ear All, Hope you are doing good! In pursuit of enhancing your experience with "Groups by CommonFloor" App, we have Introduced IVR calling option for your Society Guard in the Smart Guard app. Now you can accept or reject the entry of visitor on call. This is to help you provide a seamless experience in managing visitors to your apartment. We have more features coming in especially for you. Stay tuned with us for more updates! Thanks Team Commonfloor Groups. ------------------------------------------------------------- When Satya Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992 at the age of 25, the future CEO, an engineer by training, did not yet hold a business degree. He would complete his MBA at the University of Chicago five years later, without taking time off from his full-time job. Every Friday night, Nadella would board a plane from Seattle to Chicago, and return by Monday morning. “It used to blow me away, how hard he used to work,” former Microsoft executive Sanjay Parthasarathy, now CEO of Indix, told Business Insider. Last month, Nadella, who succeeded Steve Ballmer as head of Microsoft in 2014, visited his alma mater, where he was interviewed on stage by Madhav Rajan, dean of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. According to a recap on the school’s website, Nadella said that a lot of the MBA students were, like him, fairly experienced and knowledgeable before they had even started their studies. What he said school could offer them, among other things, is an opportunity to cultivate leadership traits, including the three attributes he said Microsoft looks for in job candidates. As it happens, much of his guidance serves as decent life advice, too. Attribute #1: The ability to create clarity when none exists This is “the most important attribute that any leader needs to have—and it is often underestimated,” Nadella said. “You don’t need a leader when everything is well defined and it’s easy, and all you have got to do is follow a well-written plan. But in an ambiguous situation, where there cannot be complete information, that is when leadership will matter.” He continued: “The people who are capable of getting into a situation where there is in some sense panic, and who can bring first clarity on what to do next—that is invaluable.” Attribute #2: A knack for sparking energy Along with clarity, a leader needs to bring sincere enthusiasm, Nadella argued. “One of the classic things you face as a leader is, you will have someone walk into your office and say, ‘Hey you know what, I’m very good, my team is very good, but everything around me is terrible,’” he said. “That’s not creating energy.” This is a theme Nadella also visits in his recent memoir, Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone (Harper Collins, 2017). “Leaders generate energy, not only on their own teams but across the company,” he writes. “It’s insufficient to focus exclusively on your own unit. Leaders need to inspire optimism, creativity, shared commitment and growth through times good and bad.” To be a leader, he told Booth students, “you have got to be at your evangelical best. You have got to have followership all around you.” Attribute #3: An ability to succeed in “an over-constrained space” His advice for cultivating a third trait feels applicable to anyone, not only those who are ambitious in business. “When leaders come in and say, ‘I’m not able to do this or I’m not able to drive success or achieve success because of all these exogenous factors.’ Guess what? Everything is exogenous,” he said. “Life is an over-constraint problem. So you can’t say, ‘You know what, I’m just waiting for you to remove all the constraints, and I’ll be perfect.’ ------------------------------------------------------------- The education divide in India with respect to quality and accessibility has existed for far too long. The Indian education system has remained more or less the same, since last 150 years. It is difficult for the existing physical infrastructure to meet the learning needs of the burgeoning population of our country which will touch 1.5B by 2030 and 1.7B by 2050 (equal to the population of China and USA combined). Digital is gaining acceptance across numerous sectors and it is only right that the education sector too reaps benefits of this digital transformation. In a country as diverse as India, along with overcoming the infrastructure barrier, there needs to be a focus on overcoming the barriers of language and content. It is impossible to have great teachers in each and every village/district in India. Similarly, the best teachers should not be restricted to certain institutes of the world. This is where e-learning comes in. It can level the playing field for all students. Students, in both rural and urban areas, can get access to the best learning resources, learn at their own pace and in the comfort of their own homes. Another key advantage with e-learning is that it is much easier to design courses with the latest online reference material than publishing crores of books. With the significant rise in internet penetration and the drop in the prices of smartphones in India, access to online learning resources will soon become ubiquitous. Today, whether it is finding a new word on Google, or watching a photography video, without realising it, we are already using the internet to constantly learn. A major chunk of learning is already happening on the internet, with the government’s push we can expect it to grow to exponential levels. The launch of the second phase of the Digital India campaign with a renewed focus on education is a welcome step towards the faster development of the education sector. Online education is also receiving its due importance in the New Education Policy drafted by the Kasturirangan Committee. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) under the government’s SWAYAM initiative have the tremendous potential to make higher education accessible to India’s youth, that forms more than 50% of our population. The government’s push for e-learning reinforces the efforts of online education providers to empower both learners and educators, create more engaging learning experiences and foster personal development. With the push, students will also realise that the accessibility to great teachers can take their learning to the next level. Going forward, the e-learning space will witness new developments with respect to unconventional methods of learning. Availability of unique courses across categories will encourage students to expand the breadth of the content they consume. Gamification will ensure that the learning process is more interactive and fulfilling. Students will be able to set goals, measure their progress and celebrate their learning achievements. Live online interaction between the students and educators can offer personalised learning that will benefit students in remote areas as well as overcrowded schools. The role of AI and technology in all of this will be huge. AI Bots can act as Study Assistants, that will accompany you along your learning journey. It will know your strengths and weakness inside out and will even recommend what you should read on a given day to maximise your learning outcomes. The future of e-learning in India is promising. Location, language and financial resources will no longer be a barrier to a great education. ------------------------------------------------------------- ettlement systems - NEFT, IMPS, UPI, NACH, card payments, Electronic Clearing Systems as well as Forex and market clearing systems - have seen a 44.6 percent increase in volume in 2017-18 and an 11.9 percent increase in the value of funds transferred. The digital retail payment infrastructure, which includes card payments, UPI and others increased to 92.6 percent in 2017-18, up from 88.9 percent in the previous year. The RBI also said the share of paper-based clearing instruments reduced from 11.1 percent in 2016-17 to 7.4 percent in 2017-18, showing a strong trend in favour of digital payments. This monumental growth is being driven by the widespread acceptance of digital modes of payment, which is expected to reach 80% of the country's urban population and 70% of retail chains over the next 4-5 years. In 2015, while launching the Digital India week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said: "I dream of a digital India where Mobile and E-banking ensures financial inclusion". His vision is gradually coming to life with the new initiatives launched by the Modi-led Government. In addition to this, there are a growing number of innovative fintech companies offering various digital payment solutions, leading the total transaction value approximately to $50 million across digital payments this year, and is expected to reach $700 billion by 2022. Post demonetization phase in 2016, there have been several policy and digital infrastructure changes including Goods and Services Tax (GST), financial inclusion and new payment systems such as Aadhar-enabled payments & UPI to further boost the digital payments sector. ------------------------------------------------------------- “Fungible roles and skills will be critical in the future”: IBM's Global Talent Leader In a special interaction with People Matters, Pallavi Srivastava, Asia Pac & Greater China Talent Leader, Global Technology Services, IBM shares her perspectives on the evolving notions of talent and workplaces, the talent landscape in the South East Asian region, building a future-ready workforce, and the role that HR plays in strategic business growth. “Fungible roles and skills will be critical in the future”: IBM's Global Talent Leader Pallavi Srivastava is the Asia Pacific & GCG Talent Leader for IBM Global Technology Services. In this role, she is responsible for leadership development, organizational and account-based succession planning, leveraging talent analytics for defining and executing strategic initiatives, fostering engagement and high performance culture across the units. Prior to this role, Pallavi was the Country HR Leader for IBM Singapore and was responsible for talent development and enhancing IBM's position as an Employer of choice in Singapore. Pallavi holds more than 23 years of experience in the field of Human Resources across areas related to HR strategy, HR Analytics, Corporate mergers & acquisitions, Leadership talent acquisition and succession management, executive compensation and leadership development. Pallavi has held several portfolios with IBM’s internal HR and HR consulting units and worked in India and US, and now based in Singapore for past 10 years. A passionate believer in leveraging technology for HR solutions of the future, Pallavi has been closely involved with IBM’s HR transformation journey towards cognitive-enabled HR offerings. Pallavi has received the Business HR professional and Global Compensation & Benefits certification from Cornell University and is certified by IBM for Design Thinking, Agile and as a Cognitive HR practitioner. Pallavi was featured in the HRD Magazine’s HRD Hot List in 2017. In your extensive experience across the HR spectrum, how do you think the notions of ‘talent’ and the ‘workplace’ has evolved over the years? From a talent perspective, apart from the demographic changes (that have resulted in four generations working together and youngest Gen Z soon to come in) the mix of talent has changed from many other standpoints. In the global business environment and in particular MNCs like IBM, we are now seeing a significant diversity of cultures/ethnicities at the workplace. Another particular positive trend that I have observed is that the concentration of women in the talent mix and the workplace has significantly grown and there is more women engagement in technical domains, C-Suite positions, and