Digital Transformation Roadmap to 2022: Highlights from HPE C4IO Conclave

Report by Prabhu Ram, CyberMedia Research

The 9^th edition of the HPE C4IO Conclave with theme of Convene, Communicate, Collaborate, Conquer, was held at Amritsar from 8-10 September, 2017. CMR was HPE's Knowledge Partner for the same.

The C4IO Conclave brought together leading CIOs from an array of domains, including banking, automotive, insurance, digital media, infrastructure, and FMCG, among others. Policymakers and thought leaders from across India came together for rich discussions on wide-ranging themes around Digital Transformation.

The Conclave this year focused on the Digital Roadmap to 2022.

Day 1 of the event focused on many simulating conversations and thought-provoking discussions around potential benefits of Digital Transformation, from across verticals ranging from automotive to digital media with leading CIOs including Rajesh Uppal, Maruti; JB Bhaskar, SBI Life; Sachin Gupta, Havells; Angad Bhatia, Times Internet and Som Satsangi, HPE. The panelists touched upon the import of digital transformation, the benefits and the perils of ignoring the digital sojourn.

Shri Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary-IT, Government of Telangana, in his keynote address themed “Vision 2022: Government Keynote” talked about the many initiatives that Telengana has been undertaking under the ambit of the Digital Telengana program to make the national vision of Digital India come true.

According to Shri Ranjan, Telengana is the go-to destination for domains ranging from life sciences to information technology, given that the State has ranked no. 1 in ease of doing business.

Here are some of the major highlights of his keynote:

• Under Digital Telengana, the focus is on imparting digital literacy, with stress on making one person in every household digitally capable.
• Assured optic fiber connectivity to each and every household in Telengana has been planned and scheduled to be completed by 2018.
• 8700 digital kiosks are planned across Telengana, to be operated by trained women entrepreneurs.
• 3000 public places have been identified in Hyderabad for rolling out WiFi hotspots, of which 1000 have already been operationalized.
• Under Smart Agriculture, sensor data for crops and disease incidence is sent to ICRISAT, where diagnosis is done, and interventions planned to benefit farmers.
• In Healthcare, the State is working with HP and NIMS to harness the power of IoT for making mhealth possible.
• Telengana is fostering a strong entrepreneurial culture in the State, with dedicated hubs for startups, including T-Hub, the largest incubator in India.

Shri Mrutyunjay Mahapatra, DMD and CIO, SBI, delivered his keynote and elaborated on his vision for 2022. Here are some of the major highlights of his session:

• Businesses must imagine and deliver, nurturing entrepreneurial spirit amongst employees.
• Insurance players, NBFCs and financial intermediaries will come together to provide a singular customer experience
• The way forward for businesses will be Engineering-led rather than Marketing-led.
• Security will be a key priority for digital businesses over the next five years.
• Plastics will die in five years, and payments will be reinvented through blockchains, tokenization and MST.
• Focus will be on improvement of operational efficiencies in a cost-effective manner, with focus on interconnected devices and integrated customer experiences

Besides sessions by industry leaders, the dignitaries of C4IO Conclave also had the opportunity to listen to some well-known Indian celebrities like Shilpa Shetty Kundra, who touched upon Digital Transformation of Self and how to enable the Self to go beyond the challenges of daily routine to secure personal wellness.

Day 2 of the C4IO Conclave touched upon Hybrid IT, Flexible consumption models, Big Data Analytics, and End-to-end Security.