Work culture is a basic requirement to sustain and progress in a company. Companies like Google and Tesla are known for their “Chill” work environment, where the employee’s mental health is given a priority. Many office settings are choosing an informal environment for better productivity. The results are assertive.
While most companies are trying unconventional methods to make office hours to be less intimidating, Byju’s, India’s largest EdTech unicorn is caught up in a row for having the worst work culture. Employees who have quit have allegedly accused Byju’s for having a horrible work environment.
July 13, 2021- Byju’s joins hands with Disney and launched a learning App featuring Disney-based character for the U.S. market.
February 8, 2021- ICC announced Byju’s as a global partner until 2023. The EdTech giant will partner the forthcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in India and the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in New Zealand.
Byju’s – About The Company
The EdTech market in India has become an eye candy for Venture Capitalists. Many investors abroad since India is showing a substantial growth graph propelling upwards and gaining grounds abroad. India’s largest EdTech company turned unicorn, the brain child of Byju Ravindran, Byju’s is at lightning speed with significant takeovers and increasing on demand education material from parents all over the country.
Byju’s is said to have plans to acquire the rival EdTech company Toppr for $150 million. The Mumbai-based Toppr provides e-learning materials to grades 5-12.
The gigantic empire built by Founder & CEO Byju’s Ravindran is almost like a rags to riches titled tale. Passionate about revolutionizing the education system, Byju’s was brought to life in 2015. It all seems roses and rainbows as a bystander, while the company is being called out for being down right shady and unethical as an ongoing concern.
Byju’s found itself in headlines, when various telephone recordings by their ex employees were leaked in public. Many such instances followed suit and now the company stands accused of having the worst work culture.
Byju’s – Work Culture
The entire scenario came to light when a telephonic conversation between a salesperson and their manager was leaked on YouTube. The conversation reveals a lot about the abusive work culture at Byju’s. The manager was furious at the salesperson for not meeting the sales target and held him at the edge for not complying to company protocols.
Several reviews on various job portals point towards a bad and unsustainable work life at Byju’s. Employees who have quit Byju’s have shed some light over how the EdTech company is entirely focused on generating revenues.
Byju’s offers a handsome amount of 10 lac per annum package for entry level joiners who enter the organization as Business Development Associates (BDA). However, ex employees have shown utter dismay stating that the figure quoted to them during the interview was a faux figure and the actual remuneration is below expectations. BDAs seem to be the most disappointed across all the departments in the company.
Other reviews suggest that the company is fast paced and expects prompt delivery from its employees. People have fewer complaints as we climb higher in the organizational structure. If we were to combine all the feedback, the average answer would be that the BDAs are under harsh scrutiny and the work environment is nothing less than toxic.
BDAs are required to put in 12 to 14 hours and have call timings of minimum 2 hours per client. The leaked conversations hint at a grueling schedule and a tight leash around the BDAs. Ex employees have accused the company of being inhuman in terms of workload and abusive in terms of interactions.
The company lacks an ethical HR structure to cater to the issues raised by employees. With abusive managers and excess unpaid clocked time, employees have quit in a span of just two to three months of joining. Parents who were conned into buying these courses say that the salespersons were aggressive and called incessantly.
Byju’s subsidiary, WhiteHatJr recently filed a defamation case in the Delhi High Court against Pradeep Poonia. Poonia is a software developer who was alleged to hurt the public image of the company. Let’s find out, what the case is all about.
Pradeep Poonia has been raging a war against the EdTech giant after WhiteHatJr refused to take constructive criticism and took down Poonia’s several social media accounts. Poonia became increasingly suspicious with an advertisement which claimed that Google hired a six year old, named Wolf Gupta for 1.4 billion after he learnt coding from WhiteHatJr.
With comprehensive searches across Google, no such person with that name was found. Poonia went on further to find that the reviews on Google Play for WhiteHatJr were forged. The app has a 5 star rating on Google Play store. He has also stated that Byju’s has been mirroring the actions of its subsidiary from several years.
Poonia has been targeted ever since he has called out WhiteHatJr and Byju’s for their shady business. Two YouTube accounts, three articles published on LinkedIn, Two Reddit accounts and several links on Quora in the name of Poonia have been taken down so far. His other social media handles have also been suspended for calling out the EdTech giants.
When asked, Poonia stated that these companies are nothing but a scam and have lost its primary focus than its education. He is discontented because the companies are charging a fortune for the material provided which seems pretty basic and is available for free on the internet. Every course on Byju’s and WhiteHatJr costs about $250 dollars on average.
The testimonials by parents who did not approve of the products have also been taken down. Many refund requests are still pending on Byju’s customer care portal. Byju’s recently valued at $11.1 billion after a fundraising round. The company, owned by veteran investors is now rushing to generate revenues and this reflects the behavior on managerial levels who are churning out numbers through the BDAs.
Conclusion
The pandemic has hoarded us towards the screen oriented culture, be it for work or education. Kids are already anxious and unsettled because of long term confinement at home. The online education system is proving to be a good option in the dearth. But EdTech is taking away the normal from a kid’s life and pushing it towards a stunted form of learning.
EdTech companies are pushing their sales aggressively as schools are about to reopen soon. Parents are giving in to frivolous offers by these companies and paying more than what they would pay for a traditional education.
As we discover the underlying mottos of EdTech companies, revenues seem to be the ultimate motive and passion to educate seems to drift off the horizon. In such scenarios, parents who wish to educate their kids must learn to distinguish between a genuine opportunity for their kids to gain knowledge (which could cost a lot less) and a platform with fancy fee structure providing nothing exclusive.
FAQs
What is the valuation of Byju’s?
The company was valued at US$12 billion as of November 2020.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Ozonetel.
The internet has showered us with myriad useful tools, cloud communication being one of them. Cloud telephony is all about internet-based voice and data communication where telecommunication applications, switching, and storage are hosted by a third party that falls outside the organization using these. Cloud telephony is among the latest tech that moves your business phone system to the cloud, allowing you to manage your business calls without compromising on quality and cost.
An emerging player in this domain is Ozonetel Communications—a cloud software solution that replaces your conventional business telephone setup with their VoIP services and widgets. Get an insight on Ozonetel Communications Success Story, Revenue Model, Growth, How it began?, Acquisition and Future Plans.
Transform Customer Experience with Ozonetel Communications
Ozonetel is a pioneer in providing on-demand cloud communication services in India. The full-stack customer experience software was built from the ground up to solve the practical problems that keep call centers worldwide from making the most of their communications platform. It is mainly known for developing and launching the first cloud-based customer experience platform in the Indian marketplace.
The solutions offered by Ozonetel are KooKoo CloudAgent and KooKoo Interactive Assistant.
KOOKOO CloudAgent
It is a call center software solution functioning as an inbound and outbound call center. CloudAgent shifts a company’s entire contact center and related setup into a single browser, making it easier for the workforce to monitor, track and make critical decisions. Equipped with business intelligence, the KOOKOO CloudAgent ensures that businesses provide a world-class experience to their customers. It provides a platform for them to engage with their customers through multiple channels such as voice, email, chat, SMS, and social media.
Ozonetel’s inbound call center solution is bundled with the following features:
CRM Integration.
IVR flexibility: The KOOKOO speech API lets users speak to the IVR instead of punching numbers.
ACD software distributes calls, SMS, emails and social media messages based on customer needs and agent skill set.
Improves agent productivity time and cost per ticket.
Improves speed of resolution.
Exceed SLA’s, boost CSAT.
Reduces call queues by live monitoring.
Ozonetel’s outbound call center solution comes with interesting features:
Clients can choose from multiple power dialers as per their business needs. Ozonetel offers both progressive and predictive dialing modes. These dialers can double agent productivity.
Remote dialing.
Improves agent productivity.
Reduces unproductive work.
Burns through the call list.
Easy integration with third-party solutions.
Data to be dialed can be prioritized based on various parameters.
Supervisors can monitor the agents on a real-time basis.
Outbound IVR lets send personalized automated messages to a large database.
Number Masking to protect consumer privacy.
Ozonetel provides more than 70 reports that give a detailed picture of the call center operations. Currently, Ozonetel has ready-made implications for the major CRM solutions as well as social media integration with Facebook, Whatsapp and Shopify.
KOOKOO Interactive Assistant (KIA)
A first-of-its-kind widget enables customer service help desks to run voice calls and chat sessions in parallel. The KIA widget integrates with Zendesk, Salesforce, Zoho CRM, and all other CRM solutions to automatically capture lead details.
By integrating the Kookoo interactive assistant with its website, a company gets the following benefits:
Customers browsing the company’s site can instantly contact agents through a click.
On-call agents can send critical details to the customer through the live chat window.
Visual IVR lets customers connect to agents in the right department.
It automatically captures customers’ details in the CRM.
Murthy Chintipalati, Atul Sharma, Chaitanya Chokkareddy and Rajiv Bharathan are the people behind the technology of Ozonetel Communications.
Murthy Chintipalati, Atul Sharma, Chaitanya Chokkareddy and Rajiv Bharathan
Murthy Chintipalati is the Founder and CEO of Ozonetel. He started Ozonetel along with his co-founders by leveraging the core strengths of his team to solve the most pressing enterprise communication challenges. Even after a decade leading Ozonetel, he ensures being available in real-time to address his clients’ needs. He has been a serial entrepreneur for 25 years and is vested in starting his own initiatives in the software, hardware, semiconductor, systems spanning networking, security, telecom, embedded systems, and applications segments.
Atul Sharma is the Chief Technology Officer of Ozonetel. He is responsible for identifying the right technology for the platform, making it future-proof and highly scalable while keeping the overall cost affordable for the clients. He is also responsible for managing and driving the technology team for network, telecom, application, security, operations, delivery, pre-sales. He brings deep domain knowledge of self-service applications & Customer Interaction Management to bear on the solutions Ozonetel delivers.
Chaitanya Chokkareddy is the Chief Innovation Officer of Ozonetel. He works with the latest technological breakthroughs and sees what innovative products can be built on top of them. This includes grid computing, cloud computing, cloud telephony, WebRTC, No SQL databases, and now AI. He makes sure that the right technology can be used in the Ozonetel stack at the right time. He has more than 15 years of experience working with the latest tools and loves bringing the latest research to life and applying it to this industry.
Rajiv Bharathan is the Sr. VP of Sales at Ozonetel. He collaborates closely with clients to find the best solutions to their call center challenges. Since 1980, He has worked in sales across IT and Telecom with major companies like HCL, HP, Wipro, and Reliance Communications. He has been with Ozonetel since 2012. He is passionate about being in the thick of the action from landing new accounts to helping existing customers get more out of their platform.
Ozonetel Communications – Vision and Mission
Ozonetel Communications provides a cloud communication software suite as a service to their customers. The company envisions making business communication seamless, intelligent, cost-efficient and easily available. Its mission is to provide a scalable multi-channel communication platform on the cloud to enterprises & entrepreneurs on the OPEX/ transaction model, enabling them to provide value-added communication services to their customers.
Murthy Chintipalati, Atul Sharma, Chaitanya Chokkareddy had come back from the US and wanted to get their hands in entrepreneurship. They recognized that when businesses were in the initial stages of setup, they’d been extremely serious about the company website but would rarely focus on setting up the right business phone system. In fact, many businesses did not even have a proper business phone system. The trio realized that it was happening because setting up a business phone system wasn’t as easy as ABC. They then decided to make the process of “setting up a business phone system” as convenient as “setting up a business website”. With that in mind, Ozonetel Communications first launched the KOOKOO cloud telephony platform followed by CloudAgent, the world’s first cloud contact center solution.
Ozonetel Communications – Name and Logo
Ozonetel wanted to be a layer around telephony, thus come out as the amalgamation of Ozone (layer) and Tel (telephony). The name KOOKOO was conjured in a jiffy (the team wanted a name with lots of vowels, like Yahoo!).
Ozonetel Logo
Ozonetel Communications – Startup Launch
Murthy Chintipalati, Atul Sharma, Chaitanya Chokkareddylaunched their product at the Unplugged Conference. Their marketing strategy at the time revolved aroundblogging and networkingat startup events. Word-of-mouth feedback from satisfied customers played a major role.
Ozonetel Communications is a SaaS company and has a “per agent/per month” revenue model.
Ozonetel Communications – Funding
Ozonetel has not raised any funding to date. It is a Bootstrapped Company. Bootstrapping means building a company from scratch with no outside funding. All the fundings are invested by the owner itself.
Ozonetel Communications – User Acquisition and Growth
Ozonetel’s only hack has been customer happiness. Interestingly, the company does not spend anything on marketing. Most of its leads are generated through blogs and word-of-mouth publicity.
With over 1500+ enterprise clients across 20+ verticals, Ozonetel’s KOOKOO platform supports over 50,000 live agents and has handled over 3 billion calls.
Ozonetel Communications currently serves in India, the USA, UAE and South East Asia. Reputed brands like Food Panda, Practo, Big Basket, Uber, WeWork, Medlife, HUL, Healthcare at home, and Zomato are some of its top clientele.
Ozonetel Communications – Startup Challenges
The major challenge Ozonetel faced early on its journey was technical in nature. It couldn’t guarantee on-call quality with the store-bought PRI cards; it overcomes this obstacle by designing custom PRI card hardware.
Ozonetel considers US-based Twilio as a source of inspiration aside from the competition. The venture tries to stay ahead in its segment through innovation. Ozonetel launched the world’s first cloud contact center product and is now bolstering its existing solutions by incorporating AI.
Ozonetel Communications – Mergers and Acquisitions
Ozonetel acquired Yantrasoft, a speech recognition company, in 2014.
Ozonetel Communications – Future Plans
Ozonetel is looking forward to disrupting the contact center industry through AI-based techniques.
Ozonetel Communications – FAQs
What is Ozonetel?
Ozonetel is India’s No. 1 contact solution provider. It is a cloud-based telephony service provider that enables businesses to communicate with their clients effectively and efficiently via all the channels, i.e. chat, email, social media, call, SMS, on one platform with no capital investment. The solutions offered by Ozonetel are KooKoo CloudAgent and KooKoo Interactive Assistant.
How does Ozonetel make money?
Ozonetel Communications is a SaaS company and has a “per agent/per month” revenue model.
What is cloud communication?
Cloud communications are Internet-based voice and data communications where telecommunications applications, switching and storage are hosted by a third-party outside of the organization using them, and they are accessed over the public Internet. It is a totally fresh approach to building, deploying and scaling enterprise communication systems. Cloud communications have the potential to reduce expenses and provide higher quality services.
How are customers finding value in Ozonetel’s products?
Ozonetel helps contact centers go live in a day with a reliable platform that improves customer experience and agent productivity at a lower total cost.
How does Ozonetel see the road ahead in cloud telephony technologies?
Ozonetel is going to be about omnichannel and AI in the coming future. Customers can reach out to businesses on multiple channels like Whatsapp, email, chat, SMS, video, etc. and will expect a quick resolution.
India is the birthplace of cultural, grassroots, and frugal innovation. The population of over one billion people makes this an exciting geography for startups to build repeatable and scalable business models. The beauty of startups is that they provide their employees freedom, the opportunity to innovate and explore rather than just to engage in unproductive work. There exists black money within this rising economy of startups.
“The Indian startup ecosystem is said to be the third largest in the world having added over 1,300 tech startups in 2019. Number of Indian unicorns could increase to 95-105 by 2025,” says Nasscom president Debjani Ghosh.
Home of the largest e-commerce deal between Walmart and Flipkart, 31 unicorns and counting, and plenty of untapped opportunities — it shouldn’t come as a surprise that India has been home to some of the biggest startup success stories. Over the years, Indian startups have found success across sectors, with startups in enterprise tech, e-commerce and travel tech grabbing global attention. There has, however, been a grey cloud spanning the growing startup industry in recent years, something we are all familiar with – black money.
Canadian-Indian writer Rohinton Mistry says, “It is so much a part of our white economy, a tumour in the centre of the brain — try to remove it and you kill the patient. A 2015 FICCI report estimated black money in India to be as high as 75 per cent of the GDP.”
In today’s world, it is difficult to explain how a social anomaly could appear in the world of budding talent, making the next generation soar to the highest levels of recognition and profit. This anomaly increases the need for black money in startups or businesses. The purpose of this case study is to analyze the entry of black money into the industry, the factors that influence it, and how it is being whitewashed, as well as the impact this has on our economy.
Current Scenario and Analysis of Black Money in Startup World
Let’s look upon the case where a reputed startup lawyer (let’s name him ‘A’) in the capital has worked with startups including two well-known hotel room aggregators, a funded media startup and few e-commerce firms. He is also involved in deals with a well-known real estate group in the country that is trying to dabble into tech startups. He gives a shocking revelation: “Some expatriate businessmen are using startup investing as a way to move black money into India.”
Here’s the underside, suppose you have $10 million cash parked in Mauritius. You look for tech startups where you can take a majority control or create an entity that can furnish a website, an app and a small team in place. You incorporate the company as a private limited entity and also register an overseas subsidiary. Once a legal structure is in place, you start routing the overseas money into that technology company.
