How digital start-ups are transforming the future of India’s workforce

The digital economy has resulted in thousands of new jobs being generated across newly created domains powered and run by technology while transforming the very nature of India’s workforce.

Tech today predominates enough to have revolutionised the way we work, streamlining every type of function by digitising tasks, roles, and workflows within organisations. Some companies have transitioned better than others, and those that have are discovering the many advantages of, for instance, artificial intelligence (AI), and how its applications free them up to contribute in more constructive ways to the company, by allowing them to focus on their core competencies.

Slowly but surely, digital start-ups are bringing about a radical shift in the profile of the workforce in a country whose government is zealously pushing for a digital future.

Besides fuelling the start-up boom that disrupted the traditional economy, emerging technologies have played a crucial role in how large and small organisations are managed. In today's world, companies are realizing that they can make the best use of their prospects by using a combination of human influence and machine capabilities. This is where digital start-ups come in, to help them make that switch.

Today, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing (NLP), or the Internet of Things (IoT) are feasible, accessible, and cost-effective. As a result, start-up team members would be better equipped to handle their responsibilities, resulting in increased productivity that is commensurate with their work. These solutions would benefit areas as diverse as logistics, retail, public utilities, agriculture, financial services, banking, and recruitment.

In recruitment, artificial intelligence has proved extremely handy, though only a minority of companies have adopted AI to facilitate hiring new talent. This is as much down to a dearth of specialized talent as it is to a reluctance to trust in AI. And this, despite the ways the workforce continues to evolve, particularly in light of the great resignation.

A handful of factors triggered the great resignation, the term given to the millions around the world who have left their jobs since the start of the pandemic. People have quit jobs due to either or some of the following: a desire for promotion and/or career progression, to switch industries or roles, to seek a better remuneration package, and as an expression of dissatisfaction about an organisation’s future direction.

Many have moved from the old economy to the new, recognising the endless possibilities in the latter and the opportunities that lie in the digital realm, more so in the start-up ecosystem that has become the engine room of India’s digital economy. Moreover, the shift towards digital spaces will continue to manifest itself as more and more professionals realize that emerging technology is a prerequisite for the upgradation of products and services in a range of industries, especially in sectors as critical as healthcare, HR, defense, and security.

Meanwhile, technology keeps on advancing and developing, positively impacting the overall efficiency of companies and their employees. In the future, the workforce will become even more conversant with the potential of tech, their ways of working becoming an ideal hybrid between the human factor and tech. Increasingly, digital start-ups will take advantage of the Metaverse, a virtual space that is the next stage of the Internet, to influence India's workforce composition.

In conclusion, digital start-ups will lead the revolution in the way we work in India, followed by a growing number of established companies that have to acknowledge the ‘digital first’ trend in India’s economic landscape. With that in mind, the future of India's workforce will be shaped by AI and related emerging technologies driven by Digital startups.

Authored By: Shailendra Kumar, Thought Leader and International Authority on Artificial Intelligence & Data Analytics