Ganesh Ayyar, EVP and President, Intuitive Operations and Automation and Industry Solutions, Cognizant,
Interviewer: Diane Brady, Executive Editorial Director, Fortune, Co-chair, Fortune COO Summit

COO Summit 2024: Setting The Stage - How To Drive Operational Excellence

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Ganesh Ir is the Executive vice president and president of intuitive operations. I love that. I've never heard intuitive operations for automation and industry solutions at Cognizant. Um You know, I want to actually start on a personal level because you were ceo of emphasis, which was a publicly listed company, you sold the majority stake to Blackstone, I believe, right? And so what made you decide to come to Cognizant in this role if you know, this is the unrehearsed part? I want to just a sense of who you are. Yeah. So, you know, I have spent in this industry about 100 and 53 quarters now, 153 quarters. That's right. Measuring and outside the industry, I have spent 100 quarters. So that gives you my age. Um I was with emphasis for eight years as the CEO we sold the majority stake to Blackstone in 2016 and 2017. I decided to get out. It was the single largest transaction done by any pe firm in a listed company in India. So uh I didn't have the economic need to work after that. Um So I thought I'll take it easy So I decided to take it easy for a year and a half and two reasons, I decided to get back. My wife was very clear that I shouldn't be sitting at home. And uh and the second thing, I was getting very bored and I couldn't, I was missing the roller coaster ride. So I looked up at the companies that I wanted to join and I must say I chose the company that I decided to join because I had borrowed part of their strategy in crafting the strategy of the previous company. What part of their strategy they always played at the intersection of industry and tech and that is the intersection which excited me. Always so fantastic. Brand decided to join the company five years ago. Um Never regretted that decision every day. I feel like a teenager with 18 year old with a 45 year experience being 18 and uh and the new world of A I is just amazing. Well, you know, what's interesting is I often have these conversations with CTO S CFO S, you know, in fact, that's a role that's often combined with coo. But what is it about the coo that makes it such a unique role to have at this juncture? You know, in many ways, it is the most ambiguous title uh in my view, no, two ceos do exactly the same thing. Um Some people call it, they take care of the plumbing of the company. In many ways, they are the architects and orchestrators of success pathways of the company. And now they need to be architects and an orchestrator of neural pathways of the company. And that is the exciting transformation ahead for all of us. And in my view, nobody has monopoly on good ideas. And that's why this session is my best ideas from other people. I'm not proud as it should be. Exactly. So coming together and, and discussing co opting collaborating and at an industry level, finding ways to succeed is the whole idea of this conference. Well, and also it's been a very internal role to your point. And there is this need for this more external role for C OS. I'm certainly seeing that one thing I'm curious about is how are the business models changing? Because you get into the rooms? We don't get to go. I mean, if you look at um with A I and other factors, do you see any shifts that you put on our radar? So, Diane, I learn a lot from our customers. Many of them are here as well. And one of the things which I learned from Bond digital client and these are the companies, you know, until 18 months ago, the famous two words were Digital Transformation. And now those two words are forgotten. And now it's a IA I and generative A I. So we do a lot of business with digital natives. They do two things very differently, which has influenced me personally. And the team that I represent one is they ride multiple S curves simultaneously. So they are not betting on just one big idea, continuous innovation, multiple S curves and the S curves are shorter. So it starts and ends, then the next curve starts. So when they partner with us, they are not looking for the traditional outsourcing. They are looking for acceleration and global scaling because they know that time window is short, they want to maximize return. So if you can bring the value of acceleration and global scaling, they want to partner. And I see that as an attribute which I could apply in my business together with my customers, multiple S curves, continuous innovation and partnering for acceleration and global scaling. So acceleration and global scale, but you mentioned digital natives, there are a lot of people here also watching who are not digital natives, they have legacy costs. They've got that innovator's dilemma frankly of, you know, wanting to invest knowing that they have to transform, but yet it's difficult and, and, and I think we're at this juncture right now where people aren't sure even where you get the best return on your investment for A I. Any thoughts on what are the challenges that you're seeing? See the um currently I think we are going through a phase where people are pausing and thinking how to apply A I. There was an initial euphoria, we saw everybody, I mean, tech industry, you can't accuse them of underselling. So um there was huge euphoria now. I think there is a pause. What I personally think the whole world of A I agents and everybody here representing their respective organization and in many ways keen to innovate along with uh like-minded companies will create a path which, which, which will have to be pragmatic. In fact, one of the things which I remember somebody said this to me to err is human to completely mess it up. You need A I I heard that. So, so to A I. Yeah, no. So actually the governance of A I is equally critical, right? And A I has to be relevant to the industry which you are playing because there are regulators, there are customers, there are shareholders, there are internal employees and then there is society at large. So multiple stakeholders need to be managed. So the intersection of industry and A I and innovating in that intersection is extremely important. The speed of innovation is going to be uh mind boggling. So how do you keep ahead at the same time? Retain the pragmatism of AC O. And that's the challenge for that. It is important that we make some cultural changes. So it's not just changing, acquiring a piece of technology, a continuous innovation model, riding multiple S curves, um rigorous governance before it is implemented and continuously refreshing it because ultimately um the differentiation in my personal view is not going to be A I because everybody would acquire A I and then it will become a level playing field. What would be the difference would be human intelligence and culture of the company. Because if you are able to mesh it together, success is going to be beautiful. And in this new world together, we will succeed alone, we may not succeed. So it's important to collaborate co opt and work together to make it happen. And that is the model with which I am approaching my, the, the future of my business, which is about what I'm just 2000 short of 100,000 people in my business. So um 98,000 people in total and like to hit 100,000 or do you expect to go down? I expect that every individual become more valuable and it won't be measured in terms of whether I hit 100,000 or 100 and 20,000, it would be whether each individual becomes more valuable. And how do I inject the learning and development of these individuals to make them more valuable and being in the path of relevance of people who are sitting here is going define my success in the future. And my philosophy is we will co innovate with our customers. I love that I cannot think of a better sort of marching orders to this group which I hope we will end up more valuable at the end of this. But uh I think that's a great way to kick off our summit. Thank you so much Ganesh. Please join me in. Thanking Ganesh Ir and again, thank you to Cognizance.