NextGen Digital Leader: Suresh Iyer: Blue Star

Can you give an overview of emerging technologies you have deployed?

Blue Star is striving to become a digitally connected Enterprise. This involves three key steps – the collection of data, providing information to stakeholders and generating insights through analytics. This resulted in the company adopting Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, Augmented Reality, Analytics, Machine Learning, Bots and Robotic Process Automation.

Which are the functions/departments in your organization that is starting first with the emerging technologies?

Covers R&D, Electronics, Manufacturing, Sales, Service, and Supply Chain. 2 factories are leveraging Industry 4.0 and Augmented Reality. Chillers at customer sites monitored remotely using IoT. Machine learning is applied to predict failures. Sales equipped with insightful Bots to improve productivity and use statistical models to improve forecasting accuracy.

How will emerging technologies like AI, Machine Learning, IOT, Big Data, Augmented Reality, Analytics etc will change the fabric of IT organizations?

IT will have to bridge the digital divide between business and technology and help them incorporate digital into their business models. The IT organization will have to become more consultative and data-centric in their thinking and approach to digitalize business. They will be more of change agents than process implementation and support. They will have to keep unlearning and embrace new skills such as reimagining, design thinking, data crunching, modeling.

Emerging tech best practices and deployment strategies

First thing is to test quickly and fail fast. Do rapid prototypes and feel the waters instead of waiting for everything to be in place. However, do have a holistic view into which the individual pieces fit in. The second thing is to validate all assumptions early. This is especially true with data and what it may or may not yield. The third thing is to not just the best technology vendor available but use the youngest.