Google Helping Businesses to Get Online in India

There are a lot of challenges that students and professionals all over the world face. They include high tuition fees, course shortages, lack of proper digital education, lack of quality educators, or even transport inconvenience. With the advancement in technology and the internet, students and professionals are now preferring to get their degrees online. Online education has become one of the most-popular, higher education or a learning alternative. The continuously improving quality of online courses has fuelled its expansion. Quite a few researches also believe that online learning is just as good as face-to-face learning. In short, students and professionals find many reasons to take online courses.

One of the most trusted and technologically-advanced companies, Google, has taken a very important step to help and empower small businesses and startups in India. Google and Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai introduced ‘Digital Unlocked’, in 2017, to create a platform for individuals and businesses to learn and grow. With the speed at which technology is growing, it is difficult to stay up to date and informed about everything. Fortunately, Digital Unlocked provides a number of free, online, self-study courses that will help one improve their skills.

Digital Unlocked is an initiative by Google in association with the Indian School of Business and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), to promote digital awareness and help startups and SMBs to go digital, in India. The training programme allows businesses to set up their own goals and recommend courses that will perfectly fit their set goals. During the duration of their course, or after completing them, one can also choose to take up any other course which they are interested in. The courses offer a wide range of topics ranging from what the digital media and the world has to offer, to a guide to the advanced tools that help businesses grow. Google also offers Certification to those who complete the courses and go through the final assessment.

The main objective of Digital Unlocked is to help startups and SMBs build capacity with necessary skills for utilising the power of the internet, creating an online presence, launching cost-effective, digital-marketing strategies, reaching out to a bigger audience, increasing sales, surviving the competition, and so much more.

Why Digital Unlocked?

Before launching the online course for startups and businesses in India, Google in a joint study with KPMG found out that 68% out of the 51 million SMBs in India are offline. The study also found out that these businesses do not have a good understanding of the benefits of digital technology and technical skills. These are the reasons why most of the businesses do not function online. This study also predicted that if the businesses decide to go digital, they can dramatically increase their contribution to the Indian GDP by 10%.

To address this very issue, Google came up with the initiative of Digital Unlocked. According to them, the courses will, ‘enable them to get online and start using the power of the Internet to grow their business.’ With this programme of going digital provided by Google, the businesses will be able to unleash the true power of turning into digital. Not only will this help them to go online but also help them to cash it.

Course Structure and How Does it Work?

Digital Unlocked is one of the most innovative and interesting large-scale training initiatives by google. An individual can learn by selecting individual modules in each course or dive straight into the entire course. There are three categories listed on the website i.e. Data and Tech, Digital Marketing, and Career Development. These courses have over 600 modules in total and are presently only available in English.

The course consists of lessons that help any layman learn from scratch. The lessons comprise of topics ranging from fundamentals of digital marketing to fundamentals of search engine optimization and also how to set up a whole working website with proper keywords. The course also has a lot of lessons about career development and helps individuals with material about how to build more confidence increase productivity at work, how to speak in public, introduction to digital well being, and so much more.

The primary objective is to provide complete education about the online arena for each and every one. Each lesson consists of a video tutorial and a customer testimonial. After completing each lesson, an individual will be assessed through an online interactive test along with an MCQ.

For starting the course, one just needs to go to the official website and get themselves registered for the online course. Almost all the classes provided are free of cost, though the certification for each is paid. One can also choose the course according to their difficulty level, whether they are a beginner, intermediate, or advanced.

Will Google Unlocked Really Help Indian Startups and SMBs?

Google’s initiative to bring India’s startups and small-medium businesses online is one of the biggest education campaigns of all time. However, this ambitious plan of Google might not be that useful in practical life and has been facing challenges since its inception.

India, being a multilingual country, has created barriers which makes it difficult for Google to provide equal access. The online courses are all in English while most of India’s SMB and startup professionals are not well versed with the language which creates a loophole in this innovative idea. Many businesses have urged Google to give make their courses available in other regional languages. Many business owners have also argued that SMBs and startups don’t have that much budget to start and manage a website on their own to display their products and offerings. However, quite a few owners do believe that having a website of their own can be beneficial in the long run as it provides people with information about their brand.

Digital Unlocked is a part of Google’s larger effort to push Indian businesses to go digital. If the company rolls out their courses for users all over the country, maybe their vision of making all the companies in India go digital might come true.