Industries

AIRLINES:

For enterprises taking off to their dream destination of new revenue opportunities, highly satisfied customers and ever-expanding business, a smooth landing will require the right mix of IT-led innovation, on-ground efficiency and boardroom strategy.

The changing face of customer demand, huge dependency on fuel costs, and a new generation of tech-savvy, service-conscious passengers are creating a complex environment in which running business on autopilot is no longer an option.

Challenges & Opportunities

Customer loyalty: A "low-lost, low-fare" market calls for a “high-customization” brand experience. Frequent flyer programs are not enough. Keeping the check-in line busy will require airlines to add their ‘special sauce’ to each service and product. It’s time to get personal.

Revenue enhancement: Ancillary revenue and its importance need no introduction. Enterprises need to become more nimble and introduce new product offerings not just rapidly, but also in ways that they stand out in terms of unique service and right price.

Cost management: With the combined effect of intense competition driving down fares, and fuel prices on the rise, smart cost management is more than a need. It's a bottom-line imperative.

Digital consumers: Disruption is in the air. With rapidly evolving traveler-friendly technologies and service models, enterprises must embrace digital platforms and be all-pervasive — reaching out across channels to interact, inform and engage.

AUTOMOTIVES:

Get on the fast track to the future. That is what automotive companies need to do if they are to exploit the potential that the future holds, capitalize on opportunities that come with new market dynamics and get on the road to sustained success.

While structural changes brought on by the recent downturn have made the industry more resilient – to succeed in a post-crisis world, companies need to build loyalty with the new digital consumer; and put engineering integration in overdrive, exploration of new models of commerce in top gear and supply chain agility on the fast lane.

Challenges & Opportunities

• Changing consumers: Tastes change with time. And tomorrow’s environmentally-conscious vehicle buyer will have different priorities, making decisions based on peer recommendations, wanting to co-create while being digitally connected. This calls for automakers to re-orchestrate the consumer eco-system to build and retain the loyalty of new buyers.
• Integrating new technologies: Automotive engineers are tasked with integrating newer technologies in the vehicle more quickly than ever, driven by the need to stay connected on the road and green movements. Leveraging talent and practices from non-automotive industry base will be essential to ride this new wave of product innovation.
• Connected vehicles: Tomorrow’s vehicle will be an extension of the owner’s lifestyle, leaving the door open for a digital channel for an array of products and services. Automakers need to tap into this opportunity and create new revenue streams with innovative offerings requiring new models of commerce.
• Smarter supply chains: Agility in reacting to shifting markets and demand patterns, information visibility, and resilience to adverse situations will characterize smarter supply chains of tomorrow. Because being just efficient is not enough anymore.
• New growth markets: What works in one place will not work in another. Rapidly evolving infrastructure, economic thresholds, and consumer behavior in emerging economies will drive product and process innovations required for success and local innovations will drive global competitive advantage.

CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS:

Who is buying what, where, when and why are questions that will always follow Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) enterprises. It is the ability to evolve with the mobile, socially-aware consumers and understand their habits — quickly and accurately — that will empower enterprises. With this empowerment, they can effect change and predict demand patterns, as well as engage, convert and retain consumers — both at home and in store.

Tomorrow’s CPG business blueprint needs out-of-the-box strategy, green intelligence and collaborative excellence. In the “imperatives playbook” are three areas that winners will focus on — price, performance and potential.

Challenges & Opportunities

Pricing optimization: Today, well-priced is well-begun. With multi-channel strategies in place, CPG enterprises also have to get real-time about user requirements. Using analytics to understand shopper trends at the point of purchase and then integrating it with the entire value chain — from sourcing, and back to point of sale — can create a more efficient business model and engender consumer loyalty, while paving the way for enhanced profitability.

Using collaboration and information for a competitive edge: CPG players can realize great value from leveraging an ecosystem of partners for seamless collaboration across the value chain, and co-creating with them to crunch time-to-launch. Reaching out to consumers with targeted information through non-traditional channels, with intelligent technology, gives the enterprise room to "re-think, re-package, and re-channel".

