Innholdsfortegnelse for 13-Jan-2019 i Business Today

At the year-end, I am reminded of T.S. Eliot’s poem, Burnt Norton: “Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past.” With lessons learnt from the past, it’s time to look forward. And contemplating about the future has become even more important because we are in the middle of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and new technologies are upending entire industries and business models. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is likely to be far more disruptive than the previous three. A confluence of technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, robotics, 3D printing, quantum computing, gene mapping and targeting, and lab-grown organs are likely to have a profound impact on everything from manufacturing to agriculture and healthcare. For our anniversary issue, therefore, we…

IT DITHERED for months and now the Ministry of Power has released guidelines to install both Japanese (CHAdeMO) and Chinese (CCS) charging technologies for electric cars. The ambiguity between the two types had stalled India’s nascent electric car push spearheaded by Energy Efficiency Services Ltd. It is doubtful if this decision will usher in any certainty either. Using both will spur the automobile industry but will increase the cost of every charging station. The chicken and egg problem of consumers not buying electric cars unless adequate charging infrastructure is available and charging companies reluctant to invest unless there is a reasonable fleet available to them to service, is at the heart of the electrification challenge in India. The need was to opt in favour of one over the other. By…

BETWEEN 24 and 43 per cent of 34,000 respondents in a recent survey said, they had lost their jobs in the past four-and-a-half years. The All India Manufacturers Organisation (AIMO) conducted the survey with members including Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and traders across the country. The worst hit was the trading sector, followed by MSMEs in the plastic, cracker, tanning, stone, and stitching (clothing) sectors. AIMO extrapolates the survey findings to allege that the job losses in these sectors alone could be about 3.5 million during the period. If this is correct, it could explain why the government, in spite of its own claims of job creation, is busy introducing scheme after new scheme, including the likes of Startup India, Make In India, 59-minute loan approval scheme for…

Disruption is as old as history. It happened from when the Mesopotamians invented the wheel, to the Steam Age and then on to the Industrial Age. But, unlike in the past, today’s technology is disrupting a wide swathe of industries in a manner that has simply no precedence. Robots are taking away repetitive jobs, drones are delivering goods and blockchain is being used for financial services, cross-border payments and supply-chain sensors. Once 5G services become the norm over the next couple of years, more and more devices will talk to each other, providing organisations with humongous amounts of data. Be it retail, healthcare, education, finance or even homes, technology is providing the consumer a totally different experience. It all finally depends on an idea that changes the way things have…

Director of IBM Research Many business leaders think quantum computing is a technology that is still years away from practical use. But not only does the technology exist, a practical quantum future is closer than we think. The field, in fact, has more than 50 years of scientific advancements already behind it. Thousands of developers, scientists, and industry experts learn and conduct research using quantum computers. Quantum computing is at a stage that artificial intelligence was at 20 years ago, but it has a major advantage on its side: we’ve seen how quickly this technology takes hold, giving an edge to early adopters. Like artificial intelligence (AI), quantum systems are on the cloud, available for anyone – from Fortune 500 companies, to academic institutions, to start-ups – to experiment with…

CEO and Co-founder, ideaForge From the Vimanas of ancient Hindu scriptures to flying personal cars of the Jetsons, the idea of a flying vehicle has permeated our consciousness for millennia. In the modern era, with our population shooting up and addition of new public infrastructure to support it being slow paced, all of us have at some point become victims of increasingly dense traffic. India’s current population is 1.35 billion, nearly a fifth of the world. In a recently conducted study by Boston Consulting Group, commuters in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Kolkata spend almost 1.5 hours or more during peak traffic hours on daily travel, much more compared to other Asian cities. That’s more than three months of added work time per year! It is estimated that around 15,000 kilometers…

CEO, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone At times I feel our ports have been left behind in the mainstream tech conversations across industries. However, a clued in stakeholder will know how technology is going to disrupt our basic business functioning and that the transformation is nearer than it seems. The good part is that in India, the government got the timing right in terms of larger initiatives to transform ports. The Sagarmala programme is driving improvements at government-owned ports, while Bharatmala and Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs) will provide impetus to hinterland connectivity at Indian ports. DFCs will also provide higher capacity, speed and priority to cargo movement, which will have a substantial impact on the efficiency of cargo movement. There has been continued focus on using diverse modes of…

