5G will Bolster Automation across Sectors: Unisys

Sumed Marwaha, Managing Director, Unisys India, underlined that 5G will be a key enabler of industry 4.0. In a brief talk with Amit Singh, he mentioned that since 5G is capable of steering more connected devices with no lag, we are likely to witness the emergence of some all-new models of operations and new fundamentals in value chains

In a scenario, where the pandemic is far from over and the world is grappling with various macroeconomic disturbances, what are the trends which are redefining the face of digital transformation?

It is imperative for businesses to constantly undergo digital transformation to stay ahead in a rapidly changing business landscape. While this has been a work in process for quite a long time, the hybrid world of work has fueled it extensively. One of the major concerns for businesses is the utilization of their most valuable asset – Data. As we see, digital transformation is taking place mostly in the cloud sector with companies opting for hybrid and/ or multi-cloud.

In the developed markets, a hybrid cloud can drive cost savings allowing enterprises to have better control over aspects like security, scalability, and speed. However, organizations need better cloud and application resources or need to partner with the right organization to achieve the same. It is encouraging to see that both the private sector and government are working toward building a robust infrastructure to enable high-speed connectivity and bringing businesses online.

That brings me to the next trending digital transformation that will disrupt the market – 5G. With the rolloutof stable 5G, the technology sector will not only have increased speed for data transfer but will also eliminate the need for several physical assets such as LAN and WAN. This allows companies to create 5G hubs completely eliminating the need for physical fiber net connections. It is also going to make remote collaborations seamless and improve the end-user experience. This is also expected to open up significant opportunities for innovations in IoTwhich demands robust connectivity.

While 5G is expected to amplify opportunities for companies, businesses must take note that cybersecurity is also one of the most important priorities that need attention every step of the way. While cybercrime is commonplace today, businesses cannot afford to lose their and customer data as it will have huge economic implications. Cybersecurity must become an integral part of any company’s digital transformation plan.

Other trends that companies are heavily investing in are: AI and ML solutions to hyper-automate operations and increase productivity along with Blockchain that will continue to enable businesses across industries.

What are the three major transformations you see across the industries which are redefining their approach toward business over the last couple of years of the pandemic?

The hybrid model is here to stay. Employers must be cognizant that businesses are migrating their operations to the cloud to make data available to stakeholders, employees, and leaders seamlessly.

One of the major transformations that we have seen in the past three years is the rapid adoption of cloud technology as it has proved to be productive effective and scalable. Cloud can be scaled quickly and seamlessly in multiple geographies for the business to take advantage of wherever they may be.Its agility makes cloud tech one of the most sought-after technologies in the recent past.

In my opinion, Digital Workplace Solutions have hands down been saviors of businesses during the pandemic. Access to applications or data anywhere anytime through a secure system is a win-win for companies and clients alike. And DWS solutions have enabled seamless collaboration aligning all the activities of organizations to digital channels. Interestingly end-user experience has taken center stage in the last few years. Experience delivery can make or break deals. Having high-quality insights into your end-user experience, in an automated manner in real-time can be a real game changer. This has been a challenge, especially for service providers.

At number three, Hyper-automation will see huge demand from businesses. Hyper-automation can simplify data integration across businesses, systems, and applications with faster and more efficient access to data. It is known to foster collaborations and helps improve productivity. With advanced analytics, businesses can continuously optimize their processes and identify inefficiencies on the go. As we all know today businesses need to adapt quickly to changing market dynamics and hyper-automation is the key to becoming nimble and agile to evolve and find new opportunities.

Hyper-automation is a future-ready mechanism and with the right choice of tools can become sustainable and garner better outcomes for companies.

What are the best practices on how businesses can accelerate their digital transformation amid challenges from Covid-19? What is the strategy you would suggest?

Digital adoption has taken a quantum leap at both the organizational and industry levels. Rapid digital transformation, akin to a rat race took place during the pandemic as more and more businesses moved to Digital Workplaces/ work from home. In order to successfully implement and accelerate digital transformation companies must:

• Articulate a business problem for the purpose of digital transformation. This can help organizations set clear KPIs and well-defined goals through digital strategies. Leadership buy-in can play a major role here. Sometimes, leaders tend to lean toward old methods of working that could be obsolete and good leaders will always weigh in on the pros and cons of the proposed digital transformation.
• Adapt technologies that allow seamless collaboration between teams. Collaborative teams can not only solve problems but also decrease duplication of work.
• Customer-first should be the mantra and investing in tools that allow seamless access to the right data to the customers at the right time can be a game changer.
• In order to adapt to new technology, there needs to be a mindset change. The strong culture of adapting quickly to change can earn organizations top dollar as they are flexible to changing market dynamics.

How do you think 5G is going to redefine the technology landscape over the next few years? What are the solutions you offer around 5G?

Wireless technology has been continuously evolving to meet increasing demands and higher specification requirements. 5G has the potential to deliver network speeds that are 10x faster than what we used to have on its predecessor and can efficiently enable millions of sensors in a square kilometer.

Based on the advancement in technology over the past many years, I am really looking forward to seeing what the future holds for us. One of the core technologies that I am excited about is 5G telephony. I believe this has the potential of changing the landscape in India due to the size and complexity of our country. If the current information is to be believed, 5G will be many times faster than 4G, with almost zero latency and higher density users per square kilometer while using only a fraction of the power that is required to run a 4G device. This means we can connect the most remote corners of the country with extremely high-speed devices while charging them at a much lesser frequency than what is required now. The potential of such technology is unlimited with usage in remote healthcare support, autonomous vehicles, various IoT-related applications, and a lot of other industrial use cases. I hope that the government is able to keep the cost down so that 5G usage can become mainstream at the earliest.

