Innholdsfortegnelse for 16 July 2017 i Business Today

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…

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…

They are the Internet bullies. They spare no one. Hiding behind fictitious identities or absolute anonymity, trolls are infamous for spreading hate and negativity on social networks. Brands, especially, have to be cautious about posting or commenting, lest they fall into the troll trap. A seemingly innocuous post or tweet can be played up by trolls as being racist or misogynistic, setting a trail of hate messages on social media. Turns out, there is no way companies can avoid getting trolled. They can, however, manage it deftly. The first step, according to Saurabh Mathur, Planning Director of VML India, a digital marketing agency, is to carefully differentiate between a genuinely anguished customer complaint and a troll, before drafting the reply. “Not all negative comments are trolls; some can be real…

Digital play The whole GST system is based on digital transactions – no more paper invoices, manual filing of returns and physical payment of taxes. IT & application service providers stand to gain New compliance Enormous compliance burden on businesses such as filing 37 returns in a year, matching of invoices for input tax credit. Opportunities for CAs, cost accountants, company secretaries, lawyers Sales and inventory management Under GST, tax is paid when goods are shifted from one location to another. It calls for a new sales and inventory management system. ERP, accounting software providers may gain Business planning and consolidation GST removes area-based tax exemptions. So, businesses may have to be restructured in the future. Opportunities for lawyers, CAs, investment bankers and ERP providers Litigation GST is a new…

Q. While the government is pushing for more transactions online, many people are wary of it. What is Oracle doing as part of this effort? If you are going for financial inclusion and dealing with the scale that India has, the key is to bridge that with technology, which is dependent on infrastructure. So, the government has to make sure that infrastructure is available in not only Tier II and III cities, but all the way down to the villages. Without that you are going back to a very traditional method of putting human beings to conduct those transactions. We are working with banks to give them a variety of capabilities not only in technology infrastructure, but APIS that plug into the unified payments system and take advantage of authentication.…

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…

On June 16, the US Food and Drug Administration banned the import of drugs manufactured by Mumbai-based pharma company Ipca Laboratories at its active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) units in Ratlam, SEZ Indore and Piparia (Silvassa). The ban, issued subsequent to a warning letter by USFDA in February 2016, was slapped for not complying with the prescribed manufacturing standards. As a result, Ipca’s share prices crashed 8 per cent on that day as investors realised that the `3,178-crore company would lose nearly 20 per cent of its revenues owing to the ban. Indian companies have increasingly been receiving warning letters for non-compliance with the current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMP) of the US regulator. According to data on the USFDA website, out of the total 24 companies that have received warning letters…

Keeping a Tab Facebook has revealed ways in which it is combating terrorism including making use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Though ensuring safety of such a vast network of people is not an easy task, the networking site thinks AI can fix the problem to a great extent. The social networking giant has taken a bunch of initiatives such as image matching, understanding language, removing terrorist clusters, recidivism and cross-platform collaboration using AI to track and counter terrorist activities on its network. The company says it has in place a dedicated team of more than 150 people that primarily focuses on countering terrorism. Facebook has also partnered with other companies, civil society, researchers and governments. Snap Watch Snapchat has inked a content deal with Time Warner. The TV company will…

Top bankers went into a huddle recently to evolve a consensus on the resolution plans of a dozen large defaulting companies. The trigger : the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) decision to fast track bankruptcy proceedings against them under the new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016. These dozen companies have a total debt of `2 lakh crore (See The Big Picture). With the RBI cracking the whip, there is now no luxury of kicking the can down the road. A May 5 ordinance amending the Banking Regulation Act has given the central bank powers to compel banks, if needed, to invoke proceedings against defaulters. The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), the adjudicating authority for bankruptcy proceedings, has to approve a resolution or recommend winding up in 180 days or at…

Chief Policy Advisor, EY India In Indian agriculture, a good output can hit income. Indeed, a surge in output, otherwise welcome, often results in a significant loss of income. Consider this. Farmers who borrowed heavily to finance purchases of inputs – such as seeds, fertilisers, electricity and transport –in response to the high price levels of a variety of pulses in 2016 reaped a bumper harvest. During 2016/17, as compared to 2015/16, acreage under Tur increased from 3.77 million hectares (mh) to 5.28 mh. Acreage under Urad and Moong increased, respectively, from 2.85 mh to 3.57 mh and from 2.56 mh to 3.41 mh. For Groundnut, the increase was massive – from 2.66 mh to 4.70 mh. The combined output of these four crops increased from 10.18 to 14.55 million…

Nearly 90 lakh users; up to 1.2 lakh transactions per second; 320 crore transactions a month; and just 60,000 tax officers. These are some mind-boggling numbers that define the launch of goods and services tax (GST) on July 1. At the centre of all this is Chairman of GST Network Ltd, Navin Kumar, in charge of the technology that will make India’s biggest tax reform work seamlessly. In an interview with Rajeev Dubey and Dipak Mondal, Kumar explains how the network is readying to handle the transition of eight central and six state taxes into GST. What is July 1 about, apart from the fact that GST will go live then? From July 1, businesses can start issuing tax invoices using GSTIN. They can start uploading invoices from July 16. But why are so…

