Vidhi?Batra
Today, technology has impacted, shaken up and completely changed almost every aspect of our lives. Be it automated alarm clocks that spring us out of our beds in the morning to specialized apps that help you calm yourself back to sleep, inevitably we are all ?wired in?.
In fact, technology is moving at a faster rate than we could ever imagine, and micro-enterprises and start-ups are using these technologies to help catapult them into new markets with new growth opportunities.
Over the past twenty years or so, given the advances in communication and information technology, the business world has been revolutionized with the face and pace of business changing almost beyond recognition.
Almost 80% of companies believe that technology plays an essential part in their plans for growth, helping businesses to up their game and reaching beyond traditional markets to larger audiences through networks.?
In such a scenario, come to look at it, it is not what the newspapers print that matters as much but rather, the critique of the internet community that drives opinions, and forms norms that decides how good your firm really is performing. A community of such active and frequent internet users has led to our transposition from conscious citizens to well-informed ?netizens? in the era of digitization.
A change in the markets
We are experiencing a massive shift from markets to networks, and this is bringing with it a new business orientation that marketers must face if they are to remain important players in the years ahead.
Traditional markets are impersonal, episodic, and the exchange between the seller (brand) and the buyer (consumer) is carried out at arm’s length. All that matters is how much the seller is asking, and how much the buyer is offering. A network, by contrast, is based upon more personalized and enduring relationships between buyers and sellers, which ties them together by more than just price.?
In this case, the Internet has also changed the marketing game by flattening the playing field. Now millions of marketers and consumers can connect and communicate with each other directly in virtual space as digital networks replace the middlemen, wholesalers and retailers.
Most firms are opting for both formal and informal marketing techniques to disseminate relevant information through different online platforms offered by adopting social media outreach campaigns, content marketing strategies and email marketing at a minimal entry cost.?
The success of a marketing strategy or the goodwill of the firm as a whole depends on the number of likes, comments, shares, ratings and retweets on their posts, which affects not just sales but also determines the market standing of the firm. In fact, this transparency offered by online marketing has aided both firms and customers mutually.
The same technology that has made the customer faceless also offers firms more information about them than they?ve ever had access to. Computer cookies give brands feedback on the important things about their customers ? what interests them, disinterests them, whether it is price, size or colour; and allows them to continually learn, adapt and tailor their content to make it lucrative for audiences both at home and away.
The mobile economy
India accounts for 10% of global smartphone sales. With 20% of mobile phone subscribers worldwide and 500 million new smartphone users predicted to join the ranks in the next few years.
India is one of the fastest-growing mobile markets, second only to China. With mobile app creators looking to India as a booming market, the availability of content in regional languages by them is accelerating consumption of mobile internet in India.?
Today, connections across such apps without restriction of borders, have given rise to an independent economy of its own. Views of the majority affect staple investment decisions by bringing in new investors into the market owing to ease of investment opportunities, just at the click of a few buttons.
The Demonetisation of Indian currency back in 2016 has created ripple effects till date that have kick-started the journey of digital finance in the country. Be it instant payments through e-wallets or OTPs that make the transaction process fast and secure, the popularity of such apps among people have initiated others to readily switch to mobile solutions for their everyday requirements.
Opinions have always shaped the consumer strategies adopted by brands for commercial sales and even investment markets. With digitisation, such opinions have become easily spread and as a result, influenced by those of others, making conditions extremely turbulent.
The growing community of netizens globally, and specially in India has required firms to cater to the internet as the primary channel of business, as present-day consumers are better informed, open to a variety of options and looking for greater ease in such processes.
Views are personal
