Global e-commerce sales made through smartphones are expected to cross $638 billion by 2018, according to the joint study brought out by ASSOCHAM and Deloitte.D.S. Rawat, Secretary General ASSOCHAM, said, "E-tailers such as Flipkart, Amazone and Jabong now get 50 per cent of their revenues from consumers shopping on their mobile phones. Predictive analytics is helping the e-tailers to provide better solutions in real-time enabling compelling user experience even on mobile screens".However, while shoppers want real-time, relevant, and personalised information and offers, retailers will need to surround this service with very strong privacy and security. Trust, transparency, and protecting customer information will be critical in retaining loyalty as mobile retailing becomes the norm, noted the joint study.Online commerce companies should enable all features from search-to-purchase on mobile apps, such as facilitating product research, price comparison, view ratings and reviews, and payment.The launch of wearables, such as Google Glass and Apple Watch, opens new opportunities for reaching out to customers. E-tailers would keep an eye on developments in this arena, although it might only be an urban phenomenon at the moment.The e-Marketplaces are growing significantly with the increase in the Internet penetration and Smartphone usage. Internet enabled mobiles are making shopping a unique experience for buyers. e-Marketplaces provide a technology platform for sellers to participate and a trusted environment to scale up rapidly, increase profit and is highly valued by the customers. The non-inventory led B2C model also allows the e-commerce players to provide attractive discounts and offers which are difficult for inventory led brick-and-mortar shops as well as for pure e-Tailers.According to study, global Powers of Retailing 2015,” online marketplaces rather than pure inventory-led companies tend to serve as the primary e-commerce model in Asia. The high costs of holding inventory, poor logistics and supply chain challenges in India are shifting the inventory-led companies and new entrants to adopt marketplace model. Also, e-Marketplaces work well in India due to high fragmentation on supply side.The rise of online sales in the developing markets is encouraging retailers to go online for global expansion. The e-retailers are becoming exclusive partners for different brands. The Chinese Smartphone manufacturer, Xiaomi, entered Indian market through Flipkart e-Marketplace that helped to reach a large customer base in a short time. 43 Similarly, OnePlus teamed up with Amazon India for exclusive partnership.Increasingly, Social media is becoming important for e-commerce players to understand reviews of people on products and services. The e-tailers can check their social media footprint with the number of likes and tweets about the brand and products. Social media provides a platform to directly interact with customers and respond to their queries.E-retailers can promote products as per the trending topics in social media channels. The brand pages can post expert opinions on the products in video or blogs and thus can help in better customer engagement. The social media also provides a suitable platform to perform extensive market research where the e-tailers can recognize changing customer habits, unmet demand, white spaces in market, get early feedback on test advertisements and can gain fast mover advantage.Online retail players have started to use social media analytics. The analytics can be used to mitigate risks and frauds, to know customer lifetime value, customer segments, forecasting and targeting. The analysis of social media data can provide information on product demand, competitors pricing, customers buying behavior, etc. Prior knowledge of this data can significantly help in customization of service offerings and enhancing user experience. Optimized pricing can be done based on price comparison with the competitor’s products and accordingly changes can be done in real-time.Cash on Delivery (CoD) is the most preferred mode of payment in India with 45 per cent of the shoppers using it while 21 per cent shoppers opt for debit cards and another 16 per cent go for credit cards. CoD mode has many issues ranging from high direct and indirect costs, security, or time taken to reverse logistics arising from CoD defaults. More people have banking access due to the financial inclusion project - Jan Dhan Yojna of the government. Digital companies such Paytm, Videocon D2H, and telecom operators such as Airtel, Idea are entering the banking arena with payment bank license. Emerging cashless payment solutions will boost the e-commerce sector.
