The other day, a friend of mine who runs a small business, remarked that over the last couple of years, he was beginning to feel like a cadet at the National Defense Academy. Responding to my surprise, he said he had heard that at the NDA, all cadets needed to know swimming, and those who didn't, were thrown in the deep end and had the option of either learning to swim or drown!

The same thing is happening to all businesses in India today. Massive disruptions - in the form of the dreaded GST or in the form of e-Commerce giants with cavernous pockets, are forcing even the smallest of businesses to either quickly embrace technology or quietly die out.

A huge chunk of businesses in India employ less than five people. While this figure may seem astonishing, when we couple this with the fact that our so called demographic dividend is generating thousands of jobless youngsters every day, it is apparent that many of them are trying to survive through entrepreneurship.

As the steadily increasing urban population shows, this is not a recent phenomenon. It is these small businesses that make up the informal sector in India and now, their existence is being threatened by forced formalization. A threat, they have neither the resources nor ability to face, using conventional methods. I believe this is where the Indian IT industry has to rise to the challenge and ensure that the benefit of Information Technology is available to those who need it the most - the tiny, micro and small businesses of India.

This is the new Y2K, that simultaneously offers the IT industry a huge market and small businesses a fighting chance to face the challenges posed by disruptive forces like e-Commerce and compliance burdens. In the last five years, buying habits in a number of product categories, like mobile phones and electronics, has completely changed, and this has manifested itself in the decreased sales and profitability of brick and mortar shops dealing in these items.

Now, the big guys are training their guns on what can be called the base of the pyramid – the neighbourhood grocer. By giving products below MRP with assured home delivery within two hours, the decades old relationships that these businesses have with their customers is being threatened. The only way these businesses can face this existential threat is by providing more discounts, and increased credit. To compound their problems, they have been slammed with GST.

Despite all the assurances given by the government that businesses with turnovers less than Rs.20 lakhs need not register, the writing on the wall is, as shown in the first two months of GST – enter the formal economy or perish. The only way small businesses can combat these twin challenges is by rapid adoption of IT solutions that can automate a great part of the compliance burden while at the same time allow them to take advantage of the e-Commerce economy. If the Indian IT industry can come up with integrated solutions – not just hardware or software, this threat can be converted into a huge opportunity.

The ultra-fast digitization of India and Indian business, coupled with miserable levels of digital literacy is an open invitation to all sorts of cyber criminals

But before that can happen, all of us together need to tackle another problem. After 70 years of struggle, we are still not able to eradicate illiteracy in India. We now have to tackle Digital Illiteracy, that too on a war footing. A recent joint study conducted by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) and Deloitte Research have found that 950 million Indian citizens are out of reach of the internet. This is another threat that the Indian IT industry can convert into an opportunity by coming up with innovative solutions that can use the existing mobile and other eco systems to help users cross the digital divide.

The third opportunity, which comes as a corollary to the first two, is digital security. The ultra-fast digitization of India and Indian business, coupled with miserable levels of digital literacy is an open invitation to all sorts of cyber criminals. Digital security will be another area of huge opportunities.

Helping bewildered small businesses as well as consumers protect themselves in a world where the safety of their funds is completely dependent upon the complexity of their passwords and the security of servers having all their data is a vital service that the Indian IT industry needs to focus on.

Whether we like it or not, we live in tumultuous times, and as leaders in the IT industry, we have huge opportunities ahead of us. Every change brings with it pain to some while benefitting others. In the past, change was spread over a long period, thereby allowing those affected to adapt. Today, we no longer have that luxury. Today’s disruptions, thanks to the extraordinary reach of Internet and mobile over the past few years and the extraordinary leaps in Artificial Intelligence and Automation, have the power to completely decimate vulnerable sectors. And this is a threat that affects all sectors – including IT.

It is up to us whether we allow the threat to destroy us or we convert it into an opportunity and catapult India into a league of its own!