PubDate: Disruption: Startups & Tech Amazon Means Business ... · Tweet OF THE DAY London Dyson,...
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Right Fit LOSSES REVENUE Expenses FY18 `126crore FY18 FY18 FY17 FY17 FY16 `86.6 cr `52.9 cr `32.1cr `57.6 cr `62.6 cr Varsha.Bansal @timesgroup.com Bengaluru: Online lingerie re- tailer Zivame's omnichannel strategy seems to be paying off, as the company picked up pace in revenue generation during fi- scal year 2017-18. The Zodius Ca- pital-backed company posted . `86.6 crore in revenue in FY18, an almost 63% jump from the previous fiscal year, according to regulatory filings with the Mi- nistry of Corporate Affairs, ac- cessed through Tofler. Zivame’s loss has narrowed too, even as expenses increased. The company’s loss shrank 44% Zivame’s Omnichannel Play Starts to Pay Off for Firm to . `32.1 crore from . `57.6 crore in FY17, while expenses went up 8% to . ` 126 crore. The numbers reflect an uptick in the company’s performance after it started to lose ground in 2016. Zivame had witnessed a 15% drop in net revenue to . `52.9 crore in FY17, when its loss wi- dened from the year before. Post that, the company decided to add an omnichannel plan to its growth strategy and chart a turnaround. As of March, it had established 26 brand stores. The company plans to expand its offline presence to 100 stores by the end of the current fiscal year. For this, it has set aside an investment of . `30-40 crore. 6 THE ECONOMIC TIMES | MUMBAI | WEDNESDAY | 24 OCTOBER 2018 Disruption: Startups & Tech a For comprehensive and insightful stories about all things startups and technology, log on to www.ettech.com In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by how we connect with them STEVE GUTZLER @STEVEGUTZLER Tweet OF THE DAY London Dyson, famous for making vacuum cleaners, picked Singa- pore to manufacture its first electric car, pushing ahead with plans to challenge Tesla in the hottest sector of the au- tomotive market. The British manufacturer said it will complete the factory by 2020 and stuck to a goal of rolling out its first model by 2021 as part of a $2.6-billion effort to ex- pand into automotive market.— Bloomberg Tech Buzz Dyson Picks Singapore to Build eCars Open Computing Lan- guage is an open stand- ard for cross-platform, parallel programming. It was originally devel- oped by Apple in 2008 OpenCL Jargon Buster Microchip firm Qual- comm is joining Amazon to spread the use of Am- azon’s Alexa voice assis- tant in wireless head- phones. Under the deal, Qualcomm will release a set of chips that any maker of Bluetooth headphones can use to embed Alexa directly into the device. When the headphones are paired to a phone with the Alexa app on it, us- ers will be able to talk to the voice assistant by tapping a button on the headphones. — Reuters Alexa Coming Soon on More Headphones Amount YouTube plans to invest in creators who make educational videos $ 20 million Quick Byte ANIRBAN BORA Jochelle Mendonca & Mugdha Vari yar Bengaluru: Amazon has set up captive call centres in India to handle some of its international and domestic customer and sel- ler services, a departure from its previous strategy of working pu- rely with business process outso- urcing companies, as the ecom- merce giant continues its expan- sion in India. The Seattle-headquartered company has been looking at its customer service strategy over the past year. In January, it acqui- red a warrant in US company StarTek that is tied to the amount of revenue Amazon generates for the US BPO company. Earlier this year, StarTek merged with Indian BPO company Aegis, which pro- vides services to Amazon rivals, Flipkart and Paytm. “Amazon has looked at this very strategically. If they are giving you business then they want part of that upside or, in some cases, they think they can generate and keep the efficiencies for themsel- ves. They have a long horizon plan,” a senior executive with a large Indian BPO company told ET. The captive centres have been set up in the NCR region and Pune and the company has tasked recruiters to find candidates for the jobs, two sources with knowledge of the mat- ter said. “They are working with third-par- ty providers but they also wanted to the globe,” an Amazon spokesper- son said in response to ET’s queries. Amazon is hiring in India for both voice and chat support and the sala- ries are between . ` 1.5 lakh and . `2.5 lakh a year, ads on job sites said. ET called the recruitment agencies to Amazon Means Business, Opens Captive Call Centres Numbers Watch Supraja Sri ni vasan & Aditi Shri vastava Mumbai | New Delhi: Furni- ture and home-furnishing mar- ketplace Pepperfry closed fiscal 2018 on a high note, thanks to strong performance by its pri- vate labels and new lines of bu- siness that helped improve mar- gins. Pepperfry, owned by the TrendSutra group