Category: Strategy

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Business motivation Strategy

Visa, IFundWomen Announce Grant Programme to Empower Women Entrepreneurs in India

Entrepreneur (Photo Credits: Pexels)

Mumbai, September 21: With an aim to empower women entrepreneurs in India, Visa along with its global partner IFundWomen on Monday rolled out a grant programme to boost the morale of women entrepreneurs across the country. According to a report by IANS, the digital payments technology leader will seek applications from women entrepreneurs across all sectors till October 20, 2020. IfundWomen is the go-to marketplace for women-owned businesses. The applicants need to submit details about their business and online presence, along with a short video about their business to www.ifundwomen.com/visa-india. Three winners will be selected and receive grants of Rs 7 lakh each and training from leaders within the Visa and IFundWomen network.

Women-owned businesses constitute around 14 percent of the total entrepreneur base in India. To spread the word, Visa said it has partnered with FLO (the ladies’ wing of FICCI) and Instamojo as digitisation partner for the programme in the country. T R Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia, Visa, said, “We want to see this number increase but our interactions with women entrepreneurs show that access to capital to fund, run and grow their businesses remains a challenge”.

The Visa and IFundWomen grant programme in India, the first outside of the US, “aims to boost female entrepreneurship and empower budding businesswomen through our network, guidance, financial support and resources to help achieve their dreams”, he added.

Visa’s partnership with IFundWomen is specifically designed to help women entrepreneurs secure the funding they need through a series of grants. This year in June, Visa had committed to supporting 50 million small businesses globally to power recovery and enable them digitally. In August 2020, through the first India edition of Visa Everywhere Initiative, it awarded three fintech startups with monetary awards and technological support to take their solutions to market, the company said.

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Startup Strategy

The Future of Retail in the COVID-19 Era

रिटेल बिजनेस
रिटेल बिजनेस

The fast-changing landscape is making the retail industry turn from an unorganized to an organized sector. This sector remains one of the greatest industries across the globe. Big moves are marked, in the industry with the introduction of technology, and the retail industry has shown rapid adoption of it very well.

Due to COVID-19, the whole country was under lockdown, which has affected not only the lives of humans but has also hugely affected industries, and they have to cope up with a lot.

Finally, unlock happened after the lockdown of months, and now the retailers have started to evaluate the losses due to the pandemic. Now, the retail industry is hoping to bounce back to the pre-COVID-19 state.

Therefore, consumer behavior is tough to predict currently. Here are the things to be expected post-COVID-19.

Social Distancing the New Normal

After many governments have started allowing stores to open with the rules and set of guidelines for preventing COVID-19, masks are one of the important rules to follow. For running, business owners need to follow these rules by limiting the number of the customer at the store. This will lead to fewer sales, but high-end retailers can achieve it can be achieved by adopting an appointment system.

That’s a true majority of retailers will be facing trouble in maintaining social distancing, and it will affect their business.

Controlling the fear of infection

If you want up your sales, take this serious health emergency seriously, as these health emergencies as serious you can. As we know, people have taken extra careful measures and cautions to avoid the infection. Now owners who are strictly following the rule of wearing masks, avoiding handshakes, sanitization of hands, and doing cashless transactions are attracting more and more customers.

Stores offering these are likely to achieve more sales as the customer will notice business owners care about their health too.

The approach of the omnichannel

There was a time when buying clothes or shoes online seemed like an odd thing to do. Fast forward to today’s time, it’s one of the common and popular ways to shop. The omnichannel approach has raised since the lockdown is imposed as pandemic made this boomed in the eCommerce industry.

This is one of the biggest opportunities that came from retailers to encash the chance and this is a big chance for today as well as gain for future ground.

Due to the pandemic, our life’s work has been thrown us out of order, and we have been forced to accept new normal. The benefit of this hard time approached innovation has taken place.  With the aid of technology, things may get easier to face this difficult time After 4 months of incurring losses of ₹90,000 crores this lockdown, the organized retail sector works every day on new strategies to cope with the game.

 

 

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Finance Strategy

MSME Ministry Rolls Out New Guidelines for Pottery, Beekeeping Activities to Rejuvenate Grass Root Economy in India

Pottery (Photo Credits: Pexels)

The Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) on Thursday announced new guidelines for two more schemes which include ‘Pottery Activity’ and ‘Beekeeping Activity’. The Ministry said that for pottery activity, the government will provide assistance of pottery wheel, clay blunger, and granulator. A total of 6,075 traditional and others (non-traditional) pottery artisans/rural unemployed youth or migrant labourers will be benefited from this scheme. “It will also provide wheel pottery training for traditional pottery artisans and Press Pottery training for pottery as well as non-pottery artisans in Self Help Groups,” it added.

