Pertinence of digital innovation for organisations: Narsimha Rao Mannepalli, Infosys

Digital innovation has become increasingly important for organizations to remain competitive in today's rapidly evolving business landscape. With the proliferation of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the Internet of Things, organizations have the opportunity to streamline their operations, improve their customer experience, and unlock new revenue streams. Digital innovation can take many forms, from the adoption of new software platforms to the development of custom applications or the creation of entirely new business models. The key to success is to have a culture that is open to experimentation, willing to take risks, and constantly seeking new ways to leverage technology to create value for customers and stakeholders. By embracing digital innovation, organizations can position themselves for long-term success in an increasingly digital world. Narsimha Rao Mannepalli, executive vice president, head - cloud infrastructure and security solutions, Infosys recently spoke to Dataquest along the same lines.

DQ: How has the Global vs Indian cloud and data market evolved over the last couple of years?

Narsimha Rao Mannepalli: India cloud and data journey is slow but accelerating. Some sources show that just 40% of Indian businesses will implement dedicated cloud services by 2024. Further, IDC estimates the Indian public cloud market to be just $10 billion by 2025 (compared to a global market of over $338 billion), but with a CAGR of over 24%.

However, it’s not that India is playing catch-up in our telling. It’s just that these firms are not using cloud and data analytics as much as other technologies to deliver on net zero, innovation, and digital experience. Ranked 7^th and 9^th respectively, behind technologies such as business intelligence platforms, artificial intelligence (AI), and digital trust, cloud and data in Indian firms is not as central to their business and operating model. At least not yet. Many expect cloud to be a much bigger factor in Indian firms’ organizational success in the near future. Cloud, and the data that runs on it, can stimulate enterprises to promote research and development, improve commercial products, and contribute hugely to the country’s Global Innovation Index. It will become a global hub for cloud talent and cloud services, spearheaded by firms such as Infosys which have the requisite cloud-knowledge in-house.

DQ: What is the pertinence of holding a strong live data foundation for organisations? And Why?

Narsimha Rao Mannepalli: Many clients and experts we’ve interviewed for this report emphasized the need for consistent, high-quality ‘live’ data for making quick business decisions. This data is a prerequisite for building an innovative, sustainable, and human-centric firm. Going all-in on data improves innovation and increases profitability. It also boosts digital experience initiatives such as post-sales customer engagement and loyalty. The use of high-fidelity data reporting is also a top practice for getting to Net Zero. Even further, having high-fidelity data at the fingertips of employees and managers can drastically increase employee retention - by 7 percentage points. But we’ve found in this research that just 5 percentage of firms have a live data foundation in place.

DQ: How Can Companies Achieve Digital Innovation?

Narsimha Rao Mannepalli: Innovation is doing something new that creates value. Firms that cultivate an innovative culture of risk taking and making big bets on the future, instituted through a series of ‘micro changes’, will smoothly navigate tough times. But this bold risk-taking approach must be underpinned by a live data foundation, so that decisions are objective and real-time, and targets set at the executive level and funneled down to employees through OKRs (objectives and key results). Other practices to get a leg up on innovation include a data-driven culture and use of dashboards to broadcast both success and failure. We also found that top innovation performers organize their business around dedicated product lines, rather than processes, getting closer to the customer and experimenting quickly on each new product innovation.  

DQ: What is the role played by employees in this ecosystem?

Narsimha Rao Mannepalli: Having the right digital culture is all important on getting the best innovation outcomes, though very few executives are prioritizing cultural change this year. This means that employees must be upskilled in new data practices, in new technologies such as AI, and develop a mindset that is proactive and not afraid to take risks and fail, with new learnings updating the knowledge stock of the enterprise. Agile practices such as DevOps, site reliability engineering, and working in small, persistent, self-organized, and autonomous teams will become ever more important. Organizing around products rather than processes will facilitate this way of working.

DQ: Prominent digital trends that will rule organisations in the year 2023

Narsimha Rao Mannepalli: AI and Cloud were top ranked practices in this research. New trends include AI to drive velocity in the software engineering lifecycle, to reimagine processes, and to enable the sales community to do more with less. Ethical AI, site reliability engineering, new operations models, and platform engineering will also become more prominent as many firms seek better governance and efficiencies in a bear market. Metacloud, the ability to tame multi-cloud chaos through a single pane of control, will also loom large as more operational budget is dedicated to running distributed computing stacks.