“Old economy orderliness has to be adapted to new economy convenience”

With India all set for accelerated digital growth, Sudarshan Banerjee, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Utopeia, writes about the steps the Government and the industry need to take to build an enabling ecosystem for the digital society. 

From a Government point of view, what this economy will need is a creation of bandwidth and penetration across the length and breadth of the country. Secondly, it will need education of a kind that our system doesn’t deliver currently, education for adults who are asked to cope in an ecosystem they are not privy to. Thirdly, a layer of security that ensures every individual’s personal data, hard-earned money is protected in a way they understand in the older, non-digital economy, so that they feel confident about welcoming the changes coming their way. 

In terms of the industry, it is a rapidly growing one, full of two kinds of players – the new ones with their shiny new systems (think mobile wallets), and the old economy players being forced to get in line to operate in the new economy, wherein both their customers and their employees seem to be resisting this sudden change in their business models (think mobile payment gateways of PSU banks). 

The rules of business don’t change with the new developments, consumers are still going to look for engagement, sincerity, trust, and customer-friendliness from them. Whoever manages to adapt the old economy orderliness to new economy convenience will keep winning. A good parallel would be to look at industries like mutual funds and private insurance players who had an almost similar task ahead of them a couple of decades ago. 

Sudarshan Banerjee is part of the esteemed Jury panel of industry thought leaders for the inaugural edition of DIGIXX Awards. DIGIXX 2017, brought by Adgully in association with ad:tech, will be held during the ad:tech conference in Delhi on March 9 and 10.