Anushruti Singh
Ever since the pandemic has changed the way that business is conducted, more Indian firms are adopting IT solutions in various forms. Given that we live in a rapidly digitising world, data is simply everything. And for businesses, it’s an essential asset. With the right data, a business can grow and expand and strategise properly.
But sometimes, particularly for the small and medium businesses, data management becomes a daunting task, given their insufficient technical know-how. For it to be efficient and effective, it must be consistent, organised, complete, and most importantly, accurate. All it needs is an effective data management system, as that’s the key to success for any business. This is where IT firms such as Synology, a Taiwan based IT solutions company which has been witnessing a rising demand for its data management solutions from the MSME market, come into the picture.
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Talking to SME Futures, Michael Chang, Regional Sales Head, Asia Pacific, Synology discussed about why India is an important market for them in terms of their data management portfolio. He also highlighted his company’s game plan for achieving 300 per cent growth in 2023, riding on their track record of 100 per cent growth YoY in India since 2019 and the strength of their new range of data storage and backup solutions along with their file collaboration, video surveillance, and network infrastructure solutions.
Edited Excerpts:
Why is it imperative for MSMEs to adopt and understand data management solutions?
So basically, data for MSMEs is very important because their business relies on it. Data represents the very foundation of the information on which business owners base their decisions. Imagine if there is a data breach or their data becomes corrupted, it’s going to cost them a lot, in terms of money. You might lose lots of dollars and no doubt information. So, data management is critical for any business. Thus, saving your data or managing your company’s data or backing up your data is the only option. And it doesn’t need to be pricey.
Moreover, any organisation can develop and grow with the right data. All it requires is an efficient data management system, which is the key to any business’s success. So, we (Synology) are here to help Indian small and medium businesses, to give them an alternative and give them a chance to further safeguard their data by using our solutions.
How do you look at the Indian market in terms of your data management portfolio and what are the opportunities out there for Synology?
For us, India is a massive market. We see a lot of unmet demand and opportunities here. There are numerous small and medium-sized businesses, home offices and start-ups here. And they have specific data requirements. So, Synology provides cost-effective solutions for them to manage and store their data through various solutions such as our file servers or by leveraging our other software features like our backup solutions. This is to ensure that they can effectively manage their data while also having a safeguard and security system in place to back up their data.
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Our new data management solutions are enabling us to meet unmet market demands and drive digital transformation for our Indian customers. They will transform the way data is stored and managed, setting the bar even higher for reliability, security, and scalability.
But simplification has been the key asks of MSMEs, like DIY solutions. How does Synology align with this need of the MSMEs?
Yes, that’s right. Synology’s main philosophy is to simplify the use of our software features. We have built our solutions keeping these small businesses in mind. As a result, our software user interface is simple to use and manage. I can say that they are very intuitive.
Our website also has some rich FAQs and video tutorials to enable our customers and equip them with the right knowledge on how to use our technologies and solutions. We also have a dedicated team at the backend which makes it possible for the content to be readily available.
So basically, the learning curve is very low. You don’t need high expertise in it to be able to manage and learn technology. So, to make it simple, we also keep our technology simple for users to manage their data via the Synology software.
Which industry segments are witnessing faster data management solution adoptions?
We have been growing exponentially YoY in terms of revenue, units shipped, installed bases, customers, and active partner accounts since 2019. Small and medium businesses have emerged as the key growth drivers for the company and Synology server deployments in India have doubled YoY.
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Primarily, the manufacturing industry has done well in data management solution adoption. The sector, seeking multi-site solutions to share and sync mission-critical data, accounts for more than 30 per cent of Synology revenues in India. While the professional services, which include biotech or hospitals that seek on-demand data protection, security and backup solutions, and the entertainment industry (Bollywood), which seeks PETA volume data storage and high I/O data management solutions, follow with a 15 per cent share each. It encompasses post-production and photo editing. Last but not least, SMEs are the main focus for us. The data is exploding here in India. So, we do see some key opportunities in these fast-growing segments of the market.
Adding to this, from what regions are you getting the most traction?
So, I would like to highlight that in the past, a lot of other data management brands out there were focusing on tier one cities or metros. But in Synology, what we are seeing is the massive growth and the unmet market demand within the tier two and tier three cities. So, moving forward in 2023, we would like to have more investments here in the Indian market, not just in the tier one, but also in the tier two and tier three cities as well. By investments I meant to say that moving forward, we will conduct more roadshows, have more events and facilitate more workshops to educate the market on how technology could help Indian small and medium businesses to manage their data.
What’s the main concern that MSMEs talk about when adopting these solutions?
One of the top concerns of MSMEs is money. They ask questions like do they really need to pay a hefty amount of money to buy a certain IT solution for their data needs. So, at Synology we provide them cost effective solutions wherein they just need to buy the technology, like Synology-NAS, the hardware. And they can readily leverage our rich software features in our software ecosystem to manage their data as a file serving solution. Or they can have it as a backup solution for their IT needs. What we’re offering here is a software ecosystem for them to leverage.
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What’s the roadmap for the next year, and what trends will be prominent?
I’d like to give you some feedback from Synology. We’ve been here since 2009. On the other hand, since 2019 and up to 2022, we’ve seen 2X growth year over year. So, for 2023, for Synology, we do see India as a very important market. Therefore, going forward, we are going to have more investment in the Indian market.
The main trends that we’re seeing here are firstly, the growing data needs of SMBs and secondly, the post -production needs of the entertainment sector. So, in order to get hold of this market, we are going to launch the HT 6500, which is our petabyte storage NAS, which is about to be launched on June 1, 2023. And aside from that, we have also identified some opportunities for the surveillance usage of the Indian market, where everything needs to be recorded for compliance usage and security. So, we’re also going to launch our security solutions in the market in early 2023.
Lastly, we do aim or target to have 3X growth moving forward in 2023. For this, we will hold a lot more people connects in the form of events and more educational workshops and seminars, to further let the Indian market know about how technology can help the businesses here.
