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In the last few years, Indian businesses have begun to favour international trends as it makes monitoring more manageable, and at the same time, allows them to circulate funds and resources more rationally.

A myriad of extensive technological advancements has made Indian businesses embrace a Western flair in their framework of programs. It is a step towards the dismissal of erstwhile business trends that can be fairly dubbed as an outdated laborious hodgepodge.

In light of the current scenario, Indian businesses have begun to favour international trends as it makes monitoring more manageable and at the same time, allows them to circulate funds and resources more rationally.

Here are some of the popular international trends that made a huge impact on Indian businesses.

Adoption of ecommerce

The entrepreneurial spirit of Indian business owners has made ecommerce take various forms in B2B and B2C services.

From large e-retailers offering a wide range of goods and connecting businesses, to specific niches of fashion, baby products, and medicine, the Indian ecommerce sector has seen a CAGR of 35 percent according to a recent study by the IBEF. The projections also tell us that the next decade will see India surpassing mature economies like the US and the UK.

Gig economy and its rise due to COVID-19

After the pandemic flat-grounded the business scenario and led to widespread unemployment, India noticed a significant rise in gig jobs and freelance opportunities. The culture of gig jobs predates the COVID-19 era in India with daily wage workers and household help among others. However, the pandemic along with technological advancements has led to diminishing the bounds between service providers and their clients.

The reason the gig economy is flourishing in India is due to the freedom of choosing the number of working hours, place of work, and the low risk of job and income loss with multiple employers. With the increase in on-demand services, buyer behaviour can only be expected to become more oppressive.

The digital transformation

In the words of Bill Gates, and at the risk of sounding prophetic, “If your business is not on the internet, soon your business will be out of business.” From cloud computing to a freelancer with a website, the digital transition has made businesses switch to catering their services online and has led to a massive increase in SaaS companies.

This direction paves a way for the improvement of the Indian economy and opens avenues of job opportunities for the generations that follow. Furthermore, government campaigns like Digital India, Startup India, and others have convincingly altered the way businesses make transactions through cashless means and operate without copious use of paper.

The environment hereby breathes a sigh of relief in the presence of a paperless layer of operation. In the coming times, innovative strategies for business growth are expected to emerge and flourish to an extraordinary degree.

Outsourcing and Remote work

Presence-less jobs predate the personal computer. Specific to the Indian subcontinent, the remote work culture was shunned until the “next normal” came into our vocabulary. Companies that prohibited the option of work from home, switched to this form of operations overnight due to the ongoing pandemic and have noticed a significant improvement in the productivity levels of their employees.

The red herrings such as coffee breaks, juicy gossip during lunch, and commuting to work were evaded. In hindsight, the option of mandating remote work isn’t the future of India, as there exist a good number of people with mixed opinions about it.

Hybrid work culture could have the employers give their workforce the option of choosing close-to-home work or any other flexible mode of operations.

Adoption of AI — chatbots, automation of businesses

AI in the Indian business scenario is revolutionising the way metrics are used to strategise and implement decisions. It helps with the creative decision-making process of product/service development in industries such as fashion, IT, health, agriculture, and education.

Businesses have employed chatbots to carry out customer interactions in terms of resolving queries, taking orders/sending a message and making a connection happen with a company rep.

Businesses have trained AI models that employ recommendation systems that make upselling products a completely different ball game eliminating continuous sales calls to make the consumer upgrade their plans of purchase.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)