The routing can happen on the seed stage – A funding round. Now to embezzle the funds, from that startup money you can buy a luxury car and other assets, pay yourself, your kin huge sums as directors. You run that company for a period of two years or more till you’ve routed all the money into India. Once done, you can simply close that startup, declaring the company bankrupt and paying off creditors and share-holders which might be your own companies. Even if they have not routed the money overseas, dabbling in startups by opening up mentorship firms has become easy and a glam route to use that money legally.
“Am not saying all such firms are using startups as a means to turn black money into white but this glamorous route has started to be misused in India,” says A, a managing partner of the law firm, requesting anonymity.
Another lawyer (let’s name him lawyer B) who is brokering deals for a Gurgaon-based fashion app and another small hotel rooms aggregator ratifies it. His firm which specializes in transaction advisory for tech startups says that there are many ways dishonest businessmen launder.
An unsavory investor makes his family members the board members of that startup.
Other companies of the same group act as vendors to that startup and quote ridiculous prices for that service or product.
These investors ask for too much equity and control of the startup (often over 70%). They wish to keep their kin on board.
They park the money in a trust-friendly jurisdiction, such as Switzerland, before it is moved to a tax-efficient country such as Cyprus, where the taxation levels are very low or have no taxes. It is then routed to a tax-friendly country like Mauritius, before reaching the final destination in India. India has a Double Taxation Avoidance Treaty (DTAA) with Mauritius.
Trade mispricing is a tool used to siphon off money, plays an important role in bringing money back into India. Instead of inflating invoices, a business can under-invoice and export machinery or software. One can open a company to sell bags or a restaurant. The business may not take off, but the owner can still show cash sales of Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh a day. Slowly, but surely, all money would be legitimate one day!
Along with the economic effects, black money also has social consequences. Some of them are mentioned below:-
Loss of revenue to the government and running of parallel economy in the country – It is the increase and spread of black money that poses a serious economic threat since it leads to a decrease in government revenues. If only some part of the black money that has been in circulation in the economy could have been paid as taxes to the government, it would have benefitted the Indian economy to a large extent.
Vicious circle as a result of black money and corruption – Black money has added to corruption by the illegal transactions made to hide the black money. Bribes are given by the people to bureaucrats, government officials, etc. This forms a vicious circle which is never going to end unless some serious step is taken by the government.
Effects on national income and real capita income– Black money is a result of revealing low income to the government while paying tax by people which results in low national income of the country. The national income of the country will take a big leap if the amount of black money in circulation is backed up to the national economy of the country. This will also increase the quality of life for the whole country.
Higher taxation and inflation – The main reason behind the taxation is to earn revenues for the expenditures done by the government to make a balanced budget. Therefore, it is obvious that if the amount of black money which the people are hiding from the government is revealed and included in the budget of the government then the tax rate will surely come down as the revenues which the government wants to earn from the people by imposing high taxes will already be with the government. Therefore the amount of goods and services which were there in the market according to the accounted money gets a hike in their prices which results in inflation.
Difficulty in the formation of monetary and fiscal policy – This is an obvious impact as the government while making these policies is not able to count the exact national income because of the hidden black money which makes such policies unrealistic.
Increased criminal activities in society– Black money usually gives rise to various illegal activities in society and corruption is one of them. The duration of the election is also the time when the illegal use of black money can be seen. Various terrorist activities have backup power of hoarders of black money which is even harmful to the whole country. The illegal weapons with various groups of unsocial elements are usually bought up by the use of black money.
The problem of black money should be solved in a real sense and a very rational manner.
First of all the problem is to be dealt with morally. The morals of the people in the society must be raised.
The tax system should be realistic in nature.
The authority which is responsible for the collection of taxes should be honest, without any corruption.
Various incentives should be given so that people voluntarily agree to disclose their real income.
The Economic Intelligence unit must be maintained thoroughly and should be looked after.
The corruption in administration must be stopped at all levels.
Startups should be aware of individuals who ask for higher credit in the company.
Limited kin involvement should be allowed.
The accounts must be looked after by the team and not the angel investors.
The government alone cannot curb this issue completely from society. Making different policies, laws, acts and legislation will not work alone. For the implementation of these laws and policies, every citizen has to come forward. People should understand why it is important to pay tax and should stop evading their income and should not lead to the generation of black income. Every citizen should make some contribution to the development of the country in the form of paying taxes. By doing this, the economy will definitely decrease its black money, as well as startups will not need black money to operate.
The social anomaly could appear in the world of budding talent, making the next generation soar to the highest levels of recognition and profit. This anomaly increases the need for black money in startups or businesses.
What is Black Money?
Black Money is the money that is earned through illegal activity and that money is not recorded for tax purposes.
Are Startups a way to convert black money into white?
Not always, because even startups fail. So if the startup fails, say in 2 years, then your money is gone. But it can be a way to convert black money into white. As the Startups have to pay taxes on raised money.
Can a person convert black money into white through the stock exchange?
No, even the money that is invested in the stock market is invested via banks. So if one breaches their bank limit, it automatically catches the eye of IT officials.
What are the best ways to convert illegal money to legal money?
There is no other way to convert black money into white besides paying taxes. If there would have been a way then no person has to leave their native country and roam like a fugitive.
Money related organizations, monetary methodology, and budgetary administrations have radically advanced and improved in the last couple of decades. With the development of the Fintech industry in India, the whole business has experienced a huge change in the manner in which the money related methods are completed and budgetary establishments are performed.
The coordinated efforts between account and innovation has prompted an extreme change in banking, venture, exchanging, and digital money. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This development has prompted the ubiquity of the term “Fintech“, a short structure for the expression of Financial Technology. This post reveals insight into Fintech and why has it turned fierce in the modern world.
Fintech is significantly more than only a reference to money related innovation. It is frequently alluded to as the inventive innovation used to improve customary money related strategies and create powerful answers for budgetary administrations, those which are at standard with the most recent mechanical patterns. Banking programming and portable financial applications are great instances of improvement in monetary innovation.
Progressively, the huge fintech industry comprises of new companies and lofty monetary organizations endeavoring to improve the budgetary administrations given by money related foundations around the globe. The organizations have endeavored to utilize continually advancing innovation and create present-day techniques for taking care of money.
A large number of us may not understand, yet innovation has constantly assumed a critical job in the money related division. In any case, the most recent 65 years have played a huge role in the development of the fintech industry and the creation of a few fintech arrangements.
The 1950s saw the dispatch of credit cards and 10 years later, ATMs changed the manner in which cash was withdrawn from banks. The proliferation of the internet during the 1990s propelled the fintech business to a new level; electronic installment framework, web-based business models, web-based shopping, portable banking, and digitization of banks have brought about a significant revolution.
What Is Fintech Industry | History of Fintech
The world’s first ATM was propelled in 1967 by Barclays and the IPO in 1971, the principal online installment stage Paypal was established in 1998, the primary digital money Bitcoin was propelled in 2009, Google propelled Google Wallet in 2011 and, Fintech startups have been all over the place since then. Earth-shattering advancements of innovation are paving the way for fintech upheaval.
Money related innovation is said to be a problematic power that is relied upon to reshape the budgetary division, plans of action, and banking structures. New money related innovation simply keeps on progressing, has pulled in speculators from different nations, and has cleared the way for the development of markets and the fintech industry itself.
Retailer banking and installments, protection, financier administrations, business banking, venture, and riches are affected the most by the development of fintech.
A NASSCOM report says that the fintech programming and administration advertising in India was around $8 billion in 2016; it was expected to develop 1.7 times by the end of 2020. The report includes that the exchange an incentive for the Indian fintech division was around $33 billion in 2016 and was scheduled to reach $73 billion in 2021 at a five-year compound yearly development rate (CAGR) of 22%.
The Indian FinTech scene is divided as follows: 34% in installment handling, trailed by 32% in banking, and 12% in the exchanging, open and private markets. Visakhapatnam is being created as FinTech valley and the nearby administration of Andhra Pradesh opened Fintech Valley to advance the interests in this area.
Fintech Industry Growth
In 2018, more than 12,000 new businesses grew in the Fintech space over the world with a monstrous speculation of $19 billion. Fintech includes innovative organizations that are going up against each other and working in unison with existing money related foundations. These organizations likewise work together with colleges and research foundations, government affiliations, and industry bodies.
India now has a system in place that gives new companies a chance to exponentially develop into enormous organizations. Directly from digging into a scope of unexplored portions to outside business sectors, new Fintech businesses are conveying advancement that was deemed hard to accomplish.
Growth Of Fintech Services
The Indian Fintech programming business sector is expected to touch $2.4 billion by the end of 2020 from the current $1.2 billion in FY 2019.
