General

When will Digital Days in India

Digitalisation is evolving Indian economy and how rapidly! The term digitalisation has been viral among all Indians. What is hot digital seems to be changing rapidly? If smartphone and internet usage statistics are to be believed, India is quickly becoming a digital-first nation where the adoption levels towards new trends are much higher. User attention these days is rapidly shifting and new, lucrative routes towards using digital are building up. In times like these where opportunities for digital success are in abundance, the need to constantly evolve or provide value has become vital for organisations.

Recent years have been the years of fresh methods to showcase content. The seamless integration of interactive technology such as Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), wearables, live streaming, drones, GoPro has been promising innovations that have been much spoken.

Digitising India:

India vision of digitising is one of the most exciting initiatives the country has embraced to leapfrog us to the 21^st century. What was once a visionary notion is now the new normal: technology is really as essential as the three utilities: water, gas, and electricity. Our government leaders have made it clear that broadband highways are as important as national highways. Through the government’s Digital India program, infrastructure will be offered as a utility to every citizen, governance and services will be on demand and citizens will be digitally empowered. It is this Digital India vision that inspired us to unveil our Cisco Smart City today.

Digital Indian: New vision:

The government’s digitizing India vision has been designed around three core areas:

• Digital infrastructure for every citizen of India, with an aim to drive the enablement of urban and rural digital infrastructure primarily to provide e-governance m-Governance to citizens.
• Digital infrastructure for every citizen of India, with an aim to drive the enablement of urban and rural digital infrastructure primarily to provide e-Governance, m-Governance to citizens.
• Digital empowerment of citizens, with the goal to address the current gap between the digital “haves “and “have-nots“ by developing skills and capacities of not only the citizens but also of the government agencies and employees at large.

Innovative Business Segment through Digital:

Increasing digitalization will have numerous benefits for businesses in India, including reducing costs, improving efficiency, and, very critically, allowing for more effective customer engagement. Multi-National Companies that have a digital customer engagement strategy in place today will be better suited to outperform the competition and succeed in the complex Indian market.

Below are two tactics that helped companies improve customer engagement through digital channels:

Mobile-first strategy:

India is a heterogeneous, fragmented, and extremely complex market, which increases companies’ cost of doing business. Managers struggle with enhancing their companies’ bottom-line growth and increasing their ROI in India. To overcome these challenges, many organizations have started using a digital strategy. More importantly, because of the central role of mobile phones in increasing digital connectivity most successful strategies involve a mobile-first approach.

Indians expend disproportionately more time-consuming information through their mobile phones than through traditional media such as television or print. This makes mobile-based digital marketing extremely effective in attracting new customers; it’s relatively low-cost with a wider reach. Companies that highlight developing ads for online platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Hotstar over more traditional marketing channels will see better returns on their marketing investment in India. This does not say the two are mutually exclusive; instead, multinationals should consider first developing content for mobile marketing campaigns that they can later adjust to better fit traditional channels.

Segment online customers:

Gathering insights on customer behavior and buying habits while incredibly useful is an expensive exercise in India due to the historic lack of data. Though, as connectivity rises and customers become more tech-savvy, companies will be able to capture customer insight at lower cost through their digital marketing efforts.

Even as collecting information becomes easier, the companies that effectively integrate this customer insight into their strategy will be better suited for success in the Indian market. Multi-National Companies should segment their online customers based on buying habits using the customer insight available. This insight and segmentation allow companies to understand their customers, evaluate the effectiveness of their campaigns, and tailor their demand generation and customer service efforts accordingly.

The way forward:

 Managers should use the above two tactics as they develop their customer engagement strategy for India. A strong digital strategy is imperative as executives look to capitalize on the benefits of increased connectivity and a fast-evolving digital landscape in India.

India has been undergoing rapid strides of progress with an evolving payments landscape, catalyzed by the government’s demonetization decision.

Digital India has attracted the attention of almost everyone, both within the country and abroad. And already have witnessed tremendous growth.