Please talk about your recent business achievements in terms of business expansion, revenue growth, and customer acquisition over the last 12-18 months. How much does India contribute to the global Unisys business?

Our annual contract value (ACV) signings grew 25 percentYoY and total contract value (TCV) signings grew 12 percentYoY. We also witnessed a yearly growth rate of 30 percent in our total company pipeline. Our revenue for cloud, applications, and infrastructure solutions (CA&I) revenue grew 6.9 percentYoY to $130.1M vs. $121.7M in the prior-year period (8.7 percentYoY growth in constant currency). In the last year, we have also made some major acquisitions like UnifySquare, CompuGain, and Mobinergy. These acquisitions are in-line with Unisys’ strategy of expanding Digital Workplace Solutions and Cloud Application Services globally.

Unisys India is a microcosm of Unisys Global. We have a significant representation of every business unit and enablement function in India. Most importantly, 25 percent of Unisys’ workforce is present in India.

Please talk about your top 5 focus areas over the next 2-4 years.

• Digital Workplace Solutions: Unisys has been a pioneer in the Digital Workplace Solutions (DWS) space. The pandemic accelerated our business and strategy as demand for DWS services increased. DWS is being leveraged for onboarding to collaboration, the employee experience, and completely altered enterprises needed to maintain peak brand experiences. End-user experience coupled with automation, analytics, and insights can enable a strong hybrid workforce and this is our focus area number one.

• Cloud Application and Infrastructure: Facing the market with simplicity, the Cloud Application and Infrastructure portfolio will focus on hybrid infrastructure solutions, cloud management solutions, modern applications solutions, and cloud data analytics solutions. Our offerings will range from cloud migration to cloud optimization to multi-cloud management to cloud observability and container management. We will also focus on application migration and modernization, cloud-native development, and DevSecOps. Within hybrid infrastructure solutions, cloud infrastructure engineering and conventional data center services will be of high focus for Unisys. Data migration, modernization, governance, and analytics are areas that we will continue to focus on.

• Enterprise Computing Solutions: Within ECS, our strategy is to leverage long-standing relationships as trusted advisors to attract new workloads to ClearPath Forward®, our own operating system. Our goal is to increase managed services and help our clients with seamless, risk-free public cloud transition and the ongoing management of those workloads.

• Business Process Solution: Within Business Process Solution (BPS) our focus will be on intelligent process automation, data, and decision intelligence. From records management to predictive risk analysis, BPS is an area that we will continue to leverage over the next couple of years with a focus on Robotic Process Automation, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Data Analytics

• Cybersecurity: Maintaining a resilient cyber posture enables a client’s digital ecosystem to maximize reliable business agility. With our IP solutions like Cloud forte and stealth solutions, our business outcomes are aimed at transformation for business processes and IT resources while increasing critical security posture. With cybersecurity, Unisys aims to tackle governance risks and compliance, identity and access management, and threat and vulnerability management.

Please talk about the future roadmap for Unisys in India. What are your expansion plans?

As we continue to refine our hybrid work culture, Unisys India’s roadmap will include streamlining operations and aligning with the global strategy.We will also look at recruiting professionals with a special focus on early talent from universities along with the right diversity mix. In addition to our existing talent pools, we aim to add experts in emerging technology fields such as Cloud, Applications, Product Development, Service Management, Technical Support, and Field Services.

There are multiple areas of interest that we do explorative research on, like Engineering Trust, Autonomous World, Human-Machine Experience, etc. to mention a few at the high level. These evolve in alignment with our Business Strategies of various business units. The focus is also on targeted IP creation in areas that are of strategic importance to us. Since the IP and Patents function is led from India, I also foresee a focus on continuing to enhance our capability and culture around Innovation & IP.

Additionally, we have acquired Unify Square, CompuGain, and Mobinergy over the past year. With these acquisitions, Unisys continues to expand its Digital Workplace Solutions and Cloud Application Services globally.

According to you what are the most influential technologies which will see large adoption across industries over the next 12-24 months?

There are four areas that I think will redefine industry 4.0 as more companies adapt to them across industries in the next 12-24 months.

In the coming years, I see Web3 technology making major headway. Many exciting projects and developments are already underway. Built on blockchain technology, Web3 can be seen in enabling smart contracts without much third-party involvement and in decentralizing digital currencies. From online transactions to voting or even decentralizing the internet that is secure and efficient the possible ways of using Web3 technologies are unimaginable!

From quantum cloud to quantum cognition and cryptography, quantum optics to quantum neural networks the possibilities of quantum computing are exciting, complex, and dynamic. Almost every industry can adopt quantum computing in some form or the other for optimization, machine learning, data warehousing,and simulation. While these are areas that are still being explored, quantum computing will define the future of IT in the coming years.

Over the last 10 years, if there is a technology that has undergone, rapid innovation I think would be the Internet of Things (IoT). When AI and ML are paired with devices, it propels automation and broadens its applications into various industries. From healthcare to farming; automotive to energy this technology can increase efficiencies, reduce errors and reduce spends while being agile and easy to scale. We will continue to see this technology as one of the most sought-after technologies in the next 3-4 years.

Another area that will see rapid innovation will be 5G. 5G will bolster automation across sectors, thus becoming a key enabler of industry 4.0. Since 5G is capable of steering more connected devices with no lag, we are likely to witness the emergence of some all-new models of operations and new fundamentals in value chains.