Innholdsfortegnelse for July 31, 2016 i Business Today

Anybody following business news would not have failed to note the giddy rise of Indian start-ups in the past couple of years, or the fact that some cold water has been poured on them this year by venture capitalists (VCS). While India has always had a start-up culture – think Dhirubhai Ambani and Reliance or, later, Infosys, to name just two famous examples – the advent of VC- funded start-ups, especially in the area of e-commerce and digital economy, really started in 1998/99. However, the first dotcom crash of 2000/01 saw a lot of entrepreneurs scurrying for cover, and VC funds suddenly dried up. It was over a decade before the next wave of digital/e-commerce start-ups came up, and VCs again started putting big money behind the ideas of untested,…

18-22 MAKING OF A FUTURE WHAT: ECOSOC High-level Segment 2016 WHEN: 18-22 July, New York WHAT TO LOOK FOR: The event will identify and deliberate on several key features meant to advance coordination, dialogue, follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, and have high-level dialogues with international financial and trade institutions, and government representatives. 29 DAIRY DIARY WHAT: Emerging Trends in Bovine and Non-bovine Dairy Sector WHEN: 29 July, Chandigarh WHAT TO LOOK FOR: The event organised by CII will discuss the therapeutic value of bovine and non-bovine milk, and find ways to develop skill and entrepreneurship,and establish scalable businesses for dairy and dairy food industries. 28-29 CREATE FOR CASH WHAT: 12th India Innovation Summit 2016 WHEN: 28-29 July, Bangalore WHAT TO LOOK FOR: The CII summit…

“Bots are the new apps,” Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella declared during a conference in San Francisco in March. While most tech giants have been leveraging the power of chatbots – Apple with Siri, Amazon with Alexa, Google with Google Assistant, Microsoft with Cortana and Tay – Facebook, too, joined in by opening up its Messenger APIS (application program interface), for brands to deploy chatbots on its app. It has been a runaway success – within just three months of launch around 11,000 chat-bots have been developed by businesses on Facebook Messenger. Other platforms such as Slack and Telegram host around 1,000 bots. A chatbot is a chat-based interface that can stimulate conversations with humans, and deliver information or services on demand. According to cloud messaging service platform Gupshup, 350+ Indian…

The government is on an overdrive on economic reforms and opening up for FDI; economic policies are being liberalised, power deficit is down to negligible levels; infrastructure projects are being approved at a rapid pace; local manufacturing is being encouraged and new investment avenues are being opened up in defence. But the economy just isn’t firing. Or, is it? The answer lies in a closer examination of the various pockets of the Indian economy. While on one hand India’s projected GDP growth rate remains among the highest in the world, economists in India and abroad have often wondered that if India is growing at a rate higher than 7 per cent, why doesn’t it feel like 7 per cent on the ground! Whether 7.5 per cent GDP growth by the…

Anybody who attended the Start-up India launch in January this year would have felt the infectious energy at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an action plan. Hundreds of entrepreneurs and investors jostled with each other to find seats, loudly cheered every bit of the plan, and made overtly emotional speeches. Some said India’s “start-up revolution was starting”. The fact is that the “revolution” is a few years old. Technology-driven start-ups had started disrupting every aspect of a consumer’s life. In the process, India quickly scaled to become the third-largest start-up ecosystem in the world, after the United States and the United Kingdom, and ahead of Israel and China. It is also the fastest growing. According to product think tank iSpirt, India currently has 19,400…

There is little chance of getting bored with this book for the nimble wit and felicity of the author’s language The generation that reached its prime in the 1960s arguably had some of the best men of substance that independent India has produced. It cut across disciplines – from industry, academia, bureaucracy, diplomacy, art, journalism, law and even politics. They were the first bunch of indigenous, wholly ‘Made in India’ talent. This group of people didn’t carry the ‘hangover’ of the British Raj. At the same time, despite being steeped in national pride, they did not wear nationalism too heavily on their sleeves. They strived for excellence while remaining rooted in a strong value system. Having lived a full life in every sense of the term, most of them could…

“Rexit”: A Tough Job for the Government This refers to your well presented cover story on the Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan’s proposed exit from office (Rexit) once his term ends in September 2016 (Unfinished Agenda, July 17). Rajan’s exit proposal is being widely discussed in the country and has caught the imagination of the media and the masses. And the media coverage has made it a prestige issue for both the government and Rajan alike. The opposition parties are already pointing fingers at the government but that is understandable as they have their own axe to grind. All said and done, Rajan has done his job quite expertly so far, and his replacement will have a tough job in extracting the country and its economy from the…