and backed by Goldman Sachs and Norwest Venture Partners, posted a 20% increase in revenue at . `308.46 crore. Its loss shrank 32% from the previous year to . ` 169.26 cro- re. The financials are consolida- ted and include the numbers of TrendSutra Platform Services, which operates the Pepperfry marketplace; wholesale home decor trading firm TrendSutra Client Services; and the group’s logistical arm, Pepcart Logis- tics. Much of the growth has been driven by private brands which now form about half the total revenue. Newly launched busi- ness lines such as rentals and furniture exchange as also ne- wer categories like modular kit- chens, mattresses and home de- cor have been picking up steadi- ly. “Our goal is to continue ex- panding to become a full-stack player in the home and interior space including interior desig- ning and interiors projects of home interiors including floo- ring, ceiling, painting, tiling, etc. We will continue to expand our house brands and foresee the modular kitchen and ward- robe segment as a key opportu- nity area,” Pepperfry chief ex- ecutive Ambareesh Murty said. Going forward, Pepperfry is betting on the home interiors and renovation category where it will compete with TPG Growth and Goldman Sachs- backed Livspace, and offline studio expansion through a franchise model to penetrate in- to towns and small cities to bo- ost growth. Offline studios — stores where shoppers can walk into and place orders — cur- rently drive more than 25% of the business for the firm. Pepperfry Revenue Rises 20% to . `308 cr in FY18 On Steady Ground FY18 REVENUE FY18 LOSSES `308.46cr `169.26cr Our Bureau New Delhi: Tencent-backed messaging service Hike Messenger’s losses have al- most doubled for the financial year end- ed March 2018, as per filings submitted by the Kavin Mittal-led company with the registrar of companies. Hike Messenger, which is backed by some of the world’s biggest technology investors, posted a loss of . `399.58 crore, an increase of 88% compared to the year ago period, in which it recorded loss of. `212.77 crore, according to docu- ments accessed by research platform Tofler. Total revenue for the company, which also counts Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufac- turer as an investor, grew just a shade over 20% to . `39.64 crore for fiscal 2018. While operational revenue contribut- ed a mere . `50.89 lakh to the overall to- pline for fiscal 2018, this compares to ze- ro revenue from operations that the company posted in the previous fiscal. For financial year 2017-18, profit from the sale of mutual funds contributed . `38.76 crore. Net expenditure almost doubled to . `439.92 crore in fiscal 2018, compared to . `245.66 crore in the previous financial year. The Delhi-headquartered compa- ny, which, in 2016, became one of the fas- test unicorns to emerge from the Indian startup ecosystem, had laid off several employees, with a significant portion of the affected employees coming from its two acquisitions — hardware maker Creo and social networking venture In- staLively — that it announced last year. Hike Receives a Message, Losses Zoom Lost Message FY18 FY18 FY17 FY17 NET EXPENDITURE LOSSES `399. 58 cr `439. 92cr `212.77cr `245. 66cr Messaging services firm posts loss of . `399 crore ET takes a close look at financial numbers put out by startups for the past financial year and interprets them for you TOSHI YOSHIDA, Extension MANY ROUTES Move a departure from strategy of working only with business process outsourcing firms confirm the details of the jobs. “They don’t want very highly pa- id people. Freshers and even 12th pass are all acceptable. This is for both international and domestic support process,” one of the re- cruiters told ET. The call centres are also being used for seller-services, even tho- ugh Amazon also currently uses third-party providers for that bu- siness as well. “If you are a signi- ficantly large seller, then you will interact with the captive centre. It gives them greater control over the data and the relationship. They can also experiment with different ways of customer servi- ce,” the second source said. Amazon’s strategy is also unu- sual as few large companies choo- se to set up captive call centres. Flipkart and Paytm both outsour- ce their customer service desks. The move is also of concern to BPO players in India because they had counted on ecommerce companies helping them grow bu- siness and margins as their core telecom business continues to contract. Ecommerce is seeing an increa- sing share of consumer complaints across sectors, even more than tele- com and banking. More consumers are calling the National Consumer Helpline run by the consumer affa- irs ministry with complaints about ecommerce than for other sectors. A recent survey by citizen engage- ment forum LocalCircles showed that 95% of customers wanted