BANGALORE, INDIA: Small and medium business (SMB) is a strategic business unit of  TATA Consultancy Services (TCS). The company has been aggressively tapping the SMB segment by providing end-to-end business solutions.

TCS SMB caters to the needs of different industry verticals through its various service offerings. It brings a powerful combination of best practices gained through TCS' global experience, domestic market reach, skills, know-how, alliances, and delivery capabilities to bear on each solution delivered.

"At TCS SMB, we aim to deliver the entire stack of integrated IT Solutions to the emerging enterprises through our "IT-as-a-Service" model. This enables them to compete effectively in the market place while simultaneously improving their speed to go-to-market and maximizing return on investment," says Venguswamy Ramaswamy, Global Head, small and medium business, TCS.

Excerpts:

CIOL: Tell us about TCS' presence in the SMB space? Where does it position itself among its offering to Indian SMBs?

Venguswamy Ramaswamy: TCS has been a strong brand in the domestic market carrying a lot of faith. However, our interest in SMB market is very recent.

Our focus on SMB in India has two reasons: One, the enormous growth, which cannot be ignored. Two, there has been high expectation on TCS from SMBs to provide solutions and services. Only recently, we found the SMB market is maturing in terms of business process and technology adoption.

Unlike other players, TCS is not a pure product player. This is our differentiator. Our study of the market reveals that SMBs are today confused with too many product options. Their worry lies in building in-house IT skills and ability to understand the best fit. Owing to this, SMBs are wary of upfront capital investments. SMBs simply want IT without hassles, and we must acknowledge this.

TCS provides IT-as-a-service model. Which means, IT is managed by us, offsite. Unlike many vendors, this is not restricted to certain software applications; but the entire gamut including network, hardware and systems. To ease our customer on capital, we offer "pay as you use" model.

CIOL: What is your understanding of the Indian SMB market? How open are they in adopting IT?

VR: There are currently approximately 35 million SMBs which contribute to 60 percent of India's GDP. But their IT spending is just 30 percent of the total IT spend of India. Yet, it is growing at 27 percent, and is 9.94BUSD.

What is more interesting is the way they are adopting IT. I see increasing adoption of networks and even WANs (connecting factory and godowns with offices). There is a growing importance to integrated system like ERP, than smaller accounting systems. Also, I find SMBs recognizing the importance of productivity tools like document management and collaboration systems.

Last, but not the least, penetration of broadband networks and increasing faith on hosted services makes the market matured in line with the global trends. Let alone the promise of technology, I find a new mindset.

CIOL: What are the solutions offered by TCS to Indian SMBs?

VR: Simply put, it is a one-stop shop. This includes hardware and network with remote administration, intranets and portals, emails, document management, business applications (ERP and industry specific solutions).

We also provide advanced IT solutions like workflow management and data warehousing, which are today not far-fetched for many SMBs. Yet, we provide all this within our "IT-as-a-service model". These are managed offsite and charged on "pay as you use" basis.

CIOL: Tell us about your "IT-as-a-service" model?

VR: Typically, in the SMB sector, a company starts with devices, most commonly PCs and printers. It then moves into a network environment needing local network and cross enterprise network. It then needs a set of productivity suites like office suites and collaborations solution like email and document management. Overtime, as business processes become more intricate, it moves into business applications, which may be a miniature accounting system or a mid range ERP. Belonging to a vertical like retail, for example, it would need specialized solutions in logistic or Point of Sales. We are a partner in this evolution.

It is based on three principles:
* "Build as you grow": This gives the subscriber the flexibility in talking IT investment decision.
* "Pay-as-you-use": You can try it and scale it up with your business growth. This gives the comfort of low capital investment.
* Remotely managed service with best-in-class infrastructure, processes and data security.

CIOL: Are products offered by TCS vertical specific. If so, to which vertical do you cater most?

VR: Yes. Our solutions are vertical specific. Based on our study, we are focusing on five verticals: manufacturing, retail, healthcare, education and professional services. These solutions span across hardware, network and software.

CIOL: Do you see an increase in technology spending by Indian SMBs?

VR: The growth numbers are too big to ignore. However, what is interesting is how SMBs are adopting technology; this will spur exponential growth in next few years.

SMBs have crossed the threshold of using IT for basic office needs. They are looking at IT as a serious growth engine. Adoption of integrated solutions and advanced networking solutions give a strong indication of this.

TCS being in technology for almost four decades now has witnessed how IT growth takes quantum leaps when business learns to align IT with business models. SMBs will now experience this pattern.

CIOL:  Your views on the Indian SMB market?

VR: Soon the process boundaries between large enterprises and SMBs will be blurred. In other words, with globalization, many of the processes will be shared between these two segments. Adoption of standards (both technology and quality), collaborative systems, hosted and pervasive solutions will become critical for SMBs as they scale up.

As IT partners, our purpose is to help our customer in their business vision, especially when IT will be directly relevant to it.

CIOL: What percentage of TCS' business comes from the SMB market? What is the target this year?

VR: Having made a foothold, our focus for this year is to ensure that our solutions are built and delivered with "Fit for Purpose" mindset for SMBs.  This will be our target.  This is more important for us to than setting a financial target for this year. Our focus for this year will be Indian market. Subsequent to establishing our SMB Solution presence in India, we will reach out to global markets.