Tag: digitisation

German auto parts major ZF to expand global IT centres in Pune, Hyderabad & Chennai

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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German automotive parts maker ZF said on March 3 it is looking to expand its global IT centres in Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai to spearhead the group’s IT digitisation initiative as part of its Refresh India 4.0 Strategy announced mid-last year. ZF Commercial Vehicle Solutions (CVS) has been successfully leveraging the talent in India for its IT product, services and digital innovation competence for several years, the company said on March 3.

With the set-up of a dedicated organisation focusing on digital and IT innovations in Chennai in 2018, the team in India has successfully delivered over 230 digital robotic process automation BoTs, supporting various functions and areas of business ranging from supply chain, sourcing and purchasing, product engineering and business development, among others, ZF said. To meet the increasing demand from customers and expansion of business, ZF now plans to expand its workforce across its three IT centres, the company said.

Also read: Transforming the Automotive Industry

A huge focus on skills and capabilities leveraged from these centres will be for global enterprise transformations across Industry 4.0, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data, mobile applications, blockchain and cyber security, it said. According to the company, an onshore-offshore model will help provide timely solutions in an agile manner to the growing demand for digitalised solutions by ZF customers across the globe.

“ZF as a leader in building solutions for the next-generation mobility offers exciting opportunities for digital talents. We would like to take a leap forward scaling up the skills and capabilities both for the region India as well as globally for ZF. Further expansion and leveraging of the global IT centres will play an important role to accelerate our group initiatives in digitalisation,” Jrgen Sturm, Chief Information Officer of ZF, said.

Also read: The 2022 Cookpot: Here is what’s brewing in the rapidly evolving automobile space

Technology is the backbone of any business and ZF has always been at the forefront of technological advancement that has benefited the mobility ecosystem, said Milan Kumar, head (IT) for region India at ZF.

Given the vast IT talent pool in India with proven innovation power, the expansion of ZF’s global IT centre, the product, services and digital innovation team here will be an important building block in the future to transform ZF into a digital enterprise, Kumar said.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

India witnessing increasing digitisation, shift in consumers’ financial behaviour: NITI Aayog’s Rajiv Kumar

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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India is witnessing increasing digitisation with people getting greater and easier access to financial services, which has led to a shift in consumers’ financial behaviour from cash to e-wallets and UPI, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Monday. Kumar, while addressing ‘NITI Aayog’s Fintech Open Summit’, further said the rise of fintech has accelerated financial inclusion.

He also noted that the expansion of digital payments is an important pivot for creating a more equitable, prosperous and financially inclusive India. “India is witnessing increasing digitization with people getting greater and easier access to financial services. This has led to a shift in consumers’ financial behaviour — from cash to e-wallets and UPI,” Kumar said.

Speaking at the event, Union Minister for Railways, Communications, and Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw said the government believes in creating open platforms, such as CoWin and UPI, for healthcare, logistics and other sectors. An open platform is created using public investment, wherein numerous private entrepreneurs, startups and developers can join to create new solutions, Vaishnaw added.

According to an official statement, a first-of-its-kind initiative, Fintech Open will bring together regulators, fintech professionals and enthusiasts, industry leaders, the startup community and developers to collaborate, exchange ideas and innovate. It added that Fintech Open aims encourage an open ecosystem across the fintech industry and foster innovation and growth.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

IBM bets big on India, to open more software development centres

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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US tech giant IBM is betting big on the India growth story and plans to open more software development centres in the country as it looks to partner with the government in its digitisation journey, its Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna said on Friday. On a visit to India, Krishna met Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar to discuss deeper collaboration including skilling and workforce development.

The firm that originally designed the technology and system behind ATMs, barcodes and the US social security net, is greatly enthused with the speed at which the Indian government is willing to make decisions and where it is moving, he told a select media briefing.

“We feel good about our business in India. We have a good footprint in financial services, in telecom, in government (business) in the industrial sector amongst many others. We are very pleased with the progress of our business here,” he said.

Stating that IBM does not reveal country-specific numbers, he said Asia did well in the third quarter (July-September) and “India was a big piece of that”. “With the world’s geopolitics, I would not name countries, I think India is a unique opportunity to leapfrog even more than it has in the past two decades,” he said.

