Google India eyes SMBs for growth

With its initiatives focused on education, new tools to help them create online presence

Google India has is expecting to cover more Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs), with its initiatives focused on education and new tools to help them create online presence. The company is GST ready in terms of its systems tuned in to serve its SMB customers, added Shalini Girish, director — marketing solutions, Google.
 

“A little over 10 million SMBs have their presence either on Google Search or on Google Map. We are hoping with some of these initiatives and tools, we will grow faster,” she said. The company is engaged in creating awareness among the SMBs on the going digital and has launched a learning application, which has seen 1.5 million downloads so far. 

“The traction that we have seen in the last few years and the one which we are going to see in the coming few years is going to be much greater than that,” she said.

On June 13, it has launched a feature within Google My Business page, which can be used to create a website for the SMB for free under 10 minutes, in nine Indian languages. The pilot was launched earlier this year which ran till June 13, in which around 120,000 business created their website using the tool.

Google is running three initiatives for SMBs, one to educate them on how easy to come online, second providing an access to much more simplified tools to start their business online and finally, to recognise SMBs that has made this journey already.

Quoting a study conducted by the company along with KPMG, she said that there are around 51 million SMBs in India, of which around 32 per cent are online, while the rest are offline. The reasons for the low level of online penetration, while the customers are already adapting online fast, is that the lack of understanding related to entering online and lack of technical skills. 

In terms of advantages, the digital presence offers them a 2x growth in terms of revenue and profit, as against the offline businesses. Digital businesses able to reach consumers well beyond their own cities and they are able to offer far greater employment opportunities, she added.