Shivam Narrow Fabrics Moves Towards Global Shores

Mr. Asan Varyani, MD, Shivam Narrow Fabrics started his company in 1993, after breaking away from his family business. The company caters to different industries including garments, jewelry, piping and mattress industry. He started small with two machines, very little capital and earning a yearly turnover of only Rs. 25 lakh. Various changes in the company’s offerings’ portfolio allowed Shivam Narrow Fabrics to be unique in the industry and kept it ahead of its competition. What started with products that his industry counterparts would not offer, gave him a distinctive edge over them, and attracted reputed clients such as Zodiac, Pepe Jeans and many others. Some of the offered products are made in-house, while others are traded. A workforce of 25 workers and about 10 staff members presently earns an annual turnover of more than Rs. 4 crore for the company.

http://www.indiamart.com/corporate/success-stories/shivam-narrow-fabrics.html

Avoiding Hurdles

The company has ingeniously avoided the hurdles of competition by plainly avoiding them. Mr. Varyani commented, “In our industry, according to me, there are no competitors of us. The reason behind this is we always do something very unique, which nobody else is able to do now. They might copy it later on, but then I change my product.” For instance, the company is now producing car seat-belts. “I have received a very good advice from our clients. They say that we should be efficient and deliver goods on time, which we do. That’s why we have been successful,” he said. The company is also exporting to European countries like France and UK, as well as USA and Australia.

Harnessing a Potent Tool

Mr. Varyani also believes that in this age of globalization, the internet is a mighty tool for whosoever decides to wield it. He elucidated, “I don’t have a single sales person in my factory. We market our products through the internet and receive all our orders via the internet only. For our industry, China is a big competitor. There are a large number of people offering the same products there at low prices. Yet, China is gradually becoming costlier. Therefore, internet has a big role to play at the moment.

Give Your Business the Right Direction with Scribble Maps

Almost every business, small and medium uses Google Maps in more ways than one. Obviously one of the prime usage of Google Maps by any business is to help customers and other intended audience who are searching for them, they find their office locations easily. Lets say if a customer is visiting you, chances are that he/ she would look your business up at Google Maps and set his/ her directions on the GPS devices and hence reach to the right location without really wasting time in asking for directions.

Now make custom Google Maps for your business!

With scribble maps you can create custom looking Google Maps, by creating specific directive pointers on LIVE maps, hence helping your customers locate your business on the maps easily.

Example, if your business is located at Noida Sector 6, India, all you need to do is to write the place on the top address bar on the screen as shown in the screen capture below:

Once you have located your business on Google Maps, now you can make custom maps by editing the current map with the tools provided on the top. Example as shown in the screen capture below:

Once you have edited the map, the way you wanted to, with all the specific directions to your business for a client to reach you/ locate you, you can also tag it along with YouTube videos of your business, as shown in the screen capture below:

Once the above is set, you can share the maps with clients as a link, share it on facebook, or save map as a jpeg to be shared with the intended audience.

ScribbleMaps essentially helps in making your business more attractive with all the relevant information about your business available to the clients right on the maps. This helps you be more effective in your communication and hence generate relevant business.

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to enable SMEs with tools, tips and techniques to help them reach up the value chain and hence achieve the next level of growth. For more information on how you can create new opportunities for your business, drop in a comment to this post and we will get in touch with you!

Send Private Video Emails to Business Associates with MailVU

Email communication for any business is crucial. Its free and easy. Almost every Small and medium business uses Email as the most basic tool of communication. Many a times tough what is required is not a text based mail, but actually a video which can be viewed privately and also which can self destruct after sometime, such that the sanctity of the data being shared is maintained.

Now you can record self destructing videos and send over Email with MailVU

The recorded video can play on smart phones, can extend upto 10 minutes of free recording time, self destruct after number of views OR days and you could host a video upto 1 year.

All that you need to record your video message is to click on the "allow" button on the right sidebar of the home screen of the website as shown in the screen capture below:

Once you have recorded the video, using the "send video mail" button at the bottom you can send the same to your intended target audience who will receive a self destructing link to a video message, which you can set to self destruct either after x number of views OR after x number of days.

