‘SME digital adoption plays an important role in enterprise digital transformation’
Published on : Monday 30-11--0001
Murali Chandrahasan, Head – Digital Manufacturing Competency Center, Saint-Gobain India Private Limited.
While most companies are today talking of Digital Transformation, do all of them have effective strategies in place for implementation?
There are four stages in Digital Transformation for any large enterprise:
1. Discussion and Ideation Stage;
2. POC/Pilot;
3. Pilot completed and results are yet to be shown; and
4. Seeing the benefits of RoI with digital projects.
Most of the large enterprises with global operations that have started adopting digital technologies are focused on design, manufacturing, operations & maintenance, supply chain and customer support, with large number of them are at stage 2 and equal amount are spread across stages 1 and 4.
What are the impediments in the process of Digital Transformation in the Indian context? Is RoI the key concern?
Impediments from the Indian context are listed below:
- Organisation culture
- Insufficient availability of talent with knowledge of digital technologies
- High initial capex investment
- Identification of the right problem statement
- Nascent digital technology eco-system
- Lack of common industry standards, and
- Industrial cyber security concerns.
Top challenges which companies face today are identification of right problem statement for digital transformation followed by organisation culture and high capex investments.
Yes, RoI is also one key concern for digital adoption other than the listed challenges.
As one of the main drivers of the economy, is the SME sector ready for this transformation?
Yes, rightly mentioned SME digital adoption plays an important role in enterprise digital transformation with backward and forward integration play a key role in success of digital projects.
How should the SMEs prepare for Digital Transformation?
There are few players in India market who can offer digital solutions on cloud hosted and shared services model which is key for SME digital transformation as all key players focus on large enterprises. SME should start with small digitalisation projects and move up in the ladder with large digital projects.
Are privacy and cybersecurity concerns regarding the cloud exaggerated?
As mentioned earlier, industrial cybersecurity plays an important role in digital transformation with plant operational IT systems are integrated with enterprise IT systems across the firewall. And large enterprises should have standard reference architecture and minimum security rules enforced for IT-OT integration and edge device connectivity.
Murali Chandrahasan manages Saint Gobain’s Industrie 4.0 road-map across the group companies in India and supports roll-outs globally. He is the chief solution architect for digital manufacturing solutions covering Industrial Automation, IIoT, IT-OT integration, AR/VR, Manufacturing Data Analytics, Mobile applications for Manufacturing. Solution focus includes Predictive Asset Management, Remote monitoring and diagnostics, Energy Management, Real-Time decision support systems and Digital Learning solutions. Prior to joining Saint Gobain he was working at L&T Technology Services as Head – Digital Engineering IT solutions to provide strategic consulting and advisory services to enable digital transformation for global enterprises with IT-OT Integration, Industrie 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing solutions across industry verticals – Industrial Products, Transportation, Chemicals, Energy and Utilities. He brings in 25 years of experience in Plant2Enterprise solutions with strategic consulting, pre-sales, business development, program management with excellent track record of conceptualising strategic solutions.