The NITI Aayog was created in 2015 to replace the decades-old Planning Commission. The idea was to adopt a more bottom-up approach to make India competitive in today's global economy. With CEO Amitabh Kant as the leader, the think tank progressed to become a thriving, open, and empowering space for public policy experts, including those from non-government backgrounds. But ever since Kant's stint ended at the think tank in 2022, the walls between the leadership and non-govt employees at the thin...
Oct 10, 2023•12 min•Ep. 131
Losing IPL rights last year to Jio and then dropping HBO content has cost Disney+ Hotstar at least 21 million subscribers in just a year. The streaming giant though, decided that IPL or no IPL cricket is going to be its biggest customer acquisition funnel in 2023. And it looks like they are holding on to that strategy. The Asia Cup was streamed for free on Disney Hotstar. Now, the ICC Cricket World Cup is on and it's available on Disney Hotstar too. The OTT giant is offering free live streaming ...
Oct 09, 2023•13 min•Ep. 130
Licious, the online meat delivery platform, was India’s first direct to consumer company or D2C that achieved the unicorn status. It was valued at $1.4 billion two years ago and it had enough money to grow to Rs 100 crore of revenue per month, but its revenue has remained flat from the last two years. Licious follows the premium pricing strategy. Its products are priced higher price than the average market but its customer base is ready to pay that extra amount because of the quality Licious del...
Oct 05, 2023•12 min•Ep. 129
It took Bajaj Finance over 15 years to become the most valued NBFC in the country. And then came along Jio Financial Services Ltd (JFSL) and took the no. 2 position in a span of just two months. It is currently valued at more than $17 billion. Its all set to take the top space. Currently, the company is on a serious hiring spree and it seems to have taken a particular liking to former ICICI Bank employees for its key executive roles. After all, a lot of its future success will depend on the team...
Oct 04, 2023•14 min•Ep. 128
What makes Dunzo unique is that one could never imagine a company its size to have the kind of influence it does. In 2022, a $200 million funding from Reliance Retail sent the quick-commerce startup flying high. It began expanding its dark stores and even ran advertisements in IPL. But the IPL led boom did not last long. The same year, the number and volume of orders began to decline. Dunzo was forced to recalibrate its focus and rethink its strategy. Tune in! Daybreak is produced from the newsr...
Oct 02, 2023•13 min•Ep. 127
After the pandemic years, Kota’s coaching industry saw an unprecedented boom. Money was pouring in from everywhere–from edtechs to investors. In the last five years, Kota saw about 2 lakh engineering and medical aspirants, on average, arrive from across the country. Kota runs on stiff competition not just among the students but also among the scores of institutes that host and prep them. But since the past four months, Kota’s reputation has been on the line. Student admissions have dropped, with...
Sep 28, 2023•12 min•Ep. 126
All the twists and turns in the journey of startups have been well-documented since VC funding began drying up over the past year or so. In the first half of 2022, Indian startups received more than $17 billion dollars. But a year later in 2023. they just got a little over $5 billion. What’s we’ve barely heard about, though, is what is happening to the funders of these startups and their foot soldiers—the VC analysts. With the slowdown, the day-to-day responsibilities of these analysts have chan...
Sep 26, 2023•10 min•Ep. 125
From the time it was the number one indian telecom company to braving the whole phase when Jio came around and disrupted the whole space. Its been a long, brutal competition for Airtel and Gopal Vittal has managed to bring Airtel back to health. Meanwhile, he's spent years on finding and grooming the right talent to create the next generation of leaders at the telco giant. And now Airtel is undergoing a major reshuffle. As you would expect, it’s creating a sense of both excitement and stress. Tu...
Sep 24, 2023•9 min•Ep. 124
For a people who were quite averse to the whole concept of credit, Indians really seem to be developing a new found love for the piece of plastic and banks have been happy to ride the wave. But lately they've been left quite baffled because they are being being beaten at their own game. A growing community of people are constantly finding hacks to take advantage of the loopholes in credit-card reward systems. For some of them , in fact, it's going so well that they’ve turned their secret operati...
