Ep 18- Decoding the SME Digital Insights Report ft. Prabhu Ram.

[00:00:08] Welcome to another episode of the Do Big Podcast. I'm your host Sheetal Choksi and I want to thank all of you for listening into us and encouraging us to continue to give you more and more interesting information in the MSME space.

[00:00:24] Did you know that cloud tech will account for 8% of India's GDP by 2026? In that it has the potential to boost the country's GDP by $310 to $380 billion and providing employment to 14 million people. Why am I giving you all of this data?

[00:00:46] Well, that's because we're going to focus on cloud today. Tata Tele Business Services SME Digital Insights is developed in collaboration with Cybermedia Research and it highlights the rapid pace of cloud adoption amongst SMEs. Today's guest is Prabhu Ram from Cybermedia Research.

[00:01:10] And just to give you a quick introduction about Prabhu Ram, he calls himself a tech analyst, an evangelist, a writer and a speaker. You must check his writing out. He writes some very, very interesting pieces.

[00:01:25] He is an inquisitive and entrepreneurial industry analyst, a storyteller, a speaker and a strategic consultant amongst other things. In his current role at Cybermedia Research, he leads tech and research advisory comprising an analyst team that track technology trends in India, APJ and other global markets

[00:01:49] including EU, Middle East and Africa. He has over 20 years of broad-ranging executive experience at consulting and research companies across Western Europe and India. As per Annalytika, he is one of the top 15 influencers in 5G to follow globally in 2023.

[00:02:09] If you haven't already done that, please go ahead and follow him immediately. Prabhu, it's an absolute delight to have you today on this episode of the Dupik podcast. Thank you, Shridal.

[00:02:21] Thank you so much for the kind words and it's an absolute honour for me as well to be here with you. It promises to be a great conversation. I'm more than happy to dive deep into all the trends that we saw.

[00:02:35] So before we jump into the trends, etc. Prabhu, can you provide me and our listeners with a bit of an overview of the research that was conducted by Cybermedia Research in collaboration with Tata Daily Business

[00:02:48] Services because it's all about cloud adoption amongst Indian SMEs and just run us through a bit of the about show and the details of the report before we get into the net integrity. Absolutely.

[00:03:04] If you want to look at the last four or five years as such, it's undeniable that India's digital acceleration has been on an overdrive. Even as consumers, we are very much connected to India's digital economy.

[00:03:18] As an analyst, I get to travel across the world and that's one of the privileges of the job and what I've seen is that and I truly believe in is that India is a really digitally advanced economy.

[00:03:31] We are all in one way or the other connected and collaborating with using cloud as such. So there has been that undeniable traction that cloud has also enjoyed at Cybermedia Research. Our enterprise research team has been focused on unlocking insights around the space and

[00:03:51] while we have seen that broad industry traction, we really wanted to dive deep into what the SMEs are looking at and they form a major component of the economy as well. Thanks to data telebusiness, what we have done is through this commission research, we have

[00:04:11] tried to understand how SMEs are truly unlocking the power of cloud and transforming themselves in the process. To go about what we did was like we looked at more than 800 plus SMBs in the space and this cuts across small, medium and micro enterprises.

[00:04:33] Say for instance around 300 SMEs of the medium sized and they were like around 350 to 150 small and micro enterprises as such. And these were fairly across the length and breadth of India cutting across the top

[00:04:50] 10 cities as such, including Tier 1 metros as well as other hubs of India and this includes cities like Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Indore, Bhuneshwar as well and not to mention Delhi, Mumbai and so on. It's a large format enterprise research which truly dives deep into what SMEs are doing today.

[00:05:14] How are they really leveraging the cloud to unlock growth and efficiencies as such? And what as I mentioned before, there has been a tremendous digital acceleration in the last three to four years. Beyond the research even anecdotally like the way I mentioned, my engagements across

[00:05:33] the board have pointed out to this transformative potential of the cloud through this research we have looked ahead in terms of what makes it take for the SMEs and I believe it pays the way forward for other SMEs to really look at this research and unlock the potential

[00:05:53] of cloud themselves as such. And Prabhu, when you were looking at these 800 odd SMBs that you were working with, were you also looking at it from an industry vertical point of view or was that something

[00:06:08] that came out of the research rather than a planned thing saying these are the industry verticals that we're going to definitely cover? So we did have a plan to have representation across major industry verticals, whether it be healthcare or retail or BFSI.

[00:06:27] The idea being that the impulses are different across sectors. Again, when we dive deep across all of these verticals and so on, we have a much more richer understanding in terms of how cloud maturity plays out, how players within those verticals are leveraging cloud.

