Some companies are born out of hope, other out of despair.
Yet some others are products of new opportunities enterpreneurs
are quick to smell. CHIC Infotech was born because the
situation became somewhat desperate for the promoters.
But their superior ability to spot an opportunity in an
overtly dynamic marketplace has helped it create one of
the quickest growing completely online e-commerce companies
in the country.
At the close of 1997, when the financial markets went into
a tailspin, some financial services companies clearly saw
the writing on the wall. Banks and financial institutions
were turning unfriendly. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
too, was bent on clipping their wings.
Thus, more out of necessity than enterpreneurship, CHIC
Infotech Pvt. Ltd. evloved. Mr. J P Biswas, a graduate
engineer from REC Durgapur and an IIM Bangalore product,
and Mr. K K Majumdar, a cost accountant (ICWA), till then
involved in the world of financial disintermediation, decided
to venture into the field of information technology.
There were no clear cut goal, but an abundance of confidence.
Ms Sharmistha Majumdar, a Masters in Science, also joined
to provide a freshness to the e-commerce company.
A classical case of starting from "rags", CHIC
Infotech may not be a "riches" story yet. Aware
of the fact that to make quick strides into the field of
IT, it would need a steady stream of income, the company
went about the tried and tested way of providing webdesigning
and hosting services to clients. Said Mr. Majumdar, "Having
worked in the financial services sector, the contacts and
the experience of dealing with the big houses came in handy".
The result was contracts of prestigious clients like Indian
Banks' Association, Bank of Baroda, Excel Industries Ltd.,
Supreme Industries Ltd., Bharat Gears Ltd., Mittal Group
(construction major), Kapol Bank and Mandvi Bank among
others.
By the end of 1998, the objective became quite clear, "E-commerce
it was", said Mr. Biswas. For starters, the company
set up an online gift store and called it "indistores.com",
said a beaming Mr. Majumdar, "the company got its
first order through the net within three days of hosting
the site". Orders followed as the NRIs stationed in
the USA, Canada and other parts of the world became active
visitors to INDIstores.com. The Majumdar-Biswas duo was
now set to delve into the realms of e-commerce.
This was when the whole idea of INDInetwork germinated,
a network with e-commerce as its main objective. The modus
chosen by the company was to provide information and useful
content to attract traffic into the network for culminating
into purchases.
Thus straying away from the established way of either putting
only information or only commerce, the INDInetwork started
taking shape to serve both information and commerce.
Shortly, CHIC moved from indistores to several other e-commerce
sites with specific audiences in mind. Currently, it hosts
other sites like INDIcrafts.com, INDIchef.com (primarily
information), INDIherbs.com, INDItours.com and INDInewsport.com,
the last one a place for readers to find all the important
newspapers. Mr. Majumdar said a site like INDIherbs.com
for instance is possibly the first of its kind, which offers
netsurfers an opportunity to directly access ayurvedics
and naturopaths for consultancy and cure.
The one hindrance the "INDI" group of e-commerce
sites may be facing is the conversion institution, which
is still in foreign currency, chiefly in US Dollars. "This
is a constraint", said Mr. Majumdar, "for transactions
entirely within India. Indians can transact as long as
they are wothin the RTQ requirement." However, once
it is possible to have institutions who will create conversion
banks in the local currency, e-commerce will take a firmer
shape, he added.
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