Establishing Standards and Certi
IT: Driving Growth in Indian Industry
(L-R) Mr CN
Raghupathi, Head of India Business, Infosys; Mr Neil Wilson, Executive Director
& Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers India; Mr Arun Maira, Member – Planning
Commission, Government of India and Mr Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, CII National
Committee on IT, ITeS & eCommerce and Chairman, Microsoft Corporation (I) Pvt
Ltd and Mr Sujith Haridas, Deputy Director General, CII.
The world
has gone digital and technology adoption is driving performance improvement and
increase in market reach. India must harness the power of the digital to drive
the productivity, profitability as well as competitiveness of its industries.
The CII Industry-IT Summit 2014, ‘Technology: A catalyst in driving growth in
Indian industry’, deliberated upon the challenges that manufacturing and
infrastructure organizations face in using IT; the prevailing levels of IT
adoption, and the expectations from IT in the future. Unveiling the 2nd edition
of the Summit on 16 April in New Delhi, Mr Arun Maira, Member, Planning
Commission, said that “The Manufacturing sector of our country has a long way to
go. It needs to create more jobs and help increase the country’s exports.
Small
industries will play a key role in this. We have to help these small industries
grow and create a healthy eco-system of small entrepreneurs, and recognize that
they are the backbone of our economy. We have to help small industries help
access technologies and build effective clusters by working cooperatively. The
Indian IT industry needs to help enable SMEs. The State, the industries and the
IT sector need to work together.”
Manufacturing SMEs must become rapid learning enterprises and should become
competitive through better process architecture, said Mr. Maira. Human assets
are the only assets that appreciate in the Manufacturing industry, everything
else depreciates, he added.
The
session clearly showed that while these sectors do have low IT adoption levels
and are ridden with issues, there are opportunities for growth and development
through process and governance restructuring. IT has a critical role to play in
bringing about this transformation. Mr Maira released the CII-PwC report, ‘Driving
growth in Indian industry: Unlocking the transformational value with technology’
at the event. The report draws from what leading industry players are doing to
address prevalent issues in order to streamline processes and drive growth in
their organizations, to give a perspective of the real picture. The report shows
that IT is driving organizations in the infrastructure and manufacturing sectors
to become more agile, more flexible, and more adaptive to redefine the way in
which business is being conducted.
Whether
to leverage standard business applications or emerging technologies, industries
today are constantly challenged to deliver solutions for problems and
opportunities.
“Having
grown manifold in size and matured in terms of service delivery capability and
footprint over the past decade, the Indian IT industry is now at an inflexion
point—and faces a unique opportunity to enhance its role as a value–adding
partner to domestic industry as well. There is significant headroom in the
addressable IT adoption opportunity for India Inc., and there are sizeable
untapped opportunities across a wide spectrum of verticals like Manufacturing.
We hope that this event will help develop an IT strategy blueprint for various
sectors,” said Mr Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, CII National Committee on IT, ITeS
and eCommerce, and Chairman, Microsoft Corporation India.
Mr S D
Shibulal, MD and CEO, Infosys, described IT as a great enabler for employment
generation. Every sector needs to adopt technology as it can help build
competitive advantage, close the development gaps in the country and thereby
create more employment opportunities, he said. IT is a catalyst to navigate
through a challenging and volatile environment, said Mr Deep Kapuria, Chairman,
CII National MSME Council, and Chairman, Hi-Tech Group. Pointing out that
earlier in India growth was taken for granted, but now companies struggle for
it, he urged companies to catalyze growth through technology and leverage the
spirit of entrepreneurship for better growth.
Mr Neil
Wilson, Chief Operating Officer, PwC India, said in his special address, “CEOs
and CIOs have recognized data mining and analysis, mobile application for
customers as strategic next-gen technologies for their sectors. This not only
shows that India is well into the digital game, but that industries are
realizing the potential of emerging technologies to transform their business.”
In
conclusion, Mr C N Raghupathi, Chairman, CII Sub-Committee on IT for Domestic
Industry, and Head – India Business, & VP, Infosys Ltd, said, “This discussion
on unlocking the transformational value of technology to revive India’s
industries comes at a time when India’s GDP is more Service-oriented and less
Manufacturingoriented. There is a need to jumpstart the Manufacturing sector and
enable infrastructure as well, since both are inter-dependent.”
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