In the start-up world, hitting the $1-billion mark, which accords the "Unicorn" tag, is a milestone. Enterprises typically reach the milestone only by series C or series D, or three to four funding rounds later. Zeta achieved it at the first one. On May 25, the six-year-old banking tech firm raised $250 million from Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, at a post-money valuation of $1.45 billion. "This is the first time we have raised institutional money," Zeta co-founder Bhavin Turakhia beamed on the conference call. This trajectory is uncommon in start-ups.
Everyday consumerables, such as grocery and order-in food items are the key buyout sector, analysts say, and a major reason for kirana stores' digitisation push.
Google is going ahead with a policy revision mandating 30% charge on in-app purchases across all apps on Play Store. This has left developers' community worried about tighter squeeze on their earnings, says Yuvraj Malik.
Indian firms selling SAAS products have got a bonanza as companies meet, manage and sell remotely. The top five firms - Zoho, Freshworks HighRadius, Druva, and Icertis - account for 33 per cent of the market share. Chennai, India's SAAS centre, alone generates $1 billion in annual revenue. Yuvraj Malik explains how these companies are planning their next phase of growth.
Chinese mobile brands are deeply entrenched in the Indian market. A move to bar them may send a bold diplomatic message. But its cost for the local industry is anybody's guess. In the event that Chinese brands face curbs, two handset makers - Samsung and Apple - squarely stand to gain.
By the end of the June quarter, the top four - TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Tech employed 10,15,000 employees - down by 9,144 employees over the previous quarter.
The Navi lending app, launched in May, provides instant loans of up to Rs 5 lakh, with repayment tenures of up to 36 months.
The appraisals being done by most companies this year are harsher than past ones with higher threshold in many metrics. Reduction in headcount has been done across most tier-I and tier-II IT firms along with global technology firms in the country.
'One good thing that has come out of all this is that it shown people that online ordering is the way forward.'
Most Indian IT firms work as system integrators for Huawei and though the exposure is very less as of now, the potential is more due to 5G roll out. As pressure to keep the Chinese firm out of the 5G network grows, other global firms, including Japan's NEC, South Korea's Samsung, Finland's Nokia and Sweden's Ericssion are increasing their investments to grab more market share in the telecom sector.
76 families took a Qatar Airways flight from San Francisco on Sunday evening and reached Bangalore International Airport after a 20-hour flight. These employees were stuck in the US due to various reasons.
The annual meet also saw some shareholders of the country's second largest IT services company raising concerns over falling operating margins. But many congratulated the management for delivering good FY20 performance despite the tough economic conditions.
This is expected to benefit subcontractor firms such as Manpower Group, Randstad, Adecco, Kelly Services, Allegis Global Solutions and a host of other boutique staffing firms which supply skilled manpower to technology companies in the US.
According to outsourcing advisors and experts, while almost half of the deals are likely to see delay, the others are expected to be renewed at a lower price as enterprises ask for discounts in roll-over contracts.
Thierry Delaporte's pay package would be around 34 per cent higher than the total compensation that Wipro CEO Abidali Neemuchwala received in financial year 2019-20 (FY20). It also brings the Wipro CEO's salary on par with other top IT firms such as Infosys and Cognizant.
The IT firm will soon initiate discussions with colleges to start the process from September.
As enterprises halt ongoing projects or cancel them, all staffers working on such projects are placed on the bench. In some cases, IT firms have to reduce billable staffers in a project as clients ask for scaling down support, leading to rise in reserved employees.
Bhattacharya is now more optimistic than before regarding the adoption of newer technologies, even though she acknowledges there could be short-term challenges owing to the pandemic. Salesforce is among the first global employers to take the 'no lay-off' pledge, pertaining to COVID-19.
'If the business doesn't recover in next 6-10 months, there might be situation where there would be some lay-offs...That may be required for survival and to ensure livelihood to millions of people.'
According to several industry sources in the know, expenses towards deploying contractual staffer, which used to account 10 per cent of the overall billable employee cost at IT firms, has fallen to around 3 per cent. IT firms typically use the contractual workers from staffing solutions providers or subcontractors.
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