IndiaMART.com
scores where Commerce One failed. Takes on the mantle of the world’s
largest B2B platform
IndiaMART.com
and Dun & Bradstreet join hands to study Indian clusters and
plan to come up with a Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) publication
series on SME trends, finds out Pallavee
Dhaundiyal Panthry. Other companies had tried to attain the
same end with different means and failed
Remember
Commerce One India? It tried to become the world's largest B2B
platform in 2000 AD just when the Y2K bogey had died down.
Ultimately, it was partly bought over by Novell for its technology
and could never take off in B2B.
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Commerce One's failure could
be traced to burying its nose all those years in developing the
technology and then relying on its franchisees to cough up the
license fees ranging from Rs 50 lakh for the smallest product per
company to Rs 8 crore for the most expensive. That passing the buck
manner of doing business clearly did not work. The company keeled
over and ceased to exist and got sold off for the only value it
could bring to the table - technology.
On the other hand, a company such as IndiaMART InterMESH Ltd, went
to the farthest corners and the dingiest alleyways and induced small
and medium sized merchants to book a page on IndiaMART.com. This
made it the largest portal for B2B trade in the world.
Owing to the efforts of its Founder & CEO, Dinesh Agarwal, the
size of this B2B network running on an Oracle backend is growing
every day and so is the net profit of the company.
In fact, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play a very important
role in driving the economic growth of developed countries as well
as developing ones. In India, their role is evident from that fact
that they provide employment to more than 31 million people. Over
the past three years, Dun & Bradstreet India has been providing
extensive coverage to SMEs in India through its publication series,
Emerging SMEs of India.
Now it's both D&B and IndiaMART.com, an e-commerce and B2B
enterprise, who plan to work together for Indian SME Cluster Study
2009. The study, which would contain an in-depth analysis of six
major industrial clusters in the country, would highlight the
industries working in each of the six regions. The study will be
disseminated through a series of events and publications targeting
Indian SMEs.
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IndiaMART's association with
D&B comes close on the heels of its recent partnerships struck
with the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and The
Economic Times, which aimed at taking the Indian SME's voice to the
forefront. IBM, Verisign and UTV are also partnering with D&B
for the project.
Highlighting the concerns of SMEs, Dinesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO,
IndiaMART.com, said: "Traditionally, Indian SMEs have been
growth engines of our economy and have met the expectations of the
government, achieving the goals set before them. But in this era of
global turmoil, it is the SMEs which are most affected and unless
measures are taken, their growth will be at stake. IndiaMART.com has
always been at the forefront to support SMEs in providing them a
global exposure. This is just a step forward in this direction and
we hope it has a spillover effect".
In India, there are different clusters with different set of
problems. For example, the Delhi and NCR cluster has industries like
automotive components, textile, garments, apparels, and
pharmaceuticals. "Here, our job is to find out what kind of
problems people are facing in these industries especially at the
grassroot level. The problems could relate to power supply,
transportation, customer and many more", said Agarwal.
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The SME publication series
will articulate SME trends, analysis and insights of SME clusters
and will serve as a guide for entrepreneurs to take their business
to the next level. The publications will be released at an event in
each of the clusters starting with the inaugural event in Delhi,
which took place last week, on August 17.
Similar events will be organised in Pune, Kolkata, Coimbatore,
Chennai and Mumbai in the coming months. The focus of each city's
event will vary from textiles, auto-components, pharmaceuticals,
chemicals, engineering and food processing, based on their
predominance in each cluster.
How IndiaMART.com and D&B plan to go forward once the study is
done? Agarwal answered, "We need to understand how a sector is
performing, especially after recession. Things have changed ever
since recession took its toll. So firstly, we should understand what
problems a cluster is facing currently. Then we need to put forward
these problems in front of the government so that they take
necessary actions to support the people at the grassroot level.
Lastly, once we understand the problems, we as a business portal can
tailor made our services as per the peoples' requirements so that
there is a win win situation on both the ends."
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