How iPad Model Can Work in India

By Alok Mittal

Bloomberg News

An electronics store in Mumbai, India.

While Apple Inc. has focused its sales of the iPad in the West on home users, the most interesting market for iPad-like tablet devices in India could be small businesses and start-ups. Many of these businesses outside India’s tech sector haven’t adopted to the PC platform because of high initial investments, weak infrastructure and unreliable connectivity. Their usage could lead to improvements in management and efficiency.

These factors have been a stumbling block to the development of small businesses. The perceived intrusiveness of PCs has kept nontech businesses behind other countries in terms of using technology as a tool. For example, many small hotels use paper registers to manage reservations; some doctors have refrained from using PCs to record patient data; and the use of laptops in classrooms is almost nonexistent.

Telecom companies in India, on the other hand, have seen huge growth due the affordability of devices that merge communication and data services. By introducing this technology to small businesses in India or other developing markets, a company could marry the convenience of the large-screen touch model to the ease of telecom services, improving management processes in small businesses.

An iPad-like tablet device could feasibly be used in the following small-business scenarios:

• The health-care industry has been traditionally known for being very slow to take on new technologies. Physicians’ perception, especially in India, is that screens prevent them from interacting well with patients. They continue to compile paper records. Tablet-like devices are less obtrusive and could be a more comfortable, reliable technology to carry around as a point-of-care tool. Last September, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple and Epic Systemswere conducting pilot programs at Stanford hospital and clinics, in Palo Alto, Calif., of software that would let physicians access patients’ health records on an iPhone. This was followed by an announcement in mid-January of the Epic Haiku iPhone application that allowed authorized users to access health records and clinic schedules.

• Most small restaurants or small retail in India that serve the local consumer have also continued to stick to paper for ordering, billing and invoicing. The cost of custom hardware and software, maintenance and training is a significant set-up cost of nearly $2,000, given a $10,000 budget. The cost of a PC—for the hardware and software—has remained an obstacle to usage in emerging markets, especially for small businesses. A device cheaper than the iPad (priced at about US$260 for the most basic model) that comes with bundled services could be the catalyst that enables mass adoption. The offering will have to include the hardware, software and managed-service elements like customer service and speed of connectivity all for a single monthly price. This takes away the capital investment risk and application management risk from the customer.

• Connectivity in India is often intermittent because of power outages and poor broadband and WiFi penetration. Applications that can work in an offline mode and can sync up with servers when online, will gain widespread usage. While the iPad has applications that function both online and off, applications that can be designed to support disconnected operations due to fundamental limitations of connectivity will race ahead in emerging markets.

• The simplicity of the touch-based interaction, the large screen size and the zoom feature can make the process of tech adoption and use less intimidating for the first-time user. This, of course, is dependant on applications that are developed around the ease of touch. Cogknit Semantics is a start-up that has tied-up with publishers to make education resources more accessible to schools around India through reader device applications.

• Emerging markets represent huge opportunities for entrepreneurs and start-up businesses. Widespread usage of a tablet device would create demand for technology-minded developers to hone their skills in the market they know best by creating usable applications across a range of businesses. At the same time these developers, through their applications, would be helping other businesses increase efficiency and improve management.

For decades, IT solution providers have thought about hardware (largely, PC platforms) and software as building blocks. On the other hand, telecom has always been about turnkey managed services overseeing network connectivity and customer service. With what Apple has achieved over the past few years through the launch of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad—which provide not just the hardware or software, but also the related service, those paradigms are merging.

Alok Mittal is General Partner, Canaan India. You can read his Mentor Bio here.