market?

We are moving towards an industry wherein business models increasingly necessitate a lot of customer data getting shared and getting captured through the new age technologies such as internet of things, m-commerce and therefore data protection will only strengthen customer rights. While India-based organisations with global footprints have already taken measures to comply with regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), entities which operate primarily in the Indian market are anxious to understand the impact of the Data Protection Bill on their day-to-day operations.

What challenges do you face while operating in Indian market? How do you mitigate them?

Indian technology leaders are experimenting few new areas and are ready to take first mover advantage, the concern is they are looking at investments from partners. Overall IT maturity is going up and organisations are looking at new models and emerging technologies. Still there are challenges as such as IT and Manufacturing infrastructure, skilled members are keener to work outside India, though we are seeing reverse trend now. Traditionally technology or IT was not considered as Business enabler, but with digital emergence, the same is also changing. Budget allocation for technology led projects is concern.

How is Birlasoft contributing in GoIs Digital India campaign?

India’s IT industry has witnessed remarkable growth and have shown great progress in evangelizing the technology ecosystem in the region. Keeping in line with the pace of the industrial evolution, Birlasoft is continuously contributing in the GoIs Digital India campaign through:

We are participating and helping many PSU to adopt digital journey, helping few smart cities to roll out citizen centric IT initiatives. We are also partnering with leading education institutes to create workforce which can help to drive these initiatives.

Sangram Kadam
Sangram Kadam
Former Vice President and Head (APAC and META), Birlasoft
    
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