In today’s day and age, technology forms the backbone of businesses while data is fueling growth. With rise of advanced technologies, it has become imperative for the enterprises to modernise their legacy systems and adopt solutions like generative AI (GenAI) to not only build capacities and efficiencies but also match the global pace growth. Sharing his perspective on similar lines, Arvind Subramanian, Executive Vice President and Managing Director for India, Iron Mountain opens up on challenges enterprises face while modernising their existing infrastructure and how Iron Mountain can empower their digital transformation journey.
AI has taken over the world by storm. Technology has not only enabled businesses but common people as well. However, to get the best out of it, what strategies or approaches should Indian organisations follow?
The growing prominence of GenAI has presented organisations worldwide with new opportunities to enhance innovation, efficiency, and competitiveness. As per Nasscom, India’s AI market is projected to reach $17 billion by 2027, growing annually by 25 to 35 percent between 2024 and 2027. Equally, organisations are rapidly adopting mass digitisation, and by 2028, the country is set to become one of the largest consumers of data globally.
To get the most of this technology, companies in India need to look at their staffing structure as well as the systems they need to get the most from it. A recent study by Iron Mountain found that with the advent of GenAI, organisations’ IT and data decision-makers recognise a new type of executive is essential. This executive, known as a Chief AI Officer (CAIO) should be focused on helping the organisation get the best out of AI, and tackle the challenges posed by both sanctioned and unsanctioned use of GenAI.
Leaders must ensure a unified asset strategy in place to help organisations discover, manage, and optimise digital and physical assets. This will help organisations evolve outdated asset lifecycle management approaches, optimise physical and digital asset protection and catalyse value creation. Additionally, a robust asset strategy will help ensure that data is being sourced responsibly and that it complies with the relevant data privacy laws.
Can you bring to light a few success stories in the global markets and how learnings from the same can be successfully translated into the Indian market?
Globally, Iron Mountain has supported multiple organisations in harnessing the power of AI through our InSight Digital Experience Platform (DXP). For example, Amazon MGM Studios has seen enhanced visibility into its assets, allowing quicker and more informed business decisions. These global successes highlight the importance of structured, AI-ready data.
In India, organisations can replicate these achievements by focusing on unifying information management systems and automating workflows. For example, we are seeing significant opportunities for growth in areas critical for compliance and fraud detection. As a result, our recent work has identified key areas such as Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) processes, where tailored digital solutions are essential.
Recently, Iron Mountain launched the InSight Digital Experience Platform, a.k.a. InSight DXP. How can it provide the much-needed push to Indian organisations to leapfrog in their digital transformation journey?
One of the key issues Indian organisations face is the use of outdated legacy technology. Although it is tempting to look in the other direction and keep everything “in case we need it,” this is not an optimal strategy. In fact, the over-retention of records can be detrimental in terms of cost and legal risk.
This is where InSight DXP can support organisations in their digital transformation. What sets it apart from similar systems is that it can catalog physical and digital records in one database. This means that data is stored in a secure and compliant manner, making it easier to find and retrieve documents.
Fundamentally, with InSight DXP, we hope to provide Indian organisations with the tools to leapfrog in their digital transformation journeys by empowering them to overcome legacy challenges, unlock the value of their data and embrace a more secure, efficient, and compliant future. We are not only helping them thrive but also fostering a robust digital economy.
How does your InSight DXP platform open opportunities for Indian organisations to leverage AI and optimise their businesses while delivering enhanced output?
GenAI makes data easier to access, process, and interact with. It removes technical barriers and enables deeper insights from unstructured formats opening up new data exploration and analysis possibilities.
As GenAI and other advanced technologies grow, the costs of inaction and wrong actions are steep. Unusable data means missing out on key opportunities, experiencing bottlenecks, delays, or making incorrect strategic decisions resulting in lost revenue and diminished competitive positioning. The time to act is now.
InSight DXP helps organisations get ready for GenAI and enables them to get the most from it – by structuring data through a scalable platform that is easy to integrate with existing systems. Turning physical and digital information into AI-ready data, organisations can make more informed decisions and improve the end customer experience.
A good example of the benefits of DXP is in HR and the employee onboarding process. Imagine you have hired a new employee and must ensure they complete their new hire forms and training. The digitised forms are auto-tagged with metadata and categorised to easily identify what they are. To check the progress toward completing the onboarding forms, you go to the employer dashboard to see what items are outstanding. The system automatically sends an email to the employee reminding them to identify missing data and complete the missing forms by the required date. This will streamline your HR processes creating a better employee experience and allowing your HR team to focus on more strategic initiatives that better serve your employees, customers, and shareholders.
In what ways is Iron Mountain extending support to the Government of India and major companies in managing their information assets securely and effectively?
Iron Mountain is dedicated to extending robust support to the Government of India and major organisations and public sector institutions in managing their information and assets securely and effectively and assisting them in their digital transformation journeys. This support goes beyond InSight DXP, to other solutions that Iron Mountain offers – for example, we have data centres in six cities in India.
These data centres are provided through our joint venture with Web Werks and include a large data centre development in Navi Mumbai’s Rabale locality to enhance our capacity to serve the mass digitisation occurring across India.