I am no Cassandra, but am feeling like one as I pen this piece.
Year 2016 looks a tough year to me. If we got excited with the ‘StartUp’ mindset in 2015, expect to be jolted by a spate of ‘ShutDowns’ in 2016, in e-commerce, app-led businesses and retail formats of the QSR variety as well. There are just too many ‘pari passu’ offerings. Once the early-triers are done with the novelty value, reality will bite. Funds will dry up and fourth-tranche investments will just not happen. Expect mergers, acquisitions and distress sell-outs ahead.
On the positive side, expect e-commerce to rise from the depths of the commodity category it had fallen into in 2015. E-commerce offerings will want to distinguish themselves from the rest. Once again, in 2016, you will be able to make out the difference between an Amazon, a Flipkart, a Snapdeal and a Jabong. They have to do it to survive and thrive.
Expect fire in the arena of telecom brand offerings. Expect 4G and the big Reliance Jio offering to be a market disruptor. The year will see churn in the telecom habit across platforms, networks and devices. There’s a “J” word in telecom in 2016.
This year will be the era of what I lovingly call the “So-Mo-Clo-Anal” diktat. Social media will evolve to monetise eye-balls. Even Twitter will start making money. Mobile will become even more ubiquitous with the one billion connections target having been met at the fag end of 2015.
The cloud and its immense possibilities will be leveraged by companies in every arena of marketing competence. And analytics will rule consumer propositions. Sectors such as BFSI, FMCG, durables and more will take careful steps with big data as the basic crutch that helps you move through troubled and muddy waters. And finally, expect 2016 to be the year of the internet of things (IoT). These IoT devices are getting more and more popular. As we grapple with early entry-level fitness bands, expect IoT passion to climb higher and higher. What looks like an IoT fantasy in C Minor today, will become an IoT-based marketing reality of the future. Expect cross-relation networks to flourish between technology and marketing.
Harish Bijoor is brand strategy specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc