If you are unable to view this mailer, click here.
President's Message
" MSMEs have been long demanding that government run ESI and EPF schemes need complete overhaul. Both employees and employers contribute towards them. But ESI hospitals are too few and far between and are ill equipped. The EPF contributions on the other hand take the bulk portion of salary of workers at the lower wage structure. Workers also encounter a lot of operational difficulties dealing with EPF authorities. The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley acknowledged these difficulties in Budget speech on 28th Feb 2015 and said that ‘both EPF and ESI have hostages, rather than clients’. He promised to bring amending legislation to bring about the desired change. Nothing was heard after that, however. It is heartening to learn that Arun Jaitely has been entrusted the task of labour reforms. MSMEs would like to remind him of the promise he made and look forward to redemption of his promise.
"
The 12th edition of NICT – one of the largest forums of ICT and user industries, has been organized in Guwahati by ABP Group. It was a joint initiative along with the Government of Assam. FISME is the partner in organizing NICT 2016 facilitating participation of MSMEs.
Sri Sarbananda Sonowal, Hon’ble Chief Minister, Govt. of Assam, was the Chief Guest of the Conference.
The two day Conference with the theme, “Building a Digital Northeast” have brought together a vibrant range of topics that promote business-technology-leadership convergence.
The Commonwealth Secretariat hosted the first meeting of the Advisory Board of proposed India- Commonwealth SME Association (ICSA) in London from 1-2 Sept 2016. ICSA was launched by the Secretary MSME earlier in June this year in New Delhi. The ICSA Advisory board formed during Delhi meeting, besides the senior officers from Commonwealth comprises of representatives from CII, FISME and FICCI from India; COMESA/LLPI, Kenya; Tanzania Private Sector Foundation, Tanzania, Council for Communication and IT-SCCI, Bangladesh and other experts from Africa. FISME is to incubate ICSA during the period of its formation. Mr. Anil Bhardwaj represented FISME during the meeting.
Nottingham city council and FISME are to join hands for promoting SME to SME cooperation. The council hosted FISME Secretary General Mr. Anil Bhardwaj recently and outlined potential areas of cooperation. The council already works with CII in India and have expressed keen interest to work with FISME to promote trade and investment between SMEs of the city and India. The council is mounting a trade delegation later this year to India. Nottingham is the seventh largest metropolitan economy in the United Kingdom with a GDP of $50.9bn (2014). Nottingham has been described as the ‘starting point of the second industrial revolution’ by the EU and particularly excels in sectors such as Life Sciences, Digital Content, Advanced Engineering, Logistics, Financial & Business Services, Clean Technology, Retail & Leisure and Food & Drink.
Jack Nickell, founder of Threadless, a community website that votes for designs uploaded by artists, launched the company due to his passion for being creative. Threadless was a side-project for Jack for four years during college before it became his full-time job. Jack says: “You can’t predict the results of what you make, what it’s going to turn into. Threadless was never supposed to be what it is today, it was just about making things and putting myself out there. ” Despite employing hundreds of employees and working with millions of designers around the world, Jack still likes to use his creativity every day, on tasks such as coding the company’s website.
So far the game has unfolded as per the script. While the powerful incumbent telecom operators gear up to retain their large subscriber base, the new entrant Reliance Jio (RJio) has made its intentions clear with rock bottom prices, free voice calls, and full service provisioning comprising of bundled services, applications, content, and devices.
In July, British high street retailer Marks and Spencer found itself in a peculiar pickle in India, the first of its kind since it entered the country nearly 16 years ago. The aviation ministry asked the company to shut down the stores it operated in the domestic and international terminals of the Delhi and Mumbai airports.
M&S had entered into a joint venture with Reliance Retail Ltd (RRL) to operate its stores in India. The approval for the joint venture MSRIPL expired in August 2015, but the stores operated thanks to provisional extensions.
India's industrial output fell 2.4% in July after a spurt in May and June, much due to a decline in manufacturing output.
A slowdown in industrial activity does not bode well for Asia's third largest economy, especially after overall growth faltered to a 15-month low between April and June.
Data released by the statistics office showed a 3.4% decline in manufacturing production in July and marginal 0.8% rise in mining output. Manufacturing as a sector has the highest weight in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). The pace of electricity generation slowed to 1.6% compared with sharp rises in the last few months.
