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Innovating on a Budget: Exploring Cloud Cost Optimization for Agile Businesses

cloud

Written by Adora Nwodo on  Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership).

In today’s business landscape, staying competitive and driving technological innovation requires businesses to adapt quickly and optimize costs.

The cloud has revolutionized operations by offering advantages like scalable resources, operational efficiency, and global accessibility.

However, effectively leveraging cloud environments within budget limitations can be challenging, especially for agile businesses with limited financial resources.

This article provides multiple strategies for businesses to optimize their cloud costs. By implementing these strategies, businesses can encourage innovation, facilitate expansion, and achieve cost optimization.

To optimize cloud costs, businesses must first understand the cloud cost landscape. Infrastructure, compute resources, storage, networking, and additional services like databases, AI/ML, and analytics are typically part of cloud costs.

Cloud service providers offer different pricing models, including pay-as-you-go and reserved instances, each with its own cost implications. Businesses can make informed decisions and devise cost-cutting strategies by understanding these elements.

They can evaluate pricing options, customize resource usage, and balance innovation and cost optimization without sacrificing performance.

Cloud Cost Optimization Techniques

This section explores three cloud cost optimization techniques that businesses can use to reduce cloud costs and increase financial efficiency.

Rightsizing Cloud Resources for Efficiency

Businesses often struggle with the challenge of inefficiently provisioning cloud resources, leading to unnecessary expenses. To tackle this, rightsizing optimizes resource allocation to strike the right balance between performance and cost.

This involves closely monitoring resource usage and analyzing metrics such as CPU usage, memory utilization, and network traffic.

By understanding the connection between resource allocation and workload requirements, businesses can make informed decisions to ensure optimal performance.

Automation tools play a crucial role in the rightsizing process, enabling businesses to dynamically allocate or deallocate resources based on real-time demand.

These tools automate tasks like scheduling non-production resource start and stop times, allowing businesses to pay only for the actual hours of usage.

Adopting Cloud Cost Management Tools

Cloud service providers offer cost-management tools that enable businesses to effectively monitor, analyse, and control their cloud spending.

These tools provide insights into various aspects of cloud costs, helping businesses identify cost drivers, evaluate resource utilization, and track cost trends.

By leveraging the data provided by these tools, businesses can pinpoint areas where cost-cutting efforts can have the most impact and prioritize their cost-cutting strategies accordingly.

Cost management tools also enable businesses to track cost trends over time, offering historical cost data and visualizations of cost patterns and fluctuations.

This allows businesses to identify cost variations, seasonal patterns, and unexpected cost spikes, empowering them to proactively plan and optimize their cloud spending for better cost management.

Examples of cloud cost management tools include Densify, CloudZero, and Apptio Cloudability.

Leveraging Server less Architecture

Server less computing has transformed cloud cost optimization by shifting from infrastructure management to code execution. 

This change eliminates the need for continuous provisioning, management, and scaling of server resources, resulting in significant cost savings.

The pay-per-use pricing model of server less platforms ensures businesses only pay for the resources consumed during function execution, eliminating idle capacity and wasteful spending. 

Additionally, server less architectures enable agile businesses to accelerate application development and deployment. 

With modular server less functions, developers can focus on specific features or functions, leading to shorter development cycles and a faster time-to-market. 

This agility allows businesses to seize opportunities and drive innovation while staying within budget constraints.

Conclusion

Innovating on a budget is a challenge that many agile businesses face.  These businesses, however, can achieve a delicate balance between innovation and financial caution by investigating cloud cost optimization solutions.

Understanding the cloud cost landscape, rightsizing resources, adopting cost management tools, and leveraging server less computing can help drive innovation while controlling expenses.

Most searched questions

What is cloud computing?

What are the cloud tools which can be used to reduce the cloud costs?

Most searched queries

Cloud services

Cloud resources.

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HR Tech Digi Tech

The technological and digital evolution of a remote business 

Written by Kiran Bhatia Tandon on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

As the world becomes more connected and technology continues to advance, remote work has become increasingly popular among businesses. 

The demand for digital and technological tools has increased more than ever as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced many businesses to move to remote work. 

A remote company’s digital and technological journey can be both exciting and difficult. Companies have had to modify their strategies and tools to meet the demands of a distributed workforce as a result of technological advancements and the rise of remote work. 

The need for constant adaptation to new technologies and tools was one of the biggest obstacles the company faced on its digital and tech journey. They recognized that technology is constantly evolving, and they needed to be agile and adaptable in order to stay ahead of the curve. 

This meant investing in ongoing training and development for their employees to ensure that they had the skills and knowledge needed to work with the latest tools and technologies.

Here are some common strategies adopted by companies to manage a distributed workforce:

1. Use of collaboration tools

One of the most difficult aspects of managing a distributed workforce is ensuring effective communication and collaboration among team members who may work in different locations and time zones. 

To get around this problem, companies used a variety of strategies and tools to improve communication and collaboration, such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Slack for video conferencing, instant messaging, and project management. 

2. Regular check-ins

Regular check-ins with remote employees can help to ensure that they are on track and that any issues are addressed in a timely manner. These can be done with the use of collaboration tools

3. Clearly defined goals and expectations

Clear goals and expectations can help remote employees stay focused and productive. These goals should be measurable and communicated effectively.  These can be defined using technology in a variety of ways. Here are a few examples: 

  • Project management software: Project management software, such as Asana or Trello, clickup can be used to create tasks and assign them to team members. This allows for clear expectations and deadlines to be set, and progress to be tracked in real-time.

  • Performance tracking tools: Performance tracking tools, such as OKRs or KPIs, can be used to set measurable goals and track progress towards achieving them. This provides a clear framework for employees to work toward specific outcomes.

  • Communication tools: As stated above, tools, such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, can be used to facilitate regular check-ins and goal-setting conversations between managers and team members. This helps to ensure that goals and expectations are clearly understood and can be adjusted as needed.

  • Learning management systems: Learning management systems, such as Udemy or Coursera for Business, can be used to provide employees with training and development opportunities that align with organizational goals and expectations.

4. Flexible work schedules

Companies can offer flexible work schedules to their remote employees to help them balance their work and personal lives.

5. Performance-based assessments

Performance-based assessments can help managers evaluate the productivity of remote employees and provide feedback to help them improve.

6. Regular team meetings

Regular team meetings can help remote employees feel connected to their team and can improve communication and collaboration.

7. Virtual team-building activities:

Virtual team-building activities such as online games and virtual happy hours using collaboration tools can help build a sense of camaraderie and boost morale among remote employees.

8. Training and development

Companies can provide training and development opportunities to help remote employees improve their skills and stay up-to-date with industry trends.

In addition to the above, companies had created well-defined policies and guidelines for remote work and provided employees with the necessary support and resources to ensure that they remained productive and engaged while working remotely.

