XLRI’s Conclave Committee hosted its Digital Transformation Conclave – ReEnvision on the 21st of August on the theme “The Digital First Mindset". The event was inaugurated by the Guest of Honor, Mr. Sam Pitroda, Chairman, The Pitroda Group LLC. Member of the Conclave Committee Ms. Sanjana Varshney was the host and Mr. Sohrab Faraz and Mr. Vijayankesh Barier were co-host for the event.

Mr. Sam Pitroda is an internationally respected development thinker, policymaker, inventor and entrepreneur who has spent over 55 years in Telecom developments and is credited with having laid the foundation of India's Technology and Telecommunications revolution in the 1980s. He highlighted the importance of digital transformation in redesigning the world. He talked about the concept of Hyper-connectivity, wherein people across the globe are connected with each other. He also discussed the concept of cloud computing, cyber security and big data. He also talked about his efforts in redesigning hyper-connectivity which includes redesigning an optimum world including institutions, healthcare and education system, to improve productivity and bring a change into a hyper-connected world.

It was followed by the Chief Guest Address from Ms. Sindhu Gangadharan, MD, SAP Labs India. The speaker mentioned the impact of technology on the human world and how the transformation brought by technology has been a motivation and inspiration for her. She also requested people collectively to come together and use technology for the betterment of humanity and highlighted that society will overall become the best version of itself. She also emphasized on the inclusivity aspect while riding on the wave of digital transformation. The Chief Guest's address was followed by a Fire-side chat session wherein Sindhu had an interactive session with the audience.

It was followed by the Keynote Address from Mr. Monesh Dange (Partner & Consulting Markets Leader, EY). He informed that the technology has changed rapidly over the years but innovation in technology has allowed new entrants to thrive in the market. He also stressed that consumers must be treated as king and this has been made possible only by the advent of technology.

The first Panel Discussion on the topic “How Fintech is disrupting the BFSI Industry and the Digital World “. The panel comprised of Mr. Varun Sridhar, CEO, Paytm Money, Ms. Arundhoti Banerjee, COO, Zaggle, Mr. Sridhar Iyer, Head, Mashreq Neo- Mashreq Bank, UAE and Mr. Prashanth Narayan, CTO, Zype and was moderated by Prof. Kushal Saha, Faculty, Information Systems Area at XLRI Jamshedpur.

Mr. Varun Sridhar stressed that investment should be made in both humans and technology. He has also devised a new concept of a Failure budget, which covers high-risk projects in his company. The financial loss created by these high-risk projects was included in that budget. He was astonished when he found out that more successful projects originated from the Failure budget projects.

Ms. Arundhoti Banerjee initially touched upon SAAS where she believed that the entire SAAS market is expected to grow 6x times from 4.8 billion in 2018. She believed that three important focus areas of SAAS are the student segment, the use of software without licensing requirements and scalability. She also stressed that the Fintech Industry will undergo a massive transformation only through innovation and proper regulation by the government. The introduction of AI and account aggregators as regulators by RBI will be game changing examples.

Mr. Sridhar Iyer commented that financial inclusion is highly beneficial to society and that has happened due to digitalization and digital transformation. He stressed that the personalization of technology can be used to satisfy the customers' needs very well and hence companies should invest in AI, ML, Cloud and a variety of other technologies to offer that segment of one experience to the customers.

Mr. Prashanth Narayan emphasized the importance of finding ways to enhance the customer experience by addressing the exact customer issue and hence improving customer retention. He stressed that in order to sustain in the digital space one should invest in both Artificial Learning and Machine Learning.

The second Panel discussed “Leveraging Digital Transformation through AI and ML”. It comprised Mr. Jayant Prabhu, MD, Applied Intelligence, Accenture, Mr. Naveen Athresh, Vice President, Product Management and Design, MatchMove India, Mr. Sandesh Goel, MD, Eightfold.AI, Mr. Kashyap Kompella, CEO, RPA2AI Research and moderated by Dr. Pratik Tarafdar, Faculty, Information Systems Area at XLRI Delhi NCR Campus.

Mr. Jayant Prabhu introduced a whole new dimension to digital transformation i.e. the human aspect. He stated three important nuances of AI that have transformed the human, business and technological aspects of the industry today. The impact of AI on the web of seamless communication it creates connecting the organizations to the market and people, the human resistance it percolates to introduce adaptability and the advent of cutting-edge technologies that brings the business and customer processes to life.

Mr. Naveen Athresh stressed that AI and ML are the base for all digital transformation journeys and finance. Across all different verticals like Fintech, public transport and services, inclusion, AI and ML are being used as the base. The success of ML and DL depends on quality data sets. The role of the government is also vital to create and maintain such an environment to promote all such initiatives to support AI and ML based technologies based on data sets.

Mr. Sandesh Goel emphasized that the company should have a proper reason to go for digital transformation. Moreover, the employees need to be adaptive and flexible to learn new things, especially about digital technology. He also emphasized that peer learning is very much important in an organization.

Mr. Kashyap Kompella stressed that Business transformation is the whole and the digital transformation is the means to achieve the end. One should always think of having customers in mind. He stressed that the importance of data is increasing since the world is moving towards more and more digital.

The speaker Ms. Devie Mohan, Co-Founder and CEO, Burnmark, UK, articulated that “Digital transformations simply does not mean converting a physical entity into an app, but that transformation should ease the life of the consumer. After the digital transformation, banking will be more personal and conversational.

This was followed by Prof. Dr. Marc K Peter, Head of Competence Centre Digital Transformation, FHNW School of Business, Switzerland, stressing that efficient processes and customer requirements should be the two main drivers for digital transformation. He said that the company should invest enough time in understanding customer needs and adapt the customer strategy accordingly. He also emphasized taking time to define proper ideas and opportunities for the digital roadmap. He said that the action fields of Digital transformation are digital marketing, digital leadership and culture and digital business development.

It was followed by Keynote Address by Mr. Siddharth Nambiar, Director- International Healthcare Initiatives, Amazon, stressing on “His address touches upon "Convenience with Quality and safety is the essence of the Digital Transformation in the field of Healthcare".

Mr. Pradeep Gulipalli, Co-Founder of Tiger Analytics delivered the keynote address wherein he mentioned about the Science of Analysis and how different types of analysis on different types of data are done to make decisions and how Marketing and Customer Analytics is used to have effective sales, optimize campaigns, understand a customer and retaining them. He also highlighted Operations Analytics and Risk Analytics and different methods used and the impact of AI on future jobs and gave an overview of the jobs that will survive the test of time and which jobs might cease to exist and are currently declining. He closed his presentation by telling the students on how to become a Data Driven Manager and to develop an understanding to differentiate between usage of your logical thinking and data-based decision making.

The grand event was concluded with a Vote of Thanks by the Conclave Committee of XLRI summarizing the whole session & bringing it to a delightful close.