Net sales in 2016 up 27% to $136 BILLION; Net income at $2.4 BILLION Over 100,000 SELLERS have sales of more than $100,000 Introduces AMAZON GO – a store with no check-out – in Seattle. Adopts technologies used in self-driving cars such as computer vision, sensor fusion and deep learning. AMAZON PRIME AIR uses drones to deliver packages in 30 minutes. First delivery in December 2016 as part of a private trial in the UK ROBOTS handle much of the work at fulfillment centres in the US GROCERY PUSH: Acquires American grocery chain Whole Foods Market Inc. for $13.7…

The intriguingly titled volume Public Health and Private Wealth edited by Sarah Hodges and Mohan Rao, gains resonance in the wake of the recently released National Health Policy of the Government of India. It is an eclectic collection of essays by wellqualified medical researchers and health care experts. In their introduction, the editors identify three “problematics” for further exploration – a historical perspective on the interplay of science, technology and medicine; the varied careers of the hospital in independent India; and the history of official science policy. An afterword critiques the indigenous turn in science. The first part – The Quest for Improvement – kicks off with David Arnold’s seminal analysis of colonial poverty. Arnold’s central argument is that in India’s colonial era, poverty was essentially seen as the consequence…

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…

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…

he all-new Goods and Services Tax (GST) has created chaos and a sense of panic among existing and prospective taxpayers. But in spite of it all, the new era will throw open huge opportunities for information technology (IT) companies, enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution providers, tax consultants and the legal fraternity. GST is a complete overhaul of the old indirect tax system, and what makes it even more disruptive is the fact that all transactions under GST – right from registration and raising invoices to filing returns and paying taxes – have to be done online. There would be no manual filing of returns, no paper invoices and no physical payment of taxes. It also means all existing assessees and those who are likely to come under the tax net…

MP and Chairman of Standing Committee on Finance The government is determined to launch the Goods and Services Tax from July 1. But there is a total lack of preparedness regarding the implementation of GST. The government should not rush through a reform as large-scale and transformational as GST. The technology for GST implementation is yet to be ready for smooth and successful implementation. The GST Network (GSTN), which is handling the information technology part of it, is the backbone of the new tax regime. Unless a one-stop solution is provided, GST cannot be successfully implemented. The entire system may crash unless an appropriate set-up is in place. The GSTN model is also one of the solutions that should meet its obligation so that citizens can file their returns. But…

IF MARKET CCI Indian economic regulators were birds of prey, then the Competition Commission of India (CCI) was the eagle, the king of the skies. If you were in its grasp, you paid for it dearly. Last month, the Supreme Court of India clipped the CCI’s claws. The appeal in the Supreme Court was brought by the manufacturers of Aluminium Phosphide Tablets, an oral pesticide. For eight years, four manufacturers of APTs (one of them dropped out in between) had quoted identical prices in response to tenders floated by the Food Corporation of India, or collectively abstained from bidding. The Commission found them guilty of collusion, an offence under Section 3 of the Competition Act 2002, and fined the three remaining players a total of over `315 crore. Now, neither…

Ex-Chairman, Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, and Chairman, Special Cell on Land Policies, NITI Aayog India continues to have one of the lowest levels of crop yields and agricultural incomes per worker in the world The performance of Indian agriculture has improved significantly in recent years, especially in the wake of the Green Revolution. The production of food grains increased from about 89 million tonnes in 1964/65 to 271 million tonnes in 2016/17. The country, which was a net importer of food grains in the mid-60s, has been a net exporter of rice, wheat and maize for the past several years. Besides, the production of fruits, vegetables and milk has also increased significantly. However, the Green Revolution also brought in its wake the neglect of pulses and edible oil…

The International Leg of the Lloyd Business Today Golf was held on the May 9, 2017 at the Pattana Golf Club & Resort, Thailand. Individual winners from 10 cities in the 2 handicap categories, 0-14 & 15-24, participated in the International leg. In all 22 participants competed for the honours. The Pattana Golf Club & Resort is a sport and recreation destination, dedicated to promoting an active lifestyle culture catering to individuals, families and groups of all ages. Located 90 minutes from Bangkok and near the popular coastal city of Pattaya, the 400 acre resort boasts a range of premium accommodations, amenities, meeting and event facilities along with a 27 hole golf course and a fully equipped football stadium. The golf course, skillfully crafted out of naturally formed terrain with…

IRELESS BLUETOOTH speakers are a popular choice among music lovers. They come in all shapes and sizes, but the offbeat lantern-like design, clean look and conveniently placed controls of Bose’s latest Bluetooth speaker – SoundLink Revolve+ – make it a veritable design marvel. The unique shape represents the business end of this 360-degree speaker, delivering what audio engineers call omnidirectional sound. Most Bluetooth speakers are one-way facing and pump in the sound that way. But an omnidirectional design ensures that the sound flows evenly, in a 360-degree pattern, providing uniform coverage and better sound quality for all. Available in ‘lux grey’ and ‘triple black’, this petite creation is just over 18 cm in length and weighs less than 1 kg. It packs a punch, though, and houses dual sound radiators…