Bold is beautiful, this is the tagline the ecommerce giants – Myntra and Flipkart -- are following. Riding on rising number of smartphone users in India, both have decided to do away with their desktop version of the platform and embrace an app-only approach. But are the other players such as Snapdeal, Amazon, MakeMyTrip, Quikr, Jabong ready for this ‘bold move’? Unlike Flipkart, majority of the players are seeing half of their traffic still emerge from the desktop space and stated that they will continue to maintain presence on mobile as well as desktop. Snapdeal justified its stand on maintaining desktop presence and said, "At Snapdeal, the customer is at the centre of all our initiatives. Our data shows that there are still many customers who use PCs to shop online. We do not want to force our customers to use one specific medium to shop on Snapdeal. We will continue to offer our services on both PC and mobile. We do not see this changing in the near future," said Snapdeal. While the platform gets 75 per cent traffic from mobile but it does not want to close its website access for the remaining. Earlier also when Myntra had initiated the app-only wave in the market, Snapdeal had clarified that it is not going to neglect the traffic from desktop. However, there are many platforms in the ecommerce space for whom close to half of the traffic comes from mobile still. Pranav Bhasin, Senior Vice President and Head of Product at MakeMyTrip.com said, “We are seeing over 45 per cent traffic via mobile across all verticals. Hotel business is witnessing 45 per cent traction on mobile, whereas the number for flights is 25 per cent. Hotels is a space where mobile and location play a big role and it is largely fuelled by last-minute hotel bookings,” Bhasin added. But the numbers from MakeMyTrip.com indicate that 55 per cent traffic is still coming from desktop, which forms a slightly larger portion of its revenues. “We have been in the business for over 15 years now and there is a significantly large consumer base that is comfortable transacting on desktop. We will continue to serve users on the channel they prefer and I do not see desktop losing relevance in the foreseeable future,” he said explaining their dedication to the desktop website. Jabong reiterated the sentiment. “We strongly believe that customers should have the choice to buy either on the smartphone or on the computer. There are still many users who use and prefer desktop to purchase, and hence we will not devoid them of choice and flexibility,” said Praveen Sinha, Co-Founder & Managing Director at Jabong.com. Despite its commitment to desktop, ecommerce players cannot deny the growth of smartphone penetration in India and the trend on the growth trajectory. Global ecommerce sales made via mobile devices are expected to cross $638 billion by 2018, according to a joint study by Assocham and Deloitte. “Mobile is very important as it’s the tool through which most of the transactions will happen in the future. Right now we receive more than 50 per cent of our orders from mobile and the number is rapidly growing,” added Sinha. Amazon also gets good traffic from mobile which it expects to grow in the future. “Over 60 per cent traffic on Amazon.in comes through mobile phones and there is a sharp increase in customers as well as quantum of shopping on our apps. Additionally, the repeat rate of customers is very healthy indicating a good shopping experience. This is only expected to grow northwards in 2015,” said an Amazon India spokesperson.But Amazon will still not take the app-only route right now. A spokesperson from Amazon said, “All our development and innovation is app first, and it will continue to be our flagship experience. However, as a customer-obsessed company we will enable our customers to shop anytime, anywhere and any way they want including a mobile and a desktop site." Nevertheless, from a the pool of ecommerce players in the market, there is one player whose numbers are vastly different from the market consensus – OLX. Since 2014, the platform has been advertising aggressively using the mobile phone as the peg for most of its brand-related conversations. Its dedicated mobile-centric campaign 'Phone Ko Banao SELLphone', was among the first offline ad campaigns in the industry to articulate the power and relevance of mobile apps. “OLX receives approximately 85 per cent of its traffic from mobile. We started developing our mobile app five years ago, at a time when most players in the industry were not looking at mobile as a source of business and traffic. Our vision helped us take a lead in this space, and leverage the mobile internet boom, especially in Tier II towns, where a substantial proportion of new-to-internet population is skipping the desktop altogether to get its first exposure to internet over their mobile phones,” said Gaurav Mehta, Chief Marketing Officer of OLX South Asia.Despite the encouraging traffic on mobile, OLX added that it does not seek to go app-only. “With 15 per cent of our traffic still coming from the desktop, we don't think the time is opportune to go app-only. We are certainly a mobile-first company, but perhaps some time away from becoming a mobile-only company,” Mehta added. The Indian market is still away from the scenario where app-only platforms can guarantee traction for a platform. Unlike established brands like Flipkart and Myntra, which can secure traffic on app platform, emerging brands need higher visibility which only desktop can ensure. Over the next few years the dominance of mobile is expected to grow with a simultaneous dip in desktop but until such time both the media will complement the efforts of each other. “It is not a desktop versus mobile scenario, but it is becoming a combination of both,“ says Bhasin. He said that the mobile-only era is still three years away. Mehta supported the sentiment and pointed out, “mobile internet penetration needs to be higher for a robust app-only ecosystem to flourish. With approximately 200 million mobile Internet users in India right now, an app-only ecosystem might take some time to establish itself.”
