15 May 2022

Business Today

For Managing Tomorrow

Business Today1 min read
Business Today
Chairman & Editor-in-Chief: Aroon Purie Vice Chairperson: Kalli Purie Group Chief Executive Officer: Dinesh Bhatia Executive Director: Rahul Kanwal Chief Revenue Officer: Alok Nair Editor: Sourav Majumdar Group Creative Editor: Nilanjan Das Group Pho
Business Today2 min read
The Maruti Makeover
It’s a time of transformation and reinvention at India’s largest carmaker, Maruti Suzuki. And in more ways than one. The storied car company is in the midst of drawing up a strategy for the future which will hinge on decarbonisation and filling gaps
Business Today1 min read
Where Is The Water?
Source: World Bank, Drought Early Warning System (DEWS), media reports India’s land area facing drought-like conditions as on April 6, 2022, according to data available with DEWS Expected water availability on per capita basis by 2031. It was at 1,54
Business Today5 min read
The Buzz Briefings
TOTAL AMOUNT OT FUNDRAISING THROUGH PRIVATE PLACEMENT OF CORPORATE BONDS BY LISTED COMPANIES FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 2021-22, A SIX-YEAR LOW Food delivery decacorn Swiggy led a $180-million funding into bike-taxi start-up Rapido, which values the latter
Business Today1 min read
Real(i)ty Check
THE TOP SEVEN METROPOLITAN CITIES WITNESSED 43 PER CENT GROWTH IN NEW RESIDENTIAL LAUNCHES New supply (units) NCR: National Capital Region, MMR: Mumbai Metropolitan Regon APPETITE FOR NEW HOME OWNERSHIP SEEMS TO HAVE GATHERED PACE AMID EXPECTATION OF
Business Today4 min read
Future Tense
THERE IS NO DEARTH of uncertainty on the fate of the Kishore Biyani-promoted Future Group. Caught in a mountain of debt, its flagship, Future Retail as also Future Lifestyle Fashions, among other group companies, face an uncertain future as the next
Business Today4 min read
Just be Cautious
IN THE CURRENT CALENDAR YEAR, there have been six instances of the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex losing more than 1,000 points in a single trading session. Interestingly, there have been an equal number of sessions when it gained over 1,000 points in a si
Business Today4 min readFinance & Money Management
A Body Blow
WHEN THE WORLD’S second-largest crypto exchange, USbased Coinbase, announced its entry into India at a big bang event in Bengaluru on April 7, it was definitely not prepared for what lay ahead. Soon after the company declared that it would allow user
Business Today1 min read
The Crypto World Unravels
1 UPI payment services for crypto exchanges got suspended recently leading to low volumes 2 NPCI issued a statement saying “we are not aware of any crypto exchange using UPI” 3 Volumes on exchanges dipped due to the UPI disruption 4 30% tax levied on
Business Today4 min read
Tata’s Neu Way
THIS YEAR, the Easter weekend was special in India—the holidays commenced on Thursday with Mahavir Jayanti and went on till Sunday. Yet, on the day the long weekend commenced, salt-to-software conglomerate Tata group was hard at work explaining how i
Business Today3 min read
Clear and Present Danger
I BEGAN the year cautioning readers of this column that 2022 could be a year resembling a board of snakes and ladders, and urging them not to disregard the rising risks that stood to derail a fragile post-Covid-19 recovery. Now, with every passing we
Business Today11 min read
Reinventing Maruti
ADELICATE BALANCE between lemon juice and water is what makes good lemonade. Too much lemon and the drink turns sour. Excess water makes it bland. The country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki’s reinvention strategy is much like perfecting this lemona
Business Today1 min read
The Key Pillars Of Maruti’s Reinvention
The Indian market is very different from the market in Europe, the US or Japan. Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) wants to develop an India-specific decarbonisation strategy, which will include a mix of fuel technologies including hybrid, CNG, EV and even bi
Business Today5 min read
The Surging Inflation Paradox
THE THREE WITCHES in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth—representing evil, chaos and darkness—seem the perfect metaphor for the current economic situation. The three witches that can derail India’s and the world’s economic recovery are hardening commodity
Business Today6 min read
‘We Have A Strong Product Plan For India’
