Inclusive Cybersecurity can Help SMEs Automate their Business

The biggest threat that looms for the SMEs is that of cybersecurity. SMEs are the major contributors to the Indian economy. They may have a small volume of business individually, but contribute a lot to the market. They are the largest employers in the country. 48 percent of our total exports come from SMEs. They are considered to be the backbone of the Indian economy. Its major contribution is to balance economic development. It is important for SMEs to equip themselves digitally and with skills.

As digital becomes the way forward, SMEs have become the easiest target for cyber criminals. The reason, lack of skills and budget has the SMEs overlooking protecting their data and consider the spending for this as a secondary expense.

Some well-known reasons are:

1.       Dearth of expense, expertise and training necessary for security.
2.       Lack of skilled personnel
3.       Limited awareness among the SMEs
4.       Backward security defence
5.       Lack of risk awareness and policy

What the SMEs need to know?

Their information is valuable. To every business, data is the king when there comes a breach, it destroys the trust among the customers. SMEs need to be made aware that data leakage or theft may lead to significant liability over NDA breach with their customers, may cause loss of a tender bid, may damage their reputation, and maybe exploited competitively.

While many small-scale partners are ambitious, bigger projects are always a distant-dream for them. Thus, to address that, the channel partners serving the smaller markets are depending on their counterparts in the bigger cities.

“We have created a system where we provide the knowledge and technical support needed here from Kolkata both remote as well as on-premise."

--Manish Agarwal, Aim Technosoft

Aim Technosoft, a Kolkata-based tech company, has been serving the East India region for over a decade who had recently strengthened his team by employing people who worked for large MNCs.

“They do not get convinced on how important data is and to invest as any solution they see is complex and has a huge recurring cost. They need to invest in data security and data safety with auto back up and with the WFH concept it is even more important to ensure data are not infected, or neither lost nor stolen."

--Amlan Karmakar, Director, AVVAD Technologies

Pandemic and Lockdown Challenges

With the pandemic and lockdown, this situation has once again deteriorated. With nearly four months of no business and then after unlock, a constant revival to operate business has made an investment in cyber-security an unnecessary expense. This need has caused many security consultants to work actively on getting the SMEs on board.

“For the SMEs we as a security consultant play a major role to give them a simple cost-effective solution where the data is secured and taken back up under a single or branch level environment. As the SMEs are growing, there is a powerful focus on them to achieve all in one solution for them, where security and data theft is being taken care of.”

--Mahesh Kendule, MD, MaaHee Technologies

SMEs are suppliers to large enterprises or exporters. They need systems and tools to conquer cyber-crime. Solutions available are mostly meant for large enterprises and are perceived as complex and expensive by SMEs. Due to the inability to access IT Talent and the complexity of solutions, SMEs lag on the adoption of cybersecurity.

A Tool for the SMEs

IT adoption and participation is a compulsion for SMEs in India because they compete on a global standard, may it be as a supplier to a large enterprise or an exporter. There needs to be a massive awareness drive to sensitise the SMEs that due to a lack of cybersecurity they may lose business continuity. SMEs need to be made aware that data leakage or theft may lead to significant liability over NDA breach with their customers, may result in loss of a tender bid, may damage their reputation, and may be exploited competitively.

SMEs perceive cybersecurity as an expensive and complex phenomenon and shy away from exploring possible solutions. We have a difficult time convincing that there can be a simple and affordable product that can ensure their business continuity and avoid their competitive exploitation by accurately achieving objectives of Data Loss, Leakage and Theft Prevention. This is the main challenge we face to bring the product to SMEs.

The Growth and Future of SMEs in Cybertech

IT adoption and participation is a compulsion for SMEs in India because they compete on a global standard, may it be as a supplier to a large enterprise or an exporter. There needs to be a massive awareness drive to sensitize the SMEs that due to a lack of cybersecurity they may lose business continuity. SMEs need to be made aware that data leakage or theft may lead to significant liability over NDA breach with their customers, may result in loss of a tender bid, may damage their reputation, and maybe exploited competitively.

-- By Ayshwaria Lakshmi

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