ET Story

BANGALORE: Google is eating into the market of Indian IT services providers by aggressively selling its products and technology solutions to small and medium businesses, which are estimated to spend $15 billion (Rs 80,000 crore) on technology by 2015.

From word processing and email to storage and enterprise search, Google is using every tool in its armoury to get the business of SMBs, some 1,000 of whom are already on its client roster. Operating in India since 2008, Google counts Voltas, Yebhi, Nilkamal, Hiranandani and India Infoline among some of its wins in the space.

Working with hundreds of local reseller partners, Google is venturing into a multi-billion dollar market neglected by home-grown technology services companies such as Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services who prefer big contracts from large enterprises.

“Wearing so many hats and often without an IT team, SMB owners don’t want the headache of setting up a complex solution they’ll have to keep up,” said Jeanne DeWitt, head of Google Apps SMB Sales, Japan & APAC. “They just want something that works so they can concentrate on running their business.”

DeWitt declined to share Google’s SMB sales in India.

India is estimated to have around a million SMBs, segmented into micro (1-10 employees), small (10-100 employees) and medium-sized (100-1000 employees).

“Google’s sales and alliances team is aggressively chasing the market, adding customers and building partners,” Jaideep Mehta, vice president and country manager at technology market researcher IDC India. “What really differentiates Google from a larger company is their approach. While larger IT services firms behave like B2B players, Google is removing thin line differentiating the B2B and B2C and targeting every possible customer.”

As the SMB market is typically fragmented, it calls for larger sales force or a fine-tuned channel strategy, both of which have been deterring Indian IT away from this market. However, the emergence of cloud as a platform for delivering technology solutions has given companies like Google an edge in tackling this market.

As part of an international campaign that Google is running, it launched ‘India, Get Your Business Online,’ which has already got 50,000 registered members till April 2012. Google expects at least 5 lakh to sign up for it by 2014, and is even offering free email addresses and Google $51 coupon (Rs 2500 approximately) for advertising on the Google network.

“Given the changing technology landscape and growing business needs, as a buyer SMBs behave similar to large enterprises,” said Praveen Bhadada, Director at Zinnov Management Consulting.

Recently, Google partnered with Wipro to offer cloud computing solutions that leverage the vast computing infrastructure that the search major has built over the past several years.

While the estimated worth of India’s cloud-computing market varies depending on how you define the cloud, Zinnov estimates it to be around $200mn currently and growing at about 50% every year, with SMBs accounting for half of the market demand.

“Though it (Google) has a smaller customer base compared to its immediate rival Microsoft, it is catching up building a strong customer and partner network,” said Ranjan Chopra, chief executive at Google’s Delhi-based reseller partner Team Computers, which also works with Microsoft and TCS.

Among the Indian IT services companies, TCS and Wipro are the only ones that have a dedicated India practice contributing any meaningful portion of their revenues. Around 18 months ago, TCS launched a special cloud offering for SMBs called iON targeting revenues of about $1 billion. For TCS, nearly 7% of its $10 billion sales come from India, but a large portion of that from government projects and business from its banking product TCS Bancs. For Infosys, the India business makes up about 2% of its $7 billion revenue.

“Due to a reduction in the number of big-ticket deals from the enterprise space and increasing opportunity from a huge base of SMB companies in India, bigger vendors are now defining targets for the SMB sector now,” said IDC’s Mehta.

Link: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-09-18/news/33926137_1_smbs-google-searches-google-network

BANGALORE, INDIA: Almost a decade back a few people know about social network networking, today it is something that just changed a government. Over past few years, social network which was introduced as web 2.0, has gained a lot of momentum amongst people and is playing a huge role in generation public opinion.

So when did it start? Social Media networking got momentum during mid 2000, but according to Brian McConnell, it seeded in 1980′s. He said, “People have been using computers for social communication since the very beginning of the personal computer industry. Long before the Internet became accessible to the general public, people were hosting BBS systems, many of them focused on an interest group or local community. One particularly prescient invention was FidoNet, a network for BBSes that allowed systems to transfer data (messages, files, etc.) in bucket-brigade fashion to sites around the world.”

