KOLKATA, India--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Usage of SaaS-based Business Intelligence (BI) applications is soaring among India’s small & medium businesses (SMBs, companies with 999 employees or less). In this era of universal economic turmoil, the need for accurate and real-time information has become extremely crucial. India SMBs are estimated to have spent $23 million on SaaS-based BI solutions in the past twelve months.
India SMBs, which started by gathering basic information in simple Excel tables or pivots, are now moving into the next wave of sophisticated applications. Some of the key drivers for BI usage are better performance management, profitability and overall spending management, along with efficiency and productivity management initiatives. BI is primarily used as a part of a CRM solution, as better customer relationship management is a must for higher customer satisfaction, acquisition and retention.
Given this backdrop, usage of ‘BI-on-the-Cloud’ (or SaaS-based BI) is projected to increase significantly among India SMBs. “AMI anticipates expenditures on this type of application by India SMBs will skyrocket over 24% in the next twelve months. As mobile devices like tablets and smart phones show greater proliferation,” noted Swati Sasmal, Vice President of Research at AMI-Partners, “SMBs adopt BI-on-the-Cloud to take advantage of mobility-based business intelligence that enables anytime, anywhere decision-making,” Sasmal continued.
Usage of business intelligence applications among India SMBs has also increased due to the efforts of vendors to modify these solutions to become more user friendly and easier for the average SMB to navigate. Early on in the adoption of BI only large global multi-national company vendors were in the fray; however a number of India internet service vendors have now joined the trend in an effort to woo SMB customers with attractive BI offerings.
Apart from traditional verticals like banking, financial services, insurance and manufacturing, BI shows increasing adoption in sectors such as retail (with 5+ branches). Due to its huge business universe, the retail sector offers a significant latent opportunity for increased business intelligence adoption, in store management, customer management and innovative customer-related data analysis leading to the creation of focused customer loyalty programs. Other verticals with increased potential for BI/ analytics are logistics, hospitality and mid-sized to large hospitals (with 100+ beds).
Related Studies
AMI’s 2011 India SMB Cloud Service studies examine the SMB Cloud opportunity, including SMB preference for Cloud-based application bundle, price sensitivity and purchase channel preferences. These studies also provide comprehensive coverage of SMB adoption of Cloud-based applications, managed services, and supporting infrastructure, including platforms and devices. These studies will provide a roadmap for successful Cloud go-to-market strategies and tactics.
The reports provide an overview of the growing impact of cloud services on the SMB market from the following perspectives:
- Cloud mindset and economic influence
- Cloud enabling platforms, infrastructure and devices
- SaaS, unified communications (UC) and remotely managed IT services (RMITS)
- Current and planned adoption and deployment of cloud solutions
- Cloud usage behavior, decision making and purchase channels
For more information about these studies or AMI’s partner targeting solutions, please call 212 944 5100, e-mail ask_ami@amipartners.com or visit www.ami-partners.com.
About Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc.
AMI-Partners specializes in IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services strategy, venture capital, and actionable market intelligence — focusing on global small and medium business (SMB) enterprises. The AMI-Partners mission is to empower clients for success with the highest-quality data, business planning and go-to-market solutions. AMI was founded in 1996. Since its inception, the firm has built a world-class management team, each with ten to fifteen years’ experience in IT, telecom, online communications or multimedia.
AMI has helped shape the go-to-market SMB strategies of more than 150 leading IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services companies. The firm is well known for its IT and Internet adoption-based segmentation of the SMB markets; its annual retainership services based on global SMB tracking surveys in more than 30 countries; and its proprietary database of SMBs and SMB channel partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The firm invests significantly in collecting survey-based information from several thousand SMBs annually, and is considered the premier source for global SMB trends and analysis.