Avinash Bhat, The New Indian Express Bangalore, 6 October 2014 As Diwali approaches, brick-and-mortar retailers are scrambling to compete with online websites offering hefty discounts to woo shoppers. Offers like one-plus-one and 50% discounts are becoming the norm across shops. This week, major online retailers like Snapdeal, Flipkart, Jabong and Amazon announced campaigns to target festival shoppers. Realising the need to compete, physical retailers are also offering huge discounts. The online market in India has been growing at a dizzying pace, and attracting huge investments. In 2014 alone, Flipkart raised $1 billion in funds while Amazon announced plans to invest…
Reghu Balakrishnan, Business Standard Mumbai, 2 October 2014 The Indian private equity (PE) sector has, of late, been witnessing a churn at the top. In the past two months alone, at least six top executives have quit leading PE firms, citing reasons such as starting their own funds, a lack of performance by the existing funds, and entering the e-commerce space, which has recently witnessed a lot of action. Among the notable exits is that of Kanwaljit Singh, co-founder and senior managing director of leading venture capital (VC) fund Helion. Singh quit two weeks ago to pursue his interest in…
Arpita Mukherjee, Business Today Mumbai, 28 September 2014 About a decade ago, Suresh Goklaney, visited his sister in Daytona Beach, US. There, the Executive Vice Chairman of Eureka Forbes happened to meet Fred Tepper, Founder and President of Argonide Corporation, which makes nanotechnology-based water purifiers. The company then adopted this technology to launch a portable water purifier, Aquaguard On The Go, in 2014. Seven years ago, a Eureka Forbes salesperson, also called a Eurochamp, pointed out to Goklaney that the quality of water supplied to Indian homes varied through the day. The company subsequently launched a water purification device, Aquaguard…
Alys Francis, Nikkei Asian Review New Delhi, 27 September 2014 A few months ago, a group of wealthy industrialists and other businessmen gathered in a plush Mumbai hotel suite to pore over a selection of John Lobb handmade welted shoes that cost up to $12,000 a pair. It may just be a temporary "pop-up" store, but Thomas Collette, John Lobb's commercial director for India, was excited. He said that a local agent for the bespoke shoemaker would start taking orders by appointment only. "This is a big step for us and a big step as well for the country," he…
Nayantara Narayanan, Scroll.in Bangalore, 25 September 2014 As Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his way to Tumkur near Bangalore on Wednesday morning, several newspapers carried full-page ads announcing that he was “inaugurating the era of food prosperity; to share the joy of food with farmers entrepreneurs and consumers”. Modi was opening an integrated food park, established and run by the Kishore Biyani-led Future Group. The 110-acre facility has been established under a scheme of the Ministry of Food Processing and is Biyani’s giant step towards becoming a leader in the fast moving consumer goods business. People in India are working…
Geopolitical friction has again sparked renewed concerns over inflation and rising input costs for FMCG companies as @itmeansjustice @whysnavi write. @devangshu commented.
