Accelerating digital transformation focus of online forum

The annual ARC Industry Forum Asia titled Accelerating Digital Transformation in a Post-COVID World, held online from July 13-15, 2021, witnessed record-breaking registrations of over 2,500 delegates for the two language tracks – Japanese and English.

Collaboration between ARC’s India, Japan, China, and SEA teams ensured the success of the Asia Forum that featured 45 executive speakers (including four from ARC) in the English track from several industries to share their experiences in digital transformation, smart manufacturing, smart cities, and Industry 4.0. This three-day virtual forum provided end users, solution providers, and decision makers an opportunity to learn from each other and get an overall view of the rapidly changing market requirements. For the last several years, the core theme across all ARC global forums has been digital transformation.

The pandemic has dramatically changed how we communicate and collaborate globally. While technology has opened new doors of opportunity, organizations that do not adapt to the accelerating pace of change will become extinct. The welcome address by G. Ganapathiraman, Vice President and General Manager, ARC Advisory Group, India, set the tenor for each day’s presentations. After each presentation there were short Q&A sessions.

Accelerating digital transformation

Digital transformation is a whole new way of doing business, supporting customers, leveraging the available services and adapting to a changed business environment. Customer relationships have become more dynamic. It is important to understand where these changes and nuances are in the marketplace and how best to respond. The pandemic has shifted market demand more abruptly than any single event that we have ever witnessed, drastically increasing the need for companies to respond faster and become agile in order to be operationally resilient and thrive in this new world. End users have been forced to deal with this new reality, running their operations and control systems remotely, with employees working from home or socially spaced within plants.

Topics, such as moving from IT/OT convergence to IT/OT fusion, open platforms and interoperability, the importance of global standards, and legacy system migration were highlighted. The attendees learned how companies are digitalizing business processes, and where they are on the digital transformation journey and the digital maturity curve. A change in mindset, organizational readiness, and the human element to accept new approaches was an important aspect of almost all the presentations.

– This article originally appeared on ARC Advisory Group’s website. ARC Advisory Group is a CFE Media content partner. Edited by Chris Vavra, web content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology, cvavra@cfemedia.com.

Original content can be found at www.arcweb.com.

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