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Clean energy, EV, sustainability, leadership insights

India’s clean-energy shift is part of a larger global movement, driven by rapid advancements in electric vehicles (EVs), sustainable energy solutions, and government policy. As India aims to become a global leader in clean energy, its progress is influenced by international market growth, emerging technologies, and evolving policy trends. For those of us building inside this transformation, it is also a personal journey, shaped by lessons, missteps, and the constant pressure of scaling something new.

My own path into this industry was never planned. In fact, my career started by selling petrol and diesel for a living, and the energy transition in the early phases of my career looked more theatrical in the short term. I worked across roles that had nothing to do with EVs or power systems at the time. But each role taught me something essential: how to build teams, think long-term, and stay calm when things go wrong. These were the foundations I carried with me when I joined the clean energy sector in a leadership role. What I didn’t expect was how quickly the industry and my job would change around me.

"The market has shifted faster than anyone predicted"

India’s EV sector was still young in 2019-20 when I joined. Many customers questioned the viability of EV charging infrastructure and the future of clean mobility in India: Every deployment seemed like a test case. Every charger installed was monitored like a newborn.

Today, OEMs are launching advanced platforms and investors are backing long term plays in sustainable energy. Consumers expect fast, reliable EV charging infrastructure with zero excuses. Safety, cyber standards, and uptime are under the spotlight in a way we never imagined years ago. This shift pushed companies in the sector into a new phase: from pilot deployments to large-scale national infrastructure. From basic chargers to high-power, software-led platforms. From an India-focused team to a global engineering and manufacturing organization, partnering with global partners and sharing best practices.

For me as a leader, the question changed from “How do we prove this works?” to “How do we make it work every day at scale?”. That mindset change has defined the last few years.

Technology helps, but it doesn’t solve everything
Technology sits at the center of our industry’s progress. Smart diagnostics, advanced electronics, remote monitoring, and AI-led predictive tools have changed the way we operate. These systems enable operators to detect problems early, optimize performance, and better support customers.

But technology also forces you to face the reality: reliability is not created by algorithms alone. It comes from disciplined engineering, a culture that values quality, and teams that understand the stakes on the ground. Connectors don’t always match perfectly. Field conditions stress hardware in ways engineers never predict. This is where my earlier career lessons became valuable. You cannot outsource judgment. You cannot automate ownership. You cannot scale without systems. We learned this as we shifted from reactive maintenance to data-led field operations. The technology enabled it, but the real change came from people and teams who adopted new processes and raised the bar on reliability.

The road ahead will demand depth, not just speed
Looking at the next five years, India’s energy and mobility ecosystem - including electric vehicles, renewable energy, and advanced battery technologies - is entering a decisive phase. What we build now will define the market for a decade, and help shape India’s leadership in the global clean energy transition. The choices made here will set examples for other emerging markets worldwide.

High-power charging will move from a niche to the norm. Software will become the brain of every hardware product. Safety and cybersecurity will become non negotiable. Customers will measure value not just by innovation, but also by reliability and service. Global standards will shape how Indian companies design, manufacture, and operate, ensuring India’s solutions stay competitive and applicable worldwide.

Use technology to amplify discipline, not replace it
The turning point in my own journey was recognizing that leadership isn't just about solving the biggest problem of the day. It is about designing organizations that solve problems better than any one person can. This is the mindset India’s energy transition now requires from all of us. We are still in the early chapters of a massive transformation.

My belief is simple: the clean energy industry, in India and globally, rewards those who build for the long game by committing to sustainability, innovation, and leadership. If we stay committed to quality, invest in people, and continue to see substantial results, we won’t just observe the future of energy; we will help shape it.

Why adaptability, not optimization, is emerging as the real business model - seen from inside industrial and environmental intelligence.

I often remind my teams and myself that the most dangerous assumption a leader can make is believing tomorrow will simply be a faster version of yesterday. While this belief once served us well, it is now increasingly clear that holding onto it is not only risky but has become a liability.

I work in measurement, spanning industrial systems, weather, and environmental intelligence. We build instruments, software, and data services for customers operating in safety-sensitive, regulated, and mission-essential environments. For decades, the fundamentals of this business barely moved. Accuracy mattered. Reliability mattered. Processes hardened. Business models stabilized. The guidelines were straightforward, and optimization was rewarded.

