Microsoft to help SMBs move to cloud

As Microsoft moves toward a devices and services company, Meetul Patel, GM - Small and Mid-market Solutions and Partners unit (Microsoft India) shares details on how Microsoft is taking along its partners in this journey. Excerpts:

CIOL: Leveraging latest IT tools and techniques can help India's small businesses boost revenues by $56 billion and help create over a million jobs, says a Microsoft report. What are those tools?

Meetul Patel: The advent of mobility, cloud and social collaboration is certainly going to change the way people do business in India now. Businesses have started embracing the concepts of mobile, social, and big data to redefine their business.Cloud creates the connections. Now let us look at the ways these mega technology trends are impacting business.

The most important thing is that the multiplicity of devices and mobility make tech accessible to a lot more people at different price points and cloud makes their lives easier by making a plethora of services available on those devices.

Then comes the social collaboration tools - they are particularly important for small business considering the social media demographics of India, as they can use the social engagement tools to reach a large customer base. They can also get closer to these customers with an effective implementation of Big Data insights.

In the last 18 months, we have dedicated resources for sustained programs in these areas to help our partners reach and connect to the Indian business ecosystem and help them adopt these new technologies effectively to grow their business.

CIOL: When you are talking about new technology trends that will change the way people do business, what are the key areas you would be focusing on to make the transition to this new technology happen?

MP: Our first priority area is to modernize all the desktops built on 10-12 year old technology. Now, with XP coming to end of its life this year, we are offering quite a few options for small and medium businesses to migrate to a modern PC environment providing access to the latest productivity and collaboration tools.

The second area of focus is to help small business move to cloud and equip them with virtually anywhere access to the latest Office applications and other cloud-based IT services.
And the third area is to make partners ready to make the migration process to this new and fastevolving technology environment smooth for customers and helping them to scale up their business with Microsoft solutions.

CIOL: As Microsoft looks toward an effective transformation to a successful devices and services company - how easy or difficult is the process for you, considering the existing competitions in this field?

MP: Each strategic shift opens up doors to more and more technologies as well as the growth prospect- so this discussion is very natural to our partners. The competitions might have make inroads but we feel that is not massive, as the game has just begun as we are not new in this domain- we have strong heritage and certainly more credibility in the market than anyone else in the market. For example, we provide services for more than a decade in the form of Hotmail and Outlook email services.

Instead of hurriedly barging into the market with half-baked solution, the products we are offering are more relevant and more valuable from the business productivity perspective. We offer a compelling value proposition to our customers in terms of:

Enterprise grade design and support - For example, Windows tablet provides the productivity, manageability and security needed for the business. Our office productivity suites are built on decades of experience, which our competitors may not have.

Seamless experience across different form factors - We offer the same experience across all devices.

The core Windows platform scales across devices of different sizes in order to provide users with seamless productivity and experience.

Scalability and flexibility - We offer business cloud on their terms- As the business and technology evolve, they get the solutions up and ready on cloud. They can move office products on private, public and hybrid cloud environment depending on their needs.

CIOL: How does Microsoft enable its partner network in India to align with this new strategy?

MP: We truly broke through last year, as a devices and services company. Our opportunity is clear - and it has never been greater. Going forward, our strategy will focus on creating a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most.

As a part of our go to market strategy in the consumer space, we engage in collaboration with our OEM partners to drive compelling consumer experiences for Windows family of devices.
We are deeply involved in training RSPs through a variety of training programs and working closely with retailers in visual merchandising, assortment and categorization efforts. Our online training certification program through "Expert-Zone" enables thousands of RSPs to be fully knowledgeable on our products and services.

The cloud and mobility story evolved couple of years ago. We are discussing cloud and mobility extensively with our partners. Our partners are keen to know more about our offerings and its economics. Not only we educate our partners on the new technology trends, we also co-invest for sustained growth and geo-expansion activities. There are almost 4,500 partners in 250 cities in India who actively engage themselves with us in this process.