The Ministry had few days back announced expanding and doubling the support to Artisans who might be interested in making Agarbatti. These new initiatives of the Ministry with beneficiary oriented Self-Employment schemes, are aimed at rejuvenating the grass root economy contributing to Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.

  1. For ‘Pottery Activity’ Government will provide assistance of pottery wheel, Clay Blunger, Granulator etc.
  2. It will also provide Wheel Pottery Training for traditional pottery artisans and Press Pottery training for pottery as well as non-pottery artisans in Self Help Groups.
  3. There is also provision to provide Jigger-Jolly training programme for pottery as well as non-pottery artisan in Self Help Groups.

In case of the Pottery improvements in the Scheme are:

  • Skill-development training on focused products like garden pots, cooking-wares, khullad, water bottles, decorator products, mural, etc. to SHGs of pottery-artisans has been introduced
  • Focus of the new Scheme is to enhance the production, technical know-how of pottery artisans and efficiency of potter energy kilns to reduce cost of production
  • Efforts will be made to develop necessary market linkages by tying up with exports and large buying houses

For ‘Beekeeping Activity’:

  1. In case of the Scheme for ‘Beekeeping Activity’, the government will provide assistance of Bee boxes, Tool kits etc.
  2. Under this scheme, Bee boxes, with Bee colonies, will also be distributed to Migrant workers in Prime Minister Gareeb Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyaan (PMGKRA) districts.
  3. A 5 days’ beekeeping training will also be provided to the beneficiaries through various Training Centres /State Beekeeping Extension Centres/ Master Trainers as per prescribed syllabus.

A total of 6,075 traditional and others (non-traditional) pottery artisans/Rural Un-employed youth/Migrant Labourers will get benefitted from this Scheme. As Financial support for the year 2020-21, an amount of Rs.19.50 crore will be expended to support 6,075 artisans with a Centre of Excellence, with MGIRI, Wardha, CGCRI, Khurja, VNIT, Nagpur and suitable IIT/NID/ NIFT etc, for product development, advance skill programme, and quality standardization of products.

Additional amount of Rs 50.00 crore has been provisioned for setting up of clusters in Terracotta, Red clay pottery, with new innovative value added products to build pottery to crockery/ tile making capabilities, under ‘ SFURTI’ scheme of the Ministry.

To begin with, Scheme proposes to cover, during 2020-21, a total of 2,050 Beekeepers, Entrepreneurs, Farmers, Unemployed Youth, Adivasis will get benefitted from these projects/programme.

For this purpose a financial support of Rs 13 crore during 2020-21 has been provisioned to support 2,050 artisans ( 1250 people from Self Help Groups and 800 Migrant labourers), with a Centre of Excellence with CSIR/ IIT Or other Top class Institute to develop honey based new value added products. Additional amount of Rs. 50.00 crore has also been kept for developing Beekeeping honey clusters under the ‘ SFURTI scheme of the Ministry.

It may be recalled that the initiative to rejuvenate Agarbatti making at grass-root level few days back, is a step which also directed towards make India Aatmnirbhar in supply of this household consumption item. The interventions include the support to the artisans through training, raw material, innovation in the fragrance & packaging, use of new / alternate raw materials, marketing and financial support.

The program will immediately benefit about 1500 artisans, in providing sustainable employment with increased earnings. Artisans living in rural areas, Self Help Groups (SHGs) and ‘Migrant workers’ will particularly benefit from the program. In addition to enhancing employment opportunities locally, the programme will also help in capturing the export market in such products.

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Startup Strategy

Happiest Minds Technologies IPO Receives Great Response After Going Public Amid COVID-19 Pandemic; Here Why Ashok Soota’s Second Startup Saw Huge Demand

Happiest Minds Technologies (Photo Credits: Wikimedia commons)

Mumbai, September 10: The coronavirus pandemic has brought over a gloom to the Indian economy and Happiest Minds Technologies took the brave step of launching IPO amid the lockdown.

Ashok Soota was 68 when he started Happiest Minds. He had quit as the Chief Executive Officer of Mindtree — a company he co-founded and took public in 2000. In 2011, Soota left Mindtree and co-founded Happiest Minds.

Happiest Minds IPO was oversubscribed 150 times. According to experts, the Happiest Minds Technologies IPO was a good opportunity for an investor at a time when the entire IT space is witnessing a huge demand for a digital solution. The Rs 702 crore issue was subscribed 151 times, as per data available on NSE.