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If you thought smartphone displays are too small to enjoy videos, then brace yourselves as a new app now enables you to watch YouTube videos on any Android Wear device. An app called Video for Android Wear & YouTube (Yes, that’s the full name) lets users watch videos from YouTube on the tiny displays of their smart watches. It does sounds impractical, but the developers are said to have done a fine job with the app.The app lets you search for videos via voice and gives all the relevant videos in a list. You can play, pause, seek through the videos and even control the volume. However, Android Wear based smart watches do not come with a built-in speaker so one has to connect a speaker wirelessly via Bluetooth to the watch itself and not to the phone. The app also with options to show the video description, suggest relevant and related videos and (ironically) an option to cast or beam videos on to a larger display or to the Chromecast. Doing so makes the smart watch act as a remote. This is probably the only useful feature of this app as you can quickly search and cast videos right from your wrist.The app comes right after Apple announced that its new watchOS 2 for the Apple Watch will support video playback. However, how seamless the experience will be is yet to be seen.
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Enterprises seeking Digital Transformation must create a focused organisation mandated to look for digital opportunities, says Suryaprakash KThe world is growing increasingly digital. With over five billion mobile phone users, and data-traffic from mobile growing at an amazing rate of 26 per cent year-on-year, we are at the inflection point of digital adoption. This tectonic shift in consumer behavior demands businesses to increasingly focus on tapping the potential of this market.Going DigitalAs consumers go digital, markets get disrupted by digital-only startups like Airbnb, Nest, and Uber, who rapidly disrupt large businesses, in remarkably short periods. In order to survive and thrive, enterprises now have to identify digital opportunities through rapid imagination and execute the ideas through resilient execution.Most 'digital-only' businesses have emerged from being garage startups to the most influential businesses worldwide in a matter of few years. These startups leverage social, mobile, local and data to deliver contextual and intuitive experiences. Uber combines mobility and localisation delivering valuable and differentiated service. Emerging areas like IoT (Internet of Things) provide opportunities that were unheard of earlier. The Nest thermostat that connects to the ecosystem to understand the consumer's usage pattern is a unique example of how you can re-imagine a business through Digital. Every enterprise wants to strike the next big idea and spend enormous amount of intellectual capital in ideating the next disruption and antidotes for the current disruption.Ideation is a key ingredient of startups' success, but another key aspect to be considered here is that there isan alarming 93 per cent failure rate in startups. Success of start-ups does not comprise only of one winning idea - it also demandsrapid execution of multiple potential ideas to unearth thatone goldmine - this is theone characteristic large enterprises typically tend to lack and are reluctant to adopt.Even large and successful born-digital firms test innovation, by applying data science, in form and function on a small segment of statistically significant users on an ongoing basis to improve products and services continuously, and then deploy the successful ones to scale.Enterprises must hence focus on quick execution of ideas, in stark contrast tohow they have traditionally operated.They must translate strategy in-to an action plan, pour resources, and investments over complex multi-year transformation programs, and measure success with returns defined in the business plan.However, Digital Transformation movesto a different beat as it is in a space where forces driving the ecosystem are in a state of constant flux. The environment it operates in, the devices on which it works, the winning themes - they could all be redundant in a longer time-to-market.What It Takes To Be Successful In Digital?Successful Digital Transformation projectsare rapidly executed, in a constant state ofimprovisation, and are envisioned ascross-functional, customer-centric user stories. These initiatives are usually self-funding, iterative processesand are not a big-bang change.Digital Transformation spansacross all aspects of the organisation including strategy, marketing structure, and culture. Digital catalyzes reengineering of established businesses, unlockingnovel ways of doing business and newer revenue models.Enterprises seeking Digital Transformation must create a focused organisation mandated to look for digital opportunities. Traditional organizations, encumbered with siloes are rarely able to imagine and executethe big picture of end-customer delight. A dedicated Digital organizationbridges the chasm between market needs and existing structure. The team to manage and execute such initiatives should comprise of personnel who are aware of existing open source tools, designing solutions that are both easy to construct