Prof Pulak Ghosh, faculty in the Decision Sciences area of IIM Bangalore and IIM-B Chair of Excellence, delivered the first talk at the ‘IndianOil LEAD Talks’, held on April 1 in New Delhi. The lecture series is a future-oriented Corporate HR initiative that aims to consolidate the learning ecosystem in the corporation. Prof Ghosh spoke on ‘Big Data and Emerging Technologies’.
At the lecture were several IOC officials, including the Chairman, Sanjiv Singh, AK Sharma, Director (Finance), and Ranjan Kumar Mohapatra, Director (HR). The event was webcast live across IndianOil.
In his hour-long, insightful and engaging lecture, Prof Ghosh took the audience into the amazing world of AI-aided business analytics that has a huge potential to make business decisions more efficient and profitable. He said that AI, big data and analytics have become game-changers for businesses across the globe in the context of large-scale computing and the revolution in mobile telephony. It has given decision-makers the power to leverage their customer databases, slice and dice them and create analytic and predictive algorithms, he said.
He said AI is evolving exponentially and that, though we are still in the era of ‘weak AI’, the era of strong AI, where machine learning will become more advanced, is just a couple of years away. “The most important aspect of data analytics is the right match between business domain expertise and analysts, so it is of paramount importance to understand our businesses and our customers. AI and BA will, of course, reveal deeper patterns and throw up algorithms that can help us serve our customers better. The key is to tap and woo our potential customers more vigorously,” he pointed out.
Stating that big data is a proven methodology, Prof Ghosh mentioned a survey which reveals that every dollar spent brings back eight dollars in revenue. “Analytics is a multi-disciplinary science which explains why many leading organisations are hiring employees from unorthodox disciplines”.
Prof Ghosh’s talk received encouraging feedback from the IOC staff, and the PSU sought a longer presentation on the subject from him in the future.
Prof Pulak Ghosh serves at NITI Ayog and advises the Government of India on various issues relating to economics, agriculture, data-driven policy, AI, and so on. He has also been on the advisory group on big data at the United Nations Global Pulse initiative.