1. India’s rise in the global supply chain: The supply chain and logistics sectors stand at an inflection point and is poised for exponential growth. This growth is driven by factors ranging from rising disposable incomes, government initiatives like “Make in India,” and the rise of emerging technologies.

• AI will be the foundation for supply chain resilience: In the coming year, the country will accelerate building autonomous, AI-enabled supply chains to enhance operational efficiency and responsiveness. As companies navigate more complex supply chains, AI-enabled programs will be essential for them to stay competitive and efficiently address issues as they happen. Organizations will use cutting-edge capabilities along with additional tools like digital twins to monitor asset wear and tear, enhance lead-time predictions, and investigate production problems more quickly. Businesses will be able to produce quantifiable business results even when disruption seems like a normal part of life if AI is integrated, relevant, and accountable.
• Anti-fragile supply chains will become the new normal: ‘Anti-fragile’ supply chains will be the defacto standard, as Indian businesses strive to future-proof their supply chains from incoming disruptions. Using data-driven technologies such as analytics and machine learning, organizations will be able to better predict risks, enhance business resilience, and optimize operations. For a diverse manufacturing ecosystem with a growing export potential such as India, anti-fragile supply chains will not only be a necessity but a strategic advantage enabling industries to stay competitive in increasingly dynamic market conditions.

2. India’s rise as the data powerhouse: India is rapidly transforming from an emerging market to a developed economy and digital technology with all its data sits at the center of this evolution. The government’s focus on fostering secure data privacy environment is an impetus to fostering conducive business climate and stakeholder confidence.

• Establishing trust in data will become the top priority for leaders.ĚýIn the AI era, data will be the cornerstone of resilience and creativity. Businesses will continue to find it difficult to employ emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) or make well-informed decisions if they lack confidence in the data they possess and use. It will take more than just technology to establish this trust; leaders must increase data literacy and adopt a data strategy that prioritizes quality and capacity.
• A data fabric will become accepted as a pre-cursor to using AI at scale: Making sure AI is reliable, accountable, and pertinent is still a major concern as companies use it more and more to spur innovation. AI systems must be trained on actual, business-specific data rather than artificial or generic data to produce precise, useful insights. A growing number of enterprises will employ a data fabric as their data strategy to make this a reality because it offers the deep business context and semantics needed for AI to be applied in actual business applications.

3. AI will become a critical component of customer experience: In 2025, AI will be at the heart of all customer experiences, helping businesses understand and connect with their customers like never before. Companies will use AI to deliver hyper-personalized interactions, seamless automation, and predictive insights, making every interaction thoughtful, instant, and meaningful. From intelligent copilots handling complex inquiries to sentiment analysis enhancing emotional connections, AI will help businesses customize models for unique operational needs, and drive flexibility, competitive advantage, and innovation at scale, creating customer experiences that not only meet but exceed expectations.

4. With potential policy changes on the horizon, leaders must prioritize transparency to reduce risk and boost sustainability: In 2025, we will see companies focusing on their ‘green lines’ — measuring environmental impact —alongside the traditional top and bottom lines of revenue. Enhanced connectivity with everyone and everything in your ecosystem will increase transparency and traceability in supply chains. Leaders will prioritize visibility and transparency to gain real-time insights, enabling them to monitor operations and safeguard against unethical practices. As the coming year brings a shift in policy and governance priorities, technology solutions can help businesses track their compliance with constantly changing regulations to back up their sustainability claims. For instance, India is likely to see increased emphasis on local sourcing and production, prompting businesses to refine their tracking of materials at every stage, ensuring accountability and fostering sustainable practices throughout the supply chain. Enhanced visibility will also help manage risks and improve collaboration among supply chain partners.

By 2025, India will cement its position as a global economic powerhouse, driving innovation through AI and resilient supply chains. As we keep our focus on cutting-edge technologies, data trust, and sustainability, India is set to create a competitive edge in an increasingly interconnected global marketplace. These trends will enable India to rise as a global leader, poised for exponential growth in the digital era.

• The author is Manish Prasad, President and Managing Director, 51ˇçÁ÷Indian Subcontinent.