Read More
Japanese internet and telecom conglomerate SoftBank Corp, which backs Indian companies Ola, Snapdeal and Housing.com, will avoid investing in early-stage firms, shifting its focus entirely towards backing more established companies, according to a report. The Tokyo-headquartered company will no longer make small bets in early-stage companies and instead focus on bigger investments in more mature businesses, according to a news report in re/code website quoting SoftBank’s India-born president Nikesh Arora. “As we look at the future for the next tens of years, we believe that the way to preserve the long-term sustainability of SoftBank is to be large, minority shareholders of many assets. We believe that it’s less crowded in the large-check marketplace,” SoftBank president Nikesh Arora was cited as saying by news website Re/code. After shutting its VC unit, SoftBank will invest directly in late stage start-ups, according to Re/code. SoftBank has invested close to $1 billion in these Indian Internet start-ups in the last six months and pledged to invest a total of $10 billion over a decade in the country. The company owns roughly a third of Alibaba, which has a market value of more than $180 billion. It is also one of the most prolific start-up investors with a portfolio of anywhere between 1,300 and 1,500 companies, according to various media reports. It’s unclear how the shift in strategy will affect SoftBank’s current and potential deals in India. The move marks the first significant move after Arora took over a larger role at the firm. Arora, who was senior vice president and chief business officer of Google, had quit the tech giant before joining SoftBank in September 2014. He is now one of the four non-Japanese in the 14-member board of SoftBank.
Read More
Filmmaking and distribution company Eros is targeting youth audience in its digital entertainment push, Haider Ali Khan reports Eros International, a filmmaking and distribution company, will grow its focus on the online entertainment segment with the launch of its app ErosNow. With a boom in smartphone use and the projected huge growth in Internet users, Eros seeks to target people below 30 years of age. "We will take the advantage of Internet as our potential audience is quite big in numbers. We will reinvent Eros from a film studio to a more consumer facing content and digital content in the next phase of growth," said Jyoti Deshpande, group CEO and managing director at Eros International. "The absence of enough premium content on television is now driving general public to use smartphones and to look for alternate content on demand. That is the opportunity we want to tap into," Deshpande said. When it comes to watching television at home, young people spend very less time but tend to devote almost three hours daily on surfing the internet. According to a recent KPMG-FICCI report, India will have over a billion mobile users by 2017 and half of them will be Internet users using 3G and 4G platforms. The market is expected to grow by 3.5 per cent and India will cross $2.7 billion in online advertisement per year by 2020, says a Goldman Sachs report. Eros has a library of over 3,000 films in Hindi, Tamil and other regional languages. The ErosNow app will allow viewers to watch the films they want with any Internet connected device like laptop, smartphone or tablet. Rishika Lulla Singh, CEO at Eros Digital, said, "We already have over 19 million registered users and now we want to drive our subscriber growth. We have built our technology platform that will offer world-class consumer experience with exclusive and compelling content." The company will bring out reality shows, adaptations of hit international series and original productions like drama, comedy and thrillers. Its three new shows are Khel, The Client and Ponniyin Selvan. Eros will also produce international sitcoms with Anil Kapoor Film Company.