Founder and Chairman Gleneagles Global Hospitals Group The gap between organ need and organ availability continues to widen despite substantial public education efforts on organ donation. According to the Health Resources and Service Administration, until May 2017, around 1,17,829 patients were waiting for organ transplantation in the US alone, and the numbers are increasing. The increasing transplant procedures can be attributed to well-developed healthcare infrastructure and availability of expert surgeons and advanced products. New technologies consisting of stem cells and tissue engineering have the potential to augment organ function or repair damaged organs. If explored to their full potential, organ bioengineering and regeneration technologies hold the promise to address two most urgent needs in organ transplantation – the identification of a new, potentially inexhaustible source of organs and immunosuppression-free transplantation…

MD & CEO, Fino Payments Bank Often my work takes me out of the city or my office, be it business meetings or visiting my bank’s branches. During such outdoor trips, for any expenses incurred on, say fuel and food, I have been using my credit card. Swipe, Pin and Go! However, of late, something has changed the way I have been paying bills. Credit card has been replaced at many places by the UPI (Unified Payments Interface) app. Whether it is for cab service, recharging DTH, paying electricity bill or ordering anything online, I am able to make multiple payments directly from my bank account using the app. All with a smartphone in hand! No paper, no cash exchanged. This change is taking place among the smartphone using segment,…

Chairman & MD, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd, and Pratik Oswal, Fintech Entrepreneur The current information overload has triggered a race to generate disproportionate opportunities out of an overwhelming amount of data. This means financial advisors need to create unbiased, fast and actionable insights for their clients. Algorithmic trading or algo trading — a computer programme with a set of instructions which, when run in a multitude of scenarios, gives trading signals based on multiple technical, statistical and mathematical rules — is helping advisors, professional traders and institutions generate more profitable trades with the same amount of information. It can be divided into three broad areas: 1. Quant-based trading where sophisticated rules are used to identify hidden stock opportunities; this is further strengthened through machine learning principles 2. High Frequency…

Business Head and Executive Vice President, Godrej Appliances Our lives today have technology in every aspect, with the growing proliferation of internet and smartphones and, more recently, virtual personal assistants. Home automation or the smart home industry is taking its first steps in India. In simple terms, a smart home is a house featuring an “intelligent” technology enabled network of devices that communicate with each other, making our stay at home frictionless, convenient and pleasant. The global smart home market is expected to reach a value of more than $40 billion by 2020. This is encouraging news for companies investing in further innovations in the smart home sector. Smart homes allow our devices to take care of the mundane repetitive everyday tasks, customised to the user. For instance, in the…

“THERE IS GROWING evidence that IAD is a behavioural addiction, but the pathophysiological mechanism – the study of how this condition develops and progresses – is still under investigation,” says Dr Sadana. Studies are also exploring personality types vulnerable to Internet addiction. Neuroscience researches have looked into how online engagements activate the mesocorticolimbic or reward pathway, which gets stirred up by stimuli, and the extended amygdala, part of the brain responsible for processing human emotions. According to preliminary studies, the effects of IAD on the brain are similar to those of alcohol or drugs consumption.…

The end of the year is the time when you make lots of resolutions for the New Year, which you invariably break, and lots of predictions as well – most of which turn out to be wrong. Neither outcome should, however, deter you from making New Year resolutions or Predictions. My new resolutions are all duly noted down in my little black book. But here are the predictions for the coming year with the usual caveat: readers are advised to take them seriously at their own risk. Ethics of technology will be in the forefront. Artificial intelligence has already advanced so rapidly that big companies such as Microsoft and Google have started worrying about machine morality or the ethics of AI. As self-learning programmes advance rapidly, the big worry is…

The difference between mobile banking and Internet banking has mostly disappeared with fast and feature-rich smartphones coming into play. The unprecedented fall in data cost is further driving mobile apps usage, thus opening up new growth opportunities for financial institutions. “In 2019, due to increasing Internet penetration, products will be developed to facilitate a frictionless banking experience to non-tech-savvy customers by leveraging photographic guidance, vernacular videos and AI assistance,” says Rajan Pental, Senior Group President, Branch and Retail Banking, at YES Bank. It also means an exciting digital future for customers looking for a seamless experience, intelligent features and added value. Here is a quick look at how the payment landscape will evolve in 2019. Cash to grow but digital payment will grow faster. The Unified Payment Interface (UPI) has…

