1) Marketing

2) Purchase and Sales

3) Logistics and Information Systems

4) Documentation and Data Management

5) Business Communication

6) Accounting

7) Human Resource Management

This image shows the importance of these processes being driven by internet with the level of ease in implementing these technologies into SMEs. It also indicates range of improvement which can be achieved.

The Internet with wide range of free and cost effective services, has immense potential for significantly improving the efficiency and productivity of SMEs and this entirely depends on the availability and quality of service of internet and its costs. Also on the affordability of computing devices. As these barriers get cleared, the internet penetration increases in a large way and there by increasing productivity of SMEs which helps them compete with the global market.

image source: ‘FREE FOR SMEs’ Free and Low Cost ICT Solutions for SMEs by IAMAI

On 23rd of September, nearly 80 developers, students, company reps and enthusiasts walked into Hotel Golkonda for the first ever Facebook Developer Garage to be held in Hyderabad, the home of Facebook in India. Organized by iridium the event is being hosted for the first time in Hyderabad after succesfully being conducted in a number of cities all over the world. The entire objective of the Garage was to showcase the facebook open graph api from a development perspective so that people can build custom applications and tools and leverage the humongous reach of facebook to reap benefits through the internet.

Siddharth from iridiumInteractive

The event was kickstarted by Siddharth of iridium who introduced the event and described his experiences with using the social internet we access everyday and how the whole concept of facebook makes the world a much more connected place. The key speakers at the event were David Recordon and Jonathan Gray who spoke about the facebook open graph, social plugins and the open source platforms facebook uses.

David’s talk was centered on how the open graph api had evolved and how it made the whole aspect of developing applications for facebook a much easier experience. He described how every object in the social graph has a unique id which allows a developer to easily fetch data associated with that object. It was quite exciting to know the evolution of all these fantastic tools which start-as David simply put it- as hacks. So if you can picture a bunch of developers sitting for 12 hours straight at their laptops and competing with each other to solve a problem or come up with something new which then they all develop into an idea like the graph api, you’d understand this better.

David from facebook

Jonathan spoke about the open source platforms used and contributed to by facebook. Facebook was developed based on open source softwares and offers developers the chance to use the platform with their knowledge of these same open source technologies. Calling himself someone who really believed in open source technology he injected a lot of energy in the audience sharing his experience of developing using the platform.

The break was followed by the application presentation segments. Hasan Khan, a budding entrepreneur from Hyderabad showcased an application he and his associates had developed based on the FIFA world cup. Their application which allowed users to track their team’s progress,  taunt opponents, and ‘dislike’ [yep, the feature we've all been asking facebook for] something if they didn’t like it showed the zeal with which Hyderabadi developers who are aware of this platform are adopting it. He described his experience with working on the platform and the avriious routes he adopted for monetization.  He spoke about several challenges he faced, one of which was the cost of hosting facebook applications which pretty much nullified the profits any small application made. This led to a lively debate about how much more facebook needed to do to help the development community.

Next up was Mohak Gupta, a student from IIIT who showcased his idea for an application that would help users follow updates on a priority basis and news items from different sources. Still under development, he was building this platform as part of his Masters course project. His work was much appreciated and several pats on the back told him he was going in the right direction.

Ending with an open house discussion the gathering of people showed enormous enthusiasm in finding our more about the graph api and how they could use it better. They questioned the facebook team on a variety of topics and privacy-the bane of facebook for the past few months-was given just a nominal mention. One can almost imagine Mark Zuckerberg smiling and thinking it was a very good idea to base the facebook office in Hyderabad!

The event was managed by iridium Interactive and we are looking to create an online+offline community of facebook developers who meetup, learn and grow their business through this exciting new platform!

If you are an application developer [mobile, social or web] do follow our blog to know of how we can partner to build great applications with mass appeal. Drop a line on our facebook or twitter profiles and lets talk.

