For an industry that for decades together had bought and sold diamonds with a mazal, a simple handshake with a trusted customer, the coming of the PC and the Internet at the turn of the millennium signalled the start of a major upheaval. But even as the industry has made the transition to using the mouse as the new tool to seal a deal, the rise of new age digital technologies of the Web 2.0 era, characterised by social networking and increasing integration of the Internet with handheld mobile devices, has ushered in an entirely new era. Stephen Rego crosses over into this digital world— a world where the new realities are social media, blogs, tweets, and a variety of mobile apps — to take a look at how they are impacting the way the diamond and jewellery industry goes about its business, and see how Indian companies are beginning to leverage the possibilities that have emerged.

A little over a year ago, at the JCK Las Vegas show in 2010 to be precise, Shree Ramkrishna Export unveiled its new mobile website, ‘SRK Lite’, including a B2B WAP page for diamond trading. This was quickly followed by a Blackberry application in August 2010.

“We believe we were the first diamond manufacturing company to launch a mobile website and a WAP page for B2B diamond trading,” says Shreyans Dholakia, Director-Information & Technology, SRK Group. “Called ‘SRK Lite’, it was the lighter and faster version of the normal website, especially engineered for mobile surfing.”

The response, apparently, has been way beyond expectations. “It was very well received as we were the first in the industry to take such a step,” says Dholakia, adding that about 40 per cent of the diamond inventory is now being sold through online channels, including the mobile site.

In the next few months, a number of other diamond manufacturers in India made similar moves with companies like Rosy Blue, Dimexon, Dharmanandan Diamonds, Star Rays and others unveiling similar online stores for their diamond inventory that could be accessed through handheld devices. And by now, virtually all the larger diamond companies, both sightholders and others, have launched mobile apps in some form or the other.

Rosy Blue, which unveiled its mobile app at the IIJS in August 2010 has also had a good response. Anshul Mehta of Rosy Blue reports that 784 customers across 36 countries have downloaded the company’s application – ‘Single Touch’ search to order, Integrated with live inventory – across Blackberry, iPhone and iPad devices. “Forty five per cent of the users are from India and another 10 per cent are from the US,” says Mehta, who adds that the sales through this channel have increased “from two per cent to five per cent of the certs business, YoY.”

Among the diamond jewellery manufacturers, Kama Schachter has recently appointed an agency to develop its Social Media initiatives. “We wish to create multiple interactive touch points to reach out to our target audience, sharing with them interesting thoughts and ideas arising out of their extensive experience in the business,” says a company release.

Adds Colin Shah of Kama Schachter, “We understand the growing significance of the digital space, to reach Indian as well as global customers and influencers, and with that in mind, we chose to make a start in the Social Media space.”

Clearly, where the Internet and the personal computer (or desktop) were once cutting edge tools for interaction, today it is the rise of the new social media, a leap into wireless technology and the near complete integration of computing with mobile hand held devices (at least as far as communications are concerned) that have become the defining features of electronic interaction. %

Clearly, where the Internet and the personal computer were once cutting edge tools for interaction, today it is the rise of the new social media, a leap into wireless technology and the near complete integration of computing with mobile hand held devices that have become the defining features of electronic interaction.

Global business consultancy McKinsey & Co, in a recent report entitled “Can India lead the Mobile-Internet Revolution?” opined that “India has an opportunity ….(of) becoming the first truly mobile digital society. All the elements are in place: the cost of network access and handsets is going down, wireless networks are going up, and Indian consumers already display an insatiable appetite for digital services.” Thus, though it has the fourth largest number of net connections in the world, at present India has relatively few Internet users: at 81 million users, just 7 per cent of its population and only 20 per cent of its urban population is connected to the Web, compared with 32 per cent in China (60 per cent of urban population) and 77 per cent in the United States.

Moreover, while China has 233 million mobile-Internet users, or 18 per cent of its total population, India has just 17 million, or less than 1 per cent. Citing poor infrastructure, vast geographical spread, higher costs, etc. as some of the hurdles, the consultancy opines that the new mobile-based Internet can rapidly change all that. In a telling projection, McKinsey says, “If India’s latent demand is unleashed, McKinsey research forecasts that the total number of Internet users will increase more than fivefold, to 450 million, by 2015. Total digital-content consumption will double, to as much as $9.5 billion. Including access charges, revenues from total digital consumption could rise fourfold, to $20 billion—twice the expected growth rate of China.”

