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In Focus

Shibabrata  Mondal, Founder and CEO

Wizergos

Low-code, no-code is poised to be a digital transformation catalyst.

May 23, 2021 | In Focus

Enterprises globally and in India have to contend with pressures to deliver products and services with speed to account for rapidly evolving customer requirements and ensure business resiliency at all times. The “low-code, no-code” theme has never been more dominant especially since the onset of the current pandemic. It would not be an exaggeration to mention that a direct fallout of the pandemic has been an acceleration of digital transformation initiatives, which is where most of the action in enterprises lies currently.

Wizergos has developed its low-code platform to cater to enterprises’ rapid development needs in the wake of the ongoing rush for digital transformation.

Better World conducted an email interview with Shibabrata Mondal, Founder and CEO, Wizergos, to gauge the present and future potential of the low-code paradigm and how organizations can use it optimally.

Excerpts of the interview:

Better World: Of late, there has been a lot of buzz in the industry for low-code/no-code application development platforms. Please explain why organizations should explore these platforms for app development.

Shibabrata Mondal: To explain the evolution and value of low-code/no-code platforms, I believe it is pertinent for us to go back in time and consider the history of computer science in general and software development specifically. There has always been an effort to provide tools and systems to enable developing high quality, complex, and enterprise-grade software while considering the business requirements of agility and ease of use.

So, the progression from machine language, micro code to C/C++ to Java/Python, or the various development frameworks was necessitated with the aim to make software development easier, more accessible, more robust and error free at the same time. Similarly, the concepts of libraries/packages, or the more recently introduced microservices and APIs are also advancements in the same direction. To me, low-code/no-code is but a natural extension of this movement. These platforms allow developers with no programming experience and even business users to build and publish applications using a web-based drag and drop kind of experience.

In such projects, enterprises are building some custom applications for enhanced user experience and management or automating some business processes. These are also projects where the requirements and functionalities would be controlled by the business teams. And by nature these would need quick updates as new products or services are introduced or changes are set in motion in processes or regulatory environments. So, these solutions have to be architected such that they are not only built rapidly and go to market quickly, but also changes can be done in matter of hours and days instead of weeks and months. Speed, agility, and quicker time to market are tenets of the value proposition of low-code/ no-code platforms that the tech buyer community must actively consider.

Better World: In this low-code/no-code evolution, how is Wizergos positioned to help organizations? Please help us understand Wizergos’ origin and vision. 

Shibabrata Mondal, Founder and CEO, Wizergos

Wizergos is a low-code application platform company.
Shibabrata is an IT industry veteran with around 23 years of experience in product development, software engineering, and entrepreneurship. He started Wizergos in 2015 with the aim of democratizing product and digital innovation through low-code platforms.
Prior to starting Wizergos, he was the Global Director, Software Engineering for HGST (a Western Digital Company) where he was managing the product development (Dataplane) team and pre-sales in India. He has also worked with Cisco in the San Franciso Bay Area for over six years where he was involved in product development and in companies such as Wipro and Atlas Software Technologies.
He is an engineering graduate from the IIT, Kharagpur,a premier engineering institute in India.

Shibabrata Mondal: We started Wizergos Low-Code Platform with three key theses that we placed our bets on. First, increasingly enterprise software development activities will be carried out for digital transformation projects, with requirements driven by business teams, tighter time to market requirements, and the need for rapid changes to address evolving needs in the market and business. These need a different architectural approach and traditional software development methods and tools will not be able to serve these needs effectively. Second, going forward, enterprise software needs to be available in a multitude of channels where the customers are more likely to be present. Low-code platforms would be required to natively make multi-device, multi-touchpoint, multi-modal applications. For instance, web and mobile apps, along with capabilities embedded in wearable devices, popular chat platforms (like WhatsApp, FB messenger), voice, and email. Lastly, we observed that enterprises are experimenting with new technologies like AI/ML and AR/VR and are not successful in developing multiple enterprise-grade, production ready use cases. Here too we posited that a platform approach is needed to bring these technologies to production use cases.

