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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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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India's packaging industry will grow 20-25 per cent annually over the next few years, helped by changing retail patterns, Uflex group president for corporate finance and accounts R.K. Jain tells BW Businessworld's Shakir Husain Leading flexible packaging company Uflex is investing Rs 1,800 crore (about $284 million) to grow its output and add new products as demand for packaging material rises in India amid changing retail patterns. The Noida-headquartered company will invest Rs 550 crore in setting up a plant in Sanand, Gujarat, to make packaging materials for liquid products. R.K. Jain, Uflex Ltd's group president for corporate finance and accounts, said land has been acquired for the facility, which will be operational in April 2017 and employ about 800 people. "We are now entering the liquid market," he said. The Gujarat factory will produce seven billion packs per year for liquid products such as energy drinks, milk and juices, and about 90 per cent of the output will be used for the domestic market, Jain told BW Businessworld in an interview. Uflex manufactures both packaging materials and equipment and is a market leader in India in the segment. A big chunk of its supplies goes to the food and beverage industry. Uflex has manufacturing facilities in Noida in Uttar Pradesh, Malanpur in Madhya Pradesh and in Jammu. Overseas facilities are located in Dubai, Egypt, Mexico, Poland and North America. Jain said the company is growing its overseas business as well. "We are becoming an emerging player in the international market. We have a sales network in 140 countries," he said, adding that the company's revenues are evenly divided between domestic and overseas markets. The company employs 7,500 people, of whom 6,300 work in India. Growing Domestic DemandThe Indian packaging industry has been growing at 15-17 per cent annually, but this growth rate is expected to rise significantly with organised retail expanding and changes happening in Indian consumption patterns. "Now changes are taking place (in the economy). Demographics is changing, lifestyle is changing, more organised retail is coming," Jain said. He expects the packaging industry to achieve an annual growth rate of 20 to 25 per cent per over the next several years. Traditional retail in India is conducted through kirana shops with many goods being sold loose, but the trend of shopping malls and an expansion of modern organised retail are expected to create huge demand for packaging products. Jain said as packaging penetration is low at present, the industry would continue to see strong growth "for at least the next 10 years." Uflex will spend Rs 1,800 crores, including the investment in Gujarat, over the next three years to achieve its growth plans. The company plans to raise its capacity for making plastic film and other products from 425,000 tonnes to 575,000 tonnes by 2018. Target For Profit Growth"As business grows, we will require more capacity," Jain said. He said Uflex aims to grow its net profit for the current financial year by 30-35 per cent. The company's net profit grew 26 per cent to Rs 255 crore in the financial year 2014-15. The revenue target for 2015-16 is 7,500 crore compared with Rs 6,180 crore achieved in the previous financial year. Uflex, which supplies packing material to Nestle, does not see any negative impact on its revenue growth due to the sales ban on the Maggi instant noodles brand. "Our packaging portfolio is evenly spread out among several top notch brands and Maggi as part of our portfolio does not add significantly to our bottom line," the company said in statement. "The recent banning of Maggi noodles will have no negative impact on Uflex's turnover as the company is on a higher growth trajectory both in India and overseas market," it said.
