Are you tech-savvy? Business leaders need to be able to use it in varied applications Current and emerging digital technology has created a paradigm shift in improving productivity, reducing cost, improving quality and in innovation of new products. This technology is increasingly being sourced from the ‘Cloud’, transforming the business world by deploying relevant and emerging dig- ital hardware and software to the products and services that a company offers. Business strategy is being increasingly leveraged by ‘Tech-Savvy’ skills to be competitive and successful.

1. March 17-30, 2014
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2. u 74 u
March 17-30, 2014
Business India u the maga zine of the cor por ate wor ldColumn
Are you tech-savvy?
Business leaders need to be able to use it in varied applications
C
urrent and emerging digital technology
has created a paradigm shift in improv-
ing productivity, reducing cost, improv-
ing quality and in innovation of new products.
This technology is increasingly being sourced
from the ‘Cloud’, transforming the business
world by deploying relevant and emerging dig-
ital hardware and software to the products and
services that a company offers. Business strategy
is being increasingly leveraged by ‘Tech-Savvy’
skills to be competitive and successful.
The likes of Infosys and tcs focussed on pro-
viding it services in the past are no longer in the
leading edge of technology. A new generation of
large and small ‘tech savvy’ organisations is mak-
ing the headlines today. An example is rivokids,
started by two tech-savvy Indian moms in the
US. On the world stage, Google stands out for
successfully demonstrating how business strat-
egy leveraged by technology can create a $50 bil-
lion corporation in the short span of 10 years.
Technology-based innovations of Google are
numerous that have revolutionised ‘search’.
Indian corporations have no option but to
globalise to survive and succeed, given the
onslaught of globalised companies on the home
turf from all over the world and notably from the
US, China, Japan and South Korea. In previous
columns, we had reviewed two of the six com-
petencies needed for creating a successful and
integrated globalised company – ‘global mind-
set’ and ‘towards cross cultural competency’.
The others are tech savvy, partnering skills,
collaborative leadership and connectivity.
What is tech-savvy in the context of being a
successful leader of a globalised company? Con-
sider some of the leading companies that have
leveraged technology to achieve a pre-emi-
nent status in the globalised world. Apple, ibm,
ge, Toyota and Facebook are good examples.
Steve Jobs, founder and ceo of Apple, stretched
existing and emerging technologies leading to
innovative products that brought about a mon-
umental change in consumer behaviour. The
iPod, iPhone and iPad were game changers. No
wonder Apple is the largest globally capitalised
company, though now facing stiff competition
from competitors.
Lou Gerstner is credited for macro level
change in ibm from being a manufacturer of
large frame computers to becoming a solu-
tions provider by recognising then emerging
technologies. Wall Street had written off ibm,
when the company emerged as a global leader
illustrating how business can be transformed by
linking strategy with technology. This strategy
has gathered steam and the stated vision of ibm
is to build a ‘Smarter Planet’ by basing decisions
on data and analytics located in the ‘Cloud’ and
not instinct, interconnecting a social world and
conducting business not in the office but where
the customers are.
Pedrix, a software program for the industria-
lised Internet from ge optimises operations and
assets by combining technologies. The program
is site-based or in the ‘Cloud’. ge has stated it
as a platform for enabling industrial scale ana-
lytics and operations, by providing a standard
way for gaining new efficiency and improving
productivity, quality and reducing manufac-
turing costs by online collaboration of humans
and machines. ge is now using software for jet
engine manufacture and performance that self
corrects without human intervention.
Toyota innovated by leveraging technology
to create the first commercially successful
hybrid vehicle, Prius, years ahead of competi-
tion. In 2011, the company was in a major cri-
sis scenario emanating from quality and styling
issues. In the last about four years, the company
has rebounded as a front runner in quality and
styling of new cars leveraged by increasing r&d
expenditure with greater allocation to digitalisa-
tion tools. It is slated to be the first among peers
to launch the fuel cell car soon.
Facebook transformed social networking
worldwide within a few years and has soaring
advertising dollars promoting brand names like
never before. It is reported that India has the
second largest Facebook users, second only to
the US.
Consider how digital technology is bring-
ing about a paradigm change in products and
services. Innovation is a key beneficiary of the
new enabling technologies across a spectrum
of industries from it to healthcare. Mining of
enormous amount of data, applicable business
intelligence software and cloud based tech-
nology is the enabler for determining business
strategy choices.
Digital simulation for development of
new drugs by pharmaceutical companies is
reducing cost and time cycles. More efficient
Dinesh Chandra
(co-founder),
Vibhay Sinha (senior
consulting partner),
Avish Dahiya
(co-founder),
dna Global Network
(www. globalnetwork.
com), a management
consulting firm
specialising in
globalisation and
located in San Jose,
CA, USA
D i n e s h C h a n d r a
V i b h a y S i n h a
Av i s h D a h i y a

3. u 75 u
March 17-30, 2014
Business India u the maga zine of the cor por ate wor ld Column
long-term business strategies. Business intelli-
gence and analytics enable monitoring of oper-
ating parameters online and also provide data
to make course changes as may be required for
short- and long-term considerations.
Consider the scenario for Indian business.
Younger organisations and younger leaders have
mostly embraced technology for strategic busi-
ness direction. Some of the established larger cor-
porations have also recognised and implemented
capable in-house it departments and others face
this challenge. The leaders of all organisations
would benefit by making efforts to be tech-savvy.
To do so, will help penetrating and insightful
management of technology and ensure that the
corporation is globally competitive.
Our recommendations are:
u Implement higher share of r&d expenses to
the new and emerging software and hardware
relevant to your products and services.
u Employ senior tech-savvy individuals that
can complement your existing team. Encourage
employees at all levels to use technology in their
respective roles.
u Remember that, while you may be improv-
ing organisational abilities in digital tools, your
competition is also in the race to do likewise and
therefore track and anticipate their moves. u
implementation of large investment projects
by digitisation techniques is adding to the tra-
ditional project management skills. Healthcare
companies are analysing customer data to deter-
mine disease prevention that might lead to lower
insurance costs.
The fundamental is that business leaders need
to be aware of the growing need to be tech-savvy.
Being tech savvy in the widest sense is the abil-
ity and curiosity to use it in varied applications.
This does not necessarily mean that they should
be experts of the latest gadgets. However, they
must be aware of, comprehend and embrace the
potential of the cutting-edge, new and emerg-
ing technologies that can impact current and
future competitive positioning of their busi-
ness. Additionally, across the corporation and at
all levels these technologies must be encouraged
to gain competitive advantage of cost, quality
and innovation.
It helps if the leader is using illustrative items
such as e-mails/instant messaging, group mind,
online banking, social networking sites like
Facebook, audio and video conferencing, Skype,
Linked-in and smartphones with the built-in
and available applicable apps. This will help to
be on a continuous learning curve of the Inter-
net, hardware, software and associated tech-
nologies that can help determine short- and
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