The 10 Most Valuable Digital Transformation Companies 2020

Editorial

T

echnology has been disrupting many industries.

However, ‘technologies’ are either evolving with time or new disciplines are entering the market every year. So the only constant here is ‘change.’ This is why today’s digital technologies are deemed as accelerators of innovation to enable transformation across all verticals. They can improve efficiency, power new products and services, introduce new business models, and blur the boundaries between industries and lead to enhanced customer services. This resulted in the birth of a new term called digital transformation, which is essentially the strategic adoption of digital technologies. Leveraging this concept helps augment processes and productivity, deliver better customer and employee experiences, manage business risk, and control costs. Besides, every organization has its own unique set of strategies customized to align with its requirements. IDC estimates that worldwide spending on the technologies and services that enable digital transformation will reach almost US$2 trillion in 2022.

Irrespective of the business scale, digital transformation is imperative for every business. Surprisingly, many business leaders are not clear about what digital transformation means. They fail to understand that digital transformation involves integrating digital technology into all areas of a business resulting in fundamental changes to the way businesses operate and deliver value to customers. Sometimes it can also mean bringing a cultural change that requires organizations to continually challenge the status quo, experiment often, and get comfortable with failure. The latter is essential since we don’t have a solution that fits all when it comes to achieving digital transformation.

Further, it is also crucial to have a clear idea about this concept as it is the C-suite who empower this change, while IT and HR lead it. Here, IT and HR share the responsibility of planning and rolling out employee

Credits experience and digital transformation initiatives.

Moreover, since the cultural change will occur at all levels in a business organization, i.e., from C-suite to employees, it requires employee and manager buy-in throughout the process.

Most of the companies looking for this transformation tend to gravitate towards the adoption of technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Augmented Reality, Blockchain, DevOps, Data Analytics, IoT, and 5G. Meanwhile, the key benefits include operational agility, mobility, workforce enablement, improved data security, and enhanced customer experience.

Even the COVID-19 pandemic climate forced significant changes that can be considered as a part of the digital transformation. These include furthering the reach of customer support via tools, including chatbots, automation tools for resilience reasons, and a radical housecleaning of redundant or conflicting systems.

COVID-19 also boosted the rapid adoption of digital operating models, including integrated cross-functional teams, along with the expansion of public cloud adoption.

For a successful digital transformation, leaders must be ready to face and solve certain challenges in this race.

They should remember that strategy is a must. Without a vision, implementing digital technologies can cause failure beyond recovery and economic loss. Next, leaders must be engaged in initiatives that are directly aligned to the business strategy. With leadership buy-in secured, you can avoid any budget challenges that will impact your project. Lastly, they should ensure reaching as many customer touchpoints as possible to provide an integrated experience and quickly offer solutions.

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October 2020

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ValueLabs

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08 Finesse Global

Contents

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Top 10 Digital Transformation Trends in 2021

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Why are Women in Tech Acclaimed not to be Strategic?

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Net 4 Partners

60 Tangentia

Hanselmann & Compagnie

InfoVision Labs

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N I DRIVE

COMPANY OF THE MONTH

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Converge Technology

COVER STORY

20

COMPANY OF THE MONTH

Rapid Acceleration Partners

64 Wortell

Pioneering the Way for Digital Transformation

B

eing digital is not the be-all and end-all of digital transformation. Nor is the usage of the term confined to the tech savvy industries. Digitization has enabled organizations to make a paradigm change in how they operate and deliver value to their customers. Harnessing the potential of digital transformation, companies have evolved into being more agile, progressive and customer centric.

A large number of businesses have reshaped their business models, deployed game-changing technologies like Big Data Analytics, Block chain, Cloud Solutions, Chatbots, Machine Learning & RPA, to tap into the unparalleled potential generated by them and,

also, emerge tech-savvy. Whether it is an organization’s CEO, CIO or simply the COVID-19 that has fueled digital transformation, there is no looking back now!

Having said that, adopting world-class digital initiatives come with their set of challenges like, budgeting, fuzzy understanding of the idea, the existence of legacy systems and the resistance towards omni-channel adaptation. Finesse recognizes these challenges and actively addresses them, making them the most trusted software system integrator to chart successful digital transformation journeys while ensuring enhanced efficiency, considerable cost reduction, business agility and profitability.

Eljo Pynadath, Director & CBO ( Chief Business Officer ) at Finesse

Eljo Pynadath

Finesse’s journey began a decade ago with a vision to positively impact the lives of people around us by building a global system integration company that becomes synonymous to trust, in the context of digital transformation. Finesse is a pioneer in not only delivering a broad suite of technology solutions to various organizations but also in advising them in the process of their cultural transition. Finesse has seen exemplary stints of success with over 300 enterprise clients across BFSI, Education, Energy, Healthcare, Public Sector, Telecom, and Travel & Logistics, among others

Director & Chief Business Officer Finesse 8

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Speaking on its digital solutions, Bobby Thomas, Delivery Head for Emerging Technologies at Finesse says Speaking on the aspect of data insights, Samer Dlikan, Chief Technology Officer at Finesse adds

With an objective to aid organizations in transforming their complete internal processes into truly digitized operations, Finesse has put together solutions like Robotic Process Automation that transform organizations digitally, letting their work-force focus on core tasks where customers require more attention.

This allows the predictable and tedious tasks to be taken care of without any bottlenecks. This holds true in the other offerings of Finesse like Managed services and Chatbots as well.

Today, data is the force that influences decision-making. At Finesse we help our clients to analyze Data and to come up with Business Insights by leveraging the power of various tools and our tested solution approach to get the accurate decision in an easy and innovative manner.

Finesse helps clients focus on their core business by providing integrated business applications, optimized infrastructure and end-to-end managed services for their technology environment and non-core business processes. The company considers training users and managing the initial inertia to new technology is equally important and thus invests time on educating customers to make a smooth transition to digital transformation. With expert level guidance and strong customer centric values deep-rooted into its approach, Finesse’s solutions and services are exceptionally qualified to deliver innovative and truly digitized enterprise operations with measurable performance.

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Finesse has an expert consulting team with immense domain knowledge that helps it in orchestrating distinct strategic approaches to elevate its client’s business value. Prior to digital transformation, there comes a need to re-engineer business operations. Finesse aids organizations in identifying and evaluating the specific processes that need to be reengineered by looking at the cost and asset reduction.

A professional team of 400 plus dedicated and skilled professionals with impressive credentials have enabled the company to beat incredible odds and win more than 50 International awards and accolades. Finesse team consists of exceptional professional leaders and technical consultants

that have helped to sculpt a niche in offerings with strong insights on strategically adopting advanced technology and using it. Leveraging this competency of the organization, Finesse operates globally across the MENA, APAC and Americas, in over 10 global locations Equipped with excellent functional, operational, and solid technical know-how of the BFSI, Education, Energy, Healthcare, Public Sector, Telecom, Travel and Logistics, Finesse consultants’ architect with the most trending transformation products and solutions currently used by global organizations after assessing the client’s industry offerings. Finesse’s cutting-edge technology caters to a wide

range of clients from various vertical domains, guiding them to gear up for a new era of digitization.

Finesse assists 120+ global financial institutions including 80% of the banks in UAE. Their BFSI portfolio includes solutions & services for Core Banking, API / Digital / New Generation Banking, Trade Finance, Treasury, Governance, Risk; Compliance, Regulatory Reporting, Basel III, IFRS- 9, Credit Control; Management, Fraud Management, Multilevel Authentication, Secured App Protection, PIM / PAM, Banking Process Outsourcing & IT Managed Services, to list a few.

In the aviation sector, Finesse has partnered with a leading regional airline to improve its operational efficiency drastically

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through business intelligence solutions to achieve the highest levels of sophistication. Besides, Finesse has achieved immense success in helping healthcare sectors to achieve a smooth digital transformation journey. It has also partnered with a global retail giant and has received accolades in helping the organization to attain a competitive edge by delivering aweinspiring customer experience. Yet another classic example is where Finesse assisted a large automobile firm to get to market faster with Salesforce CRM. Finesse’s rich digital transformation portfolio comprises of solutions & services for AI Chatbots, BI & Analytics, Blockchain, CRM / CEM, Cloud, Corporate Treasury Management, E-Commerce Enablement, Mobility, RPA, Infra & Applications Managed Services and much more. Its large pool of talent and proven global delivery model enables clients to accelerate their technology, build a radical model and robust IT infrastructure, in the most cost-effective and seamless manner.

Its comprehensive onsite, offshore and hybrid managed support services covers proactive monitoring, preventive maintenance, SLA monitoring, asset / resource management and vendor management.

As technology users go remote, the power of the cloud-focused technology is seeing a continuously accelerating demand as well as a rapid evolution. Today, cloud is no more a competitive advantage, it is indeed a competitive parity.

Finesse helps its clients to align their business with technology and leverage far beyond the transactional benefits of resource outsourcing. With solutions like Business Intelligence that enable clients to analyze consumer data by considering significant business trends, Finesse help them make effective business decisions. The experience of Finesse’s management has proven valuable to its clients as the Finesse team identifies and implements industries best practices and leverages on realworld experience to implement solutions that are path-breaking and assures business success to the clientele.

Finesse is paving the way for traditional organizations to embrace cloud solutions that help them to proactively cater to the needs of their customers. The company considers each of its customer as unique and deploys tailored cloud adoption strategies that are aligned with their business objectives.

Finesse believes in delivering tangible value through cloudready solutions, mobile devices and social media platforms.

Finesse’s system integration services include the provisioning, installation, implementation, and an integration of cloud / infra, systems and applications, and onsite support services.

Finesse’s services are backed by its partnerships with leading global technology vendors such as Microsoft, IBM,

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Automation Anywhere, Salesforce, Qlik, Kyriba, Ui Path, Kofax, Equifax, Software AG and MetricStream, Capillary among others.

Finesse’s offerings help its customers to take an advantage of impeccable execution and successful delivery of all projects with zero business downtime. Its operational excellence as well as its consistency in delivering speaks of why its clients refer to Finesse as their lifelong partners.

Looking Forward to Growth Setting Trends and Opportunities The management at Finesse Global believes that as digital transformation gains traction, one of the trends to look forward to is augmented reality, which is going to be a game changer in the way data is perceived. The interplay of the computer’s spatial perception and human understanding of it will take brand experiences and user interaction to another level.

The digital transformation of organization will not go beyond the level of benchmarking without Big Data and Analytics.

One of the sure-shot keys to success in the coming years would be designing systems that tackle real-time data at scale and unleash the true potential of it. The company trusts Robotic Process Automation, as an innovation that would reshape IT architectures of an organization. This will empower organizations to add outcome-based revenue models than transactional metrics. The combination of IoT with predictive analytics will also be an area of focus for many organizations.

With the onset of COVID-19, a huge number of organizations have invested in cloud technology in order to co-edit documents and work collaboratively with employees irrespective of their location. Without cloud solutions, it would have been impossible for uninterrupted daily operations to be carried out efficiently.

The company believes it is going to be an era of hyper personalized services. In order to attain a competitive edge, it is imperative for organizations to deliver personalized services to customers. Digital transformation offers unparalleled opportunities for organizations to understand their client base and offer personalized recommendations to them by making use of customer analytics.

Finesse

ValueLabs

Eljo Pynadath Director & Chief Business Officer

Samer Dilkan Chief Technology Officer

Bobby Thomas Delivery Head for Emerging Technologies Finesse is a global digital system integration company, headquartered in Dubai that provides assistance to over 300+ enterprise clients in driving their digital journey. It helps clients focus on their core business by providing integrated business applications, optimized infrastructure and end-to-end managed services for their technology environment and noncore business processes.

