The Hindu Business Line : Big focus on small guy

It may sound like marketing jargon, but contrary to that, this is Koster's answer when asked how the recruitment crisis in the IT sector in India would affect IBM's small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) strategy in India.

Speaking to eWorld at a seminar organised by IBM recently in Phuket (Thailand), he said the growth in the SMB segment in India is far higher than the large enterprises, only matched by China.

As a result, the company not only designed products targeted at this segment for ease of use and installation and priced it specifically, but also made sure the products had the scaleability, and a seamless growth path.

"Like the Express products, for instance," he added, referring to the company's Express Portfolio, a range of products and services specifically tailored to meet the needs of mid-sized businesses. Earlier, at IBM, Koster held the position of SMB Sales Executive, IBM Software Group, Asia-Pacific, and he elaborated on IBM's SMB stance in India.

"I can tell you that we have 20 major accounts in the large enterprise segment in India - and over thousands of customers classified as SMB," he said.

Sriram Rajan, General Manager - SMB, Software Group, IBM India, said according to an AMI-Partners report, SMBs are positioned to grow at 41 per cent this year.

The segment in India will invest up to $1.2 billion (Rs 5,640 crore) on beefing up their Internet infrastructure and solutions this year, about one-sixth of the total IT spend at $7.7 billion (Rs 36,190 crore) this year, also from an AMI-Partners study.

"Indian SMBs face a large number of challenges and competition in the wake of increasing globalisation... Internet connections at optimum speed, creation of a secure infrastructure and the need to remain constantly accessible by customers," he said.

The challenge of developing software for SMBs is that it needs to be a complete solution and not a points product, and it needs to be aligned with specific industries, he said.

IBM has endeavoured to overcome these challenges in the development of the above mentioned Express Portfolio, a combination of 15 industry-oriented middleware offerings.

Some of the advantages of the Express solutions are that it is based on an open standards-based platform, and that it allows for faster deployment with a single security model across all applications.

According to Rajan, its `one partner ecosystem experience makes it easier to manage with a single set of tools'.

What customers say

Speaking to some IBM customers in this space seems to reflect some of these attributes.

K. N. Prakash, IT Head of LG Soft India, a subsidiary of LG Electronics that focuses on niche technology areas such as mobile application development, digital video broadcast and biometrics software, says that using the IBM software enables the company to be a global player.

Though a 600-employee strong company - and therefore classified as an SMB - the affiliation to an international company means that the IBM product's multi-site environment, which means that a single tool can be stretched to meet a global requirement - is a key factor.

"The style code currently is shared across zones - I would imagine this is relevant for any company that wants to go global," he says.Without this feature, the other options are to use FTP for data transfer to another country, which, Prakash says, is not as safe.

LG Soft India also uses IBM Tivoli software for defect recovery and the system development life cycle, which not only helps in certification process, but also has the added advantage of integration.

"This allows for seamless flow, and the user can enter multiple data, and manage allocation and schedules across functions," he says.

"You need less people to manage the system, and the administrative activities are less dependent on core support issues, and you can either cut down on costs or, as we do, offer value-added services," says Sudesh Puthran, Senior Vice-President-Information Technology, Credit Information Bureau (India) Ltd (CIBIL).

CIBIL, which aims to fulfil the need of credit granting institutions for comprehensive credit information by collecting, collating and disseminating credit information pertaining to both commercial and consumer borrowers, uses IBM's Enterprise Informix database.

"The software allows us to process our member enquires within two to three seconds and this performance has to be sustained even if the enquiry and database load increases."

He explains that scaleability is a compelling factor in choosing software products. "The initial cost is only justified by how stable and robust the system is, after all," he says.

abhinav@thehindu.co.in