For any organization, to transform digitally, breaking the thought barriers is the first step. Because digital transformation revamps the culture of an organization by rethinking how it utilizes disruptive innovations to gain positive momentum. The transformation will happen when firms embrace novel technologies, new processes, techniques, and tools to improve their operation inwardly so that their customers will get the best experience.
Agile companies have already been experimenting with digital transformation before the pandemic quickened the adoption rate to the highest ever level. During the last two years, companies are increasingly investing in digital technologies.
According to IDC; the Market intelligence firm, global investment in digital transformation drive is going to skyrocket to $6.8 trillion by 2023. This humongous investment will enable enterprises in adopting novel business models and channel new revenue streams in order to reboot their existing strategies. This way they can fulfill advancing customer expectations for the products and services.
CSM Technologies’ digital transformational framework is establishing the exemplary global benchmark in this regard. CSM’s digital-ready strategy is buoyed by three Es- Evaluate & Envisage, Establish and Evolve.
Mr Priyadarshi Nanu Pany, the Founder, and CEO of CSM technologies, shares, “But we aren’t speaking on technology alone. We are buying in as much strategy to make technology work better for any business ecosystem. Trust, that this technology-strategy synergy will be the differentiator. We have internalized it, and are growing.”
Pioneering Thought Leader’s Silent Revolution
Priyadarshi is not just a tech entrepreneur but an innovative thought leader with his grip on the pulse of pain points. An out-of-the-box thinker, he believes that technology can empower governments, partners, and citizens through transformative digital solutions.
Priyadarshi floated CSM Technologies in the late 90s when the Indian IT industry was gaining a foothold in the eastern region. Imbued with a futuristic vision, he could spot the role of technology in enhancing the quality of governance and impacting over a billion lives. His propensity to think big and think ‘out of the box’ has accelerated the growth of CSM Technologies.
A huge votary of ‘Digital Transformation’, Priyadarshi believes it will democratize opportunities offered by emerging technologies. The amalgamation of his vision and successful implementation (of solutions) is positioning Digital Governance on the global IT map.
For more than 24 years, Priyadarshi has been ceaselessly ideating to enrich existing solutions and develop new tech-driven products. As a leader who walks the talk, he has been mentoring and nurturing cross-functional teams at CSM which now boasts of a pool of over 1000 employees.
Besides India, the company has an established footprint in Africa, delivering some monumental ICT solutions. By delivering innovative ICT solutions like land management systems in Maharashtra or digitalizing tea auction trade in Kenya, he has demonstrated his result-driven leadership, spurring large-scale adoption of ICT solutions.
Besides helming an organization that balances skill and scale, Priyadarshi has cemented his credentials as a ‘thought leader’ and a celebrated industry veteran. An inspiring and successful entrepreneur, Priyadarshi has been feted with awards galore for his contributions. He has been spearheading a silent revolution with his pioneering GovTech initiatives.
Establishing Novel Paradigms in GovTech
CSM Technologies has set new paradigms in contactless and frictionless government-to-citizen service delivery. Government Technology or GovTech has been its USP and its solutions are benchmarked with the global best practices in governance.
Headquartered in Bhubaneswar (Odisha), CSM started operations in 1998 and has expanded across multiple states in India with a business foothold in Africa and US. GovTech is its forte and its applications have dismantled the siloes within the government setup, enabling better coordination, facilitating greater transparency, and strengthening outreach to beneficiaries.
CSM is further aspiring to earn its stripes in the enterprise business and is currently focused on developing world-class solutions with the deployment of emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain, Edge Computing, AR/VR, etc.
CSM’s Oracle Helidon Development Framework
Regarding its presence as an Oracle Solution provider, the firm is positioned through its solution developments and implementation using different Oracle technologies including Oracle database, SOA suite, Oracle BI, Oracle Web Logic, and Oracle Helidon. It has experienced teams of Oracle-certified professionals along with its services of different Oracle products. It is the first development company in India to have used the Helidon development framework for the development of a large-scale application.
To cite examples, the Oracle database has been leveraged for the consolidation of citizen databases in large-scale project deliveries for the state governments in Rajasthan and Odisha. The SOA suite is used for API management in 3-4 applications while the Oracle BI is used for dashboard development in a large database. Further, Oracle content management has been tapped for file management in the case of large applications.
A Plethora of Digital-First Solutions
Priyadarshi says, “We have built a stack of digital-first (but not digital only) solutions spanning sectors like Agriculture, Mining, Education, Land and Industry, Food Security, Supply Chain and Logistics, and Emerging Technologies.”
Each of the solutions has been designed meticulously after close scrutiny and understanding of the problem statements on the ground level. Be it G2C or G2B, CSM’s offerings have streamlined the value chain and delivered last-mile delight to the stakeholders.
To illustrate, Agrigate, its digital aggregator of solutions for the farm sector boasts of Automated Crop Procurement System that identifies genuine farmers by capturing their biometrics and guarantees MSP payments to their bank accounts in 24-72 hours.
CSM has also created an immersive, 360-degree agriculture database, aligning with the Government of India’s vision of the India Digital Ecosystem for Agriculture (IDEA) for creating a seamless farmers’ repository.
