Multi-city event commences with seminar in Gurgaon, enlightening SMB customers on enterprise solutions and 2016 technology trends
With the speed at which technological advancements are taking place on a global scale, rise of internet adoption and able government reforms and initiatives like Digital India has put SMBs in the hot seat for technology adoption. Enabling this drive, PHD Chambers and SME Channels hosted a seminar on ‘Empowering Enterprises through Technology’ on Thursday 14th May 2016 at The Leela Ambience in Gurgaon. Kick off the first phase of the ten city event, the seminar connected MSME owners with technology vendors which shared valuable insights into the current trends in enterprise technology like infrastructure, networking and enterprise security.
The seminar kicked off with welcome addresses and words of wisdom from a panel of industry veterans including the key note address from the Chief Guest RK Panigrahi, Director, MSME Development Institute, New Delhi. The panel included Anil Khaitan, Vice President, PHD Chamber; Rohit Bhatia, Vice President, Gurgaon Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Sanjay Mahapatra, Chief Editor, SME Channels and Anju Baja, Co Chairman, Committee on MSME, PHD. The inaugural session was followed by a technical session which included presentations from ICT service providers.
The technical session commenced with a presentation ‘Infrastructure Modernization – Premise vs off premise’ by J.B. Hooda, Director, Progression Infonet. The session clarified on the understanding and importance of infrastructure and further elaborated on the advantages of off-premise or Cloud based infrastructure over on- premise infrastructures. This was followed by a session from SAP vendor Uneecops on the significance of digitization and enterprise application. The session dealt with the adoption of SAP solutions for SMBs. The presentation included solutions like SAP Business Controls, and Business One – SAP’s cost effective ERP solution, which also has an integrated CRM solution.
Next presentation addressed the issues and challenges faced by today’s SMEs in Enterprise Security. The session by Ajay Kumar Joshi, Channel Sales Director for Kaspersky Lab, South Asia discussed in detail the most critical issue of Ransomware and the threat from it to today’s enterprises. Kaaspersky’s presentation was followed by D-Link’s showcase of ‘Future Networking Solutions’ which included indoor and outdoor LAN and networking solutions and surveillance camera range.
Mohit from IDFC, the newest Banking Corporation in India, gave an address on leveraging technology in Banking, giving a brief on IDFC Bank’s digital operations and its advantages for SMEs. The digital bank also demonstrated it’s easy, on the spot account opening technology through a specialized tablet device.
Epson demonstrated digital printing technology that reduces production time and cost solutions. He emphasized the advantages of Epson Ink tank printers over Mono Laser printers. The session also included Epson’s range of office projectors for SMBs highlighting its color light control technology. The technical session concluded with a session on ‘Collaboration and Communications’ by Puneet Dhar, Sr. Manager, Presales for Polycom which exhibited state of the art unified communication technologies for SMBs, introducing a rather new concept of Huddle Room conferencing which focuses on the SMB requirement of conferencing solutions for meetings for upto 5-6 people. Polycom also showcased its Real Presence Debut, the all-in-one solution for small spaces and the Real Presence Trio – a smart hub for group collaboration.
Director RK Panigrahi emphasized on the importance of planned technology adoption and also informed the audience of some of the plans and current operations of the MSME Development Institute. He said, “Having the right approach towards adopting technology is vital for MSMEs. You should always start with investing in smaller technologies and gradually expand into the digital. Problems are always going to be there. We need to keep progressing in spite of the problems. We have started this initiative known as ‘Udyog Vihar’ where we visit MSMEs, talk to them, and solve their issues. I have 22 officers under me. Most of them engineers. They go around trying to address such issue and report back to me.”
PHD Chamber Vice President Anil Khaitan said, “PHD Chamber is a 110 year old chamber promoting and enabling businesses. This seminar is a platform to enlighten and empower the SMBs with the knowledge and awareness to be able to deploy and profit from technologies that have changed the way of doing business with infrastructure, scalability, mobility and collaboration.”
Sanjay Mahapatra, Chief Editor of SME Channels Magazine elaborated on a few key stats highlighting the 5 Crore SMBs in the country and their contribution to economy and business. He remarked, “SMBs today are facing challenges like mobility, security, data protection & recovery and mobile device management. Technologies like cloud computing, SMAC, converged infrastructure and IoT have given the added impetus to small workforces to perform big and reach multiple targets. Awareness, cost effectiveness, technical support and security are the factors that are influencing the rise in technological adoption among SMBs. The SMBs are a major part of the country’s economy today employing 120 million people. This number is projected to increase to 168 million by 2020. The SMB contribution to GDP will be an additional INR 1.1 trillion. The technological adoption among SMBs would rise from 40 percent to 90 percent.”
The seminar concluded with an open floor discussion involving the presenters and the audience, which was followed by a networking lunch. Tomorrow’s seminar will take place in Nodia at the Radisson Blu Hotel, after which the event will travel across 10 cities around the country.