in corporate boards than before. With the onset of digital technologies, there is also the proliferation of the gig workers and more people working remotely, on contractual basis or simply on projects. But the most recent talent trend is the rise of the New Collar workers, a word coined by IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, which involves hiring and developing talent that works in the contemporary tech industry, but it is the talent that does not hold the traditional/formal 4 year college degree — this talent is about skills and competencies that are obtained through vocational training. I see this trend becoming more pervasive in the coming years. And as the concept of talent has evolved over the years, so have the workplaces. We have gone through the whole gamut of formal office space to remote and work from home, from closed office cubicles to agile and open workspaces, from meetings happening in conference rooms to meetings on WebEx and zoom, and now the co-working spaces. Although the new ways of working have brought along their own set of challenges, these are in turn defining the trends of how teams and work are getting organized, and how structures and hierarchies get defined. “The New Collar worker trend will become more pervasive in the coming years.” In today’s day and age of tech disruption, do you think organizations are doing enough to create a future-ready workforce? One of the key realizations of technological disruption has been that no one organization or unit can have all the capabilities required to create the readiness that is needed. It has to be a joint effort and we have to operate and leverage the ecosystem of tech partners, collaborators, and experts to build the skills for the future. Both the governments and the education sector are increasingly realizing that organizations have a key role to play here and we see many such projects coming up to support the building of the future-skills. In Singapore early this year, IBM launched the Pathways in Technology P-TECH program in partnership with the Singapore Govt and several polytechnic colleges in Singapore for early college and high school students where they get an early exposure to jobs in the Information and Communication Technology and other STEM disciplines. The main objective is to create a future-ready workforce through early exposure to technology and its offerings. In India too, we have launched a first-of- its kind New Collar curriculum in collaboration with the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE) in 2018. The two-year Advanced Technical Diploma Program, co-created and designed by IBM, will be offered at the Industrial Training Institutes in Hyderabad, Bangalore and NOIDA to create a job-ready workforce and to build the next generation of skills needed for New Collar careers – positions that do not always require a college degree but rather sought-after technology skills. The program will include industry relevant courses on hardware maintenance, web development, cloud-based development and deployment, analytics and soft skills training and students can seek admission post 12th grade and will be offered internship opportunities at IBM. Such partnerships are crucial in ensuring that the skills and capabilities for the future are planned for, and available when needed. While almost all jobs will be affected in the era of technology disruption, there will be ample opportunities for employees to avail themselves of training needed to work in the new jobs that will get created. I personally believe that the scare around jobs going away is overstated. We need to ensure that our workforce is ready to embrace technology that will enable them to operate efficiently and will make them more productive. The people who will struggle to get employed will be the ones who do not build their competencies in parallel with the new technology offerings in whichever function they belong to, including the HR function. Tell us about the skills landscape in the South Asian talent market and how is IBM differentiating itself when it comes to upskilling its workforce? Skills shortage in this tech disrupted era is a global phenomenon and the South East Asian region is not immune to it either. However, the reasons that contribute to skills shortage differ in the SEA region than its global counterparts. While some factors relate to language, others relate to the lack of digital literacy and inadequate focus on disciplines related to Analytics, Computer Science, and STEM fields. Leadership competencies too have changed and there is the need for more resilient and agile leaders who can thrive in uncertain environments, have the ability to transform operating models, and who are tech evangelists and are able visualize and harness the power of technology. IBM is attempting to scale its skills requirement through a combination of external and internal skills and research programs. A few years ago, IBM set up the Business Analytics Innovation center in partnership with Singapore’s Nanyang Technology University, and continues to partner with them on new initiatives. In India, IIT Mumbai will be part of IBM’s AI Horizons network – an international consortium of leading universities that is helping in AI research. Similar work is happening in other countries of South East Asia to create a string pool of talent to source from. Internally, we have a very high focus on upskilling and reskilling of our talent for future. For this, we leverage our AI-enabled learning platform, Your Learning, a platform designed for a personalized, self-paced learning experience that provides curated best-in-class content for all types of skills and competency training – from soft skills to core technical skills. We continue to invest heavily in our training programs to ensure our workforce is aligned with the strategic skill requirements, and we encourage self-learning that has really helped us to create a sense of responsibility in employees to scale-up their capabilities. While educational institutions have started to upgrade their curricula, the training needed for future skills is still very much in the corporate domain. Going forward, talent will look to their employers to provide these skills and this capability will be one of the key employer brand propositions. The pressures on the organizations and the workforce to glocalize have intensified. How is IBM navigating the volatility of the changing marketplace expectations? IBM, as a 107+ years old company, has always been ahead of the curve in adapting or transforming its business models and organizational structure to the changing needs; and have ourselves undergone transformation from a hardware to software, and now to a cognitive and Cloud Platform Company. We have been operating for decades in most of the 170 countries we currently have offices in, including all the growth regions. So we have a workforce that has been internationally mobile for the longest time and understands the challenges and opportunities of globalization. We operate in all the major industries and sectors in the world and are driving innovative changes for both social and societal impact through our technology platforms. Being one of the key inventors of the new AI-enabled technology solutions, we have been both the predictors of the technology trends as well as facilitators of tech who are helping businesses navigate the changes. To manage our own transformation, we have been focused on skills development and today 8 in 10 IBMers are equipped with growth-oriented skills for the future. We support our clients similarly, in their digital transformation journey through our Hybrid Cloud and Watson platforms. We also realized that one of the most important skills we need our leaders to develop is ‘resiliency’. Today, not only systems and platforms need to be resilient to survive the onslaught of new technology changes, but leaders, managers, and employees all need to build the ability to face uncertainty and volatility and still thrive. Hence, we have been focusing on training initiatives that build resiliency in our leaders and clients. But at the same time, IBM realizes the value of strong ecosystem and each of our country operations has robust connects and partnerships with industry bodies and governments to support national agendas. “No one organization or unit can have all the capabilities required to create the readiness that is needed for technological disruption — we need to operate and leverage the ecosystem of tech partners, collaborators, and experts to build skills for the future.” How do you think the human resources function is managing the disruption caused by technological innovation? HR is one function that has seen dramatic changes in its mission, vision, and operational impact in the past decade, not just due to shifts in technology but also due to the impact the softer aspects of the function have had on preparing organizations to manage the digital disruption. The role of the function has now changed to building insights around business and talent metrics, and leveraging such metrics to enhance employee experience and engagement. It is more purposeful around impact and outcomes than program execution. In the future, HR will see significant transformation with AI technology. The value it will provide to business in terms of analytics and automation will validate the investments made for such transformation. The possibilities of AI in HR are not just confined to chatbots, but also to harness the value of data and enhance decision-making capabilities. We see immense possibilities in the HR tech space and IBM has been one of the few organizations to transform its own HR leveraging its AI Watson platform. We have created innovative offerings across the whole value chain of Employee’s work experiences using Watson technology and its analytics capabilities. So much of the debate on AI is around bias. To address that, IBM also recently launched the Watson Recruitment’s Adverse Impact Analysis capability that identifies possibilities for bias on accounts of age, gender, race, education, or even the previous employer. All in all, readiness of the HR leaders and professionals to understand, embrace and then leverage tech capabilities will prove to be the differentiators. In this digital era, the value of HR can also be monetized for business growth but the journey should be via employee experience and keeping the human touch. In your opinion, how has the HR evolved to play a larger contributing role in meeting strategic business goals and growth? I do not think that the strategic value that the HR holds is debated anymore. Progressive CEOs have started to view their CHROs as people who drive growth and not just HR programs. More and more organizations are now realizing that HR is a business function like any other, and manages the most important resource of any corporation – its people. As such, the HR function now holds the mandate and the strategic muscle to bring changes to an organization’s growth trajectory. There is more alignment between people programs and larger organizational goals, and HR programs are now being designed to enhance employee productivity, employee engagement, positive work culture, talent retention which integrate with the organizational goal of delivering to the clients. I believe that in today’s day and age, an HR unit that does not play a direct part in the business growth is likely to be irrelevant. And for HR to make an impact, three critical skills are needed – understanding business metrics and its levers of growth, keeping a constant outside in focus in the function and the knowhow of what is available in the market, and having a consulting mind-set with high degree of HR analytics capabilities to infer insights from data and