Other Social Networks

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are the most popular social networking platforms, and have the highest user base. Facebook has an active user base of 1.5 Billion; Instagram has 400 Million users and Twitter 316 Million users. A look at the lesser known platforms reveals the likes of Snapchat (200 Million) and Tumblr (230 Million) are not exactly languishing on the fringes. They are quite close to Twitter and Instagram in terms of user base, even though Facebook leads the way.

Tumblr is a unique blogging platform that offers myriad social networking features for those who log on. In terms of features it is closest to Facebook. You can chat with your connections, put up posts (called blogs), share posts by others and like posts. Your home page shows all your blogs and it can be viewed by anybody. One doesn’t have to be on Tumblr to see your homepage. The blogs can be photos, text or videos. What makes it more fun is the customization it allows. You can modify the home page and add new themes. The platform unique approach makes it very popular with bloggers looking to catch up with other bloggers. There are some limitations; you can’t publish blogs beyond a certain number.

Snapchat is a messenger where photos and videos delete automatically, there is a lot more to Snapchat. It is fast emerging as a platform for digital marketing as it’s quite popular with youngsters. Snapchat key highlight is the Story mode which allows individuals to broadcast a series of photos and videos with fun filters, text and drawings. A broadcast remains on the platform for 24 hours and can be seen by anyone on Snapchat. It is used by digital brands such as ESPN, Daily Mail, and Comedy Central to promote their content.

Reddit is a slightly off beat social networking platform which lays more emphasis on building conversation instead of encouraging random sharing of photos and videos. The design is a bit archaic but there is a wide variety of content to read. Reddit has strict guidelines and every post is scrutinized to ensure no one puts up offensive content. The Ask Me Anything is another popular feature of Reddit where an eminent personality takes up question from the Reddit community called Redditors. It has a unique section called suicide watch where Redditors try to talk people with Suicidal thoughts out of it. 

Measuring Digital Economy

The dramatic rise of the digital economy presents unique challenges to the bean countries who try to measure the size of national economies. Most economic activity was about the production of standard stuff such as wheat or steel. The growing use of modern barter or peer to peer deals in what has been described as the sharing economy?

For example, we use to book airline ticket through a travel agent. Now, airline site allow us to book tickets on our own. The effect is same, but what used to once be a market transaction that involved payment to a travel agent has now become a household activity for which no money is paid. National Income has actually declined even though the underlying transaction is the same.

There is very unique way digital products are priced. They have high fixed costs but zero marginal costs. A software company spends big bucks to write its code. It can replicate this code at zero cost. Or think about a new age music band that can distribute its new album at minimal cost over the Internet despite the initial high costs of recording. The prices of many digital products tend to fall to zero because of their unique economies.

Many business models are designed to create other revenue streams such as advertising since the main product is given away free to build a large customer base. There is again not much agreement on how to capture these changes in national accounts. GDP is the cornerstone of all national economic statistics. It measures how much output is produced in a country in a particular period.

The digital economy presents a new set of challenges. Economists have struggled to understand what the transition from an economy of atoms to an economy of digit actually entails. Most of the emerging debates are not about the productivity effects of digital economy. They are more about how to measure an economy where some important distinctions are getting blurred.

Democracy of Information

Were you listening to Music in 2000? If so, one would remember Napster. It was born back of the then newly discovered MP3 Technology – the compressing of digital files allowing them to travel over the net easily. As a result, young people were ripping songs from compact discs and sharing those. Unable to take the weight of sustained litigation, Napster collapsed but so did the music industry – before bouncing back 13 years later. Therein lies the whole story of what the media industry newspapers, radio, TV Films, has been going through over the past 15 years.

This democratization, the ability of consumers to reject, redo, choose what they want to read, listen, watch, whenever they want it is the first big change that the past 15 years have forced on the information industry. Everything from the Nirbhaya documentary to Aamir Khan Comments becomes a trending topic. The blurring of lines between the Armchair Amateur and the trained professional creates all kinds of disruptions – socially, economically, and creatively.

