It was one of the days during the Telengana agitation, when we got invites for an interesting seminar at Taj Banjara,  Hyderabad. We timed ourselves to reach the avenue in time considering the traffic and everything else that could delay us,  but surprisingly we reached much before the estimated time, thanks to the nearly deserted roads and the cool breeze all along the way. On arriving, an amiable receptionist received us and directed us to the venue. Astonished to see the room full even on bandh, we found two vacant seats at the last row, it brought back my back bencher memories from school.

As the presentation started on, the “Economic Development through E-Governance& ICT as A Key Enabler of Export Competitiveness for SMEs”, a middle aged man has started addressing the gathering. It had an interesting start with the presentation of facts and figures before getting to the core topic. With some engaging statements he drew my complete attention,  “Small companies have every chance to work more creatively, to grow at a faster rate and to do multiple tasks”. He then posed some interesting questions to the audience, “How many of you have a website?” More than 90% hands were raised. Then he asked “How many of you are getting business through your website? Only 20% present of the audience raised their hands.  The presenter showcased websites that are selling from Doormats to Diamonds thorough their websites have turnovers running into crores, all of them being Indian companies. While talking about Information and Communication Technology’s (ICT) adoption in SMEs, he gave us an insight as to how most of the ICT applications were adopted for marketing (website, SEO, e brochures, SEM etc.). This was pleasing to hear, since I represented a company from the ICT sphere. Hearing this I could not help forecasting the potential for us by tapping these SME’s, is this possible with the support of the limited internet users? But what if the number of internet user double? Seemed like a very profitable venture. While commenting on the marketing and sales practices, he gave good insights which cleared my myths. The most interesting part of this presentation was the insights he gave on the general thoughts all of us have on selling a product or service, as most of us understand that, price and product play major roles in influencing our sales and marketing decision but it is another way round knowledge, information and responsiveness to customers play a key role in influencing decisions….

Finally all the presentations and talks ended at 9:30 and I found a long line for dinner, we grabbed our dinner and started conversations with the gathering.  As expected ICT was all everybody was talking about, largely most of them discussing how to implement ICT in their companies.  I joined in and shared my experience and introduced our business- iridium Interactive and our achievements as an organization.

Guys I feel that most of the SMEs are not leveraging ICT in their business. There are lot of SME who are not still aware of the benefits and applications of ICT. This presentation made me think about the huge potential of ICT in the domestic market.

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