UPSC Current Affairs – September 4, 2020

Google India on September 30, 2020 announced the launch of its nationwide campaign “Make Small Strong” in order to help support small businesses and drive demand through customer support.

Key facts

• �”Make Small Strong’ campaign is meant to �rally support from the citizens for small businesses.
• The citizens can help small businesses by buying locally, leaving reviews and ratings and by promoting their favourite retailers on social media.
• This would help to generate demand for these businesses.

New Initiative

• The new initiative is based on feedback from Small and Medium sized Businesses (SMBs).
• It was announced as part of a research by Google in collaboration with Kantar.
• As per the report, 5 out of 10 businesses are engaged with customers through digital channels.
• However, 92% of businesses are facing customer-related challenges, revenue loss due to less demand and payment of fixed costs.
• So, the need to go digital is necessary and SMBs need to be digitize fast in order to support business recovery during the current crisis.

Other announcements

• Google India also announced new partnerships with Zoho, Instamojo, Dunzo and Swiggy.
  1. �Zoho will offer a free three-month subscription for three of its services, Zoho Sites, Zoho Inventory and Zoho Commerce until March 31, 2021.
  2. Instamojo will offer a six-month free subscription for its ‘Premium Online Store Solution’.
  3. Dunzo’s 24×7 Merchant support will be provided for free with zero sign-up fees and instant registration to SMBs.
  4. Swiggy offered 7-day Fasttrack onboarding process for a restaurant to come on its platform.
• Google will also launch a new television show called Namaste Digital� in partnership with Doordarshan. It will be a mass media program for SMBs in order to learn about the Internet and help them grow their business.

• Google is also working with FICCI on an industry-wide digital skilling. It has trained 1.2 million individuals, so far.