Digitisation of small businesses in India

The success of e-commerce companies had already shown how important it is for organisations to have a digital presence. The COVID-19 pandemic has sped up this transition. India's retail industry is expected to have a market value of about 1.5 trillion dollars by 2030, according to Technopak Advisors and the national association of software and services companies.

Small retailers are finding it difficult to compete with online retailers. Startups are assisting them by organising their business processes or by helping them engage customers in the same way that larger e-commerce players do.

According to the founder of eWards, Abhishek Mimani stated, "At eWards, we work with thousands of small businesses, assisting them with technical solutions to centralise all their transactional and customer data. We provide them with a tool to analyse as well as engage their customers using our platform. This gives them a chance to compete with the marketing strategies being implemented by the large format online retailers. We have witnessed an average of 15% boost in revenue for the clients who use our system."

The introduction of online communication channels has made marketing more complicated. Small and medium-sized businesses can optimise their marketing strategies using a full range of technological products and digital marketing solutions on a platform provided by SaaS startups like eWards. "As a one-stop-shop, we have observed how small businesses can implement their ideas and execute them without having to spend significant amounts of their time coordinating with different players," Mr. Mimani adds.