Tech startups in India

Tech startups in India building resilience amid disruption

by | Feb 27, 2021 | Covid-19, Technology

Tech startups in India have successfully played a pivotal role in healing the economy and reviving hopes.
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Indian tech startups are setting a perfect example of building resilience amidst the crisis. Even though the havoc wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic was unprecedented and resulting in severe pain, it is also true that the outbreak profoundly influenced indigenous innovations, new tech startup ideas, and digital transformation roadmaps in India. (See: Digital transformation deals put IT sector back on track)

When businesses were scrambling to find the best ways to deal with the crisis, Indian tech startups emerged as a force to reckon with. According to a recent Nasscom report, India added a whopping 1600 plus tech startups in 2020 and has become the third-largest tech startup ecosystem in the world after the US and China. 

Ravindra Kumar, IT Delhi Alumni AssociationRavindra Kumar, President, IIT Delhi
Alumni Association

“Fostering entrepreneurship and nurturing tech startups has always been a key priority area for IIT Delhi. We utilize technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI),
blockchain, and cloud to get all our students and alumni together and build a global outreach.”

Rajesh Kumar, Founder CEO of Sabzibhazi.com

“The last few months have been good for our business. As people moved to digital channels for their grocery shopping needs, we got thousands of new customer registrations, and there is substantial revenue flowing in now. We are planning to expand our operations and upgrade our app interface for better positioning.”

Akhilesh Shukla, TechshotsAkhilesh Shukla, Co-Founder and Editor TechShots.

“We saw a significant gap in the Indian news industry, lacking a common tech-news platform for enterprise decision-makers. And that’s how the idea of Techshots was born. Leveraging technology, we are delivering technology news and enabling technology decision-makers to make informed decisions.”

The number of unicorns (those who have a valuation of over $1 billion) is also growing steadily in India. In 2020 alone, 11 startups from India joined the unicorn club, which boasts of Paytm, Ola, Zomato, Cars 24, and 34 others.

The above figures are intriguing and contrary to the early fears raised by several industry observers. The Indian startup ecosystem was projected for a steep decline by many in March 2020 due to the Covid-induced bedbound economic environment. Technology interventions and innovative ideas played a pivotal role in resuscitating the growth path. (See: How is digital transformation shaping the new future?)

Turning the crisis into opportunity

When millions of citizens were confined to their homes, the rise of digital technologies created fresh opportunities. These technologies enabled people to do things efficiently and in a cost-effective way. Had it not been for the role of IT and tech startups in India, the impact of the crisis could have been more upsetting!

Amidst the widespread uncertainty and social distancing measures, the dependencies on digital solutions grew enormously. Whether it is healthcare consultation, retail, astrology, education, grocery supply, or entertainment, technology kept the economy running and helped us adapt to the new normal.

If Indian tech startups such as Byju, UpGrad, and Unacademy excelled in transforming the education and learning delivery, location surveillance apps such as Unmaze, Aarogya Setu, and Sahyog kept the COVID-19 virus in check. India also witnessed a massive surge in fintech and health startups as the demand for their services, such as contactless payments and telemedicine, grew much faster.

News aggregators such as InShorts, Dailyhunt, and TechShots have gained significant traction as people continue to switch to their personal mobile devices for real-time information and news.

Some of the new habits that people learned during the pandemic are likely to remain permanent, and this compelled many entrepreneurs to launch niche and specialized services. “Media consumption habits are changing quickly. Most consumers now prefer to receive their daily dose of news bulletin digitally in a crisp format. During the COVID-19 crisis, this demand reached a record level. We saw a significant gap in the Indian news industry, lacking a common tech-news platform for enterprise decision-makers. And that’s how the idea of TechShots was born. Leveraging technology, we are delivering technology news and enabling technology decision-makers to make informed decisions,” said Akhilesh Shukla, Co-Founder and Editor TechShots.

With quarantine and lockdown rules forced consumers to stay indoors, online grocery delivery demand witnessed a massive rise throughout 2020. Along with established online grocery suppliers such as Big Basket, Grofers, and Amazon, agritech startups such as Otipy, Sabzibhazi, Freshokartz, Agrowave, among others, also made their presence felt.