Globally, 70 percent of its revenue will now come from software and consulting, higher-value businesses that both saw strong growth in the third quarter. The India market revenue will mirror the global trajectory. IBM has acquired 17 companies since Krishna became CEO to bolster its hybrid cloud and AI capabilities both tech and high-value consultative services.

In the past six months, it has expanded in tier-II cities in India and accelerated hiring. “IBM has expanded dramatically in India. We have large centres at Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune and a smaller one in Delhi on R&D (research and development).

“We have just announced that we will be opening centres near Ahmedabad and near Kochi. That are just two of few more that we have planned. I will not pre-announce the rest,” he said. The firm is globally targeting USD 35 billion of cash generation over the next three years for re-investment into business expansion including in India.

On his meetings with the Indian ministers, he said focused around skilling and workforce development. “We are not talking about people out of IITs (but) what can we do much deeper to get people ready for the digital revolution that is coming,” he said.

IBM in India spends 100 percent of its CSR money on workforce development and skilling. “We don’t do other projects for show. 100 percent of CSR is into this area, that is substantive.” The discussions also focused on the ‘Gatishakti‘ using digitation in government platforms to allow more services to be much more quickly availed by the citizens.

“We at IBM will be very motivated to help to be part of it. These are government systems, they have to own them, they have to be eventual decision-makers. We will be very happy to participate in helping them build out systems, add scales, in a secure way, in a way they can be trusted, in a way they cannot be misused,” he said.

Krishna, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur (IIT-K), knows the potential the country has and has gone bullish on India, especially on the R&D and innovation to create for the world.

In the last six months, IBM has expanded in India. Besides opening IBM Software Labs development centers in Kochi, Kerala and Ahmedabad, Gujarat, IBM Client Innovation Center (CIC) specialising in design, software engineering and analytics were launched in Mysuru and IBM Consulting Business Process Operations started a new centre in Hyderabad, Telangana. It will accelerate the building of skills and digital innovation providing a strong foundation for the IT/ITeS sector in the states.

IBM will offer cybersecurity training to 5 lakh people in India over the next five years. It has registered over 6.2 lakh learners on SkillsBuild from India a key milestone in its skilling commitment to the nation.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Siemens AG CEO says digitisation, automation & sustainability to be the growth engines of future

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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German engineering and technology company Siemens AG on Thursday said digitisation, automation and sustainability will be the growth engines of the future.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Roland Busch, president and CEO, said, “In India, we are doing a lot in automating and digitising. People have completely different kinds of skills which we need. So this is an opportunity for many countries, but also for many people.”

“We had talked about megatrends and we had the megatrend of global warming. We had the megatrend of urbanisation, as well as of globalisation. At that time, we already called it localisation as we believed that there was more and more local content required. Now the megatrends is an ageing society, which is not only about the labour market but also about the healthcare system and then the added digitisation because we saw digitisation is transforming all our industries, regardless of whether it is infrastructure, mobility or the energy sector or the healthcare sector.”

Also read: Digitsation to be key driver of economic growth in India, say experts

“Then COVID just accelerated these trends amazingly – digitisation, if you think about how you worked in the last 12 to 18 months, it was from now to then all remote, people were not travelling anymore, and so we used digital technologies, manufacturing sites were automated and digitised. They were running through the crisis because they didn’t have so many people on the shop floor needed and service for example if we do service remotely, we could really keep our assets up and running while others had to shut down for even acceptance tests, which we did virtually with our customers,” he said.

“With COVID there, we were triggering stimulus programmes all around the world. Stimulus money is not supposed to go into good old economies but obviously, the governments said that if I put stimulus money on the table, I want to have the new technologies, I want to really deal with the challenges of the future. I believe that the fight against climate change was accelerated by COVID because this stimulus money now goes into more sustainable technologies, which are helping to keep global warming on a low level,” Busch said.

For the full interview discussion, watch the accompanying video

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Hiring in ecommerce is reflection of pent-up demand, says TeamLease

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Manish Sabharwal, Executive Vice-Chairman of Teamlease, in an interview with CNBC-TV18, COVID-19 forced adoption of ecommerce and digitisation, which otherwise would have taken three-five years. He also believes that there is pent-up demand.

