Innholdsfortegnelse for 3 April 2022 i Business Today

METAL AND MINING stocks are hogging the limelight in Dalal Street due to the war between Russia and Ukraine. Russia, which produces 6 per cent of the world’s aluminium and 10 per cent of its nickel, is a commodity powerhouse and a net exporter in many countries. Any supply-side disruption in Russia will further mount the prices of metals. There are hopes that elevated prices in the global markets will give a push to the near-term earnings of non-ferrous companies. The BSE Metal index (up 11 per cent) has outpaced the benchmark equity index BSE Sensex (down 8 per cent) on a year-to-date basis till March 8.…

▸ INDIA’S LARGEST multiplex chain PVR, and the fourth largest chain Cinepolis India, are in talks for a potential merger, sources have confirmed to Business Today. If the deal comes to fruition, the merged entity—with a valuation of more than ₹14,000 crore and 1,260 movie screens—will be at least twice as large as the nearest rival in the business, INOX Leisure, sources say. With 667 screens and a market capitalisation of ₹5,000 crore, INOX is currently the second largest multiplex chain. PVR has a market cap of around ₹10,000 crore and 860 screens. The India arm of Mexico-headquartered Cinepolis is valued at ₹4,000-5,000 crore, sources estimate. Along with its 400 screens, it also brings to the table international backing—the only Indian multiplex company to have that advantage. “It could be…

AN ESSAY ON THE ‘State of the Economy’ in the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) February 2022 bulletin begins by saying this: “Domestic macroeconomic conditions are striking a path that is diverging from global developments.” Perhaps, but the possible outcomes of the geopolitical crisis that began when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 could challenge that assessment. That’s not all. On March 8, US President Joe Biden raised the ante in this war by announcing a ban on the import of Russian energy products. While the US itself is not very dependent on Russian oil—in 2021, it imported an average 672,000 barrels a day, or 8 per cent of its needs, according to the Energy Information Agency (EIA); Canada provides 51 per cent of US oil imports—the impact would be…

▸ IN SEPTEMBER 2021, Adobe India appointed IBM veteran Prativa Mohapatra as its new Vice President and Managing Director. The global tech giant’s first woman leader in the country, its employees say, will inspire other female employees to take up leadership positions. “Gender in India happens to be one of the biggest markers of inclusion but for us it’s a business initiative and not so much of an HR initiative. We have a global goal of increasing women in leadership positions to 30 per cent by 2025 and India is well on track towards it,” says Abdul Jaleel, Vice President, Employee Experience, Adobe India. Diversity and inclusion are not the only company philosophies that Jaleel—who has been with Adobe India for over 13 years—swears by. He believes that physical collaboration…

▸ TATA STEEL IS a steel company, right? To Atrayee Sanyal, the company’s Vice President of Human Resource Management, Tata Steel isn’t just a steel company. It is also a large mining firm, the largest engineering & projects entity and the one with the biggest IT & digital teams in the sector, she says. Not to forget the many other businesses related to materials and services, she adds. Perhaps, that’s why the company—founded 115 years ago—scored high on ‘Growth and Learning Opportunities’ in the latest BT-Taggd Best Companies to Work For in India study. “There are so many opportunities [for employees] and therefore probably you have… [such high scores],” says Sanyal, a Tata Steel veteran of nearly 15 years. “If they [the employees] want to be in the steel business,…

EVER SINCE PRAMOD KUMAR took charge of operations at Adani Wilmar’s (AWL) newly built manufacturing facility at Hazira, Gujarat in 2019, he has never been happier. The 45-year-old engineer has been devoted to the company’s edible oil derivatives operations for well over a decade, but the fully-automated edible oil manufacturing plant on the outskirts of Surat gives him an immense sense of satisfaction. With a refining capacity of 2,500 tonnes a day, the plant is already one of the largest for the edible oil giant. But what keeps a seasoned professional like Kumar expectant is its future prospects. The plant’s half a dozen storage containers, standing side-by-side, 50-60-ft tall inside the campus, are being fed by dozens of oil tankers that relentlessly ferry raw edible oil from ships docked at…