“I started Sabzibhazi in 2019. When I first launched this company with my meager savings in 2019, it didn’t do well. The idea was to provide the freshest produce at a reasonable price using a new-age tech platform. Even though we did much research, but there were still no customers. It was a tough time. We didn’t go for fundraising as we didn’t want to be answerable to anyone. Moreover, we were not sure if we would get that much attention from venture capitalists,” says Rajesh Kumar Pandit, Founder CEO of Sabzibhazi.com, a South Delhi-based digital farm-to kitchen service provider.

Things changed quickly for Rajesh when India announced nationwide lockdowns. Many established players failed to meet the unprecedented surge in demand for online fresh produce. “The last few months have been good for our business. As people moved to digital channels for their grocery shopping needs, we got thousands of new customer registrations, and there is substantial revenue flowing in now. We are planning to expand our operations and upgrade our app interface,” an enthusiastic Kumar adds.

In the healthcare space, startups like Pharmeasy, CureFit, and EyeNetra attracted massive investors’ interest.

Innovative ideas fueling startups

Besides the above, innovative virtual event platforms Airmeet also garnered significant attention from enterprises. Businesses took their services for hosting various internal workshops, panel discussions, and customer events in a setting where physical events are restricted.

There are also pure-play data analytics firms such as Mu Sigma, which are growing exponentially. 

The tech startup culture in India is equally supported by the government and premier institutes like IIT. The Indian government has taken several initiatives recently to help the local startup ecosystem grow. Under the AatmaNirbhar Bharat vision, the government has eased regulations, announced tax exemptions, and set up a Rs 10,000 crore fund exclusively for startups.

“Fostering entrepreneurship and nurturing tech startups has always been a key priority area for IIT Delhi. We utilize technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and cloud to get all our students and alumni together and build a global outreach,” said Ravindra Kumar, President, IIT Delhi Alumni Association, in an earlier interaction with Better World. (See: IIT Delhi can help develop an Indian equivalent of Google or Facebook).

The year also saw spectacular ideas such as anti-viral t-shirts and COVID-19 protective lotions unveiled by E-TEX and Clensta, two startups incubated at IIT Delhi.

Another startup that caught our attention was ATAI Labs; an applied AI company launched recently. The startup provides AI-based digital transformation solutions for the supply chain and logistics industry, which bring the data center capabilities closer to the source of data and enable AI inferencing, decision making, and analytics at the EDGE.  The 70-employee young Indian startup offers innovative solutions to augment maritime, retail, locomotive, and surveillance capabilities. (See: AI is a must now to speed up digital transformation)

Factors.ai is also an AI-based startup that focuses on providing marketing analytics for entrepreneurs and small-medium businesses. The startup was chosen as one of the 20 firms for the fourth cohort of the Google for Startups (GFS) Accelerator program in India last year.

An equally exciting tech-startup, The Water App, was launched to solve the water crisis in Hyderabad. The company leverages advanced technologies and intelligence to monitor supply chain management of water and deliver clean water at the doorstep.

Final thoughts

Before the pandemic, many enterprises were reluctant to go online entirely. But things changed quite dramatically. Across all sectors, there was no option but to accelerate the digital transformation.

Indian tech startups and IT companies proved that integrating innovations with adaptability models led to new pathways and behavioral models, bringing together enormous resilience and resolve.

At Better World, we believe that this is just the beginning. Indian tech startups not only took risks and found new innovative models but were also instrumental in adding thousands of new jobs at a time when people were losing hopes. In 2021, according to Nasscom, the Indian IT industry (along with the tech startups) is expected to add over 1,38,000 new hires, taking the total employee base in this sector to 4.47 million.

By leveraging technologies such as artificial intelligence, analytics, and cloud-based collaboration tools, these young tech companies will continue to bring the best of the ideas and tools to revive the economy and develop life-enabling solutions.

MORE FROM BETTER WORLD

AWS pumps $2.77 bn in India to retain cloud supremacy

AWS pumps $2.77 bn in India to retain cloud supremacy

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has committed US $2.77 billion (INR 20,761 Crores) to strengthen its cloud infrastructure services in India. Amazon’s cloud computing arm will use this money to launch a new cluster of data centers in Telangana, Hyderabad.

“Happy to announce the largest Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the history of Telangana! After a series of meetings, AWS has finalized an investment of Rs 207.61 bn ($ 2.77 bn) to set up multiple data centers in Telangana. The @AWSCloud Hyderabad Region is expected to be launched by mid-2022,” tweeted Telangana state minister for information technology and industries, KT Rama Rao (KTR).

