Now Send Faxes With Your Computer for Free Globally

For Small and Medium Enterprises signing contracts is an essential for running a successful business. The laws of states in different parts of the world call for properly drafted and signed contracts in black and white. Many a times when it is urgent to form up contracts and start work its essential for both the vendor and the client to exchange the signed documents asap. A fax in this case is always the preferred option.

The issue with faxes:
Faxes have been existing for long, but the cost of sending a fax, especially International faxes is heavy for Startups and SMEs. Moreso when it comes to sending multiple pages of text in the form of any document which needs to be exchanged between parties. For SMEs its important to scale up while creating optimized working business conditions which are scalable in nature for the future.

Send faxes online almost for free:

faxzero is an interesting online service which allows you to send faxes online for free. For sending a fax in the US or Canada, the service is free, while there a charge for doing the same in any other part of the world. 

The service remains free for users (with certain limitations for the number of free faxes one can send online), supported by advertising. There is a certain advertising printed by the free fax service on the front page of your document, which you can remove by making a payment of $1.99 through PayPal to the online fax sending service.

How do I send the fax?

All you need to do to send a free fax online through this service is fill up the above form (which is also the home page of the website). You must also attach your fax as a file in the allowed formats of .doc, .docx and .pdf. Once done, enter your details and the details of the receiver with their fax number and your job is done.

The receiver will receive the document on his/ her fax machine.

Advantages for SMEs:

For SMEs the service can go a long way in reducing down cost and time for communication.

There are many more exciting free and paid applications online which can help your emerging business grow and scale up. Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services aims to help SMEs grow and we will keep creating more such knowledge pools for the emerging businesses. 

If you want to get in touch with us, drop in a comment to this post and our team of experts will contact you!

Who Says You Need a Phone to Make a Call? Let Google do it for You!

Almost everyone around today has a Google Email account. Creating an account on Gmail does not really calls for much. Its takes up a couple of seconds and you are done. But that's not all. For Small and Medium Enterprises Google mail provides many fantastic functionalities which if leveraged the right way can go a long way in helping SMEs effectively leverage online technology to better run and manage their business.

What's unique in Google Mail?
Your email speaks with your clients literally. Yes, now you can not only send/ receive Emails using Gmail, but also talk to your customers globally for free (if they also have a Google Mail account). While logged into your Google email account, now you can use the chat facility in Google mail to do voice chat with anyone across the world.

But this was available before as well, what's new?
Yes, Google chat has been there since long. What's new is that now you can call anyone across the world on their phones, using Google Voice.

How can I access Google Voice?

Its as easy as the word 'easy'. All you need is to click here. Once you reach on the landing page of Google voice (as shown above in the screen capture), click on Try it Now button and it will automatically redirect you to your Google Email account. Once done, look at the left most end of the screen, where the chat module is available.

Now you can click on the name of any person who is online and you want to initiate a chat with. Once done, it will open a small chat frame on the bottom right of your Google mail screen (as shown in the screen capture above).

Google voice is the talk option in this chat frame. Its the middle button (marked with the red arrow) in the screen capture above. Upon clicking this button, Google gives you the following options. If the other user is already with a Google account (which is why he/ she is able to log into the chat frame), you can directly start talking to that person online.

Though if you wish to call someone on a phone, you will need to buy Talk credits from Google, which are far cheaper than the usual landline telephone/ mobile being used to make International calls.

What benefits are there for SMEs?

Google chat in voice allows SMEs to talk to their customers globally while being free (or in cases almost free) while reducing down the cost of International calls etc. The basis of the application is similar to what Skype does for you. The advantage being ease of access and use while being on your Email itself and not being made to install another tool and learn it.

Such intelligent online tools are helping SMEs define a new growth path while managing their emerging businesses with ease. To know more how you can leverage the power of online technology and techniques for your emerging business, drop in a comment to this post and our team of experts will be happy to 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.

While Sharing URL's With Your Customers, Keep Them Short and Sweet: Bit.ly

These are without a doubt good times for internet and especially for companies which are engaged in online start-ups OR SMEs which are enhancing their operations, while including internet in their operational value chain.

Communicating with customers online!
Since the very beginning the only way to send URL's to drive customers to click on them and reach to a particular website/ web page online is by copying the complete URL of the site and sending it across.

The Issue
These URL's could be very long at times. Example: if you have a blog post to share, many a times it is a long string of text which looks a little ugly while you are sending it across to your customers/ target audience.

The Traffic Statistics: follow-up
Another major issue with this approach is the follow-up that you need to do, of the fact that how many customers actually clicked your URL and for how much time did they land on your intended page etc. Such statistics actually go a long way in helping you understand the success of your message/ campaign. Generally such details can be accessed through tools like Google Analytics.

