 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's indeed my pleasure to be with you and it's so wonderful to be back here and to be present in person after a long time and to be with some friends. My thanks to Naval, I think when Naval asked me that you know and requested me to do this keynote. I was thinking you know that I'm not an expert on digital or digital transformation but I'm a practitioner of it. So I'm somebody who believes in it. I'm somebody who sort of you know work through this at YCOM 18 during my eight years, how we transformed and with the launch of Woot and everything which some of you are sure are aware. So what I'm going to do in the next 10 to 15 minutes is to share with you some of my thoughts and to talk about this concept of effective, you know, path for digital transformation. And what is it that you should be looking at when you look at digital transformation and also give you a little bit of insight because I know there may be a bit of a bias towards marketing side of it here and I think that's something which we will talk about as well and after that I will be very happy to take on questions. So let me start with first the word digital and you know I've been at it. I ask people to talk to me and tell me about digital in one word. And there are lots of words which I hear. So it is a word, data was normally a word which comes up very frequently. When you say one word in digital, people will say data. People will say online. Some people will say internet. Lot of people nowadays say mobile. And you know in the past if you are slightly older generation people will say computer. So I think these are words which are e-commerce is another word when you now use digital comes up very clearly. And as Naval was briefly talking D2C is another one which is a word which is very frequently used when you say digital. But also there are words like automation, technology, words like simplify. I think if you ask some people out with simplify, some people say paperless. I think that's the other word which I have heard. The other word which I have also heard when you ask them digital people will turn around and say intelligent. Now whether it is intelligent or dumb is anybody's guess as we go around with intelligent agents coming up. But I think these are the few words which come up. Now remember many of these words because as I speak you will see that I'll intersperse some of them in how we look at digital transformation. I'd now want to take a couple of minutes to define digital transformation because we use this word quite often. And I want to define this and I also want to talk about the parts to effective digital transformation as to what are the and I will talk about three broad steps. And to me the first step is actually digitization. So when you start this journey the first thing you need to do is digitization. And you would have heard this word digitization. Now how do I define digitization? For me digitization is simply taking all your data digital. So if existed earlier transferring it into digital and in the current context and perhaps in future capturing it digital format. So getting all your data in digital format is what is digitization. So that's the first step but a very important first step and it's relevant for all kinds of data. And I think you know and as we talk and as through some of my experience I'll talk you through that as well. So digitization is important. I think the second thing which is very important is digitalization. So when you talk about digitalization and use these two words interchangeably but to me these two are slightly distinct words. When you talk about digitalization you're talking about basically digitization that leads to more to better information. Digitalization that actually starts bringing in process intelligence. Digitization that starts bringing in automation and perhaps early stage analytics. So that's digitalization. So take digitization leading to higher order information, process intelligence, automation, early analytics is what you will call digitalization. Most companies are actually in their journey in this space if one was to define that as a space. Last you come to digital transformation. So digitization, digitalization and digital transformation. When you come to digital transformation digital transformation is transforming the way you do things. So it is about now changing the way we work using digitalization to unlock value. So I think there are, so if you look at there are three key aspects here. It's one we will change the way we do things. So I think there is a fundamental shift in the way we do things. We will therefore and it is enabled through digitalization which we spoke about and it definitely unlocks value. So digital is what digital does. Do remember that also. It's not only for the sake of digital. So that to me then is digital transformation and in some ways that is also the parts as in digitization, digitalization and going on to digital transformation in some ways is an effective part which you or your companies could take for digital transformation. Some companies take it sequentially. Some companies today could be doing it in parallel. So you could be accelerating it and doing it in parallel. Having said that this is digital transformation I think specifically now and a bit more for Mark Tears but in general the context in which we are working in what is our current environment like? And the current environment and you've heard some of these words very frequently but they are very important and therefore some of these things. So one is that the smartphone is now near ubiquitous. It's there everywhere. So it's about mobile phone and the smartphone is becoming more and more affordable and more and more smart by every single day. So not only is it smarter but it is also more affordable which in some ways is fantastic news. It's great for Mark Tears. So I think that's the first underlying theme in which we are working nowadays and that's why you keep hearing this mobile first. Particularly for the developing world but this is a phenomena which has gone from developing world to the developed world and perhaps it's a worldwide phenomena now on mobile first. So smartphones becoming ubiquitous is the first thing. I think the second thing which is becoming very common now and is an essential ingredient in digital transformation and digital journey is cloud and you hear a lot about cloud and you know we started Amazon cloud but nowadays you have a Google cloud, you have Microsoft Azure cloud and you have host of other companies who also offer cloud services. Cloud becomes important because you need to have information which is there real time getting onto the cloud and in future being able to be able to have real time analytics available on it and therefore to be able to work on some of those things. And now I was talking about Metaverse and Metaavtars today and so on so forth which you will talk. Some of these are essential ingredients