Over the last couple of years, the Indian economy, which is altogether money-driven, has exploited the Fintech opportunity. With a scope of choices that includes digital wallets, loaning, and protection, the assortment of administrations gave an enormous impact to change the manner of money-related activities.
A number of encouraging reasons are propelling the comprehensive growth of Fintech in India. Some of them are:
Easy Payments
Installments have seen a noteworthy transformation in the recent years, particularly due to the disturbance of internet business, versatile trade, and online installments. Budgetary consideration is substantially more than just installments and exchanges and installments are seen as the door for monetary incorporation. Shoppers and vendors will keep on grasping digitized installments while UPI will continue to have its firm ground for both P2P and P2M exchanges.
Partnership Between FinTech’s And Corporates
The Fintech Times says 2020 will be the time of brilliant coordinated efforts between Fintech trend-setters and corporates, where corporate organizations would ideally put resources into Fintech instead of acquiring arrangements. Likewise, banks will be collaborating with Fintech to sort out inconsistencies and offer benefits via administration, smooth client experience, and a progression in cutting-edge highlights to ease tasks.
There’s a rising change being experienced by Investment Advisory organizations with the improvement of electronic riches counsels, also known as “Robo-guides.” And by “Robo,” we mean computerized board-stages as real robots.
These Robo-guides can guide executives through calculations and help clients take money related decisions. The perfect outcome is the ability to yield specially designed, noteworthy counsel to financial specialists without the contribution of human feelings, and that too at a lower cost.
Facility Of Cloud Banking
Usage of distributed computing will lessen costs by an incredible degree on the grounds that no extra speculations are required for overseeing assets and equipment. Cloud adjusts to the changing requests and gives versatility to serve the transforming needs of clients. Cloud assets additionally scale upon necessity and permit simpler incorporations with innovations.
How Fintech Industry Is Shaping Banking Sector
Secure Digital Payments
Security is of utmost importance since money related exchanges are exposed to dangers and assaults. An EY report says innovation like Blockchain will be extremely popular, crediting to its advantages like straightforwardness, changelessness, discernibility, and audibility. Blockchain will give a state of security with regards to the trading of cash and touchy data, enabling clients to draw off its straightforwardness and bring down operational expenses.
NLP Based Chatbots
There is now a rush of problematic innovation in organizations. It is encouraging to see clients continuously attempting to discover better approaches to consistently communicate with organizations.
Fintech will be a sensation by utilizing NLP based chatbots and enhancing Conversational User Interface (CUI) to change portable banking. These chatbots will have the option to react to client issues and give practical arrangements accordingly.
Convenient Personalization
Fintech is improving client experience by giving customized plans suited to the client’s needs. The inevitable destiny of Fintech will see altered outlines that can imagine critical events in a client’s life. Actualizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data for personalization will bring about improved availability and capability; the results can then be used in the progression of present-day administration models.
Fintech Industry – Future in India
Fintech Growth Curve
Fintech administration firms are right now re-thinking the manner in which organizations and customers deal regularly.
In India, the scale has been less steep when compared to the international developments. The interest in India’s Fintech industry, which caught pace somewhere between 2013 and 2014, continues to grow.
Furthermore, India has a huge undiscovered market for budgetary administration through innovation in new businesses. 40% of the populace is not associated with banks anymore, and 87% of the installments are now being paid with real money.
With cell phone entrance expected to increment to 85-90% in 2020 from 65-75% at present and web infiltration consistently climbing, the development potential for Fintech in India can’t be exaggerated.
These holes in access to organizations and administrations offer a significant opportunity for Fintech arrangements to flourish and grow.
Fintech Industry – Leading Fintech Companies in India
There are more than 2000 Fintechcompanies in India. Some of the leading fintech companies in India are:
Paytm
Paytm – Fintech Company
A leading Fintech organization- Paytm is a platform for portable installments and money related administration. It gives an application based stage to pay installments, make travel appointments, inn and ticket booking, booking chamber, purchase of gold, gifts, and so on.
Paytm offers banking administrations, credit cards, advances, speculation stage for protection, shared assets, etc. Paytm Mall is an additional offering by Paytm for internet shopping of utilities, garments, food supplies, adornments, hardware, toys, and a lot more. The application is available for both Android and IOS.
Leading marketplace of insurance products- Policybazaar is an online protection aggregator for items from different safety net providers (dependent on the value, quality, and key advantages). Right now, the site offers data to enable clients settle on the best choices alongside arrangement driven client care. The data highlights content in different structures, for example, the top five highlights of an item, hits, and change rates.
BillDesk
Billdesk
BillDesk powers electronic installments and accumulations administrations for banks, organizations, and different establishments. It also oversees VISA installment administration. Billdesk empowers installment of service charges, Mastercard, and ISP charges for huge banks like Citibank, HDFC Bank, State Bank of India, and for organizations such as Bharti Telecom.
One of the leading fintech- Pine Labs gives POS programming services for disconnected retailers and brands. The organization’s POS arrangements are a cloud-based system that coordinates with a nonexclusive POS terminal and enables retailers to acknowledge payments and Visas, e-wallets, QR code, and UPI based instalments.
The organization offers installment passage, API arrangements, portable installment arrangements, dependability gift voucher projects, and others. It additionally offers esteem-oriented arrangements like EMIs, limits, pay by focuses, e-Wallets, directed advancements, dynamic money change. Pine Labs’ versatile application is available for both Android and iOS.
MobiKwik
Mobikwik
MobiKwik is an advanced wallet administration. It offers a halfway installment for ticket reservations and bookings. MobiKwik also gives momentary individual credits to its wallet clients.
BankBazaar
Bankbazaar
BankBazaar is an online budgetary dissemination and co-relation platform. BankBazaar empowers clients to purchase individual advance, home advance, vehicle advance, and other items, charge and Visas, disaster protection, medical coverage, accident protection, home protection, travel protection items, shared assets, fixed stores, and bank accounts. Clients need to give their essential subtleties to apply for an item on the web and can then track its status.
Bharat Bill Payment System is a coordinated bill installment framework that offers interoperable and open bill installment administration to clients through enlisted operators and various installment modes. BBPS is an incorporated installment platform that makes a solitary, bank-free pitstop for all utility installments, and wallet administration for clients by taking care of their transactions through portable wallets.
Unified Payments Interface (UPI)
Unified Payment Interface
Unified Payments Interface is a framework that powers different ledgers into a versatile application, combining a few financial highlights, consistent reserve directing, and trader installments into one hood. It likewise takes into account the Peer-to-Peer system which can be planned and paid according to one’s comfort and convenience.
Fintech is term for Financial technology. All the companies that involves finance services using technology in their business come under Fintech Industry.
What are leading fintech companies in India?
Paytm
Razorpay
Upstox
Cred
ETMoney
Instamojo
PolicyBazaar
MobiKwik
Pine Labs
UPI
What is the valuation of fintech market in India?
The valuation of Fintech market in India is currently around $31 Billion. It is expected to grow to $84 Bn by 2025.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Wonderchef.
The kitchenware industry is evolving at a fast rate. Once an unorganized sector, the kitchenware sector today is witnessing emergence of many new brands. The growth seems to be in an upward trajectory due to continuous technological advancement and evolving lifestyles. The Make in India initiative of the government has also attracted investors.
As of now, as per several reports the revenue of the household appliances industry in India amounts to be US$1,678 million and is expected to grow at 13.9%. The user penetration rate is expected to increase to 21.8% in next five years, as compared to 13.4% of 2019. This increasing demand for quality kitchenware in the Indian market inspired Ravi Saxena to venture into the domain and start ‘Wonderchef’, a company offering stylish and convenient cookware and kitchen appliances. The other co-founder of ‘Wonderchef’ is well-known chef Sanjeev Kapoor, who contributes his rich experience to bring about the best of kitchen appliances to the Indian consumers.
Know about Wonderchef Company Profile, Founders, Revenue, Funding, Growth etc. in this article.
Wonderchef is a leader in cookware and kitchen appliances that helps you cook healthy and tasty food with convenience. German standards of quality, Italian designs, & constant innovation are the hallmarks of Wonderchef. It brings warmth to every meal by creating a perfect blend of aesthetics and functionality.
We are inspired by global trends to create beautiful kitchen stories that bring out the culinary artist in you! – says Wonderchef Founder, Ravi Saxena
Wonderchef offers a huge collection of non-stick cookware, stainless steel pans, pressure cookers, appliances, cooktops, chimneys, kitchen tools, flasks, bakeware and much more which are available through their dedicated website and 10,000+ retail outlets. What makes Wonderchef special is the customized recipes that are created for every unique product by none other than Chef Sanjeev Kapoor. These are shared with the consumers via beautifully crafted recipe books, social media interactions, and dedicated apps.
