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Artificial intelligence is known as a wide array of computer science focused on developing smart devices and machines that are capable of completing tasks without any human error efficiently and effectively. Multiple industries have started utilizing smart functionalities of Artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, and machine learning algorithms to transform enormous volumes of complex datasets into meaningful in-depth insights for a better understanding of customer behavior in the tech-driven world.
Here is an exclusive interview with Sudeshna Datta, the Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of Absolutdata Analytics where she explains how the company leverages disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and types of advanced analytics to empower clients with customized solutions.
Infogain-backed Absolutdata is a forward-thinking AI and advanced analytics company that helps businesses leverage their data, convert it into actionable insights and make informed decisions. With its heritage in analytical frameworks, business understanding, and technology, the company aims to empower clients with its unique offering— NAVIK AI, an intelligent platform offering a suite of pre-built solutions. This includes NAVIK SalesAI is designed to help a salesperson with AI-based sales guidance, NAVIK MarketingAI to provide hyper-personalized marketing solutions, NAVIK ResearchAI for market research using various algorithms, and NAVIK TradeAI as a trade promotion intelligence solution, among others.
Other solutions include NAVIK MicroMods as a plug-n-play ML algorithm harnessing AI whenever required and ASK NAVIK as a virtual assistant with a simple interface that helps answer business questions from multiple sources dashboards, databases, documents, and reports. Apart from these solutions, the company also provides several analytical services like marketing analytics, customer analytics, data visualization, and business intelligence and research analytics. Absolutdata also allows clients to license and customize most of its solutions through its team of data scientists and engineers.
There is one positive repercussion that came in the wake of COVID-19— rapid digital transformation. The pandemic pushed companies to go digital and switch to technologies overnight. This trend is here to stay with or without the pandemic, especially AI, which was already witnessing accelerated adoption. While the past few years have allowed many companies to dip their toe into AI, ML, intelligent automation, and other similar solutions, 2020 proved to be the year to dive in headfirst.
The proliferation of AI is happening at an incredible pace at both the chip level and the software level, making no mistake when two things are deeply intertwined. Chipmakers like NVIDIA, Intel, and Qualcomm are rapidly integrating AI into their systems. This translates to greater democratization of the technology that enterprise and software developers can apply to data and applications. This development has been notable with cloud providers like AWS, Azure, Google, Oracle, and IBM— all embedding and expanding their AI offerings for public and hybrid cloud deployments.
Ultimately, this provides results in more accessibility to the computing power, frameworks, and algorithms required in applying AI to everything from your smart speaker, your mobile device to your enterprise sales and planning software. The coming year will see impressive AI growth, where many AI applications themselves take off, truly delivering insights, efficiencies and ensuring cost savings for the digital marketplace. While AI is going to continue impacting our lives in numerous ways, here are some trends that can be seen in rapid deployment:
Hyperautomation/Digital Process Automation: DPA is a combination of tools and technologies that includes AI, business process software/automation, machine learning, and business management applications. All organizations are seeking speed and efficiency and intelligent process automation to help in meeting these goals. By providing a real-time look at how the company is functioning, DPAs highlight ways to increase optimization and agility.
Combination of IoT sensor data with AI processing technology: IoT devices are rich data sources and we know how AI loves data; on the flip side, AI can be used to teach these devices to improve their performance, thereby helping businesses enhance customer experience at every point possible.
Conversational AI: We are already used to AI-powered chatbots, but conversational AI takes this to the next level, adding an 'emotional layer' to the relatively dry chatbot experience. Just as chatbots have quickly become the front-line personnel for customer service issues, conversational AI will revolutionize chatbots and innovate customer interactions like never before.
Hybrid computing: Hybrid computing mixes SaaS (Software as a Service, such as Microsoft Office 365, Google Workspace, etc.) and other Cloud-based solutions with on-prem tools. In some ways, the hybrid offers the best of both worlds— the scalability and economy of the Cloud and the unique infrastructure configurability of on-premises computing. A hybrid setup means being able to cope with large amounts of data while still managing privacy, compliance, and security needs for businesses.
Digital twins: These are virtual versions of actual products, processes, or services. This confluence of the digital and physical world allows data analysis and helps monitor systems to identify issues before they even surface. It also prevents downtime, creates new opportunities, and lets you leverage AI and ML to smartly navigate ahead of time using simulations and actionable data in hand.
The pandemic has caused global upheaval that may endure for months, or maybe longer. The economic setback has slowed down and disrupted operations globally. As a company, we had our share of cash flow crunches and stressed revenues. However, we were agile to realign on focus areas, reprioritize on actions, and quickly make a move.
We had to let go of some of our workforces, make structural changes to the company, and take some administrative decisions. But luckily, we were able to bounce back quickly and are now moving towards growth. We received immense support from our clients and partners— they have been optimistic and proactive about this entire situation. They knew that we have the most advanced technology at our end to help them navigate through unique conditions and present and help them tap into new market opportunities. Similarly, the scenario has provided us with a chance to engineer new solutions that could further expand our domain capabilities and add products to our AI-suite (NAVIK AI products) to cater to the impending business needs.
Post the pandemic, we had explored newer roads that could benefit our customers and us alike. For instance, we have entered into a silver-level partnership with Nielsen to accelerate the digital transformation of CPG and Retail companies by integrating Nielsen Data into our AI-driven solutions. And then, we got acquired by Infogain, a leader in human-centered digital platforms and software engineering services. The two companies' complementary strengths create synergies that benefit the unified organization's customers.