According to a Business Standard report, The impact of heavy subscription in Happiest Mind was also felt in the subscription data for another IPO that opened this week — Route Mobile. Ashok Soota, the promoter, wants to sell around 84.14 lakh shares. Also, there were reports that investor CMDB II, which owns 19.4 percent in Happiest Minds, is looking to exit after the IPO.

 

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Categories
Business motivation Strategy

Jio Platforms’ Success and Growth Gives Hope to Struggling Indian IT Vendors Impacted by COVID-19 Pandemic, Says GlobalData

Businesses (Photo Credits: Pexels)

Hyderabad, September 1: Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, many Indian IT vendors are struggling, having been affected considerably over the last few months. However, Mukesh Ambani-led Jio Platforms has transformed into a tech juggernaut during this hour of crisis.Global technology companies have seen a surge in their valuation over the past six months – with the most notable example being Apple passing the USD 2 trillion mark in market capitalization (MCap) value.

On the other hand, many Indian IT vendors are struggling as they have been largely affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. While traditional Indian IT services giants have been waiting to tide over the impact of the pandemic, Jio Platforms has transformed into a tech powerhouse. A study by GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, stated that while it may be difficult for others to replicate what Jio has achieved, the interest in Jio will definitely augur well for other Indian technology companies at a time when enterprises across the world are gearing up for digitization.

Nishant Singh, Director of Technology at GlobalData, said that while Indian IT vendors seeing such stark contrast to global counterparts is unfortunate, this is just the nature of the IT services business model, which, in contrast to software, needs projects in the pipeline. “With the COVID-19 outbreak, enterprises halted all non-critical expenses, including plans to upgrade or transform their IT infrastructure. This has had an impact on Indian IT companies, since most of their revenues are from IT services”, Singh said.

He added saying that a lot of the faith in global technology companies comes from the fact that they have a pretty robust suite of intellectual property, including hardware, software and ecosystems that serve consumers and enterprises alike. “The growth in stock prices merely reaffirms that technology companies – primarily ‘Big Tech’ companies – are well poised to tide over the pandemic-induced recession”, he said.

A report by news agency ANI stated that big IT companies such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL have traditionally been IT services giants. The report adds that unlike their counterparts in the software space, IT services companies typically do not have a large stash of intellectual property, making it slightly difficult for the market to distinguish between the IT services companies. Despite these struggles, the near future should see the market showing more confidence in the traditional Indian IT vendors.

Singh further added saying with enterprises across the world now gearing up for digitization, Indian IT services vendors are set to witness a lot of action. Coupled with the market euphoria witnessed for Jio, the technology landscape in India will witness a drastic revival in investor confidence.

Jio Platforms Limited is an Indian digital services company. It is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited which was established in 2019. The company owns India’s largest mobile network operator Jio and other digital businesses of Reliance. On 8 May 2020, Jio Platforms was reported to be the fourth largest Indian company by market capitalization. Since April 2020, Reliance Industries has raised Rs 152,056 crore (US$21 billion) by selling 32.97% equity stake in Jio Platforms.

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Business motivation Strategy

Women Entrepreneurship, Women-Backed SMEs Can Help in Accelerating GDP Growth in India, Says Study

Women Entrepreneurship (Photo Credits: Pexels)

A recent study has revealed that if women entrepreneurship in India is given a push, it can accelerate the GDP growth in the country. As the country is focused on becoming self-reliance and achieving a $5 trillion economy, a report has suggested that a major emphasis on women entrepreneurship and women-backed small business can create a ripple effect in India’s GDP.

According to a joint study by Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME) and Sattva, women-owned enterprises represent only 20 percent of all enterprises across the country. These enterprises hire 10 percent of the total workforce. The study revealed that women entrepreneurship presents a significant opportunity to strengthen employment and can create a ripple effect on India’s GDP; but the growth of women-owned businesses needs a greater push.

The study, which is centered around Bengaluru, points that there is an urgent need to increase sales and marketing channels and make women finance ready so that they can access capital for their businesses. “While women entrepreneurs in the region face formidable challenges, the combination of new market platforms, peer-support networks, and capital will make women entrepreneurs a force to reckon with before the end of the decade”, the study said.

According to the survey, quoted by IANS, a total of 53 percent of the participants had their monthly household income below Rs 50,000 while 84 percent women entrepreneurs use personal savings for capital needs and also tend to rely on friends and family. Meanwhile, around 97 percent of the women entrepreneurs hired less than five paid employees or workers. The study reveals that 67 percent entrepreneurs had been running their businesses for under five years and for all entrepreneurs, COVID-19 has reduced their revenues by 60-80 percent.

