The next growth engine for manufacturers is not the next machine they sell, but the millions already running in the field. Why this matters to manufacturing leaders today Every truck, compressor and production line already sold is either making money or losing it, every single day it runs. Customers are starting to pay for something new: not just the machine, but the promise that it keeps working. The real shift Most manufacturers can already see how their machines are perfor

As enterprises scale AI, cloud and digital ecosystems, speakers at a Mint CIO Circle webinar said DPDP compliance will depend on data visibility, operationalising consent and continuous oversight of third-party and AI systems. By: Sohini Bagchi India’s Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) framework is pushing enterprises to rethink how they handle personal data, from simply storing and securing it to continuously governing, tracking and acting on it. The shift matters beca

The world has gone from 16 Lighthouse factories in 2018 to 238 in 2026. Yet only ~30% of Industry 4.0 initiatives successfully scale across the network. The problem is no longer proving that a smart plant works. It is making the next plant cheaper, faster and easier to transform. Why this matters to manufacturing leaders today Indian manufacturers are running around 10 pilots on average, with 85% remaining in pilot mode for more than a year. A successful Plant 1 can demonstra

80–85% of testing is now done in software, not hardware. What does that mean for the economics of product development? Why this matters to manufacturing CXOs today Product complexity is moving rapid Why this matters to manufacturing CXOs today Product complexity is moving rapidly into software, electronics and system integration. Yet, for many organisations, critical validation still happens only after physical hardware is available, when failures are more expensive, timeline

74% of CEOs are not aligned with their CFO on the long-term value of technology investments. As AI moves from experimentation to enterprise-scale investment, the challenge is no longer simply whether AI can create value, but whether organisations can measure, govern and scale that value. AI is moving beyond experimentation and into the core of manufacturing operations, from production and quality to supply chains, maintenance and workforce productivity. As investments scale,

The Strategic Imperative Agentic AI is emerging as a strategic priority for manufacturers because operational complexity is rising faster than traditional systems can handle. As plants scale, leaders must coordinate production, maintenance, quality, energy, supply chains, and compliance across increasingly interconnected environments. In this context, AI is no longer just a tool for automation or analysis. It is becoming a mechanism for orchestrating decisions across workflow

The Strategic Imperative India’s manufacturing sector is entering a defining decade, with ambitions to raise its GDP contribution to 25 percent and unlock a trillion-dollar output opportunity by 2035. Many organisations have initiated AI, IoT, and automation programs, yet only a small proportion have scaled digital into enterprise impact. The challenge is execution maturity. CIOs and IT leaders are now expected to architect intelligence into brownfield environments, align IT

Brief overview India’s manufacturing edge will come from genuine IT–OT convergence at enterprise scale. This whitepaper outlines a practical blueprint: a unified data layer across ERP, MES, SCADA, and sensors; an edge–cloud architecture for real-time control with fleet-level analytics; AI at the line to catch defects and predict failures; and zero-trust security throughout the estate. It also details the operating model that sustains this stack : CIO–COO governance, KPI-linke

For most of the last decade, manufacturing technology decisions were optimised for cost, scale, and efficiency. That playbook is no longer sufficient. Global shocks from geopolitical conflicts and trade realignments to cyber risks and supply volatility have pushed manufacturing leaders into a new operating reality where resilience, visibility, and adaptability are as critical as throughput and margins. Boards are no longer asking whether to invest in digital capabilities, but