HISASHI TAKEUCHI, the new Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Maruti Suzuki India (MSI), takes charge at a difficult time. Amidst global challenges like supply-side constraints and domestic hiccups arising from MSI’s slipping market shar
Business Today5 min read
Walkintg On Eggs
ON A SEVEN-YEAR HIGH BCI rockets to its highest since Q2 of 2014-15 TRY WALKING ON a bed of burning coal. Or a sheet of very thin ice. You feel exhilarated. Thrilled. You also feel frightened. Any slip would mean serious trouble. Yet, till that happe
Business Today1 min read
The Competitive Landscape
PV DATA FOR FY22 SOURCE: SIAM CNG Sold 230,000 CNG cars in FY22; nine out of its 15 models offer the CNG option EVs First Maruti EV to be launched by 2025 SUVs The 2022 Maruti Suzuki Brezza and a new mid-size SUV is being planned for launch this year
Business Today9 min read
Private Party
FIVE YEARS AGO, when Nilesh Gupta took the plunge into private labels—home-grown brands hawked by retailers—the market for such brands was minuscule in India. Gupta, who runs the show at electronics retail chain Vijay Sales as its Managing Director,
Business Today1 min read
Private Labels On A Roll
PRIVATE LABELS MARKET GROWING AT 2X OF ORGANISED RETAIL SECTOR RETAILERS, BIG OR SMALL, OFFLINE OR ONLINE, PREFER TO STOCK MORE PRIVATE LABEL BRANDS BECAUSE OF THE MARGINS THEY EARN ON THEIR SALES ALTHOUGH OVERALL SALES ACROSS ONLINE RETAIL CHANNELS
Business Today8 min read
‘India Needs To Build A Vertically Integrated Supply Chain’
While the world was going into a lockdown in March 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, US-headquartered Flex had to accelerate production. After all, the world’s largest contract manufacturer made products such as smartphones, laptops, data centre
Business Today8 min read
Shriram’s Umbrella Blueprint
AN OLD WRIST WATCH rests on the table, as also a small pocket diary with a pen sticking out. R. Thyagarajan gently makes a few notes and smiles before starting the conversation. At 85, the mind is laser sharp, though he jokingly says age is slowly ca
Business Today7 min read
The Resurrection
THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC has changed humankind in far-reaching ways—from the way we shop to the way we work to the way we unwind. Maybe even the way we approach disease prevention. For the adolescent population, if the response to India’s mass immunisat
Business Today4 min read
Watch That Wrist!
Post the pandemic-related disruption, the luxury watch market is back with a bang. In 2021, the Swiss watchmaking industry generated over $24 billion in exports, 2.7 per cent over 2019, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. While p
Business Today8 min readSmall Business & Entrepreneurs
Socially Yours
LOKHO KESAMAI OF NAGALAND never thought his traditional recipe-based pickles would travel beyond the north-eastern states. He has been selling stuff like Pork Chunk Pickle, Dried Wild Apple, Chicken Chunk Pickle and Dried Gooseberry, among other thin
Business Today1 min read
Pick The Right Tab
The undisputed king of tablets, Apple’s iPad Air sits comfortably between the high-end iPad Pro and the entry-level iPad. The 10.9-inch screen is perfect for all activities—streaming videos, gaming, sketching, drawing or reading. Powered by Apple’s M
Business Today2 min read
Strictly A Tablet
Housed in aluminium casing for protection against bumps and drops, the tablet doesn’t feel heavy despite weighing over 500 gm. The 12.4-inch OLED display with a resolution of 1,753x2,800p is super bright and looks great even under direct sunlight. Po
Business Today2 min read
For The Love Of Stamps
The very first stamp of independent India was an aeroplane, the second was a portrait of Gandhi that was printed in Switzerland but couldn’t be used in India, because the gum of the stamp wouldn’t stick in India’s humid climate. Dinesh Kanabar, one o
Business Today1 min read
The Wind In His Hair
CEO & Founder of 3D manufacturing company Divide by Zero, Swapnil Sansare has revived his college passion of exploring India on a bike. Right after the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions were eased in Mumbai, Sansare gifted himself a Svartpilen bike from
Business Today2 min read
‘It’s Important To Build A Brand’
What was the problem you were grappling with? The year was 1997 and we were fresh in consumer marketing with limited knowledge of the nuances of branding and scale and the right marketing mix. This lacuna was the main problem back then. Who did you a

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