Aims to bridge this gap through a massive feet on street initiative to help SMEs all across in India to get online
Cementing its commitment to help SMEs go digital in India, Google India has launched a nationwide initiative to help small medium businesses to go digital and get online presence on Google search and Google maps, without having to invest in a website or domain.
As part of this new initiative, Google India will get 20 million SMEs online by 2017 by using a simplemobile based app called, ‘Google My Business’, that will help businesses to create and manage their business information across Google products for free in both Hindi and English.
With over 300 million plus Internet users and over 6 million new Internet users coming online every month, Indian users are increasingly looking for information about businesses online. There is a massive information gap for local businesses on the Internet today, out of the total 51 million SMEs in India, less than 5 to 6 percent have an online presence. With this new product, Google aims to bridge this gap through a massive feet on street initiative to help SMEs all across in India to get online.
Speaking about the initiative, Rajan Anandan, VP & Managing Director, Google South East Asia & India, said, “SMEs have been central to Google’s success globally and have been strategic focus for us in India. Google My Business is our first mobile based product initiative for SMEs and we have seen immediate adoption of it in India, in the last 5 months during our pilot phase, over a million SMEs have found a place on the Internet, and we are engaging 25000 new SMEs every week. Our moon shot – aim is to get 20 million SMEs online in the next three years,” he added.
In addition to this, Google also announced the final winners of Google SME Heroes Challenge along with CII. Google’s SME Heroes Challenge is an initiative that recognises and celebrates SMEs who have used Internet in innovative ways to grow their business.
