Innholdsfortegnelse for 15 May 2022 i Business Today

THIS YEAR, the Easter weekend was special in India—the holidays commenced on Thursday with Mahavir Jayanti and went on till Sunday. Yet, on the day the long weekend commenced, salt-to-software conglomerate Tata group was hard at work explaining how its latest bet—Tata Neu, which it claims is India’s first super app—was a symbol of synergy for the group. “What we have accomplished is that we have brought all the group brands together… in a way that it makes a compelling value proposition for the customer,” N. Chandrasekaran, Chairman of Tata Sons, said at the post-launch event. The app dropped on Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store on April 7, at the perfect time for many planning for the long weekend. No wonder that the app had seen 2.2 million…

CEO & Founder of 3D manufacturing company Divide by Zero, Swapnil Sansare has revived his college passion of exploring India on a bike. Right after the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions were eased in Mumbai, Sansare gifted himself a Svartpilen bike from Swedish company Husqvarna, and has already completed 17 trips in less than two years. “I used to ride a bike in my college days. But once I started working I started travelling by car and air as business grew. I always missed those collegetime impromptu bike rides to nearby places around Mumbai. Since the time I bought this new bike, I have explored areas around Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Rajasthan on my second new-found love.” His first love was the Bajaj Pulsar 150 that he rode during his college days.…

What was the problem you were grappling with? The year was 1997 and we were fresh in consumer marketing with limited knowledge of the nuances of branding and scale and the right marketing mix. This lacuna was the main problem back then. Who did you approach for advice? We did not approach any individual or firm, but we were made to understand the importance of branding from a practical lesson we got while interacting with one of our dealers. What was the advice you received? I was on my regular dealer visits to Mumbai. This particular dealer showed me one of our products and complained about a small spot on it. I requested him to show me products from the highest-selling plywood at his store. All of them had surface…

Source: World Bank, Drought Early Warning System (DEWS), media reports 16% India’s land area facing drought-like conditions as on April 6, 2022, according to data available with DEWS 1,367 CUBIC METRES Expected water availability on per capita basis by 2031. It was at 1,545 cubic metres in 2011 and 1,816 cubic metres in 2001 600 MILLION People in India facing high to extreme water crisis, according to a 2018 NITI Aayog report…

THERE IS NO DEARTH of uncertainty on the fate of the Kishore Biyani-promoted Future Group. Caught in a mountain of debt, its flagship, Future Retail as also Future Lifestyle Fashions, among other group companies, face an uncertain future as the next stop appears to be the insolvency courts. A deal struck in August 2020 had Reliance Retail agreeing to buy out the wholesale, retail and logistics businesses of Future Group in a ₹24,713-crore ($3.4-billion) deal. The beleaguered seller could not have asked for anything better since it allowed him to emerge from a deep hole. However, the hole only got deeper when, on April 22, as much as 69 per cent of the flagship Future Retail’s secured creditors rejected the deal. The acquisition was already in the midst of a…

WHEN THE WORLD’S second-largest crypto exchange, USbased Coinbase, announced its entry into India at a big bang event in Bengaluru on April 7, it was definitely not prepared for what lay ahead. Soon after the company declared that it would allow users to purchase cryptocurrencies using Unified Payments Interface (UPI)—an instant real-time payment system that facilitates inter-bank transactions using a mobile phone—it came under regulatory scrutiny. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India, which oversees UPI, released an official statement clarifying that “we are not aware of any crypto exchange using UPI”. This was a strange statement, because many exchanges such as WazirX and CoinSwitch Kuber were already offering UPI services through mobile wallets such as MobiKwik. After…

ON A SEVEN-YEAR HIGH BCI rockets to its highest since Q2 of 2014-15 TRY WALKING ON a bed of burning coal. Or a sheet of very thin ice. You feel exhilarated. Thrilled. You also feel frightened. Any slip would mean serious trouble. Yet, till that happens, you are on a high. That seems to be the emotion seeping through the latest edition of the BT-C Fore Business T Confidence survey. On the face of it, the Indian economy has powerful headwinds battering it—inflation at high levels, the war in Ukraine leading to commodity price surges, Covid-19 just refusing to go away, questionable demand, falling productivity, rising fuel prices—one could go on. Yet, we have a situation where despite the obvious challenges, businesses are not just hopeful, but positively, well, positive.…

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC has changed humankind in far-reaching ways—from the way we shop to the way we work to the way we unwind. Maybe even the way we approach disease prevention. For the adolescent population, if the response to India’s mass immunisation programme is anything to go by, getting a jab has become part of their ‘to do’ list. India has perhaps never rolled out as massive a vaccination programme for its adolescent population as it has during the Covid-19 pandemic. As of April 21, more than 25.3 million adolescents had received their first shot of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to data from the Union health ministry. This, perhaps, sets the stage for a dedicated inoculation programme for adolescents for vaccine-preventable diseases or VPDs; it is also a signal to…

