New Delhi: Tata TeleservicesLtd (TTSL) is aiming to double the number of its local customers from the small and medium enterprise sector to 1 lakh, with the help of marketing and connectivity solutions.
Tata Teleservices is also making significant investments towards its new Internet of Things (IoT) business.
Prateek Pashine, head of enterprise business at Tata Teleservices, told reporters that out of a million small medium enterprises, around 8 lakh are underserved, which the company wants to tap.
“The SME market is about Rs 12,000-14,000 crore. It’s a large market . We have 50,000 SME customers, which is largest base in the country,” he said.
“We are currently adding seven to 10,000 customers in a year,” he said.
The industry-wide SME segment is growing at 9%, while TTSL said it was expanding at 15% annually for the past three years.
The company offers marketing solutions like toll-free number services and promotional bulk messaging services to SME customers in India.
“SMEs are much more likely to adopt new technologies as compared to large enterprises. They want to be more visible in the market, thereby looking at marketing solutions,” Pashine said.
It reaches out to SME customers through 1,200 channel partners, which includes hardware vendors and system integrators. It is also aggressively using its digital channel. “We are significantly spending on digital marketing, which is five to eight times higher than the marketing spending of last fiscal (year),” Harjit Singh Chauhan, business head of SME enterprise business, said.
IoT is emerging as one of the fast growing segments for the enterprise arm. Pashine said the company is getting seven to eight times more business in this segment as compared to last fiscal year.
TTSL provides IoT connectivity services through machine-to-machine SIMs for smart metering and locationbased tracking for logistics and security. Besides, the enterprise arm provides a complete suite of IoT solution comprising devices, applications and connectivity.
Source: The Economic Times
