How did the pandemic affect your clients’ requirements last year?
It began with a lot of uncertainty for clients, vendors and governments. The priority was to ensure business resilience and continuity, so there was a high reliance on partners and vendors for uninterrupted service provision. At Capgemini, we not only provided clients a high level of service delivery flexibility but also helped them recognise the opportunities in this new normal. Our work provided options in resource mobilisation, as remote working became a standard for everyone.
Highly impacted industries such as retail, hospitality and transportation had to study and redefine business models. Our clients were adapting to this new normal while also maintaining resilient, cost-effective operations and driving budgets to the front end to sustain business. This led to an acceleration in digital transformation, with a surge in cloud and data solutions. We also saw e-commerce increase significantly, driving more payments solutions in the region.
What were some digital transformation trends you noted?
Data has been recognised as crucial for some time, but only recently with the development of cloud solutions – backed by improved computing power and AI – did it really begin to drive change at the business level. When sizeable amounts of data are uploaded and processed in the cloud, supported by AI algorithms, you get real business value and tangible intelligence from raw information.
The 5G revolution goes beyond increased bandwidth and lower latency – large chunks of data can be collected from wide range of sources at any time and rapidly transported to the cloud for further processing. With confidential data moving outside traditional data centres, cybersecurity is more important than ever for clients to mitigate risk.
What are the long-term benefits of Capgemini’s acquisition of Altran?
Altran is a leading multinational in industry 4.0, digital, R&D, smart mobility and 5G in the telco sectors. It’s a big complement to our portfolio. One of the key characteristics of Altran is the type of transformation it provides, which allows conversations with CXOs on the client side. While Capgemini has traditionally been more of an IT or CIO company, we can now deeper engage with our clients, leveraging our combined assets to drive transformation across the entire business cycle.
How do you define innovation in the fourth industrial revolution?
It’s about integrating various innovation streams and technologies to create value. The innovation in the telco sector with 5G is itself a big advantage, but its real value lies in using this tech to add value in other industries. The ability to transfer large amounts of data in real time and with high precision could be a game-changer in the healthcare, logistics and security sectors, for example.
The convergence of 5G with real-time data capture and the possibilities of an intelligent AI layer built on top of that – that’s the biggest innovation.
What human values are important to enable this process?
Capgemini’s new purpose places the human factor at its centre. Humans not only generate positive change but are also recipients of it. As a company with over 50 years of tradition, our core values – honesty, boldness, freedom, trust, modesty, team spirit and fun – influence how we deal with our clients, society and colleagues.
We’ve seen during the pandemic that those who were digitally excluded were the ones who suffered most. As technology providers we have an opportunity to help address this, plus it’s very important we ensure tech and innovation are helping solve bigger problems such as climate change. It all starts – and ends – with human beings.