Those certainties are now dissolving, and this is happening faster than many realize. The core problem I face and that I see across our industry - is that organizations that fail to adapt continuously risk becoming outdated in an environment defined by constant disruption.

What has changed that did not exist before?

The first major shift is the diminishing need for highly structured data to generate insight. Previously, insight followed a predictable sequence: systems were designed, schemas defined, data cleaned, and only then were questions asked. Entire IT ecosystems and operating models were built on this approach.

That sequence is breaking down. Advances in machine learning, computing, and data fusion now enable value extraction from messy, incomplete, and uncorrelated data. Signals surface before structure is imposed, and patterns emerge without established models. Insight is no longer limited by data perfection, fundamentally changing who can generate value and how quickly.

The second shift is the active challenge to long-standing business models and processes. In industrial and weather measurement, we traditionally sold products, contracts, and services in stable, predictable cycles. Revenue followed delivery, forecasts followed orders, and operations were optimized for efficiency and scale.

That logic is eroding. Customers now expect outcomes rather than instruments. They seek uptime, forecasts, and decisions, not just measurements, and value tied to impact rather than ownership. This shift is evident in procurement language, partner expectations, and competitive dynamics. Processes built for stability now struggle with speed, and those built for efficiency struggle with adaptability.

Unlocking cross-domain insights with technology

Today, technology excels at accelerating cross-domain insights. We can now correlate weather data with industrial performance, logistics, energy systems, and environmental risk. Signals that were never intended to interact can now be connected meaningfully and at scale.

At Vaisala, I’ve seen firsthand how insight now emerges at the intersection of domains, not from a single dataset or product line. Weather influences energy markets, and environmental conditions affect industrial yield. Measurement data becomes far more valuable when it is combined across contexts. This level of correlation simply wasn’t feasible just a few years ago.

At the same time, these  capabilities challenge the dominance of highly structured enterprise systems. When insights can be generated directly from raw signals, logs, images, and text, rigid schemas become less essential. Systems like ERP, CRM, and PLM were built on the assumption that the world could be modeled in advance, but this assumption is increasingly fragile.

Digital technology is also enabling new business models. Value-based offerings and outcome-based pricing are now viable. Demand forecasting combines real time behavior and external signals, not just historical sales curves. This changes how companies plan, price, and prioritize.

Yet technology has limitations. Many digital transformations focus on digitizing existing processes instead of rethinking decisions. They automate outdated logic, reinforce silos, and generate dashboards without clarity. Too often, enterprises confuse data volume with insight and tools with progress.

The greater challenge is operational and cultural, not technological. Technology can present options and accelerate decisions, but it cannot define intent or make choices. That gap is still a human responsibility.

Adaptability as the new business model

I believe the future belongs to autonomous enterprises. By autonomous, I do not mean without people, but organizations where systems constantly sense, decide, and act within clear boundaries. In these enterprises, insight is real-time, contextual, and immediately actionable.

In these organizations, many structured systems become optional rather than central. ERP, CRM, PLM, and financial systems primarily address latency and uncertainty by recording the past for future decision-making. As latency decreases, their role shifts. Decisions no longer wait for monthly or quarterly cycles; the enterprise becomes event-driven instead of calendar-driven.

This shift does not eliminate governance; it transforms it. Rules move from static workflows to dynamic policies, and controls shift from checkpoints to real-time tracking. Humans move up the value chain, with leaders focusing on shaping intent, constraints, and learning loops rather than approving transactions.

For data-centric businesses like ours, this shift is especially powerful. When data is the product, autonomy amplifies our advantage. Systems learn from every signal, models improve continuously, and offerings evolve during use. The boundaries between product, service, and decision support are beginning to blur.

This future will not arrive overnight. Legacy systems will coexist with autonomous layers. Regulation will slow some developments and accelerate others. Trust will become more important than speed, but the direction is clear. Successful enterprises will not be those with the most data or tools, but those that convert uncertainty into decisions faster than their peers.

I often tell fellow operators that the biggest risk is not adopting the wrong technology, but holding onto outdated models that assume the world remains predictable. In a world of continuous disruption, adaptability is no longer a capability; it is the business model. Enterprises that thrive will make adaptability their core strength.

