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In difficult times, who does the industry turn to for driving its volumes? The Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), if you go by the attention the sector has been receiving in the past few months. Though the industry chambers and the Government have been pushing their cause for several years, it is now that companies have woken up to the potential of SME engagement to enhance bottom lines.
Vodafone, for instance, has put in place special SME solution teams for its B2B vertical, as the segment makes up a substantial portion of its 10,000-strong corporate customer base.
Acer, too, has used the SME strategy to topple Hewlett-Packard's market share, using a unique pricing and geographical distribution strategy. Gartner's research last week revealed that Acer has toppled HP in India to become the number two PC vendor in the April-June 2011 quarter. Mr S Rajendran, Chief Marketing Officer, Acer India, has attributed this success to its SME clients.
This month, Tata Consultancy Services announced setting up iON, cloud solutions for SMEs. To make the service ‘cost effective', the prerequisite for SMEs, the company has based it on a ‘pay-per-use' model.
The iON cloud offers them a wide spectrum of services including HR, inventory, finance, document management and website services.
“iON will give 35 million SMEs access to world-class, simple-to-use and scalable technology tools,” Mr N Chandrasekaran, CEO and MD of TCS, said.
Bourses keen
Corporations are not the only ones who find SMEs a force to reckon with. The bourses are not far behind.
BSE has said that it is looking to open a SME Exchange by next month, which would list one million potential small and medium enterprises.
That's the number of enterprises — of the total 26 million in India — that have some potential, BSE's Mr Lakshman Gugulothu indicated.
An SME Exchange would help the enterprises garner equity, improve their valuation, bring in transparency and streamline corporate governance, he said.
SMEs are clearly the flavour of the season. Vodafone-sponsored McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 race cars at the October Indian Grand Prix in Noida will sport the logo of an Indian SME. The company has invited small enterprises to participate in a contest ‘Vodafone Drive into the Big League.'
Twenty applicants will be short-listed based on their growth in the last three years, and their use of technology in driving this growth.
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