Excerpts from the interaction with Mr. A. Sathyanarayanan, General Manager IT at Ashok Leyland

Authored by Mr. A. Sathyanarayanan, General Manager IT at Ashok Leyland

The Indian Commercial Vehicle (CV) industry emerged stronger right from the global downturn and sales throughout its segments have seen good growth. Although the industry has much to look forward to, there are some clear challenges being faced by the industry. To gain more insights into the industry, we spoke to Mr. A. Sathyanarayanan, General Manager IT, Ashok Leyland. Here's an excerpt: 

Q1. What are the present business challenges and opportunities in the Commercial Vehicle Manufacturing space? 

The Indian Commercial Vehicle industry is often considered as the backbone of the country’s economy. India is one of the largest producers of commercial vehicles in the world. I have been fortunate to be a part of this industry. After observing the industry closely over the years, I believe the following are the challenges and opportunities being experienced by the industry nowadays: 

Challenges: 

• Strict Emission Norms: The migration to BSVI emission standards—scheduled to be effective from April 1, 2020—is looming large on the industry. The new emission norms require significant changes in engines and transmission design, which will impact the costs of our vehicles. 

• Electric Vehicles: With the fast depletion of fossil fuel and increased pollution levels, the electric vehicle platform is now mandatory. We need to strive to provide a cost-effective solution in the design, manufacturing, and service of electric vehicles. The availability of infrastructure in charging the batteries of the vehicle and the government policy are again adding to these challenges. 

• Cyclicality in Business Environment: CV business is highly prone to be impacted, owing to abrupt changes in the economy. Hence, it’s always a challenge to protect ourselves from this cyclicality in market conditions. 

Opportunities: The opportunities coming to us can be best described as ‘ACES Mobility’. 

• Autonomous Mobility: Although we are quite far from reality when it comes to driverless vehicles for a CV, the autonomous functionalities that are going to be built into a vehicle in the future will provide us with more opportunities, including:
• Tracking the vehicle
• Monitoring the health of the vehicle
• Building many use cases with the data collected during the vehicle movement

• Connected Mobility: Connecting vehicles to the internet results in new services and additional benefits that reach far beyond the vehicle’s actual functions. 

• Electric Mobility: An affordable electric version of vehicles will provide us with an edge over our competitors. 

• Shared Mobility: It’s about the shared use of a vehicle on costs as per use. This revenue model will generate multi-business use cases. 

Above all, the digital revolution will present opportunities for CV manufacturers to spawn many new solution businesses. 

Q2. Tell us briefly about the evolution of Enterprise IT within Ashok Leyland before embarking on your Digital Transformation journey. 

IT has always been an integral part of our business. The evolution of Enterprise IT within our organization can be best described as: 

From an IT-supported Organization 10 years ago (Decentralized applications, a decentralized IT organization) 

To: 
IT-enabled Organization 7 Years ago [Larger IT footprint, centralized applications (Core ERP, PLM) , centralized support, and niche technology skills) 

To: IT-led Organization 2 years ago before embarking on our Digital Transformation (Maturity in the adoption of digital technologies, including Social, Mobility, Analytics, and Cloud) 

Q3. Please take us through your Digital Transformation journey; the thought process, milestones and key learnings. 

 Our Digital Transformation journey can be well described by a 3x3 Matrix, wherein all our initiatives are fitted. On Y-Axis (Business Axis), we have digital initiatives to enhance efficiency, digital for enhancing revenue and initiatives for imbibing security. On X-Axis (Technology Axis), we have basic technology (Foundation), technology to be exploited (Cloud, Analytics, AI), and technology to be explored (Blockchain, Advanced AI, VR & AR, Industry 4.0, etc.). 

In our Digital Transformation journey: 

• We have adopted Bi-Modal IT. There are separate teams for Core IT and Digital IT. 
• We are working with multiple start-ups for agility and DevOps. 
• All the initiatives are business-driven as products (and not as projects). 

Our milestone achievements so far are as follows: 

• Data collected by the above-mentioned initiatives have enabled us to create multiple business solutions, which have further helped the business enhance revenues. and In future, it might de-risk the cyclicality of the business. 
• We were able to monetize the data collected and it became an asset to the organization. 

 Q4. What advice would you like to share with your peers in the light of your recent experiences? 

I firmly believe that one should use a particular technology that suits one’s organization and its culture. One shouldn’t get into new initiatives just for the sake of using technologies. Do have a plan to re-vamp the core ERP platform, as it will have to meet the requirements of digital initiatives. 

Finally, don’t hesitate to work with start-ups, as they bring in agility. 

Q5. How has been your experience with Dell EMC? 

We use Dell end-user devices (Laptops, Desktops) and Dell EMC storage extensively. Be it supporting all our activities around IT transformation or keeping our workforce on the changing frontiers of technologies— I always consider Dell EMC as the most reliable IT partner.