each packaged product to have a functio- nal toll free phone number. WHAT’S AT STAKE Amazon’s move will worry BPO players in India because they had counted on ecommerce companies to keep growing The captive centres have been set up in the NCR re- gion and Pune Amazon has tasked recruiters to find candidates for the jobs Salaries are between ` 2.5 The centres together will employ un- der a thou- sand people Pune cen- tre began a hiring plan last month set up their own operations. Where they are doing international work, the cost difference between a provi- der here and their own captive is not that much. And they can put in tech- nology to automate a great deal of the work,” one of the sources men- tioned above said. He added the com- pany will continue to work with third-party providers. The centres together will employ under a thousand people. The Pune centre began a hiring plan last month, the source said. “Amazon’s vision is to be the earth’s most customer centric com- pany. To ensure that the bar on cus- tomer experience is continuously raised. Amazon has setup several customer service sites and has also a strong virtual customer service net- work that provides support to our businesses and customers across Tech Trotter Meanwhile in tech... RBI Li fts Ban, Fi no Payments Bank to Start Openi ng Accounts Agai n BENGALURU The Reserve Bank of India has lifted the prohibition on Fino Pay- ments Bank to open new accounts, the company said. The RBI had prohibited Fino Payments Bank from opening any new accounts since May due to violations of certain licensing conditions and operating guidelines. However, no restrictions were placed by the apex bank on the payments bank for servicing existing customers. At the time, the payments bank had said that a few Fino Payments Bank accounts had deposits in excess of the stipulated amount. RBI lifted the prohibition on account opening effective October 22, 2018, after the bank submitted its compliance. Ebi x Acqui res 67% i n Routi er BENGALURU Ebix has acquired a 67% stake in Routier, a Delhi-based B2B marketplace for trucking logistics. Routier uses data analytics, artificial intelligence and end-to-end stream- lined functionality available over the cloud, and counts Coca- Cola, Asian Paints and Samsung among its clients. Mugdha. Vari yar @timesgroup.com Bengaluru: Uber India and several of its drivers approached the Bombay High Court on Tuesday to urge it to di- rect authorities in Mumbai to follow its injunction barring associations of taxi drivers from stopping drivers attached to its app-based platform. The compa- ny cited cases of violence during the indefinite strike called by Maharash- tra Rajya Rashtriya Kamgar Sangh in the state.“We regret the disruption caused to our rider and driver-partner community and condemn the use of vi- olence and intimidation by certain in- dividuals. The Hon'ble Bombay High Court has previously issued an injunc- tion restraining unions, their leaders, members and their followers from pre- venting Uber driver partners from go- ing about their work. We request the support of law enforcement to enforce the court’s order and hope that it will enable drivers to stay behind the wheel, something many have been tell- ing us, without fear or harassment,” Uber said in a statement. The company and over 30 of its driv- ers approached a high court bench on Tuesday after drivers complained of being assaulted by members of the union, with some claiming damages to their vehicles, a company spokesper- son said. However, representatives of the association said they have asked all members to not engage in violence. “There could be third-party members indulging in violence. We have strictly asked our members to not engage in vi- olence. Some have, however, taken to deflating tires,” an organiser of the strike said, requesting anonymity. The association said that close to 90% of cabs of both Ola and Uber were off the roads on Tuesday. Industry mem- bers said about 50-60% drivers did not ply in the city. The association has called for an in- definite strike citing falling incomes and incentives of drivers. Uber said it is working to offer drivers a stable in- come. “Through a series of monetary and other interventions like health and life insurance, we are focused on ensuring that our driver partners in Mumbai continue to access a stable in- come while giving riders a convenient, reliable option to get around the city and hence proactively take necessary measures from time to time,” the com- pany said. Uber Fi les Plea i n HC to Ensure Safe Operati ons Alleging violence, firm approaches HC to direct authorities to follow court’s injunction Cab drivers protesting in Mumbai. GuruQ Rai ses . `2.5 crore BENGALURU Delhi-based Edtech startup GuruQ has secured a further . `2.5 crore ($330,000) round of funding from a group of HNIs. The compa- ny