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Electronics Sector - What Designing Stores For The Sector In 2022

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A Hamish is a serial entrepreneur with more than a decade of experience in leading tech startups. Before joining PLAY, he co-founded two successful ventures including Azoi Incorporations, a health tech company that developed Kito+ in the United States which was successfully sold to a PE/VC firm.

Due to cutting edge product development strategies, users' dependence on smart electronic appliances, and an increase in average household income, the global consumer electronics market is projected to reach the USD 1500 billion mark by 2027. Leading consumer tech brands have several avantgarde products lined up for this year. They constantly support retailers with an uninterrupted supply chain and a high octane product portfolio that focuses on happy consumer acquisition. For this year, the consumer electronics sector will emphasize developing convenient, affordable, and futuristic products that simply enhance users' living standards.

Software Design - New Directions
Given that modern-age consumers are far more evolved, technologically sound, and concerned about privacy, the software designs are also maturing accordingly. Consumers, especially millennials and Gen Z, are high powered, opinionated, demanding, and more advanced than their predecessors. Their modernistic requirements propel companies to deliver nothing less than best. In this context, leading brands also focus on addressing the progressive wishes of young clientele. In fact, every forward thinking consumer electronics company is ensuring that its software development is in alignment with the needs of consumers.

Hardware Design Challenges
Speed of “conceptualization to launch a product” is a definitive criterion to define a successful company. For companies driven by consumer experience, it is extremely prudent to ensure that they bring the latest technological solutions that are ahead of time. Project design follows a non-iterative approach to development which makes even the most underhanded mistakes exponentially expensive. It is crucial to have a core team that is well experienced and has worked on multiple research and development consumer projects. Advancement in rapid prototyping technology has also helped consumer electronics brands mitigate unnecessary risks.

Indian Designs For International Companies'
It isn't about being ahead of international company designs or even local competitors, but understanding the pulse of your consumer and marrying it with the global technology enhancement. Leading companies invest heavily in R&D to understand the latest technological developments and improvements. They always strive and evolve to meet customer expectations. While working on a product range, category, or even a new segment, the focus is always on user expectations, actual experience, and customer satisfaction.

The real question is how we, as industry leaders, can encourage Indian designs to be at par with international standards. For this, we at PLAY have aligned our vision with the Indian government's highly ambitious project Make in India. Our mission is to promote design excellence, innovation, and manufacturing India's entire product development process. Needless to say, the industry is evolving, and so are businesses.

Without modern digital electronics, many people wouldn't be able to work during the pandemic outbreak. Though in 2020, consumer technology sales witnessed a slight dip but considering people today are far more dependent on their personal devices to connect with others and continue to work from home, the industry was soon able to recover. Undoubtedly, web based meetings, online education, and cloud based services will continue to increase in the upcoming years. Even in the post pandemic era, people are likely to participate in virtual events and to look for digital experiences. This will automatically drive increasing demand for the consumer electronics and cloud services industry.

2021 came with several challenges, particularly for startups. The new waves of the pandemic and subsequent retail lockdown emerged as daunting challenges, but we were able to tackle it. At PLAY, we leveraged forced indoor time to strengthen our design and product development team to deliver quality products and services seamlessly. We also laid the foundation to commence our manufacturing in India goal. The scarcity of chipsets across the globe has had an impact, but we remain motivated to continue our stride towards design, development and manufacturing in India.