Wonderchef balances between the form and function of the particular appliance, be it choice of design, material, technology or production process. This helps them curate products which impeccably transitions from the kitchen to the table. Wonderchef prides itself in getting new ideas, solutions, & technologies to the market. Wonderchef Royal Velvet Pans brought forth a revolution of fresh hues & colors in non-stick cookware. Wonderchef has changed the perception of cookware from black & boring to colorful & exciting. They have over 25 color palettes form the repertoire of Wonderchef pans.
Our customers often match their cookware to the hue of their kitchen cabinets, setting of their living room or the color of their curtains. Our products are made for making beautiful memories in the kitchen & on your dining table
Being, beautifully designed, the customers love to share the Wonderchef products as treasured gifts. Every product comes in a beautifully designed gift box. Uniqueness, attractive prices and classy designs make them the best choice for gifting. Be it a housewarming party, a birth-day, a wedding or an anniversary, Wonderchef have the perfect gift for every occasion. Wonderchef sets and blenders are the perfect gifts when a young couple sets.
The a question iswho owns wonderchef? Ravi Saxena and Chef Sanjeev Kapoor are the Founders of Wonderchef.
Ravi Saxena and Chef Sanjeev Kapoor
Wonderchef – Story of Starting up
Wonderchef was an idea that emanated from Ravi Saxena’s interactions with Indians, whom he interacted with in over 65 countries when he travelled for work. These insights helped him identify certain latent needs that became the cornerstone of the business model of the company. The credibility Ravi had earned during his years of work helped him raise investment from across the globe from fellow professionals who trusted his skill sets and commitment.
Wonderchef was started with a vision to bring in a change in quality, performance and style of kitchenware used in Indian kitchens and in our journey so far we have achieved this. Every product of Wonderchef has its unique story of health, taste and convenience.
The passion to contribute to the growth of society and entrepreneurship in India led to the focus on DTH channel of supplying Wonderchef products. This DTH (direct to home) channel, now engages over 62,000 independent women across 12000 cities in India.
At Wonderchef, the core belief of the brand is to enable every Indian kitchen to cook tasty meals without any compromise on health. Along with this, we have always believed in empowering women by enabling them to create their own business and cook healthy for their families, with pride.
Wonderchef – the name highlights the innovation, modern designs and colourful kitchenware which they sell. Thus making anyone cooking with them a Wonderchef. Their products make cooking a wonderful experience!
WonderChef Logo
‘Cook with Pride‘ is Wonderchef’s tagline.
As per our detailed study, Indian women consider cooking a daily chore and don’t get recognized for the same. We wanted to add purpose and pride to this daily activity with quality and colourful cookware. Hence Cook with Pride.
Wonderchef’s logo is an amalgamation of a chef’s hat and the W of Wonderchef logo, making it look like a star, which they consider themselves to be one.
sanjeev Kapoor- Wonderchef
Wonderchef – User Acquisition
The focus on technology and innovation ensured that a new brand was able to cut through the clutter in a rather traditional industry, and became the company that took the shortest time to grow from 0 to 200 Crore level in the industry. Today, Wonderchef has a truly omni-channel distribution strategy with a 360 degree approach to target consumers.
Wonderchef team believes that the point of purchase is only the beginning of the relationship. Their reliable warranty ensures that the customers continue to get their support long after their purchase. If the customers have a doubt or question about how to care for the product – Wonderchef provides them with customer service and they are always eager to hear from the customers.
Wonderchef – Startup Challenge
Success never comes easy, and initially the Wonderchef team also faced its share of tough times.
I have to sit back and think of the hard times we had for a number of years, to really appreciate what we have today with us – Ravi says recalling the tough times
The company did everything to survive in the initial period which coincided with the global financial meltdown. It offered financial consulting services, strategy solutions, culinary classes, employee engagement services and a few other solutions to be able to pay the bills. Working capital was always in short supply as growth continued year after year. Building a team was also a long, arduous process and thus a challenge for the founding team.
The Wonderchef revenue in FY19 was INR 300 Crore It is aiming for a revenue of INR 800 Crore in next five years.
“We are in 4,000 towns and villages at present. In terms of business, about 70 percent comes from the urban areas and 30 percent from rural areas” Says Ravi Saxena, MD & Co-founder, Wonderchef
Wonderchef – Funding and Investors
The can be seen in the fact that they have raised a total of INR 700 Crore in funding over 1 round led by Amicus Capital.
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors Name
June ’18
Series A
INR 700 Crore
Amicus Capital
Funding has helped Wonderchef invest in marketing, hire the right resources and set up the right infrastructure to facilitate future growth.
Wonderchef – Future Plans
Wonderchef has clocked revenue of 300+ Crore in the last financial year and is growing faster than the category with a healthy bottom line. The company plans to clock in 1000 Crore in the next five years – profitable growth – and does not believe in cash burn. Most of the profit is reinvested in marketing, service infrastructure and hiring the best talent.
Today, Wonderchef operates across India and 4 other nations (Australia, Mauritius, US, UK) and cater not only to the Indian diaspora but also to the locals with customized offerings suiting their needs.
Wonderchef – FAQs
Who is the Owner of Wonderchef?
The WonderChef Owners are Ravi Saxena and Chef Sanjeev Kapoor.
Is Wonderchef Indian Brand?
Yes. Wonderchef is based out of Mumbai, India.
What type of Products does Wonderchef offer?
The product range of Wonderchef ranges from Cookers, Mixed grinders, cookware, appliances to Chimneys, flasks, Kitchen care etc., Wonderchef is a leader in cookware and kitchen appliances.
How much is Wonderchef’s Revenue?
The Wonderchef revenue in FY19 was INR 300 crore It is aiming for a revenue of INR 800 crore in next five years.
Who is Sanjeev Kapoor?
Sanjeev Kapoor is an Indian celebrity chef, entrepreneur and television personality. He is the Co-founder of Wonderchef.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verifiedinformation ondifferent startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Karma Kettle.
“Teatime is a chance to slow down, pull back and appreciate our surroundings” quoted Letitia Baldrige, the American etiquette expert and author. A cup of tea has the power to make us feel refreshed, rejuvenated, and stress-free. India is not only the 2nd largest producer of tea after China, but Indians are also vivid tea lovers. Indian’s love for tea is proved by the fact that 70% of the tea produced in India is consumed in the country itself. Taking this love for tea to the next level, Karma Kettle, a Kolkata-based startup is bringing you a wide range of tea in different textures, flavors and fragrances.
Karma Kettle is one of India’s finest artisanal tea blenders with 100+ different tea varietals. Karma Kettle is headquartered in Kolkata. The startup founded in 2015, has established itself as a specialist tea brand offering a wide variety of tea to choose from.
The company offers a wide and innovative range of tea like green tea with peach and jasmine, green tea with lychee, chamomile & lemongrass caffeine-free tree, Strawberries, Cockscomb & Hibiscus tea, Ashwagandha tea, Green tea with tulsi, ginger & marigold, Masala chai, etc.
Besides packaged tea, Karma Kettle sells loose tea leaves. Karma Kettle’s pyramid tea bags and iced tea has become quite popular among the target customer. The pyramid tea bags allow space for the tea brew to infuse properly. Karma Kettle also offers tea and teaware in different gift packages.
We launched our teas in 2014 selling them in biodegradable pyramid tea bags, although the market was very receptive to our loose leaf blended teas, the response for bio-degradable teabags was not as per our expectations (they cost Rs2-3 more than the standard pyramid teabag)- this stemmed from the lack of awareness of the benefits of switching to a biodegradable teabag. We thus decided to move our focus back to standard pyramid teabags & loose leaves. In 2019, the situation has changed a lot, we do get more and more requests from various B2B and B2C clients inquiring about biodegradable teabags- so reintroducing them is in our pipeline.
Karma Kettle envisions–
To educate the Indian consumer to look at tea beyond Chai or CTC and introduce Indians to fine artisanal teas of the world.
Making tea a versatile ingredient that can be enjoyed in many different forms- as a hot brew, cold brew, cocktail, mocktail, patisseries or / Tea infusions in food, cocktails and mocktails.
Reviving the ritual of afternoon tea in Indian households.
Founders of Karma Kettle and Team
Karma Kettle was founded by Dhiraj Arora and Priti Sen Arora in 2015.
Founders of Karma Kettle
Dhiraj Arora is a passionate tea connoisseur who did his specialization from the World Tea Academy USA and is also a certified tea Sommelier from Sri Lanka. He has personally blended most of these fabulous tea varietals, which are also now available in various hotel tea bars, cafes and gourmet stores across India.
Priti Sen Arora is the person behind the marketing and vibrant packaging of the Karma Kettle products.