When keeping it short: tweets
Another major trend online is to convey your message in as short words as possible. Example, the hugely popular 140 character messaging system twitter. If your URL's are longer than your message, this mode/ medium of communication might never be leveraged by your business.

URL Shorteners: what are these?
This Wikipedia article, precisely captures what URL shorteners are: "URL shortening is a technique on the World Wide Web in which a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) may be made substantially shorter in length and still direct to the required page. This is achieved by using an HTTP Redirect on a domain name that is short, which links to the web page that has a long URL. For example, the URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_shortening can be shortened to http://bit.ly/urlwiki. This is especially convenient for messaging technologies such as Twitter, which severely limit the number of characters that may be used in a message. Short URLs allow otherwise long web addresses to be referred to in a tweet. In November 2009, the shortened links on one URL shortening service were accessed 2.1 billion times."

Suggestive tool: Bit.ly
One of the early entrants into this domain has been Bit.ly. One of the easiest and interesting online tools to help with URL shortening.

One of the easiest tools to use. All you need to do is, submit your long URL to any piece of content online and click on Shorten and Bit.ly will provide you with a URL which is far smaller as compared to your original URL and will actually re-direct to your original URL.

Eg: the URL: http://indiamartknowledge.blogspot.com/2011/04/create-magazine-out-of-your-business.html

Upon shortening has been converted into: http://bit.ly/fC5yiy

But is it all about this? Not really, when you sign in to this tool, you will actually be able to do much more with the internal dashboard:

One of the crucial most features in Bit.ly is statistics. It provides you a fairly detailed view of the traffic which your URL's are garnering. 

You can also use Bit.ly as a default URL shortener with various online tools you use as twitter, facebook etc. Though there are many other such services available online and many social networks have their own versions of such shorteners which can be used.

Team IndiaMART is committed to create an ecosystem to help the SMEs grow. To know more about how you can leverage the internet for your emerging enterprise, drop in a comment to this post and our team of experts will get back to you!

Create a Magazine Out of Your Business facebook Fan Page

Innovation is the name of the game and internet is one area which has been witnessing innovation off the hook lately. We have seen some fantastic start-ups and business ideas take shape with the basis as the internet. One of the interesting developments which has happened in this domain lately are the applications. Especially business applications for Small and Medium Enterprises. These applications have changed the way SMEs conduct business and have given a whole new approach to how businesses leverage low cost mediums and resources to achieve many business objectives.

The Idea: Convert your business facebook fan page into a magazine!
How about creating a magazine from your businesses facebook fan page and further it to a whole new target audience which is not a part of your facebook fan page yet.

Are you Happy about it, but why?
Yes! That's the name. HappyWhy, an Indian start-up that helps you fetch data from your existing business facebook fan page and convert it into a magazine, which people can actually read.

The above screen capture shows the home page of HappyWhy.com.

But why convert your facebook fan page into a business magazine?

Quality content is one way of increasing engagement with the target audience of your business. But that's not all. How your target audience engages with your content also majorly depends upon how the information is collated and presented to them.

Magazines have been a major way in which information has been consumed by people as part of the offline media and hence presenting online information in the same way gives for an interesting way of consuming the same.

How does HappyWhy help my business?

HappyWhy does not helps your business, rather it impacts your marketing in a manner which enables you to reach out to a whole new set of target audience in a format that they have been consuming information in since long.

Is this tool one in all for everything related to facebook fan pages?

Not really. This tool is still emerging, but sure provides for an interesting user experience by the way of which users can engage with your content online in a manner which he/ she has been introduced to in the form of the offline media.

How do you Login to HappyWhy?

You directly connect with HappyWhy using your facebook login. The same will ask you for your permission to access your basic information on facebook in the form of a facebook application. Click on "allow" and you will have the application create an auto magazine of your profile information.

And not just this. You can actually browse through a whole collection of facebook fan pages which have been converted into the magazine form under various categories as shown in the screen capture below:

Content is the key today for any business and IndiaMART Knowledge Services aims to create a powerful ecosystem to help SMEs grow. To know more, drop in a comment to this post and our team of experts will get in touch with you!

Send, Receive and Track Files on Demand Globally

Business Communication is critical and requires all sorts of tools and technology to enable and empower the relevant people involved in the domain to engage the target audience into the business'es message.

The challenge with large size communication!
Before you jump to a new conclusion that there is something very new coming up called a large size communication. What we are trying to talk of is when you need to send/ receive large files which are exceeding a certain Mbs (which is a general) limit with every Email service. Many business users, especially the Small and Medium businesses feel this challenge of bandwidth when it comes to sharing large files which are to be sent across online, but their Email providers do not provide them to exceed the allowed limit.

