‘We’re advanced than rivals in cloud space’
Chinese technology giant Alibaba is not only making big bets in India's e-commerce and payments space, but is also primed to compete in the fast-growing cloud services space. ALEX LI, general manager of Alibaba Cloud for the APAC region, in an interview with Alnoor Peermohamed, says the untapped opportunity is still huge enough to win in India. Edited excerpts: Is Ali ba ba Cloud late to the game in India? How do you plan to makeup for lost time?
Different companies have different strategic objectives. We don' t think we' re late, we' re actually right on time. If you look at the Indian cloud market data from G ar tn er, year-over-year growth is 38 per cent and that is still huge. It's going to grow from $1.8 billion last year to $2.5 billion this year. In cloud business, the technology has been continuously evolving. So that way, Alibabahasan advantage. Also, we are doing things differently. If we were doing the same thing as them (competitors), then you're right, we' relate, but we' remore advanced than them.
Who kinds of customers you are going after in India?
In Hong Kong, you can get away by focusing on top 500 enterprise customers and you will be catering to the majority of the market there.
But India is scattered
— in Bengaluru, the start-ups and tech firms are strong; in Mumbai, the entertainment and financial services companies are big; in Delhi, the public sector and other verticals are big. We have to look at different approaches to cover these customers and have already set up a dedicated team to focus on
identifying customers and to develop different models.
How is Ali ba ba Cloud leveraging the investments made in Indian start-ups?
We work with them very closely for their existing cloud service and we also helped them revisit their solution architecture to build up their competitiveness. It will be very comprehensive solutions from infrastructure, security and consulting to even some joint development. Back in China, we have vast experience and we want to share the same thing with our Indian investments. In the past when we were not present here, they worked with others, but as we came here they made the shift.
Do you also look at companies Ali ba ba has invested in as partners to get customers?
Absolutely. Someone like Paytm already has a plan to add more value and provides more services to their own partners. We are working together on the programme and will launch when everything is ready. This is our unique positioning and our competitive advantage and we will leverage it.
Regulations in India are changing and forcing you to setup data centres here. Is this goodorbad?
When we enter a market, we normally make a very strict policy to be compliant with the local regulations. No matter which country we enter, we follow the strictest level of compliance. In Europe you have GDPR and in Germany C5, and we follow these. In India, our investments are not based on regulations, it is based on strategy. If you have a long term commitment, this is something you need to do.