Leveraging the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform, India will, in the next few years, become an example of how to transform the challenge that is being faced by commerce across the world, T Koshy, CEO of ONDC has said.

Koshy was speaking at a panel session on ‘ONDC and its Opportunities,’ held on the sidelines of the fifth edition of the three-day Huddle Global conclave, India’s biggest beachside start up conclave, organised by Kerala Start up Mission (KSUM).

ONDC, launched by the Central government’s Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade in 2021 to develop open e-commerce, is building a digital network for the e-commerce industry that allows an online seller to connect with any buyer in the country.

Objective

The initiative aims to promote open networks for all aspects of the exchange of goods and services over digital or electronic networks.

“Before the launch of the Digital India scheme, we had the lowest number of digital payments in the world. Today, India manages 42 per cent of global digital transactions,” Koshy informed.

He said the biggest aim of ONDC is to ensure that the businesses of independent entrepreneurs are also making the country prosper, unlike benefiting from it for the shareholders only.

Noting that ONDC is an orchestrator, he said each of the enterprises is doing their specialisation using this ‘common language’ and ONDC is providing grammar and vocabulary to everybody to talk to each other and the rules of engagement in that community.

Challenges

According to him, today the problem in commerce across the globe is market concentration and associated unhealthy practices against the interest of small businesses.

Thomson Skariah, Founder-CEO of Placeorder.com, said ONDC brings out many possibilities for entrepreneurs and it also offers multiple service providers.

Observing that ONDC opens humongous opportunities, Dilip Vamanan, co-founder of Sellerapp, said ONDC will have a direct impact on any kind of digital transactions in the next 36 months,

ONDC, which is akin to a Unified Payments Interface (UPI), goes beyond the current platform-centric digital commerce model, and sellers/vendors find it a perfect platform to feature their products that can be sold through several e-commerce platforms across the country.

Earlier, in a panel session on ‘Building from Kerala for the World,’ IBS Software Services Founding Chairman V K Mathews said the State has to focus on improving infrastructure, digitally-enabled milieu and launch government-owned and private-operated initiatives.

John Kuriakose, Founder, DentCare, said budding entrepreneurs must have the an earnest passion towards their ventures and face challenges with a presence of mind.

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