Arjun Rao Founder & CEO ValueLabs is a global technologyservices and solutions company. It provides end-toend solutions in the fields of Customer Experience, Data & Analytics, Product Development, and Automation. The company has also conducted hackathons on platforms like HackerEarth, encouraging AI-ML, RPA and Cloud enthusiasts worldwide.

finessedirect.com

valuelabs.com

Hanselmann & Compagnie

Converge Technology Solutions

InfoVision Labs

N I DRIVE

Dr.Jochen Hanselmann, Managing Director

Shaun Maine, CEO

Vinay Barigidad, Managing Director

RamKumar Sivan Arumugam, Founder & CEO

Hanselmann & Compagnie is a management consulting boutique, focused on technology-driven industries. Currently, the company has almost 60 employees and has recently received its fifth TOP CONSULTANT award as best consultant for medium-sized companies, and a turnover expansion rate of over 20 % per year.

Converge Technology Solutions Corp. is a North American Hybrid IT Solution Provider focused on delivering industry-leading solutions and services. Converge’s regional sales and services organizations deliver advanced analytics, cloud, cybersecurity, and managed services offerings to clients across various industries.

InfoVision delivers digital transformation services, including legacy migration and transformation of enterprise systems, enterprise mobility solutions, cloud-enabled enterprise solutions meeting various compliance needs of the businesses, decision making solutions using data science and data engineering, IoT, augmented realty and virtual reality solutions.

N I DRIVE (Nippon India DRIVE) is a TOKYO based AI, ML consultancy and Engineering solutions provider helping Japanese businesses achieve their objectives through AI. The company offers Digital technology consulting and services focused on IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics & Cognitive Automation, Hybrid Cloud Enablement, Mobility, and other Emerging Technologies.

hcie-consulting.de

convergetp.com

ivlglobal.com

nidrive.jp

Net 4 Partners

Rapid Acceleration Partners

Tangentia

Wortell

Raghuraman Ramamurthy, CEO

Vijay Thomas, Founder & CEO

Danny Burlage, Founder & CEO

Net 4 Partners is a consulting company established in 2012

by C-level professionals with experience in innovation and ICT sectors.It offers consulting for design and implementation of innovative services toward companies and public administrations, fundraising projects at regional, national and European level and supports companies in their investment and innovation strategy.

RAP was founded with a vision to use AI for practical business problems to drive greater efficiency and ROI. The company started off automating form recognition, email responses, and document recognition evolving to focus on Computer Vision and NLP. Later it switched to RPA capabilities to drive upstream/downstream automation leveraging the power of AI for scalability.

Tangentia provides a unique value-based “Global Boutique” delivery model, unsurpassed in the business, providing customers with high-end bespoke solutions.

The company has been on the Growth 500 list of fastestgrowing companies in Canada for six years in a row. This Agile Digital Transformation company provides technology solutions in automation, B2B, Digital sector.

Wortell is a company based in Amsterdam, Netherland, which strives to empower people with technical capabilities and skills to be successful in their jobs.

Since its establishment in 1997, the company has been working hard to close the gap between technological advancement and the technical capabilities people and organizations use.

net4partners.it/en

rapidautomation.ai

tangentia.com

wortell.nl/nl

Sonia Massobrio, Co-founder & Director

COMPANY OF THE MONTH

Arjun Rao Founder & CEO ValueLabs 14

Bringing Together Design and Technology to Re-imagine Business Models and Drive Digital Transformation

V

alueLabs is a global technology services and solutions company. ValueLabs provides end-to-end solutions in the fields of Customer Experience, Data & Analytics, Product Development, and Automation.

Founded in 1997, ValueLabs has expanded from a team of three people in Hyderabad to 31 locations worldwide today. With a global workforce of over 5500 associates, 150 clients across the world, ValueLabs has recorded an industry-leading client Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 84 in 2020.

The company was built on a set of core values, encapsulated in the ValueLabs ‘Stack’, which is the operating philosophy of the company. The cornerstone of these values is a commitment to ‘doing the right thing’ by all stakeholders in the ecosystem.

The business model is centered around building trust with clients and employees, creating an inspired and collaborative environment.

Innovation is a core layer of the Stack where the focus is to bring Design and Technology together in order to drive business impact and digital transformation for their clients.

The Force Behind ValueLabs Arjun Rao is the Founder and CEO of ValueLabs. He provides strategic direction to the company and strongly believes that one can learn and achieve anything, when driven by ‘character strength’ and the ‘strive for perfection’. These beliefs have been instrumental in the journey of ValueLabs since its inception.

Arjun holds an MS Degree from Cornell University and a Bachelor’s Degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras.

He leads by example when it comes to doing the right thing at all times, inspiring everyone in the company to build trust with clients and colleagues alike. He has contributed to bringing alive the OneCompany model of engagement.

Addressing Clients’ Unique Needs using the Digital Flywheel™ and Engineering Canvas Digital transformations could look very different for

companies from different industries, of different sizes and having varied existing technology and business landscapes.

Therefore, ValueLabs designs and implements digital transformation to suit the unique needs of each client, in order for them to be successful.

Every digital journey will nessecitate expertise in one or more of the following elements: The business strategy & the business model, tools & technologies, people & processes.

The two frameworks that they have developed and employ, that encapsulate these aspects are the ‘The Digital Flywheel™’ and the ‘Engineering Canvas’.

‘The Digital Flywheel™’ is the solution design playbook that is effective in driving digital transformation for companies with different business needs. Focused on business strategy at the core, the Flywheel uses different elements from multiple disciplines like User Experience, Analytics, Automation, and Product Development to design solutions that address unique clients’ business needs best.

ValueLabs, as a company, is agnostic to specific tools or technologies and leverage them as enablers to address their clients’ requirements.

Each tool and technology come with pros and cons, and it is never a one size fits all solution. The technology landscape (especially in the Data and Analytics space) evolves rapidly – with new tools coming out frequently – that a lock-in to a particular tool or technology does not serve evolving client requirements optimally.

With dedicated Center of Excellence (COE) teams that constantly evaluate and run pilots with different tools and technologies that are available, they are able to look at clients’ business needs and constraints and recommend the most appropriate technology stack and design the right solution for them.

The ‘Engineering Canvas’ is a best practices toolkit that consolidates ValueLabs’ extensive experience of over 23 years with recommendations, templates, assessments and guidelines across each aspect of any digital initiative

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– Consulting, Design, Requirements Gathering, Customer Development, Architecture, Data and Cloud, DevOps, Analytics, Quality Engineering, etc. This enables all clients to sustain their digital transformation initiatives with best-inclass practices and standards incorporated.

Contributing to the Community with Digital Technologies ValueLabs works with clients in the Big Data & Analytics, AIML and RPA space and has contributed significantly to large scale digital transformations leveraging these technologies.

The company has also conducted hackathons on platforms like HackerEarth, encouraging AI-ML, RPA and Cloud enthusiasts worldwide.

Social responsibility and doing the right thing for the community has been a conscious effort right from the founding days of the company. This can be seen even in some of the the digital solutions that they have developed.

One such solution is an NSFW (not safe for work) content moderation tool called “ValueLabs Sift,” which helps catch explicit content ensuring a safer society.

These are just some examples of how ValueLabs has used emerging technologies to contribute to the nation and society at large.

The intersection of design, business, and technology is where great things happen.

Arjun Rao

valuelabs.com

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Leveraging Emerging Technology to Disrupt Existing Business Processes and Deliver Business Impact The impact of technologies such as Cloud Computing, IoT, Big Data & Analytics and Artificial Intelligence will be farreaching. They stand to disrupt the status quo in almost every industry in every country, emerging or developed. This tech-driven revolution will force many companies to change their operating paradigm, from being manpower-intensive to being technology-centric. They will alter the way people live and work, rearrange value pools and lead to entirely new products and services. Companies can leverage these technologies to reshape their organization’s business model and develop new ways to deliver and capture value. In fact, given the COVID crisis that humanity is going through today and the consequent remote working which it has entailed, these technologies increasingly come into the forefront.

The emphasis on constant innovation at ValueLabs is critical to their success. Opportunities within Cloud Computing today are significantly different from that of two years ago.

The kinds of frameworks which exist in AI and Deep Learning today have seen a radical transformation from what they were just seven months prior. In order to stay relevant and ahead of competition, you have to constantly pilot these new features

and capabilities which is intrinsic to the ValueLabs Stack.

The world is seeing a surge of technologies that are significantly altering how businesses operate and these technologies are disrupting the overall industry outlook.

ValueLabs sees two waves emerging in the landscape of disruptive technologies – the Innovation wave and the Adoption wave. The innovation wave cannot sustain itself without people adopting the technology.

ValueLabs has found a good balance between both innovation and adoption. This implies that the company can innovate through a focused COE approach and enable clients to adopt innovative technologies in meaningful ways. Some of the notable projects they have worked on are: Big Data and Cloud transformation for one of the largest market research companies in the world: Their client had an on-premise and legacy technology landscape with data factories geographically dispersed – both independent and silo-ed. The architecture was monolithic, and scalability became a problem with the existing on-premise setup. It would have taken a minimum of three weeks to process the data and deliver insights to their end clients.

ValueLabs re-architected their platforms and applications for microservices and multi-tenancy and enabled the Cloud transformation journey. It also implemented the components using Lambda and step functions and leveraged dockers to address any gaps. Continuous monitoring and reporting were implemented with cost optimization strategies to ensure the transformation met the business goals. Moreover, it automated the KPI generation and re-architected its data platform to establish a single source of truth for faster insights.

As a result, ValueLabs brought down the time to insights from 3 weeks to 1 day, reduced manual effort by 97%, and reduced the opex spend by 85%, enabling high-impact business transformation.

Computer Vision (CV) and Extended Reality (XR) for a leading insurance ISV: Claims management and repair estimation, which are primary services that the client provides - were manual, time-consuming, and expensive processes to carry out. The client wanted to disrupt the industry they were a part of and re-imagine how the automotive claims management and collision repair estimation were done.

ValueLabs designed, developed and deployed a custom Computer Vision solution that included an ensemble of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). This solution helps to take the image of a damaged vehicle, identifies different parts or panels present in the image and then determines which

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operation is suitable for that panel (repair, replace etc.). This allowed the manual teams to validate claims much faster and serve more customers.

The company created an XR solution over the CV solution allowing technicians in repair shops to scan and assess a damaged vehicle in a completely hands-free manner through smart glasses. Details of the owner from driver’s licenses or the mileage from the vehicle dashboard would be automatically extracted by ValueLabs’s solution and input into the end system, transforming the way technicians went through the checkin process. This industry-first solution was created on all the leading smart glass providers (Google Glass, Vuxiz, Realwear) as each end client had their preferences and constraints. The company’s tool and technology-agnostic approach allowed it to meet all their user users’ needs effectively.

With these solutions, ValueLabs could process 40 claims per minute and enable a great hands-free experience for all technicians!

Cebu, Dubai, Darlington, Chicago, Costa Rica and India allows flexibility and diversity of talent – creating the perfect environment for innovation.