will use these funds for expansion and marketing of the company. Revenues at HCL Tech- nologies expanded 3% sequentially in the Sep- tember quarter on the back of growing dis- cretionary spend from consumer-focused and engineering clients in the US, its main market. The Noida-based IT services firm retained its sales guidance of 9.5-11.5% for the year ahead. HCL joins larger rivals such as Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys in showing higher growth, winning large orders from clients and selling more software products that generate better margins than services do. The product business, which HCL built by acquiring intellectual property from companies such as IBM, will likely generate $1billion in revenue this year. The company also appointed non-executive director Roshni Nadar as vice- chairman of the board. “The outlook is very positive, there is a strong demand at least in the US market and we are seeing significant dis- cretionary spend and hope to benefit from that. We are very positive that the next two quarters will be better and we hope to reach the mid- point of our guided revenue range,” HCL Tech- nologies CEO C Vijayakumar tells ET’s Surabhi Agarwal in an interview. Edited excerpts: What are the signs that make you positive about the growth prospects? One of our bigger service lines is the infrastruc- ture business. We mentioned in the last quarter that a lot of customers are modernising their infrastructure. Some of the infrastructure would go on cloud, but they also are building software defined data centres and digital workplaces. Their internal IT organisations… are focusing on becoming more employee-centric and employee-experience orien- ted kind of services. Our digital workplace, which has cognitive workdesk, significant amo- unts of automation and social collabo- ration, is gaining good traction. If you look at our engineering services, we are seeing two or three trends driving demand… A lot of companies are becoming more soft- warised, which means they have to build new platforms. A lot of product companies are trying to move their products to software-as-a- service (SaaS) solution, which would mean a lot of re-engineering oppor- tunities of these products. The whole industrial segment, Industry 4.0, IoT is driving growth besides the core application services business, which is mostly digital and analytics. The macro (economy) is also looking This quarter, the financial services business has been flat… We have had these specific client issues that are causing a little bit of softness. Overall, it is pretty good outside the two clients. These two (client issues) are in Europe. Last year, we had the highest growth in financial services across the industry. Where do you expect discretionary spend to increase? Retail, consumer packaged goods (CPG) and financial services are the two areas. We are also seeing a little bit of growth in telecom and life sciences. This year, HCL has been less active as far as acquisitions are concerned. Is that strategic? Nothing intentional, we are also digesting all the acquisitions and how you can get true benefits of synergy and cross-sell from these acquisitions, but we continue to be on the lookout. We are open. better; if you see in the US and the spending, people are little more comfortable in dis- cretionary areas that are more useful for transformation and to be competitive in their businesses. What does Roshini Nadar’s appointment as vice-chairman mean? Do we see her more involved in the day-to-day operations? It is a very good development; she has been a member of the board since 2013, so the board has decided to elevate her as vice-chairman. She is the non-executive director. So, she would have a board-level responsibility, not necessa- rily in the operations. With Rising Client Spends, HCL Tech Sees Good News Ahead Q & A C VIJAYAKUMAR CEO, HCL Tech Alot of product companies are trying to move their products to software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, which would mean a lot of re-engi- neering opportunities of these products ANIMISHA AFP oddup Sta rtup Scouting by Oddup Identify the startup that meets your needs for Innovation Partnerships Acquisition Mergers Investment Strategic Plans
Transcript of PubDate: Disruption: Startups & Tech Amazon Means Business ... · Tweet OF THE DAY London Dyson,...
Right Fit
LOSSES
REVENUE
Expenses FY18 `126 crore
FY18
FY18
FY17
FY17
FY16
`86.6 cr
`52.9 cr
`32.1cr
`57.6 cr
`62.6 cr
Bengaluru:Online lingerie re-tailer Zivame's omnichannelstrategy seems to be paying off,as the company picked up pacein revenue generation during fi-scal year 2017-18. The Zodius Ca-pital-backed company posted.̀ 86.6 crore in revenue in FY18,an almost 63% jump from theprevious fiscal year, accordingto regulatory filings with the Mi-nistry of Corporate Affairs, ac-cessed through Tofler.
