It's destination India for global luxury brands

New Delhi: Foreign retail brands are wasting no time to tap into the rapidly growing luxury retail market in India. Barely a week after the government announced the increase in FDI cap in single brand retail to 100% from 51%, an array of retailers have already announced their plans to enter the Indian market. Luxury brands like Vertu, Christian Loubotin, Armani Junior and several others will open their exclusive stores at DLF Emporio early next year, while brands like Van Laack and Diesel Black Gold will begin their operations within the next one month itself. "We are excited on the recent move by the government approving 100% FDI in the luxury space. Luxury has always been a sunrise sector with the capacity to grow at the rate of 25-30 % annually and it's clear that people are wanting to experience and taste luxury," said Dinaz Madhukar , V-P , DLF Emporio. Foreign brands like Zara, Versace, Tommy Hilfiger and several others are already present in India, albeit through franchisees or joint ventures with 51% holdings or less. Enhancement of the FDI cap has come as a deal sweetener for those brands already present, as also a welcome sign to those that have been eyeing the Indian retail market. Industry experts believe that the move will open the floodgates for several international brands, not interested in a partnership model , to enter the Indian market. Especially with the fast growing luxury market in India, there could not have been a more suitable time for the enhancement of FDI cap in single brand, experts reason. "With the increase of FDI cap in single brand retail , the options for international brands have increased. Although most brands are already present in the country either by way of joint ventures or franchisees, it opens the options for entry of those who may not have been interested in partnerships. Plus those already present might consider revising their partnerships ," said Saloni Nangia, senior vice president- Retail, Technopak. Rising disposable incomes of the Indian middle class is another factor, which is expected to buoy luxury spending. A study conducted by Technopak shows that the Indian luxury market, which is growing at 20%, will be nearly two and a half times its current size over the next five years.

Akaash tablets fuels global interests

New Delhi: With the government all set to initiate the process for acquiring 10 lakh more Akaash tablets priced at Rs 2,276 each, there has been an international interest in the low-cost machine. Panama has approached the Indian Embassy there to buy one lakh units of Akaash. Even Philadelphia - the sixth largest US state in terms of Gross Domestic Product - has shown interest in the product. "We are waiting for a formal request from Philadelphia. Panama's demand has reached us. One more Latin American country has also approached us," a source said. Malaysia had approached the HRD ministry even before Akaash was formally unveiled, but it wanted to produce tablets locally. "We had to decline the request," source said. Thailand has directly approached Datawind, the company that is manufacturing the first one lakh tablets. Ministry sources do not rule out helping countries, but made it clear that domestic needs are paramount. Sources said production of one lakh tablets is going on as per schedule, but after receiving the initial feedback the manufacturer has been asked to make minor changes like improve the processor. "Many users said the tablet is slow when it is started," a source said, adding that the next lot might have better features like improved screen. The ministry has written to vice-chancellors of state, private and central universities and state chief secretaries explaining the scheme, especially the fact that with 50% subsidy provided by the Central government, a student has to pay only Rs 1, 138 for a tablet. It has also asked all states to spell out their requirements. States have been told to give their suggestions on technical specifications, subsidy and distribution of tablets. The Unique Identification Development Authority of India has also approached the ministry to collaborate with Akaash. "We are still working out the details. Aadhar numbers and tablet can be put to creative use for establishing identity of students and their attendance," an official said.

National Bio Energy Mission soon: Farooq

New Delhi: A National Bio Energy Mission is being developed to push sustainable development of the renewable energy sector, Mr Farooq Abdullah, Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), said here on Tuesday. He was addressing the Bio Energy summit organised by Confederation of Indian Industries (CII). “Grid parity among States is not equal and connectivity to remote locations is a major issue. The Ministry wants industry to bring innovative new technologies that would empower rural areas,” he said. Mr G.B. Pradhan, Secretary, MNRE, said the most critical aspect in promoting bio energy projects was the associated business model, which should be sustainable. Mr K Krishnan, Chairman, CII Task Force on Bio-Energy, pointed to hybrid solutions that combine bio energy with solar, wind and hydro as promising sustainable solutions. The CII recommended rationalising the pricing of fuels and tariffs to reflect the economic cost of supply, reduce cross subsidies and flexibility to capture changing fuel prices in a competitive market.

9 Things That Motivate Employees More Than Money

The ability to motivate employees is one of the greatest skills an entrepreneur can possess. Two years ago, I realized I didn’t have this skill. So I hired a CEO who did. Josh had 12 years in the corporate world, which included running a major department at Comcast. I knew he was seasoned, but I was still skeptical at first. We were going through some tough growing pains, and I thought that a lack of cash would make it extremely difficult to improve the company morale. I was wrong. With his help and the help of the great team leaders he put in place, Josh not only rebuilt the culture, but also created a passionate, hard-working team that is as committed to growing and improving the company as I am. Here are nine things I learned from him: Be generous with praise. Everyone wants it and it’s one of the easiest things to give. Plus, praise from the CEO goes a lot farther than you might think. Praise every improvement that you see your team members make. Once you’re comfortable delivering praise one-on-one to an employee, try praising them in front of others. Get rid of the managers. Projects without project managers? That doesn’t seem right! Try it. Removing the project lead or supervisor and empowering your staff to work together as a team rather then everyone reporting to one individual can do wonders. Think about it. What’s worse than letting your supervisor down? Letting your team down! Allowing people to work together as a team, on an equal level with their co-workers, will often produce better projects faster. People will come in early, stay late, and devote more of their energy to solving problems. Make your ideas theirs. People hate being told what to do. Instead of telling people what you want done; ask them in a way that will make them feel like they came up with the idea. “I’d like you to do it this way” turns into “Do you think it’s a good idea if we do it this way?” Never criticize or correct. No one, and I mean no one, wants to hear that they did something wrong. If you’re looking for a de-motivator, this is it. Try an indirect approach to get people to improve, learn from their mistakes, and fix them. Ask, “Was that the best way to approach the problem? Why not? Have any ideas on what you could have done differently?” Then you’re having a conversation and talking through solutions, not pointing a finger. Make everyone a leader. Highlight your top performers’ strengths and let them know that because of their excellence, you want them to be the example for others. You’ll set the bar high and they’ll be motivated to live up to their reputation as a leader. Take an employee to lunch once a week. Surprise them. Don’t make an announcement that you’re establishing a new policy. Literally walk up to one of your employees, and invite them to lunch with you. It’s an easy way to remind them that you notice and appreciate their work. Give recognition and small rewards. These two things come in many forms: Give a shout out to someone in a company meeting for what she has accomplished. Run contests or internal games and keep track of the results on a whiteboard that everyone can see. Tangible awards that don’t break the bank can work too. Try things like dinner, trophies, spa services, and plaques. Throw company parties. Doing things as a group can go a long way. Have a company picnic. Organize birthday parties. Hold a happy hour. Don’t just wait until the holidays to do a company activity; organize events throughout the year to remind your staff that you’re all in it together. Share the rewards—and the pain. When your company does well, celebrate. This is the best time to let everyone know that you’re thankful for their hard work. Go out of your way to show how far you will go when people help your company succeed. If there are disappointments, share those too. If you expect high performance, your team deserves to know where the company stands. Be honest and transparent.

