New Delhi, Jun 1 (IANS): Workplace communication platform Slack on Wednesday announced to official enter the Indian market, to help companies navigate the transition to a hybrid workplace by establishing digital headquarters.

Slack, which has users in over 150 countries globally, already has a significant following in India which is one of its top 10 markets for paid teams globally.

"We have a significant footprint in big global tech companies with a major presence in India, like IBM, Amazon, Oracle, and Intuit. India is also a major focus for Slack due to the presence of large systems integrators, like Wipro and TCS," Rahul Sharma, Country Manager, Slack India, told IANS.

Indian companies, unicorns and startups such as Zomato, Dreamsports, Freecharge, Razorpay, Meesho and many more are relying on Slack to drive their businesses forward.

"India has the second largest SMB (small and medium business) market in the world, and that has always been a sweet spot for Slack due to our low barriers to entry and the usability of the product," Sharma added.

Operating in the country for four years, Slack established a product engineering team in Pune in 2018, following the company's acquisition of Astro.

Slack now has over 120 employees across four offices in Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gurgaon.

Sharma said that many Indian companies have set up a free Slack account.

"There is a high level of awareness of Slack, and a strong desire to engage with it and try it out. Our mission is to ensure companies that are using the free version are aware of the additional functionality they will get with the business version, truly unlocking the power of Slack," he noted.

"Slack is used by most of the tech engineering colleges, which feeds the startup ecosystem, so those startups are being born on Slack," Sharma said.

In July 2021, tech company Salesforce competed the acquisition of Slack.

Salesforce has had a presence in India since 2005 and has over 6,500 employees across Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

According to Sharma, Slack is far closer to the social media interfaces young people are accustomed to in their personal lives.

"In addition to messaging, it's the integrations and workflows that truly set Slack apart. Slack is a company's Digital HQ -- a digital place that's fast, flexible and inclusive for a work-from-anywhere world," he told IANS.