The blurring also has some nice implications – notice the amount of talent coming out because of YouTube. Everybody from a cook in Noida to your Cat can become an online sensation, forcing mainstream media to drop its snooty. From Star’s Hotstar, Zee’s Ditto TV and Eros’s ErosNow, mainstream media firms are trying hard to get the 100 Million people watching online video in India. In the process, they are joining hands with names they wouldn’t have considered earlier. For Example, Star has signed on AIB, an online video creator popular for its spoofs.

The second is the havoc this democratization has wrecked on business models. But while, disaggregation is good for consumers, it has not yet translated into solid benefits for Media companies. In the US, for example, the newspaper industry has seen one-third of its revenues wiped out over the past 15 years, even as the number of people reading news has increased. One could call this evolution if the third thing about this democratization wasn’t true.

Those offline revenues of newspapers, film studios and television firms are funding the thirst for this disaggregated content online. Note that the bulk of traffic on search engines, social media and on a host of news sources comes from professionally generated content. More than three fifths of YouTube traffic comes from the videos put up by the large studios. Building shows with big stars, aggregating mass audiences for advertisers online does exactly what other media platforms do. That begs the question what really is democratic about a medium and a business where revenues and audience power are so heavily concentrated.

India’s Women Athletes in 2015

2015 was a great year for India’s Women Athletes, as they valued and ran into uncharted territories, secured Olympic Qualifications, and raked in the trophies. While it was a stupendous year for Sania Mirza, one in which she won a stellar nine titles with Martina Hingis, including two Grand Slams, and reached the top of the doubles world rankings, there were other Indian women too who made 2015 a year to remember. In their respective disciplines, these athletes broke new ground, took the world by surprise, and gave us something to look forward to in 2016, the year of the Olympics.

Lalita Babar: The daughter of a farmer, Babar broke the national steeplechase record thrice this year. The icing on the cake was becoming the first Indian to qualify for the final of a track event at the World Championships. For the Rio Olympics starting in August, Babar has two tickets – for the steeplechase and marathon.

Hockey Team: Indian Women Hockey Team was officially confirmed as participants for the 2016 Rio Olympics. For the Indian Women Hockey Team which has played at the Olympics only once before this, in 1980, on invitation, this is a watershed moment. Full of girls from small towns and whose popularity seems restricted to Shah Rukh Khan’s 2007 film ‘Chak De! India’, this is a telling goal scored just in time.

Dipika Pallikal: Pallikal began the year brightly, winning the Winnipeg Winter Club Open in February, but hit plenty of roadblocks midway through the season. Having failed to get past the first round in three previous events, Pallikal surged into the quarter-final of the prestigious US Open in October with a hard fought victory over World No. 5 Alison Waters. Pallikal also spoke openly about gender bias and refused to participate in the National Games since the prize money for male and female winners wasn’t the same.

PV Sindhu: She won Macau Open in February 2015 and beat World No. 1 Carolina Marin in Denmark Open.

Deepika Kumari: She went into the London Olympics in 2012 as the World No. 1 and made a first round exit. After two years, she overcame the shadow of failure & led the women recurve team to silver at the World Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark, booking them a ticket for Rio.

Apurvi Chandela: Part of the generation that was inspired by Abhinav Bindra’s gold at Beijing 2008, she has her sight set on the ultimate prize. She took the first step towards it by bagging bronze at the Changwon World Cup in April and qualifying for the Rio Olympics in the 10m air rifle event. She is the only shooter besides Jitu Rai to have booked a berth. She shot an impressive 206.9 to win Silver at the Munich World Cup in September.

Dipa Karmakar: Karmakar achieved the massive feat of becoming the first Indian to make it to the final of an event at the World Gymnastics Championships. She finished fifth in the final of the vault event, which means her chances of getting a wild card to compete in the Rio Olympics are pretty high.

Saina Nehwal: Last year, she had become the first Non-Chinese player to win the China Open Superseries. 2015 was the sting back in Nehwal game as she became the World No. 1 singles player, an astonishing feat in a sport dominated by the Chinese. Though Saina Nehwal had a few significant firsts to her name – like a world championship and an All England medal – the big titles eluded her. Expectations are high from her in 2016 Rio Olympics. 

Startup Sectors to watch out in 2016

With an eventful year drawing to a close, it is time to look to the future in anticipation of what 2016 can bring. Let’s look at some of the sectors that will do well in 2016.