Sep 21, 2023•11 min•Ep. 123
From content flagging, suspension, shadow-banning and even account deletion, content creators are grappling with a variety of censorship methods on social media platforms—all in the name of maintaining community guidelines. But with social media platforms relying more and more on AI and machine-learning tools identify and remove violating content, even content aimed at creating sexual, social, and political awareness ends up being taken down. And sex-ed and news content creators on platforms lik...
Sep 19, 2023•13 min•Ep. 122
For almost two decades, India was a stagnant market for one of the leading tech companies of the world. But in 2021, things changed and Apple’s sales graph in India began to rise upwards. By 2022, Apple sold over 7 million iPhones in the country. And then in April, Apple CEO Tim Cook inaugurated India’s first Apple retail store in Mumbai. But compared to markets like the US and China, Apple’s numbers in India are far from substantial. Yet, the company is looking to give Its Indian customers a pr...
Sep 17, 2023•13 min•Ep. 121
For the longest time public sector banks, as we know them, have been very reluctant about study abroad loans. And it was for good reason. They've suffered greatly because of education loans going bad. Meanwhile, its a whole different story that was going on with non-banks. Study abroad loans accounted for about US$4 billion in the year ended March 2023. These were almost fully funded by non-banks like Credila and Avanse Financial. Their staregy was simple—sanction collateral-free as fast as poss...
Sep 14, 2023•11 min•Ep. 120
The government of India launched Digiyatra, a contactless, facial-recognition-based passenger-entry system, in December last year. The idea is for those who sign up on the platform to avoid the tedious process of getting their ID and flight tickets checked by CISF personnel at airports. But lately, stories of passengers being forced to sign up for the app are surfacing on social media. Meanwhile, airlines, which are important stakeholders to make the entire endeavour successful are unable to see...
Sep 12, 2023•11 min•Ep. 119
For the longest time, consulting at the “Big 3” strategy consulting firms—McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Co.—is not only one the most sought-after careers but also one of the highest-paying jobs. Five years ago, 30% of graduates from the top IITs with bachelors degrees chose consulting. For those from the IIMs in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, and Kolkata, 35% of graduates chose a consulting job at one of these companies. But ever since 2022, something’s changed. The Ken spoke to four ...
Sep 10, 2023•12 min•Ep. 118
Lately, India's bike taxi leader, Rapido, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. With numerous complaints of sexual harassment, theft, and even impersonation, the startup has been reckless with the safety of its customers, epecially women. Despite these incidents, Rapido still enjoys a 60% share of the bike-taxi market in India. It clocks in as many as 750,000 rides every single day and yet, the level of scrutiny it deploys for the drivers on its platform is close to non-existent. What’...
Sep 07, 2023•13 min•Ep. 117
Airlines in India, from Indigo to Akasa, are on a spree to expand their fleet. Around a thousand more aircrafts will be flying the Indian skies in the coming few years. Usually, each aircraft usually requires a crew of at least ten or more pilots. This means we will need close to 10,000 pilots. But we already have 10,000 pilots waiting to be hired. The problem is no airline wants to hire them. Why? Tune in to find out. Recommendation Airlines want pilots. Pilots want jobs. Why are thousands unem...
Sep 05, 2023•10 min•Ep. 116
Last month, Unacademy did something very unsusal. It introduced a new policy, restricting how much its educators can engage online. Ever since, Unacademy has either suspended or sent show cause notices to at least 50-60 of its teachers. But Unacademy relied on its teachers to bring in students. It wanted them to be popular so it encouraged its teachers to work on methods to hack social media. It made them its sales force. What made it make this U-turn and restrict the personal social media accou...
Sep 03, 2023•9 min•Ep. 115
Between 2018 to 2021, incidents related to breach of cybersecurity in the auto industry rose by 228%. In the next few years, this number is only expected to get worse. In India though, it is not much of a concern yet due to the low penetration of EVs so far. But it won't remain that way for long without proper safeguards in place. The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act 2023 is a step in the right direction, but it has a long way to go. Tune in. Recommendation Ola Electric woke up and ch...
