In the past 5 years, trade between the two nations doubled

The technological collaboration is expected to help SMEs in IT, pharma, automobile, manufacturing, textile and other sectors, according to Sharma.

Sharma revealed that India is currently having over 1600 Indo-German collaborations and 600 joint ventures. He gave the example of the BMW market in India, of how BMW has emerged as one of the largest selling luxury cars in India. According to him Indian corporate leaders across segments are showing an equal interest in investing in Germany, owing to the conducive business climate and culture in both the counties.

“Indian corporate entities invested over US$ 6 Billion in Germany. There are over 215 Indian companies – both large enterprises and SMEs – that have their active presence in Germany and employs over 24,000 people,” Sharma added.

Over the last five years, the trade between the two nations doubled, reaching close to US$ 23.64 billion and it is expected that the trade target of Euro 20 Billion will be surpassed by 2012. This is the ideal time for the technological tie up because 2012 has been touted as the ‘German Year in India’, which in itself is a success story. The program launched in September 2011, will continue till November 2012. “This year also marks the 60th Anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between India and Germany,” said Sharma.

A few years ago, it was not considered appropriate for someone spiritual to be in a business setting. Business and spirituality appeared to be poles apart. Essentially, business is to give less and take more. If a banana is worth ten cents, it will be sold for twelve. You take more and you give less in business. However, spirituality is a selfless affair. But organizations are increasingly realizing that at some stage the two should meet.

Sri Sri Ravishankar, Founder, Art of Living Foundation

The backbone of business is trust. If trust is broken, business cannot succeed. Greed kills the consciousness. That’s what we saw with the global financial crisis. To prevent this, it is essential for companies like John Paul Mitchell Systems to grow. Paul Mitchell is an example that shows that an individual need not be unethical to be rich and successful.

Corruption is the greatest dilemma in the corporate world. Corruption only happens out of a sense of non-belonging. No one can be corrupt towards the people they belong to. We need to bring a sense of belonging to every individual in the workplace. How can that happen? Of course, when the mind is stress-free. A stressed mind is the breeding ground of negative thoughts. We must foster a sense of belonging in the workplace to boost productivity.

If your job involves lot of stress, relaxing can get pretty tough. However, unless you learn to relax effectively, there is no way you can eliminate stress. It may be okay if the stress is short term. Your body can effectively handle such short stress periods. But if the same routine continues throughout your lifestyle, the stress keeps accumulating in your body, resulting in chronic illnesses, sleep disorders and decreased immunity. So how can you learn to relax under such situations? The answer is, through proper meditation techniques. The Art of Living Foundation has a wide range of programs to de-stress professionals. Many big organizations and SMEs are taking up Meditation and Art of Living workshops to help their employees gain confidence and boost organizational productivity.

Meditation de-stresses our minds and makes us feel light and cheerful all the time. In scientific meditation program, the mind and the oxygen penetrate deep into every cell of our body and deeply cleanse it. We get cleaned, energized and more oxidized. After undergoing meditation program, an employee’s perception towards things changes completely. It not only helps in overcoming stress but also enhances communication skills. This is because they attain inner peace, get focused and therefore able to work in a more productive way.

Not many entrepreneurs know the art of turning their passion into business. Naveen Pamnani, Director, 24×7 Mercantile House Private Limited, is one of those lucky few, who turned his passion for restoring vintage bikes into a booming enterprise. His story begins in 2005, when he travelled extensively to the UK and other European markets for promoting Indian handicrafts to global buyers, thanks to his stint with Rural Bazaar. On these trips, while interacting with international buyers, he realized that customers prefer to shop in the comfort and convenience of their homes. And, it is this insight that prompted him to explore the e-commerce platform.

The use of robust technologies helps a company thrive

Pamnani’s interest in restoring vintage vehicles began since his early teenage years, when in class IX he restored an old Vespa. By the time he was in college he had restored a vintage Fiat! Realizing that the internet would allow him to reach a wide audience of global buyers looking for vintage parts, he decided to leverage his interest and knowledge in the field into a viable business proposition. In 2009, he finally quit his job to start his own e-commerce venture.

