‘90% of our online customers in India are buying Creative Cloud'

In an interview with DQ Channels, Umang Bedi, MD, South Asia region, Adobe Systems elaborates how Adobe creative cloud gives the latest versions of the tools and services that customers love, coupled with more efficient ways to collaborate and share work with the creative community.

Adobe has been an active player in the field of technology software space, what is your recent innovation in the market that makes you maintain your foremost position in the market?
Adobe is one of the leading brands in the software industry. Earlier this year, we launched Adobe Creative Cloud, the company's flagship offering for creative professionals. Creative Cloud brings together everything you need to create your greatest work. One simple membership gives you and your team access to the very latest versions of all the Adobe professional creative desktop applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, and more-plus new features and upgrades as soon as they're available.

Since launch, hundreds of mid-market customers have adopted Creative Cloud for Teams (CCT) and we are excited with the growth opportunity this segment holds in India. We have also seen strong momentum in the enterprise segment in verticals ranging from design firms, media and entertainment, BFSI, IT/BPO, Print and Publishers, Manufacturing, Heavy Engineering, FMCG, Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare etc.

What kind of challenges do you think small and medium enterprises in India face who work in the technological sphere?
Most of SMEs working in IT space face several challenges such as operational complexity, lack of customization, data security and privacy. Adobe's Creative Cloud is designed in a manner that offers solution to such problems. This cloud-based service allows you to create and access files from any internet-connected computer or device. With Creative Cloud, security is considered at every level, from applications, networks to physical facilities. Since creative professionals work with heavy files, Creative Cloud leverages the existing hardware the professionals already have. Since the footprint of the Adobe software sits on their machine, they do not have to depend on Internet connectivity to work on those heavy files. Such a system works even in tier 2 and tier 3 cities where the bandwidth is very low. It is only once in 30 days that the software will remind you to go the Creative Cloud site and validate your subscription. In addition to the latest technologies, Adobe adheres to the latest best-practice policies regarding online security. Services hosting facilities are protected by multiple layers of physical security, and only authorized personnel can access the facilities and servers.

Which regions, according to you, posses maximum potential and needs technological solutions?
Overall India as a market possesses tremendous potential. We continue to see growth coming in from key cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi and Chennai. We also perceive wider growth coming in from tier 2 and tier 3 cities.

What has been the market response of Creative Cloud till date?
The market response for Creative Cloud has been phenomenal. Globally, we have over 1mn 31 thousand paid Creative Cloud subscriptions. In India as well, on the online store alone, nearly 90% of customers choose to buy Creative Cloud over more traditional boxed software options. We continue to see good momentum among SMBs and enterprises in India.

Do you target any specific industry/sector your product? Can you mention any particular enterprise who has significantly improved on their workflow after using Adobe product?
We have clients from every sector, be it Media and Entertainment, manufacturing or IT/BPO. In media and entertainment space alone, most regional publishing houses are our clients. They use Adobe products like Photoshop CC and Illustrator CC which has in-built support for ten Indian languages. For example, Indian media house Malayala Manorama has implemented a complete end to end Adobe technology solution that will allow fast and flexible delivery of content across any platform, including mobile and social networks. Additionally, leading media houses like Danik Bhaskar, Danik Jagran and Rajasthan Patrika are also using our products.

What are your marketing strategies that you are implementing to reach the target market?
We have focused our energies in reaching out to every creative individual, SMB and Enterprise segment to educate them about the benefits of Creative Cloud. We are reaching out to marketers with Adobe Marketing Cloud, Adobe's digital marketing set of solutions that provides a set of products to measure, optimize and automate your marketing processes. With the launch of Adobe Creative Cloud, we have transformed our go to market strategy completely. We also have attractive offers for small and medium size businesses as well as large enterprises according to the demand. We continue to hold online and face to face events to educate our customers.

Anushri Mondol
(anushreem@cybermedia.co.in)