[00:06:52] What are they doing with cloud and on cloud? And these form a rich tapestry in that sense of all the insights giving us a very holistic view of what's the state of cloud adoption. And that's why I'm really excited about this research because this is really pushing the

[00:07:11] narrative in terms of our understanding in terms of what cloud is for SMEs and how it can help them unpack their potential in the true essence of the word. And when you think about this entire report, really talks about the rapid phase like

[00:07:29] you mentioned of cloud adoption, what do you think are the key factors that are driving this trend of adoption? As I said, what we have seen is that SMEs are increasingly recognizing the potential

[00:07:42] and power of cloud to have it as a foundation for rapid business growth and enhanced consumer experiences as such. When they are looking at this, they are looking at really transforming themselves enterprise-wide and really pushing forth in terms of delivering those experiences to businesses wherever they are.

[00:08:05] If you were to think more deeper, what we have seen is with cloud, you're able to really leverage it as you go, which means you can account for all the ups and downs within the businesses.

[00:08:19] When the business picks up, for instance, you can easily adjust the cloud usage accordingly. And that flexibility definitely allows SMEs to really move forward with rapidly as such. Same holds true for the fact that if I could draw an analogy, it's kind of like

[00:08:43] you don't need to have all of the resources internally. You are able to bandwagon yourself on cloud. You're able to leverage the expertise that cloud provides to innovate at scale, and which means that SMEs are increasingly recognizing that what they are able to do with

[00:09:03] cloud is that they are able to focus more on their core competencies rather than focused on IT and so on. Again, the thing to understand is SMEs do have their own challenges and they may not

[00:09:17] have all the specialist resources internally available for them to take care of things. And that's where cloud with its nimbleness is able to support them in fueling this growth as such. What we have also seen is cloud has matured.

[00:09:34] So the platforms and technologies have matured, and which means it's more and more user-friendly as such. Again, this really helps them to pitch forward as such. And what kind of applications are you seeing SMEs upload on the cloud or use the cloud for?

[00:09:54] So it's more of collaboration tools to begin with. What we have definitely seen is more and more SMEs are able to pitch forward, which are driving cost efficiencies using collaborative tools that are there. Communication tools which are there,

[00:10:16] they are able to drive this forth in terms of leveraging it for sectors such as those in retail and logistics particularly to streamline their operations to scale up efficiently for that matter. They're able to optimize on that cost as well.

[00:10:35] What we have seen is more and more they are really able to prioritize enhanced customer experiences, able to manage their overall transformation internally as well. And able to, with all of this, pitch forward with their market approaches.

[00:11:02] An interesting thing that when I was reading your report, I saw was that there is a security first mindset for cloud adoption. And you talk about that as a promising trend. I just want to understand a little more about this. Why do you think this is a promising

[00:11:20] trend and why do you think a security first mindset is important for SMEs to have? Absolutely. So traditionally when you have looked at cloud, we have always focused on the aspect that enterprises are able to move faster to the market

[00:11:37] and leverage it for their success. But you have to look at the ecosystem that we operate in today. And what that means is the threat specter is more and more spread across, it's becoming more and more sophisticated and frequent. This is not about that. I want to be

[00:11:57] very clear like for all the SME listeners here when we talk about security, it's not about just the technology per se but it translates to trust in your business. So customers interest their faith in your business, they really look at the services that are being provided.

[00:12:18] So anything that goes wrong impacts the business adversely. So this is more of the business trust rather than just mere tech. And what happens then is like when you look at cloud and the security that it provides, our research points out and this is something

[00:12:39] which I've been bullish on. This is something as a trend that I've not seen before. But in this survey, what clearly comes out is SMEs are becoming more and more aware and bringing out a security first mindset, which means that they are the ones that are

[00:12:55] doing that, they are able to prioritize the customer trust at port. They are able to mitigate those risks as such. If you want to look around on a daily basis, we do get to see

[00:13:07] one or the other fraud or risk happening all the time. There are all these ching attacks and so on, which even I as a person am affected by for that matter. So

[00:13:20] I don't need to be aware of it. I don't need to be like really cognizant of these challenges. And because of the threat environment that's out there, it's important that SMEs focus on this part. They are prioritizing it for the fact that it's not just about the tech,

[00:13:40] but about the fact that it's about having that customer trust. More than that also, like we are in a regulatory environment, for instance, say healthcare and so on, where it's also about compliance is certainly right. And these are crucial. And SMEs do

[00:13:58] understand that, that they need to comply with all of this requirements or face penalties. And that's why there is that increased awareness and understanding of prioritizing security as such. And in conclusion, if I were to say like what this all translates to is this was not the case

[00:14:18] so a few years back at least with this cohort, what's clear now is that they are as the maturity of the cloud comes through. And because we are now more and more digitally savvy,

[00:14:31] there is that clear understanding in terms of what role could cloud play, how they could mitigate all of these risks that I was speaking about, and how all of this could then pave a foundation for their long-term success as such.

