Is Cashless BHIM Going Userless ?

Why government needs to focus more on BHIM?

It has been a year or so when India’s most aggressive and hyperactive anti-corruption act   – “DEMONETIZATION”. If someone plans to market this campaign then long ques in front of  ATM can be adjudged as its best describing logo.

Interestingly, India’s true  patriotic sense figured out that this Fintech startup tuned helper is backed by a Chinese behemoth Alibaba. Understanding this concern and avoiding any further uproar and backlash, government of India launched it very own payment platform BHIM ( Bharat Interface For Money). A simple and good initiative whereby allowing the customer to directly link their AADHAR linked bank account with the platform, thereby making the transaction seamless and accessible to all. But unfortunately, although being an easy alternative to private wallet players like Paytm, the platform is yet to takeoff it full flight. As per the latest data As of March 1, 2020, BHIM had recorded 47.65 million downloads on Android and 11.19 million on Apple iOS. This is way below the numbers achieved by Paytm which has been downloaded by almost 100 million+ users.

So why did BHIM failed to capture the traction it intended to achieve?

The answer lies in the marketing spend our Government has done in promoting the platform. Not much has been done to promote the application. Not just that even Private sector banks like Punjab National Bank and State Bank Of India launched their very own payment instruments rather than educating users to use BHIM app.

Secondly, Paytm succeeded because it brought in a simple transaction process, the QR code. GOI, with its initial intention to promote common QR codes for all the banks failed to chip them in among small merchants or shopkeepers.

Third, although being smooth, the application has reported a substantial failed transactions which have irritated the Indian Audience which is hyper volatile in terms of the money lost in transaction.

So where is the solution?

Addressing issues like transaction failure and working on a low latency model ( server side) would make the entire transaction process smooth which would lead to an increase in the increase in the usage of the app. Secondly, GOI should take some serious initiative to encourage the rural audience to use the same for peer to peer transactions. India story is a hard core rural story with more than 66.86% population living in villages. No govt scheme can survive unless it gains a massive traction for this audience. Government can disburse subsidies, offer cash back using the platform thereby making it attractive of the rural population.

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A Student’s Diet To Good Health !

Students as well as parents experience pressure and stress during the examination period and this may distract students from their goal.

 

Can your eating habits help you to cope with stress? The answer is a YES.

The eating habits can affect individual’s mood, calmness and the level of stress. Students increase the consumption of food with high fat, sugary snacks which is result of examination stress, and such eating can be counter-productive. Good nutrition diet must be part of students study plan and intake of water soluble vitamins and minerals is essential to reduce the stress. Students need to focus on their goal which requires calmer mind state and one of the ways to achieve this is avoiding faulty eating habits

Beat stress by eating right:

• You should avoid the large meals; instead eat frequent but small quantity meal to ensure calming effect on the brain. In short avoid large meals.

• Fresh fruits and vegetables should be included in daily diet in adequate amount. Fruits containing vitamin C should be preferred like Amla, Oranges and other citrus fruits.

• Include whole gains into your daily meals like pulses, brown rice, oats, and sprouts. Adequate amount of vitamin B and Zinc is needed and you will get it from green leafy vegetables, and seafood.

• Strictly eliminate junk food and food with higher fat, white flour, and white rice from your diet.

• To prevent swings in your blood sugars and cravings, it is suggested to eat dry fruits, roasted whole grains, soups, salads, hot chocolate.

• To stay fit and well hydrated, drink plenty of water, fruit juices, energy drink and green tea.

• It is all time favorite and better to nourish your mind with healthy diet plan instead of having memory or vitamin pills.

No Brick and Mortar business will survive post 2023 : Amitabh Kant

Chief Architect of startup India campaign and CEO of Niti Ayog feels that brick and mortal businesses will be dead by 2023.  Speaking at an event organized by TIE, Mr Kant Said “India is the only country with a billion mobile phones and biometrics. In the last 6-7 months we have added almost 28 crore bank accounts. In the last 45 years we have given license to 19 banks but in the last nine months we have given license to 23 payment banks, and many of them are telecom companies including Paytm and Airtel. The brick and mortar sector will go dead”.

According to Kant Banking sector will be see a major hit with the launch of many payment banks like PAYTM and Airtel.  According to him it will be more of a technology show and technology will take the driver’s seat. Currently 350 million people use internet via mobile and internet and 1 billion people will be online by 2023.  According to him “It will all be mobile, telephonic transaction. India will leap frog again. This is because today we are about 350 million using the Internet but 2020-23 there will be about 1 billion people in India using the Internet. Similarly, usage of the Internet will increase with more people on smart phones. A billion Indians with access to the Internet, biometric and using the smart phones we will radically alter the world.”

He added that “Across the world, whether you look at trends in Japan, US or Germany, everywhere is getting digitized. It is inevitable.”

Homework Guru reaches for the K-12 school going students.

