The Future of Smart Industrials is here

A lively KPMG panel discussion on The Future of Smart Industrials really resonated with our audience at CES 2024. Our panelists provided thought-provoking insights on how industrial manufacturers, including automotive companies and leaders in other major industrial segments, are transforming from traditional businesses into ‘smart’ organizations that are embracing the revolutionary power of Generative AI and other fast-emerging technologies.

Kudos to our moderator Gary Silberg, Partner in KPMG’s US firm and Global Automotive Sector Leader, for guiding our conversation. And a special thanks to our panel guests and everyone who assisted in planning and conducting our session during the CES Research Summit. 

My fellow panelists Angela Bhurji, CIO at Honeywell, and Danny Shapiro, VP of Automotive at NVIDIA, shared fascinating perspectives on what the ‘smart’ future holds and how today’s organizations are taking decisive action that includes:

• Pursuing advanced manufacturing technologies, including progressive AI and machine learning, digital twins and advanced robotics;
• Proactively improving value propositions to attract and retain talent and provide fulfilling career paths;
• Managing their portfolios creatively when it comes to innovation and pursuing acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures and other partnerships – even amid challenging economic conditions;
• Building resilience and enhanced efficiency into supply-chain strategies, with a particular emphasis on increased transparency of data;
• Securing IT and OT infrastructure as those two areas continue to converge, protecting their businesses and stakeholders from bad actors, and preserving trust as disruptive cyber attacks soar in frequency and sophistication. 

As we heard during the event, industrial multinational Honeywell and technology giant NVIDIA are at the forefront of this new era of capabilities – helping companies navigate today’s increasingly complex ecosystems and transform from traditional to ‘smart’ organizations. Honeywell’s and NVIDIA’s leaders gave audience members a revealing glimpse of the fast-evolving industrials landscape, including customer expectations in the consumer-centric digital economy, and the evolution of ‘competitive differentiation’ in a dynamic new reality. A key takeaway? As the pace of change accelerates, don’t get left behind in the race to thoughtfully transform.

Honeywell is working to lead in everything GenAI and the global giant is developing a GenAI strategy that includes custom applications and close collaboration with technology partners to accelerate the industrial-transformation trend.

Honeywell’s Angela Bhurji stressed the importance of effective change-management strategies that focus on talent and new skills as organizations evolve to smart models and modern workplace cultures. Honeywell is reinventing its talent for a new era and has leading-edge applications in place to manage what it calls its most-important asset – people. Honeywell will rely on a single powerful platform to manage pre-onboarding, onboarding, career growth and skills training as it upskills employees.

As I noted during our discussion, organizations need to help their people evolve their skills in order to effectively adopt these smart models. The competition for critical new skills is growing and the more that smart industrials can do to cultivate the necessary capabilities within their current workforce, the less they will need to ‘compete’ for talent.   

As NVIDIA’s Danny Shapiro stated, employee roles will be enhanced through the use of AI, which will act as a co-pilot to improve speed, efficiency and productivity in every industry. From generative AI and speech recognition to digital twins, medical imaging, supply-chain management and more, AI is already providing the computing power, tools and algorithms businesses and their workforces need to drive competitiveness and growth.

NVIDIA AI – which the company calls the world’s most-advanced platform featuring enterprise-grade software and AI models – is designed to transform any enterprise into a high-performing AI organization.

Enhanced cybersecurity will be a key initiative along the way as threats soar and attacks on industrials grow in sophistication. Danny and the panel participants all agreed on the critical importance of enhanced cybersecurity as the advance of AI delivers both new advantages and unprecedented risks that need to be managed. 

In conclusion, I am proud of our efforts to deliver this KPMG-sponsored event that offered timely insights into the journey smart organizations are pursuing in today’s hypercompetitive global environment. If you were unable to attend the panel discussion, you can watch a recording of the session here.