The real estate sector has been going through a tough phase over the past five-six years. The year 2018 was a relatively better year compared to 2017. With big ticket reforms — Good and Services Tax (GST) and RERA (Real Estate Regulation and Development Act) — developers focused on completion of existing projects, there were fewer new launches (barring in the affordable segment) and the government encouraged (gave interest subsidy) for affordable housing. Though this pushed up sales numbers, the sector is yet to see any green shoots of recovery. Another important development was amendment of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code to provide home buyers the status of financial creditors. This will make them part of the committee of creditors and they will have a say in case of liquidation…

AS GST ANNUAL return filing and audit deadlines approach, businesses now face the uphill battle of yet another complex round of compliance. The GST audit presents a unique challenge for businesses that have operations in multiple states and accordingly registrations in all those states. The GST law requires these entities to get state-wise audits but the legal requirement for any company is to get one statutory audit done for all operations across the country. This audit is not done state-wise, but GST audits would be done state-wise. Now the challenge for these entities is to breakdown the numbers – sales, expenses, etc. – state-wise. This would require a lot of number crunching, tallying, verification, etc. Given that the GST audits have to be done along with annual returns filing, all…

CALL IT HYPE or hope; training and hiring talent in Artificial Intelligence (AI), data analytics, machine learning, and related technology is up. “In the last two years, especially for advanced machine learning and AI, there has been 250-300 per cent increase in the number of people seeking to enrol. Proportionately, there has been a growing interest among those hiring them,” says Sarita Digumarti, Chief Operating Officer, Jigsaw Academy (around since 2011 with primarily online courses). Start-ups or previous employers hire most such candidates. Depending on their skills, they can earn at least around ₹6 lakh per annum or more, with courses costing around ₹40,000 or more.…

GLOBAL MAJOR Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is in the spotlight yet again with concerns expressed about the safety of its baby powder. J&J vehemently denies any wrong doing, calls its product absolutely safe, and that in the past, Indian regulators couldn't find any trace of asbestos in the product. Yet, the issue continues to spring into spotlight at regular intervals. In mid-December, a Reuters report raised the issue in the US. “We have to investigate,” says S. Eswara Reddy, the Drug Controller General of India. Agrees Maharashtra FDA commissioner Pallavi Darade, who has teams picking up talc samples for testing. Her office is handling another J&J case. “Hearings are on…for grant of compensation to people affected by the hip implants,” she says. The outcome is awaited but guideline provide for…

CHENNAI CALLING WHAT: TN Global Investors Meet WHEN: Jan 23-24, Chennai WHAT TO LOOK FOR: After the success of GIM 2015, the meet in 2019 will showcase the competitive strengths and opportunities in Tamil Nadu. It will showcase the state’s potential business opportunities and sector specific investible projects to investors. CYBER SAFE WHAT: CYBERTECH WHEN: Jan 28-30, Tel Aviv, Israel WHAT TO LOOK FOR: Cybertech has served as one of the foremost networking and B2B platforms for global players. It serves as a dialogue on threats and solutions with sessions including AI, Advanced IoT, Blockchain, Big Data, Fintech, Cloud Security, Defence, and Proactive Technologies. CII, in partnership with Cybertech, will be taking an Indian delegation. TRADE TALKS WHAT: Indo Asean Summit WHEN: Feb 21-23, New Delhi WHAT TO LOOK FOR:…

CEO, Vodafone Idea The unmatched footprint of cellular technology is getting better with every iteration. Dizzying speed and low latency now permit the grid to connect ‘things’ with other ‘things’. We inhabit a world that is increasingly moving towards a connected ecosystem, a new age where machines intelligently ‘sense’, ‘transceive’ (transmit and receive) and ‘function’ independently. Interestingly, for a machine to function independently, it needs to be ‘connected’ to other systems. That mandates the need for sensors to ‘sense’, edge computing to provide intelligence at the device level, a secure and reliable communication backbone to transmit the data and an application to decode that data. With India, China and Nigeria accounting for 35 per cent of the explosive urban population growth, smart cities are an imperative. Managing these agglomerations will…

Managing Director, Bosch Ltd President, Bosch Group India The automobile industry across the world is in the middle of a complete transformation as it becomes smarter and connected. The pace of technology use is being supplemented with continuous increase in processing power and better communication. The visualisation of the vehicle as the central object will soon be a thing of the past. The future will see interaction between multi-modes enabled through connectivity. Newer offerings, business models and lifestyle-relevant mobility trends are changing the market. One such example you experience these days is the way connected mobility is shaping up and the systems which are being set up to enable the overall sharing concept. Autonomous revolution: Vehicles will soon utilise sensors and automation over driver intuition, thereby preparing the industry for…