NASSCOM is a global trade body with over 1200 members, of which over 250 are global companies from the US, UK, EU, Japan and China. The departments of NASSCOM are spread across various locations and have over 100 members. NASSCOM maintains hundreds of documents – HR, Research, Consulting, White Papers, Case Studies and more – in various formats and file sizes.
For NASSCOM all this repository is a wealth of information. They required an IT solution that could take advantage of internet based technologies so that employees of various teams work efficiently and serves their responsibilities/services in a better way. They needed a more efficient way of managing, updating & distributing important documents.
They also needed to improve interactions among the employees and administration, create a sense of community among the team and have a common platform to share team views and get updated on the events/happenings in NASSCOM.

Working with iridium Interactive, NASSCOM deployed the Intranet solution using Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 as development platform that provides relevant information to users engaged in various research, events, forums, initiatives, HR and GTD activities.
Intranet solution gives users at the NASSCOM centralized access to their documents & reports. The intranet solution leverages the power of MOSS 2007 in creating collaborative workspaces, efficient maintenance of document library and reliable enterprise wide search and connecting the users through portals.
For the HR, the solution facilitates smooth functioning by making available the organization chart, induction related information, policies, various HR forms etc in a single location. Additional innovative features such as Employee face book, Employee of the Month, Editor of the month have been received very well by the employees and the administration.
The GYAANX document library section facilitates employees to view the documents categorized under subscriptions, articles, white papers, presentations and pictures.
My Workspace is a personalized section for every employee of the NASSCOM and provides the following facilities for publishing his/her personal profile and activity chart. Other facilities for employees include board room/dial-in bridge booking, quizzes and polls, leave applications, public forums to name a few .
The project has been a great experience for iridium Interactive !!!!

The Moolchand Hospital in Delhi has a 50-year tradition of providing excellent healthcare. At its Medcity campus, Moolchand offers more than 40 super-specialty round-the-clock services like Emergency, Ambulance, Radiology, Pathology, Blood bank, Pharmacy and Healthcare education.

Objective Moolchand has a number of departments with a large user base of around 300 members. The hospital administration’s main objective was to reduce the prevalent internal communication barriers, and thus enhance employee retention strategies. This meant chronicling events and happenings in an informative manner, managing intellectual property by documenting it appropriately, and enabling online conversations among employees and administration. An underlying objective was to reduce operational costs and build a system that would help lower future costs.Sensing a need to empower their employees, the Moolchand management approached iridium Interactive (ii) to build an integrated platform to meet their objectives. And for us at ii, it was an opportunity to apply, and build on, our expertise in multiple arenas – the healthcare domain, where we have time and again proven our competence, and Enterprise 2.0, one of our core practice areas.

Solution The ii creative and technical teams put their heads together to craft ‘Veda’ – an intranet solution that is a blend of visual appeal and technology, powered by Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Veda offers a range of innovative and well-thought out services, including document management, enterprise search, e-greetings, discussion forums, suggestion boxes, event announcement sections and an employee directory. ii also created a “Knowledge Bank” to empower employees through information, and a “Moolchand Management System” which enables them to view/upload/download documents categorized under various departments. Another highlight (much appreciated by employees!) is the “Complaint Management Database” which allows employees to register a complaint and subsequently track its status. A discussion forum for physicians’ discussions and individual workspaces for each employee – these too play their role in encouraging intra-organization communication and knowledge sharing.

Results Today, Veda has opened up many conversation forums -be it amongst employees or between employees and the administration, thus breaking down internal communication barriers. Veda has assured continuous access to documents and has eliminated the manual management and distribution of documents. Veda has also made it easier to find members within a particular department. In a larger context, it has created a sense of community for dispersed users. Above all, from the organization perspective, it has succeeded in increasing employee retention by providing a single platform collaborative space, and encouraging teamwork.

About ii
iridium Interactive Limited (ii) specializes in providing online business solutions. With a presence across three continents, it has been at the forefront in integrating strategy, design and technology to build unique and robust user-centric e-business solutions. At ii, a holistic approach is adopted towards complex business problems to arrive at a complete solution. ii’s talented team has worked on a variety of disciplines for a multitude of clients drawn from various industries, and has a number of award-winning works to its credit. ii offers it services in the areas of interactive marketing, web marketing, e-learning, enterprise consulting and web accessibility initiatives.