Industrialization and the accelerating pace of change, business models are being reconfigured every day - Steps to create your digital strategy

We have no reasons to doubt that a tremendous opportunity awaits the world- and we can either let the change pass us by, or be that change. Countless industries have been reconfigured as the change around us is accelerating. The industrial revolution began in mid 1700's, that was the key point in time where industrialization and machines started improving productivity - democratizing human activities one by one. The first which comes to mind is travel, followed by many other things including perhaps clothing where we saw the mass production and standardization brought down costs substantially and made it a mainstream technology. I guess the key pillars of breakout were communication followed by steel in late 1800 and electricity in early 1900s - led by edison and tesla. Electricity to my mind was one of the biggest drivers of modern day technological renaissance - we had people working on microcomputers on as early as 1950's - only 40-50 years after electricity was discovered.  One by one the change accelerated - and audio/songs/music was democratized by the radio - you need not be privelleged to hear a popular person sing - now everyone could do it - television democratized video, VCR's democratized on demand entertainment, internet democratized information, telephone, mobile and then the combination of mobile and internet are creating powerful forces that are democratizing a combination of entertainment and information on the go which can be a big driver of productivity improvement. As mobile becomes a more important part of our lives - we will change our lifestyles presented in response to this option available. When radio appeared - we had families huddled together in a room - listening to their favorite program, tv allowed families to get together to watch a particular program together etc. I remember my first TV program was at a neighbor's place in 1985 in Jalandhar city as we did not have a television at home. 1985 is not very far away - only 30 years back. The first VCR seemed like a big advancement in technology etc. However now families have multiple TV's in their homes as viewing choices are so varied. Skip forward to today - my 6 year old daughter searches for "How to make play doh cakes" on youtube on Apple TV and we watch it together on our flat panel television. Internet is bringing about an explosion in information available - and that is leading us to personalize our information (and entertainment by extension) needs. Mobile Internet brings about that personalized information on the go - hence information is truly democratized - i can watch whatever I want, I can listen to whatever I want, I can work search where ever I want, I can take orders where ever I want - all at a very affordable price.

Mobile Internet in India: This is becoming the reality in India slowly - but surely and it will explode in the next 3-4 years for sure. China started rolling out 4G last year - and this year will be a massive rollout for them - and 4G handset prices are expected to reduce dramatically in 2H this year. Hence the ecosystem of faster mobile internet is becoming a lot more affordable - and it will change the people and lifestyles rapidly. In fact in India - where people are first time users of the internet - they will take to it much more readily than anywhere else as it offers to them what they could not do in the past - look at how Indians have embraced the mobile. 

Now the point is - what changes can we see in the marketplace - 

1) Anything offline can be online now - Think of a process - and it can be done online. Online is low cost - and it can aggregate information better - reduce the information asymmetries between multiple parties, cut out the middlemen and make things more efficient. For eg - When my mother goes to buy a banarasi silk saree in a shop - she has no idea of whether the prices offered is geniune, and she needs to trust the shopkeeper for the authenticity - she would haggle with him - get a good deal and be satisfied. However now - she can see the entire range of sarees online - see the pricepoints from someone making this sarees in banaras itself - trust the person because of reviews, get it shipped over and see the material before paying for it. Saree might be a bad example - but it just shows the additional information she has to make the purchase and cut out intermediaries. Ticketing is similar, hotels is similar - look at the amount of information we have to customize our travels. To the point - anything that can be done offline can be done online now. For eg - before mobiles came - a painter in the village worked only for 10 days - as it was through word of mouth. After the mobiles came - everyone could find out his tel no - make a call to him from another village and he could be reached - hence he could now work for 15-20 days now. Online could do this for us - for all commercial vehicles which ply empty one way - could be made efficient - look at www.easyvan.sg.  Maybe part time maids could be found online (www.helpling.com.sg)? Anything which was word of mouth - can now be online - with much better information discovery. Offline to online - increase productivity by better asset utilization - like usage time of the painter, or the commercial vehicle trip, or selling all tickets in the aircraft, or selling as many bus tickets on a particular route, or doctors services etc. The point is - anything done offline can be brought online and it can have real benefits through more information discovery and improving asset/service utilization.

2) Physical goods - Distribution - A whole new distribution system is now being setup - which may erode the distribution advantage that large retailers enjoyed for decades. Now - you need a brand - and become a pure marketing company and still have a crack at tier 3-4 towns. Get it made from a contract manufacturer - put it up on amazon, flipkart and snapdeal and ship through a courier company. What did you need - Capital - not too much. A small time boutique can now have national ambitions - as capital required to do this is not very big. Democratization of business?

3) Entertainment - video in particular - youtube has already shown this to us. Anyone with a decent enough content - can get atleast a thousands of likes on them. Hence internet will be the key medium for niche video production - and people are willing to pay for niche videos which they want to see. How about a bhojpuri talk show, or a cooking channel for gujarati dishes, or even an action channel for mountain hiking etc. Content can be produced by anyone - you can get it together and bring it out in a very cost effective way on the internet. 

4) Creativity - We need to be creative about leveraging internet to increase asset utilization- we need to figure out what matters to consumers, and how it helps them. Airbnb, uber have taken the unused infrastructure in the world and is helping ordinary people to monetize them. We can think about it in the Indian context on what matters to us and deliver it online. 

Hence the key steps from digital strategy are - 

1) Identify the change

2) Identify key areas of engagement and value creation propositions - Maybe 8-10 areas. These should be sizable and game changing propositions, not smallish and very niche opportunities.

3) Set milestones and back them 

4) Execution

5) Purging activities that do not meet milestones but put enhanced focus on activities delivering results

6) Revisit point 2

I believe such framework is required for a digital strategy to be put in place to take advantage of the opportunity that new business models offer.