The self destructing message ensures the privacy of the video as it is meant for private viewing only. This way you can share critical data on video and yet be sure that it will reach to only the relevant audience and be self destroyed after x number of views, which is pre-determined by you.

For SMEs, MailVU could be a great tool to reach out to potential partners and clients in a secure manner, sharing information which is meant only for the viewing of the intended audience.

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to enable SMEs with tools, tips and techniques to help them reach up the value chain and hence achieve the next level of growth. For more information on how you can create new opportunities for your business, drop in a comment to this post and we will get in touch with you!

Highlight Relevant Content on Web Pages and Share with Awesome Highlighter

Collaboration around online content is common phenomena nowadays. In the knowledge economy today, many businesses, especially the small and medium businesses, utilize the internet to create many knowledge banks within their organisations. Most of the times, the information searched online is copied and shared as documents/ images etc. with the intended target audience, with an intention of collaborating around the information.

Many a times the information shared is copied as a whole and the key and specific areas of the information, around which the collaboration is required fail to get highlighted. This results in information loss and hence loss of key executive mindshare and time.

Highlight information you want to collaborate around with Awesome Highlighter
The free online tool, Awesome Highlighter, allows you to collaborate around information with others by allowing the information to be highlighted in a manner such that it is fairly visible and captured. Such highlighting of information ensures that there is either no loss of information OR the information loss is minimal.

The above screen capture shows how one can use the awesome highlighter in a simple and highly effective manner. All you need to do is to enter the website which you would want to share with your intended target audience. 

As the above screen capture shows, once you are re-directed to the awesome highlighter platform, you can quickly highlight the areas of the webpage which you would want to collaborate around. You can also add quick notes around the content and once you are done, press the "done" button in yellow at the top.

The platform provides you a hyperlink, which you can quickly share with your audience and hence ensure that the information you are sharing is reaching out in the best possible format, while reducing information losses.

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to enable SMEs with tools, tips and techniques to help them reach up the value chain and hence achieve the next level of growth. For more information on how you can create new opportunities for your business, drop in a comment to this post and we will get in touch with you!

Europack Packs a Punch with the help of Internet

When Mr. Devendra Chheda, MD, Europack returned after his post-graduation in Germany, he established Europack and decided to take the company to unprecedented levels of growth. The challenge was to start from scratch and inject innovation and technology into the business. The company that commenced in 1993 now offers a wide range of packaging solutions, catering to engineering, pharmaceutical, automobiles as well as nuclear power and defense manufacturing units. Today, Mr. Chheda’s ambition has quadrupled the company’s workforce of 25 to more than 100 people. The current turnover of the company is around Rs. 8 crore. With significant orders in the pipeline, turnover is expected to touch Rs. 25 crore in the next two years. 

http://www.indiamart.com/corporate/success-stories/europack.html 

Strengths and Ambitions

The company faces some local competition. However, its competitors do not have the same kind of network and reach as Europack has. According to Mr Chheda, “There are very few people who do the kind of work that we do. So we do not worry about competition. We have our strengths in our labourers, supervisors, managers, and in the technical knowledge that we have. Since we regularly visit global fares and exhibitions, we have a wide range of customers, each with unique requirements. Fulfilling these requirements is a major challenge for us.” A prominent past project of the company was successful completion of packaging work for shifting Tata Nano plant from Singur, West Bengal to Sanand, Gujarat. Thus, the company benefited from its nationwide reach and is now looking at overseas markets.

Connecting Businesses

Europack has traditionally depended on the internet for conducting its business as well as marketing. In addition to marketing through portals, the company has also advertised in newspapers and other mediums such as literatures. Every industry that manufactures goods requires packaging. There has been immense investment in various fields of automobiles, large manufacturing companies, various kinds of power generation plants, pharmaceutical industry and others. So, the scope of packaging is correspondingly very high.

Industry Reports at the Click of Button

For the Small and Medium industry its an imperative to keep abreast and be updated with information which helps them in taking informed business decisions in their industry and in industries which are parallel/ complimentary/ competitive to them. Such critical information is always beneficial for the management of any company to take critical decisions, which define the directions for the business operations.