Minister of State for Civil Aviation Indian entrepreneurs have excelled at frugal innovation. India’s businesses solve hard consumer problems using technology superbly well and now define the global productivity frontier for mass services. Take mobile data networks and the BHIM app for example. As a result of this, India has become the ideal laboratory for figuring out how to serve consumers in the fast-growing developing world – the ‘Next Six Billion’ as they are called. A vast and intriguing new market has emerged — drone technology and drone-driven applications. Research reports have estimated that the drone-driven market globally will soon be more than $10 billion. In India, various experts have estimated that market opportunities could soon exceed thousands of crores. Drones can revolutionise agriculture and assist significantly in achieving the…

CEO & MD, L&T Disruption is the new order. New technologies are creating fresh paradigms as enterprises transform, thanks to digitisation. The construction industry, too, is changing with digital tools and analytics enhancing efficiency. Using in-house capabilities of L&T Infotech and L&T Technology Services, we have begun to make significant improvements in processes and offerings. Data was always there, but digital tools are now making intelligent choices to help detect patterns, draw inferences, suggest trends and provide in-depth analysis. This has led to improved productivity, cost cutting, quicker execution with benefits of transparency, accuracy and informed decision-making. A New Digital Dawn Topographical surveys used to be long-drawn and time-consuming. But new geospatial technologies such as GPS, GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), Li-DAR (Light Detection and Ranging), Photogrammetry and drones have…

Founder Director, CSIR-IGIB, and Former Director General, CSIR Why do we continue to have an Ola after Uber or a Flipkart after Amazon, and not the other way? One possible answer could be that we are comfortable with status quo and hence, despite being smart, not keen to innovate. Another probable reason could be that even if we are keen, our present ecosystem does not encourage disruptive risk-taking projects. As someone who has helped design India’s own disruptive programme in innovation – an open source drug discovery programme (OSDD) – I would believe that disruptive innovations do happen in the country, albeit facing resistance. A decade after OSDD was launched to tackle the problems posed by diseases that are endemic to developing countries like India – with tuberculosis (TB) being…

FAO Representative in India Agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for the majority of Indians, accounts for 46 per cent of total land use and contributes around 17 per cent of the country’s GDP. An overwhelming majority of the Indian farmers, say 80 per cent, are small and marginal farmers, with less than one hectare of farmland per family. And the fragmentation of landholding continues. Moreover, these resource-poor farmers are particularly vulnerable to the ecological and economic impact of climate change. Small and marginal farm holders mostly suffer due to unsustainable agricultural practices, which reduce ecosystem services such as nutrient cycling and pollination across rural India. Also, input intensification has resulted in the loss of agricultural biodiversity, further worsened by the lack of production and dietary diversity, and the…

CEO & Founder Faircent Traditionally, people have borrowed money from friends, family or even money lenders. But technology has changed that. Access to financial services has been democratised to such an extent that today the role of modern finance is largely a result of tech-driven innovation and disruption. However, unfortunately, availability of institutional credit in India remains limited, largely due to the formal banking sector’s restrictive lending policies and their low coverage. This is where technology has been able to play an important role and the concept of peer-to-peer (P2P) lending has upended an entire sector. Online P2P lending has emerged as a powerful source of alternative credit. While the concept may not have originated in India, the model has been tweaked sufficiently to take care of India-specific issues. One…

Senior Affiliate Professor of Strategy at INSEAD How is your leadership preparing for the future of work? Will digitisation lead to more work or less? Of course we live and work in the digital age but the change we’ve experienced so far is only the tip of the iceberg. The potential impact of digitisation on employment not only concerns the explosive growth of intelligent robots but also the significant influence that machine learning and artificial intelligence will have on our work. There is a strong, lively debate about the speed at which current jobs are disappearing and to what extent digital productivity growth will lead to new jobs. Experts have varied positions on what will happen to the size of the workforce, the timeline for change and the skills needed…

