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The shadowy new way employees are cheating their way to the top

I've become a social-media ghost over the past few years. I haven't posted on Instagram since December, I've gone from tweeting several times a day to a couple of times a week, and I haven't signed into Facebook or Snapchat in ages. Looking at many of my profiles, you'd think they were abandoned. And I'm not alone: People are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-dead-instagram-tiktok-bereal-replaced-group-chats-messaging-2023-8">spending less and less time on social media</a>.For more than a decade, social media has brought people together on a handful of platforms, most notably Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. But in an effort to feed the rapacious desire for growth, these platforms have transformed from places for people to connect to entertainment channels. As the big players <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-ruining-apps-websites-internet-worse-google-facebook-amazon-2023-3">have deteriorated into a chaotic mash</a> of shouting and sponsored content, alienated users are decamping for a hodgepodge of platforms.Like many young people, I've taken refuge in close-knit private circles such as group chats. In these smaller spaces, populated with friends and family, I don't feel the crippling pressure to overshare and harvest my every thought for possible work opportunities. These havens are free from the round-the-clock avalanche of meticulously curated content, ads, and brand campaigns. Instead of the stilted experience of hanging out in a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/threads-never-replace-twitter-meta-zuckerberg-musk-advertisers-brands-influencers-2023-7">shopping mall</a>, group chats feel more like an intimate dinner at a friend's house.People are also turning toward a new crop of social-media platforms that have emerged in the past few years to capitalize on the void left by the deterioration of large platforms. Some of the new entrants are trying to recreate the original, clutter-free social experiences big platforms used to offer, while others are experimenting with radical ideas to reboot the concept from scratch.So far, none of the new sites can compete with the sheer size of the old, centralized networks, but they do offer some hope. As people grow tired of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cure-screen-time-social-media-phone-addiction-app-one-sec-2023-3">toxic and addictive platforms</a> that undermine real social connection, this new wave of social-focused upstarts could end up producing a healthier online environment.Whatever you think of social media's future, it's increasingly clear that the big-platform party is over. But instead of spelling the death of social media, it may be the beginning of a better era. Welcome to the Great Social Media Splintering. <h2>Step into the 'pluriverse'</h2>Major platforms such as Facebook have long abandoned their goal to "bring the world closer together" in favor of "profit-motivated and engagement-inducing designs" that keep us hooked and drive growth, Ben Grosser, an artist and faculty associate at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet &amp; Society, told me. A flood of research has found that this shift in the companies' priorities has shaped everyday users for the worse.One <a href="https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0001091" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recent study</a> found social media could cause an increase in eating disorders and poor body image in men and women. And researchers have theorized that by lumping people with disparate views together in a faceless melee, the technology that was supposed to bring us together has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-twitter-facebook-political-polarization-mechanism-2022-10">made us more polarized</a>. Broadly speaking, social media's always-on nature is unnatural. We aren't <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/10/fix-facebook-making-it-more-like-google/620456/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">supposed to talk so much</a>, and posting in front of thousands of people every day causes our ability to communicate to break down.But for all its flaws, I have depended on big platforms. My job as a freelance journalist hinges on a public audience and my ability to keep tabs on developing news. The fatigue I have felt is therefore partly fueled by another, more-pressing concern: Which social network should I bank on? It isn't that I don't want to post; I just don't know where to do it anymore. In the past year, I've helplessly migrated alongside most of my network from one new platform to another — Discord, Bluesky, Threads. You name it, I've tried it. The pattern is the same: I sign up for the hot, new app, toy with it for a few days, and then quickly abandon it. While widespread platform migrations have taken place successfully over the years — I migrated from Google's Orkut, a popular platform in India and Brazil in the late aughts, to Facebook to Instagram to TikTok — I have never before found myself in no man's land. If none of these platforms are lining up to be the new Facebook, what is the future?Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci, who researches digital public infrastructure at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said there's a reboot taking place now and that social media's future might be "more private and more fragmented." In a <a href="https://publicinfrastructure.org/2023/03/29/the-three-legged-stool/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">white paper</a> published earlier this year, he and his colleagues envisioned a "pluriverse" consisting of existing platforms and an ecosystem of "very small online platforms" — private communities and niche services that host the kind of intimate or interest-specific conversations poorly served by today's digital public sphere. In a way, the pluriverse is already here. People can be active on half a dozen social-media apps, using each for a unique purpose and audience. On "public" platforms such as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-linkedin-got-weird-work-life-blurred-lines-of-oversharing-2023-9">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-killed-twitter-irrelevant-meta-threads-debt-mark-zuckerberg-2023-7">X</a>, formerly Twitter, I carefully curate my presence and use them exclusively as public-broadcasting tools for promotions and outreach. But for socializing, I retreat to various tight-knit, private groups such as iMessage threads and Instagram's Close Friends list, where I can be more spontaneous and personal in what I say. But while this setup is working OK for now, it's a patchwork solution. <h2>Online towns</h2>No matter how fun group chats and breakout social apps such as BeReal are, I've missed the borderless experience that large platforms offer — a place where I can discover viral content, expand my network, and participate in global conversations. Rebecca Rinkevich, the director of the Institute for Rebooting Social Media, doesn't expect giant social platforms to die anytime soon — or ever — since their accessible reach has played a pivotal role in everything from tracking natural crises to activism. But as people's attention splinters across dozens of platforms, she believes "the government and the public will have to work harder to engage in dialogue online," she said.Mike McCue, Flipboard's CEO, believes that the next big, social platform must bring together the benefits of both worlds, he said: "the quality and trust in small, transparent communities with the ability for those quality conversations to reach millions." But instead of one platform that manages to appease everyone, the future of social media is looking more like a network of platforms that offer people a customized experience. The ideal system would not only allow you to migrate to new social apps without losing your network or profile but also link them together so that you could post on one and a friend could comment on it from another.Take Threads, for instance, Meta's attempt to build a Twitter replacement. It runs on the ActivityPub protocol, which means that Threads' more than 100 million users will eventually be able to interact with Mastodon, an open-source social platform that uses the same coding system, without ever signing up for it. Similarly, on Mastodon, people can build their own private, little communities, while still having the option to break out and share their content with the rest of the platform's over 10 million users. Think of it like a town. Maybe your home (account) is in the Threads or Mastodon neighborhood. You spend a lot of time in the privacy of your home talking to close friends in group chats and private lists, but you also stroll about to see what's happening in your neighborhood — a limited group of people you enjoy spending time around online. Sometimes, you venture out to the global town square to hear what people in different communities around the world are talking about. Sometimes you even contribute to the conversation or hang up posters to promote your work.This kind of open, decentralized system would help break down big platforms' walled gardens, whose one-size-fits-all approach has had vastly detrimental effects. Instead of living in Facebook city under Facebook's laws, the decentralized approach offers everyone more control over the social-media experience and allows people to pick the communities and feeds they're most interested and comfortable in. Though none of these platforms have tried to make money yet, there