Technology has come to occupy center-stage in nearly every aspect of life. It has changed and continues to transform how we live, work, rest, and communicate. And all of this is having a powerful impact on business. Companies with a finger on the pulse of the marketplace are outdoing peers by taking hyper-personalized products to their end-users. Consider relative newcomer, Airbnb. Latest estimates suggest that the homestay and 'experiences' specialist is averaging 25 percent more guests per night than the multinational hospitality giant Hilton globally.

So, what is it that Airbnb and other nimble-footed newcomers are getting right? In my view three crucial levers that set companies up for disruptive growth:

• Hyper-personalization
• Data mining
• Culture/mindset change

Let’s take a closer look.

The necessity for enterprises to hyper-personalize

The time when products were mass-customized to look, fit, and feel the same way, is now behind us. In today’s digital era that bolsters choice, the customer is the king. Therefore, every smart enterprise must trace its production journey in a front-to-back fashion so that it is empowered to deliver products in the precise shape, color, texture, and size that customers desire. 

But how are organizations to do this? By collating data efficiently, interpreting it fast, and feeding it back to production lines to anticipate what end users want. To put this into context, let me share some statistics. Since 2000, 52 percent of Fortune 500 companies have either gone bankrupt, been acquired, or have ceased to exist due to digital disruption. At the same time, in just the past three years, 90 percent of the world’s data has been created.

Having my cake and eating it, too: The appetite for big data

As someone said, if software is "eating the world," then data is surely "swallowing" it. To give you a sense of the volumes of data I am talking of, consider this: YouTube users watch 4,333,560 videos in one minute. Twitter users send 473,400 tweets. Venmo processes $68,493 peer-to-peer transactions. And the weather channel receives a whopping 18,055,555 forecast requests.

Every 'click', 'like', 'swipe', and 'share' generated from these digital activities creates valuable information that businesses can leverage to better meet end-user aspirations.

The times that are changing: Getting companies to embrace an iterative culture

Data mining and hyper-personalization can only take place when there is a substantive transformation in mindsets and organizational culture. For years, companies, especially large successful ones have stuck to a tried and tested path of running a business with proven best practices and reliable teams of hard-working employees. Startling as this may sound, such a staid approach is not going to work anymore. Every firm across every industry will have to be alert to the winds of change and be prepared to unlearn and relearn every rule in the rulebook to stay relevant. Customers are driving the shift in business outlook, and unless enterprises pay heed to what this means, organizations stand the chance of being overrun.

Innovation applied: The story of three startups

Before I wrap up, let me illustrate how these three levers for innovation look, when at work, by telling you about three companies that have come through a hackathon organized by us in partnership with NASSCOM to recognize the country’s best-in-class startups in AI. Among the winners is VideoKen, a company that deploys AI technologies to make rich informational videos by summarizing its key topics and enabling swift navigation. What the startup demonstrates is how advanced technology makes it possible for users to reach sections of a film most relevant to their needs, thus improving customer experience and ROI.

The second of the top three AI startups that won our attention was Uncanny ANPR, an AI-based Vehicle Number Plate Recognition system for smart cities, smart buildings, smart parking and smart highways that have demonstrated accuracy levels of tracking automobiles of about 95 percent. What its solution does is free up valuable resources, effort, and time spent by large teams at public and private institutions to track automobiles while doing the same quickly, cost-effectively, and accurately.

This brings us to the last of the three winners, Intello Labs Pvt Ltd. The startup specializes in an in-house developed image-based technology that expertly assesses the quality of food commodities. At a time when there is growing concern about contamination of food supplies, this firm delivers a ready report on the quality of food products with the help of just an image within a minute. The technology can identify quality problems in a range of edibles, including fruits, vegetables, and spices like cardamom, assisting a range of users in the complex web of food production supply chains.

As these examples show, it is time that every company recognizes the imperative to embrace change. Innovation in application is the only way forward and those who do this fast and well are sure to reap rewards now and in the future.