The Secret Sauce to Successful Innovation Arjun reveals the secret sauce that sets ValueLabs apart from anyone in the same industry, are the company’s founding values that are enshrined in what he calls the ValueLabs ‘Stack’. The Stack guides the culture, engagement model and innovation construct with a laser focus on two stakeholders – the clients and the employees. These two stakeholders also happen to be the key drivers for any innovation, as the client’s business goals and use cases are innovated for by employees with the domain and technical expertise to implement it end-to-end.

Being privately held, ValueLabs is uniquely positioned to take a long-term view with any client partnership and focus on building trust, investing in clients’ needs, taking on their business objectives, and working towards common goals as opposed to chasing quarterly targets. This is reinforced time and again, as clients rely on ValueLabs to bring in thought leadership, technology, and design expertise to add more value to their end customers and business.

“Our client NPS of 84 is testament to the trust, integrity and competence that we bring to our clients,” says Arjun.

Another key aspect that sets ValueLabs apart from other technology companies is its capability to access, retain and inspire talent. The talent war in the tech space makes it very challenging for any company to help their clients ensure business continuity and smooth delivery. ValueLabs’ average employee tenure and employee NPS of 57 (which is about 4 times the industry average) validates the team’s commitment to ensuring that every employee is engaged and motivated.

A global presence with centers in Bucharest, Malaysia,

What the Future will Look Like Today, location is digitized, and extreme remote working has become the norm. The outsourced, offshore model of working will open up further due to the sheer amount of talent and competence that exists.

The one area of focus for the company will be to constantly innovate and ensure that the culture and values at ValueLabs remain intact as the workforce scales and gets more distributed.

Companies that do not have mature remote working practices will not survive and sustain this wave. Security, Agile Delivery and remote collaboration for Data and Analytics transformation projects will be critical.

ValueLabs’ experience of over 23 years of extreme remote working with teams by collaborating across various geographical locations across the world, from different time zones in the agile model has allowed it to standardize tools and hone high quality and mature best practices. Which is consolidated in its ‘Engineering Canvas.’

Arjun finds that an increasing number of clients are relying on ValueLabs for innovation and end-to-end digital transformation, right from ideation and design through to solution deployment and support. He adds, “We have brought our design and technology competence together in our Imagine! model of engagement.” Every client is looking to engage with ValueLabs through this model and the team considers this as a roadmap for the future. Arjun is confident that the engagements going forward are going to be innovation-led, where the company would don the proverbial ‘VC hat’ and deliver robust, high-impact solutions to its clients.

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Global Recognition of Technology and Design Expertise ValueLabs has received notable recognitions and awards in recent times, owing to its best-in-class services. This includes: » German Design Award, 2021 for Excellent Communications Design – Brand Identity awarded for ValueLabs rebranding project » Dream Employer of the year – 2020, World HRD Congress, for three consecutive years » Company of the year – 2020 (IT & software sector), Business Leader Awards » The Digital Technology Award – 2020, Business Leader Awards » Top ITES exporter award – 2019, HYSEA Annual Innovation Summit & Awards » Most Innovative IT solutions Partner (India) – 2018, cfi.co

COMPANY OF THE MONTH

Dr. Jochen Hanselmann Managing Director Hanselmann & Compagnie GmbH 20

Leading Forward With Technologies to Offer Holistic Consultation Solutions

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anselmann & Compagnie is a management consulting boutique, focused on technology-driven industries. Founded by Dr. Jochen Hanselmann in 2007, it is one of the most successful management consultancies in Germany. Currently, the company has almost 60 employees and has recently received its fifth TOP CONSULTANT award as best consultant for medium-sized companies. With a turnover expansion rate of over 20 % per year, the consultants from Germany are far ahead in the market.

The company is entirely dedicated to technology and only operates in a technology-intensive environment. It focuses on technology-driven industries that they know exceptionally well, ranging from automotive & suppliers, industrial goods & technology, to mechanical & plant engineering.

Only industrial engineers with technological expertise, for example, with a background in engineering and electrical engineering, work at Hanselmann & Compagnie. This knowledge is deeply incorporated in all its projects. The highly specialized consultants can analyze all manufacturing processes in depth. Thanks to their expertise, they also develop technical solutions on-site and implement them with all parties involved. Being the expert in technology and strategy development, supply chain and production, Hanselmann & Compagnie supports its customers in overcoming current problems, in future-oriented development, and in exploiting their full potential. Though it foresees digitization as a clear enabler of processes, the company strives to bring digital solutions that are tailored to the clients’ specific DNA. Its focus areas include: » Digital Transformation and Digital Eco-system » Strategy & Corporate Management incl. leadership principles » Company & Process Organization » Innovation Management and Research & Development (especially in E/E-systems)

» Operations Management on the shopfloor » Program- & Project Management for complex initiatives There are several parameters that differentiate the company from other management consultancies: » The digital ecosystem: Together with leading technology partners, Hanselmann & Compagnie has created a digital ecosystem that enables it to integrate the best possible digital solutions into processes - always tailored to the individual customer situation. » Niche-player in management consulting for technologydriven industries: This includes automotive & suppliers, industrial goods & technology, mechanical & plant engineering » Technology orientation: Its consultants are all engineers who can have a say in technical details and develop technical solutions on site. » Implementation orientation: The company does not only propose measures but also supports its customers during implementation and takes responsibility for a sustainable result » Comprehensive entrepreneurial thinking in every project: The consultants do not think in terms of individual projects, but always have the success of the entire company in mind.

This is why its solutions are always aimed at creating longterm added value for the company. » Partnership & communication at eye level: Therefore, changes are supported at all levels. Long-term customer relationships are the result.

Journey to Impressive Endeavors After gaining much experience at renowned consultancies and in the industry, Dr. Jochen Hanselmann decided to start his own business because he wanted to show that he could compete in the market with his ideas and practical know-how. He also wanted to disprove the greatest criticism about consultants which is that they do not understand anything about the actual

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Digitization is a strong enabler of processes and business models – we must clearly shape the customer impact. KISS – keep it simple and stupid. In our terms: bring digital solutions to the shop floor and gain turnover, everyday, robust, valueoriented, helping customers and employees practically! That’s our ambition every day.

Dr. Jochen Hanselmann

hcie-consulting.de hcie-digital.de

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business. Therefore, he invested in a production company as PE investor. Furthermore, he invested consequently in SaaSstartups to understand and steer the development process of systems/ functions and ecosystems.

As a result, Hanselmann & Compagnie was founded in 2007 with a clear technological orientation, which has remained constant to this day. The company also combines industry and consultancy expertise to generate pure value for the customer.

Soon, Hanselmann & Compagnie grew with one of the world’s largest manufacturers of furniture fittings before other companies, like renowned automobile manufacturers, OEMs, and Tier1-suppliers hired the consultants.

An Inquisitive Entrepreneur Dr. Jochen Hanselmann graduated as an industrial engineer at the University of Kaiserslautern and received his doctorate in engineering at the University of Stuttgart. Next, he acquired consulting expertise at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA) in corporate management, at Arthur D. Little in the automotive practice, and the Technologie Management Gruppe (TMG) in the area of strategy/organization.

Dr. Hanselmann is not only the managing director but also a trusted advisor for boards of directors, managing directors, management, and owners. He passionately moves things forward. On the one hand, in his own company and on the other hand, for his clients, that he often accompanies for many years. He is also a visionary and foresees future trends before they arrive. This way, he can support his clients in implementing future-oriented solutions for sustainable corporate success.

Aside from his work at Hanselmann & Compagnie, Dr. Hanselmann is also the managing director of an internationally positioned plastic supplier for the automotive industry. That way, he can test his methods and new ideas under real conditions. This hands-on mentality wins him immense trust from his clients. ‘Carrying operational responsibility’ isn’t just a marketing phrase for him, but it’s his daily life.

Dr. Hanselmann’s unique selling point is to set entrepreneurial impulses and course settings as a “Trusted Advisor”, to evaluate and design technological developments, and to consistently promote sustainable implementation. He is mandated to give strategic impulses, to apply technologies on an equal footing with the client’s experts (especially in the E/E environment), and to depict them in competitive production systems - both digital and real. In any case, this applies to

clients acompass well as to “own” companies, Dr. Hanselmann he acts as a responsible consultant, consistently oriented towards value enhancement and outstanding returns.

Perfect Placement of Brand and Customer Experience Hanselmann & Compagnie consistently puts corporate processes and -data into the core of its digitalization transformation services, emphasizing measurable outcomes.

It views digitization as a clear enabler of processes. This is why it makes sure that digital solutions are tailored to the clients’ specific DNA. With leading technology- and solution partners, Hanselmann & Compagnie has built a digital ecosystem available for the clients, offering modern digital competencies that tackle corporate challenges. For specific tasks and the given customer situation, the company uses aligned partner technologies to integrate the best possible digital solution. It does this by taking advantage of leading-edge digital tools and technologies combined with practice-proven techniques of its advanced (HCIE) consulting methods. Tangible impact, and targetfocused improvement of the client’s company performance are the result. Moreover, it also considers operating, and administrative key performance indicators gained from departments (i.e., in production, supply chain, administration) or pulled out of divisions and lines of businesses. The reasons behind this are to provide valuable insights and efficiently support companies’ management levels in decision making; mainly to get back control and performance. Finally, Hanselmann & Compagnie helps to design, implement, and drive forward new digital business models to keep pace in fastchanging and increasingly complex environments in customerand technology-driven markets.

According to Dr. Hanselmann, the company’s clear focus on technologies provides business process optimization, indepth business process and data analytics, comprehensive enterprise information, and agile content management: BI, BPM, PM, RPA, EIM - efficiently usable “…as a service”, aligned with proven business- and digital consulting practices in production and manufacturing, supply chain, administration, restructuring, go-to-market, and management.

As preferred but not the only available delivery technology, his team suggests and provides the cloud-based usage of digital tools that significantly decreases efforts, time, and budgets to get digital systems up and running. At the same time, it also optimizes governance, security and avoids upfront investments and even bottlenecks in hardware, software, infrastructure, and related IT administration staff. In other

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words: Agility, efficiency, and speed are the key to success.

Leading with Competence and Industry Expertise In conversation with Dr. Hanselmann, he explains that by taking advantage of Hanselmann & Compagnie’s state of the art, agile and result-focused consulting methods, his company can consistently provide structured feedback to its technology partners in the digital ecosystem: on the actual situation and achievements in running customer projects as well as on pitfalls, gaps, and barriers to overcome. They also report back new requirements coming up from changing needs and expectations.

Based on this specific information and insights, Hanselmann & Compagnie individually guides and enables its technology partners to adjust and optimize their solutions and digital tools, thus responding agile and focused on the challenges coming out of projects from its corporate clients.

Incorporating Disruptive Technologies for Innovation Dr. Hanselmann feels that the process-oriented and dataoriented optimization of corporate procedures plays a decisive role in determining whether enterprises can capitalize on digital value contributions in the competitive and fast-changing industry landscape. Digital innovation based on disruptive technologies provides answers to questions that are crucial in the age of digital transformation and will help - even force - the management to shape the future of their enterprises.

Manifesting Demonstrable Added Value Solutions The ‘digital ecosystem,’ which Hanselmann & Compagnie has built, also plays into account here. It is a network of highly qualified IT and technological partners, allowing clients access to comprehensive digital expertise. The right partners can also be found for particular tasks, and the best possible digital solutions can be developed. Thus, the first step is to analyze all processes and their parameters, followed by deciding what can be optimized. Then the consultants find the right digital toolset, which ensures that processes become better, faster, more efficient, or leaner – depending on the requirements. The consultants view digitization as a clear enabler of processes.

