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Ecommerce companies competing for the first place of India’s $13 million business are concerned about the heavy costs in shipment through air and they some how want to reduce the expenditure by improving on road and rail facilities. Flipkart, India’s largest domestic e-tailer , and the main competitor for global companies like Amazon . com and ebay Inc are generally widening their particular supplier networks by developing their logistics infrastructure in order to maintain their first place in this race. They are even shrinking delivery times to nine hours. More than 200 million internet users definitely add more potential to Indian ecommerce industry. Indian ecommerce market is expected to reach $6 billion in 2015. E commerce industry in other emerging markets are growing than India, and the slow pace may be due to various reasons like COD, cash burn rate, poor supply chains, poor online security, tax structure and logistics. Complex geography, different terrains and lack o...

The Consumer Electronic Show had many new devices but the below five technologies were counted as the most successful disruptive innovations in 2014. There was a dip in the cost of technologies and existing products were updated. Embedded sensors became more affordable because microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), including magnetometers and accelerometers became very cheap and putting embedded sensors into any product became very easy. As they become cheaper we may be able to find embedded sensors in things which we use in daily life like clothing and electronic equipments. For example, Kolibree, the electronic brush company in France claims that they can outsmart dentists and their goal is to ensure personal dental hygiene. Kolibree is the first connected electric toothbrush, equipped with vibrating technology to make brushing more effective. Its sensors interact with mobile apps for adults and children to make brushing a hygienic experience. Wearables, are supposed to bring ...

What will be the next strategy of Amazon and how are they going to execute it? That was the discussion when Alibaba came up with its triumphant $21.8 billion initial public offer proclaiming themselves as the most valuable ecommerce company in the world. During the first day of trading Alibaba was much ahead of Amazon and eBay combined. Alibaba’s e-commerce business includes wholesale, retail, group buying, and payments. . In the last 6 months they have invested $8 billion in startup firms and even entering into the US and European markets. Alibaba doesn’t have a warehouse; they don’t sell directly, they just give an open marketplace for the sellers. Sellers include small business owners and big brands where they sell their products through the site- in short Alibaba connect sellers and buyers. This method is totally against the traditional retailing, but has helped them to get more profit than Amazon with a margin of 40% with $2 billion of earnings in the first quarter. Amazon f...

The Scotts will decide whether they have to continue as a part of Great Britain on September 2014. When whole of Scotland goes for referendum on September 18, the Westminster will be in a sure dilemma about the future policies, if the Scotts vote yes for a separate country. Starting from shifting the Falsane Naval base now in Scotland, to the Olympic team who always bring more medals because of the Scottish talent. The war for identity started in the 14th century, continued till 1707 when Scotland finally united with Britain making Great Britain. Then onwards Scotts were not truly happy with the various policies adopted by the UK government, which mostly favored Wales and England. This dissatisfaction was triggered by the favoritism of late PM Ms Margaret Thatcher, who gets the maximum credit for uniting Scotts with her policies, especially for Poll Tax in 1989 and thus being the most hated person among the Scotts. This tax was a kind of community charge introduced by Tories (Cons...

Proactive Re Branding happens when a company is looking to reach an expected goal, especially when the growth has to be from the international market. The consolidation of the existing products and services is done for the consistency and also to save the money. This movement can appeal the audiences, and bring back the relevancy of the company. Reactive Re Branding happens when companies are looking for a particular event to happen like M&A, Negative Image, Legal issues, and major competition from other companies. For obvious reasons many bigger brands has embraced this technique which has helped them in increasing their brand value. J Crew, the American retailer company started in 1947, and which was very popular and successful, was facing crisis during 2003, and the company started its re branding efforts by appointing a new CEO, who was well experienced with brand ‘ Gap”. J Crew, as an initial step started off with a new catalogue which J Crew never had. Same time the...

Wearable gadgets are capturing all sectors of industry and finance sector is slowly adopting these gadgets.. The e trend in finance domain started with calculator, now it is Google Glass, and its companion app My Glass, Smart Watches, interactive t-shirts , washable ear phones in hood, USB necklaces, USB cufflinks, Fuel bands, iWallets, and Bluetooth Gloves are few in this series. Gadgets which are making maximum changes in finance domain maybe the smart glasses for eg Google glass. There are few European banks which are making their accounts viewable through Google glass for their customers. Westpac’s New Zealand office is even developing their on app for the customers. The company is looking for an app which gives their client a peripheral vision which will be like a real time experience. The smart watches are no less in using advanced technology, they send alert signals according to the changes in share market and they can also used in checking bank accounts. Wearable are chos...

