Modi’s Make in India has become the biggest & fastest growing Digital Initiative with more than 2.1 billion impressions on social media. This is initiated by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion initiative. It adds a new member every 3 seconds on facebook & has created a ripple effect across all the digital platforms. It has more than 3 million fans on facebook. Twitter has also lakhs of follwers with several lakh views on youtube. The official website has also received millions of page views.
Reliance Retail has launched Reliancefreshdirect.com which will sell fruits, dairy products, vegetables & others in select Mumbai neighbourhoods like South Mumbai, navi Mumbai & Thane. With E-commerce booming in India, Reliance retail’s step shows the emphasis Reliance is having on eCommerce.
This would offer direct delivery to customers along with ease of buying, convenience & great products/services easily. Localbanya.com, bigbasket.com & others are some of the competitors for the reliance venture. All the products available in Reliance Mart & Reliance Fresh would be available through the site.
With higher levels of Smartphone Penetration in India in the recent years, M Governance will play a critical role in connecting the Govt. with the public. Thanks to higher broadband speed, public are able to access internet on the go. Several state govt’s already have apps to which provide a variety of services to public. Several central Govt. departments like Railways, Passport & others have very useful mobile apps.
With millions of mobile phones sold every month, the central Govt. should make it mandatory to have all the smartphones with pre installed Govt. mobile apps. The apps should be accessible across all the mobile platforms like Blackberry, android, windows & others. Also the Govt. apps should be available even on the low speed internet. This would help people in the rural areas where there is problem with high speed internet.
The astounding role of social media in the recent elections has also prompted the state Govt. to connect with the public socially. Social Media & Mobile will help in providing better governance. All the mobile play stores should have a government category with various Central & state Govt. apps.
Indian Railways has launched their official android App on Google Play Store called IRCTC Connect. Users can use their existing login details to login & book tickets, cancel tickets, search & other activities on the app. This is a good move by the Railways as a large number of people have android smartphones & wiil increase the usage of the app. Earlier it was available for Blackberry app store. Going by the screenshots of the app, a right combination of color, navigation has been used in the app.
IBM SmartCamp is a competition for startups by IBM. It is India`s first competition for B2B startup. Winners will walk away with mentoring services, access to industry experts & partnership opportunities with IBM. 30 Startups would be short-listed & 10 winners would be announced. Healthcare, water management, energy resources, Supply chain & others are some of the top areas which are witnessing a slew of startups.
Indian Start-up scene has a witnessed a tremendous change over the last decade. India with its vast population, large area & new challenges to tackle is providing entrepreneurs a great opportunity to go for startups. This is also attracting global VC’s who are investing in Indian startups. This shows the confidence of the VC’s in Indian economy. Startups do have a lot of challenges in terms of infrastructure, capital, human resources & others. Govt agencies, Mentors, VC’s & tech companies are helping the startups in overcoming these challenges.
Digital Advertising in India, a report, has been published by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International. Some of the findings are
1) The Online advt market in India is projected to reach Rs 3,575 crore by Mar 2015. This corresponds to YOY growth of 30%
2) Search and Display are the top two contributors to Digital Advt spends in India
3) Search ads constitute 38%, Display ads 29% and Social Media contributing 13% of overall Digital Spends
4) Advt spends on Mobile Devices are growing at a CAGR of 43% and Social Media at a CAGR of 41% y-o-y
5) E-Commerce, Telecom and FMCG & Consumer durables are the top 3 verticals spending on Digital Advt in India.
