Tanvi BhattTake a moment to absorb this brand leadership epiphany: A hundred days are a lifetime in the life of a newly elected leader or the president; but a blink and a miss in the lifetime of branding! Some of the most iconic world leaders have achieved in the first 100 days of their presidency what some presidents have not-in their entire term. History celebrates the achievements and the impact thereof, of the Roosevelt presidency, the Reagen presidency and of course the Obama presidency with poetic accolades; the changes they brought into the system within the first 100 days of their presidency are not only remarkable but outright inspirational. That brings us to the second part of this newfound insight-the ephemeral relativity of 100 days in branding: how does one build a brand in 100 days-especially when it takes years or even decades in the world of branding to build a brand that is celebrated for its value, consistency and commitment towards building credibility, reputation and legacy. The most iconic brands of the world right from Coca-cola, GE, IBM, Toyota are atleast a few decades old-if not a century; and the same is true with an obvious variation in the timescale for people brands too! Icons like Jobs, Branson, Musk, Dr. Kalam, Tata and Teresa, have become such beloved people brands today because of the three common traits that all iconic brands share: Value, Consistency and Commitment to serve, to change the world-which they personify in every act of reason.We started this series of articles last week with Be Iconic in 100 days- 100 steps to build the Brand You' (Read here). This week we take you through the next 10 steps to build the Brand you: Brand Your Dreams Tanvi BhattYour Brand is a Dream: A promise awaiting realization, awaiting fulfillment! Jobs dreamt of a novel, different, a more beautiful interaction between humans and technology; Branson dreamt of disrupting every conventional method of business; Teresa dreamt of serving the poor and helpless; Martin Luther King dreamt of quality in opportunities for all Americans and Gandhi dreamt of freeing India from violent tyrannical rule by adopting non-violence! Have a Dream for yourself, your Career, your Life, your Community, Your Society, Your Country and Your World- and ensure the world is IN on your dream! Today, you are shaping the story of your future, your dreams; while you indulge into story-telling of a successful journey you've had this far; it's even more important to indulge in 'story-shaping'- the act of telling the world 'the story of your future, the story of your dreams', and then proudly work towards making it come true! 1. Tell me your DreamsWhat do you dream of? What would you do if you knew you wouldn't fail? Do you dream of changing the world or changing your life? Whatever it be; dream. Every story begins with a dream and ends with a legacy! Dream Bold. 2. What is missingYour dream, your vision is born out of a burning gap in your life or your world. What is that gap, the lacunae, the missing factor which you believe you can fulfill? Look inside, look around-get inspired to do more and be more. Dream More. 3. What would you changeIf you were given the power-what is the first thing you would change in your world, and why? We often feel deeply about certain causes yet refrain from doing anything to change its status quo. Think, Feel, Be Moved first-to move the system next. Dream Nobel. 4. What would you solveYou don't need to be Jobs to build something spectacular-All you need is an Idea: An idea which promises a humble change. Scout for the challenges in your industry; problems that your customers are wary of; issues that you grapple with daily. Then ideate, explore newer, faster, simpler, cheaper ways of overcoming those challenges and solving those problems. Dream Smart. 5. What opportunities no one envisionsThis is where your true thought leadership will be tested! Dream like a thought leader: 'People often don't know what they want, until you show them what they don't have-and how their life can change with your big idea!' Have a telescopic vision for the future trends, a camera vision to bridge the present-future gap, and a microscopic vision to create micro-opportunities in present. Dream Distant. 6. What would you be celebrated forLife must be a celebration; a celebration of your dreams. Every single day, fill your heart with such purpose that shames all intent. A purpose to celebrate life and all its possibilities for you, its destiny for you! Ask yourself: What ALL am I capable of and how will I impact the world by doing ALL of that? Let your life and your leadership be a celebration of this higher purpose that ignites you every single day. Dream Higher. 7. What should be your epitaph Let your core 'purpose of being' resonate in everything you do. We all live with a golden rule of life, a core purpose which governs all our actions-what is your purpose? Define your purpose and focus on it as you lead your dreams as well as others. Personify your purpose such that it is the singular thought in the hearts and minds of your community all through your life, and immortalizes you even after. Ensure your epitaph gives an ode to your 'purpose of being'. Dream Beyond. 8. What could be your legacyLegacies don't have to be universe altering; but they do have to be YOUniverse altering. Dream, Dare, Do and DENT-however subtle it be-do put a dent in your YOUniverse. Even if you change the life of one other person than yourself, it becomes your legacy to the world. Now imagine, as a leader the power and potential you have to inspire your communities to be this change and in turn change their respective worlds! Dream Amplification. 9. Define your What and your WhyLeaders lead with a clear vision and the reason thereof. Do you know where you are leading your communities; Do your communities know why they must follow your vision; Does the world know why you dream of changing it for good? Your WHAT is your Vision: What do you aspire to change? Your WHY is your Purpose: Why does it drive you to make this change? Your WHAT and its WHY is what attracts people towards your leadership brand and the dream it seeks to build. Dream Good. 10. Shape Your StoryEveryone indulges in story-telling of the past; only few visionaries have what it takes to celebrate their 'story-shaping' for the future. In today's eco-system, we have the never before opportunity to co-create our future, co-shape the story of our future, co-dream of a better future; and owning your future is the first step towards it. OWN your Dreams, Brand Your Dreams and start shaping the story of your future. Shape your story, the world is watching. Dream Titanic.
