GEMKonnect launches global network for gems industry
Las Vegas, (IANS) Mumbai-based internet start-up GEMKonnect has launched a global online network for the gems industry here, a company statement said.
“Information and analysis are key in today’s marketplace. GEMKonnect plugs an essential gap for many in the industry,” said Vinod Kuriyan, Co-Founder, GEMKonnect.
The system was formally launched at the JCK Las Vegas show in the US, one of the world’s three largest gem and jewellery trade shows and a barometer for the North American market.
“Very early on, I realised that the only real way for any business to grow and thrive in today’s global environment was through the internet,” said Hitesh Khandelwal, Co-Founder, GEMKonnect.
The platform aims to create an environment that would enable the global industry to network with a simple mouse-click while sitting at their own desks.
“It provides industry professionals and companies their own timelines, gives them connections that are automatically updated whenever they post something and lets them know what their peers are saying too,” the statement said.
It added that from mine to market, gold, silver, diamonds and gemstones make journeys of thousands of kilometres, often criss-crossing the whole world.
“Professionals at each step of the process need to stay connected with suppliers upstream, customers downstream and be aware of overall trends and issues that are affecting markets and processing centres.”
“This is why stakeholders in the global gem and jewellery industry travel tens of thousands of kilometres themselves to attend a number of trade shows around the world. Here, they meet peers, prospective suppliers and prospective clients. They get a first-hand feel of new trends and get the pulse of changes and events that are shaping the global industry,” the statement said.
“I also realised that physical networking, as happens at trade shows, has very definite limits. And the cost and logistics involved in travelling to global trade shows automatically excluded literally hundreds of thousands of small and medium enterprises that would otherwise have found vital industry connections. The industry was literally crying out for a system like GEMKonnect,” Khandelwal added.