The change is happening as we speak.
Post pandemic, it is time to relook at the digital opportunity in India.
We are on the cusp of a once-in-a-lifetime transformation of our Nation.
A thread from my conversation with @NandanNilekani on @FoundingF
👇
The change is happening as we speak.
The digital infrastructure in the West was built on advertising. Over 200B$ flows through their digital economy via ads.
In contrast, India’s ad spend is small.
(Digital 3B$. Total 10 B$). Digital consumption, while growing rapidly cannot power the ecosystem.
Covid has brought this digital infrastructure to the fore and now it’s ready for phase2 with auto-debit & embedded lending
The Telcos went into the nooks & corners of the country and activated customers.
This was pre-Aadhaar, with limited trust & lending history, we had no choice but to ask people to pay first.
Trust, Identity and payment layers have been built and digital transaction infrastructure is processing billions of transactions a month.
This will drive a huge cycle of consumption and growth - credit will be frictionless and accessible to everyone.
People would be able to offer their own transaction data through RBI’s account aggregator to access credit facilities.
There’s an ‘India for the World’ opportunity too.
We are already seeing what Indian SaaS companies are doing. Sitting out of India, coding for the world - we have a huge talent & cost arbitrage.
The question is how to make most of it? What should CEOs of large firms do? What should entrepreneurs do? What should the Government do?
Digital can’t be a side project for you anymore. It has to be THE PROJECT.
They had multiple ways to reach & serve the customer.
Restaurants were closed. But McDonalds was still booming. Because they had a drive-thru and home-delivery.
But others like Walmart, Target, and Home Depot did well.
They had figured out various forms of reaching the customer—ecommerce, delivery at home, kerbside pickup, in store pickup, etc.
Companies which had a WFH home policy found it much easier.
Lesson: Don’t be a single trick pony.
Digital is no longer an “option”; digital gives you “optionality”.
There’s 60 years of muscle memory for large firms. And building the digital backbone will need DNA change.
You will have to hire smart entrepreneurs and rethink the entire business model
American - laissez faire, free, open
Chinese - firewalled with domestic champions like Alibaba, Tencent
European - Heavily regulated, small markets
Indian - Open, Large and Inclusive with the India Stack
India already looks like it's more digital savvy than most nations.
The India Stack proved its potential during Covid.
Earlier the collections had leakage and delays.
This makes roads easier to finance and build.
Supreme Court is using AI and neural machine translation to convert legal documents from one language to another.
GST is using AI-driven analytics to identify fake invoices.
It shouldn’t be an “English” internet for premium smartphones.
We have to find ways to serve India 1 & 2 and a large portion of Next Billion Users in their language on their feature phones.
We are already the vaccine capital of the world.
With Apps like CoWin, we can give a QR-coded digital certificate that you’ve been vaccinated.
This will make economic recovery faster.
Govt. has to build the fundamental digital rails - the backbone—inclusively - and let companies use APIs to build on top of that.
Let the companies/startups do the innovation.
‘Make in India’ should become ‘Code in India’
Now that the haze (brought by the pandemic) is clearing, it is time to relook at the India opportunity.
We are the only young country in an ageing world, perhaps one of its kind in the world.
ICYMI: here’s my Annual Trendspotting piece where I discussed the implications of India’s Digital Reset.
https://t.co/C6hl9q9I0x
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I’m torn on how to approach the idea of luck. I’m the first to admit that I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. To be born into a prosperous American family in 1960 with smart parents is to start life on third base. The odds against my very existence are astronomical.
I’ve always felt that the luckiest people I know had a talent for recognizing circumstances, not of their own making, that were conducive to a favorable outcome and their ability to quickly take advantage of them.
In other words, dumb luck was just that, it required no awareness on the person’s part, whereas “smart” luck involved awareness followed by action before the circumstances changed.
So, was I “lucky” to be born when I was—nothing I had any control over—and that I came of age just as huge databases and computers were advancing to the point where I could use those tools to write “What Works on Wall Street?” Absolutely.
Was I lucky to start my stock market investments near the peak of interest rates which allowed me to spend the majority of my adult life in a falling rate environment? Yup.
Ironies of Luck https://t.co/5BPWGbAxFi
— Morgan Housel (@morganhousel) March 14, 2018
"Luck is the flip side of risk. They are mirrored cousins, driven by the same thing: You are one person in a 7 billion player game, and the accidental impact of other people\u2019s actions can be more consequential than your own."
I’ve always felt that the luckiest people I know had a talent for recognizing circumstances, not of their own making, that were conducive to a favorable outcome and their ability to quickly take advantage of them.
In other words, dumb luck was just that, it required no awareness on the person’s part, whereas “smart” luck involved awareness followed by action before the circumstances changed.
So, was I “lucky” to be born when I was—nothing I had any control over—and that I came of age just as huge databases and computers were advancing to the point where I could use those tools to write “What Works on Wall Street?” Absolutely.
Was I lucky to start my stock market investments near the peak of interest rates which allowed me to spend the majority of my adult life in a falling rate environment? Yup.
“We don’t negotiate salaries” is a negotiation tactic.
Always. No, your company is not an exception.
A tactic I don’t appreciate at all because of how unfairly it penalizes low-leverage, junior employees, and those loyal enough not to question it, but that’s negotiation for you after all. Weaponized information asymmetry.
Listen to Aditya
And by the way, you should never be worried that an offer would be withdrawn if you politely negotiate.
I have seen this happen *extremely* rarely, mostly to women, and anyway is a giant red flag. It suggests you probably didn’t want to work there.
You wish there was no negotiating so it would all be more fair? I feel you, but it’s not happening.
Instead, negotiate hard, use your privilege, and then go and share numbers with your underrepresented and underpaid colleagues. […]
Always. No, your company is not an exception.
A tactic I don’t appreciate at all because of how unfairly it penalizes low-leverage, junior employees, and those loyal enough not to question it, but that’s negotiation for you after all. Weaponized information asymmetry.
Listen to Aditya
"we don't negotiate salaries" really means "we'd prefer to negotiate massive signing bonuses and equity grants, but we'll negotiate salary if you REALLY insist" https://t.co/80k7nWAMoK
— Aditya Mukerjee, the Otterrific \U0001f3f3\ufe0f\u200d\U0001f308 (@chimeracoder) December 4, 2018
And by the way, you should never be worried that an offer would be withdrawn if you politely negotiate.
I have seen this happen *extremely* rarely, mostly to women, and anyway is a giant red flag. It suggests you probably didn’t want to work there.
You wish there was no negotiating so it would all be more fair? I feel you, but it’s not happening.
Instead, negotiate hard, use your privilege, and then go and share numbers with your underrepresented and underpaid colleagues. […]
