India Emerging as Global Tech Hub, Salesforce Sees Opportunity in AI
Salesforce's President and CEO for South Asia, Arundhati Bhattacharya, believes that India is transforming from being a market for global technology companies to becoming a place where technology is built for the world.
The company's India operations play a significant role in product development, engineering, and other global functions. Of its over 17,000 employees in India, only around 1,500 focus on selling in the Indian market. The majority work on products that serve customers globally.
Bhattacharya sees India's economic strength as driving growing curiosity among Indians about technology's potential to improve businesses and careers. She attributes this to a combination of factors: a young population, digital orientation, fast-learning workforce, and the government-created digital infrastructure.
This foundation is crucial for companies moving from experimenting with AI to deploying it at scale. Bhattacharya sees an opportunity in generative and agentic AI for smaller businesses (SMBs), allowing them to access sophisticated technology without large infrastructure investments. Digital labor can provide another way to scale, handling repetitive tasks while employees focus on human interaction and judgment.