It has been nine years since Mint was launched. The year 2016 marks 25 years of India’s economic liberalization. A lot has changed in the last 25 years. While it’s difficult to predict the future, it’s certainly safe to say that the pace of change will only accelerate.

In these fast changing times, we outline nine trends that will shape India in the years to come. These trends feed off each other and are inter-connected.

India has produced billion-dollar start-ups such as Flipkart and Snapdeal. That would not have happened without the advances in technology.

However, even as we move forward, limitations such as poor infrastructure, the lack of focused policy frameworks and, in some cases, the regulatory environment, continue to hamper progress.

The youth today is impatient and demanding, taking to the streets to protest and often using social media to voice their opinions.

The imprint of technology has also changed the way we consume. There no longer is a desire to own or build assets.

With the rise of companies such as Ola, the cab-hailing service modelled on Uber, it is now all about usage and the here and now in the sharing economy.

Technology empowerment and media penetration has also blurred the lines between rural and urban.

Moreover, the roles of work and home, business and society are also blurring as it is now possible to pursue multiple roles simultaneously for businesses and people.

Lastly, one of the big themes playing out across India is women empowerment. Whether it is the focus on girl child education or mandating corporates to have women directors, or the opening of bank accounts in the name of a female member for an household, women will have a larger role in tomorrow’s India.

Digital future

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Over the past two decades, there has been an exponential proliferation of digital technologies in the country. We now live in an on-demand world with anytime, anywhere access to information changing our consumption behaviour. Shopping online, hailing cabs using our mobile phones and ordering food online are just some examples of how new-age businesses are disrupting traditional enterprises.

According to an Economist Intelligence Unit survey, “Supply on demand: Adapting to change in consumption and delivery models", “Almost 80% of companies are seeing changes in how their customers access goods and services, and more than 51% are in the process of changing how they price and deliver their goods and services."

The reason for the change in simple, high growth of mobility and Internet users. “There are over 276 million mobile phone Internet users in India as compared to 48 million in 2012. The number of Internet users in India grew... from 150 million in 2012 to almost 350 million in 2015, listing India on the 3rd rank globally," said Jaijit Bhattacharya, partner, infrastructure and government services, KPMG India.

What we are seeing today is the convergence of social, mobile, cloud and big data, which is presenting enormous opportunities for businesses to transform themselves as they can now capture the vast amounts of information and introduce new business, delivery and engagement models.

Technology is also changing the ways that people work, and is increasingly enabling machines and software to substitute for humans.

“Enterprises and individuals who can seize the opportunities offered by digital advances stand to gain significantly, while those who cannot may lose everything," said an EY Megatrends 2015 report, while cautioning that the evolution of the digital enterprise also presents significant challenges, including new competition, changing customer engagement and business models, unprecedented transparency, privacy concerns and cybersecurity threats.

Entrepreneurship and start-ups

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New-age start-ups have attracted more than $9 billion in capital over the past two years. “It has been estimated that in 2015, the number of start-ups grew at a rate as high as 40%. This increase in the number of start-ups has, in turn, led to a sharp increase in the number of employment opportunities within India," said Jaijit Bhattacharya of KPMG.

To be sure, the success of Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma and the Bansals of Flipkart has lured many engineering graduates to start their own ventures rather than take up jobs at established companies.

Also, the increasing youthfulness of the country with roughly 50% of the population being less than 24 years old plays a huge role. “Nearly 50% of the world’s entrepreneurs are between the ages of 25 and 44. Moreover, 25- to 34-year-olds show the highest rates of entrepreneurial activity," according to global reports referred to by the EY Megatrends 2015 report.

Giving start-ups a huge boost, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a new start-up action plan in January, which included a 10,000 crore fund to be deployed over the next four years, exemption from capital gains tax on investments, faster and cheaper patent applications and easy registration for new companies.

But is the government funding and the policy really helpful? Should the government put taxpayer money into funding new ventures, a task that is tough even for experienced investment professionals? In the US, which is the hub of tech innovation, the government has largely avoided investing in start-ups. More on policy and regulations in the next point.

