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Cloud adoption among Indian SMEs is not as high as it should be, and
to incnease its outreach, cloud vendons have to do a lot of wonk in
tenms of explaining its business benefits to SMEs
uring our research on the SME
secto4 especially in terms of
their adoption of technology
for their business purposes, we
found one common but very interesting
thread of mis-information. Most SMEs
have a very basic online presence in terms
of a static website giving details of their
business. We noted a very unique, but
surprising pattern, namely, their website
is listed as say, www.xyz.com, but the mail
id is defined as mailme@gmail.com. This
means that even though the company has
its own domain and has even subscribed
to a hosting space for their website, they are still not
using mail on their hosted server.
It is also a matter of concern that most of these
hosting servers are unmanaged (and hence unsecure),
are most probably hosted somewhere outside the
country and anyone with even an iota of understanding of
hacking, can potentially damage their websites and cause
havoc. ln our article published in the last issue of pCeuest
(Feb 201a), we had highlighted a similar case of cheating
at an SME location.
The other gap, in understanding Cloud and related
subjects, that we have come across, stems from a near
absolute inclination, by SME owners, of treating everything, even remotely connected to computer usage, being
branded as lT. We have had SME customers consulting on
such wide variety of topics as, networks, software licensing issues, financial accounting applications, ERp, project
management, training on business applications, website
creation, and even Social Media Marketing. For a typical SME customel all these are real and live issues that
they would expect their lT partner to handle and take
the onus of. Whether this means a lack of understanding
ortreatingthis issue as a non priority item on their list is
anybody's guess. We consider the above, as a basic lack of
awareness as well as a hint of apprehension on handling
technology, amongst the SMEs.
This brings us to the basic issue of the lT industry,s
often repeated claim, of portraying Cloud Computing as
a solution for almost all ills that plague SMEs. Traditionally the outsourcing business took off mostly because
MARGH 2014

pcquest.com

Sameen Mathun, CEO, SM Consulting

companies felt that the process (to be

outsourced) is too monotonous and mundane to be done in-house. lt's not that the
company cannot do this activity in-house,
but they outsource these services because
they feel that this activity is NOT their
core business, and by outsourcing this
activity they can concentrate better on
their core business.
As an example think of housekeeping or courier services. Compare them
with the lT outsourcing services that the
IT industry promotes especially among
SMEs. We feel that the lT vendors need to
understand the SME's pain and then suggest the right so_
lutions to them. The vendors have to appreciate the fact
the customer is Nor outsourcing the process because it is
monotono{rs for them, but because they do NOT under_
stand the nuances of !T usage within the organisation.
Let us illustrate this with a very simple example of

designing erylaining and managing the SLA for a Cloud

customer.lre ftel that many times, the meaning of SLA
is not clearly defined and hence not clearly understood
by both parties, including the customer and the vendor.
The SME cusbrmer's expectation when they outsource
the lT senices (wtrettrer cloud or on premise) are mostly
rather simpleb urderstand and deliver. lT vendors need
to improve dtek urderstanding and then set customer
expectations (rr thb account.
So when fte SME customer outsources its process

to an

lT vendor,

they assume that they have passed all

manageability issrE to the vendor. lt is for the lr partner

to understard nd appreciate this. ls the SME really
outsourcing qE process or are they passing the onus of
all core as vyel a6 rE*aM business processes to the cloud
vendor? The Sffi orsfomer's expectations are different

from say, an enfrprise customer,s. SMEs suffer from a

lack of deep rnder*arding of lT and hence need a different level of had troffint from the lT partner.

The term'dcf lircilns a smarter way to handle

almost alltheffirsmrrputing needs. The benefits of
cloud computi;b rlxhrrnem are very tangible. The
actual benefitdfu -n not about implementing lT, but
rather; it is abqtrcmnmirg the business itself. lt is more
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about how the same processes can be delivered, in a

more efficient way. SME customers around the world are
adopting cloud computing for planning unprecedented
growth or introducing innovation, such as entering new
lines of business or reshaping an existing process.
With cloud technology now available, SMEs can now
plan their growth more systemically. The most significant
factor to the successful deployment of cloud is choosing
a quality technology partner to whom the lT functions of
the organisation can be outsourced strategically. lt is the
lT partner's duty to take the customer to a 'cloud-ready'
level and to simultaneously develop an adoption strategy,
while keeping the legacy systems in mind.
While in many cases, the overall benefits have been
communicated to SME owners, they continue to face two
primary bottlenecks in cloud adoption-cost and trust.
Since many cloud solution providers are start ups, the
credibility of these companies along with the trust
of handing them data is also a real concern, amongst
all SMEs.
We feel that SMEs themselves are in various phases
of maturity and transition. There are the ones, who are in

in terms of delivering faster results, leveraging existing

i nfrastructu re, i m provi n g ad m i n istrative processes, most

importantly scalability, and on-demand provisioning of resources. These attributes make cloud computing a perfect
model for running businesses. The above coupled with low
cost, high flexibility, nil down time, storage on demand, as
per need, and high level of automation, should make cloud
a preferred solution for SMEs. Some other observations,
during our interactions with SME owners are as follows:
- Cloud computing is a new entrant to the technology
arena which in form of Platform as a Service, Software
as a Service and lnfrastructure as a Service promises
real reduction in cost of operations in a business. This
eliminates the need to purchase expensive software,
development platforms and setting up complex ICT
infrastructu re.
- Cloud computing as a technology has created a niche
for itself in the SME sector. The sector understands
the overall tangible advantage it offers for their

tions, only a few know the actual benefits of cloud

computing beyond the basic description. We strongly
feel that cloud computing has not gone past the

the traditional business of manufacturing or trading while

others are in services and are comparatively newer in
business. The latter category of SMEs are technologically
more tech savvy and are more likely to adopt technology
at the start of their venture.
While this holds absolutely true of the newer, tech
savvy businesses, its relevance to the older, more traditional businesses is still a matter of debate, amongst SME
owners. SMEs, being cost sensitive, are bound to adopt
cloud computing technology widely over the next three to
five years. Some key benefits of cloud adoption for SMEs
are as follows:
- Reducing lT labour cost by up to 50% in configuration,
operations, management and monitoring
- Reducing server and application provisioning cycle
times from weeks to minutes
lmproving quality, eliminating up to 30% of software
defects
- Lowering end-user lT support costs by up lo 40%.
Although lndia is still an evolving market in terms of
overall cloud adoption, recent trends and surveys show
an increased activity in the field. lndian companies are
increasingly embracing cloud computing for its efficiency

p"qr".t."o*i

growth.
While the SME owners have adequate awareness of
the benefits of Cloud technology in their organisa-

awareness phase.

Most employees in an SME, even if they were aware

of the cloud platform, are not comfortable with
adopting cloud based applications. The reasons vary
from total lack of understanding to concerns on data
security.
- A high number of SME customers still assume that
cloud services are only for Iarger companies.
- There continues to be much confusion on the Private
vs the Public cloud.
- Many SME have adopted a wait and see attitude as far
as adoption of cloud computing is concerned.
- Many SME owners rue the half baked solution being
pitched to them.
We feel that much more needs to be done by the
cloud vendors in terms of explaining the business benefits
to the SMEs. Maybe then can we dream of taking lndian
SMEs almost 45 million of them, to the Cloud.
We are sure, that by then, the SMEs themselves, will
be on Cloud Nine. il

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