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With new markets opening, new standards being adopted, and with an ongoing shift in economic power there are many challenges and opportunities for finance professionals to deal with. But what do my colleagues in the world of finance and accountancy see as the biggest concerns for the future? What openings and threats have they identified? From research we have undertaken around the world, there are a number of challenges and opportunities which they have identified. The key issue for them was the recognition that they need to embrace an enlarged strategic and commercial role, as there are more opportunities for them to play a bigger role across all aspects of corporate decision making from strategy formulation through to defining new business models. Everyone involved in the profession also needs to accept that it needs to be seen to be addressing clear public concerns. There is a perception that the accountancy profession could do more to highlight and prevent everything from small-scale financial irregularities through to the major systemic failures that helped cause the global financial crisis and ensuing economic uncertainty. One way that we could contribute to greater awareness and certainty is to provide holistic reports on businesses, which acknowledge the complexity of modern business and encompass financial and non-financial indicators of a firm's financial status and potential. Given the increasing globalisation of business - there is also a need for finance professionals to master the technical, language and cultural challenges of cross-border operations. The diverse range of demands and impacts on the profession is forcing a rethink of everything from training and development through to the type of people being recruited. Future finance professionals not only have to keep up with changes to financial rules and regulations, but also with technology. Businesses today must have their 'technology radars' consistently switched on, scouring and weighing up new and up-and-coming technologies are opportunities that can achieve competitive value. While I have highlighted some challenges for the profession, there will also be many opportunities. For example, the rise of 'big data' demands the sort of structural and analytical skills that are commonplace in accounting. Research has already shown that companies that adopt 'data-driven' decision-making methods can outperform their less enterprising peers; there are many easily accessed opportunities waiting for companies that use big data to their advantage, and accountants could be the ones to identify this. There will be challenges, such as the need for high-quality data, security and privacy, and legal issues, but big data could become a very big opportunity for many accountants if they are able to: explore new ways to manage, analyse, and extract value from big data; ensure that data protection legislation is followed and data is used ethically; apply the profession's analytical and critical skills to establish a broader more strategic remit; use this broader business perspective to inform and identify the questions big data can most usefully answer and monitor the specialist software and systems that are emerging and learn how to exploit them. The author, Mohammed Sajid Khan, is head of international development at ACCA
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Subroto Gupta “The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed”. William Gibson’s quote is remarkably relevant for India today as the country witnesses an unprecedented transformation driven by a combination of technological and social changes. NASSCOM, in its recently released report on ‘Shaping the Digital Revolution’ predicts that the share of digital technology investment in India will rise from 10 per cent in 2014 to 60 per cent in 2025. In addition, research done by McKinsey indicates that a number of new, empowering technologies will have an annual economic impact of up to 30 per cent of India’s incremental GDP over a similar period. Thanks to creative destruction, more than 80 per cent of Fortune 500 companies have disappeared over last few decades and digital technologies like social, mobility, cloud and internet of things (IoT) are accelerating that trend. These technologies are fundamentally changing the way companies define growth strategies, innovate and do business from building new products and solutions to managing global operations. At the same time, companies today are struggling to effectively leverage or gain meaningful returns from digital investments. Recent research shows that while 71 per cent companies have a high or extremely high focus on digital technologies, only 65 per cent are seeing some benefits at best. So how can governments and enterprises in India better harness the power of digital? What is happening today and how much of that is hype versus reality? A few areas deserve a closer look. The first is disruption of business models. Across the world as well as in India, ‘Uberization’ is becoming a defining trend. Any business model that has middlemen between say a manufacturer or service provider and the end customer is open for disruption. In education for example, digital models are becoming more important creating new revenue generating models. And suppliers of core learning content are reaching out directly to end students bypassing traditional incumbents such as institutions. What many companies are struggling with today is to decide what technology choices can help transform their business models. Fortunately, in most of the cases technologies like IoT, mobility and cloud based software applications are already proven and commercialized. Traditionally, many businesses in India have been