Fast academic answers were for long Homework Guru’s (www.homeworkguru.com) mantra for winning over students. But then the homework help firm , which is also a market leader in online tutoring , sought mass market frame for it brand of anytime answers turned to free online tutoring to widen its reach and diversify the profile of its users. However, the growing clutter in the homework help category

Could prove to be its biggest challenge.

There are close to 100 homework help websites worldwide currently and almost all these companies are planning on free tutoring to lure students online. For an audience who is mostly focused on email based assignment help, such an offer is not only confusing but can even be a deterrent to online academic users. Besides Homework Guru’s growth thus far has been fuelled by its huge tutor base and smart alliance with various universities for a sizeable portion of student base.

Homework Guru’s Brand Plan

1. Target college going students worldwide and build on online dominance in various subjects& grades
2. Focus on K-12 student with more emphasis on Online tutoring.
3. Increase advertisement spends online on various online channels like Facebook , youtube and Google.

The brand clearly needs to widen its appeal among the students. And to do that it has planned close to $1 million worth of investment in advertising.

Student’s Appeal

Homework Help expert, Homework Guru which has answered more than 1 million questions, it has the largest student base in the college questions and answer category. It has hired more than 20,000 experts that help students via email. Homework Guru, an Edunalysis company , believes it has got here on the strength of its easy to use platform and of course ,best academic experts. It believes that it also owes success to a large number of returning students studying in various reputed institutes worldwide.

The alliance with Top universities has paid off handsomely but it could also limit the brand’s potential by restricting its usage to the college students. Perhaps this is the reason why Homework Guru is re-crafting its branding and advertising strategy.

The main target continues to be the college students who is already familiar with the brand. But Homework Guru now wants to be more popular with a large section of school going students studying in various classes. And the brand hopes that the free online tutoring strategy will propel its journey. Homework Guru has already prepared itself to conduct more than 50,000 free tutoring sessions this academic season.

Diving in deep

As an academic help expert , Homework Guru want to reach into the hinterland where the base of  school going students is likely to be larger. Going in for K-12 students is still critical for Homework Guru, not only because it needs to establish itself as a end to end academic expert, because It faces a still competition from other homework help companies available online. These companies do lack the resource infrastructure Homework Guru has, but since the online market is very dynamic they are expected to attract more students in the coming year.

Edunalysis in talks to create 5000 work from home jobs in India.

Edunalysis learning solution is in talks to create more than 5000 work from home modeled tutoring  jobs in India. It is understood that the company wants to enrich its tutor base from India and use them for their iconic Academic platform Homework Guru (www.homeworkguru.com).

The US  – headquartered business restructured to become one of the world’s best education company. It would be group’s first major operation in India if the management agrees on the proposal. Although initially the company is planning to hire 500 to 1000 local experts , it is believed Edunalysis would have a view to growing that number to as many as 5000 in coming years.  The group wants to use the money raised from various institutional investors to increase the dominance of Homework Guru.  According to the CEO of the company “Edunalysis and Homework Guru will be one of the great global growth stories in the next decade.”

“Parents in countries around the world, rich and poor, the single thing that matters to them most is equipping their kids with the skills and the knowledge to go to university, to learn English as a foreign language, because that’s what’s going to get them a better job and a better start in life and that’s what we’re lining Edunalysis up to and it’s a huge opportunity for us,” he added.

The company offers a range of academic help services and is the owner of worlds largest academic question and answer base Homework Guru(www.homeworkguru.com) . The company was founded in 2006 and has been known as the one of world’s top academic publishing house in recent times. Edunalysis also provides online and print educational resources for schools, universities and professionals across the globe.

The company plans to focus and invest more in Edunalysis’s publishing arm while beefing up Homework Guru’s tutor base.

Neither the Edunalysis nor Homework Guru would comment when contacted yesterday.

Meanwhile, it is understood, that a major acquisition deal involving two leading  publishing firms is due to be completed this month.It is understood the deal will see a merger of a number of popular local titles.

Myntra to launch its mobile site.

Following the footsteps of its parent Flipkart , Myntra is planning to launch a mobile web platform to allow its users browse and buy its products from the web. The moves comes 8 months after the company planned to shut down its website and go “app- only”. The decision was taken due to the fact that 90% of its traffic while 70% of its business came from mobile . The move created a debate in tech circles making companies think on a mobile first mobile only strategy .

According to Myntra CTO Shamik Sharma , It isn’t about the money but just the realisation that if we don’t build (a mobile-only product), somebody else is going to build it and whoever builds that is going to be the winner.

Flipkart was planning on a same mobile strategy but changed its plans and launched Flipkart Lite , a mobile site which gives app like user experience to its audience . This has again changed the strategy being followed by many companies as app has more limitations and it becomes difficult for the company to update the same on a regular basis. It will be interesting to see how the business fares up with this launch.

Dell Ventures to invest $300 million in Indian Startups.

