The
marriage of e-commerce solutions and financial services has
resulted in SESAMi.com (India) Ltd, which is a JV between
Singapore Telecom and HDFC Bank. SESAMi will open new avenues
for HDFC in e-commerce and will market and operate SESAMi.Net
portal and e-commerce solutions in the Indian market. The two
will help in pooling their expertise and implementation
experience in e-commerce solutions and financial services to
provide end-to-end B2B e-commerce solutions for the Indian
market.
Aggressive
Plans
In
the Internet world, time is crucial. SESAMi.com has aggressive
plans for India and wants to start its operations by the end of
March. The aggressiveness can be judged from the fact that just
after four months of its Singapore launch, the company has
launched its operations in India and plans are already afoot to
cover the entire Asia Pacific region in a big way. Even the
speed at which it is launching the service in India surpasses
other companies operating in this part of the world. With ICICI
planning to start e-commerce solutions in the Indian market at
the same time, HDFC would not like to lag behind.
While SESAMi holds 60
percent stake in the $6 million project, HDFC Bank and HDFC
Group have 20 percent equity stake each in the new venture. The
investment is first of its kind for SESAMi.com outside Singapore
making India one of the best opportunities for e-commerce. The
technology partner for SESAMi in India will be National Computer
Systems, India along with Compaq Hong Kong’s System
Integration Group. To run its services efficiently, the
company is planning to recruit around 20 people initially in
different areas.
The Benefits Supplier |
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The Market
With e-commerce fast catching up among corporates, it is
estimated that by 2003, Asia Pacific will account for $400
billion. PricewaterhouseCoopers’ reports say that by 2003,
e-commerce transactions in India will be worth $9 billion.
According to Samir Bhatia, country head (corporate marketing),
HDFC Bank plans to target the service to 200 corporates
initially for which HDFC acts as cash bankers. But he feels that
there is a ready market access for 5,000 companies in India for
e-commerce. With this partnership, HDFC Bank will be the service
provider for payment gateways and cash management services on
SESAMi.NET and will provide innovative and forward looking
electronic financial solutions to fully meet the need for
trusted and reliable settlement services in the e-commerce
value-chain.
"SESAMi’s
e-procurement solutions will allow enterprises to realize the
full benefit of streamlining and automating procurement
activities. This will help in reducing the operating cost,
reaching new markets, improving customer service, shortening
supply chain, improving efficiencies, and enhancing relationship
between enterprises and partners," says Nicholas Clark,
principal consultant (strategic marketing and business
development), SESAMi.com.
In
addition, the new company will operate an online auction service
as well as a dynamic real-time trading portal for B2B e-commerce
for the Indian market. The auction service will help in reducing
the cost by 5 percent but increasing the sales by 30 percent as
the corporates will get a better deal for their requirement at
any given point of time. Companies operating on the Indian
subcontinent will be able to trade locally and at the same time,
have access to global trading marketplace via SESAMi.NET, which
has a network of interoperable trading portals in North America,
Europe, Japan, and Australia.
In the vertical segment, SESAMi.com
(India) Ltd is targeting petrochemical companies initially and
will soon follow with health sector and government sector. For
example, customs and income tax will open up huge opportunities
if the transaction is allowed over the Net.