Daily Archives: January 20, 2025

Business News | IIM Udaipur Leads the Conversation on ‘Beyond AI’ at the Second Edition of D’Future: India Digital Conclave

PRNewswireMumbai (Maharashtra) [India], January 20: The Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur (IIMU), successfully hosted the second edition of the D’Future: India Digital Conclave at the Jio World Convention Centre, Mumbai on January 17, 2025. This landmark event brought together policymakers, researchers, practitioners, business leaders, entrepreneurs and changemakers to delve into the theme: ‘Beyond AI: The Next Frontier in Digital Transformation.’Also Read | US Inauguration Day 2025: Full Schedule of Donald Trump Including Oath Ceremony Time in India.The one-day conclave served as a dynamic platform to explore cutting-edge insights into innovation and technology, offering a glimpse into how digital transformation is reshaping industries such as Manufacturing, Logistics, Finance, Aviation, Healthcare, Media, Entertainment, Sports and beyond. With engaging panel discussions, thought-provoking keynote addresses, and impactful networking opportunities, IDC-2025 reinforced its commitment to driving meaningful conversations around the future of technology.The conclave marks yet another significant milestone in IIM Udaipur’s dedication to fostering collaboration and thought leadership in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.Also Read | ICC Champions Trophy 2025 Full Schedule, Free PDF Download Online: Get Fixtures, Time Table With Match Timings in IST and Venue Details of Cricket Tournament.The event commenced with an address by Prof. Ashok Banerjee, Director, IIM Udaipur. In his inaugural speech, Prof. Ashok Banerjee, Director of IIM Udaipur, emphasised the institute’s pioneering efforts in fostering sustainability, innovation, and digital transformation. He highlighted IIM Udaipur’s leadership in renewable energy, with 20% of its energy sourced from renewables, projected to reach 45% by year-end, and its goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030. Prof. Banerjee also spoke about the institute’s Digital Enterprise Management (DEM) program, which integrates academic rigour with real-world industry interactions to prepare students for emerging trends. Concluding his address, Prof. Banerjee reiterated IIM Udaipur’s commitment to leading India’s digital and sustainable transformation journey by leveraging innovative education, impactful research, and strategic partnerships.In his keynote address, P. Vasudevan, Executive Director at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), highlighted the multifaceted challenges and opportunities in integrating AI into everyday life. He emphasised the critical role of transparency in AI decision-making to ensure financial inclusion and cautioned against the risks of financial exclusion if AI models lack accountability. Vasudevan discussed concerns such as deepfakes, false simulations, and the gap between AI ideation and execution, using fraud detection and speech-to-text AI as examples. Concluding his address, Vasudevan spotlighted India’s potential in the global AI landscape, supported by initiatives like AIRAWAT, a sophisticated AI research and cloud platform, and the DPDP Act, which will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of digital governance. He urged stakeholders to focus on solving challenges in AI integration rather than discarding solutions that don’t initially work, reiterating the importance of collaboration through PPP models for self-reliance and sustainable progress.For the session ‘Research at the Intersection of AI and Human Beings’, international researcher Prof. Mohan Kankanhalli, in his insightful session on “Harnessing AI for Societal Good,” explored how AI can address both grand and emerging challenges. He outlined guiding principles for mission-driven research, emphasising real-world impact, measurable improvements, and deployment pathways beyond academic papers. Prof. Kankanhalli also addressed smaller, critical challenges like detecting harmful social media content and creating safe large language models (LLMs). Sharing his research, he delved into advancing multimodal LLMs, ensuring fairness in AI, and exploring innovative concepts like machine unlearning and anti-sample creation to counter biases. The speaker concluded by highlighting AI’s immense potential for societal good, tempered by the need to mitigate its downsides in areas like facial forging and ensuring ethical development.In his session on ‘Frontiers Between Language and Reasoning,’ Prof. Soumen Chakrabarti discussed the fascinating relationship between AI and the human brain. He emphasised that the human brain’s strength lies in the dynamic retrieval and linkage of information, which is essential for reasoning. Prof. Chakrabarti highlighted the importance of training