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A top Indian-origin executive at micro-blogging site Twitter has resigned, the latest in a recent string of departures from the company including that of CEO Dick Costolo.Rishi Garg, the Vice President for Corporate Development and Strategy at Twitter, a role that put him in charge of the Mergers & Acquisition strategy, has announced his departure after a tenure of 13 months."After an amazing ride as Twitter's VP Corporate Development and Strategy, I'm saying farewell today," he tweeted."Our team has built a stronger Twitter with a dozen acquisitions in the last year. Hats off to @dickc for admirable leadership, humour, energy, and trust," Garg said, using Costolo's Twitter handle to thank him."I can't wait to witness the company's next chapter. I'm off to pursue some exciting new projects; more soon! #staytuned," the tweets read.Twitter did not immediately announce a replacement for Garg, whose departure comes just two week after Costolo announced he was stepping down as the company's CEO.Costolo has been replaced by co-founder Jack Dorsey on an interim basis.Other high-level departures over the last 18 months include product chief Daniel Graf, COO Ali Rowghani, and CFO Mike Gupta.Before joining Twitter, Garg was the M&A chief for fellow Jack Dorsey company Square.According to his online profile, Garg received a BA in Economics and MS in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.(PTI)
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The scheme of arrangement submitted by the company said the proposed merger will also provide stability and enhancement in earnings and cash flow, says C H UnnikrishnanThe proposed merger of oil and gas subsidiary Cairn India into the parent Vedanta Ltd will enable an enhanced diversification of the group as a global natural resources player, says Vedanta in its scheme of arrangement submission to Indian stock exchanges. The company has on Thursday (25 June) filed the details and the related documents of its scheme of arrangement for the merger to BSE and NSE seeking the exchanges’ approval of the merger. The scheme of arrangement submitted by the company said the proposed merger will also provide stability and enhancement in earnings and cash flow besides operational effectiveness and cost optimisation. Apart from simplifying the structure of the group, the merger with Cairn will also result in improved allocation of capital at lower cost and also a broader access to capital market as the consolidated group will have a stronger balance sheet, Vedanta said in the scheme of arrangement documents, reviewed by BW|Businessworld. Vedanta had in the second week of June announced its proposal to merge its majority owned subsidiary Cairn in to itself. Under the merger offer, the shareholders of Cairn India will receive one Vedanta share for every Cairn India share they hold and one preference share with a coupon of 7.5 per cent. Vedanta, the flagship of UK-based a metal and mining conglomerate Vedanta Resources Plc, currently holds 59.9 per cent stake in Cairn. The amalgamation of these companies engaged in two different areas such as metals and energy will combine their business activities and operations under one single company. Vedanta is currently a metals and mining company with business interests in copper, iron, aluminium and zinc, besides power generation. While Cairn focuses on oil and gas exploration, development and production. The merger requires approvals from the shareholders of both the companies apart from regulatory and judiciary approvals from Securities and Exchange Board of India (SebiI) and the High Court respectively. Shortly after the announcement of the merger plan, investor community including large minority holders in Cairn—Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and Cairn Energy, had raised concerns about the valuation of Cairn and the share swap ratio for the merger. LIC currently owns 9.06 per cent stake in Cairn making it the second largest minority shareholder in the oil and gas company after Cairn Energy, which owns 9.82 per cent. For the proposed merger to go through, at least 50 per cent of the minority shareholders have to vote in favour of the deal.
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India has ranked number one in its outlook to adopt automated processes revealed the Grant Thornton International Business Report. A whopping 83 per cent of Indian companies surveyed said that they are either already automating business practices or may do over the next 12 months. These companies are switching to automation to lower costs and have greater accuracy and increased flexibility to increase or decrease production.The survey also revealed that Indian companies are willing to try a combination of buying and renting the machines or technologies for automating processes. As per the report, 43% Indian companies would like to buy the machine while 49 per cent would like to try a combination of rent and buy. Further research conducted by Grant Thornton uncovered increasing business spend on research and development – underpinning the growth in automation. In 2011, 23 per cent of businesses globally said they were planning to boost R&D spend; that increased to 26 per cent in 2014 and so far in 2015 it stands at a five-year high of 29 per cent.A survey of 2,571 executives in 36 economies, unveiled the scale of technology’s influence on business with the majority of firms now planning to automate operations and practices. The findings suggest that some jobs will go as a result, with the manufacturing, cleantech and food & beverage sectors in particular reporting upheaval. With capital costs low as labour costs rise, the findings pose fundamental questions about the extent to which machines will eventually replace humans.Mexico and Ireland ranked No. 2 and No. 3 respectively, showing great signs of approving automation for day to day operations. China has also shown eagerness in embracing the new trend with 59 per cent of firms planning to utilise automated processes to perform tasks previously done by people.Globally, over half (56 per cent) of firms surveyed are planning to switch to automation. By industry, 43 per cent of manufacturing firms said they expect this to eventually replace at least 5 per cent of their workforce. Cleantech was in second place on 39 per cent, followed by the technology and food & beverage sectors on 35 per cent. At the other end of the spectrum, just 9 per cent of hospitality, education and healthcare firms expect 5 per cent or more of workers to be replaced.Grant Thornton’s findings also suggest that opportunities will arise for workers to assume new roles and responsibilities created by an increased use of technology. Globally over half of automating firms (54 per cent) expect to redeploy workers in other areas, with 28 per cent saying that workers will be trained to operate new machinery. Even in manufacturing, 44 per cent of firms plan to redeploy rather than remove staff. In India, 26 per cent of the firms said 5% of their workforce would eventually be replaced by automation.
