How SMBs are leveraging Google platforms to grow

Shantanu Pathak can recall the precise moment when he was awakened to the life-transforming potential of CareNx, the healthcare technology services business he co-founded in 2015 with his friend Aditya Kulkarni.

“It was in Aurangabad, where a pregnant woman, attended upon by her mother-in-law, was receiving her prenatal checks, using our CareMother portable kit,” he told BusinessLine .

The look of pure delight on the two women’s faces upon hearing the foetal heartbeat for the first time signalled to Pathak that technology could be harnessed effectively – and economically – to provide healthcare services in remote areas and touch people’s lives in profound ways.

Today, CareNx, born of a mission to prevent pregnancy-related deaths across India, covers over 500 villages in nine States, providing doorstep diagnoses in collaboration with governments, NGO partners and hospitals. The technology-based health innovative revolution that the small and medium business (SMB) has pioneered has won it a clutch of awards and honours, including Google India’s SMB Heroes award last year for “impacting change through digital”.

Technology is at the heart of CareNx’s health outreach, and Pathak particularly points to how effectively the company has leveraged Google’s technology platforms for SMBs in order to scale up operations at low cost. The CareMother platform, for instance, takes in a mobile phone app, a web application and a portable medical kit that health workers use to carry out doorstep tests. High-risk pregnancies are then referred to doctors or hospitals nearby.

Building ecosystems

“Technology is helping companies innovate, creating deeper relationships between companies and their customers and giving rise to completely new ecosystems and companies,” notes Karim Temsamani, President, Google Asia-Pacific, during a recent interaction in Singapore.

Google, he points out, has built seven product platforms, with over a billion users. “With platforms, innovation can come from anywhere and anyone can create the next global hit.”

The Asian Development Bank estimates that 98 per cent of businesses in Asia are SMBs, and Google offers an array of free tools – Market Finder, Google Trends, Analytics, YouTube, Test My Site — to help SMBs grow, says Kevin O’Kane, Managing Director, Google Marketing Solutions, Asia-Pacific.

Imparting skills to SMBs

“We also have a range of skilling programmes for SMBs – to offer free online digital and marketing training, and to help businesses kickstart exports, and even to helping women make the most of technology,” he adds.

Bengaluru-based Arpita Ganesh’s experience of starting up Buttercups, an online ‘customisable lingerie’ business, bears ample testimony to how small businesses are leveraging these technology platforms to chart super-normal growth.

Ganesh, who uses Google’s array of free SMB tools for inventory management, analytics and advertising, told BusinessLine that these technology platforms take the load off back-end operations, freeing her to focus on growing the business. Her exertions, which will see her company turn a profit by December 2018, won her the Woman Business Leader award at last year’s SMB Heroes Challenge.

What’s next

Peering into the future, Temsamani points to three new trends that will shape the future of business: ubiquitous computing, which will facilitate a seamless, natural conversation with technology; immersive experiences, with help from virtual and augmented reality; and the advent of the next billion Internet users, many of whom will be from Asia, and many of whom will embrace Artificial Intelligence intuitively.

“Google thinks AI will have as positive an impact on people’s lives as mobile did, if it’s made available to everyone and people are equipped with the skills to thrive in the ecosystems of the future,” adds Temsamani.

The writer was in Singapore at the invitation of Google

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