Thursday, 10th September ’20
Good morning, welcome to TMT Thursday. Tensions continue to increase at the India-China border. From Mumbai, we are getting a lot of ugly gala from the Kangana-Maha govt stiffness to arrests in Sushant’s case. Djokovic ousted from US Open for a foul few agree on the severity of. Trump’s name among the candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize. Corona cases in India topped the charts. Well, we could name a few more but enough said on how things are right now.
That’s when TMT comes in. Every day we bring you what’ll last. Something that makes you a better person and motivated to reach personal glory and professional pinnacles. Chaos would never end. TMT is your way through the chaos. Here are a few words from Norman Vincent Peale to start your day
“The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence.”
MIND MONK
Being interesting
There are a few golden rules for being interesting. While the safest way to ensure that is not to be boring in the first place, here are a few pointers to codify it –
- If you’re always to the point and stay upbeat, it’s extremely hard for anyone to accuse you of being a poor company. A good litmus test for whether people find you interesting or not is if they ask you questions regarding your bit.
- People love to talk about themselves and there is a dearth of good listeners. Let the other person talk. It gives their brain as much pleasure as food or money. Research suggests that those whom we like a lot are the ones who speak very little.
- Why struggle to guess what most people might find generically interesting? Ask people what they’ve been up to or what their hobbies are. Then talk about that. You’re now 80% of the way there.
- Always have three good stories on hand that reliably entertain, inform or engage.
Another tip from Scott Adams: People are generally more interested in stories about people rather than things.
MARKETS
Markets: India-China border tensions, correction in Asian peers and likely delay in the COVID-19 vaccine have hit sentiment. Both Sensex and Nifty50 fell a few points. The selling was led by banking and financials, and select FMCG and IT stocks. Markets continue to mirror their global counterparts and this trend is expected to continue. US stocks and European shares rebound after declines.
TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
- KKR & Co. is in advanced talks to invest at least $1 billion in the retail business of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, according to people familiar with the matter, in what could be another U.S. investment in the unit following Silver Lake’s deal. This follows the round of investment in reliance by tech majors.
- Tesla’s stock on Tuesday fell by the most on record, in a sell-off sparked by news that the electric car pioneer was passed over for inclusion in the S&P 500. There’s been a broader sell-off on Wall Street that hit big technology companies especially hard. The carmaker was the worst performer of any Nasdaq 100 component on Tuesday.
- Sprinklr, the late-stage startup went back to the fundraising well for the first time in four years, and it was a doozy, raising $200 million on a $2.7 billion valuation. The money came from private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, who also invested $300 million in buying back secondary shares.
WHAT ELSE IS COOKING
- Dr. Reddy’s launches Remdesivir under the brand name ‘Redyx’ for Covid-19 treatment: Dr. Reddys Laboratories Ltd on Wednesday announced the launch of Remdesivir, meant for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, under a brand name ‘Redyx’ in India. The launch is part of the licensing agreement with Gilead Sciences, Inc. (Gilead) that grants Dr Reddys the right to register, manufacture and sell Remdesivir, a potential treatment for Covid-19, in 127 countries including India.
- Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID vaccine trials halted: Clinical trials of one of the COVID vaccines being developed by pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and Oxford University were suspended on Tuesday after a participant developed an unexplained illness. The Oxford vaccine was seen among the most advanced experimental Covid-19 vaccines that are already in late-stage Phase 3 trials.
- Donald Trump nominated for Nobel Peace Prize: Donald Trump has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize following his efforts to broker peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The US president’s name has been put forward by Norwegian politician Christian Tybring-Gjedde. In 2020, there were 318 candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize.
BUSINESS LOUNGE
Learning from Sprinklr
In the words of Hellmann & Friedman’s Tarim Wasim, “Sprinklr has a unique opportunity to lead a Customer Experience Management market that’s already massive — and growing — as enterprises continue to realize the urgent need to put CXM at the heart of their digital transformation strategy.”
Sprinklr expects annual recurring revenue to hit $400 million by year’s end and their CEO Ragy Thomas estimates a $100 billion opportunity. Their large public competitors, Salesforce and Adobe, have validated that and continue to invest in the customer experience management space.
Sprinklr has been busy the last few years acquiring a dozen companies, then rewriting their code base and incorporating them into the company’s customer experience platform. Sprinklr develops a SaaS customer experience management platform that grew precipitously, counting Cisco and Dell, and Virgin America as it’s clients immediately after launch.
The company’s software, also called Sprinklr, utilizes artificial intelligence and combines different applications for social media marketing, social advertising, content management, collaboration, employee advocacy, customer care, social media research, and social media monitoring.
Sprinklr acquired Dachis Group, adding abilities for employee advocacy, competitive intelligence, social business consulting services, and content marketing. Sprinklr followed with the acquisition of TBG Digital, one of Facebook’s largest ad-buying clients, to improve its paid social advertising capability.
Sprinklr despite its rapid growth did not act in a hurried manner when it came to raising capital. The latest round comes more than three years after the last. This shows a company exercises temperance in the way it grows – whether it aligns with its mission and values. This led to the creation of a strong foundation that they can use as their launchpad for the future.
TMT VARSITY
Geomarketing
Geo-marketing is not a short-term marketing strategy, nor is it a campaign by itself. Rather, it is a tool marketers use to determine strategies and create campaigns—a method of handling data that creates powerful and actionable insights into the market environment.
Geo-marketing is the use of location knowledge to frame marketing efforts, using digital mapping to organize and display data for review and decision-making. The digital map allows marketers to analyze data by geographic region (such as a suburban area bordering a major city) or specific physical location (such as a particular store). Today’s digital technology, with location data available through social media and mobile devices, will only help this marketing approach continue to increase in power and capability.
Where can Geo-marketing be used?
Local customers. When a business—for example, a furniture store—is looking to advertise a sale, it can use geo-marketing to identify the customers within an hour’s drive for the purposes of sending flyers.
Internet customers. Online shoppers transmit their computer’s geographic location through their IP address. Company websites can use this information to display their pages in the language of the user (for example, after detecting a German IP address, the company displays its homepage in German instead of English). Search engines can rank certain results based upon proximity to the user’s location. Contextual ads can make sure that users in San Francisco are targeted with ads for San Francisco restaurants instead of restaurants in New York.
Social media users. Many social media platforms allow users to “check-in” to various locations, such as their local coffee shop or restaurant. These businesses can then send special offers to such users.
Written by Kumar Sourav Mohanty, Akansh Bhatt, and Shashank Dobhal
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