Infosys to replicate rural BPO model globally

Bangalore: Buoyed by the response to its rural BPO activities in India — like the recently launched rural BPO in Kaup and its upcoming plan to launch a rural BPO in Bagepally — Infosys BPO has decided to set up rural centres in Tier II and Tier III towns in foreign countries, a senior official said. “It is tough to put a timeframe on something like this, but we should be doing this over the next four to five years,” Mr Rajiv Raghunandan, Associate Vice-President, Strategic Business Practice and Head - HR Services, Infosys BPO Ltd, told Business Line. Infosys BPO has five centres in India and seven centres internationally in countries such as Poland, China and the Philippines, which typically operate from large cities. For instance, four years ago, the company established an office in Lodz, the third-largest city in Poland. Now, as per the plan that Mr Raghunandan has outlined, the company wants to target rural areas in such countries. Partnership model The model may be similar to what the company is doing in India. Explaining this, Mr Raghunandan said, “We operate directly in Tier I and Tier II cities, but tie up with partners for Tier III and Tier IV cities.” For example, Infosys BPO launched the Kaup unit in Karnataka's Udupi district with Desicrew, while the Bagepally centre in Andhra Pradesh's Nizamabad district, which will be operational in a few months, will be launched with RuralShores. Infosys BPO embarked on its plans for rural BPOs around 18 months back and wanted to help people get jobs and more flexibility for itself. “If there is a spike in workload and we want people to work for two more hours, it is easy in a rural BPO, but in a Tier I city, you have to contend with various issues such as transport, overtime, etc. Also, the ability to retain talent is higher in rural areas,” said Mr Raghunandan.

Wabco India targets 8-fold export growth by 2015

Chennai: Commercial vehicle parts supplier Wabco India is seeing an eight-fold jump in exports to Rs 1,000 crore in 2015, from Rs 118 crore now, according to a research report. "Management guided export revenues growth from Rs 1.18bn in FY11 to Rs 10bn in FY15," said a Spark Capital Report, after an investor-management meet. "The management was positive on the export momentum due to the cost advantage enjoyed by India, and the entire range of Wabco's products becoming available with Wabco taking majority control," the report said. It can be recalled that this is coming post Wabco taking majority control of its Indian arm, after the TVS Group sold its stake in what originally was a joint venture called Wabco-TVS. The key driver for Wabco's export growth story is likely to be the South American business. Wabco India had revenues of Rs 889 crore in 2011.

Uttarakhand to focus on industry in hills

Dehradun: About 11 new industrial hubs will be developed with modern infrastructure. After heavy industrialisation in the plains, the Uttarakhand government has shifted its entire focus to the hills, amending the existing policy to attract small manufacturing units there. A total of 11 new industrial hubs will be developed, with the government promising modern infrastructure complete with a slew of sops under the 2008 hill industrial policy. Besides, the government has also decided to bring four new areas – Sahaspur and Raipur in Dehradun district and Ramnagar and Haldwani in Nainital district – under the policy, despite their being in the plains. Chief Minister B C Khanduri wants the hill policy to focus more on the development of the backward hill region, stating that the government would prefer the growth of small industries to large ones. “We have enough industries in the plains, now we want to shift our focus entirely to the hills,” Khanduri said. Uttarakhand is currently witnessing sluggishness in the industrial sector after the expiry of the hill-based excise exemption under the concessional industrial package (CIP) expired on March 31, 2010. Besides big industries, the CIP was responsible for healthy growth of the SME sector during the past six to seven years. Since 2009, industries have not been showing any enthusiasm towards the hill state, with the government repeatedly urging the Centre to renew the tax incentives for a few more years. Though Uttarakhand has able to attract an investment of Rs 218 crore in the hills, manufacturing industry has maintained a distance from the backward areas, mainly due to poor connectivity and lack of infrastructure in the hills. “We will be releasing a large budget to promote industries in the hills,” said Principal Secretary, Industries, Rakesh Sharma. The government is offering a series sops under the Special Integrated Industrial Promotion Policy-2008 for the hilly and remote areas of Uttarakhand. These sops include stamp duty exemption on land purchase, industrial estates on two acres for private developers, and reimbursement of 50 per cent of the cost of infrastructure development (up to a maximum of Rs 50 lakh). The capital investment subsidy has been doubled to Rs 60 lakh. The government will also offer six per cent interest subsidy up to a maximum of Rs 5 lakh, a subsidy in electricity bills up to 75 per cent and reimbursement of VAT. It is also offering viability gap funding. The government has amended the hill industrial development policy after obtaining suggestions from industrial associations. The Indian Industries Association (IAU), a key body of SMEs in the hill state, has welcomed the amendments in the hill policy, saying it would promote new investments. “We want the government to focus on the preservation of handicrafts, handlooms and khadi by infusing modern techniques to devise new products,” said Pankaj Gupta, president of IAU. The IAU said the khadi and handicrafts sector needs to be leveraged for use in the fashion and interior design industry by creating linkages with top fashion designers through aggressive marketing. It said cluster development needs to be encouraged in the state, particularly in new industrial areas, and that this can be done by creating dedicated industrial parks. CII has called for the creation of a SME renewable fund for technology upgradation. It has also called for creation of a common marketing and branding fund for MSMEs and asked the government to set up a MSME facilitation council to facilitate the resolution of problems, said Dr S Farooq, chairman of the CII’s state council.

