Most HBR articles on digital transformation talk about one thing — ‘Leveraging Insiders’. A high-profile digital consultant who worked on a successful digital strategy for a top MNC might not be as effective as an experienced insider who knows how to handle his/her internal as well as external stakeholders. This is because digital transformation is never about a radical transformation from the current way of doing business. Rather, it is about understanding how and where technology as a tool can be applied to existing processes and procedures so as to make the organisation more agile, efficient and innovative. Hence, digital transformation is more of a change management activity which requires building cross-functional teams (CFTs), inspiring the team in order to get desired results, and coordinating with multiple departments including IT in order to make sure that the digital transformation activities align with the organisation’s soft aspects such as vision, mission and values as well as its established processes, procedures and policies.
The word ‘Champion’ itself reflects the authenticity, authority and approach, with which these Champions impart the knowledge, build CFTs, implement digital initiatives and inspire others towards digitalisation. Champions are the leaders who can define the vision of digital transformation for their particular organisation and play a key role in achieving that. C4i4 Lab keeps this in mind in every session that we manage, in all the content that we prepare and in every context that we create. Hence, in our first module itself, we created a session specifically for the purpose of defining the vision for digital transformation. We included some case studies in our teaching modules so that, these Digital Champions are exposed to live examples of how other organisations have structured their vision, and they can then try to emulate, apply and improvise their own thought process. We are proud that our first batch of Digital Champions is looking beyond simple data collection and dashboarding, and thinking
of steps to develop an intelligence layer which will actually yield results for various stakeholders involved in a project.
The Digital Champions programme is a structured and robust initiative, spanning 16 weeks and covered in 5 modules. The first module is a two-day, classroom workshop that covers all of the Industry 4.0 fundamentals, different use cases, applications, videos and case studies, as well as the concept of the digital transformation vision. The second module extends over two weeks and includes individual activity at the respective companies of the participants, creating a digital transformation vision and conducting a plant selfassessment by interacting with different departments. The third module spans four weeks and covers plant visits by the C4i4 Lab team to conduct an Industrial IoT infrastructure assessment in the company of the Champions, followed by a workshop to short-list the projects to be implemented. This also includes a two-day, technology boot camp which includes a technology session by industry experts from AR/VR, Additive Manufacturing, Cybersecurity, Edge Computing, IIoT Solution providers and Data Analytics. The fourth module is held over four weeks and it includes a two-day training session at C4i4 Lab for the purpose of building the solution architecture of projects that are shortlisted and the identification of solution providers for the project implementation. The fifth module of five weeks includes a two-day session on business case building and presentations to higher management for approval. In this way, the Digital Champions are empowered with all the knowledge they need to help them kick-starting IIoT projects in their organisation, horizontally deploy this knowledge across other teams, and individually handle future digitalisation projects. The Digital Champions programme, in all its aspects, reflects how passionate C4i4 Lab is with regard to helping the Indian industry become globally competitive. We listen to our customers keenly and are configured to be in a position to offer many value-added programmes and services. We aim to provide the best possible solutions to our customers with optimum time and costs for implementation.
Rajan Shringarpure, Former Managing Director, Vishay Components India Pvt. Ltd. thinks that India should not adopt Industry 4.0 as it is but instead choose and take the best part of it that fits well to stimulate the business growth. Excerpts.
From improved worker safety, increased efficiency, effective processes and product designs, VR has had an impact on a lot of functions across manufacturing organisations. Here’s an Industry 4.0 perspective on the path-breaking technology.
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