The Dramatic Digital Space
“There is always room in your life for thinking bigger, pushing limits and imagining the impossible.” —Tony Robins
It has been close to two decades since we began talking about the digital medium breaking global boundaries. It was really the likes of Facebook that created the famous ‘global village’. When I see Facebook and the changes it has driven in India today, a few things stand out, like its massive ability to connect with tier-2 and tier-3 towns and the role it plays for small and medium-sized businesses in India.
Both these points indicate how Facebook has built itself for the upwardly mobile in the country and beyond. Its stake in Reliance Jio was indicative of a large investment but is only one of the many things that Facebook is doing in India. This is yet another example of how much Facebook is betting on India’s digital economy. In our cover story, Facebook’s India head, Ajit Mohan, and his leadership team spell out the company’s big play for India. Its family of apps, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, each have their own role to play in integrating themselves in the daily lives of consumers. All these years of existence later, Facebook continues to be a brand to watch out for. In this segment, we also bring you an interview with David Fischer, Chief Revenue Officer, Facebook.
Continuing our efforts to highlight the success of businesses like FMCG and ecommerce that have been able to buck the trend during the Covid-induced slowdown, we bring you an in-depth analysis of the success of ‘Cash & Carry’ ventures. Incidentally, the success of FMCG or ecommerce depends heavily on robust supply-chain management, an efficient Cash & Carry network and the growth of the warehousing segment. Arvind Mediratta, MD and CEO of one of the largest wholesalers in the country, METRO Cash & Carry India, talks of the enormous opportunities that showed up during the pandemic and how the kirana stores became crucial to supply-chain management during the lockdown.
Our second cover focuses on the booming EdTech sector, projected to grow 6.3 times to $1.7 billion by 2022. In an exclusive interview with BW Businessworld, WhiteHat Jr. Founder & CEO, Karan Bajaj, who has recently partnered with Byju’s with its coding coaching platform, divulges plans to develop another product with Byju’s expertise to make learning mathematics easier. Bajaj also holds forth on the EdTech space in India, success, failure and entrepreneurship. In this segment, Byju’s President, International Business, Abhishek Maheshwari, writes of the learning mindset in the VUCA world.
We bring you some other sparkling conversations, not just with Diageo India (United Spirits) MD and CEO, Anand Kripalu, but also the MD and CEO of the BSE, Ashish Kumar Chauhan and actor and entrepreneur Suniel Shetty. This time we give The Last Word to glamorous Pooja Bedi, who is also a motivational speaker and founder of the Happy Soul. Bedi divulges clues to a stable mind in these unstable times. As usual, this issue contains all the regular columns that all of you look forward to. I do hope you enjoy reading this issue, as much as we did writing it.
Happy Reading!
