New Delhi, India – Amazon Web Services, the IT service management unit of e-commerce giant Amazon, has announced a new digital suite called Amazon Digital Suite, targeted to improve digital transformation strategies among small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India.

The Amazon Digital Suite comprises payment and credit solutions from Razorpay; customer support and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions from Freshworks; human resources and payroll management solutions from greytHR; tax compliance and invoicing solutions from ClearTax; accounting and productivity solutions from Zoho; e-commerce and retail order management solutions from Vinculum; and digital ledger and online cataloging solutions from OkCredit.

Prices of the products that are part of the Amazon Digital Suite available on Amazon.in begin at INR 20, and all Amazon Digital Suite software can be purchased individually with discounts of up to 75% off the suggested retail prices. The offering is designed to be easy to use, with customers being able to implement it in a few simple steps.

The launch of the Amazon Digital Suite is part of the company’s goal to digitize 10 million Indian SMBs by 2025, announced in January 2020.

“We want to ensure the power of the cloud is within the reach of SMBs, and we have built a solution that is simple to understand and deploy, and accessible to new customers. With the Amazon Digital Suite, SMBs can overcome the challenges of technology adoption, digitize their operations, innovate in their business, accelerate their growth, and help India prosper,” said Puneet Chandok, president of commercial sales of Amazon Internet Services Private Limited (AISPL) at AWS India and South Asia.

Meanwhile, Vedanarayanan Vedantham, head of SME business at Razorpay commented, “Digital payments in India are at an interesting and exciting inflection point. Small businesses, now more than ever, are waking up to the possibilities offered by digital, and need help assembling this puzzle. 

He added, “Today, we are excited to take this mission of serving the underserved SMBs further through this collaboration with AWS. The launch of the Amazon Digital Suite will be a game changer; it will empower millions of SMBs of any size, and make it possible for them to reach new customers around the world.”

The Amazon Digital Suite is available for purchase on Amazon.in and Amazon.in/business for both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) customers respectively. B2B customers purchasing products from the suite using their Amazon Business Account will receive exclusive offers and a goods and services tax (GST) invoice for input tax credit. Customers purchasing the Amazon Digital Suite during Amazon Smbhav 2021, a virtual summit catered at leveraging digital strategies and innovations to Indian customers, entrepreneurs, and small businesses, from April 15-23 will be eligible for discounts of up to 30% in the Amazon Digital Suite store.

Mumbai, India – It is safe to expect that with digital platforms now tightly weaved into peoples’ lifestyles, ads on such type of media must be enjoying a high level of trust among viewers, but a study by Nielsen shows just otherwise – where traditional media still reigns supreme, at least with Indian viewers.

The study, which was commissioned by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) and the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA), found that ads on traditional media continue to enjoy a high trust among Indian consumers where an average of 84% of consumers find ads to be credible across newspapers, TV, and Radio, while text or SMS ads were shown to be the least trusted at 52%. 

This comes as no surprise as TV also emerged to be the top medium for consumption of ads with 94% of consumers, followed by digital (82%), print (77%), and radio (29%). 

Meanwhile, looking into sectors, those advertisements from educational institutions received a very high level of trust at 82%. The report noted that the finding may be due to cultural factors, where Indians have a strong belief in education as a means to secure their future. 

Ironically, ASCI found that a significant portion of misleading ads come from the education sector.

ASCI’s job of monitoring the education sector is even more crucial, given these findings. In India, the poorest of people prioritize education spends over other necessities. Most educational institutions promise job guarantees or make false claims of being the No. 1 or guaranteeing 100% placement without any objective data or evidence. We are doing our best to make sure that such false advertising is removed from the market.

Manisha Kapoor, Secretary General, ASCI

The sector of home care products such as detergents and mosquito repellents also acquired high trust levels, where on the other hand, those ads from real estate brands were among the least trusted by consumers.

Turning the focus on consumers, in terms of taking action when they see a misleading or offensive advertisement, the study found that about a third of consumers are likely to discuss this with their family and friends, with another third making the move through a post on social media; however, almost 30% of consumers do not take any action.

Kapoor said, “I thank ISA for being a joint convener of the Trust in Advertising study. ASCI feels responsible for not only maintaining consumer trust in advertising but also guiding brands to advertise honestly and impactfully. Consumer trust and brand reputation are some of the most valuable assets an organization owns, and honest advertising is key to building brand value over the long term.”

Sunil Kataria, chairman of the ISA, said, “Brands are built on the back of long term communication with consumers and audiences. It is in the advertisers’ own self-interest to make sure that all communication is honest and truthful, so consumers can trust advertising messages, and thereby, brands.”

In September, ASCI announced that it has expanded its monitoring of misleading claims to include digital ads. The regulatory has also earlier released its official COVID guidelines for advertisers.

The study was conducted with people across age groups in 20 centers in India, including metros, smaller towns, and rural areas.