Internet of Things (IoT) – Around the world Internet of Things is hot and the same is the case in India. IoT enables objects to collect data and transmit it over the internet, which means things or objects look and behave a IoT like it did in Sci-Fi movies. We will see some interesting applications emerging in sectors such as automotive, construction, fitness and healthcare where objects in our lives are getting connected.

Software as a Service (SaaS) – When Twitter acquired ZipDial early this year; it marked the coming of age for India SaaS startups and further reaffirmation of the quality of new companies in the space. Boutique and niche cloud consulting and services companies such as TurningCloud will drive the next generation of applications. SaaS has gone on to encompass a wide range of functions and global SaaS companies operate across like cloud infrastructure, security, marketing, sales, HR, ecommerce, retail and others.

Marketplace Lending – Born from the ashes of the financial crisis in 2009 and the widespread mistrust of the established banking channels, alternative finance platforms have become much bigger than anyone could have imagined. Using technology as their main weapon, these platforms has gone on to create quite a bit of ripple.

Education – India’s educational gaps are well known and the opportunities it provides for participation is well chronicled. Startups have managed to create a niche around Education Technology or commonly known as EdTech. While EdTech is relatively small in the space, startups like FutureVidya, EduPro App, EduKart, and Toppr are doing a stellar job in addressing problems in the education space.

Healthcare – India’s healthcare sector is expected to be $280 Billion in size by 2020, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 16 percent. Practo, Portea and Lybrate are great examples in Healthcare sector. The year 2016 is likely to see the sector grow even stronger as it starts tackling even larger and serious healthcare problems in the country. 

Inequality

Inequality was in the news once again and the news is not particularly good. In a speech, RBI Governor of India commented that increasing inequality could be curtailing world demand. Since the rich typically spend a smaller portion of their income compared with the poor who spend almost all of their income. Most billionaires gained wealth because of their access to natural resources such as land or government contracts.

If Inequality is large or growing in India, there seems to be two key reasons. First, there was death of credible data on income inequality in India. Second, within the economics profession, there was a broad consensus that inequality may often be par for course for a fast growing economy such as India; once it grew richer the tide would turn. Both these aspects are changing. We now have newer sources of evidence on inequality in India. Also, economic thinking on inequality has changed considerably across the globe over the past few years.

Economists were always aware that comparing consumption based inequality in India with income based inequality in other countries was like comparing apples with pears, if not to oranges. Even if the rich earn a lot more than the poor, they are unlikely to spend all of their additional income. Thus consumption based inequality measures are expected to understate income inequality. In terms of income inequality, India seems scarcely better than some of the most unequal countries of Latin America.

Top 1% in India owns more than half of the country total wealth. The richest 5% own 68.6% of the country wealth, while the top 10% have 76.3%. At the other end of the pyramid, the poorer half jostles for 4.1% of the nation wealth. Recent research from the IMF suggests that inequality may in fact harm the growth prospects of an economy. An IMF note published last year put together cross-country evidence suggests that lower initial inequality may facilitate high growth rates for a long duration while high levels of inequality may cause redistributive pressures and lead to an unstable growth path.

Lessons from Indian Weddings

Preparing for a wedding in the family exposes one to the informal sector. There is an army of people working on various aspects of the wedding and it is an alive and thriving economy with various kinds of players. There is management excellence, skill and specialization, process orientation and quality checks. There is also an appalling lack of financial strategy and cash is king.

First, if one allows entrepreneurs into an activity, one creates a thriving ecosystem of ideas, innovation and specialization. From the caterer to the florist, decorator to the mehandi artist, each one has extended the range of products and services that they offer, so they are able to thrive in the competitive marketplace and offer value that they can charge for. The list of things they do is too long and a far cry from the simple weddings of the past.

Rituals that were long forgotten have made a comeback, dug out by an enthusiastic wedding planner who will arrange it in minutest detail. Weddings have become an industry run by this set of entrepreneurs. Second, an informal market hurts both buyer and seller. A florist, who has managed to get enlisted with a large hotel, can charge a bomb for the décor, while an informal artist who is unknown scrambles to find mandates, even at a fraction of cost.