Now SMEs can get access to critical industry reports which are focused around emerging sections of the economy. These reports are available on the following industry verticals as of now:

• Life Sciences
• Auto
• IT
• Engineering
• Textile
• Infrastructure

All the reports are downloadable for free online at the following URL: http://india.smetoolkit.org/india/en/content/en/44058/A-Unique-Business-Resource-Centre

All that you need to do to access a report is to click on its hyperlink available on the name of the report, under the industry header, as shown in the screen capture below:

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to enable SMEs with tools, tips and techniques to help them reach up the value chain and hence achieve the next level of growth. For more information on how you can create new opportunities for your business, drop in a comment to this post and we will get in touch with you!

Create and Collaborate With Documents in Real Time with TypeWith.me

Businesses are collaborating daily, many times the need for businesses to collaborate is in real time. There are many complex project management softwares which enable such critical and crucial collaboration among-st the intended audience. The simplest form of such collaboration is around word documents. In the simplest of the formats, once you create a document, you simply either share with people over Email OR utilize tools like Google Docs/ Zoho Docs to really collaborate and create the document in real time.

Will You TypeWith.me helps you create and collaborate around documents in real time!

Once you click on the create a new document link, you are re-directed to the following screen as shown in the screen capture above. The above screen capture reveals how you can create LIVE documents and collaborate around with people on the same in real time.

Once you have started the document, you can simply share it with the collaborators you wish, by clicking on "share this" button, which will generate the following URL which you can share with intended collaborators online OR on Email:

As shown in the screen capture above, you can simply share the link with the intended target audience and they will be able to login to the document and each one of you can start collaborating online in real time.

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to enable SMEs with tools, tips and techniques to help them reach up the value chain and hence achieve the next level of growth. For more information on how you can create new opportunities for your business, drop in a comment to this post and we will get in touch with you!

Share Your Email Online Without Worrying for SPAM with Scr.im

having an Email-Id is a must in times today. Its not just for any SME, it's for every business and individual. Having an Email-Id ensures that you are connected with the world online and obviously helps you ensure that your conversations are faster and far easier than writing to people.

Email and SPAM
Most of the business executives and businesses today don't feel very comfortable sharing their Email ID online, due to the fear of SPAM. Many SPAM bots online, capture your Email ID and you are subjected to a host of SPAM information which you would never have applied to or never would have subscribed to. These are automated codes online, which simply capture your Email Id and bombard your inbox with all the irrelevant items which simply kill your time and do nothing else.

Be SPAM free with Scr.im
Now you can simply register online at www.scr.im (Scrim) and a URL will be generated, which will act as an alias for your Email Id. This URL can now be shred online safely and no SPAM Bots will really be able to distinguish if this URL is your Email Id.

As the aboce screen capture shows, all you need to do is to type the following URL in your browser: www.scr.im and the following screen will appear:

Simply enter your Email ID in the box above and pick your unique URL to represent your email ID. Once done, you can now safely share your ID online on any platform and you would be kept safe from SPAM.

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to enable SMEs with tools, tips and techniques to help them reach up the value chain and hence achieve the next level of growth. For more information on how you can create new opportunities for your business, drop in a comment to this post and we will get in touch with you!

Internet enables Mehta Group of Inustries Achieve Higher Growth Rate

The journey for Mehta Group of Industries began in 1984 with the establishment of a trading company, Mukesh Tube Industries. After a year, the manufacturing company, Mukesh Metal Industries Pvt Ltd was started by Mr. Mangilal Mehta with a borrowing of Rs. 30 lakh from his partners. The group then gradually started adding more ventures regularly. Mehta Tubes Ltd, Brass Copper and Alloy India Ltd, Metal Gems and Met India were consecutive additions, all located near Daman and part of Mehta Group of Industries. The group’s offerings range from copper strips and brass bars for OEMs, to copper tubes and copper rods for ACR companies. The group’s total production of copper and copper alloys is now 1,300 tons. Once worth less than Rs. 30 lakh, the group’s present value is Rs. 500 crore. Started by a team of 3–4 people, it has now grown to employ 800 people.

