“WhatsApp was such a success because they saw the importance of messaging in a world moving from voice to data, from desktop to mobile, from feature phone to smartphone, and from Value-Added-Services to Over-the-Top applications. The opportunity was seized not by a telecom or an Internet giant but by a start-up,” said Nandan Nilekani, the chief architect of Aadhaar and the co-founder of Infosys.

Delivering his speech at IIM-B’s 41st annual convocation, Nilekani encouraged the management graduates to seize opportunities that arise from a rapidly shifting environment in today’s business world. Sharing with students his life experiences and career choices, he emphasized the need for today’s leaders to have a deep understanding of technological trends and their implications.

“This is irrespective of whether you are entering finance, retail, manufacturing or any other sector,” he said, urging students to “think platforms, not pipes”, while Nilekani quoted Sangeet Paul Choudary, an IIM-B alumnus, who describes how platform business models are disrupting traditional ‘pipe’ business models, which have a linear flow of value, in his book ‘Platform Scale’.

A total of 597 students graduated this year in the presence of Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson, Board of Governors, IIM-B; Sushil Vachani, Director, IIMB; and members of the faculty.

Nilekani, in his hour long speech, said, “The nature of large businesses is changing from large employee-based conglomerates to a model where large businesses are aggregating smaller businesses on their platforms. This means millions of even smaller businesses will flourish due to entrepreneurship but will become part of many large business platforms (like small hotels becoming part of Airbnb).

“This collaborative model of building large companies by partnering with thousands of smaller companies is not how large businesses were built traditionally,” Nilekani explained.

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