This year the State of Colorado gained world’s attention when it became world’s first state –licensed place for marijuana business. Drug business across the world is growing every year causing greater threat to the entire humanity. In 2012 itself around 1, 90000 deaths were reported due to drug abuse, that too between the age group 15-64. Another alarming data is that, in the same year nearly 324 million people in 15-64 age groups used one at least illicit drug once. Around 39 million people have regular drug usage and having physical and psychological problems while only one in six of them have an access to medical facilities. The number of people who injects the drug will come around 13 million, which is 0.64% of the population aged 15-64. One amazing fact is that most of the drug users are from Eastern and South- Eastern Europe. It is very shocking to know that 14% of the drug addicts are infected with HIV due to the use of shared syringes. Majority of such HIV patients are fro...

Is the concept of Sharing Economy an answer to economic inequality? Under this shared economy the access to the products and services are shared between the consumers even though the ownership is limited. This opens a new array of opportunities for the sellers and the buyers. When assets and services are digitally available then there is no reason for this new trend to not gain popularity. Pioneered by eBay in 1995, as a peer to peer auction model, sharing economy or collaborative consumption started off with lot of inadequacies due to the lack of full-fledged support system during those days. The service offered by them was only for an auction of apparels. Starting from bartering, bike sharing, book swapping to seed swap, share taxi, virtual currency, all are shared in this mode of collaborative consumption. Collaborative lifestyles, product service systems and redistribution channels make this sharing economy lively and innovative. AirBnB, an online home rental marketplace for...

Digital mug shots, iris scan, and DNA reports are more extensively used by various governments these days to locate criminals and preventing crimes. Earlier the main method of identifying a criminal was strictly restricted to finger prints which are a main piece of forensic evidence. During the Afgan war the US expanded its biometric methods in preventing the crimes. History of biometric technology dates back to 14th century, in China. Barros, who was exploring China, found that the Chinese merchants were stamping children's palm prints and footprints on paper with ink so as to differentiate between young kids. This could be the most primitive known cases of biometrics in use and is still being used today. Fingerprints identification, is the talebearer, which the bomb makers and thieves mainly leav behind. There are millions of finger print database with many defense agencies like FBI, now they are preparing the database of facial recognition algorithms, iris match technolog...

Drones, generally known as UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) are widely used in military operations since 2000. Austrians started this trend by using pilot less balloons in the war against City of Venice in 1849. Drones are not only used for military purposes, but also for non military purposes like natural disaster management, without endangering human life, supervising big real estate properties, for aerial coverage by motion picture teams, professional photographers and even by the farmers who don’t employ many workers. In the west drone usage is limited to police patrolling, oil pipe inspection, tracking illegal immigrants and intelligence gathering. Drone industry is growing rapidly from $5.2 billion annually to $11.6 billion. According to the claims of Teal Group Corporation, a US aerospace consultancy, UAV industry will be a big industry within the next ten years. Their statistical report says that there will be 50 medium –altitudes, long endurance ( MALE) UAVs, 60 navy UAV s , 7...

It is not just buying a shaving cream or a deodorant, but much more than that. The revolutionary rise in the demand for male cosmetics got kick started in 2004 after Emami launched their new range of fairness products for men in 2004. The male skincare segment is expected to grow annually by 25% on the base of skin whitening creams. Brands which dominate this market are Emami's Fair & Handsome and HUL's Fair & Lovely Max Fairness. Dabur's Oxylife creme bleach which claims a triple action system will also look to tap this market with the oxygen releasing formula which will enhance men’s beauty. Instant fairness is highlighted during the commercials unlike other whitening creams which give results after a few weeks that’s what Emami claims. The Garnier Men range had an early start in the male skincare product segment. " Launched in 2009, today Garnier have a market share of 27.7% in the men's skincare market. The potential of the segment is in convertin...