http://www.indiamart.com/corporate/success-stories/mehta-tubes.html 

Overseas Opportunities

The group started exports in 1995, but it really started to pick up only in the last 5 years. Now, exports comprise 10–15% of the group’s turnover and are expected to touch 25% in the next two years. Since the group exports select products which are manufactured by few others, competition is less. However, Chinese products are being seen as a growing threat, along with the substitution of copper with aluminum and plastic. Yet, the group is considered a prominent player in copper. “Our customers rely on our prompt delivery and volume business,” pointed out Mr. Mukesh Mehta, Director, Mehta Tubes Ltd. The group has received Export Excellence awards for the last three consecutive years and has a 1A rating from CRISIL.

Potent Facilitator

Mr. Mehta pointed out, “When I joined, we were already doing exports. But I started using the internet and posted pictures of our tubes and pipes on it" The company has been deriving benefits of internet eversince.

The Top Hiring Strategies for SMEs

For Small and Medium businesses its an imperative to hire good quality talent. But talent comes at a cost and many a times SMEs get into a strong catch 22 on how to decide, who to hire and then follow a host of questions as to what exactly should be the job profile, how will you measure if it's a service oriented work profile, what should be the best salary to offer etc.

Not many SMEs can afford to have focused HR departments to help them in properly and methodically answering all the above queries. Many Small and Medium businesses fall into the catch of hiring, "not the correct" person for a profile that they have on offer.

The top hiring strategies which SMEs must take into account and methodically leverage while hiring for critical and key positions in the organisation are:

• Set a particular time frame for your new hire to be on board

Many SMEs face this challenge where they are aware of their requirement of hiring someone, but they don't necessarily put a time frame to it. A proper timeline must be put through to ensure that they are being maintained to get new hires on board. Many a times SMEs get into this catch of waiting for just the right candidate and the right person never arrives. This also might just make the right employee which you want to hire go away because you took too long to make up your mind and hire. Many a times SMEs also are not fully prepared to hire. They might drop their plans mid-way, this impacts not just the company, but the reputation in the professional environment for the business.

• Choose your top 5 sources from where you would like to hire

As a business you must quickly narrow down to the top 5 sources from where you think you would like to hire. This can be social networks, it can also involve a recruitment company to be working for you, you can also take references from your professional circuit. You must be very clear in your approach as to which are top 5 places that will quickly get you results. This will help you manage your hiring time effectively.

• Make a clear Job Description

One issue with almost every job description given by an SME, until it is a manufacturing/ number oriented/ product unit job, i that the profile of the candidate i not done complete justice to, as many a times the job descriptions provided by the company does not sets and create the right expectations in the market. This affects the companies hiring process adversely.

• Get employer feedback

For SMEs every employee is crucial. Every new hire affects the culture of the company in one way or the other, hence it is necessary for the employer to gather critical feedback about the prospective employee from their past employers. Its not just about doing a job, it is also about being the right fit for the company culturally as well.

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to enable SMEs with tools, tips and techniques to help them reach up the value chain and hence achieve the next level of growth. For more information on how you can create new opportunities for your business, drop in a comment to this post and we will get in touch with you!

The 5 Top Criteria to be Considered While Selecting the Right Vendor for SME's

For any business its crucial to select just the right vendor to get work done. For SMEs obviously the game becomes a little challenging as for them every step of it is critical, as they might not be able to afford choice mistakes. Their budgets might not allow experimentation and selecting multiple vendors at various growth stages of business. Should price be the only factor? Does requirement assessment plays a major role? Should service quality (SLA'a) be kept on high priority? Should SME's look at a overall long term ROI as a factor?

The top 5 criteria that should be considered by SMEs while selecting the right vendor are:

• Reference Checks

Carry out a reference check to understand the credentials keeping in mind the Quality of Service/products delivered/implemented and go one step ahead of either calling or meeting the existing customer/s of the vendor. Even though the existing customer/s may not given any guarantee on the services, but it gives a level of comfort 

• Evaluate level of engagement

 Evaluate the level of engagement of the vendor from the date of inquiry till negotiation and this is the key factor for any SMEs

• Requirement Mapping

Check if the vendor takes the pains and has the patience in terms of taking you through all the solutions addressed in the proposal, which ensures that the vendor has understood the business needs and requirements clearly.