reluctant to change and invest whole heartedly in digital technologies due to availability of cheap labor. Fortunately, many enterprises today are starting to experiment and trying to make the hard choices required. Start-ups are a big driver of disruption in business models and there is an incredible number and variety of companies coming up. The start-up eco-system in India continues to thrive and recent reports suggest that it’s the third largest start-up environment globally after the US and UK. While some think that many start-ups in India are copying Western or Chinese business models and therefore not really innovating or disrupting, this is not completely true. Start-ups like AlmaConnect, an alumni networking portal started before US based companies like Nextdoor came into the picture. They defined a niche because larger social networks like Facebook were too noisy. Unfortunately the investment community has had more exposure in developed markets and tends to back models where they have already seen success. The second area worth a closer look is re-imagining customer experience. Companies in India today are looking at using a combination of capabilities from design thinking to social engagement and big data analytics to understand and engage customers better. This is possibly the biggest focus area for digital transformation for most companies today. Since 65 per cent of all new internet users in India access the internet for the first time on mobile devices, mobile first design has become a critical driver of customer experience. The third is transforming governance. For Digital to have transformative impact across the country, two things need to happen. Everyone needs to have some version of a smartphone and everyone needs access to high speed mobile internet. Indian companies are aggressively pushing to make smart phones available and accessible to the bottom 700 million users. Once this happens, Digital India will become real and applications in specific sectors like healthcare, education, e-governance services will become widely available. As an example, fishermen in remote Karnataka take photos of their catch using their phones and share with wholesalers on WhatsApp for immediate price discovery driving speed and transparency of transactions. What role can the government play? The general perception that the government is not active is misplaced. The challenge lies in is bridging the gaps between existing solutions and what the government can effectively deploy. For example, many smart parking solutions are available but it is unclear how the government can incentivize the adoption of smart parking in a country like India. While technology will facilitate and help scale e-governance solutions, for effective delivery an ecosystem of partners need to come in place, for example to provide low cost hardware for education. This will drive transparency and accountability. For example in Maharashtra, service level agreements have been put in place with escalations to make it easier to set up a new business and similar services that citizens find tedious today can and will improve over time. The last area I would like to draw attention to is rethinking the way we work. Many jobs today like social media managers didn’t exist 20 years ago and many will not exist 20 years from now. In addition to this, there is a big threat of intelligent automation to the future of work. With millions of young people in India joining the workforce every year, new skills and capabilities will be required and the workplace of the future will, in all likelihood, look very different than what is today. While for the first time, each one of us can realistically have a global scale of ambition, companies in the future will not teach employees everything and will not hire people just because they passed out of great institute. Start-ups for example usually have smaller teams and therefore really do not have time to train people in the classical way. As information becomes more freely available, the expectation will be that workers will be a lot more proactive in building knowledge and skills. Having said that, all expertise cannot reside in any single individual, so people also need to be able to connect and collaborate with resources inside and outside organizations to solve problems effectively. The same is true for leadership. As information gets democratized and nature of work and organizations evolve, there is already a shift under way from the command and control, top-down type of leadership model that became widespread as a result of the industrial revolution. Leadership of the future will place a lot more focus on empathy, curiosity, collaboration, flexibility, engagement, and most importantly, humility. For example, institutes like the Gurgaon based School of Inspired Leadership (SOIL) are helping prepare students by bringing focus on digital education, understanding new opportunities and by taking a more holistic approach to learning and leadership so students can realize their potential in this new world. Digital India will result from many transformational activities across industry, society and government that together can create widespread change. Examples are all around us. Traditional textiles communities in areas like Tirupur are adopting digital technologies to meet needs of international retailers like WalMart and using technologies like IoT to monitor energy levels for improved cost efficiency. As schools in most villages get connected on national broadband networks and people get internet access for basic services like healthcare and education, an incredible wave of human capital will be unleashed within the country. Aligning demand and supply effectively coupled with adequate investment in digital infrastructure will help us realize the dream of a Digital India. The author, Subroto Gupta - Vice President, Digital Transformation & Innovation Leader, Genpact
