DSIJ 150 Wealth-Creators

Joydeep R Ray and Karan Bhojwani sniff around a number of large conglomerates operating in India to understand how they have been creating wealth while facing business threats from unexpected quarters in these days of tech evolutions. While they figure out the imminent threats, they also find spirit of India Inc. remains unputdownable. Meanwhile, Lohit Bharambe and Abhishek Kumar speak to almost two dozens of captains of the country's various industries.

One of the most prominent faces of India's pharmaceutical industry, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairman & Managing Director of Biocon, spends a significant chunk of her daily schedule to monitor technological evolutions within her company. Looking at the recent happenings around the world which have not only cut the business calendars shorter, brought unexpected challenges from not-so-much known quarters, she believes technological disruptions can only be negated with the help of innovations and technological advancements.

This has become a regular practice in Biocon's campuses as Shaw believes to create wealth, companies like Biocon must increase their R&D spends. Talking to DSIJ exclusively, the captain of Biocon said, "In today's world, technology is playing a transformational role in enabling innovation, and driving change. Information technology, communication technology and biotechnology are rapidly and disruptively changing the way we communicate, educate, medicate and eradicate."

Then comes this more human story when Lata, a mother of two, a working woman proficient in the advertising field, needed to take her children to an animated movie on their special day i.e. birthday, because of her busy schedule she forgot to go to silver screen corridor to book tickets. However, an hour prior to the show, she managed to book the tickets, but not by going to cinema hall personally, but rather through an application in only a solitary snap.

The above cases are only a couple of instances which show how technological advances in the last 4-5 years have changed the lives of people and also the way companies operate. Other than these changes in our personal lives, technology has also changed the face and the pace of how we do business. Business processes have been modified and organisations are now working much more efficiently than ever. At the same time, technology has opened a new way of communication, allowing businesses to communicate and collaborate beyond borders. Then comes a set of fresh challenges too.

Prabal Basu, Chairman & Managing Director of Balmer Lawrie & Co believes spending on technology means spending on the key process of creating wealth. While interacting with DSIJ during an exclusive encounter, Basu said, "We have been and will continue to invest more and more in R&D and technology to drive competitive advantage for us in the market place. It is impossible to attain long-term business success without leveraging the benefits of technology."

Take the case of Mukesh Ambani promoted Reliance Jio. Reliance Jio has brought a kind of revolution in India's telecom sector. Beginning from its free sim card offering and free data usage, it has enabled the Indian customers to experience the 4G data usage. In the month of September 2016, Mukesh Ambani announced the hotlyanticipated launch of Reliance Jio Infocomm's services, outlining a strategy that promised to transform India's telecom business by offering free voice calls and mobile internet alongside an extensive variety of entertainment option.

Working on the fundamentals of being truly digital, the Jio connection, according to officials, takes 15 minutes to activate, with a Jio PoS application given to merchants for faster sales. Besides, officials say that more than 90 per cent of connections given are through biometric verifications.

Even the banking sector is now bringing in new technologies to ensure continuation of its process in terms of creating wealth even in future as the business cycles getting shorter and disruptions in the shape of unexpected competitions are arriving from unexpected competitors. Indian bankers are now opening the door to Blockchain. Sanjay Sharma, Head of Technology in RBL Bank said, "Banks are the ones who are exploring new areas and new products using new emerging technologies. RBL Bank is using technology that emphasises on Blockchain, remittance products and one that is useful for improving supply chain. We are the first bank to launch open banking and API banking." While taking a note that technology has been leading to further expenses by entities like RBL Bank but also helping them to garner wealth thus benefitting the retail investors and customers, Sharma said, "As we go forward, the spending percentage for technology will keep growing in future."

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In the last couple of years or so, the world has seen a gigantic turnaround in the way people transfer money, make payments, etc. The payment system and banking has changed from the old school conventional technique to wallet and portable application method. Be that as it may, the innovation progression has not ceased here as innovation is known for its consistent advancement of process, the banking and the whole payment system is now approaching towards a major inflection point.

The introduction of BlockChain technology is emerging as a potentially disruptive force capable of transforming the financial services industry by making transaction faster, cheaper, more secure and transparent.Changes are there in other sectors also. One of the highest rated airlines, Air Vistara since its birth has been emphasising more and more on being technologically armed on the wake of unknown threats when it comes to doing business. Ravinder Pal Singh, Head of IT & Innovation at Air Vistara told DSIJ, "Vistara is India's first airline that is born on Cloud. We invest in commodity platforms with equal zeal as in open source platforms, depending on the specific requirements. Vistara's core values include thoughtfulness and innovation."

So doing business is now changing fast. The companies need to return invested amount to their stake-holders, the companies which are listed on the bourses also need to keep their retail investors happy so that they can keep coming back to them for raising capital as and when needed. During the process, companies are leaning more and more on newer tech options which will move things faster and better. Research Director of Gartner, D D Mishra has been observing the developments very closely.

He talks about arrival of smart machines while adding smart machines will continue to grow. "Another important area which is emerging-digital twins. A digital twin is a dynamic software model of a physical thing or system that relies on sensor data to understand the state of the thing or system, respond to changes, improve operations and add value," Mishra said.

Is India ready to face the new challenges, are our companies enough armed to face the threats, newer competitions, challenges—Adi Godrej, Chairman of multi-diversified Godrej Group says, "I feel industries in India are adapting fast to adopt new technologies to improve business performance. I see the role of technology increasing considerably across businesses in the future as it enables efficiency and increased productivity."

Founder of e-commerce platform, Shopclues, Sandeep Aggarwal believes the government should also step in helping the companies in such cases of battling the challenges out. "Of all issues, e-infrastructure issues are daunting as this requires the government to step in. Internet being the very backbone of e-commerce, it has become one of the major hindrances for the growth of e-commerce in India with a dismally low internet penetration. Similarly lack of technical knowledge and online awareness simply add to the woes of the segment," Aggarwal opined.

As we speak to more and more companies operating in India, mostly the listed ones, we smell one thing very strongly that on the wake of recent threats, India Inc. slowly but steadily has been gearing up to handle such issues. Indeed technology is changing the way we consume services or products, but the companies are also changing fast smartly and using technology only to negate these threats while also keeping focus on wealth creation.

Best summed up by Ashish Kumar Chauhan, CEO of Bombay Stock Exchange. "It is all about technology. Because of tech advancements, we are doing extremely well. Regular monitoring of tech related issues, giving clients legitimate advantages due to advancing technologies, making deals faster, resolving accounts faster—all these are actually helping us to create wealth end of the day." Chauhan concluded.

(With inputs from Avalokita Pande and Nikita Singh)