German automotive parts maker ZF said on March 3 it is looking to expand its global IT centres in Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai to spearhead the group's IT digitisation initiative as part of its Refresh India 4.0 Strategy announced mid-last year. ZF Commercial Vehicle Solutions (CVS) has been successfully leveraging the talent in India for its IT product, services and digital innovation competence for several years, the company said on March 3.
With the set-up of a dedicated organisation focusing on digital and IT innovations in Chennai in 2018, the team in India has successfully delivered over 230 digital robotic process automation BoTs, supporting various functions and areas of business ranging from supply chain, sourcing and purchasing, product engineering and business development, among others, ZF said. To meet the increasing demand from customers and expansion of business, ZF now plans to expand its workforce across its three IT centres, the company said.
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A huge focus on skills and capabilities leveraged from these centres will be for global enterprise transformations across Industry 4.0, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data, mobile applications, blockchain and cyber security, it said. According to the company, an onshore-offshore model will help provide timely solutions in an agile manner to the growing demand for digitalised solutions by ZF customers across the globe.
"ZF as a leader in building solutions for the next-generation mobility offers exciting opportunities for digital talents. We would like to take a leap forward scaling up the skills and capabilities both for the region India as well as globally for ZF. Further expansion and leveraging of the global IT centres will play an important role to accelerate our group initiatives in digitalisation," Jrgen Sturm, Chief Information Officer of ZF, said.
Technology is the backbone of any business and ZF has always been at the forefront of technological advancement that has benefited the mobility ecosystem, said Milan Kumar, head (IT) for region India at ZF.
Given the vast IT talent pool in India with proven innovation power, the expansion of ZF's global IT centre, the product, services and digital innovation team here will be an important building block in the future to transform ZF into a digital enterprise, Kumar said.
