Riding the digital wave

India reappeared on the world stage in the 1990s flexing its new found digital/IT muscles. Within a relatively short span of decade, marquee companies such as Infosys, Cognizant, TCS and Wipro asserted themselves with the new age technology solutions that quickly became lifelines for global Fortune 500 companies. But can we name even one Indian company that is a global benchmark for IT adoption or usage? Not really. What a dichotomy it is. We have made IT a multi-billion dollar industry and evangelised it the world-over but we forgot to seed it in our domestic ecosystems. All our successes were owed to the export route - vending of our IT skills and intellectual capital in the global market.

And so while heavyweight blue-chip Indian tech companies are busy staging digital revolutions in offshore markets, our digital infrastructure back at home remains a crumbling sub-optimal affair: government, civic and public service offices, real estate, land records, public transportation, education and healthcare are just some of the industries that have an opportunity to reinvent themselves and leapfrog years ahead in time if only they are able to embrace digital systems.

Digital has emerged as a buzzword in corporate world. But as conversations on going digital start to increasingly get mainstream and catch momentum, there are questions on how exactly does one go about it? For the digital opportunity, it seems, is riddled with a veritable minefield of dilemmas and challenges.

Dilemmas in going digital
Most of the Indian organisations are still not sure how to go about building a digital portrait. Fact is that there is no magic formula to crack the digital code except a cognizance of the fact that building a digital eco-system is a complex process - one that spans functions and workflows - and requires collaboration among key stakeholders to succeed So, before you/your company embark on a digital journey, a quick self-appraisal is recommended. Start by asking yourself three questions:

1. Do you really buy the digital story or not?

2. Do you have the gumption to bury archaic human intensive business models and processes in the quest for a robust digitisation?

3. Are you content with "Doing just enough" in the digital space?

Apart from the above three self-assessment questions, there are many challenges that tend to overwhelm the digital 'explorer' who had set out to break a new digital ground:

• The googly is in the first step: For most organisations grappling with a digital vision, adhering to a digital strategy proves to be the googly. What should be their first step? Should they pour in large investments and attempt to scale up the digital journey in unrealistic timelines or take the safe, linear route of taking incremental digital steps over a period of time? Invariably, the former approach leads to failures in planning or execution stages causing the organisation to retreat and this dilutes the importance attached to digital mediums over the long-term. With the latter approach often the organisation fails to introduce new-age capabilities in conjunction with its ongoing digital efforts. This makes for a lopsided organisation structure that lacks balance and rhythm as some processes are accelerated but most others remain stuck in a warped time-zone.
• It is a slow to build: It was introduced as an instant media ripe for monetisation in the "classroom / digital workshop" (replete with polished American business case studies) but reality is that building the platform organically can take years.
• Results will take time: A digital business like any other traditional brick and mortar business takes time to establish, stabilise and take-off. Moreover, the success rate of digital businesses is rarely encouraging. Most projects fail to take off or get fold up in early stages of execution. Even when projects gets executed, we find that not all businesses get a magical growth from their digital initiatives.
• Weak ownership of the digital agenda: The problem is exacerbated given that too many or too few owners of a digital initiative invariably spell its doom. An inadequate top management sponsorship and unclear metrics of success add to the digital fog. What is needed is a clear line of leadership empowered to take cross functional and organisation wide decisions to push digital agendas ahead progressively.
• Who is the target: Given the low internet penetration in India not all existing and potential customers will be on the same stages of technology adoption. This then begs a fundamental question - who is the target customer of a digital programme:

(i) Is it the urban, internet-savvy user or the affluent albeit untapped base in Tier-II or Tier-III city, who is an occasional user?

(ii) Who should the business chase after the highest or the lowest common denominator? There is always a fear of addressing one segment at cost of the other.

• Jargon factor: Digital evangelists are hardly making it easier by selling the dream in a language few can understand or relate to. Getting the investor to understand the idea in layman's language possibly crowns the bucket list of woes.
• Cultural shift: Old economy businesses have the added challenge of consciously seeding and nourishing a culture of 'digital thinking' within the organisation.
• It is not just about the technology: Leapfrogging certain areas of the business towards high-end technology while casting aside the interdependent areas such as customer services and operations can miscue a digital ecosystem. The best code, software or solution cannot substitute good old business sense, which is to offer a world-class unified experience across the organisation and customer-facing touch points.

As of date, digital adoption continues to lag in corporate India. The addressable market still remains small, pooling in less than 10 per cent of channel sales making the other 90 per cent offline business a focal area for most brands.

Anisha Motwani
Director, Chief Marketing & Digital Officer, Max Life Insurance