Ajit Balakrishnan on keeping an eye on democratising finance in India.
Indian retail chains have not put small stores out of business.
Policy constraints may prevent many of the global retail giants from reaching their full potential.There are too many restrictions right now in the sector and policy makers lack clarity.
Walmart is happy with its current partnership with Bharti.
The purpose, behind slashing property tax on small commercial establishments by 70%, was to allow growth of small shops in residential areas, so that people do not have to travel long distances for their daily needs.
Bharti Retail on Friday announced appointments of former head of Walmart India Raj Jain as its CEO and Pankaj Madan, another senior executive of erstwhile joint venture Bharti Walmart, as Chief Financial Officer.
E-commerce companies managed to beat the odds by adopting a flexible approach in terms of transforming their business models and leveraging emerging technologies. They had to constantly align their objectives with evolving customer needs. With companies hiring thousands of temporary workers, expanding to smaller cities, and launching new products, e-commerce giants gird up to celebrate the peak festival season without Covid restrictions after a three-year time-out.
FMCG distributors on Thursday said it has suspended their boycott of certain products of oral care maker Colgate after talks with the company representatives over the issue of the price disparity between the traditional distributors and organised business-to-business channel. A day after a virtual meeting with Colgate-Palmolive (India) Ltd (CPIL) representatives, the All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation (AICPDF) called off its stir to boycott certain products of the company starting from January 1, 2022. "From today, the movement against Colgate is postponed till further notice," the AICPDF said in a statement.
The competition which BigBasket faces now is with the big three - Amazon, Walmart, and Reliance.
Three business houses are likely to be in the final race to strike a deal with Germany's Metro AG for investing in its India unit -- Metro Cash & Carry. Industry sources in the know named Reliance, Adani Group, and Thailand's conglomerate Charoen Pokphand (CP) as potential frontrunners to acquire a partial or full stake in the Gurugram-headquartered Metro Cash & Carry, which has 31 stores and 5,000 direct employees. Around 20 companies, including strategic and private equity investors, were approached by the German chain, inviting them to bid for the Indian wholesale business, according to a source aware of the M&A developments.
'This is a race where every technology can be used by the bad guys and good guys.'
He said he will be 'cheering from the outside' and urged Flipkart team to continue with the momentum.
Bharti Walmart, the joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and Walmart, the world's largest retailer, is also expected to open cash and carry stores in the South in the next 12-24 months.
Walmart-owned Flipkart on Wednesday said it has eliminated all single-use plastic packaging used across its fulfilment centres in the country. With this, the e-commerce major has delivered on its public commitment to move to plastic-free packaging in its supply chain by 2021. This has been achieved across more than 70 facilities of Flipkart spread all over India, where it has eliminated single-use plastic packaging by introducing the most scalable sustainable alternatives, a statement said.
The possible acquisition of Holcim India business will be one of the biggest inbound corporate deals in the country. Currently, Walmart Inc.'s $16-billion acquisition of Flipkart Online Services in 2018 remains the biggest acquisition of an Indian asset by any acquirer, followed by BP plc acquisition of 30 per cent stake in Reliance Industries' 23 oil and gas production blocks in 2011 for $7.2 billion. Bloomberg reported late on Wednesday night that Holcim - the world's biggest cement maker - is considering a potential sale of its India business and gauging interest in its controlling stake in Ambuja Cement.
Ronnie Screwvala-led edtech unicorn upGrad, has filed a suit for trademark infringement against another EdTech company called Scaler. The suit has been filed in the Delhi high court for violation of intellectual property relating to upGrad's trademark. It has also sought damages of more than Rs 3 crore. upGrad accused Scaler of using its brand name 'upGrad' through Google Ads to appear on top of search results on Google Search Engine and in turn gaining illicit benefit.
Apart from air travel, Flipkart would also be able to offer train bookings through Cleartrip.
