Going the Digital Way

Ritesh Ashar

Needless to say, technology has always given infinite revolutions for humans at every stage. Adapting to the changing technology has now become very important for all the business units in order to strike the competitive edge. Amidst this competition, we have also witnessed business that lately have adapted to this change. No doubt that this change will only bring a positive affirmation to success, it is imperative too, to understand the impact that it has on every single step.
If one looks at the investment industry gone are the days when you had to visit your stock broker or mutual fund agent at their office. Digital platforms and mobile apps are the new thing among young India. Demat accounts are getting opened with click of buttons and a simple process of uploading documents online. Know your customer (KYC) norms fulfillment usually used to take time at the time of opening demat accounts now happens easily in matter of hours through E-KYC process. All it takes is uploading documents online on the portal of the service provider by the customer. Mutual fund investments are done completely online with key statistics and variety of options available. Even trading and investing in stocks has become simple. Service providers are providing online access on their websites and mobile applications through which transactions can be executed on a real time basis. Also data and information is made available online on latest news, company results, buybacks by the service providers which facilitates investors in their decision making process.
Various reports like the capital gains report, demat holdings, etc. is available to investors due to digital platforms. This has benefited both business and investors as overheads and transaction costs have gone down. Investors and public in general would do well if they associate with brands and businesses who are apt at adopting the digital platforms for their service offerings as it would lead to convenience, speed and cost savings.
Many new technologies like cloud services, augmented reality, machine learning, big data, Virtual reality etc. has completely changed the way the business and organization runs these days. There are many sectors that have become prone to use the updated technology in their day to day business. Few such sectors include retail, hospitality, financial services, construction, public administration etc.
Indian Government is also supporting digitization in India by measures like a universal biometric identification system (Aadhaar), coupled with the move in July towards to a fully online system of indirect taxation by introducing goods and services tax (GST). With digitization having impact many service providers are turning towards digital platforms to improve their offerings.
The path to digitization started with e commerce platforms like flip kart, snap deal, amazon etc. where people started becoming accommodative to do digital transactions. This was coupled with rise in internet banking in corporate and retail clients which has increased digitization in banking. Nowadays there are digi banks and payment banks which help customers do the entire transactions online. The speed and ease with which customers can transact has led to rise and popularity of these digital offerings. Even credit flow to SME enterprises has increased as previously banks and NBFC’s did not lend without collateral to these enterprises but now due to digital data footprint their creditworthiness can be assessed well and credit is flowing into these SME business enterprises based on the same.Talking of credit there are business and NBFC who have gone entirely digital in their business offerings in terms of various loans to different segments. This is increasing the overall credit flow in the economy thereby boosting consumption and growth.
To conclude going digital in India is important for all as it might be the only way in few years from now.
(The author is Chief Strategy Officer Corporate Communication)

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here