AI to mirror these processes, particularly through graphical and logical understanding, enabling AI systems to form meaningful connections between queries, passages, and complex data representations like HTML tables. He also delved into the intricacies of training large language models (LLMs), showcasing detailed examples of how knowledge graphs and formal logic can enhance AI’s reasoning capabilities. According to Prof. Chakrabarti, AI needs to go beyond natural language for reasoning tasks, relying on graphs and tables to communicate complex reasoning steps effectively. His talk emphasised that integrating graph matching and sub-graph retrieval would be critical in advancing AI systems for tasks requiring sophisticated reasoning.In the engaging panel discussion, ‘Artificial Intelligence and Human Instincts,’ moderated by Shiv Shivakumar, Chairman at MTPL, an Advent Company, panellists shared their perspectives on the evolving role of AI across industries. The esteemed panelists included Apurva Mankad, Founder of WebXpress, Jayanta Banerjee, Group and Global CIO at Tata Steel Limited, Khushboo Aggarwal, Founder of Zyla Health, and Neetan Chopra, Chief Digital & Information Officer at Indigo Airlines. The discussion began with a lighthearted exploration of how ChatGPT would introduce each panellist, leading to a lively debate about AI’s capabilities to provide personal touches. The panellists further discussed the practical aspects of introducing AI within organisations, focusing on starting small, building awareness, and establishing business cases for AI adoption. They also shared insights from their industries on AI’s impact on skills, job roles, and employee productivity, focusing on Manufacturing, Aviation, Logistics, and Healthcare, where AI helps reduce burnout among caregivers. The conversation also covered key topics such as cloud investments, data security, and AI compliance, emphasising building a sustainable and secure AI ecosystem.In a compelling session on Corporate Success Stories, Amitav Sinha, Director General of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, shared insights into transformative projects that have revolutionised the income tax system in India. Reflecting on his journey with the core team of business process re-engineering, he highlighted how technology has come a long way to being leveraged to tackle underreporting and non-reporting of income. Initiatives such as mismatch detection systems, enabling taxpayers to update discrepancies with minimal charges voluntarily, have significantly enhanced compliance. Sinha detailed key milestones like establishing Centralized Processing Centers (CPCs), enabling seamless integration of filing and processing systems, and achieving a remarkable processing rate of 9,600+ ITRs per minute. He also discussed the role of AI/ML in reducing litigation by assisting officers with uniform decision-making, predicting advanced taxes, and ensuring faceless assessments. These innovations have not only streamlined operations but also set a roadmap for enhancing transparency and efficiency in tax administration.In the second session on Corporate Success Stories, Kanchan Bhonde, Product Strategy Head at Makers Lab and Assistant Vice President at Tech Mahindra, showcased groundbreaking projects that bridge the divide between technology creators and users. She shared an inspiring story of overcoming language barriers to empower innovative solutions for malnutrition in India, emphasising the critical role of AI-driven tools in breaking barriers to progress. Ms. Bhonde discussed transformative initiatives like Antmanirbhar Krishi, which leverages large language models (LLMs) to empower farmers with self-reliance. Highlighting challenges unique to India, such as underrepresented dialects, her team developed a model with 1.2 billion parameters that supports 37 Hindi dialects. Despite limited data–40% of which was unusable–they achieved remarkable results with a sustainable, cost-effective model. Additionally, she introduced Project Indus, showcasing real-time applications of generative AI on edge, tested in multi-agent scenarios and open-sourced for broader impact.As part of this transformative event, the Startup Show offered a dynamic platform for discussing AI’s potential to revolutionise industries. Moderated by Bikram Mahajan, Partner at Unicorn India Ventures, the session featured Abhay Pandey, Venture Capitalist at A91 Partners, alongside startup leaders Abhilash Chakraverty (Larkai), Amit Srivastava (Constems AI), Aniruddha Banerjee (SwitchOn), and Samyak Jain (Zeko AI). Together, they shared their perspectives on AI’s current and future role in reshaping industries like manufacturing, healthcare, and digital marketing.Discussions highlighted AI’s ROI potential, acknowledging that while some sectors need more time to fully realise returns, industries