'For small cos, it’s often a case of not enough'

Small and medium businesses in India are realising the importance of adopting technology to improve performance and companies are eager to reach out to them. Dell India general manager SMB Ravi Bharadwaj talks to Ravi Teja Sharma about the company’s strategy for India and their mentorship programme for small companies.

How is Dell India engaging with small cos?
Dell sees tremendous opportunity in this segment. As one of our top five business priorities, we are committed to address the pain points of the small companies by offering them the right technology at the right price and have a range of SMB-specific personal computers and enterprise products.
Our strategy is aimed at fostering innovation and technology best practices among Indian small businesses.

What is Dell's NSTEDB mentorship programme?
As part of our commitment to engage with entrepreneurs across India, we have partnered with the department of science & technology’s National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB) to launch SME Technology & Mentorship Forum (TMF).
This initiative provides a platform for small businesses to obtain strong academic insights and real life experiences from experts, through a combination of plenary seminars along with one-to-one and one-to-many mentoring opportunities.
The first TMF was hosted in New Delhi recently and we have received an encouraging response from the owners of small businesses as well as aspiring entrepreneurs.

In India, how do you plan to integrate entrepreneurship, innovation and technology?
For small companies, it is often a case of not enough—not enough time, not enough money, not enough resources. Dell understands these unique needs. Small and medium businesses look for IT investments that enhance productivity and efficiency and Dell offerings around mobility, virtualisation, storage and cloud are all geared around these.
Through our conversations with aspiring as well as established entrepreneurs, we not only aim to cultivate a spirit of entrepreneurship but also provide platforms for entrepreneurs to share valuable insights and best practices and gain from the experiences of each other.
Our conversations have clearly showed us that Indian SMBs are keen to understand and leverage new platforms and technologies such as online, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud.

Is the outlook of small business owners towards technology changing?
IT has transformed the way small companies work today. There has been a visible shift in the outlook of SMB owners.
From the basic functions of e-mailing and printing, an increasing number of SMBs are going beyond the routine personal computer and laptop adoption and are using IT to gain a competitive advantage.
SMBs today are looking at employing technology as an enabler and not just a support function. The key challenge for the small and medium businesses is to keep up with technologies while ensuring return on investments.

What percentage of your business in India comes from small & medium businesses?
This is among the fastest growing segments and we are investing significant resources to address this market. Around 25% of Dell’s annual turnover (worldwide) comes from the SMB sector.
According to Dell’s Q4 FY10 results, Dell small and medium business revenue was $3.3 billion, up 10%, driven by stronger sales of mobile products and servers. In the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations, revenue increased 72%, led by SMB and large enterprise.

Ravi Bharadwaj