Artificial Intelligence to have a big impact on the industry in 2018

Sunil Bhatia, CEO – Infogain in a chat with VARINDIA gives an account of what the company is into and the technologies that 2018 will ring in and the resultant effect it will have in times to come -  

Infogain is an IT solutions and services company, established in 1990 by Kapil Nanda. The company has nearly 4,000 employees and 9 delivery centers globally. Its industry focus includes the native digital companies, traditional high-tech, retail, insurance, healthcare, and travel & hospitality verticals. Its vision is to be an integral partner in its client’s digital journey, helping them achieve their desired business results.

“Infogain acquired Blue Star Infotech in 2016, to expand its digital offerings, help provide a strong foothold in the T&H industry and enhance Infogain’s already-strong expertise in product engineering space. In addition, the combined senior leadership team strengthened our consulting, enabling us to conduct new types of engagement such as our Zinnov-Infogain-led digital transformation workshops,”  says Sunil Bhatia, CEO – Infogain.

He further says, “Infogain is aggressively investing in innovation around intelligent and automation technologies and we will partner with companies to acquire skill-sets in the niche digital technology space.” 

Disruption is common in every business today and enterprises accordingly need to look to ways to keep pace with the changes. 

The first step, according to Sunil is to develop approaches to increase an organization’s ability to sense changes in the marketplace. This can be as simple as setting up Google alerts on key technology trends such as RPA, or joining LinkedIn forums relevant to a specific industry.  

Using the insights gained from the market, companies then need to set up structures for continuous innovation. Finding new ways to reach out and bring value to customers that leverage insights from the market is critical. This will require companies to become more agile and adaptive, innovating new products and services while also re-inventing existing offerings. 

“Partnering with niche players and competitors to build an ecosystem for delivering digital solutions is another extremely valuable approach for keeping pace with changes in the market.  Much of the market disruption we are seeing is coming from startups.These companies are introducing new concepts and often are open to partnering for joint success,” asserts Sunil.

Automation & AI – Trend-setters for 2018… 
Technology is ever evolving. AI and Machine Learning are advancements in technology, bringing in operational efficiency, cost savings, better customer experiences and increasing sales and productivity. The bottom line remains the same – cloud is empowering users to save huge data and computational intelligence is allowing one to solve real world complex problems with the data whether by automating routine tasks or recommendating the right products.  Robotic Process Automation helps fasten the process and bring in precision. Similarly, a bot can provide24x7 assistance to customers, responding to queriers and assisting customers. Predictive Analytics is suggesting impending manintainence of a machine at your manufacturing unit. 

“Automation and Articfial Intelligence will continue to dominate the IT industry and we will continue to see smart cities, smart machines and smart homes. Enterprises will continue to adapt, change and re-invent themselves with changing business models and disruptions,” explains Sunil.

The world is moving towards automation and cornification, and as an organization Infogain’s goal is to help clients stay ahead of the game in their digital transformation journey. “We are partnering with leading technology companies as well as niche players,  in addition to co-innovating with our customers and investing in IPs and frameworks.  We are re-skilling our employees in order to keep them current on innovation and latest learnings. 

We will continue focus on the following in coming years – 
a.    Focusing on Automation and Intelligence
b.    Instill a culture of continuous learning within our staff
c.    Co-Innovation Model
d.    Consulting & Solution-led approach
e.    Build Partnerships,” says Sunil. 

Focus for Infogain in 2018… 
At Infogain, the key areas of focus will be Legacy Modernization and Digital Transformation areas of Knowledge Management, Machine Learning, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Solutions will remain its key areas of investment, while it will try to differinate itself by brining in automation and intelligence in all its offerings. 

“Another strong area of differentiation is Infogain’s deep domain knowledge as well as technology expertise. For example, building up an AI/ ML use case requires not just knowledge of neural nets and algorithms, but also a deep appreciation of the business impact. While most service providers are focusing only on technology, Infogain’s solutions leaders bring in the much needed domain expertise critical for any digital engagement. We listen to customers and their needs and provide expertise to fit their needs instead of trying to sell them what we want – we give them what THEY want and need,” sums up Sunil.