Within its lexicon, AWS identifies its data centers cluster as Availability Zones. AWS set-up two data centers in Mumbai in 2016. It added another data center in Mumbai last year. Across the Asia Pacific, AWS already has 26 Availability Zones spanning India, Australia, Greater China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore.  

The investment will further enable AWS’s position as a leader in India. AWS currently has around 30% market share of India’s cloud service market, followed by Microsoft’s Azure.

AWS leases server space and bandwidth to enterprises of all sizes with cloud computing capabilities. This allows businesses to accelerate their digital transformation goals without building up their in-house servers or data centers.

Growing cloud services market in India

Over the last few years, Indian enterprises are quickly embracing cloud computing services to upsurge agility, deliver innovations, and modernize their infrastructure. With businesses focusing on well-carved out cloud strategy in the wake of the digital transformation rush, there is a bigger emphasis on getting experts on-board who have the experience to help organizations prepare for a new tomorrow. (See: Bharti Airtel gears up for digital transformation opportunities and IBM to split into two companies for better cloud opportunity)

The pandemic-induced work-from-environment has made the market even more lucrative, and cloud players are taking strong initiatives to strengthen their presence in India. These fast-evolving dynamics have made India one of the biggest and fastest-growing cloud services markets in the Asia Pacific, which is likely to touch $10 billion in another five years. Industry body NASSCOM projects that the market will grow to $7.1 billion by even 2022. (See: Technology trends for businesses in 2020)

The top players dominating the Indian market include Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, Google Cloud, and Nutanix. Amongst all, Amazon and Microsoft are leading the market and intensely vying to be the market leader in India’s cloud services market. While AWS’s position at the top is indisputable, both Azure and Google are growing at a remarkable rate, posing a threat to Amazon’s dominance in the cloud services space.

Early this year, Amazon and Bharti Airtel, India’s leading telecom player, entered into a strategic collaboration to deliver cloud computing solutions to enterprises. The partnership was formed to combat a similar engagement announced by Microsoft and Reliance Jio to provide enterprise cloud solutions powered by Microsoft Azure.

AWS had the first-mover advantage as it started its operations seven years earlier than many of its competitors. It gave Amazon an opportunity to get its offerings tested and make it more functionally rich as compared to the others.

In August 2019, Amazon inaugurated its biggest campus globally in Hyderabad, which supports 15000 employees. Through its AWS Academy and AWS Educate initiatives, AWS has also been providing ready-to-teach curriculum to higher universities in India to upskill local developers, students young IT professionals.

AWS’s client in India includes Ashok Leyland, Aditya Birla Capital, Axis Bank, Bajaj Capital, ClearTax, Dream11, Druva, Edelweiss, Edunext, Extramarks, Freshworks, HDFC Life, Mahindra Electric, Ola, Oyo, Policybazaar, Quantela, RBL Bank, redBus, Sharda University, Swiggy, Tata Sky, YuppTV, Zerodha, and several others.

AWS registered a 29% year-on-year growth in revenue to posting $10.8 billion in revenue in the second quarter of 2020.

 

 

 

RPA-led tools helping enterprises sail safely through a storm

RPA-led tools helping enterprises sail safely through a storm

The unprecedented COVID-19 environment has thrown up several challenges for industries across the globe. The growing distributed workforce environment is pushing businesses to deploy new-age digital operational methodologies to deliver a tailored and personalized experience to their customers.

Amidst the digital transformation wave, a technology that has been swiftly gaining ground worldwide to enable businesses to revolutionize their conventional processes is Robotic Process Automation (RPA). The pandemic has made organizations rethink their operational models and integrate artificial intelligence and automation in their processes to ensure that there is no pause.

Incorporating AI and machine learning capabilities, RPA uses software robots that allow organizations to automate multiple high-volume, repeatable tasks. It includes calculations, approvals, invoice creation, server maintenance, merging data from other sources, and copying and pasting data.

There is a growing emphasis on deploying digital bots to reduce employee workloads and accelerate business transformation. Through the RPA bots, organizations are able to empower their employees to concentrate on productive tasks and respond to new challenges more effectively.

Customer centricity driving new automated models

Business process management solutions are widely adopted to streamline processes and transforming enterprise value propositions. Customer-centricity is a highly discussed subject today across the CXO boardrooms, and businesses are rapidly exploring the best ways to cut down on time lost on repetitive tasks.

By automating a business process, organizations can minimize work as it enables them to provide round the clock support to their clients from the bots.

