Alive and clicking

MEDIA: Yellow Pages have defied obituaries by refusing to be "myopic" in the Ted Levitt sense.

The Internet, they said, would quickly outmode simple information listing businesses such as yellow pages. This, just as yellow pages had begun to reach takeoff point as an independent business concept in India: people pay for listings under easy-to-navigate sections (or at least prominence), and copies are distributed to households and offices free as a contact directory.

Well, this was certainly one much exaggerated obituary. Yellow pages are alive and, well, clicking "" co-opting modern digital technology, as it were. As a result, the market is growing at a healthy rate of 20 per cent per annum, and has seen plenty of action over the last few months.

Next Gen Publishing's Forbes Yellow Pages has seen the launch of its Delhi edition, in addition to its SMS-based Yellow Pages, which was launched in October 2005. Pune-based IndiaCom is another company which has launched Yellow Pages in Bhubaneswar and Goa.

According to Hoshang Billimoria, CEO, Next Gen Publishing, it's all rather simple, really. "There is a lot of potential for growth in the market, as people need information and that's what we are providing them."

The only thing is: Next Gen has steadfastly refused to let "marketing myopia" (in Ted Levitt's immortal phrase) do it in.

Instead of seeing itself in the business of yellow pages, it insists on being in the business of information you can use "" defined thus by the need in demand rather than the mechanics of supply "" to be distributed via all means possible.

Forbes has an SMS service along with print and online editions. A 24-hour call centre too. All focused on the three 'R's of this business: relevance, relevance, relevance. This way, Forbes has maintained an edge even in this era of seach engines. Says Sangeeta Singh, deputy sales manager, IndiaCom, "Apart from the need for information, there is a need for advertisers to reach out to people, and yellow pages is just the right platform."

So attractive is the business that even the India Today Group has its Commercial and Industries Guide, with its variety of info-dispensers.

Other major players include Tejbandhu Group's Get It, which offers voice and print services, and has additional dispensers such as websites, CD-ROMs and SMS. Though the market is still print heavy, Billimoria feels that the future is interactive.

"People need information anytime anywhere," he says, "and the growth in the market will come through other media like SMS and online."

At present, it's a market estimated at a sizeable Rs 150 crore. Now, this may not sound all that exciting a business from the big media perspective.

But if you consider the long-term value in forming simple linkages and functional relationships with the smallest of startups in such an enterpreneurial economy as India's, you may want to think again.