Why HR technology works only when HR leads as process owner - a CHRO’s perspective

Until recently, HR technology decisions were uncomplicated. The focus was on payroll accuracy, compliance, efficient hiring processes, and keeping employee records up to date. But as businesses grew and expectations shifted, that world changed.

In every growing organization I’ve worked with, HR systems sit at the center of cost control, governance, employee experience, and growth capacity. Workforce data feeds audits, regulatory submissions, productivity reviews, and leadership dashboards. HR metrics are reviewed by CEOs, CFOs, other CXOs, and boards. This increased scrutiny has pushed HR into a far more strategic role, and I’ve witnessed how fundamentally this changes the HR function.

This shift changed how I think about HR technology. As HR became more central and visible, the question was no longer which system had more features or a better interface, but whether the system fit my organization’s current and future needs. The platform had to support essential customizations aligned to our processes and policies.

I encountered this shift firsthand while leading an HRMS transition in a fast scaling financial institution. In that context, cost discipline, compliance, and effective operations were all equally non-negotiable.

Where HR technology helps and where it quietly gets in the way

Most HR platforms I’ve used perform as designed: they standardize processes, introduce controls, and bring structure. However, issues often arise when technology dictates behavior instead of supporting it. In these situations, there is pressure to reshape processes to fit the system’s design, rather than configuring systems to reflect what actually works for the organization.

A common issue I’ve encountered is over-standardization. Many HRMS platforms are built for global use, which is both a strength and a limitation. Standard processes may work in theory, but I’ve seen them clash with the realities of organizations operating under specific governing regulations or customized policy guidelines. When systems don’t reflect how work actually happens, HR teams, mine included, end up managing exceptions manually. The system becomes an extra effort rather than a source of efficiency.

Cost is another gap. HRMS costs increase with headcount, and sometimes faster than the business. For organizations in margin-sensitive environments, this is hard to justify. The system may be stable, but the economics no longer make sense.

Customization is often treated as a technical decision left to vendors or IT teams. I’ve seen the result: a system that looks fine on paper but feels awkward in daily use. When I don’t own process design, customization remains superficial and fails to solve my team’s real problems.

Treating HR technology as a process decision first

During the transitions I have led, the issue I observed was not focused on replacing one platform with another. The real gap was the absence of clear process ownership before technology decisions. At the same time, the most important choice was not which system to use, but how to approach the transformation. Process redesign needs to take the lead, with technology playing a supporting role.

With this principle in mind, the first step was to take an honest look at our HR processes. We mapped the employee lifecycle in depth - recruitment, onboarding, performance management, compensation, and exits. This brought to light inefficiencies, manual workarounds, and policy inconsistencies that had evolved into normal over time. After dealing with these, configuring the system was far simpler and more effective.

The second learning was about customization. Customization is often seen as risky, but poorly planned standardization is riskier. When grounded in approved policies and management structures, customization strengthens control. The key is discipline. Every customization must have a clear business rationale and strong HR ownership.

The third learning was about cost. The transition reduced HRMS costs, not just through negotiation. Savings came from eliminating parallel systems, cutting down manual work, and designing workflows that minimized exceptions. Lower cost of ownership was a by-product of better design, not the starting objective.

Why this matters beyond one organization

These problems are not unique to one organization. Similar patterns appear across emerging economies where companies scale rapidly under regulatory and cost pressures. The most successful HR technology transformations share a common factor. HR leaders act as process architects, not system administrators. They define how work ought to flow, how decisions should be governed, and how exceptions should be handled before asking technology to support those choices.

Clarity comes before code

Most HR technology transformations do not fail because of inadequate software. They fail because organizations expect technology to compensate for unclear processes and weak ownership. When HR owns the “why” and the “how,” technology becomes an enabler rather than a constraint. This makes system choice simpler and implementation smoother. The real transformation begins when HR leads with clarity, not code. Make process ownership your starting point, and technology will follow.

Why does sustainability become real only when it shows up in everyday decisions

After a taxi ride in Japan, I observed something unexpected on my digital receipt. Alongside the fare was an estimate of the trip’s carbon emissions, as well as a comparison number, subtly indicating that, depending on my choices, my impact could be higher or lower.