India is likely to post its first current account surplus in nine years in the latest quarter, which should bolster the rupee though it is not a good sign for the economy as it reflects weak investment demand at home and subdued exports, analysts said.
Forecasts given by investment houses' research notes and from analysts that Reuters spoke to showed expectations centering on a surplus of $4 billion, or 0.8 per cent of GDP, in April-June quarter.
Taking into consideration that the last date for making declarations under the Income Declaration Scheme 2016 is 30th September, the government has extended the last date for filing of Income Tax Returns from 30th September, 2016 to 17th October, 2016.
The due date for filing of Income tax returns by tax payers whose accounts are required to be audited under the Income Tax Act is the 30th September of the following year, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement.
Small and medium industries hold the key to revival of exports from India, commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman says while ruling out any relaxation in the FDI regime for food processing sector. In an interview to ET, she says the government's initiatives are not meant to favour the big industries but rather to give a boost to small ones. Edited excerpts:
Are you worried about the dip in exports? Going ahead, what is the export strategy?
Rupee depreciation has just been equal to the rate of Consumer Price Index (CPI) -measured inflation, giving absolutely no advantage to the exporters on exchange rate whereas the cost of production and transactions have risen, leaving Indian exports less competitive in the international market, according to EEPC India.
Indian exporters were also paying real interest rates much higher than the competitive peers like China, Malaysia, Argentina and Mexico.
Highlighting the financial crunch faced by MSMEs, a report has pegged the total credit demand for the sector at Rs 45 lakh crore over the medium term while Rs 5.15 lakh crore needs to be mobilised for the near term. "Crisil estimates show Rs 11.37 lakh crore is only a quarter of the total funding demand of MSMEs. The rest is met either through informal sources and self-financing," said a joint study by Crisil-Assocham.
It is now mandatory for the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to furnish the information relating to their enterprise online to the Central Government in the MSME data bank.
Uploading of information as stipulated in Implementation of MSMED (Furnishing of Information) Rule 2016 is necessary on the part of MSMEs, Office of Development Commissioner, MSME, said in a notification.
The information required could be furnished online at www.msmedatabank.in.
The services offered at the MSME data bank website are free of cost.
The Ministry of MSME is organizing a National Vendor Development Programme cum Industrial Exhibition, MSME Electrical Expo – 2016, on October 5 -6 in the national capital.
The two-day event is being organized by MSME-Development Institute, New Delhi, at its premises in Shaheed Gaur Marg, Okhla.
The exhibition aims to provide marketing opportunity to MSEs engaged in manufacturing of items and in rendering services of electrical and allied products procured by the government organizations and CPSUs to expand market base and explore new marketing avenues.
Some peer-to-peer (P2P) lending startups are hoping that the central bank's move to regulate the nascent sector's business will help attract venture capitalists, who have stayed away from this quarter due to lack of guidelines.
A P2P lending firm offers a platform for individual borrowers and lenders to transact without involving financial institutions.
There are about 40 such entities in the country, according to Xeler8, which tracks startup activity in the country. Mohandas Pai, who has backed Faircent, said the Reserve Bank of India's regulatory guidelines will bring clarity, which will attract more players and intensify competition.
Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani has said that Arunachal Pradesh has the potential to promote textiles sector and give a fillip to entrepreneurship and job creation.
She was speaking after inaugurating an apparel and garment making centre in Pasighat in East Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh.
While dedicating the centre to the people, Irani promised that her ministry would set up six more incubation centres to bring modern readymade garment industry to the state.
Chhattisgarh has launched its Startup Action plan to promote upcoming entrepreneurs with access to loans and tax sops for startups.
The state has announced goodies including exemption from electricity duty for 10 years, stamp duty for land purchase or lease and fix capital subsidy of up to 40%.
After the launch of the Startup India initiative by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January this year, states were asked to come up with their own action plans and implement the initiatives announced by the government.
Federation of Industries, Jammu (FOIJ) has urged the state tax department to give relief to Jammu & Kashmir under the Goods & Services Tax (GST) regime.
Lalit Mahajan, Chairman of FOIJ, has submitted memorandum in respect of various issues related to the Industrial Sector of J&K to Parvez Iqbal Khateeb, Commissioner Commercial Tax Department.
According to the memorandum, the industry has asked to provide relief to industrial sector of J&K under GST regime. It has also demanded for adequate Staff at Lakhanpur Check post for 24X7 Clearance of Industrial Goods of Industrial Sector.