• Pro-active nature and consultative capabilities

The SME has to really understand that their vendor has the right consulting capabilities and that they choose a vendor which can understand their business and the industry well, along with the overall business space. This will ensure that the vendor delivers the right suggestive offering/ product and evolve according to the dynamic business environment in which the SMEs play today.

• Just right pricing

SMEs can take some very focused decisions in terms of ensuring the right pricing being paid for the services of a vendor. Pricing is a crucial element for an SME and the vendor needs to take a understanding view of the same. Pricing has to be competitive in the market and also has to be designed in a manner which shows that the vendor is ready to work with the SME for the long haul and is not in only for the short game.

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to enable SMEs with tools, tips and techniques to help them reach up the value chain and hence achieve the next level of growth. For more information on how you can create new opportunities for your business, drop in a comment to this post and we will get in touch with you!

How Can SMEs Attract International Customers/ Partners: Schedule Content

For any SME which either ha its primary market base outside India, attracting International customers/ business partners, while sitting right here in India, while keeping the costs minimum, is a major challenge. Many businesses generally start by thinking that they will have to establish an International sales team, which is going to cost them a bomb and that they would not be able to afford this, till the time they are cash rich!

Social Media and Content Scheduling Has Changed the Game!
Social Media and Content Scheduling has created many new opportunities for businesses, which never existed before. One of the simplest and the strongest ways for an SME to reach to a potential International customer/ partners is through Social Networks like Linkedin. Obviously you are free to knock on someone's door who is sitting seven seas away from you and think that he/ she will build trust in you/ your services while just talking online. Expecting such things to happen in business is not the smartest thing for an SME.

Strong and Relevant Content Build Trust Online!
SME's must focus on creating fresh, authoritative, strong and relevant content online and publish it at times, when the other part of the world, they are looking to target and focus on as a key market is working. The two critical aspects here are:

1. Content
2. Scheduling

Relevant and fresh content on a certain topic which essentially helps your target audience to know more about your business, as well, as really believe that you have the right expertise to help them solve their business challenges in a more smarter and efficient manner. But with such a lot of information already present online, anyone can work around existing content and try and position themselves as thought leaders online and hence pitch to businesses. This is true, though obviously the experienced companies will always deliver when it comes to actually executing in on ground.

How can you create powerfully engaging content?

• Be focused on a subject
• Share your know-how of the subject/ industry
• Share key insights of the industry
• Create value with a strong call to action for your audience

Obviously, before creating such content, having a strong understanding of the target audience is crucial. Once you know what your audience is looking for, you can create the right set of messaging and communication to engage them in your conversation.

How can you schedule your messaging?

There are many online tools, which can help you control, at what times your content gets published online. Example, if you are writing a blog online, you can save it in the drafts and schedule it on a particular date and time. Whether you are online at that time OR not, your blog post will automatically get published online at that time.

Hence if you are targeting a time zone which is different from IST, you can easily schedule your blog post for that particular time zone, when your prospects/ customers/ partners are working and hence they will be able to reach to your content, in their time zone. This directly increases your probability of business conversion.

Does every blogging system allows you to schedule content?

Almost every major blogging tool/ platform allows you to schedule content publishing. Blogger, Wordpress, LiveJournal etc.

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to enable SMEs with tools, tips and techniques to help them reach up the value chain and hence achieve the next level of growth. For more information on how you can create new opportunities for your business, drop in a comment to this post and we will get in touch with you!

Muez-Hest India Gets Much-Needed Mileage

After nine years of service, Mr. Javed Husain, MD, Muez-Hest India Pvt Ltd, a chemical engineer decided to take a break before switching jobs. During this period, a friend suggested Mr. Husain to start his own business. The business was started with a capital amounted to Rs.10 lakh. This is how the Bombay-based company Muez-Hest Process Technology Pvt Ltd came into existence. Without a very good business background, Mr. Husain faced many managerial challenges. However, with support from friends and a strong foothold in separation technology, his company successfully started dealing in designing, manufacturing and installing technological equipment for fat splitting, fatty acid distillation and fatty acid splitting in India and globally.

