By Ankit Khurana, Managing Director, ValueScale Technologies
India is a fast-growing nation giving tough competition to the superpowers on all fronts. In past years, India has witnessed rapid growth across all fronts be it businesses, defense, economy, sports, education, or other sectors. SMEs and MSMEs are considered to be the growth engines of the economy globally. They together make up to 90% of all the businesses globally, consisting of 70% of employment. If we talk about India, SMEs are likely to play a pivotal role in achieving the vision of a $5 trillion economy by 2025. This stage can be reached only when technology adoption is the main focus for SMEs and MSMEs ahead. They have not created enormous job opportunities at low capital cost, have reduced regional imbalances, and promoted industrialization at both urban and rural levels.
India has already witnessed high tech adoption rates by the micro sectors. If we talk about the digital shift, there was a significant increase in tech adoption among SMEs and MSMEs as against the 29% pre-pandemic proportion. 50% of MSMEs had incorporated WhatsApp and Video Conferencing tools in their regular business operations. As per a Cisco study, conducted in 2020, SMEs are likely to add $158 to $216 million to the country’s GDP by 2024, by their digitized businesses. Currently, India has approximately 63 million MSMEs. Post pandemic MSMEs are the ones that have seen the biggest behavioural change toward tech adoption and usage. There has been a major digital shift in channels for communication, marketing, payments, hiring, and all other business verticals.
The digital landscape for MSME has changed dramatically in recent years, and a variety of new developments have emerged that can begin to shape the characteristics of a successful digital ecosystem, such as stronger cloud services, the use of blockchain technology, the integration of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and many others.
The most important learning experiences in the recent past have focused on how technology can improve company sustainability and performance. SMEs and MSMEs that are utilizing technology have long-term solutions for all elements of their ecosystem development, including stakeholder involvement, marketing, supply chain management, product creation, and so on. One well-known example is how, with the growth of digital payment methods that reduce dependence on banks’ physical infrastructure, payments can now be made anywhere and at any time.
The use of UPI, phone wallets, card payments, and other digital money has increased, as has the integration of technology into daily business operations, with solutions for bill payment, account management, and consumer engagement, among other areas. With the use of food delivery apps, food store owners are able to reach a bigger number of consumers, track their orders, make better deliveries, and manage their businesses.
With pandemics still weaving around us, the masses have started switching to online channels for their day-to-day activities, hence we can say that technology adoption by micros sectors has been a choice rather than by chance.