Exclusive | Innovation is an ongoing process: ApnaCircle's Yogesh Bansal

India’s leading professional networking site, ApnaCircle.com has launched a new revamped look and feel by redesigning its interface for easy navigation. The new interface has been developed after careful research to equip users with enjoyable navigation and at the same time make it easy for them to gain and maintain repute in their chosen industry. Founded in the year 2006, ApnaCircle, a Viadeo Group Co. is one of the pioneers in the Indian networking space. It connects professionals across India and gives them a platform to brand themselves and build the right contacts worldwide. 

 

Speaking to Adgully on the need for the revamp, Yogesh Bansal, Founder and CEO, Apna Circle said, “Innovation is an ongoing process and especially in social media, changes help us understand what the user is more comfortable with. Since we merged with Viadeo, the site has undergone a lot of changes. We are trying to better the product and make it more user friendly for the Indian audiences.” 

 

ApnaCircle merged with Viadeo, the leading professional networking site in Europe and with Tianji, the leading professional networking site in China in 2009 to form the leading global entity. Also, ApnaCircle – Viadeo - Tianji acquired Unyk, a Canadian social networking site to grow the Indian market organically. ApnaCircle has over 3 million subscribed users in India and over 40 million across the globe as a combined entity. The growth potential is immense as ApnaCircle is gone into a lot of new non-English speaking countries which have not been tapped by any other existing networks. 

 

An active business seeker or a professional does not end at one portal or site; an active job seeker would want to visit various portals and networks and would not mind investing his time until he gets a return from one of those. ApnaCircle’s mergers have enabled the Indian users to interact with vast consumers from Europe, China and other parts of the globe. Says Bansal, “we have tried to follow a different strategy and a different approach via which we look at adding value to our users. We have gone into local markets with local names and have followed a glo-cal strategy which makes us both local as well as global. Another differentiator is that we serve a younger demography and take the bottom up approach unlike LinkedIn.”   

 

The overall market is growing and is full of opportunities. ApnaCircle’s focus globally right now will be on the product. Its profile for example has undergone a complete revamp and the new one aims to be more user friendly. It has changed the overall feel of the site by making changes to the header and footer. The site has also brought in the company pages and is inviting the corporate to create their company pages and get their teams together on the network. Adds Bansal, “the focus remains the product and the offerings, and alongside we are working on the smallest of issues as well as evolutions in order to provide an excellent user experience.”  

 

ApnaCircle is looking at various revenue models such as paid recruitment services, premium memberships, advertising as well as other models. As for future plans, Bansal says,” the medium term plan as of now is to enrich the product, work on the company pages and makes changes with respect to the Indian market. We plan to start working on the monetization model too.”