Business
DataQuest
Cutting through the noise: A CIO's framework for smart adoption
As the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of a legacy-rich enterprise making its way through the changing digital landscape, Shobhana Lele possesses an experienced and strategic perspective on the enterprise SaaS evaluation landscape. As a leading CIO, she propagates harmonizing on-prem and hybrid systems with cloud or SaaS solutions—a balancing act that is vital for organizations still very much in the symposium of legacy operations but seeking to act like the agile modern organization.
3 min |
August 2025
DataQuest
Is SaaS Becoming an OS?
There is a new outlook on what software is, especially with the rise of digital-first businesses or digital-first business models. Is Software as a Service (SaaS) on the verge of being more than just a toolset, and becoming the operating system for businesses? In this interview, Sreedhar Gade, VP of Engineering at Freshworks, explains this transition, reveals how Generative AI is changing product strategy, and moving to AI-native systems and conversation interfaces. He also discusses the consolidation trend with respect to enterprise SaaS, Freshworks journey to a combined platform, and his vision for an \"agentic\" world that emphasizes AI governance and trust.
6 min |
August 2025
DataQuest
Building cyber resilience across a vast logistics network
As logistics becomes a prime target for ransomware and supply chain attacks, Blue Dart is setting benchmarks in cybersecurity strategy. CIO Manoj Madhavan discusses the pillars of their approach, the future of edge security, and how data protection is becoming the backbone of customer trust and business continuity.
4 min |
August 2025
DataQuest
Blueprints—Blue Cheese or Blue Murder or Blue Blood?
Mega scale projects of today, and tomorrow, have to hold many beams together—structural safety, carbon impact consciousness, timely completion, cost-control and disaster readiness. Are BIM solutions (and their adjacent tools) helping—and how? And are digital blueprints the next big hero for rescue-ops?
6 min |
August 2025
DataQuest
How Al and human ingenuity are steering the future of car dealerships
CDK Global blends AI with human expertise to modernise auto retail, with India's IT talent driving innovation in customer experience and dealership operations.
4 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
How VMware helps enterprises regain cloud control
Cloud adoption is at a critical inflection point. With enterprises caught in the complexities of multi-cloud environments, how can they regain control? VMware says the answer lies in a bold rethink—what it calls the ‘Cloud Reset’.
4 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
FraudGPT and WormGPT—now con-men don't have to be geeks
Rohan Vaidya, Area Vice President, SAARC & India, CyberArk tells us why AI is adding a never-before speed, scale, personalisation while breaking entry-barriers and making jailbreaking easy for criminals.
4 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
Al's resume—from an HR lens
HR can be much more than a Rangoli joke, not despite of AI, but because of AI. There are both strengths and weaknesses in AI’s CV for this super-human HR future—as evaluated by Anand V, Chief Information Officer, APAC — Randstad. Let’s know more about Homo Alpiens and these new workplaces.
5 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
How India’s MSMEs Are Embracing Tech and What’s Holding Them Back
On World MSME Day 2025, India’s small businesses show rising digital adoption, but face barriers in integration, skills, and access to strategic support.
8 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
GenAI doing the heavy lifting for fraudsters
Praveen Kulkarni, Director-Security, Risk & Governance at OpenText India unpacks the flip side of GenAI—what happens when AI takes a walk in the dark alleys of our business cities. Why is there a FraudGPT and WormGPT after every ChatGPT?
4 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
AI is foundational to how modern EdTech and Skilltech platforms operate
From driving hyper-personalised learning journeys to real-time doubt resolution and adaptive content delivery, AI is helping platforms deliver scalable, high-impact education across diverse learner segments, says Ankur Dhawan, Chief Product & Technology Officer, upGrad.
4 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
CISOS, Boards, CIOS: Not dancing Tango. But Boxing.
What happens when parents in the house talk to each other in different languages? What happens when one greets whistleblowers and one shuts the door on them? What makes it easy for burglars - a house with not-enough locks or constant dinner-table arguments on which doors to lock? What happens when Good Cop-Bad Cop start fighting themselves?
8 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
The Future of Data Center Cooling: Embracing Liquid Cooling for High-Density AI Workloads
As Artificial Intelligence (AI) transforms the digital universe, data centers are laying the foundation for a new era of computing on a massive scale. However, the rapidly increasing demand for AI-driven workloads—such as training large language models, generative AI, and deep learning—requires substantial power, leading to a new generation of high-density computing infrastructure.
3 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
Our target audience does not watch content thrown at it randomly
Working in the background, it drives the platform’s content management strategy as well as its advertising programming so neatly that it shines even when it is not visible. That’s data in the hands of smart databases and architectures at Sony LIV. And here’s how it plays out.
5 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
Guardians of the Grid
Tata Motors has transformed its cybersecurity strategy to match the increasing complexity of connected vehicles and digital manufacturing. Security is now being woven into the organizational DNA, into every layer of the vehicles (design, supply chain, operation and interoperability), cloud platforms, regulations, etc. The company is now seeking cyber resilience as a business obligation rather than a regulatory cost of compliance.