It was a simple design choice, but it carries a bigger message. That sustainability is no longer something you read in just annual reports. It has started to show up in routine customer exchanges, and companies can no longer treat it as a side program.

With this change, decarbonization is moving from ambition to execution. When it becomes visible, measurable, and comparable, it turns into a capability. Like safety. Like quality. Like cost.

The quiet pattern behind big shifts

Big ideas rarely become “normal” overnight. They start as a specialist language, move into leadership narratives, then show up in budgets, standards, and systems. Only after that do they become visible in everyday decisions. We saw this with the internet and mobile phones. Adoption didn’t take off because the idea was exciting; it took off when pricing, infrastructure, and standards aligned. Once that happened, usage became the default.

Sustainability is now crossing that line. For years, decarbonization lived in reports, pledges, and long-range targets. Today, it is increasingly becoming a requirement: what buyers ask for, what regulators audit, what financiers scrutinize, and what supply chains must prove. Evolution is about more than awareness; it’s about collective responsibility.

Sustainability is hitting an alignment moment

A decade ago, the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals created shared direction. Since then, governments and corporations have translated that direction into roadmaps. More importantly, they are turning it into expectations through regulation, procurement requirements, disclosures, and customer pressure. That is why sustainability feels different now. It is moving from slide decks to operating decisions.

Across industries, the signals are getting clearer. Customers are asking for product-level carbon information. Regulators are tightening compliance expectations. Investors want more than intent statements. Supply chains are being pushed to prove, not just promise. If the last decade was focused on commitment, the next one will be about execution and proof.

A view from the lubricants industry

I have spent close to two decades in the lubricants industry, and I am seeing this shift firsthand. One of the biggest changes is how environmental effects are being measured. Life Cycle Assessment, the idea of evaluating impact across a product’s full life cycle, is becoming a more common language across stakeholders. At the same time, Product Carbon Footprint discussions are moving from “nice to have” to “required for doing business,” driven by customers who want credible, comparable numbers.

This is a major operational change. Measuring emissions throughout the life cycle is not a marketing exercise. It forces hard questions: What boundaries are we using? What data is primary versus estimated? What happens when a supplier cannot provide traceable information? How do we maintain consistency from one reporting period to the next?

Once those questions are on the table, the next step is action. Companies are working the levers they can control. Energy efficiency improvements, increased use of renewable power, re-refined base oils from used lubricants, bio-based feedstocks where performance requirements allow, and packaging redesign using recycled plastics are becoming more visible strategies.

What is interesting is how quickly these efforts stop being framed as “green initiatives” and become business fundamentals: cost stability, supply assurance, export readiness, consumer faith, and audit risk.

Regulation is also accelerating the change, particularly where responsibility goes beyond the factory gate. In India, extended producer responsibility policies around used oil and plastic waste are pushing the ecosystem toward circularity and traceability. When responsibility becomes extended, you cannot manage it with periodic emails and spreadsheets. You need systems, controls, and evidence trails.

At the same time, carbon capture, utilization, and storage is gaining momentum in India through collaborations across government bodies, research institutions, and engineering talent. Not all of this will scale quickly, but the wider direction is unmistakable: the decarbonization toolbox is expanding, and expectations will rise with it.

Technology and its impact

Technology will have a major impact on sustainability, yet it is not a magic layer you can add on top of weak data. Where it helps most is in visibility and coordination. Sensors and connected systems can improve measurement at source. Digital workflows can improve supplier participation and data capture. Analytics and AI can recognize outliers, spot gaps, and improve consistency. Scenario tools can help teams model trade-offs before making capital decisions.

But the hardest problems are not purely technical. The toughest part is alignment across standards, regions, and industries. You can capture data, but if different stakeholders define boundaries differently, your numbers become arguments rather than insights. Interoperability is another challenge. Data sits in dozens of systems across suppliers, customers, auditors, and regulators. Stitching it into a reliable picture is difficult, and it is where many sustainability programs slow down.

Then there is the trust layer. Sustainability reporting is easy to display and hard to defend. Many dashboards look impressive until someone asks, “Show me the source, the method, and the controls.” This is why I think the next decade will not be defined via flashy sustainability software. It will be defined by whether companies build an operating model for measurement, reporting, and verification that is as disciplined as finance.

