Despite Downturn, 10% of India SMBs Plan to Hire

"40% Of India SMBs Are Seeking to Leverage Technology to Increase Efficiency and
Improve Productivity," Says AMI
KOLKATA, India--(Business Wire)--
Almost 10% of SMBs (small and medium businesses with up to 999 employees) in
India are planning to hire additional staff, according to a recent study by New
York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners. "The hiring growth of
10% is substantially less than the previous year`s 50%," says Kalyan Banga,
Research Analyst at AMI-Partners. "However, it is still quite significant
considering the global market`s current slowdown."

As part of AMI`s "2008-2009 India SMB Market Overview Studies, Impact of
Economy: Changing Dynamics, Opportunities & Challenges," AMI has included
additional analyses to assess demographics, attitudes, current IT adoption and
planned IT purchases among "Concerned SMBs" as compared to the remainder of the
SMBs in India. This new business segment was introduced to understand the effect
of global recession on India SMBs. AMI defines "Concerned SBs" (small businesses
up to 99 employees) as those who expect their local/regional economy to worsen
in the next 12 months and "Concerned MBs" (medium businesses with 100 to 999
employees) as those who believe that the national and global economies as well
as the local/regional economy will "get worse" in the same time frame.

In some areas of technology adoption, "Concerned MBs" are likely to show fewer
adoption plans in this time period as they are adopting a "wait & see" attitude
regarding future market conditions. However, it is interesting to note that in
usage of some technologies (such as hosted CRM and SaaS adoption) these
"Concerned MBs" show higher adoption levels than other SMBs.

"In the era of global recession SMBs feel that they need to maintain better
customer relationship management to increase customer loyalty," Mr. Banga says.
"SaaS adoption also comes to the forefront since many SMBs are gradually
awakening to the intrinsic advantages of SaaS - viz. lower upfront cost and TCO,
less maintenance hassles, the ability to reduce IT staff, etc." 20% of India
SMBs indicate using hosted software applications to supplement internal IT
resources will be a key strategic focus area for them in the next 12 months.

The impact of the current economic downturn on local/regional economies is of
greater concern to small businesses than to their MB counterparts. Conversely
these same SBs are not being as greatly affected by changes in the national and
global economy as the mid-market firms. "A major reason for this is that most
SBs (84%) have only a single location, earn almost three fourths of their
revenues from local areas, and operations are mainly confined to local
territories," says Mr. Banga.

In addition to the economy, there are several major business challenges facing
India SMBs today. More than two thirds of firms state that local competition is
their greatest hurdle to overcome, followed closely by increasing customer
satisfaction and loyalty, and improving employee productivity. India SMBs are
looking for IT solutions to help address the current shortfalls. These findings
are also corroborated in AMI`s latest quarterly tracking study, Impacts of a
Game-Changing Economic Downturn: How to Market Effectively & Stay Competitive -
India Small and Medium Businesses. According to this, 40% of IN SMBs are seeking
to leverage technology to reduce costs/make processes more efficient and improve
employee productivity. As a specific example, over half of IN SMBs are planning
to improve processes or invest in training to increase employee productivity.
Another key technology for India SMBs is CRM software - over one-third of SMBs
are considering CRM usage to help them manage customer relationships and retain
customers as a key strategic IT issue in the next 12 months.

Related Studies

AMI-Partners` 2008-09: India Small Business Market Overview -Impact of Economy:
Changing Dynamics, Opportunities & Challenges and 2008-09: India Medium Business
Market Overview -Impact of Economy: Changing Dynamics, Opportunities &
Challenges studies highlight major trends in the context of current/planned IT,
Internet and communications usage and spending. Based on AMI-Partners` annual
surveys of SMBs in India, the studies track a broad spectrum of issues
pertaining to budgets, purchase behaviors, decision influencers, channel
preferences, outsourcing, service and support. Also covered are detailed
firmographics and critically important technology attitudes and strategic
planning priorities. This data points to key opportunities and messaging hot
buttons for vendors and service providers seeking to match their offerings to
SMB market requirements.

For more information about this study, AMI-Partners, or our global SMB research,
call 212-944-5100, e-mail ask_ami@ami-partners.com or visit the AMI Web site at
www.ami-partners.com.

About Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc.

AMI-Partners specializes in IT, Internet, telecommunications and business
services strategy, venture capital, and actionable market intelligence - with a
strong focus on global small and medium businesses (SMBs), and extending into
large enterprises and home-based businesses. The AMI-Partners mission is to
empower clients for success with the highest quality data, business strategy
perspectives and "go-to-market" solutions. Led by Andy Bose, the firm has built
a world-class management team with deep experience cutting across IT,
telecommunications and business services sectors in established and emerging
markets.

AMI-Partners has helped shape the go-to-market SMB strategies of more than 150
leading IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services companies. The
firm is well known for its IT and Internet adoption-based segmentation of the
SMB markets; its annual retainership services based on global SMB tracking
surveys in more than 25 countries; and its proprietary database of SMBs and SMB
channel partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The firm invests
significantly in collecting survey-based information from several thousand SMBs
annually, and is considered the premier source for global SMB trends and
analysis.

.

Media:
Quoted Analyst:
Kalyan Banga, (91) 33 4003 3093 ext 208
kbanga@ami-partners.com
or
Media Relations:
In US (New York):
Nancy Carty, 212-944 5100 ext 581
ncarty@ami-partners.com
or
In EU (London):
Claudia Jachtmann, (44) 208 987 2756
cjachtmann@ami-partners.com
or
In Asia Pacific (Singapore):
Matthew Foo, (65) 6220 5535 ext 101
mfoo@ami-partners.com
or
In India (Kolkata):
Dipendra Mitra, (91) 33 4003 3093 ext 205
dmitra@ami-partners.com
or
In India (Bangalore):
Rati Ghose, (91) 80 4148 2661 ext 36
rghose@ami-partners.com
or
In China (Shanghai):
Clara Chua, (86) 21 6390 6298
cchua@ami-partners.com

Copyright Business Wire 2009