Read More
Political parties in Odisha are taking potshots at each other after South Korea's Posco suspended its $12 billion steel project in the state. Both Congress and BJP held the Naveen Patnaik government responsible for non-implementation of the mega steel project even after 10 years of inking of an MoU. The ruling BJD, on the other hand, said the Opposition had no moral right to blame the state government over the issue as they delayed environmental clearance to the project when in power. Posco India has written to the Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) stating that it would vacate the office on the fifth floor of Fortune Towers, sources said. State Industries Minister Debi Prasad Mishra said no official communication has been received from the South Korean steel major in this regard. "Congress and BJP were opposing the project since its inception. Therefore, the Opposition has no moral right to blame the state government for it," the minister said. "The previous UPA government had delayed granting of environmental clearance to Posco project," he said. Mishra added, "I understand from the news reports that Posco has decided to put its Odisha project on hold and is not withdrawing from the state." State Congress Committee president Prasad Harichandan told reporters, "I hold the state government totally responsible for non-implementation of the Posco project. The BJD government has played with the lives and livelihood of people who lost their land, cash crops... in the name of implementation of the Posco project." He attributed the development to the state government's "inefficiency" and accused the BJD government of misleading people in the name of industrialisation. Senior Congress leader Niranjan Patnaik said the project could not materialise because the state government selected a wrong site. "Officers selected the project site without considering the local situation," he said. BJP leader Suresh Pujari questioned the BJD government's sincerity towards the project. "What was the state government doing in the last 10 years? There is no point in blaming the MMDR Act which came into force only this year," he said. Delays, Rising CostsPosco could scrap plans for the $12 billion project after a new law made it costlier to source iron ore for the plant, a company spokesman told Reuters. The US-listed shares of Posco fell as much as 3.3 per cent on Thursday to their lowest in more than six and a half years after the report. The 2005 project to set up a steel plant in Odisha state was billed as India's biggest foreign direct investment at the time, but it has encountered a series of delays. The company waited almost a decade to acquire land for the proposed 12 million-tonnes-a-year steel plant due to opposition from local tribal groups. A mining law enacted in March by India means the company would now also have to buy a mining license in an auction. Originally, the Odisha government had promised to help the company obtain the licence for free. That could raise costs for the company at a time when a global steel glut is depressing prices. "We will have to see how our costs will be, whether it will be viable," Posco's India spokesman I. G. Lee said. "We will take a final call only after auction details come." Asked whether Posco could skip the auction and withdraw from the Odisha project, Lee said: "Yes". (Agencies)
Read More
Tata Steel, Britain's largest steelmaker, may cut up to 720 UK jobs in a revamp of its speciality and bar business, which has been hit by cheap imports and high energy costs. Most of the jobs at risk are at the company's operations in Rotherham, northern England, which has been underperforming owing to cheap imports and high electricity prices in Britain, and around 35 will be cut from its West Midlands plant by March 2016. "We have invested more than 20 million pounds in recent years in our speciality steels business. We want to play our role in reinvigorating the UK’s manufacturing industry, but increasing imports and high energy costs have further undermined the competitiveness of foundation industries," Karl Koehler, chief executive of Tata Steel’s European operations, said in a statement. "Energy is one of our largest costs at our speciality and bar business and we are disadvantaged by the UK's cripplingly high electricity costs. And, while the UK government announced helpful measures to reduce the impact of its high energy taxes a few years ago, these measures still haven't been introduced," Koehler said. Electricity costs in the UK are more than double compared to its key European competitors. The speciality and bar business is being refocused on high-value markets such as aerospace, as British and European steelmakers in general struggle to make profits on commodity grade steels which can be imported cheaply from China. Tata Steel, Europe's second-largest steelmaker, said it would work with staff and trade unions to redeploy affected employees if possible and minimise compulsory redundancies. The Community