Innholdsfortegnelse for 27-Jun-21 i Business Today

There are still believers of the flat earth theory,” says S.P. Kochhar, Director-General, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), a lobby body representing Indian telecom operators. “The doubting community will always be there. It’s not black and white. Enough studies have been done already,” he says on the issue of fresh concerns over possible links between 5G technology and the spread of Coronavirus. Over the past couple of months, telcos and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) officials have been fighting a perception battle against a group of people who believe that 5G could harm humans. Last month, telecom towers in certain parts of Haryana and Punjab were vandalised and DoT issued an official statement to allay concerns. “It has come to the notice of the DoT that several misleading messages…

COURSE DELIVERY: Learning Management System (LMS) by TCSion; CANVAS, video conferencing solutions by Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, Impartus; MOOCs like those offered by Coursera for Campus KNOWLEDGE REPOSITORY: ebooks, ejournals and resources such as National Digital Library, KopyKitab, EBSCO, DELNET AI-BASED FOCUSED LEARNING: Smartbooks by TataMcGraw Hill and Pearson; Smart Review Material by Coursera PEER TO PEER COLLABORATION-Ment. io’s app for Microsoft Teams, Padlets PROCTORING: Online assessment solutions by Mercer | Mettl PAPERLESS ADMISSIONS: Enquiry, fee payment, enrolment by LeadSquared, NoPaperForms…

Mumbai-based fine-dining restaurant, Bombay Canteen’s Mother’s Day Brunch, along with fancy cocktails and music, is something many upmarket residents of Maximum City look forward to every year. However, for the second consecutive year, Mother’s Day had to be celebrated indoors because of the lockdown. Since restaurants are allowed to do home deliveries this time round, Bombay Canteen Founders Sameer Seth and Yash Bhanage saw an opportunity in recreating their signature Mother’s Day Brunch experience at their patrons’ homes. They created a Mother’s Day Brunch Box, which had a pre-curated menu that was delivered to guests who ordered from them. The highlight of the brunch box was a QR code, which took guests to a Spotify playlist — they could play their favourite music as they relished their brunch. Similarly, for…

The Covid-19 pandemic is a strong reminder of two things — more needs to be done to protect our communities from future health crises and strengthening our healthcare infrastructure is critical for this. It has also made clear that the future of healthcare is digital. The past year has laid to rest doubts about the importance of technology. Technology emerged as the lifeline of societies and economies. Across the world, robots continue to disinfect cities, cook hospital food and deliver packages. Smart devices continue to monitor patient health, and human-AI (Artificial Intelligence) collaboration is becoming a critical tool for those studying the virus. In fact, AI and Cloud are set to transform healthcare delivery from reactive care to predictive care, driving proactive disease management and the move towards preventive care.…

Geeta, a 50-year-old mother stays with her family in Mumbai. Prior to the lockdown, she was primarily using cash for her day-to-day purchases. During the lockdown, she registered on UPI for the first time. Now, she uses UPI for her monthly bill payments, orders groceries & medicines, makes money transfer to her staff, and to get that favourite kurti for her daughter from an e-commerce retailer. All this, with instant payment confirmation, and, within the comfort and safety of her home. On occasions, where she has to step out, she uses UPI QR scan & pay with minimal touchpoints. For millions like Geeta, amid the pandemic when social distancing is the most critical norm, UPI has become a boon for their families. India’s diverse market with varied demography poses a…

Diageo India Managing Director and CEO Anand Kripalu is a fitness freak. He rarely misses working out in the gym despite his busy schedule. The FMCG veteran, who is all set to retire from corporate life, says his most cherished memories will be the time spent with the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) during IPL 2021. Kripalu travelled with the team from city to city, till the tournament was called off. He often bumped into cricketers at breakfast or in the corridor of the hotel, and talked about lessons they could incorporate on the field from the corporate world. “After all, cricket is all about strategy and analysis.” However, the lessons the team has taught him, he says, are for more valuable. He is full of praise for RCB captain Virat…

Running a Unicorn valued at $1.5 billion does have its share of highs and lows. Virendra Gupta and Umang Bedi, Co-founders of VerSe Innovations (DailyHunt and Josh), get the daily dose of de-stress from their rigourous exercise regime. Exercise is what calms their mind and enables them to focus better. There is not a single day when Gupta misses out on his yoga regime. For Bedi, the last nine months have been monumental, he has been able to shed 62 kgs. "I have come down from 140 kgs to 78 kgs and that has happened due to a combination of intense cardio and weights. For me, fitness is a passion," says Bedi. Apart from their respective workout regimes, the duo intends to go trekking to the Annapurna Base Camp in…

Since April 2020, Cisco’s collaboration platform, WebEx, has on an average clocked 25 billion meeting minutes a month. Outside the United States, India has been the second-highest user, recording 40 per cent year-on-year increase in March 2021. Does this mean in-person meetings will become history? Probably not. However, most changes at the workplace triggered by the pandemic are here to stay. This is not surprising. Adoption of digital technology has seen a decade's growth in the past 12-15 months as companies shifted to the distributed remote work model. This meant increased demand for Cloud service providers. Companies also adopted digital tools to make operations more efficient. These included Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA), which involves automating repetitive tasks. As digital became big, cyber attacks…

