CIO Anil Kakkar is heading up an ambitious transformation agenda at Escorts Kubota, in which the Indian multinational conglomerate seeks to reinvent its three traditional business lines: agricultural products and implements, construction equipment, and railway equipment and parts. Kakkar and his IT teams are enlisting automation, machine learning, and AI to facilitate the transformation, which will require significant innovation, especially at the edge. For example, for its railway equipment business, Escorts Kubota produces IoT-based devices such as brakes and couplers. “How can we make those…