trends. When you look out over the next couple of years and prioritize growth, how do you view things in your own industry or sector? I think the tech sector is certainly more prepared for the impacts of digital disruption as in many cases we are the ones predicting and creating those disruptions. This sector therefore also has the larger responsibility and accountability to prepare the rest of the world for the upcoming changes – and so we will see other sectors seeking to learn and harness tech capabilities. Industry convergence has already been happening for some time, and almost all sectors are building technology arms for their operations. We will continue to see tech talent getting higher premium in almost all sectors. Cloud, AI, Blockchain and Quantum computing are the tech trends that will continue to revolutionize the markets. But having said that, talent in the tech sector will need to be a few steps ahead in terms of skills readiness and that will be a key focus. The speed at which technology is changing is creating gaps in the timely availability of future-focused skills in the market. So how does one hire for an environment that is predicted to get disrupted? Fungibility (in terms of skills and roles) will be a critical characteristic as organizations transform, and keeping skills current for the market will be one of the key differentiators from a growth perspective. ------------------------------------------------------------- We take the pleasure to inform you that XIME, Bangalore is organizing a Two-Day Management Development Program on “Business Analytics using R Software” on November 30 & December 01, 2018. Realizing the need of the time, the present programme aims to give training on the Statistical tool ‘R-Software’. The participants will be exposed to the statistical background and fundamentals behind this tool along with training to use ‘R - Statistical Software’. They will also be trained and taught, how to do such analysis through ‘R- statistical software’ and how to interpret the outcomes. The programme will be beneficial to budding managers, researchers and academicians to gain exposure in data analysis. At the end of this programme, participants will have practical knowledge about managing, extracting, transforming, cleaning and visualizing data using R programming language. For further details please refer the brochure attached herewith. For registration and other information, contact: Mr. Ragesh T.S. / Mr. Puneet Kumar Programme Coordinators Faculty of Operations & Quantitative Techniques Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship Electronic City, Phase II, Hosur Road, Bangalore 560100, Karnataka, India Email: ragesh@xime.org / puneet@xime.org Mobile: +91-8123949520/ 9810371303 ------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Professional Colleague, Just over 4 weeks away and we’re delighted to officially announce the conference agenda and distinguished speaker line-up for the Institute Of Directors, India's annual 18th London Global Convention, which is being held on 24 - 27 October 2018 in London. This year's theme is ‘Board’s Transformational Strategy for Building a Sustainability Paradigm'. The famed ‘Golden Peacock Awards’ for Leadership, ‘Corporate Governance’ and ‘Sustainability’ and IOD Distinguished Fellowships will also be conferred, at a special Awards function on 25th October, 2018. With evolution of new technologies, a hailstorm of regulatory & management challenges, rising global economic uncertainties, today Boards are increasingly under pressure for good Corporate Governance and Sustainability. A large number of top leaders will be sharing their expertise and debating on a number of Boardroom issues for their Governance, Development, Sustainability & Inclusive Growth. 24 Oct : Global Business Meet & Dinner at House of Lords 25 & 26th Oct : Inaugural Session in the morning, day long Plenary Sessions, Golden Peacock Awards dinner at Hotel Montcalm Marble Arch 27 Oct : Visit to 'West London Business' and Business Meet Convention Details : https://iodglobal.com/london-global-convention-2018.html Agenda : https://iodglobal.com/images/lgc2018/programme-agenda-lgc2018.pdf Register online : http://www.iodglobal.com/london-global-convention-2018-onlineform.html Last year Report : Click Here This year again, it is a very high-level meet. Like last year, we are expecting over 400 business participants at this year’s Convention, from across sectors and industries. Principal Partner: Wadhawan Global Capital (WGC) | Principal Strategic Partner: ACCA | Gold Partners: World Gold Council, GHCL Ltd, Jeppiaar Engineering College, Apeejay Stya & Svran Group | Global Trade Partner: DMCC | Bronze Partner: ENOC | Associate Partners: AIMA, ICSI, ICAI , ICMAI , Trilegal..amongst others. With so many business participants in attendance, this is arguably the best opportunity to network with some of the biggest names in the business, all under one roof, which has emerged as one of the most consequential and successful corporate management platform. I have pleasure in inviting you and your organisation to participate in the above Convention. Registration is open for the Convention. IOD office, New Delhi will assist with all travel , Visa and logistics guidance needed, if any. My apologies, If you have already responded or it's not relevant to you. You may kindly ignore this or forward to a person who would be interested. The Rt. Hon. Lord Bates, Hon'ble Minister of State for International Development, Govt. of UK has kindly confirmed to address the Global Business Meet, at the House of Lords, UK Parliament. The Inaugural Address will be delivered by Mr. Shailesh Vara MP, Hon'ble Minister of State for Northern Ireland, Govt. of United Kingdom. The Guest of Honour at the specially organised Golden Peacock Awards felicitation ceremony, will be graced by Mr. Alok Sharma, MP, Hon'ble Minister of State for Employment, Department of Work and Pensions, Govt. of UK This year the Golden Peacock Global Award for Lifetime Achievement in Corporate Governance will be conferred upon Judge (Prof.) Mervyn E. King SC, Internationally recognised expert on Corporate Governance & Sustainability, Chairman of the King Committee on Corporate Governance, and former Judge, Supreme Court of South Africa. Previously the same was conferred upon the legend, Sir Adrian Cadbury in the year 2006 This year's 'IOD Distinguished Fellowships’ will be conferred upon Mr. Donald H. Brydon CBE, Chairman, London Stock Exchange Group and Sage Group, UK Sir Richard Stagg KCMG, Chairman, Rothschild India Pvt. Ltd., Former High Commissioner to India, Former Ambassador to Afghanistan & Bulgaria, UK. Some of the Distinguished Guests & Speakers for the forthcoming Convention, include: H.E. Dr. Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor, Group Chairman, Al Habtoor Group, UAE H.E. Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman, DMCC The Rt. Hon. Lord Swraj Paul of Marylebone, PC, Founder & Chairman, The Caparo Group Plc., UK H. E. Mr. Charanjit Singh IFS, Dy. High Commissioner of India to UK Mr. David Cruickshank, Global Chairman, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd., UK Ms. Ann Cairns, Vice Chairman, MasterCard Lord Karan Bilimoria CBE DL, Chairman, Cobra Beer Partnership, UK Ms. Shobana Kamineni, Executive Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited Mr. Michael Eckhart, Managing Director & Global Head of Environmental Finance and Sustainability, Citigroup, USA Mr. Vijay Karia, Chairman & Managing Director, Ravin Group of Companies, India Mr. Hari Sankaran, Vice Chairman & Managing Director, Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd. (IL&FS), India Mr. Kapil Wadhawan, Chairman, Wadhawan Global Capital (WGC), India Dr. Tayeb A. Kamali, Director General, Education and Training Development, Ministry of Interior, Govt. of UAE Mr. Gautam Sashittal, CEO, Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) Mr. K. S. Popli, Chairman and Managing Director, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd. (IREDA) Ms. Brahmani Nara, Executive Director - Heritage Foods and Trustee - NTR Memorial Trust, India Ms. Helen Brand OBE, CEO, Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), UK Mr. Terry Heymann, Chief Financial Officer, World Gold Council, UK Mr. Simon Jack, Business Editor, BBC- The British Broadcasting Corporation, UK Dr. Ajay Dua, IAS (retd.) Sr. Independent Director, Dabur India Ltd., & Aviva Life Insurance Co. India Ltd. and former Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Govt. of India Mr. Koushik Chatterjee, Group Executive Director (Finance and Corporate) & Member of the Board, Tata Steel Group Mr. Nikhil Rathi, Chief Executive Officer, London Stock Exchange plc Dr. Santrupt. B. Misra, CEO, Carbon Black Business and Director, Group Human Resources, Aditya Birla Group Mr. Kyle Whitehill, Chief Executive, Avanti Communications Group Mr. Atul Arvind Temurnikar, Co-founder & Chairman, Global Indian International School Pte Ltd Mr. Shailesh V. Haribhakti, FCA, Managing Partner, Haribhakti Group and Independent Director, Blue Star Ltd., L&T Finance Holding Ltd., ACC Ltd., Ambuja Cements Ltd., India Mrs. Sushma Paul Berlia, Co-Promoter and President, Apeejay Stya & Svran Group, India Mr. Iain Wright, Director of Corporate and Regional Engagement, ICAEW, Ex. MP, Minister and Chair of Business Committee, UK Prof. (Dr) Andrew Kakabadse, Emeritus Professor of International Management Development, Cranfield University, School of Management, UK Mr. Anthony B. M. Good, OBE, Chairman, Cox & Kings Limited CS Makarand Lele, President, The Institute of Company Secretaries of India Mr. Manu Kapur, President & CEO - Textiles, GHCL Ltd Ms. Sushma Rajagopalan, MD & CEO, ITC Infotech Mr. Neil Stevenson, Managing Director, Global Implementation, International Integrated Reporting Council Mr. James F. Reda, MD and Practice Leader, Executive Compensation, Gallagher HRCC, USA ...amongst many others. The Baroness Verma, Global Chairperson, Advisory Council, Institute of Directors, India and Chairperson, European External Affairs Committee is the chairperson of the Convention. Some of the participating leading organisations include Rolls-Royce Holdings plc (UK) | Dubai Customs (UAE) | Itron, Inc. (USA) | Emirates National Oil Company (UAE) | Nokia Corporation (Finland) | Knowledge Integration Services (Singapore) | Wärtsilä Corporation (Finland) | Genpact (USA) | Doha Bank (Qatar) | Marks & Spencer Group (UK) | SSE plc (UK) | British Orchard Nursery (UAE) | HeroMoto Corp | Tech Mahindra | Ashok Leyland | Maruti Suzuki | Shree Cement | Schneider Electric India | YES BANK | Godrej Consumer Products | HPCL | Reliance Industries | JSW Energy | NTPC | Grasim Industries | Delhi International Airport | Diageo India | Dell India | Transmission Corporation of Andhra Pradesh | Minda Corporation | ACC | L&T Finance Holdings | HDFC | Rural Electrification Corporation | GAIL | Hexaware Technologies | TAKE Solutions | Bharat Petroleum Corporation | Cipla | Apollo Tyres | Ircon International | RSWM . ...amongst many others. Look forward to hearing from you and also welcoming you at the Convention, in London. Warmest regards, Manoj Manoj K. Raut CEO & Director INSTITUTE OF DIRECTORS M-56 A, Greater Kailash Part-II (Market), New Delhi - 110048, INDIA Board Nos. : +91-11-41636294, 41636717, 41008704 , Fax : +91-11-41008705 Email: ceo.office@iodglobal.com | Web: www.iodglobal.com , www.goldenpeacockaward.com Follow us on : LinkedIN | Twitter ------------------------------------------------------------- A stretch of fancy stores in Connaught Place, New Delhi is among the loveliest sights in the city, with quaint shop-fronts opening on to tree-lined pavements. Recently, a point of tension occurred when the streets were dotted with empty shops, their