MD & CEO, Diageo India We have indeed come a long way since inserting a floppy disk into our computer. That was then just a simple data storage device. Today’s back-end technologies like quantum computing, artificial intelligence, advanced machine learning, blockchain, virtual and augmented reality, and robotics are disrupting traditional business models, creating new demand segments, eliminating the profiteering middlemen and changing the very relationship between brands and consumers. Historically, businesses have always relied on economies of scale as a competitive advantage. In fact, scale and distribution was a key barrier to entry. With the advent of technology, suddenly, this is no more a sustainable defence. The ‘Economy of One’ is now eminently possible – and profitable too. A gestalt shift has occurred. The convergence of technologies, with data at…

CEO, Swiggy Over the past four years, the food and restaurant landscape has evolved fast and the disruption, which many of us have witnessed and participated in, happened due to a reason. With increased Internet penetration, higher disposable incomes and rising consumer awareness, we are turning to technology to manage some of our most basic needs, including food. Consequently, food delivery aggregation has emerged as a new category, driven by the need for a convenient and reliable experience. After all, consumers want their food to be delivered as soon as possible, at any time of the day and anywhere they wish, at the touch of a button. So, Swiggy has invested in overhauling the supply chain, generating more food options, taking end-to-end control of the entire food delivery process and…

COLLABORATION Streetwear Meets Athleisure Italian sports fashion brand FILA has launched its new collection, the outcome of a heritage collaboration with the Indian streetwear brand NorBlack Nor-White. Here Indian streetwear meets athleisure and signals a new way of working with textiles in a range of colours and patterns from the two countries. The collaboration focusses on the textile prowess of Italy and India, and the new collection is exclusive to the Indian market. STORE LAUNCH A CELEBRATION OF STYLE DESIGNER SAMANT CHAUHAN is known for his Bhagalpuri silks, hand-woven outfits and sleek silhouettes. Now he has opened his 700 sq. ft. flagship store in Colaba where the architecture and interiors sync well with the beautiful neighbourhood. With restored teakwood and brickwork harking back to Colonial Mumbai, the store is a…

Retail investors weathered many changes in 2018, and have emerged the better for it. Year 2019 is expected to have more of the same. This is the time of the year when we take stock of developments across personal finance and take a peek at the likely developments next year. This year, mutual funds became a favourite with investors and categorisation changes made funds easier to understand. In loans, the central bank asked banks to link their floating rates to external benchmarks. Online transactions got a boost through various e-wallets and the BHIM app. Retail users also got the benefit of more cover under insurance as the minimum death benefit in life insurance was made seven times the premium paid in case of regular premium policies and 1.25 times in…

INTERNET PHARMACIES may finally be legal in India. With close to 50 serious players who account for a combined turnover of ₹1,500 crore, one would say it is about time that the government came out with regulations for the industry. Two weeks back the Madras High Court asked e-pharmacies to shut down by 20 December and asked the Centre to notify regulations; and then again suspended the ban after a group of e-pharmacies filed an appeal. Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court also recently banned online sale of drugs and medicines. Once the new regulations come in, internet pharmacies will have to register with the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) and get requisite state licences for wherever they are based. Meanwhile, once e-pharmas get the stamp of legitimacy, and provide…

▪ What makes Central Park a legend in creating luxury living? It is one of the fastest growing luxury realty brands with an established presence in India’s National Capital Region, Central Park is renowned for designing inimitable ‘Concept Living’ premium spaces suited for the new age generation. Coveted by connoisseurs, benchmarked by peers and respected by associates, Central Park has fine properties across the luxury and aspiring segments. With a mission to build, develop and maintain unique customer experiences through world-class concept spaces, the company’s endeavour is to not only meet but exceed customer expectations. Central Park has always dared to go where no else has gone before. Against the market odds, it was the first developer to start the trend of luxury housing on Golf Course Road, Gurugram through…

MAY’S TROUBLED BREXIT JOURNEY British Prime Minister Theresa May won a crucial confidence vote although a significant number of her party colleagues had voted against her leadership over the Brexit issue. On December 11, the UK Parliament was to vote on the withdrawal agreement, but May delayed it saying she would go back to the EU to negotiate a new deal. Brussels, however, said it was not open for talks. If the UK Parliament fails to ratify the treaty before its scheduled split from the EU on March 29, 2019, it could result in a no-deal Brexit and severely impact the country’s economy. In such a scenario, the UK will be on the back foot, says a Bloomberg report, as the EU is mulling unilateral steps to protect its interests,…