At Better World, our recent interactions with several technology leaders and senior executives suggest that approximately 15 to 20 percent of all human hours are unexploited across industries due to repetitive tasks. The ratio is even higher in the IT sector, where about 25 percent of working hours are lost due to repetitive transactional tasks. With RPA enabled tools, companies can let employees focus on high-quality tasks with better efficiency and productivity. (See: Anshuman Tiwari, Global Head of Delivery Excellence, DXC Technology)

The RPA workforce comprises different software robot levels, performing monotonous and admin-driven tasks at an exceptional speed with minimal human intervention. Take the case of German automaker Volkswagon in India. Its Indian arm has substantially leveraged the capability of RPA to transform several of its processes. From its finance department to the customer service department, the company has automated over 80 processes successfully through RPA tools. Amongst the highlights, it deployed a bot to help its customer service team fetch real-time data that can be utilized to address customer queries.

A similar case in point is Thomas Cook India, a leading travel management firm. To navigate the lockdown-induced disruption, the company partnered with an RPA solution provider, ‘Automation Anywhere,’ to support its virtual workforce and drive automation in several of its processes.

Sectors such as BFSI, healthcare, and travel are aggressively exploring the best ways to implement software bots to improve their bottom lines and automate back-end operations.

Mushrooming market          

In India, RPA growth has been primarily driven by the need to optimize various back-end processes in accounting, IT operations, and human resource management. Many companies are finding it tough to keep up with the increasing demand for services in an environment filled with anxiety. And this is where technologies like RPA are creating a strong impact.

According to several industry estimates, in the next four years, the RPA market is expected to reach around $80 million in the country, helping organizations manage growth in a sustainable manner. 

The RPA vendors are expanding their presence in India, and 2021 will be a crucial year for this technology to thrive in the domestic market. The industry onlookers expect several rounds of consolidations and collaborations that will strengthen the RPA models in the country.

Besides top vendors like UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, and WorkFusion, several exciting startups are gearing up to make a mark in the RPA space. Most of the vendors are investing heavily in research and development efforts. There is an increased push to launch ready to deploy bot solutions that can quickly take on human-intensive transactional work.

 

 

 

Intel’s AI investments in India have these strategic goals

Intel’s AI investments in India have these strategic goals

Intel is taking strategic steps in the Indian market to build a competitive advantage through artificial intelligence (AI) investments. The US-based semiconductor giant has been taking a holistic approach to developing an AI ecosystem by partnering with several leading academic institutions and governments on national AI programs. The company intends to develop a rich pool of AI talent that can help it achieve greater efficiencies and act as a catalyst to fast-track India’s AI vision.

Artificial intelligence has intrigued everyone with its vast capacity to propel a transformative new world. The concept includes deep learning, machine learning, and predictive analytics technologies that enable organizations to gather more data, analyze it, and automate processes. (See: AI in banking now geared for a takeoff and CIOs to focus on network transformation for business continuity)

Amidst the digital transformation wave, AI holds a huge potential to address several challenges of the Indian economy, comprising, healthcare, disaster management, and smart mobility. (See: AI is a must now to speed up digital transformation)

Taking an all-inclusive AI approach in India

Intel has been at the cutting edge of the AI revolution. As AI is becoming mainstream, it has been widely used in developing technologies and apps in speech recognition, virtual agents, machine learning platforms, cyber defense, biometrics, and facial recognition. (See: India gears up for AI leap in post-Covid-19 era)

With 5G technology at the doorstep, Intel, through its initiatives, preparing coders, data researchers, and analysts for the future of artificial intelligence-based technologies.

More emphasis has been given to increasing the computing power of diverse processors while simplifying their architectures. And none of this can happen without a solid talent pipeline. The company has launched programs such as AI for Youth, an initiative to prepare India’s young talent on AI-skills and Intel AI academy.

Last July, Intel invested US$253.5 million in India’s Reliance Jio platform. It is expected that this investment will support Jio’s future university projects. The next university will likely offer programs about future technologies, such as artificial intelligence, data science, and digital media.

Last month, Intel teamed up with IIIT Hyderabad, the Public Health Foundation of India, and the Telangana government to launch an applied research center in artificial intelligence. AI-powered solutions need significant capacity and power to match application demands. Intel is rapidly developing capabilities to meet the scope of AI’s future workloads.

