BRAToSPHERE

Tag: Linkedin

  • Cloud Wars

    I got a notification on my iPhone recently – “You are running out of iCloud space. Click here to see upgrade options”. I am a total Apple fanboy, with most of my gadgets linked to my apple id – iPhone, iPad, Watch, TV and the Macbook! The meagre 5GB of iCloud space unfortunately is not sufficient even for the backups of each of these devices! What option do I have? I sign up for the dollar a month service for the 50GB space on iCloud! This is in addition to the couple of dollars I pay every month for the 1TB of space on One Drive (for all my photos, documents, laptop backups, etc..).

    We are living in the digital world with the IOT devices getting all pervasive starting with the innocent echo device that has made its way into many homes. With a whole lot of photos spread across devices, along with a range of documents, personal ID cards, ebooks, etc.. a personal space on the cloud is well on its way to be a necessity.

    We all already have some personal space on the cloud – be it your emails on gmail, or the music playlist on spotify – they are all stored on the cloud. Introduction of 5G and related services would generate even more data in the future. Data centres are mushrooming and would continue to expand with more and more of our activities moving online.

    While still very nascent, having a private space on the cloud would soon be as ubiquitous as having a roof over your head.

    The big tech know this and are leaving no stone unturned to woo us into their service. Apple launched its subscription bundle Apple One and sneaked in a whopping 2TB of cloud space in its premium option;  Microsoft has been bundling its Microsoft office suite with its cloud offering; amazon/google have their own offerings along with a countless others.

    These companies know that this is he next growth area with a big potential moat as it is tough for a consumer to move out once he/she has bought in into the service.

    As these services evolve, I see a lot of opportunities in consolidating all the needs and providing them as a bundled service. Currently, there are multiple places that I end up going to for the various cloud needs which is non effective. The 1TB of space on one drive, 50GB on icloud, In addition I subscribe separately to host my blog, a separate service for my online diary and another one for my home camera. Plus the countless other services that host my data in terms of email, social media, etc..

    In my view, the ideal cloud service of the future would be someone where all my digital material can sit without disturbance and I can pay a monthly charge for it – privacy and the convenience, with the always-up reliability. All the personal space (photos, documents), cloud needs for the internet of things (live camera feed, Smart speaker preferences), along with some hosting space into one bundled service would create a winner.

    In addition to these services, there needs to be regulation on the lines of what can the provider do and cannot do with the data, along with clear laws for portability (very much like mobile number portability for our cellular connections). While the social media was a war for our attention trading in our data, the future would be a war for our data and the opportunity to hold them all. Very much like the virtual roof on our heads that everyone would aspire to have as a necessity.

    We are sure in the early days of this revolution, but one that is surely going to be all engulfing and any service having a head start would have a huge competitive advantage in these “Cloud Wars”.

    This post originally appeared on my LinkedIn profile-https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cloud-wars-bharat-jhurani/

  • Platform Thinking

    Platform thinking is the model evolving across industries. It is the equivalent of having one brand catering to a particular need through various product and line extensions, in the FMCG world. The same brand has products in multiple categories all providing the same core need through various uses throughout the day becoming a part of your lives in an intrinsic manner and building a mega brand in the process.

    One good non-FMCG example of a platform brand is Wechat in China which takes care of a gamut of stuff for the consumer, right from the smallest transaction to the smallest interaction, it is all routed through this super app. Fundamentally, I believe Wechat as a brand stands for “enabling and simplifying interactions”. It is a super app of any interaction (financial or otherwise).

    Similarly, there could be a platform for various big needs that the consumer has. There are hordes of experiences that the consumer today is struggling with; With a fragmented approach and individual  gateways for each of these experiences it is not ideal, and thus someone who manages to consolidate these experiences in a useful manner would manage to create immense value.

    In the software world, Cloud and Artificial intelligence would of course be important tools that would be used to provide these services. A point to note here is – Cloud, Machine learning, AI, etc.. are all in the backend to achieve the consumer’s need. The consumer is not looking for AI, he wants to get a job done and is employing a particular piece of hardware/software/service to accomplish that in the best possible way. What Brand would he trust to accomplish that particular “job” is where the moolah lies.

    Companies and new age startups that think on these lines would have a chance to build a Mega integrated business capturing opportunities at multiple areas of the entire value chain. In the digital space, with the window of our digital devices, some of the spaces that I think are ripe for disruption – 

    Entertainment – one platform for all my needs

    What are the various avenues I reach out to entertain me in the digital world? I consume content. Be it by reading, listening, watching (from a 5 minute short film to a marathon season of a series), experiencing it with gaming, etc.. Before I get to that, I currently need to have gatekeeper apps to figure out what content, where can I access it, and blah, blah, blah, creating a friction between the experience. Can we have one place that I can access all of it?

    • Movies
    • Music, Podcasts,
    • Gaming
    • Reading – News, Magazines and Books

    I feel the most poised to win this battle would be Apple. It already has a presence in all of these with their individual platforms – “Apple TV”, “Apple Music”, “Arcade”, “Book”, “News”, etc.. I am sure it is a matter of time when they figure out a smart way to integrate it all into one. A one stop solution for all the content that you can consume..

    Health – one stop solution where one can access all my health needs

    The four basic tenets of Health all mixed into one. The consumer would want to think of Health holistically and ideally want to lean on to one player for all his/her Health Needs. The four tenets of good health – 

    • Food
    • Physical
    • Emotional/Mental
    • Financial 

    The super app platform could be that one place where the consumer gets access to reliable information regarding all of the above, take online/offline classes for any of the health programs, have access to his entire medical/financial portfolio and history along with an advisor, schedule appointments with a doctor/diagnostics, order medicines, etc..

    I think Cultfit in India is well on its way to build this, and with a wide offline presence complementing its online platform. It is well placed to build trust and reliability which is the most important tenet for any player in this space. Gaia is another player in this space that has potential and a vast adoption.

    What are the other areas that you think are ripe for disruption?

    This post originally appeared on my LinkedIn profile- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/platform-thinking-bharat-jhurani/