Friday, 24th July ’20
Good morning, welcome to the end of the week. This week we introduced new sections especially curated for professionals, and got great response from our readers. As we close this week with TMT Friday, we hope that you have an amazing weekend of lots of curiosity and enablement in your personal and professional lives. Happy reading!
MARKETS
Markets: Sensex and Nifty took an upward march but Thursday showed a lot of volatility. Markets are doing better than expected as the global markets gain momentum. Rossari Biotech had a good listing. Amidst this pharma is expected to take good strides as IT companies continue to lead markets.
Economy: PM Modi attended over 50 economic reforms meet in the last month. India-UK to discuss a trade deal this Friday involving greater access of UK products in India. According to IHS, the medium-term economic outlook looked favorable for India, supported by a number of key economic drivers.
TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
- Flipkart has acquired a 100% stake in Walmart India’s wholesale business, which operates Best Price cash-and-carry business, and has launched Flipkart wholesale, a new digital marketplace. They will pilot their services in the grocery and fashion segment. This would help Flipkart strengthen its supply chain and compete with Amazon and Reliance Jio. This move will also boost the Kirana stores and MSMEs.
- Wipro to launch a 5-G edge services solution suite, built on IBM tech to lead the 5G technology implementation space. They will use IBM’s cloud offering and Artificial Intelligence to provide holistic management of critical applications in manufacturing, transport, healthcare, oil, and retail industries among others.
- Amazon is in talks to buy a 9.9% stake in Reliance Retail arm. Amazon wants a preferred strategic stake in Reliance Retail for JioMart. Amazon had launched a program earlier this year, to add small shops on its platform in India.
WHAT ELSE IS COOKING
- In a major relief to Vodafone Idea Ltd, the Supreme Court dismissed a plea filed by the Income Tax Department and directed it to refund ₹833 crore to the telecom company. This was the tax for the assessment year 2014-15. The apex court stated that the I-T Department does not have the authority to withhold tax refunds anticipating future demands.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday asked US firms to invest in India, pointing to the ways the government is facilitating investors and the promising growth in various sectors including infrastructure, aviation, defence and space research. Portraying India as the big investment destination the PM reminded that India attracted FDI of over $20 Billion despite the prevailing conditions.
- India’s SaaS revenue touched the $3.5 billion-mark in FY2020 as per a Nasscom report. Growing at 30 per cent CAGR, 75% of India’s SaaS revenue came from global sales. Clocking a growth rate of about 1.5 times faster than the global SaaS landscape, the Indian SaaS industry currently has more than 1,000 players with over 150 companies generating an Annual Recurring Revenue of more than $1 million.
IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS
New Free Trade Agreements on the way!
Why is it in the news?
Government is in the planning stage to revamp free trade agreements (FTA) strategy to ensure economic and strategic benefits. The focus is on alliances with “peaceful countries” with which India does not have a significant trade deficit.
What is an FTA?
FTA is a pact between two or more countries to reduce barriers of imports and exports among them. India views FTAs as an important tool to enhance its trade and investment & has signed maximum number of FTAs in Asia
Why the need to recalibrate?
- With the exception of SAFTA, India’s other FTAs have not performed well. India’s trade deficit with ASEAN, Korea and Japan has widened
- Chinese goods are re-routed through these countries and shipped to India without any value addition
- Faulty commitments, lack of awareness, stricter rules of origin about FTAs acted as hindrances in FTA leveraging
- Concerns over loss of revenues due to trade agreements mostly in manufacturing sector
- India expects to benefit more on the services front, with software professionals & nurses getting easy access to markets of Japan, Singapore, South Korea, etc.
India has existing FTAs with Singapore, Japan, Thailand, Afghanistan, Malaysia, South Korea, ASEAN, MERCOSUR, Chile and Sri Lanka. FTAs in the pipeline are with Australia, EU, UK, US, New Zealand and Mauritius.
MANAGERS’ CORNER – GenMan Gallery
Ace it in a “Poka-Yoke” Way
Followed widely by OEMs like Maruti Suzuki, POKA YOKE management practice is among one core lean manufacturing goals that has transpired from Japanese way of doing business. Poka-yoke in Japanese means mistake-proofing. Poka-yoke devices are designed to prevent inadvertent errors or their negative impacts. Formalized by Shigeo Shingo, this practice is both inexpensive as well as very effective.
With a managerial bent of mind, this technique was implemented across all assembly lines, where, if a particular process or operation, critical for quality goes wrong, then poka-yoke devices give audio or visual alarms and the person working there gets alerted that something wrong is happening. Thus so far, Poka-Yoke has contributed to ‘zero rejection’ in parts and controlled wastage. Not only that, the assembly workers have heaved a sigh of relief, “Thank God, we got saved from penalties now!”
THE MILLIONAIRE MINDSET
Knowledge Check:
Covid has given a fillip to freelancers as recruitment is going through industry agnostic changes. Upskilling is the word of the hour as companies are recalibrating their workforce basis the requirement of physical presence in the office. Many organizations responded to the pandemic’s economic impact by reducing their contractor budgets, but there has since been a shift.
Gartner analysis shows that organizations will continue to expand their use of contingent workers to maintain more flexibility in workforce management post-COVID-19, and will consider introducing other job models they have seen during the pandemic, such as talent sharing and 80% pay for 80% work. Their research finds that 32% of organizations are replacing full-time employees with contingent workers as a cost-saving measure.
Practice:
All of us are binge watching these days. But there has to be consensus on the way a recently finished series can leave you feeling blue and a tad anxious sometimes. Instead of watching four episodes in a row try watching two and then doing something else to take your mind off. A bit of physical exercise can always make you feel tip top again in no time. Watching a series simultaneously with a friend or partner can help you discuss and discover aspects of the show either of you might have missed. You don’t need an excuse for talking to loved ones but playing detective over a show’s details with them is even more fun.
Written by Kumar Sourav Mohanty, Akansh Bhatt, and Shashank Dobhal
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