The need for doing digital

The need for digital can hardly be overstated. India is particularly poised to take advantage of digital technologies as they have the potential to add economic value of $550 billion to $1 trillion per year by 2025, and create millions of well-paying, productive jobs. The critical need of the hour is to stop thinking and start doing digital.

It is, however, important to recognize that digital leadership is effective for companies only when it creates value—for their customers, partners and employees. The traditional view of ‘going digital’ was to first impact operations and then evolving up the technology pyramid to arrive at a design change of processes. The primary aim was efficiency and reduction in costs. The business process improvement strategy was often overlooked as the technology teams typically jumped into operations deploying a set of digital tools. This mindset is precisely what led to failed implementation and reduced business value in the past. Organisations, in their attempt to jump onto the digital bandwagon, have rushed to adopt various siloed technology components before defining the problem they were trying to solve.

Today, the entire thought process has been inverted on its head. Addressing design is now the first port of call in the new-age digital businesses that intelligently connect people, things and business, to create a wow experience for their customers. The result is simultaneous growth in revenue and reduction in costs.

The proof is out there. A well-known retail chain experienced the impact first-hand when it turned its online sales platform into a unique mobile experience—and moved its infrastructure to the cloud, leveraging a digital platform that combined several digital tools, including the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, blockchain and big data analytics to create a better experience for its users as well as optimise the supply chain. The result was a significant increase in revenue while reducing operating costs to a third of what they were before.

This business value is not trivial. There is potential for disrupting business-as-usual on a large scale.

In the public domain, digital services can blend seamlessly with the physical reality of urban spaces, optimising energy, vehicles and assets across the urban footprint to improve the liveability of public spaces.