Invested $300 million in supply chain, logistics in 18 months: Snapdeal
E-commerce major Snapdeal has pumped in $300 million (about Rs 1,990 crore) over the last 18 months to strengthen its supply chain and logistics and facilitate the increase in shipment volumes. The city-based firm has seen 1.9 times increase in shipment volumes from 1.29 lakh daily shipments last year to 2.5 lakh this year. “We have seen a significant increase of 1.9 times in shipment volumes. This is on account of increase in assortment on Snapdeal from 12 million to 35 million over the year. We have also expanded our seller base which helped increase shipments,” Snapdeal Chief Customer Experience Officer Jayant Sood told PTI. He added that reports by PwC and RedSeer Consulting suggest that Snapdeal’s promised delivery time is the shortest across India. “The number of sellers on our platform has increased three fold from 1,00,000 at the beginning of 2015 to more than 3,00,000 in 2016… We have invested $300 million towards logistics and customer experience,” he said. He added that the company has 2 million sq ft of warehousing space across 63 sites and 45 cities. Sood said the seller expansion has also led to a huge increase in the goods available on its platform. “Unlike other competing marketplaces, which have their own sellers under various arrangements, we have no such conflicting interests. This makes Snapdeal more attractive for sellers,” he said. He said the company has seen 60 per cent month-on-month increase in FMCG sales, while the books category grew by 300 per cent. Also, there is a strong increase in uptake in the home decor category. “This blend of expansion of high frequency categories drives high repeat usage, which is enabled by reliable experience each time,” he added. Besides, sharp focus on repeat users and initiatives like same day refunds is helping Snapdeal “chart a distinct course”, he said. Brad Richardson Jersey
India’s startup ecosystem mostly software driven, rarely about hardware
India’s startup successes are mostly about software firms such as Flipkart and Ola, and rarely about hardware product companies. ET spoke with product entrepreneurs who have been there and done that for lessons the industry can tap into When the founders of electric scooter maker Ather Energy and medical diagnostics firm Achira Labs had not much more than concepts of their eventual products, they turned to familiar environments for direction. For Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, that was their alma mater, the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras; and for Dhananjay Dendukuri of Achira Labs, it was his employer. “We reached out to one of our professors in engineering design at IIT Madras and told him we wanted to build a battery and maybe a full vehicle and put in a lot of engineering effort doing that. He immediately offered to support us 100%,” said Mehta, chief executive of Ather Energy that is set to roll out its S340 smart electric scooter this year. “If we hadn’t had that support, our starting would have been 10x harder and 10x longer.” Dendukuri got support from Connexios Life Sciences, where he was a lead scientist; the company incubated his microfluidics startup so he could tinker and experiment with developing a low-cost diagnostics device. That’s lesson 1 on building a product startup, an area where India has a woefully poor record. Unlike software ideas, even simplistic ones, that can find ready backers, products have to climb a steep arc to prove their worth in a market not known for its manufacturing prowess. Products have to evolve from being a concept to a physical prototype and undergo various iterations before they can hit the market. And then the market has to want the product. Which is why getting that first person to believe in your idea and give you the space to experiment is critical. Product entrepreneurs should gain indepth understanding of the problem that they want to solve and its magnitude, and determine how it can be solved best. Niche problems might seem exciting but may not earn your startup the money it will need to sustain. “We never started to become a medical device company. We felt that the magnitude of preventable blindness was really high. Then we went about understanding the limitations. Why is there such a high prevalence of preventable blindness?” said K Chandrasekhar, CEO of low-cost eye screening devices maker Forus Health. “We were then convinced that technology is the only way we can solve this problem.” The next steps are finding a core team and raising funds, because developing a product requires money. While seeking funds, have a working prototype ready. “As a hardware company, one of the trump cards that one has is to be able to show a prototypean actual, tangible, physical thing. The impact that a physical product has is unparalleled. You cannot do the same by making presentations,” said Ather’s Mehta. Since the product startup sector is only picking up now, finding core team members might need time along with foresight and ingenuity. Find people who are as passionate about the field