1- What is speak asia?
Speakasiaonline Pte. Ltd, Singapore (SAOL) is a unique web 2.0 company that empowers 19 lakh consumers to create and use their collective bargaining power to get unprecedented price advantages in goods and services procured through our portals. (For RP details see point 26) The only comparable success in India is the unrelated http://www.echoupal.com/ which provided an improvement in the livelihoods of lakhs of ordinary Indian farmers through its portal. With 19 lakh strong panelists and promoted from an Indian origin, that seeks to remind the world, that the FUTURE of the 21st Century is ASIAN, with its epicenter in India.
2- What is its business?
The company is currently in two domains:
The first domain is “precision marketing”. In this the company engages in filtered/narrow casting of marketing and sales related services. These services to name a few are providing survey panels, Advertising, lead generating and also sales.
The second domain is to provide knowledge, information and training to its panelist, for their overall development in order to make them empowered consumers.
Speak Asia is creating a Panelist community of empowered consumers which earns rewards points by participating in companies activities (e.g. surveys filling, product referrals / sales, advertising based surveys, self development training programs ) on the website. The panelist can use these reward points for purchase of products and services from the website. The company’s business model is also to make profits from product and service sales. However company bears the cost of utilization of the reward points, for purchase of products and services at the website. In simple terms our Panelist community “EARNS AND BURNS REWARD POINTS ON THE SAOL PORTAL” Speak Asia gets research done ‘on’ and ‘for’ different companies, products and services. Panelists earn reward points (RP) for participating with their focused and valuable opinions in the surveys.
3- Speak Asia is a Singapore based company; are they authorized to do Business in India.
Online business portals without a PE in India have been legitimately doing business in India since 2000. The largest global, professionals community portal, which is also a web 2.0 “freemium” model is www.linkedin.com (unrelated) and they have approximately 900,000 Indian subscribers, who enlist either free or paid. Subscribers also participate in Polls and carry out other crowdsourcing activities. LinkedIn set up their Indian PE only in 2009 after they had lakhs of subscribers from India http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/linkedinsfirst-asia-pac-office-in-india/379799/
4- How does Speak Asia Remit and/or Transfer Money to India.
peakasia transfers the money from Singapore ONLY by Bank transfer, due to its very large IT system along with the Bank’s payment gateway. This facilitates direct money transfer to the accounts of panelists without them having to even visit their banks.
Singapore banks comply with the strictest security norms and use Telegraphic Transfer ONLY via RBI registered banks in India.
5- Who are the promoters of Speakasia Online Pte Ltd.
Speak Asia is owned by a holding company – Podium Ring International Ltd , registered in British Virgin Islands. SAOL’s online Panelists are interacting daily with SAOL through its management, staff and advisers. Podium Ring is not in the picture for those interactions. The global CEO is Ms. Harendar Kaur supported by Mr. Manoj Kumar CEO-India and the Speakasia team.
6- RBI, SEBI, Ministry Of Corporate Affairs and PMO gave clearance to SpeakAsiaOnline.
As per the knowledge of the Company and its advice received since inception, SAOL has not breached any provisions of Indian law, RBI, SEBI, or any other government authority. However, it has come to the notice of the company through its media sources that because of the negative campaign initiated by some organizations, that RBI, SEBI, Ministry Of Corporate Affairs and PMO have initiated enquiry against the working of the company. SAOL welcomes this because this will help the Company to clear the cloud if any.
However, till date SAOL has not been contacted by any of the Government Departments.
The Company assures its full cooperation and participation in any enquiry or investigation initiated/ conducted by the Government Authorities in India and in fact it reached out by email to all authorities including the PMO on 15 May 2011, requesting for an enquiry into its affairs since the allegations could damage its reputation and trust with the panelist community.
7- In India, for participating in a survey, a consumer gets approximately Rs. 60/- per survey. Why does SpeakAsia pay Rs. 500/- per survey? How does SpeakAsia manage to pay such kind of money? Who are the clients.
