“Technology can be a way forward for inclusion”

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) held the CTO Conference 2019 with the theme “Predicting the Unpredictable - Embracing & Imagining the Digital Future”. The conference saw participation form leading Chief Information Officer (CIOs) and Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) across industry verticals deliberating on emerging technologies, organizational culture, the CTOs role, digital ethics and privacy among others.

Brett Chouinard, President & Chief Operations Officer (COO) Altair Engineering while talking at the keynote said that data and simulation are converging. Most of today’s products are conceptualized and built in a virtual world before making it into the physical realm, he said. Connected cars, internet of things, machine learning AI etc. are all influencing the kind of products developed today.

CTOs, world over, are in the midst of a perfect storm. Internet traffic is up 50 times over the last decade and similarly processor speed has increased up to 70 times. Disruptive industry is now available on your smart phone. It is estimated that by 2020, 1.8 billion smart phones will be shipped. Large businesses are becoming disrupted at a great pace and business models are continuously changing. 43 of the top 100 companies have been replaced by new organizations.

Anil Nair, Managing Director (MD) – Country Digital Acceleration, APJC, Cisco Systems (India) said that in India, 560 million people will be living in urban centres by 2030 which is more than the population of most countries, and the only way to bring services to these people will be through digitisation and technology.

Subramanyam Putrevu, Convenor, CII Karnataka, Technology & Innovation Panel & Chief Information Officer, Mindtree said that business models and dynamics across the world is undergoing a process of change. "Lifecycle of a technology has comedown to six months from three years in some cases. Technology can be a way forward for inclusion and it will shape organizations over the next few years."

Sanjiv Kovil, CTO, Wipro Ltd said that we need to be efficient in adopting new technology and look at the practicality of innovation. "Today companies are under pressure to adopt to new technology which is often implemented through a templated approach. Over the last three to four years, out of 1800 pilot projects on new technology less than 100 have made their way to production."

Most projects in a hurry to get going ignore their organization’s capability to absorb and implement new technology.

Anil Gopinathan, Co-Convenor, CII Karnataka Technology & Innovation Panel 2018 said that globally investment by companies in digital transformation has touched $1.3 trillion this year and by 2021 it will go up to $2.1 trillion. Organisations that invest in digital grow exponentially.

Digital transformation is not about creating or modernizing your IT infrastructure, it is the transformation of an organisation, its business models, the way it develops products and the agile methodology, said Gopinathan.

A survey of Indian companies found that by 2021, digital transformation will add an estimated $154 billion to India’s gross domestic product (GDP), and increase in growth rate by one per cent annually. India is clearly on the digital transformation fast track. Within the next four years, it is estimated that nearly 60 per cent of India’s GDP will have a strong connection to the digital transformation trends.

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