iON, an integrated information technology solution for small and medium businesses (SMBs), by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is planning to have 1,000 clients in India by the end of this year and expects about 20-30 per cent of them to come from Eastern part of the country.
“When we started in February, we had just above 100 clients and now it has crossed 235. By the end of this year, our client base would be above 1,000 in India and about 20-30 per cent of them would be in Eastern India,” said V Ramaswamy, Global Head of iON.
Though TCS had started this business in 2008 under TCS SMB Solutions, it was branded as iON in February. When asked about whether the late launch of iON was releated to the political situation or elections in West Bengal, V Ramaswamy, Global Head of iON, said, “Our national launch was on February this year and we were launching it state wise. Currently, we are in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. So, the launch has nothing to do with the political situations in this state, it is the strategy of the company only.”
iON provides on-demand business solutions using cloud computing technology. It has come up with a pay-per use model to deliver information technology in the third generation service model to SMBs. According to the company, West Bengal itself has a huge pottential as the state has about 314,000 micro, small and medium enterprises which employ about 2 million people.
“We want to concentrate on industrial clusters across the country. Bengal hold importance in this because it has 43 recognised SME clusters, while 17 new clusters were proposed recently,” he added. The company plans to generate a revenue of $1 billion from iON in five years. ION is concentrating on SMBs in manufacturing, retail, textile, education, quick service restaurants, wellness clinics and professional services.
