The Role of Technology In Driving Entrepreneurship And Growth In India
The massive pool of engineering talent in India has been crucial in the country's emergence as a tech powerhouse. These engineers, who gained a wealth of experience serving the global market for decades, developed a natural appetite for innovation. This gave birth to startups, which were initially focused on providing back-office support, but later, adapted business models and became vertical SaaS companies that were more middle and front-office centric.
Today, growth in India is driven by entrepreneurs focused on delivering innovative tech solutions in fintech, edtech, agritech, sustainability tech, and much more. In fact, the startups of the day have long expanded beyond their traditional areas of expertise and are now strongly backed by venture capital and private equity firms.
The Emergence of New Business Models
The extensive digitization of industries in India has drawn global capability centres (GCCs) here, transforming even sectors like agriculture and housing, traditionally resistant to change. Affordable data and a focused strategy on a comprehensive digital economy have propelled India's exceptional growth. Policies fostering entrepreneurship have created a thriving environment for new businesses. By 2022, over 4,000 startups received financial aid, with total funding reaching approximately 960 crores. A robust data infrastructure supports these innovative business models, previously considered impractical.
● The gig economy in India is thriving, enabling individuals with unique skills to embrace entrepreneurship. The Indian gig workforce, projected to reach an impressive 23.5 million by 2029-30, encompasses freelancers in consulting, coding, research, content creation, and more, transcending traditional employment limitations. Entire project operations, from inception to delivery, are now conducted on gig platforms.
● India is on a journey from being simply data-rich to becoming data-intelligent. To this extent, the data economy has played a crucial role in enabling personalized and data-driven business models. Access to high-quality and reliable data helps entrepreneurs develop intelligent solutions to solve the day's challenges. For instance, with data intelligence, retailers exploring are decoding buying behaviour, headroom potential, wallet share, cart abandonment, and so on. Robo-advisers are using intelligent data analytics to offer personalized investment offerings. Data, in effect, is now empowering companies to target new customers and increase conversion and retention rates, which works towards improving business scalability.
● The platform economy has enabled companies to leverage digital platforms to market their goods and services to a broader-than-ever customer base. In diametric opposition to her Asian counterparts, India is an example of resilience, unfazed by other neighbouring countries busy being either a taker of global norms or excluding the interests of multinational corporations. Home-grown platform ventures in India witnessed massive growth, and several notable examples have even launched initial public offerings (IPOs).
● On the other side, the shared marketplace economy, which allows multiple sellers to offer their products on a single platform, has gained significant traction. Indians today put a higher value on the utility they seek to derive from a product or service they demand over the ownership of it. Moreover, businesses that operate on a shared marketplace are profitable from the get-go as service providers do not have to pay for developing or maintaining the platform they operate on. The auto industry has benefitted greatly from this trend, and players in this sector have experienced significant growth in India's shared economy.
● The Partner Economy is a network of cross-industry partners collaborating to generate solutions, leveraging technological advancements to facilitate new business partnerships. This has resulted in notable enhancements in supply chains across various sectors such as retail, consumer goods, healthcare and media segments. Indian OTT platforms have experienced substantial growth and achievement in recent years, thanks to their diverse content offerings and user-friendly accessibility, which has enabled independent creative artists and talents to launch their series and short films. Additionally, the partner ecosystem has significantly improved procurement cycles in the FMCG sector and consequently increased customer satisfaction.
Driving Innovation: Enabling a New Growth Paradigm in India
Indian start-ups face profitability challenges, but the country's entrepreneurial prowess and innovative business models have created vast opportunities. However, growth without process adherence and guardrails can be challenging. To navigate the evolving technology landscape, start-ups must address data security, privacy concerns, intellectual property rights, and change management while ensuring high ROI.
By prioritizing data protection measures such as informed consent, data minimization, and accountability, Indian businesses can expand while safeguarding customer privacy. The emphasis on developing a digital economy and the supportive environment for entrepreneurship in India provide a silver lining, allowing new businesses to thrive. With effective safeguards and procedures, technology can drive unlimited growth in India's dynamic market.
Author:
By Sumit Mehra, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer - Tredence