and can elastically expand to enterprise-scale once proven. The talent pool for this skill-set is in short supply and to make up for this, large enterprises adopt an acqui-hire strategy.Executing Digital In SpeedDigital Transformation initiatives begin with identifying a gap andbridging it either by incrementally enhancing existing capabilities, or with a completely new disruptive offering or business model leveraging digital. This involves looking at every touch-point, trying out multiple features on different set of users and continuously improving the product through multiple releases in a single day with agile software development facilitated by digital tools and technologies.DevOpsteams make this happen bycombining development and deployment into a seamless bundle so that nothing breaks as the enterprise embarks on a continuous evolution.At the onset, a broad objective is defined such as "improve the customer onboarding process by 30% through digital tools". Then multiple strategies are identified, and few are shortlisted to be tried. A successful Digital Transformation is fearless, path breaking, and not afraid to disrupt existing businesses.The focus is to execute in sprints with duration of 6 to 8 weeks so thatresults are quickly collected, and interventions that do not work as envisaged are discarded. An initiative can scale up to the entire customer base once it fulfills the strategic objectives laid out.Successful enterprises quickly execute, discard the failures, and evolve iteratively upon successes. This enables enterprises to adapt to the Digital age and unlock newer revenue opportunities, open new markets and delight customers with intuitive experience.The future belongs to enterprises that ride the digital wave. It will be a survival of the nimblest.The author is SVP and Head - Digital at Infosys
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Amazon keeps refreshing its line of Kindle devices, among which the Paperwhite is a good affordable optionHaving given up on ‘real books’ I tend to read on multiple devices. Each instantly syncs to the point where I left off in the book, so I don’t miss anything as I pick up whichever device is handy or convenient at that moment. But there’s nothing to beat the Kindle when I settle down for a good read, avoiding too much eyestrain and using a gadget optimised for reading. Actually, who’s only job is provide a great reading experience.Amazon keeps refreshing its line of Kindle devices, among which the Paperwhite is a good affordable option, specialising as it does in an experience that is as close to paper books as electronics can get.With each refresh, there’s fine-tuning and tweaking rather than the big changes you see from one version of a smartphone to the next. The differences in Kindles are most evident to those who own one and upgrade to the next or to reviewers who are trained to look for these differences. For new buyers, it’s just a better deal.Luckily I had a previous Paperwhite with which to compare the newly released 2015 version. To look at, there’s really very little change and this is unfortunately because the device has had a horribly placed power button on the bottom edge which I’ve always thought very hard to get to. It’s also without some give, so it takes an awkward position and an extra hard press on a small thing to get it to respond. In the more expensive Kindle Voyage, the power button has been beautifully shifted to the back panel just around where your finger will rest as you hold it so that you don’t need to do much to turn it on or off.But for now, on the Paperwhite, it seems we’re stuck with the old power button. And you do need that button more than you think if you like to turn off the screen when you’ve stopped reading for a while. The Kindle has a battery that lasts a purported eight weeks even with the light on, so it won’t suffer too much from being on for a while, but still.What makes the 2015 Paperwhite good to have is that the screen is visibly crisper, brighter, whiter, and better. There’s also a new font, Bookerly, which has been created for the e-reader, and better spacing, better handling of hyphenation, and support for things like drop-caps in the text. Putting the two Paperwhites side by side, I see that the older one does look a lot dimmer at the same screen brightness setting and the text is blockier – not that I mind it terribly the way it was.In daylight and bright light, the two Paperwhites are just a shade different in their own brightness – but of course, the 300ppi Paperwhite 2015 has the advantage of finer looking text in that optimised font.If you already own the previous Paperwhite, I wouldn’t say it’s essential to upgrade to a new one. The differences are nice but don’t redefine what is a pretty good reading experience to begin with. The new Paperwhite is available, of course, on Amazon.in itself, but also 450 other outlets like Croma. It costs Rs 13,999, for the Wi-Fi plus 3G version which is quite a bit when you look at the varying prices of previous versions. You can get EMI options if you need them.The Wi-Fi only version costs Rs 10,999 and has always made more sense to me as this isn’t a device for which you constantly need connectivity on the go. Fill it up with books – which contrary to popular belief are not expensive – and go.
