A practitioner’s view from four decades in beverage manufacturing on why sustainability is hardest and most necessary for SMEs.

In my 40+ years of career, I have worked in beverage companies for 30 years. And when you are in this field, you develop a strong admiration for your main, and largest by quantity, ingredient: water.

When I joined United Breweries in 2004 as the Plant Head for one of their recently acquired breweries near Delhi, we were struggling with high water consumption and, as a result, high wastewater discharge. The groundwater was depleting; whatever drops remained had excessive levels of dissolved minerals and were thus unsuitable for brewing beer. The situation was so grim that we risked abandoning the site and relocating to a new one if it wasn't rectified. And trust me establishing a new brewery is not easy! The capital expenditures are high, and there is a risk of losing out on an established market—an unthinkable consequence.

To reverse the imminent danger of a dry spell, we set up a focus group centered on reducing water wastage and replenishing groundwater. We adopted the best practices with the right people, processes, and equipment to back it up. It was a long journey, at least two or three years, but the positive results were far more important. It kick-started my love for developing sustainable operations.

The following year, I was promoted and given the additional charge of reducing water consumption across all 21 breweries in the country. Along the way, I started paying attention to energy and corporate social responsibility, too. In 2015, as I adopted the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, my focus became more holistic to include ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance) — a learning which remained with me even as I changed various organizations. It is during these years that I learned of the difficulties encountered by start-ups and smaller organizations.

As of today, Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) represent over 90% of businesses, employing up to 70% of the workforce and driving around half of the world’s GDP. Even though accurate global figures vary, India alone sees MSMEs contributing approximately 30% to GDP and roughly 45% to exports, highlighting MSMEs’ key role in job creation, innovation, and sustainable development worldwide.

A 23 June 2025 World Economic Forum white paper, Sustainability Meets Growth: A Roadmap for SMEs and Mid-Sized Manufacturers, makes a useful point: small and mid-sized manufacturers can be powerful multipliers of climate action, particularly in decarbonizing value chains because they sit inside global supply networks. The report also indicates that fast-tracking sustainability transitions by SMEs can materially improve progress toward Paris Agreement goals while unlocking economic growth.

According to a 2015 estimate by the International Energy Agency (IEA), SMEs account for 13% of the world’s total carbon emissions. If one only looks at carbon emissions by the business sector, SMEs account for 60% (recently, a report by the World Economic Forum and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), dated 23 June 2025, found this segment accounted for 40-60% of the total carbon emissions by businesses). In India, the overall greenhouse gas emissions by SMEs are around 110–150 million tonnes of CO₂, accounting for roughly 10–15% of the total emissions by the country’s industrial sector.

So Why The Hesitation?

Running an SME is rife with problems. Investments are largely operational forward, focused on infrastructure, selling, and marketing costs. Due to tight cash flows, one is often hesitant to invest in anything that takes one or two years for payback. It may take years for the financial benefits of sustainability investments (such as cost savings, strengthened brand reputation, and risk mitigation) to be realized. Add to this the lack of clarity regarding which technologies or processes will prove effective for sustainability, leading to uncertainty of stable government policies and incentives. With no historical data to prove effectiveness and difficulties measuring non financial benefits, such as risk mitigation and company image within existing financial modules, investors and business owners perceive investing in green technologies as risky.

The hurdles start at the bottom. Often, SMEs don’t hire people who specialize in sustainability, which leads to a huge gap in knowledge and skill; reducing manpower and focusing on ‘core’ operations takes precedence. At the top rung, too, owners and leaders don’t commit to sustainability due to insufficient awareness and priority. It is owing to this lack of expertise in the domain that dedicated departments are considered responsible and capable of providing sustainability solutions. The rest of the organization remains in silos.

And that’s where the problem lies. Sustainability requires collaboration across the organization, as it requires looking at ESG holistically. Highly collaborative teams are key to ESG solutions.

What’s In It For (S)Me?

Regulatory compliance may not be the ideal motivation, but it is the most effective. For SMEs, these key compliance requirements include controlling emissions of water, gas, and solid waste. On the social front, this includes workers’ health and safety measures, a crèche for children, and more. The hazards and norms depend upon the severity of operations and the industry. These steps should not be taken retroactively, though. Authorities should monitor installations during the project stage rather than at completion. Often, entire costs have sunk towards the penultimate steps.