BINGE AND CHARGE We tend to attend a lot more video calls these days than a couple of years ago. What if there was a way to attend these calls easily, while also charging your phone? Trust Belkin, a well-known name in the smartphone accessories space, to come up with such a product. This compact, Qi-certified wireless charger is compatible with a host of smartphones, including from Apple, Samsung and Google. Even bingeing on shows is a cinch, as the device also charges phones in landscape mode. Available on: amazon.in All-in-One Say, you’ve gone the whole hog with a smartphone, a smartwatch and earbuds. Wouldn’t it be nice to get a charger that can juice up all three simultaneously? If your devices support Qi charging, Samsung’s got you covered. The Trio…

The pioneer of Asia’s dotcom revolution, technology entrepreneur Rajesh Jain, is passionate about blogging. “I have been writing for as long as I can remember,” says Jain who wrote a diary as a teenager. Maintaining a daily diary is something most of us did as children, but we outgrew the habit. However, Jain continued this habit (writing) at IIT, and even wrote occasionally when he was in the US pursuing a masters. For Jain, diary writing was almost like talking to a friend. “Not only would it help me to get rid of any negative thoughts, but it would also offer me the ability to identify solutions. Writing is something I do for myself. Apart from offering clarity to my thoughts, writing is my process of self-discovery,” says Jain whose…

$531 BILLION The amount in sales made by the world’s top 100 arms companies in 2020 $58.21 BILLION worth of arms sold by US-based Lockheed Martin in 2020, more than Lithuania’s $778 BILLION Amount spent by the US on its military in 2020, more than 10x $61.71 BILLION Expenditure made by Russia on its military in 2020 Source: SIPRI Arms Industry & Military Expenditure Database…

THE ONGOING war in Ukraine and the consequent supply disruptions have left no room for cooling off in the already heated up daily essentials market in India. While prices of key household items such as soaps, detergents and edible oils are already on fire, with leading players like HUL and Adani Wilmar raising prices repeatedly, prices of packaged goods are set to go up further by 10-20 per cent in the coming weeks. This, however, does not bode well for manufacturers. As they tend to absorb a part of inflated costs, their margins are set to remain under pressure for at least the next two-three months.…

TO ASHNEER GROVER, BharatPe is a thing of the past. His LinkedIn profile, which is constantly being updated, says “Own Master” in his current occupation, with ex-MD and Co-founder of BharatPe also finding a mention. Even his harshest critics concede that he has a razor-sharp mind, but he will cross the line if he wants to. The facts are indisputable. Founded in March 2018, BharatPe turned unicorn in less than four years. Unfortunately, after a series of events leading to Grover stepping down this March, BharatPe marks the first instance of a potentially huge financial fraud among India’s proud unicorn story. One has seen crises breaking out at ShopClues.com or Housing.com, but they were more about disagreements between promoters. Unfortunately, that is not the case with BharatPe. One is staring…

▸ GENIUS, GOES AN old saying, is 99 per cent perspiration and 1 per cent inspiration. Taking the analogy forward, one could possibly say the same thing about the potential of a person—work hard to learn new things and grow. Microsoft certainly believes in something similar, and calls it the ‘growth mindset’. The potential of an employee isn’t pre-determined—the person can learn and grow, the company says. “Part of the mindset needed for this is accepting what we don’t know and being willing to learn and take action to drive meaningful change,” says Ira Gupta, Head of Human Resources, Microsoft India. The firm promotes a culture where employees are free to be curious, to experiment and to share the things they learn. No wonder that ‘Growth and Learning Opportunities’ is…

▸ THE TRIGGER MAY have been Covid-19, but management guru Peter Drucker had seen the signs in the late ’80s, says HDFC Bank Chief Human Resources Officer Vinay Razdan. Drucker was of the view that the experiment of moving people from Tier II/Tier III cities into urban centres for employment wasn’t working out because people were stressed as they spent more time on roads and their quality of life had suffered. “He said we should shift information to people instead of shifting people to information,” says the CHRO, when asked about his experience of managing the bank’s employees across the country during the pandemic. Razdan, who has spent nearly four years at HDFC Bank, believes the pandemic has brought about an irreversible shift globally in the way we work, and…