you are working on as you are. Dendukuri of Achira Labs went to various colleges to deliver lectures and took in members who seemed passionate about microfluidics. “I went to IIT-Delhi to give a talk. Somebody there was doing his Ph.D in microfluidics. He attended the talk and then he stayed back to ask questions and now he’s been with me through the entire journey,” said Dendukuri. “The other important pick we made was through a scientific adviser.” Dendukuri offers more suggestions: Scout for Indians abroad who might be seeking interesting options at home to come back to. Non-resident Indians working abroad come with interesting expertise and cutting-edge knowledge, he said. Also, hire consultants or advisers from the first generation of hardware companies as they will have experience in managing an entire product lifecycle. Finding the right vendors for different components is a challenge of its own. Understand the sourcing ecosystem and reach out to vendors who can understand your vision and will want to be involved for the long haul. Akash Gupta, chief technology officer of robotics enterprise GreyOrange, holds one advice from the company’s experienced Germany-based cofounder Wolfgang Holtgen close to his heartthere is a lot of difference between cheap and economical. “There is a big difference between a cheap product and a viable product. Viable products cater to the market, not the cheap. This was drilled into us by Wolfgang. A lot of our supply chain is from Germany, Taiwan and Japan, so it is possible to make products which have really good components and still be viable enough,” Gupta said. It is critical to get the pricing right. Chandrasekhar reached out to experts in the eye care industry to determine the pricing for Forus’s ophthalmic imaging devices. “We were able to understand what would be a typical price a customer would be interested (to pay) and we got a particular price point. That price point was definitely not very profitable for us to sell at that point of time, but then we went about announcing it at that price point, which helped us to make inroads into the market,” he said. Finally, as all success stories go, it is the underlying passion that can take you through the arduous journey of building a product startup. “I started the company pretty late. Before that I was into racing. We named the team as Tork and remained in that space for fourand-a-half years. And then I had a bit of free time (when) I built a prototype,” said Kapil Shelke, founder of Tork Motorcycles, a Pune-based maker of electric motorcycles that is backed, among others, by Ola cofounders Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati. “The perception of electric motorcycles was not good then. So I wanted to build and show that it is possible. It worked well.” Stephen Piscotty Jersey
Indians are the most demanding, yet most loyal customers globally: Study
Indians are some of the most demanding, but loyal customers in the world, according to new research launched by Collinson Group. The Group polled 6,125 of the top 10-15% of earners from Australia, Brazil, China, France, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the United Arab Emirates. The study reveals that 83% Indian customers expect high quality, consistent customer service irrespective of how they interact with a brand, while 81% expect brands to be easy to do business with. The numbers compare with the global averages of 69% in both categories. Further, the research states that once loyal to a brand, India consumers become dedicated customers. 81% agree that programmes make them purchase more, and 82% would recommend a brand that offered a loyalty programme. This is also well above the global averages of 66% and 65% respectively. It can be noted that brands, however, are failing to tap into this loyal behaviour. In India, there has been a 24% drop in membership of loyalty programmes among the affluent middle class since 2014. Collinson Group surveyed attitudes to programmes run by supermarket and grocery stores, airlines, credit card providers, retailers, hotels, telecom and media companies, coffee shops, and banking. Membership was down across all industries. Some key findings: – 47% hold frequent flyer memberships, down from 71% – 63% participate in credit card programmes, down from 69% – 65 percent are members of supermarket loyalty programmes, down from 77% – Retailers also performed poorly, with a drop in members to 59% from 75% – Telecoms and media providers were the only sector to enjoy a rise in membership, up 2% to 47% “This is a critical wake-up call to brands using points-based programmes offering only generic rewards. Given the importance of affluent middle class consumers on the fortunes of companies, brands must lift their game and rethink how they recognise, engage and reward customers,” said Anurag Saxena, India country manager, ICLP, owned by Collinson Group. “Despite lower membership numbers, the results show that personalised and relevant loyalty initiatives do positively influence consumer behaviour. Three quarters of respondents who are actively engaged