‘You can either change (your business) or you can die’ – Go digital

New Delhi, March 13 (IANS) The last few years have seen several start-ups disappearing and large enterprises getting disrupted owing to the emergence of new-age technologies and the failure of businesses to achieve digital transformation.

The global disruption, according to a top Amazon Web Services (AWS) executive, has hit Indian enterprises too and the top leadership is now looking to acquire digital prowess to stay in competition.

Be it the 51 million-odd Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs), a thriving start-up community or big enterprises, including governments, building a digital business technology is the core fundamental requirement now, irrespective of size.

“You are going to need to give yourself servers, computer, network, security, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), deep learning, analytics and so on. All of that is going to be part of building a digital business,” Bikram Bedi, Head (India Region) at Amazon Internet Services Pvt Ltd (AISPL), told IANS in a free-wheeling interview here.

AISPL is an Indian subsidiary of the Amazon Group which undertakes the resale and marketing of AWS Cloud services in the country.

“We have over 100 services at AWS — ranging from basic compute, storage, networking and security which is the bottomline of the infrastructure — to AI, ML, automatic speech recognition, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and analytics and within these, we have different kinds of technologies like mobility, security solutions and content distribution solutions,” Bedi said.

According to him, anything which is available in the IT world should be in AWS.

Today, from PolicyBazaar.com to Bajaj Finance, online learning platform Byju’s to Apeejay Education Society and Larsen & Toubro Infotech to Tata Motors, AWS has its presence across industries.

“When you look at that whole spread and then you look at the market that you are looking to address, it is hardware, software and applications. It is an opportunity worth trillions of dollars,” Bedi said.

There is not a single vertical in the country that is not aiming towards digital transformation, says the executive.

“Be it education, agriculture, health tech, healthcare, banking, finance, non-banking finance companies, insurance, manufacturing or logistics, we are seeing it across the board. They know that if they do not innovate and build digital businesses now, they will get disrupted. You can either change or you can die,” Bedi told IANS.

According to Bedi, the adoption of Cloud has been faster in the start-up and Internet space while large enterprises are now moving forward on two basic motions.

“The first motion is what we call building factories of digital innovation and the second is what we call retiring technical debt. This is largely about new applications,” the executive stressed.

The world today is witnessing digital disruption where online startups like Uber and Airbnb have grown into mammoth proportions within a short span of time.

The established enterprises are now moving quickly.

“The brick and mortar guys are also looking to build something like that. So it’s across the board. Technology usage is just going to spike across the board,” Bedi said.

AWS recently became the first global Cloud service provider (CSP) to achieve full empanelment for delivering Public Cloud services to government customers in India.

By using AWS, Quality Council of India (QCI) has already expedited the accreditation process of its various projects.

“We’ve been working with the government on a number of projects. But the certification has obviously added a significant amount of credentials into the AWS offering in terms of being able to work with the government on certain projects and at certain places,” Bedi noted.

“The whole space is really nascent and new territory. Smart cities, education, agriculture, transportation, security around cities, traffic management and so on. There is just so much there that a platform like AWS could do in helping government build around that for citizen and corporate benefits,” the executive added.

In the next three-five years, everything is going to be connected.

“Your phone is going to be connected, laptop is going to be connected, probably your shirt too along with devices, wearables, refrigerators, cars, everything. The success or failure of the business is going to be dependent on how you can look at that humongous data, analyse it and take the right business decision for your customers,” Bedi told IANS.

“We are accelerating into a world where data, technology, analytics, AI and voice/speech recognition is going to be driving how we live. It is going to be a very different world in a few years from now and AWS with its wide array of solutions is ready for the upcoming challenge,” Bedi said.