I recently indulged in a high voltage conversation with one of my friend who was struggling to cut off his lofty budget to start his own company. Going through his business plan, one thing was quiet clear that he wanted to source his requirements from big players, whether it was infrastructure, technology products/services, recruitment consultancy or others. Tossed between his budget constraint and high-end requirements, he wanted my opinion to come out of the nadir. My suggestion was to opt for SME providers rather than the biggies of the realm, which was eating up most of his monies. Skeptic about the performance of the sector, he seemed to be in the denigrate mode. Well, I gave him the facts and figures to build his trust on one of the most doyen sectors of the market.

SME is the second largest workforce in India after agricultural sector contributing around 12 percent annually to India's GDP. The sector accounts for 45 percent of Indian industrial output and 40 percent of exports. And these numbers are growing each day. Also, cloud and SaaS technologies are leveling the playing field between SMEs and big companies. This has not just equipped the sector to offer best of the services at an affordable price but has also made them one of the eminent go-getter technology partners of several startups. Even to the surprise of many, big corporate houses too are delving deep into acquiring the services of these SMEs. In the past decade, entrant of entrepreneurs with various industry-relevant experiences into the domain has further strengthened their offerings. Today, there are SMEs who specialize in offering exclusive services/products ranging from hardware to software, cloud, infrastructure, networking, consultancy and others.

We realized that there is a strong disconnect between the SMEs and how they are perceived in the market. Hence, understanding the need to recognize the dexterity of SMEs in India's growth story, siliconindia brings to you 'Best SMEs in IT' – an initiative to honor the SMEs who are breaking the shell and evolving as ground-leveling players in various verticals. We hope that our effort breeds fruit for you.