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These days there’s buzz among companies and enterprises to hop on to the Internet of Things ( IoT) bandwagon. Almost every discussion will boil down to focusing on technology and maximising output by embracing IoT. But not many have a clear understanding of what IoT actually is! The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to connected devices and systems that typically gather data via embedded sensors or actuators in machines or other physical objects. The interconnection of these embedded devices is expected to usher in automation in nearly all fields. It is a perfect augmentation of the physical world with its virtual counterpart, making it a perfect connected world.According to an article in Mint (dated 22nd April 2015), the Internet of Things (IoT, or devices connected to the Internet), is poised to be the biggest technological revolution yet, and is expected to create $2.7–6.2 trillion of economic impact globally by 2025. By leveraging IoT, businesses will become more innovative with regards to customer interaction, new business models and dynamic pricing techniques, thereby enhancing and optimising operations through efficiency, quality and safety.IoT in IndiaAccording to Machina Research data IoT in India will account for $10-12 billion by 2020. This will comprise of $194 billion from hardware and $179 billion from software. IoT in India will help in addressing to a range of challenges such as transforming energy bills through smart meters or of smart pills and medicare wearables. The key focus areas for IoT projects will include smart city, smart water, smart environment, smart health (for remote health management), smart agriculture, smart safety, smart supply chain and logistics and smart manufacturing. Also, proposed smart cities and other brownfield projects are likely to offer huge growth opportunities for IoT in India.The Modi-led government is giving special preference to young entrepreneurs adopt updated technologies by initiatives such as setting up Venture Funds specifically directed to support companies in IoT related domains. IoT in Indian ManufacturingPrime Minister Narendra Modi’s has highlighted the need for 'Zero defect, zero effect' slogan for high quality manufacturing in India without impacting the environment. This is India’s first Internet of Things policy published by the department of electronics and information technology. To make manufacturing of such products in India more attractive, the government has established several initiatives such as:o Offer up to 100% duty benefit on imports of raw materials required for manufacturing IoT products.o Reimbursements of excise duty and CST for raw materials purchased from domestic marketo DeitY has invited public opinion on how to improve the draft policy to create ecosystem for IoT industry in the countryThe objective of the government is to create an IoT industry in India worth $15 billion by 2020 and to increase the connected devices from around 200 million to over 2.7 billion by 2020.IOT in Travel & HospitalityWith the growing demand, travel and hospitality industry needs to explore more opportunities and avenues to provide value added services to the customer in addition to making the most of the booming e-tail market. One of the key factors that will enable travel players to differentiate themselves is cutting edge technology that will impact each and every segment of the market. With the penetration of internet and mobile, the way services were delivered and consumed has undergone complete transformation. Consumers are now more informed and are demanding better services and access to information at the touch of a fingertip.The use of IoT will improve everyday travel experience. The concept of 'Personalization' is vital for the T&H industry as it involves understanding the customers' needs, preferences, budget and then offering custom-made packages. This cuts out the need to visit the travel agents office but still retains the human touch to providing the right solution. This allows new age holiday-goers to stay highly connected through mobile devices, tablets and various latest applications which help to search, plan and book their travel itineraries.Analytics on the other hand will enable the service providers to mine this huge data floating in the travel sector, analyse them and deliver solutions based on individual customer’s preferences. This will help travel players to build in loyal data base. Hence, reaffirming that technology is no longer just an enabler but a necessity for the travel and hospitality sector for both, the traveler and the OTAs.IoT in HealthcareAccording to a new report from MarketResearch.com, the healthcare IoT market segment is poised to hit $117 billion by 2020. The growth story of the healthcare industry is also contributed by many non-healthcare enterprises and Technology. Some of the major issues that IoT can help in addressing are optimization of resources, minimization of operational costs and scaling of business across rapidly evolving technology landscape. According to Gartner, Inc. health care providers in India are expected to spend $1.2 billion US Dollars (USD) on IT products and services in 2015, an increase of 7% over 2014. Indian healthcare firms will also be likely to focus on mHealth and remote diagnostics applications. IT outsourcing and business process outsourcing, will be the largest overall spending category through 2019 within the health care providers sector.Practical use cases would be smart prosthetics with tablet interfaces, connected pacemaker that talks to the internet and send encrypted stats to the doctor. Also wearables like Fitbit and Jawbone are allowing to track the fitness activities, blood pressure, caloric consumptions and sleep patterns. Access to such data in real-time has opened the doors to more advanced forms of treatment and care through remote monitoring, telemedicine, etc. In-clinic diagnostic treatment is giving way to virtual consultation, and soon homecare might replace hospital care.It is the day and age of smart, connected devices that offers opportunities for companies to expand operations through enhanced functionality, greater reliability, higher product capacity, and develop practices that transcends traditional methods. As the Modi-led government looks to integrate technology in our day-to-day activities through its ‘Digital India’ and ‘Smart Cities’ campaign, it is anticipated that IoT have a pivotal aspect in years to come and this convergence will open up an all new dimension of services that will improve the quality of life of consumers.Sagar Mody, Technical Architect - Advanced Technologies Group of Blue Star Infotech.