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The launch of new gold schemes is widely expected to reduce the volume of gold imports. However, the involvement of jewellers as collection centres under the Gold Monetisation Scheme, could yield far greater all-round benefits, says Stephen Rego Last week, the Prime Minister personally unveiled three new schemes directly related to the gold and jewellery industry viz. Gold Monetisation Scheme (GMS), Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme (GBS), and India Gold Coins in the presence of many senior Cabinet ministers, government officials and representatives of the jewellery industry. The aim of the first two of these initiatives is to reduce gold imports which currently average about 800-900 tonnes a year. Reduction in the large forex outflow on this account will help the government’s attempts to keep the Current Account Deficit (CAD) within manageable limits. The gold and jewellery industry has generally welcomed this initiative of the government, though with some reservations. They say that the Bonds scheme may have some success, albeit limited, but the Gold Monetisation Scheme in its present form is not likely to have much impact. Stephen RegoTwo reasons are cited. Firstly, a lot of gold in India is purchased via cash transactions, and such buyers are unlikely to buy bonds or want to monetise their stocks without some sort of an amnesty, or assurance that they will not be subjected to detailed tax inquiries. At this point of time, the government appears unwilling to do this. Secondly, they point to difficulties that will arise under the current procedure involved in monetising physical gold. In its present form, the scheme requires that gold be handed over to authorised Hallmarking and Assaying centres or to participating banks which will then send the gold to the centres. Only after the gold has been assayed and refined will the depositor receive credit and start earning interest, a process that can take up to 30 days. Jewellers who have been using the existing infrastructure under the BIS Hallmarking scheme to have their gold ornaments hallmarked point to the woefully low number of such centres across the country, their heavy concentration in urban areas, and the fact that they are mostly in locations that are not easily accessible to the general public. Many consumers who may have considered participating, would opt out due to such constraints, they say. Moreover, till now, the centres have had little or no direct interaction with the consumer, so there is no readymade bond of trust between the two. Will not most individuals be wary of leaving gold or jewellery for testing with these centres? The solution, according to them, is to involve the jewellery community in the process. As the PM himself pointed out during his speech at the launch, most consumers have been buying from the ‘family jeweller’ for many generations. Even when they make purchases from others, the trusted ‘family jeweller’ is often consulted. Though the PM made a strong case for involving these goldsmiths or traditional artisans as agents for popularising and implementing the gold schemes, there is, as yet, no provision in the GMS for this. Leading jewellers and trade bodies have pointed to some of the advantages of authorising the industry to collect gold under the GMS. If jewellers become the interface between consumers and banks, the former will feel more secure while handing over their gold ornaments, and the entire process of collection, testing, refining and concluding a transaction under GMS will be streamlined. Industry leaders have suggested that initially only jewellers who have been registered under the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Hallmarking scheme (about 13,000) could be authorised as collection centres. An alternative suggestion is that banks participating in the scheme can nominate jewellers to be collection centres. The banks are familiar with the industry as they have been offering finance or gold loans to jewellers and so will have their own independent process for evaluation and selection. According to these industry leaders, the turnaround time for testing, assaying and creating a deposit in the consumer’s name, as well as selling or lending the gold to the jeweller will reduce significantly. It is learnt that the government has already been discussing this possibility and may amend the GMS soon to give the industry a greater role. The PM’s strong reference to the importance of a ‘family jeweller’ and the need to make them agents for developing this scheme also gives an indication of the government’s thinking. Such restructuring of the GMS may yield far greater benefits for consumers, the industry and the economy than is conceivable under its present format.(Stephen Rego has been a journalist since the mid-1980s, and has spent close to two decades tracking the gem and jewellery industry while holding different editorial positions in industry specific publications and websites)
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Harsh Pamnani For many years, we have heard about relationship of rivalry between David & Goliath. David was a little shepherd kid, and Goliath was a strong and giant warrior. Though, David didn't have experience using weapons and battles with warriors, he had experience of defending his flock against animals such as lions and bears. He picked up a few stones from ground, put them in his sling, rolled it around and let it fly to hit the giant Goliath between the eyes. With this unexpected attack, Goliath fell on the ground and David killed him with sword.