Thanks to its AI developer education program, Intel has already trained Indian professionals on AI platforms like Machine Learning and Deep Learning. Another key initiative run by the global tech major is “Responsible AI for Youth,” which focuses on promoting artificial intelligence among Indian school students.

Attempt to win the AI race

In the post-COVID-19 world, a robust ecosystem supported by powerful computing capabilities is needed to speed up the technological change in all companies. This is where the technology company like Intel is attempting to make a difference.

Amidst growing digital transformation focus, data analysis, and innovation based on artificial intelligence have been used extensively by India’s growing e-commerce and research sectors. The tools are being rapidly deployed to understand the new digital behavior and demand trends. Besides, manufacturing firms have started to use the benefits of AI tools to control quality, reduce the size of the design team, and build predictive models for supply chains. Then, there is the healthcare sector, where AI-based tools are being used to improve diagnosis, treatment, and patient monitoring. (See: How artificial intelligence is transforming Indian retail sector)

Throughout the world, Intel has been making aggressive investments spanning technology, research and development, and collaborations with enterprises and governments, enabling efficient decision making based on algorithms. Early in May this year, Intel’s funding arm parked aside $500 million for investments in several startups that operate in business data and analytics.

In October this year, Intel purchased SigOpt, a San Francisco-based provider of a cutting-edge platform to optimize Artificial Intelligence (AI) software models at scale. Intel announced its intention to use SigOpt software technologies across Intel Artificial Intelligence hardware products to accelerate, amplify and extend Intel Artificial Intelligence software solution offerings to developers.

Intel’s latest efforts are in line with developing production-ready solutions for various enterprise-wide deployments. The company recently introduced its 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable processors and additions to its hardware and software AI portfolio to help its customers accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics workloads running in the data center, network and intelligent-edge environments.

In 2019, Intel gained over US$3.8 billion through AI-based solutions. With the AI market expected to become worth more than $30 billion in the next 3-4 years, Intel seems to be going in the right direction to capitalize on the opportunity.

Salary hikes at IT firms on cards as COVID disruption eases

Salary hikes at IT firms on cards as COVID disruption eases

Buoyed by the early signs of enormous digital transformation opportunities and demand for cloud-based solutions, salary hikes at IT firms in India appear to be returning ever since the COVID-19 disruption had made an adverse impact.

The COVID-19 led economic slowdown resulted in a monumental setback for many tech companies across the world. Low visibility of revenue growth and market gloom resulting from the pandemic forced India’s IT majors to suspend employee salary increases and promotions earlier this year. The decision was taken to control operational costs and provide business continuity, even during the crisis.

However, with optimism returning to the sector, salary hikes at IT firms, along with promotions across all grades are being considered by top Indian tech majors such as TCS, Infosys, HCL, Wipro, and Tech Mahindra. 

Timeline considered for salary hike at IT firms in India

Company               

Revenue in Rs crore (FY2020)

Current headcount

Salary hike effective from

TCS

1.62 lakh

453,540

1 October 2020

Infosys

93,594

240,208

1 January 2021

HCL

71,265

150,000

1 October 2020 (Junior staff)

1 January 2021

(Senior staff)

Wipro

63,862

180,000

1 December 2020

Tech Mahindra

38,060

125,000

Early 2021

Transitioning to the new normal

At the beginning of the year, most businesses put their energies on deploying a thriving remote work environment and delivering consistent services.  However, beginning in the second quarter, companies have accelerated the implementation of digital transformation solutions and increased spending to meet customer expectations to remain competitive in the current environment.

These evolutionary dynamics are having a positive impact on these tech majors. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was the first Indian IT major to announce a salary increase for its 453,540 employees as of October 1, 2020. Quickly after the nationwide lockdown announcement, TCS rolled-out Secure Borderless Workspaces Framework, which instantly enabled 90% of its employees to work effectively and meet client expectations remotely. TCS’s consolidated revenue from operations for Q2 stood at Rs 40,135 crores, clocking a 3% year-on-year growth.

The IT Major deferred salary increases in April this year to ensure that employees are not laid off.

For over 2,400,000 Infosys employees, salary hikes are expected to stay the same as in previous years. In recent years, Infosys has rapidly increased its digital and cloud capabilities that have helped it reach 2.2% revenue growth year-on-year, even in challenging times. The company is banking big on the large-scale digital transformation deal wins that materialized recently to accomplish higher than the average growth in the upcoming quarters. (See: Infosys buys GuideVision to boost Dx capabilities)

HCL tech joined the list recently by announcing salary hikes for its junior staff from October 2020 and senior staff from January 2021. The company’s net profit stood at Rs 3,142 crore for the September quarter, up 7.4% sequentially, and 18.5% year-on-year.

