SESAMi: Alliance for Convenience

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 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.