For the Love of Cloud – preparing pathways to navigate a predominantly digital future

As companies forge ahead on their digital missions, the cloud has become the de facto platform for businesses. In the early stages of transition to the cloud, India Inc. did encountered several difficulties. However, forward-looking enterprises have overcome those initial challenges and are on the next phase of their journey, wherein the cloud remains critical to unlocking endless possibilities. As it evolves, the cloud can deliver on its full promise of making infrastructure, applications and data into valuable assets.

To help IT leaders become trailblazers and unlock the best of the cloud in the evolving global business environment, NetApp and CNBC TV18 hosted a special event, ‘For the Love of Cloud’, a thought leadership forum. It focused on how to achieve the evolved state of the cloud by eliminating complexity and innovating rapidly while prioritizing sustainable practices and ensuring cohesive data dashboards and future proof security systems.

The event commenced with a thought-provoking welcome address by Puneet Gupta, Managing Director & VP, NetApp India & SAARC, NetApp. He recounted how the hybrid world, in which we currently live, is characterized by acceleration in the use of cloud. “Most companies are pivoting very significantly to the cloud but there is still some element of on-prem. So IT applications, infrastructure and data exist in both the worlds - on-prem and on-cloud. That is the new normal that all of us will have to live with,” he said, setting the tone for the discussions that followed.

The first discussion of the evening was themed ‘Deriving value by unlocking full cloud potential’. The participants comprised technology tycoons from leading conglomerates – Dhaval Pandya, Corporate CIO, Piramal Enterprise; Abhishek Sukhwal, Head of Cloud Centre of Excellence, Mahindra & Mahindra Group; Vinay Parath, Director- Enterprise & Public Sector Business, NetApp; Satyavrat Mishra, VP& Head IT, Godrej Industries and Nikunj Jain, CIO, Procter & Gamble, India. They shared their perspectives on how cloud journeys have evolved, particularly from a conglomerate perspective.

They explained how different segments of their businesses had benefitted at different paces and to different extents, while on their digital journeys. This was based on the business ecosystem they belonged to, the challenges they faced and capabilities they required. They narrated unique use cases and illustrated how adoption of cloud enables greater elasticity, data mining and agility, while on the learning curve. The panelists also discussed cloud-driven innovation and the evolved cloud, which accommodates existing architecture and enables continuous optimization to drive outcomes. Last, but not the least, they expressed how leveraging the power of the cloud could enhance Customer Experiences (CX) and Employee Experiences (EX).

The event proceeded with a panel discussion on ‘Co-existence of Data Security, Analytics & Cloud Computing’. The panel of IT experts - Jagdish Narayanan, CIO, Reliance Jio Payments Bank; Girish Pise, AVP – IT Infra Head, Genesys International; Shuja Mirza, Director (Solutions Engineering), India/SAARC, NetApp and Abhijit Shah, CTO, Nippon India Mutual Fund - shared their views on key technologies that are imperative for cyber security, across cloud, networks and applications.

They discussed issues related to data harnessing and management in this era of data explosion, where the surface area is immense, complex and constantly increasing. The obvious theme that followed was ways to ensure proactive security and protection of information. The panelists outlined the ideal data journey and how the data fabric of any organization can be simplified and secured as workloads become more diverse, complex and extensive in terms of their volumes.

Before concluding, the audience was treated to a special fireside chat with Byju Joseph, Chief Technology Officer, Future Generali India Life Insurance Company and Partho Malakar, Senior Manager- Enterprise Sales, NetApp. These stalwarts focused on how leaders can take advantage of tech-fueled innovation and inspiration in future, while also improving their business acumen. They expressed their views on the relevance of tech skills in an increasingly digital world and challenges faced by tech leaders with a non-tech background. Most relevantly, they enumerated the qualities and skills that make a great leader in technology.