New Delhi July 31 (IANS) Social networking platforms have dramatically changed the way we communicate. The next wave is here in enterprise social networks to help employees partners buyers/sellers and other stakeholders collaborate in real-time brainstorm mitigate fears and get quick responses.
A few office networking apps are already available like Workplace from Facebook Slack Amazon Chime Cisco Spark Yammer and others.
Upping the ante Microsoft has brought in Kaizala (for free) and Kaizala Pro (for Rs 130 per user) -- mobile-first products to help businesses connect with people inside and outside the organisations easily coordinate tasks across the value chain and gain actionable insights.
How is Kaizala is different from the rest?
"If you look at the diversity of capabilities that are possible in Kaizala it s way ahead. It is a social conversation tool a data activation tool an analytics platform a product that allows for user-management is extendable and works on slow 2G networks " Alok Lall Director Microsoft Office Division Microsoft India told IANS.
"Given its diversity it will actually be unfair to compare it with products that offer single or less capabilities " Lall added.
Kaizala comes at a time when businesses and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are becoming more dispersed in the country and connecting with teams and partners gets equally crucial especially in areas with poor Internet connectivity.
As a pilot Kaizala has seen significant adoption among YES Bank Apollo Telemedicine United Phosphorous Limited and Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan among others.
At the government level more than 30 departments with over 70 000 workers in the Andhra Pradesh government are using Kaizala for real-time governance and day-to-day work.
According to NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant the economic advisory body is an early adapter of the "safe secure mobile-first [Kaizala] App".
"Niti Aayog works with a much larger base that spans across states and departments. Clearly they saw this as an application that helps them get the pulse of what they need to know for the policies that they are making " Lall noted.
Kaizala will also be part of Niti Aayog s Atal Innovation Mission that aims to foster innovation and encourage entrepreneurship across schools in the country.
" Kaizala is for those who are mobile-first. With smartphones it is easy for small businesses to plan in real-time and become more productive. Currently a lot of time is wasted in getting the information and then thinking what to do with that information. It really drains productivity " Lall told IANS.
The genesis of Kaizala lies in the fact that when it comes to retrieving and processing information several businesses still lag behind. On top of it poor Internet connectivity hinders the flow of information.
" Kaizala is born to connect such businesses with the modern workplace. It is designed to allow for information to be shared in a seamless two-way process " Lall said.
Kaizala is also GST compliant. According to Srikanth Cheruku Founder and CEO of IDOS most SMEs are not good at adopting new technology fast.
"The important thing in the GST regime is that everything goes online. So when Kaizala came up we felt there is a huge opportunity to make a simple application which people who are outside of the GST net like several small businesses can use it with ease " Cheruku told IANS.
IDOS is the first cloud accounting and compliance software in India and has been providing the SMEs with simple-to-use yet powerful accounting compliance and financial management applications.
"With Kaizala SMEs don t have to go for a large technology adoption. Within the app just accept the purchase order and the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software will automatically take inputs and generate a GST-ready invoice seamlessly " Cheruku added.
Going forward Microsoft India is looking at working with more state governments enterprises and SMEs to create a larger Kaizala community.
"We would love to work with industry associations and clusters for a wider reach We would encourage new use cases to come up and help build them either ourselves or through our partner ecosystem " Lall emphasised.
Kaizala Pro has additional features that include user and group management system integration and automation using Kaizala APIs (application programme interfaces) advanced reporting and analytics ability to publish custom actions create public groups and organisational profile and directory.
(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)
--IANS
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