Spirits were high at the Vinod Gupta School of Management on the 6
th of October 2016. The day was marked with the presence of a panel from Ericsson in the campus. The event was an interactive session between the various business heads of Ericsson and the batch. The guests from Ericsson included:
Mr. Priyankur Roy: Director & Head of Consulting Ericsson GSC
Mr. Probal Bhattacharjya: Head of Information Security Consulting,
Ms. Priyanka Ray: Head of Cloud Consulting,
Ms. Nilanjana Basu: Senior Consultant Business Consulting,
Mr. Saumya Choudhury: Practise Lead, Operations
Mr. Kumar Abhishek: Lead Consultant
They have all been associated with Ericsson for a long time and are experts in their domains. The session started with a video on how Ericsson has contributed to the technology industry and it was made clear that the discussion was going to be of a different sort with Q&A's punctured by short talks in between.
Mr. Priyankur kick-started the event, talking about how Ericsson leads transformation through mobility. He made it clear that in today’s world everything runs on digital fabric. Our everyday existence itself is based on a networked society. He moved onto explaining how a networked society consists of a cyclic relationship between people, things, interactivity and big ideas and stated that the ability of any such industry to impact the society is much more now than before. However there are several miles more to go because network is still an evolution.
Then Ms. Nilanjana Basu gave a brief introduction about smart cities citing the statistics of population, its growth, water usage, number of vehicles, etc. She then displayed a video emphasizing the need for smart cities to succeed. The reason for the need of smart cities, she said, was the growth of population, rise of the middle class and availability of cheap vehicles. The rise in population puts pressure on the infrastructure which in turn calls for the infrastructure to be smart. She went on to explain Ericsson’s Smart City Vision, the potential of smart cities, and the importance of smart grids.
She was followed by Ms. Priyanka Ray who threw light upon the concepts of fog and cloud. Giving reasons for why we are a networked society, she emphasized on the relation between the transformation and cloud business models. Showing a video about what Ericsson cloud is, she explained how it was essentially data being stored and transferred and spoke briefly on the intricacies of the cloud. It was a new way of doing things, like old wine in a new bottle. She also discussed virtual servers, concept of virtualization, and how different things can be connected citing a few examples. It was followed by a video on ‘Digital Dude’, an amazing technology from Ericsson which is yet to touch the market.
Mr. Probal Bhattacharjya then led the discussion towards hacking, general perception of hackers, and the significance of data security. He talked about global security standards and how hacking takes place only when there is some form of vulnerability in the system. With data being transferred right, left, and centre and in a humongous quantity, security he said is a necessary evil. It gives you mental peace!
Mr. Saumya Choudhury, talked about how the technologies are used to actually make smart cities possible. It depends on three things he said, the right people, the right technology, and change management. He explained how anything we do today is a process and hence we need to realise its business value under business process design. He emphasized on the need to identify potential and existing gaps within the system.
Mr. Priyankur Roy spoke on the platforms that ride the smart revolution and how connecting with technology changes our life as an individual. He also talked about the importance of information and communication technology and how it is unavoidable in today’s world.
The session concluded with a brief on the humble beginnings, journey of growth and current market position of Ericsson.