It only makes sense when digital solutions are tailored to the clients’ specific DNA. Notable Recognitions Thanks to its excellent services, Hanselmann & Compagnie has been awarded five times in a row as TOP CONSULTANT

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(2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016) – best consultants for mediumsized companies. This recognition is only given to the top consultants in Germany. The company deems it incredibly valuable because it is based only on the feedback and satisfaction of its customers. The company was also named winners of the German Brand Award 2018 for its consistent brand strategy and graphical expertise.

Besides, it has received the “Top Employer” award thrice in a row (2020, 2019, 2018) by Focus-Business.

Jochen Hanselmann has also been featured as Top Coach and Trusted Advisor in different magazines, such as Capital and Manager Magazin.

Planning the Next Moves Enterprises need to adopt data- and process-driven digital business models in an extensive manner to keep pace in the future. Agile, efficient processes and ad-hoc usage of data in high quality and accuracy, coming from sources inside and outside the company, will be a main competitive factor. They shall be competed by consequent responsiveness to ongoing changing business- and market conditions.

Budgets needed to invest in skilled and state-of-the-art resources for advanced digital technologies on the solution, use case and on IT-infrastructure level (including hardware and software and related administration and maintenance) are limited. Therefore, sourcing innovation and digital transformation have to come from external subject matter experts based on a project-based service and by usage on demand, technologies delivered from the cloud.

Dr. Hanselmann is assured that in close cooperation between internal teams inside line of businesses and departments and external consultants of Hanselmann & Compagnie, digital tools will not be used in a standardized “as-is” manner. Also, individualization by configuration will be done by expert-skilled and trained key users in the specific department or product line.

Hanselmann & Compagnie has realized that a company’s existing DNA is pivotal. Digital tools will be used if they aim at a particular business model. There always has to be a carefully considered individual transfer between business process and digital solution. That’s how the company will keep the relative competitive edge of its clients.

He predicts that the typical request to the internal IT department to design, deploy, and operate digital tools and lead digital transformation will decline and move over into the responsibility of the line of businesses.

Top 10 Digital Transformation Trends in 2021

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omparing with the past decade, digital transformation has expedited. With businesses expanding, and an increase in the demand for better customer satisfaction, technology is permeating in all sectors. Previous decade observed heavy investments and funding by big tech organizations in technology. Countries are also spending huge amount of money so that the desired output can be achieved. The global digital transformation market is predicted to grow from US$469.8 billion in 2020 to US$1009.8 billion by 2025, with a CAGR of 16.5% in the forecasting period.

It becomes imperative to observe the trends that have the potential to transform the world digitally. Analytics Insight has listed out Top 10 digital transformation trends that will revolutionize the world in the year 2021.

5G Network Owing to the outbreak of COVID 19, the organizations opted to work remotely keeping in mind the norms of social distancing.

To maintain the workflow, video-conferencing, webinars and zoom conferences added pressure in the existing telecom set-up to provide with better network and bandwidth. As the situation is unprecedented and will continue to remain so, most organizations are flagging remote work as the feasible option to maintain operations. That’s why this technology will be at the top for digital transformation in 2021. Companies and countries are already investing heavily on the research and development of 5G network. As per the report by Markets and Markets, the 5G market infrastructure is estimated to reach US$47,775 million by 2027, at a CAGR of 67.1%.

Internet of Things This technology is already witnessed as a major disruptor to bring the industrial revolution 4.0. As it connects many devices at the same time, this technology will also act as a catalyst in

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the growth of 5G networks. Moreover, with this technology, multitasking is possible. Presently, diverse industries like oil and gas, healthcare, automotive, and supply-chain amongst others are heavily deploying this technology. A report by Accenture has predicted the market value of IoT to be US$15 trillion by the year 2030 in the industry. As IoT is known to make informed, data-driven decisions, this technology will be the next frontier in 2021.

Hybrid Computing With the growing adoption of remote working due to the pandemic, organizations are already inclined towards cloud computing architecture to store data and privacy concerns.

The tech organizations like Amazon and Google have already witnessed an exponential surge in their cloud revenue last quarter. Moreover, organizations are looking for efficient and feasible data storage options. With more organizations opting for hybrid computing this technology will be amongst the top digital transformation technologies in the year 2021. The hybrid cloud market is expected to grow from US$44.6 billion in 2018 to US$97.6 by 2023 at a CAGR of 17%.

Natural Language Processing Natural Language Processing was already evolving in the pre-pandemic era, but as COVID 19 rattled the global economy, this technology has witnessed an accelerated adoption. In the COVID era, NLP is heavily deployed in BFSI, healthcare, manufacturing and automobiles sector to reduce the workload of employees, so that they can focus on urgent tasks. Moreover, with NLP, the privacy of the organizations will be scaled. In 2021, this technology has a promising outlook for transforming sectors. The market value for NLP is anticipated to increase from US$3,066 million in 2019 to US$8,319 million by 2025 with a CAGR of 18.10% between 2019-2024.

Cybersecurity As the situation with COVID 19 remaining unprecedented, organizations are opting for remote work in the future, thus requiring vigilant cybersecurity. Even before the pandemic distorted the working set-up in organizations, cybersecurity was amongst the major concerns against hacking and frauds. The pandemic has already made this tech trend relevant and imperative. In 2021, this technology will play a key role in digital transformation. A report by Fortune Business Insights has forecasted the global cybersecurity is to reach US$281.74 billion by 2027, with a CAGR of 12.6% between 2020 and 2027.

Computer Vision Experts are already cheering up for the computer vision to be one of the prime candidates next year. With various processes associated with it such as facial recognition, image recognition, and text recognition, this technology is emerging in various sectors. Moreover, sectors like BFSI are already researching about their applications and have a positive outlook so far. The computer vision market is expected to increase by US$16,794 million in 2025, compared to US$4,319 million in 2019 with a CAGR of 25.40% between 2019-2024.

Customer Data Platforms As the plethora of data is generated every day, it becomes difficult to organize it. With organizations depending upon data for their operations, big data can be perilous. Customer Data Platforms (CDP) help in rectifying this problem by collecting data from all sources, organizing it, tagging it and marking it for utilization by organizations without any damages. With the growing dependency of insightful across industries, this technology is going to be amongst the frontiers of digital transformation in 2021. The global CDP is expected to grow from US$2.4billion in 2020 to US$10.3

billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 34% during the forecast period.

Over The Top Services OTT platform has been in the market for a long period. With an assortment of options, they provide enhanced customer service. Moreover, with its easy accessibility, and multiplelanguage channel, this technology is used by everyone. It is redefining the experience of watching a movie or playing online games, by offering innovative content. Hence, OTT platform will continue to remain amongst the digital transformation technology in 2021. The Fortune Insights has forecasted the global OTT services market size to reach US$86.80 billion as compared to US$30.23 billion in 2018, with a CAGR of 14.3% during the forecast period.

Digital Payments Services The pandemic has accelerated the pace of digital payments globally. In developing countries, which were heavily dependent on digital currencies, a surge is observed in digital payment services. Moreover, with its feasible and efficient transfer of funds, it will revolutionize operations in finance.

That’s why this technology will continue to be on the list of digital transformation next year. The Fortune Insights has forecasted the global digital payment market size to reach at US$19.89 trillion by 2026, with a CAGR of 24.4% between 2018-2026.

Smart Wearables With an increase in demand by customers for having the world-class experience to choose the products, smart wearables remain one of the technologies that will drive digital transformation. Moreover, as this technology offers an enhanced experience, it is utilized in various sectors such as healthcare, manufacturing, and marketing.

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Designing a Connected IT Ecosystem through Disruptive Technologies

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onverge Technology Solutions Corp. is a North American Hybrid IT Solution Provider focused on delivering industry-leading solutions and services. Converge’s regional sales and services organizations deliver advanced analytics, cloud, cybersecurity, and managed services offerings to clients across various industries.

Converge supports these solutions with talent expertise and digital infrastructure offerings across all major IT vendors in the marketplace. This multifaceted approach enables Converge to address clients’ unique business and technology requirements in public and private sectors.

Shaun Maine CEO Converge Technology Solutions 30

Striving Beyond Excellence Converge Technology Solutions is a parent company to 13 sister companies. It had its first acquisition completed in October 2017. The company is focused on the “roll-up” of IT Solution Providers. It boasts an extensive workforce comprising of management team, board, and founders who have extensive acquisition and management experience in private and public markets. Converge began trading on Nov 13, 2018, on the TSX Venture Exchange as TSXV: CTS. Its goal is to be a trusted partner for the customers that brings together worldclass solutions and services to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and create competitive advantages.

A Multifaceted Leader Shaun Maine is the Chief Executive Officer of Converge Technology Solutions. As CEO of Converge, he is

responsible for leading the overall vision, strategy, and mergers & acquisitions of the organization. Before his role as CEO, Shaun was the COO of Pivot Technology Solutions (“Pivot”), a US $1.5 billion revenue value-added reseller listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. He was also a member of the founding group that acquired and integrated five value-added resellers. Shaun has graduated from Queens University and has been named one of Channel Daily News’ Top 5 Newsmakers of 2019.

Propelling Industry Dominance Via AI and Cloud Jason Kopylec, VP, AI and Application Development, North America division of Converge Technology Solutions, says that cloud gives enterprises the scalable, high-speed storage, network, and compute needed for advanced analytics workloads. “Give our full stack AI team a Python Notebook and a Kubernetes cluster and we will accelerate business outcomes. Our AI solutions are the eyes, ears, mouth, brain, and hands of our clients’ future-state systems.”

Jason explains that the company’s practice involves guidance on business strategy to chart a long-term technology transformation. At the same time, it leverages agile methodologies for solution delivery to ensure that the team gets to its destination no matter the obstacles.

He also details the AI Capabilities of Converge, which are as follows: » Computer Vision – video and image recognition » Computer Voice – phone and recorded audio, solutions that talk to us

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Converge welcomes what’s next with open arms. We have the talent and the drive to serve clients across North America and help them to build a better, more efficient business.

Shaun Maine

convergetp.com

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» Natural Language Processing – understand the language of the business » Predictive Analytics – make decisions like a human with perfect memory » Enterprise Search – ingest, enrich and index massive knowledgebases » Robotic Process Automation – enables computers to interact with our digital world

technology requirements and build strong relationships with them. Before implementing a solution, the company conducts assessments to ensure that it provides the best possible fit for clients’ specific needs.

Moreover, Converge maintains strong partnerships with industry-leading companies. By leveraging these strategic alliances, it aims to solve problems in a way that makes the most sense for its clients.

Employing Technologies Catering to Niche Demands Converge caters to a diverse client base and customizes bestof-breed solutions based on a breadth of field experience.

It helps customers accelerate the adoption of advanced technologies to achieve unique business outcomes.

Furthermore, Converge fosters engagement among organizations and business lines, which previously were not invested in data-driven solutions and analytics.

According to Jason, the company thrives on out-of-the-box use cases. “We help our clients stand out and differentiate themselves. We’re ready to get as weird and wild as they want to go,” he says with a laugh.

From the IT side, digital transformation is simultaneously enabled top-down and bottom-up with: » Hybrid Cloud that scales infrastructure, » Data Management that fuels business, » Business Intelligence that unlocks insights, » Modern Application Development that drives agility, and » AI that automates everything For Converge, cross-industry expertise is a differentiator.

Jason says that often the weaknesses of one vertical are the strengths of another. As a result, the company serves as a nationwide IT crosspollinator. For example, he adds, “It is incredibly rewarding to bring a commercial solution from financial institutions to a mission-driven non-profit,” he adds.

