Digitise and reskill to stay afloat, says Jayesh Ranjan
He was speaking at the launch of a virtual exhibition of products and services of members of industry body Confederation of Women Entrepreneurs
Hyderabad: As businesses continue to be under the Covid haze, it is imperative for the businesses to embark on digitalization of their operations, consider moving to a new product, service or markets if required and focus on reskilling the workforce, said IT and Industries Principal Secretary Jayesh Ranjan.
He was speaking at the launch of a virtual exhibition of products and services of members of industry body Confederation of Women Entrepreneurs. The promotional event has 50 vendors showcasing textiles, cosmetics, jewellery, organic food products. This supports those who are unable to market or promote their products due to the pandemic and will be on till January 15.
Ranjan lauded the efforts of COWE in keeping the spirit of entrepreneurship alive and also protecting livelihoods. Several business segments have been hit in the past eight months and the economic recovery will not be simple even as experts suggest it to be a `V’ or a `W’ shaped recovery. The Government is open to work with the industries in setting skill training centres as per the industry needs, the official said adding that the enterprises should be open to new prodcuts, services and markets as well to survive.
P Udayakumar, Director of Planning and Marketing for the National Small Industries Corporation, said the Government has set up a Rs 10,000 crore fund of fund to aid MSMEs. The target group of FoF funding, through the Daughter Funds, will be those MSMEs which have potential to grow but are not able to due to lack of capital. It is also aimed those who do not have access to the market and debt funding owing to its borrowing cost, inability to provide security, over leveraging
Soudhamini Prodduturi, COWE National President, said it has two industrial estates at Toopran in Telangana and one in AP. The Toopran facility is ready to be inaugurated in next two months, she said.
‘Office spaces to become smaller in the future’
The future of work in the IT industry is all set to transform with the pandemic changing the way businesses and office spaces function. Many IT companies – whether small or big – are either declaring permanent and/or partial work from home. And this trend, according to experts, is unlikely to change in the future with many enterprises looking at a blended model wherein employees will be given the choice to choose their place of work.
Speaking at the Annual Hysea Innovation Summit, Infosys COO U B Pravin Rao said, “The future of work is highly unlikely to come back to the physical world. It will be a hybrid model wherein companies will look at setting up smaller hubs that can accommodate a smaller group of employees and look at giving work from home option to majority of the workers. In terms of talent as well, we are seeing new models emerge wherein the focus will be on niche talent and skills as now companies have the freedom to choose their employees from any part of the world.”
Rao added that companies must focus on upskilling and reskilling of their workforce as the shelf life of a particular is limited and employees also have to commit themselves to keep learning and acquiring new skills. The COO of one of the largest IT company in India also mentioned that going ahead, enterprises will be seeing a blended workforce which means to say that they will move away from being 100 per cent human-led workforce to an office space that has both machines and humans co-exist naturally.
On the challenges and opportunities that Covid-19 has brought about into the industry, Rao said that the few changes that organisations made will become permanent and technologies like 3D printing, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Cloud, Data, AI and Analytics will play major role to drive innovation in the enterprises. “We will see a massive embrace of digital in the next 24 months,” he said.
TS focused on digitisation and innovation
Telangana State is pushing digitisation and entrepreneurship in a big way through its various initiatives like TSIC, T-Hub, TASK and Digital Telangana. Outlining the various initiatives being developed in the digital space, IT Department CRO Amarnath Reddy said that the State has 600 digital services and over a million transactions happen on these platforms on a daily basis.
“The government has recently launched the Dharani portal for land records which is first-of-its-kind iniatitive in India. The State is also keen on growing the entrepreneurial mindset among the youth and that is why we have entities like T-Hub, TASK and TSIC in place,” Reddy said.
T-Hub CEO and TSIC chief innovation officer Ravi Narayan spoke about the need for an entity like TSIC that promotes innovation at grassroots level and make them entrepreneurs. He also highlighted that T-Hub has grown from accommodating 400 startups when it was launched to now having 2,500 tech startups which are supported and mentored.
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