Amazon India has announced that the company is launching its brick and mortal resource centre known as Digital Kendra in India. This announcement is in line with its mission to digitise 10 million small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India. This first of its kind brick-and-mortar resource centre, will be in Surat, Gujarat.

Amazon ‘Digital Kendras’ will act as walk-in establishments and provide micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) the opportunity to reap the benefits of e-commerce and avail a range of third-party services such as shipping and logistics support, cataloguing assistance, digital marketing services, GST and taxation support to kick start their journey towards being digital entrepreneurs.

“This is an important step towards the commitment we have made to digitise MSMEs. Our thought process was that if Amazon can go down to these MSME clusters and handhold them through their journey of digitisation, it will help small businesses take their first steps towards e-commerce. Our trained resource partners will take these MSMEs through all the services and various programs which Amazon provides," said Manish Tiwary, vice president at Amazon India.

“Amazon believes that a sustainable way for MSMEs to get on their feet is to go digital. And having the comfort of a physical center will only help MSMEs get the right level of confidence," added Tiwary in an interaction with Mint.

Tiwary added that Amazon India has helped Indian MSMEs export $1 billion in shipments in the last 12 months, under its ‘Global Selling’ program. Of the 850,000 sellers on Amazon India, the e-commerce major has onboarded over 300,000 sellers since January 2020.

“Amazon had announced it will invest $1 billion in India to help digitize 10 million Indian MSMEs by 2025. And today, we take one more important step towards that goal as we open our first Amazon ‘Digital Kendra’ in Surat, Gujarat. This is an earnest endeavour to bring the right tools, support and services infrastructure closer to where MSMEs are based and help them benefit from e-commerce," said Amit Agarwal, senior vice president and country head, Amazon India.