Digitalisation will assist businesses in gaining a competitive edge. Rather replacing old technologies with new ones in a robotic manner, the industry must ensure that the existing can be integrated with future technologies, observes Amit Bana, Co-Founder and Chief Growth/Revenue Officer, AutomationFactory.AI.
In terms of digitalisation, how are you different from competitors?
All digital transformation companies around the world are striving for the same goal: To offer businesses and their consumers with an unparalleled experience. In that sense, we are all colleagues rather than competitors. Now, when it comes to our USP, we have not one, but three.
To begin with, there are very few IT organisations whose primary focus is enabling companies in moving goods from point A to point B via any mode of transportation. Digital transformation adoption is slow, haphazard, and fraught with problems. The main reason for this dismal state of affairs is that the cargo/logistics industry has far too many stakeholders, all of whom work independently of one another. The technology they employ differ from one another. At AutomationFactory.AI, we help cargo/logistics companies adopt technologies that can be synced with the technologies used by other stakeholders.
Second, we view our IT services from the standpoint of a factory model. We believes that if the core components of a software development framework remain the same, entirely new applications can be developed more rapidly. We aim to replicate the assembly line approach to development used in automobile manufacturing plants. We are also a proponent of the low-code/no-code software development paradigm. Lastly, we try to democratise the data and leverage it to drive tangible business outcomes, which leads to realised revenue.
What is your opinion on digitalisation being considered a necessity rather than a cost?
You can only postpone digitalisation for a limited time. Customers today expect companies to provide impeccable, swift service. Digital transformation is the only way to do this.
Assume there are two companies. On its ERP platform, Company A employs digital transformation levers, but Company B is still stuck in the legacy ERP era. Company A would now be aware of all key business insights, processes, critical and important
data elements, and would be able to make real-time analytics-driven business decisions.
Company B, on the other hand, is behind due to manual data entry, back-and-forth between departments, slow information flow, and a lack of visibility. Hence, Company A can provide better services, whereas Company B has a low on-time delivery rate, cash flow issues, and poor customer service. All of these factors contribute to lower sales and revenue. As a result, digitalisation is a necessity. Lastly, forward-thinking companies know that if they do not invest in digitalisation now, they will have to spend a lot more money afterwards.
Will digitalisation help make businesses future-ready?
Digitalisation will help companies in gaining a competitive advantage. However, when it comes to being future-ready, the problem is that new technologies emerge at a breakneck pace. So, rather than robotically replacing old technologies with new ones, we must find a way to ensure that the technologies we use today can be integrated with the newer technologies of tomorrow. Companies must, of course, replace legacy infrastructure and codes that are over 20 years old. But, keeping up with rapidly evolving technologies is challenging. What we should strive towards is the harmonisation of modern technology with future technologies. That is what it means to be truly future-ready. This is about being future-proof.
