Google launches 'Digital Unlocked' and ‘My Business Website’

What’s the news?

• Aiming to give a technological edge to the small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India, Google announced two initiatives 'Digital Unlocked' and 'My Business Website'.

What is ‘Digital Unlocked’?

• Google, along with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), has developed a training programme called 'Digital Unlocked', to empower thousands of Indian SMBs with essential digital skills that would enable them to get online and start using the power of the internet to grow their businesses.
• The programme would be certified by Google, FICCI and Indian School of Business. It would offer online and mobile courses to SMBs across the country.
• "We plan to impart 5,000 training workshops in 40 cities in three years," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said.

What is 'My Business Website'?

• Google also started another initiative 'My Business Website'. It is a free tool, which would help make a website in 10 minutes.
• It will first start in India, later this year, and then will be launched in other countries.
• 'My Business Website' would be available in English, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, and Malayalam languages.

What are the statistics?

• There are around 51 million small and medium scale businesses in India.
• Google unveiled a joint research study with KPMG titled "Impact of Internet and Digitization on SMBs in India", which said that 68 per cent of the SMBs were offline.
• Profits grow twice as fast for those SMBs who have digital business. The micro small and medium entreprises contribute 37 per cent to the Indian GDP.

Additional Info: Further, Google also launched Primer, a free mobile app uniquely designed to teach digital marketing skills in a quick, easy and interactive way. Primer also works offline and is currently available in English and Hindi. Tamil, Telugu and Marathi versions are coming up shortly.

Category: Prelims & Mains | GS – III | Economy

Source: The New Indian Express