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Motivational Startup Strategy

5 Common Startup Tips An Entrepreneur Shouldn’t Follow

Startups | Representational Image (Photo Credits: Pexels)

Starting a business with an innovative idea is a great deal of work. After completing lots of preparations and paperwork, an entrepreneur can pull off his/her business model. However, there will be always people to give advice that might not work for the startup to grow. Following them blindly, as those pieces of advice worked for others, can prove to be a disaster for your business.

Here are a few tips which an entrepreneur shouldn’t follow:

1) Customer is Always Right:

Many times an entrepreneur hears this line. The main issue behind the advice is customer pays and for that, an enterprise needs to listen to his/her every demand. However, it is a proven fact that no one can be an expert on everything. When conflicts arise, the best way is to clear the misunderstanding with proper communication. This will not only bring the client back but also s/he will trust you more for being truthful.

2) Raise Money and Grow as Fast as Possible:

Of course, speed is something that is needed to sustain in a competitive market. But the biggest mistake an entrepreneur makes is earning more money in a shorter period and then burning it with the same speed without even waiting for their products to fit in the market. The result — the sooner they rise, the sooner they fall. Best way to deal with this issue is to make a plan to expend the money in the right direction and identify product-market fit.

3) Choose Between Business And Family:

This is one misconception that most of the female entrepreneurs have. Instead of believing in this misconception, one should create a seamless work-life integration, where passion intersects with your personal life. The first and foremost part starts believing in yourself, and the second being surrounded yourself with people who believe in you.

4) Following Best Practices:

Walking on the path shown by others sometimes may help an entrepreneur, but not always. A path derived and designed by others, how is that going to fulfil the dreams and aspiration of a budding entrepreneur? To lead from the front, getting inspiration from someone is awesome, but one should not strict to best practices. S/he always be on a lookout to derive new ways to solve issue and progress.

5) Fake It to For Success:

Last but not least. This tip might help an entrepreneur in the initial phase but will end in a disaster. No investor, client or customer like dishonesty. This not only dampens their reputation in the market but also eradicates the trust that people have on them. Ask yourself, do you want to be called as a ‘cheater’? Think wisely before you proceed with this ‘faking’ people tip.

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Motivational Strategy

5 Steps for Newcomer to Build and Grow a Personal Brand Amid COVID-19

Steps to build and grow a personal brand. | File Image
Steps to build and grow a personal brand. | File Image

For a budding professional, the most difficult job is to build and grow a personal brand. This will not only boost his morale but also help his/her in securing a job in the corporate field. However, with pressures mounting with time and firms taking extra precautions in hiring candidates amid COVID-19 pandemic, here are five steps for a budding professional to build and grow a personal brand.

Create a Target Audience:

The first and the foremost step for building a personal brand is to create and make aware the target audience aware of the brand. For this, a well-written CV plays a vital role which should include a career summary, academic information, work experience, languages known, certifications, positions of responsibilities, and achievements.

Following this, post the CV in the right platform like Linkedin where recruiters can notice their prospective candidate. Apart from creating a profile, ask peers and ex-fellow employees to endorse your skills. Also, share relevant articles and write those which are relevant to your domain.

Online Classes:

Many of the budding professionals fail to grow their brand as they stick to traditional training. With the situation like COVID-19 pandemic in place and recruiters looking for extra talented people, budding professionals should focus on taking up online classes which makes them ready for the future. Courses like artificial intelligence, digital marketing, graphic designing, content writing, marketing analytics, among others.

Content Writing:

Apart from creating a CV and joining online classes to upgrade skills, a budding professional should write content in the field, in which s/he specialises. Content writing helps in building a professional brand. However, a clear knowledge of one’s vision, target audience and goals should be clear for writing content.

Participate in Case Study Competitions:

It is said that participating in case studies helps in building analytical and critical thinking. With this, a person develops the art of paying attention to details. Also, one learns to read between the line and begins strategic thinking. In the beginning, the idea might look scary, but with time this will help a budding professional into an ideal match for the recruiter.

Subscribe to Online Business News Providers:

This is the last step which will help a budding profession to build and grow a personal brand. There is no harm in gaining current affairs related issues. This will help the budding professional in facing the HRs, future colleague and even friends to strike conversations on mutual interest. Even subscribing to OTT platforms like Discovery Plus or History Channel will enhance the chances of being recruited by a firm.

Among all other things, a budding professional should always look for options to enhance his/her skills. This will make him/her more confident and market-ready.

