Leading Digital Transformation – A Conclave to Remember

S P Jain School of Global Management organised its first ever IT management conclave in February 2017, across all the four campuses in Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore and Sydney. A unique platform for business leaders, ICT professionals and academics to understand the key ICT trends and access its impact on the industry sector enterprises and workforce, the conclave was undeniably a tremendous success.

The Digital Transformation Conclave 2017 saw a confluence of great minds from the IT and business worlds across the globe. Professionals from leading organisations came together to discuss and share the emerging digital trends needed now and in the future. Aptly themed ‘Leading Digital Transformation’ the conclave witnessed business leaders and change agents participating in panel discussions titled ‘Enabling Digital Transformation’ and ‘Driving Business Advantage with Digital Transformation’.

The conclaves in all four campuses were addressed by Dr. Karippur Nanda Kumar, Associate Professor and Area Head - IT, SP Jain School of Global Management, who shared the key findings of a survey conducted across India, Middle East, Singapore and Australia. His presentation titled “Making Sense of Digital Disruption”, focused on the survey findings in areas of General Industry Outlook for 2017, Organisational Readiness, Barriers Related to Digital Transformation and Implications to Enterprises and Business Schools.

Let us take a look at the key highlights of the conclave conducted across the campuses:

Mumbai Chapter

“India has now emerged as a thriving innovation ecosystem powered by start-ups and enablers. It is the third largest start-up ecosystem after the Silicon Valley and the UK” - Avnish Sabharwal, Managing Director- Digital, Strategy and Innovation, Accenture in India

The IT Management Conclave kick-started in Mumbai on 3rd February, 2017 in a grand way. Mr Nitish Jain, President and Director, S P Jain School of Global Management, commenced the proceedings of the day with a welcome address. The keynote speaker for the conclave, Avnish Sabharwal, Managing Director- Digital, Strategy and Innovation, Accenture in India, started the discussion by giving a brief introduction of Accenture and the work done by the firm. He mentioned how 52% of the fortune 500 companies have disappeared since the year 2000 and a lot of them have gotten acquired by platform companies. He then opened the discussion up to the panellists.

The first panel discussion was moderated by Samiran Ghosh (Digital Advisor, Microsoft). It focussed on Enabling Digital Transformation and provided insights on emerging technologies, products, and services that are shaping the digital transformation. Saurabh Doshi (Head of Media Partnerships, Facebook), an alumnus of SP Jain School of Global Management, Sunil Bidwalkar (VP Technology, Xoriant) and Santosh Nair (Head of IT - Lead Country India & Head of User Engagement - Asia, Pacific, Middle East, Africa, Siemens Ltd.) were the panellists who conducted the session. The discussion focussed on various Digital Transformations including Virtual Reality and IoT and how they’re transforming life as we know it.

After the successful completing of the first panel discussion, the platform gave way to the second set of panellists who initiated the discussion on “Driving Business Advantage with Digital Transformation”. The session started with the moderator, Harshit Desai, Lead of Digital Transformation, KPMG discussing the different kinds of innovations happening in our country. The panellists for the session were Namrata Mahindro (Senior General Manager, Digital Innovation and E-Commerce Group Strategy Office, Mahindra & Mahindra), Dr Raja Roy Choudhury (Director- Professional PG Programs (Digital Marketing & Metrics; Retail Management) & Director – DBA Program, SP Jain School of Global Management), Vishal Sampat (Chief Digital Officer, Reliance JIO) and Neeraj Athalye (Head S/4 HANA, Indian Subcontinent, SAP India). The discussion focussed on various topics including the kind of skilling and reskilling that a person needs to have to be a part of the digital transformation.

The panel discussions were followed by a Networking Dinner attended by the panellists and the guests of the conclave. The start to the IT Conclave series was thus made.

