Small businesses are the backbone of the Indian economy. Despite a challenging, competitive and critical business environment, Indian small businesses have shown remarkable strength and resilience by maintaining consistent growth, creating livelihood opportunities and becoming a driver of socio-economic development.
According to the MSME Ministry’s annual report 2017-18, –
“India is home to over 51 million small and medium businesses that have contributed immensely to the Indian GDP and employed over 117 million people.”
The pattern of consumer behavior and customer demand curve has seen a transition in the recent past. Due to rise in digital technologies, Indians are moving towards becoming digital customers. Hence, it is pivotal for small and medium businesses to leverage the use and power of internet to their demands.
Need for a Digital Identity
Due to ease of business, it is becoming easier for the small and medium businesses to opt for digital plunge and create a digital identity. A digital identity is the online or networked identity that a person, electronic device, or organization adopts in cyberspace.
The Small and Medium industry has a window of opportunity of advancing their businesses through online platform. They have a three-fold benefit using digital first approach –
- Achieve Faster growth
- Reach Larger Geographical area and
- Achieve Increased Revenue Generation
Multi-channel Access
They can leverage their digital technologies to cater to customers who access content through mobile, as this gives the businesses an opportunity to have multi-platform on the digital platform.
In a recent survey, it was found that Small and Medium Businesses are exploring online commerce through business models that implement SMAC – Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud – technologies. Due to the digitalization in the economy, any business can avail a domain name, develop, and host a website at a low cost without any hassle.
A research published by TalkTalk Business on Digital Identity, highlights
“There is continued opportunities for technology channel partners to provide business grade IT and Telecom services to their small business customers.”
It also revealed that a marginal change to a business’s digital identity can create a significant business opportunity for small businesses.
Hence, it is important for the small and medium businesses to give pivotal importance on the management for their digital identity, as it makes a lasting impression the consumer’s demand.
Role of Government
In this regard, the Government of India, is easing its policies for small and medium business to access services such as – filing taxing, registering businesses online. Also, to aid the growth and development of small and medium businesses, the Government is providing access to low-cost capital, developing skills and raising technology awareness among these businesses.
There are many flagship programs that’s been floated like – Make In India, Start-Up India etc. Many Policies like the Revised Foreign Trade Policies are providing financial and administrative support to small and medium businesses so that they make a digital identity on the internet.
It is important for the small and medium businesses to create and build their own digital identity, that will in turn incur huge benefits in the long run not only to them, but also to India’s progress story in a holistic manner.
In Conclusion There are various ways you can take your business online. Companies like shopify helps you to setup an online shop which no initial development cost, then there are several social media platform to promote your products online- Instagram and Facebook virtually have shops to sell your products. Doing business online has become much more easier now and its just a click away from actual consumers. So why not become a part of this new digital wave.