Third, it is tough to find the basis for pricing when products and services are so customized. The sellers ensure that standardization is shunned wherever possible. From invitations that will be custom designed, to garlands that will be strung to match, every service provider will persuade the buyer to customize. Fourth, it is amusing to see how this market uses technology. Whatsapp dominates the scene, with image and videos flowing up and down all through the planning process.

Fifth, most of the service providers suffer from poor money management practices. Working capital is a big headache. Sixth, every one of them hates taxes. The demand side of the wedding market is driven by the cash rich tax evaders. In an age when taking a break from work to meet friends and relatives is so sought after, weddings offer the perfect opportunity for image crafting at one end and thanksgiving on the other and all things in between. 

Most Powerful People in Tech World

It isn’t just wealth and it isn’t just control over people or resources. It’s more. True Power is a potent combination of money and influence that enables people to help shape the world. And only a selected group of people really possess the economic and political clout to effect global change. For better or worse, their decisions affect millions, shake industries, and change nations. Here are some men and women who are most influential in technology landscape.

Foremost is IBM CEO Ginni Rometty. Her mandate is to keep one of tech’s most iconic companies which employ 380,000 people on par, relevant and profitable for the long haul even if it means changing some of the most fundamental things about the company. There is a trio of Internet Kings in China, collectively known as “BAT” – Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. Robin Li commands the market in Internet search as the Chairman and CEO of Baidu, China Google’s equivalent.

Since becoming Microsoft third CEO last year, Satya Nadella has been busy helping the technology company relevant again. While Microsoft is still a software giant it pulls in about $95 Billion in sales. Oracle Billionaire co-founder Larry Ellison stepped down as the company CEO last year but hasn’t pumped the brakes. He still serves as Chairman and CTO of the $38 Billion database and software titan.

The second richest person in China, Alibaba founder and CEO Jack Ma broke records with the e-commerce company $25 Billion initial public offering in 2014, the world largest ever. Along with fellow co-founder Larry Page, Sergey Brin helped orchestrate Google massive restructuring announced in August. The move made Google a subsidiary of a new holding company called Alphabet, run by Brin as President and Page as CEO. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of world largest social network.

Larry Page, CEO of Alphabet. Google would become a subsidiary of new holding company Alphabet, which would oversee all of Google ventures, such as Nest, Calico, and Google X as standalone entities. Tim Cook runs the most valuable company on the planet in Apple, which is worth $645 Billion. Under Cook’s continued direction as CEO, 2015 has been one of the company best years yet. Amazon.com is an undeniable superpower in e-commerce. Jeff Bezos privately owned Space Company Blue Origin successfully launched its first spacecraft this year and has plans to test rocket engines & launch manned rockets within the next decade.

Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft in 1975, builded an Iconic software company and becoming the richest man on earth in the process, with a net worth of $87.3 Billion. Though he still on the company board, he is no longer actively involved in Microsoft. Gates and Warren Buffet started the Giving Pledge to encourage billionaires to follow their lead and give away half or more of their wealth. 

Resetting Green Revolution

India’s agriculture became moribund decades ago, and shows no sign of uplift for the long haul needed. Indeed, the rain gods have played havoc with Indian farmers. But not just the gods, Indian states have done precious little to tackle the problem head-on. The government solution is to give financial sops to farmers to buy peace from time to time. It is equally unfortunate that farmers just accept the sops and go away, only to return when hard times hit them again.

India’s agricultural growth rate has hovered around 2-3% annually, when in fact it should be at least 5%. Former Prime Minister said Indian agriculture must grow at least at 4% without which there will be no real rural poverty alleviation and no relief to distressed farmers. India’s green revolution is fatigued and needs a scientific and technological boost.

Indian agriculture is sick and it needs a strong dose of bitter medicine Market based solutions are the only way forward. India investment in agricultural science and technology and rural infrastructure must be upped by 25% and Indian council of Agricultural research must be turned into a private research corporation headed by a business minded CEO and private equity participation must be brought into India’s agricultural R&D.

Secondary agriculture must drive rural economic development. Small-scale farmers and subsistence farming must be gradually phased out as its size is not economically viable in 21^st century. No amount of shoring up economically unviable agriculture can help. Stubbornly persisting on flogging a dead horse is not going to improve the farmer’s plight. The NDA government has given no evidence of its intent to set a future looking agenda so far. That is not good for the nation neither for the NDA electoral fortunes in the years to come. It needs to act fast.

