AI Ranks as Top Focus for Indian Midmarket Businesses

At SAP Now, the second flagship customer event in India this year, SAP unveiled new midmarket AI research revealing 96% of Indian organizations with between 250 and 1,500 employees are prioritising generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI), compared to 91% in the rest of the world.

The survey questioned 12,003 businesses around the world including 800 in India. Commenting on the research, Manish Prasad, President, and Managing Director of SAP Indian Subcontinent, said, “India’s midmarket businesses are the backbone of the nation’s economy. AI is a game-changer for these companies, offering agility, actionable insights, and helping them thrive in a digital economy. Working with a technology partner like SAP is critical because AI is already built into our applications that power the most critical business processes. Only then can Indian businesses of every size make the promise of Business AI a reality.” 

Rajeev Singh, Vice President and Head of Midmarket, SAP Indian Subcontinent, further added, “AI has the potential to empower organizations with intelligent insights, automation, and tools, allowing them to compete on a global scale. Today, more than 27,000 customers globally are already using SAP Business AI, recognizing the impact on enhancing operations and enabling real-time decision-making. For example, Indian customers like PGP Glass, Suzlon Energy and many more have already embraced the transformative potential of AI in their businesses.

Indian midmarket businesses are prioritising AI

• Indian midmarket businesses are prioritizing the implementation of Gen AI at a moderate or strong priority (96%), ahead of the rest of the world (91%).

• Adopting Gen AI (66%) only trails preparing for cybersecurity threats (67%) as Indian midmarket businesses’ strongest organisational priority in 2024, and ahead of making business operations more environmentally sustainable (65%).

Organisations in India place higher priority on AI to transform business than rest of the world:

• Over half of Indian midmarket businesses surveyed place a high priority on AI to transform privacy and security (55%) and improve decision-making (52%), ahead of business from the rest of the world (50% and 49% respectively).

• Indian midmarket businesses are also putting a high priority on AI to improve training and skills development (51%), customer experience (50%), and to optimise supply chains and logistics (50%).

 Indian businesses are already implementing AI today:

• Indian midmarket businesses are adopting AI faster than the rest of the world, as, 49% of Indian respondents say they are using AI for forecasting and budgeting to a strong degree compared to 40% of the rest of world, while 48% of Indian companies use AI to develop marketing and sales content (41% rest of the world).

• Other uses of AI in Indian midmarket businesses include gathering market intelligence (47%), monitoring regulatory compliance (47%), and monitoring cybersecurity threats (46%).

Talent is the biggest risk to use of AI 

• The biggest risk Indian midmarket businesses see when it comes to the use of AI is finding, attracting, and retaining talent with AI skills (39%).

• Data is the next biggest risk, with lack of transparency behind AI results (36%), acting upon incorrect information (36%), and insufficient data size and quality for AI models (33%) among the other risks identified.