Why Is The SMB Market For Web Presence Services In India Promising ?

Author : Bharati Ahuja

SMBs are slowly but steadily realizing the importance of web presence and want to forge ahead online arena with great enthusiasm and hope. But, there are some factors which make them delay the decision.

The Indian SMB market is second largest globally and the SMBs are clustered across all the Indian states giving the local web presence providers their share of the pie and helps maintain healthy competition.

SMBs contribute significantly to the economy:

Many SMBs have a web presence on industry portals and want to extend this by having their own website and social media presence. But the main reasons stopping them is the cost and the lack of technical knowledge in-house for managing and maintaining the website.

According to a Survey in 2013 there were 40 million SMBs and only 1 million websites which surely shows the immense business potential available.

According to a White Paper in 2013 by https://www.verisigninc.com/ the methods of online presence by country is as follows:

As India experiences a rapid adoption of internet in all areas of business and everyday transactions, the number of small business owners taking to an online presence is also growing. Riding on this growth wave is GoDaddy, one of the world’s largest web hosting and domain name registration providers, with its new marketing campaign starring Bollywood dancing icon Mithun Chakraborty. The campaign made of two films has Mithun explaining small business owners how creating a website can bring them more customers.

Google too had already focused the Indian SMB market in 2013 by announcing its plans to get 50,000 Small and Medium Businesses in Gujarat to have an online presence by 2014. This initiative was a part of its new national campaign "India, get your business online" that offers free websites and hosting to small and medium businesses in India. As part of the initiative, SMBs could also get to have a presence on Google Maps and garner technical support from 200-plus Google-trained agency partners in Gujarat for hosting the website.

"Small and medium enterprises are a key driver for economic growth in India, but very few businesses have been able to utilise the benefits of the Internet. Gujarat houses the largest number of SMEs in the country.

The Indian web presence market was also an area of growth, increasing by a substantial 45 percent in 2012, reaching a market size of Rs. 2.7 billion (US$55 million) in 2013. However, overall use of websites is still low, even when compared to other developing countries, indicating strong continued opportunity in web presence and web applications over the next several years. Parallels expects the growth in web presence and web applications to remain high over the next several years, with the Indian SMB web presence market growing by at least 36 percent year-over-year, reaching Rs. 6.8 billion (US$137million) in 2016

According to a study by http://zinnov.com/

• India's domestic IT spend to reach USD 36 billion by 2015, growing at a CAGR of 12%
• IT adoption in SMB segment is growing at 15% and expected to reach USD 15 billion by 2015
• Domestic spend on IT currently stands at USD 24bn
• 20% of the total 50 million SMBs in India are technology ready today.

We have been offering web presence services since 2000 and have seen the bubble burst as well as also seen the increasing demand for web solutions in the recent past.

But the major reasons according to us that are stopping the SMBs to go ahead confidently on the web are :

1. Many think that the cost is too high. 
2. If they get a website developed they think it is enough and stop there and do not invest in online marketing or SEO. 
3. They lack technical expertise in-house so they shy away from integrating eCommerce or online payments on the website. 
4. They have burnt their fingers in the past and it becomes difficult for them to invest more for online presence. 
5. The ROI from online presence accrues over a period of time and needs a plan and a strategy to reap dividends but the expectations of quick returns many time dampens their spirits and they lose patience and interest in maintaining the search presence.