Image sharing app Snapchat, which is known for its popularity among teenagers, is now gaining fans among older millennials (25-34) and people above 35 years of age. According to a research report by com-Score, only 5 per cent of smart-phone users between the ages of 25 and 34 were using Snapchat three years ago; now, the share has increased to an impressive 38 per cent. Similarly, three years ago, only 2 per cent of the 35-plus smartphone users were active on Snapchat; today, 14 per cent of them are on the app. As per the report, this rise in adult users has not deterred teenagers and younger people from using the app. Snapchat saw a 69 per cent increase in usage among the 8-24 age group of smartphone users –…

In the past six months, desperation and anxiety have been replaced by a sense of relief and cautious optimism in the boardrooms of Indian steel companies. After a relentless surge for well over two years, steel imports declined for the third straight month this May. High imports were a result of overcapacity in the global market led largely by China. It resulted in a steep decline in the profitability of the domestic industry, which was unable to compete with the price at which steel was coming into the country. The government, to its credit, was quick to act, though it was a tad late in realising the extent of the problem. A host of measures – including a safeguard duty and a minimum import price (MIP) – has restored a…

Navin Kumar, Chairman of GST Network, a not-for-profit company set up to provide IT infrastructure and services for the proposed Goods and Services Tax, or GST, looks calm and composed. The calmness hides the difficult nature of the task he has on his hands. Kumar and his team, working from the fourth floor of an office complex in Delhi’s Aerocity, are racing against time to build the IT platform on which businesses will register themselves, pay taxes and file returns after the GST comes into force. His team as well as the IT vendor, Infosys, are, in a way, shooting in the dark — they are writing the software without knowing the final shape the GST law and rules will take. All they have to work with is a model…

The process to identify this year’s list of India’s Coolest Start-ups began on January 7, when we opened up the web-based survey. Companies less than five years old – incorporated on or after January 1, 2011 – were eligible to apply. Two months later, we had 200-plus applications in the bag. There were applications from companies across sectors such as food tech, education, mobile phone makers, office space and, e-commerce. Adding to the mix were men’s facial hair stylists, online pharmacies, big data and analytics firms, social media analytics firms, apparel start-ups, home furnishing and makeover companies, hotel room aggregators, cleantech companies. And others. Competition was intense, and it exemplifies the broadening of the start-up ecosystem. People are coming up with more ideas and sharper ideas than just joining the…

TO ACTIVATE VIRTUAL CARD 1. Download Pockets app from Play Store on your NFC-enabled Android smartphone 2. Login with four digit MPIN 3. Click on Touch & Pay icon 4.Activate virtual card/s, which will be linked to existing debit or credit card/s TO MAKE PAYMENT 1. Log in to the wallet app with MPIN 2. Select Touch & Pay 3. Select the virtual card 4. Bring phone near merchant terminal where contactless payment is accepted; touch on ‘Tap Now’ to make the payment…

BANDHAN: The Making of a Bank By Tamal Bandyopadhyay This is the story of Bandhan, the only bank that emerged in Eastern India after Independence. Founded by the son of a sweet vendor with a mere 2 lakh, the sum total of his life savings. BUSINESS BESTSELLERS* The Rise and Fall of Nations By Ruchir Sharma Penguin UK Price: 799 Thinking, Fast and Slow By Daniel Kahneman Penguin Price: 499 ELON MUSK By Ashlee Vance Virgin Books Price: 699 IIMA- Day to Day Economics By Satish Y. Deodhar Random House India Price: 299 Super 30 By Biju Mathew Penguin Books Price: 199 *Top books by sales for June 19 - July 3, 2016; Includes only books released after Jan 1, 2015; Information provided by amazon.in…

“Internet retailing of books is a wonderful development” How has the publishing business model changed over time? The model has changed hugely in the past decade or so in different ways in different sectors. What hasn’t changed is the centrality of authors. If anything, they are more important now than ever as the amount of information has exploded and the concomitant need for signposts, the main one being the authenticity of the material. What has been the impact of e-commerce platforms and e-book stores? Internet retailing of books is a wonderful development. One of the impacts on publishers is the need for them to improve the accuracy of ‘metadata’ (the information about the book, its availability, different formats, etc). However, it is only rarely that a book can be ‘made’…

