BUILD TECH CAPACITIES: NADELLA
Microsoft chief says his company is preparing businesses for an intelligent cloud world
MUMBAI: Microsoft Corp.’s chief executive Satya Nadella said his company is preparing businesses for an intelligent cloud world where they can build their own digital and technological capabilities without relying on third parties.
Sharing his vision for the future at the Future Decoded summit in Mumbai, Nadella said that businesses can now utilise cloud to offer better learning and re-skilling opportunities.
“We envision an intelligent cloud world that is grounded in technology that helps everyone build their own tech intensity. How can we help business be more independent rather than dependent on us is the key fundamental of Microsoft,” Nadella said.
He highlighted an intelligent edge and cloud model as a core strategy of the company. A similar model was proposed by the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Union budget announcement with a focus on data centre parks as an enabler for digital businesses.
He added that Indian companies have to build their own tech capability. “Whenever I speak to CEOs in other industries, I always say you will never be cool by association. Just because you do a press release with us you are not going to be cool. You have to build your own tech capability and solutions that are inclusive.”
Nadella mentioned how Piramal Glass has been using a Microsoft-powered Internet of Things (IoT) management system across their factories among other successful projects.
At the event, Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO and managing director of Tata Consultancy Services, highlighted how his company is utilizing cloud services as well as Github, an open source software development platform that Microsoft acquired in 2018, to hone expertise across its 446,000strong workforce. “The millennial workforce is immensely talented and we are leveraging cloud to reimagine learning systems as a method to also drive retention,” said Gopinathan. Late last year, TCS announced a Microsoft Business Unit to help train its employees in technologies such as artificial intelligence, automation and cloud.
Last month, Tech Mahindra announced a similar partnership with cloud rival Google Cloud for its own workforce. The talent demand-supply gap in AI and Big Data analytics is expected to grow from 62,000 to 140,000 over the next three years, according to a report by the World Economic Forum.
India’s IT industry has laid off thousands of people in the past 2-3 years as automation and digitisation disrupted jobs. About 20-35% of jobs in the IT-BPM sector are threatened due to automation, according to a Nasscom-Ficci-EY Future of Jobs in India study.
Nadella also focused on cyber security solutions for infrastructure, applications and devices. Cyber attacks are increasingly being targeted at a micro level much like digital marketing operations and have resulted in losses of $1 trillion, noted Nadella.
He said that even these initiatives need digital and technology skills to be available across the board. “If we are to make progress in the next decade then we have to take every domain expert and citizen developer out there with this.”
EXPANDING PARTNERSHIP WITH RELIANCE
Meanwhile, the Redmond, Washington-based technology giant will work with Reliance to leverage its Azure cloud platform for these offerings to address the needs of Indian business, and thereby help power India’s digital economy, he added.
“Microsoft is working with Reliance across the entire stack of technology and it is impressive how the Ambanis have taken a platform approach to use technology to build more technology,” said Nadella.
Nadella also spoke about how Microsoft was looking to empower small businesses in India in their cloud journey with Reliance Jio.
Though the partnership could help accelerate India’s move to a digital economy, analysts said the relationship may prove disruptive for competing businesses. “We may have all missed tracking the scale and significance of this partnership. Reliance and Microsoft together can make a deep sectoral impact,” said Prasanto K. Roy, a technology and policy adviser.
The partnership for a “tech platform for businesses of all sizes” could be as disruptive to the business-to-business space as the e-commerce giants have been to retail in India, he said.
Another analyst said that while both companies will gain from such a partnership, neither should rely too much on the other. “It’s good for Microsoft to have a strategic partner like Jio so that if there are any regulatory changes, the business doesn’t get impacted, an issue that has been sensitive for most technology vendors given the recent spate of changes by the regulators and the government, especially around data localisation,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, founder and CEO of Greyhound Research.
Nandita Mathur contributed to this story.