The Hindu Business Line : Spreading business knowledge about India

The Wharton school of business of the University of Pennsylvania recently launched India Knowledge@Wharton (www.ikw.in) , the Indian edition of its Knowledge@Wharton online business resource. The content for the site will initially be a mix of India-specific stories and stories from the other sites before evolving into a completely India-specific site. And for the first time in the history of Knowledge@Wharton, mobile phone users will be able to subscribe to the site using their phones. Mukul Pandya, Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief of Knowledge@Wharton, started the publication seven-and-a-half years ago. The Knowledge@Wharton family of sites now has over 750,000 subscribers. Last week, Business Line sat down with Pandya to discuss the hows, whys and whats of India Knowledge@Wharton.

Why publish an Indian edition of Knowledge@Wharton?

There were a few factors that contributed to it. The first was that after the US, the second highest readership of Knowledge@Wharton comes from India. The numbers, of course, were very different because 80 per cent of the readership was in the US. But if you look at the rest of the world, initially it was Britain, Korea and India — all approximately at the same level of readership. But then India really took off partly due to the fact that about four years ago we systematically started covering business process outsourcing and issues like that long before it became headline news in other publications.

The second factor was, a few years ago we decided we would look around for people with whom we could do things jointly. At that time, we signed an agreement with The Economic Times to do some content licensing. Since then, some of our stories starting appearing in print in India and that also helped us increase our readership.

The third was globally India seems to have arrived. And, as you might imagine, this was personally a matter of some energy for me because this is where I'm from. I felt very strongly that Wharton could play a role in helping build business skills that would make India more globally competitive and that would be a good thing to do.

What does India Knowledge@Wharton offer the Indian business community that is different from what is already out there?

Our mission is to spread business knowledge about India. I'd like to make a difference between business knowledge and business information. There are lots of sources of information. The media does a great job of reporting the news. What we can do though, is present the knowledge behind the news. And by that I mean we can offer analysis and insight into what the news is all about. And that is what differentiates Knowledge@Wharton from other publications.

What made you decide to offer India Knowledge@Wharton on mobile phones?

Although India is a very tech-savvy country, if you look at the broadband infrastructure, it is not really as strong as it should be. The personal computer penetration rate is very low. If you look at the 40 million or so people who are online in India, only 10 million of them have broadband access either at work or home or both.

So about three-quarters of them access the Web through Web cafes, and that is a very limited system because the meter keeps ticking. That is one aspect of it.

On the other hand, if you look at the mobile market, most people have their own mobile phones. There is a user base of over 100 million people and it is growing by about three to four million a month. So purely as a tool for people to access the Web, it became apparent that if we wanted to deliver knowledge to people using a tool they had with them, then we had to take the mobile market very seriously. (People who sign up for the mobile programme will get SMS alerts about site updates and little briefs on articles. Technology is in place to ensure that subscribers who use their phones to browse the site will see a version of the Web site specifically tailored for a mobile phone.)

Do you plan to work with Indian companies in order to generate content?

Actually, we produce content with other companies all the time. Not just other companies, but also with other publications. We partnered with a publication called Indian Management about four years ago to do a project on business process outsourcing. We are open to the idea of doing joint projects with other publications. Partnering is a great way to spread knowledge.

Since the Knowledge@Wharton sites are free for subscribers, what does Wharton gain from publishing them?

There are a couple of things Wharton gets out of this. The school's mission as an educational institution is to spread knowledge in a way that would impact the practice of business. So, in a way, Knowledge@Wharton helps the school to act on its mission. It creates opportunities to learn around the world. The second thing that happens if we do the first job right is that it helps the school build its brand. But it is very important for us that the brand building aspect is the consequence of what we do, rather than the goal of what we do. We see ourselves as having an educational mission, not a promotional one.

How is India Knowledge@Wharton going to be funded?

The one thing any good publication needs, in addition to good content and distribution, is advertising revenue. You need people to invest in the publication and support what you do. Mediascope Publications is working with us in a number of cities (in India) to market sponsorships to companies that will allow us to keep Knowledge@Wharton growing and free for our users.

What is the editorial process at Knowledge@Wharton?

It is not very different from the kind of editorial process you would find at a newspaper or magazine. My own background is in journalism. However, one difference between the editorial process as practised in my newspaper days and Knowledge@Wharton is that since we are an online-only publication, we have very precise data about what our readers like to read and not read. In the online world, the feedback you get from your readers is instant. This is something we watch on an almost daily basis and that informs the editorial process.

Do you have a target as far as numbers of subscriptions go?

The internal target that we have set for ourselves is that we would like to get around 20,000 subscribers before the end of June 2007. It is a very arbitrary target. The reason is since we have about 29,000 subscriptions in India already, plus we had about 2,000 people pre-register; if we could get to 20,000, then we would nearly double the number of Indian subscribers. If it turns out we overshoot it or undershoot it, we are not going to stop doing it. The important thing is that Knowledge@Wharton is a free resource so we are not trying to sell it. So to the degree that business leaders rely on a resource like this, we hope that we are able to build our audience.