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| Sat, Feb 19, 2005 |
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| Small units of all lands unite on Indiamart |
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Praveen
S Thampi
NEW DELHI 18 FEBRUARY WHAT do Jain Scientific Glass Works in Ambala, Shingora Shawls in Ludhiana, GNA Axles in Hoshiarpur and Sareko Tools in Jalandhar have in common? From glass works to shawls to axles to hand tools, what could be their eeting point apart from the Punjab-Haryana belt that they operate from? One answer is that they are all part of the Indian small and medium enterprises (SME) network with a finger in the world wide web. But a more accurate answer will lead you to a website: Indiamart.com. In 1996, Dinesh Aggarwal — a former software engineer in the US — hit upon an idea likemany a dotcom wannabe in tune with the now-famous irrational exuberance of the times. On he went with an online directory service of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) — initial list supplied by Assocham — with an aim to connect them to the global world of demand and supply. Today, of the 5 lakh-odd SMEs operating from the nook and corner of the country, Indiamart boasts of putting 2 lakh on the internet. “Log on to Indiamart, any category you click, you will find a minimum of 500 companies listed with us,” says Mr Aggarwal sitting in his Noida office in the NCR region. “Earlier, entrepreneurs from small towns used to come to us saying ‘Internet pe ad lagana hai jee...’. Today, with many success stories to boot, the SME awareness vis-a-vis the e-marketplace has changed for the better,” he says. The Indiamart CEO, however, is not exactly happy with his company’s performance in Punjab, the land of the original SMEs. “Blame it on bad luck. We have thousands of listings from Tirupur, Coimbatore, Erode, you name it... but not the same penetration in Punjab.” So is it just all bad luck or the ignorance levels in the up-north vis-a-vis the internet? “Well, I must say that the Southern and Gujarati SMEs are very aware of the potential of the medium. Up-north is not so appreciative in that sense.” Mr Aggarwal also feels the trend is also due to the fact that the SME focus is slowly shifting from the up-north towns and getting concentrated in and around the national capital region (NCR). Yet, he adds a caveat. “My client list from the up-north might not be as good as that from the South. But believe me, if you go to Ludhiana, Hoshiarpur, Amritsar or Ambala, chances are that two out of ten SMEs would have been already listed with us and two more would have at least heard the name Indiamart.” |
 Indiamart is soon
poised to launch a mini-customer relationship management system (CRM) —
a Response Management System — aimed at further enabling non-tech
savvy SMEs to run a smooth online business. “We will charge Rs
10,000-50,000 for implementing the system and an annual user fee which
will be much lesser,” says he. Indiamart charges a paltry Rs 5,000
for a single page of web presence with the guarantee of five enquiries a
month. The original service still rakes in about 75% of its revenues
come from this. Today he has diversified into auctions and
authentication. More revenues trickle in from focused online advertising
and a verification service for SMEs called TrustSEAL. His figures are
SME-like, but too handsome for a dotcom. In fiscal 2004, against an
operational income of Rs 7 crore, Indiamart made a profit after tax
(PAT) of about Rs 50 lakh. On an average month deals worth Rs 50-200
crore are sealed through Indiamart. “I remember a single deal worth
Rs 3 million clinched by an upnorth handmade paper firm through our
site,” says Mr Aggarwal. The man is visibly upbeat about north though he warns that it would be tough to catch up with the speed with which the NCR region is growing. “There was this impression that the glory days of Punjab has gone, till around two-three years back. Evidently, Punjab’s monopoly in industry and agriculture had to be challenged. With some smart steps and Central help, even HP started catching up fast. But Punjab is making a comeback now,” says Mr Aggarwal. Time fit for the Pink Revolution, did you say? |
| Of the Five Lakh Small Units Operating in Country, Website Has Names of 2 Lakh in Its Directory |