ThoughtWorks, a global software consultancy, successfully concluded its India chapter of ThoughtWorks Live 2019 in Bengaluru on 28 November 2019. The event was an invite-only conclave specially designed for today’s digital CXO. The conclave hosted opinions and insights on the theme; Accelerating Digital Fluency. The day’s sessions discussed what it takes for businesses to not just become, but stay a digital course.
This blog has a long-standing association with ThoughtWorks as it also had a detailed coverage of Technology Radar Summit by ThoughtWorks which was held in June 2019.
Why the delay in coverage of ThoughtWorks Live 2019?
You might be wondering what took us so long to cover the event on this blog? Since October 2019, I moved into technical and business writing and more time was spent on acquiring clients who could use our services. Though it is like a freelancer kind of a role, I would term myself as a rookie entrepreneur who is using his blogging and technical skills to enter into an entire new domain:). Watch out this blog where I would writing more about the transition from being an engineer to a so-called writer!
Coming back to ThoughtWorks Live 2019, the event was a wonderful opportunity for tech-enthusiasts to learn from industry experts and thought leaders in the industry. These folks shared their experiences of building Modern Digital Businesses. Since the theme of the event was Accelerating Digital Fluency, all the talks focused on building a digital mindset that is needed to create differentiated customer experiences.
ThoughtWorks Live 2019 – The attendees
Apart from selected journalists and technology bloggers, the event witnessed a total of 111 participants that also constituted industry experts like
- Lathika Pai – Country Head, Microsoft for Start-Ups [Profile]
- Dr. Vivek Raghavan – Chief Product Manager and Bio-metric Architect, UIDAI [Profile]
- Jaspreet Bindra – Digital Transformation Advisor to ThoughtWorks [Profile]
- Ashish Grover – VP – eCommerce, Falabella S.A, & Head of Technology, Falabella India [Profile]
- Avinash Raghavendra – Executive Vice President & Head – Information Technology, Axis Bank [Profile]
- Anil Kumble – Chairman, ICC Cricket Committee & Former Indian Cricketer [Needs no introduction 🙂]
Each of these thought leaders shared their their expertise & experiences on stage and it was an immense learning opportunity to all of us who were the ‘selected few’ to be invited for the event.
There were close to 100+ C-level customers of ThoughtWorks, prospects and analysts who shared exceptional feedback about the content, sessions, experience zone, and interactions with their leaders.
ThoughtWorks Live 2019 – Birds eye view of the event
The event started with keynote sessions by ThoughtWorks practitioners [Nag, Gunjan, and Gary], followed by a fireside chat [Avinash Raghavendra] and lightning talks by some of the eminent practitioners from the tech industry [Lathika Pai, Vivek Raghavan, Ashish Grover], followed by a panel on data moderated by Jaspreet Bindra and the last session was with Anil Kumble [Former Indian Cricketer in conversation with Smitha].
As the core focus was on Digital Transformation, there was extensive usage of the keywords in all the talks!
ThoughtWorks Live 2019 – Event Digest
The event was kicks-started with opening remarks from ThoughtWorkers – Gunjan Shukla, Market Partner – South East Asia, ThoughtWorks India, and Nagarjun Kandukuru, Business Principal – Artificial Intelligence.
Opening Remarks – ‘Digital an unkept Promise’
Below are some of the key takeaways from the insightful talk by the ThoughtWorkers who spoke about the prominence of Digital Transformation and why just building a mobile app cannot be termed as Digital Transformation.
- Often businesses forget that ‘Digital’ and ‘Transformation’ are two separate words. Business leaders need to understand that ‘digitization’ is different from ‘digital transformation’. For instance, simply building a mobile app cannot count as a strategy anymore. You have to rethink how you manage demand, add value throughout the delivery cycle, and handle procurement or hiring. As a result, digital transformation is indistinguishable from business transformation.
- Operating models aren’t keeping up with the demands of digital transformation. Legacy processes are deterring businesses from realizing the full potential of transformation. The key to effective transformation lies in shifting emphasis from profit/ROI maximization to client experience optimization, while putting power back in the hands of those who are creating solutions for your clients.
