Airtel, NSIC partner to digitally transform small businesses

Telecom company Bharti Airtel and National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) have teamed up to drive the digital transformation of small businesses and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in India.

In a statement, Airtel said it has partnered with NSIC "to make it easier for millions of small and medium businesses get access to Airtel's Connectivity, Conferencing, Cloud, Security, and Go-to-Market solutions".

"The offerings will come with the trusted support from Airtel that ensures high customer satisfaction through industry-leading service uptime. Airtel already serves over one million medium and small businesses across India with products that are available to customers in highly flexible formats," the release read.

The alliance with NSIC is expected to give Airtel a deeper distribution reach in this space. Airtel's solutions for MSMEs include connectivity, landline, mobile, conferencing, cloud, security solutions for businesses, Internet of Things, and cloud communication suite to transform customer engagement.

Ajay Chitkara, Director and CEO, Airtel Business, said:

"MSMEs are critical to the Indian economy. Airtel's pan-India network, deep distribution reach as well as easily accessible digital platforms will give MSMEs the flexibility and convenience of addressing all their digital connectivity requirements through a single window".

Commenting on the alliance, P Udayakumar, Director (Planning and Marketing), NSIC, said, "This partnership with Airtel is envisaged to serve multiple ICT needs of MSME sector for sustained growth and increased productivity".

In 2019, NSIC signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Ministry for enhancing its activities in the areas of imparting entrepreneurship and skill development training.

In August 2018, NSIC opened another office in Bhubaneswar to encourage MSMEs, including SC/ST groups. The building has workplaces for different offices such as National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), National Skill Training Institute (NSTI) and others, which work with NSIC for offering help to MSMEs.

(Disclaimer: Additional background information has been added to this PTI copy for context)