640,000 estimated job losses in five years in the Indian IT sector due to automation, according to IT consultancy HFS Research. That translates into a 28 per cent reduction from 2.28 million low-skilled jobs in 2015 to 1.64 million in 2021. PRIMA DONNA At a rally, either in Lucknow or Allahabad, the Congress Party is expected to announce Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as the face of the party’s campaign for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls – a last-ditch effort to turn the fortunes of the party, and a tacit acceptance that brand Rahul isn’t working. US DOUBT FIRE Underlining that India’s 7.5 per cent growth rate may be “overstated”, the US has said the Narendra Modi government has been slow to match its rhetoric in economic reforms. However, the report “Investment…

The Indian equity market bounced back smartly after Brexit, with the BSE Sensex running up nearly 3.5 per cent in a week. Everybody on Dalal Street now seems to be asking two questions: Is there no impact of Brexit on the Indian market? And, can the Sensex remain at these levels and even surge further? Indian stocks have been resilient because FIIs have not begun pulling out of the country. Also, there has been a sustained inflow into the market from domestic mutual funds. Indeed, domestic and global funds remain upbeat on India. The prevailing view among investors is that the Modi government is on the right track, interest rates in India would soften further and corporate performance is gradually improving. “Once the shock of Brexit starts to wear off,…

China's Internet censorship body has warned online media companies against using social media as a source of news without approval in, what it claims to be, a bid to counter fake news and rumours. “It is forbidden to use hearsay to create news or use conjecture and imagination to distort the facts,” the warning states. It has also listed a number of fake news stories that were recently circulated on the Internet. The development comes days after China's censorship Internet chief Xu Lin stepped down. China has already banned social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.…

June 2015 Finance Minister Arun Jaitley hikes duty on flat steel products, used in the manufacture of automobiles and consumer durables, to 10 per cent from 7.5 per cent Jaitley also raises duties on long steel products, used in construction, to 7.5 per cent from 5.5 per cent August 2015 Duty increased on import of non- alloy flat products from 10 to 12.5 per cent. Duties hiked in some of the other categories as well September 2015 Government imposes 20 per cent safeguard duty on hot-rolled flat products of non alloy and other alloy steels with a width of 600mm or above for 200 days February 2016 Minimum import price range between $341 and $752 imposed on 173 steel products for a period of six months March 016 Safeguard duty…

HEMANT JHAJHRIA Partner – Financial Services (Strategy & Digital)/PwC India “TRANSPARENCY IS VERY CRITICAL AND IMPORTANT IN A P2P MODEL. UK HAS PLACED STRONG EMPHASIS IN TRANSPARENCY IN ITS REGULATIONS” In February, the Chinese peer-to-peer (P2P) lender Ezubao came under the domestic regulator’s scanner for running an online Ponzi scheme. And in the US , governance issues dog one of the largest P2P lenders globally – Lender’s Club. The misdeeds of Ezubao and Lender's Club have revealed the risk for investors, looking to earn superior returns, in a loosely regulated P2P industry. In the UK, probably the first country to come out with investor friendly regulations, there are already talks of further tightening regulations to protect investor interest. The apprehensions are quite justified as the fast expanding industry is projected…

Sandeep Aggarwal doesn’t let go of anything that has worked. He announced the launch of Droom on November 21, 2014, the same day he launched e-commerce marketplace ShopClues in 2011, now India’s youngest unicorn. Droom started from the same building in Gurgaon’s Sector 15 where ShopClues began. Every time Aggarwal went for investor meetings, he wore the same T-shirt – a green-coloured Hugo Boss. “There’s an old Wall Street saying: ‘It is better to be lucky than smart’,” Aggarwal, Founder and CEO of Droom, says, chuckling. You cannot argue that his luck has worked. He has raised four rounds of capital, totalling nearly $46 million. The last round, its biggest at an estimated $30 million, came in June this year amid the doom and gloom in India’s e-commerce industry. Investors,…

Batting for Modi Heaping praise on the work done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for India’s development, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said he is a big fan of the Indian Prime Minister. He is “very impressed” with the major push to ambitious programmes like Smart Cities, Swachh Bharat and power reforms. “The World Bank chief also appreciated India’s rapid progress in improving the ease of doing business, especially in the area of logistics,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. Hailing the developmental efforts of the government, Kim said India has emerged as a “bright spot”. Kim also praised RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and described him as a “great” central bank governor. “He (Rajan) is well respected. I think he has done a great job,” he…