How do we solve this challenge?
Communication in business is critical. For any business for that matter, whether large or small, timely communication is essential to successful operations in any business. For SMEs its all the more important to always keep the communication strong and leverage technology in a manner that the business never takes a hit due to lack in communication.

There are many online tools which help you set your business communication in order, one of the strongest proponents for sharing files is: You Send It.

You Send It, is a free online file sharing platform. Till a certain limit of a file size (100 Mb) for a single user, the platform is free. Though for sharing bigger file sizes, you need to choose from one of the existing pay as you use plans of the platform.

How does it work?

Working with You Send It is fairly simple. 

• STEP I: All you need to do is, to upload your files online through your browser by accessing You Send It, post logging into the platform. 
• STEP II: Your files are securely stored on the You Send it server and an email is sent to the recipient of your file to download the same from.
• STEP III: Your recipient clicks on the link in the Email and downloads the file

You can use the application from your desktop, online (through your browser), connect it with an existing desktop application like Microsoft Outlook OR take it mobile!

How does this help the SME's?

For the SME's services like You Send It are a great help as they allow sharing of large file sizes without a hitch. The process of information sharing becomes faster and more efficient, while the cost of communication and information dissemination for the business goes down.

To know more about such emerging online tools and how you can leverage the internet for your emerging enterprise, contact our team of experts at IndiaMART Knowledge Services, simply by dropping in a comment to this post!

Get Talking With Your Customers: Create an Online Newsletter Which Speaks

Increasing customers is always a good sign for any business. It shows growth and bright future for the business. For Small and Medium Enterprises which are growing up and every business is a growth push for them.

The challenge attached along with growth!

While growth can never be adverse on the business. One experience which almost every small and medium enterprise goes through is maintaining constant communication with customers (both internal: employees and external).

While the top management becomes busy with business strategy and handling growth and the execution team becomes engrossed with maintaining flawless execution for the existing customers and scaling up to provide a wow experience to the new customers on board, what takes a back seat generally is the personal touch being extended by smaller companies to their clients and employees.

How to go past this challenge and win, while creating inclusive growth with customers and employees?

For any emerging enterprise inclusive growth with its stakeholders in terms of employees and customers is extremely important and to maintain the same, the enterprise needs to keep both its internal and external customers engaged. Though there might be many ways of doing the same, like sending Emails, sending Newsletters to mass emailing lists while using a software to personalize each message with the recipients name. But nothing works better than a personal communication with either your voice OR yourself.

Source: http://podcasts.ctap10.org/uploads/Podcast_CTAP_small2b.png

Start a Monthly Podcast and keep your customers energized about your business!

Sound being one of the most crucial mechanism for the human body, what if you are able to communicate with your customers, speak to them infact and engage them in your conversation?

Podcasting is the way!

What is a Podcast?

The Wikipedia article on Podcasting defines the service as follows: "A podcast (or non-streamed webcast) is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication. The word replaced webcast in common vernacular due to the fame of the iPod and its role in the rising popularity and innovation of web feeds."

How do I now start my own podcast?

Creating a Podcast is as simple as recording your voice and hosting it online and deliver it to subscribers through either RSS feeds OR as downloadable files online. 

Since you are going to initiate this Podcast as a means to connect with your customers and engage them in your conversation, you know what you are going to talk about and in which context. Hence the script for your  Podcasts is all ready and hence you won't need to create external content.

Infrastructure you need:

• Recording instrument
• Microphone
• Audio Software to edit sound bytes (if need be)

In the most basic manner a simple Podcast can be created by recording your voice using your PC's/ Laptop's microphone, though for better sound quality and clarity of voice an external microphone will be of better use. If you are a PC user, all you need to do is, use a recording software like Windows Sound Recorder OR better use Audacity: download (which works well with both PC and Mac).

Once you are done with the recording, you might want to redo a certain section OR might want to edit the sound byte a little (may be enter a sound before your voice and after) as a call to action to make it more professional.

Once you are through with the recording, save your file as an MP3. Audacity as a program does not automatically save a file as an MP3 and hence you would need to convert it using an MP3 converter like LAME.

The next and one of the most crucial steps is to convert the podcast into an RSS file. You will need to do this only if you hosting the Podcast on your own and not using any other hosting service like iTunes. If you are using a Podcast hosting service like iTunes, you will not need to worry about converting into RSS feeds. Example of such a host could be Podbean.

How does it benefit my business?

Not only are you engaging your audience while creating a personal touch with them, you are also creating a growing culture of information creation and spreading information online.

To know more about how you can leverage the power of online tools and methods of knowledge creation like Podcasting, drop in a comment to this post OR touch base with our team of experts at IndiaMART Knowledge Services.