KOLKATA, India--(BUSINESS WIRE [1])--Large businesses (LBS)² in India spent nearly
$2.3 billion on IT and telecom solutions last year. IT products and
services contributed a majority of this spending—more
than two thirds—according to the latest study
by Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc. A glance at the
vertical profile of this LB segment shows that manufacturing dominates
the LB pie in business numbers, followed by the service sector.

“In terms of business universe, large
businesses are quite miniscule, comprising just about 0.3% of the entire
PC-owning business universe,” says Swati
Sasmal, Senior Research Manager at AMI-Partners. “Yet,
they make up a sizable proportion (almost one sixth) of IT spending by
Indian businesses. Hence, they provide a considerable opportunity and
are much sought-after by IT vendors who can earn huge returns on
investment through minimal marketing. LBs possess a high level of
knowledge and expertise regarding IT solutions and a well-structured and
systematic purchase process. They are also the frontrunners in trying
out newer technology solutions. These factors make it easier for IT
vendors to approach them for prospective sales.”

Computing accounts for the larger proportion (46%) of the overall India
LB IT spending—similar to SMBs. The proportion
allocated to basic computing is much smaller than the SMB counterparts,
though, with a greater emphasis on connectivity, networking and Internet
applications. “This is because a majority of
LBs have already built up their basic computing and connectivity
infrastructure and are aiming at ‘extending
the enterprise’ by leveraging the network,” says Swati. “In this phase, there is a
greater focus on deployment of advanced technologies such as enterprise
applications (ERP/CRM), remote-access solutions (RAS, VPN), wide-area
networking (WANs), VoIP, networked storage (SAN/NAS), intranets, and
managed security solutions.”

A vital strategic focus area for India LBs in the next 12 months is the
extension of network connectivity to branch offices & other remote
locations—cited by three quarters of
respondents. This has become almost imperative in view of the rapid
expansion of these enterprises. Two other strategic focus areas are
security and storage, indicated by two thirds of LBs. Within the
security arena, basic technologies like anti-spam and anti-spyware show
significantly high penetration, at approximately 55-65% of businesses.
It is interesting to note that even advanced technologies like security
management, web filtering, intrusion detection/ prevention, disaster
recovery, encryption and identity & access management display healthy
usage levels—by approximately 30-40% of
businesses.

India LBs are on their way towards complete automation of their business
processes; to facilitate this they are making efforts to fully integrate
information technology into every aspect of their business transactions.
AMI’s survey showed that all businesses in
this segment enjoyed revenue growth; a typical LB experienced a healthy
20% rise in turnover in the last financial year. Similar trends are
expected to continue in the next 12 months.

Large enterprises have also developed awareness about the intrinsic
advantages of enterprise software, such as complete business
integration, increased efficiency, higher quality, and lower error
rates. Consequently, a key feature of India LBs has been the high usage
levels of enterprise software applications like ERP. A majority of India
enterprises (two thirds) currently own and use some form of ERP with a
significant proportion planning to adopt the same newly in the next 12
months.

About the Study

AMI’s 2007
India Large Business Overview and Comprehensive Market Opportunity
Assessment [2]study highlights these and other major trends in
the context of current/planned IT, Internet and communications usage and
spending. Products and services covered include established and emerging
hardware, software, applications and business process solutions. Based
on AMI’s annual surveys of LBs 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 [3],
or visit our website at www.ami-partners.com [4].

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.