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Lafarge has appointed Ujjwal Batria as the India CEO effective from 22 June 2015. He will take over the responsibility from Martin Kriegner, earlier the country CEO of Lafarge India who has been appointed future Area Manager Central Europe of LafargeHolcim.Batria has been with Lafarge for the past 16 years. He joined Lafarge in 1999 and since and has held different positions across functions. Prior to his appointment as the Country CEO, Lafarge India, he was the Managing Director of Lafarge India Private Limited and was managing the cement business of the company.Batria brings with him rich and diverse experience in the construction material industry.
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The strategy of the businesses is to keep the customer engaged beyond the first transaction, says Ravi KumarThe increasing traffic on your way to office every morning is adirect indicator of rising pollution & an indirect indicator of the increasing competition within the automotive industry. There are newer players entering every year and with opening up of global economy new cars continues to emerge in the market every year. Car sales increased by 2 per cent year over year in April this years, lead by 6 per cent hike in European markets. In India, car sales increased by 16 per cent, becoming one the largest automobile market of the world. In 2013 to 2014, Indian Auto Industry produced 21.48 million vehicles. The industry accounts for 22 per cent of Manufacturing GDP of the country.Records from Society of Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) indicated that India is going through a hike in sale of commercial vehicles. In January 2015, there was an increase of 5.3 per cent in commercial vehicle sales. In the same way, car sales grew by 3.14 per cent this year from the previous. All of this is eventually resulting in cutthroat competition in the automotive sector. The margins have dried up and at the same time, the cost of production is going all time high. In these circumstances, for an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) to make business sense with a customer in one transaction is generally not feasible. Thus as an increasing trend the automobile OEMs are now focusing on a long terms relationship with the customer.The strategy of the businesses is to keep the customer engaged beyond the first transaction. For instance, companies will have to pitch a customer to select the same car while buying for the second car. To achieve this objective, dealers and car vendors will have to move beyond the traditional methods of customer relationships. As to choose an automobile for self is an important decision that involves considerable capital; people go for advice from friends and family. Social media is one of the most common platforms that people turns into, while looking for opinions and advice. The tables have turned and the OEM’s are now on-toes when it comes to customer relationship.Car vendors, to stand ahead in the competition, will have to leverage a 360 view of the customer. This is possible through integration of comprehensive set of customer information in a single window for easy accessibility. A CRM is the only system that can offer this integration. Choosing the correct CRM solution for their enterprise contributes to almost 80 per cent of the success and the balance 20 per cent is the execution of the various modules within the solution.The objective of a CRM, in most cases is getting a single view of all customer data, right from the first contact history, vehicle and service history, communication and marketing contact history by dealer or OEM. Managing this massive amount of information and integrating the aspects of 360 view of a customer all in one system, which makes CRM the eventual truth, which is customer facing and supersedes all other internal applications. It becomes the interface between the customer and the organization.Thus,these applications should be with enhanced capability, which has facilitates covering the vast aspects operational possibilities in Automobile OEM landscape.Scaling up traditional CRMs is not easy due to their rigid structure. However, the setbacksand complexities of traditional CRMs can be addressed via innovative use of technology platform such as Siebel. Out of many options available in the market, Siebel CRM solution for automotive industry is one of the most comprehensive solutions available until date. Siebel CRMs Improves demand forecasting, planning, logistics management, and inventory management. It reducesquality-related costs due to faster product performance feedback. Improved workflow and escalation of customer grievances for faster resolutionis ensured through Siebel based CRMs. Reportedly; Siebel CRM has resulted in increased revenue growth from both higher vehicle sales and a rise in the company’s after-sales parts business.In context of