 

http://www.indiamart.com/corporate/success-stories/muez-hest-india.html

Means for Growth
The company caters to domestic edible oil industries producing cotton seed, groundnut, soybean, rice bran and other commercial oils, which use obsolete technology. The company is a pioneer in the area of low-cholesterol heart oil. Offering products at competitive prices and deployment of latest technologies results in increased business volumes of the company. But since the company did not have much bank support, on-time delivery became a challenge. Overcoming this, the company forayed in international markets such as Europe, South America and Africa after 2006 due to technology-compatibility with European standards. This resulted in good growth. Last year, the company had a turnover of around Rs. 25 crore augured by employee strength of about 35 people.

Success Enablers
A majority of its initial business resulted from word-of-mouth. After that, the company started catalogue circulation and then adopted the internet.

Category Leadership: What SMEs Should Aim For

Every business aims to be a sales leader. Each business wants to increase its sales and be the leader in whatever domain it operates in, hence being the market leader and becoming a force. Businesses do innovate as they grow and many dynamics change for them, but a cash rich business is always the one which stands firm across dynamics and times and strong and stable sales are one of the strongest reason for a sound, growth oriented business.

How should the SMEs work towards a sales leadership?
SMEs are small and emerging businesses and hence cannot compete with market leaders due to their sheer scale and size and the execution capability they possess. Also, its not operationally possible for SMEs to aim for a market wide sales leadership across its bigger competitors even by creating a great price differential, which anyway is a negative start for the emerging businesses.

What the SMEs should aim at doing is to create and establish a Category Leadership. If an emerging business does not have a market leadership, it must try finding a category which it is strong in and in which it can create a strong differential as compared to the competitors in the market. Each vertical can further be sub-categorized and an SME can always innovate and aim to create a leadership position in that particular sub category.

Defining competition
If you are an SME which develops software and if you aim to be a market leader in software, then you might as well consider Microsoft as a potential competitor OR you can do a little more homework in terms of understanding your core strengths and your customers and hence position and categorize your offering to say you are one of the strongest software creators for the BFSI sector. This reduces your effective competitive landscape to only those companies which are doing software for the BFSI sector and also helps the market take note of you and the value that you deliver.

Market size in a niche is always smaller
It is actually not true. If you are able to create a powerful recall and standing with customers in a particular niche, the word of mouth is powerful enough in that circle to ensure that your business automatically gets noticed, which further impacts your sales in the positive. In the age of the internet the market size is always growing as defined by the Long Tail which proves that there is consumption at the farthest ends of the un-explored markets which the SMEs generally don't take note of as they don't have the outreach mediums and the bigger businesses leave them as they might not be the best target audience for them.

Disruptive Innovation 
What is really required of the SMEs to be leaders in a particular niche, in which the larger players can always enter, is to play on their strengths and create disruptive innovations which actually help the customers solve business challenges. SMEs have the flexibility of experimenting with various business models and come up with newer offerings quickly while being close to their customers. This is one advantage they can always leverage which can enable them to be swift in action and hence be faster than established companies to move up the value chain.

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to enable SMEs with tools, tips and techniques to help them reach up the value chain and hence achieve the next level of growth. For more information on how you can create new opportunities for your business, drop in a comment to this post and we will get in touch with you!

Create a Smart URL for Your Campaigns: Mobivite

Convergence. This is one of the most spoken of words in times today when we discuss Internet and Mobile. There are many companies which are leveraging the internet and the mobile very effectively and are taking their businesses to the next level of growth. In the knowledge economy that we live in, where information and quick access to relevant information drives businesses, as customers take decisions based upon the information provided to them.

If your business is still struggling to be online OR leverage the mobile for achieving its strategic objectives, then it sure is a time to act fast, as your competitors might be leveraging these low cost, high penetration technologies to reach out to prospective customers and engage them into highly effective and meaningful conversations, which turn into actual business.