As part of a larger organization with broader skills, Absolutdata's talented data scientists and solution engineers can now work with enhanced strategy, rich experience, and veteran cloud technology experts to deliver comprehensive AI and analytics solutions along with the infrastructure needed to execute digital transformation strategies. This acquisition has also opened up career growth possibilities for our employees. Being part of a larger company with an expanded skillset will enable us to deliver innovative, end-to-end solutions to clients as a unified team.
We have a clearly defined roadmap that will guide our future actions. We are already in a robust growth mode and will continue moving in the same direction, where our customers are driven by digital transformation and a greater need to adopt AI. Absolutdata's future growth driver is the NAVIK AI suite, designed to deliver results quickly, economically, and at a scale that the top echelons of management get noticed. We cater to any business that is looking to deploy and reap the benefits of AI solutions. We strive to create value through innovation and will continue transforming how the world makes decisions. We are looking at helping clients drive rapid growth, improve revenue, and create more profound, more resilient customer relations across multiple industries.
The journey has been incredible so far as we have developed strong expertise, name, and traction with Fortune 1000 companies across 60 nations (including regions such as APAC, EMEA, North America, Latin America, EU, etc.) and have successfully delivered numerous projects across industries. We also look at educating clients on how they can benefit from AI and make it a part of their decision-making process. We want to elevate the maturity of organizations in their adoption of analytics so that it helps them drive major decisions throughout their business journeys.
The pandemic has led to the accelerated adoption of intelligent automation. This has happened across every sector and for all business sizes. Suddenly, there was a surge in demand for an analytics-driven workforce that could help enterprises grow in such difficult times. The Indian analytics and data science industry will continue to grow and play a key role in decision-making across every sector and industry. We are also likely to see players investing in sophisticated and intelligent autonomous systems to achieve tasks with greater precision, speed, and efficiency than their human counterparts.
The analytics industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 21.2% till 2026— the Indian analytics market in 2026 would touch US$118. It accounts for 23.4% (increasing from 19.0% last year in 2020) of the entire IT/ITES industry in 2021. This share is expected to ramp up and account for 41.5% of the Indian IT industry by 2026. [source: AIM Study] We see the same level of growth in global markets as well.
We are a growing team of over 350 data scientists, analysts, and engineers who develop and provide customized analytics and AI solutions to global clients using their state-of-the-art skillsets.
As businesses become more data-savvy, the analytics domain evolves further and creates newer job roles in this field. Developing an in-depth understanding of the trends in the analytics industry is thus important for professional success, given the rapid growth of the demand, variety, and skill requirements of job roles in the domain.
Need for blended skills with business understanding and technical prowess: The basic skills that a professional aspiring to join the industry include active learning capability, critical thinking, communication skills, complex problem-solving ability, and a structured thought process. In addition, an in-depth understanding of programming languages (Python, R, SQL, etc.) and familiarity with various tools, algorithms, and platforms are essential.
Knowledge of the cloud is an added edge: Data as a Service (DaaS) is becoming more and more popular these days because companies can use cloud storage to obtain actionable insights from their data even if they don't have data infrastructure in-house. Also, the knowledge of Cloud-based services and associated technologies for platforms including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud could be further helpful. It is imperative to be able to apply the technical skills and contextualize the solution for the specific business problem, and therefore the blended skills are required to succeed.
Rapid digitization of hiring processes: Talent Acquisition professionals have been leveraging digital tools extensively to manage the search for suitable candidates and also to build a comprehensive talent pipeline. This process will enhance the overall hiring process, helping leaders choose the right candidate fit for the right area.
Rise of decision intelligence: It is a process of obtaining insights and making informed decisions by leveraging data and advanced methods like machine learning. It is estimated that more than 33% of organizations will use decision intelligence, whether they are tech companies or not.
Hire and grow philosophy: The focus of companies is shifting towards hiring raw talent and training them through advanced learning and development programs. This trend is substantiated due to the rapid pace of change in the analytics industry in terms of tools and techniques. Another emerging theme is to encourage internal mobility, even in traditionally rigidly structured organizations. This helps in addressing the shifting skillset requirements by leveraging the existing talent pool itself. It also helps to create an environment for employee learning and growth within the organization.
Companies are also broadening the scope of their talent search and the diversity of their talent sources by looking beyond the standard STEM pool and exploring candidates with skills that are relevant as well as transferable to analytics-related job roles.
Searching and enabling talented individuals to succeed in AI/analytics-led organizations can be a daunting challenge for companies. Building organizational AI/machine learning capabilities requires a fundamental reengineering of existing business processes. These efforts naturally include hiring or training technical talent.
Effective AI talent management, however, is perhaps even more critical. It is because ultimately, managers are responsible for shaping the design and direction of the organization's strategy to maximize the returns of any new technology. With this comes the responsibility to manage the associated risks of building AI systems.
Effective AI talent management can drive faster productivity and provide companies with a competitive advantage when implemented correctly. The first requirement for leaders in building a successful AI system is hiring and training the right talent. AI experts are a part of the data science team but focusing on building a different suite of products.
I believe in a thought leadership approach along with a willingness to learn. For me, it's always a collaborative effort because no work can be successfully done without a team of bright minds working together towards a common objective. I have always valued my co-workers, and the pandemic has made me recognize them even more. It is because of their spirit, resilience, and tireless contributions we have reached this far. So, I always try to focus more on building personal equations with all my co-workers to build trust and loyalty as a friend and confidant. In short, learning from each other and help the teams to grow is my mantra to attain success.
Our commitment to innovation and emerging technology has been recognized worldwide. This has helped us establish a strong reputation as leaders in the AI and analytics domain. Enclosed are some of the awards we have recently achieved:
