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Flipkart to Re-Enter Grocery Segment: Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy

9Apr By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

Entrepreneurs Talk

Flipkart to Re-Enter Grocery Segment: Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy

Locked in an intense battle with Amazon, homegrown e-commerce major Flipkart is looking at re-entering the grocery segment that accounts for a significant portion of Indias retail industry. "Yes we will get into grocery... 80 per cent of units bought in India is grocery... USD 400-600 million is grocery market, so we have to get into it," Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said at a TiE event here. This will be the second attempt into the grocery segment for the Bengaluru-based firm. In October 2015, Flipkart had launched a separate groceries ordering app called Nearby for delivering fruits, vegetables, soaps and other staples from supermarkets to customers. However, following a weak response, Flipkart closed the business a few months later. Flipkarts rival Amazon India has launched it...

Challenge for Startups to Get Series C & Beyond Funding: Kris Gopalakrishnan

7Apr By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

Entrepreneurs Talk

Challenge for Startups to Get Series C & Beyond Funding: Kris Gopalakrishnan

Securing series C and beyond funding is a challenge for start-ups, Information Technology veteran Kris Gopalakrishnan said as he called for a simple, orderly and fast-track mechanism to shut failed businesses. The start-ups scenario in India is pretty good but when those firms go for series C and beyond funding, there are some challenges, the co-founder and former CEO of Infosys said. "But at the seed stage or series A (funding), there is still money available; good ideas will get funded and there are lot of opportunities for innovation and new startups in the area of financial services, healthcare, niche retail and deeper technologies, converting research into new products and new businesses," Gopalakrishnan told Pixr8 here. "So, there are significant opportunities still (to tap in t...

Mohandas Pai Backs Narayana Murthy; Says COO Payment is Huge But Not Performance

3Apr By AdityaNo Comments

Entrepreneurs Talk

Mohandas Pai Backs Narayana Murthy; Says COO Payment is Huge But Not Performance

Backing Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy's view on pay hike to COO U B Pravin Rao being "not proper," company's ex-director T V Mohandas Pai today said the salary in this case is "spectacular" but performance is not. Alleging that Infosys' board was "misguided", Pai said the ""fundamental problem" was the pay hike given earlier to CEO Vishal Sikka "without any justification", because of which other executives were also expecting higher pay. He said salary levels in India cannot be compared with that in the US. "I totally agree with Murthy that it was not proper. We should have Indian norm for compensation; we can't follow American norm, we (Infosys) are not an American company," Pai, who was also formerly Chief Finance Officer of Infosys, told in a telephonic interview. T...

HDFC Bank Chief Aditya Puri Says Wallet Players Like Paytm Have No Future

18Feb By NitishNo Comments

Entrepreneurs Talk

HDFC Bank Chief Aditya Puri Says Wallet Players Like Paytm Have No Future

In one of the sharpest comments against prepaid wallets like Paytm, HDFC Bank chief Aditya Puri today said such companies which hold on to customers through cash-backs are loss-making and have "no future". "I think wallets have no future. There is not enough margin in the payment business for the wallets to have a future," Puri, the managing director and chief executive of the second largest private sector lender, said at the annual Nasscom summit here. "Wallets as a valid economic proposition is doubtful. There is no money in the payments business. The current loss reported by market leader Paytm is Rs 1,651 crore. You cannot have a business that says pay a Rs 500 bill and take Rs 250 cash-back," Puri said. Wallet companies cannot "copy" the "Alibaba model" as well, as the domest...

For Mukesh Ambani Right Team and Using Investors Money Carefully is a Path To Success

15Feb By AnkitaNo Comments

Entrepreneurs Talk

For Mukesh Ambani Right Team and Using Investors Money Carefully is a Path To Success

Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, who is betting big on data-driven telecom with his Jio Infocomm, today described the digital play sweeping the world as the fourth industrial revolution and said data is the "new oil". "The foundation of the fourth industrial revolution is connectivity and data. Data is the new natural resource. We are at the beginning of an era where data is the new oil," Ambani said at the opening day of 3-day Nasscom leadership forum here. Salient feature of this revolution is "convergence of the physical biological and digital sciences" and "we are on the verge of an exponential change", he said. Predicting that India will be a key player in this revolution, Ambani said with "our large talent base, we will have a competitive advantage in this era." ...

Media Talk on Infy Corporate Governance Issues Distracting: Vishal Sikka

13Feb By reutersNo Comments

Entrepreneurs Talk

Media Talk on Infy Corporate Governance Issues Distracting: Vishal Sikka

Infosys Chief Executive Vishal Sikka said talk in media on corporate governance issues at the software services firm was "distracting" and that he had good relations with the firm's founders, including N.R. Narayana Murthy. India's second biggest IT services company, based in the tech hub of Bengaluru, has recently been in an escalating public spat with its founders and former executives, who have accused its board of lapses in corporate governance. "All this drama that has been going on in the media, it's very distracting - it takes away attention - but underneath that there is a very strong fabric that this company is based on and it is a real privilege for me to be its leader," Sikka said in response to a question at the Kotak Institutional Equities conference in Mumbai on Monday....