Since business and IT push each other, Cloud, IoT, Big Data, AI, RPA – all of these open up a whole new world for business to explore.

With new products, tools and techniques popping up every day, it is easy to become overwhelmed with the current IT landscape. Converge technology experts work tirelessly to help, innovate, lead and learn in partnership their clients. The company’s specialized practice areas ensure a trusted advisor is always at the ready to strategize and deliver.

Invaluable Recognitions Converge has helped many clients by kick-starting and accelerating their digital transformations, including a success that led to 50X business growth.

In 2020, Converge received the following recognition: » #1 on the 2020 CRN® Fast Growth 150 List » #50 on CRN’s 2020 Solution Provider 500 List » 2020 Ingram Micro Cloud Reseller Partner of the Year for North America » 2020 IBM Business Unit Excellence Award for Data & AI: DataOps » 2019 Red Hat Rising Star Partner of the Year, Recognized for Outstanding Channel Contributions for Open Source Software Manifesting Future in IT domain As Converge CEO, Shaun believes IT is one of the most dynamic industries. The innovation of new technologies often turns the whole industry on its head, making it an exciting field.

Looking down the road, he thinks that using AI and Analytics cases will continue to grow and evolve, and Converge will do the same to make sure its customers get the full advantages those solutions offer.

Additionally, as Converge continues to grow in the North American market, and Shaun is affirmative, the team will adapt its skillsets to keep delivering innovative solutions for the clientele.

Unmatched Value in Market Converge is unique in its approach to doing business, as it leads with understanding the customers’ business &

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Designing a Connected IT Ecosystem through Disruptive Technologies

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Vinay Barigidad Managing Director InfoVision Labs 34

nfoVision Labs (IVL), is a global technology services company headquartered in Pune, India. Solving business problems using technology, engineering, people, processes and building a trusted partnership with clients, has been the vision of the company.

With a team of 850+ high-octane software engineers, InfoVision delivers digital transformation services, including but not limited to legacy migration and transformation of enterprise systems, enterprise mobility solutions, cloud-enabled enterprise solutions meeting various compliance needs of the businesses, decision making solutions using data science and data engineering, IoT, augmented realty and virtual reality solutions. The company plans to experiment with robotics and embedded solutions in the near future.

InfoVision’s services are segmented as: » Outsourced Product Development – Bringing an idea to life, with engineering & technology partnership, for customers. » Enterprise App Services – Delivering end-to-end solutions in Salesforce and SAP. » UX Services – Converting an idea to realty through user journeys, interactions, devices, design elements, brand guidelines, user engagements, user transitions and more. » Validation Services – Delivering high quality software solution through various testing activities and processes. » DevOps Services – Consulting on how to prepare for DevOps culture, how to setup the processes, and

how to build a true DevOps teams. » Staffing Services » Digital Marketing and SEO Services – Website development, creating a brand, content management, brand management, social media management and more.

The company serves its customers across different industries including Communication, Healthcare, Investment Banking, Manufacturing, Non-Profit, Product Development, Retail, & Telecom, to name a few.

Building an Exceptional Organization InfoVision Labs’ journey started in the year 2014 as a subsidiary of InfoVision Inc. It all began with a team of 5, from the company’s Managing Director Vinay Barigidad’s home in Pune providing product development services to its first client.

IVL later moved to its first office in Teerth Technospace, Baner and with 3 projects in hand. In the following 4 years till 2018, the company grew to a team size of over 260 with over 22 projects spreading across Oil and Gas, Healthcare, Telecom, Finance, and Manufacturing domains.

This was the time the company realized to bring out an independent entity which was named as IVL. The idea was to rebranding itself to resonate the ideology behind the organization, the ideology of exploring the endless Power of Possibilities.

“When confronted with the question What Next, we know it is time to not just take the road less travelled

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The business demands have changed considerably with disruptive technologies such as Cloud computing, IoT, Big Data Analytics, AI, Deep Learning, ML, Computer Vision, Automation and Robotics. These technologies have presented software engineers with endless power of possibilities to innovate and provide a business solution.

Vinay Barigidad

ivlglobal.com

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but to discover our own route and define our new destination.

And who better to learn from than Nature itself, to guide us through its power of Invisible Innovation. For only when you believe in the Power of Possibilities will Innovation take place,” says Vinay.

IVL has grown leaps and bounds through the digital transformation for its customers, the technologies used, domains it specializes in, and with a stronger team of individuals, who believed in the company and joined hands to support the journey.

IVL’s current employee base is now 850+ working on over 50+ projects from across 6 offices in Pune, Hyderabad, and Chennai. Despite all the challenges and WFH setup due to the Covid-19 lockdown, IVL had a 78% Year-on-Year revenue growth for FY 2019-20 compared to FY 2018-19.

The company also entered into a Partnerships with pCloudy and GenRocket.

An Experienced Technology Leader Vinay is currently serving as Managing Director of IVL, where he is responsible for Operations and Project Deliveries. Vinay holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science Engineering from Karnataka University, India.

He is passionate about exploring new technologies and applying them to solve business problems. In his 28+ years in IT, he has successfully managed a number of large applications for a variety of domains. It is his vision and farsightedness that has made InfoVision Labs one of the fastest-growing startups in India today.

Vinay has helped build a trusted partnership between its clients and delivery teams. With his vast experience in the industry and the breadth of technology understanding, he has been on the forefront when it comes to delivery.

Being an Engineer and having only the delivery experience, he worked hard to learn the ropes of HR, Admin, Finance, Recruitment, Operations, Marketing and Sales. Over the past 5 years, he has built an organization that is taking a shape and slowly maturing into each of the organization function to take the next leap.

During the initial years, he would work to connect the business problems with technology, working with the delivery teams and the clients. The partnerships were built, based on how the teams were able to turn around the delivery and understand the client’s business, from an offshore location.

In order to bring scalability to this model, he worked to bring in the right leaders, who believed in the vision and helped grow the delivery structure of the organization.

Today, Vinay spends a lot of time with delivery, sales, technology, client interactions, and is constantly working on developing an entrepreneurial culture within the organization, which thrives on trust and transparency.

Staying on The Edge with Digital Transformation Software matters now more than ever. The company believes that those organizations that can predict the emerging business trends and meet the changing needs of their customers quickly and accurately can only survive. Users will settle for no less than a Great Software Experience, and that’s exactly IVL does. The company follows the principle of: 1. Transforming organizational culture - Driving individual innovation through a culture of digital transformation.

Ensuring adequate training and greater collaboration among teams through forums where employees can share source codes, ideas, and best practices with colleagues across the globe.

2. Innovative and bespoke solutions - Creating innovative solutions from scratch or customize an existing solution to minimize the go-to-market time.

3. Digital transformation success and ROI analysis - Coaching leaders about the success metrics of digital transformation initiatives. Evaluating position against competitors with an in-depth analysis of the impact of various portfolios, profitability of new launches, and the extent of digitization in business processes.

The software industry has transformed and is changing faster than ever. The monolithic enterprise applications are giving way to microservices application architecture. IVL has witnessed this in few legacy transformation projects, implementing transformations using varied technologies, ranging from (but, not limited to) – Java, Springboot, Spring, Kafka, .Net Core, AWS, Azure, MongoDB, PostgresDB, MySQL, Cassandra, Oracle, SQL Server, React.js, React Native, Angular, Elastic Search, Redis, iOS, Android, Unity, Jenkins, and many more. The SDLC processes have evolved over time and IVL is adapting to the constant change and has built process expertise around Agile Scrum and SAFe Agile, to run and deliver large programs in a globally distributed development model.

Embracing Technology to Meet Customer Demand As a service provider and a technology partner for clients, IVL has been fortunate to be working on some interesting projects and deliveries. These deliveries have helped the company to build capabilities in the emerging technologies.

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The company was not very active initially in the general forums, industry events, and conferences as it focussed entirely on building the capabilities within. As a member of NASSCOM, IVL delivered sessions around digital transformation architectures and also participated in topic discussions. The company has been training and growing skills of its employees, to support the technology demands of the nation and its clients. It has developed capabilities to conduct predictive analytics using big data, and trained engineers who know how to use native cloud capabilities of AWS, Azure, Google Cloud. These engineers are implementing automation for repeatable manual processes using RPA tools and developing solutions using deep learning and neural networks.

The Future Ahead Vinay believes that the business demands have changed considerably with disruptive technologies such as Cloud computing, IoT, Big Data Analytics, AI, Deep Learning, ML, Computer Vision, Automation and Robotics.

These technologies have presented software engineers with endless power of possibilities to innovate and provide a business solution. Disruptive technologies are complex in nature. A sound knowledge of mathematics, statistics,

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physics, science, astro-physics, and more are required to implement an innovative solution. The limited availability of engineering talent with a strong and practical knowledge of Maths & Science, is a passing phase of the industry.

Many of these technologies require a large amount of data to work on, to create a solution. At times, the engineering teams and the enterprises may struggle to generate this large data, required for a perfect solution. In most cases, the impact of these technologies has been positive. Vinay cites the example of how 3D printing is changing the way manufacturers create the prototype before creating the production ready version of the component; henetics & health data is predicting potential health risks for an individual; computer vision & AI being used for monitoring and treating crop health; machine learning, computer vision, AI, Robotics and mechatronics making driverless cars a realty and the list goes on. “This is where IVL is working hard to make a change. We are working on developing the knowledge required to use these disrupting technologies, we are tickling the brains of our engineers with many interesting live projects that they can experiment and learn these technologies along with the Math and Science required for a successful implementation,� Vinay asserts.

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Revamping the Japanese AI Industry Through Value-Centered Solutions

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I DRIVE (Nippon India DRIVE) is a TOKYO based Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) consultancy and Engineering solutions provider helping Japanese businesses achieve their objectives through AI. This company is a Brainchild of Ram Kumar and Masao Kasuya (Former Hitachi Group -Top Management Executive), who envisioned making viable Digital transformation in the Japan Market. From the inception, N I DRIVE has specialized in skills related to leading-edge technologies and methodologies.

N I DRIVE offers Digital technology consulting and services focused on IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics & Cognitive Automation, Hybrid Cloud Enablement, Mobility, and other Emerging Technologies. As its team works across different industry segments, it builds solutions that help customers start the digitalization journey by transforming businesses by adopting new technologies and processes.

RamKumar Sivan Arumugam Founder & CEO N I DRIVE K.K. 42

Reinventing Digital Powered World Since its establishment, N I DRIVE is dedicated & curious to help its clientele unlock the immense digital transformation potential. Industries across all verticals are currently transforming to cater to expectations of true digital end customers who need a whole new approach of services, delivery, and value.

N I DRIVE believes in harnessing the power of existing talents for future market growth by designing, developing, and delivering new digital business models, products, and services. Its mission is to help the customers expand their boundaries, seize new opportunities, add value to business propositions, and pave the way for a better future.

Icon behind the Entrepreneurial Journey RamKumar Sivan Arumugam, the Founder & CEO of N I DRIVE, had started his career in the corporate space in 2001. He has worked for Indian software consulting and product companies for more than six years in India. Later, around 13 Years, he helmed the position of country manager and CEO at a Japanese Holdings company subsidiary in Tokyo. He handled sales and head of engineering operational functions in Japan for most of his career, which gave him valuable insight into the country’s future innovation.

