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By:

Rashmi Kulkarni

23 March 2025 at 2:58:52 pm

Minimum Viable Digitisation

In MSMEs, digitisation fails when it asks for faith. Start where it offers relief. This is the point where many leaders make the costliest mistake: They treat digitisation like a “big bang”. ERP rollout. Full automation. Everything at once. And then they act surprised when the company rejects it. Let me say it plainly: Most MSMEs don’t fail at digitization because of technology. They fail because of adoption. Which Seat? Inherited seat: you’re under pressure to “make it modern” fast. That...

Minimum Viable Digitisation

In MSMEs, digitisation fails when it asks for faith. Start where it offers relief. This is the point where many leaders make the costliest mistake: They treat digitisation like a “big bang”. ERP rollout. Full automation. Everything at once. And then they act surprised when the company rejects it. Let me say it plainly: Most MSMEs don’t fail at digitization because of technology. They fail because of adoption. Which Seat? Inherited seat: you’re under pressure to “make it modern” fast. That pressure pushes you into big moves. Hired seat: you want to justify your hiring with visible transformation. That pushes you into big moves. Promoted seat: you want to prove you can lead beyond operations. That pushes you into big moves. Different seats. Same trap: overreach. UPI vs core banking Think about how India adopted UPI. Most people didn’t wake up one day and say, “I want to digitize my financial life”. They adopted UPI because it was easier  than what they were doing. It reduced pain: no change needed, no long forms, no bank visits, no waiting, instant confirmation. If you compare that to “core banking software”, you’ll see the difference. Core banking is heavy. UPI is light. Core banking asks for trust and patience. UPI offers relief on day one. That’s your lesson for MSMEs: Digitisation should feel like relief, not religion. Right Target Incoming leaders often say: “We need data.” “We need transparency.” “We need ERP.” All of that may be true. But it’s not the starting point. The starting point is: interfaces. Interfaces are the places where work crosses a boundary and things get messy. In MSMEs, disputes usually begin at interfaces: purchase request → approval → PO production completion → dispatch → delivery invoice → follow-up → collection customer promise → production plan → commitment These are the places where: money moves, blame travels, delays hide, exceptions grow WhatsApp becomes the system. So don’t digitise “everything.” Digitise one interface where money moves and disputes begin. Why Interface-First Two well-known ideas explain adoption clearly. Everett Rogers wrote about how innovations spread: people adopt when they see advantage, low risk, and others like them succeeding. They don’t adopt because you announced it. The Technology Acceptance Model (Davis) is even simpler: adoption happens when people feel the tool is useful and easy. In MSME terms: “Will this make my life easier?” “Will this create trouble for me?” “Will I get blamed if it fails?” “Will it slow me down?” If you can answer these questions well, adoption happens. If you can’t, people will smile and bypass. Viable digitisation Minimum viable digitisation means: small scope, clear benefit, low risk, quick proof, easy rollback. It’s not “small thinking”. It’s smart sequencing. The goal of the first digitization is not perfection. The goal is trust. Once the system sees that digitization reduces pain without creating danger, the next step becomes easier. What to digitise If you want a safe starting point, pick one of these interfaces: PO approvals Why it works: delays, confusion, and “who approved what” disputes are common. A simple approval queue reduces follow-ups fast. Dispatch confirmation Why it works: dispatch is where customers start shouting. A simple dispatch status board reduces panic. Collections follow-up Why it works: cash flow stress is universal. A simple overdue list with follow-up notes reduces chaos. Notice these are not “ERP modules”. They are pain points that people already feel. The one thing you must add: rollback safety This is important: in MSMEs, people avoid new systems because they fear getting trapped. So your pilot must include a rollback rule. Not as a threat. As reassurance. Example: “We will run this for 2 weeks. If it increases cycle time, we will roll back.” “We will keep a backup format for emergencies only.” “We will not punish anyone for mistakes during the pilot.” This reduces fear and increases honest participation. (The author is Co-founder at PPS Consulting and a business operations advisor. She helps businesses across sectors and geographies improve execution through global best practices. She could be reached at rashmi@ppsconsulting.biz)

Why ‘Final Solution Should Be Discussed?

