Cisco focuses on 50 mn SMBs to continue double-digit growth in India

Panaji: With about 70 per cent of Indias small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) still "offline" in India, global networking giant Cisco is now focused on transforming them and drive its growth in the country, a top executive has said.

"Our number one focus is going to be SMBs. We believe that is an opportunity we have tapped very well till now. We are currently doing business with 30,000 customers in the commercial SMB business space today," Sameer Garde, President Cisco India and Saarc, told IANS at the Cisco India Summit here.

"Out target is to triple that number, leading up to about 100,000 customers over the next four to five years. That is the top priority," Garde added.

"SMBs constitute about 50 per cent of our businesses in India and it is growing very fast," Garde said.

At 20 per cent, SMBs constitute the fastest growing segment for Cisco as against its overall 14 per cent annual growth rate on an average in India, according to the company.

Speaking at a session, Sudhir Nayar, Managing Director, Commercial, Cisco, said that India's over 50 million SMBs currently contribute 37.5 per cent to the country's GDP and over 45 per cent of exports are done by SMBs.

But with the uptake of digital technologies, SMBs could help increase their contribution to GDP by 10 per cent.

"Digital SMBs grow profits up to twice as fast as offline counterparts and they employ five times more employees compared to offline SMBs," Nayar said.

To help SMBs transform their businesses, Cisco introduced an enterprise-class technology solution called "Cisco Start" which, according to Nayar, takes just seven clicks and 10 minutes to install.

"What is more, this product is priced well to suit the budget of SMBs. It costs them just $70 per user per year -- less than the cost of a cup of coffee every day," Nayar said, adding that about 35 per cent of the solution's components are software.