The cloud is helping Indian MSMEs transform into digital-first businesses: Kunal Singhal, MD, Eazy ERP

Considered as a key growth engine for Indian economy, the MSME sector was perhaps the most affected sector last year, given the unprecedented challenges of 2020. However, this is one of the most resilient sectors as well, with signs of a slow but steady recovery on the horizon. The bulk of today’s modern MSMEs have come to understand why a strategic approach to digitalization is key to future-proof their business success. And a number of Indian MSMEs are turning to cloud-based solutions to help them unlock more value from their data and increase focus on their core business.

Helping such MSMEs become more self-reliant, accelerate their digital journey and achieve sustainable success are niche technology providers like Eazy ERP. Close to 500 businesses across 7 countries are benefiting from Eazy ERP solutions today. Kunal Singhal, MD, Eazy ERP, shares with us, how his company is leveraging its partnership with Oracle, to make rapid inroads into the highly competitive MSME segment in India

Some edited excerpts:

Can you share some insights about the MSME sector in India?
With around 60 million in number, MSMEs’ contribution to India’s economy is significant. To give further fillip to this sector, the Government of India has introduced a number of measures and aid faster growth. These include the launch of an MSME Credit Health Index, to embracing modern technology paradigms such as AI/ML, introducing the MSME DataBank as a central repository for MSMEs to update information virtually, and numerous other initiatives to digitally-enable MSMEs to future-proof their business.

In the last few years, Indian MSMEs have started embracing modern technologies more proactively. The pandemic was a huge wake-up call, with those MSMEs that had fairly advanced in their digital journey coping better than others. In the last few months, we have seen more and more MSMEs fast-tracking their automation and digitalization efforts.

What are some of the key challenges Indian MSMEs are facing?
Typically, unlike large enterprises, MSMEs often don’t have the scale, the right mix of skilled resources, access to the right insights for timely decision making, as well as proper visibility into working capital requirements. So often they end up making suboptimal technology choices. Business agility and a proper strategy to strengthen resilience is missing most of the times. This is where digitalization helps.
The biggest challenge SMEs are tackling right now is to fast-track growth recovery, while keeping costs down.

How can technology play a role in resolving these challenges?
Cloud has levelled the playing field for MSMEs, unlocking access to the same enterprise-class, modern technologies that only large enterprises could access in the past. With cloud and other modern technologies, MSMEs are discovering new growth opportunities, ways to improve productivity and operational efficiencies, attract and retain top talent, market their products/services better and enhance customer engagement.

What are some of the latest technology adoption trends in the Indian MSME space?
Indian MSMEs are realizing the need to transform into digital-first businesses, and cloud is helping accelerate this transformation, with faster implementation cycles, easy migration and cost-effective pricing models.

Cloud-led SaaS solutions are helping MSMEs do more with less, enabling them to focus more on their core business instead of getting bogged down with routine (but necessary) IT management. This is empowering MSMEs to dream big and venture into new markets.

Some of the more progressive, tech-savvy MSMEs are opting for simplistic, DIY (do-it-yourself) type of technology programs for faster impact.

How has EAZY ERP tried to position itself in the Indian MSME sector?
We offer MSMEs an easy to use, budget friendly, comprehensive business management solution suite -spanning ERP, Distributor Management System (DMS), Sales Force Automation (SFA), Payroll, Asset Management, CRM as well as custom solutions across various industries.

EAZY ERP helps MSMEs streamline their operations by automating the workflow of all departments of the organization and easing dataflow with accuracy and speed while keeping intact all security checks.
More than 90% of Indian MSMEs are known to use either Tally or BUSY for their accounting needs. As

EAZY ERP integrates with Tally and BUSY Accounting Software, MSMEs don’t have to re-architect anything or eliminate their old systems. We will help them automate and streamline their business processes with world class technology. With smoother day to day operations, MSMEs can maximize their profitability, optimize resource utilization and reduce budget, which in turn enables them to invest more in nurturing creativity and accelerating innovation.

What are the key reasons you chose Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) over other cloud providers?
We assessed all leading cloud providers, but realized that Oracle’s second generation cloud infrastructure offers a far more compelling price-performance-security proposition. We moved our application from another cloud provider to the second generation OCI, and we saw an immediate 20% improvement in application performance, something appreciated by our end customers as well. The migration was easier than what we imagined, with Oracle teams actively working with us as trusted advisors throughout the journey. In addition to greater security, high availability and flexibility to upscale or downscale based on demand has become easier. Last but not the least, we have also realized 25 percent more cost savings by moving to OCI.

Can you throw some light on your innovation roadmap and growth priorities for 2021?
In spite of the challenges posed by the pandemic, we were able to win good business last year, and from iconic brands like Panasonic, Signify, Vguard, Haldiram, Schneider, amongst others.
We already support over 250 organizations across 20 cities. We are looking to venture deeper into rural markets in the coming months.

This year, we are looking to enhance the capabilities of our EAZY DMS solution by venturing into the retail segment of the Distributor Chain. We are already targeting stockists and distributors at the secondary level, but we are now looking to reach the retailer level with a SaaS component. We will also look to strengthen our technology stack, with native and hybrid mobile applications.

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