Inroading Footprints Creating Imprints
Priyadarshi adds, “At CSM Tech, we have been the pioneers in Government Technology or GovTech space where our solutions in over two decades of implementation have transformed the face of public service delivery, eased business processes, and boosted investor confidence. When we chose GovTech, we crafted our own Blue Ocean strategy and became differentiators in a cluttered IT landscape.”
What sets CSM apart from the competition is its zeal to touch and make a difference in millions of lives. The success of its solutions is location-agnostic. So, whether it is India or Africa, they have left their imprint.
Navigating its success path beyond GovTech, CSM is making inroads into Enterprise Business. The Digital Logistics Management Solution (DLMS) that it has implemented for JSW Steel’s iron ore mines and associated infrastructure in Odisha, has optimized production and reduced Turn Around Time (TAT) by successfully tackling the challenge of multi-modal logistics.
Fostering an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Being an experienced leader Priyadarshi shares his opinion on how the adoption of modern technologies like AI and ML is impacting the Oracle Solution space and how is CSM adapting to the change. He says that in the current scenario we know the depths to which Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have permeated disparate industries- media and entertainment, financial services, healthcare, and many more.
CSM is focused on developing applications for these domains. Owing to this rapid adoption, there is a need for scalable and highly available infrastructure. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure will play a major role in adopting all domains. “We aim for a seamless code-to-cloud journey for all our solutions and CSM is accelerating adoption as most of the projects will be on the cloud-public-cloud or private cloud infrastructures,” reveals Priyadarshi.
Integrated Solutions to Bridge the Digital Divide
Considering the current industry scenario, Priyadarshi says that there are some challenges that CSM has to overcome to properly serve its customers. In the current landscape, enterprises and governments are fast-tracking efforts toward digital transformation. This has shot up the demand for skilled digital talent which is in short supply.
To overcome this supply side bottleneck, at CSM, they are focusing hard on talent acquisition and retention. Besides remuneration, they have introduced a string of incentives and activities focused on mental wellness and work-life harmony. They have also incorporated upskilling and reskilling programmes by stitching collaborations with the best-in-class learning platforms to make their work-pool resilient to take on the changing dynamics of a digital-first world.
Priyadarshi states, “If you look from the implementation lens, there is the problem of the digital divide.” Also, within the government, the workforce needs upskilling and gearing up for a cultural transformation. On the enterprise side too, culture remains a barrier to digital transformation. That apart, the legacy systems pose a challenge for onboarding new tech solutions. “We are surmounting these challenges by developing solutions that are interoperable and easily integrable with incumbent systems at organizations,” says Priyadarshi.
From a macro perspective, runaway inflation in US and EU markets together with the lurking fear of recession can impact the pace of adoption of digital projects. But Indian companies have the edge since they have committed massive investments in digital transformation after the outbreak of the COVID pandemic. Also, India is one of the biggest emerging hubs for digital talent.
An Exceptionally Expert Wisdom
Priyadarshi’s advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the oracle Solution space is adept. He says that today, Oracle has stellar success in the enterprise cloud apps space since it is enabling customers to succeed by helping them to figure out answers and solutions to the mounting challenges they face.
According to Gartner, Cloud SaaS revenue is estimated at $143.7 billion in 2022, and Oracle is a key player in this space. It offers huge scope to the upcoming entrepreneurs. He says, “My advice to the entrepreneurs aiming big in Oracle solution space is to avoid being intensely competitive early on.” They should take steady steps, starting with the adoption of minimal Oracle products with a thrust on their successful implementation.
Second, they must keep abreast of the new Oracle solutions and emerging practices and figure out their fitment into different applications. They can join Oracle’s start-up accelerator programme that provides start-ups big price performance and scalability benefits.
Startups in the program also receive free credits for cloud computing resources, attractive discounts on all IaaS (Internet as a service) and PaaS (Platform as a service) cloud resources for two years, mentoring, and technical assistance.
Expanding into a Global Metaverse
Envision scaling CSM’s operations and offerings in 2022 and beyond, Priyadarshi shares that for 2022, their bets are big on the enterprise business segment. Post the success of DLMS implemented for JSW Steel, they are keen to replicate this unique mine logistics solution for other enterprise miners.
They have been engaging big private conglomerates like Adani and Tata and talking to blue chip PSUs like Coal India and NMDC for building and diversifying their mining solutions portfolio.
As far as their overseas operations are concerned, their US subsidiary- CSM Inc is up and running and they are eyeing to grab a clutch of major enterprise business deals in the US market. Over a time window of the next six to 12 months, they expect to stitch some major deals in this space.
As of now, they have established a strong presence in East Africa. Their expansion strategy for the African continent is on bagging more projects in West Africa. “We are hopeful of sealing new business deals shortly that will help us establish our presence in Gabon, Gambia, Nigeria & Ghana,” expresses Priyadarshi.
The year 2022 will also be the year when CSM will train its guns on disruptive tech platforms like Metaverse. The firm is building its in-house Metaverse platform titled ‘CSM Immerse’. “Metaverse offers us the underexplored opportunity to build business resilience with the convergence of emerging technologies. With our own Metaverse platform, we are confident of disrupting the business ecosystems of the future,” expects Priyadarshi.