E-commerce Firm Snapdeal to Make Profit in Two Years: CEO

6Feb By reutersNo Comments

Entrepreneurs Talk

E-commerce Firm Snapdeal to Make Profit in Two Years: CEO

Indian e-commerce firm Snapdeal expects to turn profitable in the next two years, its CEO said, as the company cuts costs and boosts efficiency in a market currently dominated by homegrown Flipkart and US internet giant Amazon. Kunal Bahl, who co-founded Snapdeal in 2010, also told Reuters in an interview that the online marketplace provider backed by Japan's SoftBank Group did not immediately need to raise capital unless it makes an acquisition. A burgeoning Indian middle class' rapid uptake of wireless high-speed internet has prompted buyers to shop online, boosting sales at e-tailers and making the country's internet services market one of the world's fastest growing. The value of goods sold online in India is expected to jump tenfold to USD 188 billion by 2025, according to a ...

Well Orchestrated Move to Destroy Personal Reputations: Tata

31Dec By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

Entrepreneurs Talk

Well Orchestrated Move to Destroy Personal Reputations: Tata

As feud at India's biggest conglomerate continues, Tata Group's interim chairman Ratan Tata today said there has been a willful, well-orchestrated move to destroy his personal reputations through unsubstantiated allegations. Without naming anyone, he said the ethics and values of the group have been "challenged by people who are known not to practice what they often preach". Tata, 78, who came back from retirement to take over Tata Sons after his successor Cyrus P Mistry was unceremoniously ousted on October 24, asked employees to put the events behind and re-dedicate themselves to re-establishing the Tata Group's leadership. "The past three months have been turbulent and wasteful. There has been a willful, well-orchestrated endeavour to destroy the personal reputations of individ...

Innovation Helped us Hold Over 3/4th Market Share: Ola COO Pranay Jivrajka

19Dec By PriyankaNo Comments

Entrepreneurs Talk

Innovation Helped us Hold Over 3/4th Market Share: Ola COO Pranay Jivrajka

Transport aggregator Ola today said its India-focussed innovations like offline booking and local language apps have helped the homegrown company "effectively hold onto over three-fourth market share". The SoftBank-backed firm, which is locked in an intense battle with US-based Uber, also claimed that every bit of technology it has built has been "made from the ground up without any premise to use as a base". "When they (Uber) launched in India in 2013, Ola hardly had a first mover advantage as we were doing just about 2,000 bookings a day. In spite of this, we have continued to build on our innovations effectively holding onto over three-fourth of the market-share," Ola COO Pranay Jivrajka told Pixr8. He added that the focus needs to be on localisation for building customised products f...

Sold Business in China Because Wants Full Focus on India – Travis Kalanick, CEO, Uber

17Dec By AnkitaNo Comments

Entrepreneurs Talk

Sold Business in China Because Wants Full Focus on India – Travis Kalanick, CEO, Uber

Months after selling its stake in China, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick today said it sold its stake to rival Didi since the "battle in China became global", prompting the US-based company to focus on other areas such as Ubereats, driverless cars and markets like India. "The battle in China had become global. We had sovereign wealth of China being invested in our competition globally. We had American tech companies that were being compelled to invest in our competitor in China. And so China battle had become a global battle," Kalanick said at the TiE Global Summit here. In August, the Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing announced acquisition of Uber's operations in China in a USD 35 billion deal. While Didi acquired Uber China's brand, business operations and data, Uber received 5.89 perc...

Home Grown Startups Like “Ola and Flipkart” Losing Confidence: Saurabh Srivastava, IAN, Co-founder

14Dec By AnkitaNo Comments

Entrepreneurs Talk

Home Grown Startups Like “Ola and Flipkart” Losing Confidence: Saurabh Srivastava, IAN, Co-founder

Indian startups playing up the 'home-grown' card and asking government to shut doors to global companies indicate that companies are losing confidence, entrepreneur and angel investor Saurabh Srivastava said today. Instead, companies need to focus on ways to create an "enabling environment" without closing the doors for foreign players, he said. "One needs to have a balanced matured view... I think, we are losing confidence... there's no reason for that... We should make sure that the environment that we have is fair, free and level-playing field," Srivastava, who is also the chairman and co-founder of Indian Angel Network (IAN) said at a media briefing ahead of the TiE Global Summit. He added that while Indian companies should not be at a disadvantage, the focus needs to be on "how to c...

Paytm to Complete 2 Billion Transactions This Year: VSS, Paytm CEO

8Dec By AdityaNo Comments

Entrepreneurs Talk

Paytm to Complete 2 Billion Transactions This Year: VSS, Paytm CEO

On its way to complete two billion transactions this year surpassing its own expectations, Digital payments platform Paytm today said it aims to become universal payments app across every bank account. The company also said it aspires to enter the US market in the long run as it sees an opportunity there. "Today Paytm is on the way to complete 2 billion transactions this year. I personally did not expect 2016 to end on such number. Our numbers are at 2 billion transactions this year, which in turn will enable us to become really the transaction layer on top of every bank account," Paytm Founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma told reporters here. He said, "With connectivity with the UPI (Unified Payment Interface)we will become the payment app for every bank account. With UPI support Paytm ...