Debrief from India: It's all about DIGITAL

I’m on a plane over the Arabian Sea collecting my thoughts after a packed week in Trivandrum, Bangalore and Mumbai. The impetus for my trip was the honor of presenting at Suntec’s User Meet on the occasion of its 25th anniversary. The clients who attended were extraordinarily open about their stories and presented extremely compelling case studies. Learning about the pricing practices of Telcos showed how much opportunity is left for banks in this space. I spoke on Customer Experience Orchestration in a Digital World. It proved to be a perfect set up for the rest of the week, since the clients I met with – old, new and prospective – were extraordinarily consistent in their focus on a single concept: DIGITAL. Like Celent, many of the Indian service providers I visited have defined their vision of digital and begun the process of aligning their offerings to it. The best focused on a customer-oriented foundation (like Celent!) and then described how their combination of technical expertise, product / consulting delivery, and segment concentration combined to help their banking clients fulfill their digital vision. Innovation centers – spaces for client co-creation and brainstorming – continue to be hot: I saw two new ones this trip. Demos trump powerpoint every time, and there was a good focus on this. If you’d like to learn more about my impressions, please arrange for an Analyst Access call; I’d be happy to chat about them in more detail.