Until food aggregators like Swiggy and Zomato came in 2013, most restaurants took orders on phone and delivered to customers Home delivery accounted for under 5 per cent of revenues Food aggregators increased demand for home delivery Restaurants were happy to partner with aggregators who not only delivered, but helped them market their brand as well Home delivery started contributing 5-10 per cent of revenues As aggregators started charging 25-30 per cent commissions, restaurants felt the need to have direct-to-consumer (D2C) contact Restaurant owners also accuse aggregators of not sharing consumer data A D2C front could help restaurants cut commissions to 10-15 per cent The lockdown accelerated need for restaurants to have their own D2C front Restaurant majors launching digital-only brands and Cloud kitchens…

FITNESS TRACKERS Apple Watch Series 6 Price: ₹40,990 Onwards Apple launched the Watch Series 6 in September last year, right in the middle of the pandemic. Besides tracking workouts and keeping an eye on your heart rate, it also measures your oxygen levels via an all-new sensor and Blood Oxygen app, and checks your heart rhythm with its ECG app. The Blood Oxygen app can take on-demand as well as background SpO2 readings. The four-lead ECG app can measure atrial fibrillation — a serious irregular heart rhythm. There’s also the Breathe app that sets breathing sessions (there's an animation on the watch face, you inhale when it grows and exhale when it shrinks), and a new Sleep feature that helps establish a regular sleep routine (monitors sleeping time, night-time disturbances…

What was the problem you were grappling with? I joined CRIF High Mark in February 2020. In less than 45 days, lockdown happened. I couldn’t meet key stakeholders in India and globally even once physically, and all interactions happened virtually. Strategies needed to be revisited to ensure smooth functioning on all fronts. Who did you approach? It was the learnings and interactions with a number of professors and participants at a course I attended – Leadership Programme for Enterprise Leaders in a VUCA World at INSEAD, Fountainbleau in 2018. VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. What was the best advice you ever received? The pandemic led us to a VUCA situation. The course had equipped me to handle such situations effectively. Preparedness and clarity helped me overcome ambiguity.…

A decade ago, the entry of Fintechs in the fast-growing financial services space was a shocker for traditional banks. Bankers were worried that at some stage in the future, Fintechs would eat their lunch. Be it payments, software as a service, or lending, the new age start-ups in the financial services space went all out with innovative models in underbanked and unbanked areas to woo customers. But banks, too, followed with their digitisation drives, pushing Fintechs back. Regulators also stepped in to fill the gaps and encourage innovations. For instance, the Unified Payment Interface-based plat-form hit mobile wallet players hard. On the other side, the entry of Techfins such as Google Pay, Amazon Pay and WhatsApp started changing the rules of the games. While the tug of war still continues,…

Institutes of higher education in India have been looking beyond physical classrooms and paper-pen assessments for a long time. In spite of this, adoption of education technology, or EdTech, did not become a huge trend. The Covid-10 outbreak has changed this. As the pandemic forced education institutions to abandon face-to-face teaching, educators turned to technology for everything, right from conducting entrance exams and course delivery to assessments and managing their knowledge repositories. Digital whiteboards, hybrid classrooms, adaptive tracking camera systems, display equipment and audio-visual technologies are the new buzzwords at education institutes. “Today, India finds itself doing well in the global EdTech Index with Bangalore and Delhi at 7th and 14th positions, respectively, globally. While the EdTech space had been growing at a steady pace over the years, the pandemic…

Over the last year, Covid-19 has been a burden on global healthcare systems. It has forced governments, public and private sector to rethink healthcare delivery strategy. This has led to fast-tracking digital transformation by more than 10 times and this is just the beginning. Though many technology enabled solutions existed, patients, doctors and medical providers were reluctant to adopt those. They preferred the traditional in-person, face-to-face diagnosis. The pandemic pushed healthcare providers to focus on quickly adapting to changing times. This meant constant connect with customer needs. For many, the solution pivoted around technology and digital health. Bright Future According to a recent Deloitte report, global healthcare spending is expected to expand at a CAGR of 4 per cent over 2021-‘24, up from 2.8 per cent during 2015-‘19. Global healthcare…

Any computing device which we wear, be it a supplement or a standard one, can be classified under the category of wearables. According to Counterpoint Research, the global wearables market is expected to grow from $55 billion in 2020 to $150 billion in 2050. Dominated by smartbands and smartwatches, the Indian market is set to hit $4 billion per annum by 2025. “While the market would be dominated by wrist wearables, we will also see emergence of new type of wearables, from affordable tattoo, smart nail paint, smart connected clothing to immersive eyewear based on Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality technologies across enterprises as well as home for content consumption and creation. Eyewear such as smart glasses and smart lenses will drive majority of the wearables growth for the…