Transformation Tour - Patna Chapter

The ongoing digital revolution in India gave a new pace to the growth of businesses. It began a new era where that opened up doors to a plethora of opportunities and made businesses global, irrespective of whether they were MNCs or SMBs. Meanwhile, the tier 2 and tier 3 cities recorded a whopping over 40 percent economic growth rate, and Patna, the capital city of Bihar is no different.

Patna is an industrial hub of Bihar and holds the potential to become the IT hub of the state as well. With its prominent agricultural sector, the city actively exports grains, sugarcane, sesame, and medium-grained Patna rice. This is evident of the vast potential that the city holds in agricultural-centric technologies and technologies in workforce management. Also, in the education sector, supply chain management, and other industries as well.

However, with the evolving work culture, trends like work-from-home and video conferencing have increased the dependency on the backend IT infrastructure manifold. Therefore, enterprises today, needed to adopt cloud, AI-based solutions, better data management and processing solutions, servers, and also gear up their cybersecurity measures.

Looking at the growing demands for new-gen IT solutions, CRN India in association with Dell Technologies and Ingram Micro organised the Transformation Tour - Patna Chapter on April 11, 2023 at Lemon Tree Premier Hotel. The intention behind the initiative was to re- establish a connection with the channel partners and customers.

Deliberating on ‘The adoption of digital transformation journey of SMBs’ and sharing his vantage point on IT adoption in Bihar, Naresh Nandan, Co-Founder, Venture Park addressed the august gathering. He said, “Advanced technologies are good but in the SMB segment in Bihar, we need to look at how much workforce we have that understands IT. With technologies like DBT, UPI, and Aadhaar, IT has reached the grassroots level. However, there is a need to bring in a behavioural change by educating people on IT adoption and digitalisation.”

Patna has two major challenges - lack of awareness among the SMBs about the latest technologies and education gap about the deployment, usage, and benefits of IT adoption, he highlighted.

In true terms, Bihar is a producer of skilled workforce in almost every sector. And due to the migration of these workers to metro cities, the manufacturer or SMBs here do not find an apt workforce. Therefore, this gap also needs to be bridged. “We need to aware the people about the potential in their own city and introduce initiatives for capacity building in terms of deployment and usage of advanced IT solutions,” Nandan added.

Representing Dell Technologies and Ingram Micro, Rana Pandey, Group Product Manager, Ingram Micro addressed the theme - Embrace the Future of Work. He resonated with Naresh Nandan’s deliberation on the lack of awareness among the entrepreneurs in Bihar and emphasised that “in order to build your next breakthrough, you need to embrace the future of work through new-gen technologies.”

Through a presentation, Pandey displayed the wide array of products that Dell offers. He highlighted, “We believe in delivering a modernised and intelligent user experience. Dell has a vast lineup of products and services that has something for every type of user. The OEM offers innovative and flexible solutions, intelligent and secure technologies, and a unique remote work experience.”

Emphasising on innovative tools like Dell Optimizer and Cloud IQ, Pandey mentioned, “Dell Optmizer is a smart AI-based software that uses data science to improve the overall experience no matter where or how you work.”

"Ranging from servers to storage solutions and from laptops to desktops, Dell has got you covered to strengthen your existing IT infrastructure and meet the new-age challenges of remote work," he added.

Following Rana Pandey’s informative presentation was a power-packed panel discussion. The session witnessed the intelligentsia brainstorm on ‘Navigating the Digital Landscape: Strategies for SMBs in India to Embrace Digital Transformation’.

Navin Gupta, Nation Secretary, FAIITA said, “There's a need to create awareness about how technology can prove beneficial for SMBs. By adopting the right set of technology tools and solutions, SMBs can manage business efficiently and at the same time, scale their business to the next level."

While advocating the importance of IT adoption for SMBs, Naresh Nandan, Co-Founder, Venture Park said, “Technologies like cloud and AI have become an attractive proposition for SMBs, but in the current scenario, these are being deployed as per their needs and requirements. We need to understand the critical role played by these technologies today.”

Meanwhile, addressing the cybersecurity concern, Rajiv Agarwal, CEO, Madhuraj Marketing highlighted that “in today's digital era, SMBs have to be aware of the cybersecurity threats, which are looming large in front of us. The best way to safeguard ourselves is to avoid falling prey to lucrative propositions from unknown sources.”

Adding to the discussions highlighting the significance of digitalisation, Sanjay Goenka, Director, Hebe Financial Services Pvt ltd. said, "Digitalisation is happening at a slow pace among the SMBs. They need to understand how technology can become a great enabler for their businesses. There are numerous benefits of adopting technologies like the cloud, and companies will realise only when they start leveraging them."

The panel discussion witnessed an enthusiastic response from the audience and multiple rounds of questions and answers followed. After covering over 20 tier 2 and tier 3 cities, it was the first Transformation Tour in Patna. The conference ended on a high note. It was well appreciated and received active support from the SMBs and IT channel partners in the city.