The latest example is Egypt, which witnessed one of the major revolutions and uprising against the Mubarak Government, leading to the fall of the government and now this is spreading to other countries like Yemen, Bahrain and Iran.

The entire episode started through facebook, a team of two. Wael Ghonim, product and marketing manager at Google Middle East and North Africa and Nadine Wahab, an Egyptian émigré and network-relations professional. This facebook page actually belonged to Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egypt-based Nobel Prize winner.

Social media networking has become such a huge power that corporates are watching out for it. A few companies came up with Social Media policies, which prohibits employees from sharing any information that is confidential and unacceptable by them, and these policy also claim to provide legal rights to punishment the concerned employee.

Today social networking is one big industry, while business are talking about mobility, they are also talking about networking, be it within your company, industry ecosystems, or beyond. The industry terms is as Web 2.0 where the consumers are becoming the content creaters as well. Noted N Chandra, Chairman, TCS, “mobility and social media are the next big wave and enterprises are keenly looking at it.”

The common elements of social network like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, Foursquare, Friendster, Youtube and now Quora, have got millions of users today. Social network has now become a social power. There have been talks and debates on whether this power is a replacement of the fourth estate, or a new fifth estate in itself. During the Nasscom Leadership Summit in Mumbai, Nik Gowing, Main Presenter, BBC World News, said that social network network is nothing the just widely experienced citizen journalism.

Egypt and the facebook fan page is the best example of how common man became a reporter, using their cameras, mobiles uploading the pictures and videos of the brutality. Another example has been China, which has always been questioned for censorship. A similar movement starts in China, (if it is to start), then we would soon watch and read about what happened at Tienanmen square and after that. So, not only in a corporate ecosystem, but now globally, everyone from a shop owner to a corporate or even a government would watch out for the Social power.

How many would us would have noticed the new TV commercial of Cleartrip.com, the online booking portal. Well Cleartrip, and its Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), ensures that every person says a yes to the above question.

Yesterday, I met Alan Wexler, senior vice president, managing director, North America, Sapient. He leads the Sapient Nitro division. Sapient is actually a digital advertising company. They use various channels like sms, kiosks, online, video, outdoor all kinds of ways for marketing and even commerce.

So coming to the main agenda, Alan was talking about his company and happened to repeat this line over and over again, “the main idea of marketing and branding is to make customer spend time with the brand.”

That was theory and practical example of that is the email from CMO of Cleartrip, Niraj Seth. Great. A CMO. The whole idea of this email, was not only making the reader read this, he is actually asking the feedback for the entire new branding exercise. I am sure he would receive at least 5 responses from that email delivered to a thousand cleartrip users..

Another lesson from the books and marketing and branding says that a tv commercial reaches to all the viewers, who need not be a past/present/prospective customer, but by talking about that ad, and sharing a link of the ad, Niraj ensures that you (who is a present customer) watches the commercial.

Imagine the impact it makes. Awesome. Hope to see more examples for this customer-engaging initiative in future. Keep up the good work Niraj

The email reads…
Dear Cleartripper,
Since our launch in July 2006, Cleartrip.com has worked very hard to provide you extensive choice and a compelling online experience while booking your travel with us. I would like to extend my gratitude and thanks to you for your encouragement.
We have always believed that our brand would grow when co-created with our customers and today we launch our new TV campaign – ‘Every trip has a purpose’, which takes customer engagement to new heights. The campaign vividly captures real travelers across the length & breadth of India sharing “their purpose of travel”.

Real travelers. Real stories. Real locations. I hope you like the campaign. Look forward to your feedback.
Regards.
Thanks
Niraj Seth
CMO – Cleartrip.com
[email protected]

So, apart from me, who all received this email?