Digital Transformation and the Role of IT in Industry 4.0

By NIIT Editorial

Published on 10/01/2021

7 minutes

This article is a summary of the webinar hosted by acclaimed NIIT alumnus Mr. Vinod Khode, the Chief Information Officer of Varroc Group. The webinar was arranged as part of a series of virtual thought leadership sessions for NIIT's Future Ready Fest. Personnel interested in collaborating with NIIT, and contributing to our training delivery can reach out to us at alumni@niit.com.

Transformational change is in the air for businesses and industries that want to survive, let alone thrive, this pandemic. The challenge of staying socially distant until life normalizes can only be bridged with digital technologies. As a result of this, enterprises that had so far reluctantly held out against transforming are having to backflip and re-analyze. Vinod Khode, an NIIT alumnus and the present Chief Information Office of Varroc Group shares his take on the state of such Digital Enterprises and the Role that IT plays in bringing about productive change.

What is Digital Enterprise?

A digital enterprise is defined as an entity that adopts digital technologies for optimizing operations and deliver more streamlined customer experiences. In such a setting, technology is at the left, right, and center of each business process and has a deep impact on product development, service delivery, and revenue generation. An increasing number of brands are switching to digital to bring down costs and adjust to market forces rather effortlessly.

Why go Digital?

There are many incentives to go digital.

Retain and gain market share

The overwhelming bulk of customer activity happens online due to the proliferation of the internet and the mobile. If brands don’t make the most of such mediums to reach their buyers, they’ll continue to pay exorbitant retail space rents and make a dent on their earnings.

Innovative ways to engage customers

Having established a one-on-one line with the customer, you can iterate promotions such as discount coupons, flash sales, and monthly giveaways to entice new leads. For the converted prospects you can innovate new ways of speaking to them and building a strong brand profile.

Data-driven decisions

Base each business decision on numbers, as they never lie. By processing numbers you can look into past follies committed without insights, then make use of the same to improve future results.

Adopt to changes quickly

When cross-functional teams are engrossed in technology day in and day out, they find it easier to adopt and implement emerging tech in-house without going on a spending spree.

What are these Digital Technologies?

Technologies have emerged in a manner to envelop and guide every aspect of the value chain. Whereas some of its pillars are guided solely by the platform considerations for targeting customers, others are a result of the advancement in network communications, AI, and ML.

Social – (Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Yammer, kaizala, Sharepoint)

Omnichannel visibility is a must to establish and build upon customer connectivity. In addition to building automated tools that are capable of servicing people across time zones, a company’s internal policies should introduce IMs for instant connectivity and collaboration.

Mobility – (Android, iOS, Hybrid, Responsive, Flutter)

Products should be cross-functional for leading platforms. Mobile apps that are built for both the android and iOS systems will target the greatest number of downloaders. Similarly, software that is multi-device & OS compatible registers the best ROIs.

Analytics/AI/ML – (Power BI, Qlikview, Tableau, R, Python)

Using data visualization software digital teams can discover the interplay of trends and numbers. Predictive models built with machine learning can afford decision-makers a headway for the product lifecycle beginning from research, design, and development to launch and marketing.

Cloud – (AWS, GCP, Azure)

The digital revolution started probably with the data storage layer where the content was pushed onto the cloud. In-house servers were let go of in place for multi-tenant public storage servers. Digital transformation requires advanced steps on similar lines.

How to transition to a Digital company?

To create a truly digital organization, the following steps should be undertaken:

Make-believe the C-suite of the wonders of digitization.
Set high goals to achieve.
Allocate the right budget.
Start with small-scale projects with low risk but high rewards.
Appoint leaders that believe in the digitalization and will inspire others to drive things forward.
Commence implementation
Take the entire workforce into confidence
Adopt Agile Product Development

With the prospect of inching closer to customers and keeping the competition at bay, digital transformation offers a way out of the rusty, lethargic, resource-consuming style of business processes and turns them into promising exercises that develop state of the art products.

About the Guest Contributor

Vinod Khode

Vinod’s relationship with NIIT, as a high-achieving alumnus, is as encompassing and memorable as a lifetime. He graduated from the institution with an Honors Diploma in Software Development and has since furled our flag at renowned workplaces in the USA, UK, and Singapore.

Vinod Khode is an accomplished strategist with 26 years of expertise in guiding MNCs including one Fortune500 company, to better business outcomes. He is the presiding Chief Information Officer of Varroc Group. Design engineering, concept architecture, and product ideation are his forte. Before Varroc, Vinod played a central role in shaping, raising, and stabilizing the business value chain at Cummins India as its Digital IT Leader. He holds a dual certification credited to him for achieving the 6 Sigma Green Belt and to value his exuberance for the domain as a 6 Sigma Sponsor.