Underused assets and labour can be engaged for greater efficiencies

Enabling gigs and sharing in India

Rajarshi Sahai
Aug 25, 2017 · 4 min read

How I have been pleasantly surprised by two apps, recently

As a start up and disruptive business enthusiast, I am constantly seeking new ways to enhance the efficiencies of the great Indian economy. As the nation progresses towards becoming a truly emerging economy, fuelled by disruptive — or in some cases, borrowed — ideas there are couple of areas that do not make sense to me and I see them as threats to India realising its potential.

How to make Gigs as common as hailing a taxi:

India has the demographic dividend working in its favour. Every year we have more and more supply of youth in the employable age bracket. India as a nation produces as many graduates as the entire population of Norway, every year and yet more than 50% of such people are deemed unemployable by the industry. As the reality is apparent on students across the country, I am completely appalled by the sheer lack of effort on the part of students and graduates to seek employment via gigs, just like their western counterparts. A graduate in India, at an average age of 23 years, most likely has never worked a full or part time job during or before his/her studies. It is not difficult to realise how, as fresh graduates, they are unable to therefore inspire any confidence in recruiters.

Part of the reason for above trend is the gigs have traditionally had a very blue collar connotation in the country and graduates would not want to dwindle their chances at getting white collar jobs by doing such odd jobs. The societal structure that find its okay to support youth, all the way into their late 20s (or even early 30s) does not help matters much. In such a scenario, I was just amazed how a popular ride hailing app company has launched a food delivery application with an inbuilt option for their own consumers to be able to deliver food. While most people would like to earn a few dollars every spare hour, the cumbersome process of enlisting in a gig and the lack of flexibility in the regular gig jobs are big impediments. More importantly, the stigma attached to food delivery gigs will surely go down as more and more adopters will deliver and order food from the same app.

How to help people share rides and make new friends in the process:

Perils of modernisation and urban life are many. Nothing, however, is more apparent than the sheer seclusion one finds herlself in the increasingly urban world. India’s cities take this to the next level as people are increasingly vary of trusting each other, given the constant security concerns, especially for women and children. Therefore to expect people sharing their house or car is a big step. This invariably means that cars are rarely pooled/shared and people remain happy with engaging their cars — often chaffeur driven- all by themselves.

I recently came across a german car sharing app, a pioneer in the intra city car sharing segment. Having seen several attempts at car sharing businesses, especially in the knowlege capital of India- Bangalore, I found that most of them used people to people connections like people belonging to the same company/business hub/IT park etc. The german app, however, simply lets users to integrate their facebook profiles, letting the drivers and riders see who they are actually riding with. While for some this may be too intrusive to revel their facebook selves (albeit with all security walls facebook typically provides), it is definitely a way for people to leave with a friend from a ride. In a country where typically dating apps and non-professional networking apps have few takers, this allows people to meet and share an experience, a very encouraging driver for hopefully a societal change towards efficient use of cars otherwise blocking Indian roads.

Conclusion: The sharing and gig economy is here and now and it is exactly how future societies will explore new efficiencies. India’s reluctance in embracing these megatrends will only slow its progress. However, hope remains with innovations that engage the basics of decent work and social engagement.

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Disclaimer: It is not difficult for an aware reader to guess the two applications I have used as cases here. However, in no way is this a promotion of such apps nor do I endorse them against their competitors.

The author is the country manager for TRAFI (www.trafi.com) in India. This article in no way represents his views in an official capacity, nor does it endorse or represent TRAFI in any way.

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http://linkedin.com/in/rajarshisahai

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