Media Man

Ajay Varma

Ajay Varma is one of Australia's website designers and developers, and the head of outsourcing specialist, Asia Pacific Direct.

Industry Overview - Opportunity:

As the world becomes a global community -- where buyers and sellers can be sitting at the totally different ends of the world -- outsourcing has been on a significant rise. Till now outsourcing has been mostly in the area of manufacturing and production, and limited to large businesses. But with the rise of e-commerce, and introduction of new web technologies (Broadband and VoIP), outsourcing is now flowing down to small businesses and individuals. Major e-commerce portals such as e-Bay and Alibaba have made it so much more simpler for individual and small businesses to source the best service or product from anywhere across the world. Similarly, there is also growth in the non-manufacturing outsourcing called the "intellectual outsourcing". It is predicted that while China will dominate the manufacturing outsourcing, India is likely to be the strongest contender in leading the charge with the intellectual outsourcing. India is already seen as a significant hub for call centre and back office processing outsourcing. It is this growing opportunity that has given rise to the launch of Asia Pacific Direct Australia whose focus is the outsourcing of web and animation work.

About Asia Pacific Direct Australia:

While the strategy behind the business has been developed over the last 6 years, it was officially launched only recently in June 2005. The business is about design outsourcing with specific focus on web development and animation. Our unique selling point is that we offer high quality design services at less than 50% of the usual cost in Australia. We can offer such high value service as our designing agencies are located in low cost market - India. Because of this cost advantage, we design professional websites starting at $199 (see some examples of $199 sites - www.pedels.com.au, www.ablebricklaying.com.au. www.allfordogs.com.au). Our designers have worked on various global brand names, so the quality is very high.

Our flagship product is small business package for $499, which includes:

* Website Design
* Business Logo design
* Business Card Design
* Letter Head Design
* Domain Name Registered for 2 years
* Website Hosting for 12 months with 5 e-mail addresses

So, essentially, one can start a business for $499 (example - www.jumpinkidscastles.com.au, www.ablebricklaying.com.au ).

There are three key values that we offer - Speed, Savings and Satisfaction. While the savings is obvious, we also promise high speed turnaround. We usually complete small business design package within 7 days. Our customer feedback is also remarkable as we ask our customers to complete a brief survey at the end of their project. We guarantee satisfaction!

Because of our price advantage, businesses can save several thousands dollar on more complex website projects. For example, one of recent clients received a quote for $9000 from another website design agency, which we took the work for only $2,400, saving client more than $6000 (www.wineimporter.com.au ). Another client received a quote of more than $30,000 for their website design, and we delivered the project for less than one-third of that quote. We recently completed another e-commerce website for $2,600, which contains more than 4000 products, and would usually cost more than $8000 with most agencies in Australia. The client is so happy and have said that their new site looks 10,000% better than the one they had previously, and they now want to us to start another major website for a new project.

We also offer other design services such as photo editing, illustrations, animation, -- starting at $20/hour, which is unheard of in Australia. It is quite clear, that even large businesses can save significantly (millions of dollars a year), by outsourcing their low-end routine design work, such as photo editing for their regular catalogues, illustration for children's book or medical journals, animation for children programs.

As APD expands its operations, it will create employment for more Australians at home, and will help Australian business get more value for their money when it comes to web designing and animation.

Background of Ajay Varma, Business Head, Asia Pacific Direct

Ajay has lived in Australia for more than 10 years and is an Australian citizen. He is married to an Australian and has two lovely daughters of age 1 and 3.

Ajay left a very lucrative career in financial industry to start his own outsourcing business, because he saw this great opportunity, and a new idea of outsourcing that would appeal to small businesses. Before starting his own business, Ajay has worked as a Regional Director for American Express for the Asia Pacific Region with responsibility spanning across 12 countries. Prior to his 5 years at Amex, he worked with Citibank, Allianz, and AMP group in Sydney. Before moving to Sydney in 1995, He worked in Advertising industry, with famous company names such as DDB and FBB/Euro RSCG in India - after he completed an MBA degree from Indian Institute of Management (top ranking management institution in India), and Bachelor degree in Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (top ranking Engineering institution in India).

Interview - Ajay Varma - 3rd February 2006

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