Cybersecurity has become a top concern for remote companies, as remote workers often use their personal devices to access company data. To address this challenge, remote companies have had to implement robust cybersecurity measures, such as two-factor authentication, encryption, and virtual private networks (VPNs).

Companies need to be flexible and adaptable in their approach to managing a distributed workforce, and they should be willing to experiment with different strategies and tools to find what works best for their organization.

Overall, the company’s digital and tech journey is a critical part of their success as a remote company. By embracing technology and using it to their advantage, they will be able to overcome the challenges of remote work and build a thriving remote workplace that could compete with traditional brick-and-mortar companies. Their journey is a testament to the power of technology to transform businesses and create new opportunities for growth and success.

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Most asked questions

How advancing technology affect remote business?

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Digi Tech HR Tech

The hidden life-changing (and money-making) power of Change Management

The hidden life-changing (and money-making) power of Change Management

Written by : Lata Hamilton on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

It’s no secret that digital transformation is the hottest thing since sliced bread, and everyone wants a piece of this money-making pie.

Whether it’s going to make your company money or save your company money, the future is new technologies that turn old, manual processes into faster, simpler, automated magic.

But what happens when your digital transformation dream goes up in smoke, and you’re left holding the ashes? You’ve spent bucketloads on innovation and development but for some reason your amazing platform, system or app hasn’t hit the mark, isn’t being used properly by your staff, customers or clients, has run over deadline, and left you feeling you’ve wasted not just money, but also time, effort, energy and hope.

You wouldn’t be alone. 

A massive number of digital projects fail. A 2020 Forbes article found that the number of technology projects which experience serious issues in things like cost, schedule, and goals can be up to 60%! I’ve seen it myself on major digital transformation projects that I’ve worked on with some of Australia’s biggest companies.

But there is a silver lining. The same Forbes article found that the secret to reducing technology project failure rate is often: people.

How?

Through the power of Change Management – which can not only transform your transformation, but also your results.

My simple definition of Change Management is: “moving people from one way of doing something to a new way of doing something, through communications, training, and business readiness, to realise the benefits of the change.”

People are the users of any digital technology – they are the ones that unlock its potential. The sad truth is that people are hard-wired to hate change. 

Even when a new technology could save time, effort and expense, most people will still resist it. 

Change Management encourages inviting people in to co-create and co-design what the change will mean for them, give them, and bring them. It builds trust instead of fear, empowers your people to own their future, and helps them get ready for a new way of doing things.

Here are some practical Change Management-inspired approaches you can use to help launch your digital technology more successfully with staff, customers and clients:

  • Co-design the features and processes of the new system with actual end users so it’s fit-for-purpose, user-friendly, and loved before launch.
  • Get your teams ready for the new way of doing things by clearly explaining to them how their processes and tools will be different and what they need to do to prepare.
  • Build a microsite and provide regular project updates, news, training tools, and resources – as well as a countdown to launch and a forum to ask questions!
  • Do live demos of the technology all the way through development – seeing is believing!
  • Give people the chance to get hands-on with the system before it’s launched – even if there’s still bugs, it will help build confidence in the solution.
  • Create an exciting launch event – bring it to life with a quiz, competition, or lucky draw that requires people to try out the new system, with super cool prizes on offer.

Bringing people on the journey not only changes your experience of leading a digital project, but improves the likelihood of success.

The Forbes article also suggests building soft skills, supporting leadership, and offering better training experiences – which are all things a great Change Management expert can provide.

If you want to learn more about the power of Change Management, download my free “Change Hackathon Planning Workbook” here which steps through how to crowdsource and co-create future ways of working during transformation and change.

Name and title:

Lata Hamilton – Change Leadership and Confidence expert

Bio:

Lata Hamilton is a pocket rocket burst of energy with a big heart… and big hair! She helps women carve their own paths for change in their career, leadership and life. Lata is a Change Leadership and Confidence expert, the creator of the “Leading Successful Change” program, and the Founder & CEO of Passion Pioneers.

Websites:

www.latahamilton.com 

www.passionpioneers.com.au 

Most searched question

What are the 5 key elements of change management? 

What are the 3 C’s of change management?

Most searched queries

Change management failures examples

 

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Mar Tech Digi Tech

SMS Marketing Is Your Key to Success: Tips and Best Practices

SMS Marketing Is Your Key to Success Tips and Best Practices

Written by: Shadz Loresco on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

“Dear Diner, you have an upcoming reservation at La Pergola today. Save up to 30% when you purchase a voucher with us via Pergola. Terms and Conditions apply.” 

I’m sure you must have seen similar promotional text messages on your mobile phones. The messages are short and thoughtful, and it has the potential to grab the attention of the recipient. 

The message also serves as a reminder, which is a very important factor when it comes to marketing.

If you want your customers to remember something about your business, it has to be memorable and meaningful. 

And what better way than through SMS Marketing?

Let’s take a look at why SMS Marketing is the best thing in business.

What is SMS Marketing

SMS marketing means sending marketing messages by text to communicate with customers. Businesses can use SMS to send promotional messages, notifications, and alerts to their customers’ mobile phones. 

This can include things like special offers, discounts, and event invitations. 

SMS marketing is often used as a means to reach customers quickly and effectively, as most people have their mobile phones with them at all times.

According to Statista, the use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets has become so widespread that these handheld electronics have become almost indispensable tools for reaching customers. 

As more than half of the global population uses them to access the internet, businesses from around the world are seizing this opportunity to promote their products and services online.

SMS marketing is extremely effective, with high engagement and conversion rates, as well as lower costs than many other forms of marketing. 

It’s also more personal, fostering stronger customer relationships between businesses and their consumers.

For successful SMS marketing, businesses that rely on text message as a primary means of reaching existing customers must comply with the local laws and structure their campaigns correctly. They also need to provide leads that are easily traceable and useful.

Best practices for SMS Marketing

Text marketing requires sales representatives to maximize the benefits customers receive from interaction with their company while minimizing the amount of time and effort customers have to invest in that interaction.

To get your SMS marketing services off to a good start, let’s consider these 6 best practices. 

  1. Make sure you have a clear opt-in

It is important to ask for written permission from your subscribers before you send them any kind of message via SMS. Your message should include words like ‘Subscribe’, ‘Yes’, or ‘Deals’. 

Similarly, make sure your recipients have a clear way to opt out of receiving your messages. You can configure these keywords to specific lists for easy campaign management.

  1. Be SMS compliant

Businesses that send text messages to customers should consider partnering with global SMS providers to ensure they are compliant with regulations. 

Such providers offer the added protection of a secure authorization process, allowing companies to avoid penalties for noncompliance and keep their brands above reproach.

  1. Don’t bombard your customers

Sending too many text messages will mark you as a spammer, but sending too few leave your customers wondering about your business. 

By localizing the content, managing dissemination times across multiple time zones, and segmenting customers to create individual experiences, you can keep them engaged with consistently interesting experiences. 

