Aiming to tap into the 51-million small and medium business (SMB) markets in India, Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Wednesday announced two initiatives ‘Digital Unlocked’ and ‘My Business Website’.
“The internet and digital technology will be an engine of growth for the Indian economy. Today, anyone can become an entrepreneur, a developer, or a creator, but it is important that they have the right tools and skills to digitize,” Pichai said at an event in New Delhi.
“We believe it is important for us to invest in training and equipping these individuals and small businesses to accelerate their journey of growth,” he added.
Google has launched the training program, ‘Digital Unlocked’, in association with industry body FICCI. The training program would enable SMBs to get online and start using Internet to grow their business. It would offer online and mobile courses to SMBs across the country.
“We plan to impart 5,000 training workshops in 40 cities in three years,” Google CEO said.
Google also launched another initiative ‘My business Website’- a free tool which would help to make a website within 10 minutes. The website would be available in English, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, and Malayalam languages.
Google unveiled A joint research study conducted by Google with KPMG titled “Impact of internet and digitization on SMBs in India” unveiled that 68 per cent of the 51 million Indian SMBs were offline.
The global search engine giant also launched Primer, a free mobile app designed to teach digital marketing skills in a quick, easy and interactive way. Primer also works offline and is currently available in English and Hindi with Tamil, Telugu and Marathi versions coming shortly.