Before starting a Greenfield manufacturing project, one has to obtain a ‘Consent to Establish’ for emission control measures from the regulatory authorities. The next contact with authorities, then, is only at the time of completion, when a ‘Consent to Operate’ must be obtained. If the constructed parameters do not comply with the norms, modifications to the construction can be made and resubmitted to the authorities for approval. Sadly, these processes can be long and expensive. I feel authorities can lend a helping hand here by introducing stage-wise inspections.

Financial benefits are another motivator. By adopting best practices, one can notably reduce the cost of sustainability initiatives. Many large organizations have cells centered on developing training tools and process enhancements. These measures help reduce waste, thereby diminishing the need for capital investment.

Technology And Costs

The cost of green technology also continuously decreases with scale, thereby reducing payback periods. According to Wright’s Law, from 2009 to 2019, there has been a steep drop in green technology prices due to increased production scale and innovation. In 2024, it is cheaper to increase renewable power generation capacities by up to 90% than the cheapest available new fossil fuel-based alternatives.

Source: https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/solar-pv/solar-pv-costs-fall-82-over-the-last-decade-says-irena)

Sustainability is an increasingly powerful marketing tool. Today, consumers favor companies that show authentic ESG responsibilities. By attracting eco conscious consumers, companies can build strong brand loyalty, enhance their reputation, and promote innovation through aligning profit with purpose. It is important to move beyond green-washing to authentic action. A powerful mix combines regulatory compulsion softened by incentives, financial gains, and improved brand image.

The Next Step

The best, most effective, and quickest way to achieve sustainability targets with minimal capital investment is to reduce waste, ensure compliance with best practice work processes, and make smart investments in effective technologies. Start with what you can measure and control: specific water use (hl/hl), specific energy (kWh/hl), and unplanned downtime minutes. Add a few meters and controls, create a weekly dashboard, and let cross-departmental teams act on the data. Strong, progressive leadership, combined with clear direction, ethical practices, and a long-term focus, is also a must. It requires building an empowered workforce by continuously developing in-house talent, encouraging input across all levels, and seeding agents who train larger groups down the pyramid. These personnel can focus on lean processes, quality assurance, and cost-efficient logistics.

Sustainability isn’t only viable for smaller manufacturers; it can also be leveraged as a competitive advantage in today’s fast-evolving economic and regulatory setting. All one needs to do is take the first step.

Leveraging AI and Digital Health Passports for 248 Million Children

In my work across school-based child health programs in India, one thing has become hard to ignore: our health system sees most children only when they fall visibly ill. For a population of 248 million children, that is a structural problem, not a parenting problem.

A school-based model, backed by Digital Health Passports and AI as a co-pilot, is helping shift child health care from reactive to preventive infrastructure. In this article, I share where technology is working, where it falls short, and how this model is building toward the vision of “Healthy Kids, Healthy Nation.”

The Constraint: Reactive Child Healthcare At The Population Scale

In India, most parents take their children to a doctor only after something is obviously wrong. Our health infrastructure is still designed to respond to problems once they surface, rather than to identify risks early and prevent them from becoming bigger issues and incurring higher costs. India has 248 million children aged 3 to 18. In principle, all of them can benefit from preventive care. In practice, most don’t. That is the constraint I see every day. So the focus has to shift to pediatric preventive health at scale, moving from “treat when sick” to “protect while well.”

What makes this shift viable now is AI moving from a research topic to an effective tool that can support advanced workflows. It enables an end-to-end pediatric screening model, from identification and screening through follow-up and escalation. Schools can become primary health hubs, enabled by AI and digital records. This school-led strategy delivers an affordable, repeatable, and executable operating system for child health delivery, adaptable from metros to remote blocks. The next breakthrough will be converting 1.5 million schools in India into localised Primary Health Hubs.

Digital Health Passport And AI As A Co-pilot

The foundation of this approach is the Digital Health Passport (DHP), a digital solution for child health records and preventive screening. It functions as a longitudinal Electronic Health Record (EHR) that tracks a child’s health metrics consistently from Grade 1 through Grade 12. The DHP helps ensure critical health data isn’t lost between check-ups, which is what makes continuity possible.

Every child we screen gets a DHP. This matters because children change quickly. Normal vision today is not a guarantee of normal vision two years later. Without continuity, every visit becomes a fresh check, with no prior data to compare against. The DHP makes trends visible. It helps us spot when a parameter drifts, and sometimes when early signals suggest something may go wrong. That allows earlier nudges to parents and schools, when intervention is simpler, and outcomes tend to be better. AI sits on top of this data layer. It helps teams work with volumes that would otherwise be overwhelming.