landlords are unable to find tenants. Ecommerce will not demolish all retail trade. Stores that are distinctive in one way or another – because they offer excellent service, for instance, or unique products – will remain. In the longer run, the impact of ecommerce will not be limited to the conformist retail industry it is progressively replacing. It will also change how consumers spend their days, transform the landscape, disrupt workers’ lives, and reshape governments’ view of corporate power. Ecommerce has escorted in a golden age for consumers. They can choose from more products of better quality than ever before and spend far less time and effort to get what they want. It has become essential for complacent manufacturers to fight fiercely against the ecommerce revolution that is about to take over every country and continent. No wonder Amazon is the most popular company in America, according to a recent Harris Poll. But there are downsides, too. As debates over consumer privacy intensify, tracking online, at home, and in shops becomes ever more inescapable. Companies say they will anonymize and aggregate customer data collected by tracking, but their methods are opaque. The only reassurance given by the firms is “we will take care of it”, which doesn’t fulfil any criteria of satisfaction. Image: Unsplash The effects of ecommerce on the physical landscape are just beginning. So far, the most notable changes have been in rich countries, and particularly in India and China. As demand for physical shops ebbs, that for warehouses will surge. But what will happen to the shops that no longer have enough customers, and where will the new warehouses go? There is no easy way of turning one into the other. Companies want to build warehouses close to consumer hubs, but the malls are also the ones most likely to shut down. So warehouses will probably be built close to residential developments, with which they are already competing for land. Many regions of India are planning to build logistics centres and new homes side-by-side. Since land is scarce and expensive, warehouses will get taller, as many in Asia already are. For same-day deliveries, smaller distribution centres will spring up near central business districts. Rents there are likely to rise. The future for ailing stores is less certain. Many shops in big cities will remain, less as sales hubs than as showrooms. Rents for them will probably come down. But there may not be enough of those to take over all the retail space that will become vacant in the years ahead. That need not be a bad thing. In India, real retail wages have been flat for almost a decade. Technological change will improve productivity and create new types of work, and the jobs that remain will probably be better paid. But workers will need new skills as stores try to create more footfall. The question looming over all this is whether governments might step in. Chinese leaders may want to exert more control over their powerful technology giants. According to one report, the Chinese State is mulling a direct investment in some of them. Barring any dramatic intervention, however, the biggest ecommerce sites look set to get bigger. Amazon and Alibaba typify a new breed of conglomerate that benefits from network effects. The more shoppers firms can muster, the more sellers will flock to them, attracting yet more shoppers. These effects are turbocharged by the breadth of their businesses and the vast amount of data they generate. This does not mean they will dominate every sector or market, but their mere presence in an industry will reshape it. Ecommerce is changing landscapes in a big way and will continue to move markets along. In next decade, there will be unimaginable changes, from automated shipping vehicles (manifested as a drone service?) to improve delivery timings to the time when your pantry will get self-filled by smart-jars and kitchens – the potential cannot be visualized. The question is not if the ecommerce giants will keep upending retailing, manufacturing, and logistics – rather, it is which industry and part of society will they change next. ------------------------------------------------------------- However, 58 million net new jobs will be created in the next five years NEW DELHI, SEP 17 By 2025, more than half of all workplace tasks that exist today will be performed by machines, yet in terms of overall numbers, the robot revolution will create 58 million net new jobs in the next five years, says a study. According to a new research by the World Economic Forum (WEF), adoption of automation and robotics will bring a “seismic shift” in the way humans work alongside machines and algorithms. However, in terms of overall numbers of new jobs, the outlook is positive. The surveyed companies report that at present, 71 per cent of total current task hours are performed by humans, compared to 29 per cent by machines. By 2022, this average is expected to shift to 58 per cent task hours performed by humans, 42 per cent by machines. By 2025, machines will perform 52 per cent of the total task hours. “Despite bringing widespread disruption, the advent of machine, robots and algorithm could actually have a positive impact on human employment. Our projection, based on a survey of executives representing 15 million employees in 20 economies, suggests globally 133 million jobs could be created by technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution compared while 75 million could be displaced,” WEF said. While a net positive job growth is expected, there will be a significant shift in the “quality, location, format and permanency of new roles”, WEF said. “Businesses are set to expand their use of contractors doing task-specialised work, engage workers in more flexible arrangements, utilise remote staffing and modify the locations where their organisation operates to ensure access to talent,” the research, titled ‘The Future of Jobs 2018’ said. Key challenge Among the roles set to experience increasing demand across all industries are data analysts and scientists, software and applications developers, e-commerce and social media specialists, all of which are significantly based on or enhanced by technology. “It is critical that businesses take an active role in supporting their existing workforces through reskilling and upskilling, that individuals take a proactive approach to their own lifelong learning, and that governments create an enabling environment to facilitate this workforce transformation. This is the key challenge of our time,” said Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the WEF. Roles that distinctly leverage ‘human skills’ such as sales and marketing professions, innovation managers and customer service workers, are also set to experience increasing demand, WEF noted. Jobs expected to become redundant include routine-based white-collar roles, such as data entry clerks, accounting and payroll clerks. “For businesses to remain dynamic, differentiated and competitive in an age of machines, they must in fact invest in their human capital. There is both a moral and economic imperative to do so. Without proactive approaches, businesses and workers may lose out on the economic potential of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, said Saadia Zahidi, Head of the Centre for the New Economy and Society at the WEF. The latest edition of the Future of Jobs Report covered over 300 global companies from a wide range of industry sectors. Survey responses represent more than 15 million employees, and 20 developed and emerging economies which collectively represent about 70 per cent of global GDP. ------------------------------------------------------------- arlier this month, Amazon India introduced the Hindi interface of its mobile website and app in India. And now, the e-retail giant is introducing another interesting feature for its users in India. The Seattle-headquartered e-retailer is introducing Amazon Pay EMI for its mobile users in India. The newly introduced feature enables users to make purchases from the site without having to pay the entire amount in a single go. The newly introduced feature enables users to get instant credit and pay via EMIs using their debit cards. The American e-retail giant has partnered with Capital Float to let users link their debit cards to pay their EMIs automatically. Banks eligible for EMI payments include-- HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Canara Bank, CITI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank. The company says that in time it will add more banks to the list to facilitate EMI payments. Notably users can make payments over EMI in a time period spanning between 3 months to 12 months. But there is a catch, the Amazon Pay EMI feature is available only for single purchases above Rs 8,000. The maximum limit up to which users can avail the feature is Rs 60,000. Besides this, the company says that feature is not available on the purchases made with exchange offer. Here's how you can register for Amazon's Pay EMI feature: Step 1: In the first step, users will have to provide their PAN card number and Aadhaar number (or any other virtual ID) for verification. The e-retailer will then send an OTP to the users' Aadhaar-linked mobile number. The verification process will be complete when users enters the OTP in their mobile apps. Once the users have entered the OTP, individual users' credit limit will be displayed on their mobile screens, which will be decided by Capital Float based on their credit bureau already available with the company. Step 2: In the next step, users will have to accept their Amazon Pay EMI limit and loan agreement. Step 3: In the final step, users will have to give their debit card details to link their bank accounts so that EMI are deducted automatically whenever the feature is used. ALSO READ: Amazon India mobile website, app are now available in Hindi At present, the Amazon Pay EMI is available for select users only. Other users will have to wait for their invite to use the newly launched feature. ------------------------------------------------------------- India is a country renowned for its bustling tech start-up scene. But it's the hospitality industry that's making waves with workers, according to LinkedIn's list of top start-ups in India to work for in 2018. Five-year-old hospitality company OYO Rooms stole pole position in the rankings this year after building a team of loyal staff in India and beyond. Dubbed "OYOpreneurs," employees are encouraged from day one to embrace a sense of ownership in the business and help shape the firm as it rapidly expands. Elsewhere, transportation, fitness and insurance proved they were among the industries ripe for disruption in the fast-evolving country. CNBC Make It takes a look at the full list of the 25 most attractive start-ups in India right now. 25. Exadatum Global headcount: 70 Headquarters: Pune Product development company Exadatum helps businesses make sense of large volumes of data by providing them with analytics tools. Since launching in Pune in 2016, the team has developed particular expertise in artificial intelligence and machine learning. The business also has a base in New York and is actively looking for new recruits with Java, Python and C++ skills. 24. Meesho Global headcount: Bengaluru Headquarters: 225 Meesho is a social commerce platform that helps small businesses and individuals start online stores via social sites such as Instagram and Facebook. Shortly after launching in late 2015, the young start-up became one of three Indian companies to be given a place on the highly-coveted Y Combinator program - a start-up accelerator that helps fund new entrepreneurial ventures. The program has helped shape the likes of Airbnb and Coinbase. 