Payoneer Elevate empowers 500+ service export SMBs on their global expansion journey

India had achieved remarkable export milestones, with the country’s total exports soaring to USD 776 billion in the fiscal year 2022-23, marking a significant leap from the export levels observed in 2013-14. Services had contributed significantly, totaling around USD 326 billion, according to data released by the Commerce Ministry of India.

To sustain this growth and enable India to achieve its ambitious target of US$ 1 trillion in merchandise and US$ 1 trillion in service exports by 2030, policymakers and industry stakeholders have deliberated strategies that could fuel this vision.

Against this promising premise of India’s burgeoning export landscape, Payoneer Elevate 2024 curated an immersive range of sessions, panel discussions, fireside chats, and thoughtfully designed knowledge-sharing sessions for over 500 service export Small- and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs) on their global expansion journey. The knowledge-led sessions by influential industry thought leaders and domain experts illuminated emerging trends for entrepreneurs, decision-makers, and growth leaders, offering invaluable industry insights, growth strategies, and ecosystem trends. Attendees connected with like-minded service exporters, gaining a holistic vision of the sector and a window into its future. By highlighting actionable strategies, Payoneer Elevate 2024 aimed to empower businesses in service exports to expand into international markets and navigate the cross-border maze with ease.

As India stands at the crossroads of charting a bolder vision through the diversity and buoyancy presented by its booming service sector, Payoneer Elevate 2024 delved right into the heart of this change, stirring conversations and dialogues across strategies and regulations, emerging trends, and future pathways.
The event kicked off with a keynote address by Gaurav Shisodia, Vice President, Payoneer, India, highlighting India’s unstoppable journey towards global economic dominance, and the country’s soaring service export growth at 27% year-on-year in FY’23. The keynote underscored key enablers such as harnessing skilled talent, leveraging India’s domestic market insights, and crucial regulatory support, propelling India’s service exports expansion to new heights.

“Young and creative talent developing products with global appeal, learnings from India’s diverse domestic market enabling local businesses to compete in global markets, and strengthening innovation and quality of digital services have propelled India's digital exports,” said Shisodia.

The event brought together industry veterans and thought leaders such as Sanjeev Bikchandani, Founder of InfoEdge; Jeet Vijay, CEO of MeitY Startup Hub; Naina Lal Kidwai, Chairperson of Rothschild India and Founder of India's Sanitation Coalition; Pramod Bhasin, Chairman of ICRIER and Founder of Genpact Ltd; and Vani Dandia, Founder of CherryPeachPlum Growth Partners. ‘India’s Service Sector Supremacy: Key Drivers Shaping the Era of Transformation & Global Opportunities,’ ‘Unlocking the People Potential for India @100: Harnessing the Young Workforce and Reimagining Recruitment, Retention, and Upskilling,’ and ‘Lessons in Brand Building for India's Service Sector’ are some of the key topics.

These insightful sessions were followed by facilitated workshops, covering essential topics such as HR, growth, finance, and tax. These sessions were led by partners such as Springworks, Aspire For Her, Recur Club, and domain experts from Google India, Blume Ventures, Khatabook, Talent500, HRXcelerate, Fitelo, Tyroo, Spottabl, Taxmann Publications, among others.

Through knowledge-led sessions by domain experts, attendees gained invaluable insights and effective strategies for international expansion. These sessions covered a range of crucial topics, including navigating taxation implications for businesses eyeing global growth, mastering global HR practices, embracing innovative performance management techniques, raising capital effectively, shaping the global demand for 'Made in India' services and products, and understanding the impact of artificial intelligence and data analytics on future-ready marketing strategies.

As India’s service ecosystem experiences dynamic growth, Payoneer Elevate 2024 enabled a historically underserved segment: 500+ service export SMBs that are primed to expand their global footprint. This one-of-its-kind event focused on enabling service exports SMBs of the country in the domains of IT, web and app development, programming and technical support, consulting and management, and digital marketing and sales looking to thrive in the rising, global economy.