Reward points for doing online work are not a strange or unique idea at all.
There are many examples of unrelated businesses: https://www.globaltestmarket.com/ and other competing online survey companies. Our Payment of 10 RP (conceived value of Rs 500) is based on mean on international trends as we participate with global panel exchanges. International rates vary between $10 to $150, depending upon profile and domain complexity and specialization required for the survey data. For any panel providing business, it’s a business secret with their end client (mostly MNC’s) and are legally bound confidential and strict Non Disclosure Agreements. Further, SAOL participates in over 1,200 Panel exchanges and panel exchange programs across the world. It is these exchanges, which are in direct contact with Market Research (MR) companies or the final clients, for whom these surveys are conducted. We have no access to the details of the MR companies, nor their final clients for whom our panel participates in surveys through these panel exchange programs.
8- The Company claimed of having a server farm and headquarters in Singapore; but on a news channel’s visit, it was found that the office has only 9 staff and that too only accountants. And to top it all there is NO SERVER FARM. What does the company have to say about this? Can the company come out in the open and explain this and actually tell what is the total number of personnel does SAOL have? And what are their job profiles.
It is sheer ignorance of anyone, to expect server farms in a corporate head office. Server farms are managed by specialized, highly secure data centre management companies. See this brief note to explain about centers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_center Our Cloud Hosting infrastructure resides within servers in the Singapore, USA and other secure locations. SAOL clearly explained to the visiting reporter at Singapore HO, that our server farm was co-located at a secure Managed Hosting services provider in Singapore; but the reporter insisted upon only visiting the Head Office instead. Some interested people also expected “survey farms” … well there is no term like survey farm known to us or to any other panel aggregation companies. The 9 people in Singapore office are accountants, because Singapore is our Head office and like other web 2.0 companies, so far we didn’t need more people there. In fact, SAOL is already preparing itself for the future and has taken up another office besides the HO in Singapore. Whilst in India the company has already taken steps to set up its PE. By the year end, SAOL will have 5 Zonal offices across India.
Speakasiaonline Pte. Ltd, Singapore (SAOL) is a unique web 2.0 company that empowers 19 lakh consumers to create and use their collective bargaining power to get unprecedented price advantages in goods and services procured through our portals. (For RP details see point 26) The only comparable success in India is the unrelated http://www.echoupal.com/ which provided an improvement in the livelihoods of lakhs of ordinary Indian farmers through its portal. With 19 lakh strong panelists and promoted from an Indian origin, that seeks to remind the world, that the FUTURE of the 21st Century is ASIAN, with its epicenter in India.
2- What is its business?
The company is currently in two domains:
The first domain is “precision marketing”. In this the company engages in filtered/narrow casting of marketing and sales related services. These services to name a few are providing survey panels, Advertising, lead generating and also sales.
The second domain is to provide knowledge, information and training to its panelist, for their overall development in order to make them empowered consumers.
Speak Asia is creating a Panelist community of empowered consumers which earns rewards points by participating in companies activities (e.g. surveys filling, product referrals / sales, advertising based surveys, self development training programs ) on the website. The panelist can use these reward points for purchase of products and services from the website. The company’s business model is also to make profits from product and service sales. However company bears the cost of utilization of the reward points, for purchase of products and services at the website. In simple terms our Panelist community “EARNS AND BURNS REWARD POINTS ON THE SAOL PORTAL” Speak Asia gets research done ‘on’ and ‘for’ different companies, products and services. Panelists earn reward points (RP) for participating with their focused and valuable opinions in the surveys.
3- Speak Asia is a Singapore based company; are they authorized to do Business in India.
Online business portals without a PE in India have been legitimately doing business in India since 2000. The largest global, professionals community portal, which is also a web 2.0 “freemium” model is www.linkedin.com (unrelated) and they have approximately 900,000 Indian subscribers, who enlist either free or paid. Subscribers also participate in Polls and carry out other crowdsourcing activities. LinkedIn set up their Indian PE only in 2009 after they had lakhs of subscribers from India http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/linkedinsfirst-asia-pac-office-in-india/379799/
4- How does Speak Asia Remit and/or Transfer Money to India.
peakasia transfers the money from Singapore ONLY by Bank transfer, due to its very large IT system along with the Bank’s payment gateway. This facilitates direct money transfer to the accounts of panelists without them having to even visit their banks.
