Small means big business for IT companies in India. If big clients bring in growth in value terms for IT companies, small and medium businesses (SMBs) drive the volume business. |
So while some technology majors are developing new products for the SMB segment, others are launching financing models to expand their present clientele. |
All in the hope that the SMB segment will bring in the necessary numbers to match strength with growing competition. |
Sanjay Singh, national marketing manager (channel) for Avaya GlobalConnect, an enterprise converged communication solutions provider, said, "We are increasing our focus on the SMB segment and are designing and customising our solutions for this market. We have a product called Avaya IP Office, which caters to a contact centre with up to 75 users. We will be coming out with more products to cater to contact centres with even 20 users." |
Avaya GlobalConnect's revenues in India are around Rs 500 crore with around 10 per cent coming from the SMB segment. |
"We are aiming at a 30 per cent contribution from the SMB segment in the next three years," Singh added. |
The company is looking at increasing its revenues in India to Rs 1,000 crore during that period. It is also planning to increase its partner base to 100 from the present 45 in the next two years. |
Technology company, Hewlett-Packard, has gone a step ahead and has tied up with ICICI Bank and Intel for providing finance to the SMB segment. |
"This enables us to provide finance from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 50 lakh to our SMB customers with the repayment period being three years," Subhodeep Bhattacharya, national manager, SMB marketing, Hewlett-Packard India Sales Private Limited, said. |
With regard to interest rates, he added that it was decided on a case-to-case basis. |
"Sale of printers, desktops and servers is increasing on a fast clip among the SMBs," Bhattacharya said, adding, "and we want to outgrow the market." According to an ACNielsen study, the spend by Indian SMBs on IT infrastructure was Rs 21,369.9 crore in 2005. |
SAP, a global provider of business software solutions, is betting big on the SMB segment in India as well. |
In the next couple of years, the company expects this segment to contribute to half of its revenues in India from around 30 per cent at present. The domestic market potential for enterprise software from this segment is expected to be over Rs 700 crore for 2004-08. |
Leading IT management software provider, CA, is also gunning for a 50 per cent contribution from the SMB segment. |
"But will this happen in the next two years is something that I am not sure of," B Raghunandan, consulting manager, CA, said. |
The company currently gets around 30 per cent of its revenues from this segment and is bringing new suites of products to woo more customers belonging to this base. |
Then there are companies like the Sweden-based Syntensia, a network security solutions provider, which delivers its security solutions on a subscription model, specifically targeted towards the SMB and small office/home office segment. |
So, a customer has to pay an installation cost of $550 and monthly charge of $55 for the integrated solution called White Knight, instead of making a large upfront payment. |
The company is now mulling introducing a tariff-based plan as well, so that a customer gets the freedom to choose between individual solutions instead of opting for an integrated appliance for security. |