India’s fourth-largest IT Services provider, Wipro, witnessed a strong second quarter, which resulted in better margins and robust revenue growth. It celebrated the performance by announcing salary increases from December this year for 80% of its 1.85 lakh workforce. Throughout 2020, the company made a significant investment in acquisitions that could lead to substantial gains in the fiscal year 2022. (See: With Encore buy, Wipro eyes DX edge in fintech)

Tech Mahindra has announced that its employees’ salary increases will begin next year on a phased basis. The company states that the hikes for junior-most employees will be implemented first, followed by senior employees.

Big boost from fast-track digital transformation roadmaps

The sudden spike of COVID-19 cases compelled organizations to enforce fully work-from-home environments. To minimize the impact and support customers virtually within the new standard, organizations have stepped up their digital engagement strategies. The pandemic’s complex challenges are placing large and small businesses in a delicate situation that can only be solved by redefining work and developing agile business models.

During COVID-19, organizations’ dependence on digital solutions, has peaked at new heights, and at BM NXT research, we do not see the interest in digital technologies waning even when the pandemic ends. Businesses worldwide are expected to harness digital channels and continue modernizing their IT infrastructure to innovate faster and reimagine the business landscape. (See: AI-driven analytics is CIOs’ mantra in the new normal)

Going ahead, there will be a continuous rise in the adoption of cloud-based solutions and new-age technologies such as machine to machine (M2M),  artificial intelligence, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and data analytics amongst enterprises. Almost every industry and sector will need to identify new seamless digital communication channels to interact with their customers. This will further open up new revenue and growth opportunities for the IT Services firm to help enterprises build their digital resilience for any such future incident.

 

With Encore buy, Wipro eyes DX edge in fintech

With Encore buy, Wipro eyes DX edge in fintech

Indian IT Services major Wipro continues its acquisition run this year to strengthen its digital transformation and cloud capabilities. After acquiring 4 companies earlier this year,  Wipro has now entered into a decisive agreement to buy Encore Theme Technologies, a SaaS and Cloud solutions provider in financial services, for INR 95 crores.

Headquartered in Chennai, Encore Theme implements a broad suite of Trade Finance solutions, developed by Finastra, one of the world’s largest fintechs to bolster digital transformation support for financial institutions across the globe. The purchase will enable Wipro to further fortify its capabilities to modernize the IT and digital infrastructure of financial institutions.

Encore buy

The acquisition of Encore Theme is subject to customary closing conditions and likely to close in the quarter ending December 31, 2020, Wipro mentioned in a statement. This transaction represents Wipro’s fifth buyback this year, with an overall investment of INR 18 bn in purchases in 2020.

Businesses are taking rapid transformation routes toward next-Gen integrated cloud technologies such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things (IoT), and analytics. To successfully overcome the ongoing crisis and emerge stronger in the growing virtual ecosystem, enterprises seek smarter IT environments and accelerating their digital transformation efforts.

IT services companies realize the importance of network transformation-related investments that can help meet growing clients’ needs to construct agile, integrated, and insights-based network architectures. This brings a unique opportunity for the IT Services firm to bring more value to businesses.

Along with Wipro, several other IT Services firms such as Infosys and HCL are on an acquisition spree this year, utilizing their cash reserves to fortify their digital transformation and cloud offerings. (See: Infosys buys GuideVision to boost Dx capabilities)

Supporting networks modernization

Wipro’s aggressive push toward acquisitions is also likely to lead to increased investor confidence in the future. Wipro is now having much more capacity and packaged offerings to deliver its services to enormously investing in IT infrastructure modernization.

This year, Wipro’s notable acquisitions include 4C, IVIA Serviços de Informática Ltd, and Eximus Design. (See: Wipro’s 4C buy to firm up its Europe presence)

Along with the latest Encore buy, Wipro also announced its plan to expand its strategic relationship with IBM to strengthen its Hybrid Cloud Practice. The practice is an initiative led by IBM to support global system integrators and independent software vendors to enable their clients to modernize workloads for any cloud environment.

In its Q2 results announced last month, Wipro posted a 3.2 percent sequential growth in consolidated profits and 3.7 percent QoQ growth in IT services revenue, ahead of the previous industry estimates. The results reflected strong growth across all its verticals.

