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Growing emphasis on emerging technologies

technology

In today’s fast-paced, digital world, implementation of new technologies is imperative for businesses to stay relevant and meet evolving client needs. In fact, the latest report by NASSCOM and BCG finds that technology buyers anticipate that investments in emerging technologies will account to 70-80% of their tech spending by 2030. The report adds that technologies such as autonomous analytics, augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR), autonomous driving, and computer vision, among others, will experience high funding momentum and R&D concentration. As digital transformation continues to remain a priority, it will be interesting to see how these technologies will enable enterprises to drive growth and innovate quickly, at scale.

We ask technology leaders how digital technologies will grow in 2023, challenges for organization in their digital transformation journey and the in-demand skills in 2023.

 

Anzy Mohammed S, COO, SAP Labs India

“We foresee three main digital technologies gaining traction in the enterprise B2B space this year. First, Embedded intelligence, which refers to the incorporation of intelligent technologies such as AI, ML, IoT, and RPA, into business processes within enterprises to provide better connectivity. With embedded intelligence, organizations can take advantage of these technologies to gain a competitive edge. Second is the Integrated Enterprise applications with common data fabric. To support various business operations across all lines of business, including finance, HR, ERP, supply chain, CRM, and so forth, enterprises operate in large IT landscape with a wide range of applications. Bringing these applications onto a single platform is crucial to create connected applications and a common data domain model that will allow for data sharing and interchange between the corresponding applications. The third trend that we can notice is Industry Cloud, also referred to as Verticalized Applications. The general consensus among industry analysts is that the next wave of cloud innovations and business transformation will take place in the vertical (industry) cloud, libraries of verticalized applications (“apps”), enabling businesses to act more quickly in a constantly evolving business environment.

Leveraging these emerging technologies will help organizations create smart and sustainable applications, which will be the foundation for the next-generation business processes and apps. These technical components will also increase effectiveness, improve productivity, and provide higher customer satisfaction for organizations of every size. Additionally, companies can expedite procedures, cut costs, and—most importantly—maintain a single source of data truth to break down operational silos. As technology investment remains a priority for enterprises in 2023, one of the key challenges organizations currently face in their digital transformation journey in the clarity of purpose. Despite the buzz surrounding it, there is still a lot of ambiguity over what digital transformation entails. While adoption of new technologies is the first step towards initiating digital transformation to support long-term business objectives, the installation of technology alone is inadequate. Before making hurried decisions, organizations need to establish a detailed strategy that maps out their business goals and addresses cultural barriers. Cybersecurity is becoming another major concern for businesses looking to build their digital ambitions. Findings from a report by Ponemon Research Institute shows that Indian enterprises suffered losses worth ₹176 million on an average in the 2021-22 fiscal year owing to data breaches.

Finally, the skill gaps have emerged as a common inhibitor for digital transformation, which mandates organizations to set up a robust L&D structure to upskill and reskilling employees in new technologies. In today’s age, skilling needs to be continuous and on the job. In fact, employees can only assimilate and apply knowledge more effectively if they can practise on the job. Additionally, it gives them a more seamless opportunity to adjust or upskill when necessary. In addition to technical skills in AI, Cloud, Cybersecurity, and IoT, among other emerging areas, employees will need to build their critical thinking abilities and soft skills like team building, change management, situational leadership and resilience.”

 

Monish Darda, CTO & Co-founder, Icertis

“The democratization of artificial intelligence (AI) and ethical AI practices will become core to the digital transformation journey. While companies are already investing in AI to drive innovation, the technology is still traditionally seen as complicated and challenging. We will witness AI become more democratized to a broader user base, including those without specialized knowledge of AI. Businesses will also focus on AI practices, such as eliminating bias from automated decision-making systems and unfairness in AI.

Additionally, in-demand skill requirements change as technology and adoption evolve. For example, AI/Machine Learning skills spearhead the need for cloud, requiring data engineering and mobile technologies in various sectors, including BFSI, retail, health tech, med tech, edutech, and many others. But the most significant transformation for the future of digital India is the new wave of entrepreneurs emerging in all of these industries.”

 

Faiz Shakir, Managing Director – Sales, Nutanix India & SAARC at Nutanix

“The industry has seen some major positive changes over the years, and the progress towards the implementation of cloud has been phenomenal. 2023 is expected to be an eventful year for the technology sector and primarily for the cloud business. As we have witnessed, hybrid multicloud computing has been widely adopted for transformations across industries and will be influential in many enterprise strategies for the future. Many organizations are finding that moving their applications to the cloud is not as quick or cost-efficient as they initially believed, due to several factors including increased pressures on IT spending. This process also requires significant amounts of time and skilled personnel, another key area of focus in 2023, to refactor existing applications for the cloud and to move them back from the cloud, as needed. hybrid multicloud helps organizations overcome these issues.   

Sustainably will also continue to be a deciding factor in IT investments, globally, as organizations look to technology to lower energy costs and enable the achievement of sustainability mandates.”

‘In 2023, organizations are expected to continue to focus on accelerating digital transformation and drive efficient growth to better navigate the disruption. An increase in investments and importance will be witnessed in cutting edge technologies like, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big data, and Cloud computing among many. Organisations can leverage the emerging technologies to reduce work processes bottlenecks, incorporate efficiency in processes & save time and money. Further to this, enhanced automation can lead to more refined processes vary of human errors and cloud computing to enhance workflow within the organisation. As change comes with its own set of challenges, one of the key challenges that organisations will continue to face in their digital transformation journey is lack of a skilled workforce, a lack of an overall digitalization strategy, and a limited budget, to name a few. Regardless of the current demand for skilled workers, we can expect an increase in demand for data engineers, cloud engineers, and professionals with AI knowledge, experience, and skill set in 2023, among many others. As a result, organisations must continually upskill and reskill employees to keep up with changing times and bridge the talent gap.’

