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Amit Singh, CRN, October 3, 2011, 1000 hrs
Sanjeev Gupta, MD, Albion Infotel, winner of the CRN Cloud Services Provider Award 2011, addressed the pain points of the SME segment at a recent cloud computing conference.
At the conference jointly organised by Albion and the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Gupta said that the opportunities for offering cloud services in the SME segment are at par with the large enterprise.
“SMEs contribute 40 percent to the entire output of India, and 35 percent to the industrial exports. After agriculture sector, SMEs are the highest employer in India. They face many challenges such as non-availability of advanced technology, lack of skilled manpower, funds, and conservative approach of lenders. Cloud computing can provide them with simple and affordable access to IT resources and services. Besides opportunity to avail best applications, cloud computing reduces stress on capital expenses and provides freedom from technical support and services,” Gupta said.
The event was attended by over 150 delegates comprising of executives from SMEs, government officials, and faculties and students from various institutions.
In his welcome address Salil Bhandari, President, PHD Chamber said, “Large enterprises have been able to invest heavily on IT infrastructure and leverage the advanced technological advancements. SMEs are somewhere left behind in this race and have not been able to utilize the benefits of technology. Cloud computing is truly a revolutionary concept for SMEs providing ease of adoption, low maintenance costs, and greater workflow efficiency.”
Denoting cloud computing to be an IT revolution Ravinder K Chadha, Joint Secretary, Lok Sabha, in his keynote address said, “Mankind has seen many revolutions but the IT revolution brought about by cloud computing may change the way we live. Since 90 percent of industries in India constitutes of SMEs, the government must increase its focus on facilitating their requirements and needs.” |