Zivame’s loss has narrowedtoo, even as expenses increased.The company’s loss shrank 44%
Zivame’s Omnichannel PlayStarts to Pay Off for Firm
to .̀ 32.1 crore from .̀ 57.6 crore inFY17, while expenses went up8% to .̀126 crore.
The numbers reflect an uptickin the company’s performanceafter it started to lose ground in2016. Zivame had witnessed a15% drop in net revenue to .̀ 52.9crore in FY17, when its loss wi-dened from the year before.
Post that, the company decidedto add an omnichannel plan toits growth strategy and chart aturnaround. As of March, it hadestablished 26 brand stores.
The company plans to expandits offline presence to 100 storesby the end of the current fiscalyear. For this, it has set aside aninvestment of .̀ 30-40 crore.
6 �THE ECONOMIC TIMES | MUMBAI | WEDNESDAY | 24 OCTOBER 2018Disruption: Startups & Tech
a
For comprehensive and insightful stories about all things startups and technology, log on to www.ettech.com
In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by how we connect with them
STEVE GUTZLER @STEVEGUTZLER
Tweet OF THE DAY
London Dyson, famous for making vacuum cleaners, picked Singa-pore to manufacture its first electric car, pushing ahead with plans to challenge Tesla in the hottest sector of the au-tomotive market. The British manufacturer said it will complete the factory by 2020 and stuck to a goal of rolling out its first model by 2021 as part of a $2.6-billion effort to ex-pand into automotive market.— Bloomberg
Tech Buzz
Dyson Picks Singapore to Build eCars
Open Computing Lan-
guage is an open stand-
ard for cross-platform,
parallel programming.
It was originally devel-
oped by Apple in 2008
OpenCLJargon Buster
Microchip firm Qual-comm is joining Amazon to spread the use of Am-azon’s Alexa voice assis-tant in wireless head-phones. Under the deal, Qualcomm will release a set of chips that any maker of Bluetooth headphones can use to embed Alexa directly into the device. When the headphones are paired to a phone with the Alexa app on it, us-ers will be able to talk to the voice assistant by tapping a button on the headphones. — Reuters
Alexa Coming Soon on More Headphones
Amount YouTube plans to invest in creators who make educational videos
$20 million
Quick Byte ANIRBAN BORA
Jochelle Mendonca & Mugdha Variyar
Bengaluru: Amazon has set upcaptive call centres in India tohandle some of its internationaland domestic customer and sel-ler services, a departure from itsprevious strategy of working pu-rely with business process outso-urcing companies, as the ecom-merce giant continues its expan-sion in India.
The Seattle-headquarteredcompany has been looking at itscustomer service strategy overthe past year. In January, it acqui-red a warrant in US companyStarTek that is tied to the amountof revenue Amazon generates forthe US BPO company. Earlier thisyear, StarTek merged with IndianBPO company Aegis, which pro-vides services to Amazon rivals,Flipkart and Paytm.
“Amazon has looked at this verystrategically. If they are givingyou business then they want partof that upside or, in some cases,they think they can generate andkeep the efficiencies for themsel-ves. They have a long horizonplan,” a senior executive with alarge Indian BPO company toldET.
The captive centres havebeen setup in the NCR region and Pune andthe company has tasked recruitersto find candidates for the jobs, twosources with knowledge of the mat-ter said.
“They are working with third-par-ty providers but they also wanted to
the globe,” an Amazon spokesper-son said in response to ET’s queries.
Amazon is hiring in India for bothvoice and chat support and the sala-ries are between .̀1.5 lakh and .̀ 2.5lakh a year, ads on job sites said. ETcalled the recruitment agencies to
Amazon Means Business,Opens Captive Call Centres
Numbers Watch
Supraja Srinivasan & Aditi Shrivastava
Mumbai | New Delhi: Furni-ture and home-furnishing mar-ketplace Pepperfry closed fiscal2018 on a high note, thanks tostrong performance by its pri-vate labels and new lines of bu-siness that helped improve mar-gins. Pepperfry, owned by theTrendSutra group and backedby Goldman Sachs and NorwestVenture Partners, posted a 20%increase in revenue at .̀ 308.46crore. Its loss shrank 32% fromthe previous year to .̀169.26 cro-re. The financials are consolida-ted and include the numbers ofTrendSutra Platform Services,which operates the Pepperfrymarketplace; wholesale homedecor trading firm TrendSutraClient Services; and the group’slogistical arm, Pepcart Logis-tics.