The Odisha Government has set a target to scale up its exports to Rs 21,559 crore in the current financial year.
The state government had recorded exports of Rs 17,346 crore in the 2015-16 fiscal.
As per a media report, the government has also decided to set up export promotion councils in the capital city to boost export potential of products like handicraft, handloom, cashew and sea foods.
Export promotion councils on various products like handicraft, handloom, cashew, engineering goods, agricultural and food products would be set up in Bhubaneswar, it said.
India and the UK are "natural allies" and there is huge scope for collaboration between the two strategic partners in the wake of Britain's vote to leave the European Union, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said today.
The minister highlighted the potential offered by Britain to India, with London as a financial capital and great "centre for technology and innovation".
"I am hopeful after Brexit also, there is huge scope between India and UK.
With a view to boost trade relationship between India and Namibia, the third Session of the India-Namibia Joint Trade Committee was held in New Delhi today.
The Indian delegation was led by Minister for State for Commerce and Industry (Independent Charge) Nirmala Sitharaman. The Namibian delegation was led by the Deputy Minister, Ministry of Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development, Piet Van der Walt.
The government may soon extend to African countries a mechanism to clear payments of Indian exporters, especially pharmaceutical companies, stuck for months.
The payment model is similar to the one used in the case of Iran and now proposed for Venezuela.
The commerce department has moved a proposal but the final decision rests with the department of financial services and the Reserve Bank of India.
Essentially, the payment for oil imports from these countries will be used for paying for Indian exports.
India has signed an agreement with Chile to expand the India- Chile Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA), marking a 10-fold jump in the number of products to be traded on concessional duty rates.
"India's export basket with Chile is diversified and keeping in view the wide variety of tariff lines offered by Chile, the expanded PTA would immensely benefit India," said the commerce department in a release.
The Union Cabinet had approved the expansion of the PTA in April under which 86 per cent of India's exports to Chile will get concessions.
Tender on Supply of Advanced Electricity Metering System
It may be of interest to you to know that Uzbekistan’s Joint Stock Company “Uzbekenergo” has released a tender for “supply, installation and implementation of AEM System “. The Notice states that the financing for the project “ Advanced Electricity Metering Project” has been received from the Islamic Development Bank and that a part of it will be utilized for procurement of meters.
Will The Next RBI Governor Be Able To Slip Into Raghuram Rajan's Shoes Easily?
According to the FISME Factor, 100 percent of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) think that the new RBI Governor will be able to slip easily into Raghuram Rajan’s shoes.
I have been fortunate enough to participate in two new industries in the last 15 years — the outsourcing sector which today comprises about 9% of Indian GDP, and the consumer internet industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the economy. If we execute right, the consumer internet sector could add 5% to our GDP over the next decade. Both industries are primed to be the pillars of modern India.
Advice to entrepreneurs! Carefully assess what's worth scaling up
It's not scale fast and fail fast. The advice to entrepreneurs is to experiment, fail, learn and repeat. Try things at a small scale and at a low cost, and quickly assess if they work or not and then take a call on what is worth scaling up. The experiments should either stop or continue based on consumer feedback.
Best Indian Brands: The strategy that makes them winners!
This week's Brand Equity is dedicated to the Interbrand Best Indian Brands study. Read on to find which brands dominate the leader board, why and how? And what the Best Indian Brands need to do, or do more of to crack the so far elusive Best Global Brands list.
Startups suffer as Cauvery issue paralyses Bengaluru
Rioting in Bengaluru over the Cauvery water issue has crippled the operations of several on-demand and ecommerce logistics startups including Big-Basket, Swiggy, Flipkart and Ola.
The city, a technology hub, not only houses the headquarters of companies like Ola and Swiggy, but is also their single-largest market in terms of business.
How RepUp helps hotels guard and build reputations
The iconic fine-dining restaurant of Kolkata, Mocambo allegedly denied entry to a driver on September 9 and within hours, the incident (related in a post on Facebook by the lady accompanying him) had gone viral. Shocked patrons expressed disgust with the restaurant's staff and called for its boycott.