are a variety of business paths: Like Threads, platforms could turn to in-app ads, or like Mastodon, platforms could turn to grants, donations, and sponsorships. Since the business model shapes how the platform works, people would be free to set up shop on the platforms they prefer. I've spent the past few months on Mastodon and Bluesky, a Jack Dorsey-backed decentralized social network, and have found them the best bets so far to replace Twitter. Their clutter-free platforms already match the quality of discourse that was on Twitter, albeit not at the same scale. And that's the only problem with these platforms: They aren't compatible with each other or big enough on their own to replace today's giants. While there are efforts to bridge them and allow users to interact across the platforms, none have proved successful. If these and other decentralized platforms find a way to merge into a larger ecosystem, they will force big platforms to change their tune in order to keep up. And hopefully, that future will yield a more balanced and regulated online lifestyle.<h2>A healthier internet</h2>At its best, Steve Teixeira, the chief product officer at Mozilla, said that social media facilitated connection, regardless of geographic or temporal boundaries, and helps people stay informed, encounter novel ideas, and access vital services. At the moment, though, "it isn't doing any of these things particularly well," he said. The problem is that social media is trying to do too many things at once. Splintered social media would let each of the internet's key functions thrive in its own context — you could stay in touch with family members and keep up with your political representatives without your private memories getting wedged in between political drama. The other problem is that users have very little control over what they experience online. <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/11/strain-media-overload" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Studies</a> have found that news overload from social media can cause <a href="https://time.com/5125894/is-reading-news-bad-for-you/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stress</a>, anxiety, fatigue, and lack of sleep. By democratizing social media, users can turn those negative health effects around by taking more control over who they're associated with, what they look at in their feeds, and how algorithms are influencing their social experience. And by splintering our time across a variety of platforms — each with a different approach to content moderation — the online communication ecosystem ends up better reflecting the diversity of the people who use it. People who wish to keep their data to themselves can live inside tight-knit circles. Those who don't want a round-the-clock avalanche of polarizing content can change what their feed shows them. Activists looking to spread a message can still reach millions. The list goes on. "Instead of policymakers and users having to plead, poke, and prod platforms to change," Rajendra-Nicolucci said, "decentralization would enable them to take matters into their own hands, allowing many different answers to the question: 'How should platform X work?' to coexist."Tailoring social media to people's needs could revolutionize how we spend time online. Swapping out virality-incentivized algorithms in favor of <a href="https://bridging.systems/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ones that resonate with diverse audiences</a>, for example, can reduce bias and polarization. And experts have <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772503022000159" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a> that a collection of networks would "optimize itself solely for public good," rather than fall into the pitfalls of traditional platforms — an unhealthy obsession with metrics and meaningless interactions. It's hard to predict the future, least of all when it comes to online services where new apps can go viral — and then fail — in a <a href="https://www.insider.com/what-is-bereal-app-how-does-it-work-2022-4">flash</a>, but the breakup of monolithic social-media platforms and the rise of myriad new social experiences has felt like an urgent, long-overdue turn of events. It has propelled millions, including me, to question the status quo — did I need to add a dozen hashtags in hopes of making my sunset picture go viral? — and embrace a healthier relationship with social media. No one knows what the next major social platform will look like. But until it emerges, I expect to continue living a splintered and nomadic online social life.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/shubham-agarwal" rel="">Shubham Agarwal</a> is a freelance technology journalist from Ahmedabad, India whose work has appeared in Wired, The Verge, Fast Company, and more.

