Digitisation should not be seen as a danger to mankind: Paul Hermelin at ETGBS 2019

Thank you first for welcoming me here in this prestigious deli and this global business forum. I'd like first to say Capgemini is a French company. I am actually French, you will hear that from my accent, but when I meet with the Indian Prime Minister, he tends to say that I should sit on the Indian side since within Capgemini, that's a little challenge for my predecessor. We have 211,000 people, but 106,000 people in India, so more than half of the headcount sits in India. Why so? Because there could not be any success in IT if we had not built a very strong Indian platform. And what I would like to consider with you is what has made that incredible success for India during the last 25 years, and how should we consider that with the next challenge of the digital age. So why have we seen the formidable competition emerging from India? You know them: Tata, TCS, Infosys — by the way, a pleasure to see that Infosys is now headed by a former Capgemini executive — Wipro, HCL Technologies. Formidable competitors because first, this country, we said it, we see it, we can anticipate the future, is a unique reservoir of talents, of motivated intelligence, and of course they could come to technology because this country has decidedly invested in education. I think that was the condition for the emergence of technology in this country. But there were other factors: notably absolutely world-class infrastructure. India is a country with an entrepreneurial culture, and compared to some other emerging countries, we have seen the Azim Premjis, Narayana Murthys, all the TCS leaders like Chandra and others — an incredible collection of founders that have created this superb collection of planes. So combination of education, entrepreneurship, and probably in this country a culture that favors IT logic and mathematics — roots of the Indian culture — plus an openness, a willingness to do service. Now the question is: will that be enough to be successful again in the forthcoming years? Because what we see has changed. The first point is the Indian company — and I would consider not Capgemini as an Indian company but as a real sister to the Indian company. We started our success notably in the U.S. by selling to large companies and by being incredible enablers for productivity and efficiency. And I thought the video that introduced the meeting — I'm a strong believer in market and profit as the most successful ingredients for productivity, for progress. Of course we can add regulation, social purpose, but I would not underestimate market and profit. In the case of Indian success, the quest for productivity was the initial factor. Now the question is: will innovation, will IT be mainly focused on the large clients that are all historical clients, notably the U.S. ones? And here we see a change of paradigm. Some people said it: the world of technology that used to be computer-centered 25 years ago, then it became software-centered, and now the whole world is about data. I hear some Chinese writer thinking China will be the successful country because data is the key ingredient, and that data in China will be like oil in Saudi Arabia. India can compete with China in terms of data — it's as large a country, progressively a bigger population, a market economy, so more data than anywhere. The question is more about innovation because the disruption we see today — we are obsessed by the so-called GAFA: Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple. But I have experienced a life where in the '70s the obsession was IBM. If you remember the Stanley Kubrick movie, the computer was named HAL, and HAL was just playing with a letter: H for I, A for B, and L for M. The obsession was IBM. Then we had been obsessed with the monopoly of Microsoft. Now it's Google and Amazon. And the beauty of innovation: we do not know what will be the dominant player in ten years or in twenty years, but I am comfortable thinking they will not be the ones we think of today. So the question is: after the huge success of India in the service world, can we see an Indian Google, an Indian Amazon become one of the giants in 2013? For that you need talent and intelligence, and you have plenty of them — more than anybody. What remains incredible in the West Coast of the U.S. is the appetite for disruption. In the United States, disruption — this is a country of Schumpeter and creative destruction. This is a country where when there is a change, people don't look backward, people don't try to protect the existing forces and the existing actors; they rush for the new, they rush for the disruption. That's the challenge for all of us from Europe to India and to China: how do we favor the U.S. appetite for disruption? Because that will be the distinguishing factor that will create innovation at large scale. I think it can be in many places. If you think of it, we can look at a very tiny country: Israel. In Israel there is an incredible appetite for technology. Of course, Israeli engineers are cornered in a tiny country with neighbors that are not necessarily friendly, so they instantly think of the world — their market is the world market — and they have been a source of innovation. So we should think that what will make India successful, and most probably it's possible, it is within our reach — and as a quasi-Indian I will start and try to contribute — that will be to combine the talents of India with a push for innovation. And today technology no longer stays within the IT department; technology irrigates everything. And to combine that with a social acceptance of disruption. I'd like to say before closing that I do not share, notably, the pleasure of some journalists to scare the world population with the danger of automation and artificial intelligence. I really do not think robots will replace humankind. I think they will augment work. What we see is in the future of work we will have engineers, but we will have people with emotional intelligence that will be another domain for human excellence, because people prize human contact. And the next challenge for our education system will be to select experts of emotional intelligence. IQ will not be the one and only criteria for success and investment. We need emotion, we need intelligence, we need to be all together to build the future. That is why Capgemini has invested in its social responsibility, trying to transform all 200,000 people into architects of a positive future, favoring engagement, volunteering for bridging the digital divide. I would rather say positively: digitization should not be seen as a danger for mankind, but digital inclusion will always improve the quality of social care, improve involvement and the connection of an aging population with the rest of society, to deal with climate change, to deal with social inequality. Thank you.