Indian tech firms must innovate for better customer experience: KK Natarajan, Mindtree

India’s tech sector has been slowing down over the past few years as growth rates have come down from double digits to single. The slowing down of the sector has led to companies work extensively on innovation, using advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, IoT, machine learning, virtual reality, etc. At an event organized by Confederation of Indian Industry, Executive Chairman of Mindtree urged organizations to work on innovative solutions that help customers solve problems to gain an edge over competitors.

“Moving forward, we need to innovate and correlate with customers to become a key player in solving their problems. Beyond just delivering tech, many of the companies in the IT services space are becoming innovation partners of customers. Newer developments in tech have fundamentally changed the way in which our businesses function, be in the context of social media, mobility, cloud or analytics. As participants in the market place, we need to think of business model changes and new customer expectations,” says Krishnakumar Natarajan, Executive Chairman of Mindtree.

Reskilling the workforce to add value for customers Experts have opined that in order for today’s workforce to add value to customer requirements, India’s tech services sector should focus on re-skilling the staff. In addition, a key aspect of how enterprises can add value is to invest into talent and skill-learning to satisfy changing customer requirements. 

“The new forms of technology, including automation, have changed the business models and the nature of jobs. In future, talent is clearly going to be a differentiator and investments in reskilling and hiring will depend on workers learn and deliver value to customers,” said Natarajan.

Engaging consumers using digitization By using advanced technological tools like data analytics and social media, organizations in India can effectively engage customers both in the consumer and enterprise space. According to Natarajan, in addition to making changes to their business models for the digital era, enterprises should utilize such tools for an enhanced customer engagement.

“One notion is how do you engage with your consumers in a far more elegant way. For many of today’s enterprises, the target segment is shifting towards the millenials who are now used to the e-commerce and online banking systems. So, how do you use digital technology to deliver an experience which is very engaging? Similarly, a lot of Indian companies that are working B2B are also looking way to deliver the same experience to their business customers,” stated Natarajan.