Innholdsfortegnelse for 11-Mar-2018 i Business Today

The fact that a happy workplace is a more productive workplace has been known since the advent of industrialisation. The most famous early experiments on how to improve workplace sentiment and hence productivity of workers took place in the late 1920s and early 1930s at Western Electric’s factory in Hawthorne in the US. It was conducted under the supervision of a sociologist named Elton Mayo. He used two groups of workers from the factory – one as the control group and the other on which the experimentation was conducted. The experiments focussed on changes in working conditions and environment – by changing the lighting at the workplace, tinkering with work hours, etc. At the end of the Hawthorne experiments, Mayo had come to certain conclusions. Among other things, he felt…

U.S. TRADE DEFICIT HIGHEST SINCE 2008 In spite of President Donald Trump’s promise to ensure fair and reciprocal trade to grow the nation’s wealth, data released recently by the Commerce Department shows its trade deficit with China hit a record $375 billion in 2017, an 8 per cent rise. Overall deficit in goods and services with the rest of the world stood at $566 billion last year, a 12.1 per cent rise compared to the year-ago period and the highest in nine years. AMAZON TO FIRE HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE Online retail giant Amazon is laying off hundreds of employees, mainly at its Seattle headquarters, which will affect its overpopulated consumer retail business. Amazon, however, promised its aggressive hiring would continue. It reported $60.5 billion in revenue for the December quarter,…

Retaining talent has always been a top priority for companies. High performers are known to be relentless in their pursuit of challenging job profiles and compensation alone isn’ t a big motivator. So, what drives the teeming, restless workforce of India Inc? Our ‘Best Companies to Work For’ survey reveals that there hasn’t been a seismic shift in what people want from their workplace over the past five years. Employees want to ensure that a company will give them opportunities to grow in their job and also provide an environment that is fair and inclusive. Some perks, seen as privileges in the past, are now considered standard. For instance, flexi timings, pay for performance, maternity and paternity leave, among others. Employees now want a transparent compensation structure, leadership mentoring, learning…

THE WORLD’S LARGEST economy, the US, has seen a decline in bankruptcy momentum in the last decade. From 300 bankruptcy filings (with debt of $4,09,534 million) in the 2008/09 period, subsequent to the global financial meltdown, the number of filings came down to 70 (debt of $1,06,929 million) in 2017. Its current Bankruptcy Act, which came in into effect in the late ’70s, has seen numerous amendments to make it more relevant to the present times. But, back home, the year-old Bankruptcy Act has been creating a flutter. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has already scrapped all the earlier restructuring schemes, sending a message to banks to straightaway take the bankruptcy route for distressed companies. The government has amended the Act twice already within a year of its operations…

Q: What does hiQ Labs do? A: We use public and internal company data to predict turnover risk. We also provide tools to help with skill mapping, succession planning, internal mobility, and career development. It used to be about retention, but now it’s also about getting the most from the employees you have. Q: What public data do you look at? A: We read online résumés and profiles. We consider an employee’s social media footprint, which indicates visibility to recruiters. For instance, is an engineer participating in open-source code projects? We look at work histories (to get a sense of how frequently an employee changes jobs) and at the opportunity landscape, meaning how much demand there is for a particular employee’s skills. These things don’t necessarily mean someone is job…

GUESTS AT A Japanese ‘ryokan’, or traditional inn, are amazed when all the slippers go off and line themselves up carefully, not a millimetre out of place, in their allotted places. It is actually a demonstration by Nissan of the technology at work in the company’s cars. The other self parking objects demonstrated by Nissan include floor cushions that move into their place near the dining table and office chairs that come neatly back to tuck themselves into the edge of the tables. Makes one wonder what it would be like to have everyday objects tidy themselves up some day. The objects, including the slippers, have tiny wheels (and don’t seem to slip) and sensors; while they may not be ready for mainstream use, it’s not hard to imagine them…

