Making the Transition to Industry 4.0

Finland has, for the first time, been ranked number one in the annual international comparison of sustainable development ranking published by the UN and the Bertelsmann Foundation. The comparison assesses countries’ progress on implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals. But what does this mean for Finland and business in Finland?

It is almost an understatement to call sustainability a mega trend. It is no longer something that enterprises do of pure goodwill – it benefits the business as well. Even if it sounds far-fetched, IT plays an important role on the agenda.

In the beginning of December, Cognizant gathered clients over lunch for a roundtable discussion with speakers from PostNord, Celonis and Cognizant that shared the latest within Intelligent Process Automation (IPA).

The data and analytics landscape is changing fast, but if you can’t demonstrate the business value in AI, data and analytics initiatives it can lead to reduced budget and lack of involvement for these initiatives. A key factor is to quickly find out the current state of maturity. With our Rapid assessment framework, you can clarify your status – within a week.

Besides establishing our own net-zero agenda, Cognizant will extend the expertise in cloud, IoT and AI to help our clients meet their sustainability goals, reduce their carbon footprints and sharpen their competitiveness. Our clients in Europe are leading the way in some critical areas, but we need more green leadership to get further with sustainability.

Cognizant has been present in Finland for 12 years, and we are committed to helping our clients in Finland and across the Nordics region accelerate their transition to digital business models. In Q3, Cognizant’s business outside of the U.S. grew approximately 16% year-over-year in constant currency and we are continuing to build our capabilities in the Nordics.

In my previous article, I covered the status of food waste and sustainable food production in the Nordics. Now I’m looking into areas with potential for improvements and the digital solutions that can enable the transition towards sustainability in the food industry.

With the injection of the new technologies into traditional industrial processes, the modern factory floor will extend to new areas and change the interplay of process roles. This can also enable new operational models as well as new business models.

How can Nordic companies extend automation initiatives throughout the enterprise to maximize gains? Currently, automation silos between different tech initiatives prevent teams from reaping the synergies and reaching their digital transformation goals. This is exactly what Cognizant Neuro addresses; it sits on top of automation tools, forming a single, intuitive automation fabric.

In recent years, the new technology market has exploded, and at the same time, the world is facing a major transformation to reach the Paris Agreement and the 17 UN sustainable development goals. As a global consulting company, we think that the technology industry should be considered as an ecosystem, where we share innovation that contributes to protecting what is best for our planet. Within boundaries that still generate profitability; we need to take a step back, to look at things from what is best for society.

Whether it’s migrating the entire core infrastructure to one or more cloud service providers, aka hyperscalers, or just simplifying a handful of processes using Software as a Service (SaaS) tools, the cloud represents the digital future. The pandemic has accelerated the ongoing cloud adoption and during 2021, 51% of Nordic organizations are predicted to reach IDC’s highest level of cloud maturity.

Soon, every company will need to factor in carbon as part of its decision-making process, according to our new Green Rush report. The survey results reveal that technology is central in the transition. Cognizant is involved in several interesting Norwegian projects, aimed at safeguarding fish health and reducing waste, among other things.