CyberAds Studio designs Essar's Web Site at http://www.essar.com

CyberAds Studio [http://www.tcreng.com], an interactive design firm in Mumbai (India) is shaping the future of digital communications and new media. CyberAds has successfully integrated web-based solutions to commonly used business tasks for the Essar group, including a host of other leading corporates in India, Singapore, UK and the USA by designing state-of-the-art internet, intranet and extranet sites.

CyberAds Studio is today a leading web design and solution's company. It has weaved together the Essar web site [www.essar.com] incorporating corporate information, online video's, Portable Document Format (PDF) based annual reports, live audio news feed and database integration.

Essar is the fourth largest business group in India with an asset base of Rs 150 billion, and a group turnover of Rs. 41 billion. It has major interests in steel, shipping, oil and gas, power and telecommunications.

The brain behind CyberAds Studio, is the studio's CEO, MR. Rohit Bafna who says, "The Essar web site exemplifies, the status of a corporation about to enter the 21st century on a equal footing with their international counterparts." The studio has won many awards and accolades, the recent being from Jadoo [www.jadoo.com], Indian search engine, which awarded the Essar site with the site of the month award in July 1998. The Essar site is also the recipient of the prestigious Pan Innovation Award for outstanding use of web techniques.

The Essar web site opens up with A.R. Rehman's rendering of Vande Matram, striking a patriotic chord in the visitor, and has a number of flash applets. Essar's corporate video provides online glimpses into the groups various activities.

The launch of the site gives Essar's customers, suppliers, investors, traders, bankers, shareholders and prospective clients around the globe daily updates on the Group.

Provisions have been made for netizens to e-mail questions directly to the senior managers and the chat show forum provides answers to questions on-line. The highlight of the site is a buyer and seller trade section enabling traders to interact on-line with each other and conduct instant business deals. Initially this service is being experimented with the traders and buyers of Essar Steel.

The other interesting pages include investor's relations, where one can post their complaints or queries. Talk back is another section where Essar gives its point of view on the issues raised by the fourth estate. The media room contains the recent press releases of the Group companies. Those interested in joining the Group; can e-mail their resume to the human resources department.

The download section gives the browser the opportunity to download brochures and annual reports. Apart from the corporate brochures there are HRD and product specific brochures available. Annual reports for the various group companies are kept on-line in Adobe Acrobat format (PDF) from 1993 onwards.

Yet, another creative way to catch senior executive's imagination is the page on golf. The golf buff's could take a walk across the greens and have a first hand knowledge of who is putting what. This is quite a birdie for those sore sighted browsers!

Rohit Bafna says, "Besides designing internet web sites, CyberAds Studio offers extensive expertise in developing intranet and extranet solutions and technology to offer dynamic application sharing and collaboration, groupware servers, video conferencing, real audio and video server, Microsoft Netmeeting, news deliveries through push technologies, bulletin boards, and more."

Swati Gawande, project co-ordinator at Cyberads says, "We are into digital change management. Our goal is to move our clients from the traditional marketplace mentality to a market space mentality, the idea of integrating a company's total operations, finance, and marketing into a seamless digital environment."

CyberAds Studio works with clients who reap significant benefits from incorporating interactive media into corporate communications. "We believe in constant innovation and value addition to enhance web sites," says Mr. Bafna. Arresting experiences are the main ingredient in web marketing that CyberAds Studio fabricates for it's clients which encompass apart from the Essar group, such diverse corporates as Skypak, Kent (UK), Venus Jewel, Bollywood Central, ZenSoft (Singapore), Zenith Computers, Ministry of Environment (Singapore), Sentosa (Singapore), Oman On Line (Oman) and Biocore Inc. (USA).

CyberAds Studio intends to take Indian designers and trouble-shooting solutions to newer arena's. CyberAds is planning to open an office in New York, which will be the focal point of their envisaged global activity and expansion.