There will be plenty of distractions, learn to stick to long-term vision: Eka founder Manav Garg
Manav Garg was a commodities trader who went on to become a tech entrepreneur in 2004, when he was just 30. He was among the earliest Indian entrepreneurs to take on the challenge of building an IT product for the world. Twelve years on, his Bengaluru-based commodities trading and risk management venture Eka boasts of customers like Cargill, Rio Tinto, Marubeni and Tata Steeland investors like Silver Lake and Nexus Venture Partners.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, has released the Consumer Price Index numbers on base 2012=100 for rural, urban and combined for the month of June 2016
FISME regularly receives monthly reports on the economies of various countries from their missions in India. These reports provide information on key economic parameters, trade related information and all news relevant for importers and exporters. In this edition you can take a look at reports on:
Write your comments on the FISME Factor. Share your views and suggestions on MSME issues. Win prize! The best mail will get a special book every fortnight.
send mail to: newsletter@fisme.org.in
You are receiving this Newsletter because you are included in our mailing list of recipients who are involved or interested in FISME or Indian MSMEs. You are welcome to partly or fully reproduce and disseminate the contents of this publication provided that you acknowledge the source.
This Newsletter is edited by the FISME Secretariat. We welcome contributions as well as comments and suggestions. Please write to newsletter@fisme.org.in
" MSMEs have been long demanding that government run ESI and EPF schemes need complete overhaul. Both employees and employers contribute towards them. But ESI hospitals are too few and far between and are ill equipped. The EPF contributions on the other hand take the bulk portion of salary of workers at the lower wage structure. Workers also encounter a lot of operational difficulties dealing with EPF authorities. The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley acknowledged these difficulties in Budget speech on 28th Feb 2015 and said that ‘both EPF and ESI have hostages, rather than clients’. He promised to bring amending legislation to bring about the desired change. Nothing was heard after that, however. It is heartening to learn that Arun Jaitely has been entrusted the task of labour reforms. MSMEs would like to remind him of the promise he made and look forward to redemption of his promise.
"
The 12th edition of NICT – one of the largest forums of ICT and user industries, has been organized in Guwahati by ABP Group. It was a joint initiative along with the Government of Assam. FISME is the partner in organizing NICT 2016 facilitating participation of MSMEs.
Sri Sarbananda Sonowal, Hon’ble Chief Minister, Govt. of Assam, was the Chief Guest of the Conference.
The two day Conference with the theme, “Building a Digital Northeast” have brought together a vibrant range of topics that promote business-technology-leadership convergence.
The Commonwealth Secretariat hosted the first meeting of the Advisory Board of proposed India- Commonwealth SME Association (ICSA) in London from 1-2 Sept 2016. ICSA was launched by the Secretary MSME earlier in June this year in New Delhi. The ICSA Advisory board formed during Delhi meeting, besides the senior officers from Commonwealth comprises of representatives from CII, FISME and FICCI from India; COMESA/LLPI, Kenya; Tanzania Private Sector Foundation, Tanzania, Council for Communication and IT-SCCI, Bangladesh and other experts from Africa. FISME is to incubate ICSA during the period of its formation. Mr. Anil Bhardwaj represented FISME during the meeting.
Nottingham city council and FISME are to join hands for promoting SME to SME cooperation. The council hosted FISME Secretary General Mr. Anil Bhardwaj recently and outlined potential areas of cooperation. The council already works with CII in India and have expressed keen interest to work with FISME to promote trade and investment between SMEs of the city and India. The council is mounting a trade delegation later this year to India. Nottingham is the seventh largest metropolitan economy in the United Kingdom with a GDP of $50.9bn (2014). Nottingham has been described as the ‘starting point of the second industrial revolution’ by the EU and particularly excels in sectors such as Life Sciences, Digital Content, Advanced Engineering, Logistics, Financial & Business Services, Clean Technology, Retail & Leisure and Food & Drink.
Jack Nickell, founder of Threadless, a community website that votes for designs uploaded by artists, launched the company due to his passion for being creative. Threadless was a side-project for Jack for four years during college before it became his full-time job. Jack says: “You can’t predict the results of what you make, what it’s going to turn into. Threadless was never supposed to be what it is today, it was just about making things and putting myself out there. ” Despite employing hundreds of employees and working with millions of designers around the world, Jack still likes to use his creativity every day, on tasks such as coding the company’s website.
In July, British high street retailer Marks and Spencer found itself in a peculiar pickle in India, the first of its kind since it entered the country nearly 16 years ago. The aviation ministry asked the company to shut down the stores it operated in the domestic and international terminals of the Delhi and Mumbai airports.
M&S had entered into a joint venture with Reliance Retail Ltd (RRL) to operate its stores in India. The approval for the joint venture MSRIPL expired in August 2015, but the stores operated thanks to provisional extensions.
