AI adoption by Indian enterprises to continue climbing: Dell Infrastructure Solutions Group's Venkat Sitaram

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become the focal theme for Indian enterprises as they seek to engage deeply with this technology platform to drive completely different outcomes in their businesses, be it for sales, customer experience or higher efficiency.

Given this adoption rate, the Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) of Dell brings an array of both hardware and software solutions, as well as AI experts, to help these enterprises navigate this journey.

In an interview with EnterpriseStory, Venkat Sitaram, Senior Director & Country Head - Dell ISG India, said the demand for AI solutions will only continue to grow in this country and they are able to address all the requirements across the spectrum. “This (AI) is something that is here to stay and there is more that is coming our way,” he remarked.

Edited excerpts...

EnterpriseStory (ES): What are the key technology trends you see with the advent of AI?

Venkat Sitaram (VS): AI today is a massive disruptor. I think the amount of unstructured data growth that we are seeing is unprecedented. That's probably creating an opportunity for customers to re-look at their data environment and consider a data platform. Earlier, it was predominantly on structured data, but AI data is a different type of data.

The next question that comes to your mind is how do I protect this data? What level of security parameters or considerations do I need to keep in mind? So the security posture in terms of cyber resiliency has further expanded, keeping in mind the amount of data growth that has come because of AI as a driver. The third thing that is getting attention is the infrastructure, which is a huge play for most of us. It's bringing private cloud on-prem back and in far more relevance. The traditional devices will not give the right outcomes for AI users or AI developers. So, you've also got to bring in the right size to the relevant infrastructure.

ES: What are the key drivers for AI adoption by enterprises?

SV: Fundamentally, the number one priority is to see if there is efficiency and revenue growth. Second is competitive differentiation, and the third is customer experience. We are also seeing this catch-up in the backend environments of customer support with internal experiments, R&D in engineering and design. Then we see that expand into supply chain, finance operations, and all of that.

It primarily starts from business, and then it penetrates into the other functions associated with the business, right up to the supply chain and the last mile, logistics, delivery, etc. It is all about seeing one or two successes, and then it becomes pervasive.

ES: How has the adoption of AI been by Indian enterprises?

VS: We see enterprise customers having diverse needs when it comes to AI, and are under different maturity cycles in terms of adoption of AI. We can put them under five categories. The first are those customers who predominantly do everything on cloud and would like to continue there. The second are those who are doing certain experiments and need consulting engagement as they are unclear where to start, how to start, and so on. The third set of customers include those who have started applying AI in some cases and are keen to see outcomes.

Then the other two categories are those who are very cautious, and the other who really want to overachieve on their AI. The cautious category wants to start small and then expand. For those who want speed, we bring them our entire AI factory.

We have scanned through the whole spectrum and are helping enterprises. I would say, adopt AI fast and accelerate this journey. That's our play and differentiation.

The sectors which are high on AI adoption include BFSI, telecom, manufacturing, energy utilities, retail, pharma and hospitality.

ES: How is Dell ISG engaging with SMBs in India with regard to AI?

SV: Our AI factory today cuts across any type of customer segment, which allows them to quickly deploy and get them started, even as a smaller investment that they can make and scale as they grow.

We have several use case success stories across mid-market, scaling up to even SMEs and then of course, enterprise. Today, in India, we have touched over 120 customers who have gone live with us across these segments. This has happened in less than two years.

Being part of the ISG India leadership, my charter is to take this solution to all parts of the market across the landscape of India to different cities and different territories and make sure that they are able to adopt this quickly and easily.

ES: How is Dell ISG helping its customers with AI-skilling of talent?

SV: No conversation is incomplete without digging deeper into the skill side of the business. Not everybody has in-house acquired skills already. Our AI Innovation Lab has 400-odd internal data scientists and developers who keep looking at these AI factory designs, systems and use cases. We keep experimenting quite a bit across several use cases, different types of industries, and building prototypes. When we go to customers, we are able to tell them that this is what we have seen in our labs and showcase it to them.

Also, our AI education services and consulting offerings are there for our customers to use. We can also provide them with our AI experts, which is like a residency service. We give access to content, training and advisory services.

ES: What have been the key learnings for Dell ISG in this AI journey?

VS: There is a lot of that enthusiasm and excitement. Everybody wants to do it (AI adoption), but somehow they are seeing roadblocks on where and how to do it. We engage and see how we can unfasten the knot to get AI rolling quickly. Secondly, how do I make sure that the outcome that I will see out of this matches the expectations of the company. We also have transformational workshops for the customers demonstrating why this is important and how it will give them competitive differentiation. We are also becoming the catalyst to work with our customers on AI modernisation of technology.