in a loyalty programme said it encouraged them to spend more.” Globally, the affluent middle class is also now less likely to repeat purchase, recommend a brand to friends or refrain from switching to a competitor as a result of generic loyalty programmes. India, Brazil and China however buck this trend, as per the research, suggesting these societies are yet to experience the frustration of uninspiring programmes seen in more mature Western markets. “There is a clear appetite for loyalty and customer engagement initiatives, but consumers are turning their backs on programmes that no longer resonate with them. The affluent middle class value spending time with, and providing for, their families, as well as saving for the future. These rank far higher than driving a good car or going on a luxury holiday. Brands should seek to tap into what motivates their customers, instead of reaching for only discounts or material goods as rewards,” continued Saxena. “Brands that are not innovating and addressing evolving customer expectation will simply be left behind.” Gabriel Gagne Jersey
Ecommerce companies say GST will be taxing for customers
The ecommerce industry wants lower overall tax for the industry once the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill gets passed, so as to avoid an increase in costs for the end consumer. It also asked the government to sort out the state-level “entry-tax” issues. A joint report by industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and consultancy Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC), shared exclusively with ET, has identified and made 15 recommendations pertaining to online marketplaces and ecommerce under the proposed GST regime. “The overall GST rate should be lower, especially since currently services are taxed at 14.5%, and any increase beyond 18% could make services extremely expensive for the end customer,” noted the report. One of the key concerns of ecommerce companies is the state value-added tax (VAT). “One of the provisions to this effect should clearly state when and for which transaction the ecommerce company or vendor on the ecommerce platform is liable to pay GST. In a marketplace model, it should be clarified that the ecommerce company is liable to pay tax on the amount charged by the company from the vendors for providing various services,” says the report. “The ‘one-tax, one-market’ concept on which the GST is based, should be a welcome step for online marketplaces. To create clarity in terms of the tax treatment of online marketplace sector transactions, sector-specific provisions need to be introduced in the GST regime,” said Sandeep Ladda, partner and leader, technology & ecommerce, PwC India. The report further says that specific rules should be framed regarding when a service will be interstate or intrastate. “This is imperative for ecommerce transactions as it is difficult to identify interstate transactions in the case of services provided over the internet,” noted the report. The recommendations include defining ecommerce appropriately to remove the ambiguity and confusion with “aggregator” and “intermediary” under indirect tax laws. Another point highlighted by the report is defining ‘location of service provider’, where place of supply for ecommerce service providers should be based on the location of the service provider in the case of B2C transactions and that of the service recipient in the case of B2B transactions. It further adds that online marketplaces should only be liable to pay taxes on the service fees they earn. The seller would be liable to pay GST on goods being sold in an online marketplace. The industry has also asked for clarity on whether services provided in Jammu and Kashmir would be taxable under GST. The state is currently considered outside taxable territory. Danny DeKeyser Authentic Jersey
World’s biggest aircraft An-225 Mriya likely to make India debut on Friday
The world’s largest wide body cargo aircraft-Mriya (Dream), an An-225, is expected to make its India debut with its landing at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad on Friday. The Ukraine-based, Antonov Company’s aircraft is powered by six turbofan engines and is the longest and heaviest airplane ever built, with a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes. Built first in the 1980s, it also has the largest wingspan of any aircraft in operations. Specially built to undertake transcontinental route airlifting load between 180-230 tonnes, the aircraft will be coming in to Hyderabad from Turkmenistan, according to a press release. Partnership agreement Reliance Defence had last month signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement with the Ukraine firm for assembly, manufacture & MRO of Antonov platforms in India, both for the commercial and military markets. India needs over 200 medium lift turbofan aircraft valued at Rs. 35,000 crores which is the backbone of all tactical Logistic Transport Support Role as well as Route Transport Role of the Air Force, Army and Para military forces, the release said. The joint venture between