Monday, 14th September ’20
Good morning, welcome the wonderful week ahead with TMT Monday, your information source away from all the clutter. Indian Coronavirus cases have peaked all records. Amidst these increasing cases, NEET was conducted on Sunday with 16 lakh aspirants. Indian Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has assured that the vaccine would be available by early 2021. And we chose to stay safe till then taking all precautions and avoiding crowded places. Let’s use this time to focus and build our greatest competencies.
George Orwell says it well when he said,
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
MARKETS
Markets: The stock market ended slightly higher as India-China agreed on a 5 point order to restore order and quick disengagement. Nifty is expected to form a bullish candle in the coming days. Lack of any domestic triggers will leave the investors looking out for global cues. A sustainable move above the 11,500 level could trigger a buying enthusiasm in the market. In US, the NASDAQ had another volatile session with tech sell offs. Though S&P 500 and Dow ended slightly higher.
TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
- Nvidia confirmed its $40 billion purchase of ARM Holdings from its existing owner, SoftBank bringing the major chip makers together. Nvidia is buying most of ARM’s products except its Internet of Things division that has made some strides in the recent years.
- Recent reports say that Oracle has outbid Microsoft for the US operations of Tik Tok. The app’s reported buy comes days before September 20, the day that the Trump administration set for a ban on TikTok’s operations if the company doesn’t reach an agreement with a buyer.
WHAT ELSE IS COOKING
- Vi launches new Work From Home plan at ₹351: Vodafone Idea now named Vi (read as We) has introduced a new work from home plan. The first add-on plan after it dawned a new brand logo. Vi has introduced a new work from home plan priced at ₹351. The new plan may have been rolled out in specific circles. The ₹351 plan provides the user with 56 days of validity and 100GB of total data. The previous plan launched by the company is currently live on the website and is priced at ₹251. The user gets 50 GB of data with a validity of 28 days.
- Spacetech startups are ready to take off in India: Spacetech startups in India are ready to take off, spurred by government policy, local tech expertise and increasing investor interest. A slew of startups such as Pixxel, Bellatrix Aerospace, Agnikul, Vesta Space among others, led by young founders, have raised funds amid the pandemic, as they identify unique opportunities in space that can solve problems across industries. Investors such as Blume Ventures, StartupXCeed and Inflexor Ventures, who have placed bets on space startups, believe that the time for space tech is ripe now, driven by tailwinds that include the proliferation of micro-satellites, reduced launch costs, and the need for more real-time deep intelligence on our planet.
- ByteDance tells US it won’t sell TikTok’s algorithm: ByteDance has decided it won’t sell or transfer the algorithm behind the video-sharing app in any sale or divestment. The company will not hand out the source code behind the social media platform but the company’s US based technology team would be free to develop a new algorithm.
BUSINESS LOUNGE
Rolls Mania – Nail-biting story of a Finger-licking rolls empire
Originally, kathi rolls were skewer-roasted kebabs wrapped in parathas, but they have evolved and any filling in a roti is passed off as a kathi roll. Around 2009, Pune was a growing market for the food industry, and seemed like a good opportunity for a business that could leverage the changing nature of the kathi roll.
At this point, 18-year-old entrepreneur Puneet Kansal had just started Rolls Mania, his kathi roll business, with a meagre Rs 20,000 that he had lent from his friend, with an idea to bring back the roti-rolls that he grew up eating. He was running a table-sized kiosk outside a restaurant at Magarpatta city, and had just one chef. Could his small business succeed by tapping into the large and rapidly-growing kathi rolls market?
Hell Yes!!!Business is a strategy!! But your talent takes your business everywhere!
Initially Puneet had just one kiosk, and was getting an increasing number of customers each day. During this period, he found friends and partners in his regular patrons, Gagan Sial and Sukhpreet Sial, who had already set their foot into the restaurant industry. Together, they formed Rolls Mania as a registered company, and opened the second outlet in 2010.
Puneet kept his focus on expansion and business development, whereas Sukhpreet was the finance guru. His purchasing tactics of getting things at a better price makes him the backbone of the company. He keeps the company’s operations going smoothly and also brings in innovations when needed. Gagan is a marketing genius. He is aggressive in business and is a fast decision-maker. His desire to keep learning what’s new in the market allows Rolls Mania to have all the latest marketing styles and branding, and also promote innovation.
Their core values rest in 3Qs: Quantity, Quality and Quick. Rolls Mania in Pune became a sensation within just a few years and it was time to take this success countrywide. That’s when they opened doors for franchise models and expanded across 30 cities. Now, they are clocking over two lakh orders per month, including walk-ins and deliveries, and selling over five lakh rolls per month.
Indeed Inspiration can be brought from anywhere, but to set up an empire, you need the right minds to merge!!
TMT VARSITY
Neuromarketing
Many people are familiar with the Pepsi Challenge: In a blind-taste test, consumers are asked to choose between Pepsi and Coca-Cola—and to no one’s surprise, Pepsi wins. However, a decade ago, neuroscientist, Read Montague posed a question: If people truly prefer Pepsi over Coke, why isn’t Pepsi dominating the market?
Hoping to answer this question, Montague created a Pepsi Challenge of his own, hooking up his test subjects to an MRI machine to track brain activity. At first, about half of the participants said they preferred Pepsi; however, when Montague told them which samples were Coca-Cola, preferences shifted to three-to-one in favor of Coke. Additionally, he observed heightened activity in the prefrontal cortex, part of the brain that controls higher thinking; as well as in the hippocampus, which relates to memory.
Montague concluded that the brain was recalling images and ideas from commercials, and that the thoughts and emotions connected to the branding were overriding reactions to the actual quality of the product. In 2004, he published his findings—and as a result, neuromarketing emerged from the shadows and into the public eye.
Neuromarketing is the formal study of the brain’s responses to advertising and branding, and the adjustment of those messages based on feedback to elicit even better responses. While the technology involved in neuromarketing is highly sophisticated, the premise is simple: Consumers can lie; statistics don’t.
Google and MediaVest partnered with biometrics researcher NeuroFocus (minority-owned by the Nielsen Company) to gauge how users responded to their InVideo advertisements (the semi-transparent overlay ads on YouTube). Forty participants’ sensory responses were scored along such criteria as attention, emotional engagement, and effectiveness. Frito-Lay studied the female brain in order to learn how to better position its advertising. The company discovered that it needed to avoid talking about “guilt”—even “guilt-free”—and instead focus on making “healthy” associations in its advertising.
Study the brains!!!
Written by Kumar Sourav Mohanty, Akansh Bhatt, and Shashank Dobhal
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