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A digitally connected India will bring "tremendous power" in the hands of citizens by connecting them to the rest of the world, Ratan Tata said on Friday (03 July), lauding the government's 'Digital India' programme. "I'm delighted that the Prime Minister has decided to give so much preference and priority to the fact that India will be a digitised nation," Tata said here at the launch of an initiative to deepen Internet usage among rural women. "Internet will help educate India, will give access to livelihood to many women who do not have a formal livelihood, help reach out commerce to far parts of India," he said. Tata Trusts, chaired by Ratan Tata, has tied up with Google and Intel to help women access the internet in large numbers under this initiative .Called “Internet Saathi”, the programmewill allow rural women and their communities to use the Internet and benefit from it in their daily lives.The initiative will provide basic training on the usage and benefits of Internet for women through specially designed Internet cycle carts which will be used to visit areas in villages where women can easily access and also learn more from the Internet.Built on the back of a cycle, the Cart is modeled on India's traditional distribution system that is used to carry everything from ice-cream to industrial supplies. The initiative will kick off from Gujarat, Rajasthan and Jharkhand and will be rolled out across the country eventually reaching out to over 4500 villages and 5 lakh women and rural communities across rural India over the next eighteen months. The internet Cart would be available in the village for a minimum of two days every week for over a period of four to six months.3-way InitiativeThe initiative will also be supported by Intel who has been a long term partner of Google India’s Helping Women Get Online initiative. “We believe that the vision of Digital India will empower every Indian citizen with equal opportunities irrespective of cast, creed and gender. At Intel we believe that skill development and innovation are imperative for realizing the Digital India vision and we are very proud to collaborate with Google and Tata Trusts on the ‘Helping Women Get Online’ initiative especially as we celebrate the Digital India Week.” said, Debjani Ghosh, Vice President SMG, Managing Director- South Asia, Intel. The three-way initiative comes on the heels of Digital India programme launched on Wednesday by Modi, who pitched for a digital revolution in the country. Modi also exhorted the industry to boost domestic production of electronic devices, which account for second largest imports, under the 'Make in India' programme. Country's top industrial houses have pledged to invest over Rs 4.5 lakh crore under 'Digital India'. Reminiscing how people were forced to wait for up to 10 years to get a phone connection during his childhood, Tata said deeper penetration of the phone has empowered the entire population now. Benefits in terms of finding one's identity, self-respect and access to knowledge because of the phone are "unbelievable", he said. Executives from Google said even though growth in women users is out-pacing that of men in urban areas, women account for only a tenth of the total rural Internet users. Under the "Internet Saathi" programme, 1,000 specially designed bicycles having connected devices will give villagers an experience of Internet over a period of four to six months. The initiative aims to cover 4,500 villages over the next 18 months, starting with Gujarat, Rajasthan and Jharkhand and targets to reach out to about five lakh women.