Pamnani’s mission was to deliver high quality spare parts and accessories to vintage vehicle enthusiasts at reasonable prices coupled with top-notch service. However, the idea of selling vintage spare parts seemed absurd to some industry veterans. He contacted several manufacturers in India but nobody seemed to be convinced with the idea. Nonetheless, going against traditional wisdom, he went ahead with his proposition by listing his products on eBay. While eBay gave him the platform to display his products, it was PayPal that enabled him to build trust with prospective customers by providing a safe and secure payment channel. The initial results were overwhelming – and Pamnani quip, “Some men love their vintage bikes more than their wives!”

After his initial success with eBay, he further launched four other websites in quick succession – Bulletwala.com (US), ClassicSpares.com (Australia), RoyalSpares.co.uk (UK) and VintageAutoSpares.com (North America), targeted to vintage enthusiasts across various markets. Realizing that customers are more comfortable using a well-recognized and trusted payment gateway to transact online, Pamnani integrated PayPal on each of his other websites too. With an e-tailing model combined with PayPal as the online payment gateway, Pamnani has been able to save on margins by cutting out middlemen and saving on other operational and marketing costs.

Speaking about his experience of using PayPal Pamnani says, “Consumers are often wary of sharing their financial details online for fear of frauds. This is especially heightened when they are transacting with a seller who is based in another continent altogether! However, PayPal enjoys the trust of buyers’ world over and after having integrated PayPal on my websites, I saw a sudden boost in customer confidence. In the first month alone, my company clocked sales of over $10,000.”

Pamnani claims that though he had the marketing expertise, the use of robust technologies such as PayPal gave him the platform to sell his products successfully.

Today, the company specializes in customized body parts for vintage British Bikes like Royal Enfield, BSA, Triumph, Norton, AJS, Lambretta and Vespas and also specializes in restoration of vintage bikes. Today, the company has over 1,000 customers from around the globe from Australia, Europe, Israel, U.S., U.K., Israel and even Uruguay and is set to traverse the fast track lane further.

Sohini Bagchi, Editor - ITBizFocus.com

Experts believe that most enterprises are now realizing the benefits of online promotion of their products, services and other information, business blogging is picking up speed. Writing and updating a business blog is a great way to share the company’s expertise, build additional web traffic, and connect with potential customers. In other words, blogs have the potential to add value to your business.

According to a recent Gartner survey on Enterprise blogging, corporations of all sizes and across a wide array of industries are adopting blogging technologies and practices ten times more than the previous year. About 89% of respondents are either blogging now or are planning to blog in the next one year. Corporate adoption of blogging is entering its hyper-growth phase. More than 50% of respondents have launched one or more blogs in the last year and less than 10% have been using blogs for more than three years, according to the report.

Smaller companies have been quicker to adopt blogging as a part of their communications strategies, followed by mid-sized entities. These burgeoning segments are looking for honest and open communication channels. With more blog articles, posting and comments, businesses can expect proper customer relationship management and proper support and critical business decision making based on actual information and feedback from user and customer groups.

In the US and other western countries, businesses, especially the SMEs see business blogging as a major corporate tool for communicating with customers or employees to share knowledge and expertise. These business owners look at blogs from a social media perspective. Among Indian SMEs, enterprise blogging is yet to emerge into a well defined space. Even though the market is flooded with bloggers, when it comes to serious enterprise blogging, SMEs in India are lagging behind their western counterparts.

However, this doesn’t mean that technology blogging isn’t taking place. Blogs are growing at a rapid pace in India, and many of the SME and startups are even making money from it. However, there is a long way to go before we can call Indian entrepreneurs and particularly the SMEs blog fanatics to capture the market. The reason is obviously that we haven’t yet been able to create an environment that is conducive to effective business blogging. This should have ideally been the need of the hour for a greater business success with the help of social media. All the best!

Optimize Battery Life

Do not charge your laptop battery constantly

The screen of the laptop is the component that drains its most battery power. To optimize the possible operation time of your laptop battery, ensure that you dim the display whenever possible and especially when your laptop is not hooked to an AC supply.

Moreover, disabling services such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi network connections when they are in the non operational mode will also save you valuable battery power. Disabling external devices like USB flash drives when you have completed transferring data to or from them will also increase battery life.