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Political stalwarts exercised little restraint in attacking each other during their poll campaigns in Bihar, writes D.P. Sharan With the end of last phase of polls on November 5, the fate of candidates in the fray for the 243 seats of Bihar Assembly hangs in the balance. Although the counting of votes will be held on November 8 and they have, as such, nothing to do for two days (November 6 and 7) except to wait for their fate with bated breath, the future of Bihar is believed to have been "writ large" on the face of the State much ahead of the poll results. Whether the results go in favour of the NDA or the non-NDA Grand Alliance, the mandate to rule Bihar may amount to either a beginning of the end of decades-old alleged misrule in the State or a fresh bout of skirmishes between the Centre and the State that will put all development issues on the backburner. The manner in which the rival forces have been at loggerheads about their respective claims to provide better administration to the state, they are now left with no option except to salvage their credentials by ensuring good governance in Bihar. However, at the same time, the loser in the electoral battle may aim to settle scores with the rival and unsettle the state. Unlike other Assembly elections in the past, political stalwarts, including the Prime Minister, have left no stone unturned in taking on rivals by levelling grave charges against each other for the abysmal condition of the State. They have aimed to gain mileage in the elections at the cost of each other's misconduct. But they failed to gauge the sinister implications of their electoral promises that they made while exercising populist measures during the electioneering. Since the NDA accused its rivals of the Grand Alliance - comprising the JDU of Nitish Kumar, RJD of Lalu Prasad Yadav and the Congress - of reducing the State to the level of Jungle Raj and sought votes to dispense with decades-old misrule of Nitish-Lalu dispensations, on it remains the onus to transform the State into a developed one if it is voted to power. On the other hand, if the Grand Alliance flayed the Modi dispensation at the centre for cheating the people by assuring to bring back black-money stashed in foreign countries and control the galloping price hike - ostensibly with the avowed objective to tarnish the NDA and woo the voters in their favour - the non-NDA forces cannot run away from their responsibilities to protect the interests of the people of the State. The abusive language and remarks used by top political leaders against each other during electioneering - in an arduous attempt to wrest or retain power - are, indeed, subversion of the democratic setup and detrimental to civil society. Such actions, however, are potent enough to have a great impact on the future course of action in Bihar. They accused and abused each other in their respective counter-offensive moves to claim immunity from the charges of inaction at the BJP-led Centre and JDU-ruled Bihar, but, they can neither afford to ignore the State anymore with the fear of a possible backlash in the future that may witness the two rival forces locking horns to hold on to the power at the Centre nor can they afford to stand condemned in the eyes of people in adjoining States while aspiring to make their presence felt during impending assembly elections. If political observers are to be believed, the post-election scenario of Bihar would decide the political fate of the country. They opine that if the NDA loses the elections to the Grand Alliance in Bihar, it would have a great impact on politics in adjoining States that are scheduled to go to polls in the next two years. Elections are due in 2016 and 2017 in adjoining States of West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh respectively. Subsequently, non-NDA forces that are eyeing to wrest power at the Centre would launch offensives against PM Narendra Modi and his party with renewed vigour. NDA stalwarts including PM Modi and BJP President Amit Shah have been accused of abetting communal and religious divides by delivering their hate speeches and utterances. From the issues pertaining to remarks on the 'DNA' of the Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, derogatory views expressed by PM about the presence of evil spirits in RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav, advocating for the abolition of quota system by RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat to that of Shah's terse comments on possible fireworks in Pakistan in case of BJP's loss in the elections in Bihar have put the NDA in a quandary to deal with minorities in particular while seeking votes in West Bengal and UP where the minorities possess significant voting clout after losing the Bihar elections. However, if they emerge winners in the elections, they are supposed to play similar tricks in other states too to polarize the Hindu vote banks. Similarly, if the non-NDA Grand Alliance retains power in Bihar, it would be strong enough to mobilise anti-NDA forces at the Centre by cashing-in on its victory that it achieved in a major trial of strength against none other than the PM-led NDA forces in Bihar. Notwithstanding, the possibilities of a negative impact of the election result on Bihar's prosperity cannot be ruled out too. Since the bitterness between the two was found to have reached alarming proportions during the elections, they may keep on fighting against each other even after the results. If the non-NDA Grand Alliance retains power in Bihar, the ruling NDA at the Centre would not be averse to carry out a tirade against the non-NDA-led Bihar Government in order to settle its score that would cost dearly to the Centre-sponsored developmental schemes in particular in the State. Similarly, if the Grand Alliance loses the elections to the NDA, it would not allow the NDA Government to run the show smoothly and delay developmental works.