IT’S BEEN NEARLY two years since the pandemic started. Two years with most of us glued to our computer screens, binge watching Netflix and stress eating with hardly any exercise. Little wonder, there has been an increase in the number of obese people in the country. As per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) findings in November last year, the percentage of overweight women rose from 20.6 per cent to 24 per cent while in men the number increased from 18.9 per cent to 22.9 per cent over the last five years. Turning to dieting may be tempting for those looking for a quick fix. Now more than ever before one is spoilt for choice with a variety of dieting options—think Keto, or the splendidly-named Caveman Diet. But do they…

POWERED BY KNOWLEDGE PARTNER ASSOCIATE SPONSOR ON THE EVENING of March 12, the lawns of the Taj Lands End hotel in Mumbai, set beside the majestic Arabian Sea, became as spectacular as the sea itself, as it was graced by a bevy of powerful, influential women with insights and knowledge as deep as the ocean they sat next to. The occasion: the felicitation ceremony of Business Today’s The Most Powerful Women in Business awards. It was an evening to celebrate, but it was also an evening to introspect, to debate, to find deeper meaning, to the ever-evolving cause of gender diversity and finding more and more women champions in corporate India. Business Today’s Editor Sourav Majumdar initiated proceedings with his welcome address. Pointing out how India now has a woman as…

UTTAR PRADESH, PUNJAB, UTTARAKHAND, MANIPUR AND GOA WENT TO THE POLLS RECENTLY. HERE’S A LOOK AT WHERE THESE STATES STAND IN TERMS OF KEY MACROECONOMIC DATA. UTTAR PRADESH HAS SEEN A CONTRACTION OF MORE THAN 6% IN ITS GSDP IN FY21 Gross State Domestic Product* Figures in ₹ lakh crore; *Constant prices; Base price: 2011-12 HIGH INFLATION IS A MAJOR CONCERN FOR THESE STATES GOA LEADS IN TERMS OF AVAILABILITY OF POWER TRACKING STATES’ INCOMES… MANIPUR HAS THE HIGHEST FISCAL DEFICIT …AND THEIR LIABILITIES Source: RBI’s Handbook of Statistics on Indian States 2020-21; State Finances: A Study of Budgets of 2021-22, Reserve Bank of India…

The road ahead for LIC’s IPO is getting bumpier. The Russia-Ukraine conflict shows no sign of abating, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex is down nearly 11 per cent from last October (till March 10), the IPO market has seen no public issue in the past one month, crude has hit multi-year highs. Consequently, the near-term outlook for the market is far from positive. All this does not bode well for LIC and more importantly, if the IPO moves to FY23, then the government’s disinvestment target for FY22 of ₹78,000 crore (revised estimate from the earlier ₹1.75 lakh crore) looks set to fall short by a fair bit.…

NSE-owned International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), located in Gujarat’s GIFT-City, has launched trading in US stocks from March 3, 2022, specifically, those of Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Netflix, Tesla, Meta, Walmart, and Microsoft. Eventually this will be increased to 50 stocks. The offering is launched under a regulatory sandbox for nine months. The platform will offer shares in the form of unsponsored depository receipts that track underlying stocks in the US.…

AMAZON INDIA ▸ Workforce comprises Prime Video, operations team, technology team, Alexa Labs and AWS. Onus on the team leader to decide how many days they need to work from office or home GOOGLE INDIA ▸ Three days in office, two days wherever they work best ▸ Flexible work arrangements: Temporarily work from a location other than their main office for up to four weeks a year DHL EXPRESS (INDIA) ▸ Started 50:50 hybrid model which includes working from home for 10 days in a month since March ▸ Plans to let employees work from an office location nearest to them as the company is present in 52 locations HUL ▸ Recently moved back to hybrid work model ▸ Employees encouraged to come to office/work the market for at least…

AUTO 1 Tata Motors 2 Mahindra & Mahindra 3 Bajaj Auto 4 Hero MotoCorp 5 Maruti Suzuki India BFSI 1 HDFC Bank 2 SBI 3 ICICI Bank 4 Axis Bank 5 Aditya Birla Capital BPO, KPO, IT, ITES 1 Accenture in India 2 TCS 3 Infosys 4 IBM Business Consulting Services 5 Wipro CONSUMER GOODS AND DURABLES 1 HUL 2 Marico 3 Nestlé India 4 ITC 5 Philips INTERNET 1 Flipkart 2 Zomato 3 Netflix 4 Paytm 5 Swiggy LOGISTICS 1 DTDC Express 2 DHL Express (India) 3 FedEx Express Services (India) 4 Blue Dart Express 5 Delhivery PHARMA 1 Pfizer Ltd 2 Abbott India 3 Sun Pharmaceutical Industries 4 Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories 5 Johnson & Johnson TECHNOLOGY 1 Google India 2 Amazon India 3 Microsoft India 4 Meta (Facebook India) 5 Apple…

