Consumerisation has changed the way digital is adopted, says Nilekani

Nilekani spoke at the Infosys Media Day 2020 event on Tuesday

Stressing on the importance of digitisation of the economy, Infosys Co-founder and Chairman Nandan Nilekani said consumerisation has led to a dramatic change in how digital is adopted. 

“Earlier, technology was focused on enterprise, but with the arrival of smartphones, it became the engine of innovation in the world. So consumerisation of technology has led to a dramatic change in how digitisation would change us,” said Nilekani at the Infosys Media Day 2020 event on Tuesday.

Trends which emerge from the consumer side of technology are now penetrating large companies in a big way. For example, consumerisation propelled big data and AI as large companies started using data to understand what consumers needed and innovate accordingly, he explained. 

“Hence, it led to a demand for modernisation of existing applications in large enterprises and is responsible for the way companies look at technology,” said Nilekani.

But adapting to such new technologies is a huge challenge for big companies such as Infosys as they have to move from the current mode of operations to future mode of operations without affecting the current business. 

“This can’t be fixed by hiring a lot of people or by spending a lot of money or making an acquisition. It can be fixed by reinventing the corporation which we have been doing for the past three years at Infosys,” said Nilekani.

The company had been re-skilling its workforce long before the pandemic hit via its Live Enterprise platform to adapt to these agile systems.