Anand Tamboli, entrepreneur: “Any virtual or soft industries (so not physically delivered) will see more acceleration”

When you were a child, did you break your family TV into its component pieces because you were interested in the way it worked? It’s this level of curiosity that took Anand Tamboli from a small village in India to university and then to LG Electronics, where he landed his “dream job” as a Senior R&D Engineer.

He didn’t stop there. Anand would go on to lead teams at LG (including making wireless speakers for TV, before Bluetooth) and then join HSBC as Associate Vice President. But advising big businesses wasn’t enough, as Anand’s entrepreneurial spirit drove him on to found Knewron Technologies. He, together with his team, worked with over 65 customers on 150+ projects, designing innovative products to solve problems.

After selling the company in 2018, Anand shifted into this next phase: as a consultant, keynote speaker and coach. His emphasis: the changing world of work. As he puts it: “To build a future-ready organisation, you need to find new ways of doing things, today!”

All of this means that Anand is someone we are delighted to feature in our series of interviews with thought leaders on the subject of the future of work.

What jobs do you think AI might replace?

Any job that depends on pattern recognition of some sort does not need a physical body to perform, and costs more to do when humans are involved, is guaranteed to get replaced by AI systems.

What are the major factors influencing the future of work?

The definition and understanding of “what is work” is a major influence. Moreover, fragmentation of the work itself will be the second major influencing factor that will change many things for the future workforce.

How do you think the work office will change in the next ten years?

Most of the high-level jobs such as coordinating and monitoring will be done from the office. However, delivery of the work will be mostly distributed, unless someone is needed to be onsite.

What jobs will be gone by 2030? And what new jobs might be created?

A lot of work people do today is non-value-adding from the customer’s perspective. They do it because someone somewhere in the policy ecosystem wants it to be done. Multiple checks, redundant information, creating copies for recordkeeping, and whatnot, all this will be gone. Many new jobs will relate to the orchestration of several subsystems that need to work together to produce a meaningful service or product.

Which areas of society do you think will be more impacted by technology?

People who sell their time for money will see more negative impacts. People who sell their skills or knowledge may still be able to do okay, but they will have to keep upskilling them routinely. The ones with more money and access to technology will be better off if they choose to utilise those assets appropriately.

What fields of work or industries do you think will accelerate because of technology?

It will be mostly service industries, [based upon] IT-enabled services, which will see more acceleration. Second to them will be industries that rely on information and online experiences. Anything virtual or soft (not physically delivered) will see more acceleration.

What is a recent example of technology disrupting work that you found interesting?

Recently, due to the introduction of ChatGPT and various generative AI solutions, content production has been colossal. Most of that is still junk and superficial, however, the sheer volume that is getting produced has thrown a spanner in the engine. This is a less disruptive and more disturbing impact in the recent past. It is interesting as well as annoying at the same time.

More future of work interviews

Our thanks to Anand for taking the time to share his thoughts on the future of work. For more predictions, read on:

• Simon Long, Director for CBRE Southeast Asia: “How do we create work environments and a culture that actively brings everyone together?”
• Clarence Ding, Head of Singapore Employment Practice at Simmons & Simmons: “A data scientist in Singapore is likely to face competition for their job not just from the local market, but from other very high-quality candidates in other countries”
• Michael Solomon, Author and Founder of 10xManagement. “There’s going to be a protracted battle between those who wish to work from home and those who think productivity is harmed by remote work.”

If you have something to say about the future of work, please email us at [email protected].