The Indian market with around 37 million users, is the second largest market for LinkedIn and hence when pictures of Jeff Weiner and Narendra Modi meeting started doing the social media rounds, we weren’t surprised. India, should be on the map of any these big internet companies, if they want to take the next leap.
Interestingly, Jeff announced 3 products for Indian markets, LinkedIn Lite, LinkedIn Placements and LinkedIn Starter Pack. An in depth on each of these products will tell you that Jeff and his Indian team had been keeping a hawk eye on the Government initiatives and the changes in the technology and socio-cultural landscape of the country.
LinkedIn Lite is the lighter version of the mobile site of LinkedIn which will work better for areas with lower internet connectivity. A move aimed to push the digital revolution to Tier II & Tier III cities, its’s doing what Twitter & Facebook had already been offering. The new app will do away with rich graphics & media and take less than 150 KB to load and post that it will consume about 70 KB. It will load four times faster than its previous mobile website and consume less data. The fact that India is the second highest smartphone market (after China) and that most users browse content & social networking sites on their phones and not on desktops, though a little late, this launch will be welcomed by the users of India. Personally, of all the social networking apps I have on my phone, I have hated the LinkedIn one the most, it was damn slow. Jeff said this version would get rolled out to Indian users in the coming few months.
LinkedIn Placements is my favorite of the three. Having partnered with HackerRank, Aspiring Minds, Co-Cubes and Wheebox, LinkedIn Placements is going to assess the interests & skills of the students’ basis an online test. The scores of this test would then get matched to relevant job openings on the portal. The usual process of interviews, selection etc. would then be followed. A pilot of this was launched in November 2015 and is now available for all colleges across India. LinkedIn has already tied up with 25 companies that can look at these candidates as potential employees. There are 50 jobs up for placements through this scheme, primarily in the areas of software development, marketing and finance. In line with the Skill India initiative of the government, this product aims to reduce the skill gap between what’s on offer in campuses to what the companies really want. As part of the scheme, users will be required to update and fill their profile before they take the online test and individuals can also get certified around skill sets needed in the workplace. This service will also have study material for students to learn from.
LinkedIn Starter matches well with the StartUp program of the government. Aimed at targeting start-ups and small businesses by providing them avenues for better brand visibility, the way LinkedIn describes it is “Grow your Brand. Grow your Team. Grow your Influence.” They also call it LinkedIn in a Box; it is more like a social networking website for businesses. Businesses on LinkedIn will be able to grow themselves through direct marketing and affiliate themselves with other businesses as ways to grow.
It’s not the first time that LinkedIn has launched country specific products. Earlier, they had gained successful entry into China market by customizing their solutions. While Lite was something they should have anyways done, the way they implement their other two products would be exciting to watch. With Lynda, an online learning platform already under LinkedIn and a product currently running in US that aims to provides jobs to freelancers, the LinkedIn placement scheme seems a good fit in the Indian Jigsaw landscape for LinkedIn.
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