Tata Teleservices’ CIO says, Digitisation holds the greatest potential to have an impact on our economy in 2016

The year 2015 especially saw an upsurge of a lot of new and innovative technologies introduced in the country with the promise of a positive impact on the overall eco-system in the coming year. There is a deliberate intake of new technology solutions that suit specific needs and help them make decisions that could affect the future of the industry while at the same time keeping the operational costs to the minimum.

From Big Data Analytics coming into the scene to the remarkable boom in the social media industry to the rapid adoption of cloud, 2015 has been the year of high-end technology. Will 2016 carry the trend forward or will it be different? Ram Prasad Mamidi is CIO at Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) discusses top five IT trends that he predicts will gain momentum in 2016:

1. BIG DATA ANALYTICS: In the year 2015, big data analytics was still at a very nascent stage and its impact had just started proliferating into the workings of enterprises. With personalisation becoming the most important element in customer management and loyalty, big data analytics is expected to rapidly gain momentum. In fact, its impact on businesses has already started seeping into the fundamental workings of companies.

Several businesses enter into the big data space without a thorough understanding of business requirements, goals, and data policies. This often leads to wastage of resources and the insights gathered fail to add much value to the company. There is a need for more big data specialists to help effectively run and manage implementation across functions.

2. DIGITISATION OF LIFE AND WORK STYLES: Individuals all over the world are gradually going the digital way and merging lifestyles when it comes to personal and professional lives. Technologies such as Mobile Internet and cloud are being adopted at a rapid pace to bridge the gap between the two.

With our government leading the way to a digital India, the focus of this initiative would be around improving quality of life. With a focus on developing applications that are easy to use for a larger set of audiences in the country, digitisation holds the greatest potential to have an impact on our economy

3. BRING YOUR OWN DEVICE (BYOD) TO WORK FOR SEAMLESS COLLABORATION: Today’s workforce value ‘flexibility’ more than anything. To support BYOD, organisations are adopting a comprehensive set of solutions which address challenges in security, network and collaboration. These solutions provide a convenient and collaborative approach for the new generation of professionals who prefer to be connected round the clock from around the globe. BYOD has constantly emerged as a powerful tool which enables organisations increase their profitability.

4. MOBILE INTERNET: With around 2.5 billion internet users today present globally, majority of this growth number is attributed to Asia, which also contributes to almost 45 per cent of the entire world’s internet user population. With smartphone manufacturing units on the rise, India has become one of the fastest growing smartphone markets in the world which largely contributes to a high mobile internet consumption. With progression in the industry, this particular trend is most likely to gain faster momentum in India.

5. SOCIAL MEDIA: India as per a recent McKinsey report titled ‘India’s Technology Opportunity: Transforming Work and Empowering People’ has about 100 million active Facebook accounts. More than 50 million use Whatsapp on a regular basis. Judging from the numbers, there has been a remarkable boom in the social media industry over a short span of time. It has also been observed that upto 80% of small businesses use social media for all their branding and marketing needs, whereas almost 99% of global brands have presence on social media. No doubt social media has opened up a motley of opportunities, but with increasing amount of security threats, individuals as well as enterprises will have to be careful of the solutions that they choose in order to prevent hazards like identity theft, cyber stalking, and phishing.

(Image credits: Indiatimes)