Emerging markets: Even as emerging economies are providing windows to accelerate growth and increase margins, they are being evaluated against a variety of dimensions — a largely untapped consumer base that will require unique supply chain solutions and finding the right talent and resources. While global capacity and the flow of capital are additional variables, sustained growth in new markets calls for innovation hubs, smart sourcing, and re-engineered technology platforms and business processes.

EDUCATION:

Ask what technology can do for education, and a never-before-possible future unfolds — pervasive classrooms, faster learning, and most importantly: the ability to track performance and results across the system – for students, educators and management alike. However, institutions today are preparing to face their toughest tests yet — regulation and disruption. The answers: a new school of thought, best-in-class technology, and the right strategy.

Challenges & Opportunities

Realizing the promise of virtual colleges: New technologies, coupled with changing attitudes and student profiles have broken barriers to integrate everyone from parents and faculty to third-party information providers and regulators. Social media, instructional design and collaborative platforms are just some of the ways to stay ahead in this learning revolution.

Student mobility: Higher education has gone global. So have students. As they pursue learning internationally, competing for their talent is creating new business models — increased acquisitions from private institutions, international partnerships and the opening of overseas 'branch campuses'.

Satisfying the new 'avatar' of students: The expectations are endless. And justifiably so. In addition to demanding digital learning, students also expect institutions to round their skills and make them 'corporate-ready'. Institutions that can provide this edge, and more, will get closer to keeping their classrooms full.

Increased regulation: The call for more accountability in terms of student success and employability is changing core institutional processes around student management, administration and marketing. The need? New metrics and tracking mechanisms that can help demonstrate proof of 'value addition'.

 Healthcare Enterprise

Improving the quality of care, and reducing the cost of care – these are imperatives in today’s “survival of the fittest” healthcare industry. Transforming for tomorrow’s needs, however, begins with thinking ‘beyond compliance’ in the midst of unprecedented regulation and reform.

For payors and providers, the state of the industry presents a chance to harness new technologies: inject business intelligence, seamless communication and collaboration into the enterprise today – and drive outcomes in affordability, patient-centricity and preventive care for tomorrow.

Challenges & Opportunities

Regulatory compliance: HIPAA 5010, ICD-10 and the Meaningful Use mandate will create enterprise-wide impact: people, processes and technology. With solutions and strategies that accelerate the transition, enterprises can make their journey smoother, while also reducing risk, cost and effort.

Rise of consumerism: Fierce competition and evolving markets have paved the way for customer-centric business models, with an increased demand for personalized products and services, as well as increased product and pricing transparency. Going patient-centric will require greater IT integration to enable seamless communication and interaction between patients and providers.

Increased costs: The industry is faced with addressing rising medical and operational costs, while also enhancing efficiency and quality. With IT solutions, enterprises can minimize errors and redundant diagnostic tests and treatments, while ensuring better healthcare delivery through patient data analytics, evidence-based medication and paperless transactions.

Preventive care: With the shift from cure to prevention, consumers are investing in wellness and seeking healthy lifestyles. To capitalize on this shift, insurers and providers are offering programs that support wellness, prevention, and early detection. Social media presents a platform to promote this agenda, while bioinformatics and analytics can play a key role in improving prevention statistics.

Logistics Enterprise

Uncertainty is certain. So are increased complexity, competition and compliance. Third party logistics (3PL), port-based logistics and specialized services are on the rise. With the new normal forcing logistics service providers (LSPs) to focus on their business models, today's imperatives are filling service gaps, cutting carbons and organic growth.

Future success, however, begins with strategies and services that resonate the needs and demands of tomorrow's global enterprises. Keeping businesses in motion will require mastering the verticals you serve, becoming the customer's brand custodian and sharing risk — while collaborating efficiently with 3PL players to maximize possibilities on the move.

Challenges & Opportunities

Slow economic recovery and rising costs: Agreed, the worst of the economic slowdown is over; but companies are still grappling with reduced demand and ever-increasing fuel prices. Many carriers sold their equipment during the slowdown. When the economy gets healthy and stays there, capacity could be an issue — is there enough fleet strength to hit the roads?

