BENGALURU: Piramal Group is focusing more on the use of digital technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), cloud computing, internet of things (IoT), automation, and advanced data analytics to enhance business operations and customer experiences. Piramal Group started its digital transformation journey about seven years ago.
The goal of the conglomerate, according to Viral Gandhi, president and group chief information officer of Piramal Group, is to use digital technologies to streamline core business operations like sales, manufacturing, and logistics as well as use them to address uncertainty in the operations of its three businesses: Piramal Enterprises Ltd (financial services), Piramal Pharma Ltd, and Piramal Realty.
“We considered the strategic goals of each company before arriving at numerous themes, including supply chain, digital enterprise, smart manufacturing, and customer experience. We chose a few activities that contributed to the subject within each of them and put them into action,” Gandhi said in an interview.
Gandhi cites the group’s establishment of a Robotic Process Automation centre of excellence in October 2018 as an example. This centre collaborates with all business divisions and, according to Gandhi, has “installed more than 75 bots (to date), saving roughly 50 person-years of effort every year.” Robotic process automation tools have aided in “automating essential financial procedures, including bank reconciliation, daily exchange rates, auto-updates of bank statements, and monitoring the status of debtors’ accounts receivables,” according to Gandhi. Additionally, they have “significantly reduced costs in ongoing financial operations and enhanced data quality and compliance”.
For instance, Piramal Enterprises uses automated business intelligence (BI) technologies, decision sciences, and AI, ML, and decision sciences to enhance customer experience and identify fraud and delinquency. Additionally, the business moved its IT platform to the cloud.
“We inherited on-premise technology platforms as part of our DHFL’s (Dewan Housing Finance Ltd) integration with us in 2021, which we have either retired or transferred to the cloud,” Gandhi added. Gandhi continued, “This has resulted in higher productivity, enhanced customer experience, fewer sales cancellations, superior brand value, and strong regulatory compliance.” The company has also connected its cloud platform with a telephony cloud platform.
At one of its facilities, Piramal Pharma has installed a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) to digitally manage, track, and record the manufacturing process in real time. The business also makes use of data analytics to pinpoint areas with high development potential and create ML-enabled credit restrictions for distributors, as well as a chatbot for staff inquiries.
To enhance their operations, other corporations are also implementing technologies like AI and ML. For instance, Mahindra Group has been attempting to integrate all of its digital offerings. In order to transform its My Jio app into a super app by merging numerous customer products, Reliance Retail started a redesign of the app in August 2021. In order to cover all of its businesses—from fashion to finance, gadgets to grocery, hotels to health, and tech to travel—Tata Sons released their super app, TataNeu, in April 2022.
To create its super app, the Adani Group also established Adani Digital Labs. As part of its digital journey, Harsh Goenka-run RPG Enterprises is implementing three metaverse initiatives in addition to creating platforms driven by agritech, medtech, blockchain, and artificial intelligence.
However, Piramal Group does not believe that a super app is necessary. “Technology leaders must also be business experts if we want technology to truly alter company, as opposed to just being experts in technology. As a result, each company has a CIO or CTO that oversees business technology. As a result, the CIO now shares ownership of the business results of the IT transformation, according to Gandhi.