Get the Smart URL working for your business!
So you have a website for your business which is what you share with everyone you connect with, to get more information about your business. To enable such audience to engage with information on mobile, you have to create a mobile based website. Now obviously creating this website requires a whole skill set, which you as a start-up/ business owner might not have and could not afford.

Let Mobivite work for you!
A low cost online solution, Mobivite, which enables your business to create mobile based websites and generate a Smart URL, which essentially is a common URL which once typed from a particular device automatically takes your audience to the intended site/ landing page. This ensures that your users are always reaching to the intended information online.

How to create a Smart URL?

The above screen capture shows how you can use per created templates to create a mobile page for your business along with a Smart URL. Once you login to the website, you are re-directed to the following screen:

Once you choose the project goal, you are re-directed to the following screen, as shown in the screen capture below:

Using the various tools, you can quickly build a custom mobile website to promote your event, with payment modules and give it a smart URL.

Once you are done editing the home page and other functionalities of the site, you can simply publish the same, by clicking the publish button on the bottom end.

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to create new opportunities or SMEs to grow. To know more about how you can leverage the internet and new media technologies, drop in a comment to this post and our team of experts will be happy to help!

Software for Start-ups: Increasing Your Chances of Success

What has technology to do with business success, well quite a lot! Technology around is changing the way business is conducted today. We are seeing changes in almost every sphere of business. From communications to sales. From operations to supply chain. Many start-ups look for various pieces of low cost/ free business software to manage their businesses, but at a start-up stage, when you are just planning your business, what you really need is software to help you manage your plans, to structure your business better. You don't necessarily need an office/ accounting software at this stage.

Lets help you structure your business!

Starting a business is a whole management process in its own self. Getting a whole part while initiating a business right is absolutely crucial. An entrepreneur does not only have to just get up and start executing, there is much management and planning which goes into creating a powerful business.

The business planning software by winweb helps you do just that. The screen capture above shows how you can use the winweb software to structure your initial ideas and hence come up with a clear business model. 

What does the software help you do?

• business goals planning
• intuitive graphs for easier analysis
• business analytics
• SWOT analysis
• cash-flow planning

And not just this, the winweb business planning software helps you structure many other things for your business like your Go To Market strategy. What decisions you need to make and what are the criticalitie(s) involved. Example, in your marketing the software helps you understand what areas to explore as shown in the screen capture below:

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to create new opportunities or SMEs to grow. To know more about how you can leverage the internet and new media technologies, drop in a comment to this post and our team of experts will be happy to help!

Prayas Enterprises Thrives with its Online Marketing Edge

Prayas Enterprises is one of those family-owned companies that are a group company in the truest sense. It was founded by Mr. Dinesh Shah as a family owned business. Mrs Ami Shah, General Manager, Marketing, Prayas Enterprises rightly positions him as the patriarch of the Shah family as well as the group. His vision has enabled Prayas Enterprises to register growth in tandem with development of India. A modest start was made in 1996, with the setting up of a bulk medical company. Following this, Mr. Shah wisely decided to diversify and enter the world of packaging with rigid packaging materials, convinced of its limitless potential in our country. The real turning point then came in the form of flexible packaging materials manufacturing. A turnover of Rs. 20 lakh in 1999 earned by a team of eight, has now evolved to Rs. 12 crore earned by a group of five sister companies. Prayas Enterprises is the parent company with a staff -strength of 80.

Barely smooth sailing
The hardest aspect of operating a family business is keeping aside personal issues and confronting more pressing challenges. These include financial problems, space constraints despite the drive to expand as well as increasing local and international competition. Mrs. Shah opines, “The best way to compete is to face competition head on. We decided to go back to square one, figure out where we are making loses and are unable to compete, and get rid of hick-ups. This brought us to backward integration. We started manufacturing our own inks and cylinders.” Additionally, by hiring key people in the chain, the company was able to boost production. The next challenge was to increase sales.

http://www.indiamart.com/corporate/success-stories/prayas-interprises.html


Identifying the missing link—an effective marketing tool
During a brainstorming session, the company hit upon the idea that internet is a vital tool enabling presence in domestic and international markets. And, thus ther stint with the online medium began.

