The Evolution of Wapr as a Business Platform for SMBs

Kiran teegala | Jul 04, 2009

The SMB sector today is exposed to a number of business challenges and innumerable problems in Global Trade that hamper its growth, such as, lack of proper infrastructure, marketing facilities, reference, intellectual capital, and abundance of forgery. Improving the operational efficiency and productivity, getting projects, challenges of using right technology, and finding new markets for products and solutions are other major challenges.

Getting timely access to information for effective decision making is a common problem across SMBs. Similarly, identifying business opportunities at the right time is extremely critical. SMBs have few resources to conduct primary research to validate their ideas, and it is imperative for them to get an experienced third person perspective to analyze and approve their ideas.

After delving deep into the challenges and risks the SMBs face, a need for an "On Demand Global Business Platform for SMEs" was felt, and Wapr evolved with an intention to help promote SMBs. Wapr's objective is to address and cater to the industry specific needs of SMBs and professionals in the most effective manner possible. Wapr has taken concrete steps to improve visibility and productivity of the SMBs by providing them with a SaaS-based quasi-ERP system, without need for capital IT Investment.

Globally SMBs account to 9o per cent of business numbers and 40-50 per cent of GDP. In India, 40 per cent of manufacturing output comes from SMBs and they account for 33 per cent of export. In the EU and India alone, SMEs employ about 96 million people. However, the SMEs face real-time difficulties in recruiting skilled workers. All of these become even more relevant during recession. Standing still and continuing to grow, and sustaining the competitive pressures that globalization brings, is a tough task for the SMEs.

Then, there's been a very low adoption of IT so far, and most SMBs with their limited resources and know-how rely on IT partners who offer them Quasi-ERP/HRM/CRM solutions with good after sales support at low cost. Believe it or not, less than 5 per cent of SMBs have an e-business strategy in place! Surprisingly, most SMBs believe that IT does not have a solution to their business problems - this in a time when getting real-time alerts and business connections is critical!

Wapr has evolved as a solution to keep things going smooth for SMBs and the millions of professionals whose future appears bleak in these times of recession. Wapr gets them the perfect, "Right-sized" business platform, along with an assured instant access to authenticated global customers. Wapr provides a platform to conduct global online trade, and offers Business Intelligence for Cross and Up Selling. Wapr comes with tools that let SMBs calculate efficiency within the company and streamline their business processes - thereby increasing their revenues. It proves to be a really reliable Virtual Captive business partner that helps you in re-engineering your business - without compromising on Security, Privacy, or Ownership.

In a globalized world, new export opportunities are seized by many local business organizations. However, to succeed in this environment, SMBs need to reorganize themselves. The key is to learn how to bridge the gap between global best practices and your firm's needs. Companies can obtain assistance in implementation of business strategies in a variety of ways. Now, engaging with social media platforms is a good option, but before that it is advisable to assign monetary values to metrics. As a key strategy, you should adopt this if you want to assign an ROI to your social media marketing efforts.

Wapr provides SMEs with tools to measure Social Media Marketing initiatives. SMBs can get reports and statistics on the performance of their website, get analytics to rate business stakeholders in their value chain, and can also calculate the efficiency of different functional departments within their enterprise. Wapr's readymade dashboard is an added advantage to the efforts made by the companies.

Using Wapr, you can follow your customers, talk to them, follow industry experts, share knowledge and information, and become more informed and aware. This is a centralized platform where manufacturers, suppliers, and exporters can overview each others' progress and decline - as also where they can advertise their business to get the benefits of customers and clients globally. They can reach out to a number of customers and clients sitting across the world instantly and advertise their products.

Wapr also provides a chance to Job Seekers and professionals to increase their market credibility and visibility to global recruiters where they can create their profiles and get them verified. Job seekers are exposed to global opportunities with instant real-time access to HR departments through Wapr. They can also network with authenticated professionals to enhance their careers. Wapr has evolved as a platform for sharing knowledge with the Thought Leaders in the industry - as also a platform to promote professionals and SMBs.

Going Ahead...

Wapr is an innovative company, and apart from its current focus on catering to the needs of SMBs and Job seekers and Professionals, it will be addressing the upcoming trends and needs of various other verticals such as Education, E-Governance, Logistics, and Pervasive/Ubiquitous computing.