23. Shuttl Global headcount: 300 Headquarters: Gurugram Shuttl is an app-based transport service for commuters. The business launched in 2015 to improve the country's often disorganized public transport system by allowing users to pre-book journeys on affordable, air-conditioned buses. It currently supports over 45,000 rides daily in seven cities including Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, but plans to grow that number tenfold in the coming year, doubling its number of employees in the process. A promotional image of a Shuttl bus in India Shuttl A promotional image of a Shuttl bus in India 22. InterviewBit Global headcount: 45 Headquarters: Pune InterviewBit helps jobseekers prepare for tech interviews, particularly in the software engineering space. The company provides users with a plan on how to prepare for their interviews, practice coding problems, as well as access to mentors and feedback. It plans to hire 50 employees within the next 12 months. 21. Upgrad Global headcount: 390 Headquarters: Mumbai Education site UpGrad.com offers industry-relevant courses in subjects such as digital marketing, data science and product management. The business claims to have helped more than 300 users upskill and shift careers in the past year, and now plans to expand its service to Southeast Asia and the Middle East. 20. SigTuple Global headcount: 120 Headquarters: Bengaluru SigTuple aims to make medical screening tests more accurate by applying insights from robotics and artificial intelligence. Around 70 percent of the company's 120 employees are new to healthcare but have expertise in data science, software and intellectual property. 19. Udaan Global headcount: 400 Headquarters: Bengaluru Founded by three former Flipkart executives, Udaan.com is an online marketplace for businesses to buy and sell food, clothing and electronics. The start-up reached unicorn status — the term for a company with a valuation of $1 billion — just two years after launch. In the last 12 months, the firm has almost doubled its headcount. 18. BrowserStack Global headcount: 165 Headquarters: Mumbai As many as two million developers and more than 25,000 paying customers — including Disney, Tesco and Facebook — use BrowserStack's mobile app and website-testing platform. After several years of bootstrapping, the Mumbai-headquartered start-up recently won $50 million in investment, in the largest series A funding round in India's tech history. 17. Zapr Media Labs Global headcount: 110 Headquarters: Bengaluru Media analytics company Zapr provides insights on TV viewership for broadcasters, advertisers and media agencies. Within the next year, the company plans to open up 70 new positions in data analytics, audio processing and other non-engineering functions. 16. Jumbotail Global headcount: 125 Headquarters: Bengaluru Bengaluru-based Jumbotail is an online grocery marketplace for small businesses. The young start-up, which launched in 2015, has also started providing credit for shop-owners via partnerships with third-party lenders. 15. InCred Global headcount: 1,000 Headquarters: Mumbai InCred provides personal, education and home loans as well as credit to small and medium-sized businesses. The company's high profile backers include former Deutsche Bank co-CEO Anshu Jain. 14. Treebo Hotels Global headcount: 795 Headquarters: Bengaluru With a name that stems from the "Bo Tree" under which Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment, budget accommodation chain Treebo Hotel says it offers shelter at its simplest - just like trees do. In just three years, the start-up has amassed a portfolio of 9,000 rooms, but cost-saving measures meant it had to cut its headcount by 10 percent, according to media reports in July. 13. Acko General Insurance Global headcount: 115 Headquarters: Mumbai Digital insurance firm Acko General Insurance offers personalized policies based on user behavior. Based in Mumbai, the start-up has received tens of millions of dollars in funding, including from major companies like Amazon. 12. Schbang Global headcount: 240 Headquarters: Mumbai Digital marketing and advertising agency Schbang has run campaigns for the likes of Hot Wheels, Amazon Fashion and RAW Pressery. With 240 staff between its Mumbai and Bangaluru offices, the three-year-old company hopes to expand internationally in the coming year. 11. Innov8 Coworking Global headcount: 75 Headquarters: New Delhi Coworking office network Innov8 has grown quickly since receiving backing from Y-Combinator. It now boasts 13 centers across the country. The firm also aspires to add another 100 employees this year and treble its seat count to 12,000 in the same period. One of Innov8's co-working spaces in Delhi. Innov8 One of Innov8's co-working spaces in Delhi. 10. Nineleaps Global headcount: 200 Headquarters: Bengaluru Nineleaps helps other start-ups with their product development by providing web and mobile app services. Having doubled its headcount since July 2017, the ambitious business has now set its sights on hiring a further 300 staff and expanding to Singapore and Indonesia in the coming year. 9. Razorpay Global headcount: 230 Headquarters: Bengaluru Four-year-old Razorpay provides payment solutions for more than 100,000 businesses. In a bid to ensure employees are aware of client needs, all staff are required to take customer support calls for four hours every month, regardless of seniority. 8. The Minimalist Global headcount: 60 Headquarters: Mumbai Design agency Minimalist started as a Facebook page for witty content, but now works with clients including Coca Cola and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. For staff who feel they don't get enough of their colleagues while at work, there are weekly team building activities arranged by the human resource department every Saturday. 7. Republic World Global headcount: 400 Headquarters: Mumbai Republic TV, part of the Republic World group, is an English-language news television channel set up by Indian journalist and anchor Arnab Goswami and politician Rajeev Chandrasekhar in 2016. The channel is often accused of having a pro-establishment stance. It plans to set up a Hindi news channel ahead of India's 2019 general elections. 6. LBB - Little Black Book Global headcount: 80 Headquarters: Delhi Little Black Book started as a Tumblr blog, but has since morphed into a digital platform for cultural news and events. Its coverage ranges from food and fashion to theater and shopping across eight major Indian cities. The business has offices across Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai. 5. Digit Insurance Global headcount: 630 Headquarters: Bengaluru Online insurer Digit Insurance aims to simplify policy processes and claims to approve 87 percent of claims within 24 hours. It also provides customers with mobile notifications when they are entitled to a claim, for instance if their flight is delayed by more than 75 minutes. 4. Rivigo Global headcount: 3,700 Headquarters: Gurugram Logistics business Rivigo uses a driver relay model to speed up delivery services for clients including Marks & Spencer, ITC and Maruti Suzuki. The four-year-old start-up plans to hire 5,000 people over the next year and scale up its fleet, warehouses and technology. Employees work at the Rivigo Services Pvt. headquarters in Gurgaon, Haryana, India, on Monday, May 2, 2016. Bloomberg | Getty Images Employees work at the Rivigo Services Pvt. headquarters in Gurgaon, Haryana, India, on Monday, May 2, 2016. 3. Dunzo Global headcount: 160 Headquarters: Bengaluru Google's first start-up investment in India, Dunzo, is a services app which allows users to hire staff to complete tasks for them. The firm has quickly become a verb in the country, with customers "dunzoing" everything from grocery shopping to laundry. 2. Cure.Fit Global headcount: 120 Headquarters: Bengaluru Wellness start-up Cure.Fit has four offerings: no-equipment gyms, health food, primary care, plus yoga and meditation centers. The company raised $120 million from existing investors and acquired premium gym chain Fitness First in a deal worth $30 million to $35 million. 1. OYO Rooms Global headcount: 4,700 Headquarters: Gurugram Topping this year's list is hospitality start-up OYO Rooms. In five short years, it has become India's largest hotel network boasting 100,000 rooms in 230 cities. Over the last nine months, the budget hotel has also expanded internationally, launching in Malaysia, China and the U.K. To be considered for this year's list, companies needed to be privately held, be seven years old or younger, and have 50 or more employees. LinkedIn then looked at the activity of its own users - which exceed more than 500 million - in order to factor in employee growth, job seeker interest and engagement with the company on the platform. It also assessed how well the upstarts were able to attract talent away from the established players on LinkedIn's Top Companies list. ------------------------------------------------------------- The accelerated globalization and rise in working population have created a huge demand for smarter office spaces. The concept of aesthetically-sound and serviced office workspaces has evolved fast in recent past. The demand for fun and interactive workspaces has reverberated with more number of young people joining in. The young generation is very passionate towards their way of working and for them smarter workspaces have become a symbol of lifestyle which has changed the work culture. Collaborative or shared workspaces have evolved workspace where an individual need not worry about anything, since all is taken care of by the service provider. The Business Centre and Co-working Spaces are fostering a paradigm shift in the way India works. The concept of Business Centre and Co-working Space is eventually catching like a forest fire across the globe for the past few years. India – a country with the second largest labour force in the world – also has not remained immune to the winds of this change. Business Centres are a huge part of the US and the UK office space markets, which has slowly become an evident part of India’s workspace as well. A Business Centre is the preferred choice for serviced office spaces over co-working spaces from international organisations to start-ups, who need support infrastructure like voice and HD video-conferencing facilities, concierge services, meeting rooms, hospitality services, facilities management, business support services, live & interactive cafes and 24/7 Tech support services. The organizations are now rapidly shifting from co-working spaces to Business Centres (especially Serviced Offices) due to issues in business and sound privacy, poaching of employees, too many unproductive events, and no dedicated SPOCs. In addition, most business centres also offer virtual offices which permit one to have a proficient business addresses along with all the rest services, but devoid of having a physical office. Cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad have emerged as top preferred locations. With the passing time, the concept of smarter workspace is also spreading in the tier-II cities of the country. [Ad]Earning above 30000? Apply for a LIFETIME FREE Credit Card! Get upto Rs 1000 AMAZON voucher. Apply now on BankBazaar. According to real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), Gurugram has become a preferred destination for Indian and multinational companies in the NCR. The diversified culture of Gurugram makes it an important destination of Business Centres. The city also has a large number of young population, which offers a larger number of Business Centres for flexible working options at affordable rentals. The future of these new workspaces is expected to be bright with the demand in the sector rising like never