NSIC and Airtel join forces to accelerate Digital Transformation of Indian MSMEs

Mumbai, January 11, 2020: Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), India’s premier communications solutions provider, is stepping up initiatives to accelerate the digital transformation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) in India by partnering with National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC), A Government of India Enterprise having its mission “to promote and support MSME sector by providing integrated support services encompassing Marketing, Technology, Finance and other services”.  

Airtel announced an alliance 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.  This partnership with NSIC envisages digital transformation of this critical sector as key to the Government’s vision of ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’ for enabling MSMEs to scale up faster by ways of adopting digital ways of doing business.

Airtel’s solutions for MSMEs include:

1. Airtel Connectivity:  Internet, Secure Internet, Dedicated Internet, Managed Wifi, VPN, Direct VPN, Intelligent VPN
   
2. Airtel Landline: PRI & Toll-Free Calling solutions
   
3. Airtel Mobile: Corporate Mobile Plans with bundled G-Suite
   
4. Airtel Conferencing: Secure, simple and seamless meetings with Airtel BlueJeans
   
5. Airtel Cloud: Private, Public and edge cloud solutions
   
6. Airtel Secure: Integrated security solutions for businesses
   
7. Airtel IoT: Utilizing the power of IoT to make businesses smarter
   
8. Airtel IQ: cloud communication suite to transform customer engagement
   

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 best-in-class products that are available to customers in highly flexible formats. The alliance with NSIC gives it much deeper distribution reach in this segment. 

Sh. P. Udayakumar, Director (Planning & Marketing), NSIC said “These solutions will be available through NSIC’s online portal www.msmemart.com as well as through NSIC’s field offices across the country under NSIC’s Aggregation vertical offering ICT Enabled Digital Services. This partnership with Airtel is envisaged to serve multiple ICT needs of MSME sector for sustained growth and increased productivity.”

Ajay Chitkara, Director & CEO – Airtel Business, said “MSMEs are critical to the Indian economy. We are delighted to join hands with NSIC to fast-track their digital transformation journeys. Airtel’s pan-India network, deep distribution reach as well easily accessible digital platforms will give MSMEs the flexibility and convenience of addressing all their digital connectivity requirements through a single window.”  

MSMEs are an important growth engine of the Indian economy. With over 60 million business units, the sector contributes to 29% of India’s GDP, 40% of exports and employs over 110 million people. These businesses are looking for reliable, secure connectivity and digital platforms that will add to their efficiency and competitiveness.

About Bharti Airtel

Headquartered in India, Airtel is a global telecommunications company with operations in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa. The company ranks amongst the top three mobile operators globally and its mobile network covers a population of over two billion people. Airtel is India’s largest integrated telecom provider and the second largest mobile operator in Africa. At the end of September 2020, Airtel had approx. 440 mn customers across its operations. Airtel’s portfolio includes high speed 4G/4.5G mobile broadband, Airtel Xstream Fiber that promises speeds upto 1Gbps, converged digital TV solutions through the Airtel Xstream 4K Hybrid Box, digital payments through Airtel Payments Bank as well as an integrated suite of services across connectivity, collaboration, cloud and security that serves over one million businesses. Airtel’s OTT services include Airtel Thanks app for self-care, Airtel Xstream app for video, Wynk Music for entertainment and Airtel BlueJeans for video conferencing. In addition, Airtel has forged strategic partnerships with hundreds of companies across the world to enable the Airtel platform to deliver an array of consumer and enterprise services.