If you think 1More Triple Driver In-ear headphones are just another addition to the plethora of headphones in the market today, you are mistaken. Right from the packaging to the sound quality, it is impressive all the way. The box comes with six sets of silicone ear tips, three sets of foam ear tips, a magnetic clasping travelling case, dual-pronged airline adaptor and a shirt clip. It has a lightweight aluminium alloy body and a durable cable. This ergonomically-designed headphone aligns with the curves of the ear and fits like a glove – better than what Bose, B&O and other leading brands offer. The innards of the headphone pack in three drivers comprising two balanced armatures and a separate dynamic driver that are like tweeters and woofers respectively, resulting in…

STAY CONNECTED WITH US ON www.facebook.com/BusinessToday@BT_India PERSPECTIVES Will Ruias Challenge Insolvency Proceedings If Numetal Gets Disqualified? The fear of losing the bid might have forced large players from backing out of the bid process businesstoday.in/ruias-insolvency Govt Blames GST 'Accounting' for Fiscal Slippage; Economists Believe Otherwise If we account for the ₹36,000 crore additional revenue from one month of GST, it would cover a significant portion of the 300 bps slippage, says Finance Minister Arun Jaitley businesstoday.in/gst-fiscal.slippage NEWS The Fall of Brand Nirav Modi His jewels may be expensive, and his stores may be located in the priciest locations in the world, but all this is more to do with his money power and his personal relationship with celebrities businesstoday.in/brand-nirav.modi From in-flight Shutdowns to Aborted Take-offs, IndiGo's Troubles with P&W Engines…

THE COMPETITION to tap large molecule structured complex bio-similars or off-patent biotech drugs (that are similar but not identical to reference or originator biological products) is heating up. Industry experts predict that by 2020, biosimilars could generate $290 billion revenue and account for 27 per cent of the pharmaceutical market. The highest demand is for bio-similars for cancer and cardiovascular diseases. These are complex, difficult to make and need massive investments, unlike conventional chemically derived pharmaceutical drugs. What’s more, the chances of failure are high. The prohibitive cost of developing these drugs and clearing separate benchmarks for different countries has, meanwhile, made many Indian players partner with firms abroad to cover research costs. Recently, Lupin tied up with Japanese firm Yoshindo for a rheumatoid arthritis drug, a bio-similar for Etanercept…

THE ANTI-TRUST regulator, the Competition Commission of India, seems to have let Google off with just a rap on the knuckles. Google allegedly abused its dominant position in how websites were listed on its search engine. While the European Union’s anti-trust regulator fined the online search giant $2.7 billion for a similar infraction, the CCI fined it a mere ₹136 crore (5 per cent of Google’s India turnover). Experts said they were expecting a fine of about 10 per cent since the CCI’s investigation wing had prepared a searing indictment of Google. The CCI has gone easy on the company, say critics, noting that unlike the EU anti-trust regulator, the CCI has only asked for disclaimers but not insisted that Google remove its specialised search boxes. Meanwhile, the battle is…

BRANDS are realising the importance of ‘keeping it short’. Given social media users’ reducing attention span, brands are taking to short-lived content – content that disappears within 24 hours. The popularity of Snapchat – the image messaging and multimedia mobile app – among the millennials and generation Z has inspired Instagram and Facebook to launch the ‘Stories’ feature wherein videos and photos disappear after 24 hours. And marketers are happily lapping it up. The fleeting nature of content allows marketers to showcase behind-thescenes brand activities that are not so relevant for its timeline or news feed but is an add-on to their digital strategy, says Ena Bansal, Chief Digital Strategist of women’s fashion and lifestyle brand Vajor. For instance, when the company launched its Pune store, a 10-second video of…

This is the 16th edition of the Business Today Best Companies to Work For survey. It was conducted in collaboration with HR solutions company PeopleStrong. The aim of the survey is to understand perceptions and aspirations of India’s employees across industries and map these against what they see in their companies, sectors and even across sectors. It provides an insight into how industry at large and in specific verticals can align their employer brands to aspirations and thoughts of the Indian workforce. This year, too, we are following a survey open to employees from various industries. To cross-check the authenticity of the respondents and to ensure that the quality of responses were of acceptable standards, validation checks were done by calling a certain proportion of respondents randomly. The PeopleStrong Study…

