Skip to main content
Back
Popular Pages
Educators
Businesses
Learners
About
  1. Influential Leaders
Influential Leaders

Arun Rai

Regents’ Professor and Howard S. Starks Distinguished Chair; Director, Center for Digital Innovation
Recognition Year(s): 2024
Area of Impact: Healthcare or Wellness
School: J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University
Location: United States

View Faculty Bio

Summary

Arun Rai is the director and co-founder of the Robinson College of Business Center for Digital Innovation, an interdisciplinary research center that manages industry-to-university collaborations. Rai’s scholarly contributions have been recognized in the field of information systems through many prestigious awards, and in terms of career impact, he is in the top .25 percent of nearly 17,500 information systems researchers. Rai’s contributions include researching UPS supply chains and also determining how technology can be incorporated in future hospital design, with a focus on improving patient care and reducing stays.

Description of Research Impact

The impact of Rai’s research endeavors has been felt broadly across business and society, including in the following areas:

  • The digital transformation of organizations, supply chains, and platform ecosystems: For over two decades, Rai collaborated closely with UPS and its customers, and with other organizations (e.g., Cisco Systems, Georgia-Pacific, Chrysler, Intel), on a program researching value creation through the digital transformation of organizations, supply chains, and platform ecosystems. Through this research, Rai developed innovative solutions and gained insights that created a substantial impact on practice.
  • The digital innovation of healthcare: Rai has collaborated closely with the Apollo Hospitals group (a leading hospital system in India) for over 15 years, and with other leading healthcare organizations (Emory Healthcare, Piedmont Healthcare, and Grady Health), in addition to nongovernmental and governmental organizations. These projects have generated insights and solutions that help leaders innovate clinical processes and healthcare delivery through digital technologies.
  • Societal impacts: Rai’s work has explored the effective use of digital innovations in addressing complex societal issues related to the digital divide, healthcare, and poverty, in alignment with the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.

The impact of Rai’s work has been recognized through the following awards from leading information systems associations:

  • LEO Award for lifetime exceptional achievement from the Association for Information Systems (AIS), which is the premier association for information systems scholars, 2019
  • AIS Impact Award, 2022
  • INFORMS Information Systems Society Practical Impacts Award, 2022
  • INFORMS Information Systems Society Distinguished Fellow Award, 2014
  • AIS Fellow Award, 2010

Rai’s work has also been recognized by the industry as follows:

  • IBM faculty award
  • SAP, for thought leadership on digital supply chains (Rai was invited to develop white papers for C-level executives on strategies and governance to create value through supply chain digitization)
  • UPS, for digital transformation of supply chains

Rai has participated as a member of the Council on Competitiveness working group “The Future of Technology: Developing and Deploying Disruptive Technologies at Scale,” launched by the U.S. National Council on Innovation and Competitiveness Frontiers. He has been invited to present at major industry and policy events related to digital innovation, digital transformation, supply chains, AI-augmented systems, AI and the future of work, the digital divide, and health information technology.

Examples of Research Impact

For over a decade, Rai collaborated on a program with UPS to research value creation with digital technologies in supply chains. He closely engaged with UPS and its customers worldwide (he even rode the package cars and has a brown uniform!) to identify problems and opportunities in supply chains, design innovative digital solutions, discover how to deploy those solutions with process changes, and evaluate the solutions’ impacts.

The insights gained through the UPS program had a major effect on UPS’s use of eCommerce and digital supply chain solutions in creating value in novel ways for customers in different segments. These insights also enabled UPS and its customers to shift the focus from price to value in developing and sustaining relationships. The materials Rai developed (e.g., diagnostic protocols and the UPS-HP value co-creation case study) have been widely employed in customer engagement by UPS.

In addition, Rai designed and delivered intensive training workshops for UPS executives in the U.S., Europe, and Asia on how digital innovations provide opportunities for rethinking problems and assumptions, and also for transforming supply chains and creating value. These highly interactive workshops were consistently rated as outstanding by executive participants; they also strongly contributed to the effective design and deployment of novel digital solutions in creating supply chain value.

For over 15 years, Rai has partnered with the Apollo Hospitals group, furthering its mission of promoting access to quality healthcare. He has served as an independent director on the Board of Directors of Apollo Indraprastha Medical Corporation and Apollo Health and Lifestyle Limited. His objective and constructive recommendations, especially in the areas of clinical care, automation, AI, and digital transformation, have had a far-reaching impact on innovating Apollo Hospitals’ healthcare services, business models, and practices.

Most recently, Rai played a key role in developing plans to position Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, Delhi, as a next-generation hospital with a cutting-edge digital portfolio that includes the use of AI. Rai’s research with Apollo Hospitals and other healthcare organizations has greatly benefitted the design and implementation of digital solutions to coordinate care and of its telemedicine and mobile health solutions to broaden access, prevent and manage chronic diseases, and combat maternal and infant mortality.

Rai has made influential contributions, having traveled to India on several occasions to present at leading healthcare practice and policy forums. He challenges assumptions and shares insights on how digital solutions can transform healthcare access and delivery; he also provides information on the new risks digital solutions can create, along with the need for revised policies.

Supporting Links