In government programs, I’ve seen how quickly insights get lost when they are trapped inside spreadsheets and static reports. With an AI layer, patterns at the block or district level become easier to surface, and it becomes easier to prioritise which cases need follow-up and which ones need escalation. Over time, this also helps predict and prioritise emerging risks, so that limited specialist time is first allocated to the children and geographies where the risk is highest.

This changes the economics of pediatric care as well. One pediatrician can guide work across many schools. Field staff can focus on execution and follow-ups. Specialists spend more time on complex cases and less on routine screening.

Reaching Children In Public And Private Schools

I and my team at SKID are intentional about reaching the two large segments of India’s school-going population. On one side are 136.4 million children in public schools, often reached through government programmes. This is vital to reach underserved and vulnerable communities with structured preventive care. On the other side are 111.6 million children in private schools, reached through schools and parents.

The goal is to reach all 248 million children and identify common, treatable issues through school-based screening, including anaemia, dental caries, and uncorrected vision. If these are not addressed, they quietly erode learning and attention, changing both individual progress and school outcomes. In our work, and in wider health datasets, we see how widespread this hidden burden can be: anaemia is prevalent across many age groups, dental caries are common, and vision issues show up earlier than many families expect.

Where Do The Gaps Remain?

Technology helps standardise screening and follow-up. It reduces human error at scale. It provides visibility into who has been screened, what was found, and what happened next. AI helps focus scarce human time. It helps teams ask better questions of the data, and it gives decision-makers a live view of risk across schools and geographies.

But technology cannot complete the last mile on its own. AI cannot get a child to wear glasses. It cannot convince a parent to treat anemia early. Those steps require trust, human follow-through, and simple, actionable communication.

One of the most effective bridges I’ve seen is parent communication that is easy to understand and easy to act on. Clear reports, in simple language, with upcoming procedures documented, make a measurable difference in turning screening into outcomes.

Why This Matters Economically And Socially

Through our interventions, each 1 rupee invested in preventive screening has generated roughly 13 rupees of social and economic value. Early identification reduces expensive downstream treatment. In some cohorts, we have seen up to an 80 per cent reduction in avoidable hospitalisations when problems are detected and promptly followed up. Healthier children attend school more consistently and learn better. Preventing avoidable disability also has intergenerational effects on income and opportunity, strengthening human capital and long-term economic growth.

If you are a fellow founder building at the intersection of an industry and technology, my suggestion is simple: start with the constraint, not the technology. At SKID, the constraint for my team was a system built around reactive child healthcare. Everything flows from that: schools as primary health hubs, Digital Health Passports as the backbone, and AI in the background helping deliver preventive care.

AI alone cannot solve India’s child healthcare challenge, but when combined with school-based screening and digital health tools, it can help shift child health care from reactive to preventive, moving closer to “Healthy Kids, Healthy Nation.”

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.

Compliance is increasingly a defining factor for business survival.

In 2012, while working at an IT services firm, a conversation with the CIO of a major chemical manufacturer in India revealed how hard compliance had become in practice. It started as a technology discussion, then quickly turned into something fundamental. The CIO described how difficult it was for a Board to confidently say, “Yes, we are compliant.”

Not “we think we are,” not “we have policies,” but confidence across geographies, plants, and teams, backed by data.  Around the same period, corporate governance expectations in India were tightening, and the direction was clear: compliance was no longer a back-office checklist. It was moving into the boardroom, and the boards wanted defensible answers. 

We built a compliance management system for that client. It worked, but it was a glorified spreadsheet. It tracked tasks, but it lacked real regulatory intelligence. That’s when I realised regulatory intelligence is no longer an engineering afterthought. It is the backbone of any serious compliance program, and it requires deeper integration of legal expertise into day-to-day operations.

That early experience shaped how I think about compliance today, and it maps to three things CXOs and founders should care about: Shift, Gap, and Next.

Shift: What Changed In Compliance, And Why It Feels Different Now

The biggest shift is this: compliance has moved from a periodic exercise to a continuous operating requirement.