[00:14:45] You know, so that's really interesting problem because you talk about laying the foundation and just to kind of touch upon the fact that how does the cloud then help SMEs unlock the potential of emerging technologies because technologies are changing really rapidly.

[00:15:01] And you know, we've got the new technologies which is currently the buzzword is like AI and generative AI and things like that. Where do you see cloud and new technologies coming together for SMEs? Absolutely. And that's one of the things as an analyst when I look

[00:15:18] around every single day there is a new day of learning. So if a couple of years back it was all about metaverse, now increasingly there is this focus on AI as well as generative AI. Again,

[00:15:33] what I clearly see when I look at my children for that matter they are very much focused on our adept at using generative AI and so SMEs are no longer indifferent to that.

[00:15:44] They also need to be cognizant of this. To your question the point is that cloud provides that foundation, right? Once you're on cloud, you're cloud native, you are able to use that platform and pitch forth with all of these new technologies to your business advantage.

[00:16:00] And this could happen in many different ways, right? Say for instance customer experience, no longer the customer is someone who is sitting across the table. He could be someone who is geographically far away from you, but you are able to provide with them the same kind of service

[00:16:15] which you are able to provide to someone who is in your vicinity. So what this means is like business is no longer about 9 to 5, it could be 24 by 7, which means that you could have for instance AI powered chatbots, right? Customer service as our research

[00:16:31] points out is a big part of the applications that SMEs are talking about. So with AI powered chatbots 24 by 7, you are on cloud, you are able to answer queries which come from potential interested clients as such. It could also be in the sense that with

[00:16:49] those customers to whom there is a relationship already in place, there could be some kind of sentiment analysis that could be done again using the power of AI to really identify those trends,

[00:17:01] to really identify the triggers in terms of what they are feeling about it. Are they positive about the experience that they had with your business or there are some other experiences

[00:17:13] which you could then work on? The third part of it is for SMEs that operate in that retail environment, for instance. It's all about having those personalization. Again, personalized recommendation is something that every single person should be aware of.

[00:17:30] Even if you're not aware of, you do get touched upon it by technology one way or the other. Say for instance, you are at home watching OTT, you do get content which you are constantly watching, right? And that's the way personalized recommendations work.

[00:17:44] With AI, what's happening now is you are able to tailor your product recommendations to your clients in a much more seamless way as such. Going beyond this, it's also about how you could leverage, say for instance, the power of analytics to identify which new markets to tap

[00:18:03] into, which new campaigns to lead, which is again powered by predictive analytics driven by AI as such. The most common use cases which I currently see is in terms of within that overall gambit of customer experiences in terms of content, right? How do you create engaging content

[00:18:23] at a very low cost as such? How you're able to generate social media using generative AI as such? There are all of these tools which are available on cloud, which you can then really leverage the

[00:18:36] power of and use it for your business as such. There are other use cases, for instance, like looking at supply chains, how you could predict the demand, how you could look at the inventory

[00:18:51] levels and so on. So in terms of the overall gamut of the value chain, there are cases which are use cases, which are very simple to go. The ones that I spoke about, there are these complex ones

[00:19:04] which talk in terms of supply chain or maybe like say predictive maintenance, looking at quality control and so on, where AI could play really a key role in minimizing defects or in minimizing turnaround times and all of which drives consumer experience at scale.

[00:19:26] And which is what is clearly that delight factor is what we SMEs are looking for. Once you're able to successfully deliver on that, the business is pro as such. And that again, all of this is made possible thanks to the power of cloud.

