India in last 3 years evolved as a third largest start up ecosystem in the world. Almost 51 million small and medium business (SMBs) are contributing 37% to India’s GDP. Furthermore, only 32% of SMBs are online i.e. performing their operations digitally.
Three years ago, when Google came up with the NASSCOM 10,000 startup initiatives at that time India had less than 100 startups founded per year. The reason behind such less number is the need of finance. Many SMBs which started couldn’t get enough funds. In addition, entrepreneurs who were having a great business idea didn’t go forward with the fear of not getting enough funds. The SMBs not having enough funds are known as sick SMBs.
Today, the country has almost thousands of startups coming up every year. The reason behind is globalization, customer demands and continuous innovations in technology and business practices. The left out 68% SMBs are offline and google has come up to digitally empower them.
A study by KPMG and Google says that the profits of online SMBs are twice that of offline SMBs. In addition, employment of people is more in digital business.
Google has launched “digital unlocked” a training program for the entrepreneurs and to empower them with digital skills. The purpose behind is that they can digitalize their business and expand it through internet. The training program is available in three different modes – online, offline and mobile. As on part of offline mode, FICCI and google will jointly conduct 5000 workshops across 40 Indian cities. Online training consists of 90 video tutorials specially designed for India. The videos have detailed information about how to mark an online presence. The program is free of cost. Furthermore, it will benefit business owners the ways to optimize their businesses digitally.
Also, Google is also set to launch a tool “my business website” that is optimized for mobiles. It is basically for creating a website free of cost in 9 Indian languages.
Last year, Google came out with Google My Business, a program to help SMBs get an online presence on google search and google maps. In addition, till date almost 8 million SMBs are registered on this platform.
Also, Google capital, started for funding the Indian startups has its office only in India after US. Google’s global CEO says internet and digital technology will be engine of growth for Indian economy.