The second largest acquisition Indian pharmaceutical industry, SunPharma’s $4 billion acquisition of Ranbaxy is making a lot of buzz in the world. What this acquisition is pointing towards? The size of the deal is greater than anyone’s imagination so there will be a great deal of hope invested by SunPharma founder Mr Dilip Sanghvi in this acquisition. Through this SunPharma has emerged as India’s most valuable company in the pharmaceutical segment. SunPharma was started 20 years back with a capital of 5 lakh made crores within a short time span. Not only that, SunPharma became the fifth largest pharmaceutical company in the world, through this deal, which specializes in speciality generic medicine. This is obviously a great victory for a company which started off with a single manufacturing unit in 1983, which grew so big that they started operating in 65 countries. With this move their revenue will be almost double to $4.3 million Lets think about the global impacts of this ac...

It is not science fiction story, but a naked truth that 2.6 million cars were recalled by GM for faulty ignition switches, which resulted in13 deaths and more than 40 crashed. Well, it was no less than a mystery. At the end GM’s CEO Ms Marry Barra could be declared as a scapegoat and she maybe forced to take charge of all the mishap and it looks very unfortunate for the first ever women CEO of any automobile maker, having recently took the charge. In a dramatic movement GM's CEO, Dan Akerson was appointed as the Vice Chairman of a relatively small private equity form Carlyle Group, from where he came to GM. His stepping down from GM’s CEO post was on the personal grounds though. Was it because he was aware that the recall issue is going to come up and he did not want get crucified? He served GM through the Chapter 11 bankruptcy and even was in the leadership when GM released an IPO. Was it because that GM hired a female CEO, or the misconception that a female CEO will easily c...

Mobile money is definitely a proven currency exchanging system that enables consumers to transfer money easily as a text message. Cell phones, by using call time credit, become a mobile phone debit charge cards. "It is safer and less expensive when you transfer cash than traditional options which are sluggish and expensive. Its progress in the market will certainly depend on regulating authorities recognizing this particular potential These days, while people may have mobile , yet they might not have a bank account – this can make cell phones an immediate avenue to help nearly 1 / 2 the actual world’s unbanked people. The idea of branchless banking is grown ever since the technology sector has had a boom. In the midst of all these technological advancements the idea of branchless banking is raising many questions like • How far this can be useful for the poor people? • Is it cost effective? • Can this technology meet all the requirements of the people? Various Branc...

Sales through the internet, has changed the pre existed business patterns despite the geographical barriers. Whether it is C2C, B2B or B2C, eCommerce is flourishing day by day and gives a promising outlook in the coming years. The eCommerce wave is stronger than when they had started in 1995, gained much base by overcoming the IT downturn in 2000. From mere online travel booking and matrimonial sites, eCommerce has grown tremendously with refined methodologies making eCommerce more and more attractive. Trends in eCommerce industry are changing and competitors are looking for any method which makes their business more profitable and practical for the consumers. Below listed are the few trends which will dominate the eCommerce industry in 2014 Big Data Analytics Next time when you take part in a survey and mark your responses, your personal traits may get recorded at the backend, by which the surveyor company can use this data either for their existing promotion or to create a ne...

When Mr. Dave Caroll posted his music video "United Breaks Guitars" on YouTube he never thought that his video will ever cause a damage of $180bn to the United Airlines Company. This famous musician from Canada was flying to Nebraska on United Airlines, and was very angry and hurt when the baggage handlers of the airline broke his Taylor Guitar worth $30, 000. His claims for the compensation was rejected by the airline company, stating that his case was not in compliance with the company's compensation policies. The video went viral and after the fourth day around 1.5 million people watched it, 2000 tweets, 777 blogs were based on that incident and 339 online portals reported this incident. The company lost around 10% of its market cap. The Taylor Guitar Company reaped benefits through this video and they offered props for the next 2 music videos in this series. And that's the power of social media and these days customers are using this platform extensively for di...

Cake Notice, a small food store in South California raised capital through a crowd funding site Small Knot , to start its retail operations and they received more than what they expected. The request was for $2500 and they got $2620! This is not a single case, Ouya a game console got much more than what they expected, they got $8.6 million. In 2008, for the US presidential election campaign the fund raised by Mr Obama was mainly through these crowd funding platforms. The crowd funding may be a relatively new phenomenon, but it is growing like wildfire later it got immense reception in the US and UK. In the earlier model, people used to pledge their money for startups that too, with no expectation in return. The contribution model has been reverted to Donation model, Lending model and Investment model these days and will be surely subjected to further changes in the future. In the Lending model, there are terms and conditions where the creators have to follow strictly as in typica...

