Use Of Technology For Traditional Businesses

In last two decades, the scenario in India has changed completely - businesswise. Technology has taken the centrestage and many a businesses have been based just out of technology. IT became prominent by providing services and products. Then there were bazzee.com earlier, which was bought by Ebay. There is Naukri.com which assembled all the vacancies available on the platform and also the resumes. Many market places mushroomed which basically filled the gap between the receiver and the giver. There were real estate sites, there were job sites, there were car sites, there were marriage sites, there are olx & quickr which list things for sale for Consumer to consumer. There are platforms for old vehicles, books, etc. This technology has created whole new businesses. Then came the biggest of them all - e-commerce. 

In all this technology play, traditional businesses (SMEs) are mostly run as usual. They have taken what comes to their strides. They make websites, list on some trade sites, etc. But more than that they seldom do more. The trade sites that are famous in India are tradeindia and indiamart. Globally, though the Alibaba is famous. If you list on these sites, you will be doing better than just keeping a website. This is because it is very expensive to do all the SEO work for your website. But, these sites, especially IndiaMart have SEO done on their site. Of course, they do have different packages for their customers and the most premium customer gets listed first. But still there are chances that your name may appear on the front page of Google Search if your products are unique. But you need to treat these sites as you are treating an Sales employee. You need to keep a tab on your salesperson. Similarly, there are many facilities that are available. Recently they have also introduced the Payment facility on the IndiaMart website. In case, people want to purchase on Indiamart, they can do so. You need to spend time on this webpage. You need to update your products, your product photos, need to give replies to your customer. They have also in built reminder for maintaining leads coming through their site. 

You need to 'exploit' - yes exploit is the right word. You have to exploit by taking advantage of the features that are on offer. You need to spend time. It would be good if you can give a couple of hour in a week or day depending on your type of business.