Big Brands in India and Their Misguided Use of Technology

Indian companies keep buying heavyweight global platforms as if the platform itself were the strategy. The issue isn’t just slick salespeople. It goes deeper: a lack of trust in homegrown providers, corruption, poor skills, and broken decision-making inside organizations. The result? over-spending on licenses, under-investment in execution, and money flowing straight out of India.

Strange Choices Everywhere

Some of the tech choices you see are just baffling:

• A state tourism website built on Adobe Experience Manager. Well?

• A big Indian luxury hotel chain choosing Sitecore. Expensive? Must be good. Luxury should equal costly, right?

• Major Indian fashion brands on Salesforce Commerce Cloud because “it aligns with ERP.” But what about the customer experience?

• B2B companies using Umbraco (Microsoft CMS) just because it’s “free” and fits their .NET architecture.

And on the flip side:

• Regional banks running on WordPress.

• A marketplace operating fully on Shopify.

• A fashion brand built entirely on Wix.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these technologies—they each have their strengths. The problem is where and how they’re used, for whom, and with what expectations. Too often, the choice is misplaced.

With smarter decisions, these businesses could have reduced costs, kept more money within India, maintained flexibility and freedom, and chosen technologies better suited to their actual needs. More importantly, they could have invested in people and partnered with capable Indian companies that challenge assumptions and provide long-term value—if only leaders were willing to listen.

Why Does This Keep Happening?

It’s not just because global vendors have good salespeople. The real reasons are deeper:

• Trust Issues – Too many companies have been burned by poor local execution. Over time, global logos became the “safe” choice. Leaders think: If something fails, at least we picked the big name.

• Career Safety – If a global tool underperforms, nobody blames the decision-maker. But if a local solution fails, fingers are pointed immediately. So leaders pick what feels safe for their career, not what’s best for the business.

• Procurement Games – Buying decisions are based on long feature checklists, not outcomes. More features = better score. Whether those features are ever used? Nobody asks.

• Budget Distortion – Crores for licenses are easy to approve, but when it comes to investing in people and execution, suddenly it’s “too expensive.”

• Integrator Incentives – Many IT service firms make more money from complex, global platforms than from simpler, effective solutions. Complexity becomes a business model.

• Weak Product Ownership – Without strong internal teams who know what they want, the platform itself becomes the plan. But software alone is just an empty shell—it doesn’t create results.

The Real Cost

When this happens, companies end up with:

• Bloated costs – licenses, integration, upgrades.

• Slower execution – every change needs external approvals.

• Little innovation – no budget left for experiments or talent.

• Value leakage – a large share of IT spend exits India.

The irony? While the government celebrates IT exports, Indian companies are quietly sending huge sums right back out.

What Better Looks Like

Smarter technology decisions usually follow a few simple principles:

• People first, tools second. Spend more on your team than on licenses.

• Fit for purpose, not for brand. A smaller, well-used stack beats a heavyweight platform done badly.

• Stay open and flexible. Choose tools that let you move your data and switch vendors later if needed.

• Quick wins. If a tool can’t deliver value in 8–12 weeks, think again.

• Prove usage before upgrading. Don’t “go enterprise” until you’re using most of what you already have.

Where Digitup Stands

At Digitup, we don’t treat tools as trophies. We use them carefully and intentionally.

• Microsoft Office isn’t a blanket standard here. It’s used where needed, not handed out by default.

• ChatGPT sits on a shared system—one subscription for the team, not dozens.

• The money we save on licenses goes into research, execution, and talent.

And we’re not stopping there. Over the next few months, we’re moving more of our own products and services to Indian technologies and Indian cloud. Not because we are anti-global or trying to boycott tools, but because we refuse to believe India is competition-less or hopeless.

If a business truly needs foreign-built software and it genuinely takes them to the next level—even to the global stage—that’s fantastic. Use it, and use it well. But what’s happening right now isn’t that. Too often, Indian companies overspend on global tools without clear purpose, while undervaluing local talent and smarter homegrown options.

Our philosophy is simple: use global tools smartly today, while building Indian alternatives for tomorrow.

What Decision-Makers Should Do

If you’re making tech choices, here’s a quick checklist:

• Are you spending more on tools than on people? 🚩 Red flag.

• Are you using at least half the features you’re paying for? If not, downgrade.

• Can you switch vendors without major pain? If not, you’re locked in.

• Does the platform demand expensive “certified” staff just to run? If yes, think 10 times before onboarding.

• Can you confidently model your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) with 90–95% accuracy? If not, rethink.

Bottom line

Platforms don’t deliver value—people do. Unless Indian businesses change this mindset, we’ll keep paying global companies for shelfware while starving our own talent.

At Digitup, we’re proving it doesn’t have to be that way.