Microsoft’s new strategy to accelerate business in India: A separate business unit withing large IT companies

Microsoft is working on a strategy to create a separate business unit within large IT companies in India to accelerate its India business, Economic Times reports.

Called the ITeS 360 solution, the business unit helps in selling the entire stack of Microsoft offerings ranging from AI solutions to business applications to Indian multi-national corporations spread across the globe. The resident business unit leader will ensure that the local Microsoft office in that particular location works with the organization in rolling out the solution.

Microsoft India president Anant Maheshwari told ET that this was part of the ‘One Microsoft’ strategy, which was a brainchild of Satya Nadella. This is a major overhaul in terms of strategy, under which the local Microsoft official would only be concerned with sales at the India operations.

See also: Satya Nadella will be visiting India later this month for the company’s Future Decoded summit

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and HCL Technologies, two of the top IT companies in India, have already partnered with Microsoft on this initiative.

“(The Indian) IT (industry) is today roughly a $180 billion industry. There is a significant value that they can provide in driving cloud solutions as part of this $180 billion. That’s what they’re doing when they go and drive digital transformation in different parts of the world. They need cloud solutions and Microsoft is able to provide them with not just cloud solutions, but also with very significant value adds like data, artificial intelligence, modern workplace solutions like business applications, etc.”

– Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India

Microsoft Azure is on a high growth clip in the country, has and Maheshwari claims that it has nearly “doubled” in 2019, and Microsoft is the number one cloud player in the country. The company is now moving forward to deploying new business models in India like ITeS 360.