Despite the growing use of collaboration technologies, we see companies unable to reap business benefits. Companies often ignore the human side of the hybrid workplace. Your workplace is not just a collection of technology. It’s a culture and a way of life. It’s about creating the right balance between people, processes, and operations and technology and platforms to create an amazing people experience!

As a consultant, I see a widespread adoption of Microsoft 365 (M365). Organizations are now able to achieve new heights of productivity, collaboration, and creativity. But, how do you empower them to digitally transform their business? How do you create immersive experiences?

After rolling out M365 technologies and platforms, organizations are unable to get a full return on investment as people don’t adopt the technologies in their day-to-day work. Here are my observations on various adoption challenges and my tips to improve M365 adoption and value from an organizational perspective.

Some of the most common M365 adoption challenges are:

• Organizational reluctance to rationalize existing point solutions in lieu of the rich M365 feature-sets around productivity and collaboration (legacy file storage and sharing solutions, intranet and internal communication platforms, etc.)
• Frequent vendor-initiated enhancements and feature additions in M365 demanding organizations to constantly evolve their expertise to support and use the environment.
• Conflict between centralized IT controls and governance that organizations have established at enterprise level for security and compliance (data sharing, user provisioning, application access, data protection, etc.) with M365’s self-service architecture, which provides higher autonomy for users
• A lack of proper understanding of M365’s licensing model, which has evolved over time resulting in multiple bundling options for enterprises. A lack of proper understanding of the licensing model affects an organization’s ability to maximize value for the money spent.

Organizations can undertake several measures to unlock the full potential of the M365 platform, enhance productivity, and streamline workflows for sustained success.  

Establish an M365 competency center: Organizations can organize their M365 adoption efforts, tap into knowledge, and offer people customized assistance by setting up a competency center. By removing obstacles, boosting user confidence, and encouraging effective use of M365’s capabilities and services, this targeted strategy eventually encourages wider adoption throughout the organization.

Implement usage analysis: Collecting and analyzing M365 usage trends (for example, through M365 admin center, Microsoft Graph API, M365 usage analytics, Adoption Score, or third-party analytics solutions) can provide valuable insights into areas where adoption is low or specific features are underutilized. This can help target training and education efforts to address these gaps and promote better utilization of M365 services.

Optimize licenses: M365 offers a variety of subscription plans and licensing choices. Following implementation, organizations can assess their license distributions and tweak them to better meet user needs. In order to do this, licenses that aren’t in use must be found and transferred to people who require more features or services. Licensing optimization ensures the effective use of licenses across the organization and assists in cost management

Improve security and compliance: Following implementation, it is crucial to carry out an extensive security and compliance assessment. Organizations should check their M365 security preferences, access restrictions, and compliance options. This evaluation aids in identifying any holes or vulnerabilities that must be closed in order to uphold a strong security posture and comply with legal obligations.

Strong governance and policies: For efficient management and control, M365-specific governance and policies must be established. This includes creating access controls, data retention policies, data loss prevention techniques, and information sharing guidelines.

Integration with other systems: M365 commonly interacts with other software and systems in a business setting. Organizations should evaluate the effectiveness of these connections after implementation to identify any gaps or potential improvement areas. Increasing productivity, reducing processes, and improving data flow are all advantages of optimizing integrations.

Establish hybrid controls: To address the conflict between centralized IT controls and M365’s self-service architecture, organizations can adopt a hybrid approach that combines self-service capabilities with centralized control and governance. This involves establishing clear policies, guidelines, and workflows that strike a balance between user empowerment and centralized oversight.

Change management: Microsoft releases updates and feature enhancements on a regular basis to address customer needs, improve security, and enhance people experiences. While these updates can bring numerous benefits, they also require organizations to stay proactive in terms of change management, communication, and training to ensure smooth adoption and minimize disruptions.

Persona-driven approach: A diverse workforce with varied technology aptitude and expectations calls for a persona-driven approach. By leveraging digital experience monitoring (DEM)tools for collecting valuable insights into user preferences, organizations can tailor services and content to meet the specific needs of each persona, leading to higher user satisfaction and engagement.

In summary:

By utilizing post-implementation rationalization opportunities, organizations can maximize user engagement, optimize licensing, increase security and compliance, enhance performance, streamline interconnections, and provide ongoing training and support. By iterative execution, organizations are able to maximize their Microsoft 365 investments and ensure that it will continue to fulfill their changing business needs.

