Unlocking Business Value - The Strategic Role of Artificial Intelligence

The ever-changing world of modern enterprises necessarily requires business transformation to unlock value. Less than a third of business transformations improve organizational performance and sustain it. Enterprises need customer-centricity and agility to accelerate business value. AI drives this evolution and transformation on the foundation of Agile, Digital, Cloud and Sustainability. In a world full of data, AI helps enterprises make strategic decisions and gain meaningful insights to accelerate business value.

“Every company is a technology or a software company,” traditional businesses are realizing that to succeed in the digital era, they must adopt the practices, mindset, and appearance of enterprises that can sense proactively, respond ahead of time, and adapt rapidly to the changes in the ecosystem. The significance of AI in business is of utmost importance. By leveraging advanced technologies, organizations can automate tasks, analyse vast amounts of data, and make informed business decisions. This not only saves time but also enhances efficiency, accuracy, and productivity of employees and for clients.

The evolution of AI has been remarkable, with advancements in algorithms, computing power, and data handling. From rule-based systems to machine learning, deep learning and generative AI, AI has evolved into a versatile technology that has the potential to address diverse business challenges.

In today's digital economy, AI is finding its way into a number of enterprise operations, customer service, sales, and marketing jobs. Few examples of AI-powered applications are intelligent recommendation systems, chatbots, sentiment analysis, and predictive analytics. Artificial intelligence is powerful because it can make choices faster than people, automate tasks, and offer insights. AI can see patterns, forecast trends, and advise on the best course of action by evaluating enormous volumes of data. This enables businesses optimize operations, reduce costs, drive better experience for its stakeholders and enhance decision-making.

In software engineering, AI provides numerous benefits. Across the value chain there are several areas that are now being touched in ways that are going to be irreversible in the amount of effectiveness that AI can bring in those – prominent amongst these are user story creation, estimation, design & prototyping, development, testing, deployment, operations, and decision making across the board with smart analytics. On this verge of an AI-first age in software engineering, the future of software engineering will be anything but routine and it is poised to unleash a new wave of productivity combined with better quality.

However, the responsible deployment of AI is essential. While businesses around the world harness AI’s rapid advancements to unlock business value, they are also exposed to risks like bias, security threats, privacy violations, copyright infringement, hallucinations, and malicious use. Ethical considerations, data privacy, security and bias mitigation should be at the forefront of AI initiatives. Organizations must prioritize transparency, explainability, and accountability in their AI systems enabling trust in the data, process as well as the models.

Sustainability, cost considerations are crucial when evaluating AI adoption. While initial investments may be significant, the long-term cost savings can be substantial. Adopting a mix of COTS, open-source and customized solutions, businesses can unlock the full potential of AI to thrive, as well as keep pace with their sustainability objectives.

As we think of a time soon where each one of us would have an AI assistant to make us more effective in everything that we want to accomplish both professionally as well as on the personal front. AI has become a game changer for businesses, unlocking significant value and driving growth. Its criticality, rapid evolution, innovative use cases, exponential power, and responsible implementation make it a unique tool for organizations and will shape the future of successful enterprises in more ways than one can imagine.

Teachers Day! Dr. H V S Murthy from VJTI / Mumbai!

 गुरुर्ब्रह्मा गुरुर्विष्णुः गुरुर्देवो महेश्वरः ।

गुरुः साक्षात् परब्रह्म तस्मै श्री गुरवे नमः ॥

 [attempted translation in English]

Guru is the Creator, Guru is the Preserver, Guru is Destroyer

Guru is the absolute god, Salutations to the Guru

Close to 3 decades ago my first brush as a FY Engineering student at VJTI with Dr. Murthy wasn’t positive. We had an industrial visit in our first or second month and being the first such visit we were experiencing, it was just like a picnic at least for me! I wasn’t paying too much attention to what was being shown, the machine specifications, mechanical aspects that we had been taught in class were all being practically demonstrated and Dr. Murthy would point out, explain and see if we had any doubts. The free snacks and the fun of going out with new friends, being out during the class time could have been too exciting for me to pay much attention to the real purpose of the industrial visit, I guess. The following week we were given a short test by Dr. Murthy and all the questions were from the practical aspects we were supposed to have observed during the visit. I knew the theory, but had not been paying much attention during the visit, the result was disastrous, I think I got 5 or 7 marks out of 20! I was angry and felt the evaluation could have been done better. J At 17 I was fearless as well as naïve of course. The discussion with Dr. Murthy not only brought home the point of how important it is to focus but also made me realize the core purpose why we were there in an institute of repute. It changed the manner in which I looked at knowledge, I began to pay more attention to the practice of what was covered in the classroom and it has reaped rich dividends for an ordinary student like me.

The qualities of a teacher and their character can play a significant role in shaping the lives of countless students that they touch. As I was to find over the next few years, Dr. Murthy was one of the most positive persons you could come across anywhere, he was brimming with ideas, he was extremely resourceful and always ahead on Academia-Industry collaboration, his ability to drive home a point, provide equal impetus on the theory as well as practice were just incredible. Dr. Murthy was one of the most friendly teachers one could find, he was not only a wonderful communicator but also a great listener. The way he treated the juniors, rest of the staff etc. and collaborated with everyone in spite of the usual bureaucracy and back stage politics that might have been going on in the background was commendable to say the least.

