Small businesses adopting cloud can unlock Rs 1.6 trillion in productivity gains by 2030: AWS

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Small businesses embracing cloud-enabled technologies in India are estimated to unlock up to Rs 1.6 trillion in annual productivity gains by 2030, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) report released on September 28 has claimed.

This will also lead to 45.9 million jobs being created across healthcare, education and agriculture sectors, representing 9 percent of total jobs in India.

In May 2023, AWS announced a plan to invest $12.7 billion (over Rs 1 lakh crore) to expand India's cloud infrastructure by 2030 to meet growing customer demand in the country.

The survey for the report was conducted by Accenture, which defined small businesses as those with fewer than 250 employees.

According to the report, India's current rate of basic cloud adoption for all businesses such as the use of web-based email services or cloud-based storage solutions, is at 28 percent.

But there’s scope for bigger opportunities and more critical use cases with the adoption of intermediate applications including for customer relationship management or enterprise resource planning tools, and advanced applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI, and machine learning (ML) tailored for sophisticated tasks including fraud detection or supply chain forecasting.

Aaron Hill, Managing Director of Economic Insights, Accenture Strategy and Consulting, said, “With more support from governments and the industry, these businesses will have greater ability to harness the power of transformative technologies such as generative AI to unleash even more innovation, drive economic productivity, and deliver meaningful change to society.”

Deepti Dutt, Leader – Verticals, Public Sector, AWS India, said cloud enables small businesses to access the same set of scalable and secure technologies as large global enterprises, and also helps them to focus on solving business problems at a fast pace and in a cost-efficient way. By adopting advanced cloud-enabled technologies like generative AI, small businesses can accelerate their growth and digital transformation, he said.

“AWS is working alongside governments, educators, and the industry to help small businesses in India realize economic and social benefits while creating a better future for all,” Dutt said.

Unlocking value

The report said within the agriculture sector, small businesses can help unlock Rs. 1.1 trillion in annual productivity benefits by 2030. Small businesses in this sector can address food shortage problems by implementing data-driven practices through cloud technologies such as AI.

Similarly, in the healthcare sector, around Rs 199.5 billion in annual productivity benefits can be achieved along with supporting 47 million telehealth consultations in India, it said.

In the education sector, small businesses can help unlock Rs 291.6 billion in annual productivity benefits and provide 99 million students in India with e-learning solutions by 2030, which is 165 percent more than the current usage rate, the report said.