Read how these 10 Indian brands made hundreds of crores using a digital-first approach
These top Indian brands have taken the leap and adopted digital, AI, ERP, ML, and other fresh and modern tech in various aspects of their business.
Today, almost every aspect of our lives has been digitised. So it’s not surprising that all enterprises, right from micro firms to large corporations, are waking up to new ways of doing business.
But they face challenges along the road to digital adoption. Some of them lack understanding in choosing the right tech solution while others struggle with high costs, perceived low impact on profitability, lack of skills to transition to new technology, risk of losing process-oriented jobs, ensuring IT and data security, and stakeholders' reluctance to change.
With these obstacles hindering businesses from going digital, ADB Institute ranked India very low in the global innovation index (81 out of 141 countries). Further, a YES Bank survey revealed that out of 2,700 MSMEs studied, only five percent have fully embraced digital adoption.
However, there are several Indian brands that have taken the leap and adopted new ways of utilising modern tech in various aspects of their business.
Here are some of the Indian brands whose progressive approach towards technology has yielded great results.
Goldmedal Electricals
Bishan Jain (Director) and Kishan Jain (Director), Goldmedal Electricals
For an electrical company to stay afloat, it needs to go electronic too. This is why Mumbai-based Goldmedal Electricals which clocked Rs 1,400 crore-turnover, started building its own IT team four years ago and today, it is running on its own ERP system.
The company has its own application where all the dealers can log on and view their transactions with the company. From catalogues, sales, payments to agent schedules, all information is available to the dealers at the tap of a button. Goldmedal is planning to launch another application where they can connect dealers and approximately 40,000 electricians in the database to benefit the segment.
Kaleyra
Aniketh Jain, Managing Director, Cloud, Kaleyra
Kaleyra, with its CPaaS cloud-based platform, empowers enterprises to add real-time communication features to their applications. It now has over 3,000 enterprise customers and handles close to 3 billion messaging notifications per month.
Today, Kalyera’s revenue stands at around Rs 693.6 crore. Its impressive clientele comprises Amazon, Ola, Flipkart, AirAsia, Zomato, Cure.fit, Practo, and more. Kaleyra now has offices in the USA, Europe, Middle East. Its technology headquarters is in India, besides seven active offices in the country.
Vertoz
Ashish Shah (left) and Hiren Shah (right), co-founders, Vertoz Advertising
Mumbai-based ad tech firm Vertoz built its custom platform 'Ingenious Plex' to leverage the strength of programmatic advertising in segmenting audiences so that brands have to only pay for ads delivered to the right people at the right time.
With its unique product, it evolved into a global company with offices in Mumbai, New Delhi, New York, San Francisco, London, and Dubai. Last year, it recorded a Rs 36.84 crore turnover and employs over 130 people. Vertoz is also India’s first and only publicly-listed ad-tech company.
Sulekha
Satya Prabhakar, Founder and CEO, Sulekha
Satya Prabhakar's Sulekha was started in Chennai in 2007 and has become a pure-play digital platform for local services where consumers and service providers are connected with each other. As people increasingly started looking for services online, Satya led Sulekha to become the multi-million dollar, end-to-end local service fulfilment brand we recognise today.
The digital services platform now gets over 20 million users per year and has over 70,000 paid service partners. The service partners are also business app-enabled and allows Sulekha to track the progress of needs across 1,200 diverse categories. Further, consumers and service partners are matched in a detailed fashion using a series of questions and artificial intelligence.
IndiQube
IndiQube founders Meghna Agarwal (left) and Rishi Das (right)
Bengaluru-based IndiQube serves all real-estate related needs of its clients. These include workspace planning and flexibility, managing cafeterias, conference rooms, internet lines, power backups, security, and more.
IndiQube’s ace up its sleeve its MiQube app, which is designed to make the best use of IndiQube community. It can be downloaded on the Google Play Store, Apple’s App Store, or used by logging into it on the MiQube website.
The app allows the user to order food from IndiQube cafeterias, avail offers that are exclusive for IndiQube clients, book partnered spaces and refreshments, book gym slots, hire transport, and much more.
Kirloskar Brothers
Sanjay Kirloskar, Chairman, Kirloskar Brothers
A global leader in fluid-pumping tech, Kirloskar Brothers operates the largest 3D printers in mainstream manufacturing of pumps. It has also introduced Artificial Intelligence (AI), and self-learning systems that work with sales teams and end-users to select, customise, and perform all application engineering around existing products.
The fluid-pumping products themselves are smarter with IoT-enabled pumps and factories with IoT-enabled machines. The firm's technicians and field service engineers are more effective through the introduction of Virtual Reality as well as Augmented Reality for hands-on service.
Kimirica Hunter
Kimirica Hunter founders Rajat Jain (left) and Mohit Jain (right)
Indore-based Kimirica Hunter manufactures hotel toiletries and amenities for a range of premium hotels such as Marriott, Starwood, Hilton, Jumeirah, Hyatt, Sofitel, Pullman, and an array of independent luxury hotels.
The Rs 300 crore company uses SAP-ERP operations for easy ordering, efficient production and accurate tracking of orders. It also partnered with a renowned logistics partner for prompt delivery across the globe, and live tracking of shipment for all its clients.
Kimirica is also about to launch an online ordering system for hotels, and integrate it with SAP to provide a seamless, one-click ordering experience.
Valuepoint Systems
RS Shanbhag, Founder, Valuepoint Systems
Started with just Rs 10,000 in 1991, Valuepoint is now a leading IT infrastructure service company in South Asia, which services 73 Fortune 500 companies (from a recent listing). The business is expecting a turnover of Rs 600 crore this year.
Founder RS Shanbhag believes the fundamentals of digital are unchanged and so all the company's internal processes and life cycle are heavy on digital. Valuepoint is an early adopter and uses chatbots, AI, automation and several other technologies to stay ahead of the curve. It also sells and supports such services to its client.
Story@Home
Ankit Rungta, Founder, Story@Home
Baroda-based Story@Home was originally launched with the goal to bring high-quality home furnishing to homes across India. During the initial stages, it had physical stores, but then came the ecommerce boom and Story@Home was among the first few brands that partnered with Flipkart, Amazon, SnapDeal and many more.
The brand upgraded and switched from physical stores to online channels for sales. Today, digital mediums are a big part the business, right from product research and manufacturing to the final customer. It is also part of warehouse management, real-time inventory updates, catalogue designing and marketing and dispatching and tracking.
Indus Net Technologies
Abhishek Rungta, Founder and CEO, Indus Net Technologies
Abhishek Rungta began his successful IT enterprise Indus Net Technologies in Kolkata in 1997. In two decades, he has created a thriving tech ecosystem in a city that is just waking up to the digital revolution.
Starting with SaaS (software as a service) solutions, Abhishek's company brought in new technologies like Java, mobile applications, TopNet, and others. Abhishek’s diversification was large and most of his clients were SMEs. He continues to run training academies in the city that can produce industry-ready skilled talent.
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