Vishal Krishna on how e-tailers have emerges as biggest spenders on TV, print and internetYou guessed it right. The e-tailers have emerged as biggest spenders on TV, print and the internet advertising. The ad-spend market in this country is worth Rs 49,000 crore according to advertising giant GroupM, of which only Rs 3,500 crore is digital spend. Of the total digital spend, 50 per cent comes from the wallets of India’s three top etailers, Amazon India, Flipkart and Snapdeal. It is also expected that the digital spend will grow by 37 per cent for these companies in 2015. The combined budget, for print and tv, for these three companies is worth more than Rs 550 crore. Combine this with their online spend and you will find that each of them spends Rs 1,000 crore per year on advertising and marketing activity. Clearly, it shows in their losses!
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India's largest utility and tractor producer, Mahindra and Mahindra, has set up an Africa-focused business unit as it looks to maintain double-digit growth levels in the continent, the company said on Tuesday. With an active presence in 20 African countries, Mahindra and Mahindra hopes the aggressive expansion will help spur a 10-fold increase in business over the next five to seven years. "There is no doubt that the African continent holds tremendous potential and the new African business unit will place Mahindra in a very strong position to strengthen its African presence," Ashok Thakur, chief executive of Mahindra's local South African unit, said in a statement. Thakur will lead the newly-established continental business unit, based in South Africa, with additional business hubs planned for Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt. South Africa will act as a central distribution channel for all products manufactured within the group, including utility vehicles, tractors and trucks.
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Shah Rukh Khan has been associated with Tag Heuer for over 12 years, writes Haider Ali KhanTag Heuer and its India’s brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan came together to launch their new campaign ‘Don’t crack under pressure’ at the famous Mehboob studios in Mumbai on Monday (29 June). Speaking at the event Shah Rukh Khan said, “It has been great to be associated with Tag Heuer for above 12 years. It is like being part of my family now. I liked their new concept of don’t crack under pressure because there are very few people who had succeeded in changing their times.” Amit Chaloo, general manager at Tag Heuer thanked King Khan for his long association with the brand and said, “There is no better belief than Shah Rukh Khan who simplifies the mind of the audiences and sets examples for others.”
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Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is in advanced talks to invest in Indian online payment platform and e-commerce firm Paytm, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday. Alibaba's financial arm Ant Financial, which runs the Alipay online payment platform, is already an investor in Paytm's parent, having agreed in February to buy a 25 percent stake. One source with direct knowledge of the matter said the new deal would see Alibaba directly invest around $600 million for a share in Paytm that could take the Chinese group's total holding to around 40 percent of the Indian payments firm. The fresh investment would value Paytm at around $4 billion. The sources declined to be named as negotiations are not public. A spokesperson for Alibaba declined to comment on the development. A spokeswoman for Paytm also declined to comment, but said the group regularly engaged with investors on "various funding opportunities".
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Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has emerged as a leader in mortgages and lending according to a report released by NelsonHall.Andy Efstathiou, Director of Banking BPO research at NelsonHall, said, “TCS’ capabilities in M&L services have been developed with a diversified client portfolio and many consulting engagements where TCS has provided consulting roadmaps to their clients. These experiences and capabilities help position TCS for success in M&L BPO.”With the rising costs of increased regulations and an expectation for an end-to-end process transformation approach, mortgage and lending institutions are seeking partners who can provide transformation solutions which allow them to address the challenges and costs of increased regulations and help them to introduce new offerings to market or enter new markets.TCS helps clients achieve these goals through its FORE™ simplification methodology, the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) framework, TRAPEZE™ solution accelerators, as well as its analytics and cloud based solutions to provide M&L service on a BPaaS basis that gives clients flexibility in buying services to match the cyclical nature of the loan business.“TCS is in the forefront of providing a superior customer experience through its offerings and is helping mortgage service providers re-engineer and automate operations to improve processing time, reduce costs, and increase flexibility while adhering to increased regulatory requirements, “said Dinanath Kholkar, Vice President & Global Head of Business Process Services at TCS. “NelsonHall’s positioning TCS as leader is a direct result of our strategy to build IP and domain expertise, certifications, digital offerings, automation and standardization of processes for customers around the globe.”NelsonHall’s vendor Evaluation and Assessment Tool (NEAT), is part of its Speed-to-Source initiative, and is a method by which sourcing managers can strategically evaluate vendors at the onset of the screening process. Using a two-axis model, vendors are assessed against their ability to ‘deliver immediate benefit’ to buy-side organizations and meet ‘clients future requirements.’ The latter axis is a pragmatic assessment of the vendor’s ability to take clients through an innovation journey over the lifetime of their next contract. Service providers are divided into four categories: Leaders, High Achievers, Innovators and Major Players.