▸ SEVERAL TIMES THROUGH the conversation, Milind Lakkad speaks of how important it is to keep his staff happy. Just think about it. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS, as it is better known) is the big boy in India’s IT industry with a workforce in excess of half a million spread across the globe. A lot of time goes into identifying the right talent and Lakkad knows his biggest asset is not the offices his company occupies or the number of clients they proudly serve—it comes to people and nothing more. As Executive Vice President and CHRO of this behemoth of a company, standing still is a recipe for disaster. Two years of the pandemic has hit humankind and industry harder than anything ever. “We used that time well and really…

▸ WHEN SUNJOY DHAAWAN, Vice President of Human Resources, DHL Express (India), joined the logistics major in 2013, its business in India was limited to less than ₹3,000 crore in annual sales and women workers made up less than 10 per cent of its employee strength. Fast forward to now and DHL Express’s annual revenue in India has grown to over ₹5,000 crore and the share of women employees has increased to 17 per cent—because of the consistent efforts that Dhaawan and his team have put in. And despite spending nine years with DHL, his tenure falls short of the firm’s average tenure for an employee—which is 10 years now! That pretty much sums up the company’s success in managing its people—some 4,000 of them—in India. At a time when high…

● A 2020 poll among 1,005 American hiring decision-makers by US-based staffing solutions firm Express Employment Professionals found 67 per cent respondents saying they use social networking sites to research potential job candidates ● Among them, 55 per cent found content that caused them not to hire the applicant ● But 21 per cent said they are not likely to consider a candidate who doesn’t have an online presence ● A 2018 survey of 1,000+ hiring decision makers by employment website CareerBuilder also threw up similar results of 70 per cent, 57 per cent and 47 per cent, respectively, for the same metrics ● While a similar study is not available in the Indian context, the red flags pointed out by several HR experts and the study were almost the…

For Kolkata-based Sanjiv Goenka, Chairman of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, a business should throw up either cash flows or valuations to justify it being part of one’s portfolio. In an interview with Business Today’s Global Business Editor Udayan Mukherjee, he decodes what has worked for his businesses. Edited excerpts: Q: Sanjiv, your group’s interests are so diverse—from old-age businesses like power, energy, carbon black, extending to a suite of new generation enterprises like FMCG, retail, entertainment, music and IT. How do you keep a handle on such disparate businesses without getting torn in too many directions? A: Three points I would like to make, Udayan: one, all the businesses have critical mass and they lead in terms of operational efficiencies in the industries that they operate in. So, because of their efficiencies,…

200‚000 HOME KITS USED FOR COVID-19 TESTS FROM JANUARY 1-20‚ 2022‚ COMPARED TO JUST 3‚000 SINCE MAY 2021 WHEN THE ICMR APPROVED COVID-19 HOME TESTS THE MUCH-FEARED THIRD wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, borne by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, came, saw, but didn’t conquer. And thank goodness for that. But while the wave created barely a ripple, it did bring in a new dynamic into the testing ‘industry’, one that looks set to stay with us for the foreseeable future. And that is the rise of home-based rapid antigen test (RAT) kits as a significant and more private—albeit not quite as effective—alternative to the now ubiquitous RT-PCR test. RAT is a point-of-care test that is used for quick diagnosis of an infectious disease, at home or in an emergency…

BT@30 Team Business Today pops the bubbly at the celebration to mark the 30th anniversary of the magazine. A journey that has mapped the path taken by a newly independent India in the economic sense, its challenges, triumphs, its heroes and villains. In addition, BT has accurately predicted many an industry trend over the years, picked many a star, and been the face of Indian business for three decades. Now, it is time for the next 30, which promises to be as exciting and eventful…