before. ------------------------------------------------------------- Starting a new business can be exciting and stressful at the same time, filled with long hours and a lot of living on an extremely tight budget in hopes of getting your business up and running. There are a lot of misconceptions about how the business world works, but we’re here to set the record straight so you can successfully get your e-commerce business up and running. Here’s a look at some of the most important myths and realities you should know before starting an e-commerce business. The Myth: Build it, they will come Back in the 1990s, when the Internet was essentially brand new, websites were popping up at rates so fast it was causing whiplash. Unfortunately, many of these fly-by-night websites didn’t do anything or offer anything by way of products and services. They were just websites, filling up space. The Reality: Substantial Content is Essential The biggest mistake you can make when starting an e-commerce company is assuming just because you have a clever name and lots of high resolution pictures people will magically appear and start buying from you. Ask yourself this question: “When has this ever happened in the real world?” You should quickly realize it hasn’t. It doesn’t work in the online world, either. You need to have solid substance on your site, solving a problem people have or answering their questions. Make sure you do your legwork beforehand to know what these problems and questions are and the effective ways to answer them. The Myth: You Don’t Need any Experience Prospective business owners are constantly told they don’t need any experience to build a successful online company. This is typically the pitch from get-rich-quick scammers who are proving to every sucker who pays them the truth of inexperience: it’s very costly. The Reality: You Do Would you ever consider starting a brick-and-mortar store in the real world if you had no idea what you were doing? You’d be out of business before you got started, for one simple reason: Your competitors do know what they’re doing. Not only do you need to fully understand the type of e-commerce business you’re starting, you need to know the fundamentals of online commerce. These include things like electronic payments, shopping carts, product catalogs, social media (social commerce), networking, and commerce, social proof, marketing and advertising, and driving traffic to your website. The Myth: Low Prices are the Most Important Thing If all things were equal then price would be the deciding factor. In a perfect world, all things would be equal, but we live in a different kind of world, and it is the imperfections that allow for e-commerce business owners to find a competitive edge. The Reality: Most Businesses Can’t Live on Low Prices There is plenty of consumer research showing price is not the most important factor in a purchasing decision. To be a low-price leader a business generally has to have massive buying power. Consider Home Depot, Target, Wal-Mart, and Costco. They buy more products in a day than most companies will sell in a year. This translates directly to pricing smaller companies generally can’t get. The edge for any business comes in the form of customer service. For e-commerce merchants this comes in the form of: Hands-on, concierge-style service A means for customers to rate products and leave feedback An active social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube at a bare minimum Fast response to customer inquiries Easy-to-use website and shopping cart A willingness to meet your customers’ needs Consider the reasons you’re willing to spend more than you have to for the products and services you purchase and you’ll discover it does come down to the little things merchants to do make your shopping experience pleasant and agreeable. Emulate the things you like from your shopping experiences into your new e-commerce business. The Myth: No Business Plan Necessary The big lie here is that online e-commerce businesses are somehow different than traditional brick-and-mortar businesses. Aside from the lack of physical presence in the real world, there is little difference. The Reality: Business Plans are Essential A business is a business whether it’s totally in the real world, totally in the virtual world, or a combination of both. A business plan is the blueprint of your business, and writing one is the first step in creating your new e-commerce business. Business plans address aspects of your business, including: The overall vision and mission of the company Biographies of essential personnel Market research Defining your competitive edge Financial requirements and consideration Legal and regulatory requirements for your business When you write a business plan you are fully familiarizing yourself with what you’re proposing to start. The process gives you a chance to finely hone the ideas that will propel your e-commerce company toward success. Also, if you don’t know everything there is to know about your new business, who does? If that person is not you then you’re on a fool’s errand and setting yourself up for failure. The Myth: All e-commerce Products are Alike Without a fundamental understand of shopping carts and payment platforms, it’s easy to just assume they all do the same things in the same ways. The Reality: You Wouldn’t Want Them to Be While the functionality of product catalogs, shopping carts, and payment platforms does follow certain fundamental aspects of commerce, no two are truly the same. If you’re a small company with a handful of products, you certainly don’t need the same e-commerce solution as Amazon. The complexity of your e-commerce solution can directly impact the shopping experience. If you are a small shop with a small catalog, your goal is to get your customers from product page to checkout as quickly as possible. Take the time to research e-commerce solutions and choose the solution that best fits the size of your company. The Myth: There are no Roadblocks to Online Success A lot of scammers will have you believe there’s nothing to starting an e-commerce business and instantly being successful. This is more of that “build it, they will come” mentality, which we’ve established is wrong. The Reality: Success Takes Hard Work Businesses face daily roadblocks to success and it doesn’t matter whether you’re starting a brick-and-mortar business or an online shopping portal. Online businesses have their own sets of challenges, the least of which is meeting the demands of customers who prefer shopping with mobile devices. Some of the challenges you’ll face and have to address when starting an online e-commerce company include making your site mobile-responsive, having a defined social media strategy, as well as creating and using coupons and promo codes. ------------------------------------------------------------- Virat Kohli is the manifestation of a culture that values personalities more than it does process, prioritises individual achievements over collective ones, and equates leadership with excellence. This isn’t unique to India; nor is it unique to sport. It is something that can be seen across domains - from politics to business to entertainment - and has become so much a part of how we see things that we are usually blind to it. To offer a recent example, just this week, newspaper headlines celebrated Kohli’s 10,000 runs in One Day Internationals (ODIs), not making much of the fact that India could only tie a match against a team that would probably figure in the middle of the Ranji Trophy rankings. There is no denying Kohli’s individual brilliance, even genius. He is perhaps the only contemporary batsman who will figure among the top two across formats. Across generations, he will probably figure among the top five - again, across formats - and given his age (he is 29, and can play for a decade more given his fitness), this ranking will likely improve. He has scored runs at home and abroad, on surfaces of all kinds, and against attacks of all types. And except for one season against James Anderson at his prime , and on English wickets, Kohli has never looked beaten - not even when dismissed in the 20s or 30s. Not even Sachin Tendulkar can claim that; indeed, the only modern batsman who can is the King (Viv Richards). Nor can it be argued that captaincy has affected Kohli’s batting. If anything, it has only made it so much better. His Test batting average in matches he has captained is around 12 higher than his overall average, which is around the mid-fifties. In ODIs, this difference is around 24 higher (and his overall average is nudging 60). There can be no better demonstration of leading from the front. His record as a captain isn’t bad either. In ODIs, his win percentage is a little over 75%; the only captain (minimum 50 matches) with a higher (marginally higher) win proportion is Clive Lloyd. In Tests, it is a healthy 57.14%. The numbers are marred to some extent by his away record in Tests - only two wins outside the sub-continent - but every other way one looks at it, Kohli seems the real deal. Read more Virat Kohli gets philosophical while talking about 10000 run milestone, says ‘scoring runs for team is his duty’ India vs West Indies: Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni in the race to achieve same record Yet, the Indian team led by Kohli, despite all its (relative) success will find it difficult to figure among the all-time great teams of cricket, and not just because of its pathetic away record in Tests. For one, especially in Tests, there is an unsettled look to it - Kohli has almost never led the same team in two successive Tests, and the reason hasn’t always been injuries to key players. The captain’s obsession with strike rate in Test cricket hasn’t paid off; his bias towards finger-spin in ODIs has better results to show. And while Kohli’s own performance after he became captain has improved, the same cannot be said of many others, including those who once seemed destined for greater things. By virtue of his talent, his personality, and, most importantly, the state of cricket administration in India, Kohli is the most powerful person in Indian cricket. India’s current cricket administration is characterised by in-fighting, legal oversight, and court appointed administrators who are very removed from the all-powerful mandarins who once ran Indian cricket. No one has the power to cross India’s cricket captain; and no one wants to. As a result, Kohli is perhaps the only cricket captain around the world who gets to pick not just the team but also the support staff. The former coach Anil Kumble didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye with Kohli and everyone knows how that ended. There is also more to leadership than individual excellence. A team is like any other organisation; the best teams are like the best organisations and, to borrow from Peter Drucker, deliver extraordinary results using a bunch of ordinary people. Good leaders work on three dimensions: capabilities; motivations; and strategy. This translates both into processes and behaviours. These have straightforward parallels in modern sport where success is a function of talent, fitness and training (capabilities); attitude and belief (motivations); and strategy. The current Indian cricket team scores well on the first dimension, although it can do so much better in the training front - especially if it gets the kind of coaches it needs, not those its captain wants. It does reasonably well (not as well as the first, though) on the second dimension - although the lack of communication and fickle selection policies have made several players, experienced as well as new, insecure. And it does poorly on the third - just being captain doesn’t make a person the smartest cricketing brain in the country. The