30 Minute Interview

Taking innovation to the next level

Dr. Guruduth Banavar, Chief Technologist – IBM India/South Asia and Director – IBM India Research Lab, spoke to Nivedan Prakash about IBM’s technology roadmap and its likely effect on India Inc.

Dr. Guruduth Banavar

In what way do technological innovations help to strengthen IBM’s position in the India/South Asia region?

IBM India/South Asia is a microcosm of IBM’s globally integrated business, as it plays a key role in the entire gamut of IBM’s business that includes services, software, and systems. Besides, we have a significant innovation capability in India/South Asia, given the research lab, the development lab, and the global business solution center in India. India/South Asia is both a key delivery center for IBM’s global customers, and one of its important markets, which has seen tremendous growth over the last several years.

In the long run, technological innovations help IBM differentiate and maintain its role as the preeminent provider of IT solutions to its clients. As we bring the global innovation engine of IBM to bear on the needs of the India/South Asia region, these innovations will continue the growth and strengthen IBM’s position as the undisputed leader in the region.

At the same time, there are numerous opportunities for innovation emanating from this region, as some of the issues and challenges faced by our clients here in India/South Asia are unique. For example, the technology needs of the population at the base of the pyramid represent a huge opportunity for IBM, as does the massive scale of the largest enterprises in this region. We have already begun to invent technologies like the Spoken Web; at the same time as a globally integrated enterprise, we aspire to take these technologies to other parts of the world in both growth markets and major markets, and implement them successfully there.

Could you throw some light on IBM’s Smarter Planet vision to drive technology innovation for business transformation and social change?

The concept of “smarter planet” is quite simple. The world is highly instrumented today. For example, there will likely be four billion mobile phone subscribers by end 2009 and 30 billion RFID tags produced globally within two years. The world is becoming highly interconnected. In an interconnected world, systems and objects can now virtually interact with one another. This instrumentation and interconnection create a humongous amount of data that companies need to analyze for effective decision-making. We therefore require powerful and intelligent back-end systems that turn data into insights for informed decision-making. We can translate this intelligence into action, making our systems, processes and infrastructure more efficient, more productive and responsive—in a word, smarter.

Scientists alone cannot solve today’s most challenging business problems such as energy waste and shortage, food traceability, among others in a lab. These problems require innovation outside the walls of the labs in collaboration with companies and organizations who are dealing directly with these issues. Many solutions that IBM is applying to the Smarter Planet opportunity originated as research collaboration pilot projects with clients, for e.g. Smart Grids, Smart Surveillance, Smart Transportation, etc.

To what extent does a smarter use of technology help IBM drive business for itself and its clients?

The overarching goal is to bring value to our customers through end-to-end offerings in software, systems, and services. If you consider our Smarter Planet vision, we aim to help our customers perform better in a more complex and demanding marketplace. In today’s interconnected and instrumented world, technologies need to be far more intelligent to meet business requirements.

We see fantastic opportunities for driving a strong technology agenda and applying that for differentiation and further growth of IBM and its clients. The opportunity to become smarter applies to large enterprises and to small and mid-sized companies, which are the engines of economic growth everywhere.

IBM has all its business lines operating in India/South Asia and works with customers from a wide range of industries. When we think about systems like supply chains, healthcare delivery and food systems, we are really talking about the interactions of hundreds or even thousands of companies, most of them small.

How are IBM’s initiatives in services, science, management and engineering likely to affect the industry?

IBM as a company is committed to the entire ecosystem in which it operates. As the chief technologist for IBM India/South Asia, I will be working with academia and industry to help make India a nation of innovators through skills development and technology enablement.

In an interconnected world, the approach to innovation has changed considerably. Innovation is no longer restricted to research labs; it is far more collaborative, interdisciplinary, and global. Therefore, the level of involvement from various constituents of the ecosystem like academia or industry is significant. At IBM, we have programs like Innovation Discovery where we work with companies to work together to develop new capabilities both in business and technology. We also have a strong focus on collaborative research, in which we work with academic institutions to explore new frontiers of technology jointly.

In India, we are working with various academic institutions including IITs, IIMs, ISB, IISc and SP Jain Institute of Management and Research among others. I am also exploring the opportunity of creating a forum that will identify broader industry issues and help find innovative solutions for them.

In your capacity as a Director of IBM – IRL, how have you created a cohesive, uniform technology roadmap for the organization with a view to achieving near-term and long-term business objectives?

IBM is a globally integrated enterprise, which means that we use the right skills at the right place for delivering the maximum value to our clients. For a company with end-to-end capabilities like ours, an integrated approach to technology is critical for IBM to maintain its leadership in the market.

To develop this technical strategy, I have created a team of technical leaders from each of the business lines in IBM India/South Asia. Each of these accomplished technical leaders brings his or her business insights and technical ideas for creating a cross-business technical strategy that leverages the capabilities across the entire IBM India/South Asia organization.

The strategy will help create a broad technical vision that will effectively support the company’s long-term goals for the region, and provide a concrete two-year roadmap for the organization. It will also encompass the needs of developing the technical community in India/South Asia.