A WORKHORSE CAN BE FUN The undisputed king of tablets, Apple’s iPad Air sits comfortably between the high-end iPad Pro and the entry-level iPad. The 10.9-inch screen is perfect for all activities—streaming videos, gaming, sketching, drawing or reading. Powered by Apple’s M1 chip, it can handle all sorts of heavy graphics with no lag or stutter. Over the years, Apple has refined the iPadOS to bring the feel of the macOS to the tablet, including the dock at the bottom. Multitasking and split-screen usage are a cinch. Then there’s the extended ecosystem of apps and games, designed and optimised for iPads. Stroke Play: The latest iPad Air works with the second-gen Apple Pencil (₹10,900, sold separately), which snaps on the side for charging. Designed to work as a regular pencil,…

THE TOP SEVEN METROPOLITAN CITIES WITNESSED 43 PER CENT GROWTH IN NEW RESIDENTIAL LAUNCHES New supply (units) NCR: National Capital Region, MMR: Mumbai Metropolitan Regon APPETITE FOR NEW HOME OWNERSHIP SEEMS TO HAVE GATHERED PACE AMID EXPECTATION OF IMPENDING PRICE RISES 2-5% Increase in average residential property prices across the top seven metropolitan cities in Q1 2022 compared with Q1 2021. Hyderabad recorded the highest annual jump of 5 per cent DEMAND FOR COMMERCIAL PROPERTY ALSO STRENGTHENED DURING Q1 2022, WITH OFFICE SPACE LEASES RECORDING A RISE OF 25% YOY ACROSS CITIES New leasing (office space in million sq. ft) AMID THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC, CO-WORKING AND MANAGED OFFICE SPACES WITNESSED A SUBSTANTIAL RISE IN THE SHARE OF OFFICE SPACE ABSORPTION RENTALS IN THE COMMERCIAL SPACE WITNESSED AN INCREASE OR STAYED…

IN THE CURRENT CALENDAR YEAR, there have been six instances of the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex losing more than 1,000 points in a single trading session. Interestingly, there have been an equal number of sessions when it gained over 1,000 points in a single day. And, a single-day fall or gain of high three digits has become the norm. Ask any market participant, and the one word on everyone’s mind is ‘volatility’. But is it that Indian markets have suddenly become overly volatile? Or are they simply reacting to the concerns that continue to plague the domestic- and also the other stock markets the world over? Currently, the key concerns include a mix of macroeconomic and geopolitical factors. The Russia-Ukraine war was a surprise, to say the least, as most…

I BEGAN the year cautioning readers of this column that 2022 could be a year resembling a board of snakes and ladders, and urging them not to disregard the rising risks that stood to derail a fragile post-Covid-19 recovery. Now, with every passing week, the snakes only seem more menacing, the ladders wobbly. The twin vipers of economic stagnation and rising inflation are baring their venomous fangs, raising the spectre of a muchfeared stagflation that the world has not had to countenance since the 1970s. We are not there yet, but the risks are very real. Even at the start of the year, inflation was always going to be a problem. The financial world was prepared for a gentle withdrawal of liquidity and an ‘ever so gradual’ lifting of interest…

THE THREE WITCHES in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth—representing evil, chaos and darkness—seem the perfect metaphor for the current economic situation. The three witches that can derail India’s and the world’s economic recovery are hardening commodity prices, soaring inflation and unrelenting geopolitical tension, especially emanating from the Ukraine conflict. Countries across the world are bearing the brunt. In March 2022, retail inflation in India was at a 17-month high of 6.95 per cent, while in the US it was at a 40-year high of 8.5 per cent. In India, the wholesale price index (WPI) was also at a 30-year high of 12.96 per cent in FY22, and 14.55 per cent in March. But it’s not worrying everyone. Former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg points out that high inflation has been around under…

Housed in aluminium casing for protection against bumps and drops, the tablet doesn’t feel heavy despite weighing over 500 gm. The 12.4-inch OLED display with a resolution of 1,753x2,800p is super bright and looks great even under direct sunlight. Powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor with 8 GB of RAM, the tablet brings enough power to the table to be used for designing and editing videos, playing graphic-heavy games, browsing the Web, reading books and even handling documentation. But what lets down the hefty hardware is Android OS. The interface feels similar to Samsung smartphones and many apps on the Play Store are still not optimised for big-screen tablets. Stroke Play: Unlike the Apple Pencil, Samsung’s stylus, the S Pen, comes in the box with the Tab S8+.…