With these theses as our guide, we have built the Wizergos Low-Code Platform, and continue to focus our efforts in augmenting it. Our focus is on working with clients on projects where all or some of these points are coming together to build a business case for low-code platforms.

Better World: What is the current business traction for Wizergos in India and globally? Which customer segments and use cases are you working with?

Shibabrata Mondal: Two years ago, we spent time exploring and co-creating applications for a select number of use cases to prove the value of our platform. Since then, I am pleased, we have grown with a steady business traction and projects. One of our largest and most successful projects is with ICICI Lombard where we have leveraged our low-code platform to process over one million support workflows for customers every month (in their contact center set up) and significantly increased First-Call-Resolution rates for its Customer Service teams. This has ensured our sustained engagement with them for several new use cases.  We have also empowered Fidelis Insurance (UK), and a market research firm and ITC for market research applications over WhatsApp. Additionally, we have also developed mobile applications for several product engineering companies using our Low-Code platform.

We believe that Wizergos Low-Code Platform is a horizontal solution and will find application in multiple industries. Currently, we are focusing on the BFSI sector considering the volume and quality of digital transformation projects in this sector, combined with relatively higher technology maturity of BFSI companies that enables them to explore emerging technologies such as low-code/ no-code.

Better World: Going forward, how do you see the Low-code/no-code industry as a whole evolving (w.r.t. customer adoption, challenges, and so on)?

Shibabrata Mondal: I think adoption of low-code platforms will accelerate in the near to mid-term, as more success stories are seen and IT leaders realize some distinct advantages of using these platforms, viz. low maintenance, quicker enhancements to their software capabilities leading to faster time to market, robustness of applications, and so on.

Additionally, with the realization of early successes, organizations will plan low-code expansion drives for a slew of their DX initiatives across several business functions. This view is supported by research conducted by leading firms. The worldwide Low-Code development technologies market is slated to be worth USD13.8 billion in 2021 (registering around 22.6% annual growth), as per a Gartner report. In the same vein, Gartner predicts that by 2023, over 50% of medium to large enterprises will have adopted a low-code application platform as one of their strategic application platforms.

One of the challenges I see is for enterprises to figure use cases for low-code and no-code because, although we are putting all the platforms together as a category currently, they are quite different from each other in terms of what use cases they were designed for and where each one excels. Going forward there might be sub-categories created to help the enterprises make the right decisions. Additionally, organizations also need support to evaluate the appropriate low-code/ no-code platform vendors to engage with.

Better World: Could you please highlight some key priorities for Wizergos to tap the opportunities/address customer challenges moving ahead?

Shibabrata Mondal: Having executed several deep enterprise projects with larger established enterprises has made us more confident of our theories and vision and propelled us for our next wave of growth.

Our immediate priority is a focused approach towards expanding our business in select industry verticals – we intend to leverage our expertise and initial traction to build further inroads into insurance, banking, and financial services companies. It is also our responsibility as an industry stakeholder to help spread awareness about the value of low-code platforms, as we have noticed that low-code platforms can be very confusing for IT leaders and so decision making can be slow. To support the decision-making process of the tech leaders, we are working on a compendium of use cases and success stories to help them make the right decisions. As a key pillar of our GTM strategy, partner expansion is another priority area for us going ahead in the near to mid-term.

To read more InFocus interviews, click here. 

MORE FROM BETTER WORLD

Here’s why the ‘seth’s’ wealth will never become a ‘chavanni’

Here’s why the ‘seth’s’ wealth will never become a ‘chavanni’

Let me make it clear at the outset that the purpose of this analysis is not to delve into the research merit of the Hindenburg report on Adani Group of companies. That is because there is hardly anything in the report that has not been known to the media or the investors prior to this. It is just that the report has succeeded in amalgamating all the available ammunition in one place in an explosive manner.

The purpose of this analysis is also not to defend the Adani Group in any manner whatsoever. This analyst does not hold any recent positions in any of Adani Group stocks for that matter.

The focus here is on the long-term impact that the report may have on the Adani Group as well as on the Indian economy in the aftermath of its publication.

Hindenburg’s intent

It is important to look at the core intent of Hindenburg in ‘revealing’ the open secrets of Adani Group to the world.