Much of the growth has beendriven by private brands which
now form about half the totalrevenue. Newly launched busi-ness lines such as rentals andfurniture exchange as also ne-wer categories like modular kit-chens, mattresses and home de-cor have been picking up steadi-ly. “Our goal is to continue ex-panding to become a full-stackplayer in the home and interiorspace including interior desig-ning and interiors projects ofhome interiors including floo-ring, ceiling, painting, tiling,etc. We will continue to expandour house brands and foreseethe modular kitchen and ward-
robe segment as a key opportu-nity area,” Pepperfry chief ex-ecutive Ambareesh Murty said.
Going forward, Pepperfry isbetting on the home interiorsand renovation category whereit will compete with TPGGrowth and Goldman Sachs-backed Livspace, and offlinestudio expansion through afranchise model to penetrate in-to towns and small cities to bo-ost growth. Offline studios —stores where shoppers can walkinto and place orders — cur-rently drive more than 25% ofthe business for the firm.
Pepperfry Revenue Rises20% to .̀ 308 cr in FY18
On Steady GroundFY18 REVENUE
FY18 LOSSES
`308.46cr
`169.26cr
Our Bureau
New Delhi: Tencent-backed messagingservice Hike Messenger’s losses have al-most doubled for the financial year end-ed March 2018, as per filings submittedby the Kavin Mittal-led company withthe registrar of companies.
Hike Messenger, which is backed bysome of the world’s biggest technologyinvestors, posted a loss of .̀ 399.58 crore,an increase of 88% compared to theyear ago period, in which it recordedloss of.̀ 212.77 crore, according to docu-ments accessed by research platformTofler. Total revenue for the company,which also counts Foxconn, the world’slargest contract electronics manufac-turer as an investor, grew just a shadeover 20% to .̀ 39.64 crore for fiscal 2018.
While operational revenue contribut-ed a mere .̀ 50.89 lakh to the overall to-pline for fiscal 2018, this compares to ze-ro revenue from operations that thecompany posted in the previous fiscal.For financial year 2017-18, profit fromthe sale of mutual funds contributed.̀ 38.76 crore.
Net expenditure almost doubled to.̀ 439.92 crore in fiscal 2018, compared to.̀ 245.66 crore in the previous financialyear. The Delhi-headquartered compa-ny, which, in 2016, became one of the fas-test unicorns to emerge from the Indianstartup ecosystem, had laid off severalemployees, with a significant portion ofthe affected employees coming from itstwo acquisitions — hardware makerCreo and social networking venture In-staLively — that it announced last year.
Hike Receivesa Message, Losses Zoom
Lost Message
FY18
FY18
FY17
FY17
NET EXPENDITURE
LOSSES
`399.58 cr
`439.92cr
`212.77cr
`245.66cr
Messaging services firmposts loss of .̀ 399 crore
ET takes a close look at financial numbers put out by startupsfor the past financial year and interprets them for you
TOSH
I YO
SHID
A, E
xten
sion
MANY ROUTES
Move a departure from strategy of working only with business process outsourcing firmsconfirm the details of the jobs.“They don’t want very highly pa-id people. Freshers and even 12thpass are all acceptable. This is forboth international and domesticsupport process,” one of the re-cruiters told ET.
The call centres are also beingused for seller-services, even tho-ugh Amazon also currently usesthird-party providers for that bu-siness as well. “If you are a signi-ficantly large seller, then you willinteract with the captive centre. Itgives them greater control overthe data and the relationship.They can also experiment withdifferent ways of customer servi-ce,” the second source said.
Amazon’s strategy is also unu-sual as few large companies choo-se to set up captive call centres.Flipkart and Paytm both outsour-ce their customer service desks.The move is also of concern toBPO players in India becausethey had counted on ecommercecompanies helping them grow bu-siness and margins as their coretelecom business continues tocontract.