At BM NXT research, we expect Wipro’s revenues to get a significant boost in the next two to three years because of its strategic investments this year and the organization’s continuous efforts to build capacities for remote working. Wipro, however, will need concrete execution efforts to gain a larger market share than its peers in the industry.

How artificial intelligence is transforming Indian retail sector

How artificial intelligence is transforming Indian retail sector

As the pandemic raged on, enterprises of all scales rushed to accelerate their digital transformation efforts for maintaining business continuity. The retail sector also didn’t escape unscathed and had to take a flurry of measures to remain operational amidst rising discretionary spending by consumers. (See: AI-driven analytics is CIOs’ mantra in the new normal)

The crisis has pushed the retail organizations to take pivotal digital decisions instantly to achieve tangible business results.

One of the technologies that has garnered much attention in these tricky times is Artificial Intelligence (AI). The technology enables organizations to make well-informed data-driven decisions and predict the possible outcome of those decisions.

Translating new normal into a winning position

There is a monumental shift in consumer buying behavior due to COVID-19. Even traditional brick-and-mortar businesses are moving to e-commerce platforms. The pre-COVID online buyers have accelerated their digital shopping by around 50%. Moreover, even a majority of conventional shoppers have moved to virtual shopping to ensure safety and hygiene.

Amidst the unpredictable customer expectations and increased demand for contactless distributions, the Indian retail enterprises are fast-tracking their investments in technologies such as artificial intelligence to translate the new normal into a winning position. With AI-enabled tools and customer-centric chatbots, retail enterprises can obtain valuable insights to predict new business opportunities, identify broken supply chains, and manage customer expectations better. (See: AI is a must now to speed up digital transformation)

According to a Nasscom study, the Indian retail industry is one of the top-five retail markets in the world by economic value and likely to achieve 3X growth and become worth US $1.4 trillion by 2024. NASSCOM further observed that the industry is experiencing a phenomenal transformation due to transitioning consumer behavior, organized retail growth, and multiple global players’ arrival.

Similar sentiments are shared by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), an apex trade association of India, in a recent report. The industry body observed that the Indian retail industry is likely to see a massive transformation technology-led disruptions driven by AI and data-led opportunities.

Besides improved customer experience, the investments in AI-enabled platforms will also be valuable for retailers as it will enable them to deliver new product design ideas and expand their markets.

Leveraging AI to read consumer’s mind

With consumers are moving to digital technologies to shop, they still need the personalized experience to meet their custom needs. AI-enabled tools and technologies are being leveraged by organizations to identify key business and customer trends; ensure hygiene; deliver the goods safely, and conduct 1:1 session with customers.

AI tools also have a great potential to give the decision-makers timely visibility to align their strategic and financial primacies with these predictions.

Some prominent Indian retailers are already forging ahead and deploying the latest tools and AI innovations to navigate the crisis. An example is the Aditya Birla Group, which manages one of the largest Indian clothing retail chains. The group implemented several AI and deep learning solutions amidst the pandemic to keep its workforce safe and ensure hygiene factors at its manufacturing units. The group has a separate data and analytics cell, which focuses on advanced technologies to deliver better efficiency in-house as for customer service excellence.

During the nationwide lockdown, the group refreshed its already proven proprietary AI platform, VEDA (Video Enabled Decision and Alerts), with advanced capabilities to meet the manufacturing units’ needs and offices post COVID. The scalable platform enables Aditya Birla Group to deploy multiple video feeds and apply advanced analytics in real-time to develop meaningful interpretations, notifications, and alerts.

Similarly, online retail players such as Amazon, Big Basket, and Grofers have enhanced their AI-powered chatbots, who act as online experts and provide instant resolution to various transactional and routine queries raised by different consumers. For complicated and specific requests, the question can be re-routed to customer care. This entire approach not only automates the process but also help companies reduce their operational expenses.

Another critical area where analytics can be a crucial enabler is inventory management. By looking at the vast sets of shopper data, retailers can oversee purchase orders, ensure they have enough stock of a particular product, and keep their inventory model agile as per the market demand scenario.

Nevertheless, to climb the AI-maturity ladder, enterprises would need to set-up a conducive framework and need strong collaboration models with subject matter experts to address the evolved customer requirements. (See: Enterprises jump on the AI bandwagon but seat belts are few)

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