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India is second most populous country and one of the largest consumer markets in the world. It has 354 million Internet users and 213 million mobile Internet users and these numbers are expected to reach a billion digital users by 2030. India is a country where 75 per cent of its Internet users are below the age of 35 age. These high number of young population and consistent healthy growth of new digital users will drive Indian e-commerce industry in a big way. It will take this industry to $ 300 Billion by 2030 from $20 Billion today. The e-commerce market will account for 2.5% of the India's GDP by 2030 and will grow by 15 times as per Goldman Sach report."If your business is not on Internet, then your business will be out of business" - Bill Gates, Founder of MicrosofAs rightly described by Bill Gates, this industry has opened up an abundance of opportunity. This is amply clear that taking your business online is not an option rather this has become a compulsion to prove your existence.There are various options available to bring your business online and start selling, whereas there are pros and cons of each of these options to fulfill your objective of going online. Among all these options 'Selling Thru Marketplaces' seems to be the best option for an SME manufacturer/wholesaler as this gives huge sales & branding and ready customers' traffic by incurring no fixed or variable cost. Apart from listing with online marketplaces, one may create a micro site to establish a virtual visage for the brand.How to sell online on marketplaces?Online marketplaces like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon etc. are the best options for a seller, but there are processes/ stages to cover before you start selling online. These stages are:1. Register with Marketplaces- A seller is required to have VAT No., Address proof, ID proof and other basic documents for registration and verification. Marketplaces also check for courier pick up facilities at the seller's location, if pick up is not available the seller can send the products to a warehouse where these services are available.2. Product Listings- A seller needs to get the Photo-shoots done as per the marketplace guidelines, content writing and catalog creation as per each marketplace's format. This is a very important for maximizing the sales and reducing customer returns.3. Price and inventory update- Competitive pricing will help sell more and proper inventory update means better sales and no cancellations. It is always preferable to block the inventory for online selling4. Order Management- Generate Invoices, address labels and manifests and pack the items in marketplace specific packaging material. A strong and temper proof packing is required to ensure no damages or loss during transit.5. Customer Service & Returns Management- Some Marketplaces handle the customer service themselves but for some marketplaces sellers have to handle it. Customer returns is another aspect to manage, products needs to be checked before restocking, returns to be confirmed on marketplaces, reconciled against payments and disputes to be raised for any discrepancies.6. Warehousing & Fulfillment- If a seller doesn't want all the hassles of retail invoicing, shipments and returns etc. he can send the products to a third party warehouse, they can take care of orders and returns management.7. Payment Reconciliation- Different marketplaces have different commission structures, different shipping policies and different payment cycles. This clubbed together with promotional pricing and order life cycle becomes a tricky task. But, undoubtedly this remains the most important part of the entire online selling process.If a seller finds this process very tedious he/she can take the help of e-commerce enabling companies who are specialized in handling these tasks. In other words, it is possible to set up multiple stores, have an expert team work for you and generate great profits by online selling without even having to get up from your chair. What is usually the charge structure of a marketplace?There are different marketing commissions for different category of products i.e. different rate card for Mobile phone and different for a Denim. Apart from marketing commissions, the marketplaces provide courier services to pick the product from seller's warehouse and deliver to the end consumers. For this transportation and delivery service, the courier charges are billed to the sellers. Most of the Marketplace charges include a combination of selling commission, shipping charges, fixed fee, payment collection fee, COD charges etc. Since the seller is billing directly to the customers, VAT remains a seller's responsibility.What are the challenges faced by a seller?Usually, these sellers are small & medium enterprises (SMEs) engaged in manufacturing/ distributing products either on behalf of a big brand or own label. They are accustomed of selling goods in bulk and many a times are naive in terms of managing the online store. They should understand that in retail stores customers can actually see the products, hold it in their hands, may be try it before making a purchase but , all these factors are absent in e-tail, so to generate trust among the customers some guideline and policies are to be followed. The first challenge that sellers face is in going live which