Dubai Chapter

“Digital is the main reason just over half of the companies on the Fortune 500 have disappeared since the year 2000.” – Pierre Nanterme, CEO of Accenture

Following the footsteps of the IT Management conclave conducted in Mumbai, the Conclave in Dubai was held on 8th February, 2017. The event began with a welcome address by Mr Chandrasekhar Singh, GM-Corporate Relations at SP Jain. He welcomed the keynote speaker for the conclave, Mr Rabea Ataya, CEO, Bayt.com, UAE and a member of the Industry Advisory Board. Mr Ataya set the tone for the conclave with a focus on the opportunities of digital transformation, risks of not digitizing, importance of encouraging internships for students and relevance of digital ethics. He also addressed the rising concern of technology disrupting employment and firms creating greater value with lesser people in the workplace.

The first panel discussion was moderated by Mr. Dhrupad Mathur, Assistant Dean-Executive MBA & Associate Professor, IT Management at SP Jain. It focused on Enabling Digital Transformation of work at the workplace and discussed in detail how firms were catching up with technological advancements and what they plan for the future. Here are a few quotes from this session:

“Change is fixing the past and transformation is creating a brighter future”
- Mazen Fayad, Microsoft’s Digital Transformation Lead in the UAE

“Transformation should be spearheaded by bold leaders such as the CEO and companies should concentrate on becoming agile, lean and technology driven.”
- Pedro S Pereira, Senior Innovation & Digital Transformation Lead, SAP, UAE

“The three major game changers in the field of technology today are Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things.”
- Si-Mohammed Said, Regional Head of Marketing & Digital, Oracle, UAE

“Product and services are replaced by enhanced experience and that’s why focusing on the customer is highly necessary.”
- Juan Jose De La Torre, Digital Transformation Leader, IBM, UAE

“Social media plays a significant role in targeted marketing, digital media for influencing, analytics for profiling, cloud technology and internet of things for effective digital transformation.”
- Amar Pandit, Consultant, Deloitte, UAE

The session came to an end with Mr. Mathur and the esteemed panellists discussing a few instances of failure of companies to cope with digital transformation and the future prospects of success in this particular field.

The end of the first session paved way for the second panel discussion themed ‘Driving Business Advantage with Digital Transformation’ which was moderated by Mr. Thomas Kuruvilla, Managing Partner, Arthur D Little, UAE, who suggested that it is not necessary to carry out feasibility studies but concentrate on current customer expectations and getting data integrated on one common platform. Here are a few quotes from this session:

“In today’s world, customer convenience drives digitisation and this, in turn, is driven by value creation.”
- Samir Soliman, Managing Director-Group Acquiring Network International, UAE

“Customer needs are not the same as customer experience or customer expectations. The industry no longer runs solely on the 3Ms i.e. Men, Material and Money but on the adoption of the digital revolution.”
-Senthil Kumar, Managing Director-IT Consulting, Protiviti, UAE

“Value creation is possible with digitization, innovation gets imitated easily and nothing can be kept a secret from consumers anymore.”
- Hursh Agrawal, Chief Operating Officer, Hisense, UAE

“One must be hungry to solve a problem. He proposed predictability, visibility and convenience as Fetchr’s vision and this is tailored by the entire workforce and not just the CEO.”
- Mr.Omar Yaghmour, Managing Director, Fetchr, UAE

Mr. Chandrasekhar Singh then delivered the concluding remarks with a thank you note. The guests enjoyed a memorable event, exchanging thoughts and ideas, networking with other delegates during the coffee and lunch breaks.

The event was also covered by Gulf news. You may read about it here.

Singapore Chapter

“While digital is changing the world, every aspect of our life is changing with digital interactions” –
Iker Ibañez, Digital, Delivery, Managing Director, Accenture Digital

The third instalment of the IT Management Conclave was held in Singapore on 15th February 2017, after Dubai and Mumbai. The event was supported by two strong panel of speakers coming from companies like Accenture, The Awaken Group, Cognizant, Frost and Sullivan, GovTech, OCBC, Peopleware, SAP, StarHub, TeamStreamz and Trident Asia. More than eighty professionals from various industries, irrespective of the organisation size and structure, joined in the interactive and engagement session.