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Picture Credit: Business Today

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When un secretary-general António Guterres warned “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator,” he wasn’t indulging in hyperbole. Although organisations have started to become mindful of their carbon footprint, a report from Rocky Mountain Institute states that the average company’s supply-chain greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are 5.5x higher than the direct emissions from its assets and operations. Even countries are working to create regulations that require businesses to track their carbon footprint to the last milligram.

In this backdrop, even software firms are creating systems that can help track their supply chain’s GHG emissions transparently and auditable. For instance, software-as-a-service firm 51ˇçÁ÷has designed Green Ledger that allows businesses to manage their operations in a sustainable manner with bottoms-up transactional emissions data, rather than estimates. “The Green Ledger gives you the accounting equivalent of your emissions balance sheet. It is doing the same for emissions [data] as enterprise resource planning (ERP) has been doing for financials for many years,” says Paul Marriott, President of 51ˇçÁ÷Asia Pacific Japan.

This would enable companies to manage the carbon that enters and leaves their systems as they balance profits and losses. With over 400,000 enterprise customers using SAP’s software across the globe, the Ledger can be included as an add-on to its ERP solution S4/HANA Cloud, and allocate carbon emissions weightage to financial transactions. But it requires data of the carbon footprint of products to provide accurate, actionable data for decision-making.

This article originally appeared in

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Becoming carbon-neutral helps companies of all sizes create long-term value.

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Breakthrough announcements included responsible AI built into business solutions, ledger-based accounting for carbon tracking and industry-specific networks to bolster supply chain resilience. With these advances, 51ˇçÁ÷is helping customers transform their business models in the cloud, put sustainability at the center of their operations and boost agility to succeed amid ongoing change.

“In a world of geopolitical tensions, product and skills shortages, and new regulations, our customers continue turning to 51ˇçÁ÷for the solutions they need to solve their most pressing challenges,” said Christian Klein, CEO and member of the Executive Board of 51ˇçÁ÷SE. “The innovations we’re announcing at 51ˇçÁ÷Sapphire build on our heritage of responsibly developed technology and decades of industry and process expertise to ensure our customers’ success today and in the future.”

To know more, read the press release here.

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As 2023 gets underway, let us look at how green trends are poised to transform the auto sector:

Electric Vehicles (EVs) going mainstream

on the back of the Paris agreement signed by the government to reduce carbon emissions, improve air quality, and reduce oil imports. 2023 will see an uptick in EV offerings as auto brands help fill gaps in the public transportation network. Further, electrification of the last mile will be prioritized by introducing electric pickups, SUVs, plug-in hybrid EVs, e-three-wheelers, e-buses, and e-bikes, among others. Emerging technologies, ranging from , and the to , will accelerate this shift further by aiding in demand forecasting, route optimization, cost savings, and compliance.

Greener supply chains will spur net zero goals

Innovation in the auto industry will have a ripple effect on the logistics sector with technologies such as machine learning and Big Data analytics creating intelligent supply chains. This will ensure better utilization of storage capacities while avoiding empty runs in logistics. Additionally, efficient information flow can improve decision-making across the value chain.

Digitization will be a force multiplier for sustainability

AI and IoT’s emergence as potent drivers of improving vehicle and manufacturing performance will allow for wider adoption of these technologies and further result in reduced operational costs, product optimizations, enhanced business efficiencies, and better driving experience. For instance, AI-enabled monitoring systems can enable real-time monitoring of the factory power grid and energy usage. Improvements in monitoring blind spots, alerting drivers of dangerous conditions, and adjusting body position during a mishap will be driven by technology. This will result in creating more sustainable practices and processes within the sector.

Embracing Metaverse will bring us closer to sustainability

Metaverse has successfully penetrated the auto industry and is already catalyzing sustainability, specifically in the production phase. Through virtual analysis, real production has improved drastically as it eliminates unnecessary testing and development costs and improves operational and product efficiency. Crucially, it helps in reducing CO2 emissions generated during all production processes. Renault, one of the leading international automobile companies, believes Metaverse can lead to optimizations capable of saving €‎320 million on processes and €‎260 million on the costs of storage, by 2025. The automaker estimates that their shift to Metaverse will cut down their overall carbon emissions by 50%.

Data defining the future of sustainable mobility

ĚýUndeniably, innovation is a product of accurate data, and this applies to automobiles as well. In the coming years, AI-powered data engineering will play a huge role in tracking emissions. Real-time processing and analysis of data collected from sensors, combined with AI’s power and predictive analytics, will result in faster and smarter decision-making.