4 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
The ketchup you get by growing tomatoes for others
Synthetic data, RAG, crunching fruits from the shells of data patterns, cracking the Moravec's paradox, executing Computer Vision on the ground and a lot more—even when you invest tech seeds in someone's else's land, the fruits can fall in your backyard. Who better than a wealth-management firm to show that!
6 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
Cybersecurity must enable business, not hinder it
Generative AI is a double-edged sword. In addition to strengthening a defender's capabilities it also enables attackers to produce incredibly real emails and phishing materials, deepfakes, and automated tools for exploitation.
4 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
Al can't act as a replacement of physical manpower in DCs
We are moving towards smart data centres. Major vendors of IT and non-IT equipment have adopted AI, driven by market demand from customers and service providers. Basic specifications of all major IT and non-IT equipment come with AI-operated predictive control.
7 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
Al Cybersecurity: Getting sea legs, are we?
It's a new deck altogether and there's so much that can cause sea- sickness in these new, vast and unfamiliar oceans. What should enterprises remember before onboarding AI?
5 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
Al-fuelled attacks are here — and so is Al-driven defence
As AI becomes the preferred tool for both hackers and defenders, the cybersecurity battlefield is starting to look more like an AI chess match— except both sides are playing blindfold, and the rules keep changing. Huzefa Motiwala of Palo Alto Networks unpacks the curious case of “AI versus AI” and why the future of cyber defence might depend less on muscle and more on machine learning.
5 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
Prefab is now fab
From modular data centres to nuclear infra to DCaaS to AI inferencing workloads to AI data centre rollbacks and power guzzlers—Anjani Kumar Kommisetti, Head of Business, Rhine XCircle covers a lot of corners of today’s and upcoming data centres. Let’s untangle some wires here.
8 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
Identity is the new perimeter
As attackers evolve like swiftly agile startups, and AI enhances both the attack surface and our defence capabilities, Group CISO Dr. Yusuf Hashmi of the Jubilant Bhartia Group explains how the conglomerate embraced behavioural analytics, Zero Trust and machine-speed SOC responses to not just keep up, but stay ahead.
2 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
Securing the future of the digital ecosystem
In this in-depth conversation, Fabio Fratucello, Field CTТО Worldwide, Crowdstrike, shares his perspective on the global threat landscape, the rise of industrialised cybercrime, and why a platform based, Zero Trust strategy is essential in the age of sophisticated adversaries.
6 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
Intelligence in America—With Al's grey cells and AWS's synapses
Can bureaucracy be strengthened or diluted with IT? Can classified areas, document filtering and secret departments find new allies in AI and Cloud? At the 15th annual AWS Public Sector Summit in Washington, DC, AWS shared its support for national security and defence, as well as updates on AWS's custom chips and other announcements.
6 min |
July 2025
DataQuest
Shantha Maheshwari: Leading with Grit and Grace in Tech's Male-Dominated World
Shantha openly discusses the challenges women face in tech's C-suite and provides valuable insight into creating inclusion, building healthy pipelines for female leaders and inspiring a new generation to lead intentionally and authentically.
3 min |
June 2025
DataQuest
Assertive men — strong! Assertive women — aggressive!
We're often expected to ‘carry the culture’ while also driving business results. Men are often assessed on both their current performance and their potential, whereas women are evaluated primarily on their output. Labels, sisterhood, succession planning, broken rungs—there’s so much that women should boldly address. Kavita Mehra, General Manager of Dell Technologies’ India Centre of Excellence, unravels all these nuanced constraints and biases that women leaders have been facing, but are now bravely conquering. And she urges women leaders to be unapologetic because they have earned their seats, and to raise their voice, sometimes literally.
7 min |
June 2025
DataQuest
LinkedIn's Nithya Rajagopalan on growing and backing women tech leaders
\"You don't have to play by someone else's rules.\"- to Nithya Rajagopalan, LMS Lead and Director of Talent Enterprise Products at LinkedIn India, these words are not just a statement, they are a way to rethink the practice of leadership in technology.
5 min |
June 2025
DataQuest
NOT A TRIBUTE, BUT A MIRROR AND A MEGAPHONE
In May, the daily briefings of Operation Sindoor—India’s resolute answer to cross-border terrorism—were fronted by two women: Colonel Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh.
2 min |
June 2025
DataQuest
If you've ever been called too much, too emotional, too bold — that's your badge of honour.
She does not believe in talking about corporate ladders but about building bridges. She confronts the tough dilemma of being a juggler and a sniper at the same time. She bravely points out the struggle of internalised shame of balancing work success with personal life.
10 min |
June 2025
DataQuest
Defying gravity: What it takes to build women leaders in tech
In a candid discussion with Dataquest, three trailblazers - Sharda Tickoo (Country Manager, Trend Micro), Hemapriya Dharshini (SVP, Agilisium Consulting), and Hardika Shah (Founder & CEO, Kinara Capital) - speak about their journeys, the barriers they broke, and the legacy they want to leave for the next generation.
5 min |