Ram is committed to bringing rapid, exponential, and perpetual innovative changes in digital technology. He is aware that businesses today are facing a key turning point in AI adoption. Hence he makes sure that N I DRIVE focuses on developing unique and practical AI use cases that could deliver simple solutions to complex unresolved challenges.

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As N I DRIVE serves businesses across continents to embrace AI, it also offers passion-driven AI solutions to add tremendous value with its human inclusive approach. Besides, having a team of research-oriented and talented technical engineers with a fresh perspective facilitates its customers’ businesses, products, and services adaptable to the next generation.

N I DRIVE also expertise and service offerings on platforms like AWS, SAP, Salesforce, Open Source software (OSS), and Azure to drive digital transformations.

Success is not only about the wealth we create on our journey, but it is about how much our ideas create value and comfort to our employees, customers, and society.

RamKumar S.

nidrive.jp

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Adopting Technology to Sustain Business N I DRIVE applies AI/IOT based solutions in various real-time industrial problems like Autonomous Driving, ROBOTICS, Industry 4.0 using a variety of sensors and Blockchain with cloud infrastructure.

It contributes to all the three stages of autonomous driving, which is sense, plan and act with the help of the data from sensors like camera, lidar, radar, ultrasonic, and analyze those big data and streamline them to the algorithm pipeline. The team works on the end-to-end pipeline in the autonomous driving area. It also models the algorithms using computer vision, machine learning, Deep learning, and fusion technologies.

The company strives to drive digitization in the manufacturing sector through Industry 4.0, which enables factory automation, increases safety and security standards, and predicts machine failure in advance using predictive analytics algorithms.

In Blockchain, N I DRIVE majorly focuses on Automotive & health care domain, wherein it develops a global platform for storing the health reports digitally.

Speaking about making an impact, Ram says, the major part goes to improving the hardware. In the recent past, the major innovation or breakthrough is in the hardware area, making the AI technology a real-time or a usable one. Otherwise, it would have been in the prototype stage itself.

Another Japanese company has teamed up with N I DRIVE to help organizations of all sizes communicate and collaborate better so one can spend more innovative and productive time working rather than trying to make things work.

The company has collaborated with several global companies on projects like serving Edge to Core AI data pipelines management or creating impactful 3D engineering & construction solutions in AEC and Manufacturing industry, and even with companies that aim to efficiently implement AI/ ML for ecommerce and Educational software platforms.

Owing to the tireless efforts put by N I DRIVE to offer outstanding solutions, the company has significantly strengthened its service value proposition skills for its Japanese customers. Further, it has built a strong interest & demand in the marketplace. Its unique approach for digital era services is underlined by 100% of the customers.

This helped N I DRIVE earn the tag of Top 20 Inspiring Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2020 from APAC Entrepreneur.

Customers to Drive Future Success To drive growth, Ram feels that organizational strategy must be embedded in the actual expectations of the clients who strive for new digital infrastructure and digital ecosystem to build. N I DRIVE is serving a Niche digital market and driven by its loyal patrons’ changing needs.

He shares that the idea is to utilize available talents for future market growth, empowering customers to expand boundaries, design, develop and deliver new digital business models, products, and services, add value to business propositions and pave the way for a better future.

Building Brand Image Through Partnerships N I DRIVE drives innovation through continuous and collaborative learning. The company has MOU signed with some of the top institutions in Japan and India through which it frames effective solutions for the complex real-world problem statements.

It also acquired a partnership with a European company that provides a new approach to BPM by harnessing the power of Low-Code, RPA & AI to automate end-to-end business processes.

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Breaking Industry Barriers and Propelling towards a Digitalized Future

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Sonia Massobrio Co-founder and Director Net4Partners 46

et 4 Partners is a consulting company established in 2012 by C-level professionals with experience in innovation and ICT sectors. Net 4 Partners offers consulting for design and implementation of innovative services toward companies and public administrations, fundraising projects at regional, national and European level. Net 4 Partners develop innovative business models and business processes based on Cloud, Big Data, IoT and Open Data and technology applied in different sectors: Industry 4.0, Health, Environment, Smart Cities and Smart Communities.

Net 4 Partners supports companies in their investment and innovation strategy by using a mix of tools and a multidisciplinary approach. The company assists public administrations in their process of simplification and digitalization with specific expertise and innovative tools. The goal of Net 4 Partners is to win together and take on the challenge of change and improvement.

The company looks for an integrated and personalized approach in each company. . When the company was founded , it supported public administrations and health companies with E-government policy and their digitalization needs to simplify, based on the quintuple innovation helix framework. Net 4 Partners focused on one-stop-shop, smart cities and smart communities and building a new relationship between the private and public sector in the innovation field.

The company has played the role of facilitator and

dissemination agent of innovation with a crossfertilization approach with their clients. Net 4 Partners had been a real digital innovation hub where its services covered end-to-end processes such as business analysis, fundraising, project management, domain consultancy, technology scouting and R&D consultancy for the development of new products/services and processes.

Later, the company moved also to the private sector.

In the beginning, Net 4 Partners focused on companies that were operating and doing business with the public administration in the ICT sector. Then it expanded its service to all companies interested in technology and innovation. Now, Net 4 Partners covers all the spectrum of innovation and digital transformation starting from smart city to Industry 4.0.

Remarkably, Net 4 Partners is a female-friendly, highly educated and young company in the Italian scenario.

There are 84% are women, 100% have a bachelor’s degree, and 46% of workers are under 35 in its team.

A Dynamic Leader Sonia Massobrio, one of the founders is the director of the Net 4 Partners. She brings from her past experiences an ethical approach toward innovation and developed herself as a public sector director. Sonia believes that technology can bring sustainable development to companies and public administrations and the entire society. She thinks that digital transformation is a social value which is based on ecosystems, networking, and sustainability.

Sonia has two master’s degrees in STEM (Maths and

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In the future, we foresee that Net 4 Partners will be a facilitator of change being able to grab the ‘new’ on technologies, processes, business models. It will be able to develop ecosystems of organizations and people to foster digital transformation.

We will be there where innovation begins.

Sonia Massobrio

net4partners.it

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ICT) and has a specialist degree in innovation for the public sector. She worked in innovation and ICT technology in the public administrations and companies the whole time. Sonia has been a coordinator of the Innovation department of (ENCI) the Italian Municipalities National Association and Director of Innovation e -Communication for the Municipality of the Capital of Le Marche Region.

Invaluable Client Feedback Net 4 Partners is an Innovative SME (small medium enterprise). Innovative SME was introduced by Decree Law 3/2015. It comprises any small or medium-sized enterprise characterized by a strong innovation component and registered at the Italian Minister of Economy.

The Net 4 Partners team includes 4 innovation managers certified by Italian Minister of Economy. The team is in compliance with ISO 9001:2015 standard in the design and provision of consultancy services to support the definition of business models and business management in order to support access to public funding and tax incentives, public tenders, project management for public institutions and private companies.

Net 4 Partners believes that the company doesn’t have clients but partners that they listen to and support with flexible and tailor-made solutions. Below are some of the notable feedback received from the clients: “The tradition of the Brandoni brand luxury radiator looks with deep interest at the integration of these technologies with the most advanced IoT intelligence systems in the field of home automation. That is a path of technological innovation and new markets that is necessary and important, in which we’re positioning and engage also counting on the support that Net 4 Partners has given us for the proposal and the financing of an important project of industrialization of the results of the research to be worth of funding from Marche Region”--Luciano Brandoni Senior Vice President B Thermal Solutions S.r.l.

“Evolvea, a company with high growth figures in the IOT universe, is carefully looking at subsidized finance tools and projects financed as a lever to support its investments in research and development and for its penetration of the Industry 4.0 markets.

Net 4 Partners, thanks to which Evolvea was established and financed as Innovative Start up just five years ago, supports us every day in this path of constant growth.” --Emanuele Bolzonaro General Manager Evolvea.

Instilling Right Approach for Innovation Net 4 Partners offers end-to-end services to support the digital transformation needs of its clients using a tailored approach, different for each one. The company uses a holistic approach that the company calls ‘Digital Innovation wheel’ based on three pillars: digital strategy, processes digitalization and skills digitalization.

Net 4 Partners is technology agnostic that uses different technologies such as IoT, Cloud Computing, Big Data and AI to create innovation for the clients. The company also uses a sound digital methodology build over years of work with public and private companies and standard tools and practices as BPMN 2.0 for re-engineering processes, project management, communication and digital strategy as inbound marketing and inbound government and ISO 56002:2019 Innovation management system, ITIL, PMP. Net 4 Partners holds an expertise in cloud process compliance for IAAS, PAAS, SAAS certification at the Agency for Digital Italy (AgID), the technical agency of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers for Public Administration. The company has strong competencies on AI and deep learning dashboards to support public policies and strategic decision, especially in the public sector.

The Relevance of Helping Italian Companies Innovation and digital transformation are Net 4 Partners’ forte. The company helps Italian enterprises in private and public sectors in innovation, research and development in ICT technologies including big data, IoT, Cloud, Robotics, and networking with research centres and universities for investments to support their research and to market them in the best ways.

Net 4 Partners brings expertise and skills to help public organizations to move towards open-source framework in order to build an accessible and open government.

The company is also very active in the intellectual property law in order to foster innovation.

Net 4 Partners supports companies and organizations to innovate by giving them the methodology, tools and practices to compete in the international market. The company is launching a digital transformation academy to help the digitalization of competences and skills in the nation. Net 4 Partners believes that there is a huge need for technical skills in IoT, AI, computer vision to help companies to innovate.

However, the company believes that technical skills should come together with soft skills which will help people to understand and drive the change, approach problems in a

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creative and disruptive way, and be open to new mindsets.

Net 4 Partners takes Tony Buzan’s say, ‘Learning how to learn is life’s most important skill’ seriously.

Fostering Disruptive Technologies to Clients Commenting on disruptive technologies Sonia says digital transformation is made by a mix of technologies and mindsets. Disruptive technologies like Cloud Computing, IoT, Big Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Automation and Robotics will bring the next decade a total reorganization of social and work life. “For this reason, we help companies and public administration to stay at the cutting-edge, driving the innovation forces instead of following. It is a tough task but particularly challenging and we are ready for it,” she adds.

Excelling in Digital Innovation and Significant Partnership Net 4 Partners is a company that supports and fosters digital innovation for its clients following these pillars that make them unique in the Italian scenario: » Ecosystem: Net 4 Partners believes in networking and exchanging experiences and knowledge. For this reason, the company collaborates with big Italian technology companies like Filippetti Group, Research Centres and University (Università La Sapienza, Università Federico II, Università di Bologna), Digital Innovation Hub and Competence Centres, Incubators and Accelerators. » Teamwork: Commitment, correctness, care, and skills are the elements from which the strength of Net 4 Partners team is born. It contributes to giving a precise and strong identity to the company. » Customer-centric: Net 4 Partners has not just customers, but partners that the company listens to and supports with flexible and tailor-made solutions. » Innovation: Net 4 Partners operates with cutting-edge know-how and technologies according to international best practices and in compliance with specific local business realities. » Methodology: Net 4 Partners created a solid digital methodology to support organizations in their road towards digital transformation and innovation. The company believes that only with a sound methodology and the right competencies, technologies can free their potential in transforming society and can create a sustainable future » Passion: Net 4 Partners neither stops nor gets satisfied.

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Driven by a passion for what they do, the company always try to be one step ahead to help customers achieve their goals. » Flexibility: Readiness, adaptation to future trends and needs, change.