Biggest Tech Brands in the World

Technology Brands are all the rage right now so it’s no surprise that Apple and Google have occupied the top two positions in Interbrand list of most valuable global brands for three straight years. Branding consultancy recently released list of top 20 brands names in the world of Technology. This article includes their Global Rank in 2014 & 2015 and also their Brand Value in 2014 & 2015.

Foremost is the Apple. Their Global Rank in 2014 & 2015 is one. Brand Value of Apple was $118.863 Billion and in 2015 it is $170.276 Billion. Second spot is hold by Google. Their Global Rank in 2014 & 2015 is two. Brand value of Google was $107.439 Billion and in 2015 it is $120.314 Billion. Microsoft Global Rank in 2014 was five whereas in 2015 it is four. Brand Value of Microsoft was $61.154 Billion and in 2015 it is $67.67 Billion.

IBM Global Rank in 2014 was four and in 2015 is five. IBM Brand Value in 2014 was $72.244 Billion and in 2015 it is $65.095 Billion. Next is Samsung with Global Rank seven in 2014 & 2015. Their Brand value in 2014 was $45.462 Billion and in 2015 it is $45.297 Billion. Amazon Global Rank in 2014 was fifteen and in 2015 it is ten. Brand value of Amazon was $29.478 Billion in 2014 and in 2015 it is $37.948 Billion. Intel Global Rank in 2014 was twelve and in 2015 it is fourteen. Their Brand value was $13.153 Billion in 2014 and $35.415 Billion in 2015.

Cisco Global Rank in 2014 was fourteen and in 2015 it is fifteen. Brand Value of Cisco was $30.936 Billion in 2014 and in 2015 it is $29.854 Billion. Oracle is sixteen in Global Rank in 2014 and 2015. Brand value of Oracle was $25.980 Billion in 2014 and in 2015 it is $27.283 Billion. HP Global Rank in 2014 was sixteen and in 2015 it is eighteen. Their Brand value in 2014 was $23.758 Billion and in 2015 it is $23.056 Billion. Facebook Global Rank in 2014 was 29 and in 2015 it is 23. Their Brand value was $14.349 Billion in 2014 and $22.029 Billion in 2015.

SAP Global rank in 2014 and 2015 is twenty five and twenty six. Their Brand value was $17.340 in 2014 and $18.768 in 2015. EBay Global Rank in 2014 was twenty eight and in 2015 it is thirty two. Their brand value in 2014 was $14.358 Billion and in 2015 it is $13.940 Billion. Canon Global Rank in 2014 was thirty seven and in 2015 it is forty. Their Brand value in 2014 was $11.702 Billion and in 2015 it is $11.278 Billion. Accenture global rank in 2014 was 44 & in 2015 it is 42. Their Brand value in 2014 was $9.882 Billion & in 2015 it is $10.8 Billion.

Sony global rank was 52 in 2014 and in 2015 it is 58. Their Brand value was $8.133 Billion in 2014 and in 2015 it was $7.702 Billion. Panasonic global rank was 64 in 2014 and in 2015 it is 65. Their brand value in 2014 was $6.303 Billion and in 2015 it was $6.436 Billion. Adobe global rank in 2014 was 77 and in 2015 it is 68. Their brand value in 2014 was $5.33 Billion and in 2015 it is $6.257 Billion. Xerox global rank in 2014 was 62 and in 2015 it is 71. Their brand value in 2014 was $6.641 Billion and in 2015 it is $6.033 Billion. Huawei global rank in 2014 was 94 and in 2015 it is 88. Their Brand value in 2014 was $4.313 Billion and in 2015 it is $4.952 Billion.

Social Entrepreneurship

Over 60% of the Indian Population still lives on less than $2 a day. India is placed second highest in terms of net income inequality among 34 countries in the lower middle income group. India has made rapid strides in Economic Growth but how can the country maintain healthy Gross Domestic Product growth while addressing the inequality among its citizens?