Regulatory overdrive

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Whether it is the action plan for start-ups or the state overreach through the Companies Act, which tells how many directors the company should have, or their term for serving, or the mandatory 2% CSR allocation, the government is giving directions in matters that are for shareholders to decide.

This is even seen in the regulatory overdrive to protect consumers—be it the insurance sector regulator telling companies on what to outsource, or the telecom sector regulator telling telcos on how to price its services like roaming.

“We are going through a stage of intense regulation... as the regulators are also taking a role of developing the sector. Across sectors, we have regulators going micro as they tell companies what to do and how to price their products," said Rama Bijapurkar, author of ‘We are Like that Only: Understanding the Logic of Consumer India’ and ‘A Never-Before World: Tracking the Evolution of Consumer India’.

Moreover, some of the regulations, which were created in the 1930s and 1940s, are still to be updated in line with the changing times and technologies. For instance, Only 377 food items are standardized according to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) Act. All the other food items need to get approval and, in the past year, even ingredients like coffee frappuccino, vanilla syrup and hazelnut-flavoured syrups from companies like Starbucks in India failed to get approval from the food regulator.

Meanwhile, “companies in the healthcare/over-the-counter (OTC) segments are commenting that the lead time for OTC product approvals has now increased to four years as opposed to two years previously", said a 10 January report by Deutsche Bank AG.

Young India

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Perhaps the biggest strength for India today is its young population, and that clearly will play out in multiple ways across dimensions.

“They want everything here and now; restless and impatient, they genuinely want to make a difference in whatever they believe in. They are far more strong and passionate in their intent and views," said Subhrangshu Neogi, director, group marketing and brand, Religare Enterprises Ltd.

As such, young India is better educated than the previous generation, and much more connected with the rest of India and rest of the world through print, electronic, and social media.

“The youth have lesser patience with status-quo and expect or rather demand quicker change," said Arvind Singhal, managing director at retail consulting firm Technopak Advisors Pvt. Ltd, while explaining that the desired changes are multi-dimensional that include political (better, more effective, cleaner governance), social (a more liberal, modern outlook in general), economical (jobs that not only give them money but social respect, too), and environmental (personal security, clean air and water, delivery of justice). “Politicians who do not understand this fully, political parties that ignore this trend are being routinely voted and booed out and, therefore, the so-called anti-incumbency factor will be even more visible in the coming years," said Singhal.

Proud to be Indian

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While some would be worried about staying on in India, and may find India a boiling cauldron of intolerance and misgovernance, it seems that an increasing number of Indians seem to be overtly or subliminally embracing some of their “Indian" roots with greater enthusiasm, said Arvind Singhal, managing director of consulting firm Technopak.

This can be seen in the spectacular rise of products and services that appeal to the Indian taste and way of life. For instance, Patanjali Ayurved Ltd, an ayurvedic/natural products firm that was launched in 2006, has already clocked revenues of more than ₹ 2,000 crore, as of fiscal 2015, as it appeals to consumers who want to express their Indian-ness. Likewise, Fabindia Overseas Pvt. Ltd, a retail chain for garments, furnishings, fabrics and ethnic products handmade by craftspeople across rural India, continues to remain popular and see good growth even as the larger brick-and-mortar retailers complain of a slowdown in revenue.

Then there is Hector Beverages Pvt. Ltd, with ethnic drinks under the Paperboat brand such as ‘aam panna’ and ‘jal jeera’, which is fast gaining acceptance in the Indian market. Even when it comes to sports, we are now moving beyond cricket, with Indian sports such as kabbadi and wrestling also gaining sponsors and mindshare.

To be sure, “while young India is immensely patriotic and Indian at heart, at the same time, not everything desi is cool; likewise not everything foreign, too, is cool; basically, they aspire to be the best of both worlds as global netizens," said Subhrangshu Neogi, director, group marketing and brand, Religare Enterprises.