Do not charge your laptop battery constantly

Since a battery kept at full charge will degrade at a faster rate, so the laptop and its battery should never be hooked to the mains constantly. If you hook your laptop to an AC supply most of the time, the battery’s ability to retain charge will reduce quicker than normal. Connect a laptop’s battery for charging when the charge drops below 15% and try not to disconnect the laptop’s battery while it’s in the middle of its charging cycle. One should also keep in mind that fully discharging the battery is also not advisable as it adversely affects the Li-ion battery and can be disadvantageous.

Don’t remove a laptop’s battery when connected to a power source

Some people charge their laptop battery to the optimum and disconnect the battery while working on their laptop hooked to the AC mains.  They do this to avail of a fully-charged battery whenever they have to move away from the power source and have to use their laptop on the move.

This practice can have your laptop shutting down involuntarily in case there is a power snap in your neighborhood. Only disconnect the battery from your laptop (when it’s plugged to mains) if your laptop’s overheating (around 60 Degree Celsius and above) and don’t make it a habit of working on your laptop constantly hooked to AC supply. Your laptop battery should be allowed to charge and discharge periodically.

Store a battery in a cool place

Store your battery in a cool place. This is because heat causes a battery to deteriorate quickly. While working on it from your lap make sure that you are not blocking the heat vents of the laptop. Some laptops feature Intel’s Advanced Cooling Technology to improve airflow so that it can operate cooler.

Charge and discharge your laptop’s battery

Most modern-day laptops come with Lithium ion batteries, free of memory effect. This eliminates the need to do full charge and discharge cycle on them on a daily basis like other battery types — NiCd and NiMH. However one must remember to do a full discharge and charge cycle at least once in every 40 to 50 charge cycles as that will help in keeping your battery’s fuel gauge accurate.

The above tips will definitely come handy in increasing the longevity of your laptop battery. Happy computing!

The growing awareness about environment pollution has more and more people rooting for green revolution these days. This ‘go green’ is spreading across the world like a wildfire and can be observed everywhere, from home to the workplace. The typical office provides you a lot of scope for going green. From adjusting the lighting system of the office to selecting the types of office supplies, there are several things that can be done to turn your environment office friendly.

Going Green with Office Supplies

Use green products in office

Try to zero in on green products like Safe white correction fluid, staple less staplers and pens that can be refilled repeatedly. Select products constructed from post-consumer content. Post-consumer content refers to materials that have been collected back from previous products and remade into new ones. These include paper and plastic products. Even paper clips with recycled metal content are available these days. Reduce the use of products which do not have any green alternatives like rubber band.

Going Green with Printers

Environmentalists recommend buying and using recycled paper. Try to save paper by avoiding printing as much as possible. Users in office should be reminded to print only when necessary. You can also save paper by printing on both sides of the paper whenever possible. If your printer has an eco-mode, use it. Use of software like Green print or Eco print 2 are recommended since they save ink, toner and paper. Do not set your printer in such a way that it gets turned on whenever your computer or computer network is turned on. Your printer should be turned on only when necessary. Select an Energy Star complaint printer and ensure that the new printer has an energy saving feature. Your ink and toner cartridges should also be recycled.

Going Green with Computers

The computer should be turned off when not in use. The cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors should be replaced with flat screen monitors. Flat screen monitors consume only about one third energy of a CRT monitor. Not only this, the desktop computers should be replaced by a laptop. Laptops are considered to be one of the most energy-efficient computer-monitor combinations.

Going Green with Lighting

Turn the lights off in rooms when in non-operational mode. For instance, it is a waste of energy having the lights in an office staffroom or washroom turned on all day. Do not keep the office lights turned on overnight.

Go green with the above green office ideas!

Saurav Patnaik, Co-Founder and VP Marketing, Kenscio Digital Marketing

(SEO) strategy in place to ensure that their websites generate a high quality traffic that can be converted into paying customers.

Why is email marketing important? How does it help a business generate revenue?

Emails help the businesses to reach the audience directly. It is measurable, economical and can be done faster compared to other traditional ways of doing marketing. Now, going back to the basics, to earn revenue, these businesses need to understand who are the people which are interested in buying proposition, what time can they be contacted, whether or not they qualify to buy your product and how are they willing to make a purchase. All this information can be captured analyzed and acted upon using emails… Once you know all this, businesses will be able to send individualized, relevant communications to generate revenue.

