Bangalore, October 26, 2000

Times of India

indiamarkets.com, a comprehensive business-to-business (B2B) infomediary, is giving a value-add to its virtual marketplace for buyers and sellers from within the country and around the world. An aggregation of 28 vertical supplier communities representing over 140 diverse product categories, the site has 34,000 registered users. Rohan Ajila, CEO of indiamarkets.com, talks to Sofia Tippoo about how the digital marketplace is all set to buzz with more B2B activity.

Do you really think that B2B is picking up in India?

Ajila: During the last 4-5 months, we have had about 750 buyers on our site who came in and looked at multi requirements. We get at least 5 buyers in a day who come and post their monthly requirements and if a seller sees it, he starts quoting a price. People are using it and trying to understand the utility of this medium. For instance, we have about Rs 2,500 crore of auction inventory put in. That means manufacturers have come on to our site and posted their surplus inventory and used machinery in the last six months. That really tells you that they are moving on from just browsing to using this medium.

But the growth in India is incremental, not exponential, right, unlike the trillion dollar figure that is thrown up when you talk of B2B transactions?

Ajila: You see, the only problem from any technology is the expectation limits we have. As in any business, there has to be a gestation period here too, and regardless of customer or market expectation, it will stay. We don't think things, including procurement processes, will change overnight. It is a slow process. That is the business logic we are working on. And, You should keep in mind that lnternet penetration is also quite low in our country.

So is that the reason why you have set up 30-odd e-business centres all over the country?

Ajila: Sales, service and training facilities cannot be wished away. When we give certain business processes on the web, we would like to train suppliers to use it through our e-business initiative. For example, when we tell companies about e-procurement, give the software which helps them procure better in a more transparent, efficient and cost effective manner, we also help them in implementing this properly. Every element of technology requires training and it has to travel all the way up in the value chain. Otherwise it will not be successful.

And all the e-business centres are in industrial areas?

Ajila: Yeah, most of thern are in industrial areas because we wanted to industrially network the county - that is how the entire idea of an e-business centre came up. That is the meeting ground for purchase and project managers of small and medium enterprises.

What about your revenue model - is it undergoing any change?

Ajila: Our core revenue model is transaction-based revenue. That is why we are bringing documentation into the picture so that the entire transaction can be done on our site. Earlier, we had said here is a buyer and here is a seller and bring them together, but now we are slowly providing them complete documentation. In the sense, if you find a buyer or a supplier, you don't have to get out of the system and them send them a fax or a purchase order. You can start doing all that efficiently on the web-through the e-procurement package that we launched a couple of weeks back.

We are also looking at subscription and enhanced listings. Today, everything is free but sometime later we are going to do this at a price.

Are you planning to tie-up with any worldwide market leaders, say Ariba or Commerce One, who are entering India?

Ajila: We are in talks with a lot of them and we are looking at strategic partners and technology partners and we will align with the best in the industry.

We are primarily going to be an intra-India trading community ensure that we have the penetration in this market.  Once you are the single source for any product from India, you will by default get a lot of importers coming to our site and looking for suppliers.