Powering the Digital Transformation: CyberMedia Hosts Crayon India & AWS SMB Summit 2021

On 9^th December 2021, CyberMedia hosted the SMB Summit 2021, in partnership with Crayon India and AWS.

The Journey Towards Digital Transformation Begins

The keynote of the event was given away by Vikas Bhonsle, CEO, Crayon India. The CEO of the Indian chapter of the Norwegian firm talked about the company, what “digital transformation” means and entails. He further laid stress on the primary objective of the SMB Summit: to power digital transformation across the world. “What’s playing as a great tool to level this field between the large and the small enterprises is something called technology”, Bhonsle said.

Shortly afterwards, the screen was handed over to Udit Sethi, Director, KPMG, who delivered an industry keynote in the form of a presentation. He presented a snapshot of the figures of the wider SMB market, in terms of revenue, CAGR, contribution to GDP, and so on. Sethi also highlighted the reasons behind moving to cloud, automation, platform, and data, and the benefits that comes with them. Lastly, the KPMG director also included a six-step journey for digital transformation.

Sethi’s session was followed by the session “Build your Business on Cloud”, by Raghavendran Balasubramaniam, Head of SMB Segment at Amazon Web Services.

He noted that building a business of cloud makes it resilient in the face of crisis. He divided his session in three key sections – technology, cloud, and AWS. Talking about the technology first, he noted that technology “allows businesses to innovate and stay relevant”. Then, he noted, “cloud is indeed democratizing technology and innovation”. Lastly, he talked about the role of AWS in enabling businesses to take the step towards digital transformation, as AWS will be supporting 2.5 million SMBs by 2025.

As Balasubramaniam pointed out in his address, the human network is one of the most important things in digital transformation. As such, his address was followed by Bhavesh Goswami, Founder & CEO, CloudThat.

Bhavesh talked about the importance of partnerships in digital transformation. He talked about CloudThat, one of the oldest companies in the industry. Since the company has partnerships with AWS and Crayon, Bhavesh also talked about the benefits of working with CloudThat and Crayon, to utilize AWS’ true potential in powering digital transformation. Goswami talked about advantages such as invoice payment, managed services, and auto well-architectured framework review.

Thereafter, Vikas Bhonsle, CEO Crayon India had a fireside chat with Raman Roy, who is the Chairman & MD at Quatrro. Roy has also been Ex-NASSCOM Chairman, EX-Wipro BPO Chairman.

The fireside discussion covered diverse topics related to digital transformation, businesses on the cloud, the new normal, among others. The first topic of discussion was the parallels between the world and Indian SMB markets from a technology standpoint. Thereafter, the topic moved towards using the digital more to capture more business growth opportunities.

Along with that, the fireside chat also discussed the role of technology in leveling the playing field for businesses of all sizes, the role of culture in facilitating digital transformation, and building the culture to support digital transformation was called a “non-delegable task” by Roy. 

Afterwards, BK Chaurasiya, Head of Solutions Architecture, SMB at AWS, delivered a presentation on Business Continuity Planning Solutions, which will help SMBs unleash their growth potential. In a broad sense, Mr. Chaurasiya talked about the right technologies for a successful business, leveraging AWS support, and starting with digitalization. Chaurasiya further highlighted the issues SMBs face while adopting technology, and how AWS helps with that. Furthermore, he talked about perceived barriers to cloud-native tech, and introduced “SMBhav”, an AWS initiative for SMBs in helping them adapt to cloud.

Shortly thereafter, Vikas Bakshi, SVP – Global Strategic Alliances & India Business Head, Cloud4C Services, took to the main screen to talk more about partnerships in the SMB ecosystem. Mr. Bakshi talked about the role of Cloud4C in powering digital transformation of enterprises across the country, with its tools, solutions and services. In partnership with AWS and Crayon, Cloud4C has been working with global customers across verticals. He concluded the session with providing details on partnerships across three portfolios that Cloud4C offers.

Next, Sumit Shukla, CEO, Apar Technologies Pvt. Ltd., talked further on the partnerships and digital transformation for SMBs. Sumit first started with the company’s introduction, and their partnership with Crayon and AWS. Sumit talked about the pros of cloud adoption in the enterprise, and how it improves service quality, security, among other performance metrics. He concluded by summing up the journey to digital transformation that SMBs need to take.

In a panel discussion moderated by Amit Murarka, Head – Partner Success (SI and ISV partnerships), AWS, and including Mr. Venkataraman D, Executive Director: Sales & Strategy, Crayon India, Nikhil Ninan, Head – Strategic Partnerships, Crozaint Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Vishal Chandane, Founder & CEO, Cloud Exchange, Rajani Kant Das, CEO, E-Soft Online, and Mr. Sudheer Satyapal Sulakhe, VP Technology and Cloud Solutions, Wings Infonet Pvt. Ltd., talked about how SMBs can unlock their growth with Cloud. 

The panel discussed nuanced topics in cloud and how digital transformation works for SMBs. While the panel discussed the journey towards digitalization and what are the steps involved, it also talked about what the enterprises can do to start their own transformations. Furthermore, the panel also discussed what are the right steps, and what pitfalls to avoid while walking the path of transformation.

Also, the illustrious panel discussed the best practices, and how to keep the customer environment secure. In a similar vein, topics such as cost optimization and staying afloat were also covered by the panel. The panel concluded with discussing the role of partners in helping the customers adopt the cloud, along with the takeaways for the partners for the same.

The penultimate session was hosted by Abhay Joshi, Cloud Channel & Distribution Head, Crayon India, around the Crayon Value Proposition. Joshi talked about Crayon’s reach and scale, and how it helps its customers in expanding the territories where Crayon has a presence. Furthermore, he talked about cloud, and how the ecosystem of applications helps adopters undergo a digital transformation of their own.

The SMB Summit concluded with the SMB Summit 2021 Awards, with awards in 9 categories.

The complete awards list:

• Best Cloud Influencer of the Year: Cloud4C Services
• Best Hybrid Solutions Provider of the Year: Nxtra Data Limited 
• Best Cloud Project of the Year: Unicloud Labs Pvt. Ltd.
• Born in the Cloud Partner of the Year: Wings Infonet Pvt. Ltd.
• Cloud Innovator of the Year: Crozaint Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
• Cloud Accelerator of the Year: Operisoft Solutions
• Best Technology Evangelist of the Year: CXIO Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
• Best in Digital Transformation of the Year: Proarch Solutions
• Emerging Solutions Provider of the Year: Electromech Corporation

The event came to a conclusion with a Vote of Thanks from Jitendra Sardana, National Product Manager, Crayon India. Sardana congratulated the award winners and expressed hope for a physical event next year.