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Intel shifts focus to small business in India

The company expects this segment to constitute as much as 45 per cent of the market (of 80,000 PCs) by next year, according to G B Kumar, enterprise programme manager, Intel (India).

"We believe the growth in this segment is steeper than that in the large corporate segment," Kumar said.

Intel (India), which classifies firms with turnover of Rs 50 million to Rs 3 billion as small and medium businesses, is currently organising a 16-city seminar tour to promote the deployment of computers in the segment.

It has decided to increasingly advertise in popular trade journals and publications of industry associations catering to the new target segment. It has also launched an extensive mailer campaign for spreading awareness in the SMB segment about the benefits of IT use and its own product lines.

The seminar tour, which has already covered smaller cities, is now being taken to the metros. According to Kumar, the seminar has been structured, based on a survey conducted by Intel to identify the specific characteristics of the SMB segment - including the factors acting as bottlenecks to IT deployment.

The survey found that unlike large corporations which have access to information on the latest trends in the IT industry, the SMB segment has many misconceptions about computerisation.

"For instance, we found that the decision makers in several of these companies believe that using computers would actually lead to more complexity. Also, they are afraid that they would need to employ several people to maintain the systems. Obviously, these notions are based on out-of-date information and we hope to clear the picture through the seminar," Kumar said.

The seminar includes presentations and demonstrations of the benefits and ease-of-use of applications such as electronic mail, Internet, intranets, workgroup management and other integrated solutions for manufacturing operations. The company's local partners will be displaying end-to-end solutions at the seminar venue.

- Compiled from the Indian media

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