Business Today 16 July 2017

Jeffrey Bezos had a successful career in an investment firm in Wall Street when he decided to resign in 1994, and set up Amazon. He was 30 years old. The Internet had stopped being a technological curiosity. The world wide web was born in 1991, and it was a giant step forward in using the Net. In 1993, Marc Andreesen and a group of student programmers developed Mosaic, the first graphical browser for the world wide web – and traffic on the Internet just exploded. By 1994, around the time Bezos was setting up Amazon, traffic on the Internet backbone had exceeded 10 trillion bytes per month. Amazon initially selected books as the area it would play in. It sold its first book in 1995. It raised some venture funding…

A Sure Recipe for Organisational Disaster This refers to your cover story on Essar (Prashant Ruia’s Quest to Save Essar, July 2). It was an insightful analysis of the business dimensions of the group. Business Today has brought the group under rigorous lenses of organisational climate, business competence, financial viability and critical remarks of business-watchers. Essar tried to have a finger in every pie, and resultantly they have burnt their fingers. Its entire story was full of commercial quirks, financial kinks, indifferent attitudes, governance slips, and growth distorts. Their rampant investments here and there and allegedly cooking up the books have scripted a sure recipe for organisational disaster. In 1994, the group landed in a controversy by putting the tentacles of its seven investment firms to acquire 67 per cent…

QUOTE “In life as in cricket, complacency or overconfidence is lethal. As Indian markets go up, the same is true. It is said that only the paranoid survive” Uday Kotak,?Executive Vice Chairman and MD, Kotak Mahindra Bank 1 Crore The country's domestic air passenger traffic in May 2017, up 17 per cent from 86.69 lakh in May 2016, according to Civil Aviation Minister Jayant Sinha PE DEAL-MAKING JUMPS 64% IN MAY May saw private equity (PE) deals worth $963 million, a rise of 64 per cent over May 2016, according to a Grant Thornton report. The January- May period saw 349 deals worth $6,402 million, compared to 421 deals worth $5,487 million in the same period last year. PAYTM LOOKS TO START MUTUAL FUND Paytm has applied to the Reserve Bank…

PUTTING CUSTOMERS FIRST WHAT: CII Marketing and Brand Conclave Kerala WHEN: June 28, Kochi WHAT TO LOOK FOR: Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Kerala is organising the 2nd Edition of the CII Marketing and Brand Conclave. The intention this year is to go the extra mile from branding/advertising to more specific need for any company – customer retention in a disrupted world. The theme of the conference shall be focused around the retention strategies and it will also brainstorm how to use digital technology to save time and build better customer relations ALL ABOUT STEEL WHAT : Workshop on "National Steel Policy 2017" WHEN: June 29, New Delhi WHAT TO LOOK FOR: The key objective of the FICCI workshop is to identify the opportunities that the industry and the Government…

The fight between older telecom operators and Reliance Jio has reached the penultimate stage. Operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular have suffered a body blow in the two quarters since Jio stormed the market with its disruptive pricing. Now, after waiting for long, and making some noises with telecom regulator TRAI, the older telcos are scurrying and meeting top bureaucrats and ministers to find a way to arrest their fall. These players have few options. The sharp deterioration in financial performance has put a big question mark over their debt repayment capabilities. In April, for instance, the Reserve Bank of India asked banks to make higher provisioning for loans to telecom companies. With debt of close to `4.5 lakh crore, and EBITDA of `53,800 crore, it…

Airtel •IUC should go up as it is does not cover costs •Licence fee reduction to 3 per cent, removal of the USOF levy •SUC must be 1 per cent of adjusted gross revenue •Fast-track approvals for mergers and simpler spectrum-sharing rules Vodafone •The NTP 1999 allowed for a 10-year growth period; a similar initiative is required at this stage •Licence fee should be subsumed into GST. •The auction design is flawed and creates a do-or-die situation for operators Idea Cellular •There should be a floor price for voice and data •SUC should be 1 per cent for auctioned and liberalised spectrum •Level-playing field with OTT players Reliance Jio •Deferred payments gave easy money to operators and pushed up pricing of spectrum •Telecom operators must bring in equity. •Taxation in…