Emerging markets: With 80% of the world's population — and rising — in emerging economies, a truckload of potential awaits by expanding to new geographies. But for overcoming infrastructure issues and network roadblocks to get huge volumes of cargo to the right place at the right time, enterprises need re-engineering of business processes and technology platforms.

A hyper-competitive landscape: When the margin for error is narrow and customer loyalties shift unexpectedly, understanding the competition inside-out can help you stay ahead. It's much easier to compete to win, when you play to your strengths and your competitors' weaknesses. A strategic market plan, augmented with business intelligence and mobility systems and solutions can aid boardroom decisions and frontline operations.

Media & Entertainment Enterprises

Today, Media & Entertainment enterprises are navigating some of the biggest shifts ever witnessed in technology, culture and business models — from adoption to preference, from fragmented audiences to convergent industries, from emerging economies to game-changing new players.

Embracing technology and business forces that create this shift will help tomorrow’s enterprises lead the 'digital evolution' and stay strong — creatively and financially.

Challenges & Opportunities

Protecting Intellectual Property Rights (IPR): Today's digital media ecosystems have created roadblocks in Intellectual Property Management (IPM) and royalties: calculations and payments are more complex than ever. The result? A bottom-line disadvantage — which can be turned around with technology solutions that help safeguard, manage and monetize assets.

Rise in consumption of digital media: From the XY generation which wants to watch TV shows online, to the mature banker who likes his investment updates on his smartphone — content needs to be delivered on platforms that match the consumer's lifestyle. With increased pressure to deliver across multiple channels, enterprises with the right mix of relevant IT infrastructures and sustainable solutions — across the content supply chain — will ride the digital tide.

Consumer insight and understanding: With increased industry fragmentation and consumer maturity, today's trends could be tomorrow's mainstays. There's a thin line between redundant and relevant — which calls for powerful analytics to predict the 'where, what and why' of consumer needs. Analytics empower enterprises with business-impacting information about the right demographics and consumer behavior patterns to plan their strategies for increased profitability and market share

INDUSTRIAL MANFACTURING:

In an industry that creates equipment to make things simpler for others, the information technology that enterprises use should make work simpler for them. This calls for just-in-time insights, on-demand visibility and off-the-line innovation.

As consumer spending in emerging economies expands, new demand centers and centers of manufacturing excellence and innovation are rising as hotspots. To break the mold, manufacturers need to meet industry forces head-on in their complex make-to-order, make-to-stock and configure-to-order requirements market.

Challenges & Opportunities

Intense competition: Manufacturers have to develop, source, make and deliver based on best cost and best talent decisions. Additionally, the regulatory environment enforces flexible controls across the enterprise.

Supply chain complexity: The traditional supply chain has broken. Companies are increasingly procuring from low-cost centers that are becoming increasingly interesting and popular. This is also resulting in highly complex supply chains that are difficult to manage and optimize.

Realizing value from technology investments: While technology can enable flexibility in global operations and support transformational initiatives, manufacturers struggle to justify their investments to simplify and standardize their business systems and technological support organizations.

INSURANCE AND BANKING:

Insurance enterprises are faced with a new business landscape: diversified channels, varied distribution and changing demographics. The technology landscape, however, is not-so-new: maintaining legacy applications is getting costlier, budgets are limited, and IT isn't delivering the returns it should.

Succeeding in this new environment calls for insurance carriers to bring new thinking and new technologies into their existing landscape, and go fortified into the next generation of business.

Challenges & Opportunities

Changing demographics: Consumer lifestyles and tastes have changed over time, giving rise to demands for refined products with a higher degree of personalization. Knowing what consumers want and targeting them is now imperative, with solutions that aid social engagement and digital marketing.

Market conditions: Soft markets present a more competitive environment and a need to better manage cost of operations. Enhancing marketing and distribution effectiveness with robust analytics can help keep pace with the current state of the market.

Regulatory compliance: With new and expanding compliance regulations in American and European markets, the need of the hour is to address gaps between complex compliance models and IT needs with well planned, executed and managed programs.

Emerging technologies: The rise of social media and mobility has raised expectations in customer service and engagement, while cloud computing presents enterprises with the ability to create more efficient ecosystems. These create powerful possibilities to 'engage-as-you-go' and 'pay-as-you-go'.