India's industrial output fell 2.4% in July after a spurt in May and June, much due to a decline in manufacturing output.
A slowdown in industrial activity does not bode well for Asia's third largest economy, especially after overall growth faltered to a 15-month low between April and June.
Data released by the statistics office showed a 3.4% decline in manufacturing production in July and marginal 0.8% rise in mining output. Manufacturing as a sector has the highest weight in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). The pace of electricity generation slowed to 1.6% compared with sharp rises in the last few months.
India is likely to post its first current account surplus in nine years in the latest quarter, which should bolster the rupee though it is not a good sign for the economy as it reflects weak investment demand at home and subdued exports, analysts said.
Forecasts given by investment houses' research notes and from analysts that Reuters spoke to showed expectations centering on a surplus of $4 billion, or 0.8 per cent of GDP, in April-June quarter.
Taking into consideration that the last date for making declarations under the Income Declaration Scheme 2016 is 30th September, the government has extended the last date for filing of Income Tax Returns from 30th September, 2016 to 17th October, 2016.
The due date for filing of Income tax returns by tax payers whose accounts are required to be audited under the Income Tax Act is the 30th September of the following year, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement.
Small and medium industries hold the key to revival of exports from India, commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman says while ruling out any relaxation in the FDI regime for food processing sector. In an interview to ET, she says the government's initiatives are not meant to favour the big industries but rather to give a boost to small ones. Edited excerpts:
Are you worried about the dip in exports? Going ahead, what is the export strategy?
Rupee depreciation has just been equal to the rate of Consumer Price Index (CPI) -measured inflation, giving absolutely no advantage to the exporters on exchange rate whereas the cost of production and transactions have risen, leaving Indian exports less competitive in the international market, according to EEPC India.
Indian exporters were also paying real interest rates much higher than the competitive peers like China, Malaysia, Argentina and Mexico.
Highlighting the financial crunch faced by MSMEs, a report has pegged the total credit demand for the sector at Rs 45 lakh crore over the medium term while Rs 5.15 lakh crore needs to be mobilised for the near term. "Crisil estimates show Rs 11.37 lakh crore is only a quarter of the total funding demand of MSMEs. The rest is met either through informal sources and self-financing," said a joint study by Crisil-Assocham.
It is now mandatory for the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to furnish the information relating to their enterprise online to the Central Government in the MSME data bank.
Uploading of information as stipulated in Implementation of MSMED (Furnishing of Information) Rule 2016 is necessary on the part of MSMEs, Office of Development Commissioner, MSME, said in a notification.
The information required could be furnished online at www.msmedatabank.in.
The services offered at the MSME data bank website are free of cost.
The Ministry of MSME is organizing a National Vendor Development Programme cum Industrial Exhibition, MSME Electrical Expo – 2016, on October 5 -6 in the national capital.
The two-day event is being organized by MSME-Development Institute, New Delhi, at its premises in Shaheed Gaur Marg, Okhla.
The exhibition aims to provide marketing opportunity to MSEs engaged in manufacturing of items and in rendering services of electrical and allied products procured by the government organizations and CPSUs to expand market base and explore new marketing avenues.
Some peer-to-peer (P2P) lending startups are hoping that the central bank's move to regulate the nascent sector's business will help attract venture capitalists, who have stayed away from this quarter due to lack of guidelines.
A P2P lending firm offers a platform for individual borrowers and lenders to transact without involving financial institutions.
There are about 40 such entities in the country, according to Xeler8, which tracks startup activity in the country. Mohandas Pai, who has backed Faircent, said the Reserve Bank of India's regulatory guidelines will bring clarity, which will attract more players and intensify competition.
Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani has said that Arunachal Pradesh has the potential to promote textiles sector and give a fillip to entrepreneurship and job creation.
She was speaking after inaugurating an apparel and garment making centre in Pasighat in East Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh.
While dedicating the centre to the people, Irani promised that her ministry would set up six more incubation centres to bring modern readymade garment industry to the state.
Chhattisgarh has launched its Startup Action plan to promote upcoming entrepreneurs with access to loans and tax sops for startups.
The state has announced goodies including exemption from electricity duty for 10 years, stamp duty for land purchase or lease and fix capital subsidy of up to 40%.
After the launch of the Startup India initiative by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January this year, states were asked to come up with their own action plans and implement the initiatives announced by the government.