At Capgemini, we offer a wide choice of services designed to drive end-user experience. We make the transition to M365 quick and easy for you. We can assist you in conducting a full review of the current M365 ecosystem and in providing the guidance and know-how needed to maximize your company’s corporate adoption of M365 and stimulate creativity throughout your business.

Our living labs bring the solution to life with immersive experiences. Our innovation framework is designed to enable collaboration and rapid prototyping to bring ideas to life that create an amazing people experience!

We helped one of the leading banks build a collaborative workplace with a transition to Microsoft 365 targeting 100,000 users. We developed personas, mapping critical journeys and identifying the personal needs of individuals. And we brought in the team to build a gamification program that helped in driving up enthusiasm and encouraging usage. The bank achieved an adoption rate of 70-80%, with widespread adoption of Exchange Online, OneDrive, Microsoft Applications for Enterprise, SharePoint Online, and mobile tools across their offices worldwide.

Are you ready to drive Microsoft 365 adoption?

Talk to us.

In an industry of ongoing consolidation, mobile customer migrations are frequent. However, we witness many mobile customer migrations that fall short of expectations, due to a flawed process that inadvertently triggers significant customer flight.

Moving customers entails a high risk of churn, and even slight missteps can lead to poor customer experiences. On top of that, competitors often find ways to exploit the situation. It is treacherous terrain, but armed with the right map, it can be a great journey. 

If managed properly, mobile customer migrations can be a great opportunity to build your brands and boost customer relationships. In our years supporting telcos with mobile customer migrations, we have learned that the devil is in the details. In this blogpost, we define our top factors to help you successfully navigate your next mobile customer migration.  

Our top 9 essential factors for a successful mobile customer migration  

1. Clear strategy and principles  

Start defining your migration goals with a clear customer strategy and objectives that prioritize customer needs. Measurable objectives are key, and you may want to include specific targets to address topics such as churn, customer satisfaction, cost-control, and publicity. The migration process will often involve participation across various functions and units, so make sure to use a strategy for establishing a shared understanding of the mission among team members. 

2. Customer-centric design 

It can be challenging to prioritize which areas to focus on in a mobile customer migration given the diverse range of stakeholders. Our experience shows that the most successful outcomes emerge when customer centricity is a top priority. For example, customers should always be provided with comparable or enhanced products after the migration. To further optimize the customer experience, it is essential to base the migration process on customer touchpoints by collecting and analyzing insights in feedback loops. This will help ensure that customers perceive the migration as straightforward, with each step in the process as simple and intuitive as possible. With this approach, we have seen churn coming rates as low as 3%.  

3. Clear governance structure 

Establishing a clear governance structure that separates the migration from business-as-usual is key to enabling a pragmatic and operational mindset in the project team. Roles and responsibilities should be clearly defined, and we also recommend establishing an execution team to follow up on the migration and handle deviations. It is crucial to ensure that sufficient resources are available, both human and financial, to quickly implement changes and adapt to new needs. 

4. Technical feasibility 

During a large-scale migration, minor issues that may go unnoticed in daily business become more apparent. For instance, SMS problems during the porting process may lead to customer frustration and porting delays. A seamless migration relies on well-functioning technical systems, and it is essential to provide the technical value chain with sufficient time and resources to adapt to the customer journey. Inadequate staffing or brief timelines will often lead to shortcuts being made that negatively impacts the customer experience.  

5. Rigorous testing  

Testing both the customer journeys and the technical value chain is a crucial prerequisite before the migration goes live. Incorporating a pilot phase prior to the comprehensive migration will enhance the chances of success, providing an opportunity for necessary refinements. The pilot phase will cultivate unity and confidence within the project team and bring attention to unidentified issues. With focus on rigorous testing, we have seen migrations with automation rates close to 100%.  

6. Customer service alliance 

As customers navigate through the migration process, it is inevitable that some will require assistance or seek more information. We believe that the best experiences are delivered when the customer agent team is involved in decisions that may impact the volume or nature of inquiries. To enable smooth and efficient customer handling, it is important to utilize the customer agents’ knowledge, build their understanding of the process and empower them with the mandate to immediately resolve any complaints. 

