Spreading A Wider Net

Cyberspace has come of age. A phenomenon called Web 2.0 enables enhanced
interactions between people from all walks of life using Internet as a platform.

To be more specific, Web 2.0 is an improved version of the World Wide Web,
which had earlier permitted people to access almost infinite information about
any subject.

There are social networking site like Ryze, LinkedIn, Orkut, Facebook,
MySpace, etc, which has helped bring a lot of people closer to each other and
create a symbiotic environment. It has also put entrepreneurs in touch with
prospective customers as well as peers helping them to grow their business.

Creating a community

What is interesting is that the Web 2.0 worldwide is being leveraged by
partners to get more business or gain more technological insights. Thankfully,
its reverberations can be felt in India as well. Suresh Ramani of Mumbai-based
Tech Gyan is a perfect illustration for a person effectively using the Web 2.0
as a platform for business.

Fascinated by the concept of blogs, this Microsoft partner started one in the
www.live.com in the name of Ramanisk.spaces.live.com and started writing various
aspects on technology and his own experiences in installing projects. The whole
idea behind this blog was to create a community of partners who are targeting
the SMB segment.

Web 2.0 worldwide is being leveraged by partners to get more business or gain more technological insights

Though, the intention of this blog was not to make business, it turned the
other way.

His other intention was to promote the concept of getting partners to charge
for the service they offered. Often partners would complain that their customers
would not pay for the services they provided. But Ramani begged to differ. He
himself charged for the services rendered, and showed the customers the
additional value he brought to the whole deal because of the paid service.

“I too have customers who are not happy to pay for services, because other
partners offer them for free. But I got them to understand that if they paid
peanuts, then they would only get monkeys. Today those customers who have paid
me to manage their entire infrastructure know that I take the complete
responsibility for their set-up and therefore can rest easy about it,” he said.

So he realized that the best way to get the message across was by starting a
blog of his own. “After I started sharing information in my blog on various
technical topics, slowly the hits started increasing and now I am getting 80-90
hits per month,” claimed Ramani.

He has few instances, which turned informative for the partners through the
blog. Microsoft regularly presents a worldwide award for the best performing
partners. Most of the partners aren't aware of this information or else most of
the players in India would have got this award as Tech Gyan received.

When Microsoft wanted to get the feedback from other partners, who were
dealing with Windows Vista, Ramani was able to get that for them, courtesy his
blog. “These are the few instances. However, I keep on passing my
communications, which I find interesting and informative,” said Ramani.

PN Prasad of Microplus Computers uses Yahoo groups as a medium to communicate
and is maintaining two communities apart from the local Tamil Nadu association
Confed-ITA. His communities include Pondicherry Computer Club and Embedded
Systems, where students are the core beneficiaries.

“My community consist of almost 400 students and I feel that online groups
are the best way to interact with them as everyone can share their views online
immediately. No other method of communication could have made this possible,”
claimed Prasad.

Effective communication medium

Apart from partners, there are few instances in the vendor community too,
who are using the Web 2.0 effectively for communication. HP, for one, uses its
partner portal for interacting with its vast channel network. “Our portal for
authorized partners, which serves as a complete information center, is helping
them get updated on both product and developments happening in HP. Our portal
gets refreshed everyday in our partner advisory board like a news website,”
informed Sameer Mathur, Head-Solution Partners Organization, Personal Systems
Group, HP India.

There are additional features too in this portal, which allows the partner to
measure his performance. “There is an option called Speedometer, through which
the partner can measure his performance. Facilitating the interaction with the
partners, suggestions and feedback options have been made available in the
portal,” claimed Mathur.

Going a step further, Citrix Systems uses a blog to share all the information
along with its partner and it is most interactive as the partners can add their
comments to the posts made by the company. “There are more than 7,000 partners
on this blog, which is effectively used for informing and communicating with the
partners community. They can post their issues too on this blog, which could be
attended immediately and the partner would be helped,” informed Souma Das, Area
VP- India Sub-Continent, Citrix Systems, India.

Business and revenue

Even though creating a community for the purpose of sharing knowledge is
important, business and revenue is also equally important. The question is how
does the channel effectively use the new trend of communication for the purpose
of generating revenue.

Ramani of Tech Gyan plans to install a couple of projects joining hands with
two other partners whom he met through his blog.

Prasad of Microplus Computers, whose primary focus is on providing projects
for the final year graduates too sees a lot of opportunity in the business space
using this community as he is interacting with the students through the groups.
He also proposes to create a center of excellence through this group by joining
more students into his community.

Mixed bag of opportunities

Considered to be a hot medium, the present avatar of Web 2.0 is more on a
social level. However, looking at how it has helped in bringing like-minded
people together, it means there are ample latent opportunities, if this is used
effectively.

Plenty of silent things like manpower resourcing are happening through these
social networking sites and that is why particulars like area of interests,
industry, and occupation are thrown at the users, while signing up for the
networking sites. “The awareness in using Web 2.0 is slowly increasing among the
people. Such way of doing things would add more value to the business as one
could learn and also earn more while interacting with the more number of
people,” said Ramani.

“Lots of consolidations would happen and such interactive forums would
generate new set of business ideas, which in turn would improve standards of
people,” claimed Das. Though Web 2.0 is not a revolution, it could be an
evolution for those who would give a try to it.

NR SETHURAMAN

sethuramannr@cybermedia.co.in