He also discussed what exactly the staffing situation is looking like ahead of the festive season.

“So the big hiring that you are seeing in ecommerce, in customer services, in sales is a reflection of pent-up demand combined with the mandatory digital literacy programme that COVID-19 forced on consumers,” he said.

He believes some of it is anticipatory hiring but it is also backed up by a real uptick in demand.

“I am a little hesitant to say that things have gone back to normal but I think there is clearly an uptick in the way all our customers are thinking about,” he shared.

Also Read: How global workers’ shortage, erratic weather and supply chain disruptions are driving up food prices

Many of them regretted in the first wave of COVID-19 when they cut back too quickly and when the demand came back and they could not fulfil that demand. Many of the large fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), the ecommerce players will not make that mistake again, he noted.

The second wave of COVID-19 was economically much less damaging.

“Last year we had 20-30 percent decline in Q1. During the second wave maybe corporate India learnt how to deal with lockdowns, maybe lockdowns weren’t one size fits all. So clearly, the second wave of COVID-19 not being as economically damaging as the first wave of COVID-19, gives some confidence to companies that the third-wave of COVID-19 can be easily handled if at all it comes,” he said.

For the full interview, watch the accompanying video.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Digitsation to be key driver of economic growth in India, say experts

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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As India navigates its way through the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the county has relied on the use of technology to help keep growth engines moving- be it work from home, e-commerce, digital payments, and even entertainment.

Digitisation has led to changes in consumer behaviour and opened up opportunities to service under-served or un-served markets, improve supply chain efficiencies, bring in economies of scale and cut down on costs.

All of this has been made possible because of the changes brought in over the past decade with the digital infrastructure being built out, a massive reduction in data prices and a jump in the adoption of smartphones.

According to reports, India is likely to have 900 million active users by 2025, with internet penetration at 45 percent as of January of 2021. India is home to the third-largest online shopper base of 140 million, only behind China and the US. The e-retail market is expected to grow to $120-140 billion by FY26, increasing at approximately 25-30 percent annually over the next five years, according to Bain-Flipkart report of 2021.

Also read: IPOs will drive startup revolution in India, says Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant

UPI transactions hit a record high of 3.24 billion monthly transactions in July this year, with the last billion transactions being logged in just 10 months driven by the pandemic.

E-governance in India has steadily evolved from computerisation of government departments to mega missions like Aadhaar, GST and now the CoWin platform. So what will digitisation mean for Corporate India and the economy?

In an interview with CNBC-TV18’s Shereen Bhan, Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairperson and CEO of Salesforce India said, post the pandemic digital transformation is imperative for every single CEO. She highlighted that work from anywhere, being able to perform from anywhere, is something that is driving most of the companies in India today.

“Earlier the digital transformation imperative was there in about 30 percent of CEOs. But today, the digital transformation imperative is there across the board for every single CEO as he has two things in mind – how are we going to have an omni channel way of not only connecting with the customer but also with all other stakeholders including employees, supply chain, dealerships etc. So the requirement for being able to work from anywhere, being able to perform from anywhere, all of this is something that is driving most of the companies in India today.”

Also read: The potential of digitization in rural India – A case for women entrepreneurship amidst COVID-19

Sanjeev Sharma, managing director of ABB India said most of their clients rapidly adapted to remote systems to ensure reliability. “Most of our customers in the industrial and infrastructure plays have to service public or they have to service their customers. So reliability, availability, maintainability and serviceability are the important aspects. The first thing during the pandemic we experienced is that the customers were willing to change their expected behaviour and wanted the services to be delivered remotely. So, we saw a rapid adaptation of remote services to keep the reliability and availability of infrastructure in industrial complexes.”

Piyush Singh, senior managing director at Accenture highlighted that India could potentially unlock $1 trillion of value via the digital route, “We are still at the very start of unlocking the value from digital. The total value unlocks that we estimate for the Indian economy for digital adoption is at $1 trillion. However, this unlock will require multiple things to work in sync.”