A steady messaging schedule is key to a successful text message campaign and keeping your customers in the loop.

  1. Keep texts short and thoughtful

To ensure that people read your messages, keep them brief and to the point. Long messages can cause users to stop reading or even opt out of receiving future messages from you.

Also, text messages are limited to 160 characters, so it’s smart to grab your customer’s attention with an exciting greeting and then relay details about the coupon or special offer. 

For example, “Come to our restaurant and receive a 15% discount on your meal by texting YES to 123456789.”

  1. Identify yourself

Don’t assume that your customers have your number in their mobile phone contacts. If you want them to open the message and read further, start by identifying yourself immediately. 

You can do this by putting your brand name at the start of the message, followed by a colon. For example, “Smith Restaurant: Come in today and receive a 15% discount on your meal.” Businesses should also use local numbers for their customers, as this lowers their OPEX (operational costs). 

  1. Offer 2-way communication services

When offering two-way communication, be quick and responsive. If your text messages include live chat or call links, you can personalize your service by pairing customers with the same agent they may have communicated with earlier. Keep the channel open to receive feedback from customers and respond to their inquiries.

You can also use the channel to send out surveys, which is a great way to collect feedback and improve your business. 

Schedule these series of messages so that they are automatically sent out at a certain time of day or week. If you want to make sure people have received their message, include an “SMS Read Receipt” link so customers can confirm whether they did in fact receive them.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31283gPCwvA

Graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message Description automatically generated

SMS Marketing campaigns

You’ll find many SMS marketing platforms that can help you send bulk text messages, personalize them, and measure the effectiveness of your campaigns. Most platforms have an API that allows developers to integrate SMS into existing systems.

You can also use these tools to track when people open the message and click on links within it—as well as which ones they choose not to open.

If you’re planning to send SMS messages in bulk, it’s important to choose a platform that has strong scalability and reliability. Many platforms also offer mobile apps that will allow you to view reports and manage campaigns on the go.

Create and send scalable campaigns that are customized to your target audience and your message content. SMS and WhatsApp campaigns can be used to send promotional or transaction-related messages for marketing purposes.

SMS sounds primitive but it’s still powerful

The power of SMS is undeniable; it’s the most effective way to reach your target audience and drive action. With the right messaging, you can build trust and rapport with your customers, increase brand loyalty, improve customer retention rates, and boost sales. 

For businesses with limited resources, it can be overwhelming to identify which channels to use for marketing.

Fortunately, SMS is an inexpensive and effective channel that can be used in conjunction with other digital marketing strategies. 

SMS marketing is on the rise because it works—when done correctly, it reaches 95% of mobile users. To ensure your campaign is a success, you’ll need a sophisticated SMS service provider that can support your mobile marketing programs.

Most searched question

What are the rules and best practices for SMS marketing?

Why SMS marketing is the best?

Most searched queries

SMS marketing strategy

Types of SMS marketing

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Digi Tech

I am Neelam Agrawal

Written by : Neelam Agarwal on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

I am a passionate digital marketer and co-founder of our Digital Marketing Agency, “Brandstrate Solutions”. 

After a break of 7 years from corporate life, performing my duties as a full-time homemaker, my second innings started during covid times as a sales manager and that’s when I realized my capabilities and the evolving technology and digitalization. All these put together, my aspirations took a new flight and “Brandstrate Solutions” came into existence and we started ‘Brandstrate Solutions’ with just one idea and a laptop and a few leads in hand. 

During Covid 2019, we saw the biggest digital transformation ever. 

To name a few,

Transactions changed from cash to Debit/credit cards to fully Digital Gpay/payTM, Phonepe mode. 

Schools and educational institutes were forced to understand the nuances on online teaching and educationalists had to become tech savvy to support the learning process.

Even hospitals and the health care fraternity apart from covid care had to establish a digital presence and connect with technology to take care of their out-patient treatments. 

Product based companies surviving just with in-store purchases had to look for new promotion strategies to promote their product/brand.

During lockdown, many companies struggled to create their digital presence, and as an experienced Senior Business Development Executive with a demonstrated history of working in the marketing and advertising industry and skilled in 

Analytical Skills, Communication, Marketing and Project Management, my passion for work took a new turn…a one stop solution for all digital marketing needs. 

Technology is impacting the way we; digital marketers organize our client’s budgets. Where traditional marketing efforts meant spending money on newspaper or TV advertisements, we, digital marketers utilize technology such as Google Analytics. With investing resources into search engine optimization (SEO) , we improve the ranking of our client’s website so that they are able to target specific keywords and attract website traffic from their target audience.

From internet-of-things technology and remote collaboration to AI and business data analytics, new technology has and continues to greatly impact business marketing. 

To start, more devices than ever before are connected to the internet.

In a single day, you could be checking your email on your laptop, scrolling through Instagram on your phone, and binge-watching Netflix on your smart TV. Internet-of-things technology has resulted in a large network of smart devices meaning unprecedented opportunities for new lines of business and increased revenue.

Thanks to technology, we as digital marketers have more data and tools at our disposal, and are able to devote more resources to tasks that drive business growth and bring in revenue. 

Some digital marketers are adopting a multi-channel, multi-device approach to accurately track consumers through their entire buyer’s journey. They are doing this instead of just looking at the last touchpoint before the purchase occurred. AI and machine learning offer impressive tracking and analytics capabilities. This makes it possible to determine which touchpoints are most effective in leading to a conversion.

Social media channels like Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook etc have innumerable stories of businesses that started with just social media presence and through proper marketing and campaigning are way ahead of their competitors. 

Businesses must adapt the way they do business in order to keep up with advancements in technology. It’s equally important to stay up to date with how technological advancements are influencing consumer expectations. For example, Instead of hiring (and paying) someone to help with customer service issues, you could use online chatbots to assist with communication.

In the ever-evolving landscape, I am glad to be able to serve newbies in the business network through Brandstrate ‘s new technology supportive strategies. Our happy clients, their testimonials and their revenue graph become self-explanatory when it comes to Brandstrate’s contribution into effective marketing.

Thanks, NEELAM

Most searched question

In which rank is India in technology?

What kind of technology does India have?

Most searched queries

Digitech Technology

Digitech india

 

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Digi Tech

Digitally Yours

digitally yours

Written by Shivam Sharma on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

In today’s time, technology is even in the deepest corners of each and every existing community of this world.

If I specifically speak about my own journey as an avid user of technology, I’ve been using technology ever since it came into popularity, but the density of use just multiplied by magnitudes when the pandemic hit.

Post-pandemic, things started bending towards creating content rather than just consuming it. Until the pandemic hit, I only used the technology towards a certain tangent and to a limit, which usually included digital classrooms, emails and just some YouTube videos. But, post-pandemic, the limit just became limitless with every dimension, everything just changed. 