includes registering on the panels, Photo-shoot & cataloging as per the requirement of the marketplaces. Second is shipping policy which means no order cancellation, 24hr. shipping, no customer complaints etc. Third is managing the multiple panels for listings, price update, inventory update etc. and fourth is reconciling the payments for multiple channels, different charges and different payment cycles. It is because of these challenges that sellers are not able to realize maximum benefits of these channels and become inactive at one of these stages. But they should not give up on these channels so soon, the fact that customers are increasingly flocking these websites, retail market has already started feeling the heat and the market is growing at 40% CAGR, means that this business is here to stay and those who will not join the bandwagon now will be left behind. Some sellers have successfully sailed through the rough waters and are reaping the benefits now. It is the turn of those sellers who were left behind to start on this wonderful journey now.What are those tools / tips suggested for online selling?E-commerce is a new age sales channel, it has its own challenges and advantages and sellers should understand that in order to make this channel work for them they need to understand the challenges and overcome them. Setting up this channel is like setting up a new offline store where the store owner is required to do feasibility analysis, has some marketing spend, stocks up inventory and does various things to generate footfall to his store. After some time the store becomes breakeven and then starts generating profits. Similarly a seller needs to study the online market and spend some time in understanding it to generate maximum benefits. It is a good idea to take advice from some experts and be well informed before starting this journey.How to increase salesKnowing the critical success factors paves the path for the sellers to have a smooth business procedure. Right display, competitive pricing, catalog size, freshness of catalog, inventory depth and customer delight all contribute significantly to a sellers GMV.ConclusionOnline marketplace is the platform of survival for a business. Thus, it poses fierce competition for the sellers at each step. The naivety of the sellers about the platform further adds on to the difficulties. Here the support partners helps the sellers in conducting a smooth business without worrying about the technological technicalities of the platform.The authors, Harish Singla and Dipti Singla, are director & co-founders of BluBox.in
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These days there's buzz among companies and enterprises to hop on to the IoT bandwagon. Almost every discussion will boil down to focusing on technology and maximising output by embracing IoT. According to Machina Research data IoT in India will account for $10-12 billion by 2020. This will comprise of $194 billion from hardware and $179 billion from software. However what if we told you that this progression was merely a gradual and expected phenomenon and we are yet to witness more fascinating capabilities of technology!Till date, computers performed according to programs and applications that were created specifically for conducting a particular task. To cite a simple illustration, we are able copy images from the web and edit it to our taste by using platforms such as MS Picture Manager or Paint or Adobe Photo Shop. What if computers, like humans, began learning from experience? And this has already begun to take shape…Machine Learning is the dawn of an exciting new era of info and computer science wherein computers can figure out how to perform important tasks by generalizing from examples.What is Machine Learning?As more data becomes available, more ambitious problems can be tackled. Machine learning is based on algorithms that can learn from data without relying on rules-based programming. In the past decade, digitization of information has led to a data explosion in both volume and complexity. While traditional computing frameworks have failed to provide adequate computing power for the now common data-intensive computing tasks, cloud computing provides an effective alternative to enhance computing power. Machine learning algorithms are powerful analytical methods that allow machines to recognize patterns and facilitate human learning. It came into its own as a scientific discipline in the late 1990s as steady advances in digitization and cheap computing power enabled data scientists to stop building finished models and instead train computers to do so.Machine learning is linked to artificial intelligence, the development of computers with skills that traditionally would have required human intelligence, such as decision-making and visual perception. It is the part of artificial intelligence that actually works. You can use it to train computers to do things that are impossible to program in advance. Search engines like Google and Bing, Facebook and Apple's photo tagging application and Gmail's spam filtering are everyday examples of machine learning at work. The fundamental goal of machine learning is to generalize beyond the examples in the training set.As with their learning-system forebears, the overhead of machine-learning systems is typically huge. But today we have the option to place these systems in the