Push for a circular economy will be crucial:

Government programs like Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) norms, upcoming vehicle scrappage policy, or commitments under the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) will drive innovative thinking in the industry. Rethinking value and abolishing obsolete processes will help the industry transition to sustainable development. Organizations must ditch the current linear ‘take-make-waste’ philosophy and adopt a circular economy approach. Auto companies must embed sustainability right from product design and development through the life cycle of all products. Responsibility of a vehicle manufacturer will therefore extend beyond manufacturing to the post-consumer stage of the product including its take back, recycling, and final disposal.

In conclusion, the automotive industry’s contribution to harmful emissions must result in a higher responsibility towards tackling the same in a definite and permanent way. To quantify the social and environmental impact of their activities, all ecosystem players must concentrate on incorporating a green dimension into their top and bottom lines. The automobile sector will be crucial in assisting India firmly establish itself as a global leader in sustainability as we advance towards Amritkaal.

The author is Manish Prasad, Vice President – Metal, Mining & Automotive Industry, 51ˇçÁ÷Indian Subcontinent.

The article originally appeared in The Financial Express on February 26, 2023.

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Mumbai, India— January 18, 2023 — (NYSE: SAP) today launched new research revealing that Indian businesses are increasingly seeing financial benefits from sustainability. The global Environmental Sustainability Study of 6500+ business leaders, including 400 from India, is the second edition of SAP’s annual report which explores the motivations and barriers organisations face as they look to boost sustainability in their companies.

Environmental activism (45%) is the biggest motivating factor for organizations to take environmental action, with revenue and growth opportunities (34%) and customer demand (33%) trailing behind. Yet Indian organisations risk losing out if they are unable to place data at the heart of their sustainability strategy.

“If India is to advance towards a more sustainable future, businesses must do their part and embrace sustainability as a holistic approach to get there,” said Kulmeet Bawa, President & Managing Director, 51ˇçÁ÷Indian Subcontinent. “It is clear sustainability is no longer about brand reputation or ethics – there is a defined connection between profit and purpose.”

Key findings from the study:

Linking sustainability goals with business strategy

• 37% of Indian businesses say a lack of environmental strategy is holding them back.
• 35% of respondents point towards difficulty proving a return on investment.
• Embedding sustainability goals within larger business strategy, measuring, and recognizing progress will be crucial to success and driving long-term value.

Data is critical to drive meaningful change

• 31% of businesses rely solely on assumptions and estimates to assess the environmental impact of their supply chain.
• 46% of businesses say they don’t have complete visibility over the sustainability metrics of their external supply chain.
• Collecting and analysing high-quality data has emerged as a critical issue and a major stumbling block in the measurement process.

Making sustainability profitable and profitability sustainable

• 59% of Indian leaders now believe that there is a positive relationship between environmental action and profitability.
• Almost half (48%) of Indian businesses now believe addressing environmental issues will be material to business results within the next five years.
• 51ˇçÁ÷found 76% of businesses said that their stakeholders would be moderately or highly tolerant of reduced profitability in pursuit of their organisation’s sustainability goals – indicating leeway to invest in positive sustainability outcomes.

ĚýYou can read the .

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India’s contribution to revenues in the Asia Pacific Japan region doubled in the last two years, a senior 51ˇçÁ÷executive told ET, as the country remains the top market in the region for the German technology company.

The number of cloud customers doubled in India in the last two years as the company witnessed rapid growth in the mid-market and enterprise segments, said Kulmeet Bawa, managing director and president, India subcontinent for SAP.

“There’s the incumbency piece where existing customers are moving their digital core and ERP systems to the cloud, and as we do that, they are also adding on new solutions as they move,” Bawa said. “In addition to that, India is one of the leading markets in the world, if not number one in terms of adding new customers.”

Globally, 2022 was an inflection point for 51ˇçÁ÷as it made the transition to a Cloud company after cloud revenues emerged as the largest revenue stream.

India has been among the fastest growing markets for 51ˇçÁ÷over the last few quarters, and for seven quarters in the APJ region, said Bawa.