An Ambitious Roadmap of Future Technology Sonia believes that technologies and digital competences will be extremely important in the next few years. The company plans to cope with the change by transforming and redesigning the way they do business and relate to each other like companies, administrators, customers, and citizens.

For this reason, a player like Net 4 Partners, a facilitator of change will have a key role in the development and sustainable growth.

“We are also believing that our contribution can be critical in the skill digitalization especially upskilling and reskilling the workers that need to face the change of technology to take part of the future,” she asserts.

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Expediting Businesses Process Efficiency with AI-Driven Solutions

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apid Acceleration Partners (RPA), founded in 2017, provides practical IPA solutions for digital business transformation. Aiming to democratize AI, the company has developed platforms which includes: RAPFlow – An AI orchestration platform for building content intelligence solutions rapidly RAPBot – An RPA tool for end-to-end intelligent automation With these products, RAP offers Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) solutions that can be deployed in a few weeks.

RAP was founded with a vision to use AI for practical business problems to drive greater efficiency and ROI. The company started off automating form recognition, email responses, and document recognition evolving to focus on Computer Vision and NLP. About a year into the journey, the company realized that it needed RPA capabilities to drive upstream/downstream automation leveraging the power of AI for scalability. This need gave the birth of RAPFlow and RAPBot.

Raghuraman Ramamurthy CEO Rapid Automation 52

An Eccentric Leadership Ushering AI Innovation RAP was co-founded by Raghuraman Ramamurthy, Baskar Agneeswaran and Ramesh Kumar. All the three founders are non-technocrats with a strong business understanding. With a combined industry experience of over 60 years, they have a deep understanding of business problems and have developed technology to solve those problems.

As CEO of RAP, Raghuraman primarily drives operations and spends significant time on customer/solution interactions to constantly drive product innovation.

He has a broad cross-industry experience in global markets and drives the product vision, solution and market outreach and partnerships to offer significant differentiation and value to customers.

Raghuraman also has a deep understanding of the latest AI advancements. He mentors the AI research team to adopt cutting-edge developments and improve offerings.

Streamlining Operational Efficiency with AI and RPA RAP’s proprietary platforms RAPFlow and RAPBot can be used in tandem to offer Intelligent Automation.

RAPFlow’s innovations allow automated data extraction from unstructured content such as documents, forms, digital data, etc., solving a major automation hurdle.

The company has also built models which are pretrained for a range of applications that can be easily adopted and quickly deployed with minimal data.

With RAPBot, RAP has developed an extremely lightweight, platform-agnostic RPA that brings down Total Cost of Automation (TCA) by more than 50%.

As native platforms, they can be easily combined to surmount some very complex automation problems.

Delivering Intelligent RPA for Digital Business Transformation RAP’s innovations in RAPFlow and RAPBot combine the power of Computer Vision, NLP, proprietary Deep

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Learning models and rule-based engines to mimic humans, giving the solutions cognitive capabilities. This empowers organizations of any size to innovate new business models and leapfrog exponentially in their digital transformation journey.

RAP is on the mission to democratize AI by reducing the high costs of developing solutions. The company offers almost the same power as an enterprise RPA tool at a significantly lesser CAPEX, along with the flexibility to build and deliver tailor-made business solutions by combining its products’ capabilities and business process acumen.

Bot-as-a-Service is the way of the future thanks to the convergence of AI, RPA and the cloud. With cutting-edge AI and RPA that are platform agnostic, RAP opens the door to the hyperautomation future providing instant, massive ROI. Raghuraman Ramamurthy

rapidautomation.ai

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Cutting-Edge Technologies to Drive Innovation Raghuraman stresses that it is critical for enterprises to take the next step and brainstorm how to leverage disruptive technologies while considering a variety of factors. RAP has worked with clients at a strategic level to embrace AIpowered automation and saw this concept do wonders for its customers, enabling it to re-imagine its processes and customers’ needs.

Further, he says that today’s buzzword is Hyperautomation and Gartner predicts that 40% of IO teams will use AIaugmented automation by 2023. As the industrial revolution has started taking shape, this will be the most disruptive technological change impacting every single industry with far-reaching consequences – reducing operational costs by 30-50% and enabling over 50% capacity increase. For instance, one of RAP’s customers needed to process a backlog of 5 million documents in a few weeks. The company was able to successfully clear the backlog in just a few days.

This type of scalability would be virtually impossible with any other technology.

“RAP has successfully replicated similar successes across a wide range of industries ranging from BFSI, Automotive, Manufacturing, Hospitality, Shared Services, Healthcare and others,” Raghuraman said.

pressing problems around efficiency and scale, resulting in improved top/bottom line.

Gaining a Competitive Edge RAP has consistently landed customers that were unsuccessful in their earlier automation efforts. Notably, the company has been chosen by the customers over the industry Big 3.

RAP’s clients work with the company not just for its technical proficiency, but for the “fulfillment” of their business problems.

As there is a wide gap between available technology and its consumption, RAP has been able to bridge it.

Defining the Future of AI and RPA With heavy consolidation and companies like Microsoft and IBM acquiring RPA products, RAP is going to witness some interesting shifts in RPA and AI being combined into one offering. There are very few players in the market that have both native AI and RPA components rolled into one package and RAP is one of them. With a lot of noise around enterprise automation, the company sees that a lot of these offerings will start converging in that direction.

Although leaders in the automation space occupy large mindshare, RAP sees a gap between the hype and actual adoption and usage. According to Raghuraman, while RPA and hyperautomation have become industry buzzwords, various industry studies show that 85-90% of customers who are licensed to such solutions have implemented less than five robots. This shows a huge disconnection between the vision and the actual implementation of IPA. It depicts the big gap in the industry that is typically due to the high cost of entry, lack of coherent implementation ecosystem, inappropriate use of technology, and more. RAP’s mission is to tackle exactly these problems and offer a differentiated product that will allow organizations to truly hyperautomate their processes and transform their business.

Harnessing AI to Propel Innovation Changes RAP’s platforms are built to solve common AI adoption problems, such as lack of quality AI talent, low/no data availability, and the fact that most AI projects run like research projects with no predictable outcomes. While most players provide discrete offerings, the company is at the helm of blending Product Engineering and Business Solutions that enable hyperautomation. This unique blend positions RAP as a true partner for its clients on their entire AI/ Digital Transformation Journey, right from road mapping till implementation. This empowers them to solve some of their

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Why are Women in Tech Acclaimed not to be Strategic?

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ast month, Francoise Brougher, former Pinterest COO wrote about “rampant discrimination, hostile ecosystem, and misogyny” at the company she led for two years. It got attention of many women in tech. Brougher was fired in April when she spoke out about gender discrimination at the male-dominated social media giant. However, she has filed suit against it.

Brougher said, “Pinterest’s female executives, even at the highest levels, are marginalised, excluded, and silenced.” Even though operationally excellent, women are often seen as lacking the capability to be strategic, lead their function, and influence the broader business beyond their role. Such perception is made clear to women when it’s too late, or they have passed over for a promotion. It’s a primary reason why women are not getting ahead in tech, and I call it “She is not strategic” (SNS) syndrome, said Brougher.

There are two ways to prevent SNS: leaders (men and women) identifying if they are not giving promising women a fair opportunity, and women in the SNS trap navigating it.

What does it mean by “She is not strategic”?

Both women and men in leadership are likely to unfair judging a woman’s potential to have a massive impact. Tech companies are often prone to structural biases that refrain women from getting ahead.

Even if a talented woman is highly valued and well-deserving for her operational excellence, she gets passed over, getting a question raised if “she is strategic”. As this woman never gets the promotion at her current role, she gets stigmatised when she applies to another company. When the new company notices that she was never promoted to leadership, she gets a lateral offer. They say, “We will put you on a leadership path.”

How do leaders spot SNS? Has she been able to recruit and sustain a high-performance team? There’s a lot to be revealed about someone who can sell the company and recruit strong performers successfully. It requires nothing but inspiring people with strong verbal communication and the ability to share the company’s vision.

People don’t continue working if the manager doesn’t inspire them. If she can successfully do this, she has potential to build a team.

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Has she presented new ideas to the table that impacted business positively? Leaders are not concerned about problems and do not complain. Instead, they come up with practical solutions. If this individual came across a problem and suggested a solution that was good enough to be implemented, and it made a positive change, re-think about her potential. If her contribution is not apparent, ask her.

Perhaps she came up with something, but the manager stole the credit.

Does she understand all functions of the business? Ensure that she understands all the functions such as attract, sell, serve, and retain customers. Whilst executing, women and men often become so tunnel-versioned on the function that they forget to choose their heads up and how it impacts other functions. This can sometimes result in short-sighted behaviour. For example, although a woman has a lead goal and celebrates reaching it, unfortunately, the sales team missed its number.

How can Women Navigate through SNS? Here are some ways to get through SNS: You need to ensure that your strategic contributions are clear. If you create a solution to a problem and nobody knows about it, you’re supposed to solve this problem. Your contribution needs to be clear to everybody or else it doesn’t exist.

You have to contribute to the overall health of the business. Executives focus on building the business as they are concerned about people, growth and retention strategy, and financial health. If you’re not contributing ideas up front yet, start now. You should be open to contribute to everything, including new recruitment strategy, customer success, finding ways to make money for the company.

You are expected to learn the difference between management and leadership. Proving yourself as a manager is more important than becoming a leader. However, being a good manager doesn’t qualify you to become a strong leader.

We, at some point in career, deal with difficult team members that are tough to motivate and manage. At worst they seek to undermine you, and at best they continuously challenge you. Leaders should be capable of dealing with such team members, either cutting them off or inspiring them to do their best work.

You have to make yourself visible to all. If you want to move up, better start making yourself visible. You need champions who are higher than you if you are focused on building your visibility upwards. There are several ways to do this by always participating in company-sponsored activities, spotting problems and suggesting solutions, and asking smart questions in front of a large audience.

These are effective ways to increase your visibility and positive impressions. People will remember that you have spoken up, participated, and contributed.

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Driving Agile Digital Transformation with Advanced Automation Solutions

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Vijay Thomas Founder & CEO Tangentia 60

angentia provides a unique value-based “Global Boutique” delivery model, unsurpassed in the business, providing customers with high-end bespoke solutions.

The company has been on the Growth 500 list of fastestgrowing companies in Canada for six years in a row.

Headquartered in Toronto, Canada and with over 16 years of operations, Tangentia is an Agile Digital Transformation company that provides technology solutions around three main areas: 1. Automation- Includes Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Blockchain.

2. Business to Business (B2B) - Includes Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Ecommerce. This is Tangentia’s legacy business with around 15+ years of experience.

3. Digital – Includes Agile Application Development, Mobile, Security, Cloud and CX solutions.

Tangentia started in 2003 from very modest beginnings, in their founders’ living room in a 1 bedroom condominium in the Bayview & Sheppard area in Toronto, Canada. The company began its journey as a system implementer of IBM Websphere software in the supply chain & ecommerce domain.

In 2004, its office was moved to Yonge Street. Six years later, Tangentia America LLC was registered in Delaware, USA. In 2013, the company made to the Profit 500 list of fastestgrowing companies in Canada and remained on the list for six consecutive years. Tangentia started its annual Jigyasa Quiz 2017 in Goa, India which was a huge success. The Quiz witnessed top 200 corporate teams from India participating in 2020. This year during the Covid-19 pandemic, Tangentia has been pushing hard and signed its 12th Fortune 500 customer.