best leaders are those who recognise their limitations and work to address these. In Kohli’s case, these have nothing to do with his own cricket or the impact captaincy has had on it and everything to do with managing people and outthinking the opposition. The sooner he realises it, the sooner he will become the greatest cricket captain India has ever had. ------------------------------------------------------------- If there is one sector that has transformed immensely in the last few years, it is the digital payments industry. It has brought in efficiencies and provided a multiplatform approach to sectors like banking, utility, benefit and subsidy transfers, retail etc. The aim has been to make the payment experience smooth and simple, while making businesses more efficient and less dependent on cash. The means through which one can pay has also grown from physical cards and cheques to QR codes, UPI (Unified Payments Interface) and contactless payments. The abundance of payment methods is not just a sudden occurrence after demonetization. Some have been there for a few years while some saw a growth spurt after 2016. It does not ring the death knell for more “traditional” methods like cards either. Credit and debit cards have been around for decades and continue to be heavily used for cashless payment. Even in developed, mature markets like Europe, different methods like cards, NFC (near field communication), QR codes and e-wallets continue to coexist and serve different customer needs and segments. In India too, new modes like wallets, UPI and the like have merely expanded the digital payments pie. [Ad]Earning above 30000? Apply for a LIFETIME FREE Credit Card! Get upto Rs 1000 AMAZON voucher. Apply now on BankBazaar. The digital payment scenario in India today may look a bit confusing and overwhelming with so much going on. But take a step back and you realize that it is only the instrument type and form factor that make up a payment. Payment instruments are essentially of two types — debit and credit. Debit instruments allow one to spend from an amount already stored in an account or prepaid instrument while credit instruments provide a facility to spend through borrowing from an institution on certain conditions for repayment. These are manifested in the forms of card payments, internet banking, mobile wallets, prepaid cards, UPI, QR codes etc. The payment then happens through devices like mobile phones, computers or POS terminals. India is fairly equipped in terms of infrastructure to handle voluminous transactions that happen through digital channels every day. After demonetization, payment service providers have built capacities, so much so that we are safely future proofed to handle millions of transactions and peak volumes. Acceptance infrastructure of POS terminals and QR codes continue to grow and enable digital payments everywhere. As payment systems evolve and grow, the scope for electronic payments is bound to grow in tandem, as a result of which consumers will move from small ticket retail payments to making large ticket purchases through cards and other digital payment mechanisms. ------------------------------------------------------------- Market Flash – September 10, 2018 Sensex, Nifty fall around 1%; rupee hits 72.28/$ Benchmark indices are trading in a negative zone following Asian markets after US President Donald Trump raised the stakes in the heated trade dispute with China. Meanwhile, rupee also opened at fresh record low of Rs 72.27/$, contributing to the weak sentiment. At 10:10 AM, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 38,130, down 259 points or 0.7%. Market breadth was negative and out of a total of 2,076 shares traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange, 924 advanced while 1,051 declined and 126 remained unchanged. The Nifty50 was down 83 points or 0.7% at 11,507. 10-year Indian G-Sec yields were trading at 8.109% in morning against the previous close of 8.031%. Market declined last week amid broadly negative global cues due to heightened worries over international trade conflicts. Sentiment was also affected by the Indian rupee hitting a record low and rising crude oil prices. In the week ended Friday, September 7, 2018, the S&P BSE Sensex fell 255 points or 0.66% to settle at 38,390. The Nifty50 index fell 91 points or 0.78% to settle at 11,589. GLOBAL MARKETS Asian shares started the week in the red again on Monday, faltering for the eighth straight day and the dollar climbed against major currencies after Trump threatened tariffs on a further $267 billion worth of Chinese imports, on top of earlier promises to levy duties on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was last down 0.7%, piling on losses from last week when it dropped 3.5% for its worst weekly showing since mid-March. Japan’s Nikkei opened lower but quickly pared losses after revised second-quarter gross domestic product data showed the world’s third-biggest economy grew at its fastest pace since 2016. Chinese shares were also down with the blue-chip index off 1% while Shanghai’s SSE Composite stumbled 0.7%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slipped 0.9%. US stocks closed lower Friday after US President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on a further $267 billion worth of Chinese imports, on top of earlier promises to levy duties on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. While the US tariffs on $200 billion Chinese goods have not been implemented, Trump said they could "take place very soon, depending on what happens with them." US jobs report that showed that 201,000 jobs were added in the month of August. INDIAN RUPEE The rupee slumped to a fresh record low of 72.18 by falling 45 paise against the US dollar due to strong demand for the US currency from importers and strengthening of dollar against other currencies overseas on upbeat jobs data. At the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market, the local currency opened at a record low of 72.15 a dollar from its previous close of 71.73 and slipped to hit a fresh low of 72.18, down by 45 paise. It had breached its previous record low of 72.11 hit on September 6. CRUDE OIL Oil prices rose on Monday as US drilling for new production stalled and as the market eyed tighter conditions once Washington's sanctions against Iran's crude exports kick in from November. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $68.19 per barrel at 0344 GMT, up 44 cents, or 0.65%, from their last settlement. Brent crude futures climbed 50 cents, or 0.65%, to $77.33 a barrel. WEEK AHEAD Indian equity indices would be driven by macroeconomic data, progress of monsoon, trend in global markets, investment by foreign portfolio investors and domestic institutional investors, the movement of rupee against the dollar and crude oil price movement. Indian stock market will remain shut on Thursday, September 13, 2018, on account of Ganesh Chaturthi. July industrial production and August CPI inflation will be announced on Wednesday. WPI inflation data for August will be announced on Friday. On the global front, China's consumer price inflation data for August will be unveiled today. European Central Bank (ECB) will decide on interest rate on Thursday. US core inflation data for August 2018 will be declared on Thursday whereas US Retail sales data for August 2018 will be declared on Friday. ------------------------------------------------------------- : Tilak Raj Bathla's tiny weaving factory is one of the few still humming on a once busy road in the northern city of Panipat, known as the country's "textile city". Nearby, more than two dozen other workshops are locked from the outside, while dogs and cows roam through other abandoned factories. Scrap dealers enquire about idle powerlooms. India launched the Goods and Services Tax (GST) just over a year ago, its biggest ever tax reform, aiming to replace more than a dozen federal and state levies and unify the sprawling economy. The move improved economic efficiency but critics say the complexities of the new regime have driven many small enterprises out of business and forced hundreds of thousands out of jobs. For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the drawbacks of the GST, especially the job losses, could prove costly in major state elections later this year and a general election in mid-2019. Bathla says his neighbours, most of them unschooled, could not comply with monthly online filings required under the GST regime. Some of his customers and suppliers could not afford to hire accountants to navigate a system which has been amended more than 200 times already, while others struggled to cope with delays in tax returns caused by glitches in the centralised software. "I have a GST registration, but I can't work as my vendors and buyers are unable to comply with a complex tax structure," the 50-year-old said, adding his monthly sales had fallen to about 250,000 rupees($3,511) from about one million rupees before the GST. Only two of his 10 powerlooms are currently being used. The government has said it is simplifying the tax measure to make it accessible to everyone. Finance Ministry spokesman D.S. Malik said requests from small businesses have been considered "from time to time." But he declined to comment on job losses. Nevertheless, India's economy gathered pace in the April-June quarter, expanding 8.2 percent compared to 5.6 percent in the same period a year earlier. Economists said the number was coming off a low base as companies held off production in the year-ago period ahead of the implementation of the tax measure in July last year. But while big firms have since shaken off the effects of the change and are set to gain from a uniform tax regime, small businesses across the country are still hurting. A survey by the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) in July found that a fifth of India's 63 million small businesses – contributing 32 percent to the economy and employing 111 million people - faced a 20 percent fall in profits since the GST rollout, and had to sack hundreds of thousands of workers. Readymade garments, gems and jewellery, leather, handicraft and basic machinery manufacturing are hit the most, industry bodies from across the country say. According to estimates by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a Mumbai-based consultancy, nearly five million workers lost their jobs over the past year. But it was not clear how many were from small enterprises. India's unemployment rate rose to 6.4 percent in August from 4.1 percent in July last year despite an additional 17 million people joining the workforce. But it did not give data on how many people were laid off or from which industries. India's labour ministry releases jobs data once in five years, last reporting unemployment at 5 percent in 2015/16 (April-March). More than 50 workers and factory owners Reuters spoke with in Panipat, about 90 km (55 miles) north of New Delhi, said over a third of the city's 10,000 weaving units had closed or curbed production. Chand Multani, president of the Panipat Handloom Owners' Association, pointed to the tax headaches behind a bedsheet that costs barely $2 dollar as an example. The weaving of the sheet, its dyeing, ironing, embroidering and packaging are all done by separate businesses. Under the new system, each business has to pay GST at each stage of production which the businesses can claim back provided they have registered with tax authorities and have a GST number. For a lot of small businessmen this is way too much work. "How can all these different operations comply with tax rules?" asked Multani, waving the sheet in the air. The GST replaced several federal and local taxes and tore down tariff barriers between India's 29 states, but