“We are seeing accelerated growth across segments, and it’s a very well-balanced growth between mid-market and enterprise customers,” he said. The company is starting to add more customers in tier II and III towns as well as digital-first companies who were not traditional 51ˇçÁ÷customers.

While there are concerns around the macroeconomic situation in Europe and North America, the mood is a bit different in India. Customers are cautious about the global environment, but they don’t see any slowing down of demand in India, he added.

This is similar to what several other enterprise technology firms have reported – steady demand and growth in India even as global markets were starting to slow down.

Driving digital and cloud adoption, innovation and focus on mid-market would be the key pillars on which Bawa said he expects the company to grow in 2023.

“We have had massive Cloud adoption in the mid-market, and they are adopting more of our solutions,” he said.

He expects this segment to get bigger in 2023, and it will be a key pillar for the German firm going forward.

India is home to close to 15,000 51ˇçÁ÷employees and is the second largest centre for the company, which means much of the technology and intellectual property development is done in India.

The company recently announced its low-code, no-code offering and expects demand for this to grow this year.

Bawa said 51ˇçÁ÷was also helping customers implement sustainability practices and had set itself a target of net zero emissions by 2023.

“We had earlier set a target of 2025 but some of the learnings over the pandemic have helped us bring this down and we hope to meet the target next year,” he said.

The article was originally published in The Economic Times on January 09, 2023.

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For German software maker, SAP, India is a priority market in which small and medium enterprises (SMEs) account for 80% of 51ˇçÁ÷India’s customer base. Last year, 51ˇçÁ÷India invested `500 crore to localize its multi-cloud strategy for specifically helping Indian businesses. Kulmeet Bawa, President and Managing Director, 51ˇçÁ÷Indian Subcontinent, talks about trends in cloud adoption and the company’s strategy for the next year, in an interview with Ayushman Baruah.

Excerpts:

How was the adoption of cloud in 2022 and how do you see it next year?

India’s cloud adoption reached an inflection point in 2022. FromĚý’s perspective, India remains a strategic priority market, both for business and innovation. We observed an accelerated cloud adoption across industries, including engineering, construction, life sciences and pharma, CPG/retail, and IT-ITeS. Major corporations such as Mahindra & Mahindra, Wipro, and HCL Tech moved their digital core to the cloud. We saw an enormous growth across different sizes of organizations, be it the enterprise or midmarket. We also saw numerous SAP-led digital transformations in start-ups and digital natives who now rely upon us as their trusted advisor. In fact, for the past six or seven quarters, we have outperformed our growth every quarter, with a high continuous year-on-year growth. When I consider the headroom and opportunities that are open to our country, I believe that 2023 is our world of opportunity.

What will be the key drivers of digital transformation next year as the macro-economic conditions remain uncertain?

Although organizations have always aimed to enhance their speed, agility, and data-driven decision-making, there is now a heightened feeling of urgency around the adoption of digital. For enterprises to stay relevant in the face of uncertain macroeconomic market conditions, organizations across the spectrum have hastened their digital transformation. Furthermore, low-code and no-code tools, automation, composability, cloud computing, and associated technologies will be the driving forces behind digital transformation. Additionally, rising attention by businesses and the public sector on how digital technology can enable sustainability will be another trend to watch out for.

What’s 51ˇçÁ÷India’s strategy to tap into the growing SMB market in the country?

The small and midsize business (SMB) sector in India today accounts for 29-30% of the country’s GDP, and SMEs account for 80% of 51ˇçÁ÷India’s customer base. We are the market leader in the SMB sector in India, with a large customer base coming from tier-2 and tier-3 cities including Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Jaipur, Ratnagiri, Kanpur, etc. With the goal of advancing cloud adoption and accelerating company transformation for the Indian mid-market, we have launched several outreach initiatives such as the Transformation Express and Global Bharat Movement focused on helping MSMEs in their journey to cloud migration and digitalization. We invested `500 crore in early 2021 to localize our multi-cloud strategy with the goal of helping Indian businesses become more resilient. Through our multi-cloud strategy, we are enabling our customers to enjoy the benefits of our platform on their choice of cloud infrastructure. Our cloud offering has been adopted by hundreds of brands like Cera Sanitaryware, Luminous Power, Virescent Infrastructure, Puravankara, WayCool Foods & Products, to name a few.

What are some of the key technologies 51ˇçÁ÷will be focusing on next year?

