Snapdeal taps into the strength of Rural India to support the ‘Digital India’ mission

Snapdeal.com, India’s largest online marketplace has entered into a partnership with IndiVillage – a social enterprise that works on creating economic opportunities for women and youth in rural India.
IndiVillage runs a rural BPO where it provides training and employment on information technology functions like data entry operations, online cataloging, content management, image tagging and transcription services among others. 100% of the profits are reinvested for holistic community development including skill centres for women, schools etc. With strength of 40+ people, 70% of them being women, the rural BPO offers both full time and part time employment.
The Indian e-commerce industry is at the confluence of ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’ and is set become a $100 billion industry in the next 5 years. An integral part of this journey involves making it easier and cost effective for small businesses to sell online. Under this partnership, sellers on Snapdeal can cost effectively outsource their imaging tagging, transcription and content development for product descriptions to IndiVillage, hence creating significant rural employment and skilling opportunities.
Speaking about this partnership, Kunal Bahl, co-Founder & CEO, Snapdeal.com said, “We are constantly looking at partnerships that let us marry our business goals while creating quantum impact for our country and society. Rural India has immense talent in very large numbers that can be unlocked by companies like ours and thus, giving us the opportunity to make our growth story more inclusive.”
Commenting on this Ravi Machani, Founder & CEO, IndiVillage said, “The rural youth wait for their fair share of opportunity after three decades of Indian urban success. India has 600,00 villages and all we need is 600,000 entrepreneurs to each adopt a village. What we look for is chance, not charity. We are the pioneers of adopting a virtuous cycle that feeds itself from enable, earn to empower. We believe that participation from a young technology leader like Snapdeal will intensify the cause of digital inclusion and community development in rural India”