The evolution of technology in our daily lives has led to the fact that the modernization of information and communication processes has become the driving forces behind the social evolution.

The industry that we operate in moves at a lightening speed: with constantly evolving technologies, emerging social media platform, algorithm updates, increased mobile adoption and so on.

In view of this, HKIMSR had organised a seminar on Digital Insights-2016 on 8th Oct’16, on spreading awareness on crucial issues like-

1) India’s E-commerce Scenario: Mr Hussain Kalsekar,Director- New Business@kwebmaker.

2) Social Media- An overview:Ms Akanksha Dvivedi, Associate Account Director- BC Web Wise.

3) Digital- A way forward: Ms Saika Ansari, Head: Strategic, Knowledge and Research at Digital Republik.

Mr. Hussain commenced the seminar by citing the journey of Flipkart by Mr. Sachin Bansal and Mr. Binny Bansal who initially started to sell book-marks outside a library store to what they are leading now as one of the best E-Commerce site around the globe after 7 years of funding. The speaker emphasised about the rise in logistics and that of physical retail is only 5%-11%. Virtual Trying Rooms which has come up lately where the buyers can actually visualize themselves in a particular product before making a purchase, is an augmented reality aiding the trying on process. The speaker also mentioned about the pop-up shops which means having E-store as well as Retail stores for purchases. ‘Big Data’ helps all the E-commerce pages to receive more information about clients may it be preferences, choices, affordability factor etc. Mr. Hussain thereby ended by concluding the growth and sales of E-commerce which is drastically moving upwards in today’s time.

The  next speaker for the seminar was Ms. Akanksha Dvivedi. Her first question put forth  was ‘What is social media?’ The speaker discussed how social media has turned out in today’s age, created by We people by giving examples of how one only posts selfies, mentioning hash tags- throwback Thursday to pictures uploaded, Reaction GIFs, emojis for every sentence exchanged etc, web-humor, bite sized videos, parody etc. Ms. Akanksha continued by sharing visual content generated every minute. They were as follows- Youtube- 72 hours of new video upload, Tweets- 277000, Instagram photos- 216000, Watsaap photos shared- 347222 and 2460000 content shared every min. She stated that social media as a brand is important for any business to make it broader. A few points the speaker covered in using social media as a brand are as follows: –

• To tell your own brand story it is necessary to create your own voice.
• The value for the product is to be sold and not the product.

–Involve customers in your content. –Believe the insights etc. A perfect brand promotion through social media has to keep the above mentioned pointers in mind for effective growth and development. She ended by providing knowledge about how social media is becoming an integral part of life online as social websites and applications proliferate.

The  last speaker for the seminar was Ms. Saika Ansari. The speaker completely focused on  Digital marketing being an umbrella term for the marketing of products or services using digital technologies, mainly on the internet, and also including mobile phones, display advertising, and any other digital medium. She shared that technology today is a fast moving race overall and is thoroughly based on millennial (we people). The offline stores and the online presence are the two important and major factors that move hand in hand. The speaker claimed that social media is like singing a song, everything done on social media is not to be called Social. At the end, Ms Saika also gave an opportunity to the students to provide write ups for monthly newsletters for her company Digital Republik wherein the students would be given a chance to get featured in their guest zone page.

The seminar ended with a note”Everyone is constantly connected with everyone and everything. Mobile technology and cloud services bring the internet everywhere. Business is either digital or becoming digital. What works and what doesn’t is determined by the right combination of form and relevance: the Customer Experience.”

The students acquired knowledge on the seminar conducted which would help them in their near future. The session came to an end with huge round of applause to Mr. Hussain Kalsekar, Ms. Akanksha Dvivedi and Ms. Saika Ansari.