Salesforce.com is planning to invade Indian market. According to a report in
the Industry
Standard, Doug Farber, Vice President of Salesforce’s Asia Pacific
operations, told the media that they are planning to focus on some select cities
like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Gurgaon and Mumbai. They are hoping to slowly create
awareness about cloud computing in India. The biggest drawback usually quoted
against SaaS or Cloud adaption in India is the unreliable power and internet
infrastructure. However, Mr. Farber is confident that Salesforce can overcome
this using many different approaches
Bandwidth is a problem in India and everyone is aware of that. So, how will a
technology like such which is dependent on bandwidth survive in India? Farber
said "Yes bandwidth is a problem in India. But we have found out ways to work
around it. For example, one of the things that we have done is something called
offline PDA. A person is connected through his iphone or laptop in which the
data is stored and synchronized as and when the device gets the connection back
and on. So, there are mechanisms to work around such problems."
On top of the above mentioned solution, Salesforce can take comfort in the
fact that India’s mobile infrastructure is fairly reliable and they have a
decent mobile data network. Like Mr. Farber, I also don’t think the broadband
infrastructure is going to be the biggest obstacle on their cloud computing
plans. However, they will face major hindrances in places they don’t anticipate. My
argument below may not hold true for medium to big companies in the country but
it definitely applies to the small business segment.
- I have spoken to several people in the small and medium business segments in
India, including some in Pharma related business, about implementing CRM
solutions. An unusually high 80% of them loathe the idea of CRM. This is due to
the mess created by the marketing teams of homegrown CRM systems in the past.
The way they marketed the expensive legacy CRM systems have left a real bad
taste among the business owners in the small and medium (at least, some of them)
business segments. Salesforce.com and other SaaS based companies have their work
cut out in making small business owners understand the power of CRM applications
and then convince them to buy it. The trend is slowly changing. We are seeing
more and more business owners showing interest in CRM solutions like SugarCRM or
vTiger in the recent years. But it is going to take some time before CRM becomes
mainstream among small businesses in India.
- If Salesforce.com is serious about capturing the small business market in
India, they need to drastically cut their prices. They cannot capture the market
with the levels of pricing they have in US. In fact, there are few other CRM apps that are better
priced than Salesforce.com. Knowing the psyche of Indian
small business owners, it is going to take a lot of persuasion to bring them
into the Salesforce.com kitty.
But I like the fact that Salesforce is planning to take a crack at the
untapped Indian market. I hope that they succeed in popularizing cloud computing
in a country where broadband adoption is still dismal while mobile has been a
runaway success. In fact, SaaS/Cloud Computing is better suited for India than
the traditional software solutions. It will help Indian businesses, hampered by
unreliable power and broadband infrastructure, to compete well in this global
economy. Check out my two part series on Cloud Computing and Developing
Countries here
and here.
PS: My analysis above is entirely based on my personal experience in the
country during the past 2-3 years. If you have experienced anything opposite, I
would love to hear about it. Please share it in the comments section below.
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