Sansan Inc., the world's leading provider of cloud-based business card management services, who recently launched the Eight app in India, announced the results of its Eight Connection Survey.
The survey targeted 1,008 full-time working professionals across four cities in India - Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai - and demonstrated the importance of efficient business card management in the Indian market and the benefits that proper contact management brings to careers. The primary findings of this survey were:
Inefficient contact management is directly hurting business, with 43 percent of respondents saying they have missed out on business opportunities due to having misplaced business cards
Almost all (93 percent) of respondents believe that the best way to manage contacts is on the cloud. Despite this, most (62 percent) are still simply storing business cards they receive in a card holder Even when storing contacts online, input is mostly done manually; 57 percent manually input details into their phone, with 37 percent manually inputting into their computer
"In the Indian market, who you know can make or break your career, and business cards play a significant role in keeping on top of things; they remain the key tool to expanding one's professional network, but are close to useless if not managed properly. Through this survey, we have gained some wonderful insights into the management of business cards in India, and we actually found a lot of similarities between the Indian and the Japanese market. This assures us that Indians are ready to embrace our business card management software in order to boost their careers. With Eight, we want to help Indians achieve their goal of making every connection count," said Edward Senju, Executive Producer of Eight.
It is clear that those surveyed feel that business cards are a vital tool in advancing their careers. 73 percent of respondents exchange business cards in meetings 'every time' or 'almost every time'. 80 percent have exchanged business cards outside of work, and 71 percent stated that they carry their business cards with them everywhere they go.
A lot of respondents still rely on time-consuming manual procedures such as storing cards in a card holder (62 percent) or manually entering contact details into their phone (57 percent) or computer (37 percent). This is not just inefficient, it also hurts business - 43 percent say that mismanagement of their business cards has directly led to missed business opportunities.
All these point to India being ready for better business card management, with accessibility, security and efficiency being at the top of people's wish-list. A whopping 93 percent of respondents believe that cloud-based contact management is the way forward.
The survey was conducted amongst 60 percent men and 40 percent women in an effort to gain a gender-neutral view of contact management. While men had more business contacts vis-a-vis personal contacts than women, the most important aspects of business cards - mobile numbers and email IDs - were of equal importance to all respondents.
Despite differences in gender, income level or education, the single biggest benefit of digitised business card management was considered to be easier accessibility to contact details when needed. In this context, efficient cloud-based storage of business cards is the answer.
The survey also found that post-graduates have more contacts than graduates in India, and likewise that individuals with greater income levels have more contacts. This suggests that as Indians move up the corporate ladder, effective management of business cards becomes even more important to them, and that properly organising contacts is in itself key to career advancement. This represents yet another reason why the proper management of contacts is critical.
The Eight app combines business card scanning features with social media functionality to connect users and provide them with an online contact management and networking platform. With AI-driven technologies, the app offers a new way to manage and maximise business connections.
The Eight app is now available in India and can be downloaded from Google Play or the App Store.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
