INTERNET SOLUTIONS

www.chennaibest.com speaks to T. S. Ramakrishnan, Chief Operating Officer, 3rd Agenda - one of the largest Internet solutions companies in India and part of the SSI group.

Avignya Technologies, DBS internet services, Satyam and Seranova.

We can talk about growth rates only in terms of 'how many people will be on the web, how many people are using it, how much business will be transacted in the B2B environment'. Not really in terms of web services. It cuts across various applications. But the future is huge. The need is being felt from a business perspective. More and more people are looking at technology solutions, as it is becoming inevitable. But we can't put a figure to the market.

Pretty upto date. We have a lot of Chennai-based organisations which are coming up with requirements on the web. Traditional companies like the Murugappa group and TVS group have implemented applications like SAP(Systems, Application and Products in Data Processing) and BAAN. We have a lot of dot coms coming up from Chennai, like Paisa Power, Sita Gita, Classontheweb etc. There is a lot of focus on the internet as an enabling environment. Even when you look at the Microsoft launch of the dot net platform, it started with Chennai, on the 8th of November. Definitely Chennai is being looked at as a serious market.

Definitely, there are limitations on design and development. We are concerned about the download time. We want to keep the pages light, so that the user experience doesn't become something he or she may not enjoy. To that extent we may need to compromise on the images or animation that we may put in. With the use of macromedia flash, which is pretty light, this problem is being overcome. We have other technological work-around solutions to handle this.

Quite a few people have come up with requirements on that front. And we have worked with some customers on that front. I expect this trend to increase as time goes on and hopefully we have things in place by 2001.

On the technological front, we can go on and on. (In saying, which would be the appropriate technology solution, how much scalability it provides, how well an application has been tuned etc). From a user experience perspective, obviously look and feel is absolutely critical, in terms of 'how the information flows from the portal, how easy it is, how user friendly it is, how easy is it to navigate', in terms of addressing the requirements that the user may have. If it is a commerce-enabled site, if there is a shopping experience, 'how easy and smooth is the transaction'. The design dimension is qualitative. What you may like, I may not like. But aesthetics is important. Its like appreciating a work of art. If it is a content-driven site, 'what is the breadth and depth of content you are looking at'. These are some generic indicators. The other thing is the business need. Whether it is a shopping transaction or a content-driven site or a corporate site, end of the day, you have to look at, whether the site addresses its objectives.

Professionals from the ad industry have moved into internet space. So the strengths are quiet good. Chennai is really among the top two cities. The web itself is new. Understanding of what it takes to build a website is also new, unlike traditional product development, where there are clear-cut methodologies. The process, methodologies and quality standards are still evolving. So in that sense, there are some uncertainties, a lot of interation and back-and-forth is involved in the whole process. Sometimes the process seems long drawn, and its not clear cut, when you say - 'this is the point you close off'. Where the user experience is so subjective, its highly interative and you don't know when to draw the line and say - 'this is it'. In terms of connectivity and bandwidth Chennai is doing quiet fine and we have to improve with time.

Apprehension is quite high. But slowly the barriers are coming down, atleast among the educated, enlightened users, as people are becoming aware that, that kind of security can be provided on the web and also the awareness of these solutions being used internationally. Over a period of time, as more and more of these electronic payment systems get popular and get established the barriers will come down. This is just like the reluctance we used to have for using credit cards and other kinds of money management systems. This problem is not specific to Chennai, we have all along treated our financial issues in a confidential and private kind of fashion. So giving away your credit card number on the net causes a lot of apprehension.

It can. E-shopping in isolation, is not the problem. When you shop on the web, the completion of the whole process, fulfilling the order becomes critical, which has its bearing on the back-end processes in terms of logistics, systems etc. A lot of companies have created a shopping site and not done much about the fulfillment process. So the whole shopping experience is not really good. Thats number one. Number two - People like to feel, see, and browse around, which is not happening on the web. People are used to a particular mind set and we are transiting to a new way of doing things. Typically, its resistance to anything new. Its all a part of a change management process.

Page views and all other standard views, log view, log file analysers tell you how many visitors have come to the site. These are however debatable in terms of exactly 'Did he visit this site, how many pages did he visit, was he a serious person, did he get anything out of the advertisment on the site'. We cannot make these assesments based on page views alone. A site which has phenomenal number of hits can be called a much-visited site, but need not be a successful site.

When you look at the traditional solutions, you have an audit, in terms of 'Did the organisation get the benefit out of the business solution, was there an ROI (Return on Investment) on what we spend and what we got'. We need to put in a similar audit mechanism for web solutions, not only in terms of ROI, but also an assessment of design quality. If you look at the existing standards on project management, customer management or quality standards in web solutions, they are all translated from what was available for traditional solutions. We need to incorporate the uniqueness of web solutions into these and make them relevant.

Advertisment on the net is really catching on. It can't be a replacement from other modes of advertising, but it can play a significant role in advertising. Businesses are using the web for their marketing activities through ECRM(Electronic Customer Relations Management), running campaigns on the web, setting up call centres to monitor how successful these campaigns are, this is really taking off. I expect that to continue to be a focus area, specially in southern segments. Banner advertising is one more area where people are going to spend time, attention and money.

I don't see Chennai as lagging behind in any way. There are lots of good players both on the customer and developer ends. Obviously the corporate segment may be stronger in Mumbai, but I really don't think Chennai is lagging behind in inclination to adopt any of these solutions, in acceptance or application of these solutions, that can enhance business.

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