Calling Google “as much an Indian company as it is American”, Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday said the tech giant needed to bring out more products tailored specifically for “India's psyche, local languages and local aspirations”, while working to enhance cybersecurity.
SME focus
Mr. Prasad was speaking at a Google event in the national capital, where Sundar Pichai, CEO of the global major, announced a slew of initiatives targeted at small and medium businesses in the country. Mr. Pichai said the company was working on products for India that could be taken to global markets.
The Minister appealed to the U.S.-headquartered firm to work more towards ensuring digital security, particularly in the backdrop of the push towards digitisation post-demonetisation. “There has to be greater technological strengthening of the IT walls,” he added.
IT Secretary Aruna Sundararajan, also present at the event said, the Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM)app launched last week had seen 5 million downloads and about a million transactions.
A joint study by Google-KPMG said that rising Internet penetration and greater uptake for digital by SMBs could help increase their contribution to India’s GDP by 10 percentage points, taking it up to 46-48 per cent by 2020.
Mr. Pichai, who is scheduled to visit his alma mater , IIT Kharagpur, tomorrow, said, “When we solve for a place like India, we solve for everyone around the world. That has led us to grow our team here and spend more time and ensure the products are useful for everyone,” he said.
Google rolled out Digital Unlocked, a training programme to enable SMBs in India to start using the Internet. Under this initiative, 5,000 workshops will be held across 40 Indian cities in the next three years, while the online training will comprise 90 video tutorials. These will be available free of charge and the training will be certified by Google, Indian School of Business and FICCI.
It also launched a free mobile app, Primer, to teach digital marketing skills in an interactive way. Available for Android and Apple phones, Primer will also work offline and is currently available in English and Hindi with Tamil, Telugu and Marathi versions coming shortly.
The US-based firm also previewed My Business Websites to help businesses to have a rich, mobile-optimised digital presence that will be launched later this year.
About 68 per cent of the 51 million SMBs in India do not have an online presence, it is learnt. These initiatives will help Google reach out to them. More than 8 million Indian SMBs are already using Google's platforms.
“It is important that SMBs have the right tools and skills to digitise. We believe it is important for us to invest in training and equip these individuals and small businesses to accelerate their journey of growth,” Mr. Pichai said.
“SMBs have always been key users of our platform right from the beginning,” Google Vice-President India and South-East Asia Rajan Anandan said.