7. Detailed batch planning 

To minimize the impact of potential errors, it is best to migrate customers in batches over a defined period. To group the customers appropriately, a detailed understanding of the customer base is required. For instance, it may be beneficial to migrate passive customers in a separate phase. When creating the batch plan, we recommend starting by prioritizing solutions for most customers before addressing the deviations and corner cases. It is generally a good idea to start the migration with less complicated customer cases before gradually adding complexity as you go. 

8. Proactive communication  

Prevent customer confusion by keeping them informed through clear and positive messaging. Keep the communication straightforward, simple, and predictable and avoid excessively detailed messaging that can cause information overload. With such principles, we have observed that more than two-thirds of the customer base has navigated the migration process without requiring any assistance from customer support. As an example, a typical message to distribute to customers on the migration day could be “You only have to change SIM card to unlock your new lightning fast 5G”. 

9. Building loyalty 

Following up on customers after the migration is crucial to ensure their continued satisfaction. One effective way to do this is by setting up an adjusted customer lifecycle program that considers any changes that may have occurred during the migration. Feel free to include regular check-ins, surveys, and targeted communications to help customers get the most out of their new service or product. By prioritizing satisfaction and engagement, it is possible to build long lasting relationships with the customers and increase their loyalty over time. 

In summary, a successful mobile customer migration is a complex process that requires you to prioritize the customer and pay attention to details. While our list of crucial factors provides a solid starting point for navigating the migration process, it is important to remember that there are numerous considerations that can impact the migration outcome. Capgemini has over the last decade successfully supported more than 10 mobile customer migrations with over 1 million customers migrated. Our proven ‘out of the box’ methodology and interconnected assets have played a key role in our clients’ achieving successful migration outcomes and sustained growth. 

To explore the topics above and ensure that you get the most out of your next chapter, do not hesitate to reach out. 

TelcoInsights is a series of posts about the latest trends and opportunities in the telecommunications industry – powered by a community of global industry experts and thought leaders.

Investing in an analytics platform that can pay for itself gives you access to more powerful insights that drive value and competitive advantage across your organization.

Why do so many finance transformations fail to reach their goals? Especially, with the amount of investment companies are currently putting into them to achieve the outcomes they want?

Simply put – data infrastructure and analytics aren’t given the same value as processes and technology during the roadmap creation process. This is because they are often seen as visibility enablers, rather than transformation drivers.

You need to think differently when investing in data and analytics. Moving away from a cost enabling tool towards implementing a self-funded value generator that pays for itself is a good first step in the right direction. But where do you start?

How to implement your self-funded analytics platform

First, you need to implement your analytics platform using mature automation software such as robotic process automation, machine learning, enterprise research planning, and system of engagement. This transforms your data into actionable business insights, enabling you to identify and address every friction in your finance functions and predict SLA and KPI trends across them.

Leveraging these insights effectively also equips your controllers with AI-driven capabilities, enabling them to ensure better finance compliance across your organization. This, in turn, helps you focus on the right metrics, measure efficiency better, and simulate improvement benefits before you implement them.

These new AI-driven capabilities also enable your transformation agents to measure the speed and value of any transformations within your organization.

However, the success of your analytics platform depends on a number of factors including how it’s implemented, data quality, the tools leveraged in the analysis process, and your ability to act on the insights you receive. This means you need to ensure your finance transformation team has the right analytics, process, and automation skillset needed to run your platform effectively and efficiently, while tracking outcomes that will deliver ”pay for itself” benefits.

Finance analytics – value at minimum cost

The business value and controllership benefits delivered by a properly implemented analytics solution include:

• Further cost reduction – provides actionable insights that streamline workflows and identifies areas for optimization
• Augmented reporting – generates accurate financial reports “on the go” through automation, enabling you to focus on more business-critical tasks
• Better decision making – grants access to more accurate data when you need it, enabling you to make choices driven by your data at critical moments
• Enhanced risk management – reduces financial loss and improves financial stability
• Improved compliance and regulation – facilitates better compliance rates across your finance processes, reducing the risk of penalties and fines
• More accurate customer insights – enables you to discover what your customers want, ensuring you can tailor your products and services to better suit their needs
• Enhanced fraud detection – prevents any financial losses that might be caused by potentially malicious transactions
• Enriched revenue generation – makes uncovering new revenue streams and improving pricing strategies much easier.

