According to the AMI report, it was found that new requisite steps were taken by many Indian small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) having employees up to 999. The study reported that there had been an increase in revenues in the fourth quarter of 2009 due to this.
A rise in investments for new customer acquisition was seen among various verticals including construction; transportation; healthcare; insurance; real-estate; and banking and financial institutions. The study by Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc. revealed that one-fifth of Indian SMBs were focusing on adoption of a new technology for data management.
The FIRE sector includes banking and financial services, insurance and real-estate. The study reported that 6% of the India SMB universe and 10% of IT or telecom spending was accounted by the FIRE sector. Innovative product portfolios are implemented by the SMBs which intended to move towards the next wave of IT adoption. Some of the key factor for achieving it are gaining a competitive edge, providing value-added services to the clients, having excellent connectivity and access to information. One of the most important areas that has to be considered is security.
About one-fourth of the IT or Telecom spending was observed by the retail sector which was found to contribute a major proportion of Indian SMBs. Business software could also be used by the retail sector for improving daily operations and increasing efficiency. Increase in value of automation processes helps in focusing on core business activities and increasing the customer base.