The company’s American entity, Tangentia America LLC, is now an Inc. 5000 company, being among the fastest-growing 5000 companies in the USA. Tangentia India Technologies, the India arm of Tangentia based in Goa, won the IT company of the year award from the Business Goa magazine. This truly showcases the “Think Global, Act Local” strategy of Tangentia.

Tangentia has been recognized by ‘Automation Anywhere’ as a key strategic partner and has been awarded the “Excellence in Business Process Automation- India” as part of their prestigious

IMEA awards. Moreover, the company has received numerous excellence awards from other partners and customers globally over the past 16 years.

Tangentia’s vision statement is “We imagine a prosperous world, seamlessly interconnected and efficiently run by optimal use of technology and human resources sourced globally.”

Leadership with Unparalleled Expertise Vijay Thomas is the Founder and CEO of Tangentia. Through hard work and perseverance, Vijay built Tangentia into a powerhouse of digital transformation. Along the journey, he was joined by many curious and dedicated people worldwide, and today Tangentia has 150+ employees in 3 countries and 1000+ customers.

Vijay holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Karnataka University and an MBA from the Goa Institute of Management. He is a distinguished speaker at various Digital Transformation, AI, RPA, ECommerce, and Supply Chain conferences worldwide. He is also a startup enthusiast and dabbles in angel investing through his company Tangentia Ventures.

Driving Innovation in Industry Niche Tangentia empowers companies of all sizes with the latest technologies like AI, RPA, ML, EDI, E-invoicing, and order management systems. It follows industry’s best practices and agile methodologies to deliver the projects. While the company calls Toronto, Canada as its home, it has associates and an entire ecosystem of partners operating globally. Tangentia’s teams are located in 5 continents and 30+ countries, adopting a “Think global, act local” approach to the solutions provided.

India AI Industry: Growing with Global Positioning Vijay says that the Artificial Intelligence market has started to evolve and will rapidly grow in India with the data science space evolving into an innovative enterprise segment.

Advanced engineering, healthcare, semiconductor firms are now developing next-generation AI capabilities in India and providing top-notch AI services across various geographies.

There are around 110+ CoEs in India, focusing on IoT, AI &

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Tangentia sees a workplace of the future, with humans and bots working alongside each other. We want to be the leader in the business of building and managing bots for enterprises of all sizes.

Vijay Thomas

tangentia.com

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cognitive, mobility, data science, etc. Tangentia has been an active part of it with an AI and RPA CoE in Tangentia’s office in Goa, India.

Vijay belives the demand is rapidly increasing for emerging technologies such as Big Data Analytics, AI/ML, Cybersecurity, IoT, and Robotics. Hence, Tangentia commits itself to position India as the talent hub for these new emerging technologies.

To achieve that, it needs to build a talent pipeline for the future and enable the existing workforce to get re-skilled.

Most companies today generate and use huge amounts of data. Therefore, Big Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence will have the propensity to impact many sectors. Tangentia is working to be at the forefront of creating the ‘India AI model’ that will be very specific and understands the nuances of the Indian business environment.

Tangentia has collaborated with students from IITs and leading business schools including Goa Institute of Management, Welingkar Institute of Management and Goa University. Tangentia Academy facilitates labs where industry, technology professionals, and academia can come together to develop proof of concepts, run pilots for projects in multiple technologies including AI, RPA, EDI, Cloud, and Security. In addition, Vijay says, Tangentia Academy can help build Centers of Excellence around a particular technology with its industryleading experts’ guidance.

Tech Revolution to Fuel Growth Vijay feels the current tech-driven revolution will force many companies to change their operating paradigm, from being manpower-intensive to being technology-centric. From people following processes and supported by technology, to technology following processes and supervised by people, people’s role in organizations and the jobs that they do will evolve from “doing” to “thinking.” Disruptive technologies will certainly boost innovation within the industry– new ways of working, innovative technologies in agriculture and manufacturing can boost the economy, ensuring innovative methods of decision-making, a better quality of life, and much more.

Broadening Horizons with Key Partnerships Tangentia has a unique approach that aligns with the ideology of “Think global, act local.” The team places technology in the market in a way that everyone can benefit from it. This approach to product placement, cloud adoption, and productas-a-service for everyone plays a signficiant role in making the company innovative. Some of the company’s key partnerships include its 16 year old collaboration with IBM, one of the

preferred partners of Automation Anywhere, involvement with the Tiger team of Automation Anywhere for Portfolio accounts and Gold Partnership with UiPath.

Gaining Industry Recognition Tangentia has been recognized as one of Canada’s fastestgrowing companies from 2013-2018. It has also been recognized as one of the Top 20 RPA Service Providers-2019 by CIO Review magazine.

Tangentia’s EDI is SOC2 certified to ensure customer data security. Further, it is one of the Top 10 EDI providers in the world as per Logistics Tech Outlook Magazine.

Meanwhile, Tangentia America has been recently recognized as an Inc. 5000 company, i.e., among the fastest-growing companies in the USA Tangentia also received Excellence Award from Whirlpool for the implementation of a Global Sales Forecasting Application.

Moreover, it has been conferred as a prestigious partner for “Excellence in Business Process Automation” by Automation Anywhere.

Here is one of the significant client feedbacks received by the company demonstraring its business excellence: There’s no better time than now to adopt Cloud. It’s been a seamless experience for us at Indus Motors, right from awareness to visualizing the end state of our transformed business. We were particularly keen on a few aspects while selecting our automation partner – short lead time for adoption, ease of use, scalability, and repeatability across processes. We found an effortless match when we evaluated Automation Anywhere through Tangentia, our technology partner. We are excited about the future of our business with automation and are proud to be the first A2019 customer for Automation Anywhere in India. - Afdhel Abdul Wahab, CEO Indus Motors. India’s largest car dealership.

AI and RPA to Power Future Economy AI and RPA are reshaping the global economy. According to a PwC report, AI will boost the global GDP by 14% in 2030. In India alone, AI could add up to the US$957 billion to the economy by 2035. Vijay is optimistic that Tangentia will continue to be on its growth tragectory and invest in RPA and AI technologies.

He asserts that from farming to finance, and transportation to telecom, AI has revolutionized every possible sector and industry; Tangentia would tap into such opportunities and not limit itself only to solutions and services, but also would invest in training and building proprietary AI and RPA solutions and capabilities within the organization.

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Reaching Digital Dexterity

by Closing the Gap

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Danny Burlage Founder & CEO Wortell 64

echnology continuously develops. This continuous development has been accelerating for decades now. Technology advancement brings people endless possibilities. However with every advancement a gap arises between these technological capabilities and the level in which organizations and people are able to use new technological advancements. This gap has been growing since the eighties.

Wortell is a company based in Amsterdam, Netherland, which strives to empower people through technology.

It was founded in 1997, and since then, the company has been working hard to close the gap between technological advancement and the technical capabilities people and organizations use.

Wortell empowers people with technical capabilities and skills to be successful in their jobs. For instance, by transforming organizations in Remote Everything workplaces, enabling the business to use the latest and most remarkable technologies in the cloud. And, by supporting CIO’s with their internal organizational change.

When working with the customers, Wortell constantly aims to make clear choices about the technology these organizations should deploy. The company is aware that just turning on technology will never help it in achieving its goal. Nor will it help organizations reach their end goals. This is why Wortell always seeks to balance deploying technology and to make sure people use and understand the vast array of capabilities.

Creating a Roadmap to Excellence Wortell’s mission is to empower people. Every day, the company works hard to make sure the people who work for its customers can get the most out of themselves. It is enabling people to be the best in their job with the support of technology.

Successful organizations are the ones with digital dexterity. The term digital dexterity was introduced

by Gartner recently but has always been at the core of Wortell’s mission. Digital dexterity is the ability and ambition to use technology for better business outcomes. In short, digital dexterity is about building a tech-friendly business culture. It’s not a technical concept as much as it is a cultural one.

Danny Burlage, the Founder, and CEO of the organization, actively promotes the organization’s mission and vision. In order to check the companies’ alignment with its customers, he works one day per month for one of its customers as an intern. One day a CEO, the next day a healthcare worker, teacher, constructor and every other possible job you can imagine. During these days, Danny learns from the people Wortell serves.

“These intern days are really valuable”, Danny says.

“By being part of the day to day work process of a customer, you learn what people really need, how they can get the most out of themselves. These days are real eyeopeners. Wortell always has been a company with the motto Fail Fast, Learn Faster. These days are all about learning.”

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It will be Wortell continuous mission to help its customers with the ability and ambition to use technology for better business outcomes.

Danny Burlage

wortell.nl

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At Wortell, the team works with customers and their employees to make sure they continuously seek how they can employ technology to reach better business outcomes. Then the company aims to work with employees so they can adopt these new technologies.

During the entire process, Wortell works with its customers’ CIOs to introduce a foundational layer. This foundational layer of technology consists of SaaS offering ‘WORK’, enabling employees with the best possible digital workplace.

WORK is built upon Microsoft 365 and can be deployed by organizations really fast. After an organization lays the foundation through WORK, the traditional data centers and applications are migrated into the Microsoft cloud.

The company has standardized this process with its CLOUD offering. With its SECURE offering, Wortell makes sure this is wholly done safely. Working with other people in the organization, the company has introduced its offering MEET, which accelerates the usage of Microsoft Teams. For offices, it has created a managed meeting room offering build on top of Microsoft Teams. With the SMART business unit, Wortell introduces intelligence to the digital workplace.

Driving Innovation with Tech Experimentation Danny says that one of the critical strategic approaches to building and deliver services to customers is including and powering them with machine learning. For instance, detecting unknown and unseen attacks by calculating anomalies and finding patterns. These machine learning models are then open-sourced, as part of Wortell’s pledge to give back to the Microsoft community, and available to anyone to use in their context.

Wortell uses a broad portfolio of Microsoft technology to drive Digital Transformation for its customers. Key pillars are Microsoft Azure for cloud services, Microsoft 365 for workplace and productivity, and Defender for securing clients.

He further states that cloud computing is changing today’s business models more than ever – every company is becoming a digital company, accelerated by the recent COVID19 pandemic. Farmers become smart farmers, saving water usage, and building better crop. Schools are becoming smart schools with a combination of hybrid learning to support children at home. And every retailer is adopting a shape or form of artificial intelligence to support and attract more customers.

Netherlands twice in a row; it was also awarded by Giarte organization with the most superfans amongst its customers last year. Wortell has also been elected best Dutch Microsoft Partner and best Worldwide Microsoft Cloud partner, both twice.

In 2017 and 2018, Wortell was named Microsoft Healthcare Digital Transformer and was also selected as a finalist for the 2017 Messaging Award. The company is also recognized as Winner Partner Seller for the 2016 Winner Application Development Award for the same year. It was also a 2016 Finalist for Windows and Devices Deployment Award. Further, adding its impressive list of awards and recognition Wortell has also been featured as the 2016 Finalist Public Sector: Microsoft CityNext Award.

A Strategic Framework for Growth Wortell is unique as a Microsoft partner because it delivers a full-service portfolio to support companies as they turn digital. By placing workers at the core of its approach, Wortell empowers people to use the technology to do their work best. Moreover, by having multiple as-a-service products available, customers can get quickly going with their digital transformation, with a clear path to success.

As companies turn digital, Danny asserts that Wortell is positioned to outsource more and more of core workloads for customers, allowing them to focus more on the value add and business-relevant scenarios and build partnerships together to enable companies to be successful in the next era.

Notable Awards and Recognitions Wortell has been chosen the Best Employer for The

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