for you to be able to deliver that. That automatically leads me to the third aspect which is social and I think and you know and social is becoming very important especially for marketers. I think if you look at it, the role of social in growing marketing and I think it's growing by the day. I think there are many platforms which are available and I don't want to get into that because some of you know it better than I do. But I think the only thought I want to leave you social and I was briefly chatting with Naval as well in the room when we were waiting for the session to start is I think shelf life of social is something which we need to ponder upon now. I think the shelf life of any social product in my opinion will almost be equal to life of a one generation because by definition what happens is so Facebook was a social media for when I talk about my kids for saying that my parents and they wouldn't use Facebook. They would start using Instagram. Now Instagram as these Instagram generation starts moving into becoming parents and when they have their teenager kids they are unlikely to use Instagram because teenagers will not do anything what their parents do as many of the old parents here know that. So then you have a small sliver at the moment you have Snapchat coming and then there is TikTok coming. So as you keep going forward the question to ask is the shelf lives of each of the social platform. At the same time the other way to look at it is and as a market here it allows you to beautifully segment. So I think that's the other way to look at it. As you go forward it will continue you to allow you to segment. So you okay so this generation this is what you should use. If this is the generation this is what you should use. So I think your ability to sort of build on this piece will be very good. I think if you are running those platforms you've got to ponder on how do you increase the longevity of the platforms or what do you do as a company to be able to build them. Do you therefore build separate platforms to acquire them as has indeed been done by the big social company at the moment. So I think this is the other third phenomena. So mobile, cloud, social. I think three are very important phenomena which are current engulfing everything which we do in and around especially in the context of marketing. I think I now want to spend a couple of minutes on sharing with you some of the disruptions which are some of them are here with us at the moment and some of them are going to come in the future and some of them will evolve. And I'm going to use the term intelligent to keep talking about all disruptions. And I'm going to talk about five intelligent aspects so to say or intelligent buckets. So let me first start with intelligence which are already with us. Alexa for sure, if you look at it, if some of you guys bank with HDFC, Eva, if you are a number of Hilton, then Connie, if you've got to Georgia Tech, then Walton. So I think there are a lot of these and it's going to become commonplace. I think so therefore intelligent agents are here. They are here for you to sort of continue to build on. Depending on what company you are, would you like to build one yourself? Would you like to use some? And how do you do that? And how do they keep becoming better? So intelligent agents is something which is there and that's the first disruption is already with us actually. Again, plays on to what Noel was saying. One of the sessions you will look forward to somewhat in that zone which is basically intelligent agents. The second area which is very interesting for marketers is intelligent interface. And an intelligent interface space which we should keep looking at and I think which will get dialed up as technology becomes more ubiquitous, as 5G comes in and in India now already the 5G auction has happened as you know. So when I talk of intelligent interface, I'm talking about augmented reality. I'm talking about virtual reality. So intelligent interface allows you immersive experiences, immersive learning depending on which space you are in. So I think again when you look at particularly augmented reality, world over but for a country like India where Bollywood is one of the big religions almost in a country like ours, there is so much you would be able to do with your brand ambassadors, with stars, with augmented reality. Think of a future when you could be sitting with the next with your favorite stars and having a conversation. I think augmented reality will help you that as we go forward. And if you are in the space of education, tourism, often construction and real estate, then virtual reality has a huge role to play as to about what the person can see. So when it is about tourism or what the person can move into if it is about I think using virtual reality. So therefore these intelligent interfaces are already there, but they will continuously keep getting dialed up. And as we start working more towards the glasses which used to be very cumbersome, they will become far more affordable, lighter, smarter. There's a lot of work which is happening which will allow you to use these technologies frequently and more effectively. So therefore that's the second one. So intelligent agents, intelligent interfaces. The third one is about intelligent networks. Now that is a bit about the backbone and some of you who are marketers and maybe front end marketers don't worry so much about it, but blockchains and distributive ledgers in terms of intelligent networks are going to make life easier and that's what is the, that's what is in somewhat the plumbing or the backend which allows you to deliver some of the experiences we talked about. Blockchain has just, the role of blockchain has just about started. We associate blockchain with crypto a lot but blockchain has huge advantages and huge roles. In any area as we keep going and some of it is perhaps outside specifically of marketing but intelligent networks is the third theme. The fourth theme is a very interesting theme which is about intelligent things and that is also partly there but is definitely around the corner. Autonomous cars is what we talk about a lot but socks with sensors. So I think it's something which will be there. Watches with sensors already exist but I think as you keep going forward so intelligent things is going to become very, very important. There is some data I was picking up that there will be 20 billion intelligent things interconnected by 2025. Now that is two and a half times the number of humans on Mother Earth. So as these conversations so the conversations between intelligent things will far outnumber the conversations between humans and the implications of that would be interesting but it is, if you reflect on it, it's a very, very, it is a very strong proposition. It is exciting, challenging and partly scary as well if you look at about intelligent things. I think they're talking about in the western world but on intelligent dustbins using again sensors. I