Let it be very clear that if Adani Group is not an epitome of business ethics, then Hindenburg is no charitable organization either. It is, well, just another shortseller, which has the singular aim of maximizing profits to a hilt.

The timing of publishing the report simply confirms that. Why, otherwise, did Hindenburg not publish it at least a couple of months or weeks earlier, when, by its own account, it has been researching the Adani Group for two long years?

Very clearly, Hindenburg was waiting until the shares of Adani Group reaching a high and when the Adani Enterprises FPO was on. Hindenburg knows better than many that investor sentiments can best be manipulated at such times. So the sole purpose of this report was to maximize profits for Hindenburg. Also, in doing so, Hindenburg was hiding ‘precious’ information from other investors, and in the process, was being unethical, to say the least.

Hindenburg’s past trophies

Let’s pick up three of such trophies, namely, Nicola, Clover Health, and Jinhua An Kao, for the purpose of this analysis. Nikola Corporation is an US manufacturer of electric vehicles (EV) and energy solutions that had not delivered a single EV to the market when Hindenburg filed its report indicting Nikola of a “fraud” in September 2020. It would roll out its first two EV trucks only in December 2021. The report caused its Nasdaq listed shares to drop in value to USD12 from an earlier high of USD65.

Clover Health, which was founded in New Jersey, USA, in 2012, began selling Medicare Advantage in 2013. It was said to be one of the fastest growing Medicare Advantage insurers in the USA. Interestingly, Clover’s board members included a former first daughter Chelsea Clinton, while its investors included Sequoia and Alphabet’s GV. When Hindenburg made its expose on Clover in February 2021, the company’s shares were trading on Nasdaq at USD12.23 a piece. In the subsequent three months, the value of a share dropped to USD6.59. However, quite significantly, in September 2021, the share price briefly touched a record high of more than USD28 and it was not until November 2021 that the price fell below USD7.0 again. At the time of writing this article, however, the share was trading in the range of USD1.27.

Jinhua An Kao (now Kandi Technologies) too is an EV maker with China being its primary revenue market. Its shares dropped on Nasdaq from USD14.44 a share to USD7.88 a share in about a month’s time. Kandi’s shares now trade slightly above USD2 a share.

Impact on Adani Group

First and foremost, it is important to realize that Adani Group is not just a Nicola, a Clover Health, or a Jinhua, which have been mostly focused on one or two businesses. Moreover, these were yet to become mainstream businesses generating large revenue streams.

It would be too naïve to assume that the Hindenburg report could impact the Adani Group on a scale similar to Nicola, Clover, or Jinhua. This is simply because unlike these companies, Adani Group’s overall businesses are far from being vulnerable. Most of the Adani businesses are having revenue streams that are unlikely to get affected by their share prices. Take the ports or airports for example. Will ships stop docking at the Mudra port or will passengers stop boarding flights at the airports because Adani Group’s shares have fallen?

In fact, even the Adani Enterprises FPO ‘managed’ to get fully subscribed amidst all the Hindenburg hoopla in the media and the simultaneous bloodbath on the bourses.

It will be just a matter of time when the Adani Group shares, and any other shares that may have got dragged along, will find their previous levels. In fact, it won’t be surprising if that happens in a span of months rather than years. Signs of a recovery are already visible, as some of the group shares edged up, even if briefly, on the day of writing this article.

That a shortseller’s report can turn an Adani share into a penny stock can, at best, be a wishful thinking. The ground realities, aka the group’s assets and cashflows, are way too big to get dwarfed.

Milind Khamkar, Group CIO, Super-MAX

Milind Khamkar, Group CIO, Super-MAX

Viewpoint

Milind Khamkar

Senior IT Leader

“Storage versus applications continues to be a chicken-and-egg story.”

Storage versus applications has always remained a chicken-and-egg story. What comes first, storage or applications, is an interesting conundrum. Moreover, it is very difficult to predict how much of storage is enough. These two things keep the IT situation always fluid and the IT teams on their toes. A perfect solution remains ever elusive and a predictability around storage is hardly achieved.