Multiple Whammy For Banks 50 per cent provisioning from profits for bankruptcy referred cases Provisioning goes up to 100 per cent in liquidation cases Lack of management bandwidth to handle multiple cases Lower credit offtake and higher provisioning eroding capital Haircuts at NCLT will further impact banks NCLT’s Dilemma Bankruptcy cases piling up Only 10 benches across the country to hear cases Too many amendments creating confusion Requests for extension beyond 180 days Not enough quality resolution professionals or valuers Bidders’ Concerns Fear of subjectivity as creditors don’t have a template to decide the best bidders Defaulting promoters finding a way to come back as bidders Possibility of future challenges to NCLT orders Information asymmetry as promoters are privy to much more…

OVER THE PAST two months, I had some unusual conversations with senior leaders. During an interaction, the HR leadership of a conglomerate wanted to see how it could use design thinking to frame more user-centric HR policies. In another, a leader of an IT organisation wanted to know if design thinking could improve the effectiveness of performance appraisal processes in his organisation. Another friend had just taken over as the CEO of a large organisation, had seen a video I had shared on design thinking, and wanted to know if it could be used to drive change management. So, what is design thinking? Why does it matter so much to business leaders today? Simply put, design thinking is an approach to creative problem-solving, especially suited to semi-structured and unstructured problems.…

Samsung’s Galaxy A8+, with its rectangular glass and metal body and slightly curved edges, exudes a premium feel. It has a six-inch infinity Super AMOLED display with 2220x1080p resolution, and yet the phone is easy to hold. Samsung has moved the fingerprint sensor right below the camera module and has also added a face-unlock feature (which is unremarkable compared to Apple’s Faear ceID). The A8+ runs on 2.2 GHz + 1.6 GHz Exynos 7885 octa-core processor, paired with 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB internal storage. It’s a decent performer; there was no lag while streaming videos or playing graphics-heavy games either. Its 16-MP rear camera captures sharp images in well-lit settings but struggles in low light. There is a dual front camera with Live Focus for capturing images…

MONITORING BLOOD pressure and blood sugar at home can make a big difference for people with heart conditions. Those who have survived heart attacks should also keep an eye on body weight and the oxygen level in their blood. The latter can be easily done with an oximeter, a gadget costing around `2,000. It also measures the pulse rate, another useful test, says Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, veteran cardiac surgeon and Chairman and Executive Director of Narayana Health. “Typically, patients who have suffered heart attacks and need to be hospitalised tend to find their body weight going up. There will be variations in blood pressure; the oxygen level in blood will be down; the pulse rate will be up and they will feel breathless after any exertion,” he points out.…

COURTESY: ROBB REPORT INDIA Jewellery GOLDEN TOUCH Peter Carl Fabergé was the official goldsmith to the Russian Imperial Court and the ingenious Imperial Easter Eggs created by his house, founded in 1842, have a remarkable hold on contemporary culture. But Fabergé creates other exquisite objects as well, most recently to celebrate the Chinese New Year with an exclusive limited edition locket, Fabergé Palais Tsarskoye Selo Red Locket with Dog Surprise, in honour of the Chinese Year of the Dog, as a part of its Heritage Gift Collection. The collection features the delicate art of hot enamelling, the engine turning craft called guilloché and hand-engraving; the locket in particular features red guilloché enamel and round white diamonds set in 18-carat yellow gold. The locket opens to reveal a golden dog with…

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck By Mark Manson Harper Collins Price: ₹499 Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of Spacex and Tesla is Shaping Our Future By Ashlee Vance Virgin Books Price: ₹699 I Do What I Do By Raghuram G. Rajan HarperBusiness Price: ₹699 Crushing It: How Great Entrepreneurs Build their Business and Influence and How You Can, Too By Gary Vaynerchuk HarperBusiness Price: ₹399 Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time By Brian Tracy Berrett Koehler Publishers Price: ₹199 *Top books by sales for Feb 1 - 14, 2018; Includes only books released after Jan 1, 2015; Information provided by amazon.in…

