ad:tech 2014: D Shivakumar on ‘The war of the wrist’

Day two of ad:tech in Gurgaon (March 21) began with D Shivakumar’s presentation on ‘Digital impact’.

The last decade saw the commencement of the war of the palm, noted the speaker. He added, “With five billion phones in the world, total time spent on internet higher than on TV, and mobile internet bigger than fixed internet globally, this is going to be the game in town.” 

“We are entering the war of the wrist,” he noted.

Shivakumar asserted how individuals got in touch with computing through office, earlier. “But today it is passé. Today, it has become more of BYOD (bring your own device), as individuals are determining the technology themselves. The CIOs of the company are not gatekeepers anymore, and many of them are not recognising it,” he explained.

The PepsiCo India head highlighted how digital cameras have changed behaviour of users. “The number of pictures taken today in two minutes surpasses the number of pictures taken in all of 19th century,” he noted.

He underlined that as devices at home get connected to each other, the mobile phone will emerge as the anchor. “The huge unlock opportunity here is the ability to connect devices with display,” he said.

The nature of workforce will also change in the digital era, noted Shivakumar. “Going forward, we would see service and creative jobs emerge as big jobs of the future, and not manual jobs. The shift happened in 1995, and will accelerate even more. Going forward, you need people with great interpersonal skills and creative thinking, and not manual labours,” he underlined.

The presentation also touched upon how the future marketing department would change. With consumers sharing their points of view, brands need to orchestrate the organisation to become ‘more humble and extremely responsive’. Similarly, making sense of data would be very important, he said.

“Do not think screens. That is history. The theory of future is display,” surmised the speaker.