CII's new centre for digital transformation to focus on MSMEs

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), an industry lobby, is partnering with IT solution providers Tata Communications and Dell EMC to launch a centre for digital transformation (CDT), mainly to help micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

The centre will guide companies in their digital transformation journeys. It will be located in Delhi but will reach 60 other locations through CII members and partners. 

"One of the key aspects of the CDT will be to first assess the maturity or readiness of organisations to start their digital transformation journeys. The CDT will also advise companies on how to go about the journeys as well as taking help from the governing council that includes founding member organisations such as Dell, Tata Communications, other partners and user organisations," Vijay Thadani, co-chair of CDT and managing director of NIIT said.

The centre will also look at reskilling, skilling and cybersecurity aspects of the organisations, Thadani added. 

Although CDT will try to serve 9,000 CII members, it will mainly focus on helping  MSMEs, Thadani said. CII's MSME council has also been roped in for the initiative, he added.

"Large companies have the wherewithal to impart training or hire resources, MSMEs might not. The CDT will look at helping these companies with the resources and reskilling or skilling services they need on top of assessment services," Thandani said, claiming only 2% of Indian organisations had undergone digital transformation.

Thadani said 100 organisations have been assessed so far and close to six to seven reskilling programmes have been rolled out. 

The centre has been in the works over the last 12 months and will be formally launched at the CDT-backed digital transformation summit in December. "This will be an annual event," Thadani said. 

The CDT has developed a framework to assess the cybersecurity of a company. However, a more consolidated and newer framework will be launched in December. 

NIIT is helping the CDT in skilling and reskilling workers. 

Data security and privacy, regulatory policies and reskilling are among the pain points of MSMEs, B Rudramuni, vice president and centre head, Dell EMC said. 

"Dell wants to help the companies that fall under the MSME category and ensure that CDT becomes a platform where tech developers and users can come together," Rudramani said. 

CDT is backed by 30 to 40 members, and Thadani expects the centre to see another seven reskilling programmes before the formal launch in December.

When asked about other services like automation or cloud, Thadani clarified that CDT will only provide reskilling services at an affordable cost but other member partners can help companies with their solutions individually.