How are you helping the manufacturing industry, especially SMEs, in digitisation?
Digitization of manufacturing infrastructure has become necessary post pandemic to build resilience in their supply chains and making their distributed workforce more secure and collaborate in more meaningful ways. Application of industrial IoT is the highest among manufacturing sector along with its subsequent connected industries such as transportation and logistics.
As country’s leading digital service provider, Tata Tele Business Services (TTBS) is committed to serve the evolving needs of the manufacturing sector in the country while providing niche tools integrated with advance technologies like IoT, AI and Cloud. We are helping manufacturing firms to gain high-scale automation, easy monitoring, operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness with our smart collaboration and connectivity solutions like Smart VPN, Smartflo – cloud communication suite, cyber security solutions, SD-WAN iFlex. These solutions enable enterprises to maintain business continuity in a flexible, scalable, and secure manner.
What are the possible factors that might be holding back the companies from adopting technology?
Manufacturing sector has always been considered as backbone of the economy and there is a huge demand and scope for digitization. However, most of the small and medium manufacturing businesses are not still efficient enough to adopt advanced technology on account of lack of awareness, capital expenditure, dynamic nature of digital technologies, lack of knowledge of inherent technological capabilities and interoperability with legacy infrastructure.
The sudden switch to hybrid and remote working has catalysed the digital enablement of business environments. Thus, it has given complete swing to business continuity plan by forcing all to set up access for employees at various points i.e., WFH / remote access. Enterprise applications such as CRM, analytics, retail, voice and data, etc. are transitioning rapidly to cloud to build in resilience and enable the workforce to collaborate in a more secure and meaningful manner. Most of the manufacturing facilities have adopted our connectivity and collaboration solutions that help them reduce the operating costs by digitizing production, logistics and distribution.
What are the top factors driving global markets towards Industry 4.0 and how SMEs can capitalise on those benefits?
Indian enterprises have realized the need of Industry 4.0 tools in order to compete in the global environment. Enterprises are now rapidly adopting next gen technologies like AI, IoT, Cloud to automate their business processes, adopt digital technology and become future-ready. These technologies give organizations the ability to develop new business models or undergo digital transformation which offers endless benefits such as optimize cost, improve productivity, become competitive, align business according to market demand, better financial planning & forecasting, Risk analysis and continuous improvement.
IoT especially, is viewed as a key enabler driving digital transformation to unlock operational efficiencies. Artificial Intelligence coupled with ubiquitous connectivity is enabling exponential value being generated by IoT. As machines and objects communicate directly with each other, real value of data is getting generated, enabling automation, predictive analytics and ultimately better and faster decision-making. Cloud computing services and delivery models are being embraced by organizations across the country for their numerous benefits which include better collaboration, higher data availability, flexibility, greater business agility and higher cost savings.
While companies may be aware of the benefits of digital transformation, how should they approach the digital transformation process, migrate to new solution, or use legacy systems?
The fundamental shift brought in by the pandemic has pushed enterprises to reboot their business models. We are seeing a sort of digital re-awakening where businesses have realized that digital is not just good to have but an absolute imperative for survival, growth, and market leadership. Going digital is not as simple as it may seem and for many of our customers, it is a complex journey of which we remain an integral part all along.
We have a progressive approach of partnering with enterprises as a technology enabler/subject matter expert to chart their digital growth strategy. Enterprises need advanced solutions that are scalable, easy to deploy, and are available in an asset/capex light model. We have also been hosting various consultative sessions with the SMEs and our Channel partners, demonstrating how to mitigate post-pandemic challenges by accessing Data, Voice and ICS from various access points without compromising on security, efficiency and productivity.
How can the supply and demand related challenges be addressed with technology? How can companies reinvent supply chain in the post-pandemic world by using technology?
Biggest challenge for supply chain is access to accurate data, transparency, automation, real time surveillance. Most of the manufacturing companies are aggressively adopting AI/ML, Chatbots, voice bots, M2M solutions, or IoT led human tracking, Fleet Tracking, Assets Tracking solutions to have more resilient supply chains to improve their business process and productivity. For manufacturers, this is the right time to become digitally agile, invest in Cloud CRM solutions which come with zero-infrastructure costs and on a subscription model.
As businesses become digitally mature, smart internet and cloud-enabled voice channels will become the backbone of a connected manufacturing enterprise. Wearable computing technologies like AR and VR will help service-heavy industrial enterprises bring efficiency into on-site interactions. Also, IoT based asset management solutions can help in providing real time inventory data; small investments in IoT can come with big incremental benefits for manufacturing companies.
How can telecom service providers address data privacy concerns and cyber threats?
Data privacy and data security is utmost priority for every organization as cyber-attacks like phishing, ransomware etc have become more far more pervasive and sophisticated especially during the pandemic and these can have a profound impact on an organisation’s financials, reputation, and sustainability. To help enterprises improve the security of their remote users and critical data, TTBS has enhanced its Cloud based security solutions which are top rated in Gartner quadrants.
Our cloud security solutions are multi-layer solutions wherein end points can be protected, email can be protected, enables secured web access, next generations firewall to configure security policies and even multi factor authentication can help to authenticate remote users and WFH employees to access customer applications or server. These security solutions are robust, scalable and can be rapidly deployed at an affordable cost.