The decade ahead

As sustainability becomes visible in customer experiences, embedded in procurement decisions, and enforced through audit expectations, it moves from “initiative” to “requirement.” And when that happens, the winners are rarely the loudest. They are the most disciplined. They measure consistently, improve transparently, and build systems that survive close inspection.

That taxi receipt in Japan was a small moment for me, but it captured the future on one screen. When carbon becomes a number customers can see, and auditors can verify, the conversation changes. The question is simple: In your business, what is the first sustainability metric your customers will refuse to buy without?

Why I stopped building them to save decision velocity

Dashboards often create "Insight Paralysis" slowing down business decisions. Discover why shifting from data volume to Decision Intelligence increases business value, improves decision velocity, and supports data-driven leadership.

I remember the very moment I realized I was building the wrong thing. It was a Monday morning quarterly business review with one of the large manufacturing clients in their office. I was sitting there, nursing a warm coffee, watching two VPs argue. On the screen, there were three different dashboards. Sales showed revenue was up. Marketing showed leads were down. Finance was just shaking their head because the margins didn’t match either of them.

I had invested months building those data pipelines. I thought, "If I just give them the numbers, they’ll know what to do." Instead, I watched them freeze. They weren't making decisions faster. They were just arguing about the metrics with better graphics. That was when I realized the hard truth: I had built a Ferrari engine of data, but we were stuck in traffic because we forgot how to actually drive the decision-making process.

The shift: from scarcity to "Insight Paralysis"

The biggest shift I’ve observed in our industry isn't AI - it’s the shift from scarcity to abundance. Five years ago, I remember begging IT teams for a report. The constraint was volume. Today, the constraint is attention.

I’ve watched organizations democratize data to the point that we’ve accidentally created a Tower of Babel. The industry data backs this up: studies show that employees now spend up to 10 hours a week just searching for the right data. Yet, shockingly, 76% admit they still make decisions without it because the insights remain too hard to access. I see this constantly: a CEO asks, "Is this product profitable?" and gets three different answers depending on who ran the SQL query. This isn’t "data-driven." This is Insight Paralysis.

I used to measure my team’s success by how many dashboards we shipped. Now, I look back at some of those "Executive Command Centers" - beautiful, complex, and totally unused - and I realize we were measuring activity, not value.

The context gap

Don't get me wrong - I love technology. Modern platforms can ingest millions of rows in seconds. But here is the messy truth I’ve learned: Tech has zero context.

I saw this recently with a retail client. Their dashboard showed "Inventory Turnover" was healthy (Green Light). But the dashboard didn't know that the "healthy" number was driven by low-margin clearance items, while their best sellers were out of stock. The numbers were right; the business reality was wrong. Observed a similar thing with a manufacturing client. A dashboard reported 98% machine uptime. It looked great. But the 2% downtime happened exactly during the peak rush, costing millions.

The tech gives us the signal, but it can’t filter the noise. When we expect the tool to do the thinking for us, we miss the story behind the numbers.

So, Where do we go from here?

If you’re a business leader focused on analytics in 2026, it’s time to recognize that the era of the "General Purpose Dashboard" is ending. Industry experts forecast that by 2028, over 60% of dashboards will be replaced by AI-powered data storytelling, automated insights, and actionable data visualization. Leading the way requires adopting new approaches to data-driven decision-making.

I am now advising my clients to pivot toward Decision Intelligence. Instead of building generic dashboards that show everything (just in case), we need to build interfaces that recommend one action. Visualize a system that doesn't just show you "Inventory Levels." Instead, it says: "Stock is low in the East Coast warehouse. If you don't reorder by Tuesday, you will miss $50k in revenue. Click here to approve the PO."

That’s the difference. That’s moving from "Data" to "Decisions." But until technology improves there, you have a job to do. Next time you’re in that Monday meeting, and someone puts up a slide with fifty numbers on it, don't ask for more detail. Ask them this: "Which of these charts actually helped me make a decision last week?" If the answer is "none," delete it. And go enjoy your coffee.

Just one more tool, and the problem will be sorted.

