Tech-Driven Evolution: IndiaMART’s Journey Towards Empowering Businesses and Customers
CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Mr. Amarinder Dhaliwal, Chief Product Officer, IndiaMART Intermesh Limited
- How IndiaMART leverage technologies to enhance its platform and services for businesses and customers?
Answer: IndiaMART isn’t just a marketplace but over time has evolved into a comprehensive solution for all business needs connecting millions of suppliers and buyers across India and around the globe. This evolution owes much to our unwavering commitment to augmenting our technological infrastructure, harnessing cutting-edge technologies across all our platforms—be it the mobile site, website, or mobile app. A testament to our dedication, IndiaMART’s mobile app stands as the highest-rated app in its category on the Play Store, boasting a stellar rating of 4.7 stars, and amassing over 1 Crore downloads. At the same time, the platform also enjoys the best SEO rankings, and our recommendations and behavioral-based matchmaking systems leverage state-of-the-art technology to facilitate efficient and meaningful connections between sellers and buyers.
For businesses, IndiaMART is the only 2-way discovery platform where businesses can also connect to buyers. Additionally, we offer a suite of services, including free online visibility, cloud telephony for seamless communication, a CRM platform known as Lead Manager for managing all leads and conversations on a single window, accounting solutions, and various other business enablement SaaS platforms catering to diverse business needs.
On the buyer side, our platform boasts a vast array of products and services spanning over 97,000 categories, ensuring price and product discovery across the board. Users benefit from multilingual and voice search options, AI-driven behavioral matchmaking that provides relevant supplier options, a content-enriched platform with detailed product information and specifications accompanied by high-quality images and videos, reviews & ratings, and conversational commerce features facilitating smooth communication throughout the purchasing journey.
Through constant innovation and leveraging advanced technologies, IndiaMART continues to enhance its platform and services, empowering businesses and customers alike to thrive in the digital marketplace.
- Strategies of IndiaMART to ensure the security and integrity of its digital infrastructure, especially during the evolving cybersecurity threats? –
Answer: In today’s digital landscape, cybersecurity is paramount for any successful online marketplace. IndiaMART takes a multi-layered approach to ensure the integrity and security of its platform, especially in the face of evolving threats.
- Advanced Threat Detection: At IndiaMART, we employ strong encryption protocols and systems in place including the integrated web applications firewalls, robust monitoring system for potential breach, and other tools to ensure overall data security. We conduct routine security audits and penetration testing to proactively identify vulnerabilities in our systems and by promptly addressing these weaknesses, we mitigate the risk of exploitation by cyber attackers, bolstering the resilience of our digital infrastructure.
- Cybersecurity Training: Comprehensive cybersecurity training is provided to our employees to educate them about potential threats such as phishing attacks, malware, and social engineering tactics. This ensures that our workforce remains vigilant and equipped to recognize and respond to security threats effectively.
- Incident Response and Disaster Recovery: In the event of a security breach, IndiaMART has a well-defined incident response plan to mitigate the impact and restore normal operations promptly. Furthermore, regular data backup procedures and a comprehensive disaster recovery plan are implemented to minimize downtime and data loss, ensuring business continuity even in the face of cyber attacks.
IndiaMART holds several active certifications, including ISO 27001 for Information Security Management System, ISO 22301 for Business Continuity Management System, ISO 27701 for Privacy Information Management System, ISO 31000 for Enterprise Risk Management, and ISO 12207 for Software and System Engineering. These certifications reflect our commitment to maintaining the highest standards of security and integrity in our digital infrastructure.
- How does IndiaMART imply artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to optimize user experience and drive business growth?
Answer: At IndiaMART, we’re all about ‘make doing business easy’ for all and we enable Indian Businesses in their digital transformation journey. At the same time, we are leveraging the power of AI and ML to make our platform an even better place for our users. It’s not just about tech jargon for us; it’s about creating a personalized experience that truly resonates with each user.
Think of it like this: when you come to IndiaMART, you fill in your requirement details in a prepared request form for your ease through which the platform knows exactly what and how you need and then connects you with the perfect suppliers who can fulfill your requirements, no matter where they are. We ensure ~7 crore+ matchmakings happening in a year on our platform leveraging personalized recommendations based on user behavior that is breaking down barriers and making business easier for everyone involved.
And it’s not just about making connections. Our lead manager is like a trusted advisor, helping businesses navigate through all the leads, conversations, business dashboards, etc. all in one place that helps them find the route for their business that works best for them. We are also integrating Gen-AI to support users with suggestive replies, ensuring efficient and smooth communication. The platform records more than 4 crore monthly callbacks and replies, hence strengthening the impact of conversational commerce in the B2B space.
But we’re not stopping there. We’re constantly finding new ways to improve the platform’s experience by harnessing the power of AI & ML in various technologies at place including search capability enhancement, catalog enrichment, intelligent seller-buyer matchmaking, conversational automation, data-driven insights, or category mapping. And, with 2.5 lac enquiries generated on our platform, every single day, we’re constantly learning and evolving to better serve our users.
- Any other insights into IndiaMART’s digital transformation journey?
Answer: IndiaMART’s journey towards digital transformation goes beyond just embracing technology; it’s about crafting an experience that truly empowers both buyers and sellers. We’re not just adding new features; we’re reimagining how businesses interact and thrive in the online B2B space.
We are enabling millions of Indian Businesses in their digital transformation journey through technology and tools supporting them to start an online business & manage it smoothly that too in a cost-effective manner. Similarly, for Buyers along with access to a vast array of suppliers’ databases, IndiaMART provides easy product as well as price discovery, and a conversational platform so that they can easily communicate with the suppliers and understand the category, product, or industry in detail for their business requirements.
In the long term, our vision is to offer end-to-end solutions on a single platform, eliminating the need for businesses to navigate multiple channels and save valuable resources.
At the same time, we’ve also leveraged technology to optimize and streamline our internal operations. Apart from an ERP system for workforce management (attendance, payroll, etc.), a dedicated mobile-based platform called MERP has been developed specifically for our sales and service teams. This platform not only boosts their performance and job efficiency but also enriches the experience for our end customers. Additionally, we’ve implemented a specialized tool to automate our employees’ end-to-end training and development processes. This tool handles tracking, mapping, analysis, and feedback provision, and adapts the training modules accordingly. Through these technological advancements, we’ve significantly improved our results while saving valuable time, effort, and resources, and reducing errors in our processes, while at the same time, we are able to provide a personalized experience to each of our employees.
