The management consultancy said the entry of disrupters such as Amazon and Flipkart had forced the old consumer companies to change their view about digital offerings.
“Digital is an adjunct to the strategy and not at its core. We would like companies to ask about a strategy for a digital world, whereas the question still being asked is what’s our digital strategy. And there is a huge difference between the two,” Gupta said.
Old world conglomerates such as the Tata Group, the Mahindra Group, the Aditya Birla Group and Reliance have all started ecommerce sites to try and capitalise on the growing online shopping market in India. Technology companies in particular are seeing growing business in India as Indian corporates begin experimenting with digital projects to avoid being disrupted by startups. And while the companies that focus on consumers have begun to focus on digital, business-to-business companies have yet to step up to the plate.
“In the B2B world, they are intrigued, they know there is something called internet-of-things but they have not pieced it together. These are old-world companies and maybe their top management hasn’t embraced digital technologies themselves,” Gupta said.
Discover the stories of your interest
To help conglomerates create a strategy, AT Kearney has started even building out the proof-of-concepts to help clients see how a strategy might play out. The consultancy is also compiling a list of companies with niche digital skills to work with conglomerates.