Things like LinkedIn and Twitter came into my life and with that, creating content became a part of my life henceforth the digital journey became even more vivid and deep. You see, with the purge of this digital era, every single person on this planet has started building their own “digital personality” which generally comes with a cost, the cost of mental stability. Talking about myself, obviously, I am not the same person as I am on any social media platform, because it is just a part of my overall personality and not my only personality.

My journey has been very amazing because I have been witnessing the process of progress in the digital world ever since and it feels genuinely amazing to be a part of such a generation.

I mean with platforms like Google Meet, Zoom call or even Skype you can technically meet any human being in any corner of the world. With platforms like Notion you can basically create a second brain of yours with everything in and out of your brain and even your mind. 

With platforms like WhatsApp or messenger you can essentially talk to anybody without even meeting them.

With platforms like Slack and Wurker you can just make a virtual workspace altogether, just like your office.

With things like your own mobile phone or laptops you can just do whatever you want to and possibilities are just endless, literally, you may start tens of businesses just by an internet connection and a good laptop or workstation.

With things like Google Maps or any maps, you can just hop on to any place in the world in your choice of comfort!

 I, in my personal as well as my professional life, have been using such beautiful and radical pieces of technology and they have made my life much more efficient, all because of obvious reasons.

As a concluding note, I would just like to mention a cliche which is indeed the truth of the century, which is, “life wouldn’t have been fair without digitalisation”, also now that every digital element is it smartphones, laptops or even the internet is becoming so pocket-friendly with an amazing durability and quality, this saying just makes even more sense!

As you can probably see in the featured image, everything and anything which is visible is pretty much possible because of the digitalisation of major elements of life, be it communicating (telling and listening, not just hearing), expressing, sensing, feeling etc. 

Most searched question

What are the three types of digital technology?

How does digital tech work?

Most searched queries

Digital technology

Digital technology in education


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HR Tech Digi Tech

TODAY’S WORK ENVIRONMENT AND DELICACY OF TECHNOLOGY 

hr tech

Written by: Shubhra Aggarwal on  Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

“Our future success is directly proportional to our ability to understand, adopt and integrate new technology into our work”- Sukant Ratnakar

Workplace technology is growing exponentially. From the industrial age to current day, technology has changed manifolds. Not only has it helped in increasing productivity, it has also made “Work from anywhere” super easy and a reality.

Due to modern interpersonal communication technology, employees communicate more clearly and that’s leading to better results.

The onset of the global pandemic reshuffled the world of work. Businesses digitized themselves and shifted to working remotely overnight, all thanks to technology. With flexible workforces and mass adoption of remote and hybrid work models, many untapped talents are now shining bright. With talent not being restricted by geographical boundaries, both employers and employees are participating in the “Gig Economy.” Moving on an exponential growth trajectory, the gig economy workforce is projected to increase 3X from 7.7 million in 2021 to 23.5 million in 2030.

With every pros, comes the cons and the same is true for technology.

From separating employees by screens creating miscommunications, to the world of automated voicemails that can make customers upset, many believe that “Old is Gold.”

At the same time, with greater flexibility due to Work from Home or freelancing in the gig economy, people are often working overtime, over the weekend and even while sick. This has disbalanced the “Work life balance” and has mentally affected many people. From burnout, insomnia to depression, all have risen with more stress.

According to Technology and Innovation Report 2021, every spurt of progress has been associated with sharper inequality between countries. New technologies can have severe downsides if they outpace a society’s ability to adapt. To benefit from frontier technologies, countries need to promote their use, adoption, and adaptation, while addressing their potential adverse effects. 

Moreover, International cooperation should: 

Build stronger national capacities in STI,

Smooth technology transfer,

Increase women’s participation,

Improve foresight and technological assessment and promote inclusivity.

Moreover, Policymakers should direct technological change towards meeting societal needs and reducing inequalities; developing countries should adopt frontier technologies while continuing to diversify their production bases by mastering existing technologies; social protection systems should be strengthened to provide safety nets to workers who may lose their livelihoods.

Everything is a boon and a brain, it depends on us how to take it. To make technology a boon, effective communication, connectivity, being flexible but not insensible is the key! We must master the art of balancing our work and our life, otherwise we might not enjoy the super delicacy that the technology provides!

Most searched question

What role does technology play in today’s workforce?

What are the 10 advantages of technology?

What are the effects of technology on employees?

Most searched queries  

Impact of technology on organizations

Beneficial and ill effects of technology in work

Negative impact of technology in the workplace

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Digi Tech

How to keep up with macro tech trends as a PM?

Written by Shyvee Shi on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

If you aren’t keeping abreast with the latest IT, Tech, and Digital trends, you’re behind the curve. Tech innovations are important for continuous education and tech development. Yet, keeping track of all of them is incredibly time-consuming. 

Even IT professionals spend a lot of time gathering information, as there are hundreds of expert sources and even more technologies. So, I have a few simple steps on

How to Stay on Top Of Modern Technological Innovation

[1] Read: Spend some time reading about new technologies and concepts through sites like TechCrunch, Digilah. Also, try to keep yourself updated about the Tech stack your team is already using.

[2] Monitor Competition: Not just direct competition, it helps to follow companies in same problem domain/space. It’s good to be one up the competition, but since it is not always possible, following them closely gives a good insight about new concepts and tech that they might be aware of.

[3] Watch annual Developer conferences from major tech companies (e.g. Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon)

[4] Read commentary from Industry analysts (e.g. Ben Thompson, Benedict Evans, etc.)

[5] Follow Tech influencers and pay attention to trends they’re bullish on (e.g., Michael Spencer, Martin Harbech, Alex Kantrowitz, Tom Emrich, etc.)

[6] Discover new markets and ideas with 5-minute reports from Trends.vc by Dru Riley

[7] Pay attention to what company’s top VCs are investing in, and follow those companies

[8] Read engineering blogs to learn how systems work in relatively simple language and understand how world-class teams solve product problems and eng challenges!

[9] Internal Tech Team: My biggest resource is my teammates who are generally more updated. I am curious about implementation and architecture, and I keep asking them questions, and they are kind enough to explain stuff to me stuff. This is quickest way to get all updates.

[10] Events and Meetups: All the latest technologies kind of breed communities around them. That’s a great way to know the latest trends and keep yourself updated. You can become a part of the Digilah Tech community.

Keeping up with modern technologies allows businesses to increase sales, transform business models, launch innovative products, and improve customer experience.

However, the number of emerging technologies is constantly increasing. It’s highly time-consuming to keep track of them since there are numerous sources to study, but they don’t provide accurate and full definitions, let alone cover all the latest IT trends.

To overcome the challenge, product managers must find ways to help their teams stay on top of this changing world by contributing to the community, subscribing to trade publications, joining professional communities (Digilah Linkedin page) and attending seminars, technological events.

Most searched question 

What are the current macro trends?

What is macro technology?

What are the latest trends in technology?