Managing Director, Samsung R&D Institute, Bangalore Let’s go back to the future. Connected cars, drones flying in to help, surgeons operating on critical patients from thousands of kilometres away, flying machines helping to herd the sheep back home at dusk from your holiday shack, and appliances speaking to each other at home… This is not impossible anymore. You could be experiencing all these soon, even in India, when Samsung undertakes the first 5G trials in New Delhi early 2019. Fifth generation, or 5G, radio technology comes with some unique characteristics that make it by far the most advanced communications technology. It is far more efficient, allowing a lot more information to be transferred with the same amount of spectrum. What makes 5G technology stand out are data speeds and bandwidth…

Managing Director, Mahindra & Mahindra The common narrative, when it comes to adoption of electric mobility in India is that it will be disruptive. Together with shared economy and connected automobiles, we anticipate a tremendous upheaval in the automotive industry. Not too far in the future, we see an enormous change in the way people and cargo move. What’s heartening is that this new era of mobility will cause a positive disruption. At present, there are many questions raised on electric mobility: charging infrastructure, clean and sustainable energy options, access to lithium reserves, range anxiety, well-to-wheel analysis, shifting of dependence from fossil fuels to metals and rare earths, government subsidies and more. All of them are valid. But they tend to derail the main reason why we need sustainable mobility…

Founder & CEO, Martin Consulting LLC Look up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane?” No it’s ‘Lokeshan’ and he has just reached your ‘location’. And before you begin the chatter with ‘Lokeshan’ who wants cash only, let’s see if this would be something that we’d see soon in India. The biggest challenge around making autonomous flight vehicles (AFV), drones (both manned and unmanned short-distance HeliTaxi Services) in India starts with airspace access, suitable landing spots and clearance for low altitude air corridor and defining the right regulatory environment. India’s airspace is one of the most stringently controlled, inaccessible and reserved airspaces in the world. With nearly 40 per cent of airspace, including that over cities being sealed off on account of VVIP areas, military installations,…

Director, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology Our body is a complex machine with hundreds of parts, and its maintenance is critically linked to the information stored in our DNA sequences. It not only determines our body’s response to medicines but also how our body reacts to the environment around us. Understanding the genetic framework is, therefore, essential if we have to treat any medical condition. Getting a complete genome sequence done at an affordable cost and within a very short span (say, within a few days) is the way ahead, and we are getting there. Empowering clinicians with these details will open the doors to targeted therapy and personalised medicine – one that is guided by the linkages of DNA signatures with specific diseases or to responses of the…

Founder, Emeritus Chairman and Chief Mentor of MS Swaminathan Research Foundation Farming is the oldest profession in India, and it is believed that women started crop cultivation nearly 10,000 years ago while men went out to hunt. Thanks to the early women cultivators, the practice of growing rather than gathering food became common. Along with it came other significant changes, from building irrigation canals to cereal-legume crop rotation to shifting of cultivation to ensure soil health replenishment. Now that climate change and other issues are taking a toll on India’s agricultural productivity, it is time for a sustainable makeover. Promoting Super Nutrients India is rich in food crops, including several types of millet. Unfortunately, all of them were classified as coarse grains during the Colonial period. In 1970, I pleaded…

MD & CEO of ICICI Securities In 1997, the IBM computer, Deep Blue, beat chess world Champion Garry Kasparov in New York in what was that time thought of as a blow to chess professionals. Nineteen years later, the game — thought to be facing a threat from machines working on pure reason without the handicap of human emotions — is far from dead. It is, in fact, thriving more than ever. Will the same thing happen in the field of personal finance too? The recent launches of robo advisory platforms, which offer financial advice based on automated, algorithm-driven services with little to no human supervision, raise a similar “Man Vs Machine” question. Can machines work independently of humans? It is common for robo advisors to discount a large number…

Chairman, Digit Insurance Twenty years back, a regular Sunday would mean taking your family in the car, singing away to songs on the radio. You would go to the tried and tested restaurant and order the safe favourites and then return home to catch the favourite prime time show. Sunday, well spent! Of course, you know where we’re going. Sundays today are different for each one of us. For some, Sundays are meant to unwind, binge-watching recorded TV shows or sitting on the couch and shopping online; for others, it is experiencing a new restaurant in town suggested by a food app or catching the latest play in town. Technology is playing a vital role in helping us customise our lifestyle! With improved telecom and internet penetration, the youth is…

