Shailja.Katyal@timesgroup.com

Aconfluence of great minds fromthe world of technology, the BigSwitch event held in Jodhpur

from August 31 to September 2, sawhead honchos from leading corporatescome together to discuss and sharethe emerging digital trends and waysto harness the technologicalknowledge in a thriving innovationecosystem.

Among the dignitaries present at theconclave were Jaideep S. Mehta, CEO,News Corp VCCircle, Shalil Gupta,Chief Business Officer, News CorpVCCircle, Sumeer Chandra, ManagingDirector, HP Inc. India, Milind Thakre,Product Management - Security, HP,Meenakshi Vajpai, CIO, Vodafone,Nitin Seth, CEO, Incedo Inc., andRajnish Gupta, Senior DirectorEnterprise & SMB Sales, HP Inc. India.

Jaideep S. Mehta, in his welcomeaddress, set the context for theconclave. “As business and technologyleaders the agenda that's facing us ona daily basis has changed dramatically.

There's a need for speed, need forscale, need to address consumers andthe need to understand that marketdisruption can come from anywhere.There's a constant lookout for newcompetitors and an urgent and ever-escalating need for security. You alsoneed to prepare organisations for thenext-generation workforce,” he said.

Speaking about megatrends intechnology, Sumeer Chandra,Managing Director, HP Inc. India, said:“Innovation is a constant and is alwaysgoing to be there and we will have torespond as business leaders. So whatis the new framework or the North Starthat should become the guiding lightfor us? What should we, as decisionmakers, be telling our team? We areentering what we call 'the experienceage'. It is all about the experience thatcompanies enable for their customers.You see that today in all the businessand service models that are emerging.You will see the emergence of newconsumption models, new IT modelsthat will deliver these experiences andtechnology will be fundamental to allof this.”

Futurist, business strategist, publicspeaker and businessman, Prof. AntonMusgrave, who has been leading thedigital transformation movement andhas helped industries across the world,shared his insights on drivers of long-term business success, shiftingbusiness models, and what it takes tostay ahead of the technology curve.

Founders of successful start-upsManish Vij, Co-Founder, Smile Group,and Manish Amin, Co-Founder & CIO,Yatra Online Pvt. Ltd., spoke at lengthabout their entrepreneurial journeyand the power of perseverance whenit comes to building a start-up.

“We are like an incubator of digitalbusinesses. We are incubating eitherfrom scratch or we are incubatingwith global majors. There are about ahundred thousand start-upshappening in the country and thecountry has evolved from services toproducts. At least 20,000 of thesestart-ups are building some fantasticproducts. And they are hunting forlarger companies to do POC (proof ofconcept) because they aretechnology guys, not necessarily

business development guys,” saidManish Vij.

Manish Amin also shared histhoughts on pushing the boundariesto deliver a convenient and enhancedbooking experience for customers.“There are a lot of travel start-ups thatapproach us and we help them grow.We also do hackathons and a lot ofnew ideas come from there,” he said.

Meenakshi Vajpai, CIO, VodafoneIndia Ltd., in her presentation,pointed out how the customers want

products to be tailored according totheir specific needs.

“We have to push the productboundaries. We are stuck with ourproducts but perhaps the customerwants something completelydifferent,” she averred.

Nitin Seth, CEO, Incedo Inc.,emphasised that it is leadership andorganisational structures that arelimiting large enterprises fromrealising the full potential of digitaltechnologies. “We are in an era of

unprecedented velocity of technologydisruption. Over the last couple ofyears, I have had the opportunity ofseeing it from different lenses. Thebottomline is that technologicaladvancement has far overrun theadvancement in our managementand organisational thinking andapproaches,” he reasoned.

Towards the end of the session,Vickram Bedi, Senior Director, HP &Tech Circle Team, launched a coffeetable book titled ‘Big Switch’.

CONSUMER CONNECT INITIATIVE

Driving business advantage with digital disruptionAt the Big Switch event, organised by The Times of India, in association with HP Inc. India, in Jodhpur, tech gurus and thought leaders deliberated on creatinginnovative practices at the workplace to enable a seamless digital transformation

L to R: Manish Amin, Co-founder & CIO, Yatra, and Manish Vij, Co-founder,Smile Group, with Jaideep Mehta (Moderator), CEO, News Corp VCCircle

Nitin Seth, CEO, Incedo Inc

Meenakshi Vajpai, CIO, Vodafone

Sumeer Chandra, MD, HP Inc, India