As the saying goes, great men think alike! "The foundation of the fourth industrial revolution is connectivity and data. Data is the new natural resource. We are at the beginning of an era where data is the new oil," Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh D Ambani said at the opening day of the 3-day Nasscom India Leadership Forum (NIFL) in Mumbai on Wednesday (February 15).
"Our large talent base, we will have a competitive advantage in this era," predicted Ambani that India will be a key player in this revolution.
While, Tata Sons chairman designate N. Chandrasekaran while speaking at the following session said, “Now, business is getting embedded in digital, than earlier digital supporting business.” “Fundamentally every business is going to be powered by technology,” added Chandra by saying that the country's IT industry will keep growing despite ongoing issues like H1-B visa adding further that the digital push is important for the country.
Similarly, in the earlier session, Ambani described the protectionist statements by the new US president Donald Trump as "a blessing in disguise" for the Indian IT sector and advised the industry to focus on home market instead.
Further Ambani added, “Now we are at the doorstep of this industry where physical and biological sciences are converging. Aadhaar enabled us to acquire a million customers a day.”
"Treat your investor’s money even more carefully than your own. Do not be disappointed by failure." While the world might want to build walls around, we must not be influenced. Must be focused on our goals, concluded Ambani.
There needs to be changes in the way we work. There needs to be a new way of working, Chandra said. “Digital push in India is very important. We have to bring all the government digital initiatives together. “I believe just economic growth won't do. We need to solve economic problems. I think, digital education and health care has tremendous opportunity in this country,” Chandra said in the following session. Incidentally, both did not get a chance to listen to each other’s session.
This edition of NIFL – the twenty-fifth in the series – is themed on, ‘Digital Inflection Point: Re-imagine not Re-engineer.’ According to the organizers, the intent is to present rich case studies on how global and Indian companies are leveraging these shifts, and how the technology provider’s ecosystem can be a disruptive partner. The outcome will be two-fold: outline a call to action for participants, and leave them with actionable insights.
R. Chandrashekhar, President, Nasscom welcomed the gathering at the inaugural session. C.P. Gurnani, Chairman, Nasscom & CEO and MD, Tech Mahindra and Raman Roy, Vice Chairman, Nasscom & CEO, Quatrro, together distributed the Nasscom Social Innovation Honors where Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman, Nasscom Foundation made the presentation.
The three-day mega event will conclude on 17 February 2017.
BW Reporters
The author is associate editor at BW Businessworld
