Shed subsidy mindset, focus on technology, says Telangana IT secretary
The Telangana government has taken a cue from governments of countries such as Singapore and Wales that play an active role in tech-enabling their small and medium businesses (SMBs) instead of supporting them through fiscal sops and subsidies.
Delivering the keynote address at the Lenovo IT4SMB Times Techies Tech Drives event, Telangana IT & industries principal secretary Jayesh Ranjan cited the example of over a 1,000 kirana stores that the government in Hyderabad helped go digital during the hard Covid-19 lockdowns in March 2020.
“The lockdown came as a boon for ecommerce companies, but we realised kirana stores were hit very badly. We were approached by CAIT (Confederation of All India Traders), which asked us to help kirana stores get digital solutions. We tied up with a company called Global Linkers,” he said.
A website was created for each store, a template was created for placing digital orders, inventory management was explained to them, payment gateway was created and they just had to engage one or two boys to fulfil the orders. “Literally, overnight, over a 1,000 kirana stores that we don’t associate with advanced technology started transacting on digital platforms and subsequently many more joined,” he said.
Ranjan noted a Dun & Bradstreet survey of manufacturing SMBs in Telangana, conducted 6-7 years ago, which showed that two thirds of these companies did not even have an email ID. “We say people should move up the ladder, but here was a scenario where 66% of the SMEs did not even know that there was a ladder. So where was the question of climbing that ladder! Many of them were from the older generation who were not tech savvy and had mental barriers that technology is only for the young,” he said.
The kirana store experience, he said, showed that tech adoption is more a mindset issue. "We in government have learnt that technology is going to be a very big differentiator regardless of the sector you operate in,” Ranjan told the gathering of SMB honchos.
The Singapore government, he said, helps SMBs find the best possible technology available to manufacture a particular product. It subsidises the cost of that machinery and helps train SME employees to operate it to produce a global standard product.
He said in Wales, the government has a panel of experts that help SMEs study and identify the relevant technologies for their business.
Delivering the keynote address at the Lenovo IT4SMB Times Techies Tech Drives event, Telangana IT & industries principal secretary Jayesh Ranjan cited the example of over a 1,000 kirana stores that the government in Hyderabad helped go digital during the hard Covid-19 lockdowns in March 2020.
“The lockdown came as a boon for ecommerce companies, but we realised kirana stores were hit very badly. We were approached by CAIT (Confederation of All India Traders), which asked us to help kirana stores get digital solutions. We tied up with a company called Global Linkers,” he said.
A website was created for each store, a template was created for placing digital orders, inventory management was explained to them, payment gateway was created and they just had to engage one or two boys to fulfil the orders. “Literally, overnight, over a 1,000 kirana stores that we don’t associate with advanced technology started transacting on digital platforms and subsequently many more joined,” he said.
Ranjan noted a Dun & Bradstreet survey of manufacturing SMBs in Telangana, conducted 6-7 years ago, which showed that two thirds of these companies did not even have an email ID. “We say people should move up the ladder, but here was a scenario where 66% of the SMEs did not even know that there was a ladder. So where was the question of climbing that ladder! Many of them were from the older generation who were not tech savvy and had mental barriers that technology is only for the young,” he said.
The kirana store experience, he said, showed that tech adoption is more a mindset issue. "We in government have learnt that technology is going to be a very big differentiator regardless of the sector you operate in,” Ranjan told the gathering of SMB honchos.
The Singapore government, he said, helps SMBs find the best possible technology available to manufacture a particular product. It subsidises the cost of that machinery and helps train SME employees to operate it to produce a global standard product.
He said in Wales, the government has a panel of experts that help SMEs study and identify the relevant technologies for their business.
Gloss