Spread of technology adoption in smaller Indian towns

I was on the phone with an old friend of mine, who owns a clothing business in the place I hail from , a place of less than 300 thousand population. His latest business innovation, the one that was on his radar for quite some time but the wings never took off, to maintain his competitive edge over the other local businesses was to barcode the entire inventory in all their stores. The exuberance in his voice was the evidence that their investment was reaping the envisaged benefits in the form of improved productivity and inventory control.

It was no big surprise technology was finally knocking the doors of small town businesses but I wondered what the statistics looked like. Coincidentally, Economic Times underpinned this growing trend in a recent related article titled IT biggies take country roads in tough times. The numbers are encouraging and seems to be sustainable despite some challenges.

I think one of the biggest challenges for rapid adoption would be educating the small buyer and providing local customer service, much like how the cell phone revolution had brought phone outlets closer to the consumer for easy sign up of new service and maintenance.

I am hopeful with big players wetting their feet in this market, companies will innovate to overcome the hurdles that will pop up along the way. It will only be a matter of time before we see the kirana store verifying stock availability from a blackberry or ringing a customer on a computer.