Business executives are finally dusting off their long-unused suitcases to resume travel, thanks to a good vaccination rate, a drop in fresh cases, and an easing of travel restrictions. It comes as a huge relief for the ravaged aviation, travel and hospitality sectors. "We are witnessing a 40 per cent recovery on pre-covid volumes from our business travellers, signalling the return of corporate confidence in air travel," said Indiver Rastogi, president & group head, Global Business Travel, Thomas Cook (India) & SOTC.
The second quarter of FY22 continued to show double digit growth for the top four IT services providers, with every vertical and geography growing well, even though the total contract value (TCV) looked soft for all the players. The trend was first evident in Accenture's Q4 numbers, which saw its TCV in outsourcing deals softer. A soft TCV does not mean that growth is declining, but it does point to the trend of few and scarcer mega deals.
Mobility company Ola's chief financial officer Swayam Saurabh and chief operating officer Gaurav Porwal are leaving the company. These developments come at a time when the SoftBank-backed company's core ride-hailing unit is planning to go public and for which it raised $500 million from Warburg Pincus and Temasek in July this year. These investment firms had partnered with the company founder Bhavish Aggarwal for this round.
Byju's is raising about Rs 2,200 crore ($300 million) as part of a larger round of new investment as the world's most valuable edtech company focuses on expanding its business in global markets and explores to do more acquisitions. According to industry sources, the new funding may value Bengaluru-based Byju's at $18 billion, up from a valuation of $16.5 billion in June this year. In June, Byju's became India's most valuable unicorn with a valuation of $16.5 billion, surpassing fintech company Paytm's $16 billion valuation.
E-commerce firms Amazon, Flipkart, and others are expected to witness blockbuster festival season sales of around $9 billion this year, surpassing pre-pandemic sales of $5 billion in 2019. The pandemic has accelerated the shift to e-commerce, with more consumers shopping online at a higher frequency than last year, observed analysts. This year's festival sales (gross merchandise value or GMV) are expected to grow 30 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to $4.8 billion during the first week of the season and potentially clock over $9-billion GMV during the whole festival month, revealed consulting firm RedSeer's e-commerce festival season report.
Fresher hiring sentiment is highest in India, with 17 per cent employers keen on recruiting fresh graduates in the July to December 2021 period against 6 per cent globally. According to the Career Outlook Report by TeamLease EdTech, conducted across 18 sectors and 14 cities, the hiring sentiment in the country has registered a 2 percentage point increase over the February-April 2021 period. In terms of sectors, those that have been able to withstand the impact of the pandemic and witnessed a stronger hiring sentiment are information technology (31 per cent), telecommunication (25 per cent) and technology start-ups (25 per cent).
Overlooked yet capable candidates will now have the opportunity to apply for TCS open requirements.
For Krish Shankar, executive vice-president & group head of human resource (HR) development at Infosys, the defining moment of the pandemic on the HR department has been the importance that reskilling and learning have managed to get. For Infosys, the focus on reskilling started three to four years back as business saw a shift towards digital, and the pandemic has really brought the importance of reskilling to the fore. "In the past, certification courses or taking up an e-learning course was just a way towards promotion, and was not taken too seriously.
Swiggy is rapidly scaling up its technology (tech) teams as the food delivery giant is witnessing strong recovery and growth over the past few months. The SoftBank-backed company is hiring across engineering, product, design, analytics, and data science functions in the next two quarters. Building this team, Swiggy is setting up a new development centre in Gurugram. Its rival Zomato, which had a stellar debut on the Indian stock exchanges in July, is also headquartered in Gurugram.
Ola Electric's technology team is working hard to iron out the technical kinks that marred the electric vehicle company's hyped online sale of its electric scooters (e-scooters) - the S1 and the S1 Pro - on Wednesday, said company sources. The SoftBank-backed firm is facing technical difficulties in making the website live for the purchase of its e-scooters. According to company sources, the website couldn't go live as there were integration issues.
'Hybrid learning is the future, and test prep is a big segment within the entire education space in India.'
'We are anticipating that the hiring trend will continue to see double-digit growth at least for the current financial year.'
JM Financial, Axis Bank, and Bank of America have been roped in as the bankers to run the mandate, say sources.
Prosus-backed fintech firm PayU is set to acquire India's earliest payment gateway BillDesk in an all-cash transaction of $4.7 billion. This will be the largest acquisition in India's digital payments space. The deal will also give exit to investors General Atlantic, TA Associates, Temasek, Clearstone Ventures, and Visa. The proposed acquisition will help PayU, the payments and fintech business of Prosus which operates in more than 20 markets, become one of the leading online payment providers globally by total payment volume (TPV).
US e-commerce giant Amazon has written to Ajay Tyagi, chairman of market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), to take action as is necessary to comply with the Supreme Court Judgment, related to the $3.4-billion merger deal between Future Group and Reliance. Amazon has requested Sebi to direct the Indian stock exchanges to withdraw the Observation Letters related to this deal with immediate effect. In January this year, Sebi had given a go-ahead onto Future Group's scheme of arrangement and sale of assets to Reliance, based on which the Bombay Stock Exchange also granted its "no adverse observation" report to the Rs 24,713-crore ($3.4 billion) deal.
This year's share of dream and super-dream job offers has spiked. As a result, the overall annual average salary packages have nearly doubled at some of these college campuses.
Byju's, says Anita Kishore, has given the founders of the businesses it has acquired the independence to operate separately and maintain their core culture.
Last year in January at Amazon's flagship event Smbhav, Infosys Co-founder N R Narayana Murthy had to shorten his keynote speech from 20 minutes to about five because the event was delayed by 1.5 hours. "I will try to finish it in five minutes, because I am not used to delays," said Murthy, while addressing hundreds of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) about building businesses that last. In the audience was Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Murthy referred to Bezos' prediction that the 21st century will be the Indian century. "That confidence enhances our enthusiasm," said Murthy. The relationship between Murthy and Bezos dates to 2014, when Prione, a 49:51 joint venture (JV) between Amazon and Murthy's venture capital company Catamaran, was formed.
Walmart, the world's largest retailer, is tripling its sourcing from India to about $10 billion a year by 2027, said Judith McKenna, president, and chief executive officer of Walmart International, the segment which includes the company's operations outside the US. "To achieve this, we are growing our sourcing team in India," said McKenna, during a fireside chat with YourStory founder Shradha Sharma at Converge@Walmart, the flagship event of Walmart Global Tech India. "Walmart has a 20-year history of sourcing from India and already exports more than $3 billion worth of Made-in-India goods each year to 14 markets worldwide." McKenna said the company has expertise in processes such as international standards and demand forecasting that businesses need to get ready to export.
For Paris-headquartered IT services major Capgemini, India has always been the backbone of its services delivery for its global clients, but the company is focused on driving more value from India as it gears up its engineering research and development (R&D) presence worldwide with its acquisition of Altran Technologies. The company, which has about 149,000 employees in India, is looking to hire 60,000 associates this year. Of them, 30,000 will be recruits from campuses and the rest lateral entrants. For Ashwin Yardi, chief executive officer India, Capgemini, the focus is to make sure that the India unit is aligned with the global plans of repositioning the company as a hub of engineering R&D, operational technology, and IT.
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