Essential Linkedin Apps to Boost Your Sales Team

Linkedin as we know is one of the world's most engaged and powerful online social networks for professionals. While we have covered Linkedin and much about it in previous blog posts on this blog, this blog will give you the 2 essential Linkedin apps which could give a major push to your sales team. Social Media is being leveraged by Small and Medium enterprises world over to engage target audience and especially generate ROI in terms of sales and marketing (reaching out to the TG and engaging the audience in the business's conversation)

Since the introduction of the social tools as Linkedin, the whole process of how buyers engage and the process of buying has evolved. Now consumers are better aware of the various offerings in the market and are empowered and enabled by social networks with enough information to take informed decisions.

Application 1: Wordpress
While Wordpress is one of the world's largest content management system's which has enabled blogs globally, it takes a whole new shape when it bundles up with Linkedin.

The above screen capture shows how your blog looks when it is integrated with your Linkedin profile. The application automatically pulls in feeds from your blog and updates it on your Linkedin profile. This ensures that whenever someone lands upto your Linkedin profile, they just might get interested in what you present about your business. Some piece of information which might pull them towards engaging with you more personally. Obviously you have to create compelling content on your blog to grab not just the eyeballs but meaningful attention.

Application II: SlideShare

The SlideShare application once integrated on Linkedin automatically pulls in feeds from your SlideShare account and displays the various. presentations which are a part of it. What it actually helps you do is, when someone lands onto your Linkedin profile they might come across a product presentation/ value add presentation which might explain to them as to how can they engage with your business. This will help you reduce your sales cycle time and hence cost.

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to create new opportunities or SMEs to grow. To know more about how you can leverage the news, internet and new media technologies, drop in a comment to this post and our team of experts will be happy to help!

Now Get The Same Look as MS Outlook On Your Google Mail

Well, this one was coming and so it has. Many Small and Medium companies use the Google hosted Email solution to power their Emails. Quite sometime back it was free and even now is available at a fairly priced solution. You don't have to manage servers etc. it gets integrated in a jiffy and makes life far easier for you with all its new updated through Google Labs.

Now Google lets you see a preview of your email just as you would see in your Outlook!

The above screen capture shows you how you can now preview emails in the right pane, by clicking on the email messages on the left pane.

How do I activate this feature?
To activate this feature, all you need to do is, to log-in to your Google Mail account and reach out to the following Google Labs URL: https://mail.google.com/mail/#settings/labs one there, you need to find the feature which allows you to "Preview Mail" and "Enable" it. Once you enable it, it will automatically show the following screen as shown in the above screen capture.

Does everything else remains the same for me?
Yes infact you get far more. Now you can simply look at a conversation in your Email and if the other person is also available on Gmail, you can quickly click the "Start Group Chat" and chat with the person online at the very same moment and hence quickly fulfill your objectives, by completing the conversation.

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to create new opportunities or SMEs to grow. To know more about how you can leverage the news, internet and new media technologies, drop in a comment to this post and our team of experts will be happy to help!

Incorporate Your Company Within 24 Hours in India

Its always been a singular voice that doing business in India is tough and that the officials at the top in the Government are not really doing much to revive the old traditional ways and methodologies of helping the cause of entrepreneurship. For a Small and Medium Enterprise going through the various steps involved in getting a company registered in India to getting the PAN card and the rest has been a process which involves much time and effort. The entrepreneur instead of investing his/ her time develop the idea is engrossed into getting the legal structures right, such that no problems occur in the future.

Now get your company registered in 24 hours!

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs, India, has outlined steps which will now allow entrepreneurs to float a company within 24 hours and that too online. The ministry has outlined various measures including online verification & clearance of the name of the company to be incorporated.

By when will the scheme be activated?

The ministry will announce an update by 11th August 2011, which will allow businessmen and entrepreneurs to complete the formalities attached with starting a company online and get the company rolling within 24 hours. This will be a good step which will ensure the rise of entrepreneurship in India and will also ensure a more transparent process to be implemented within the system.

ET reported of this update on 28th July 2011.

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to create new opportunities or SMEs to grow. To know more about how you can leverage the news, internet and new media technologies, drop in a comment to this post and our team of experts will be happy to help!