Director, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad We live in a world that is increasingly susceptible to the spread of virtualisation or automation of business processes. This process has been steadily creeping up on us and we are increasingly accepting it without resistance. Not long ago we had to talk to an airline employee when we were flying. Now, if you do not have a check-in bag you can download your boarding pass on your phone or print it at a kiosk at the airport and arrive at the departure gate without interacting with an employee. Earlier, we went to bank tellers to withdraw cash from our accounts but with ATMs we no longer need to enter a bank. Fintech and the growth of mobile payments has been faster in our…

Founder & CEO, BYJU’S Technology-led innovations have disrupted every industry. From automobiles, homes to retail – we have witnessed drastic changes in how technology modernised these industries to cater to the evolving needs of people. Rise of Internet usage and adoption of smartphones have changed the accessibility landscape, too. From fingerprint sensors becoming accessible to masses through smart phones, to NASA manufacturing the first object ever 3D printed in space, the evidence of change is all around us. However, education has witnessed very less change – we continue to teach our children the way we did over a century ago. The learning ecosystem still focusses on marks and grades with a “one-size-fits-all” approach which leads to learning driven by the fear of exams. While technology has made in-roads in the…

THE WORLD OF TECHNOLOGY is brimming with innovations. Even the wildest imaginations are now turning into reality. Big screens and notches are passé, foldable phones and bendable tablets are the new products in the block. The world’s first foldable smartphone has already been launched. Samsung and Huawei are set to debut theirs in 2019. 5G connectivity is no longer a part of the textbook. AT&T's first mobile 5G service has just been launched in the US. From wireless charging to growing scope of wearable devices and artificial intelligence, plenty of disruptive technologies are set to greet us in 2019. Here is a quick lowdown on the top five innovations that will change the way we live: Foldable Smartphones With not much room left in terms of design differentiation in mobiles,…

ABOUT 28 PER CENT Indians are active users of the Internet and this tribe is growing at 9 per cent per annum in urban areas while rural India sees an annual growth of 26 per cent, as per TRAI data. Dr Divya Sadana, Clinical Neuropsychologist at Mazumdar Shaw Medical Center, Narayana Health City, Bengaluru, quotes these numbers, saying that they only point towards growing Internet usage but when this usage turns into addiction, it could lead to psychological disorders. Most studies cite young people as the biggest user segment, surfing the Net for information and communication. But newer components are getting added now, the doctor points out. For instance, WHO has identified video game addiction as a psychological disorder. According to Dr Sadana, Internet addiction disorder, or IAD, can be…

THE YEAR 2018 is drawing to a close, and we badly need a break from the crisis politics, trade tension, workplace discrimination, fear of robo-displacement and climate apocalypse that we have encountered and tried to cope with. If that sounds like an annus horribilis, you may not be very far from the truth and the trouble-torn times have been well captured in some of the best books published this year. The books presented here do not follow any particular order, but we have undoubtedly encountered one masterpiece this year (and a sombre one at that) in journalist John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood that chronicles the rise and fall of Theranos. The multibillion-dollar biotech start-up was set up by the charismatic Stanford dropout Elizabeth Holmes who wanted the world to get rid…

Continued economic growth and rising disposable incomes are making companies try different things to meet the ever-rising expectations of customers. Insurers, too, are innovating with product structures and benefits and experimenting with newer technologies and analytical tools to digitise processes (underwriting, distribution and claim settlement) to bring down costs and turnaround time. Apart from this, the Insurance Regulator and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), is giving a lot of push to make insurance products more customer-friendly. Let’s look at the changes that happened this year and what one can expect in 2019. Life Insurance This year, more insurance companies came out with new-age low-cost ULIPs. Some also launched more inclusive critical illness plans covering newer or more diseases. On the regulatory front, the IRDAI proposed certain changes in life insurance…

What are your views on this year’s significant developments in life insurance? What will be the major developments next year? In 2018 we have seen robust growth across the entire sector. The industry has grown 10-11 per cent. We expect this to sustain and maybe do a little better in the second half of the financial year. In 2019, I expect similar or maybe better growth because economic activities are picking up on the ground. Product innovation across categories is also seen, and the third, and the most critical thing that is happening in the industry, is around digitisation - more and more companies are adopting digitisation and looking at a digital way of selling. The industry has seen good regulatory support with the new product regulation draft, which is…