August 26, 2024
Lakshmanan Chidambaram/CTL, Tech Mahindra
Your China Problem Called: How To Fix The Future Of Business, Lakshmanan Chidambaram/CTL – Tech Mahindra
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We have reported about how India is becoming a global leader across industry sectors and interviewed dozens of top CEO’s who have been leading the charge. From Zoho, Cisco, and Juniper Networks to TTEC, H&R Block, Mphasis and many others, many CEO’s are shifting billions of dollars of investments from a dependence on China and Taiwan toward India.
Another global leader driving this massive transformation is The Mahindra group, a $21 Billion Multinational Federation of Companies which employs 145,000 people across dozens of sectors. They have also become a rapidly growing multi-billion-dollar provider of technology consulting, services and digital solutions—helping other corporations make this reboot a reality.
On this episode of The Reboot Chronicles, President and Head of Americas Leadership Council, Tech Mahindra Americas Head, Mahindra Group, Lakshmanan Chidambaram (CTL), takes us behind the scenes in an entertaining and educational tour of what’s next—from next-gen factories, supply chains, AI automation, and robotics, to turnkey villages of the future where people will work and play, and how trust can change everything.
Fixing The Global Supply Chain Imbalance
If you are familiar with any part of the global supply chain, you may have noticed that there is a massive dependence on countries in the Asia-Pacific region. 70% of commercial shipbuilding happens there, and Taiwan manufactures around 92% of the world’s most advanced chips. Recently people have woken up to that dependence and Lakshmanan expects a 15-20% shift away from China. “[Tech Mahindra] is playing a role in identifying projects that can be moved out of China,” notes CTL, he even mentions that “15% of all Apple’s iPhones are now being made in India.” Now China and the Asia-Pacific region will still be a major player in the global supply chain, but this competition will hopefully make a better market in the years to come.
The Factory Of The Future
One of the ways Tech Mahindra is redefining the global supply chain is by creating the factory of the future. By leveraging all the technologies at their disposal like AI, AR, VR, computer vision, and all the other two-letter tech acronyms, Tech Mahindra made“ the factory Intuitive, Intelligent, safer, and energy efficient.” Having features that automatically allow the factory to tell which car is being worked on to instantly change the work being done on it, and saving energy on the robotic portion of the factory by removing lights as robots “Work by themselves. They don’t need lights.” This factory also employs a total of 13,000 people, who are assisted by this tech whenever a new feature is being rolled out, or if a mistake a made the technology will aid it fixing the issue, and offer additional training if needed.
Keeping A Global Culture Of Trust And Dedication
With a company that is as big as Tech Mahindra, being a global company that has hundreds of thousands of employees, we wanted to know how Tech Mahindra has unified under one company culture, and then keep that culture alive. To which Lakshmanan said, “You have to keep your vision simple and repeat it again and again and again until it gets into the DNA of your people.” He even attributes it to brushing your teeth, a task that is done every day almost on instinct as you know you have to do it, and it is good for your overall health.
