Cover Story
- Nine years ago, Tata Group shelled out $12 billion to pick up Corus - its biggest purchase till date. Now it is exiting at a huge loss. The distress sale is a dream turned sour for the group that made India's biggest overseas acquisition at the peak of the commodities supercycle.
Research-Driven
For many years, most of the JVs in the auto sector involved transfer of technology from the global partner to the Indian one. While some of these marriages were extremely successful - Maruti and Suzuki's in particular - others were not. There are about 100,000 delivery boys working for around 20 established e-commerce, hyperlocal and traditional logistics companies today delivering an estimated 1.5 million packages every day - everything from electronics to furniture to grocery and food. FM Arun Jaitley claims the database of 1.2 billion bank accounts when linked with 900 million mobile phones and a billion Aadhaar numbers would effectively ensure that the subsidy flow only happens to those who actually need it."The system is becoming more and more reliable"
Ajay Bhushan Pandey, DG and Mission Director, UIDAI, spoke to Business Today on Aadhaar enrolment crossing the one- billion mark. 3rd National Summit on "Non-Banking Finance Companies" to be held in Mumbai on April 25, 2016. Business confidence falls for the fifth straight quarter as corporate leaders expect economic recovery to take longer, finds the latest Business Today-C fore Business Confidence Survey. This is a book on how the biggest and the fastest technology transition will impact our work and lives. HR leaders from Delhi discussed the need for newer strategies to prepare for the future."India will soon be another home market for us"
Dr. Tan See Leng, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of IHH Healthcare and Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Parkway, spoke to BT's P.B. Jayakumar on plans for India, Fortis' takeover attempt and investing in Apollo. Companies have found a new appetite for frequent feedback to employees. But will the strategy pay off? The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate Middleton, arrived in India on April 10 and visited several places of interest.Honey, i(Phone) Shrunk the Screen!
Apple has relaunched a 4-inch iPhone in a market flooded with big-screen phones. Will this bring smaller screens back on the shelves? Be it display, usability, camera or sound quality, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro is a spectacular tablet, but comes at a high price. The Mi 5 is a power-packed flagship smartphone with the best of features and comes at an unbelievable price. SKS Microfinance's failure to win a small finance bank licence, even as its competitors got them, is likely to hit its growth prospects hard. Mumbai-based Complykaro is helping companies comply with laws related to sexual harassment at the workplace. Everyone - and not just the farmer - is waiting for a good monsoon. And IMD Director General Laxman Rathore brought a collective smile to India's lips by predicting an above-normal - 106 per cent of average - monsoon this year.
No Private Matter
Several foreign and private banks are working overtime to sell bad loans as they come to terms with the stress in their loan books, taking tough decisions wherever required. The 11.5 million documents of Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca have names of 500 Indians, including industrialists, renowned lawyers, ex-cricketers and celebrities. A Delhi based think-tank found that only a fraction of the funds that were to be spent within its jurisdiction was handled by the panchayat. The rest is managed by other entities such as state departments, government-owned organisations, district bodies, and block and taluk panchayats. In the third quarter, Dr. Reddy's revenues from India rose 34 per cent from the corresponding quarter of the previous year (partly due to acquisition of a few established brands of Belgian company UCB in India). However, in March, the growth was 7 per cent. For the domestic automobile industry, it is going from bad to worse. It was already reeling under the three-month ban on the registration of diesel cars above 2,000 cc in Delhi-NCR. Now, the Supreme Court is considering a 30 per cent Environment cess on diesel cars to lift the ban. The four listed shares with differential voting rights have outperformed the ordinary shares of the companies during the one- and three-year periods. The new DIPP draft guidelines seek to curb hefty royalty payments by local manufacturers to use patents of foreign firms. This may open up a Pandora's box. India's information technology companies will continue to do well in spite of global pressures.
Time to Reinvent
The clause that online marketplaces cannot influence the pricing of products sold on their platforms as per the recent FDI guidelines for e-commerce retail, is giving sleepless nights to the $11-billion online retail industry to lure consumers to shop online. BT spent time with the four key founders - N.R. Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, Kris Gopala-krishnan and S.D. Shibulal - who also occupied the CEO & MD position, to know about their life after Infosys and get their views on the opportunities in the current scenario.
Each uncertainty and challenge is an opportunity to do better, says Audi India's Joe King
Audi India has been the fastest to achieve pole position in the Indian luxury car market, since its 2007 debut. Last year, though, it lost the coveted spot to Mercedes-Benz. Audi India Head Joe King shares key issues, driving the Indian luxury space and new challenges.