THE AMERICAN Petroleum Institute’s February 9 report indicated US crude oil inventory at 3.9 million barrels as against the expected 2.8 million barrels. In end-January, US oil production exceeded Saudi Arabia's output, mainly due to shale oil,which made it the world’s largest oil producer after Russia. Then, crude prices fell from a high of $71 a barrel in January to around $62. That’s good news for India, which imports 78 per cent of its crude oil needs. Experts warn India needs to stay cautious in an era of price volatility. In November 2016, OPEC, along with Russia, decided to cut oil production by 1.8 million barrels a day. This was when crude oil prices tanked from $110 a barrel in 2014 to $30 in early 2016. The industry estimates that…

9 ELIMINATING FRAUDS WHAT: 11th National Summit on “Glocal Frauds and Risks” WHEN: March 9, Mumbai WHAT TO LOOK FOR: The nature of financial and corporate frauds has been changing over the decades. The ASSOCHAM summit will discuss and deliberate the impact of frauds globally on corporates and the economy. Also on the agenda is a discussion on the detection and prevention of frauds though foolproof systems. 21-22 DIGITAL TRAVEL AND BEYOND WHAT: Digital Travel, Hospitality and Innovation Summit 2018 WHEN: March 21-22, New Delhi WHAT TO LOOK FOR: The FICCI event will debate the technological advancement in travel and hospitality. The objective is to facilitate communication and exchange of ideas and knowledge among key industry stakeholders, conglomerates, influencers and policy makers. A panel of experts will discuss a range…

His travel schedules could compare with some of the most elite business travellers. Last year, Saswat Kumar Swain, 36, Associate Manager at Accenture, Bengaluru, spent six months in Sweden and, in the remaining part of the year, found himself in a different Indian city every two months. That the technology architect is wheel chair-bound and suffers from ‘osteogenesis imperfecta,’ or brittle bone disease, did not seem to matter as he went about his work — training next-generation architects and meeting clients. “The culture of this organisation is the biggest attraction. The company is spread across geographies but works on similar values whose centrepiece is respect for people. People take pride in what they do here,” he says with a smile as he lets his long tuft of rockstar hair sway…

If one were to ask business persons to vote for 2017’s most powerful theme, it would be “AI and Future of Work”. Moving beyond coffee table discussions, there is not only a wider acknowledgement of “Future of Work” in 2018, but the action has also started. This year’s BT-PeopleStrong “Best Companies to Work For In India” captures perceptions and aspirations like these and bring the key asks of your “born-free” workforce, which is announcing the beginning of the new world of work. Here are the three distinct messages for employers. We are ready to embrace digital; so should you! As digital and AI become part of our lives, the question staring at employers is – how do we make people embrace change? Do my employees understand the impact and what…

Harpreet Singh, Partner, Indirect Taxes, KPMG India, was on a post-Budget panel at a TV channel after the finance minister’s Budget speech on February 1. But his phone kept ringing as clients — some of them large FMCG companies — told him that the e-way bill portal had stopped working and they could not generate the electronic receipt that the trucks with goods were supposed to carry. Businesses were clueless for hours as their trucks remained stuck in the absence of e-way bill receipts. An e-way bill is an electronic receipt under the goods and services tax (GST) regime for movement of goods, both inter- and intra-state. It is an anti-avoidance mechanism under which no goods worth more than `50,000 can be transported outside or within (beyond 10 km) the…

I IMAGINE that you’re looking at your company-issued smartphone and you notice an e-mail from LinkedIn: “These companies are looking for candidates like you!” You aren’t necessarily searching for a job, but you’re always open to opportunities, so out of curiosity, you click on the link. A few minutes later your boss appears at your desk. “We’ve noticed that you’re spending more time on LinkedIn lately, so I wanted to talk with you about your career and whether you’re happy here,” she says. Uh-oh. It’s an awkward and Big Brother-ish scenario – and it’s not so far-fetched. Attrition has always been expensive for companies, but in many industries the cost of losing good workers is rising, owing to tight labour markets and the increasingly collaborative nature of jobs. (As work…

