TTL's SME enterprise business to register double-digit growth

 Telecom major Tata Teleservices (TTL) is banking on digital wave and serving customers through the solution approach to register a double-digit growth in the SME enterprise business in the coming years.

Talking to DH, TTL SME Enterprise Business head Harjit Singh Chauhan said the company is reaching out to SMEs in a systematic way, as they are the centre of innovation.

“Our digital game plan and solution play will help us expand footprint in the Rs 45,000-crore India SME enterprise segment market, which is registering an annual growth of 7% to 9%. In the enterprise space, SMEs contributed more than 50% of revenue for Tata Tele service,” he said.

Chauhan said the growth that is being witnessed in the SME enterprise solution and service is only a tip of the iceberg. “Besides challenging business processes and cycles, SMEs in any country bring innovation and a different market. It will definitely help us register a double-digit growth,” he said.

He also pointed out that Tata Teleservices is the leading services provider in the telecom products and services space for many years in the country and has a growing customer base of 50,000 SMEs.

“This customer base is excluding the wireless customers like mobile phones users, VRI (Video Research Interactive), VLS (Virtual Library System) and ILL (Internet Lease Line) user for data, voice and hosting services. We have been growing 15% for the last three years on a consistent basis,” he said.

He said even though TTL is present in 66 cities, there are many opportunities as millions of SMEs are still availing the help of tier 2 and tier 3 vendors. “These SMEs are doing excellent business but avail the service of local cable operators and other vendors. Their poor connectivity will definitely affect the future business growth these SMEs. Tata Teleservice has a bigger mandate to reach out to them to deliver quality service,” he said.

Chauhan pointed out that TTL is vigorously using its digital channel to reach out to these customers. “Riding the digital wave to understand their pain points, we deliver appropriate services to these SMEs. It provides us to hold one-on-one conversations and helps us in the unit level approach to give customised solution. At the same time, going beyond the formal discussion of raw IT infrastructure customers who are looking at solutions, we combine the infrastructure with solutions to solve their problems. Combining IT and connectivity, we act as a technology specialist,” he said.

He anticipates that the company will register a double-digit growth by combining solution and digital reach out strategy. “We have multiple partners to provide multiple services, including collaboration space. Also, we have in-house companies in Tata Group which are providing solutions to world-class companies across the globe,” he said.

When asked about the revenue model, he said TTL doesn’t want these SMEs to invest huge for their capex. “We are rather looking at the opex model where the companies can use our services from cloud and pay per their usage,” he said.