Business Today 30 October 2022

India’s $150-billion-plus software exports industry—which is spearheaded by IT services giants like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, HCL Tech and Tech Mahindra—is currently in the middle of a massive debate around the issue of “moonlighting”, a term popularly used for people taking jobs on the side mostly without informing their primary employer. Ever since Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji tweeted about the issue in August, calling it “cheating—plain and simple”, India Inc. has been on fire with opinion divided around not just about the ethicality of moonlighting, but also what constitutes it. Subsequently, Premji announced he had fired 300 employees who were found to be moonlighting. Even at Business Today’s mega India@100 Summit in end-August, tech sector leaders were ranged on both sides of the debate. While TCS’s COO N.…

Source: Media reports, IMARC Group ₹1.25 LAKH CRORE Likely size of the sweets and snacks market in FY23; it was ₹1.10 lakh crore in FY22 19 PER CENT Annualised growth the packaged sweets market may witness during 2021-2027 ₹50,000 CRORE Sale of salty snacks in India in FY22, as per data from the Federation of Sweets & Namkeen Manufacturers…

$25 billion THE AMOUNT OF INVESTMENTS THE GOVERNMENT IS EXPECTING UNDER ITS PLAN TO INCREASE SUPPORT FOR NEW SEMICONDUCTOR AND DISPLAY FACILITIES LEADING THE CHARGE THE COUNTRY’S SEMICONDUCTOR MARKET IS EXPECTED TO MORE THAN DOUBLE BY 2026 FROM $27.2 BILLION IN 2021 *Estimate THE SUPPLY ROUTE CHINA, HONG KONG AND VIETNAM WERE THE TOP THREE SUPPLIERS OF SEMICONDUCTORS TO INDIA IN FY21 Figures are amount of semiconductor imports from the respective countries SENDING A STRONG SIGNAL SPENDING BY THE GOVERNMENT ON PROMOTION OF ELECTRONICS AND IT HARDWARE MANUFACTURING HAS JUMPED MANIFOLD IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS *Estimate; 2022-23 data includes ₹5,300 crore of PLI for large-scale electronics and IT hardware A $100-BILLION DREAM THE POTENTIAL OPPORTUNITY FOR INDIA IN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING IS ESTIMATED TO BE UP TO $100 BILLION BY…

Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC)—an ambitious initiative to bring about structural changes in the current platform-centric e-commerce model—was thrown open for public users in Bengaluru Urban district on September 30, 2022. At present, about 60 per cent of India’s e-commerce market is controlled by two US-based platforms—Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart. ONDC, an interoperable and open platform, has already onboarded over 200 merchants across grocery and food and beverage segments, and is in the process of onboarding more buyer and seller-side apps as it expands to more cities.…

E-COMMERCE OPPORTUNITIES FOR SMEs are growing under the ‘new normal’. New research by FedEx Express has revealed that 83 per cent of Indian consumers have increased their purchases from e-commerce platforms in the past three years, and this is likely to continue. Per its research, 80 per cent of SMEs agree that consumer buying behaviour has fundamentally changed due to Covid-19, and most of them believe that e-commerce will continue to boom. Acknowledging the importance of marketplaces, 58 per cent of SMEs sell directly to customers through e-commerce platforms, the research has found.…

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has enhanced the scope of insider trading regulations by bringing mutual fund (MF) units under the regulation’s ambit. Coming three months after the watchdog’s consultation paper on the issue, the move was triggered after instances of MF officials selling their units when they had inside information on issues at the fund house came to light. While there are restrictions on trading of shares based on unpublished price-sensitive information, there was no direct bar on selling mutual fund units till now.…