Google India has reaffirmed its commitment to digitally empower India’s small and medium business community by announcing the launch of SMB Heroes, a nationwide program designed to recognize and celebrate SMBs that have embraced digital to grow their business.
A nationwide program in partnership with FICCI, SMB Heroes will comprise of three categories – Business Innovation through Digital, Impacting Change through Digital and Woman Business Leader.
Businesses from across the country can submit their nominations on the SMB Heroes website <g.co/smbheroes >. The last date for entries is April 24, 2017. Following this, one winner from each category will be shortlisted from five major zones, culminating in a national finale in Delhi later this year.
Talking about the 2017 SMB Heroes challenge, Shalini Girish, Director – Google Marketing Solutions said; “Small and medium businesses are the backbone of Indian economy and are powering the next wave of the country’s growth. We are deeply committed to partnering these businesses in accelerating their growth through high quality digital training and tools. Our new initiative, SMB Heroes celebrates small and medium businesses that have successfully embraced digital and will provide a roadmap to businesses that are yet to embark on this journey.”
As per a research study by Google and KPMG titled “Impact of internet and digitization on SMBs in India”, 68% of the 51m Indian SMBs are offline. Highlighting the macro-economic impact of the internet, the research found that rising 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% by 2020. Ascertaining the benefits of going digital for small businesses, it determined that profits of digitally engaged SMBs grow twice as fast compared to offline SMBs. Likewise digitally engaged businesses are able to grow their customer base significantly with 52% catering to customers beyond their home city versus only 29% offline SMBs. The report cites the lack of understanding of the benefits of digital technologies and technical skills as the essential reasons for being offline.
Recognizing the need to address this gap, Google has commenced Digital Unlocked an online, offline and mobile training program to empower thousands of Indian SMBs with essential digital skills. In keeping with the varied learning needs of the millions of businesses in India, the program is built across online, offline and mobile.
The offline training is being conducted in partnership with FICCI and over the next three years, 5,000 workshops will be held across 40 Indian cities. The online training comprises a set of 90 self-paced video tutorials, curated specifically for India and is available free of charge at g.co/digitalunlocked.
The tutorials cover a comprehensive set of topics ranging from building a web presence and driving online growth to reaching customers over mobile and video. The trainings are certified by Google, Indian School of Business and FICCI. Over the next three years, in partnership with FICCI, Google will conduct 5,000 Digital Unlocked workshops across 40 Indian cities.
Further, for India’s mobile-first audience, Google has recently launched Primer, a free mobile app uniquely designed to teach digital marketing skills in a quick, easy and interactive way. It is available for download through the Google Play and iOS app store. Primer also works offline and is available in English and Hindi with Tamil, Telugu and Marathi versions coming shortly. In the last two months, Primer has been downloaded over 550,000 times already.