How important is branding to SMEs and startups? Is small business branding efforts wasted in direct marketing and sales?

It is very important for an SME or, a startup as it becomes all the more important for them to be in the minds of their customers and take communication to a much higher level (super personalized and individualized). So that their customers know that these companies really care and understand the needs.

What are your thoughts on small businesses relying on SEO?  How important it is for them to outsource their email marketing and social media marketing to specialists?

Search Marketing does help to get traffic on your website, however in the long run we need to engage them in the meaningful conversions. Thus, relying on SEO only will actually result in footfalls but to get these conversations you need emails and social media.

What are some emerging marketing opportunities in social media advertising? Could you kindly elaborate?

To be able to start the conversations over social media, businesses will need to provide clear call for actions….It need not necessarily be a Like or a follow on Facebook and Twitter respectively, it can also be an invitation to join the CEO for breakfast. I see an opportunity for Advertisements on Fan pages, cross promotional tweets, Email campaigns and lot more. The market in the US has already started doing such Social Advertising campaigns; you can see players like Daily Candy doing it over Facebook.

What advice would you give entrepreneurs looking to use email marketing and also to small business owners who are just starting on the Internet?

My only advice is that focus on your audience, be relevant (talk about your customers, not what you sell) and be aware of where your target audience is over internet to know which tool to use.

Security is the biggest barrier of cloud adoption

The report titled: “Manufacturing and Cloud Computing: A View from Asia Pacific excluding Japan” noted that speedy deployment and IT staff reduction are some of the key drivers of cloud adoption. However, at present only 16 percent IT managers, mostly from small and medium business enterprise show a high level of interest in this technology and also acknowledge these key drivers for the adoption of cloud computing.

The IDC Manufacturing Insights survey findings further revealed that over 50 percent of the respondents are refraining from the adoption of cloud-based solutions owing to their concern about last mile connection and speed-related problems. However, most IT managers also agreed that these concerns are short-lived since there has been a rapid progress in the field of telecommunications network infrastructure in most parts of Asia.

Dr. William Lee, Senior Research Manager for IDC Manufacturing Insights Asia Pacific said the primary focus of the Asia Pacific region is to keep the cost low. He added that as most of the benefits of cloud computing has not yet translated to lower total cost of ownership (TCO) as against traditional on-site IT deployments, the adoption has still been slow. Until now, less than 10 percent of the manufacturing firms across APEJ have adopted the technology.

Dr. Lee also said that there is however reasons for SMEs in the manufacturing sector to cheer because the volatile market conditions in the manufacturing sector have currently ignited new interest in cloud, as an increased number of organisations are currently looking for shorter term return on investments (ROI).

Security continues to be the biggest barrier of cloud adoption for manufacturing companies in the APEJ.

Lee pointed out that even though the cloud is often perceived as less secure compared to retaining data in-house, most security breaches are internal, as shown in a recent IDC security survey. Therefore, having data residing in the cloud does not necessary make it more vulnerable to security risks.

Besides their security concern about data breaches of sensitive information, APEJ manufacturers are also anxious about the consequent loss of time and expenditure of resources to reproduce the data.

SAP established a sound footing in the Indian market

SAP’s reasons for establishing an Indian base were soon justified. By 1997, just two years after SAP India was established, the company became the market leader in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. A year later SAP set up a fully fledged development lab, which quickly expanded beyond local requirements to become SAP’s largest R&D centre outside of Germany. Today there are more than 5000 employees engaged in over 60 lines of business at SAP India.

SAP in India is recognized within the business as one of the leading contributors to research and innovation at SAP, its labs in Gurgaon and Bangalore have recently made significant contributions to key products including HANA, Carbon Impact and Charitra.

The culture of excellence at SAP Labs India extends beyond its focus on technical innovation. SAP is committed to reducing its environmental impact, and its ‘green car’ policy has attracted particular attention. The company hopes, by the end of 2011, to be the world’s largest corporate owner of electric cars. SAP in India is at the forefront of this initiative.