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At-a-glance banking ease on smartwatches is hereWhen you have banking on the smartphone, it’s only natural that it should make its way over to the smartwatch. India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi made a reference, in his Digital India speech announcing government initiatives, that banks would one day not just be paperless but premise-less. Currency too would shed its paper guise.Choosing “Digital India Week,” the government’s awareness week for planning and kicking off projects, HDFC Bank launched an app for the Apple Watch or its “watchbanking” service. For busy people who are multitasking and in too much of a rush to keep pulling out their phones, the smartwatch will come to the rescue with glanceable information and quick actions. In fact, the Apple Watch hasn’t yet arrived in India and there aren’t even likely to be huge numbers of users for the watch app. But HDFC Bank is pretty clear about being ready for more digital times. “The Apple Watch should be in India very soon now and we’re also waiting for it,” Nitin Chugh, head of Digital Banking at HDFC Bank told me, “When Apple first made their watch we decided right then that we would also be in this space.” Apparently HDFC Bank selected the Apple Watch because they felt it was built “from the ground up” and because it would give their own app a better chance of evolving with a ground-up understanding of what features customers need most. Mala BhargavaThe bank also plans for an Android watch app very soon, which of course is only sensible, Android being the more common platform on mobiles in India.The WatchBanking app will let customers check the status of their account – or accounts, if they have several, make up to 10 transactions, order checkbooks, make bill payments and recharges, request statements, and more banking basics. The app will also tell the user where the nearest ATMs are and allow for a quick reporting of a lost card, without having to key in numbers. The watch app can be launched from the mobile banking app and shares its security framework, according to HDFC Bank which is confident of how securely the watch app will work. The Apple Watch of course, can be passcode or fingerprint-protected and on top of that, there’s a pin the customer can set for the watch app. The watch app is tied to the smartphone and can’t be used independently of it.It was in 2014 that HDFC Bank launched its “Go Digital” campaign, encouraging customers to consider digital ways of accessing their services. And the bank has many other undisclosed digital plans. Nitin Chugh said HDFC Bank believed strongly in moving everything to devices in the near future, including the idea of going paperless.ICICI Bank has launched its apps for both Apple and Android watches in April earlier this year. “iWear” as it is called is available on the stores though it doesn’t enjoy a very high rating. On Android, users have complained about difficulty logging in and alerts saying actions can’t be performed. Users also feel there aren’t enough options though it also allows for bill payments, recharge, account information and basic transactions. Checking the last three transactions and other similar info can be accessed as with the HDFC Bank app. More features are to be added as usage increases.With the digital push in the country, wrist banking has every chance of becoming an everyday thing, just as mobile banking has begun to, for people on the go.
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Australian coffee manufacturer, FreshFood signed a pact with global enterprise software vendor, Ramco Systems to replace its legacy system with a mobile-based postmodern ERP. Ramco’s partner, Megasoft played a vital role in this engagement.Share of Ramco System has seen a 14 per cent jump immediately after the contract has been signed, BSE reported.John Elliott, Business Director – ANZ, FreshFood Management Services Pty. Ltd., said, “Having expanded into multiple facets including manufacturing, trading, marketing, field force integration and distributing coffee in all its forms, we needed a technology partner who can integrate our businesses and power its future growth. In Ramco, we found a platform which is comprehensive and scalable to meet both our current and future business needs.”FreshFood will be implementing a comprehensive ERP suite including finance, supply chain, production, maintenance, sales and shipping, and CRM. Also, it has plans to implement Equipment Rental Management software from Ramco to manage and keep track of large number of coffee machines – rented/leased to business partners.Ramco's end-to-end solution will streamline FreshFood's business functions, and will enable a seamless flow of information, provide much needed process integration, resulting in improved speed of business.Ken Kwek, Finance Head, FreshFood Management Services Pty. Ltd., added, “Ramco ERP will help us reset our processes with best practices, which will then lead to improved efficiency and better operational insights. It will help us move towards dashboards and role-based workspaces, adoption of mobility, flexible advanced reporting, and vastly improved management by exception in real time. We are delighted to begin this journey with Ramco and Megasoft.”Ramco ERP on Cloud as a post-modern and single integrated ERP platform has been delivering significant innovation, cost savings, and superior business processes to organizations, globally. Ramco’s focus on innovations in usability, context-awareness, mobility, overall flexibility, apart from comprehensive set of functionality has enabled smooth transitions possible for customers. Virender Aggarwal, CEO, Ramco Systems, said, "As a relatively new vendor in the market, we beat global brands and are replacing a well-established legacy vendor at FreshFood. With Cloud and postmodern ERP gaining traction, there is a good market opportunity opening up for replacement of legacy systems.”
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