A survey conducted in May this year among 150 Indian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) shows that one-fifth of the respondents do not use any kind of information and communication technology tools. It’s fairly safe to claim that Indian SMEs are quite reluctant to embrace technology. Ariba deserves a thumbs up then, because the supplier of cloud-based collaborative commerce applications is now not only working with larger companies like Benetton India, but with SMEs as well.
E-sourcing is on the rise
Amit Bhatia, group director and head of sales for the Indian subcontinent Ariba, says that e-sourcing initiatives have been prevalent in India for the last two decades. “The difference,” he says, “is that it was earlier restricted to large companies in select sectors. Such companies typically turned to technology during a slowdown to save on costs. As a result, the market penetration in India was really low.” In the last four years, however, the penetration has increased sharply.
Technology in the cloud is the answer
In the last two years Ariba has been very busy working with big clients in India, but that has changed since the company started talking to the owners of SMEs directly. And they found out that Indian SMEs find it difficult to hire people and don’t want to buy hardware. What better solution then technology in the cloud? Small enterprises can scale up operations without adding people and they don’t have to install and maintain software in-house. And so today, Indian companies across the board are reaping rich benefits from e-sourcing.
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