Ten to fifteen years ago, many organisations could manage compliance through quarterly reviews, manual trackers, and external advisors. That model breaks down in today’s environment for a few reasons: First, regulation is changing faster, across sectors and borders. If you operate in multiple states or countries, the “simple” act of staying up to date becomes a real operational burden. Second, boards and leadership teams are being held to a higher standard of assurance. The question is no longer “Did you do the compliance activity?” It’s “Can you prove the obligation was correctly interpreted, appropriately connected to your business, and continuously updated?” Centre compliance is now tied to business velocity. If product launches, supply chain decisions, hiring models, or market entry plans create compliance bottlenecks, the business slows down. That’s when compliance stops being a cost center and becomes either a constraint or a competitive advantage.

Building modern compliance systems is not primarily an engineering challenge. It is a law-and-operations challenge enabled by technology. The real backbone is regulatory intelligence: knowing what the law is, what changed, what it means, and who needs to act. If that intelligence is weak, the software is just a workflow for dealing with ambiguity.

That realisation also came with a practical lesson. I had an earlier attempt in the same space, and it did not work out due to differences in vision and risk appetite. It was painful, but it gave me a “last mover” advantage. I knew what fails in the real world, especially when you try to scale regulatory intelligence without the right operating model.

Gap: Where Technology Helps, And Where It Still Falls Short

Technology has improved compliance execution. If you look up “regulatory compliance software” or “compliance management system,” you’ll find many tools that help create workflows, assign owners, track evidence, and generate reports. That’s the easy part. The harder part, where many organisations still struggle, is turning compliance into something current and trusted.

Here’s where technology genuinely helps today:
Automation of monitoring and extraction: AI can scan documents, identify relevant clauses, and summarize changes faster than humans can.
Workflow orchestration: Systems can push tasks to the right owners, enforce deadlines, and create audit trails.
Centralised reporting: Leadership can see what’s pending, what’s overdue, and what’s high-risk, without chasing updates across teams.

Now the gap, the part that still breaks in practice: Real regulatory intelligence is hard to build and harder to maintain. Most systems fail not because they can’t track tasks, but because they can’t guarantee the correctness, completeness, and timeliness of obligations across jurisdictions. If you are a CXO, this is the failure mode to watch: a system that looks “complete” on the dashboard, but is built on partial or outdated regulatory content.

The other big gap lies in the alignment of standards and real-time stakeholder interaction. Compliance spans legal, operations, EHS, finance, HR, procurement, and, at times, external partners. Even with a tool, getting all stakeholders in sync on interpretation, evidence quality, and change response is still a human and process challenge.

Finally, there is the trust question. Many compliance systems become “activity trackers,” not “assurance systems.” They show effort, not confidence. In high-stakes environments, effort is not the same as assurance.

Next: What’s Coming, And What Leaders Should Prepare For

Over the next decade, I expect compliance to shift from reactive to predictive. Today, AI helps automate monitoring and data extraction. Tomorrow, it will do more of the higher-order work: predicting the impact of regulatory change, running risk scenarios, and providing proactive guidance before obligations become enforceable. That shift matters because it changes the organisation's operating posture. Instead of asking, “What do we need to do because something changed?” leaders will increasingly ask, “What is likely to change, and how do we design the business to stay compliant by default?”

This is where we’ll see three structural changes:
The role of compliance professionals will move up the value chain. Routine tasks like tracking, documenting, and updating will be increasingly automated. Human expertise will centre on strategic interpretation, ethical governance, and policy-level decision support.

Reg-Tech platforms will become mission-critical infrastructure. Just as organisations depend on ERP systems for finance and operations, they will depend on compliance ecosystems that integrate regulations, workflows, audits, and reporting into a single digital layer. If you have ever searched for “enterprise compliance platform,” you already see where the market is going.

“Compliance-by-design” will become the default expectation. Regulatory requirements will be embedded into business processes and technology from the start, rather than added as an afterthought. Organisations that treat compliance as a design constraint from the start will move faster later.

A 2026 Operator View: What Building In This Space Teaches You

Over the years, I have learnt how to create successful B2B SaaS or Technology offerings, and I want to share what I’ve learnt with anyone building in this domain. “Your enterprise client is not looking at flashy features. They want a partner who understands or is interested in understanding their business as much as they do. You are expected to be a master in your domain, not just the technology. The client also wants you to take ownership of creating success stories for their implementation.

To achieve this, you just can’t rely on a single skill; you need to build a team that masters technology, domain expertise, business, storytelling, customer orientation, HR, etc. Don’t stop at being passionate about your product or service; be equally passionate about creating success for your partners, people, and clients, and be part of their stories.

Your story may be heard just once, yet the stories you help create can echo a thousand times over.