Saurabh Gupta | 25 Jan, 2010
B2B e-marketplaces like, Tradeindia.com, are the best places for Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) to market their products and services internationally, say experts at the 4th Indian Marketing Summit-2010, jointly organized by Milagrow and Birla Institute of Management and Technology.

"Indian micro and small entrepreneurs, who don't have access to Internet, can avail the benefits of information technology (IT) by joining B2B web portals, like tradeindia.com, that their products or services go internationally," Founder of Indiatimes, Mahendra Swarup told SME Times on the sidelines of the event.

Internet users in India are around 60 million, but that does not necessarily mean that those are the audience from the MSEs. "I think what micro and small industries should look forward to is that how they can get onto a B2B platform. Most of the MSMEs are not B2C (business-to-consumer) companies. They are non-branded companies actually directly selling their products to other companies or suppliers to large corporations. So they should look at how they can get into B2B portals like tradeindia.com. And this is cost-effective or the cheapest per audience," he said.

"The power of the Internet is not advertising or getting number of people. The power of Internet is to connect with the right customer. So for micro and small industries, what is extremely important is that they should identify a platform where they can get on to and connect with their customers," he added.

According to I-Cube (Internet in India) Study, as on September 2008, India has 45.3 million active Internet users. Urban users continue to dominate Internet use contributing to 42 million of the 45 million odd users. The study also found that the number of 'claimed' Internet users in September 2008 were 57 million compared with 48 million in September 2007, recording a less than 10 percent growth. Claimed users are those who have used the Internet sometime, but not in the last one month.

Another prominent speaker on the occassion, Gautam Ghosh, Consultant of 2020 Social Media, said, "Internet can act as a leverager for users who are already using the Internet. If a person is not on the Internet it really can't help much."

When asked how IT enabled tools can help MSEs, Ghosh told SME Times: "For them (MSEs) other things can be done. If somebody takes the initiative to give them a platform, a MSE can say: 'this is what I do' or 'this is the product' and so these kind of platforms (B2B) can help them to reach globally."

"I must say if a MSE has no idea about IT, it should take advantages of B2B websites like tradeindia.com, which has a social media presence too. So one can join a B2B website where one can get trade leads," Ghosh added.

While speaking on the topic 'Social Media: Unprecedented Opportunities for MSMEs', Swarup said, "You must have heard about the movie - 'Around the World on 80 Days' but today I say, Around the world in 47 minutes, the information technology is so fast that a SMS can go around the world and reach back to you in just 47 minutes. And Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) must understand that they can take the advantages of these IT enabled tools."

Meanwhile addressing the conference, Founder of Tradeindia.com, Bikky Khosla said, "I agree that we are the largest B2B. But what makes you unique is what you believe in it...see an opportunity and identify it and be positive that it would work."

"If we take today's topic 'Social Media: Unprecedented Opportunities for MSMEs,' I am the total believer in social media. Social media is growing in India and the biggest challenge is to educate people and to tell them how they can benefit from it (Social Media) and why they should use it," he said.

"It is being about bringing in change. So let's look at the power of social media; One twit by Shashi Tharoor and it makes it to the newspaper headlines and news channels' prime time -- that's the power of social networking sites. This is a case in point where traditional media are following a more powerful media - Social Media. So what is it? Traditional media too is following the social media. Then why not us," he added.