Introduction to Digital

Technologies –
Class 1
Mahesh Natarajan and Himanshu Warudkar
March 2024

(c) Himanshu Warudkar

1
Brief intro of Mahesh Natarajan
Professional
• 28 years in Innovation, New Product Development, Product Optimisation
• Engineering with System Controls, Reliability Practioner, BB Six Sigma ; Ex. MBA
• Worked in US, Mexico, Europe, India
• Worked in Life Science, consumer product, Industrial supplies, semiconductor industries
• 7 granted patents in USPTO

Alternative Career or Hobby

Like Biking, slow run/jog long distance ; foodie 
Recent interest: Culture & Nature immersion
Guide Startups, students, work w NGO

(c) Himanshu Warudkar 2

A Brief History of Himanshu Warudkar
• 24 years of multi-disciplinary industry experience
• Experience across MNC Banks, IT Service Companies and Countries
• Experience across multiple techno-functional domains
• Have led multiple digital transformation programs
• M.Tech., MBA and Doctorate in Business Administration

(c) Himanshu Warudkar 3

Points of contact
• Teaching Assistant:
• Himani Maheshwari ([email protected])
• Class Representatives:
• [email protected]
• Contacting Us:
• Himanshu Warudkar - [email protected]
• Mahesh Natarajan – [email protected]
• Connect with Us:
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/hwarudkar
• Office Hours:
• Coordinated via Programs Office
What do you want out of this course?

Goto menti.com and use the code appearing on your

screen

“The mark of a higher education isn’t the knowledge that you

accumulate in your head. It’s the skills you gain about how to
learn” – Adam Grant
What will we learn in the course?
 Explore Traditional IT and Digital IT
 Get an overview of the types of legacy and digital technologies
 Understand nuances of digital transformation from strategy through execution
 Understand business applications of various digital technologies
 Understand how business decisions can be made across technologies
 Help you make informed decisions in respect of your career choices

(c) Himanshu Warudkar 6

Why should we learn this?
 Why is Digital Transformation Required?
 What are Digital Technologies?
 How does one transform legacy businesses through use of Digital Technologies?
 Role of 3Ds – Digital, Design and Data
 How should managers think digital?
 Industry Case Studies
 Careers in Digital IT

(c) Himanshu Warudkar

7
Course Outline
Session no. Topic
1 Introduction to IT

Week 1
2 Digital Transformation
3. Digital Technologies
Week 2
4. Composite Technologies Case Study 1- Fluid AI
5. Data Driven Organizations
6. Platform Strategies Case Study 2 - Symphony
7. Cloud and Data Security
Quiz 8. Service Design
Week 3

9. Business Case/RoI Case Study 3 – Divami

10. Project presentations
Case Study 4 - Zerodha
11. Project presentations
12. Project presentations
Week 4
Grading

Component Maximum points

Class participation 10
Quiz (1) 20
Case Study Submissions (Group) 5 x 4 = 20
Final Project (Group) 20
Final Exam 30
Total 100

9
Class Participation

• 5/10: for attendance

• 6/10: for participating with general/average points; speaking 1-2 times
• 7/10: for making better points, which shape the discussion; speaking 3-4 times
• 8/10: for making points which are explicitly appreciated (good/ well done etc.)
• 9/10: for making exceptional points, which hit the core of the issue
• 10/10: for saying/seeing something that I have not thought of
Final Project (Guidelines)
• 7 group projects will be randomly assigned
• 13 or 14 groups
• 3 weeks time
• No more than 2 teams take same project
• One team will be “discussant” (15 mins of presentation) and other will be “critique” (10 mins of
Q & A)
• Submit your PPTs before the 1st project presentation class (March 21st, 2024)
• Project selection within the Class to be coordinated by the SR
Let’s get down to business…
What is IT?

• Use of electronic media to store, transmit and process information or data

• Use to solve business problems

• Complements humans

• Increases efficiencies

• Enhances effectiveness

• Drives innovation
Characteristics of IT
• IT is a general-purpose technology (GPT) - Ubiquitous
• IT is an Innovation so important that it causes jumps (leapfrog!) in an
economy’s normal march of progress - Transformation
• Performance of GPT improves dramatically over time – Moore’s Law
• Complements of GPT
• Better-Skilled Workers
• Higher Levels of Teamwork
• Redesigned Processes
• New Decision Rights
Another way….. IT’s 4 Cs
• Calculate – Speed, Accuracy
• Connect – LAN, WAN and the Internet
• Change – Ways of doing business
• Capture (Today and Future!) – People’s Attention and Mind (AI!)
https://community.nasscom.in/communities/emerging-tech/ai/conceptualizing-ai-as-a-general-p
urpose-technology.html
Last day of 2023 …
Types of IT
Type of IT Key Role Questions to Ask
Functional IT Technologies that make Will any of the new software on the market enable our
the execution of business to operate more efficiently?
standalone tasks more Are our functional technologies outdated? What has
efficient changed?
Network IT Means by which people How do our people collaborate? Do we have ways of letting
can communicate with information flow within the company, with customers and
one another. suppliers?

Enterprise IT Restructure interactions In what ways are our current processes not supporting
among groups of needs of
employees or with business? Which ones need to be redesigned? Are there
business partners important business activities, events, or trends that we
should monitor? Are the data unavailable or stored across
so many systems that the information is difficult to
assemble?
Types of IT Companies
Products vs Services vs Platforms
Software Products Software Services Platforms
Scope Usually limited a few process areas Varied and multi-functional Varied and multi-functional

Level of customization Low High Base platform is standard.

