MSMEs Opting for E- commerce as a medium for business promotion

Networking with people and sharing knowledge to build a personal brand are essential requisites for efficient progression in contemporary business society. Online B2B matchmaking is one of the cognizant steps in this direction. And, its patrons believe the small and micro enterprises (SMEs) could be insulated with its help, while the world reels under recession. B2B matchmaking is an innovative concept that benefits everyone, whether at a trade fair, a networking event, a members meeting or a clients gathering. These Matches are arranged systematically and efficiently between supply and demand after a series of steps as registering, filtering and mailing each other the tentative quotes and in the end settling at a of final price and date of delivery. All this happen at the cheapest way, with the use of internet, and the parties completes their promises, exchange experiences and forge cooperative partnerships.

Through the innovative usage of such technologies, the SMEs are growing exponentially and are going global. Moreover, with the help of technological advancements, emerging business are trying to make themselves more efficient, and also persevering to carve a niche for themselves. “In tougher times you need to differentiate in the technologies that you use” says Mr. Dinesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, IndiaMART.com. But with the wide usage of internet some crucial deals needs interaction or face to face conversation. For this, SMEs have started using services as “Just Dial” for online telephonic conversation and “Video on demand” for video conferencing to cut costs. The shares of SMEs in the total IT spends have been growing rapidly over the past few years and a recent IAMAI study says SME IT spends set to continue at a robust 24%. SME businesses are looking at internet to gain access to newer B2B markets and discovering new solution providers that offers cost effective solutions. This optimizes the capacity utilization of SME – an imperative during the slowdown. Also they knew that the communication costs could be reduced by a noticeable amount with technologies like internet calls and skype.

Recent IAMAI figures estimates the size of the domestic e-commerce to touch 2.3 billion- a 95 percent rise over the last year figures. However still, after collecting such accolades, many SME owners are apprehensive about joining the B2B matchmaking platform and are still comfortable in archaic methods of cold calls and bulk mails for communication and matchmaking. They feel the government laws are not pertinent enough, albeit companies like IndiaMART are working to console the 13 million Indian SMEs and trying to galvanize the SME and MSME sector to become online-savvy and more focused on online marketing as their growth path. The steps that companies like IndiaMART is taking to bring convergence between the online concept of business and the Indian SME sector will only lean forward to better results and with the extra mileage that this provides will generate more business from global exports.