Great news &mdash; social media is falling apart

<ul><li>2021, a year full of controversies saw brands turning to <keyword id="255227" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="public-relations" source="Orion">Public Relations</keyword> and Communications experts to save their reputation and regain consumer trust.</li><li>We look back at how PR evolved in 2021 and catch up with a few experts to discuss the trends that lie ahead.</li></ul>This year, we witnessed many brands become a victim of the boycott culture on social media and each of them adopted a different Public Relations and Communications strategy; while some decided to give in to the pressure, pulled off campaigns and maintained a low profile to cushion the blow, a few others stood their ground and fought back. Gone are the days where a brand could hope for social media controversies to die a natural death and wait for consumers to move on. Now, a small tweet can snowball into a boycott trend and a little bad PR move can cause a company’s stocks to plummet drastically or lead to a huge amount of audience permanently boycotting a brand. At the same time, some experts also advise that brands should not feed the trolls. So, in a year that saw numerous controversies, Public Relations and Communications experts proved their prominence yet again. They acted as the brand's anchor when needed and also helped them reach the shore successfully through tumultuous seas. During the initial stage of the lockdown, <keyword id="562730" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="pr-agencies" source="Orion">PR agencies</keyword> had to think on their feet, engage with editorial media to help brands share their side of the story with interesting nuggets, offer positive stories, work on personalised pitches, ensure internal and external stakeholders were updated frequently with utmost honesty and transparency. PR experts also pushed brands to connect with their communities on a personal level through truthful, authentic human acts. The crisis also caused paradigm shifts in the industry and digital PR took the center stage. Experts were required to monitor trends in real-time, find various consumer touchpoints through social listening and offer predictive analysis. As we move forward, PR agencies are working towards expanding their offerings with allied competencies like creative, experiential and social media capabilities. They have also been helping brands to find the right balance between profit, people and the environment. So, the future of PR is in strong storytelling in the digital world. The future is also unpredictable and PR professionals can’t rely on annual calendars anymore. With the news cycle changing every day, PR experts are required to be more flexible and agile. We reached out to experts to look back at 2021, discuss a few trends that lie ahead in 2022 and understand what kind of role will PR play next year. Here’s what they had to say: Archana Jain, Managing Director, <keyword id="12776689" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="pr-pundit" source="Orion">PR Pundit</keyword> The sway of top celebrities has diminished as was the case back in the days. With the advent of digital and social media, people have begun to trust recommendations from peers far more. Audiences find authentic content or recommendations by actual consumers to be more honest and believable than other forms of promotions and advertising by brands. This is reason enough for brands to actively nurture a community of advocates. PR will be required to work with brands to shape and foster a community of brand advocates. A set of loyal and vocal customers who can help humanise the brand in addition to boosting brand appeal &amp; trust, promoting its products &amp; services to new cohorts, providing invaluable user-generated content (UGC), word-of-mouth recommendations, and social media chatter. Community-led storytelling is more acceptable and authentic rather than a direct brand-led communication. Community advocacy will need to be consciously harnessed and not left to chance. 2022 will see many more brands structure a meaningful brand advocacy strategy. Ameer Ismail, President, <keyword id="10059988" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="lintas-live" source="Orion">Lintas Live</keyword> My biggest takeaway from 2021 is that agency brands and professionals have learned to be resilient and this is based on the multitude of challenges everyone has faced. Smart PR agencies have managed to reinvent themselves with offerings that are built for new realities and collectively have made sure that the relevance of PR is as strong as ever. While a move to everything digital will continue and a lot has been spoken and written about that, I feel that ‘collaboration and consolidation’ will be one the most important trends in that will emerge in 2022. This will be fueled by a few factors, first, resources will be deployed judiciously and talent will continue to be in short supply, the churn agencies have been experiencing at mid and junior levels will continue in 2022. This will lead to a need for agencies to find collaborative ways to deliver on client briefs and they will tap the vast pool of independent talent and specialized agencies and we will see newer collaborative models emerge. Second, clients will be in a hurry to get solutions from agency partners that can get their brands back in the mindspace of consumers and other target audiences. They will want to deal with fewer, better established partners which will lead to a need for consolidation. Deepshikha Dharmaraj, Chief Executive Officer, <keyword id="8878758" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="genesis-bcw" source="Orion">Genesis BCW</keyword> If there is one word that will be at the centre of everything in 2022, it is ‘people’. With the world—India included—teetering between recovery and anxiety around ever-evolving COVID variants, people will need to be communicated with, engaged, assuaged, motivated, retained, developed, and more. These people include every stakeholder a company has—customers/consumers, employees, partners, the government, the community at large. And public relations is the only marketing discipline that touches all of them. Digital will continue to be the medium of choice, and within that, metaverse will be flavour of the year. While the Indian industry still has some distance to cover in that, there is curiosity about this next big thing. No matter what the medium though, the message will have to be aligned to the company’s purpose. And delivered creatively, with authenticity. Akshaara Lalwani, Founder &amp; CEO, <keyword id="3573568" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="communicate-india" source="Orion">Communicate India</keyword> Over the past decade, PR has been moving away from traditional