Digital India –New Entrepreneurial Opportunities

A good governing body requires a good communication platform to communicate with the stakeholder’s efficiently. Communicating with the citizens has been a big challenge for the government of India with widespread geography, massive population, and enormous linguistic & cultural diversity. The way of communication has changed a lot from postal and telegraph era to print and broadcasting media to the era of Digital Communication. The efficient way to communicate with the citizens of the world’s largest democracy with a population of 1.2 billion is only possible by connecting with everyone on a digital platform. Though India is considered as the IT powerhouse of the world, there is a huge digital divide.

The Digital India announcement is one that can prove to be truly transformational for the country. Tremendous opportunities lie ahead for creating a huge base for electronics manufacturing in India and introducing digital technologies and skills to change the fortunes of the underserved segments of Indian society. The National Broadband Mission, the National Optical Fibre Network and other digital infrastructure projects have been somewhat delayed but enough optimism exists that these will be completed and extended to all parts of the country and create the base for a digital revolution in the country. One major outcome of this initiative, apart from the business it opens up for scale players in the IT sector in India, is the vast set of opportunities that can and should open up for the start-up ecosystem in the country. Entrepreneurs in internet services, m and e-commerce, design and manufacturing services in high tech manufacturing and products, services and skills creation for the digital environment will find ample scope for creativity and innovation in the new environment.

There will also be entrepreneurial opportunities in the intersection of “Make in India” and “Digital India” that will see new age manufacturing companies embrace new technologies on the shop floor and transform supply and demand chains in the changing competitive landscape of the manufacturing industry. The empowerment of manufacturing through the Internet of Things (IoT) is creating intelligent shop floors that demonstrate data driven operational excellence and decentralized production control systems within and beyond the physical factory walls. Connected supply chains and collaborative networks are accelerating the movement of physical entities as well as information through the eco-system. Some digital initiatives that are being implemented in manufacturing companies in India include digital warehousing, on-line bidding, mobile field force and supplier collaboration platforms and collaborative manufacturing systems across states and industrial corridors. Much of this is being enabled by the all-pervasive glue of Information Technology and IoT will take the transformation process to a new level of maturity.

One predictable outcome of these changes, both at industry and firm level will be the need for a new approach to managing information technology. The Gartner approach to Bi-Modal IT for the emerging digital world would be the most appropriate for companies to consider, where the marathon approach to building and sustaining mission critical systems for core business processes within and across companies must co-exist with the sprinter’s approach to developing agile and flexible business applications for emerging technology and collaborative business opportunities. The fist will call for a technology centric plan and thoughtfully articulated strategy for systems in the enterprise, something that the CIOs and IT Directors have been trained on and are comfortable with. The second will need idea crowdsourcing, empirical and continuously evolving approaches and the willingness to adapt on the fly.

The opportunities in Digital Manufacturing will be multiplied in Digital Healthcare, Education, Financial Services and even just Digital Government. Diagnostics, Needs Analysis and Service Design and Delivery. A fully digital environment will create new value propositions in all sectors of the economy and it will need a new breed of young entrepreneurs, ideally born in the digital era to see the discontinuities in existing services where new companies can be created, scaled and either sold to larger players or taken on to a global destiny. For the new era Google and Facebook wannabes, Digital India will present a wonderful opportunity. The success of entrepreneurship will be the true success of India.

Source: Deloitte-Confederation of Indian Industry (online)

The author of this artcle is Assistant Professor, Pioneer Institute of Professional Studies, Indore