Reliance-Antonov will address various requirements including the 50-80 seat passenger aircraft programme of HAL, in its basic configuration and in all its variants such as transport, maritime patrol and other military roles. Antonov aircraft Antonov or An class of aircraft have served the Indian Air Force and Navy for over five decades. Currently, the IAF has more than 100 An-32 aircraft on its inventory. The joint venture would provide the benefits of quality and low-cost solution for 50-80 seater aircraft. It also envisages design and manufacture of the medium lift dual use turbofan aircraft in India with transfer of niche technologies. Low level tactical missions by this aircraft are aided by modern day avionics and navigation systems powered by fly-by-wire systems in all weather round-the-clock operations. Jordy Nelson Womens Jersey
Supreme Court imposes Rs 10 lakh fine on SpiceJet for offloading disabled flyer
The Supreme Court on Thursday directed budget airline SpiceJet to pay Rs 10 lakh as damages to a flyer, suffering from cerebral palsy, who was forcibly offloaded in 2012, saying the manner in which she was deboarded depicts total lack of sensitivity. The apex court noted that the disabled flier Jeeja Ghosh was not given appropriate, fair and caring treatment which she required with due sensitivity and the decision to de-board her was uncalled for. On our finding that SpiceJet acted in a callous manner, and in the process violated Rules, 1937 and Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR), 2008 guidelines resulting in mental and physical suffering experienced by Ghosh and also unreasonable discrimination against her, we award a sum of Rs 10,00,000 as damages to be payable to her, a bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and R K Agrawal said. Ghosh was offloaded from a SpiceJet flight on February 19, 2012 from Kolkata when she was going to attend a conference in Goa hosted by NGO ADAPT (Able Disable All People Together), the second petitioner in the case. The apex court said the decision to offload Ghosh was taken by the airlines without any medical advise or consideration and her condition was not such which required any assistive devices or aids. “Even if we assume that there was some blood or froth that was noticed to be oozing out from the sides of her mouth when she was seated in the aircraft (though vehemently denied by her), nobody even cared to interact with her and asked her the reason for the same. No doctor was summoned to examine her condition. Abruptly and without any justification, a decision was taken to de-board her without ascertaining as to whether her condition was such which prevented her from flying. This clearly amounts to violation of Rule 133-A of Rules, 1937 and the CAR, 2008 guidelines,” the bench said. Phillip Gaines Jersey
Bangalore’s Aequs Aerospace to supply titanium machined parts to Airbus
Airbus on Thursday said that it has contracted Bangalore’s Aequs Aerospace to supply over 100,000 titanium machined parts for the A320neo (new engine option) programme. These parts will be delivered to the Airbus plant in Toulouse, France where they will be assembled onto the pylon structure, used to mount engines on the aircraft wing. Aequs will make the parts at its aerospace machining facility at Belagavi, Karnataka. It was purpose-built to manufacture aerospace machined components for Airbus. Airbus annual procurement from India in 2015 was over $500, up 15% on 2014. Overall, Airbus’ procurement from India has grown 16 times in the last decade. Cameron Meredith Womens Jersey
Vistara, AirAsia may soon fly abroad as key ministries support abolition of 5/20 rule
Vistara and AirAsia will soon be able to fly abroad as all key ministries have supported abolition of the five-year 20-aircraft rule that airlines had to meet before commencing international operations. The aviation ministry had sought response from ministries such as finance, home, external affairs and commerce on the proposed new civil aviation policy, before sending it to the Union Cabinet for approval. Abolition of the 5/20 rule was one of the key proposals in it. “Comments from ministries are in support of the abolition of 5/20. The Cabinet note, which has the approval of both ministers (Cabinet Minister Ashok Gajapati Raju and junior Minister Mahesh Sharma), is likely to be sent by the end of this week,” said a senior civil aviation ministry official, who did not want to be named. According to the proposed rules, airlines must allocate 20 aircraft or 20% of their total fleet of aircraft, whichever is higher, to the domestic sector if they wish to fly overseas, ET had reported first on March 9, 2016. The abolition of the minimum time requirement will mean Vistara and AirAsia India, which were launched in 2015 and 2014, respectively, will not have to wait five years for flying abroad, as long as they have a fleet strength of 20. At present the airlines, both part-owned by the Tata Group, have nine and six aircraft, respectively. Government officials in the know also said the external affairs ministry has approved the aviation ministry’s proposal to conduct auction of bilateral traffic rights. The support from the external affairs ministry on auctioning the bilateral is crucial, as it HAD created a rift between both the aviation ministers as well as officials of the aviation ministry. Government officials in the know said minister Raju and a few senior ministry officials wanted auctioning of bilateral rights to bring in transparency in the system of allocation of bilateral rights, as allocation of bilateral rights has created a lot of controversy in the past. Bud Dupree Womens Jersey