“There are many advantages to the buyer,” he continues, pointing to the limitations imposed by infrastructure and Internet speeds in many parts of the country. “There are 46 mn laptop users in India, compared to which there are 750 mn mobile users and of these 110 mn are GPRS enabled.” And once a retailer is made aware of the service, he only has to visit the site / app store for his device and download the app. Then a one-time registration process gives complete and immediate access to a fabulous inventory – anywhere, anytime.

“Just think of it,” Khandelwal says, “The retailer can access the stock from anywhere – on a flight, in the elevator; and he can do it many times faster than it would take to access the same data from a PC.”

The new apps appear to provide many advantages to the diamond and jewellery industry today. For those seeking to purchase polished stones, whether they are traders, jewellery manufacturers or retailers, the mobile search tools provide them instant access to vast inventories; on the other hand for manufacturers, suddenly the whole world has become their market, round the clock, round the year, and greatly reduced the ‘distance’ between them and their clients.

According to Yogendra Vora, Director, Tecogis, another technology company that has a number of clients in the gems and jewellery field, “The latest developments in technology have made communications instant and more effective, and for many young urbanites, the new webenabled phones are the means by which they interact with the world – be it through Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Smart apps are already changing many business systems, and the gem and jewellery industry, though slow to start, can benefit enormously. Vora says that in this field size is not a limiting factor, “Software developers are creating relatively simple apps that can benefit the single store jeweller, as well as multi-tier apps for the really large guys. By linking up with RFID technology, for example, stock availability across locations can be tracked in real time on a mobile.”

Online Auctions: Technology Leap

While auctions have been a part of the rough distribution system for some years now, the online auction is a new addition, one first successfully embraced by DTC through Diamdel, and later by others.

India had its first online rough diamond auction recently organised by Arjav Diamonds (India) in Surat on June 10. The rough auctioned comprised larger stones – 5 cts up, and the organisers report that as many as 70 of the 120 bidders were small, local dealers. Of the 60 lots that were put up for bidding, 46 were sold, of which the largest were the 74.70 carat “Star of Surat” and the 61 carat “Star of Gujarat”. An additional innovation was provided with Arjav having already processed many of the stones on Sarin’s Galaxy planners and offering to share this data with successful bidders.

This new system has certain unique features – facilitating participation by players from across the globe; enabling participation by smaller companies who could not easily participate in physical auctions at other centres, and saving costs for both buyer and seller. While polished stones are more easily sold over remote servers, coming as they do with lab and KP certificates, the ease with which the industry embraced rough sales through online channels indicates that the digital technology is slowly becoming an integral part of the diamond industry’s universe.

A similar technology was also used by Bharat Diamond Bourse during the recent sale of some of the offices in the complex.

Says Sanjiv Khandelwal, whose company Centerac created the technology platform, “The entire process of being online has brought about transparency. It’s also a very efficient method and bidders can participate from the comfort of their offices in an extremely confidential and secure environment.”

Agrees Shreyans Dholakia, “SRK Lite has provided clients enhanced access to our trading platform and resources. A clearer structure, simplified navigation, improved search functions and use of Cloud Computing technology have helped us to make it even easier than before for clients to find a diamond. It helps them to become more efficient in their diamond sourcing.”

He adds that the company’s vision is to ensure that in the near future, the customer does not have to physically go to the manufacturing or trading centre to buy a diamond. “It is part of strategy as a tech savvy company with one of the most technologically advanced factories in the world, that not only incorporates the latest diamond planning and cutting equipment, but has one of the most sophisticated IT and network solutions designed by one of the world’s leading IT companies,” he says.

Jitesh Shah, Director, Star Rays believes that the new processes are “quick, efficient and more secure” and the ideal tool for “on-the-go clients” who can now “view the complete inventory of solitaires from their mobile”.

Anshul Mehta says that Rosy Blue will soon be making their apps available for a wider range of handheld devices. “We are also working on allowing our retail network to multiply their inventory by integrating our live stock feeds into their own stock,” he adds. Though it is still a very new entrant to the world of diamond trading, mobile integrated digital technology has already left its mark. Change, apparently, in today’s age is always just a click away!