Josh Matthews — Practice Leader, Sustainability, Energy and Utilities, HFS Research[00:21]
Welcome, everyone. I’m Josh Matthews, practice leader for sustainability, energy and utilities here at HFS Research, and I am lucky today to be joined by Ramesh from LTIMindtree.
Ramesh Kannan — Head of Energy and Utilities, LTIMindtree[00:21]
Hi, my name is Ramesh Kannan. I head the Energy and Utilities business unit here at LTIMindtree.
Josh Matthews — Practice Leader, Sustainability, Energy and Utilities, HFS Research[00:38]
For me, there are three main transitions happening at the same time. You’ve got the energy transition and sustainability, you have artificial intelligence and broader emerging technology—both physical and digital—and you have the talent transition in an industry that historically, and certainly recently, is not seen as either high tech or sustainable by quite a few. So we’re going to try and break down all those transitions with a systems-change lens, specifically looking at what is working so, so well that it creates and leads to positive tipping points and pulls the industry more towards the kind of future we all want it to move into. So, Ramesh, that leads into: what is LTIMindtree doing to try and make some of those transitions happen?
Ramesh Kannan — Head of Energy and Utilities, LTIMindtree[01:31]
Thank you, Josh. All three transitions that you talked about are also interrelated, and very, very much connected to each other. It’s kind of driving each other as well, as we see in the marketplace, as we interact with our clients in the energy and utility space. All of them have the same three challenges: of the energy transition that is becoming a need to be self-sufficient, and the need to be able to still report what is going on in their Scope 1, Scope 2 emissions and things like that. At the same time, AI is both business-changing as well as demand-creating for energy. As you probably know, the more AI, the more energy demand that’s going to drive the requirements for our customers. And then that leads to the talent transition, which needs to be not just a technically proficient workforce, but one that also understands how that is going to impact the business operations, right? So it’s a very interesting time that we live in. In terms of bringing all those three together, that’s what we are driving here at LTIMindtree, because some of our clients are really focused on how do they start giving out information relating to their ESG goals, greenhouse gas emission goals, as well as their carbon footprint. And that connects to their production operations—for example, in the energy space, in the oil and gas space, or even in the utility space where there are generation activities that are going on. And that is where AI comes into play, in terms of the ability to change the game around autonomous operations, the ability to do things remotely and hence improving health and safety for the employees and the crew that is involved both in the energy space and in the utility space. That is actually helping—AI comes in in a big way in enabling the autonomous operations, as we call it. And it is becoming a critical part of the go-forward plan for the energy and utilities customers, and that’s what LTIMindtree is focused on enabling for some of our customers. And talent is an interesting piece, and the reason for that interest is, historically we’ve always prided ourselves—LTIMindtree—as a company that goes beyond just technical capabilities, because, as our parent company, we are closely associated with the energy and utilities EPC side of our business, and that actually helps us understand the business more than a normal technical person will understand. So our endeavor has always been bringing in people who understand the business inside out and can talk that language and be able to go beyond just providing technical deliverables. And now, with the advent of AI and the energy transition, that requirement to go beyond, or to enable our technical team as well as go beyond technical talent, has become much more wider and acceptable. So it helps us, because we are already prepared with our parent company’s capabilities; it comes easier and naturally to us to be able to make the talent transition much quicker than many other companies that can do that talent transition.
Josh Matthews — Practice Leader, Sustainability, Energy and Utilities, HFS Research[05:26]
Are you finding any specific examples of clients, or any subparts of those industries, that are showcasing real game-changing progress on any of those three transitions?
Ramesh Kannan — Head of Energy and Utilities, LTIMindtree[05:45]
I would say some of them are really game-changing, in my opinion. An example is production operations in upstream oil and gas, because many of them are in remote locations, and many of them have to have these operations crews dispatched to the site on a need basis. Many times it is just a routine dispatch of such crews, and now, with the advent of AI, they are able to do this based on potentially a real-time alert that happens, or the ability for the crew to talk to an AI agent to be able to understand what is really going on and what is the correlation of a certain incident that happens, and be able to go prepared to the site—not just show up—with the right equipment, with the right skills to troubleshoot the issue. And we see that as an ongoing, groundbreaking ability for these companies to provide a more safe environment, at the same time, more effective and efficient operations. They’re leveraging this AI in a big way, and I see that it’s just a starting point, the tip of the iceberg, as you call it. It is going to be an absolute game changer for every aspect of our industry in energy and utilities.
Josh Matthews — Practice Leader, Sustainability, Energy and Utilities, HFS Research[07:32]
Fantastic. Well, thanks so much, Ramesh, for joining me. I will look forward to our next conversation, hopefully in person. Have a great rest of the day, and all power to you. Honestly, we need firms to figure out all three of these transitions—energy transition, sustainability, AI, talent transition. We need the best people trying to take the industry to where it needs to go, so good luck.
Ramesh Kannan — Head of Energy and Utilities, LTIMindtree[07:32]
Likewise, Josh. Wonderful talking to you.
