SMBs Using Cloud See 15-20% Reduction in Operational Costs: NASSCOM NASSCOM report titled 'SMB Cloud Adoption in India: Towards a Cloud First nation' shows SMBs that adopted cloud have seen 20-25 per cent increase in productive gains and 15-20 per cent reduction in operational cost

The silver lining of Covid-19 led crisis, arguably, is the fast-tracked digital transformation of businesses across industries. The benefits of adopting the three fundamental technologies— cloud computing, big data analytics and cybersecurity—that lead digital transformation are immense, show industry reports.

A National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), IT industry body, study shows that small and medium businesses (SMBs) that adopted cloud have seen 20-25 per cent increase in productive gains and 15-20 per cent reduction in operational cost.

The covid-19 led disruption has given the much needed impetus to digital adoption by businesses, the report, titled "SMB Cloud Adoption in India: Towards a Cloud First nation', emphasises.

"The recent onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has taken this disruption to the next level and is forcing companies to re-think their businesses and business models," the report stated.

"Enabling business continuity, improved collaboration, a shift from offline to online as the primary channel of engagement with clients, cost-effectiveness, managing security with the increase in cyber-attacks especially during remote working are leading drivers of cloud adoption by SMBs."

Even as the Covid-19 pandemic severely impacted the SMB segment, those with an online presence have shown greater resilience and are expected to see short-term revenue gain.

"As India aims to become a cloud-first nation and with the government's push for cloud adoption by MSMEs, it will be crucial for SMBs in India to think of themselves as Digital Enterprises and lead the E-revolution for India," said Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM.

Of the over 1000 SMBs surveyed, as much as 60 per cent said they have adopted cloud, though about half being at early stage of adoption. In sector-wise adoption, technology-first segments, including e-commerce, IT-BPM firms, lead in cloud adoption followed by BFSI, media and entertainment, retail, automotive, healthcare and manufacturing as the other emerging verticals.

India's public cloud market stands at INR 170 billion in FY2020 and is growing at about 30 per cent CAGR to reach INR 630 billion by FY2025, the report stated. Further, SMBs can account for about 30 per cent share of India's public cloud market.