- There are gaps between strategy and execution because ‘innovation’ and ‘scalability’ aren’t doing the Tango. Building teams that are capable of dealing with unpredictability, and driving inclusion [and not just diversity] can help address these gaps, because a good idea can come from anywhere.
- Digital Transformation isn’t about becoming a faster caterpillar, rather the aim is to morph into a beautiful butterfly.
Do have a look at the insightful talk on ‘Digital an unkept Promise’ below:
The presentation on ‘Digital an unkept Promise’ is available here.
Keynote – Digital Fluency : ‘Connecting the Dots of Digital Transformation’
The next session was the keynote by Gary O’Brien, Principal Consultant & Organizational Designer, ThoughtWorks. His talk revolved around catering to the needs of the digital era and how to serve the modern digital businesses that are outcome-driven rather than output-driven.
- The Digital Era is marked by three major shifts – heightened client expectations, speed and tech-driven value delivery.
- Increasing client expectations requires businesses to develop ‘client obsession’ – that means aligning all practices and processes to create more value for your clients. Value is different from benefits, and it does not inherently exist in any business. You need to create value for your clients, and find ways to do so quickly, consistently and continuously.
- Modern Digital Businesses are those that are outcome-driven rather than output-driven. One way to achieve outcome-orientation is to define your desired business outcomes first, then work backwards to identify measures of success, and design work to meet those measures.
- It’s also critical to build a Test & Learn Culture that’s guided by capabilities, scalability and profitability. You can leverage knowledge to understand what ‘value’ means to your clients and use insights from data in a strategic manner to tell if your clients are responding to shifts in your offerings.
- We’ve identified the five building blocks of a Modern Digital Business and our Digital Fluency Model was born out of the realization that not all businesses need to focus on all these blocks in equal measure. Your Digital Fluency is therefore aspirational – it’s where you are versus where you want to be; also, achieving this fluency is a non-linear process – you need to understand how investing in these blocks can maximize your client’s experience. Your fluency pattern is therefore your unique digital signature.
- The Digital Fluency Model is our response to how digital transformation is being handled and spoken about in the market.
To summarize, Digital Fluency isn’t a race, rather its journey unique to every business.
Do have a look at the insightful talk on ‘Connecting the Dots of Digital Transformation’ below:
The presentation on ‘Digital Fluency – Connecting the Dots of Digital Transformation’ is available here.
Lightning Talk – India Stack : Driving Transformation Through Digital Public Goods
The session by Dr. Vivek Raghavan was by far one of the best sessions where he spoke about the various aspects of the India Stack, financial inclusion, and UIDAI. Below are some of the key takeaways from his talk:
- Moves in support of financial inclusion in India have seen acceleration due to increased political will, a proactive central bank, and ‘India Stack’, which refers to a set of technologies that address the three layers of financial inclusions – Identity, Payments and Data Empowerment.
- These technologies and the supporting infrastructure were all built over time – a decade to be precise [2009 to 2019]. A verifiable unique identity was fundamental to enabling financial inclusion therefore it had to be backed bio-metrics, while also being simple. Aadhar aimed to give every Indian that unique identity using basic data – name, date of birth, gender, and phone/email.
- While we have been successful in addressing Identity and Payments, data empowerment is still a challenge – users currently don’t have access to their own data. Account aggregators could restore the balance in the system by determining who stands to benefit from all this data. We are trying to drive the shift from using data to sell to the consumer to using data to empower the consumer.
Every Indian is interested to know about Aadhar and how it has helped drive financial inclusion in India. This talk appeals to each one of us and should not be missed!
The presentation on ‘India Stack – Driving Transformation Through Digital Public Goods’ is available here.
Lightning Talk – Driving Digital Transformation by Leveraging Startup Innovations
Lathika Pai, Country Head, Microsoft for Startups, MENA & SAARC spoke about her journey as an entrepreneur, digital transformation, and Microsoft for Startups. Her talk will definitely appeal to anyone who has an inclination towards start-ups or who is interested in the overall eco-system.
Below are some of the key takeaways from Lathika Pai’s talk at ThoughtWorks Live 2019:
- It is not about what technology can do, but what you can do with technology.
- Disruption has become the norm across industries.
- Two important constituents of Digital Transformation are empowering employees and engaging with clients.