Connecting data strategically across your enterprise

In conclusion, investing in analytics alongside process and technology transformations will enable you to leverage your data as a valuable asset – giving you real insights into market ecosystem trends, customer behavior, and competitor analysis.

Leveraging this data strategically will enable you to drive growth, improve operational efficiency, identify new business opportunities, make better business decisions, and maintain a competitive edge.

In turn, this will help you to break down the silos separating your teams and connect data seamlessly across your entire organization.

To learn how Capgemini’s Finance Intelligence solution drives actionable insights that predict the future and support frictionless decision-making across your organization, contact: viorel.ciobotar@capgemini.com

Generative AI is a powerful technology that can be used to create new content, improve customer service, automate tasks, and generate new ideas. However, generative AI also poses some security risks, such as data security, model security, bias, and fairness, explainability, monitoring and auditing, and privacy. Organizations can mitigate these risks by following best practices to ensure that generative AI is used in a safe and responsible manner.

Generative AI is a rapidly emerging technology that has the potential to revolutionize many aspects of our lives. Generative AI can create new data, such as text, images, or audio, from scratch. This is in contrast to discriminative AI, which can only identify patterns in existing data.

Generative AI is made possible by deep learning, a type of machine learning that allows computers to learn from large amounts of data. Deep learning has been used to train generative AI systems to create realistic-looking images, generate human-quality text, and even compose music.

There are many potential benefits to using generative AI.

• Create new content: Generative AI can create new content, such as articles, blog posts, or even books. This can be a valuable tool for businesses that need to produce a lot of content regularly. The technology can also support the reduction in time it takes to generate work, enabling a steady stream of fresh content for marketing purposes.

• Improve customer service: Generative AI can improve customer service by providing personalized assistance. Generative AI can create chatbots that can answer customer questions or resolve issues. These types of uses can support both an enterprise’s employees and customers.

• Automate tasks: The technology can be used to automate tasks that are currently done by humans. This can free up human workers to focus on more creative or strategic work. The technology has the potential to eliminate a lot of toil in many standard business practices, such as data entry and workflow.

• Generate new ideas: Generative AI can be used to generate new ideas for products, services, or marketing campaigns. This can help businesses stay ahead of the competition.

“Generative AI is a powerful technology that can be used for good or evil. It is important to be aware of the potential risks and to take steps to mitigate them.”

Generative AI provides a lot of potential to change the way businesses operate. Organizations are just beginning to leverage this power to improve their businesses. This is a very new area, and the market potential is just starting to reveal itself. Most of the current market is focused on startups introducing novel applications of generative AI technology.

Enterprises are thus starting to dip their toes into this space, but the growing use of generative AI also presents security risks. Some of these risks are new for AI, some risks are common to IT security. Here are some considerations for securing AI systems.

• Data security: AI systems rely on large amounts of data to learn and make decisions. The privacy and security of this data is essential. Protect against unauthorized access to the data and ensure it is not used for malicious purposes.

• Model security: AI models are vulnerable to attacks. One example is adversarial attacks. An attacker manipulates the inputs to the model to produce incorrect outputs. This can lead to incorrect decisions, which can have significant consequences. It is important to design and develop secure models that can resist this.

• Bias and fairness: If the training data in the models contains biased information, the resulting AI systems may have bias in their decision-making. This can produce discriminatory decisions, which can have serious legal and ethical implications. It is important to consider fairness to ensure that AI and ML system designs reduce bias.

• Explainability: AI systems are sometimes opaque in their decision-making processes. This makes it difficult to understand how and why decisions are being made. Lack of transparency leads to mistrust and challenges the credibility of the technology. It is important to develop explainable AI systems that provide clear and transparent explanations for their decision-making processes.

• Monitoring and auditing: Track and audit AI performance to detect and prevent malicious activities. Include logging and auditing of data inputs and outputs of the systems. Watch the behavior of the algorithms themselves.

• Privacy: Private data in model building and/or usage should be avoided as much as possible with artificial intelligence models. This avoids unintended consequences. Google’s Secure AI Framework provides a guide to securing AI for the enterprise.