Final Solution

Some time ago, Anand Patwardhan, a documentary filmmaker chose the documentary Final Solution (2004) among “Ten Greatest Films of All Time” for Sight And Sound (BFI) placing it alongside brilliant works by several filmmakers across the world. Rakesh Sharma’s first reaction to the news was, “I never imagined that any of my films would ever be spoken of in the same breath as Patricio Guzman’s Battle for Chile, Wintonick’s Manufacturing Consent, John Pilger’s The War You Don’t See, Michael Moore’s Bowling for the Columbine or Avi Mograbi’s Avenge But One of My Two Eyes.” Earlier, Final Solution had won the Wolfgang Stautde Award (for Best Feature-length Film at Berlinale 2004 at its premiere, that no documentary ever won before or ever since.


Rakesh Sharma needs no introduction to Indians who have been following the human rights movement in the media. But Final Solution is not the beginning, and most certainly not the end of his journey that established him as one of the most outspoken and independent filmmakers who makes a strong statement against any violation of human rights. He fights with the powers-that-be and he fights with the censor board. His numerous awards won at international film festivals have not gone to his head. Rather, they have strengthened his determination to go ahead and make his statement in the best Aftershocks marked his return to documentary after a gap of 10 years. Though, today, Rakesh is better known for Final Solution that had to fight through a censor ban, he made an equally strong and powerful film, Aftershocks, before Final Solution.


Final Solution is a study of the politics of hate. Set in Gujarat during the period Feb/March 2002 - July 2003, the film graphically documents the changing face of right-wing politics in India through a study of the 2002 carnage in Gujarat in Western India. It specifically examines political tendencies reminiscent of the Nazi Germany of early 1930s. About what motivated him to make Final Solution, Rakesh says, “Post-911, we live in a world where politics of hate and intolerance has gained mainstream acceptance, even grabbed centre stage. The ‘War on Terror’ dominated the electoral discourse in the US presidential elections, with both candidates promising to hunt ‘em and kill ‘em better than the other.


The right wing seems to be tightening its stranglehold across Europe as well, a nationalism being fuelled by the anti-immigrant/anti-Moslem rhetoric. In a world where it has become legitimate to use fictitious intelligence to justify the bombing of innocents in Iraq, where it has become acceptable to launch precision bombs and rockets against non-“embedded” journalists, where shameless politicians divide up oil wells and farm out reconstruction contracts for their $36 million bonuses, where babies are killed and mutilated as acceptable “collateral damage”, we face a challenge greater than ever before. We have earlier lived through many dark periods in history, often justifying our barbarism by using similar rhetoric. Hate, despair, destruction and tragedy cannot possibly be the foundations of harmonious societies and a democratic world.


The Censors banned it but finally cleared it for public screening on the ground that it could incite communal flare-ups. Sharma had appealed to the board to send the film for a review. The Censor Board had previously said, “The film promotes communal disharmony among Hindu and Muslim groups and presents the picture of Gujarat riots in a way that may arouse communal feelings and clashes. Certain dialogues involve defamation of individuals. The entire picturisation is highly provocative.” But when the was shown on October 7, 2004, to the high-profile revising committee comprising Censor Board chairperson Anupam Kher, filmmaker Shyam Benegal, activist Teesta Setalvad, theatre personality Dolly Thakore and filmmaker Ashok Pandit, they said the film could be released without any change. The film has won the prestigious Wolfgang Staudte Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it also won the Special Jury Award.


One of the citations by one of the many awards the film has bagged goes like this. “It is an epic documentary focusing on a culture of hatred and indifference in the region of Gujarat, India. The simplicity, clarity and accuracy of the film enable viewers to reflect on the universality of the subject matter and to relate their own human attitudes to it. The filmmaker has chosen a documentary form that completely shuns the use of melodramatic effects and thus makes a stand against the omnipresent “infotainment; industry.”


His financial status though, is not even half as impressive as his grit, his string of awards and his fearlessness. “As a filmmaker, I am extremely poor. My savings have more or less run out. But I do not know what else to do except make films. I am improvising all the time with the tools I know a bit about, such as films and video, so that lack of funds does not become a serious block. I would love to make a funny documentary or a social-anthropological film on romance in changing times. I would to make a murder mystery too, and to play with a form where documentary and fictions merge, moving in and out seamlessly. But I have no choice when I meet people with sorrow in their eyes and hollowness in their spirits. So, I continue to remain an interventionist when something agitates me.”

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