Dell ventures , the venture capital firm of Computing giant Dell Is planning to invest in Indian startups as part of its strategy to get an stronger footprint in India. Dell believes that by investing in Indian stratup ecosystem they would be able to gain a global footprint and the move would help them cater the Asian market well. The company plans to formally announce this move soon and officially announce the strategy to move in this direction.

In an interview given to ET , Amit Midha, president of Asia-Pacific and Japan said “”We’re investing to innovate in India, to innovate in Asia, to create an outreaching ecosystem in Asia which is different. We announced Dell Ventures in China, we announced a $125-million investment in China and we’ve also announced a continued expansion in India, from a 27,000-people perspective.”

“We are looking at cloud, IoT (internet of things), big data and security. We like to look at startups that have gone beyond the 5-people operation stage. Otherwise it becomes too much of a headache for us. The company needs to have some sort of momentum, some customer traction — we are not an accelerator, we are more interested in companies that are growing their businesses. And our involvement will help them grow even faster and also give them credibility points”

The investment arm Dell venture was established in early 2000 but has been in a dormant state in recent times. The company would like to focus on startups which are creating solutions in newer technologies such as cloud computing, security and analytics.They would invest in both early stage and later stage companies.

According to Midha companies iconic founder Michael Dell is very keen to invest in Indian market and would monitor the deals very closely.

Rcom to sell its entire stake in Reliance Infratel.

In a bid to focus more on defense manufacturing company , Anil Dhirubhai  Ambani group is offloading its stakes in various Cos and raising adequate funds. So after reducing its stake in Reliance Life and Reliance capital the group has decided to sell its stake in the tower unit Reliance infratel. With this sale , Reliance will be the fourth company to exit the telecom  tower business in recent times. In a statement issued to Economic Times one of the senior executive of Reliance said “The deal will be announced within a couple of days, and will value Infratel at around Rs 22,000 crore”. The company plans to reduce its debt of over Rs 38000 crore from this sale and consolidate its other portfolios. Standard Chartered and SBI capital markets will be the official bankers to initiate and finalize this deal.

Last month American Tower Cooperation bought the controlling stake in Vion Networks .The deal was then valued around 21,000 crores.

RCOM is the largest stakeholder in Reliance Infratel with 96% stake followed by small investors like George Soros’ Quantum (M), NSR Partners, Galleon, HSBC Daisy Investment (Mauritius), Drawbridge Towers and Investment Partners B (Mauritius).All the other partners will also exit the business along with Reliance communications.

Grofers to test Sprite Zero for Coca Cola.

Beverage giant Coca Cola has decided to test its new product through ecommerce grocery app Grofers.  The company will be selling Sprite Zero to Grofers  audience in order to check the response of the drink amongst its consumer. Earlier Coca Cola used select trade partners and outlets to test its new launches. The company will sell Sprite zero for a couple of days and then on the basis of these few sales the company will chalk out the next step forward to launch the product on a larger scale.

Sprite is the top selling aerated drink in India with a market share of 18%.The drink overtook Thumbs Up in 2013 and has maintained its top position in the recent years. Coca Cola as a company is facing stiff pressures in Indian and international market as people have started choosing healthier drinks as compared to aerated drinks. With a move to leverage E-Commerce the company is trying to recreate its image and brand in the youth.

In a statement issued by Coca Cola , the company’s marketing executive said “Coke will use the insights from on-demand sale on Grofers for Sprite Zero to identify and track consumer preferences and post purchase feedback.”

Sprite zero will be moderately priced at Rs 25 per 300 ml can and will be a low calorie variant of its mother product sprite. This is the second zero calorie launch from Coca Cola in the recent times . Last year company launched zero-sugar Coke Zero but the product is yet to take off in terms of popularity among the young Indian consumers.

Air India sells its aircraft to reduce debt.

In a move to reduce its  debt burned , Air India sold 9 of its Boeing dream liner aircrafts for a whooping 7000 crores. The company sold these aircrafts in order to reduce the bridge loan the company has raised in order to buy these aircrafts. This is a modern day strategy followed by many airlines where the company sells its aircraft to lease it back for a longer period so that it can use it. The company followed the strategy in order to reduce its debt burden which it has accumulated over a very long period.

Air India has 131 aircrafts in total from various manufacturers like Boeing , Airbus, ATR and CRJ’s. In a statement given to PTI Air India sources said “Air India has sold all the nine Dream liners to one Singaporean lessor for a little over Rs 7,000 crore. These planes have now been taken back on lease by the same firm.” The company said that it will use Rs6,000 crore to repay the bridge loan while the remaining amount will be used for other purposes.

Air India is currently suffering from a huge debt situation due to increase in competition and a total debt of Rs 40000 it has accumulated in last few years. The silver lining to this story is that the company will show a positive quarter with Rs 6 crore operating profit. The company is surviving on a bailout package provided by the Indian government and hopes to make some profit in the near future.