Most searched queries

Technology trends
Macroeconomic trends
Global macroeconomic trends

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Digi Tech

How Email Marketing Can Empower Your Business

email marketing

Written by Sheenah Lozada  on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

Let’s go back to memory lane. Imagine the day when there was no email. Most of the marketers rely heavy on traditional mail for advertising. These are in the forms of flyers, catalogues, promotional letters sent via snail mail and delivered by your favorite postman.

When I was growing up and now, my mom an avid fan of Readers Digest, and we always looked forward in the mail on a monthly basis for it to arrive. She has cooking book subscriptions as well that we are eager to receive and try out some of the recipes. 

The agony of waiting……… 

Thankfully today, it is very convenient in just few clicks you can subscribe to your favorite brands, cookbook, etc.  No more waiting… 

Email has tremendously transformed how many businesses can reach through their customers immediately and establish a rapport where they have the option to choose the content they want to receive.

Let’s dive in to know the History for Email Marketing 

1971 – Ray Tomlinson sent the first email message which either said “Test 123” or the top row keys, “QWERTYUIOP”

1972 – Larry Roberts created an email management database that let users list, select, forward and respond to email messages.

1978 – Gary Thuerk, a marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corporation, sent the first email blast to 400 Arpanet advertising machines. This generated $13 million in sales.

1982 – Electronic mail message becomes the “EMAIL”.

1988 – Spam was introduced.  Inspired by those who are angry receiving email blast the word spam is added to the Oxford English dictionally. 

1989 – Lotus Notes 1.0, was launched as the first widely use email software service.

1991 – The internet was born. Everyone was using it. 

Late 1990s – Email service was introduced. Microsoft released Internet Mail (now Outlook) and Hotmail launched in 1998. The same time HTML was introduced to add characters to emails using custom fonts, colors, graphics and formatting.

2003 – CAN-SPAM was introduced in the U.S, it was signed by President George W. Bush. This prompts businesses to reduce sending unsolicited emails and include sender details and unsubscribe link in every message.

2009 – The introduction of Responsive Emails which enables readers to use their desktop, smartphones, or tablet to access and read emails.

Today – Email marketing is an integral part of the any digital marketing strategies that marketers are using to nurture their customer communication in the most cost effective way.

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/255080/number-of-e-mail-users-worldwide/

Despite the growth and prominence of mobile messengers and chat apps, email global users amounted to 4 billion and is set to grow to 4.6 billion users in 2025.

The global emails received and sent worldwide was approximately 306 billion in 2020. It is projected to increase to over 376 billion emails on 2025. This data shows that the trend towards mobile also is true for email.

As we know that the consumers interaction is multi-event and multichannel

These are some of the marketing strategies that you can invest with.

  • Inbound marketing
  • Content marketing
  • Email marketing
  • Search Engine Optimization(SEO)
  • Social Media
  • Paid Advertising
  • Mobile Marketing

One thing for sure is that email for marketing isn’t going anywhere. It will continue to be a staple part of any marketing strategy for all types of businesses.

COMMON SEARCHES:

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WHAT PEOPLE GENERALLY ASK

What is email marketing and example?

How do businesses marketing?

What is an email marketing strategy?

What is email marketing and its benefits?

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Digi Tech

Top 10 Secrets For A Good Website

Written by Paul Lim on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

Today, we live in the world of the Web. It is common for companies to have websites and about 80% of consumers use the Internet to research on a business, product or service before making a purchase. But what if you do not exist on the Internet?

Establishing a web presence can prevent competitor from poaching your customers and simply setting up an appropriate company website can reel your target audience right in.

Websites can also improve customer service. As there is no downtime on the Internet, customers can be updated 24/7 and have their queries answered almost immediately. And what better way to provide them with value-added service than to share handy information on your website? Knowledge sharing is one method to connect with potential customers and eventually convert them into sales.

What is crucial is to build a website with the fundamental capabilities that garner and drive targeted traffic.  Here are 10 website to creating an ideal website to attract visitors and generate revenue.

1. Know Your Target Market 

The first step towards recognizing your target market is to have a proper understanding of the problems that your business tackle. Thereafter, identify the groups of people will be affected by these problems, these individuals will make up your target audience.

Make a list of your target audiences and group them accordingly to categories sure as profession, age, education levels, and gender. Find out how these groups of people may benefit from your products and services by questioning what they lack in their lives and meeting their needs where possible.

2. A Clear Navigation Bar

A clear navigation bar is a plus to any website. Choose simple names for the tabs on the navigation bar and the web pages – logical naming of both tabs and web pages should guide and direct visitors to a specific call-to-action.

3. About Us

The primary purpose of an About Us page is to inform the user about your company and what you do. The page should furnish visitors with the basic background information they need such as the company’s history, awards and achievements as well as social proof and authentic statements that can give your company image a boost.

4. Strong Headlines

There are millions of websites in the cyberspace competing for several keywords trying to be recognized as the first hit on search engines – but how exactly do you get people to read what you write?

Although good content and aesthetics are of great value to a website, a strong headline could give your website an edge over others. Pay special attention in crafting catchy and compelling titles for your headline and think out of the box to appeal to consumers and obtain the click-through.

Useful key words that trigger consumer action include Free, Discount, Guaranteed, Incredible Offer, 1-for-1 promotion etc. To truly persuade a visitor to constantly return to your website, use question words such as What, Why, When or How as visitors are often looking for answers to their various queries.

Take the subject “Driving A Car” for instance. 3 effective examples are:

  • “How to drive a car?”
  • “Why I Love Driving A Car?”
  • “10 Ways to drive a Car safety”

5. Integrate Social Media & Videos

Using Social Media and embedding videos in your content can direct traffic to your website on a regular basis. The inbound links to your website from high-profile social media platforms such as Facebook, You Tube, Twitter, Tik Tok and others will increase your search engine results page ranking.

Consider creating the following social media profiles:

  • Linkedin – A professional site to showcase expertise and reach out to potential clients based on skills set
  • Twitter – A social sharing platform where you can post relevant tips and information with links to corresponding articles on your website
  • You Tube – Upload short yet succinct videos to demonstrate useful tutorials and give advice to

Always include a link back to an appropriate landing page on your own website and ensure you include a call-to-action on the page, for instance “Retweet” or “Share this video”

6. Power Pictures and Graphics

Simplicity and succinctness are key in creating messages that are straightforward to understand. People are often impacted visually than textually; hence good graphic designs and images are more effective in engaging site visitors compared to text alone. A dynamic picture can drive higher consumer engagement which can lead to higher sales figures.

7. Provide Impressive Testimonials

Positive and impactful testimonials are excellent for boosting site traffic. If you are in the service industry that replies on customer service and referrals, positive and impactful testimonials that appraise your company’s services will drive greater traffic to your site. For instance, an outdoor event service business could have client testimonials about the excellent service delivery and efficiency.

8. Order Page

The main goal of any e-commerce website is to convert visitors to buying customers. The order confirmation page is usually called a ‘Thank You’ page.