Ecommerce is seeing an increa-sing share of consumer complaintsacross sectors, even more than tele-com and banking. More consumersare calling the National ConsumerHelpline run by the consumer affa-irs ministry with complaints aboutecommerce than for other sectors.
A recent survey by citizen engage-ment forum LocalCircles showedthat 95% of customers wanted eachpackaged product to have a functio-nal toll free phone number.
WHAT’S AT STAKE
Amazon’smove willworry BPO
players in India becausethey had counted onecommerce companiesto keep growing
The captive
centres have been set up in the NCR re-gion and Pune
Amazon has tasked
recruiters to
find candidates
for the jobs
Salaries are between ̀
2.5
The centres
together will employ un-der a thou-sand people
Pune cen-tre began
a hiring
plan last
month
set up their own operations. Wherethey are doing international work,the cost difference between a provi-der here and their own captive is notthat much. And they can put in tech-nology to automate a great deal ofthe work,” one of the sources men-tioned above said. He added the com-pany will continue to work withthird-party providers.
The centres together will employunder a thousand people. The Punecentre began a hiring plan lastmonth, the source said.
“Amazon’s vision is to be theearth’s most customer centric com-pany. To ensure that the bar on cus-tomer experience is continuouslyraised. Amazon has setup severalcustomer service sites and has also astrong virtual customer service net-work that provides support to ourbusinesses and customers across
Tech Trotter Meanwhile in tech...
RBI Lifts Ban, Fino Payments Bankto Start Opening Accounts Again
BENGALURU The ReserveBank of India has lifted theprohibition on Fino Pay-
ments Bank to open new accounts,the company said. The RBI hadprohibited Fino Payments Bankfrom opening any new accountssince May due to violations ofcertain licensing conditions andoperating guidelines. However, no
restrictions were placed by the apexbank on the payments bank forservicing existing customers. At thetime, the payments bank had saidthat a few Fino Payments Bankaccounts had deposits in excess ofthe stipulated amount. RBI lifted theprohibition on account openingeffective October 22, 2018, after thebank submitted its compliance.
Ebix Acquires67% in Routier
BENGALURU Ebix hasacquired a 67% stake inRoutier, a Delhi-based B2B
marketplace for trucking logistics.Routier uses data analytics, artificialintelligence and end-to-end stream-lined functionality available overthe cloud, and counts Coca-Cola, Asian Paints and Samsungamong its clients.
Bengaluru: Uber India and several ofits drivers approached the BombayHigh Court on Tuesday to urge it to di-rect authorities in Mumbai to follow itsinjunction barring associations of taxidrivers from stopping drivers attachedto its app-based platform. The compa-ny cited cases of violence during theindefinite strike called by Maharash-tra Rajya Rashtriya Kamgar Sangh inthe state.“We regret the disruptioncaused to our rider and driver-partnercommunity and condemn the use of vi-olence and intimidation by certain in-dividuals. The Hon'ble Bombay HighCourt has previously issued an injunc-tion restraining unions, their leaders,members and their followers from pre-venting Uber driver partners from go-ing about their work. We request thesupport of law enforcement to enforcethe court’s order and hope that it willenable drivers to stay behind thewheel, something many have been tell-ing us, without fear or harassment,”Uber said in a statement.
The company and over 30 of its driv-ers approached a high court bench onTuesday after drivers complained ofbeing assaulted by members of theunion, with some claiming damages to
their vehicles, a company spokesper-son said. However, representatives ofthe association said they have asked allmembers to not engage in violence.
“There could be third-party membersindulging in violence. We have strictlyasked our members to not engage in vi-olence. Some have, however, taken todeflating tires,” an organiser of thestrike said, requesting anonymity.
The association said that close to 90%of cabs of both Ola and Uber were offthe roads on Tuesday. Industry mem-bers said about 50-60% drivers did notply in the city.
The association has called for an in-definite strike citing falling incomesand incentives of drivers. Uber said itis working to offer drivers a stable in-come. “Through a series of monetaryand other interventions like healthand life insurance, we are focused onensuring that our driver partners inMumbai continue to access a stable in-come while giving riders a convenient,reliable option to get around the cityand hence proactively take necessarymeasures from time to time,” the com-pany said.