Many companies mistakenly believe this will solve their security problems. But what really happens? Each new cybersecurity tool adds its own data stream, generates more security alerts, and introduces another dashboard. Instead of increasing security visibility, this often adds more noise and alert fatigue. At first, it seems like this will improve your security. But after a year, you realize your security is fine, yet your team is unsure what to tackle first. This isn’t surprising.

The 2022 Security Leaders Peer Report, published by Cybersecurity Insights, states that most enterprise security teams use an average of 76 tools. Tool overload is a real issue in cybersecurity.

Tools addition makes inventory messy

Present-day enterprises keep adding more assets. There are always new apps, domains, microservices, and APIs. Old ones rarely get retired but are forgotten. With multiple security tools, each one shows a different asset inventory. One might say you have 9,000 assets, another says 11,000. Teams often don’t know exactly what digital assets they have, and poor asset visibility wastes IT and security resources. Moreover, most tools only tell you what’s broken. They rarely explain how much it matters.

A scanner can’t tell whether a vulnerable asset supports your payment flow or is just sitting idle. A cloud tool doesn’t know if a server has an open port to the internet or is safely inside a dedicated network. A SAST alert won’t show if the code is just a low-level internal script or part of a main product.

So, by default, it all feels pressing. When everything is marked as a priority, nothing really is. In the end, teams just fix whatever comes up first, rather than focusing on issues that could cause real harm.

Every tool speaks its own language

Each tool uses its own language, logic, and dashboard. They don’t work well together, which causes major problems for enterprises. One scanner might call something critical, while another says it’s only medium. So which one is right? This mismatch leads to misunderstanding and a real gap in visibility. Leaders think the team has the data they need, but the team doesn’t trust the data. When tools don’t speak the same language, there’s no unified, prioritized list.

Manual triage kills visibility

When the team faces thousands of findings, they end up sorting them manually. One issue goes into Excel, another is pasted in Slack, a third is put in a ticketing tool, some updates happen by email, and some never get updated at all. Everything gets scattered.

The more manual work there is, the faster visibility drops. There’s no clear picture in one place, and teams spend a lot of time just finding the right information. The same thing happens in current businesses: a flood of discoveries leads to alert fatigue, and teams spend too much time connecting data instead of fixing problems. When security teams work like this, there’s no clarity - just noise and reduced security visibility.

Many teams mistakenly assume their security tools will keep up as their enterprises grow. However, the business keeps moving forward: new features roll out, new apps go live, and new cloud regions are added. Meanwhile, security tools take time to set up; they need modifications and integration and rarely work instantly. As a result, teams are constantly lagging. By the time a tool is ready, the environment has already changed and visibility is lost.

What real visibility looks like

Real visibility isn’t about adding more tools. It’s about connecting what you already have. A single place where you clearly define: the assets that you actually possess, exposures that are significant at present, duplicates in findings, vulnerabilities that have a real business impact, who owns the fix, and finally speed of issue resolution. You lose security visibility when cybersecurity tools operate in isolation. You obtain complete visibility when security tools are integrated and work together.

What do you need to do?

Set up a single source of truth
Each tool gives its own view, but decisions should be made in one place. Whether you have 5 scanners or 50, the final picture should come from a single, consolidated platform. Scattered data won’t give you clarity.

Prioritize context
Raw detection only tells half the story. Real value comes from knowing where the issue is, which asset it affects, and how serious the impact could be. This helps you set priorities. Context lacking prioritization is just guesswork.

Clearly define the role of tools
No single tool can do everything. Decide what each solution should handle. For example, use one for asset discovery, another for vulnerability analysis, and a third for workflow and issue tracking. When everyone knows each tool’s role, the team knows which one to use for each task.

Focus on signal quality, not tool count
One good tool is much better than hundreds of noisy ones. You’ll have better visibility, even if just one scanner gives clear, business-focused signals.

Enterprises are starting to change. Teams are tired of scattered dashboards and are moving toward platforms such as continuous threat exposure management (CTEM), which offer consolidated visibility, context, and the full exposure lifecycle in a single place. Gartner predicts that by 2026, companies using CTEM will be three times less likely to suffer a breach. If you don’t have an integrated platform like CTEM, it’s time to rethink your security strategy.