CIOs start with some resources, and then the demand scales and sometimes goes out of scope. So the intelligence around storage requirements always remain a burning issue.

The landscape is constantly transforming. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) need to develop strategies to provide some predictability in terms of the applications’ storage requirements.

Also, it is of enormous significance to separate the professional and personal data, mainly in the context of regulation and compliance coming into force.

To my mind, cloud is an integral part of digital transformation. And the adoption of the cloud has been accelerated in this pandemic time. On a positive note, the pandemic has brought in some good changes, accelerated cloud adoption being one of them. Businesses that are embarking the digital transformation journey cannot ignore the importance of cloud. Hence, cloud is essential in today’s era, especially if you are going for new digital technologies. The kind of security questions we were grappling with before are no more there. Now, even the regulatory and compliance issues are taken care of to a large extent.

However, with new digital applications, latency is likely to be a key issue that public cloud may not be able to address adequately. That is where the significance of on-prem models becomes vital again.

Also read Viewpoint by Archie Jackson, Head – IT and Security, Incedo Inc. 

Storage Transformation Viewpoints

The new digital technologies are what we call the wave-2 digital technologies. They are getting developed with no precedence. So, the predictability about their behavior is extremely low. Plus, they are extremely resource hogging technologies. They put high demand on processing and storage resources, and the volume of data they generate is phenomenonal. The traditional storage technologies that were not developed for this era were tasked with matching the data needs of these technologies.

Going forward, storage elasticity will be extremely important in meeting these needs. On-premise data centers will therefore need to exhibit a cloud-like behavior. In fact, new-generation data centers are already providing storage on demand. That is going to become the new norm.

“Intelligence around storage requirements remains a burning issue. OEMs need to develop strategies to provide some predictability in terms of the applications’ storage requirements.”

Storage Transformation Viewpoints
Greesh Jairath, Senior IT leader

Greesh Jairath, Senior IT leader

Viewpoint

Greesh Jairath

Senior IT Leader

“AI has started playing a key role in ensuring SLA s and business availability.”

Storage is the underlying foundation of IT. Everything, including the applications and the structured as well as unstructured data, resides on storage media. However, storage solutions have move much beyond the hardware layer. Today, the virtualization layer has become the heart and center of all data centers, be it a private data center or a public cloud. Moreover, in the last three years or so, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a critical part from a storage perspective, and has started playing a significant role in ensuring SLA s and business availability.

Whenever an IT issue comes up, there has be either a storage problem, a network problem, or an application problem. AI simplifies the task of pinpointing the problem. And if you’re able to solve those issues immediately, it helps.

That’s point number one. Point number two is definitely in terms of scalability. Today, data has been growing from terabytes to gigabytes and exabytes, and the kind of scalability available within the controller set is enormous. So, it enables people running on-prem data centers to scale it almost on a demand basis, which has come very far in terms of intelligent storage on the data centers. Third is the agile part and the security that need to be factored into the storage component.

Also read Viewpoint by Archie Jackson, Head – IT and Security, Incedo Inc. 

Storage Transformation Viewpoints

The industry is witnessing a massive amount of transformation, and that is impacting storage as well. Storage transformation is already underway, though there are relative challenges on the ground.

Earlier data used to be about read and write, but now it’s mostly about write and read. Plus, we have big data, where there is lot of unstructured data.

Whenever we plan for storage or its replacement or scalability, we always look at it from a hybrid perspective. While some of the data will be available on prem, some of it will be available in the cloud. And if there are multiple clouds, then we have a provision available to move data from one cloud to another. The entire scope or design of storage has been taken at a different level altogether, wherein you provide the best-in-class security to fulfill the needs of compliance, security, and agility.

Today, data centers could very well be managed through automation to ensure that they run fine if errors happen due to known issues. Some alerts can go to the system admin or the backup admin for respective measures. So I think the intelligent data center is developing and progressing well. It’s not fully developed yet, but things are moving well in the right direction.