Social Entrepreneurs are a key stakeholder segment to engage in delivering such basic services and opportunities efficiently and effectively to the underserved in India. Every year, Social Entrepreneur of the Year (SEOY) Awards organized by the Schwab Foundation and Jubilant Bhartia Foundation attracts hundreds of Social Entrepreneurs from all over the country. Some of them employ innovative, cost efficient and often technology enabled business models that deliver basic services to those who lack access.

Many of these organizations work at an impressive scale serving millions of low income households and transforming their quality of life. An example is Aravind Eye Care System in South India, which focuses on curing blindness among India’s poor. The hospital chain serves approximately 12,000-15,000 outpatient visits and 1,500 surgeries each day. Karuna Trust and its public private partnership model serve over 2 Million low income clients by transforming government primary health centres into hubs of low cost, high quality healthcare delivery.

When compared to magnitude of Social challenges facing the country, their efforts fall short; their impact is often limited to select geographies. How can India build on the wonderful work by these pioneers for social change at a national scale? True public-private collaboration is the key to make this happen. When designing and implementing policies, the government should draw on the knowledge and experience of social entrepreneurs, the ideas and dynamism of it youth and the capabilities of the corporate sector to plan and execute large scale projects.

With half of population under 25 years of age, India has an unrivalled youth demographic. Beyond their direct reach and impacts, social entrepreneurs represent a powerful idea, an idea that is relevant today more than ever before. That business can be a vehicle to create both economic values as well contributes to building a fair and equitable society.

Amazon and Flipkart Control of Ecommerce

Amazon India and its largest local rival, Flipkart, which was modeled on the American Online retailer, are changing their strategies in diverging ways to dominate fast growing e-commerce market. Amazon India and Flipkart are the country biggest e-commerce firms. Both are supposed to operate as marketplace platforms that connect small merchants with buyers. They are not allowed to sell directly to shoppers.

But both the companies have adopted complex corporate strategies and used a mix of the marketplace and the direct selling business model. Amazon is using a joint venture to increase the direct selling component in its model, even as Flipkart is fast moving towards a marketplace. Amazon is willing to do whatever it takes to succeed in India, the last big unconquered e-commerce market in the world.

Amazon has already lost out to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd in China. Amazon success has been built on its avowed principles of offering the widest product coupled with low prices. To stay true in a nascent market such as India, the company has decided that it needs to have more control over its supply than what a pure marketplace allows. This requires more cash, but the online retailer has already pumped $2 Billion into its India Business over time.

Flipkart has changed its role model to China’s Alibaba. Flipkart was started in 2007 by two Amazon.com Inc. employees. The firm began as book retailer, just like Amazon in 1995 but gradually added all kinds of other products, including mobile phones, laptops and clothes. Until 2013, it sold all these directly to shoppers not through third party merchants. However, this model is simply not conducive to making profits.

Flipkart, which has raised $2.6 Billion over the past 18 months, is expected to report huge loss this year because of its aggressive expansion and deep discounting. At some point it needs to go public and the pressure to do that increases every year. Indian Ecommerce market resembles that of China more than the US. The success of Alibaba IPO strengthened Flipkart resolve to try and adopt Alibaba advertising driven revenue model.

Under this model, Flipkart plans to operate as a marketplace and earn the bulk of its revenue from ads and other services, such as logistics and warehousing charged to sellers. Flipkart is still trying to find the success formula that will work in India. Currently both companies along with Snapdeal have the same goal to dominate the e-commerce sales. 

SMEs to E-commerce platforms

Many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have taken to e-commerce platforms to expand their reach, both in the domestic and global markets. According to a report, 50 Million SMEs in the country, at least three million, especially from smaller cities are already using e-commerce platforms. In coming years, the figure is likely to double and may touch 30 Million in five years.

Zeelplast Machinery was started with Rs. 50,000 in 2008. The company is based out of Ahmedabad. The fully automatic moulding machines manufacturing company was limited to supplying local areas, before it took to e-commerce. Now the company has evolved from strength to strength with its brand identity, marketing support and getting orders from across India.

According to a study conducted by Snapdeal and KPMG, nearly 85 percent of SMEs which adopted E-commerce believe it is a cost-effective medium for sales growth. It also claims SMEs actively adopting the internet for Business activity boast 51 percent higher revenue, resulting in 49 percent more profit and a seven percent broader consumer base than their offline counterparts.