like healthcare and legal services are on the cusp of breakthroughs. Computer vision was identified as a game-changer in manufacturing, enabling defect-free production and contextual analysis of supply chains. Panelists also discussed India’s strength in data warehousing and application development, emphasising the nation’s growing investment in AI infrastructure and its capability to train models cost-effectively.Challenges like privacy regulations, clean data usage, and the rising infrastructure cost were addressed, along with strategies for balancing volume and value in scaling AI solutions globally. Panelists also explored digital twins in the U.S. market, showcasing zero-defect models as the starting point for AI innovation in manufacturing. This session underscored the significance of social responsibility, standardisation in large models, and leveraging AI as a co-pilot for progress, ensuring a sustainable and inclusive future in the AI era.Opening the session on AI in Sports and Entertainment Prateek Garg, Managing Director at Marigold Park Capital, highlighted India’s diverse streaming ecosystem and the democratisation of the value chain, emphasising AI’s role in delivering hyper-personalized content (n=1 experiences) and its potential to position media as a major contributor to GDP. He encouraged professionals to embrace AI rather than fear it, noting the shift from video as a profit centre to fandom as the ultimate goal. The speaker highlighted that by focusing on audience preferences and leveraging AI to lower production costs, increase efficiency, and shorten turnaround times, the industry can unlock unprecedented opportunities to capture consumer attention and reduce risks. Garg spotlighted monetisation as a key area of disruption, with hyperlocal targeting and contextual ad placements offering significant potential. He explained that AI also enables predictive tools to detect subscriber churn and empowers faster experimentation with new concepts. The speaker emphasised the importance of cultivating new talent pools capable of embracing AI and structuring teams to foster innovation, adaptability, and risk-taking. This approach, he argued, is crucial to staying ahead in the evolving AI-driven entertainment landscape.Ramakrishnan Subramanian (Ramky S), Founder of Sportsmechanics, delivered a compelling talk on how AI is revolutionising the world of sports and entertainment. Drawing from his dual passion for sports and technology, Subramanian illustrated how AI reshapes athlete development, fan engagement, and operational efficiency. He highlighted the challenge of bridging the gap between 20 million aspiring cricketers in India and only 3,000 traditional coaches. AI is unlocking untapped potential by offering virtual coaching tools where players can upload videos and receive personalised guidance to accelerate skill development.On the entertainment side, the speaker showcased how AI-driven analytical tools are not only empowering teams but also enhancing fan engagement. He pointed out that with 1.2 billion cricket followers globally, 90% of them in India, the potential for hyper-personalized fan experiences is immense. Subramanian stressed the importance of building smart, self-owned community platforms that give fans control over their content preferences, boosting viewership and revenue opportunities.About IIM UdaipurIIM Udaipur is well on its way to becoming a globally recognised B-School. It has broken new ground by focusing on world-class research and transforming students into tomorrow’s managers and leaders. The Institute arrived on the global education stage by securing accreditation from the AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) in merely eight years of its establishment. With this accreditation, IIM Udaipur is counted in the same league of global institutes, such as Harvard Business School, Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and the MIT Sloan School. IIMU has been listed on the Financial Times (FT) Global MIM Ranking 2024 for the 6th consecutive year, making it the only IIM to have achieved this feat. In the QS Global MIM Ranking 2025, IIM Udaipur stands as the 6th highest-ranked IIM and continues to maintain its listing for the 6th year in a row, reinforcing its global standing. Notably, it is also the youngest B-School in the world to be featured in both rankings. Additionally, IIM Udaipur ranks 4th in India for research in management, according to the UT Dallas methodology, which tracks publications in leading global journals, showcasing its excellence in academic research.Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2601664/Panel_Discussion_IDC_2025.jpgLogo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2183220/IIMU_Logo.jpg(ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PRNewswire. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)