cloud. Amazon Web Services, for example, supports machine learning using AWS's algorithms to read native AWS data (such as RDS, Redshift, and S3). Google has supported predictive analysts for some time with its Google Prediction API, and Microsoft provides an Azure machine-learning service.The ability to predict the future for both tactical and strategic purposes has eluded us because of prohibitive resource requirements. But today, thanks to the cloud for machine learning as a service, you can apply this technology far and wide on all that data enterprises have been collecting.Machine Learning vs. Artificial LearningOne often believes machine learning to be synonymous with artificial intelligence but it isn't so. Artificial intelligence is a broad term referring to computers that are capable of essentially coming up with solutions to problems on their own. The information needed to get to the solution is coded and AI uses the data to come up with a solution.On the other hand Machine Learning takes the process one step further. Machine learning is capable of generalizing information from large data sets, and then detects and extrapolates patterns in order to apply that information to new solutions and actions.Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are highly inter-dependent fields that they need each other to analyze and perform activities.Machine Learning in Cloud ComputingMachine Learning is a fully managed, on-demand, pay-as-you-go and easy to use service provided by prominent cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. The cloud-based Machine Learning service gives business a chance to get started with Machine Learning and make valuable decisions.Given the enormous growth of collected and available data in companies, industry and science, techniques for analyzing such data are becoming ever more important. Today, data to be analyzed are no longer restricted to sensor data and classical databases, but more and more include textual documents and web pages, spatial data, multimedia data, relational data.Machine Learning is inherently a time consuming task, thus plenty of efforts were conducted to speed-up the execution time. Cloud computing paradigm and cloud providers turned out to be valuable alternatives to speed-up machine learning platforms. As a key service delivery platform, Cloud computing systems provide environments to enable resource sharing in terms of scalable infrastructures, middleware, application development platforms and value-added business applications.Large players in IT have already been using machine learning internally. Microsoft is one example. The company has integrated machine learning technology into its cloud services to automatically tag users' photographs and to boost performance of the language translation facilities of its Skype service. It also offers a ready-to-use cloud platform to customers via its Azure Machine Learning services. An API lets them upload data (like big data and IoT/Internet of Things data) to feed machine learning programs and continually update the 'training' process to keep the output from their programs relevant and accurate.The growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) has also been helped by the cloud, as apps and services need a central location to pump all of their data into before it can be analysed and utilised, as well as accessed and controlled.The fall in storage prices and explosion of data created by new computing power have both been key factors in driving innovation, and thanks to its rapid increase, the cloud industry is really helping 'democratize' machine learning, making it available in more industries than ever before.This will lead to more and more cloud providers offering machine learning as a service products and IoT management services to give users a way to centralize and make use of all their data.The idea of a machine taking decisions as "deeply unsettling" - after all, there are increasing and understandable fears among many workers that eventually a machine will do their job and they'll be out of work. However the expansion of machine learning will actually bring benefits to employees.The reality is that one can probably use the machines to get rid of all the tedious boring bits so that one can focus on more value-added objectives.Employing Machine Learning in BusinessMachine learning and big data will transform every industry as IT moves towards a cloud-based business. What it means is that one will be able to very quickly create a very powerful system without having to have employed those people who do things you don't understand; you simply take advantage of it. We'll start to see organisations starting to realize that put machines together in the same way that apps took off!By ingesting data across all application and infrastructure domains, a machine learning-based event management system can not only detect events/alerts in real-time, but can also correlate and contextualize information so that it is meaningful to IT Operations. Machine learning is the only solution making it possible to correlate, contextualize and create clusters of related alerts known as "situations." Organisations must choose machine-learning industry-specific products over generic statistical tools.The author, Harshad Mehendale, is consultant at BSIL - Blue Star Infotech Ltd
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