Some E-commerce entities are also helping SMEs to procure raw material at affordable costs. This has emerged as a new line of business. Ahmedabad based tradohub.com is working in a similar way. It supports SMEs for buying raw material from international markets. Buying material from e-commerce platforms reduces the cost by six to eight per cent. This is helping SMEs to adopt e-commerce platforms which are beneficial for IoT and Indian Economy as well.

Best startup sectors in 2015

With the year almost drawing to a close, there are startup sectors which turned out to be major players in coming years. Beginning early this year, there was a great rush of venture money. As a seed round of a million dollars became the new norm, startup started mushrooming throughout the country. Some of the sectors that saw significant interests are IoT and Wearables, Hyperlocal, Food Tech, Logistics Management and Local Services Marketplace.

With the likes of Grofers, BigBasket and Pickingo vying for attention as on demand delivery partner, there is an explosion of Hyperlocal services. From delivering nuts, vegetable, to transportation services, Hyperlocal startups have managed to grab their fair share of eyeballs and investor money. However, this sector has become very competitive and it will be interesting to see how these startups scale and evolve in the future.

According to startup analyst firm Tracxn, about 90 startups and 50 plus startups have been founded in 2014 and 2015 in Logistics Management. Top funded startups include the likes of Delhivery, TinyOwl, Ecom Express and Gofers. The sector has seen a lot of interest because of the growth of ecommerce in India. This has led to the emergence of local delivery startups, food delivery startups, intra-city, inter-city, overseas, ecommerce shippers and freight aggregators.

The entire Internet of Things (IoT), which has meant over a billion dollars have been invested in startups in the IoT space globally over the past few months. Big VC firms like Sequoia Capital, NEA, Andreessen Horowitz and others have made a sizable investment in the space. On the other hand Wearables segment has seen a number of significant products taking over our life. Fitness bands are the most popular Wearables today, followed by smart watches. It is not surprising that many startups now consider Wearables the next big things.

Food tech is perhaps the most surprising sector. This has been mainly because the food and restaurant industry till now has been largely fragmented with little or no tech adoption. Startups have figured out a lot can be done in the aggregation business and in delivery. The sub segments that have done well in the space include both eat at home ordering and delivery, restaurant discovery and booking, in restaurant payments, office food delivery and food aggregators.

In a city where we are increasingly busy, availing services may not be easy. Whether one need a doctor, plumber, electrician, drivers, a bunch of startups now help in on the desired service provider. Startups like UrbanClap, Taskbob, LocalOye and Qyk have raised funding. Investors active in this field are SAIF Partners, Accel Partners, Tiger Global and even Snapdeal cofounders. While the primary way to avail local services have been through online search or classified platforms, Local services marketplace make it seamless. This has led to increasing popularity of startups.

Car Free Day

A Car Free Day, which is celebrated in more than 200 cities in the world, promotes improvement of mass transit, cycling and walking. Studies showed that for short trips in cities, one can reach more quickly using a bicycle rather than using a car. About 3.1 Million people ride bicycle every month. It is a European event that emerged in 1960s and it caught attention within three decades. This event is being scheduled in Gurgaon for every Tuesday; a city where handling road traffic is the first job of the day for many people.

While the movement of cars will not be banned in the city, pick up and drop facilities in offices and unauthorized parking on roadsides and other places will not be allowed in specific areas of the city. Specific locations are chosen in the city for the event. In my opinion, it is a good step towards sustainability and reducing rush and accidents on the road. The only thing is it has to be followed properly by citizens and structured in a good way.

Instance, one will save fuel consumption, save environment, save economy and traffic will become smooth. Day is not far when Humans will have to adopt sustainability forcefully. Increase in viral diseases, disasters, rapid consumption of natural resources will one day bring back life to focus on these things. This step taken by Gurgaon Municipal Corporation for the benefit of city people is a positive move.

Two days of this event and it emerged as a positive source of inspiration for cyclists. The reason why I see this event as a good source for community is I ride a bike daily to office. I leave ten minutes before my scheduled time and reach office before any person in car, starting from same point. The only difference is I feel the Sun, the Dust and the Sweat. The aim of this event is to switch people to public transport and we should join hands to make it a success.