Business and government ready to grow economy — BLSA

A busy year lies ahead for the business-government partnership with the WEF meeting in Davos and the G20 in Johannesburg in November.

Business and government are ready to grow the economy this year, kicking off the new year with a positive meeting that spurred momentum to accelerate structural reforms.

Busisiwe Mavuso, CEO of Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA), says in her weekly newsletter that the organisation had a very positive meeting with the president and a senior government team last week to provide updates and discuss the agenda for its government/business partnership in 2025 delivered through Business for South Africa.

She points out that the ambition of the second phase of the partnership is to deliver economic growth of 3% by the end of this year. “That is a material ambition, but one that business as well as government are committed to seeing through. That level of growth leads to job creation and triggers a positive self-reinforcing sentiment that supports growth.”

ALSO READ: Optimistic SA team from government and business heading to WEF in Davos

Business and government must act quickly

However, she warns that business and government must act rapidly if they want to realise that ambition.

“We achieved the end of load shedding, but we must build additional electricity capacity by expanding the grid and adding another 4 000 MW this year. We must boost the recovery of rail capacity to enable 193 Mt to move through our rail system from 152 Mt last year.

“We must get off the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list. We must unlock R100 billion of investment this year. We must also continue the effort to drive the recovery of the criminal justice system, bolstering the investigation and prosecution of complex white-collar crimes.

“The partnership already achieved much, most notably the progress on energy security but continuous work is still needed to keep reforming and ensure we follow through to deliver the kind of growth we need. The message from the president was clear: he wants to see an acceleration of delivery.”

Mavuso says as the president stated last week, ultimately these efforts must result in more jobs, especially for young people. “The partnership’s efforts must consider the employment impact of different options and ensure that all opportunities are grasped to create jobs.

“This is certainly the intended outcome of the reforms that will enable growth. With growth comes expansion as businesses invest to take advantage of opportunities. Investment leads to increased economic capacity which creates jobs at scale.”

ALSO READ: SA to outline G20 priorities at World Economic Forum in Davos

Business and government cooperation a global example

She says the partnership between business and government is a global example of how an emerging economy can tackle its challenges. “What business and government managed to achieve together is in many respects unprecedented.

“We can celebrate partnership milestones but also the partnership itself, which contributes to the business case for SA Inc. We are building what could be a template for the global economy to show how public and private sectors can work effectively together to enable the goals of both.

“The case of SA Inc will be set out this week at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, where we will promote our hosting of the G20 and B20 this year. Last week government and business also met to coordinate our agenda for Davos, ensuring that we work as a team to convey the case. There was great alignment between us and a clear view of the objectives.

“This year we can point to significant successes, such as the end of load shedding but also the many achievements of government in reversing the impact of state capture, from the rebuilding of Sars back into a world-class institution to the way we conducted elections last year. I feel this year’s WEF is the first where business and government have been in strong alignment as Team SA.”

ALSO READ: Government has productive partnership with business, but some detract from it – BLSA

Partnership on full display in Davos

Mavuso says the business/government partnership will be on full display in Davos.

“Team SA has a full programme setting out our progress with events ranging from climate change and our energy transition to South African beer and wine tasting.

“Our activation of the B20 South Africa presidency will be driven by a lunch that will convene global leaders with Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) president Mxolisi Mgojo and BLSA chairman Nonkululeko Nyembezi.

“Much of the activity will be around the official programme where we can engage with business and political leaders from around the world to make the case more directly for South Africa.”

She emphasises that 2025 is South Africa’s opportunity to tell the world that it is back in business and worthy of investment attention.

“Last week was encouraging, as our engagements with the president and preparations for Davos demonstrated that our leaders are keenly focused on showcasing South Africa as a country that is making things happen.

ALSO READ: President lauds partnership with business, but silent on NHI

2025 could be pivotal for South Africa

“This year could be pivotal for us as a country, like in 2010, the boom years before the financial crisis and the early years after democracy when so much was done to reform our institutions and put the economy on a growth path.

“We are rebuilding, gaining traction and accelerating reform, while simultaneously making the case for SA Inc. This week will be an exciting one, but the year ahead is filled with opportunities to deliver meaningful change for our country and our people.”

Put your business-critical data to work by creating a single source of truth

Data isn’t just a means to an end – it’s your organisation’s single source of truth. Data should always be the foundation for operational decisions, yet the widespread existence of data silos limits the progress of all business units. Many organisations today are in a similar position: business-critical data is scattered across sources, making it impossible to get a 360-degree view of business performance. 

Data silos are holding you back 

Around 80 per cent of companies struggle to unify data assets. While it’s hard to quantitatively measure the impact of data silos on your operations, you can be sure they’re having a negative impact on everything, from strategic decision-making and operational efficiency to employee productivity and customer satisfaction. 