Securing AI systems is critical to effective deployment in various applications. Considering these issues, organizations can develop secure and trustworthy AI and ML systems. These deliver the desired outcomes and avoid unintended consequences.

In addition to security risks, there are also ethical concerns related to the use of generative AI. For example, some people worry that generative AI could be used to create fake news or propaganda, or to generate deep fakes that could damage someone’s reputation. It is important to be aware of these ethical concerns and to take steps to mitigate them when using generative AI. Organizations will want to enact policies on acceptable use of generative AI which appropriately support their business objectives.

Overall, generative AI is a powerful technology with the potential to revolutionize many aspects of our lives. However, it is important to be aware of the security risks and ethical concerns associated with this technology and to use this technology responsibly. By taking steps to mitigate these risks, we can help to ensure that generative AI is used in a safe and responsible manner and supports your future business goals.

INNOVATION TAKEAWAYS

GENERATIVE AI IS INNOVATIVE

It is a powerful technology that can be used to create new content, improve customer service, automate tasks, and generate new ideas.

THERE ARE RISKS WITH THE USE OF GENERATIVE AI

Generative AI also poses some security risks, such as data security, model security, bias and fairness, explainability, monitoring and auditing, and privacy.

COMMON SENSE CAN HELP COMPANIES LEVERAGE GENERATIVE AI

Organizations can mitigate these risks by following best practices, such as protecting data privacy and security, developing secure models, reducing bias in decision-making, making AI systems more explainable, monitoring, and auditing AI systems, and considering privacy implications.

Interesting read?

Capgemini’s Innovation publication, Data-powered Innovation Review | Wave 6 features 19 such fascinating articles, crafted by leading experts from Capgemini, and key technology partners like Google,  Starburst,  Microsoft, Snowflake and Databricks. Learn about generative AI, collaborative data ecosystems, and an exploration of how data an AI can enable the biodiversity of urban forests. Find all previous waves here.

Ever wondered if the tried and tested way organizations navigate the volatile economic landscape – slashing budgets and cutting costs – is the most effective?

The sentiment is understandable. We all grapple with surging costs – rising mortgages, soaring living expenses, and salaries that lag behind inflation. Add to that the relentless uncertainties of global macroeconomics – wars, cyber threats, and unstable supply chains. It’s no wonder cost-saving measures have become the dominant theme during my interactions with insurers.

When organizations sense an economic pinch, they instinctively resort to familiar cost-cutting measures: downsizing the workforce, squeezing assets, and deferring new investments. While these provide momentary relief, it is not sustainable in the long run. A market upturn could be just around the corner in an era where financial cycles quickly adapt to our ever-changing circumstances. The term “you can’t shrink to greatness” rings particularly true here. The pressing need to grow and expand soon eclipses any immediate cost relief. The task of rebuilding what you’ve lost can be daunting.

It’s time we considered an alternative approach: a more comprehensive cost optimization strategy. This strategy provides quick fiscal relief while preserving and enhancing future growth opportunities.

The proposed framework pivots around three fundamental dimensions:

1. Operating Model: Focusing on optimal task performance and assigning the right people to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. Consider establishing a cost-efficient global IT supply chain centered on a strategic captive center.
2. Modernization: Identifying the drag that certain assets, applications, and infrastructure impose on an organization’s ability to deliver value and exploring ways to modernize them. If your technical debt is so high that it’s inflating operational costs and impacting investment in new features, a modernization strategy based on domain-driven design, advanced AI automation, and cloud migration could be the solution.
3. Waste Elimination: Pinpointing duplication and low-value tasks in the IT portfolio and rationalizing, automating, or eliminating them. Are there duplicate policy administration systems in your landscape that could be removed through rationalization?

Blending these various strategies into a comprehensive initiative program can create a cycle of continual savings. An example is a well-executed FINOPS initiative, which can generate initial savings that subsequently fund the commencement of a decommissioning factory, leading to significant savings by removing legacy and debt-ridden applications.

So, let’s shift the conversation from cost-cutting to cost optimization, a way to pave the path for future growth. Are you ready to rethink how you approach your costs? I’d love to hear your thoughts and start a dialogue that could redefine your financial strategy.