It is only right to thank your customers each time they complete a payment and more importantly, it helps you to maintain healthy relationships and interaction with them, thereby increasing their returns to your site.

9. An Opt-in Box

The use of personal data is a sensitive issue today-companies need to gain consumers’ approval with regards to collection, storage, usage and distribution of their information. Using an individual’s data without approval can put an organization in trouble. Hence, providing an “opt-in” box for users will allow them to indicate their consent and method of contact from the company or organization, thereby recording their decision.

10. Contact Us

Any business that strives to engage its target audience needs to have a feedback channel where those interested in the company’s services or business can contact the relevant people for more information. Sign up for a customized domain email address and phone number and make sure you attend to your calls and answer your emails promptly.

Contact for more www.pauldigitaltraining.com

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Digi Tech

“Technology and Digital – A Double-Edged Sword”!!

Written by Christina Min Shyan Tan on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

Just like any tools, they can be a double-edged sword.

During this Covid period, businesses are affected, ranging from sales, operations, finance to cybersecurity, as most businesses now have to rely more heavily on digital technology.

Christina Min Shyan Tan at her desk doing business

In my business of sales coaching, training and consultancy, Digital and Tech have the following :

The Pros, The Positiveness

Borderless outreach

Now I can work across borders seamlessly, reaching out to global participants and customers via virtual meetings and webinars, compared to my original plans of only focusing the local market for a start.

Through digital networking and connections, I have managed to reach out to more than 10,000 contact points across multiple countries and new industries within months, which would definitely be impossible with traditional approaches.

High productivity

With virtual meetings, travelling time is virtually eliminated. This allows back-to-back meetings for optimal time efficiency in a forever time-scarce fast paced business environment. I have managed to save a few hours of travelling time a day and double my meeting output weekly.

I am also able to attend live and recorded business webinars and e-networking sessions off business hours.

With productivity applications being easily accessible, my virtual work productivity has also increased with tech adoption from my customers’ end too.

Increased marketing avenues

My business has not been spared from the impact of the pandemic. I have been working on improving on my resourcefulness and creativity to use multiple lead generation streams.

I capitalise on eCommerce in my business operations and eMarketing in my business development. These include optimising LinkedIn and other platforms for business growth and collaboration, building strong branding and digital presence, turning eConnections to physical connections for business wins.

Sales cycles have also been largely shortened due to more effective communication, information sharing and social proofs in the digital space.

The Cons, The Challenges

Reduction in social interactions

Digital and tech allow multimedia communication via text, email, phone calls and virtual meetings. The constraints of regulations have also pushed us into increased virtual interactions inevitably, reducing (if not replacing) face-to-face socialising which is critical for business networking.

The human touch and connection have weakened with also increased skill sets required to harness strong customer engagements and relationships.

Fatigue on eyes, mind and body

While the digital and tech space drive higher productivity, it also results in screen fatigue.

In my case, I meet customers, hold webinars and conduct coaching and training sessions virtually. I hold 2-full-day intensive workshops consecutively. These inevitably strain my eyes and cause body aches with limited physical movement and prolonged sitting.

Having to focus on multiple participants and engaging them virtually needs extra effort, although if done well, will still not hamper business outcome.

Distractions

The avalanche of digital information across media and platforms can cause information overload. News, social media, professional articles, virtual events and webinars come streaming in and popping up on screen, thanks to the power of data analytics and artificial intelligence.

With the push of relevant information online, they can also be my source of distractions, enticing me to read them. If I am not disciplined and practise discernment and prioritisation, this may result in time-consuming distractions despite their relevance.

Nevertheless, overall “DIGITAL AND TECH JOURNEY” has enabled me to work better despite some downsides.

Ensure that Digital and Tech is our powerful servant instead of a bad master. Control them instead of letting them run our lives.

May we capitalise on Digital and Tech to grow both our people and business.

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Digi Tech

6Cs to Success on Instagram: Are you game?

Written by Anjuli Gopalakrishna on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

Instagram started as a photo sharing app in 2010 and has made its way in the past 12 years into an app that offers multiple content formats: Instagram Stories, Lives, long form videos, Reels, Interaction features and much more. The people who use Instagram daily have grown to around 2 billion in numbers. And 500+ million people use Instagram Stories daily. More than 200+ million businesses are on Instagram. A diversified user base makes it an ideal platform for your brand or business to reach out to your target audience and influence them.

So how exactly can you build your tribe on Instagram and get them to know, like and trust you and eventually to buy from you?

I poured over many successful Instagram accounts, went through 100s of YouTube videos from the internet gurus, tried all the black hat hacks touted out there on the Instagram to grow your following. I studied the exact system the ace Instagrammers followed to try and understand what really works on this platform.

After months of deep dive, I cracked the code and came up with my own 6 C framework to success on this amazing platform. This is a step-by-step framework that will enable you to attract your dream audience, grow your genuine following and influence on Instagram and convert them into paying customers without the overwhelm and anxiety or the need to be glued to mobile phone 24/7. Read on if you want o learn more.

The first C: Clarity

This is the fundamental step. You need to know you ‘why’ to be on Instagram before ‘what’ and ‘how’ to be successful. Why do you need to be on Instagram? Who do you want to serve? What problem can you solve for them? What reasons can you give them to follow you? What’s your niche? Who is your ideal customer avatar?  What keeps them up at night? These deep and fundamental questions are essential to answer to build the strategic foundation for your Instagram success.

From optimizing your Instagram bio / profile to planning your feed content and story highlights, this clarity will pave the way for building blocks of your content messaging and formats.

The 2nd C: Content

Out of the clarity of purpose flows the best content that resonates with your target audience.  There are possibly only three reasons that people consume content on any platform. It educates, it entertains, or it inspires.  Your job is to figure out what might be of use to your target audience. Remember everybody wants to listen to the ‘WIIFM” radio (What’s in it for me). Place your focus on what they need and serve them with that content that fulfills that need. And given the digital world we live in today, it is easy to figure out what your target audience needs, if you care to listen. A simple Google Suggest can be used to glean into the minds of your people. Keyword planner tool, Answer the Public or many such tools are available for you to do your content research and create your content plan.

The 3rd C: Consistency

To build the ‘KLT” factor or the ‘know, like and trust’ factor with your tribe, you need to show up for them consistently. There is no other way to build a community around your brand or business. Mere exposure effect will ensure that you stay top of the mind of your tribe. I see many businesses lose heart when they don’t see instant results from their content lose their motivation to post and share useful content consistently. The steam dies off. But here’s the point you are missing. It is those who may not have interacted with your content, but the silent lurkers who simply watch and consume your content without giving out any signals that end up becoming your customers when their time of need arrives. So don’t be disheartened and be guided by vanity metrics of ‘likes’ and ‘follows’, instead focus on consistently providing value to your tribe and sure enough they will convert.

