5 verticals driving application economy in India

Sonal Desai

As enterprises turn a new page and drive efficiencies and productivity by using software, a software-driven enterprise has become a critical driver of competitive advantage today.

According to a recent study by CA Technologies, increased agility and faster time to market top the list of competitive strategies for companies in the application economy.

Abhilash Purushothaman, Country Director, Enterprise Management Business, CA Technologies, India, says that 45 percent enterprises that have already begun adopting advanced software strategies, this transformation is having a significant impact on their time to decision. 61 percent more expect application economy to drive their business in the next three years.

Not surprising then the following 5 verticals are the forefront.

Banking: Banks are looking at agile methods to go-to-market to grab revenue.

The banking vertical for instance is using software to improve customer experience. Also, more and more customers are using applications to drive e-banking and open demat account accounts.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently remarked, banks will go premise-less and paperless, and yet reach out to the far flung areas in rural districts via technology. It is all about physical to digital transformation. Already in the US, more than 2,700 branches have closed down in the recent past.

Manufacturing: The segment has been a laggard, essentially because manufacturers are still looking at volumes.

But now as they pen future strategies, they are reviewing the vision for the next five years which is chiefly around technology and the applications need to bring in.

So over a period of time, application driven automation accounts will drive all aspects of manufacturing.

Nike and Adidas are great examples: As a shoe maker, Nike has invested huge amount of money into software development apps that connect users through wearables into healthcare. With this service, they have devised a new tagline: Code is King

In the case of Adidas, it has launched India’s fully integrated omni-channel model, which the company believes will help grow its India business by around 15 percent every year.

Both these examples narrate the importance of digital transformation and the vital role application economy plays as an enabler.

Government: Not to be left behind, the government is driving application economy through Digital India and applications to deliver citizen services.

For instance, GST will transform the taxation system through one application. Similarly, smart or safe cities will be driven by apps. Eg e-challans in Delhi and Bengaluru. Similarly, many government organizations have launched citizen services at the Gram Panchayat and local municipalities.

Business to Business (B2B): Enterprises are certainly showing interest in application economy. They are giving birth to a new brand of APMs-small mesh-ups and releasing the apps on the marketplace. This is the power of crowd-sourcing and a new business model, and a new business model.

In a B2B scenario, the conversation starts by understanding business strategy. For instance, infrastructure driven companies are transforming to application driven companies.

“One of our customers Tata Sky used our APM solution to deliver exceptional services for customer experience. They provided an API to their service providers who embedded value-added services of their own for faster GTM,” Purushothaman informs.

The day is not far when people will develop API driven platform and develop apps through crowd-sourcing.

Retail: Another big example is the retail segment which is seeing consolidation through mergers and acquisitions.

For instance, Wal-Mart acquired two companies to boost sales. But it is also looking at boosting its application economy with all the technologies it has acquired with the acquired companies and is, therefore focused on developing customer-centric applications.

The moot point is brand recall. It your app does not respond in three seconds, your customer won’t use the app, Purushothaman reiterates.