Takeaways from the GSA European Executive Forum and SEMICON West 2023

Introduction

In the past months, we witnessed two major semiconductor events across the globe: The 2023 Global Semiconductor Alliance’s (GSA) European Executive Forum gathered leading global senior executives on June 14-15 in Munich to embrace the most pressing issues affecting an industry caught in the throes of change. SEMICON West 2023 took place in San Francisco on July 11-13 to discuss key challenges affecting the global microelectronics industry. In this article, we’ve distilled the major trends that arose during both events; trends that will continue to shape this industry in the foreseeable future. These include supply chain volatility, sustainability, government investments, generative AI, geopolitical tensions, equality, and the tremendous opportunities in automotive. We’ve also mapped out Capgemini’s role as an intermediary in building trust and understanding and helping to welcome new players to the market.

Resilient supply chains require flexible production and shipments

Semiconductors are pervasive and will become much more pervasive. Semiconductors are the brain of digitization. It is not widely known that semiconductors are among the most traded goods in the world. Any disruption in the semiconductor supply chain can significantly impact the global economy.

The first big trend centers around building resilience to the volatility of the semiconductors’ supply chain and ensuring end-to-end transparency to predict forecasts better and manage demand. Supply chain issues caused by the fragility of the supply chain and the incompatibility of production cycles have cost semiconductor company customers, such as automotive, many billions of dollars in lost sales and profits. Automotive customers controversially asked that they be given control over the flow of chips from one Tier 1 to another.  For semiconductor companies, it is imperative to build the resilience and process maturity that will enable them to switch easily between industries. GSA triggered a dialogue on how to be better prepared for whatever the future may hold by increasing inter-industry cooperation and building strategic relationships.

Harnessing the transformational power of sustainability

Another major trend broached at both events was the clear focus on sustainability and producing the products that drive it. As the earth’s ability to provide what we need decreases, the need to act on sustainability is increasing. Semiconductor companies have come out with their strategy and goals to become sustainable. Companies are launching initiatives focused on producing sustainable products that enable low power consumption or reduce the carbon footprint of their customers.

Sanjiv Agarwal, Vice President Global Semiconductor Industry Leader, says, “Semiconductor companies need to embrace sustainability and aim to make technology sustainable. Sustainability is everyone’s responsibility.”

As the semiconductor industry is projected to double by 2030, and carbon emissions projected to quadruple by 2030, sustainability and government investments also dominated the agenda at SEMICON West as well. Five key messages emerged:

• AI is very high computing power-intensive – for example, a ChatGPT search consumes thirteen times as much energy as a Google search
• Companies should design for sustainability – there is a need for dedicated engineering teams to support sustainability goals (equipment, sub-fab, process recipes, and operations). Companies such as Intel and Applied Materials have engineers dedicated to sustainability as part of the engineering PODS
• Every semiconductor company has thousands of suppliers – Intel, for instance, has 16K suppliers; however, most suppliers have yet to set their sustainability goals. Therefore, there is an urgent need to establish metrics and develop a measurable roadmap to achieve net zero. Sustainable procurement is gaining attraction in the market.
• Digital technologies can help reduce the carbon footprint and make fabs more sustainable – this can be achieved by optimizing efficiency through advanced analytics (ML, analytics, and AI); improving digital lifecycle collaboration within fabs (digital twin platform across the lifecycle of a fab can reduce production loss and energy waste); and ensuring enterprise-level collaboration across fabs.
• Companies have made more progress on their US sites than in other regions – for example, Intel and STMicro are net positive water in the US but not in other regions.

Generative AI – Need for extreme compute power and smaller suppliers

GenAI is probably our generation’s most disruptive innovation, and it can potentially shape humanity’s future. From simple automation of tasks to writing codes to drug discovery, the scope of areas where it can find use is practically limitless, and the semicon industry is right at the forefront to enable this transformation journey. With such technologies that have the potential to impact so many different industries in a myriad of ways, there are always the early adopters, the ones who need a plan, the late risers, the ones with the FOMO, and the ones who choose to be in their state of inertia unless the market forces apply.

Surprisingly with Gen AI, no one wants to maintain the status quo. There is a clear indication that almost every industry is looking for ways to adopt Gen AI in its day-to-day operations, be it in Manufacturing, Sales, Marketing, IT, or customer service – and the High-tech segment is leading the pack in terms of adoption. As Gen AI-based applications and use cases for design and manufacturing support start to proliferate, it will transform how the current automation in factories functions. This will create a major shift in how the industry adapts and molds itself to this new reality. According to Vignesh Natarajan, Hi-Tech Segment Leader of Europe, Capgemini, “As generative AI becomes mainstream, the transformation of the data center space will be driven by semiconductor players, who will be the crucial building blocks in the power chain competence.”