Watch video for entire discussion.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

IPOs will drive startup revolution in India, says Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Digitisation has provided an impetus to the startup ecosystem in India and IPOs will drive the country’s startup revolution, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Friday.

Addressing a virtual event organised by Innovation Venturing and Entrepreneurship in India Network (iVEIN), Kant said among 17 economies, India has emerged as the second-fastest in digitisation.

“IPOs will drive our start-up revolution. Indian start-ups will raise money in Indian markets from the Indian public. This is truly Aatmanirbhar Bharat. Digitization has provided an impetus to the start-up ecosystem in India,” he said.

His comments came on a day when Zomato made a stellar debut on the bourses on Friday, as its shares surged nearly 66 percent against the issue price of Rs 76. Its initial public offering (IPO) last week ended with a bumper 38 times subscription.

In a large and diverse country like India, the ability to rapidly execute and scale up programmes to reach 1.3 billion citizens, in vernacular languages, is important, Kant noted.

“Start-ups should leverage technology for social good. The pandemic has provided an opportunity for this,” he said. According to Kant, the intersection of e-commerce and the internet has created opportunities for business.

The development of world-class technology products needs inputs from AI, he said, adding “our curriculum needs to be redesigned to produce world-class AI scientists and designers”.

Kant also noted that failure is an integral part of the startup movement and every parent and every investor in India needs to understand this.

He was quick to add that nowhere in the world would startups get the size and scale of data as they do in India. “Data sets provide the opportunity to use AI and ML across a range of areas like health, agriculture and education,” he observed.

Speaking at the event, Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan called for a significant increase in investments in research. “We also need to have a category of investors HNIs with deep pockets who do not have time horizons. They need to look at seeding the deep tech,” he added.

Using the example of the Department of BioTechnology, Gopalakrishnan said they had done a phenomenal job in seeding startups, especially during the pandemic.

“Not for profit does not mean that you will not create profits. These entities must be run with financial discipline and should be sustained, he noted.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Based on investment opportunities in renewables, India ranks among top 3 countries, says HDFC’s Deepak Parekh

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The big event of Reliance Industries Annual General Meeting has spelt out a pathway for Indian businesses to make their mark in the global map as the world gears up for a transformation in the present ever-changing time.

Digital revolution and sustainable business are the two most important outcomes of the pandemic situation. RIL has been on a growth path for digitalisation in Jio and retail and now has embarked upon the journey of building future energy business.

Green, clean energy is a big global thrust and the RIL AGM has brought it home by committing a massive investment of $ 10 billion over the next three years. It will propel India to move towards it’s renewable energy targets and also create the eco-system of furthering the different pieces of the green energy generation capabilities in the country.

Jamnagar’s transformation from the cradle of legacy energy business to a new-age energy business is transformational as de-carbonisation and climate consciousness pick up pace across the world.

In this special show – Powering India! CNBC-TV18’s Nisha Poddar spoke to Deepak Parekh, Chairman of HDFC, on corporate India’s new touchpoints, and tools for achieving the new era of growth.

On green and clean energy, Parekh said, “There is a generational shift towards clean energy and fortunately India is being viewed very favourably on renewable. Based on investment opportunities in renewables, India ranks among the top 3 countries after the US and China. So what excites investors is a pace of change we have here in India, the plug and play model for the solar park, and the other fiscal and other incentives for renewables.”

“For India, world focus will be on clarity of its energy policy and maintaining the sanctity of contracts because this is really what gives international investors’ confidence in our country.”

Speaking about conventional sources of energy, Parekh said, “Coal is a bad word globally, but we are heavily dependent on coal and coal will play some part in India. It is clean coal, how do we mine coal, how do you transport coal, these are some issues which India will have to tackle, but we cannot totally do away with coal because that is our mainstay today in India. It will take years for us to move more towards renewables and less dependence on coal.”

On digitisation, he said, “India has got its digital infrastructure in place so what we need now is to focus on legal issues on data protection. Technology is such a dynamic and evolving space but the rules need to be acceptable and clear for all stakeholders. So that is where the challenge lies and this is globally true and not only for India.”

For full interview, watch accompanying video…

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow