Banking, retail, and healthcare are biggest adopters of startup technologies: Report

The digitisation amongst enterprises leads to increasing adoption of startup technologies. With 50 percent of enterprise-ready startups, banking, retail, and healthcare are the top adopters of the enterprise technology solutions, according to the Ecosystem Report on Enterprise ReadyStartups 2016 released by Microsoft Accelerator.

In the wake of digital transformation across sectors, deep technologies companies are empowering corporates to look at innovative ways to engage with customers and address complex business requirements.

The report covered 151 startups that serve large and small enterprises through deep and complex technological solutions.

“We are very happy to note that Indian enterprises are looking at startups for innovative solutions and expertise for their digital transformation in India. This Ecosystem Report provides insights into how this enterprise-startup partnership has evolved in last few years, underlining the value of collaboration and building the startup ecosystem,” says Ravi Narayan, Global Director, Microsoft Accelerator.

This report focuses on B2B and B2B2C business models, taking market traction and external funding as indicators of growth. Key findings of the report are:

Microsoft works with partner accelerators, VCs, and ecosystem enablers to support technological innovation, specialist verticals, and a mentoring network. Microsoft Accelerator’s CoInnovate is one of the key programmes that aims to bring corporates and startups together for mutual business benefits. Additionally, many startups have partnered with Microsoft under its ISV (Independent Software Vendor) programme to deploy customised applications and solutions for that are transforming the way businesses are run.

Enterprise readiness

With the advancement in innovation coupled with growing number of tech startups, India has become the third largest startup ecosystem in the world. Ravi stated that India has been known for its e-commerce and B2C startups, seven of the nine unicorns in India are B2C startups, and together have raised 15x more funding than the B2B unicorns in India. The rapid e-commerce growth in India feeds the mainstream fascination with startups.

E-commerce evolved from listing, to portals, to marketplaces, and from web-based to mobile. Though the sector is expected to be $100 billion market by 2020, it will likely trigger unprecedented challenges in terms of reach, volume, and complexity.

To address the predictable problems, E-commerce companies have chosen to source deep technologies from tech startups or by acquihiring few of them.

Banking and healthcare

While banks by leveraging technologies can maximise customer satisfaction, companies in the healthcare space are expanding their physical reach and affordability through machine learning and data sciences.

There is tremendous opportunities for startups in the banking sectors because of the billion mobile phone users and billion citizens with active bank accounts that are linked to their digital identities by way of Aadhaar.

Moreover, Ravi emphasised that with the increasing population of serviceable customers and financial inclusion, the need to optimisation is only increasing. Banks realise this, and are at the forefront of adopting innovative solutions to drive this optimisation.

Preventive healthcare, fitness bands, and patient awareness today majorly define the healthcare sector in India. And this can be attributed to the rise of digitisation of patient records and discovery platforms for doctors and healthcare practitioners.

Now the application of machine learning and data sciences are playing a crucial in empowering domains that were conventionally owned by medical practitioners, such as diagnostic, prescriptive, and preventive healthcare. According to Ravi, 2016 is expected to see a rise of 88 percent in the number of funding and investment in healthcare startups.

“Today, tech startups are building solutions that are addressing problems not only for India, but are taking these same solutions to clients that are present globally. Over the years, the need for digital transformation has created a demand for startup technologies across all sectors, lowering the entry barriers for the startups,” said Ravi.