The future is about data but it needs to be regulated: Nikesh Arora of Palo Alto Networks

Resurgence TiEcon Delhi-NCR showcased the rise of modern-day ideas using SaaS and data to scale up globally from India. 

Speaking at the conference, Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, said, "We (consumers) trade our data for the convenience that the millions of apps provide. Today, these apps have everything from our finance to driving history." 

He added that the rise of SaaS has happened because of the cloud, where one could sit out of a garage and launch a business at a global scale. 

In India, unicorns like Freshworks, Zoho, Druva, Zenoti, and Postman have become synonymous with global SaaS. 

"In the olds day regulation, compliance and cost were always favouring large companies. Today, the cloud has reduced the costs for startups to take on legacy companies. Yes, in this era of data, data sovereignty is becoming a major debate. However, regulation is not that bad. There is regulation for good and it is inclusive of all ideas. Unfortunately, the word regulation is misunderstood," Nikesh added.

Data is the name of the game in every vertical of business, be it in retail or healthcare or branding. 

"During the pandemic as Lowe's, we were able to align our supply chains to our consumer needs for that period. People wanted to buy items where they can manage home improvement and we planned around how they could plan their work from home. Data helped us manage the global supply chain at scale," says Abhay Tandon, Director and Head of Innovation at Lowe's Innovation Labs. 

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Healthcare too is being data-led. 

Praapti Jayaswal, Co-founder and CEO of AarogyaAI Innovations, said,

"Data is everything today, and it is a matter of time that it becomes everything in a business. For example, our business uses data to treat a tuberculosis patient. Healthcare is already using enormous amounts of data and it helps doctors to treat people faster. A decade or two ago doctors would take months to understand what drugs worked to treat tuberculosis, and today, our platform helps the healthcare industry to work on scale.” 

Several industry leaders also said that the physical and digital world are going to blend and with that, there will be the rise of the hybrid cloud where large enterprises will manage core applications within a mix of public and private cloud.