union said it would oppose compulsory redundancies. "This is a smack in the face for the workforce. Since 2009 the business will have gone through three restructurings, which if this proposal goes through, will have seen the loss of 2,500 jobs," Stuart Sansome, Community's national executive councillor, said in a statement. Tata Steel has been forced to slash costs since 2007 when it bought Anglo Dutch producer Corus for $13 billion. It currently employs around 17,000 people versus some 25,000 in 2008. The UK steel sector currently employs about 20,000 people directly, down from as many as 200,000 in the 1970s. The government, in its bid to diversify the economy away from financial services, has implemented numerous measures to help heavy industry, but both Tata Steel and the unions believe they are not enough. "Now is the time for government to act. Foundation industries like ours urgently need a competitive business environment and a government willing to strengthen UK manufacturing supply chains," said Koehler. Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of Community, called on the government to support energy intensive industry. "It is clear the UK steel industry is in a perilous state and Tata Steel is particularly affected. We have been saying for years that uncompetitive UK energy costs are damaging the UK steel industry," he said. (Agencies)
Read More
A number of timeless ads track the evolution of the advertising industry in India. These ads have made some of the brands households names across the country and defined their position in the years to come. Consumers remember the ads fondly recalling the era and advertisers recall the story behind its conceptualisation. Hita Gupta brings to you 10 such brands with timeless advertising, which never go out of trend. No personal favourites here but just in alphabetical order: 1. Air IndiaUnlike most brands which sign multi-million deals with celebrities to endorse their brand, Air India is a believer in real people and real advertising. In order to gain traction for the cash- strapped airline, the advertiser sought to employ non-actors to endorse the brand and reinstall faith in the national carrier. 2. AmulAmul has become synonymous with the childhood of every Indian. As children, we have always had a glass of milk, or a cube of butter, a slice of cheese which made Amul a part of our life. No one can orget the Amul girl in a polka dotted frock with blue hair. The timeless brand though, has found excuses to engage the Amul Girl with every current issue buzzing the country and the latest one being the IPL Verdict by the Lodha Panel. 3. LirilLiril goes beyond just personal hygiene and engages the consumer with freshness associated with the brand. Over years, we have seen Indian models featuring as Liril girls but this time Liril did not deviate from the set-up of freshness but got a Brazillian model on board in its latest ad campaign. 4. MaggiDespite the ban on Nestle’s Maggi, it is still a leader in the instant noodles category. It may take longer than two minutes to cook but for years Nestle has positioned the noodles brand as 2-minutes meal to cook. It attempts to engage consumers of Maggi in the ‘Meri Maggi’ story.5. Nirma Hema, Rekha, Jaya aur Sushma, sabki pasand Nirma…Nirma has never deviated its positioning away from the large Indian masses. Actors may have changed over years but it has always employed four women who depict the diversity of the country among different social classes. 6. PearsPears as a wash care brand have elaborated on the concept of ‘Pure and Gentle’. Unlike Liril, it does not push for freshness but gentle care. Over years, Pears has sought to create space within families. Remember how the little girl says to her mother, “Aaj mera exam hai.. Aapka chehra mer liye lucky hai”? Like a mother cares for her kids, Pears cares for your skin.7. RasnaMillions across the country have associated Rasna with a refreshment drink as it is has attempted to replace home-made drinks in India. Rasna was devoid of celebrity status but with a group of children hunting for a mango or orange flavour drink has carved a timeless brand image for itself.8. RaymondsIt is a challenge for an apparel brand to stay timeless with its values but Raymonds has managed to hold the brand values together for years. ‘Raymonds - the complete man’ has held together the attributes of premium quality fabric and Indian values close to itself.9. Taj MahalTaj Mahal has always sought to list its advertisement under the premium category by getting on board actors and celebrities with niche association. Saif Ali Khan, Zakhir Hussain have communicated the same message for years making Wah! Taj timeless.10. ViccoVicco Turmeric, Nahi cosmetic, Vicco Turmeric Ayurvedic cream…Most of us still remember is age-old ad jingle and it continues to hook the consumer with no change in its value as an Indian ayurvedic brand. Vicco has positioned itself as an Indian brand which is deeply embedded into the lives of consumers across India.