The keynote speaker, Mr Iker Ibañez, Digital, Delivery, Managing Director, Accenture Digital started the session by addressing the crowd with how technology evolved over the years and how technology is closely imbibed with everything we do in our day-to-day life.

Mr Andrew Milroy (Senior VP, Information & Communication Technologies Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific) lead the first panel discussion. The topic “Enabling Digital Transformation” focused on the insights given by technology providers, service providers, and start-ups that are shaping the digital transformation. Mr Damien Cummings (Chief Executive Officer, Peoplewave), Mr. Malcolm Norquoy (Business Head - ASEAN, Cognizant), Mr. Saj Kumar (Vice President, Digital Transformation SAP Asia Pacific and Japan), and Mr Jawahar Kanjilal (Founder & CEO, TeamStreamz) participated in the session.

“Three things that are going to be big and trending: Machine Learning lab, Big Data, AI, Augmented Reality and Block chain.”
- Mr Jawahar Kanjilal, Founder & CEO, TeamStreamz

The second panel, “Driving Business Advantage with Digital Transformation”, was headed by Miss So Young Kang (Founder and CEO, Gnowbe & Catalyst and Founder, Awaken Group).

Here are a few takeaways from the conclave:

“Organisations should first start by disrupting what they do traditionally, to let go and adopt the changes & adapt to digital transformation. It is important to unlearn to learn better. Once we do that, things just evolve faster & smoother.”
- So Young Kang, Founder and CEO, Gnowbe & Catalyst and Founder, Awaken Group

“Short term model of digital transformation breaks the tradition with innovation. Over a period, it customises to the need & eventually becomes long term as people slowly adapt but eventually it becomes an essence.”
- Dr CJ Meadows, Director, The Innovation & Insights Center, S P Jain School of Global Management

“It’s okay to fail, learn from it & adapt to the positive outcomes, that is what Digital Innovation is all about.”
-Altona Widjaja, Vice-President Fintech and Innovation Group / The Open Vault OCBC

“Taking ownership of digital transformation is important. One needs to empower the people and organisation to transform digitally.”
-Mark Lim, Director, Government Digital Services (Product Design & Development) / Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech)

“When it comes to new mental models to support digital business models, it is not just about capturing data today, it is about understanding what the customer actually wants.”
- Altona Widjaja, Vice-President Fintech and Innovation Group / The Open Vault OCBC

“Digital innovation is critical for success today. It takes time and sometimes you fail. It is okay to fail. Just never stop there; you have to learn from it and adapt because one day you will find that gem and that transforms everything. For long-term benefits of digital transformation, sometimes you need to rethink the way that you do business itself.”
- Rana Banerji, General Manager Trident Asia

“Humans will not be replaced, but will be able to do things better. Digital transformation will allow us to focus on things we never could, because machines will take care of our day-to-day stuff.”
-Rod Strother, Vice President, Digital Transformation StarHub

“The new mental model required to succeed in digital transformation today is ‘Ownership’; you need to let your team feel empowered and let them handle and learn and grow and do things on their own; and also reward them for success.”
-Mark Lim, Director, Government Digital Services (Product Design & Development) / Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech)

“All the investment made can be sold as a digital service and is actually a payback to the company if made right. With a clear strategy, you also understand that it is not that expensive. Eventually you are paid back in the long run by improvising your business & the lives of people around you.”
-Rod Strother, Vice President, Digital Transformation StarHub

The IT Management Conclaves across all campuses were a great platform to learn about the technological know-hows of the industry from Industry experts where digital transformation is taking place today. The panel discussions sparked a couple of post-event conversations thereafter. It was a great experience overall where the guests enjoyed a memorable event, exchanging thoughts and ideas and networked with other delegates.

Click here to check out the rest of the pictures from the event.