think the drones again if you talk about now drones, the latest incident which happened in Afghanistan but drones again allows you to sort of capture some of these things which we talked about. So it's real time information. You capture all the information. You transfer it to the cloud and you do real time analytics and onto it sometimes and enabled by AI. Let me give you a small story. This is a real story. So without naming people but this is Singapore. This is COVID time and we are in Singapore and this is the first phase of COVID when the intensity of COVID is low but the care of COVID was extremely high. As you remember, I think people thought that if you have COVID you're not going to survive. So I think in that time there is this person, she's walking within her society in Singapore and actually in the evening, early evening and talking on her mobile phone. She had her mask on but as she was talking the mask came down a little bit. It was either not appropriately put or she intentionally put it down and she was talking on the phone and she was walking and this was in the open. As she's walking, there's a drone which is there which comes on top of her. The drone is buzzing and the person is walking and the person notices the drone because then the person says there's a drone and she gets a bit unnerved and she continues to walk. She starts walking a bit faster but she's talking and she's talking to her partner who's not in Singapore, who's in India and they're talking on the phone and so on so forth. She's saying, what is this? She goes under the bus shelter as she's walking and therefore she's under the bus shelter but the drone hovers on top of the bus shelter and all of a sudden she said, perhaps think that is it because of my mask? So she puts the mask on as soon as she puts the mask on the drone goes further up and disappears. So you can imagine capturing information relaying it onto the cloud and using analytics basically to the behavior which was not conducive behavior and some of you who are familiar with Singapore and you know how Singapore's reacted to COVID will fully understand this story. So I think intelligent things is something which is fascinating but at the same time something we should also be a bit worried about. Some of you if you've seen the, it's about a seven, eight-year-old film called X-Mechana. I think it's interesting that could there be a world which is basically be depicted in that film? I think lastly, integrity. So if you look at intelligent security I think you will need cyber security but along with cyber security will come cyber crime and the two go hand in hand and I think you need to manage this. So I think one of the biggest challenges which most organizations face when they think of digital transformation is security and security of data. And I think how do you keep it secure? So they keep talking about that security but at the same time. So I think these, in my opinion if I was to bucket are five big trends and disruptions which are there, some of them are there, some of them are going to continue to build on. So basically intelligent agents, intelligent interfaces, intelligent networks, intelligent things and intelligent security. I think with that I would like to now sort of just round up with sharing with you some of my learnings through the experience as you go on digital transformation. Many of them in the journey on digital transformation at Bicom 18. To just summarize in four big buckets, I think the first and the most important thing is go all in. I think when you are, it's basically all businesses are digital businesses. Everything in the future needs to be enabled by digital. So therefore go all in. I think and when I say go all in, look at the holistic aspect, look at the effective pathway, look at all the three key things which you need to do, digitization, digitalization and of course then go on to digital transformation. You can choose the pace, you can choose whether you want to go sequentially, whether you want to go in parallel, how quickly you're going to do that, but you need all three and you need them in that sequence because you can't have digital transformation without digitization. And I think if you look at it when we started our journey, and this was about eight or 10 years back at Bicom, I think even ingesting all our content to be able to take that forward. Using that piece was a starting piece. Having SAP, SAP enablement so that it is able to sort of, your business or whichever ERP you use actually, so your business could be seamlessly looking at this at some of the things which you need to do. That brings me to the second part and I think it perfectly segues into it. Get the plumbing right. And this, what I was talking to you is plumbing. Most people forget about plumbing. If you don't have good plumbing, you don't build good buildings, ladies and gentlemen. You need to have very effective plumbing for you to build beautiful buildings and that same is applicable for digital as well. So getting your plumbing right. Get your, don't cringe on that. Don't do shortcuts. Go with the right set of people. Go with the right set of techniques and do it properly. So getting the plumbing right is very important. The third one is very, very, very often talked about is it's a beta world. So I think keep learning. You, as you do more, you learn more and I think automatically that piece happens. And lastly, I think it's about, so basically it's about your ability to be able to take it to the next level progressively and partner. So therefore, are you ready to partner? Because your ability to do it on your own, in my opinion, in most cases is limited. I think there could be very few organizations that can pull it off on their own. If at all, I think ability to partner is very important. And on that, I want to again share with you when we started our journey on route. And Gaurav Gandhi was with me at that point in time. So then Gaurav and team, they did an outstanding job. But I think we had 42 partners. 42 partners we worked with to launch. And I remember my board and my stakeholders saying, Suthanshu, this is not going to work. There you are, you are going into something which will fail. But we had no other option. You have to partner. And we partnered with all the whole host. So you had Google, Amazon, for Cloud, AWS. You had Kaltura, you had IMI. You had host of other Israeli companies. You had Indian companies from Pune and Bangalore. So 42 partners to be able to deliver. So therefore, that's the fourth piece. So therefore, let me sign off by saying, go all in, get the plumbing right. It is a beta world and be ready to partner. So and so therefore, with that, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure. I enjoyed talking to you in person. Naval also told me it is everything nowadays is digital. So some of my friends and colleagues may be hearing all of this online. Thank you for that. Thank you for your patience. And thank you very much. Thank you.