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Finance Strategy

GST Council Likely to Meet on August 27 to Discuss Compensation Payout to States

जीएसटी
जीएसटी

New Delhi, August 19: The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council is likely to meet on August 27 to discuss the compensation pay-out to states. The council will also discuss the opinion of the Attorney General on the legality of market borrowing to meet revenue shortfall. This will be the 41st meeting of the GST Council and will be held via video conference. Sources reveal that the meeting would be a single agenda meeting on states’ compensation.

A full-fledged meeting of the Council would be held on September 19, the agenda for which is to be decided, a report by news agency PTI said. The Attorney General, the chief legal officer of the government, is of the opinion that the Centre has no statutory obligation to make up for any shortfall in GST revenues of states from its coffers, sources revealed.

They had earlier indicated that following the AG’s opinion, states may now have to look at market borrowings to meet the revenue shortfall and the GST Council will take a final call. In March, the Centre had sought views from Attorney General KK Venugopal on the legality of market borrowing by the GST Council to make up for any shortfall in compensation fund – a corpus created from levy of additional tax on luxury and sin goods to compensate states for revenue shortfall arising from their taxes being subsumed into GST.

Reports inform that the Attorney General had also opined that the Council would have to decide on meeting the shortfall in the GST compensation fund by providing the sufficient amount to be credited to the fund. As per sources, the options before the Council for meeting the shortfall could be to rationalize GST rates, cover more items under the compensation cess or increase the compensation cess, or recommend higher borrowing by states to be repaid by the future collection into the compensation fund.

Under the GST law, states were guaranteed to be compensated bi-monthly for any loss of revenue in the first five years of the GST implementation from July 1, 2017. The shortfall is calculated assuming a 14 per cent annual growth in GST collections by states over the base year of 2015-16. Under the GST structure, taxes are levied under 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent slabs. On top of the highest tax slab, a cess is levied on luxury, sin and demerit goods and the proceeds from the same are used to compensate states for any revenue loss.

The GST Council has to decide how to meet the shortfall in such circumstances and not the central government, sources added.  Any borrowing of the central government is upon the security of the Consolidated Fund of India. Similarly, borrowing by a state government is upon the security of the consolidated fund of the state.

In either case, it would lead to increased general government debt burden and also a higher fiscal deficit. The payment of GST compensation to states became an issue after revenues from the imposition of cess started dwindling since August 2019 and the Centre had to dive into the excess cess amount collected during 2017-18 and 2018-19.

In 2019-20, the Centre had released over Rs 1.65 lakh crore as GST compensation. However, the amount of cess collected during the year 2019-20 was Rs 95,444 crore. The compensation payout amount was Rs 69,275 crore in 2018-19 and Rs 41,146 crore in 2017-18.

 

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Finance Startup Strategy

Narendra Modi Govt Operationlises Rs 20,000 Crore Stressed Fund to Benefit Around 2 Lakh MSMEs, Issues Guidelines for CGSSD Under Atmanirbhar Bharat Package

MSMEs in India | Representational Image Only (Photo Credits: Pexels)

New Delhi, August 19: Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union Government on Wednesday operationalised Rs 20,000 crore stressed fund aiming to benefit around 2 lakh MSMEs. Apart from this, the Union government has also issued guidelines for Credit Guarantee Scheme for Subordinate Debt (CGSSD) which was announced under the Atmanirbhar Bharat package.

According to the plan of the government, the subordinate debt that will be provided by the banks would be fully guaranteed through the Credit Guarantee Trust for Medium and Small Entrepreneurs (CGTMSE) and be counted as quasi-equity. In the subordinate debt, support of Rs 4,000 crore would be given by the government to CGTMSE. Through the CGSSD, a guarantee coverage will be provided for MSME restructuring. Under the scheme, 90 per cent guarantee will be covered by the trust, while 10 per cent will be covered by the concerned promoter.

Here’s the MSME tweet:

Who are eligible for CGSSD?

1) MSMEs whose accounts have been standard as on March 31, 2018, with regular operations — standard or NPA — through FY 2019.

2) Stressed MSME units which were SMA-2 and NPA as of April 30, 2020.

Requirements for availing sub-debt under CGSSD:

1) After fulfilling the eligibility criteria, all the promoters of the MSME units will be given credit equal to 15 per cent of stake in the company or Rs 75 lakh.

2) A separate loan account needs to be opened. All the promoters will have to infuse sub-debt or loan amount as promoter contribution.

3) As per RBI norms, all MSME loans would be linked to an external benchmark.

4) The maximum tenor for repayment will be 10 years, with a 7-year moratorium on principal payment.

5) Following the completion of the moratorium, principal amount to be repaid within 3 years. However, no additional charge will be levied in case of pre-payment of the loan.