A strategy of content pillars and category-based system works best to make the job of consistent content pipeline flowing. Think of 10-12 categories that you can place your content in, catering to different needs at different stages of your target audience in their buying journey. There are many content-scheduling tools available out there that can help you to stay consistent with your content. My favorite is Social Bee.io which enables you to manage and automate your content posting for all your profiles in one place and is super value for money for the paid version.

The 4th C: Community

When you start showing up consistently with value adding content, you are bound to start attracting your tribe to your Instagram profile and slowly building a community.  One thing to remember when building your community is that social media platforms are meant for being ‘social’. It is not a place where you just sell or talk about yourself all the time. That would be such a big put off. Instead engage with others, leave genuine comments on other’s content, join the conversations, leave meaningful value adding bits to the conversations and the community will reward you with engagement. Instagram has so many features for you to build a high engagement with your tribe through stickers like polls, ask me a question, emoji slider bars in the Stories. Make use of them all to truly engage and learn from your tribe.

The 5th C: Connection

Once you have active engaged community on your Instagram profile, it is time for you to build deeper connections with your people. Take the effort to connect with them through conversations in the DMs. Instagram Stories allows you to directly start conversations with your story engagers in the DMs. Again, remember to keep the conversation flow natural. Be interested in them and try to understand their needs first before rushing to pitch your product or service or making a sales offer. Just talk to them. Warm them up, nurture them by offering a freebie or something of value so that you can take the conversation to the next level through other channels such as email or even DMs.

It is a slow process. Like dating. You don’t ask the person to marry you on the first date. It takes time and effort to get to know each other, build trust, before you can go for the big ask, the proposal to marry. Take it slow and easy and keep the conversation flow natural.

There are many innovative features available in Instagram DMs to take advantage of. Voice notes, video messages, video calls, saved replies, gifs and even automation for you to engage with your tribe in Instagram DMs. Sky is the limit if you can make use of all the features with your imagination and creativity.

The 6th C: Conversion

Converting your prospects into paying customers is the final and the most rewarding steps in the framework literally speaking. Afterall, you want all your efforts to finally end up making some money for you. This is the step you need to be well prepared for with a well set up sales conversion funnel that makes it easy and friction free for your warm leads to convert and make the purchase. Your landing pages for your products and services must be able to act as your salesperson to answer all their questions or objections. Be ready with your offers and bonuses to get them to open their wallets and credit cards for you.

Now there you have it! The 6 Cs to Success Step by Step framework for you to follow on Instagram. I would like to invite you to join my free online course Instagram Influence Foundations at this link. Once you are happy with my style of teaching and are ready to take your Instagram strategy to the next level, you can take a deep dive with the deep dive online course Instagram Influence Mastery 2022 and beyond with 60+ video lessons. You can take this course anytime anywhere at your own pace. Once you buy it, you get a lifetime access, and all the updated content comes to you for free.

That’s true, we need to keep adding content as the Instagram platform keeps changing and evolving. 

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Digi Tech

Who Wants To Be a (Digital) Millionaire?

Written by Wendy Scott on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

I do.

If you recognize the reference to the Frank Sinatra/Celeste Holm song from the 1956 film, High Society, you are probably a Boomer like me. So what business does a fifty-nine-year-old have wanting to be a digital anything, let alone a digital millionaire?

I didn’t grow up with tech. We didn’t even have a landline at home. I took my ‘O’ Levels in 1978, which was the first year in the UK we were allowed to take calculators into exams. I struggle with tech, and I say ‘interweb’ to annoy the kids.

But what I do have is at least forty years of leadership and learning & development knowledge that I can share online. And technology has made it possible for me to make money doing that.

What the heck is a digital millionaire?

Otherwise known as a digital entrepreneur or content creator, it’s someone who sells digital products online such as templates, books, or courses. It’s also possible to sell membership newsletters, coaching, and exclusive coaching groups called masterminds.

How it all works

I’ve spent the last eighteen months reading, doing courses, and attending webinars to find out how to be a content creator, and as far as I can tell, this is what digital millionaires do:

Step One – Create online content – whether you create a blog, an Instagram post, a podcast, or articles, put free content online.

I write articles on Medium, a writing platform anyone can post on. When people read an article, the author gets a small amount of the reader’s membership fee.

Medium writers share articles on FB, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora, and Pinterest.

Step Two – Collect email addresses – Followers on Instagram or other social media are useful, but you’d have to start again if the platform disappears. The trick is to collect the email addresses of people that like your work. The list can’t disappear overnight, and you use the list to send newsletters and sell your products.

I’ve just started an email newsletter that goes out weekly and contains free links to my training, leadership and dating articles.

It’s said that successful online creators make one dollar a month income from each email subscriber.

I’m using convertkit for my list; They provide helpful resources, such as an online creator community, online tutorials, and live zoom tutorials.

Step Three – Give free content to your email list – Email your list once a week and give them valuable content for free. Content could be an article in the body of the email, sources you have found helpful, book recommendations, templates, short email courses, short video courses, or access to an exclusive podcast episode.

Step Four – Sell your content via your email list – You can sell templates, ebooks, and courses. I’ve seen online courses from $29 US to $3000 US, and some big earners sell masterminds for $10,000 US per year.

Currently, I’m writing an ebook and a course which will be my first digital products.

I use Atticus for my book, Teachable to create my course, and Canva to create the slides and workbooks.

Next tech on the list

A subscription to Later to automatically schedule my posts on social media.

I also use a writing assistant called Jasper.ai and a note-taking tool called RoamResearch.

How I’m finding all the tech

I believe in a growth mindset, so after the screaming, tears, and tech-induced lie-downs with a nice cup of tea, I persevere. Google is my friend. I’m learning very slowly, but each gain I make is a small step forward.

The upside is that I’m enjoying myself while learning about a whole new world. The downside is that none of my friends can understand what I’m talking about and think I’m getting mixed up in an online pyramid scheme scam.

Am I a Digital Millionaire yet?

No. I’ve made a loss with the subscriptions to tech and courses I’ve taken. But I’m having fun, learning heaps, and keeping current with new tech.

And you never know, this time next year I could be a millionaire…

Digital Millionaires I follow: Denise Duffield-Thomas, Jeff Walker, Amy Porterfield, Marie Forleo, and Dr. Benjamin Hardy.

Movers and Shakers on Medium: Tim Denning, Zulie Rane, Ayodeji Awosika, Tom Kueglar, Sean Kearnan, Nicolas Cole, Sinem Gunel.

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Digi Tech

I’m Linda

Written by Linda Wells on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

I am not a tech geek. I am not an academic professor at your local university. I’m just me! and all I want to do is show people what they are eating/drink/consuming and the harm it does and nudge them to pivot to healthy food and drinks, plus increasing their physical activity.

Before the global pandemic happened, I had a small business that did just that – face to face workshops and speaking gigs at conferences, workshops and meetings – all within a few kilometres of where I lived (well, maybe up to 500kms).