It is not a surprise that China has outgrown India in its gold consumption in 2013, as they consumed 1,066 tonnes of gold, while Indian consumption was only 975 tones. Blame it on the curbs from Indian government just to keep the Current Account Deficit on track which led to the decrease in gold consumption by 10 % which was a 13% up from the consumption in 2012. The CAD (Current Account Deficit) was on record high at $88.2 billion which is 4.8% of the GDP in the last fiscal term. Various curbs like a hike in import duty on gold to 10% and making 20% of the imported gold available to exporters, gold business in India is facing seasonal obstacles in making profit. The central bank is strictly following the 20/80 principle on import which can be described as, when a nominated bank import 100 kg pure gold, 20% of that consignment should be given to the exporters and 80% will be in the domestic market. In order to bring down the consumption, nominated banks and import agents were rest...

M-pesa For the Rural Poor M-Pesa may not be a interesting subject for the rich and developed countries but it is highly popular as a micro financing service from the mobile service providers, Vodacom and Safaricom in African countries especially in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ghana. The number of M-pesa customers in Kenya itself is more than 18 million this shows the popularity of M-pesa. Heavy processing fees, service charges and interest rates levied by the commercial banks makes their service unavailable for the poor African population so M-pesa was the necessity of those millions. M-pesa was developed by the Kenyans with the support of Department of International Development, a UK agency in 2003. This has truly benefited rural population of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ghana who doesn’t even have bank accounts and this scales up to around 79% of entire African population. Establishment of M-pesa was easy due to the fact that there are more than 500 million mobile phone...

The European and American model of CSR may not match up with the quality and efficiency of Indian CSR policies; this is the confidence of the makers of Indian CSR policies. CSR has been well defined under section 135 of Companies Act which was passed in 2013. This act is all about bringing up corporate governance and strengthening corporate regulations. The purpose of the CSR bill is to create a supportive environment, which allows corporates to strengthen their efficiency and to develop business policies, in order to connect between business and the communities with the focus in erasing our socio, economic and political issues and thus strengthening the society with the partnership of government and NGO s. Section 135 says companies with net worth of Rs. 500 Cr or turnover of Rs. 1000 Cr or net profit of Rs. 5 Cr should have a mandatory CSR spend of 2 % of PBT. The various activities promoted should be focused on eradication of poverty, promoting education, promoting gender equ...

Will 2014 be a great year for investments? Do the investors truly believe that 2014 will be the best year since 2009? Let’s take a look at the poll results on various indicators discussed in this survey. About the economies 72% of the global investors have the confidence that the US economy is improving. In that, 22% think the US economy is stable and 6% say it is deteriorating. Global investors are not hopeful about Chinese and Brazilian economy. It's not a surprise when 21% of the global investors opined that they don’t have any idea about Brazilian economy. Which are the main factors going to drive the US economy in 2014? Is it the increased oil and gas production or more companies investing due to the rise in confidence? Whether the growth in the job market will act as a catalyst? Or the improvement in real-estate and auto industry? The increase in the US population will demand more houses. In the US one birth happens in every 8 seconds, a death in every 12 seconds, and one...

Brent Crude price showed the lowest of this month which is $106.77 and may go down to $80/barrel according to the Saxo Bank prediction. Will price determinants, supply and demand and market sentiment work in favor of Brent Crude? The report says no. If no the why? Experts looks at the increase production from Saudi and rising non conventional method of oil extraction. EIA, Energy Information Administration expects production from non-OPEC countries would grow to around 2million year on year. The oil production from Libya, Iran are supposed to rise as the civil unrest and other restrictions imposed are getting eased. Among the futures traders, hedge fund short position, increased supply of the US shale oil, and solved transportation issues also will contribute to the rein on the climbing oil prices. The advanced technology used by the US has helped them in extracting more oil from shale rock ie Kerogen oil. Even though production of shale oil is highly underestimated by the mark...