[00:19:43] So it's very interesting. I remember when I was doing research in the space, one of the first key drivers for adoption was really efficiency and cost optimization. One of the big things that motivated SMEs to kind of go into this space was that over the years,

[00:20:03] as they have experienced the cloud more, what do you think is the cloud unlocking for them as game? How does the cloud change the game for them? So again, it's all about as I said like how they could really

[00:20:20] efficiencies faster time to market cost optimizations. Having done all of that over a long period of time, what then happens is they are able to plan out much better in terms of how to expand on their business with the agility that cloud provides. They are really able to

[00:20:37] move forth and reach out to new target segments, to new frontiers as such. Again, with the power of the security tools and everything which is in place, SMEs are able to then drive forth in terms of making those clear streamlined operations as well as having

[00:21:01] that agility in terms of overall business. What also is clear now is that as they become more and more mature, for instance in BFSI or diagnostics or pharma sector, they are able to leverage more

[00:21:15] ROI by maintaining those cost efficiencies. So the business use cases are clear. It's clear that from a long-term perspective, as they are more and more mature with the increased maturity, what they are seeing now is the entire rule of how they could focus on security as part

[00:21:38] of it and how they could leverage on business expansion. That's a key trend that which comes out in our survey as well. There is that high level of digital maturity and they are able to

[00:21:53] leverage this to move forward as such. We are talking about cloud and we're talking about all of that. What is the role of technology partners when it comes to helping SMEs adopt cloud solutions?

[00:22:12] So the thing to understand is what we have seen through our research is that there is definitely those business multipliers which are at play. Cloud has a game changer is there, but it's also important to understand and recognize that not all SMEs would be on the same

[00:22:34] maturity curve as such. What's clear is that once you are able to recognize that the cloud can be a catalyst, you are able to leverage that elasticity of the cloud. You're able to drive all

[00:22:52] those data-driven decisions as such and drive cost efficiencies and so on. But to do that, it's important to not just leave your core business and focus on all of the IT and everything

[00:23:04] that comes to it, but rather have someone who could be a trusted partner on this journey. It's kind of like if I were to draw an analogy, there used to be a time in our childhood when we

[00:23:18] used to ask directions from people when we were on the road. Over the years, that tendencies have declined. I definitely don't ask anyone in terms of which road to take or how to reach my

[00:23:33] destination. It's mostly the GPS that's at play. That clearly helps us reach the destination that we want. That's the analogy that I want you to have when you look at the role of trusted

[00:23:48] partners. They are the ones who would help you with the technology. They are the ones who would be able to help you unlock the full potential of clouds. They are partners who are able to

[00:24:03] focus on the tech part of it, focus on the scale part of it and the efficiency part of it, while as an SME, you can then focus on your core business. There should not be anything between

[00:24:14] you and your business and that's why trusted partners can be a key forward. How do I look at the role of these partners? If I were to look at what our research points to, what we have seen

[00:24:30] over the years as analysts, is that they do have all of the domain knowledge in terms of what the current IT infrastructure should look like, what needs to be done in terms of a suitable

[00:24:43] infrastructure in place or an artificial place for cloud. How the migration can be done seamlessly as such? Again, we spoke earlier about security compliance as something which was top of mind, which is something which SMEs are also investing in. That's again something which partners

[00:25:02] can support with. They would understand what really needs to be done, whether you should have a certain level of security or not, how to go about that entire process of having compliance and so on.

[00:25:16] More importantly, this is also a part of, as I spoke about the GPS for instance, having trusted advisory at play who can provide you with technical support in terms of your growth in terms of ensuring smooth operations and empowering the SMEs themselves. That's

[00:25:35] critical as such. Also, when we spoke about AI and all of those technologies which are coming forth for which cloud is the foundation, what's really clear is that technology per se by itself

[00:25:51] cannot be a playground. You need to be clear about what's the business use case, how you could tailor or leverage the technology to your current landscape in terms of your current business maturity. That's absolutely key as such. Again, when you have partners, they are able to guide

[00:26:13] in terms of what to go for, what not to do, how to go about it. All of these is what the trusted partner would enable an SME to be doing as such. Again, as I said, I want to repeat this

[00:26:32] for the audience as well. Your focus should be on your core business. The trusted partners are there to support you on this journey to leverage cloud and leverage technologies to empower you with that growth. That's really interesting because that's something that is critical,

[00:26:49] especially when you're an SME. The last thing you want to do is move focus or shift focus out of your core business into things that may take away time and you are not particularly knowledgeable

[00:27:03] about. It is so important to have a partner if you can put your faith in and say, hey, I trust you to help my business grow. Before we get to the closing thoughts,

[00:27:17] I want to ask you this as a researcher, what were the interesting things? Share with us some stuff that may not be in the report but stuff that you found really interesting while you and the

[00:27:31] team were doing this research. It's that there are all these positives. As I mentioned, when we look at research like this, as a research firm, we undertake many different enterprise research through the course of the year. Cloud has been a key focus for our team

[00:27:49] over the last three, four years. It's undeniable the power of cloud and we have been at the forefront of chronicling that at Cyber Media Research. What's different now is when we were undertaking