“The event served as a significant opportunity for us to bring all players in the ecosystem together under one roof because what businesses or service providers lack is the ability to go global with the same set of tools and infrastructure with which they have succeeded locally. This event gave them those levers, tools, and capabilities to expand their businesses globally and access new markets,” said Shisodia, speaking on the intent behind Payoneer Elevate 2024 and how all efforts came to fructification at the event.

Unveiling the Future: Highlights from Payoneer Elevate 2024
India’s recent breakthrough in exports as evidenced in its total value of USD 776 billion in the fiscal year 2022-23 showcases its leap towards a new era. While merchandise exports accounted for the premium share, reaching nearly USD 450 billion, services emerged as the unsung hero of this significant leap with its contributions, totalling around USD 326 billion. This record-breaking feat not only signalled an untapped potential for India’s export sector but also heralded a possible rebranding of India’s dynamic service sector. To understand the refashioning of this sector in this disruptive era of digitalisation, we need to take a retrospective look. India’s ascent in the global service sector export market paints a compelling narrative of growth and innovation. From its humble beginnings in the 1950s, when the nation lacked significant service exports, to the emergence of information technology (IT) companies in the 1970s that kickstarted the outsourcing trend from the USA, Canada, and Europe, India soon came to be perceived as the “world’s BPO capital”, the home to “cheap IT labour”, “executors” and so on. From 1995 to 2008, India’s share in the international service export market surged from a mere 0.6% to a substantial 2.7%, as perdata shared by the Ministry of Government and Broadcasting India.

Today, it’s time for India to rebuild its image, shifting from being the backyard of big tech to being the hub for world-class innovation and change; this shift in the story is being scripted by its new-age service sector, characterised by its prolific software-as-a-service (SaaS) startups, among various other factors. Thus, this is the story of India’s service sector’s transformation, transitioning from being the world’s back-office service provider to developing homegrown, world-class SaaS services, building tech solutions for global consumers and conglomerates, epitomising the ‘building in India for the world’ model.

“Think about the IT service sector alone, it is crucial to the goal of a $1 trillion digital economy. Currently, we’re looking at exports worth approximately $3.9 billion from this sector alone,” said Jeet Vijay, CEO of MeitY Startup Hub, during his presentation titled ‘India’s Service Sector Supremacy: Key Drivers Shaping the Era of Transformation’ at Payoneer Elevate 2024.

As India stands out as one of the most prominent offshore locations in the IT sector today, with estimates indicating its share of global offshore outsourcing business ranges from 70% to 90% as per data released by the Ministry of Government and Broadcasting, the imperative to recognise the positive impact of reforms couldn’t be stated more.

Government reforms in services can be traced back to the 1990s and 2000s. These reforms deregulated financial markets and boosted competition in service industries with productivity surging. The government provided tax incentives and established special business zones to attract investment in services. Foreign investment, notably in the telecom and IT sectors, has also played a vital role, riding on the wave of relaxed regulations on foreign ownership. Experts also give credit to factors such as India's demographic dividend, abundant and affordable skilled and creative talent, along widespread English proficiency as drivers of growth.
Pramod Bhasin, Founder of Genpact, said, “India has the best demographics in the world, but there are things to worry about, such as low participation of women in the labour force and the significant need to improve the skilled workforce. This needs to be changed rapidly.” Bhasin made this critical observation during his presentation titled ‘Unlocking the People Potential for India @100: Harnessing the Young Workforce and Reimagining Recruitment, Retention and Upskilling’.

Today, the nation’s service portfolio encompasses a spectrum of activities, including application development, IT infrastructure management, business process outsourcing (BPO), and call centre services. Notably, over 80% of India’s services trade is digitally deliverable, providing insulation from the Covid-19-induced shock.

The EU and the US emerge as major services trade partners for India, with the US witnessing increased significance as a destination for India’s services exports.

