Actionable Strategies And Best Practices To Tune Your Digital Core For Harvesting The Next Billion

In today’s world, organisations are improving business performance through the increased usage and adoption of digital technologies. In the last decade, a lot of investments have started flowing into digital initiatives across sectors, a trend which has only accelerated in the post-pandemic period.

In a recently concluded roundtable organised by BW Businessworld with some of India’s new-age leaders setting the pace for India’s digital transformation, a wide range of topics were discussed, including challenges faced by organisations in achieving superior CX and UX, innovative use of digital, harnessing data for tangible business outcomes, and upcoming digital priorities.

Key lessons in creating digital platforms:

HCL Technologies Head- India & South Asia (Unica Marketing & Customer Engagement Solutions), Saurabh Kuchhal, highlighted, "A major challenge across verticals and industries is that organisations are looking for technology stacks which will facilitate filling in the silos."

Kuchhal underlined that they aim to increase technological penetration, which has been a major challenge in a typical enterprise setup. He said, “We are trying to work on a technology that can provide a better environment for organisations to work in. We try to work alongside our customers to not just deliver better experiences, but also help them operate in a collaborative environment primarily."

"At the end of the day, a CMO or a CDO will want to see everything coming together on a single dashboard where they can monitor all the spending, and the ROI coming out of it," he added.

Licious, Vice President – Brand, Santosh Hegde, suggested that the way in which his brand operates is very unique. 

He explained, "We are trying to create a new-age purchase environment for consumers who are accustomed to operating in a very traditional space. Customers are used to buying meat in traditional local stores in the physical world, and in our research, we found that the delight and pleasure which consumers derive while consuming meat doesn’t quite hold true for their purchase experience. That was the genesis of this organisation."

Hegde underlined that they try to make the consumer’s buying experience much more comfortable, as it provides solutions for customers to buy meat from the comfort of their living room.

The biggest challenge is to garner the trust of the customer. He underlined, "For those trying our application for the first time, they are not sure how fresh the meat is, as it is being bought online. Hence, everything in our digital ecosystem is built to address such queries."

Hegde commented that they are benchmarked against e-commerce aggregators, food aggregators, etc. He said, "Consumers are already used to high-level expectations while buying products online or receiving their orders within 15 minutes. In CX and UX especially, the lines between the categories in the traditional sense of the definition are blurred, and those are some of the key challenges that we face."     

At Upstox, Senior Director – Marketing, Kunal Bhardwaj, mentioned that apps or brands are no longer seen in isolation. Bhardwaj commented, "One of the biggest challenges is the fact that we are expected to deliver the same kind of output that every other app does."

"When it comes to our category, everything we do is done with keeping the customer at the centre. As our application involves money, and everyone being extremely conscious about their money, our entire infrastructure, including UI/UX, is geared up to answer all the questions, and lead the clients to a quick solution," he added.

Need to ask questions which never existed before:
 
Innovaccer, Director-Marketing, Ashish Dubey highlighted that they are working in the healthcare industry of the United States, predominately, which they are disrupting. Dubey said, "When you disrupt a space, the prospects are limited to what they are getting currently and they expect something extra from you in addition to what they already have.”
 
Dubey said that just creating the website and social-media advertisement campaigns is good but not enough. He commented, "We need to supplement it with thought-leadership events, webinars, and also by roping in industry leaders. That is what we did, and we received good feedback as we were asking questions that had never been asked before."

"We did webinars, fireside chats, research papers, case studies, white papers, ways to propagate best practices, and that’s when a lot of people got interested, and a lot of progression happened," he added.
 
Lockdowns resulted in a major boost for the digital world:

Sharechat, Director of Marketing, Akshat Sahu, underlined that as they are working in the social media space, they are pitted against some of the world’s biggest platforms.

Sahu pointed out, "What makes us unique is the fact that while being benchmarked against international giants; we are trying to solve for India first. Our focus is the next billion internet users who prefer Indic languages. With over 340 million monthly active users across ShareChat & Moj, our platforms are catering specifically to India with our unique features and content."

Like for all online business and platforms, the pandemic proved to be a major booster for Sharechat as well. Sahu explained, "Social media is no longer restricted to Metro & Tier-I cities but is now accessible in all corners of the country."

"We are constantly trying to improve the experience for creators and users. Sharechat was one of the first platforms to introduce the idea of virtual gifting for creators, we launched audio Chatrooms back in 2020, much before International platforms of that nature stepped in India," he added. 

Saurabh Kuchhal explained that it is imperative to get inside the skin of the user. Kuchhal said, "As a tech organisation, we are working with our customers on used cases, including hyper-personalisation—one of the most advanced ways through which brands can tailor their marketing for an individual customer." 

"This is done by creating custom-made targeted experiences through the use of data, analytics, AI, and automation. Through hyper-personalisation, brands can send highly contextualised communications to specific customers at the right place at the right time through the right channel. Implementing this kind of strategy increases customer satisfaction, drives brand loyalty, and increases willingness to spend too," he added.

Consumer comes first, technology second:

Mamaearth, Chief Business Officer, Zairus Master, suggested that he is an ardent believer in following the consumer first and then bringing in technology. One of the major challenges is attribution, which is not possible in just one session, hence following the consumers helps through the journey."

Master commented, "When the customers come from different sources, their needs may be the same. We rely on cookies as of now, but our biggest challenge is bringing all the pieces together."

"We are working hard to figure out new attribution models and are experimenting with some currently.  As of now, we do not have a perfect solution, but that's what we are striving to achieve," he added.

Kunal Bhardwaj mentioned that one of the major challenges at Upstox is translating the customer feedback into actionable insights, as the customer feedback is generally non-linear or statistical.

Need to have access to the right data, at the right time for the right people:

BharatPe, CMO, Parth Joshi, underlined that while dealing with data, it is important to classify, collect, secure, and store data in the right way.

Joshi commented, "For any business, it is important to gather the first-party data, and for that you have to provide real value to your consumers, so that the consumers provide accurate first-party data. The second part is privacy, and the various regulations around it and how do you operate your data machinery to deliver real value while keeping consumer privacy as one of your top priorities."

The ways in which data can be harnessed are limitless. As Joshi mentioned, "If you combine the data that the users submitted themselves with their behavioural data-one can tailor an outcome which is better for the consumer.”

The panellists concluded the roundtable by stating that digital has provided new solutions to problems which did not even exist before, and the prospects in the domain are limitless.