Digital transformation is crucial for businesses and governments to remain competitive and relevant in today’s interconnected world. Dr Swamy Pentyala, Partner-CEO of Infotech Solutions & Technology Practice Leader at Baker Tilly ME, has extensive experience in various sectors, including public sector, logistics, investment authorities, retail, healthcare, and agriculture. With over 22 years of experience, he has excelled in roles such as product design and development, program and project management, digital transformation, business management, and solution & service delivery management. His expertise and passion for purpose-built digital platforms have made him a prominent figure in driving sustainable technology adoption.
Dr. Pentyala advocates for purpose-built digital platforms that leverage domain knowledge, technology best practices, real-time analytics, and governance for business transformation. He emphasizes the importance of systems of engagement and innovation for sustainable technology adoption. He suggests Middle Eastern governments invest in digital expressways across domains to control resources and optimize outcomes, eliminating the need for repeated investments.
As the CEO of Infotech Solutions and the Technology Practice Leader, you have emphasised the importance of purpose-built industry-specific digital platforms. Could you elaborate on how these platforms have helped organisations in the Middle East achieve comprehensive business transformation and tangible results?
Transformation-as-a-Service (TaaS) platforms are verticalized platforms that integrate the entire ecosystem, including the knowledgebase of a specific domain, industry associations, and compliance frameworks. These platforms enable digital transformation for enterprises by sharing common resources without compromising data privacy and business protection. A large TravelTech ecosystem has been built, allowing seamless collaboration among major GDSs, NDCs, LCCs, content providers, aggregators, inventory suppliers, flight schedulers, hospitality businesses, and customers. The platform offers complete operations automation for travel businesses to transition from an agent-centric model to an AI-based optimized operationally efficient model, improving profitability and eliminating inefficiencies. A TravelTech customer in the Middle East, with over 60 years of business operations, could save over AED 65m in the last two years since implementing the platform. There are few TaaS platforms globally, as developing sustainable ecosystems requires sound strategy, deep pockets, and committed resources.
There is a need for more such TaaS platforms to be built. Imagine a scenario where all retailers big and small can use a TaaS platform where they can use the common core infrastructure that enables them to tap into a huge ecosystem which would cost millions of dollars and years to build which would be totally counterproductive. Governments can provide such digital expressways to ensure a fair and level playing field for all stakeholders. Consolidated common-core infrastructure helps governments to protect public interest, health, and welfare besides reducing the cost of enforcing compliance.
As a thought leader, you advocate for systems of engagement and innovation to promote sustainable technology adoption. How can organisations be encouraged to embrace these principles and foster a culture of innovation within their teams?
Business is all about demand and supply. Systems of engagement and innovation help bridge the gap effectively and efficiently to build demand-driven and sustainable ecosystems without encouraging any predatory behaviour. It is all about peaceful co-existence and at a macro level, we all have very limited resources, and our health, and that of the planet is cyclical. “What we sow shall we reap.” SDG and ESG should work hand in glove for no business wants its customers to be poor.
Look at this if your products and services make your customers poor, who will you sell to and how will you make money? Therefore the only way forward for any business is to make sure that you give more to the ecosystem so that you can get more. Businesses have to build ethical, social, and environmental capital in order to remain relevant to the planet. Otherwise, they will perish sooner or later. Therefore embracing the systems of engagement and innovation is the only way forward for any business to remain relevant, retain its competitive edge, and be loved by its customers.
The Middle East is known for its rapid technological advancements and increasing digital economy. In your opinion, what are the unique opportunities and challenges that the region faces in harnessing the full potential of digital technologies, and how can organisations leverage these opportunities whilst addressing the associated challenges effectively?
The world is rapidly becoming flat due to digital and AI advancements, with limited resources and the potential for climate change to be a macro-level manifestation of “One Planet…One Energy…One Health.” To address this, we must be more inclusive and accommodating, realizing the butterfly effect and ensuring that our actions are planet-friendly. The Middle East, particularly the GCC, has the language and culture to develop its version of digital ecosystems, with stable and visionary leadership.
Governments should invest in establishing digital expressways across domains to eliminate repeated investments and optimize resources and outcomes. Partnering with technology players can expedite the establishment and adaptation of digital ecosystems, benefiting governments, the public, and the planet. India’s playbook of offering digital platforms like UPI to other governments in Asia and Africa can serve as a model for other countries. The UAE’s approach to offering customs and logistics platforms could further enhance the world’s safety and better place. By partnering with like-minded technology players, governments can make the inevitable delayed and potentially overcome the inevitable.
Fostering the digital economy is a priority for many countries and regions. From your perspective, what are the key benefits that the digital economy can bring to the Middle East? How can organisations, governments, and individuals collaborate to maximise these benefits and drive socio-economic growth?
Very good question. Let me take the analogy of Sheik Zayed Road, it evolved from a single-line road to a sophisticated expressway, used by the public and businesses to move people and goods. The government has invested in building the expressway, which enabled life and business phenomenally bringing in direct and indirect revenue for the government. Since governments are the only ones who can think of the greater good at scale and it is their august intention of making the country a better place, it is all the more important for them to establish the digital expressways in a public-private partnership model. Governments should lay down the strategy, compliance, and enforcement functions in order to ensure the sanctity and holistic intentions prevail all around to establish a fair, equitable, sustainable, and value-laden ecosystem that reinvents itself with time. Digital makes us more human when its power is harnessed, managed, monitored, controlled, enhanced, and optimised by an unequivocal and committed big daddy. Digital is the easiest and surest way to make all stakeholders of the ecosystem understand their respective roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities. Not only this, digital can provide the feedback for the entire ecosystem to correct and reinvent itself both at macro and micro levels.
Governments have never been equipped with such a powerful tool in the annals of recorded history. This is the greatest inflection point that governments should embrace to build a better planet and a better future.
With the rise of data-driven decision-making and real-time analytics, what role do you believe data analytics and artificial intelligence play in shaping the future of businesses in the Middle East?
As I mentioned earlier, digital makes you more human. Listening to your customers, bearing in mind your social and environmental responsibilities to make your products and services fit into the circular economy. Data analytics and AI eliminate unnecessary waste, save time through discovery, offer predictability, and facilitate demand-driven product and service offerings.
For example, the UAE government may save on healthcare costs and improve the productivity of the nation as a whole, if the government can establish a comprehensive digital ecosystem for the entire food production and consumption ecosystem of the country. Let me explain: if all the food consumption in the UAE provides good immunity, health, and well-being, be it available in supermarkets, offered in restaurants, or cooked at home, then you are making your workforce active, productive, and in the right frame of mind. I call this “Soil to Soul” ecosystem. Energy is cyclical throughout nature. Ensuring your people have access to only quality good food will help you as a government to reduce the cost of health care, improve immunity, reduce sick days of the entire workforce and more happy and productive workforce accomplishing more.
Data analytics and AI will help you measure, identify, predict, and pre-empt the responses and actions to increase the chance of enforcing positive outcomes.
As the judge of the Middle East Technology Excellence Awards, could you share some insights into the evaluation process? What specific qualities and criteria do you look for when assessing nominees, and how do you determine the winners in each category?
I have been on the panel for quite some time. The evaluation process is completely transparent with no interference whatsoever. Judges are of their free will. This platform will grow from strength to strength in the near future and will add immense value to the ecosystem in helping start-ups find the right footing to achieve greater success.
I look for the size of the challenge, global scalability, cultural adaptability, and innovation — not imitation.