Fuelling growth: Payoneer enabling cross-border payments for Indian SMBs since 2016
Payoneer is a global multi-currency financial stack built for the world’s SMBs, supporting up to 11 of the world's most traded currencies across 190+ countries and territories. This empowers entrepreneurs, founders, and decision-makers to effortlessly receive payments from customers, vendors, and marketplaces across the world in multiple currencies.

Since its inception in 2005, Payoneer has focused on providing secure, fast, and convenient international payment solutions, catering to a diverse set of customers that includes service export companies in domains of technology and programming, software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies, digital marketing agencies, sales, along with e-commerce exporters, marketplace sellers, and freelancers to name a few.
Note -This data is accurate up to December 31, 2023, and pertains specifically to Payoneer for India market. All data as of 2016 - December 31,2023, and related only to Payoneer for India market.

Payoneer’s local receiving accounts enable businesses to accept payments from global customers, vendors, and marketplaces in multiple currencies across borders prioritising compliance, speed, and convenience. This allows SMBs to operate virtually in international markets regardless of their geographical location. Regulated in key markets—the US, Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, Singapore, and the UK—Payoneer has built an ecosystem with global marketplaces, payment service providers, and nearly 100 banking partnerships to support customers on its platform.

“Since starting operations in India in 2016, Payoneer has undergone remarkable expansion. India holds a strategic position for Payoneer as a priority country, primarily catering to outsourcing and service export businesses. The service export market in India is experiencing rapid expansion, and Payoneer is optimistic and believes that it is well-positioned to help fuel this growth. We have witnessed a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 54% in our customer base of service export businesses on our platform in India from 2016 through the end of 2023.

Businesses operating in service exports on our platform have also seen outstanding growth, with revenue witnessing a CAGR of 88% since 2016, respectively, as of December 31, 2023.

Moreover, the transaction volume for service export companies on our platform in India has surged by 85% since 2016. Our platform enables businesses to receive cross-border payments from some of the most exciting global markets including the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, and Singapore to name a few” said Shisodia.

The road ahead: Empowering SMBs for global success
India must sustain the momentum in its services exports not only to maintain its high growth rate but also to offset consistent deficits in merchandise trade and uphold external sector stability. It is time for industry stakeholders, pioneers, and innovators to come together in an alliance, forging diverse ideas and formulating effective strategies with a united goal.

Talking about building brands of the future, especially brand-building for SMBs in the digital era, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder of InfoEdge said at Payoneer Elevate 2024, “To get business, you have to be cheaper, better, faster or have some kind of brand proposition, that is how brands are built.” Bikchandani was speaking as part of a panel titled ‘Navigating Demographic Shifts: Challenges, Innovations, and AI Solutions in Brand Building for Indian Service Brands Expanding Overseas’. Speaking at the same panel, Vani Gupta Dandia, Founder of CherryPeachPlum Growth Partners, added, “The most important thing in brand building is to have clarity on the business proposition and to build it early.”

With knowledge-sharing sessions diving into critical pillars such as HR, growth, and finance, the event ignited a fresh series of discussions and dialogues amongst visionary leaders, enabling ambitious entrepreneurs navigating international markets to gain actionable insights and sustainable strategies to drive their businesses forward and discover the new frontiers of growth.

During her Fireside chat on the ‘Future of India’s Service Exports: Financial Trends and Reforms,’ Naina Lal Kidwai, Chairperson of Rothschild India and Founder of India's Sanitation Coalition said, “Beyond IT, a huge area for us now is R&D, whether it is in pharma or the financial world, India has not done sufficiently there, and that could be a huge route.”

Payoneer Elevate 2024 is a forum for innovation, where industry leaders convened to share expert solutions to being a mirror to the industry, showcasing its era-defining shifts and transitions. By facilitating learning, networking, and access to industry thought leaders and carving a path for next-generation growth, Payoneer India is committed to empowering Indian SMBs for their global aspirations.

*Note - The information herein is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional, expert, financial, taxation, or legal advice. In no event will Payoneer be liable for any loss or damage including, without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damage whatsoever incurred in connection with the information provided.