IndiaMART CEO addresses the Columbo Plan participants at C-DAC on e-commece for SMEs in the global scenario

New Delhi, July 10, 2003: Mr Dinesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO of IndiaMART.com, was invited to address the participants on the fourth day of C-DAC’s Executive Programme on ‘E-commerce for SME development in the global scenario’ being held at Anusandhan Bhavan, NOIDA. This programme is being organized from 7-18 July 2003 at the instance of the Colombo Plan Secretariat and will be attended by participants from Sri Lanka and member countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Iran, Mangolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, etc.).

The eleven-day seminar has been organised to present topics crucial topics on how e-commerce and Internet can be strategically used for business expansion in the global markets. Nearly twenty executives from the Asia Pacific region are here to attend the seminar. The seminar focuses on concepts, tools, strategies, issues and trends for promoting exports through various tools on Internet including online marketplaces and e-commerce in particular reference to SME companies.

In his session on ‘Leveraging Electronic Marketplaces for Trade Expansion for SMEs’ Mr Agarwal highlighted the reason why global buyers were fast moving on to digital marketplaces for their sourcing needs and what advantages online marketplaces could offer to them. Pointing out IndiaMART.com’s exemplary success as the global gateway to Indian marketplace which was bringing in value for its 3000+ clients and over 1,50,000 Indian businesses engaged in exports & manufacturing domains, he suugested companies to participate actively in online marketplaces. This, he said, could be done by having presence on popular marketplaces by way of listing in relevant online directories, building online catalogs and participation in trade offers which are highly successful and cost effective ways of global business promotion. “In case of exports, buyer-seller discovery is of key importance as against in case of B2B where transaction /payment is of key value to the parties involved” Mr Agarwal pointed out.

C-DAC
Established in March 1988, as a Scientific Society of the Department of Information Technology (formerly, Dept. of Electronics), Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (formerly, Ministry of Information Technology), Government of India, The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), is primarily an R & D institution involved in the design, development and deployment of advanced Information Technology (IT) based solutions.

Over the years, C-DAC has diversified its activities to the areas of Information Technology, enabling IT based solutions, R & D projects and Training.
Website: http://www.cdacindia.com/

The Columbo Plan

The Colombo Plan for Co-operative Economic and Social Development in Asia and the Pacific, formerly (1951­77) Colombo Plan for Cooperative Economic Development in South and South-east Asia, arrangement for discussing economic development plans and facilitating technical and financial assistance for development projects in south and southeast Asia. It was established at Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), in 1950 as a result of discussions by the governments of India , Pakistan , Ceylon , Australia , New Zealand , Great Britain, the United States and Japan, and today has members from 26 countries.