critics say that has been to the benefit mainly of large, nationwide businesses. For Panasonic Appliances, India's leading electric goods maker, GST has meant cutting costs by 4-5 percentage points, for example. India's consumer goods stock index has risen 26 percent in the past year, outpacing the broader Mumbai market. "GST ... has improved the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector," Panasonic India CEO Manish Sharma said. Modi, in an Independence Day speech on Aug 15, said the businesses that faced "teething difficulties in adopting GST had accepted the challenge and the country is now moving ahead." But Rahul Gandhi, his main challenger in next year's election, has zeroed in on the job losses and shuttered businesses. "This GST is a way of removing money from the pockets of the poor," he said last month. "This is not GST, this is Gabbar Singh Tax," he said, referring to the villain in one of Indian cinema's most popular movies. Modi's popularity fell below 50 percent in July from 53 percent in January, while Gandhi's rose to 27 percent, up from 22 percent, according to a survey by India Today magazine. Eighteen months ago, the score was 65 percent to 10. To address grievances, the GST Council, which administers the tax measure, has approved more than 200 amendments since the law came into force. MS Mani, senior partner at Deloitte, said too many changes to rules and rates were damaging, particularly for small businesses. The Federation of Indian Export Organisations estimates that nearly $2 billion of tax credits, mainly of small exporters, were yet to be refunded, mainly because of software glitches in the system and the difficulties in matching the hundreds of thousands of invoices. About 230,000 small businesses have closed down due to compliance and cash flow problems, leading to large-scale job losses, said Amarjit Kaur, national secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress. "GST has proved a death warrant for us," Ravinder Kashyap, 22, who lost his job as a powerloom operator earlier this year, said in a small rented room in Panipat that he shares with four friends. He said his employer had lost sales orders because of the mess caused by the tax and so had let him off along with scores of others. "If this carries on for one or two years, we'll have to commit suicide." ------------------------------------------------------------- India’s wealth management landscape is becoming more focused on robo advisory platforms. Vidhu Shekhar, country head, India, CFA Institute, a global association for investment management professionals, spoke to Mint about the shift, adding that there are still a few years to go before this segment evolves and matures. To what extent can an AI or robo advisory platform take away from human advisors as the market grows? Whatever is happening in the West (developed markets) will happen in India too, sooner or later. Simple things are getting automated. If you see Betterment or Wealthfront (automated, online financial advisors), once you open an account, all the analysis, asset allocation and outcome is taken care of by the system. You could have a premium account as well with access to a financial advisor. It is not an either/or situation. At some point, you start getting help from real people. The idea is that through technology you can reach out to a much larger market. People who were until now either not able to afford or have access to a wealth advisor, now have a way out. Like in any other business, when large established firms realise that startups are disrupting their business, they evolve and adopt similar strategies. Eventually it plays out— whoever is better will win over the market. In India, you know that the demographics are favourable. In every demographic segment—high net worth individuals, the mass affluent and regular bank account holders—there is a very strong growth, so demand is there. Right now we don’t see a lot of it but I think, to start with, most platforms are simple—for mutual funds. Even in the US, product complexity will keep increasing. This new field will evolve into a mature industry in the next two-three years and the competitive dynamics will change. How does one distinguish between the various AI platforms and pick the best one? The one thing we didn’t talk about was the quality of advice. Doctors take an oath to do no harm, most of our advisors are doing active harm to customers, knowingly or unknowingly. Incentives ultimately decide what you do. At the very least, in a robo advisory platform, which is very simple, the potential to do harm is minimised. It’s unbelievable what the bank did with Suchitra Krishnamoorthy’s money, for example. Both incompetence and lack of ethics are standing in the way of providing the right service to the ultimate client. Maybe robo advisors working with actual advisors will improve this situation. Sebi (Securities Exchange Board of India, the capital market regulator) has been pushing advisors away from commissions and towards fees because of all the mis-selling. Everybody will have to respond to the push coming from the regulator. An AI system also ultimately relies on human intelligence. But, say, you are tuning the system to make more commissions for itself, maybe it will do the same. This is where the regulator’s responsibility does not go away and the regulator must have a different set of capabilities to manage this. Can there be regulatory provisions to dis-align incentives from conflict? Incentives always trump ethics. There is no difference between this industry and any other; it’s the same human nature. If you give an incentive for wrongdoing, it will happen. Something I read recently comes to mind, the writer quoted Paul McNulty, a former US deputy attorney general, “If you think compliance is expensive, try non-compliance.” People at the top of all these big banks are recognising that they can’t allow things to continue as it is. Big international banks are taking this very seriously. In India, if Sebi does the right things, that shift will happen here as well. You must operate at three different levels—at the individual level, firm level and at the system level. At the system level also, you have to have the conversations. The Citibank CEO just before the global financial crisis said that as long as the music is on I have to dance; if everybody else is doing it you will also follow. Hence, discussions have to happen at a system level. Many people from the asset management industry thanked us for talking to Sebi with the outcome that performance against the total return index has been made mandatory. This is because they say that by themselves they would not have made this change. So, everyone must come together. Who is responsible for financial market and product awareness? The asset manager, the advisor or the regulator? Last year I wrote an active versus passive article for Mint. What had happened was that in the US, people started launching class action suits saying that their pension fund administrator was not acting in their interest and not doing what they should be to get the best results. They could prove it by showing that they are paying very high transaction fees. Investors began winning these class action suits and the pension fund administrator then had to start paying attention to the ultimate outcomes of their clients and they started moving money out of active funds into passive. In India, we don’t have a class action suit or lawyers who can do this. The pressure will have to come from somewhere; often it comes from a scandal. Think back to Satyam for example. Who is responsible? Everyone in the system is to some extent and we muddle along and try to improve the system. Within the market place, you find good leaders and bad ones. Some will work genuinely towards improving the environment. ------------------------------------------------------------- As technology advances, the difference between online and offline marketing is blurring. Now you can buy a Kitchen Chimney, Juicer, Food processor etc. from a store, or place an order for the same at an e-commerce website. You can place the order on your laptop or your mobile handset. You can choose to get your product delivered to your home or pick it up from a nearby store. You can also interact with sellers on social media and chat with their customer care staff through messenger on their websites. In India, retailers are increasingly adopting a multi-channel marketing strategy to increase their visibility and keep customers engaged. However, selling products through multiple channels is not the same as omnichannel marketing, which is a more advanced concept that aims at providing a seamless experience of shopping to customers across channels and building a brand. Both strategies focus on the use of multiple channels to keep customers engaged but the multichannel strategy may not have the depth and the level of integration necessary for omnichannel marketing. The Multichannel Business Model In a multichannel business model, online and offline channels operate in a compartmentalised manner, with little coordination between them. While sellers use different platforms to interact with customers, shoppers’ experience could vary from channel to channel. A multichannel model envisages creating different channels to reach out to customers and may not always customise the communication strategy for each platform. Quick-paced digitisation, the popularity of mobile phones, and e-commerce are together changing India’s retail landscape. Retailers do not want to be left behind in this race to capture shoppers’ imagination and win their loyalty. In India, multichannel marketing has evolved in tandem with e-commerce. As customers started loving the convenience of shopping from their desktop and mobile handsets, retailers were forced to build an online presence. The e-commerce market is no longer limited to big metros. Today Tier 2 and 3 cities account for more than 40% of online shoppers. To stay ahead of the competition, brick-and-mortar retailers also sell online. Omnichannel Compared to Multichannel In comparison, omnichannel marketing is a newer concept. With over 1 billion population and an expanding middle class, India is one of the world’s most lucrative retail markets. India’s retail industry is projected to grow from $600 billion in 2015 to $1 trillion by 2020. India is Asia’s fastest-growing e-commerce market with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 44%, much higher than the overall 28% CAGR for the region. E-commerce sales in India are projected to reach $70 billion by 2019 and account for nearly 30% of the country’s organised retail sales. Majority of online buyers (nearly 39%) belong to the age group of 25 to 34, according to a recent report from Forrester, a global research and advisory firm. The report has also revealed that 37% of the online audience across the Asia Pacific were in the age group of 15 to 24. Data clearly underline the significance of Gen Y and millennial for retailers. Conclusion In India, the consumer behaviour is changing fast. Nearly 29% of that sample in Forrester Research’s Indian Consumer Techno graphics Survey 2016 stated that they buy or order product and services online at least once a month and nearly 22% said they buy products every week. Companies are increasingly adopting omnichannel marketing to provide a seamless experience to differentiate their brands. Doug McMillon, CEO, Walmart famously said, “I want us to stop talking about digital and physical retail as if they are two separate things. The customer doesn’t think of it that way, and we can’t either.” This strategic vision is going to drive omnichannel marketing in India in years ahead as sellers try to understand consumers’ shopping habits and preferences.