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Riding the tech wave: Industry leaders show the way to navigate the connected world

The two-day Infocom 2015 summit in Delhi is exploring the dynamics of building empowered businesses in a digital ecosystem, along with the challenges and adaptations required

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Riding the tech wave: Industry leaders show the way to navigate the connected world

Riding the tech wave: Industry leaders show the way to navigate the connected world

The two-day Infocom 2015 summit in Delhi is exploring the dynamics of building empowered businesses in a digital ecosystem, along with the challenges and adaptations required

Shanta Saikia | Delhi | July 17, 2015

(L-R) DD Purkayastha, Kiran Karnik, RS Sharma at the inauguration of INFOCOM15 (L-R) DD Purkayastha, Kiran Karnik, RS Sharma at the inauguration of INFOCOM15

The 13th edition of Infocom got underway in Delhi on July 16, 2015. An initiative of the ABP Group, Infocom today has become a leading business, technology and leadership conference.

Being held over two days, July 16 and 17, the Delhi Chapter of Infocom has the theme of 'Connected World',  showcasing technologies that are reinventing mobility, fueling smarter cities, redefining health care and smart living, smart transportation ecosystem, along with the dynamics of building empowered business in India.

Impact on digital economy

Industry leaders such as Vikram Sakhuja, Media and Marketing Professional; Ashok Venkatramani, CEO, ABP News; and Kishore Asrani, Chief Executive Officer - N&E, Airtel Business, shared their views on 'Connected World – Impact on Digital Economy'. The session was moderated by Hidol Sengupta, Editor-at-Large, Fortune India.

Throwing light on what the marketing plan for a connected ecosystem entailed, Sakhuja said that the key features included bringing in Internet-based deliverables, improving cross-media reach, making the shift from copy to content strategy, adopting an always on search and listening attitude, developing e-commerce capability and devising ways to collect and analyse consumer data.

Ashok Venkatramani Ashok Venkatramani

Speaking on how connectivity is going to impact us, Ashok Venkatramani pointed out that media consumption devices were changing and that the information flow was no longer about one to many, but many rolling into one. With the growing penetration of smartphones, mobile is becoming a preferred choice to consumer content. He noted that consumption of news content is no longer through the tradition medium.

Commenting on what these changes meant for organisations, Venkatramani said that today it had become imperative to know about one's consumers or viewers. Services like Google Fiber offered the facility to have targeted TV advertising. He considered the launch of Reliance Jio, which was expected by the end of this year, to usher in targeted advertising in India. “We can't any more sell audiences, we sell profiles,” he remarked.

Speaking further he said, that today anybody could be a content creator. News content was no longer the sole prerogative of a journalist and the concept of breaking new was becoming redundant. He stressed on the need to crack the formula of what could become viral.

The other features, according to Venkatramani, were consumers' demand for uninterrupted content, growing use of in-content branding and branded entertainment, and the need to be present where the consumer was engaged.

Kishore Asrani Kishore Asrani

Meanwhile, commenting on the mobile phone population in India, Kishore Asrani pointed out that there were 700 million active SIMs in India, and a very large portion of this population used only voice calls. According to him, 12 per cent of the population used smartphones, but this segment was growing at a phenomenal rate and he envisaged that in the next 5-7 years, 65-75 per cent of India's population would be carrying a smartphone.

He pointed out that voice calls were flattening out and added that in five years' time, voice calls could actually be a free service. “People would pay for using the data,” he said, adding “Technology is becoming very disruptive.”

Vikram-Sakhuja Vikram Sakhuja

Here, Sakhuja noted, “Technology allows customisation, the challenge lies in building the operational efficiencies.”

Asrani also saw certain challenges for companies building efficiencies using connectivity. These are: Right of way, speed, and high cost of licences.

Fostering the next round of development was the Leadership and Strategy Forum that kick-started with the inspirational Keynote by cricketer Anil Kumble on 'Staying ahead of the Game through Innovation'. Lokendra Pratap Sahi, Senior Editor, The Telegraph, moderated the spotlight session.

Preparing brands for the digital marketplace

When it comes to growing business and brand in a digital marketplace, one cannot afford to fall behind growing business online, generating proper online leads and sales, learning more on digital marketing and speeding up with the social media. Providing similar outlook were industry stalwarts like Mohit Pande, Country Manager, Google for Work India and Sanjay Mehta, Founder and Joint CEO, Social Wavelength (a WPP company), who spoke on 'Is your brand ready for the Digital Marketplace?' Avinash Pandey, Chief Revenue Officer & COO, ABP News, moderated the session.

Commencing the discussions, Avinash Pandey noted that in India, the general thought had been that digital was mostly the concern of the information technology department. “Using the Internet to communicate your brand message is still a long way to go due to in adequate Internet penetration,” he said.

On the other hand, Mohit Pande felt that information technology was becoming more mainstream.

sanjay-mehta-swl Sanjay Mehta

To Pandey's question, “When are you replacing TV?”, Sanjay Mehta replied, “We need to first decide how to use digital – is it just another medium like television or outdoor? I believe, digital is a complete environment in which consumers are living, where a lot of communication and interaction is happening. It will disrupt the way business is being done. We need to carefully consider the consequences of living in this connected world.”

Mohit Pande Mohit Pande

While noting the changes at the workplace, Google's Pande said that mobility and Internet penetration had changed the way people worked today. “We are not a traditional enterprise any more. The 'digital natives' have arrived at the work place, where more and more young people are being hired who are born post the advent of the Internet,” he added.

On how digital businesses were fundamentally different, Pande pointed out that the engagement scale at such businesses was much higher. The other differentiating features included collective intelligence and collaborative mobile and real time processes. For digital businesses, data was at the core while the technology was intuitive, he added.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

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