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Digital India – the next

growth frontier

echnology is now the new Wall Everyone would agree that scale and im-
Street or Financial Services. In- pact from technology in the Indian economy
Technology terestingly enough, there used to is massive, and the opportunities that lie
be global financial break downs, ahead are impressive. Businesses, both local
Trends T and now there are technology and global, are quickly recognizing these op-
scandals – the 3G, 4G scam, the Y2K bug portunities and the future potential thereof,
Khushpreet Kaur and technology driven recession, Facebook and creating custom tailored services for the
Cambridge Analyticala data scandal where it consumers, taking advantage of the opportu-
Khushpreet Kaur is was revealed that Cambridge Analytica had nity, and launching unique operating models
Partner in Mckinsey harvested the personal data of millions of to be successful. Companies leveraging tech-
and Company New people’s Facebook profiles without their con- nology are using in one of the two ways:
York, and focuses her sent and used it for political purposes – just A technology driven transformation to
work on helping clients shows on the scale, potential and outreach of transform the core or build digital capabili-
large scale technology technology. ties – where companies are leveraging tech-
and digital transforma- Various facets of technology are already nology to fundamentally rethink their digital
tions fundamentally transforming several differ- offerings. Certain trends are interesting to
ent industries and ways of working. From a highlight driven by the technology, smart
consumer perspective, technology has left phone and mobile revolution. Google re-
its mark on every facet of our life—from how cently posted an analysis, that the internet is
we socialize and interact, to how we travel, clogged up early at 8am in the mornings be-
how we earn, and how we pay for grocer- cause millions of Indians are logging on for
ies (for that matter even how groceries are the first time to greet their loved ones, family
delivered). and friend a very good morning. Other plat-
In India specifically, on many dimensions, forms quickly took advantage of the phe-
the country is well on its way to becoming
a digitally tech-enabled advanced country.
From daily consumer impacting actions - the
surge of PayTM users (300M registered and
120M active users in 2018) and transactions
(gross transaction value quadrupled to $20B
between 2017 and 2018) due to demonetiza-
tion, the use of data and analytics to drive
targeted outreach during the 2019 National
elections. To bigger government mandated/
funded growth platforms – where the num-
ber of bank accounts linked to Aadhaar grew
from 60 million in 2014, to 400 million in
2017, to more than double YoY growth in
2018 to 900+ million. Another example is the
Goods and Services Tax Network, established
in 2013, that brings 10+ million indirect trans-
actions of tax-paying businesses onto a sin-
gle digital platform, a “digital powerhouse”,
creating a huge incentive for businesses to
digitize their operations. The growth across
all dimensions has been spectacular. From a
consumer perspective, the “tech savviness”,
further propelled by the falling cost and ris-
ing availability of smartphones is a big driv-
ing factor. Having the second largest digital
consumer base, large millennial population
willing to experiment and try new things,
high-speed connectivity further helps.

tehelka / 15 June 2019 40 www.tehelka.com