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V. Rishi Kumar

All MNCs have begun to look at this segment, to create a differentiating factor for SMEs, while domestic players are taking on the role of integrators.

Hyderabad , Sept. 7

WITH about 54 per cent of IT spend in the country coming from the burgeoning small and mid-sized enterprise segment and growing at 20 per cent per annum, multinational technology solutions providers— Hewlett Packard, Oracle, SAP, Intel have all trained their attention on the SMEs. which seems to be the new mantra.

Mr Samir Dhingra, Country Manager, Small and Medium Business for Hewlett Packard, explaining the rationale recently at Hyderabad on this focus on SMEs said the rapid growth and the largely untapped market were attractive.

Within the SMEs, there are three sub-segments covering small office, small business and medium business. Right from one person to nine-staff company belongs to the small office category, which is seeing significant growth in terms of technology adoption. The other category comprises offices in small business segment with 10 to 99 people and 100 and above to 499 employees is from the medium-sized segment.

Traditionally, SMEs were categorised based on their annual revenues. This model too has three categories, large business of over 500 employees, which is expected to be about three lakh organisations and the small and medium segment having about 1.9 million organisations. "Even if we take about 20 per cent of these, it is a huge market out there," Mr Dhingra said.

According to Mr Derek Williams, Executive Vice-President, Oracle Asia Pacific, India and China are among two of the fastest growing markets in the region. Telecom, manufacturing, financial services as also e-governance are among the key areas of growth.

All MNCs have begun to look at this segment, since this is one of the fastest growing market as per IDC, to create a differentiating factor for SMEs, while domestic players are taking on the role of integrators. One of the other major reasons for MNC companies to address this space is that there is no one quick-fix solution.

SAP India, a major enterprise solutions provider, has evolved what the company describes as a configured micro-vertical standard solutions that seek to deliver value and also allows them scalability and flexibility to meet current and future challenges. SAP has categorised companies in the SME as those having sales below Rs 350 crore per annum.

Mr Srinivas Rao, Head SMB Business Unit, SAP India, said that small companies have additional challenges of competing with large partners. "For small companies, it is the issue of affordability on one side and also meet the challenges of competition on the other. One way we are addressing this market is by bringing in sub-vertical industry specific solutions." The company accounts for about 60 per cent market share in the country.

Oracle India, an enterprise software solutions provider, has announced the launch of a low-priced e-business suite targeting the SME in the country. This is targeted at companies with a turnover in the range of Rs 25 crore to Rs 400 crore covering implementation, support as also the training component.

Similar is the approach of HP, which maintains that a company looking at solutions need not go beyond one implementor and all their issues right from hardware to software are handled.

In the case of HP, the company has worked out an innovative model of delivery of services. Apart from their channel partners, the company is in the process of creating a separate channel of partners through Xtreme targeting the SMEs, where there is a great scope for customisation and a vertical-centric approach.

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