Expect more deals with Indian companies this year: Microsoft

Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman of Microsoft India, said on Wednesday that he expected to sign more deals with Indian companies this year after enlisting the country's largest lender, State Bank of India, for its Office 365 cloud services.Speaking to CNBC-TV18 on the sidelines of Microsoft's Future Decoded event in Mumbai, Pramanik said the digital revolution in India is very real and not limited to technology companies. He said signing on SBI was a landmark moment, given that it is a highly regulated public sector bank that was now getting technology intensive. Pramanik said he expected many other large corporations to follow suit.He said that governments were waking up to the fact with cloud technology, it would be able to create new applications and processes economically.  Microsoft's cloud computing platform, Azure, was effectively being used for booth surveillance in the ongoing Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, said Pramanik.On Tuesday, Microsoft had announced a strategic partnership with India's leading e-tailer Flipkart, where the latter will adopt Azure as its exclusive public cloud platform.Below is the transcript of Bhaskar Pramanik's interview to Priya Sheth on CNBC-TV18.Q: What do you think about the digital transformation in India?A: Very clearly, the fourth industrial revolution has started in India. So, if I talk to all our customers, if I talk to all the exhibitors, everyone is excited with what we are seeing here in India. The digital transformation is for real. The people who are participating in that digital transformation are not just the technology companies, these are software companies, these are the large enterprises which have so much of data that they are now trying to see how they can use that as an asset. That is really what \\'Future Decoded\\' is about, is to continue to accelerate what is happening in India from a digital transformation perspective.Q: Mr Nadella also spoke about the several tie-ups and the several new deals that Microsoft has signed here in India, the latest one being with SBI. How do you view the partnership structure panning out as we approach into the next financial year?A: We will see more and more of these kinds of deals. The first one is always a little difficult. Think about SBI, very highly regulated industry, a company which has been nearly over a hundred years in this country, the largest bank and they have used technology to a very large extent. But if you see what they have done over the last two years, they have accelerated the adoption of digital technology and today, SBI is as technology intensive as any of the private banks. The focus is not technology for technology's sake but it is about how it can help them power their employees, how can they engage better with their customers, how can they transform certain parts of their business and how can they optimise their current operations. So, what you are seeing in SBI, you will see that in many other large corporations.Q: The Digital India programme is also something that everyone is talking about and how it can accelerated further. At Microsoft, I know you have several deals running with the government, but as a look ahead, do you see the pace of activity increasing going further?A: I think it is just going to accelerate even more. We had a number of meetings with the government. We have had two Chief Ministers here today and very clearly, they are looking at how technology can help in governance and also improve the kinds of services or the life of citizens. So, some of the projects which we have done in Harisal, some of the projects which we have done in schools for education and skilling are good examples. The government is now understanding that with the cloud especially, it is possible for them to go and create new applications and services very economically, they can do it very rapidly without actually making very huge purchases upfront. Just to give you an example, we are having the elections in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and the election commission in UP decided that they needed to do booth surveillance, so they used cloud technology, they used Azure and they were able to capture all the information on the election booths just to make sure all the elections are held properly. We did this in Tamil Nadu also, we are doing it in UP and most probably we will do it also in Uttarkhand. But this is the power of the cloud, the ability for somebody to want to go out and do something and then be able to do it very quickly. Elections get over, they dehydrate the cores or the CPUs or the storage which they are using and there is no further pressure on the ex-chequer. Q: There is a lot of innovation coming in from the start-up space as well. What is your advice to start-ups going ahead?A: It is very important for start-ups to look at what are the real life business problems they are trying to solve. Their focus should be on the problem or the convenience or the service which they are trying to provide, is it fulfilling a particular company or an enterprise or a consumer requirement. That is the first priority, they have got to be very clear about that. Technology is just the enabler to make that happen.