Dhiraj and Priti co-owned two restaurants in Singapore. With their backgrounds, it only made sense to start Karma Kettle to carry back those flavors and pour out the story of their voyages in a teacup. As mentioned by Priti, Karma Kettle is inspired by global travels.
Karma Kettle aims to take you on a voyage across the globe with a teacup.
Karma Kettle currently has a young and dynamic team of 30+ members.
How was Karma Kettle Started?
Dhiraj & Priti owns a 32 room heritage boutique hotel- Cochrane Place in Kurseong located in the center of the world-famous Darjeeling region. During this feat, they formed a lot of close associations with Darjeeling tea estate owners & planters.
They realized that most established Indian tea companies were packaging tea in a very traditional format (stand-up metallic pouches) and most of their season’s freshest picks were sent to export markets. Having already been involved with the F&B industry in Singapore, Priti and Dhiraj were convinced that India has huge potential and that tea could be packaged & marketed in a more globally appealing format.
“Voyages in a teacup” is the theme at Karma Kettle – teas inspired by travel destinations across the globe. Karma Kettle lets the Indian consumer enjoy an authentic cup of Moroccan Mint tea or Genmaicha tea or Japanese Matcha at reasonable prices. Also, every packaging weaves a story of its origin (take Istanbul as an example).
We started in 2015 with around 10 blends and today we have over 100+ blends packaged in different formats- Pyramid teabags, Loose Leaf, Double chambered teabags.
The name of the startup combines two words ‘Karma’ and ‘Kettle’.
Karma Kettle’s Logo
Karma is at the heart of our journey which broadly translates to what goes around comes around, says Priti. Karma relates to spreading good energy through one’s actions and reap positive benefits. The Kettle is something that is always related to tea.
The name Karma Kettle was coined in 2005, much before the company was actually started in 2015. Dhiraj wanted to start a tea room in Singapore. Initially, the idea behind Karma Kettle was to take on the traditional English tea room concept. The word ‘Karma’ was added to give an Eastern feel to the name.
Deeply rooted in our company’s philosophy is the belief that tea is a healthy beverage and that in blending tea with the purest botanicals we are able to transform tea to a salubrious infusion that positively impacts peoples body, mind and spirit. We also consciously source our tea through small and medium scale tea growers positively impacting the lives of the tea plantation workers and helping them with a better livelihood.
Karma Kettle Target Market
Karma Kettle majorly caters to the HoReCa industry – Hotels, Restaurants & Cafes. In the last couple of years, there has been a surge in gourmet cafes and restaurants in India that are looking to serve upscale food and not compromise on the quality of ingredients.
According to Karma Kettle co-founder, Priti, Gifting is another one of the biggest segments for brands like Karma Kettle – be it weddings, corporate gifts, or other similar events. Owing to their low caffeine content, wellness and health-related benefits, tea makes for an ideal gifting option. For those looking for something unique, brands often create custom blends to suit a particular occasion or event.
Increasingly artisanal teas are also making their way into gourmet food, cocktails, desserts, and much more, owing to their versatile flavor profiles.
Though India is not as experimental as the rest of the world, over time the change in people’s preference towards gourmet and local food has been visible. At the same time, Consumers also no longer just consume tea, they expect a complete tea drinking experience with an extravagant drinking option, an inviting brand vibe, etc.; They crave authenticity and the story which can connect them to the tea sommeliers. We believe the potential for growth is certainly there, especially as consumer tastes evolve in India.
Karma Kettle is a Bootstrapped Startup. Bootstrapping means building a company from scratch with no outside funding. All the fundings are invested by the owner itself.
Karma Kettle – Startup Challenges
According to Priti, getting the tea consumers to move beyond the regular chai/CTC is a major challenge that Karma Kettle is facing.
Karma Kettle – Competitors
Some competitors of Karma Kettle are:-
Tea Trunk
Teabox
Anandini Himalaya
Chai Diaries
Dancing Leaf
No. 3 Clive Road
Gardener Street
Goodwyn
Jugmug Thela
La Plant
Karma Kettle draws inspiration from David’s Tea’. Dhiraj while pursuing his specialization in Tea at World Tea Academy in the USA had the opportunity to be a part of a project at David’s Tea.
Karma Kettle –
Growth
Karma Kettle started as an online platform. It acquired its customers online and sold products through its own site and other e-commerce portals. Now, Karma Kettle tea is also available in selected gourmet stores and cafes in different parts of India. Karma Kettle started its exclusive brand outlet in Kolkata in 2017.
Karma Kettle Kolkata’s Outlet
Today, the company is also catering to some of the eminent five-star hotel chains in the country. Karma Kettle teas can now be enjoyed in the Novotel Hotels, Le Meridien Hotels, CGH Earth Hotels and many more.
The company-curated various tea tasting and tea-themed events in collaboration with the different five-star hotels and boutique restaurants across the country. It also arranges training at the hotels, restaurants and other retail spaces where Karma Kettle teas were served. These trainings were organized to upskill the bottom line so they can, in turn, educate the consumers/guests about the best way to consume each tea blend/tea infusion.
Karma Kettle – Awards
Karma Kettle received Award for Excellence in the Tea category in “The Telegraph Food Guide Award 2019”.
Karma Kettle – Future Plans
Karma Kettle is looking to open flagship retail & tea room concepts in cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Goa, Pondicherry, Mumbai & Delhi in the next 2-3 years. The company is planning to expand its tea range and also to export its products to foreign countries. Karma Kettle is working with leading food and beverage developers to come up with exciting food and beverage recipes for people to try. Karma Kettle has also made inroads overseas so that it can send teas to Singapore, Mauritius, Brazil and Australia. Finally, tea education is on the cards and we want to cater to tea enthusiasts as well as aficionados about our tea varietals.
Karma Kettle – FAQs
What is Karma Kettle?
Karma Kettle is a tea company, headquartered in Kolkata, with 100+ tea blends inspired by travel.
What is the best thing about Karma Kettle?
Karma Kettle offers a variety of tea likes rooibos chai, chili chai, ayurvedic chai and green chai. They have categorized their tea in terms of wellness, vegan tea, organic tea and much more. Also, they provide teaware and tea gifts options. They have a unique collection of tea gift boxes at a reasonable rate.
Where can I buy the products of Karma Kettle?
You can buy Karma Kettle’s product on various e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, BigBasket, etc. They are also available on Swiggy as well. You can also place your order directly by visiting their website or social media platforms.
How Karma Kettle engages with small tea businesses or farms?
Karma Kettle has been working closely with independent and small-scale tea farmers and growers to source teas. This essentially cuts off the middlemen and allows them to give the owners a fair price for their tea directly.
What is the USP of Karma Kettle?
To come up with a new blend consistently is the USP of Karma Kettle. Their aim is to bring the best tea experience among customers and stay ahead of the competitors.
What is the business model of Karma Kettle?
Karma Kettle operates on B2B as well as B2C business models as they sell their products to various business organizations and customers.
With this world of choices, Android phones were always welcomed and entertained within the population. It provides a bigger and variety of options to choose from, which are liked by a lot of people. But, what if two highly appreciated and popular brands, with an impressive selling range, combine and become the same.
To be precise, this is exactly what is going to happen in this newly modified android phone, by the merger of OnePlus and Oppo. The recent news that creates this buzz is that OnePlus is heading towards deeper integration with its overseas parent company, Oppo. And, there are several predicted jaw-dropping chances that this could shake up the Android smartphone industry’s landscape.
Before taking a deep insight into this actual cause, let’s understand what are the key factors which can get affected and mainly positively changed, by this merge. So, they are:
1. Production of better-quality product 2. Making potentially cheaper production 3. Creating faster and hassle-free products 4. Making variety of other devices
Oneplus merger with Oppo
Better Quality Production
OnePlus has achieved a lot of fame and reputation in recent years, since 2014, when it launched its first one. But now we can expect a bigger change in the production in the company, with the merger with Oppo.
However, the OnePlus CEO didn’t mention the word merge while announcing it, rather he mentioned it as, OnePlus has decided to further integrate their association with Oppo. But somehow, it also indicates that it is going to affect the production of the company. Now, it’s predictable that the lags and the troubles which the users of both companies faced are going to wave out. This will mark the beginning of a new revolutionary process.
On the other note, they did also mention that, both the brands would be also working independently and singularly, creating their products, so we can expect both the companies to continue releasing phones.
Cheaper Products
Although OnePlus has given quite a difficult chase with the other smartphone brands, it has been an economical problem with the OnePlus. Like, other flagship phones are providing an ample amount of facilities, with a variety of choices, and now, OnePlus is initiating higher price money, to provide the same facility.
