| Indian SMEs Lead IT spend growth in BRIC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Business growth & efficiency drive overall IT adoption, but customer push & compliance norms trigger purchase, Says Microsoft-AMI Report | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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the key reason for adopting IT and 41 percent stated that IT helped them improve
efficiency, a high 39 percent finally adopted technology to meet the need for regular
interaction with large Indian or international customers. The report offers a view
of the key trends in the overall business environment of SMEs across verticals and
places IT adoption in this perspective 'Larger customers are more demanding ', says
Rajeev Mittal, Group Director, SME, Microsoft India 'SMEs are forced
to provide more customization, improve communication and turnaround time and comply
with regulatory norms.', In fact 30 percent of respondents confirmed that standards'
compliance was an important trigger for IT purchase.
The Indian SMEs are on a firm growth trajectory according to the report, with 60 percent of PC-using businesses expecting 20 percent growth and 16 percent planning to add branch offices to expand operations. SMEs are also likely to emerge as dominant recruiters with 50 percent planning to add over two employees each next year. Speaking at the release of the report, Mr Mittal said, 'Microsoft is committed to the SMEs in India, and believes that insights about this community are imperative if we as an industry are to deliver the kind of partnership the community demands and deserves One of the softer insights thrown up by the report includes SMEs feeling that being IT savvy enhances their image. 39 percent of SMEs averred that it is important to keep up with technology trends, while 56 percent felt that being perceived as IT savvy or 'hi-tech' gave them a competitive edge. In the 3 distinct 'adoption waves' of IT by SMEs, a majority (45 percent) are going through the first wave of building basic infrastructure - investing in Portable PCs/ Notebooks equipped with Anti-Virus and Office Productivity Suites. Internet usage is frequent and a basic Company Website sometimes exists. (10 percent) are in the 'connectivity phase' and use their websites for transactional purposes. This stage also sees the deployment of LANS, servers and firewalls along with collaborative applications. The third wave (2 percent) is where ERP applications, intranets and managed security solutions start appearing, and companies are leveraging the full benefits of IT. 'Businesses in this segment are witnessing the highest growth,' says Raju Chellam, Singapore-based Vice President of AMI Asia-Pacific. 'They are also the most ambitious, having learnt to use and connect IT to maximize their workflow efficiencies and save costs and hence see a greater impact of IT on bottom-line.' The report also shows that SMEs in the retail space, finding trained employees and managing margin pressures a challenge, while for the services segment challenges revolve more around accessing relevant market intelligence and enhancing customer satisfaction. The report makes a set of 5 recommendations that can help policymakers, regulators, IT companies and financing intermediaries to come together to help SMEs overcome the challenges of local and global competition and contribute to country's growth by leveraging the power of Information Technology. These include this industry exchange programs that will enable IT users across SMEs to share best practices both within India and across BRIC nations and other countries, and the setting up of a joint web portal by the industry that serves as a central repository of information for SMEs on ICT related issues, helping them choose the right technology, understand various uses/features in depth and sharing case studies in similar scenarios. The report recommends that the IT reseller and channel community be empowered to service the IT needs of the SMEs. Further, to build a strong pool of IT skilled talent, the report recommends integration of IT into the Polytechnics and ITIs in India. A call to stakeholders to create easily accessible funds is also made. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| We hope the industry as well as government bodies will benefit from this effort and will be able to craft tailored programs / solutions that will in the end only boost the segment that is already well on its way to becoming the growth engine of the Indian economy.' added Mr Mittal | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Note on Microsoft's SME strategy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Microsoft reaches its customers through an extensive network of partners, which has grown over the years to a 3,500 member strong community in India. The Company's strategy to address this segment is threefold - increasing awareness about IT, extending partner reach, and strengthening customer relationships. With offerings such as the Small Business Server, Mid Market Server and Office Business Edition have been designed based on specific needs of the this segment. i.e. functionality requirement, ease of use, ease of learning and integration. Such segment oriented and vertical specific solutions will continue to drive the momentum for us going forward. Further, in order to help the SME community overcome the challenges of affordability and the lack of right skilled personnel, Microsoft has started to offer several of its products as subscription model, including Microsoft Dynamics - as a hosted model, and MS Office Professional - pre paid edition. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| About Microsoft India | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software - any time, any place and on any device. Microsoft Corporation India Private Ltd is a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation USA. It has had a presence in India since 1990 and currently has offices in twelve cities - Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, and Pune. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| About Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| AMI-Partners specializes in IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services strategy, venture capital, and actionable market intelligence - with a strong focus on global small and medium business (SMB) enterprises and extending into large enterprises and home-based businesses. The AMI-Partners mission is to empower clients for success with the highest quality data, business strategy perspectives and 'go-to-market' solutions. Led by Andy Bose, the firm has built a world-class management team with deep experience cutting across IT, telecommunications and business services sectors in established and emerging markets. AMI-Partners has helped shape the go-to-market SMB strategies of more than 150 leading IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services companies over the last ten years. AMI is well known for its IT and Internet adoption-based segmentation of the SMB markets, its annual retainership services based on global SMB tracking surveys in more than 25 countries, and its proprietary database of SMBs and SMB channel partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The firm invests significantly in collecting survey-based information from several thousand SMBs annually, and is considered the premier source for global SMB trends and analysis. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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