A slew of Indian firms, including Flipkart, Byju's and Zomato, is building a path to profitability and diversifying into newer business segments ahead of mega-IPO plans.
E-commerce major Amazon on Wednesday said it will acquire Prione Business Services - its joint venture firm with Catamaran, subject to requisite regulatory approvals. Prione Business Services was formed in 2014 and was coming up for renewal on May 19, 2022. In August this year, Amazon and NR Narayana Murthy's Catamaran announced that they will not continue their JV beyond May 2022. The two parties had not disclosed the reason behind the decision.
Rejecting the demand of global retailers like Walmart, the government on Wednesday said there is no plan to relax the mandatory 30 per cent local sourcing norms for foreign players in the multi-brand retail sector.
'If one crore is sanctioned to make a road, they spend only Rs 40 lakhs and the remaining 60 lakhs is looted by the politician, bureaucrats and the contractor.'
This makes it the most valued fintech company in the country after Paytm and Walmart-owned PhonePe.
Flipkart has promoted several of its leaders into newer roles at a time when the Walmart-owned e-commerce giant has internally raised its IPO (initial public offering) valuation target to about $60 billion and aims for a US listing in 2023, according to the sources. "I am delighted to announce the promotion of some of our exemplary leaders," said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, chief executive officer, Flipkart Group, in an internal note, and which has been reviewed by Business Standard. "Each of them has been instrumental in delivering impact and creating long-term value for Flipkart.
Credit card spends jumped 57 per cent year-on-year (YoY) in September, aided by the festive season. According to the latest Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, in September, credit card spends totalled Rs 80,477.18 crore compared to Rs 77,981 crore in August, thereby registering a 3.2 per cent growth sequentially, despite the high base. In the corresponding period last year, credit card spend was to the tune of Rs 51,356.68 crore.
In collaboration with autonomous mobility start-up Ottonomy IO, Snapdeal has successfully tested last-mile delivery using robots in select locations of Delhi-NCR.
Fintech unicorn Razorpay has raised $375 million in the Series F round of funding at a $7.5-billion valuation, making it India's second-most valuable start-up in this space, after Paytm. The company valuation has surged over seven times in 15 months, helping it push Walmart-owned digital payments firm PhonePe to the third spot on the country's most-valuable fintech list. Razorpay's latest round of fundraising was led by Lone Pine Capital, Alkeon Capital, and TCV.
Amazon's fresh investment in its India entities come at a time when the Seattle-based firm has faced losses in several of its business entities in India, such as seller services, wholesale, transportation services and digital payments, for the 2018-19 financial year.
Here's a list of allegations of corporate governance failure by MNCs in India.
Jio Platforms is expected to use its 388 million mobile phone subscribers as the cornerstone of an e-commerce and digital services business to rival Amazon and Walmart's Flipkart.
As multilateral negotiations have paused, multi-national corporates have increasingly become aggressive; and our bureaucrats restless.
While global competitors Amazon and Walmart are looking to explore B2B online in India, traditional Indian retailers like the Future group and Reliance Retail and e-commerce players such as Snapdeal and Flipkart have no immediate plans in this area.
This is the second major shooting in the US this weekend after as many as 20 people were killed when a man opened fire at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas on Saturday.
Walmart is rumoured to be looking to listing Flipkart in a few years. At that stage, we'll get a better sense of what's going on in retail, says Devangshu Datta.
Slamming Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the issue of allowing foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail, Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani on Sunday said the red carpet was being rolled out for Walmart when it faced protests even in the US and New York City "shut Walmart out".
Decision-making is stretched because of differences in views between ministries.
The groups plan to take on well-entrenched players like Amazon, Flipkart, and Paytm by merging their offline businesses with e-commerce initiatives.
In a tragic incident, a two-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his mother after taking a gun from her purse while she was shopping at a Walmart store in the United States.
These top level changes have come soon after Flipkart co-founder and Group CEO Binny Bansal resigned over allegations of serious personal misconduct in November.
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