Civil Aviation Minister to review Air India performance on May 16
Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju will review next week the performance of Air India, which is expected to have eked out “operating profit” last fiscal after being in the red for a decade. The minister will be reviewing the “operational and financial performance” of the national carrier on May 16, according to senior officials. The review meeting, likely to be attended by Raju’s deputy Mahesh Sharma and Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey along with other senior officials, comes ahead of the second anniversary of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the Centre. A senior official at the airline said the minister will be taking a review after nearly six months. The last such meeting took place in November last year. The Civil Aviation Secretary takes a review of the carrier every fortnight, he added. Grappling with tough market conditions and intense competition, Air India has been registering losses for quite some time, but the airline’s performance has improved in the last few quarters. “Air India’s all-time performance has increased. This year, it is making profit, which is the first time in the last 10 years. It is making an operating profit. Air India is doing good work,” Raju had said in Parliament last week. The carrier is expected to post an operating profit of Rs 8 crore in 2015-16. In March, Sharma had said the airline is “expected to earn operating profit of Rs 8 crore as compared to the operating loss of Rs 2,636.18 crore in the previous year”. “This is the first time that the company is going to achieve operating profit since its merger in 2007-08,” he had told the Rajya Sabha. Air India ran up losses to the tune of Rs 5,859.91 crore in 2014-15. The improvement is anticipated mainly on account of a steep fall in the jet fuel price, which accounts for 40 per cent of an airline’s operating expenses. In 2012, the government had extended a Rs 30,231-crore lifeline to the national carrier under a turnaround plan stretching over a period of nine years to keep it afloat. This equity infusion includes the financial support towards repayment of principal as well as interest on government-guaranteed loans taken for aircraft acquisition by the airline. As per the 2012 Turn Around Plan (TAP), the government will infuse Rs 18,929 crore for repayment of government- guaranteed loans/interest till 2010-21. Michael Hutchinson Authentic Jersey
Oil supply grows in India, falls at global level: IEA
A global oil glut that has sent prices tumbling is set to “shrink dramatically” later this year, as wildfires have disrupted Canada’s output and demand in India soars, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Thursday. Demand for oil worldwide is set to grow at a “solid” rate in 2016, with India as the “star performer”, the 29-nation IEA said in its monthly report, adding to it they believed “the global supply surplus of oil will shrink dramatically later this year”. “This provides further support for the argument that India is taking over from China as the main growth market for oil,” the 29-nation IEA said in its monthly report. The oil market has for months been depressed by a vast oversupply. Oil prices surged to six-month highs this week and are now well over USD 46 a barrel after plummeting below USD 30 early in the year. They are nevertheless far below the USD 100-a-barrel mark of mid-2014. But the IEA said it believed “that the global supply surplus of oil will shrink dramatically later this year”. In Canada devastating wildfires near Fort McMurray forced a production curb early this month, which, the IEA said, would result in oil supplies falling to just over 3.7 million barrels a day in May, nearly 1 mb/d less than at the start of the year. The IEA said the events in Canada, however, had not sent oil prices sharply higher, as would have been expected some years ago, with Brent crude hovering around USD 45 a barrel showing little reaction. Iran, the IEA said, had provided the other surprise. Its oil production and exports increased slightly faster than expected following Iran’s return to the market after the lifting of sanctions under its nuclear deal. Iranian oil production in April was nearly 3.6 mb/d, a level last achieved in November 2011 before Western sanctions against Tehran were tightened, the IEA noted. “Even more important for global markets, oil exports reached 2 mb/d, a dramatic increase from the 1.4 mb/d seen in March,” it added. Teemu Selanne Jersey