Automobile industry, Siebel undoubtedlyis the most complete customer relationship management (CRM). Right fromfield force automation to socially enabled business intelligence;it offers the broadest and deepest portfolio of CRM solutions. These platforms address all customer touch-points and provide rich functionality to support the specific business needs for organisations of every size. These CRMs enable to deliver a superior customer experience. It is an end-to-end integrated application, which comes with embedded real time business intelligence. This seems to be a fair reason why as high as 9 OEM’s in India are already managing their customer service requirements using Siebel.The automobile sector can grow with better use of CRMs connecting with customers. Enabling CRMs with social capability will integrate the business venture customer and help to build a trust factor. Automobiles involvea series of services that are related and, in fact, they start with the buying of the vehicle. Servicing of Cars, repairs, replacing any machinery and other such requirements of buyers can be brought under the ambit of a single service provider through more pervasive use of CRM technologies.The author is director Customer relationship management (CRM) at Cubastion Consulting
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India is largely disappointed with its performance at the largest festival of creativity - Cannes Lions 2015. But advertising honcho, KV Sridhar a.k.a Pops, Chief Creative Officer (India) of Sapient Nitro shares his insights into India being self critical and how we need to catch with the new media. Here is Pops giving you the Cannes flavour, as told to Hita Gupta India has always done well in the traditional categories of the advertising which is Print, Outdoor, Film Craft and Media. In Print, India is only the second nation to have three Silvers in Print category. We had good contenders in the Outdoor category too. India also has one shortlist in design also. There are two advertising worlds which exist now - traditional media and new media. But we are missing out on the new media which is Cyber, Media, Mobile, Promo & Activation, Product Design, Titanium and Creative Effectiveness etc. So, these are things which we are missing out on because the entire category is also expanding at Cannes, year after year. India might be lagging behind by three years. If you were to see it in comparison, we are at the same stage we were at 10 years back in Print. People say that India has very good ideas but is not able to execute it very well. For the last seven-eight years India has dominated in Print, but to dominate in new media we are still lagging behind in terms of use of new technology and the new mediums. It will work the way the Indian market does. The Indian market is not mature enough currently and that is the reason for the small number and the scale of entries. Digital in India means that people just do longer commercials and put them on YouTube which is not digital at all. You cannot use YouTube as a television channel. Outside India, all work that is done on mobile is very interactive and internet allows you to make things interactive and India hasn’t done much about using that medium in a different way. Both the market and the advertising agencies have to catch with the people and create better campaigns. But I think that nobody doubts the capability of India, it is held at high levels in terms of our creativity and craftsmanship. Brazil and Argentina are two nations which have braced the new technology and communication and they have been doing fabulous in new media and as well as print. India’s print and television craft have also been universally acknowledged. The results are not as disappointing as it seems, it is just that we are very self critical in nature as we always want to overdo what we did last year. There will be some years which were good and there will be some years where we don’t perform that well but we just need to move on. This might be a wake-up call to think of new ways. The festival is becoming bigger and bigger every year. There were close to 40,000 entries and 15,000 delegates over seven days. The categories are also increasing year after year. It celebrates creativity to enhance business. Gone are the days when people could work in a silo, this is an integrated world. The blurring of one discipline to another is also very high as one campaign can go into seven or eight different categories. This year, the mindless party is giving way to a lot of big agencies which have come here to have small groups for workshops and seminars, this is a big change compared to the last year’s festival. This time there are several private seminars and workshops which are happening at other conference rooms of the hotel. So depending on the niche there are events at Cannes and that is the major change this year.
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