Singapore banks comply with the strictest security norms and use Telegraphic Transfer ONLY via RBI registered banks in India.
5- Who are the promoters of Speakasia Online Pte Ltd.
Speak Asia is owned by a holding company – Podium Ring International Ltd , registered in British Virgin Islands. SAOL’s online Panelists are interacting daily with SAOL through its management, staff and advisers. Podium Ring is not in the picture for those interactions. The global CEO is Ms. Harendar Kaur supported by Mr. Manoj Kumar CEO-India and the Speakasia team.
6- RBI, SEBI, Ministry Of Corporate Affairs and PMO gave clearance to SpeakAsiaOnline.
As per the knowledge of the Company and its advice received since inception, SAOL has not breached any provisions of Indian law, RBI, SEBI, or any other government authority. However, it has come to the notice of the company through its media sources that because of the negative campaign initiated by some organizations, that RBI, SEBI, Ministry Of Corporate Affairs and PMO have initiated enquiry against the working of the company. SAOL welcomes this because this will help the Company to clear the cloud if any.
However, till date SAOL has not been contacted by any of the Government Departments.
The Company assures its full cooperation and participation in any enquiry or investigation initiated/ conducted by the Government Authorities in India and in fact it reached out by email to all authorities including the PMO on 15 May 2011, requesting for an enquiry into its affairs since the allegations could damage its reputation and trust with the panelist community.
7- In India, for participating in a survey, a consumer gets approximately Rs. 60/- per survey. Why does SpeakAsia pay Rs. 500/- per survey? How does SpeakAsia manage to pay such kind of money? Who are the clients.
Reward points for doing online work are not a strange or unique idea at all.
There are many examples of unrelated businesses: https://www.globaltestmarket.com/ and other competing online survey companies. Our Payment of 10 RP (conceived value of Rs 500) is based on mean on international trends as we participate with global panel exchanges. International rates vary between $10 to $150, depending upon profile and domain complexity and specialization required for the survey data. For any panel providing business, it’s a business secret with their end client (mostly MNC’s) and are legally bound confidential and strict Non Disclosure Agreements. Further, SAOL participates in over 1,200 Panel exchanges and panel exchange programs across the world. It is these exchanges, which are in direct contact with Market Research (MR) companies or the final clients, for whom these surveys are conducted. We have no access to the details of the MR companies, nor their final clients for whom our panel participates in surveys through these panel exchange programs.
8- The Company claimed of having a server farm and headquarters in Singapore; but on a news channel’s visit, it was found that the office has only 9 staff and that too only accountants. And to top it all there is NO SERVER FARM. What does the company have to say about this? Can the company come out in the open and explain this and actually tell what is the total number of personnel does SAOL have? And what are their job profiles.
It is sheer ignorance of anyone, to expect server farms in a corporate head office. Server farms are managed by specialized, highly secure data centre management companies. See this brief note to explain about centers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_center Our Cloud Hosting infrastructure resides within servers in the Singapore, USA and other secure locations. SAOL clearly explained to the visiting reporter at Singapore HO, that our server farm was co-located at a secure Managed Hosting services provider in Singapore; but the reporter insisted upon only visiting the Head Office instead. Some interested people also expected “survey farms” … well there is no term like survey farm known to us or to any other panel aggregation companies. The 9 people in Singapore office are accountants, because Singapore is our Head office and like other web 2.0 companies, so far we didn’t need more people there. In fact, SAOL is already preparing itself for the future and has taken up another office besides the HO in Singapore. Whilst in India the company has already taken steps to set up its PE. By the year end, SAOL will have 5 Zonal offices across India.
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