Across all industries, teams make slow or poor decisions based on the limited information they can access. For example, a survey exploring the impact of fragmented data revealed that knowledge workers spend nearly 29 per cent of their week, or 11.6 hours, searching for information they need to do their job. This comes as no surprise when you learn that large organisations use an average of 367 different software tools. 

Data-driven organisations are coming out on top 

To achieve your desired business outcomes, you’ve got to make your data work for you. This is demonstrated by the 2022 Harvard Business Review Analytics survey, which found that 84 per cent of organisations deemed “data-to-value leaders” have a clear enterprise strategy for managing and extracting value from data, compared with just 50 per cent of all other organisations.

This focus on data strategy yields tangible benefits. For example, data-driven organisations are 162 per cent more likely to significantly surpass revenue goals than those relying on gut instinct and outdated practices.

Furthermore, a study by the University of Texas found that a 10 per cent increase in data usability can lead to $2 billion in revenue for a large company. However, the benefits extend far beyond your business’s bottom line, as organisations that connect the right data are also 173 per cent more efficient at complying with regulations. 

Customer-centricity relies on unified data 

A crucial element of a data-driven approach is a strong focus on customer experience. With unified data, customer communications become more personalised and consistent. Customers today expect connected journeys, with 76 per cent expecting consistent interactions across departments. However, many organisations struggle to achieve this because of fragmented data.  

Steel Warehouse, one of Formpipe’s manufacturing clients, unified its data in Microsoft Dynamics 365 as part of an efficiency and customer-centricity drive. Previously, its business-critical data was stored across several ERP systems and legacy archives, and the system didn’t meet the company’s business needs. 

By unifying its data in one ERP system, Steel Warehouse was able to leverage Lasernet’s integrated generation and delivery capabilities, to simplify its invoicing workflow as well as creating user-friendly documentation that perfectly aligned with its customers’ needs. Additionally, Lasernet’s archive functionality meant that Steel Warehouse could also create a portal where customers could quickly and securely review their account and product information. Ultimately, Steel Warehouse didn’t just improve efficiency, it delivered a better customer experience. 

Don’t let legacy data go to waste 

There’s also the matter of your legacy data. Don’t let the valuable insights hidden within it remain untapped, as it can hold a wealth of knowledge that can fuel your AI initiatives. You’ve accumulated countless documents containing vast amounts of data, including invoices, orders, contracts, catalogues, reports and more. 

However, much of this data may be unstructured and trapped in formats that are difficult to analyse, especially if it’s scattered across older systems. Many organisations rely on specialised legacy software to meet specific needs, but struggle to merge the data produced, with information from newer cloud platforms. This is one of Lasernet’s most powerful capabilities – pulling data from across multiple systems to allow you to produce 360-degree insights. Imagine the possibilities if you could free business-critical data from these disparate systems, giving AI algorithms the knowledge required to automate previously time-consuming processes, improve efficiency and reduce costs. 

Let’s look at the impact it could have on customer communications. You could increase customer satisfaction and boost internal productivity by generating personalised communications, extracting data from invoices and automatically categorising documents, regardless of the source system.  

For example, at Formpipe, we’re piloting a solution that trains machine learning algorithms to recognise data patterns in documents – even if designs and layouts change frequently. This removes the need for users to remap data fields once information is extracted from documents, improving efficiency and data quality. 

Unlock the full value of your data 

For over 35 years, Formpipe’s output and document management software, Lasernet, has been empowering businesses to quickly and easily create personalised, on-brand documents by combining data from legacy and cloud ERP systems. Lasernet works with virtually any kind of data, ensuring your documents always look the part. 

But aesthetics is just the beginning. Lasernet also unlocks significant cost savings and efficiency gains – our customers have reduced the total cost of ownership of document processing by up to 50 per cent and increased productivity by more than 35 per cent. By integrating Lasernet into ERP systems, be it Microsoft Dynamics 365, IFS, SAP or Infor, organisations have much to gain from putting data to work. 

by Mike Rogers, Executive VP and Head of Lasernet Division, Formpipe

Don’t wait to unlock the full potential of your ERP data. Discover how Lasernet improves customer satisfaction, reduces document management costs, and boosts productivity on the Formpipe website