Now … My clients are global, some of them 16,500kms away. Why? Because of technology and the digital revolution, we are currently in.

Whilst I ran live workshops on my topic of healthy food, drinks and exercise and I always dreamed of creating online content, making some online courses on a digital platform. The truth is, I didn’t think I was smart enough to do that!!

I am smart in my thought leadership sector (for example I know what artificial numbers 950 and 951 mean and what harm they do to our body … check the closest drink you have on your desk while reading this and see if it includes those), but tech guru: NO. I know how to achieve the goal of 10,000 steps a day, but how to understand the digital world: NO.

When the pandemic hit, I had just moved to another State with no friends, no business contacts, not a member of any business forums or groups and had no work opportunities at all. So, guess what I did?

I decided to put my content online. I searched digital platforms, chose a few to test and ended up subscribing to Thinkific and put my courses online. I made video content. I learnt how to edit the content, how to add to YouTube, how to create the captions etc. I created resources and pdfs for students to download as well.

I used to use all the MS(Microsoft) things, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, MS Excel and had used these for many, many years (I’m not telling you how many as I don’t want to disclosure how old I actually am – haha).

Now I use Google Drive, Google Docs, I use Zoom (doesn’t everyone), I use MS Teams, I create content in Canva, I’ve do email video messages via Loom, I use Mailchimp for my newsletters – I have learnt so much from my digital and technology journey since 2020 – all the while teaching people how to understand what is in discretionary, ultra-processed food and drinks.

I’m Linda from e-RAW.

e-RAW is a digital learning company that helps people transform their lives from consuming ultra-processed food/drinks and risks to their health to the best version of themselves they have ever been. Bonus: they get to pass it on to their family and friends – at home and in the workplace.

In fact, the word ‘discretionary’ wasn’t in my narrative, until I asked a group of smarter people than me on an online Retail Food Environment course from Monash University with me, what word I should use instead of ‘crap food’ to be a little bit kinder. This was on a digital Zoom weekly course roundup and guest speaker gig. So, I learned from my fellow students the word ‘discretionary’ on a tech video helping us with our online course we were studying from our home offices or workplace offices. See how important tech has been, even when it is just in the background!

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Digi Tech Fin Tech Med/Health Tech

HOW INDIA IS GETTING DIGITALLY LITERATE

Written by Rishikesh Patankar, Ph.D. on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

The need for digital literacy in a country as populous and diverse as India is critical. The gap between limited availability of resources as against vast requirement could be addressed by use of technology. Technology can provide effective ways to scale up solutions and bridge the gaps. The technology and connectivity together can make a huge difference to the socio-economic levels of a community, and ultimately, the country, true progress comes from inclusive growth.

The Government of India has launched ‘Digital India’ – A programme to transform India into digitally empowered society and a knowledge economy. The Digital India programme envisages to ensure that Government services are available to citizens electronically. Under the ‘e-Kranti – Electronic Delivery of Services’, one of the initiatives includes ‘Technology for Education – e-Education’ under which ‘Universal Digital Literacy’ at the National level is envisaged.

I would like to share the experience gained in implementation of a successful Digital Literacy programme across India, led by CSC.

THE NEED FOR DIGITAL LITEREACY IN INDIA

The technology and connectivity could be utilized effectively for delivery of education, healthcare, citizen services, financial services etc. The true potential for these aspects can only be realized if all the citizens are made digitally literate.

The key is to have sustained efforts by harnessing collective energies, strengthening partnerships and leveraging them to pull down the divisive digital wall.

Digital literacy is therefore a key component of the Government’s vision of building an empowered society as envisaged under “Digital India initiative”. Spinoff effects of digital literacy especially in the context of rural India would address a number of socio-economic issues.

  • Rural population can gain immensely from the ‘Digital Literacy’.
  • ‘Digital Literacy’ would bring the benefits of ICT to daily lives of rural population in the major thrust areas of Healthcare, Livelihood generation and Education.
DIGITAL LITERACY GAP

As per Census of India 2011, 68.84 % (883 Mn) of population resides in rural India. The number of rural households is 168 million. 5.2% of these rural households possess a computer.

Computer Literacy (who can operate a computer) by age group in rural India:

14-29 years – 18%

30-45 years – 4%

46-60 years – 1%

In addition, a significant number of these households don’t have computer access and are likely to be digitally illiterate.

IMPLEMENTATION OF DIGITAL LITERACY

The implementation of the PMGDISHA Scheme is being carried out by the CSC e-Governance Services India Ltd. (CSC-SPV) which acts as the Programme Management Unit (PMU). More than 250,000 Training Centres have been empaneled under PMGDISHA to provide enrollment/training to the candidates. The Training Centres are spread across the country and are participating in achieving the goal of making India digitally literate.

In the years 2014 to 2016, two Schemes entitled “National Digital Literacy Mission” (NDLM) and “Digital Saksharta Abhiyan” (DISHA) were implemented with certification of 5.4 million candidates, out of which around 42% candidates were from rural India.

In February, 2017, the Government approved a scheme titled “Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan” (PMGDISHA) for ushering in digital literacy in rural India by covering 60 Million households.

Under this Scheme, as on 08/01/2022:

– 54.5 Mn candidates have been enrolled

– 46.2 Mn candidates have completed the training

– 34.30 Mn have been certified

TRAINING ESSENTIALS

  • Online Portal, Real-time Online Monitoring Tool for Analytics & Reports (www.pmgdisha.in )
  • Handbook & Multimedia content (in 22 Scheduled languages of India and English)
  • Mon-Sun, between (8 AM to 8 PM) we conduct online Remotely Proctored Examination System
  • Digital Signed Certificates are generated for all passed candidates. Digital Locker has been integrated with the system
WE COULDN’T HAVE DONE THIS ALONE

We had the support and capability of the below companies in carrying out this humongous task through their CSR initiatives.

IMPACT ASSESSMENT

3 impact assessment studies of the Scheme were carried out by:

  1. The Council for Social Development (CSD) in 2017-18.
  2. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) – Delhi in the year 2019.
  3. Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) in FY 2020-21.

The aim of the study was to analyze the ground level situation of the scheme with a larger aspect of continuation of the scheme.

The brief highlights of the impact assessment reports are:

  • PMGDISHA training has had a formidable impact on the use of ICT and other forms of digital media
  • 59% of the respondents stated that after attending the IT literacy training, their digital ability & confidence levels using digital has increased
  • Women participation is very large and their inclusion at the rural level will open the path for the learning of the whole family.
  • However, less participation of very poor and very illiterate was observed

We are very proud the Digital literacy drive continues in the country, aided with the integration, and help of NGOs and others under the leadership of CSCs.

Facilitated by PMGDISHA (Universal Digital Literacy for Rural India through Prime Minister Rural Digital Literacy Mission)

Subscribe to the below link for Digital lessons in many Indian languages: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbFPVWaOPS4tZ8EnXgXWwUg