So, typically, when you look at the front cache or the cache available and the indexing on the storage, they are algorithms. They understand how to address structured data versus unstructured data. Also, with AI, provisions are available, either through an open stack or through our existing vendors, to ensure that those are being looked at differently.
Compliance is a key issue that one needs to factor in. Particularly, when GDPR aspects are involved, data retention can be a key challenge. It is important to differentiate between personally identifiable information (PII) and normal data. In terms of data, we have been ensuring that all the storage needs to be encrypted. A key question that CIOs must answer is: in case of an attack or a security threat, what data has been moved out? This could be of great importance because most organizations don’t even understand what information has been lost during an attack.

These are very grave concerns for organizations. While we try protecting data right from the endpoint to the perimeter, but in case an event happens, often one doesn’t even understand that the event has occurred.

Going forward, among other things, blockchain-based mechanisms are likely to evolve such that data may be protected in a far more better way.

“Whenever there is an IT issue, there is either a storage problem, a network problem, or an application problem. AI simplifies the task of pinpointing the problem.”

Storage Transformation Viewpoints
Charu Bhargava, Vice President – IT, Sheela Foam

Charu Bhargava, Vice President – IT, Sheela Foam

Viewpoint

Charu Bhargava

Vice President – IT, Sheela Foam

“One must maintain an equilibrium between convenience and compliance.”

Storage is becoming everyone’s necessity and the size of storage is increasing phenomenally. In the current scenario where virtualization plays a very important role, storage solutions should be able to provide an expandable or rather an ever-increasing input–output ratio because when everything and anything has to be stored and retrieved, you don’t know where the volumes are going. So storage has started playing a very important role in day-to-day operations, and it is ever-growing. It, therefore, has to be agile and scalable, right from the design stage.

Earlier, organizations used to struggle with files. Today, everyone is working with electronic data as digitalization has become the buzzword. So, organizations want to digitalize and store everything that is raw. The goal is to have zero paper but lots of electronic data. One needs that kind of ample space and storage to keep everything. Structured as well as unstructured data are exponentially growing, and before you process that and take out useful data, first you need to store it. The storage space needs to have a modular approach because you need to decide what comes first and how to store the data such that you optimize the resources to the best extent possible. That is where the trend is moving.

Also read Viewpoint by Archie Jackson, Head – IT and Security, Incedo Inc. 

Storage Transformation Viewpoints

You also need to maintain an equilibrium between convenience and compliance. It is never this way or that way, and you have to take both things into account because compliance has to go with convenience. Second, one also needs to consider the data type and how long it is to be stored. You need to identify data that is not useful or an absolute space wastage, and consider how you get rid of it such that it also takes care of your security and compliance obligations. As a data incharge or data custodian, you have to be very mindful of these things.

In fact, this is a struggle that everyone today faces because the volume keeps exponentially increasing. And it is not just structured data, but also unstructured data that is coming in from everywhere, be it text, images, or videos. Everything is getting into your data center. We have 7,000 showrooms and we use visual merchandising, so a phenomenal volume of images is flowing in each day. With AI, ML, and IoT, we work on these data sets. The data sets become so huge that someday you actually need to segregate them and throw things out of your data center, because after a period of time it is of no good.

As an organization we are following a hybrid approach. We have our own data center where all our core applications are residing. To hedge the risk, we have our DR on cloud. For all non-core applications, we use cloud. Security risk is still there on cloud, because cloud being open is vulnerable. On the other hand, a private cloud in an enterprise space, or dedicated to an enterprise, is more secure. As a philosophy, we have been using our own core applications, developed and designed by our own IT team. From a safety, security, and compliance perspective, we have far more control over it. We are working on this kind of hybrid environment and the cloud is actually being used for R&D-oriented applications, where you need expandability.

“We have our own data center where all our core applications are residing. To hedge the risk, we have our DR on cloud.”

Storage Transformation Viewpoints
Archie Jackson, Head – IT and Security, Incedo., Viewpoint

Archie Jackson, Head – IT and Security, Incedo., Viewpoint

Viewpoint

Archie Jackson

Head – IT and Security, Incedo Inc.

Modern storage solutions will require massive reimagining.

At this point in time, enterprises are racing towards an anywhere and everywhere work environment. The pandemic has made it imperative for organizations to transform themselves to meet the core needs of their employees who are scattered across geographies and sites. As a result, organizations are moving away from the erstwhile centralization mindset and going for decentralized architectures.