business models towards a more holistic and integrated approach. Whether it is the shift from pure media relations to content or the migration from print to digital, there is a marked change in the way the PR landscape functions. In 2022, this trend will further solidify its presence. There will also be a blurring of demarcation lines between PR, marketing and advertising, digital and offline, eventually leading to PR &amp; Communication professionals to further value the importance of integrated communications. Agility and the ability to pivot will thus be key attributes that will enable the industry to thrive. Also, since the protracted fight against the pandemic still continues, companies and organisations need to prioritise responsible communication over all else. We live in a world where the spread of disinformation and misinformation is not uncommon, hence, agencies need to be able to work in tandem with their clients to help them steer a middle course between capitalistic desires and ethical communication. Mayank Sen, Co-founder, Moe's Art For the longest time, ‘content’ has been the flavour of the season. At first, it began as an accessory, gradually ruling as a king on a kingdom. In 2020, content and its marketing became an undeniable powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. The evergreen axiom of marketing – ‘delivering the right content, to the right people, at the right time’ – took a redefined meaning. And for the times to come, the fundamental aspect of the content ecosystem will be founded on a framework of a performance driven-model, driven by contextual marketing. Within the emerging framework, data and technology will take a strong precedence. The industry will focus on delivering optimal consumer experience while capitalising on the opportunities in hand. Attention will be paid to provide more personalised and relevant content. Measuring the performance will make sure that the experience is scalable. It will present a continuous assessment of how the content is performing, and from that perspective, make decisions on what to do with the content in the future. Measuring success, building a cohesive brand story, and fostering a transparent, interactive consumer loyalty will be the ‘WIN-WIN’ strategy for the year to come! Asif Upadhye, Director and The Dark Knight at <a href="http://www.sprd.co.in/">SPRD</a> If 2020 and 2021 have taught us anything, it’s that moving forward at a snail’s pace is undoubtedly the quickest way to get left behind. While pre-pandemic, the public relations and communications industry was already making significant strides in technology by analyzing data to craft a better customer experience, the pace of digital adoption and the advent of a digital-first PR approach have been accelerated. From my own experience, a key ingredient across PR strategies, content marketing, corporate communications, and media coverage that will rule the PR roost in 2022 is the crucial need to customize bespoke services and products, every step of the way. From unified communications (UC) that are employee-centric to personalizing media pitches, customization sits at the heart of nearly every PR and communications trend. Customers are growing tired of the ‘media universe’ and now look for frameworks based on behavioral and business insights that truly put their needs front and center. Eventually, this is what will separate the mediocre brands from the greats. Case in point, the State of PR 2021 report points to the fact that flexibility, agility and attention to detail when it comes to personalizing something as simple as a pitch email is 96% more likely to grab a journalist’s eyeballs, rather than sending out a generic email blast. While consumer habits and employee working patterns that have been developed over the past year and a half are likely to continue well into 2022, hyper-personalization will bear fruit and result in more contextualized communication and inevitably greater conversions.” <keyword id="10618036" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="tarunjeet-rattan" source="Orion">Tarunjeet Rattan</keyword>, Managing Partner, <keyword id="12776690" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="nucleus-pr" source="Orion">Nucleus PR</keyword> There are three very distinct trends that we will see in the coming year: <ul><li>While the models of working and mediums will undergo a change, what will remain strong is the need for strong storytelling. What will change however is the degree of authenticity in storytelling. It will take a hard turn towards stark reality …almost raw. Consumers want to know why the brand matters, why they should care about it and what is the brand impact? How are you adding value to the life of the consumer? Authentic storytelling will win over aesthetics.</li><li>The role of the founding or leadership team will become even more crucial. One cannot hide behind a faceless brand persona or logo anymore. You will have to put yourself out there to create a strong, credible and believable story about your brand that brings out its authenticity. This also brings in a lot more accountability that brands will have to guard their reputation on. Consumers want to pick up brands that walk the talk. You cannot be a CEO that promotes mental health and fire your agency on twitter. You cannot be talking about environmental sustainability and create a toxic work culture for humans. It just won’t fly anymore.</li><li>Community Building will take Center Stage. We saw a strong glimpse of this across 2020 and 2021. This will gain more ground in the coming year where communities around a brand vision will be created and drive conversation around a challenge.</li></ul>Sonam Shah, Founder and CEO, Treize Communications 2021 saw high demand in PR, especially in the area of influencer marketing. Brands, big and small, capitalised on this rising trend in the first half of the year. But, once the ASCI guidelines came into place from June 2021, there was a downward slip observed in the engagement. Instagram algorithms underwent a great uphaul as influencers had to win against AI algorithms. This phase again got brands and companies to focus on creating news and building brand recall. While demand has been high for PR, there have been some apprehensions also noticed when it comes to being out in the open/media. The second half of this year, saw print media come back, as newspaper circulation started, and people started reading it like before. This behavioural change instigated a need to be present in Print media, via editorial articles, and this will be the biggest trend in 2022. The need to present in Print media. Print media has always been a factor in bringing in trust and authenticity and clients do require to build that kind of strong trust within their stakeholders to continue businesses in a post-pandemic phase.

