[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s per a McKinsey report, 60% of all occupations have a 30% component that can be automated. And in addition to that, there are jobs that are only possible with AI and ML because they’re beyond human capabilities. In the last few months when medical research had to be accelerated or algorithms had to be tweaked remotely to carry out banking transactions taking into account new rules, every industry from healthcare to finance relied on automation. Data science platforms can analyze over trillion data points real-time and provide actionable solutions – whether it is related to data management, predictive maintenance for factories, or for building new products.
[box type=”success” align=”” class=”” width=””]Automation in business is inevitable and Covid-19 has only accelerated it across the globe. Industrial robots are making instant decisions and companies like Qualcomm with their robotics platforms like RB3 and RB5 are making it possible. Autonomous cars, augmented reality, virtual reality, drones that can scan large chemical vehicles to spot potential problems – Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Ride and XR platforms can make all that happen. And their work in India is keeping up with the world.[/box]
“The time has come in India, where what we do globally, and the pace at which Qualcomm works with global operators and firms across the world, we are bringing that here. India is at that moment where the desire, the push, the policy, the inclination, the demand from consumers, is all taking us in the right direction. There are examples of technology implementation in India which are probably far better even than Japan,” says Rajen Vagadia,Vice President & President, Qualcomm India & SAARC. The company has its second-largest base in India and has been building it for the last 26 years.
The application of automation solutions has been across sectors and the monetary benefits have been enormous. For example, Netapp’s ONTAP AI, which is run in partnership with NVIDIA, is an integrated architecture that leverages the power of supercomputing, state-of-the-art storage, and CISCO networking to provide a platform that can be used by any industry. One example of its application in the medical industry is the work that has been able to happen in genome sequencing. The first genome project took a decade and cost billions of dollars. Now, with Netapp and NVIDIA’s technology, the same work has been cut down to hours without compromising on security or accuracy.
If one were to compare the level of automation Indian firms have achieved across sectors, India is not far behind advanced economies especially in sectors like finance.
“In order to achieve digital transformation, agenda AI-powered digital disruption is a must. BFSI is far ahead with respect to the digital transformation agenda however other industries are catching up. The second leading industry is healthcare and its use of AI in predictive analysis and diagnosis. The third area we are seeing growth is in making bots AI-powered. This will help them cut costs on customer service but also improve customer experience. Manufacturing and retail sectors are also looking into it,” says Sanjay Rohatgi, Senior VP, and General Manager APAC, NetApp.
In fact during the last few months, many companies have relied on their India centres for seamless operations. Even through the lockdown, they had to provide some services without disruption. For example, insurance firms still had to collect documents from customers. Banks had to accommodate the change made with regard to the new guidelines on moratoriums and execute transactions.
The US for instance announced the Small Business Assistance Program where small businesses were given loans and the banks had to disperse credit according to that. For all this, these companies relied on the cognitive automation products of a firm like Automation Anywhere through which bots were able to execute a large amount of data processing, validations, and transactions. Firms were able to rely on their India centres because 90-95% of the work was automated and the applications could be modified and triggered remotely.
Milan Sheth, Executive Vice President, India Middle-East and Africa, Automation Anywhere says, “ We just finished our half-yearly review and saw that a large number of companies have started using our solutions. Most of them were companies that were on the fence and have started implementing our services in a phased manner. We are seeing an interest in the automation of email, customer complaints, customer queries, and cloud-based bots. What we saw was that the utilisation of our software went through the roof. A company that was at 60% utilisation has touched 95-98% utilisation.”
Even for the auto sector, which even pre-Covid-19 was going through a slump, has not reduced its R&D spends. Manufacturers across the globe continue to invest in autonomous vehicles. Hexagon Manufacturing which relies on the auto sector for a large part of its revenue and serves more than 3000 customers in the ADAS space (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) says the development of autonomous vehicles in India needs to be faster. Overall, for India to develop as a manufacturing hub, automation is essential in all sectors because labour costs can longer be an effective differentiator.
[box type=”success” align=”” class=”” width=””]“Earlier when manufacturing shifted from developed countries to developing countries like China and Vietnam it was for cheap labour. Now labour costs in these countries are also going up. With many of these autonomous factories you can create manufacturing centres in developed countries itself. If I can manufacture parts with lesser people, why should Germany offshore manufacturing to any of these developing countries per say. It is important for us to get into this technology and show that we are competitive not only in terms of reducing costs but also increasing quality and we realised that we need to automate these things,” says Sridhar Dharmarajan, EVP & MD – Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, India and MSC Software Indo-Pacific.[/box]
Another critical element, especially in the post Covid-19 era is connectivity. And when it comes to upgrading legacy networks without a drastic change in hardware infrastructure, automation plays a key role. For telecom or internet connectivity, the capability to reroute traffic without disruption can happen only if you have a complex web of networks so you are able to reroute the traffic without downtime. An investment in adaptive networks will lead to lower outages, fewer complaints, and a better experience.
For Ciena, an IT systems, software, network and strategy company which has a large market share in India, Blueprint, the automation side of their business is key. “ When we refer to intelligent automation we are referring to adapting a state of a network and how the automation suite is to react when there is an unfavorable change in the network without doing the work manually. This will help prevent upto 95% of network outages,” says Rajesh Nambiar, Chairman, and President, Ciena India.
[box type=”success” align=”” class=”” width=””]The National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence highlights that AI is expected to boost India’s annual growth rate by 1.3% by 2035 and India will become the AI garage of the world, exporting social sector products to other emerging markets. The government, the private sector and academia will increasingly adopt automation solutions, with tech companies leading the way.[/box]
