Digital Transformation- Do not miss the High Speed Train!!!

I am tempted to start the digital transformation discussion with an ‘once upon a time there was a floppy disk’ story. Actually, I will start with that.  A couple of decades ago, a 3.5 inch floppy disk could store 1.4 MB of data. Today, the improvised versions of HD drives store nearly 8TB of data, equivalent to data stored in 12 billion floppy disks!!! Tremendous increase in capacity to store data has been one of the key reasons that digitization happened, paving way for digitalization, culminating in digital transformation.

However, when we talk about data, we are more concerned about data consumption these days. And, you might not be surprised that today, India is the largest consumer of data globally, surpassing China, USA and Japan.

Another thing that should not surprise us is the growing importance of Digital Transformation in size and importance in India. According to Microsoft, it will contribute more than 5% to the Nominal GDP in 2021 and increase the GDP growth rate by 1.0 percent annually.

This is the impact of digital transformation only that we are talking about. If we look at the digital economy that consists of IT/ITES, Electronics, Telecom, ecommerce, Digital payments, Cyber security, IOT, Sharing economy and Digital skilling- these in totality will generate a revenue of USD 1.15 trillion by 2025 amounting to 18-25% of the nominal GDP. This data is from a study conducted by economictimes.

Yet another study from Mckinsey estimates that, 60 million to 65 million jobs could be created by the productivity surge through digital adoption by 2025, although redeployment will be essential to help the 40 million to 45 million workers whose jobs will likely be displaced or transformed by digital technologies. This is of prime importance for us in the staffing industry.

What is surprising is that digital transformation felt like a bubble to many critics but it has been proven to be the bullet train. And the train is leaving the station, and individuals and organizations need to get on board quickly.

In fact, the USD 154 billion addition to the GDP by 2021 that I had talked about will come from 1) Improvement in productivity, 2) improved customer advocacy, loyalty, retention, 3) Cost reduction, 3) new product and services, increased revenue and 4) Improvement in profit margin. With so many of good things predicted to come of digital transformation, it is disheartening to say that only 7% of Indian companies considered in the Microsoft study could be termed as digital leaders. However, on the positive note 90% of these companies are in the midst of digital transformation.

So, again I would like to reiterate that digital transformation is not a bubble but a bullet train. And the train is leaving the station, and individuals and organizations need to get on board quickly. 

Disclaimer- All the views expressed are author's and not of the employer.