AWS Lift program to encourage Indian SMBs to kickstart their digital journey and enable cost savings

AWS announced the launch of AWS Lift in India, a program to help SMBs, focused on helping medium and large businesses with annual revenues of 80-625 crore, get started on their digital transformation journey. New and existing customers that join the program will receive a starter pack of AWS Promotional Credits over 12 months, providing access to all 200 fully featured services on AWS, the world's most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform.

The program will help eligible SMBs experience the benefits of AWS services without worrying about associated costs. Their first dollar billed on AWS services will unlock US$750 (62K INR) of AWS promotional credits in their account and increased usage of AWS services is rewarded with AWS promotional credits to offset their bill, up to a maximum of US$83,500 (69L INR) over 12 months.

AWS removes barriers to cloud adoption

With a minimum billing fee of just USD $1 and no lock-in periods or hidden fees, AWS Lift helps to alleviate cost pressures and provides SMBs with a commitment free approach to get started on AWS. As they start experimenting on AWS, SMBs will experience the flexibility of AWS’s pay-as-you-go model, as well as develop the operational muscle and transform processes to drive new revenue growth.

In January 2020, Amazon announced its commitment to digitize 10 million SMBs in India by 2025. In 2022, AWS supported the digital upskilling of small businesses through SMB Vidyalaya and also expanded its set of software solutions through Amazon Digital Suite.

“Today’s announcement of AWS Lift in India is part of our ongoing commitment to provide support to SMBs and help them accelerate innovation and enhance productivity.” said Puneet Chandok, President of Commercial Business, AWS India & South Asia (Amazon Web Services India Pvt. Ltd.) “Our SMB customers are already seeing business results by leveraging the cloud to enhance their productivity, increase customer acquisition, and expand into new markets. We look forward to empowering more customers to adopt the cloud with AWS Lift, in collaboration with our partner network, as India realizes the vision to become a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy,” said Chandok.

The AWS Partner Network (APN) is a global community of over 100,000 partners from more than 150 countries, with almost 70% headquartered outside of the United States, helping customers all over the world to digitally transform on the cloud. AWS Lift enables AWS Partners focused on SMB customers across India to support new-to-cloud customers and make it a seamless experience for them.

Redington, a leading market multinational with a distribution service across gamut of IT products, smartphones, non-tech products and services, is an AWS Partner. “Redington is delighted to be a part of the launch of the AWS Lift program in India, and we see tremendous opportunities for our customers and partners through this initiative. The AWS Lift program is designed to help SMBs in their growth journey by providing access to AWS cloud services and credits to help them scale their business,” said Rakshit Bhatt, Head Cloud, Redington Limited. “It will enable our partners to engage actively with customers who are at an initial stage in their cloud journey, offering them a commitment-free program to help them optimize their cloud spend, and we are excited about the value it will add to the SMB community in India.”

SMBs in India see business impact with the Cloud

According to IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Small and Medium-Sized Business and Digital-Native Business 2023 Predictions — India Implications, 30% of SMBs will shift half of their core workloads to the cloud by 2025 to drive business agility and future resilience.

In India, AWS has helped thousands of SMBs across industries digitally transform their businesses by leveraging the power of AWS cloud, including customers from health care (Narayana Nethralaya, Mahajan Imaging, Sahyadri Hospitals), manufacturing ( Shyam Steels, Vishakha Group), retail and consumer goods (Havmor, Nandu’s Chicken), media & entertainment (Qube Cinema, Punjab Kesari) etc.

AWS commitment to support India’s businesses

AWS Lift builds on our long-term commitment to India, demonstrated by investments in local infrastructure, and support for local SMBs to support the country’s digital transformation and economic growth. Between 2016 and 2022, AWS invested over US$3.7 billion (30,900 crore), in India. AWS’s investment in the AWS Asia Pacific (Mumbai) Region has contributed 38,200 crore, US$4.6 billion, to the GDP of India.

The AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region, launched in 2022, is estimated to support more than 48,000 full-time jobs annually through a planned investment of more than US$4.4 billion (approx. INR 36,300 crores) in India by 2030, and its construction and operation is estimated to add approximately US$7.6 billion (approx. INR 63,600 crores) to India’s gross domestic product by 2030.