Small and medium businesses (SMBs) are the backbone of India’s economy, contributing to about 30 percent of the country’s GDP and providing employment to over 114 million people. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the digitisation of these businesses became inevitable and that is when they started to see an acceleration in terms of operational efficiency and increased the pace of product and business model innovation.
The last two years also highlighted how digital transformation and cloud adoption can redefine the operating model of small businesses, empowering them to grow and serve their customers while ensuring security and business resilience.
Samik Roy, Executive Director, Corporate, Medium and Small Business, Microsoft India told CNBC-TV18 about how the company is helping these SMBs through their platform and tools for them to innovate, grow, and become ready for a digitised future.
Roy said that Microsoft cloud solutions have helped organisations Respond, Recover and Reimagine themselves during and post the pandemic.
While the primary needs of SMBs are not very different from large enterprises, the depth and breadth of functionality may be lower than that of an enterprise. “To cater to this, Microsoft has different SKUs for some of its solutions. For instance, we offer Business Central as the ERP to an SMB. As they grow, they can move to Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations or D365 ERP. Similarly for productivity, we have Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Microsoft 365 Business Standard, Microsoft 365 Business Premium etc. As the SMBs grow, they can unlock more functionality by moving to the next version,” he added.
As SMBs progress in their digital transformation journeys, they start looking for advanced tools like Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud platforms, advanced collaboration, and CRM solutions. When they make this transition, it is important to assess key business-critical parameters that the cloud can address and leverage specialised partners to build solutions per their needs and scale.
Per Roy, some of the features that Microsoft offers these organisations are:
Microsoft has also made several commitments and investments that include a dedicated website and helpline focused on SMB skilling and providing quick access to resources. According to Roy, the company also engages with alliances and associations that work with SMBs to provide skilling, business guidance, mentorship, pathways to capital, and more.
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