Digital transformation is no longer a choice but a necessity for businesses aiming to stay competitive in today’s rapidly changing landscape. In an exclusive interview with Tech Achieve Media, Ameya Waingankar, Engagement Partner at Practus, shares his insights on overcoming the hurdles of digital transformation in today’s fast-evolving business landscape. With a hands-on, results-driven approach, Ameya discusses how Practus differentiates itself in the crowded management consulting market by delivering tangible ROI through strategic digital initiatives. From managing large-scale projects across industries to guiding executives through the complexities of digital adoption, he highlights the key factors that drive successful transformations and ensure businesses stay ahead in the digital age.
TAM: Can you share how Practus differentiates itself in the crowded management consulting market, particularly with regard to digital transformation and implementation services?
Ameya Waingankar: Practus since inception has been very implementation and outcome driven. As an organization we believe in delivering ROI to the clients, where the engagement success factors are linked to the business outcomes thereby ensuring a definite skin in the game. Our engagements are not merely advisory in nature and we believe in rolling up our sleeves and ensuring we handhold the clients throughout their journey.
TAM: What are some of the key challenges you’ve encountered while managing large-scale projects across different industries, and how have you overcome them?
Ameya Waingankar: Some of the challenges that we encounter while managing large scale projects across industries:
- Change Management and driving a digital culture across the organization
- Lack of functional ownership
- Legacy systems creating difficulties in integration with new digital solutions
- Changing Consumer preferences and market forces
- Digital literacy of organization’s human capital
Enterprise digital strategy tightly aligned to the organizational vison and business goals combined with executive leadership and key stakeholder buy-in is imperative to the success of driving large scale transformation It is important to embed a culture of innovation and taking a customer centric approach. Invest in technologies that support the strategic goals and seamlessly integrate into the future ready tech landscape.
TAM: What are some of the most common challenges you encounter when guiding executives through digital transformation? How do you address these challenges to ensure successful outcomes?
Ameya Waingankar: Progressing from Digital Hype to Enterprise Transformation is a Challenge Most Companies Face:
- Biggest barriers to digital adoption are the lack of strategy and too many competing priorities
- In the absence of an enterprise level digital strategy, many companies rely on pilots and innovation pockets.
- Digital is a megatrend, and every company is rushing to find ways to leverage new technologies to optimize their operations, establish new services and therewith grow revenues and create a competitive advantage
- Most digital prototypes, proof-of-concepts, MVPs, and pilots were implemented by departments to support a single use case, usually with requirements fulfilling local needs only
Companies today are burdened with managing a complex landscape of separate systems, disparate technologies, and disconnected processes
Lack of guiding principles, resources, partners, and a strategic roadmap is stifling the enterprise digital transformation.
Successful digital strategies will likely prioritize flexibility, customer engagement, and a holistic approach to integrating technology across all areas of the business.
To assist executives in successfully navigating the digital transformation it is important to:
- Establish clear metrics to evaluate the impact of digital initiatives.
- Engage with industry ecosystems to stay ahead of trends and best practices.
- Communicate regularly and transparently to manage expectations and reduce resistance
- Promote collaboration across departments to break down silos
- Provide training and upskilling opportunities to ensure staff are equipped for the digital landscape
- Ensure accountability and responsibility at all levels of the organization.
TAM: Given your extensive experience in digital strategy and transformation, how have you seen digital strategies evolve over the past decade? What emerging trends are shaping digital transformation today?
Ameya Waingankar: Digital strategy and transformation for organizations have transitioned from adoption of ERP, CRM, digital channels, data analytics and automation to customer experience and operating model led Incorporation of technologies like IoT, blockchain, and augmented/virtual reality into strategies.
- Some trends that are shaping the digital fabric of the organization are: Growing importance of sustainability in digital strategies, reflecting consumer preferences.
- Companies increasingly focus on social impact and ethical considerations in their digital initiatives
- Dynamic and adaptable to rapid changes in technology and consumer expectations.
- Navigating the cyber security risks associated with increased digital engagement.
TAM: In what ways do you see digital transformation impacting traditional industries like manufacturing and supply chain management? Are there specific technologies that you find particularly transformative?
Ameya Waingankar: Industry 4.0, integrating AI, ML, IoT, big data & analytics, is revolutionizing manufacturing. By 2025, a substantial surge from 10% to 50% in Industrial IoT adoption is anticipated.
FY 24-25 will see wider adoption of AI-powered predictive maintenance for anticipating equipment failures & ML will be increasingly utilized to optimize production schedules/planning.
More companies are seeking to add Digital Twin capabilities to strengthen their supply chains. A digital replica of the supply chain powered by what-if scenario modelling & simulation offers significant benefits to remodel the supply chain for future disruptions. Supply chain digital twin can offer significant benefits; Capacity sizing, identifying dependencies & bottlenecks, optimizing inventory, planning & forecasting, etc.
Companies are using artificial intelligence (AI) more and more in their supply chains. From analysing spend to analysing customer data, AI powered by analytics is driving significant improvement in supply chains.
TAM: Can you discuss a notable project you led that involved a significant transformation or optimization process? What were the outcomes, and what lessons did you learn?
Ameya Waingankar: Leading building material organization was looking to drive cost optimization & process efficiency across the manufacturing value chain by leveraging strategic digital initiatives.
Was instrumental in driving an enterprise-wide transformation by defining a future ready digital strategy and implementation plan. Implemented large scale pilot initiatives to realize the potential value through digital. Improved real time visibility of asset health & performance parameters to maintenance & operation team through adoption of IoT & AI/ML.
Some of the business impact resulted from the transformation engagement are listed below:
- Predict unplanned breakdowns with 80-90% confidence levels
- Reduce maintenance cost by 2-5%
- Minimize Quality Deviation by ~3-5%
- Minimize scraps/quality rejects by predicting at the initial stage
- Closed loop and open loop process operations ~2-5% efficiency improvement
- Visibility and tracking of power generation and distribution of 10 captive TPPs.
TAM: With Practus having a global presence, how do you manage cross-border projects and ensure consistency and quality across different regions and cultures?
Ameya Waingankar: Practus has built focused practices/service lines to deliver consistent client experience and meet the desired business expectations. Adoption of strong frameworks, process rigor and quality assurance across levels helps in ensuring consistency and impact to our clients across diverse regions and cultures.