- The Indian Startup Ecosystem is vibrant, with 27 Unicorns in under 7 years. We have $51 billion in funding across 2773 funded startups.
Watch her entire session below:
The presentation on ‘Driving Digital Transformation by Leveraging Start-Up Innovations’ is available here.
Lightning Talk – Digital, The Great Leveller
Ashish Grover, VP – eCommerce, Falabella S.A and Head – Technology, Falabella India spoke about how going digital has created transparency in their business units, and enabled collaboration between geographically distributed teams.
Below are some of the key takeaways from the talk by Ashish Grover:
- Falabella, a 130-year-old legacy integrated business with operations in retail, financial services marketplace, and real estate has been on a mission to optimize instant engagement at speed and scale.
- Thanks to digital, geography is no longer a barrier, processes are more streamlined, speed is easier to achieve, and so is scale.
- Through their transformation journey they have learned that empowering expertise is the answer to business woes. They look at it through the lenses of meritocracy, diversity, product thinking, aspiration and purpose. They’ve also paid attention to building feedback loops, simplifying processes, creating transparency and winning the support of leadership.
You can watch his entire session below:
The presentation on ‘Digital, the Great Leveller’ is available here.
Celebrity Chat
This was the moment that many of us in the crowd were waiting for! Being a die-hard cricketer myself, I have always admired Kumble’s bowling skills, especially the flipper. I have always admired him as a great cricketer and a coach that transformed the Indian cricket team.
Anil Kumble – Former Indian Cricketer spoke with Smitha Hemmigae, Head of Marketing – ThoughtWorks India about his cricketing and coaching journey and how digital technology can be leveraged more to improve the game.
Below are some of the key takeaways from Jumbo’s session:
- Anil Kumble has seen multiple formats emerge and grow during his playing career and has excelled in all three cricketing formats – Tests, ODIs and T20. This session looked at Anil’s life and experiences through a digital lens.
- When questioned about the rapid pace of change, in both cricket and business, Anil Kumble said tracking change is always overwhelming. Instead, simplifying things to look at constants helps him stay focussed – a great piece of advice for business leaders too.
- In the context of his legendary performance in the India v/s Pakistan test match where he scored 10 wickets, he spoke about how one great performance can lead to heightened expectations. “You are only as good as your last game“, he said – perhaps another word of advice for business leaders. Much like cricket, business too demands consistency.
Anyone who has admired Anil Kumble’s bowling skills would definitely enjoy the session as he draws similarities between the game of cricket and business in this insightful session. A must watch…
Other than these sessions, there was a panel discussion on “The importance of Data” titled Data is not the new Oil. It is even more Powerful! The participants in the panel discussion were Hemant Misra, Head of Applied Research, Swiggy; N.S. Nappinai, Cyber laws Expert; Govind Shivkumar, Principal – Investments, Omidyar Network; Jaspreet Bindra, Digital Advisor & Blockchain Expert; Sudhir Tiwari, MD, ThoughtWorks India.
There was also an interesting Fireside Chat on the topic How to Accelerate Digital Fluency in Banking. Avinash Raghavendra, EVP & Head – IT, Axis Bank in conversation with Sandeep Reddy, Head of Financial Services Practice, ThoughtWorks India.
During the social gathering 13 distinguished analysts from Gartner, Forrester, Everest Research, ISG, Avasant, and HFS Research shared positive views on how ThoughtWorks Live is different from events by other service providers.
On the social media engagement front, the event received significant traction through the evening and was trending #1 in Bangalore and #15 in India. You can find the tweets on ThoughtWorks Live 2019 here.
ThoughtWorks Live 2019 – ‘Accelerate Your Digital Fluency’
Though we are late in writing about ThoughtWorks Live 2019, the learnings of the sessions will be applicable for many more years to come! So go ahead, and gain wonderful insights from the talks presented by the thought leaders present at ThoughtWorks Live 2019.
- Post event page with sketch notes – TW Live India 2019
- Event summary video – TW Live India 2019 Summary
- Sketch Note Summary of the Talks – Sketch Notes Summary
We look forward to be a part of ThoughtWorks Live 2020, till than good luck in your organization’s Digital Transformation journey!