Microsoft Azure – Go To Market Strategy in India

13P012 Arjun Murthy

13P079 J Abhishek

13P071 Deepak Murali

13P058 Sudheer Y N

13P052 Tejaswi Kalisipudi

Group 5

Case Background

• Increased spending on IT in India

• Microsoft exhibited high growth

• Microsoft traditionally offered licensed products

• Azure is a pay per use model

• Challenges faced by Microsoft:– Low awareness about new IT trends– Low penetration of IT in SMB sector – Underdeveloped infrastructure (internet reach & bandwidth)

• Commissioned a study by Zinnov Consulting to explore opportunitiesThere are 31.8 million SMBs across various verticalsIT spend in 2007 was $6.2billion 30% of total IT spend in India

Cloud services Information, storage and processing capacity would be offered as demand on services Customer pays only if consumed

Forms: IaaS, SaaS and PaaS.

Microsoft Azure was an example of PaaS-Provides Physical infrastructure and platforms where applications can be built

Indian market estimated to be $1 billion in 2009

Drivers

• Companies could avoid large capital investments in IT

• Improved resource utilization • Better infrastructure management• Advantage to be able to scale up and down

as per market conditions

Challenges

• Data privacy:– confidential information outside

their premises– Govt Regulations

• Vendor-lock-in• Legal issues

Potential Target Segments

Government• NeGP (National e-Governance Plan)• Heterogenous platforms and technologies spread across diverse geographical

locations• For easy accessibility in applying for passport, PAN, ITR, etc.

Large Enterprises• Average IT spend - $3 Million in 2009-10 BFSI being largest

SMBs (Untapped and unknown, but high potential)• IT services largely un-penetrated • Low IT investment potential with a “Do it for me “ attitude• Crunch in Capital investments

Target Customers

Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs)

Strong relationship with large enterprisesConcerns over data security for large enterprises

Large Enterprises

Huge potential to upscale

SMB’s are in need of •Applications and services that do not require high capital investments•Reliable and secure services•Government policies to encourage increasing adopting of IT•Tax rebates provided for small service industry•Outsourcing non core components•Streamlining operations•Reducing Risk

Government

Existing business relationships can help speed the project implementationLower concerns of data securityLow risk projects and high government investments means achieving

scalability sooner

Services and Solutions

Hybrid solutions for Government organizations Cloud services with its existing licensed based products

For SMB’s

•Can capitalize on growing opportunities in SMB’s through 1300 ISV’s

Microsoft online services(SaaS)-Subscription basedSaves small enterprises from•Huge capital costs•Hardware maintenance•Staff

Infrastructure ++

•Manages the software•Cloud applications built on Azure and using SQL and application services like AppFabric

Challenges

• Fragmented SMB market-Front loaded costs

• Lack of awareness

• Rampant piracy -SMB do not pay for the software as they used the pirated

• Perception of lower data integrity and security

• Investment in IT --Availability of manpower

• Broadband penetration in India Lack of affordable reliable broadband connections

Business Development efforts

Educating SMBs on the advantages of switching to cloud based services

Identifying the pain areas and addressing them

• Initial investments• Scaling up• Data security• End-To-End solutions• Outsourcing of the non core activities• Effective utilization of resources

Demonstration of successful use cases

Tie ups with ISVs

Devise a pricing strategy to cater to the price-sensitive Indian customers