But with the merger with Oppo, it is quite clear that there will be a decrease in these products and they will be available at affordable prices. While indirectly will create a little more tension between other competitors, as by quality there is nothing to point a finger on the OnePlus flagship phones.
Faster and Hassle-free Products
With the ‘voice charging facility initiated in 2017, Oppo has a quite fair reputation of providing a faster charging facility with a huge amount of battery within it. Not only this but giving regular and fast software updates is also a primary feature in the Oppo UI smartphones. But, there is a little lack of this sincerity in the Oxygen OS, which is used in the OnePlus smartphones.
As the Oppo smartphones use Color OS, there is also a huge chance of software overlay with the same on the OnePlus smartphones too. However, it is not announced yet, but it is quite possible that the Oxygen OS, which is used in the OnePlus smartphones, may potentially switch to Color OS, which Oppo uses. At this point, this prediction is not that sure, but if this takes place, then this would have a huge impact on the Android industry landscape.
We are predicting this because, already in China, the OnePlus 9 range has started using the Color OS, and it’s not that far to get implemented by the merging later on. Alternatively, it can also be like the two interfaces may become more similar and maybe nothing great would change, and if anything changes, it would be a very subtle variation.
But it is quite sure that it would help improve OnePlus’s efficiency, the software updates would be arriving faster with the Color OS, and whenever they would come, they would not be the experimental beta versions, rather they would be more stable and fascinating.
Expansion in Variety of Products
OnePlus-Oppo Products
Getting the facts right, if anyone looks into it thoroughly, then it is easy to know that both OnePlus and Oppo are the subsidiaries of BBK electronics. Hence, they do already have a link. But this merger is going to begin an overseeing product strategy for both companies.
Oppo is not only producing smartphones, but also has a quite good hand in producing earbuds, earphones, smartwatches, fitness trackers, and other accessories too. So, this might help OnePlus in expanding its range from producing only smartphone and Bluetooth headsets to all these additional accessories.
Adding to that, we can also get a chance to see OnePlus making smartphones with faster-charging facilities, as Oppo has a giant gaze and experience in that field. With that, there is also a chance to create foldable and rollable OnePlus phones, as Oppo has already started experimenting with these super flexible devices.
Other Possible Impacts
Hence, there are the positive as well as not so positive impacts of the merger of OnePlus and Oppo, and the users can expect:
Frequent and stable software updates.
Interesting and new variable features.
Fast charging in the OnePlus phones like Oppo’s VOOC flash charge.
Slash in the prices of the OnePlus smartphones.
New and efficient different quality products from the brands, beyond smartphones.
Therefore, this might not seem like a very massive shift, but it’s almost sure to have some changes, and mostly they would come out as positives. This would somehow allow the two brands to streamline their operations and then capitalize them in the additional shared resources.
But whatsoever it’s a move that will align more with a company that will be looking to move more phones frequently, rather than just maintain exclusivity. Hence, this is quite a good development for the industry but it would create a little more tension and traffic within the industry as well.
FAQs
Has Oneplus merged with Oppo?
OnePlus has finally made its merger with Oppo and announced it publicly.
Is Oneplus and Oppo products of BBK Electronics?
OnePlus and Oppo are the subsidiaries of BBK electronics.
Which Operating system does Oppo uses?
ColorOS is a mobile operating system created by OPPO.
Which Operating system does OnePlus uses?
OxygenOS is an Android-based OS developed by OnePlus.
The price of fuel has always been a concerning issue in the country. When the pricing of Fuel rises, it majorly impacts the lives of the common man and the wholesome economy. And, soon after the latest round of fuel price hike by the OMCs (Oil Marketing Companies), the prices of petrol and diesel increased prominently. And if the prices keep on increasing, the lives of citizens and the economy will be highly affected.
The price of Petrol has reached up to INR 90 per litre and in some places, it has crossed the limit of Rs 100. And The same case with the Diesel too.
The increased fuel pricing has become such a problem that people are even smuggling from neighbouring countries. The rise in fuel price brings a devastating impact on the economy majorly, which is already suffering from the Covid crisis.
The rise in fuel prices affects most transportation industries. Also, businesses depend on logistics and transportation chains.
In this article, we have discussed the effects of increased fuel prices on the economy including other industries and to the lives of common people. Let’s get started!
When the fuel prices rise, we know businesses and households are affected broadly. However, it impacts majorly through two things- Inflation and reduced economic growth. Let’s get started with Inflation first,
Inflation
In inflation, the products made up of petroleum are affected directly. Moreover, it indirectly affects the industries of manufacturing, heating and transportation. This can lead to an increase in the price of many other products and services.
And according to the increase in fuel price, the consumption price also increases based on the production.
Reduced Economic Growth
The increased price of oil highly affects the economy as well. It reduces the growth of the economy through the demands and merchandise of goods other than fuel. It reduces the demands of those goods because of the increased price of producing them.
How Increased Fuel Prices Affects Other Industries?
Retailers
As fuel is the basic essential to transportation for every mankind. Therefore, they spend a large fraction of their income on fuel purchasing and due to this, the retailers suffer the most as the discretionary spending’s by customers become very low. And if the fuel prices rise, the supplier would deliver its products very rarely to the malls and shopping centres.
And this would highly affect the marketing sector and increase every material’s price.
Public Transportation
When the fuel prices rise, people often prefer public transportation ridership. Because sharing the transport would cost less compared to driving your own vehicle with so expensive fuel in the tank. This also saves from the wastage of fuel in the traffic and would cost less for people. The usage of public transportation is becoming higher in every place with the increased fuel prices.
Airlines
Airlines’ largest operating cost goes to the fuel expenses which is directly related to oil procurement. When the fuel prices rise, the airlines are affected broadly from the core of their surface.
Therefore, when the fuel prices rise the airlines are compelled to increase the charges on the flight tickets from their customers. This results in fewer airways travelling and a huge burden of expenses for the people.
So when such a scenario happens, the airlines tend to buy or sell the future estimated fuel prices through the investment perspectives. This is called fuel hedging. Besides, this will protect the airlines against the increased fuel prices.
Automobile Industry
The automobile industry is widely dependent on fuel consumption. These industries would fall apart if the fuel prices keep increasing. That’s why the automobile industry put its main focus on the manufacturing of smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles such as electric or hybrid vehicles. These could travel up to 250 miles based on their charging extent.
People have also highly preferred such modification and the purchasing of these vehicles has been increasing over time.
In the 1970s, the two aforementioned huge fuel shocks were noted based on high unemployment and low growth. This period is also referred to as Stagflation. So it’s likely to say that the fuel prices are directly linked to the economy and anything if unusual happens, the economy is affected majorly. The fuel prices cause a wide fluctuation in the economy of the country.
Looking back at history, the 1990s and 2000s were recorded as the most huge economic fluctuation period compared similarly to the fuel shocks of the 70s. The relationship between these two could be very convenient as well as challenging. This widely affected the GDP growth and unemployment rate in the country.
Conclusion
Over a long time, many economists and analysts have debated on the extent of the effect caused by the fuel prices on the economy of the country and the lives of common people. However, with the recorded research and data we can not deny the fact that the spending habits, consumers confidence correlates with the increased fuel prices.
And when the price of fuel increases, the economy including many other industries are affected on a wide scale and results in some absolute alternatives or faces loss. The lives of normal people have affected the most and this benefits some industries as well as cause some major loss to others.
Many surveys have been made on such situations and all those have proved some relation either direct or indirect between the fuel prices and economy of the country.
FAQ
Which industries are affected by the oil prices?
Airlines, Transportation and Automobiles are some of the most affected sectors by the rising fuel prices.
Why are fuel prices increasing in India?
Fuel prices have been rising in India due to a rise in crude oil prices in the international market.
LinkedIn Learning is an American online educational platform. It’s the live example of the fact “Learning is never late”. It has three broad streams of courses offered. They’re business-related, technology-related and creativity related.
There are over 5000 courses. Once you subscribe, LinkedIn Learning recommends personalized courses based on your field and interest. These are video training courses created by experts in the desired field.
A lot of us regret not being as attentive as we could be during our lessons at schools or colleges. We feel down the mark, not fully ready and so. Budding marketers are no different. However, every rising sun brings with it new opportunities.
Hence nothing is too late. It’s always the right time to start. There are multiple courses for marketers to chisel their techniques and abilities. Here we are enlisting the top seven courses for marketers and entrepreneurs to make their quest easier.
It is a complete guide for a marketer to get highly valued in LinkedIn and in other companies. It’s a strategic guide by the LinkedIn marketing solutions team. It gives you ways to engage one’s audience, gathers quality leads, increases awareness and so much more. This course arms you both with the basics and with everything that’s trendy and also hacks that will separate your brand positively from the rest.
