Praveen Kumar Sah, Co-founder and CTO, Awign
As a young and ambitious 18-year-old fascinated by the potential of technology, you can imagine my excitement at cracking IIT on the first try. But while this was the moment that opened the doors of opportunities for me, it was working at Flipkart and Ola that sparked my interest in building solutions that solve real and tangible problems. I quickly comprehended my desire to achieve it at a scale that would impact a large population.
Even today, I have the same sense of curiosity and amazement for technology and the way it shapes our world. The impact of gig economy has been a catalyst for unprecedented advancement in all walks of life, including the way we work and consume information.
The Technology Plug-in on Impact of Gig Economy
Integration of technology within different aspects of life was already in motion when I joined the startup ecosystem. But it was missing something: Utilisation of the power of technology to bridge the gap between what enterprises needed, and the ability of Indians to fulfil that demand. After identifying this problem statement, Sarthak, Gurpreet, and I co-founded Awign. We aimed to solve the dual problem of work execution and workforce management for enterprises, while also creating meaningful livelihood opportunities for India’s young, able and ready workforce.
Seven years ago, there was no concept of enterprise-focused gig work to be heard of. There was no established thesis on the workings of an enterprise-focused gig platform. Our strong and scalable tech-led infrastructure for work execution has helped us pioneer this concept and become India’s largest on-demand work fulfilment platform. Awign’s technology platform is unlocking millions of job opportunities with the impact of gig economy.
Today, we have worked with 100+ large enterprise clients and a 1.3+ million strong community of gig workers. The foundation of Awign is solving the existing gap in the market along with its potential to scale the enterprise-focused gig model.
In the last decade, there has been a significant shift in the way enterprises work along with workforce behaviour. With changing business priorities and a focus on agility, enterprises are facing the brunt of the current economic environment. This is exactly where we bring the missing piece of the puzzle with Awign’s proposition. Our technology platform is unlocking millions of job opportunities in the gig economy and creating upward social mobility for gig workers. It also enables us to broaden the scope of gig work, transforming the way enterprises approach their workforce management.
Awign’s tech-driven platform empowers enterprises to gigify core recurring business functions through end-to-end management and execution through a distributed and mobile gig workforce. And as more enterprises started partnering with Awign, we realised that developing new features to create workflows for each client’s individual needs could take over 30 days of development work – an amount of time no enterprises had to spare.
This is where technology played an integral role in reducing the TAT for clients, scaling faster, and making a larger impact. To overcome this challenge, we implemented a proprietary no-code tech stack. It enabled us to effectively manage and execute work with thousands of gig workers daily without the need for on-ground supervision. Awign’s proprietary no-code tech stack has significantly made a statement with the impact of gig economy. Building a first-of-its-kind product was challenging, however, the result significantly reduced the TAT for clients from 30 days to just 3 days!
Why Was This Necessary?
The top BSE 500 companies and large enterprises have been reporting flat margins over the last decade, along with challenges in large-scale management and training of the workforce. The cost of investing in fixed salaries, hiring, rehiring, and retraining employees was at an all-time high with no guarantee of positive results. In today’s fast-paced business environment, agility and quick decision-making are essential to meet market demands.
Our proprietary no-code tech stack allowed us to configure any workflow across the globe without writing a single line of code. This simplified all processes and helped us break down complex work requirements of enterprises into simple tasks, resulting in reduced TAT and increased efficiency. It also managed the entire lifecycle of our gig partners including the discovery, deployment, and payroll processes. With changing business priorities and a focus on agility, enterprises are turning to the impact of gig economy to meet market demands and overcome business challenges.
The Way Forward From Here
The future of the gig economy is undoubtedly a bright one. Moving on an exponential growth trajectory, the gig economy workforce is projected to increase by 3X from 7.7 million in 2021 to 23.5 million in 2030 in India. Not only is the gig economy providing the potential to unlock millions of jobs and bolster the economy, but it also promotes social and financial inclusion. Businesses today have the opportunity to achieve significant expansion by leveraging the gig economy to overcome business challenges. At Awign, we’re building this future!
