Exclusive | Microsoft says India is an important market and the focus is on cloud & AI

Microsoft is known for providing high-quality solutions for individual consumers and enterprises. The company, in an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18.com, said its strategy in India is focused on delivering cloud and AI solutions that help businesses and individuals harness the power of these technologies.

Irina Ghose, Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft India, said India is an important market for Microsoft and that there is a strong demand across industries in the country.

"The promise of India reflects in our investment in the region to double our cloud capacity since the pandemic and we are making new investments in local cloud infrastructure. As India continues to navigate the global macroeconomic headwinds, we believe that we can help India Inc to stay resilient," she added.

In India, Microsoft Azure — the company's cloud service — bagged a market share 30 percent share by 2022-end, according BofA Global Research, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) dropped to 55 percent from 71 percent during the same period.

"For decades, Microsoft and its partners have shared a common goal: to help customers succeed. We are committed to helping individual consumers, small, medium and large enterprises, find the right tools, resources, and digital solutions they need to thrive in a digitally enabled economy," Ghose told CNBC-TV18.com.

Since the coronavirus pandemic, the working world has shifted to remote/hybrid models, and Ghose said Microsoft has been at the vanguard of this revolution — its focus on security and seamless transition to remote work has made it a top choice for cloud solutions in India. She cited a couple of examples.

"Godrej Industries and RBL Bank both (turned) to Microsoft for ensuring smooth workflow. Godrej Industries adopted Microsoft’s cloud security infrastructure for remote work during the pandemic, while RBL Bank used our solutions for remote collaboration among employees and customers," Ghose said.

She said Godrej Industries and RBL Bank are just two examples. Recently, the company announced artificial intelligence-driven Copilot for Microsoft 365, which it said would fundamentally change how people work with AI and how AI works with people.

"We want to empower every person and organisation to do the best work they can and achieve more with the aid of technology. In fact, Microsoft Business Applications is the only integrated solution of its kind that enables organisations to deliver AI driven, repeatable business outcomes and drive growth," she added.

Further, Microsoft offers Dynamics 365, which "can help customers create value faster, break down data barriers, and adapt to new opportunities quickly," Ghose said, adding that this will turn Microsoft's "offerings into the most powerful productivity tools on the planet."

Microsoft's intelligent cloud segment, which includes Microsoft Azure, has seen significant growth in recent years, Ghose said, as more and more businesses move their IT infrastructure to the cloud.

"Microsoft is the No 1, end-to-end public cloud provider in India, providing startups to enterprises with the cloud services, developer tools, scale, and security needed — no matter where they are in their cloud journey," she said. "In the last four years, Microsoft's cloud growth in India has exceeded industry cloud growth," she added.

According to Statista, revenue in the Indian public cloud market is projected to reach $5.96 billion in 2023. The market's largest segment is infrastructure as a service with a projected market volume of $2.92 billion in 2023. Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2023-2027) of 20.47 percent, resulting in a market volume of $12.55 billion by 2027.

The three top cloud computing services providers in India are:

Amazon Web Services

Google Cloud

Microsoft Azure

The crown jewel of Microsoft's enterprise solutions is AI-powered cloud solutions, which are now an inevitable need for businesses, Ghose said.

"Cloud solutions enable enterprises to customise their services and solutions, optimise costs, manage security, and much more. Microsoft's industry clouds for healthcare, financial services, retail, manufacturing, and sustainability bring together common data models, cross-cloud connectors, workflows, APIs, and industry-specific components and standards, with the breadth of Microsoft’s cloud services and security solutions," she added.

Ghose said Microsoft's extensive network of partners — 17,000 just in India — ensures that customers have access to complete solutions and receive dedicated support to expedite time to value for deployment, implementation, and more.

"We believe in empowering our customers to ‘do more with less’ with the most complete, integrated, and open platform, built on a holistic data foundation enriched with analytics and AI," she added.

With the increasing digitisation of India, Ghose said companies of all sizes are rapidly transitioning to the cloud to reduce costs, increase scalability, improve performance, drive innovation, and more.

"At Microsoft, we understand that every business has unique needs and challenges, that’s why our approach is never one-size-fits-all. Instead, we offer bespoke industry solutions and unique customer engagement models to cater to the specific requirements of our customers," she added.

She also named HDFC Bank and Persistent Systems among companies that use Microsoft's tools to modernise their data infrastructures.

Finally, Ghose said Microsoft's goal is to free people up to pursue more creative tasks and innovative thinking, enabling individuals and businesses to achieve more with the aid of technology.

"Our goal is not to create a dependence on our products and solutions, but rather to collaborate and work in partnership with our customers to help them achieve their business goals and aspirations in this rapidly changing digital landscape," she said.