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Henceforth, every MF scheme will carry a representation indicating the level of risk it carries, says Sunil Dhawan.From 1st July, all mutual funds schemes including the existing ones will shed their colours. This is to say that the practice of representing the level of risk that a mutual fund scheme carries in terms of blue, yellow and brown colour, will be stopped. The colour codes are being replaced by a pictorial meter called Riskometer. Similar to a speedometer that tells you how much you are speeding, Riskometer helps you to understand the risk profile and level of the MF scheme. In the new approach, instead of current three levels, there will five levels of risk. i. Low - principal at low risk ii. Moderately Low - principal at moderately low riskiii. Moderate - principal at moderate riskiv. Moderately High -- principal at moderately high risk v. High - principal at high risk Currently, the colour codes representing the risk-level are being shown as Henceforth, every MF scheme will carry this representation indicating the level of risk it carries. How does it help: As an investor, it helps to get a first-hand view of the risk, a MF scheme is carrying. For equity funds, it indicates the level of risk because of its underlying asset (equity) and the concentration risk it is exposed to. Within each category of funds, say within equity funds there can be several variants such as diversified funds, large-cap or mid-cap funds or even thematic funds. Thematic funds for instance would carry relatively high risk than diversified equity funds as the former carries more of concentration risk. End note: Riskometer can be a good starting point to look at MF’s. If your goal is a long term, stick to those which are “moderately high”. Thematic funds have “high” as any change in regulations, market conditions or a specific factor may pull down the fortune of the sector involved. They need tracking more frequently than other equity funds. Do not merely invest on the basis of the Riskometer but evaluate schemes on several other parameters to find the right one meeting your requirement.
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In a first for India at Annecy, France's International Animation Film Festival, Eeksaurus has bagged the Annecy Cristal Award in the Commissioned Film Category for their film on child labour for Rotary International titled 'Fateline'.The jury at Annecy was mighty impressed with the campaign calling it a film that was a fantastic mix of technique and aesthetics, a kind they had never seen before. The festival received a total of 2,604 films from 95 countries this year, of which 199 films made the official selection and Eeksaurus emerged the winner in the Commissioned Film Category.Suresh Eriyat, Founder and Creative Director, Eeksaurus, said, "The core ethos of this campaign was to reach out to the masses hence no caste, gender or creed was highlighted which has been possible through the use of 2D animation in the film. It is extremely heartening to be recognised for your work at Annecy which gives us a tremendous boost to further explore the scope of animation in India." The campaign which is based on the concept of a young child labourer determined to break free from the bonds that hold him down, is a simple yet effective rendition of how the impossible can be made possible when people join hands in working towards a cause. Working with the team of JWT, Eeksaurus had outlined the hands of the palm drawing in from the concept of fate or 'haath ke lakeer' combined with the use of strong imagery and music to lay emphasize on the sensitivity of the situation.
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India's biggest airline, IndiGo, is likely to file the prospectus for a stock market listing that will raise around $400 million later on Tuesday, two banking sources with knowledge of the matter said. The initial public offering will include about $200 million of fresh equity infusion, the sources said, declining to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media. IndiGo, owned by hospitality and travel company InterGlobe Enterprises, is India's largest airline by market share. A spokesperson for the carrier was not immediately available for comment.
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