At the same time, there is a rapid evolution of cloud in the works. Several new technologies, such as analytics and business intelligence, are responsible for the evolution of the cloud in terms of scalability and agility. This evolution has also become a key catalyst for storage transformation. 

Storage Transformation Viewpoints

Today, we operate in a multi-cloud hybrid environment. It’s rare to find an organization working either fully on-premise or being fully dependent on a single cloud, thanks to the multitude of applications we work with and kind of architectures we use. Organizations are using different clouds and are essentially using a hybrid environment. All of this is often supported by multiple technology partners.

Identifying the most optimal solution around storage involves designing something that would be highly scalable, agile, and available as well as be cost-effective, unrestricted, and act as a disaster recovery (DR) option to ensure business continuity. It should integrate new technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Considering all these factors together is extremely important. This leads us more towards soft storage.

Today, application development is happening in a DevOps environment, which is increasingly distributed as well. Individuals may be working in small agile pods, with some storage, some activities, some gits, and so on. Now, when designing a solution, it is important to join all these dots and create a complete architecture and consequently a solution at the very foundation. Storage should enable such a foundation.

To sum up, today we are operating in a dynamically changing environment. So storage solutions should be in an agile format and also move away from a centralized architecture towards a decentralized one.

Also read: New Dropbox features could make pro remote workers more sticky

“Storage solutions should be highly scalable, agile, available, and cost-effective, and also meet DR needs, while integrating new technologies such as artificial intelligence.”

Storage Transformation Viewpoints
Time to get ‘responsible’ with AI systems

Time to get ‘responsible’ with AI systems

Humans have built very complex robotic systems, such as convoys and airplanes, and even neural networks to communicate with each other, but we’re only starting to scratch the surface of what artificial intelligence (AI) can do. It’s also about time we started paying more attention to ‘responsible AI.’

A future with artificial intelligence would be very mixed. It would be an actuality that could not only eliminate many of today’s human jobs, but also allow us to solve complex problems much faster than we could if we used a human brain to solve those same complex problems.

As technology gets closer to achieving full intelligence, we will start seeing the artificial intelligence (AI) systems that are fully self-aware and can think, reason, and act like a human would. This may raise some concerns, because some people fear that as artificially intelligent computers become more advanced, they might start to have a good enough IQ to be more intelligent than humans. The concern is not if, but when, it might happen.

In future we will have artificial intelligent robotic ‘teams’ of robots that can do all the menial tasks which we traditionally assign to humans such as vacuuming, picking up items, cooking, shopping and more. All jobs will eventually be done by artificially intelligent robotic machines. Even without this new development, all work will still be based on traditional methods such as task assignment, task resolution, and reward and punishment systems.

Today, we are beginning to see the first AI machine prototypes at work and many exciting projects are in the works. One such project is a robotic dog, which can recognize objects, humans and other dogs. Other projects include self-driving cars, self-piloted planes, artificial intelligent robots, and new weather systems.

The future of artificially intelligent robotic androids is exciting but also scary due to the autonomous capabilities of these machines. These robotic androids may be made up of two different types of artificial intelligence, a human-like non-conscious neural network (NCL) and a fully conscious human mind with all its own memory, thoughts, and feelings. Some NCL robots may have both systems in one system or may only have one. Many experts believe a full AI will be closer to human intelligence than any current technology can ever make.

Such concerns and apprehensions around AI have triggered the need for AI developments and implementations to be humanly, ethically, and legally more responsible.

Microsoft recognizes six principles that it believes should guide AI development and use (see link). These are fairness; reliability and safety; privacy and security; inclusiveness, transparency; and accountability.

PwC Responsible AI frameworkPwC has created a ‘Responsible AI Toolkit,’ which is a suite of customizable frameworks, tools, and processes designed to help organizations “harness the power of AI in an ethical and responsible manner, from strategy through execution.”

The field of ‘Responsible AI’ is generating more and more interest from various stakeholders, including governments, developers, human-resource experts, and user organizations, among others.

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