But at the same time that India offers enormous potential in the high technology field, there also abides a significant digital divide in the country. A large portion of the population has little or no access to information technology and very less opportunity to learn the IT skills that are vital in the modern economy.

The Growth Story

SAP India’s growth curve can be traced parallel to the evolution of the Indian market. The organization has created strategic positioning and product innovations to suit Indian businesses – gradually diversifying and deepening its reach. SAP India has also been actively involved in creating awareness about how to leverage technology to power business growth and success, as a result of which the country is witnessing the “third wave” of IT adoption among Indian businesses.

The company includes some of the best and the biggest names such as Brigade Group, Larsen & Toubro, Bangalore International Airport, Reliance Communications, Tata Power, Kribhco and Marmugao Port, across diverse industries including utilities, automotive, retail, e-governance and construction. Apart from new customer acquisitions, SAP India has also witnessed a large number of competitive win-backs with several enterprises migrating to SAP from using other applications. SAP has emerged as the partner of choice for organizations which are on their journey to global competitiveness.

India’s most comprehensive business and technology event, the SAP Summit today has evolved into an “go to” forum for organizations in the Indian subcontinent which aims to effectively leverage technology to achieve and maintain profitability, efficiency, and growth. Similarly, SAP ACE “Awards for Customer Excellence” have become an annual barometer of how best to utilize the power of SAP solutions to enable business competitiveness.

Storming the SME Market

SMEs in India are experiencing a dramatic growth and are adopting scalable and flexible IT platforms that support their business agenda. SAP has responded by bringing in enterprise-class solutions such as SAP Business one, SAP Business ByDesign and SAP Business All-in-One that supports enterprises having 100 to 2,500 people and growing companies that typically have not invested in such integrated business solutions before.

Today, the SME customer base for SAP in India has touched over 3,500 and is aggressively focusing on the Indian SME market with its Business One solutions, as it looks to increase its customer base in coming years.

The company believes that Indian SMEs need all the capabilities of large enterprises in order to improve their business and this prompted them to design SAP Business One that delivers an on-premise or hosted business management solution that is easy-to-use, flexible and affordable for SMEs.

Last year, SAP has also introduced Enhanced Analytics tools. Its fully integrated SAP Crystal Reports software allows users to design, explore, and deliver interactive reports by capturing data from both SAP Business One and associated software solution partner applications. SAP Business One capabilities will expand offering new analytics tools which provide real-time insight and easy to understand, customized dashboards and reporting.

In accordance with SAP AG’s global plans, the company has not only established a sound footing in the Indian market, but has also built a robust partner network and a large customer base. Accolades and awards have been pouring in the past one decade or so.

As IT adoption is growing very fast, particularly in the mobile phone segment, this is a huge opportunity for companies like SAP. With India becoming the land of possibilities, SAP has a number of plans to leverage the full potential in the coming years. From that perspective, SAP India is truly partnering India’s success story.

A few deft strokes of brush and my imagination spring to life. A splash of color and all my depressing thoughts melt away before its radiance. Painting is one hobby that makes me really wake up to life and explore its wonders. This delightful pass time had me hooked from the age when I could barely lisp. I used to nibble at the crayons occasionally when my mother was not watching.

Painting is one hobby that makes me really wake up to life

When I was five years of age, I was enrolled in a school for painting where my interest in painting received a greater boost. I explored other forms of panting like water color and oil paints. Those were the days when I used to come home with my hands smeared with color, and my face radiant with the joy of having been able to translate my inner most thoughts on the canvas.

Not only did I like to paint, I was also interested in the exotic lives of famous painters like Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso.  How they mixed colors with interesting results and the interesting turns that their colorful, vibrant lives took, left a deep impact on my life.

I’m glad that being a graphic designer at a web solutions company, I get tremendous opportunity playing with colors though on the screen. To keep pace with technology, I have mastered Adobe Photoshop as well as Adobe Illustrator and InDesign. Whenever I get bogged down by the twists and turns of my life, I resort to painting. The therapeutic effect it has on my mind is much greater than all other pass times put together. I just hope that till the last day of my life, the images visualized in the inner recesses of my mind keep materializing on the canvas.