The benefit of a dynamic information and communication technology landscape isn’t limited to fostering business growth. It also helps generate employment.
experience, and post-sales engagement with customers to ensure repeat purchases.
Driven by the internet and the availability of high bandwidth, digital technologies and platforms are poised to fundamentally change the way Indian businesses operate internally and how they interact with their customers, suppliers, and competitors.
Power to the hinterlands
Rural India is not far behind in the race. The states like Haryana, Arunachal Pradesh and Jharkhand are leading the pack by being the fastest to digital adoption in terms of internet subscription. Combined with government initiatives like Digital India, BharatNet, and Aadhaar, rural India has benefitted in terms of digital access to jobs, upskilling, bank accounts, gas subsidies, etc. BharatNet is a government initiative to improve broadband connectivity across the hinterlands.
Empowering women
The digital trend has also empowered women in India in various facets. For instance, 54,800 women have become village-level entrepreneurs at government-run Common Service Centres, providing digital services to the local population. The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry in India employs approximately four million workers, out of which about 30% are women. A threeyear awareness programme in rural India has increased school enrolment and access to e-education among girls by three to five percentage points.
Contextual Engagement powered by AI and ML
The marketing systems are equipped with new-age technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to enrich every interaction that the customer would have with the product or the brand. The curated interactions lead to business growth and enhancement in the top line for the brand. The contextual nature of services being offered due to the combined gunpowder that digital marketing powered by AI and ML offers enables brands to create an immersive experience for its customers. This will create a democratic brand experience across the socio-economic pyramid of the country.
Digital will be a leveller in not only brand reach and marketing. Essential and critical services such as education and healthcare will reach the last mile with digital. It will also enable access to credit, insurance, and investment avenues in a country where more than half of the population still do not have access to formal banking facilities.
Democratic access to information
The most significant change that broadband and digital technologies will usher into India is democratic access to information. Every piece of information will cut right through the economic pyramid and diminish the difference between the “haves” and the “have nots” with respect to information access. This will create a new India wherein there will be equal opportunities for all to learn, grow, create businesses and brands, and live happy and fulfilling lives. At an organizational level too, we believe micro, small and medium enterprises will get a fillip in terms of enabling innovation and efficiency enhancement by leveraging digital technologies.
India’s exponential rise in digital adoption has catapulted it to be one of the world’s top consumers of internet and digital applications. And if it continues to accelerate along its trajectory, the rewards will be palpable to millions of businesses and hundreds of millions of citizens. This will put our 1.3 billion people at the forefront of a digital revolution and India will herald a new era of prosperity and growth for the world in the years to come.
TheauthorRohitShenoyisCorporateMarketing LeadwithCloverInfotech
Cybermedia recently organised a webinar titled The Future: 5G Powering Transformation. The participants were Dr RS Sharma, Chairman, TRAI; Akhil Gupta, Chairman, Bharti Infratel and ViceChairman, Bharti Enterprise; Dr Abhay Karandikar, Director, IIT Kanpur; Kamal Nath, CEO, Sify Technologies, and Dr Anand Agarwal, Group CEO, STL. Pradeep Gupta, Chairman, Cybermedia Group, was the moderator. Opening the session, Pradeep Gupta invited Dr RS Sharma to deliver the inaugural address.
Need for thinking bodies
Dr RS Sharma said that there is a need to have certain think tanks or thinking bodies, as someone who thinks in a strategic manner and points out the direction that any technology should move so that things can happen. It is a time where we have realised the importance of connectivity of telecommunications infrastructure. Twenty years ago, if we were locked down, it would have cause psychological damage to a large population. While we are physically constrained,
we are mentally very active and able to communicate. One thing which has also come out of this is the importance of the telecommunications infrastructure and the other sectors. For example, work from home. Today, children are studying in this virtual world and education is happening. Tele-medicine is also happening. People are afraid to visit hospitals as there may be more infections. Therefore, they are the ones who are getting medications and medicine deliveries are taking place online.
The Prime Minister announced on 15 August that the National Digital Health Mission will provide health services in a digital way, which means, having the digital health records, tele-consultation, delivery of medicines, online. All these things will create a robust infrastructure in the healthcare sector.
Other countries have created a digital identity infrastructure, which actually can prove your identity in a remote manner, anywhere, anytime, kind of paradigm, where you can easily get the services delivered. Today, identity benefit transfer is taking place for billions of people. Millions of people are doing credit transactions. month is also the 10th anniversary of the first Aadhaar card being issued.
The government of the day had adopted Aadhar. Many things are riding on it. Even in the telecom space, electronic KYC is being used to provide services to the people. Ration is being distributed using Aadhar authentication. More than a billion authentications are taking place. On digital payment, about 1.45 million transactions took place last month. There is contactless payment. You can go to the place and get the money. These are projects, which are quite consistent in these difficult times. These transactions are actually sustaining a lot of the heavy lifting being done by these applications.
You have health, payments, identity, distribution systems, etc. These are large projects riding on technology that are actually benefiting the people. We can solve our problems using technology. ICT has become extremely important. If you develop platforms and applications on top of these technologies, you can actually continue doing what you want to do, and achieve the so-called paperless, contactless and cashless government in this country.