NEWS-INDIA: IFC investment to establish Internet marketplace in India
IFC investment to establish Internet marketplace in India
by Aziz Haniffa, India Abroad News Service
Washington, Dec 6 - The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is making an
investment of $2 million in spryance.com Inc. to establish a remote services
Internet marketplace based in India.
Spryance is a business-to-business (B2B) enterprise that allows companies in
industrialized countries to outsource transaction services to companies in
emerging markets.
IFC's investment is envisaged to help Spryance launch its technology
platform and build its operational headquarters in Chennai, where software
development and outsourcing operations for personalized and skilled
transactions will be based.
IFC, an affiliate of the World Bank, promotes private sector activity in
developing countries. It finances private sector investments in the
developing world, mobilizes capital in international financial markets and
provides technical assistance and advice.
According to IFC, Spryance, an early mover in the remote services industry,
plans to initially target a particular industry segment and then scale out
the business more broadly. Its first target is the medical transcription
market in the United States.
Spryance will begin by offering medical transcription services through a
Web-based process that allows trained staff in India to transcribe into
written documents the voice recordings that doctors and other medical staff
dictate to report on non-acute medical situations.
IFC said the company was developing a technology platform and business model
that could be scaled up to allow Spryance roll out similar services across
vertical markets, such as medical billing, insurance claims, software
design, legal services and call centers.
These services are envisaged to be natural candidates for processing remote
services through a Web-based model where there are fragmented groups of
buyers and sellers in service industries that require a high degree of
personalization.
Mohsen Khalil, the World Bank's director of global information and
communications technologies department, said the initiative could contribute
to creating high-skilled jobs in India, directly with Spryance as well as by
enhancing India's position as a leading provider of high-tech-based
services.
Spryance chief executive officer Raj Malhotra, who was here to sign the
contract with IFC, predicted that the company's electronic platform would
help revolutionize the remote services business, and declared that his
company's vision was to be the one resource for specialized services
professionals around the world.
The department that Khalil heads is a new unit set up by the World Bank to
promote transfer of information technology to the developing world and
focuses on communication networks and Internet infrastructure projects, as
these are expected to have a multiplier effect in expanding the use of
Internet in developing countries.
Spryance was founded in March 1999 as a neutral Web site serving the
emerging remote services industry. Spryance.com plans to formally launch its
Web site later this month in Boston.
