Tag Archives: India SMB

Fueling growth for India’s Small and Medium Businesses


GoCoop envisioned creating India’s largest artisan directory and connecting them directly with buyers from across the world

Maganlal Dresswalla is a 100-year old Mumbai based costumier who wanted to accelerate and cater to newer audiences

Walnut, a personal finance app, had the opportunity to scale overnight from 2 million to 5 million when the Indian demonetization drive started in November 2016

For these and millions of small businesses across India, digital offers a powerful platform to transform and accelerate growth.

At Google, we believe that as Indian small businesses chart their growth journey, technology is playing a pivotal role in helping them explore new markets, engage different audiences and compete more effectively. And our focus is to enable them with the right skills and tools to help them digitize and leverage the full power of the internet.

In our joint research study with KPMG, we find that rising internet penetration and greater uptake of digital by SMBs in India could help increase their contribution to India’s GDP from the current 37.5% to to 46-48% by 2020. Ascertaining the benefits of going digital for small businesses, it determines  that profits of digitally engaged SMBs grow twice as fast compared to offline SMBs. Likewise digitally engaged businesses are able to grow their customer base significantly with 52% catering to customers beyond their home city versus only 29% offline SMBs. However, the study found that 68% Indian SMBs are still offline due to a  lack of understanding of the benefits of digital technologies and technical skills to get them online.

At Google, we believe that the Internet is just as much for the established local merchant as it is for the new-age startup. Further, with the Internet, the smallest business can become the largest business in the blink of an eye. And therefore, today we are launching a large scale training program for Indian SMBs - Digital Unlocked. With this program, we envisage making quality training in going digital available to every single small business in India that wants it.
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In keeping with the varied learning needs of the millions of businesses in India, we’ve built this program across online, offline and mobile. The offline training is being conducted in partnership with FICCI and over the next three years, 5,000 workshops will be held across 40 Indian cities.
The online training comprises a set of 90 self-paced video tutorials, curated specifically for India  and is available free of charge at g.co/digitalunlocked. The tutorials cover a comprehensive set of topics ranging from building a web presence and driving online growth to reaching customers over mobile and video digital and email marketing to social media. The trainings are certified by Google, Indian School of Business and FICCI.

Further, for India’s mobile-first audience, Google also launched Primer, a free mobile app uniquely designed to teach digital marketing skills in a quick, easy and interactive way. It is available for download through the Google Play and iOS app store. Primer also works offline and is currently available in English and Hindi with Tamil, Telugu and Marathi versions coming shortly.

We recognize that having digital skills is a good starting point, but businesses also need a robust online identity to connect with consumers and convert their interest into action. And therefore, today, we are previewing My Business Websites with the intent of equipping the vast majority of small businesses with a simple way to start their digital journey by creating  a free, mobile optimised website, easily and instantly. Available for Google My Business users later in the year, this new feature will provide simple, templated and editable websites for small businesses created from the information and photos provided by them on Google Maps. My Business Websites will be available in English, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, and Malayalam.

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In 2015, we launched our first initiative to partner Indian SMBs on their digital journey. And over the last year, we have engaged 8 million small businesses by helping them find and grow their online presence, benefitting from the innovations offered by Google Search and Google Maps.



We are excited about our next steps forward in our journey, that will enable every business, everywhere in India to open their doors to digital with the tools, training and support needed to grow and transform their business.  

Digital India with Google – Translating the vision of connected India

With over 300 million Internet users in the country and another 200 million Indians set to join by 2017*, the Internet is opening up huge opportunities for Indian businesses and entrepreneurs. India’s Small and Medium businesses (SMBs), especially technology startups are starting to bloom and investments have led to an explosion in India’s tech sector in recent years. At over 4,100 enterprises, India has the third-highest number of tech startups in the world, this number is expected to reach several thousand by 2020.

At Google, we believe that a connected India with access to the web will empower  Indians, help businesses grow, open new opportunities for education for the next generation and create growth for the Indian economy. We’re  focussed on getting the next billion people online and the majority of them will come from India. We want to make sure they have a great, reliable, and relevant experience when they get there.

As we continue to work towards this vision, we’re very excited to launch a dedicated destination (g.co/digitalindia), where we attempt to capture how this digital revolution is unfolding in India. With real stories of entrepreneurs and small and medium businesses, this destination showcases how they’re achieving their dreams, goals and aspirations, and how Google is enabling them in these achievements.

The Hon’ble Prime Minister of India has launched the Digital India vision focussed on empowerment, development, growth and governance. With this destination, we want to showcase what that vision will translate into, by sharing the development and growth powered by SMBs, Indian Startups, entrepreneurs  and publishers.

We are excited that businesses all around India are using the technology we provide as an engine for their growth and we’re committed to helping them succeed with our tools and products. Just a few weeks ago, we announced an investment of $20,000 of cloud credits for 1000 startups in 2016 - 120 crores in a single year for startups. This is the single largest investment we’ve made anywhere in the world for Google Cloud Services. We want to help fuel the growth of companies and startups in India and one of the best ways we can do that is by empowering more businesses with the powerful tools Google provides for businesses.

India has over 51 million small and medium businesses, however, very few have an internet presence. When we first engaged SMBs in India, our mission was simple: help them get online. Since then we’ve invested in educating SMBs - to learn more about the web and the tools available to help their business be discovered and succeed online. Today, we’re helping small and medium businesses grow - expanding their customer bases across the country and also, across the region and going global. One such inspiring story of how Google is helping businesses succeed can be found here.

We have launched an initiative to build Internet presence for 20 Million SMBs in India - which can be accessed by anyone, anywhere on their mobile phones. Two million SMBs have already found a home on the Internet, through Google My Business.

When 20 million SMBs have such stories to share, we will have truly achieved our vision. We are committed to this vision and will continue to contribute in accelerating India’s pace to become the powerhouse of world class innovation, entrepreneurship and development.

* IAMAI iCube report

Posted by Rajan Anandan, VP & Managing Director, Sales & Operations, Google SEA & India