Read More
In a business space what is actually being sought is vitality. And this vitality is what will help in the achievement of organisational goals, says Joshua Freedman. Simar Singh reportsThe fact that Emotional Intelligence (EI) is essential for effective leadership is as far as the general understanding of the concept goes. Valued more than IQ, conceptually taught to MBA enrolees and scouted for by HR professionals, EI is a known but not well understood concept. What is Emotional Intelligence? And more importantly, can one learn to be more emotionally intelligent? I caught up with Joshua Freedman, an expert in the field and CEO of Six Seconds, an organization committed to creating awareness about EI to find out the same. My emotions were all over the place because of my initial inability to locate or get in touch with Josh, something that, in retrospect, was the perfect backgrounder for our chat about EI and the importance of effective communication. “It is actually a very simple idea”, Josh assured me, “We all have emotions- we can pay attention to them or not, we can use them carefully or not, we can just react or we can respond. So all emotional intelligence means is being smarter with our feelings. We have them, let’s pay attention to them and let’s use them in a way that is smart. How to do that is where it’s a little complicated” Josh’s soiree with the concept started when as a teacher in a school which emphasised on the importance of EI, he helped develop a curriculum that promoted the pursuit of oneself called ‘Self Science’. This model went on to be featured in Emotional Intelligence, the 1995 best-selling book by Daniel Goleman, as a highly teachable form of intelligence, and in 1997 Six Seconds was set up. Explaining the need for leaders to become more emotionally intelligent in the face of increasing complexity, market pressures and workplace diversities, Josh said that companies with sophisticated internal system, companies that have been around a long time were finding themselves rusty. What, according to him, leaders needed were a new set of skills. “We hire leaders based on technical skills, especially in sectors like IT, but these people are eventually thrust into managerial positions which don’t have much to do with the skills they already know. They suddenly have to interact with all these people, oil the organization’s machine. So what they need to develop is a new skill set related to EI,” said Freedman. One of the organisations in India that Josh has personally mentored is Hindustan Coca-Cola, which was feeling increasingly weighed down by the nexus of change and pressure that are characteristic of today’s market. Putting Emotional Intelligence Into PracticeThe Six Second’s model of EI involves three steps- being more aware, being more intentional and being purposeful. “We call it know yourself which is being more aware, chose yourself which is being more intentional and give yourself which is being more purposeful. We put this in a circle and then go over and over”, Josh explained. Being more aware means noticing and paying more attention to things that are happening. The second step involves thinking your reactions through, weighing the different possible responses and analysing the different feelings you can have about a particular situation. The last step, ‘be purposeful’, involves asking the questions- Where do you want to go? What do you want to have happen? What is the relationship that you are trying to create? What is the organization you are trying to create? What is the community you're trying to create, etc? And then ensuring that the choices being made move towards that. Emotional Intelligence And ProductivityThe question that remains is whether building EI related skills in organisations translates into tangible results. According to Josh, the answer is an affirmative yes, “Recently we did a project with Komatsu where within 6 months, the level of vitality in the management team doubled and we went from 8 per cent of managers who were engaged, who were fully participating and fully there, to 50 per cent. This lead to a 10 per cent increase in plant productivity”. The result is reliant on the fact that a manager’s EI improves employee engagement and employee engagement improves productivity and according to Freedman these results are not limited to industries like hospitality where quite evidently the employee experience drives the customer experience, but even in more traditional businesses this can work. “We have a case study with a poultry processing factory, we have a case study with Komatsu building digging machines. We have a wonderful case study with FedEx. So these are logistic companies, manufacturing companies, tech companies and then also all kinds of other companies-hospitality, finance where these are skills where anywhere that any humans are interacting, it can get better,” said Freedman adding that it was like the “secret sauce”. “Now we take it to India where we are talking about the economy- in India there are actually many economies. We are seeing dramatic amounts of change, huge amounts of complexity with people who need do things that they have never done before. How does one cope with those kinds of changes?” said Freedman, “Again, there are those on the rational side who say- yes we can have these systems, we’ve got our MBA and there are more MBAs in India that the English speaking world all combined. However, in reality they only have knowledge about knowledge and systems and they are not emotionally ready to take up the challenge or even interact with each other.” In his view, in a business in a business space what is actually being sought is vitality. And this vitality is what will help in the achievement of organisational goals. On a parting note he said to me, “So you think about a vital organisation, an organisation where people really feel energy and they are really committed, are doing their best, sparks are flying and they like coming to work each day. Where would that come from? It comes from emotions.” (Six Seconds has been in India for the past 5 years. They recently conducted a workshop for women leaders, INSPIRA, to explore and solve problems that they faced, using emotional intelligence as a tool.)