In an incubator in a lab at Shanghai’s Institute of Neuroscience, two female macaques chirp and frolic like any baby monkeys would. But Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua are very different because they’ve been cloned using a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer, by taking cells from a macaque foetus. Despite the move-over- Dolly reaction of the media, this experiment was not exactly along the same lines as the sheep cloning done over 21 years ago. Dolly was cloned from an adult ewe although also using the somatic cell method. Since then, several other animals – a total of 23 species of mammals in fact – have been cloned, but cloning primates has not been easy. The Dolly-style method was tried, but resulted in developmental problems – even death. Before…

TO LEVERAGE THE SMART TV FUNCTIONALITY, XIAOMI HAS TIED UP WITH CONTENT PARTNERS SUCH AS HOTSTAR AND TVF Xiaomi’s first LED TV launched in India is the perfect blend of style with functionality. It is the world’s thinnest LED TV, made with 4.9-mm-thick frameless panel from Samsung. The 55-inch Ultra HD (4k) TV with HDR support has narrow bezels on the sides that enhance the viewing experience. It comes with Dolby audio which is good enough for a small room; but for an even more immersive experience an additional sound source will be a good idea. The TV has a customised PatchWall UI that puts content at the top. The UI is similar to that of Amazon’s FireTV stick with sub-heads such as VIP, Movies and TV Shows; it customises…

ONE OF THE BEST THINGS ONE CAN DO TO PREVENT EYE STRAIN IS, SURPRISINGLY, LEARN PROPER TOUCH TYPING THE SCREENS WE ARE compelled to look at, practically all day, are causing severe eye strain and it’s time we do something about it. Contrary to common belief, headaches are not the only signs of eye strain. You could be tiring your eyes out well before that happens. Since there’s little chance that we will reduce reliance on smartphones, laptops, tablets and televisions anytime soon, strain prevention needs to be built into our everyday interaction with electronic devices. One of the best things one can do to prevent eye strain is, surprisingly, learn proper touch typing. This, of course, is for computer users. The more you use the correct fingers on a…

We are moving towards smart insulins that work only when the blood sugar level is high. Then there is the artificial pancreas, which is also in the works and moving from research labs to market. It seems to work better than insulin pumps, as glucagon acts when the sugar level falls, and insulin will be effective when the sugar level rises. Glucagon is a hormone produced by the pancreas and it works to increase glucose concentration in blood. In a way, the hormone does exactly the opposite of what insulin does as the latter lowers glucose concentration. The significance of artificial pancreas is that it will keep changing the solution to be administered based on the changes in a person’s blood sugar level. Products like smart insulins and artificial pancreas…

A World of Three Zeros: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions By Muhammad Yunus Hachette India Price: `599 Pages: 352 IN JANUARY, OXFAM, an international confederation of charitable organisations, revealed some worrisome statistics. Timed to catch the attention of the rich and the mighty who were participating in the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam stated that 82 per cent of the wealth created last year went to the richest one percent of the global population. The 3.7 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity got nothing. Some four years ago, WEF had identified rising economic inequality as a major threat to social stability. Oxfam wanted to remind the WEF dignitaries, which included India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi,…

Over 88 golfers teed off at Prestige Golfshire for the LLOYD Business Today Pro-Am of Champions on Saturday, February 3, 2018. The winning team comprising B. Venkatesh (Stanchart, Singapore), Kush Jawahar (Featherlite), Ramesh Iyengar (OTIS) and Krathish Bopanna (Semler Research Center) with a combined score of 106 points, were crowned the Bangalore Bravos and will compete in the final in Delhi against the winners from other nine cities. The team comprising Arjun Anekar (Anekar Motors), Shashank Bantwal, Latha Bopanna (NextBio Research Pvt. Ltd) and Col. K. Anil Kumar (DiFACTO Robotics and Automation Pvt. Ltd) finished runnersup with 97 points. In the Individual section, Ramesh Iyengar was the winner with 35 points in the 15-24 handicap category and Krathish Bopanna, with 38 points, won in the 0-14 handicap category. LLOYD is…