Connecting the Dots The Consumers Innovation and Acceleration Officers
ized and differentiated services. Despite adversities, they have carved a unique ‘CEO’ image. They are accessible, humble and forthright and that gives them an ‘individual brand equity’ and a global persona. Let’s have a look at the ‘impact guys’. Take the case of Flipkart that was founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal. With a meager investment of Rs 5 lakh, they launched their eCom startup. Many thought it would fizzle out in time, but the founders defied skeptics and now Flipkart has crossed Rs 5 bn in revenues.
In the bargain, they have redefined the very nascent ‘online shopping’ into a household activity for middle-class Indians.
Today, seeing their success and putting that as a benchmark—India has seen a plethora of online start-ups and that has created a band of young tech entrepreneurs who are raring to go.
Clearly, the Bansals had opened up an industry that was once considered will never work in India.
The Deployers
It’s time to switch gears, and take a community people perspective.
If you look at the whole IT industry, the CIO’s role is one that’s being debated.
Particularly in India, over 2012, the tech buying decision in some of the large enterprises have become tri-polar with CIO-CFOCXO having their individual say in big tech buying instances.
So, clearly this community will define the IT industry and as a result, vendors are facing a challenging task as they need to sell solutions that align IT with business and not vice versa.
No longer will pep sales talk work—the IT buyers are going today at granular levels and asking about deliverables and RoI metrics as in some cases it is no longer the CIO’s decision; in fact, it involves all the key stakeholders in the company, including the functional heads. Yes, consumers form one of the key communities, but have not been in the limelight like in the west. Due to the extremely powerful handheld devices like mobile phones to tablets to Ultrabooks—the consumer, whether at home or at office, no longer depends on company hardware.
In some advanced geographies, BYOD is changing the personality of the IT procurement models. Some companies are buying less of PCs and buying more of smartphones and tablets, thanks to consumerization of IT.
As employees bring their own devices to work, they challenge conventions and in-house IT processes. If any company that’s averse to allow ‘non-office employee gadgets’ to their corporate network, then they risk becoming non-progressive and that might even lead to higher attrition levels.
So, consumers in the coming years will literally step into the adage ‘customer is king’ and will have their say in policy to gadgets to form factors. While this is not really totally new, but in 2013 one will see an escalation of this trend in every sphere, and IT is no exception. This might look like a misnomer but after the tech recession of 2007 many companies are talking about ‘recession proofing’ (some do not believe in this). Most progressive companies are employing a whole lot of unique manpower ranging from ‘Strategy Officers’ to ‘Innovation Mangers’ to ‘Acceleration Officers’ to insulate themselves from any uncertainties.