[00:28:02] this survey along with 3TBS, the key objective as I started at the beginning, the idea was to chronicle how SMEs are looking at the cloud for digital acceleration. While that as a trend is

[00:28:16] clear, what's also interesting is it's not just the obvious benefits being stated again and again but it's about all of these other things like I mentioned security and compliance. To have that at the forefront of their business case, that's something which really stood out. Which talks

[00:28:35] to you about the maturity of SMEs, the ones who are either cloud born or who have adopted to the cloud. It really talks about where they are. Having said that the other part of it, it's not just that

[00:28:49] everybody is on the same page as I mentioned. There are these challenges as well and again that's something which clearly came out as well. These relate to for instance the skills part

[00:29:02] of it. How do I go about that? We spoke about it at length just now and that's something which while we are privy to, we were not privy in terms of how much of that really affects them,

[00:29:16] impacts them and that's where we spoke about the need for partners as such. The talent and the skilling, that's something which is the second part of what really stood out for me.

[00:29:27] The third part is how again coming back to the ones who are on cloud, who are really looking for to expand on their business plans as such. They are really looking at using cloud to double down

[00:29:45] on their business growth and again for the fact that it helps them to be agile, it helps them to be innovative, it really helps them to unlock growth potential as such. Going forward in this

[00:29:59] year and the coming years as such, what is clear is that cloud adoption is on a positive trajectory. What's clear through this research is that SMEs who embrace cloud are really able to unlock

[00:30:14] the full potential for their businesses as such and which really stood out. Cloud is not an afterthought especially in this context while it may be true for large organizations and that. When you look at SMEs also, what's clear is that there is that increased awareness of technology,

[00:30:33] increased awareness of the role that cloud could play in supporting and fueling business growth and that's something which excites me as an analyst in terms of how enterprises look for technology to grow as such. This is completely out of I think the research

[00:30:52] preview and I've spoken about it, I started by saying that there is huge amounts of potential that the cloud has but where do you see the future of cloud and that's going to be my

[00:31:04] last question for today's conversation. Where do you see the future of cloud in SMEs? Cloud will be central to everything that SMEs do. What's clear is that whenever we look at technology by itself, there are always different or varying levels of maturity which are there.

[00:31:23] There are those who are early adopters versus there are those who are lead to adopt but what's increasingly clear and there is no two different opinions about it is that cloud will

[00:31:35] be very much a center to everything that technology plays do. SMEs are clear that they want to grow on cloud for their businesses as such. I don't see any more challenges in terms of how

[00:31:56] cloud could not be part of them like enterprises are cognizant of the opportunities that cloud represents, that maturity is there and when they look at the landscape today, there are all of these cloud

[00:32:11] partners with all of those value-added services we spoke about talent and so on. That's something which partners are able to support them with. The learning curve is much more than it was

[00:32:24] before and because of that, I truly believe that when it comes to SMEs, when it comes to the future, there is that full positive growth momentum that would be there in the years ahead

[00:32:39] and there is no turning back on this. Those who are not on cloud would definitely see challenges as they move forth but for the ones who are, the sky's the limit.

[00:32:52] Thank you so much for putting this perspective on this report. I'm sure it has helped all of our SME listeners a lot and just a quick word to all of our listeners, do go to the Tata Telebusiness

[00:33:08] Services website and download this report today. I think it is imperative that you download this report, read through it and see how you can use the cloud to better your businesses. Whether you've started on the journey, whether you are like Ragu said an early adopter or a late

[00:33:29] adopter, I think this report is going to come in handy to all of you. Ragu, once again, thank you so much for depoting this report and putting it out in such an easy to understand manner. Thank you and it was an absolute pleasure having you on this topic.

[00:33:45] Thank you so much, Sheetal. The pleasure was on mine. It was a true privilege to be with you on this call to have unlocked all of these different themes within that report in such a short

[00:33:57] span of time and I hope the listeners did get some benefit. I would encourage everyone to go through the white paper that's mentioned by Sheetal. Do look us up. There is so much

[00:34:10] opportunity that the cloud offers. The sky is the limit as I said. Please see all the opportunities that are there with the power of cloud. Thank you so much. Thank you. For all our listeners,

[00:34:23] I'm sure that you found this conversation with Ragu really interesting. I urge each one of you to download this report and just to make it easy for you, we've added the link to the report

[00:34:38] in the description below. So please download this report and make sure you read it because I'm sure it's going to help you whether you're an early adopter or a late starter on your journey

[00:34:49] to cloud adoption. So looking forward to seeing all of you read this report and do come back to us with comments and questions if you have. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to the

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