INTERVIEW OF THE MONTH
INTERVIEW WITH MR DINESH MUSALEKAR,
President & CEO – LUMEL S.A. & LUMEL Alucast sp zoo
What are some of the key principles, do’s and don’ts that enterprises should take cognizance of as they put together new revenue models with digital?
When any enterprise puts up new revenue models, they should not be distracted from their core business fundamentals for which their business exists. In simple words, the value addition they bring to their customers should be the epicentre of the business.
The digital platforms are only the means to make the above happen more efficiently and more cost-effectively. Enterprises, at times, could be overwhelmed, over compelled and could be doing a bit more than necessary and side-lining the core business itself.
Keeping the platform simple and focusing on the target audience will always help.
When any enterprise puts up new revenue models, they should not be distracted from their core business fundamentals for which their business exists. In simple words, the value addition they bring to their customers should be the epicentre of the business.
The digital platforms are only the means to make the above happen more efficiently and more cost-effectively. Enterprises, at times, could be overwhelmed, over compelled and could be doing a bit more than necessary and side-lining the core business itself.
Keeping the platform simple and focusing on the target audience will always help.
While a lot has been written on creating new digital revenue streams, end of the day it is about change and how an enterprise brings along its people in putting together and executing the digital vision. In your experience, how can enterprises best manage the people element in managing change?
I think managing the people element in managing change is a challenge as well as an opportunity. The enterprises that can harness their employees better and be quicker to adapt to the digital changes will undoubtedly have an edge over their competition. Like any other change management, it’s not easy, especially in traditional manufacturing companies like ours, where the speed of change is relatively slower than some other industries like IT, consumer electronics, telecom, etc.
We have to go through the S curve of the change management every single time we implement something new. Communication, training, support, and perseverance are the key elements.
Gazing into the crystal ball, what are your predictions about the future of digital business initiatives and its impact on businesses and consumers?
It’s becoming more and more apparent that there are three areas which will drive the way we do business and we live – just about everything in future which we call as the 4th industrial revolution (industry 4.0) or IoT.
- Sensors – Huge developments are happening and will continue to happen in the area of sensors (transducers) to measure or sense just about everything. These are becoming smaller, smarter, cheaper and able to connect to the cloud directly.
- Big data – While the internet and connectivity is becoming cheaper and faster by every month, all the data points sensed or measured by the sensors or transducers are going to be up there as big data.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) – The algorithmic and the algorithms are written to ultimately make or assist us to make much more accurate and informed decisions.
The above three areas are advancing continuously and rapidly as we speak right now. This is changing everything and will change significantly the way we do business in the future, the way we manufacture, the way we service, quite simply the way we live!
Can you detail some of the major initiatives that Lumel is doing in this space and how it has benefitted you?
Lumel SA is an electronics manufacturing company and has its bit of contribution to industry4.0 products and services. We do have developed many sensors that work on MQTT protocol making them cloud-enabled. They measure various data from sensors and push them on to our very own developed cloud enables software MARC.
We take great pride in helping companies to monitor and optimize energy, process parameters and efficiencies, real-time in various industries.
On the other hand, we are also an enterprise with manufacturing facilities both in electronics and high-pressure aluminum diecasting (HPDC) where we use various digital platforms to conduct our business.
Broadly we have two categories of digital platforms.
- Technical ones which are basically collecting data from critical process points continuously to improvise the manufacturing quality/cost and time. Some of them are even to simulate the processes and predict the quality/cycle time of the products that we manufacture.
- The second set of digital platforms is more generic such as SAP / Workflow etc for increasing the speed of decision making, to optimise process costs, etc by the interconnection of data between various departments.