For Capgemini, the biggest trends are generative AI-based use cases, AI-based development use cases, AI-based joint design use cases, and foundry solutions. This will be the big wave as demand for consumer electronics continue to grow, albeit slower than during the Covid era. However, demand for electrification, sustainable solutions, and smart cities will soar. Government funding of large-scale projects will provide a floor for demand to produce the next “boom” cycle for semis.

“Our ambition is to support the semiconductor ecosystem companies in scaling up to meet their market opportunity with solutions in Intelligent Industry and Enterprise Management,” says Shiv Tasker, Global Industry Vice President, Semiconductor and Electronics.

Digital Twin offers fast scalability

Digital Twin showcases huge potential in the semiconductor industry through its ability to simulate the entire fab, manufacturing processes, and various use cases and models to improve efficiency and productivity. Companies are looking to transform various aspects of the manufacturing processes. Some of the examples where semiconductor companies are focusing are:

1. Device-scale twin – detailed visualization of a device to reduce cycles of silicon learning, thus reducing waste and resources,
2. Process-scale twin – using simulation to streamline process development thus reducing chemicals and electricity usage,
3. Equipment-scale twin – improving first time right from design through installation by finding issues before physical build or building equipment expertise faster and more effectively.

Digital twin, or the digital omniverse, coupled with Generative AI, provides an incredible opportunity by providing millions of variations to the model, and through reinforcement learning, can change models for best-performing output or model. When implemented well, it can escalate product output at a speed that tests the laws of physics.

OEMs’ growing needs, especially in the automotive

Automotive is a huge driver for many of the changes facing the semiconductor industry. In fact, there was palpable tension at the GSA event between the semiconductor representatives and auto manufacturers. The auto market is hard to resist for any semi-manufacturer due to its size, but the auto manufacturers will never forget the chip shortages of the Covid era and the tremendous damage that did to their business. The evolving supply chain relationships and the trust challenges were the subject of many formal and side-bar discussions.

Sanjiv Agarwal adds: “At Capgemini, we work both sides of the equation, helping chip manufacturers “get to market” and fit into the automotive ecosystem, working with the automotive manufacturers to create their chip strategy, selecting and working with foundries to manufacture those chips, and integrating chips into their designs.” We bring in the promise to create an affordable, ever-smarter, software-driven mobility ecosystem that’s centered around customer needs and protects them from both physical and digital threats.

Geo-political tensions

Geopolitical tensions are a shared concern rather than a trend, but they will have a large impact on the way semiconductor companies work since 60-70 percent of all chips are manufactured in Taiwan or South Korea, which are both relatively volatile. Divergent national approaches exacerbate these concerns. The US, for example, has shifted from outsourcing production to encouraging chip producers to transfer operations stateside. In general, the U.S. CHIPS Act and the European Chips Act will “onshore” more production and drive diversification of production geography.

Brett Bonthron, Executive Vice President and Global High-tech Industry Leader, says, “Through the two Chips Acts, semiconductor companies see that governments understand the criticality of the industry.”

The US Chips Act is a true public-private partnership model and probably the first proactive federal program where the program will be executed along with the states, which would manage permits, labor, land, and other logistics.

Statements of interest are currently being accepted for all direct funding opportunities (USD2B floor, no ceiling), and over 400 have already been received. The US Chips Act envisions success in four areas:

• Leading-edge logic –at least two new large-scale clusters of leading-edge logic fabs wherein US-based engineers will develop the process technologies underlying the next-generation logic chips.
• Memory – US-based fabs will produce high-volume memory chips on economically competitive terms and R&D for next-gen memory technologies critical to supercomputing and other advanced computing applications will be conducted in the US.
• Advanced packaging – the US will be home to multiple advanced packaging facilities and a global leader in commercial-scale advanced packaging technology.
• Current generation and mature – the US will have strategically increased its production capacity for current-gen and mature chips. Chipmakers will also be able to respond more nimbly to supply and demand shocks.