Sharing economy

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For the young consumer, who wants everything now, technology is imprinted in their behaviour as, irrespective of income, they use goods and services that otherwise would be unaffordable to them. The future of consumption is shifting towards usage and access as versus ownership and acquisition.

“There is a fundamental shift in the orientation of consumption," said Santosh Desai, managing director and chief executive officer, Future Brands Ltd, while explaining that there is no longer a need to hoard or build assets.

The sharing economy is the result of the collision between technological breakthroughs and resource scarcity. Global companies like Uber Technologies Inc. and Airbnb Inc. and local ones, such as Ola, have fast found acceptance in India. According to a PriceWaterhouseCoopers research, five sectors of the sharing economy—peer-to-peer accommodation, car sharing, peer-to-peer finance, music, TV and video-streaming, and online staffing—could generate revenues of $335 billion by 2025 globally.

Environmental awareness

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2015 saw 195 countries, including India and China, in agreement to work towards cleaning up the environment at the United Nations climate change conference in Paris.

World leaders also adopted the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs. Billionaires also got together, led by philanthropist Bill Gates, and launched the Breakthrough Energy Coalition at the Paris climate talks last year.

To be sure, awareness and the need to adopt sustainable business practices has been there for the past 10-15 years. But it is only in the past year that businesses have realized its value and, today, for most proactive companies, sustainability is a way of doing business.

The Indian government estimates that at least $2.5 trillion (at 2014-15 prices) will be required to meet the country’s climate change actions between 2015 and 2030. The industry is also doing its bit by voluntarily adopting various international reporting standards like the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). GRI is an independent organization that helps businesses, governments and other organizations understand and communicate the impact of business on critical sustainability issues such as climate change, human rights, corruption and others. The private sector accounts for more than 80% of the installed renewable energy capacity in India and has made commitments to set up projects for achieving India’s target of 175GW of renewable capacity by 2022. To be sure, this is important for corporates, as today, no one lives in a silo as explained by in our next topic, blurring lines.

Blurring lines

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Today you have firms being environmentally conscious even as they pursue profitability and growth. Likewise, people are also looking at work as a part of life as they realize life and business cannot be divorced. “The business of business is not business unlike in the past, increasingly the business of business overlaps the blurred lines between home and office, family and work and society and business," says Santosh Desai of Future Brands.

The newer technologies are also now making it possible to work from home, giving flexibility in terms of time. Also, the blurring of lines is happening as people are driven by multiple ideas and passions and not just one thing. For instance, today a foodie is not just someone who likes and appreciates food. Foodies now take themselves very seriously, they could be food critics, bloggers, and that is just one of the multiple things each one identifies herself/ himself with.

“As people start identifying themselves according to their interests, we are seeing the rise of the consumer producer and active consumers," said Desai, explaining that earlier the consumer and producers were different people. But now, increasingly, consumers are becoming producers. This can be seen as people interested in fashion launch their own fashion labels or those interested in baking and cooking start their own bakery and food start-ups.

The blurring of lines is also visible between urban and rural in India, says Rama Bijapurkar, author of ‘We are Like that Only: Understanding the Logic of Consumer India’, while pointing out that a quarter of the urban population is living in the slums, which is not urbanization. Likewise, a lot of rural people pursue non-agricultural jobs and their aspirations are similar to their urban counterparts.

Women’s empowerment

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Indian women are being empowered by programmes such as the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, launched in 2014 and which intends that every household has a bank account and more so in the name of a female member, who the government feels will be better equipped to manage finances, and the requirement of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), which in 2014 imposed a quota of at least one female director on the board of every listed company.

The findings of the fourth National Family Health Survey released earlier last month is showing signs of progress. Data shows a marked increase in the percentage of women in the age group of 15-49 years having a savings account that they use themselves.

The literacy rates are improving in states such as Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. In Bihar, the female literacy rate improved from 37% in the last survey to 49.6% in the current one.

The fertility rate or the number of children each woman has is also dropping, and more so in the populous states of Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. All this will make a difference in policy and is shaping the future of India.

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