As I mentioned in my previous post that industrial awareness can give you the lead (at a certain additional cost). For every industry the lead helps but for web (tech) industry to a lesser extent. Here is my view point on “Why not to count the web-industry awareness lead”.
Who all can gain from Industrial awareness?
The early leaders doing the industrial awareness can become the market leaders with proper branding but it does not guarantee a top position in market for long. Esp for web industry (in general tech industry) it guarantees nothing. Sometimes the biggest gainers can be the low profile later entrants, let me take an example. When the bigger sportswear brands, like Nike, Reebook and Adidas, advertised for sportswear then the batas and other local competitors juiced the industrial awareness with a more affordable range and multi-purpose sports shoe. History will be repeated with Indian web and it will happen more often that other sectors. We will see a local group of brainy kids challenging naukri.com, shaadi.com and all other major early leaders. This will happen due to following factors:-
- Low resource cost for web startups. Low innovation costs (even one person can run it for free). Web is basically a pure brain business.
- Less popular sites/business can take bigger risks and try bigger innovations. Since I am using naukri.com more often for recruitment purpose so here is another example from naukri.com. Naukri.com will have to think many times before simplifying its interface (which really is very complex and messy, reminds Jeff Bezos of Amazon of 1908 Hurley washing machine) but you will sites like simpyhired.com trying it without any fear.
(Complex interface of naukri.com with popups)
(click to enlarge. May be, a simpler interface of simplyhired.com, I have not reviewed it yet)
Now the current stats is in favor of naukri.com (due to the web-industry awareness lead in India with a bigger job market) but will it stay for long (no guarantees, Google In Talks To Acquire SimplyHired). - There is an existing industrial awareness which can be cashed.
- Web is low cost (almost INR 0), a person getting registered to naukri.com and jobsahead.com gains more than one who registers only with 0 when the cost for one and two are same. Users will like to allow more than one job portal at a time, so no need to motivate for the most costly customer introduction phase. In web business esp networking sites, flies attract flies not honey alone, so a better user base will attract more employers and more employers/jobs (due to free lunch) will attract more job-seekers.
A little deeper analysis can reveal more reasons on why not to count the web-industry awareness lead.
Hi Aji,
I am not aware of markets in India but I am sure there is not much you can do with this. People want jobs and they search they get it, thats all. It hardly matters how complex or simple is the interface.
I like your analysis though.
One more thing, the data shows they are way ahead of simplyhired.com, does that mean complex interface is preferred more?
Mary
>> It hardly matters how complex or simple is the interface.
It does matter. I often say that making the simplest design is a complex process :). Companies like Google are very good at making interfaces simple. More options generally make people more confused.
>> One more thing, the data shows they are way ahead of simplyhired.com, does that mean complex interface is preferred more?
No not all, naukri.com has done a lot of advertisements and this is giving them direct ROI. Web is better known for its viral nature, they are yet to milk it.
Thanks Aji for the reply
HI,
I read your blog and i really like it. I am working on a b-plan in the same domain and i feel naukri.com, Jobsahead.com can be way better than what they provide now. Your blog was a good insight for me to know about the current trends in this industry.
Thanks
Thanks Anant, thanks for appreciating the blog. I am not able to blog regularly 🙁 … I see a big scope of improvement and wanted to offer the help as well but noone wanted it :). Keep in touch.