Partners must conform to
Limited customization based on Delivered to customer specifications platform standards
customer needs

Domain knowledge required High, Onus of innovation with vendors Low Domain knowledge required by
by the vendors partners

Intellectual Property Belongs to the developer Belongs to the customer Platform IP belongs to the
platform owner. Partner IP
belongs to partners
Gestation period for High- higher investment and higher Low initial investment and project- Lower investment from
development based partners

Payment Model One-time fee or license + Annual Negotiated based on the scope of Revenue share
Maintenance Fee (AMC) the work

Sales Model One-time and need-based Incremental and relationship-based Platform providers attract
partners through multiple
business models
What type of companies rule the world?

Product Platform

Services IT / Non-IT
System of Record (SoR)

• Authoritative data source for a process

• Characteristics:

• Complete (account for all relevant

processes and programs)
• Accurate (reflect operations as they are
and follow internal or regulatory best
practices)
• Timely (represent the most up-to-date
snapshot of the business)
• Consistent (enforce a consistent data
model)
System of Engagement (SoE) An example of SoE

• Where Users interact with a SoR

• Characteristics:
• Decentralized
• Customised

ICICI Bank’s iMobile App

Managing IT …
Managing IT is Serious Business…
• Sales commits and someone must deliver
• 9 people x 1-month equals Baby
• All programmers are optimists.
• Urgency of boss forces programmers to agree
to unrealistic schedules
• Each task has a nonzero probability of failure
or slippage
• Testing cost always underestimated
An omelette promised in two minutes, may appear to be
progressing nicely. But when it has not set in two minutes, the
customer has two choices— wait or eat it raw.
So why do projects fail?
• Difficult to estimate time – subjective?
• Optimism – reading all material for digital technologies course?
• Effort != progress – weight reduction?
• Schedule not monitored – laziness?
• Adding programmers to fix a delay only makes it take longer – why?
• Specs will be too rich and will not reflect practical cost considerations – college project?
• Second system effects - As the system is built, new feature ideas occur – home décor?
Software Architecture
Why Big Software Failed?
• Monolithic, Single, Integrated Platforms – Scalability Issues
• Loss of control by the companies - Software Providers Defined Business Processes
• Governance forced a one-size-fits-all approach to technology use – ERP, CRM
• Overwhelming technical complexity and inflexibility – change one break many
• Costs of change, multi-national expansions and accessibility – move into new country
• Dependence on physical maintenance – Data Center

Software architectures must be blank canvasses capable of

yielding tiny pictures or large masterpieces.
Welcome to Digital IT
From Traditional IT to Digital IT

Supplier Input Process Output Customer

What’s the issue here?

Characteristics of Digital

Design Omnichannel Accessibility

Customer-centric
Digital User
Human
Behaviour

Value Co- Persuasive

Creation
The Technologies

Digital
User

Creating Choice
Experiences Architecture
What is the role of technology?
Speed

Transparency

Accuracy

Information

Results
Digital IT – Everything as a Service
Characteristics of Digital Architecture
• Micro-services and Modularized – Flexible
• Companies maintain control of process – APIs
• Governance allows integration of specific modules – Salesforce
• Choice of implementation technology – Speed to Market
• Pay as you Go – Clear Visibility of Costs
• Simplified Maintenance – Cloud
Types of Digital IT Vendors
IT Consulting
Service Providers

Digital IT Specialists
Product Companies

Service Integrators Buyers of Services

Source: Gartner
 Porters 5 Forces of Digital IT
Boutique startups, Threat of
agencies, threat of new New
players getting into digital Entrants
transformation
(Very High)
Several digital services
provides, large IT
companies, boutique
Intensity of Bargaining
startups, agencies
High employee turnover, competition Power of
talent war, low rivalry Suppliers
differentiation of services (High) (Low)
provided, consolidation
happening via M&A Digital IT

Investment is huge and therefore

One can replace a vendor Bargaining buyers have the power and can
Threat of command prices, outcome-
partner with another one, Power of
Substitutes based contracts
technology innovation is Buyers
(High)
rapidly making yesterday’s (High)
technology outdated

Global Investment in Digital Transformation is $1.3 Trillion

Journey from Legacy to Digital

Application APIs

Mainframe APIs

Mainframes
In summary

• Technology is critical for competitive advantage

• All companies are technology companies!
• System of Record vs System of Engagement
• Challenges with traditional IT
• Move to customer-centric digital IT
• Need to integrate legacy with digital technologies while managing
the two simultaneously
 Fluid AI Case is in Moodle
Questions for Case in Session 3 (Fluid AI)

1. What business was Fluid AI in? 0.5 marks per question

2. What is the core value proposition offered by Fluid AI to its customers vs its
competition?

3. Why did Fluid AI focus on banking industry and that too on international banking
1.5 marks per question
clients to begin with?

4. What other industries can Fluid AI expand into? Please state two other industries
and elaborate on some use-cases within these industries.
Instructions

• Group response
• 2-3 page word document
• To be submitted prior to the class
• Times New Roman, Font 12, Spacing 1.15
• File Naming: FluidAI-”Section”_”Group”