Digitizing SMBs can create 50 million jobs

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India that use cloud and mobile tools are reaping huge dividends, according to a report released by Deloitte and Google.

The report, Connected Small Business: Unlocking India’s Digital Potential, states that moving from offline to an advanced digital engagement could mean revenue growth up to 27 pc more than those who have not begun their digital adoption journey.

Based on a national survey of 500 businesses, the report analyses the digital engagement of Indian SMBs to understand how digital technology could help them, and what that would mean for India as a whole.

The report states that digitally advanced SMBs can help India achieve its national objectives of higher economic growth, creating jobs and more exports.

Compared with offline SMBs, those with higher digital engagement are more likely to increase employment by up to 84 pc, increase access to international markets by up to 65 pc, and likely to offer new products up to 4.5 times.

Prakash C Prabhakar, director, Deloitte in India., said, “While conducting this study, we realized that two-thirds of Indian SMBs are missing out on a huge digital opportunity. In today’s time, technology is a critical success factor and can be the differentiator between success and failure.”

The report states that one-third of Indian SMBs operate totally offline - with no devices and have no online presence. These businesses see their revenues declining 8 per cent annually. However, those businesses that are digitally advanced are growing 19 per cent annually.

SMBs can play a key role in India’s growth agenda and help unlock a path to balanced economic growth, the report adds. As India looks to lift is GDP growth to 8 per cent each year, digitizing the SMBs can help in the creation of 50 million new non-agricultural jobs.