Uber Files Plea in HC to EnsureSafe Operations Alleging violence, firmapproaches HC to directauthorities to followcourt’s injunction
Cab drivers protesting in Mumbai.
GuruQ Raises .̀ 2.5 croreBENGALURU Delhi-based Edtechstartup GuruQ has secured afurther .̀ 2.5 crore ($330,000)round of funding from a group of
HNIs. The compa-ny will use these
funds for expansionand marketing
of thecompany.
Revenues at HCL Tech-nologies expanded 3%sequentially in the Sep-
tember quarter on the back of growing dis-cretionary spend from consumer-focused andengineering clients in the US, its main market.The Noida-based IT services firm retained itssales guidance of 9.5-11.5% for the year ahead.HCL joins larger rivals such as Tata ConsultancyServices and Infosys in showing higher growth,winning large orders from clients and sellingmore software products that generate bettermargins than services do.
The product business, which HCL built byacquiring intellectual property from companiessuch as IBM, will likely generate $1billion inrevenue this year. The company also appointednon-executive director Roshni Nadar as vice-chairman of the board. “The outlook is verypositive, there is a strong demand at least in theUS market and we are seeing significant dis-cretionary spend and hope to benefit from that.We are very positive that the next two quarterswill be better and we hope to reach the mid-point of our guided revenue range,” HCL Tech-
nologies CEO C Vijayakumar tells ET’s SurabhiAgarwal in an interview. Edited excerpts:
What are the signs that make you positiveabout the growth prospects?One of our bigger service lines is the infrastruc-ture business. We mentioned in the lastquarter that a lot of customers aremodernising their infrastructure.Some of the infrastructure would goon cloud, but they also are buildingsoftware defined data centres anddigital workplaces. Their internalIT organisations… are focusing onbecoming more employee-centricand employee-experience orien-ted kind of services. Our digitalworkplace, which has cognitiveworkdesk, significant amo-unts of automation andsocial collabo-ration, isgaininggoodtraction.
If you look at our engineering services, we areseeing two or three trends driving demand… Alot of companies are becoming more soft-warised, which means they have to build newplatforms. A lot of product companies aretrying to move their products to software-as-a-
service (SaaS) solution, which wouldmean a lot of re-engineering oppor-
tunities of these products.The whole industrial segment,
Industry 4.0, IoT is driving growthbesides the core applicationservices business, which ismostly digital and analytics. Themacro (economy) is also looking
This quarter, the financial services businesshas been flat…We have had these specific client issues thatare causing a little bit of softness.
Overall, it is pretty good outside the twoclients.
These two (client issues) are in Europe. Lastyear, we had the highest growth in financialservices across the industry.
Where do you expect discretionary spend toincrease?Retail, consumer packaged goods (CPG) andfinancial services are the two areas. We arealso seeing a little bit of growth in telecom andlife sciences.
This year, HCL has been less active as far asacquisitions are concerned. Is thatstrategic?Nothing intentional, we are also digesting allthe acquisitions and how you can get truebenefits of synergy and cross-sell from theseacquisitions, but we continue to be on thelookout. We are open.
better; if you see in the US and the spending,people are little more comfortable in dis-cretionary areas that are more useful fortransformation and to be competitive in theirbusinesses.
What does Roshini Nadar’s appointment asvice-chairman mean? Do we see her moreinvolved in the day-to-day operations?It is a very good development; she has been amember of the board since 2013, so the boardhas decided to elevate her as vice-chairman.She is the non-executive director. So, she wouldhave a board-level responsibility, not necessa-rily in the operations.
With Rising Client Spends, HCL Tech Sees Good News AheadQ&A
CVIJAYAKUMARCEO, HCL Tech
Alot of product companies are trying to movetheir products to software-as-a-service (SaaS)solution, which would mean a lot of re-engi-neering opportunities of these productsANIMISHA
AFP
CCI NG 3.7 Product: ETMumbaiBS PubDate: 24-10-2018 Zone: MumbaiCity Edition: 1 Page: ETMCPG6 User: cci Time: 10-23-2018 23:02 Color: CMYK
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