There are several students he would help financially thru various scholarships and assistance schemes. If one door closed, he would find another and so on. Once he knew some one was in trouble, he would go all out to support those students. I remember he tried and got scholarships for some students from an external community based organization and we were amazed as to how he was able to convince them. Hundreds of needy students would go on to benefit from this resourcefulness of Dr. Murthy.

I am one of the many beneficiaries of his network, connect and influence in the corporates, when he got me to do my final year project in Ahmedabad and that experience truly got me ready for my stint in the professional world. There are many qualities of Dr. Murthy that I can recollect, but his positive attitude to life and his ability to help others in need is something I have always tried to emulate!

Heartfelt Gratitude and Kudos to you Dr. Murthy! I wish more teachers learn to do even at a smaller scale what Dr. Murthy did in his 3 decades at VJTI!

World Youth Skills Day

Quote on my room wall about ordinary people and extraordinary effort!

Those who create the future are often ordinary people putting extraordinary effort! - Naresh Choudhary :)

Women's day and the super power that we have in our teams

Today is Women’s day and I personally think for some of us, especially for me, every day is Women’s day!

 

My personal time is with 2 very strong young women in my life - my daughter and better half. Both are extremely opinionated, have their own views on almost every topic (not always right… argh J), make their own decisions  (not always correct… argh J), they are extremely caring, loving, giving more than they expect from others, truthful, empathetic…. I can go on and on. Thank you both for making me an integral part of your lovely lives, it means the world!

 

At work I see a power house of talent in Quality and especially in my own team. A large no of critical things that we are doing in the team – complex, technically challenging - are subtly led by some of our young women professionals. These are folks who come with that extra dose of passion, energy and a take it all in your stride attitude. Much to learn from these wonderful women in the team for men and women alike and imbibe these absolutely wonderful qualities.

 

All around I see the spirit of proactive awareness, self-belief, confident but not arrogant, sense of belonging, empathy for the stakeholders, outcome orientation and more. These are fundamental things for one to succeed in today’s time and I don’t think with this foundation in place these folks can do much wrong in the days to come.

 

Wish you all the very best for this women’s day and look forward to your continued power performance for the team, Quality and Infosys!

 

Happy women’s day!

 

PS:- Women’s day blogs from the past:-

https://nareshchoudhary.blogspot.in/2012/03/womens-day-women-rule-every-day.html

https://nareshchoudhary.blogspot.in/2011/03/08th-march-is-special-womens-day.html

We all live in a "Pyaara Punjab"!

Satshriakal Paaji!

 

No offense meant and I assume none taken, if there was one place that I would have loved to spend more time it would be the beautiful state of Punjab in India. The people are marvelous, hardworking, playful, spiritual, love their tikka and the Patiala pegs and are always there for each other. That’s what I always found from my interactions and more importantly friends and colleagues who have belonged to this awesome place have always proven to be true friends.

 

Little did the very briefly misled rant from Punjab realize then that what they set out to do through violent means could barely get them close to the objective, whereas what Punjab has achieved without firing even one bullet or injuring one other person is truly remarkable. They have taken over the entire country with their culture, food and music. If you go to parts of UK, Canada, Australia it’s possible the effects are as profound in pockets as in India. Let me stay with India here!

 

The cultural aspects – dressing, food and music have to a large extent been “Punjabified” across the country. Today you find almost every girl, lady wearing the Punjabi suit (Salwar, Kameez) across the states. What is remarkable is that these have become the norm even in the southern states now and probably the most sold dress items across the country. Weddings across the country seem to have also followed this trend over the years where a Salwar, Kameez and Sherwani would be the norm.

 

Look at the food habits across the states how these staples of the Punjabi diet sarso da saag, myriad paneer dishes, parathas etc. have taken over the cuisines. You find dhabas on the road sides even way down south in rural Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, though the versions of Punjabi food they serve could be questionable but they have found these to be hot sellers, better than other items in terms of pricing and profitability. Same is the case with restaurants, recently in the interiors of Maharashtra at several places we were refused the humble Maharashtrian Chapatti’s but were instead, in each place enthusiastically offered Tandoori roti’s - again a gift of Punjab to the rest of India.

 

This transformation on food is far closer to me than any other. When my Tamil Brahmin, Trichy born better half who had never entered the kitchen for the first 24 years of her life, now rattles one Paneer dish after another, Chole and Parathas and more for us, I almost have tears of joy in my eyes- what a change! All of these are Punjabi dishes that she cooks with fervor and I must say that most come out very well! Punjab has influenced her food habits and converted her from a curd rice eating someone to one who has begun to relish much more than just the plain idly and dosa.

 

Music is such an integral part of our culture and here too I feel the Punjabi music and rap artists have literally taken over music in Bollywood at least. Whether every song must have the same key words of Zindadi, Dil, Pyaar, Kudi, Pataka, Nachde, Phira, Akhiyan and a few more is beyond my brief. But every movie has a Punjabi song whether the characters are from Punjab or not. Again the influence that Punjabi music has had on the Indian music scene in spite of its rustic yet lovable tunes and simple yet meaningful lyrics is remarkable.

 

So do you too believe we all now live in a “Pyaara Punjab”? Send me a note and we will do the discussion on “Bhangda” and more together J

Feel Significant

By Naresh Choudhary, Camera Ayyappa BV