Intelenet sets up centre in Patna for BSNL users

BPO firm Intelenet Global Services announced the launch of a new delivery centre in Patna as part of a strategic arrangement with state-owned telecom operator BSNL. Intelenet will service BSNL's base of prepaid, postpaid and 3G cellular subscribers in the telecom circles of Bihar and Jharkhand, Intelenet said in a statement. The delivery centre will provide services in English, Hindi and other local regional languages to deliver customer support -- product inquiries, complaints, requests for new services and so on. "Intelenet recognises Patna as an emerging business destination. The capacity built in Patna is based entirely on client requirements and also blends with our business strategy of providing multi-location delivery capability to our clients," Intelenet Global Services CEO (Domestic Operations) Bhupender Singh said. Intelenet has a workforce of over 27,000 employees and 32 delivery centres across 18 cities.

Facebook will IPO as Early as April 2012

Facebook will make its long-anticipated move to go public between April and June 2012, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal on Monday. The report, which cites “people familiar with the matter,” says that Facebook is considering raising $10 billion in an IPO that could value it at more than $100 billion. This is consistent with a report in June that used the same eye-popping number of zeros to describe Facebook’s expected valuation. If realized, the valuation would make Facebook’s IPO one of the largest in history — more than four times as big as Google’s $23 billion IPO in 2004, and likely one of the 10 largest IPOs of all time. While the first rumors of Facebook’s impending IPO predicted that the company would go public during the first quarter of 2012, recent reports had suggested that the offering had been pushed back to “September or later.” The Wall Street Journal‘s sources cautioned that Facebook has not made any final decisions in its internal discussions about the timing of its filing — and that market conditions will ultimately determine how much money the company seeks and the value of the company.

'Hiring in e-commerce sector to grow 50%'

With rapid expansion of the e-commerce industry, there are thousands of new job openings in the sector, especially at the mid and higher levels, and the hiring is expected to grow by 45-50 per cent next year, said Elixir Consulting. "This trend of manpower movement to the E-commerce and online retail areas began in the early 2009, when most of the large global online retailers set up shops and gained a substantial consumer-base," the recruitment process outsourcing firm's Manager (Leadership Hiring) Prateek Srivastava told PTI here. It has grown substantially compared to last year and the overall hiring for this year is at least 150 per cent more than what these companies hired last year, fuelled mostly by substantial customer acquisition by consumer Internet companies and funding by private equity players or venture capitalists, he said adding, "In 2012, hiring is expected to grow by 45-50 per cent". Srivastava also said, these talents are also getting a decent hikes on being hired. "Salary offered in the sector is also very competitive. People at leadership levels typically get a 40-60 per cent hike and very lucrative stock option plans." Most of the people moving in are at a leadership level as it is an evolving vertical in terms of job opportunity and has the potential of higher growth, similar to that of IT services, which was witnessed a decade back, he pointed out. Mainly, leaders from the IT services industries are moving towards the E-commerce, as both the industries require similar skills, he said. These mid-to-senior-level employees are usually from top B-schools, with exceptional sales skills handling business development, sales and strong technology and product engineering are high in demand in the sector, Srivastava said. However, most of the sales talent are being hired from the FMCG and telecom sector, he added.