FUTURE SPECIAL ...TECH ADVANTAGE ....FIVE GLOBAL TRENDS INDIA SHOULD FOLLOW

TECH ADVANTAGE   ,,,FIVE GLOBAL TRENDS INDIA SHOULD FOLLOW  These are the mantras for the young — to change themselves and the country B Y Roopa Unnikrishnan     Globally aware young Indians are shifting the country’s future prospects. Check freelancer-sourcing sites like PeoplePerHour, Freelancer.com, or elance. com, and you’ll be inundated with competitively priced bids by qualified Indians for anything from Web and logo development to analytics. The young should consider the following global trends — all providing opportunities for entrepreneurial ventures as well as a great change in India. THE SHARING ECONOMY The Web and attendant technologies have made it possible to take physical products and turn them into services. For example, in the US, websites like RelayRides and GetAround, which are peer-to-peer car rental sites, allow people to hire their neighbours’ cars for any duration. Unused cars are now a service that owners get paid for. What’s interesting about this is that RelayRides doesn’t own any inventory, has a self-renewing supply, can easily expand geographically by adding a few servers and allows the community of users to control quality. While sharing has been part of commerce for ages — remember the lending library — technology and the internet have made sharing of services and physical assets a breeze. Similarly, AirBnB has made it possible to find relatively cheap accommodation in most major cities; Snapgoods lets you rent all kinds of things. The list goes on. The heart of this story is that people are more interested in the use of a product, not the product itself — so selling the use of a product as a service is an emerging priority. And we’ve gone from renting from a company to renting from other consumers. POWER OF MOBILE, ACCESS AND BIG DATA Emerging markets have been among the first adapters of mobile technology, with the news media and banking being the frontrunners in providing mobile services. However, as cheaper smartphones become available, a whole world of opportunities will emerge from the confluence of access, apps and data. In the four years since 2010, look at the time spent by Americans to access the Net on computers versus mobile phones — the time spent on mobile internet has gone up from 24 minutes to 2 hours 24 minutes, while computer access stayed constant at 2 hours 20 minutes. Companies that learn to watch their users’ behaviour and preferences on apps in handheld devices will be wiser about business decisions and will hopefully drive innovation. That’s how companies like Uber, which provides access to an independent list of chauffeur-driven cars, can fluctuate their pricing — as demand rises during rush hour, its “surge pricing” allocates cars to the highest paying customer. RETAIL IS ABOUT STORYTELLING As more and more consumers take their time over purchases — first looking a product up in the computer, then the cellphone and finally walking into a retail store — the job of a business is not just about making a product or a service available. It’s also about providing a consistent experience and storyline across platforms. This is not a simple task, but it is possible if companies focus on the customer. Designing around the customer can drive growth and innovation. Using technology to keep track of customers across platforms can help a company know more about them and maintain their relationship. Apparel superstar Uniqlo is known for trendy, affordable clothes made of highly innovative fabrics. Walk into their New York flagship store, and you will find embedded screens showing you how to wear the clothes, trendy combinations, instructional videos on how to roll up the big jacket into the tiny bag attached (a speciality of Uniqlo). The store is arranged like a website — you are a step away from the next colour, or a similar style, and all store personnel have handhelds so they can order something for you if it’s not on the shop floor. It’s like walking into a website — and the website is like an extension of their store, which makes for a happy customer. HEALTHY BUSINESS While advanced telehealth discussions focus on the sci-fi vision of surgery done across oceans, the true impact has come from work done by Johns Hopkins where expert paediatricians help children in the town of Berlin — children who would be denied care or get delayed care because of the eight-hour round trip can now get cutting-edge therapy. The trick is not in fancy technology, but in ensuring internet connectivity and in training nurses at remote locations. Transformations in health are also being driven in a quiet but persistent way by wearable technologies like Fitbit, Jawbone and NikeFuel band that provide bite-sized info that allow consumers to take decisions about their health. EARNING CURVE The best advertisement for MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) is probably MIT’s 17-year old Mongolian student Battushig Myanganbayar. As a 15-yearold, he enrolled, from his nomadic white felt tent, in MIT’s first MOOC on electronics. As part of the course, he invented a device to warn his 10-year-old sister of oncoming cars and earned the attention of MIT faculty. While not all online education stories are this transformative, multiple new platforms are developed in India as well. These make access to targeted as well as broad capability-building easy and inexpensive. Those who leverage these technologies to develop their talent will find themselves ready for market changes and innovation.     The writer is a US-based innovation and  strategy consultant