Indian Startups Blog

IBS Software, a global provider of new-generation IT solutions to the Travel, Transportation and Logistics (TTL) industry will be setting up a new office in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Through the new facility, IBS seeks to establish an Ocean Transportation Line of Business, the latest addition to its six other lines of business. This is IBS’ second office in Europe, the first one being in London.

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Apple has revamped its all-in-one iMac line with the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors and the most powerful graphics ever available in an iMac. With prices starting at Rs.61,800, iMac includes faster processors with 6MB L2 cache and a faster 1066 MHz front-side bus across the entire line, and 2GB of memory standard in most models.

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It’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally here. Youtube.in is now live and this can only send jitters down the competition’s spine. But what’s the big deal about YouTube coming around as an India site? (more…)

With nearly 70 categories, Website entries make up the majority of Webby Awards Winners, Nominees and Honorees. Some are beautiful to look at and interact with. Others are a testament to usability and functionality. And a handful excel across the board. To be selected among the best is an incredible achievement worthy of praise – and perhaps a little bragging.

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Zapak.com is simply fun! Zapak has revolutionized gaming in a big way and in spite of being a young company has already done some groundbreaking work in achieving its mandate of taking gaming to the masses. Millions of users are today on Zapak. What is the anatomy of the success that is Zapak? Sonu Sangameswaran speaks to Rohit Sharma, the Business Head of Zapak to find out.

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IDS Logic Pvt. Ltd. has launched a brand new product called Ebnus Solutions for affiliate marketing. This product takes affiliate marketing a step ahead with automated deals being updated at the merchants’ end which has made it much simpler and faster for the affiliates.

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There was a time when the Internet experience in India was all about having ‘thick’ sites. It was considered a convenient and sustainable content paradigm to have one site and various channels within the site dedicated to special interests. This paradigm worked well for a while. (more…)

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Pinjra.com recently introduced a host of features that are all set to make property buying, selling, renting, and leasing a much-easier proposition. Now, the website also offers registration facility for the real estate professionals, real estate agents, builders, architects, interior designers, etc. These professionals can register and list their businesses for greater exposure and enhanced web presence. They can even advertise their properties free of cost.

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IAMAI’s Online Travel Conference held on May 2, 2008 in Mumbai saw some of the best names in the online travel industry come together for what was a dynamic debate surrounding all the issues that the industry is today faced with. The conference was conducted across four sessions; each with different panelists. The audience got an excellent mix of comments, philosophies, goals, histories, and most importantly, the panelists’ individual plans for the growth and expansion of their companies.

The first session was dedicated to discussing the future of online travel and consumer trends. The major questions tackled here were how Indian consumers dealt with their travel needs and where online travel figured in the equation. During this session panelists Deep Kalra (Founder & CEO – www.makemytrip.com), Sanjay Aggarwal (General Manager- Operations, IRCTC) Dhruv Shringi (Director & Co Founder, Yatra Online), Lalit Sheth (Chairman & Managing Director, Raj Travels) and Anupama Salvi (New Business Development, Avenues India Pvt. Ltd.) brought out some of the key factors necessary to retain the online customer. Each of the panelists pointed out that credit card fraud was a major complaint that hindered the Online Travel Agency (OTA) business. As a result, many customers were wary of making online payments. However, things are changing considering online ticket sales.

The second session tackled the importance of new marketing strategies and demand generation for creating consumer environments online. The fundamental questions were manifold such as ‘can travel companies embrace the social networking trend?’, ‘what are the various online demand generation methods?’, ‘what is the latest thinking on dynamic packaging?’, ‘what are the business and technology challenges?’ and ‘how can travel companies yet to embrace it get involved?

Other questions that panelists discussed were ‘how to educate consumers on beneficial deals and packages on booking online?’ and ‘how easy was it for the customer to plan travel online?’

The session started with moderator Ram Badrinathan (Senior Analyst, PhoCuswright Inc.) mentioning that booking online wasn’t really about low rate tickets as much as it was about value additions and that bundling of services and therefore better demand management without commoditizing the travel industry was a serious problem to be tackled by all.

For the next one and a half hours, Ram with panelists Mahesh Murthy (MD of Pinstorm Technologies), Emmanuel Philips (Consultant, Cox and Kings), Ashok Lalla (Director–Internet Marketing, Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces) and Gulshan Verma (Head of Sales Strategy, Yahoo! India) tried to answer all the questions posed and suggested inventive solutions.

The third panel discussion centered around travel technology and how it could be used to achieve business goals. To that effect, some of the questions that panelists Bruno Goveas (Head Marketing & Product Management- India, Akamai), Manu Agarwal (CEO, ANM Soft) Amarendra Kumar Jha (Sr. VP, i2i Telesource), Gaurav Chiripal (CEO – Quad Labs Technologies Pvt. Ltd) and Rahul Joshi (Head–Pre-Sales, Travelport GDS) answered were, ‘what are the latest trends and technologies that any self-respecting travel business should be prepared for?’ and ‘what are the key applications that will drive mobile travel in the future?’.

The panelists also helped the audience gain insights into how websites are changing and how an online presence could be turned up a notch or in terms of its functionality, performance, navigation and content. Also, an important question for this session was whether small and medium-sized operators could afford the best systems for themselves while reaping the payback.

The final session of the day had some heavyweights discussing the evolving travel distribution in India which could be considered a key force. Some of the questions that were tackled were how travel distribution had changed in India and how businesses could adopt a multi-channel approach. Other questions were, ‘what are the means to balance and integrate offline and online sales?’ and ‘how distribution methods could be customized for different markets?’ Session moderator, Amitabh Pandey (Head-eBusiness, Thomas Cook) provided many insights as did other panelists, Dinesh Agarwal (Founder & CEO, IndiaMart InterMesh), Himanshu Singh (Managing Director, Travelocity India) and Shaun Dubash (AVP-Hotels, TravelGuru.com).

IAMAI’s Online Travel Conference revolved around some interesting questions and threw up some even more interesting answers. Keep watching this space for some in depth insights gleaned during the conference. In the meanwhile, get ready for some great online travel experiences in India, because going by what was discussed and promised in the conference, for the Indian online travel industry there is simply no looking back!

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India is a young country. No, seriously, India is a very young country. After all, as Wikipedia tells us, the average age of Indians is 24.8 years. Even for the statistically challenged, this is fairly clear evidence that a large section of the population falls under what can be termed as ‘the earning age’. While this is good for the overall economy of the country, it also means that there are probably more candidates than there are jobs.

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