Similarly, the European Chips Act enables the EU to address semiconductor shortages and strengthen Europe’s technological leadership. It will mobilize more than € 43 billion of public and private investments through the Member states through five key areas:

1. Strengthen Europe’s research and technology leadership towards smaller and faster chips,
2. Put in place a framework to increase production capacity to 20% of the global market by 2030,
3. Build and reinforce capacity to innovate in the design, manufacturing, and packaging of advanced chips,
4. Develop an in-depth understanding of the global semiconductor supply chains,
5. Address the skills shortage, attract new talent, and support the emergence of a skilled workforce.

Diversity and workforce development

Diversity, workforce development, and talent were major topics at both events, with the consensus being that inclusion must start at a much earlier age and that more women and minorities must be allowed to enter leadership positions. Considering the existing workforce, many companies are partnering with universities, granting scholarships, and launching apprenticeship programs so that when these fabs are ready, and the existing workforce is close to retirement, the new, more diverse talent will be ready.

Conclusion

The semiconductor industry is in a state of flux. This year’s European Executive Forum by GSA outlined the five major trends – supply chain resiliency, generative AI, geopolitical tensions, the impact of the automotive industry, and sustainability – to emerge from this transition. There are, of course, numerous other factors at play, including issues around inclusion or reducing barriers to entry within the industry. There are also several topics that remained unsaid, for example, shifting relationships between automotive OEMs and tier-one suppliers or the evolution of the semiconductor company vis a vis the value chain. However, at the end of the day, semiconductors are fundamentally about propelling civilization forward and enabling the creation of better societies. As something that is also written our raison d’etre, Capgemini has substantial know-how and near-tech vision to drive this ultimate goal forward.

Having a finger on the pulse of technology is critical. But with so much happening so quickly, keeping up can be a struggle. So, I’m truly excited for Google Cloud Next 2023.

Google Cloud Next ’23 is the flagship annual conference where I’ll be joining my team at Capgemini and some of the brightest minds in the field. We’ll be both experiencing and sharing the latest innovations, technology, and trends from industry experts and global business leaders. 

If you’re planning to attend, I invite you to join me there for exclusive insights and transformative opportunities tailored just for you. This includes immersive industry demos, live podcast episodes and speaking sessions with our clients – exploring how Capgemini and Google Cloud work together to transform businesses like yours every day.

Here’s a look into two of the spotlight sessions:

Elevate your possible with responsible Generative AI 

More than just a buzzword, Generative AI (GenAI) is making tangible impact to businesses across all industries. I’m delighted to share with you a glimpse of Capgemini’s journey with GenAI at Google Cloud Next.

Get the inside story of how Capgemini specialists trained their teams on 250 use cases of generative AI and built 52 demos for the clients – all in the span of two months. You’ll explore practical applications and best practices for tangible outcomes – to give you a glimpse into the adoption journey. 

A leading US bank builds a next-gen enterprise with Google Cloud 

Explore the journey taken by a leading US bank to become a data-master enterprise. The company adopted a data-driven strategy and accelerated product and service development while capitalizing on market trends, better serving its customers, and getting an edge over the competition. 

I’m excited to share with you three immersive experiences available at our booth, showcasing the advantage of leveraging Google Cloud’s innovations in three domains.

Explore the combined power of human intelligence, cloud, and Generative AI 

• Financial services: Witness how the home-insurance sector is adapting to Google Cloud technology, creating personalized payment models based on user behavior, regardless of their risk profile 
• Retail: Experience how customers can receive tailored recommendations and interact with audio conversations to self-checkout smartly and conveniently – powered by generative and conversational AI 
• Automotive: Drive your imagination, literally. With AD SHORTY you’ll explore how autonomous vehicles will be able to take drivers to new areas and terrains, and not just through common roads and freeways.  

Capgemini’s booth will also be hosting the Cloud Realities Podcast; join over 100,000 listeners as Google experts will discuss key trends, challenges, and opportunities for organizations as it explores sustainability, cybersecurity, and business transformation. Tune in to gain practical advice for navigating large-scale cloud transformations from our Chief Cloud Evangelist and Chief Architect for Cloud, Dave Chapman.  

So, if you’re attending, please drop me a message on LinkedIn, or find me at booth #1215 and let’s discuss the possibilities in the world of cloud technology.