Instructor of this course
Alex Rynne is the main instructing coach of this course. She is an award-winning global content creator at LinkedIn who has been there in the Frontline for the last five years.
Skills covered in this course
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
LinkedIn Campaign Manager
Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing Foundation
Social Media Marketing Foundation
Social Media has been a super popular source of advertisement in recent times. Hence this course one is taught the basics of Social Media Marketing. This course tells how to invest wisely in social media marketing and why it is beneficial.
It also teaches you how to connect to leads effectively through leading social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram and extract the best results from paid advertisements there. Crafting social media strategies based on a company’s goals is also taught in this course.
Instructor of this course
The instructor for this course is Brian Honigman the CEO of Honigman Media. It is a content marketing consultancy existing in Philadelphia. He has been training leading personnel to collect business value from SEO and Content marketing.
Skills covered in this course
Marketing Strategy
Social Media Marketing
Advertising on LinkedIn
Advertising on LinkedIn
This course teaches you to create original LinkedIn ads. It gives you a clear picture of how LinkedIn ads are beneficial, how they work, how to create the best ad for your campaign on LinkedIn and also optimizing for better results. This course is glorifying for B2B marketers as they need a specific type of audience that too at a certain scale which can be attained through LinkedIn.
Instructor of this course
The instructor of this course is A.J. Wilcox who is the founder of B2Linked an agency specialized in account management.
One of the most basic and useful courses in LinkedIn Learning is this one. If one is new to LinkedIn and is looking for a less costly yet effective way of marketing, this course should be their one-stop. It will help you forge connections to the needed sources to expand your brand. It is a shiny opportunity how one gets marketing at absolutely no cost.
Instructor of this course
Marcus Murphy, the head of business development and partnerships at DigitalMarketer is leading this course. He’s also a member of Linkedin’s customer advisory board.
Skills covered in this course
LinkedIn Marketing
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Digital Marketing
Business Storytelling
Business Storytelling
Storytelling isn’t just fictional. It helps you communicate your business to customers and clients. It is a great way to market your ideas as well. Hence this course provides one with master Storytelling strategies, nailing down the correct audience. Storytelling is the best way to get down to, how the human brain thinks and processes information.
Instructor of this course
The coach of this course is C.C. Chapman who’s an award-winning content creator who has been working with HBO, Coca-cola and many more.
Skills covered in this course
Business Storytelling
Learning Personal Branding
Learning Personal Branding
There are multiple courses and ways available online for personal branding. However, this course is unique because it explores your personal brand to assure one right way for their content creation. The powerful original brand always assures clean marketing. It assures customers and clients about the efficiency of your brand.
Instructor of this course
In this course, the instructor shall be Chelsea Krost. She’s an influencer marketing personnel and personal branding space professional since a very young age. She started her own radio talk show at the age of 16. Hence the course shall be the same efficient exercising.
Skills covered in this course
Personal Branding
SEO Foundations
SEO Foundations
Consumers these days track the World through click and search. Hence, it is necessary to leverage the fundamentals of your search engine optimization. This will make sure that your business website pops up in every important search. This course ensures the basics of SEO, reading of result pages and how rankings affect firms big or small.
Instructor of this course
The instructor to this page is David Booth who’s one of the founders of Cardinal Path. He’s also a consultant there. He received the Digital Analytics Association’s Practitioner of the Year award.
Skills covered in this course
SEO
Web Content Optimization
Conclusion
These are a few of the best courses that LinkedIn Learning offers for marketers. There are multiple more like Storytelling with Data, Writing to be Heard on LinkedIn and so on.
FAQ
Are LinkedIn learning certificates worth it?
LinkedIn learning are a great source for the people who are looking to develop or explore their professional skills further.
Is LinkedIn learning free?
There are both paid and free learning courses available on LinkedIn.
Do you have that hidden talent to design beautiful merchandise and apparel? But then how do you showcase your creativity? This post discusses “My Dream Store“, a platform that helps you showcase and monetize your creative abilities.
My Dream Store lets you design awesome products and sell them online while it takes care of everything else—from manufacturing the product to packaging, delivery, and even customer service!
Based out of Hyderabad, My Dream Store allows people to create and sell products such as T-shirts, hoodies, vests, mobile cases, coffee mugs, and more online with zero inventory and zilch cost. Its platform also provides free design support. My Dream Store has partnered with other vendors to handle demand surges and the manufacture of special products.
My Dream Store is predominantly a crowd-funded merchandising platform. This means that the seller can easily upload his or her designs, create products like T-shirts and hoodies, set the desired pricing and the quantity of items to be printed, and then go on to promote them. When the seller campaign reaches its goal, the platform prints, packs, and delivers the item to the buyers on time and hands over the profits to the seller.
My Dream Store provides the following features:
Create and Sell – This is for young designers and entrepreneurs who want to step in and solve problems but face barriers of varying degrees while starting an apparel brand. To minimize the overhead expenses on inventory creation, My Dream Store offers such individuals zero inventory and warehousing costs. With added facilities like distribution and packaging, the platform is an aid to the startup ecosystem.
Create and Buy – This feature is mainly for students who may need T-shirts and other apparel for annual college meets, occasion, groups, and hobby clubs. My Dream Store is a convenient option to solve the tedious process of ordering tees from the traditional vendors.
My Dream Store was founded by Karthik Venkat and Bala Satish in 2014.
My Dream Store Founders
Both Karthik and Bala are NIT Allahabad graduates who left their corporate jobs in 2011 to start a custom merchandise platform called eSparsha; it manufactured customized T-shirts for corporate sessions, college events, etc. The founder duo later jumped into the e-commerce segment to start My Dream Store.
Karthik Venkat, the CEO of My Dream Store, is an experienced founder with a demonstrated history of working in the internet industry. He is quite skilled in sales, strategic planning, building and running teams. He also is an expert Facebook advertiser!
Co-founder Bala Satish, the COO of My Dream Store, is motivated to build the best sales accelerator platform to help creators and micro-brands sell their products. He wants to foster an awesome team to assist these creators and brands.
How was My Dream Store Started
Although E-Sparsha (which Karthik and Balalaunched after quitting their jobs) had established itself as a reliable service provider for custom merchandising, the idea to explore the e-commerce market caught the attention of the duo which led to the launch of My Dream Store in 2014.
Regarding the initial phase, Karthik quoted, “The initial phase was relatively easy as we had already built a strong vendor network from E-Sparsha. However, getting into the online space and running an E-commerce portal was a different ball game altogether.”
My Dream Store Logo
While dealing with online marketing, entrepreneurs have to consider several intricacies to strengthen the strategic pillars and optimize their business operations. The Beta version of My Dream Store was built in September 2014. Since then, the company is working on a way to minimize the risk of over-burdening the inventory by giving sellers access to upbeat scalable technology, efficient and risk-free inventory management, optimized operations, well-defined product, and a seamless marketing strategy.
My Dream Store – Startup Challenges
My Dream Store is based on a ‘bring-your-customer’ model where sellers have to promote their products to the right target audience. However, sellers aren’t too aware of modern online advertising tools such as Facebook advertising, Google advertising, etc. To counter this problem, the startup created learning programs on its platform (targeted towards educating the sellers) through an online course-ware called the ‘My Dream Store University’. This initiative by the company helped the sellers improve the success rates of their campaigns.
In addition to the My Dream Store University, My Dream Store has put in efforts to enhance community engagement and overcome various other challenges startups commonly face:
Campaigner Connect – This is a closed group meant to build a network where buyers and sellers can easily communicate with community managers and solve any hurdles that arise on the way.
Google Hangout – The creative store has regular hangout sessions where every member of the community reaches out to both existing and potential buyers and sellers for meaningful conversations.
Open door policy – My Dream Store invites young designers and aspiring entrepreneurs to its office on a regular basis . The My Dream Store team interacts with the visitors and motivates them to join the platform.
The revenue model of My Dream Store seems quite simple. It charges a standard fee per unit which is based on the type of the product and printing requirements. This fee includes everything ranging from manufacturing cost and packaging to delivery, handling charges, and profit margins.
My Dream Store – Funding and Investors
In 2015, the company received an angel investment of $320K.
My Dream Store – Growth
More than 820,000 visitors.
More than 9,000 registered sellers.
Delivers products to more than 150,000 customers across India.
A 100% margin on sales on an average.
A team of 45 employees that continues to grow.
Extension of its services to Bengaluru, New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, and Kolkata.
Conducts 30,000 transactions per month on an average.
Moving further, My Dream Store plans to venture into other product categories like posters, tote bags, stickers, etc., thereby opening up new opportunities for itself and its partners.
Fast forward to July 2021, My Dream Store has become NOBERO, an online shopping site for men and women.
PV Vyshnavi
