By Nishant Arora

New Delhi, Apr 16 (IANS): The pandemic has accelerated the pace of digital transformation at such a level that more and more Indian micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are seeking to move to the Cloud, and the country has to find newer ways to help them do it faster, Kulmeet Bawa, President and Managing Director, SAP Indian Subcontinent, said here on Saturday.

Employing more than 11 crore people, the MSMEs contribute around 30 per cent to the country's gross domestic product (GDP), and more than half of these MSMEs, running legacy infrastructure, cater to the rural parts of the country.

"The Indian mid-market enterprises (MMEs) are asking us for a comprehensive cloud and a digital strategy. The questions they are asking us today are very different from earlier. Today, the conversation they're having with us is how do we do it faster and in an integrated manner," Bawa told IANS in a free-wheeling interview.

Bawa said that the enterprise software major SAP India is looking at the possibility of how it can increase their digital adoption by 10 times.

"There is a huge demand for digital growth, and the impact is so important for our country. We have to find ways to do it faster," he added.

A recent IDC report said that 74 per cent of Indian mid-market enterprises are likely to move applications to the Cloud in 2022.

Bawa sees other growth areas in startups, including the ones who are transforming the way goods reach to the consumers in a faster and efficient manner, as part of their last-mile connectivity goals.

"The SAP strength is two-fold. First, we are catering to 26 industry segments and the second strength is that we are providing comprehensive solutions to them across customer experience, HR transformation, head procurement, people transformation with our enterprise resource planning (ERP) offerings, and so on," Bawa informed.

Indian startups are also lining up for SAP solutions in the digital era.

"They are adopting us to transform their core and deliver better customer and employee experiences. New verticals like agri-tech, apart from fintech platforms, are also coming to us," said Bawa, who is guiding businesses in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to adopt a digital-first mindset.

To help the MSMEs, enterprise software major SAP India this week launched an immersive mobile experience centre on the wheels.

In 45 days, the SAP bus will travel over 7,000 km across cities, offering small and medium enterprises (SMEs) a glimpse at how cloud-based digital cores may help enterprises plan and adapt more swiftly.

The pandemic has accelerated the Cloud journey across industries and from big enterprises to startups, every organisation aspires Cloud to be at the core of their customer delivery experiences.

"We are growing faster in most markets in the world. India is one of the fastest growing markets and continues to be quarter after quarter for us, as we continue to anticipate the demand and meet it," Bawa told IANS.