Federation of Industries, Jammu (FOIJ) has urged the state tax department to give relief to Jammu & Kashmir under the Goods & Services Tax (GST) regime.
Lalit Mahajan, Chairman of FOIJ, has submitted memorandum in respect of various issues related to the Industrial Sector of J&K to Parvez Iqbal Khateeb, Commissioner Commercial Tax Department.
According to the memorandum, the industry has asked to provide relief to industrial sector of J&K under GST regime. It has also demanded for adequate Staff at Lakhanpur Check post for 24X7 Clearance of Industrial Goods of Industrial Sector.
The Odisha Government has set a target to scale up its exports to Rs 21,559 crore in the current financial year.
The state government had recorded exports of Rs 17,346 crore in the 2015-16 fiscal.
As per a media report, the government has also decided to set up export promotion councils in the capital city to boost export potential of products like handicraft, handloom, cashew and sea foods.
Export promotion councils on various products like handicraft, handloom, cashew, engineering goods, agricultural and food products would be set up in Bhubaneswar, it said.
India and the UK are "natural allies" and there is huge scope for collaboration between the two strategic partners in the wake of Britain's vote to leave the European Union, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said today.
The minister highlighted the potential offered by Britain to India, with London as a financial capital and great "centre for technology and innovation".
"I am hopeful after Brexit also, there is huge scope between India and UK.
With a view to boost trade relationship between India and Namibia, the third Session of the India-Namibia Joint Trade Committee was held in New Delhi today.
The Indian delegation was led by Minister for State for Commerce and Industry (Independent Charge) Nirmala Sitharaman. The Namibian delegation was led by the Deputy Minister, Ministry of Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development, Piet Van der Walt.
The government may soon extend to African countries a mechanism to clear payments of Indian exporters, especially pharmaceutical companies, stuck for months.
The payment model is similar to the one used in the case of Iran and now proposed for Venezuela.
The commerce department has moved a proposal but the final decision rests with the department of financial services and the Reserve Bank of India.
Essentially, the payment for oil imports from these countries will be used for paying for Indian exports.
India has signed an agreement with Chile to expand the India- Chile Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA), marking a 10-fold jump in the number of products to be traded on concessional duty rates.
"India's export basket with Chile is diversified and keeping in view the wide variety of tariff lines offered by Chile, the expanded PTA would immensely benefit India," said the commerce department in a release.
The Union Cabinet had approved the expansion of the PTA in April under which 86 per cent of India's exports to Chile will get concessions.
According to the FISME Factor, 100 percent of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) think that the new RBI Governor will be able to slip easily into Raghuram Rajan’s shoes.
I have been fortunate enough to participate in two new industries in the last 15 years — the outsourcing sector which today comprises about 9% of Indian GDP, and the consumer internet industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the economy. If we execute right, the consumer internet sector could add 5% to our GDP over the next decade. Both industries are primed to be the pillars of modern India.
It's not scale fast and fail fast. The advice to entrepreneurs is to experiment, fail, learn and repeat. Try things at a small scale and at a low cost, and quickly assess if they work or not and then take a call on what is worth scaling up. The experiments should either stop or continue based on consumer feedback.
This week's Brand Equity is dedicated to the Interbrand Best Indian Brands study. Read on to find which brands dominate the leader board, why and how? And what the Best Indian Brands need to do, or do more of to crack the so far elusive Best Global Brands list.
Rioting in Bengaluru over the Cauvery water issue has crippled the operations of several on-demand and ecommerce logistics startups including Big-Basket, Swiggy, Flipkart and Ola.
The city, a technology hub, not only houses the headquarters of companies like Ola and Swiggy, but is also their single-largest market in terms of business.
The iconic fine-dining restaurant of Kolkata, Mocambo allegedly denied entry to a driver on September 9 and within hours, the incident (related in a post on Facebook by the lady accompanying him) had gone viral. Shocked patrons expressed disgust with the restaurant's staff and called for its boycott.
Manav Garg was a commodities trader who went on to become a tech entrepreneur in 2004, when he was just 30. He was among the earliest Indian entrepreneurs to take on the challenge of building an IT product for the world. Twelve years on, his Bengaluru-based commodities trading and risk management venture Eka boasts of customers like Cargill, Rio Tinto, Marubeni and Tata Steeland investors like Silver Lake and Nexus Venture Partners.
“ Failure is just a resting place. It is an opportunity to begin again more intelligently ”