 

Pankaj Sachdeva, Vice President, Data Science & Analytics and Managing Director, India Innovation, Pitney Bowes

“Digital Transformation is more than leveraging advanced technology to enhance operational efficiency, capabilities, and ultimately higher productivity, it is also a cultural shift and change in mindset of leaders and teams alike that necessitates constant status quo challenge, experimentation, and comfort with failure on the part of organisations. The challenges that organizations face in their digital transformation journey are lack of a clear strategy which makes it difficult for an organization to make progress or measure its success. The rigid mindset of leadership and employees to changing the way they work, slows down the implementation of new technologies and processes. Organizations may also lack the necessary technical skills and expertise to implement new technologies and digital solutions. The difficulty in integrating new technologies with legacy systems and processes is another complex and time-consuming task. One of the biggest challenges include data security and privacy concerns as more organizations collect and store sensitive data in digital form, the need to protect that data from cyber threats becomes increasingly important. Organizations also fail on leveraging the marketing and sales aspect of upscaling and transformation which can provide a competitive edge to the business.

In Shipping and logistics industry as well, organizations need to transition from legacy systems to advanced architecture due to the current macroeconomic environment across the world to accelerate cost reduction and enhance operational efficiencies. Organizations will require not only investment but technical expertise to adapt holistic, end-to-end solutions to resolve their supply chain and logistics challenges. Transformation to supply chain management systems that help with automation and integration of the entire supply chain across procurement, manufacturing, production, warehouse management and ultimately distribution to customers will become more important going ahead for companies. We also have to keep in mind while we are transforming the capabilities, the essence of business should stay the same and not get deviated while experimentation with new technologies. While these challenges and issues hamper the speed of digital transformation, the fore most importance in developing digital capabilities lies in the mindset of organization to evolve and adapt to changing technological landscape which not only fosters growth but drives productivity as well.”

 

Vishal Gupta, Founder, and CEO, Seclore

“In 2023, businesses will continue to invest in advanced technologies such as data engineering, virtual and augmented reality, and edge computing to spur a new era of enterprise innovation. Cloud-based solutions will become mainstream, enabling enterprises to scale rapidly and improve their time to market. These technologies will inevitably require intelligent security solutions to protect organizational data, maintain confidentiality and prevent information loss. Embedding security, privacy, and compliance policies within the data irrespective of where it is stored or viewed will become a priority for companies. However, with the rising demand for cybersecurity professionals, finding employable digital talent will remain a challenge. Enterprises will turn to technologies like hyper-automation, machine learning, and broader aspects of artificial intelligence to compensate for the digital skill gap. In terms of technical capabilities, in-demand skill-sets will include artificial intelligence, data analytics, cloud computing, machine learning, and data protection and risk management.”

 

Kamal Sharma, Sr. Director, Digital Transformation, Carrier Digital Hub India

“Growing emphasis on the emerging technologies will lead to significant new developments in the enterprise space in 2023. Starting with the power of artificial intelligence, nearly every job and business function across industries will benefit from its ability to automate tasks and take over repetitive jobs. Metaverse is expected to continue its rise as adoption of augmented reality and virtual reality becomes more mainstream.  Leveraging these technological innovations will enable businesses to offer superior customer experiences, meet unpredictable demand, and make critical data-driven decisions in real-time. In the GCCs space, we foresee a growing investment in key technologies such as cloud, product development, R&D, mobile, CX, CRMs, and hyper-automation.

As GCCs in India become “genuine sense centres” by creating strong values and long-term goals, they will be seen as a source of innovation and long-term business transformation rather than a captive centre that can only work in traditional technological fields  such as testing, infrastructure, and ERP, among others. However, the most important aspect impacting the development of GCCs today is how businesses place it in their respective organizational strategy as they attempt to realign themselves with the shifting business paradigms of the future. GCCs will need to conquer this obstacle by looking past the urgent issues of the present, and determining how to tackle problems that are more concerned with the future.

The emergence of new technologies requires a strategic approach to hiring and upskilling and reskilling existing employees to ensure there is no skills gap. Today, more than ever, companies must make upskilling/reskilling an integral part of their L&D agenda. The need for new skill sets in the workforce of the future is urgent, and it’s imperative that GCCs prioritize employee skilling and incorporate it in their employee value proposition (EVP).”

 

Samit Banerjee, Division President, Cloud Operations Services & Head of Customer Service Unit, Amdocs

‘In 2023, organizations are expected to continue to focus on accelerating digital transformation and drive efficient growth to better navigate the disruption. An increase in investments and importance will be witnessed in cutting edge technologies like, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big data, and Cloud computing among many. Organisations can leverage the emerging technologies to reduce work processes bottlenecks, incorporate efficiency in processes & save time and money. Further to this, enhanced automation can lead to more refined processes vary of human errors and cloud computing to enhance workflow within the organisation. As change comes with its own set of challenges, one of the key challenges that organisations will continue to face in their digital transformation journey is lack of a skilled workforce, a lack of an overall digitalization strategy, and a limited budget, to name a few. Regardless of the current demand for skilled workers, we can expect an increase in demand for data engineers, cloud engineers, and professionals with AI knowledge, experience, and skill set in 2023, among many others. As a result, organisations must continually upskill and reskill employees to keep up with changing times and bridge the talent gap.’

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