Driving change – executing tomorrow’s digital agenda
Key members of the C-suite – chief technology officers, chief innovation officers or digital officers – are now similar to the alchemists of the past, transforming businesses through the use of artificial intelligence, data, Internet of Things and blockchain.
So said K. Ananth Krishnan, Executive Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Tata Consultancy Services. Opening the first panel session of the TCS Europe Summit he declared: “We do live in exciting times.”
Krishnan said that over the last 15 years he had witnessed the dramatic growth of ecosystems for innovation “in leaps and bounds”.
Chris Webster, Senior Vice President IT Strategy & Architecture at grocery retailer Ahold Delhaize said that creating a Business 4.0™ ecosystem was no longer a nice to have, but also essential to the survival of his enterprise.
The need for partners
Faced with digital native companies like Amazon moving into its market, Ahold Delhaize had to accept the need to change and use new technologies to deliver a truly personalized digital service to customers.
“As an organization, we simply cannot invest all we need to in order to adopt all of those technologies. We don’t have access to Amazon’s $25 billion per annum budget, so we have to work with partners,” he said.
Emphasizing the need to choose innovative partners, Webster described how his company worked with a partner who developed interactive shelf-edge labels which give customers an experience tailored to their needs as they shop.