Trends that will dominate the PR industry in 2022

Here’s how the advertising and marketing industry reacted to Union Budget 2021

Prime Minister <keyword id="6354477" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Narendra-Modi">Narendra Modi</keyword> launched yet one of his other pet projects—Digital India with much fanfare. He emphasized on connecting India through technology and invited investments for his project. And while teleco and infrastructure majors <keyword id="6354287" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bharti-Airtel">Bharti Airtel</keyword> and <keyword id="6487" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Reliance-Industries-Ltd">Reliance Industries Ltd</keyword> have pledged $1.6 billion and $39.3 billion respectively in the initiative, here’s what everyone had to say about the project: 
 
Prakash Sangam, CEO, <keyword id="6359128" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Redbus">RedBus</keyword> 
 
We at redBus would like to commend and wholeheartedly welcome PM Narendra Modi's Digital India initiative. We believe that such initiatives in the new digital era will empower India and its citizens, open up new opportunities and accelerate economic growth. 
 
Pramod Saxena, founder and CMD, <keyword id="389412" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Oxigen">Oxigen</keyword> Services 
 
Digitising India is the only sure shot way to reach the benefit of growth to india's masses and that then will create the multiplier to ensure the target 8 to 10% sustained GDP growth. The call for digital India is certainly the most appropriate call for transforming India into a vibrant and strong global economy. 
 
Rohit Raghav, co-founder, Phone Warrior 
 
Digitalization must be accompanied by democratization. Indians need, and deserve, a visionary approach to public services like Digital India initiative. However, one of the fundamental lacunae in British-era bureaucracy systems in our country is lack of feedback systems for government policies and execution. Service that will go completely digital will become faceless to a large extent and run the risk of big gaps in delivery quality. Ubiquitous mobile phones could be ideal partner for government and people in facilitating very fast, simple, and accurate real-time feedback. True democratization means true empowerment and it can begin now. 
 
Deepak Ravindran, founder and CEO, Lookup 
 
Digital India subsumes a mix of services and plans that are just right for reinvigorating the state of governance in the country. The programme will make it easy for the citizens to avail the government services online, in an easy way. With this technology advancement, India will transform into a digitally empowered knowledge economy. 
 
As far as private and public sector synergy is concerned, the engagement of the private sector in national development programs has the potential to serve development ends across any and all sectors. It will support the government by providing suitable infrastructure and technology-led facilities to consumers. Besides this, there will be a good inflow of innovative ideas and modern technologies from the private sector that will give a boost to the Digital India Programme. 
 
Brijesh Agrawal, Founder and CEO, Tolexo.com an IndiaMART 
 
Digital India is an initiative that holds the potential of transforming India into a developed nation in the next two decades. Not to forget that this will give a much needed boost to the booming e-commerce eco-system in India. 
 
With the government focusing on broadband and smartphone penetration across the country, it’s a great opportunity for the e-commerce players to accelerate their growth by tapping a new set of target audience. As a player in online B2B e-commerce space, we are already doing more than two-thirds of our orders from tier 2,3 &amp;4 cities and this initiative will further help us reach out to businesses in areas that offer huge potential but remain untapped due to poor connectivity and infrastructure issues. We look forward to metamorphosis of our nation into a digitally-empowered economy. 
 
Puneet Johar, CEO, The New Ventures 
 <keyword id="2926829" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Digital-India-Week">Digital India week</keyword> is a welcome move with the view to transform the country into a digitally-empowered knowledge economy. The idea is to create awareness and sensitize people from all strata about the ongoing activities under the Digital India platform. It reaches beyond the early adopters to tell people about the utility if digital as a consumer and in their profession. 
 