As we step into 2023, our goal is to provide our customers with transformational tools that they need to embrace innovation and address the biggest business challenges of their respective industries. Some of these key technologies include: (a) focused on creating an intelligent, inter-connected, and sustainable world and helping companies of all sizes and industries accelerate their sustainability journeys; (b) Platform Engineering which is expected to become more prevalent in 2023 as organizations continue to find and retain highly skilled technology talent. will become the norm that will aid our customers to achieve business agility; and (c) where AI, automation, and machine learning are shaping business landscapes worldwide. By unifying all AI capabilities into a single platform, 51ˇçÁ÷AI services will continue to enable teams to build chatbots and automate processes to gain business efficiencies through AI and machine learning.

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However, historically speaking, few businesses have organisational structures that view the challenge as a significant business concern. Instead, regulatory compliance is the main emphasis of sustainability initiatives and the organisations that support them. The study’s findings give a clear indication of this. For instance, 60% of respondents from India said that the main forces behind their sustainability efforts are statutory requirements. This is consistent with the fact that, ahead of decreased carbon emissions and improved operational visibility, regulatory compliance (45%) is the main advantage realised. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that only 7% of respondents are discovering any real commercial benefit from their sustainability plans. Because of their excessive reliance on regulatory compliance, businesses may be missing out on the new potential for efficiency, innovation, and genuine societal impact.

The missing ingredient to driving long-lasting sustainability transformation: Employee

The scale of the disruption that will play out over the next few decades, along with the opportunity it creates, will be staggering. But while the opportunity is clear, the way to drive a successful sustainability transformation is less obvious. To put things in perspective, a variety of publicly available statistics indicates that investors are likely to consider ESG risks when making investment decisions and that demand among clients and partners for ecologically or socially conscious products is rising. Furthermore, companies that promote sustainable business practises are more likely to attract and keep top talent because employees and job seekers are more likely to choose them. Without a true vision and track record, businesses may find it difficult to attract and retain top talent. For organizations committed to being business with a purpose, sustainability offers an opportunity to connect with their people through a shared sense of purpose and commitment to help run the world better.

Employees are on the frontline of any business. Getting them to do something as basic as recycling paper makes a big difference in terms of carbon emissions, waste, water use, or energy consumption. Employers, however, want a higher level of dedication from employees when firms progress beyond the fundamentals: why stop at turning off the lights when you might be enhancing workflows, developing new products, and overall making the workplace sustainable?

Here are some of the best ways to engage employees with your sustainability mission:

• Integrate sustainability into the foundation of your company: Every individual and company are impacted by the condition of our world. Because of this, achieving sustainability is a problem that requires teamwork. It is a true team sport. Therefore, organisations must move beyond a siloed approach to sustainability and integrate green practises into discussions about every type of business decision, including strategies and performance goals at every level, in every function, and core managerial processes and operations, starting with the procurement of raw materials and extending to the selection of supply chain partners, driving investments in human sustainability, or instructing staff members and partners on how to use technology, gather data, and evaluate results.
• Sustainability hiring: Organizations can’t create a purpose-driven culture without purpose-driven individuals. Developing values and a feeling of purpose in people who lack them is incredibly difficult. Instead, while hiring and recruiting, screen for purpose. Find the best workers who genuinely care about the environment, sustainability, fairness, ethics, and human justice. They exist, and once they join, their uplifting attitudes and behaviours spread like wildfire.
• Leaders must lead from the front: By setting company goals and enabling employees to achieve those goals, leadership builds an organizational culture. This means they play a critical role in changing when it needs to be changed. For sustainability thinking to permeate across the entire organization, leaders must define and incentivize sustainability success – and then lead by example. Leaders can help create a culture of sustainability transformation by demystifying it in a way that connects with employees.
• Tying executive compensation to sustainability: One of the most important tools that organizations have in their arsenal to combat sustainability challenges is to link executive payouts to successful sustainability outcomes. Not only it sends an unmistakable signal about the organizational values and focus on advancing sustainability, but it can also help motivate executives to tap big strategic opportunities related to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals.

While sustainability practices may be shaped by the company’s leadership, powering it needs to be done collectively. If done right, sustainability has the potential to not only drive measurable growth but also turn your company into a talent magnet.

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