Read More
Lack of proper structure and a standard model of market operation is primary reason of a growing distrust between buyers and developers, writes Gaurav YadavInvesting in your long-yearned dream is not just based on one single decision. It is an amalgamation of various factors which play an essential role in your hunt for the perfect heaven. Family aspirations, personal motivations, financial limitations and prevalent policy and real estate norms - all of these impact your decision in one way or another.We all believe that property is one of the best thing to invest in, considering it as a recession proof investment. There are many reasons behind why we feel that buying property is the best investment vehicle for long term wealth. Moreover the demand for property will always outweigh supply, keeping the prices high.But property being a smart investment can become a huge trouble for a person who is un-aware about things that should be kept in mind while purchasing a property. Most booking agreements for real estate projects start by emphasizing the importance of being aware of the terms and conditions mentioned therein. But how many of us take the trouble of going through these agreements?This is important because most clauses in these agreements aim at protecting builders from legal troubles while giving very few rights to buyers. If you do not have the time or inclination to go through the legalities, you should at least take care of some key points to avoid fraud. Hence, it is very important to choose the right property for yourself.Legal Background: Taking keen interest in knowing the legal background of the developer will help the buyer ensure that the developer has not been in any legal hassles.Financial Stability: Financial Stability of the developer is another aspect to keep in mind that states the credibility of the developer in the market. Listed firms have an edge over other real estate companies as they are under the scanner of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).They mandatorily follow principles and guidelines issued by SEBI and are required to submit financial statements. Due to better corporate governance and audited financial statements, such listed real estate firms have better chances of sourcing funds from financial institutions, provided they are performing well. Listed Company: The state of a listed company is more visible to the buyer and it can assist in making a comprehensive investment decision. A listed firm provides higher transparency and accountability as its activities directly impact its share prices. Aspects such as financial leverage, delivery versus commitment, internal and external focus, etc should be carefully studied.Title Of The Land: Make sure that the title to the land that of the project and all the regulatory approvals are in place. This needs to be done irrespective of the nature, size and reputation of developer. The buyer should insist on verifying all documents pertaining to land title, approvals of building plans and commencement of construction. It is always a good idea for a group of buyers to get together and hire professional legal expertise to get due-diligence done.Track Record Of The Developer: The track record of the developer in delivering projects is a key criterion while buying any property. Amount of space delivered, timelines for delivery and quality of work produced is critical for the buyer to analyze. A developer with an impressive track record will surely deliver better than any other developer.Tech Savvy Developer: With technology leading the way, a consumer is sure to enjoy more benefits if he chooses a tech savvy developer who is always implementing the latest technology in construction along with the various amenities provided to the consumer. The final investment decision of the customer should ideally be a combination of credibility of the company, an assessment of the project fundamentals and his understanding of the market situation.Return On Investment: Certain factors that can assure good return on investment to a buyer in case of re-selling the property is another aspect that should be considered. Evaluate various aspects of the project like the master planning and amenities provided. Developers these days are getting international expertise to master plan their project and consumers can get a feel of it by going through the master plan.Location: Location of a project is very important. The real estate development in the surrounding areas and the connectivity of the project to important centers in the city such as school, hospital, bus and rail services, shopping complex, etc. is something the buyer should first look at before planning to invest.The author is founder & director of UdayHomz.com
Read More