Image Credit: Indiatimes.com

#DigitalIndiaWeek: Know what everyone said about PM Modi’s pet
project

A number of recent studies have been examining how changes in technology, such as the <keyword id="970768" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="internet-of-things">Internet of Things</keyword> (IOT) from a consumer standpoint, the wholesale move to the ‘<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_platform">Third Platform’</a> is impacting business. Most of these studies focused on the technologies themselves: from hardware and software to the new currency of business – the data, to those focusing on how to transform business and digital operating infrastructure, which will help defend businesses from being eclipsed by nimbler start-ups born in the digital age. Among conversations about technology-driven transformation, a distinct constant is the necessary changes a company must make to its operating model, processes and organizational structure, in order to succeed in the digital era. Organizations’ inability to facilitate and accelerate the transformation of their organizational model at or ahead of advancing technologies is an age-old problem. The shame of knowing our inadequacies are still very much alive and in full view, and has amplified the effects of the digital era, creating a space for new firms to step-in and cause all manner of disruption to many traditional business models. But organizations aren’t faceless, empty buildings. They are run by people. While technology does the heavy lifting, it is people who intentionally commission the labor. <keyword id="28251" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Dell">Dell</keyword>’s global <a href="https://www.delltechnologies.com/en-us/perspectives/digital-transformation-index.htm">Digital Transformation Index</a>, unveils some of the shortcomings experienced by companies in this area. Obvious indicators include the fact that only 39 percent of businesses in the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) region say the Board is driving <keyword id="860946" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="digital-transformation">digital transformation</keyword> and that one of the top barriers to transformation is a lack of in-house skills and expertise. To try and understand this more deeply, it is important to take a look at three key attributes of a digital business, as defined by business leaders and used as a measure of success within the <keyword id="4628964" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="digital-transformation-index">Digital Transformation Index</keyword>: Innovate in Agile Ways With 68 percent of respondents in India indicating that they have already experienced significant disruption to their industries as a result of digital technologies and 80 percent considering digital start-ups as a threat, the pressure to act and transform is extremely high. Digital start-ups are carving-up the business landscape. In just 3-5 years, 62 percent of businesses in India believe they may become obsolete. So, what isn’t broken today, could well be broken tomorrow. How do we prepare for this? To enable organizations to address the unforeseeable future, they need to welcome innovation and agility in all shapes and forms. An interesting phenomenon has started to take shape in many corporations who are struggling departmentally with digital transformation. With the advent and availability of Software as a Service and Cloud based applications, users in the business community are now going outside of traditional IT teams and practices to fund and implement new solutions themselves. These are often interpreted as rogue activities that need to be tracked down, assimilated into current infrastructure and governed more closely. This isn’t seeing them for what they are: innovative ways to solve real business problems or indicators that some business processes have outlived their sell-by date. For leaders of transformation, it is important to assess the need for change in various aspects of business operations, be it driven by operational enhancement, market need or new revenue opportunity. By opening our eyes and understanding that the physical world of networking, application availability and remote access are no longer limitations for transactional systems or processes, we could, for instance, develop a series of micro services that allow the safe and flexible transfer of data across an ecosystem, while saving money and breaking down barriers. According to the Digital Transformation Index, 64% of businesses in India admit to not innovating well and in an agile way organization-wide. Clearly, something needs to change. Releasing employees’ shackles and opening the door to creative ingenuity could be a company’s saving grace. Predict new Opportunities An integral part of digital transformation, business analytics based services are on track for a four-year compound growth rate of 20.3% between 2016 and 2020, according to IDC. Taking data generated by enterprise systems such as ERP, Sales, Marketing, Manufacturing, and placing the right bets on the right insights through reporting and analytics is still a practice that is yet to be refined. Finding just the right blend between the extremes of accuracy and accountability or innovation and daring is where strong leaders can differentiate themselves and their teams. With the arrival of so many different systems, external and internal options, rapid transformation of business processes and people, there are now only pockets of ‘data stability’ that can be achieved. For someone in the traditional reporting space for example, this presents an emotional challenge as stability, accuracy and trend measurement (the staples of historical reporting) are thrown out of the window and replaced with a ‘free market economy’ of reporting and analytic capabilities that can produce divine insight but can also be undercut by nay-sayers who question accuracy or quality. Finding just the right blend between the extremes of accuracy and accountability or innovation and daring is where strong leaders can differentiate themselves and their teams. Unfortunately, predicting the future and being able to act on these opportunities is still the unknown, volatile part of the equation. As the research backs-up: 65 percent of respondents admit to not acting on intelligence in real-time. Demonstrate Transparency and Trust Transparency and trust is often a golden rule in customer interaction. However, when looking inwards toward organizational digital transformation, transparency and trust take on an entirely different meaning. An organization’s ability to create a safe environment, where team members are encouraged to share ideas, take risks and shake things-up, could be businesses’ only way to survive in the new economy. It is a huge leap of faith, and many companies won’t have the stomach for it. They won’t be able to overcome the default position of ‘but it is not possible to do it that way’ or ‘we tried that before’ or ‘how will we have a process to govern this’ and fall back into the old analog ways of managing and executing their business objectives. This is reflected in the fact that only 48 percent of respondents are demonstrating transparency and trust well and organization-wide. However, if we can pull together those people who do believe and are willing to put themselves on the line, and embrace opportunities brought about by emerging technologies, we can truly grow the business through Digital Transformation. These are just three of the five pillars outlined in the Digital Transformation Index, but they are also the ones that most directly relate to the people and operational side of the equation. By taking the time to recognize the impact of Digital Transformation on organizations, and especially to individuals within them, and becoming aware of the pitfalls of attempting to drive change simply through technology, we will be able to influence business success more directly. (The article is authored by Rajesh Janey, President &amp; Managing Director, India Enterprise, Dell EMC)

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