Technological agricultural systems are the need of the hour to boost the growing agricultural sector. There will be a major productivity surge as new digital business models will see increase in adoption like hydroponic system, help grow plants and vegetables faster year-round

Movement of goods by road is achieving considerable impetus in the country since the last three decades. With the growing demand of trucking industry, digitisation is coming in a big way and will play a major role in Gig Economy. Transportation in India has remained the most unorganised among other modes of conveyance

Many people are saying that digital transformation is creating an irreversible change, particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. What is your take on this?

Hardly there is a single aspect of life that has not been affected by the influence of the raging Covid-19 pandemic across the world. Digital transformation has occurred all around us when it impacted every business, reducing economic growth immensely. Traditionally, digital transformation mentioned the use of computer and internet technology for more competent and operational economic value-creation procedure. But, digital transformation is saturating and transmuting our daily life, of late. Furthermore, the developments are irreversible so far. The principal driver of these changes is the core computing technology. The cost of computation has been declining at an accelerating rate.

Do you think that digital experiences will make things unpretentious?

WhatsApp has already announced plans to launch micro insurance and pension products soon. Proactively, WhatsApp has been working on several pilots, help every adult access the simplest serious financial and livelihood services through their mobile device.

Even the agriculture sector is going through digital transformation. At least, the process has started. Do you think that digital agriculture will be on rise?

Technological agricultural systems are the need of the hour to boost the growing agricultural sector. There will be a major productivity surge as new digital business models will see increase in adoption like hydroponic system, help grow plants and vegetables faster year-round. Online banking, precision-planned agriculture, simplified crop insurance, direct to consumer enabled through digital platforms. The agricultural sector seems to be the silver lining that had a growth in January to March quarters, even in the Covid-19 crisis.

Talking about the sector you are in, do you think that 'digital healthcare' will have a positive impact on technology?

Telemedicine, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled medical devices and block chain electronic health records are just a few examples of digital transformation in healthcare.Telemedicine will transform care and may reduce the hospitalisation rate. It will help increase care and life expectancy. Being a new trend, caregiving will happen remotely as more family members migrate to cities from village and will have access to evidence based care. Keeping up with digital transformation in healthcare brings in an overwhelming feel.

These days, people are talking about Gig Economy. It is believed that digital transportation will play a major role in Gig Economy. What is your take on this?

Movement of goods by road is achieving considerable impetus in the country since the last three decades. With the growing demand of trucking industry, digitisation is coming in a big way and will play a major role in Gig Economy. Transportation in India has remained the most unorganised among other modes of conveyance. Digitisation here might act as a bliss!

Digital innovations will eventually bring down the digital cost and increase usage. Won't it?

Both private and public sector programmes may lay solid foundation for digital innovations. Meanwhile, increase in initiatives will create healthy competition which ultimately may bring down digital cost and increase usage. As an instance, tailors can get precise measurements without gauging customers physically and can ship custom made cloths from anywhere. Specifically, the government can build the digital infrastructure based on the requirements of the public sector. It increases its innovation outputs, while improving public services, creating noticeable competences and succeeding fiscal funds.

Could you point out some of the key trends with regard to digital transformation?

The digital-ready culture. Organisations are keen to introduce digital-ready culture nowadays. It's common and mutually strengthening set of practices, help facilitate high performance to meet rising customer demands and build new revenue channels in a digitally enabled business environment. Democratization of innovation. Line of business users are trying to develop digital customer experiences faster. IT needs to drive cultural change by empowering the business to self-serve and deliver solutions quicker. Composable enterprise. Hyper-specialisation has created a groundswell of applications, leading organisations to shift to a composable enterprise to become more agileAutomation. Organizations are using automation to drive operational efficiency and improve business processes.

API security. The average enterprise has 900 applications. The proliferation of new end points creates new avenues for intrusion, requiring robust API security.

Micro services. Organisations are turning to micro services to rapidly build new customer experiences. Companies deploying micro services to production will require some form of service mesh capabilities to scale.

The data divide. To keep pace with evolving customer expectations, organisations are looking for faster ways to unlock data and gain insights. 2021 will be the year that data separates organizations from their competitors and customers the ability to unlock, analyse and act on data will become foundational to growth.

Data analytics. Organisations are investing in data analytics to transform customer experiences. The value of data analytics will be dependent on the data they are fed.