"Creating transformative business opportunities"

...says Jigar Vakharia, Senior Vice President, Global Head – Manufacturing, and CMT, Birlasoft. In an interview with Sanjay Jadhav, Vakharia delves into the concept of ‘Plants of the Future’ to leverage cognitive technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

- Jigar Vakharia

Q: What are the key components of Birlasoft’s current business model in the manufacturing sector?

• Birlasoft’s business model in manufacturing focuses on strategic growth initiatives and collaborative partnerships. We prioritise domain-led offerings and utilise key technology partnerships to deliver enterprise solutions, digital and data services, infrastructure, and cloud services. Our focus on themes like Supply Chain Visibility and Plants Of The Future drives our dedication to addressing industry needs.

At the core is our commitment to co-innovate with customers in leading business and technology areas like Industry 5.0, De-carbonisation, Digital Twins, and Generative AI. This creates large transformative opportunities and strengthens existing relationships, ensuring our solutions meet evolving industry needs.

We emphasise talent development through domain training led by SMEs and partner-driven programs on digital technologies like Generative AI, Digital Twin, and Cloud. Our cultural tenets, including organisation-first, customer and people-centricity, say-do ratio, being bold, and quick decision-making, underpin our strong business model, enabling us to drive growth and deliver better value in manufacturing.

Q: How is Birlasoft leveraging the concept of ‘Plants of the Future’ to stay competitive in the market, and what specific features of this concept is the company prioritizing?

• Manufacturers today are at varying levels in terms of maturity spectrum. Most of them are already evaluating and adopting smart manufacturing technologies to improve quality, which ranks as one of the primary drivers for building ‘Plants of the Future’.