Aug 31, 2023•9 min•Ep. 114
A few months ago, multiple Hotstar executives had told The Ken the same thing. “IPL or no IPL, cricket is going to be the platform’s most important customer-acquisition funnel this year.” It seems Disney Star is holding on to that strategy. The Asia Cup is going to be streamed for free on Disney Hotstar from today onwards. Even after losing the IPL's digital streaming rights, Disney+Hotstar is the leader of the Indian OTT space in terms of subscriber numbers. But OTT is a complex business and ju...
Aug 30, 2023•12 min•Ep. 113
The mattress industry in India this year is valued at around $2.5 billion and growing at a CAGR of 10%. Up to 9 million mattresses are sold in the country every year. Among the top brands in the mattress market is Sleepwell, owned by Sheela Foam, the largest manufacturer of Polyurethane Foams (PU) in Asia Pacific. Despite having a fourth of the market share and conditions ripe for innovating and growing, the company had been in a limbo of sorts. Until last month, when it announced it was acquiri...
Aug 27, 2023•9 min•Ep. 112
Over the course of a year or so, we’ve seen how one by one, the chances of Byju's survival have been narrowing down. However, there’s one thing that could possibly save it from falling apart: Aakash, the offline coaching chain that Byju’s had acquired in 2021 for a staggering $950 million. Now, with its IPO upcoming in mid-2024, the struggling edtech giant has a lot riding on Aakash's success. But Byju’s is turning out to become quite the troublesome partner for Aakash, no thanks to its aggressi...
Aug 24, 2023•11 min•Ep. 111
For the longest time, despite being a giant steel-to-software conglomerate, Tata’s consumer goods game was nowhere close to India's top FMCG companies. Ever since 2019 though, when it decided to merge Tata Chemicals and Tata Beverages as Tata Consumer Products Ltd, the FMCG arm has been on a roll. In the recent financial year alone, it introduced more than 30 new products. Meanwhile, Tata Consumer’s shares have more than tripled. The Nifty FMCG index also almost doubled. What changed? Tune in to...
Aug 22, 2023•11 min•Ep. 110
Last week, the edtech unicorn Unacademy fired Karan Sangwan, a law teacher for asking students to vote for educated candidates during elections in one of his video tutorials on YouTube. According to the edtech, Sangwan had breached the code of conduct by sharing his 'personal opinion.' While this case is of a slightly different nature pertaining to one individual, Unacademy's relationship with its educators in general hasn't been great either. With dwindling sales and a funding crunch, edtechs l...
Aug 20, 2023•11 min•Ep. 109
A March 2022 report from the World Health Organization said that over 17% of households in India incur catastrophic health expenditures every year. And it results in the impoverishment of around 55 million people. Anyway, it's just about 37% of the population that actually has any form of health insurance. In such circumstances, if the rate at which a health insurance company denies claims begins to rise, it is a matter of concern. Star Health, one of India's leading health insurers, had the hig...
Aug 17, 2023•10 min•Ep. 108
Reliance controls just 3% of India’s retail market. You might think it's a tiny share. But 80% of the retail industry is unorganised. And overall, the retail sector in our country is worth nearly 900 billion dollars. So to control even 3% of it is a big deal. But it is refining and petrochemicals that is the Reliance's biggest business. Why is it then that since the last three years, Reliance Retail is being made to headline the conglomerate's annual report? Tune in. Free Read: Lenskart’s CEO an...
Aug 15, 2023•11 min•Ep. 107
Beets are a superfood today. Tomorrow it'll be lemons. The internet is rife with misinformation especially about food and health related stuff. There are hundreds of influencers on your feed telling you what’s good for you. But who’s telling you what’s bad and what doesn't work? Maybe a keto diet worked for your friend but not for you. Take Dr Cyriac Abby Philips who goes by The Liver Doc on Twitter. Recently, he claimed there is no point in taking multivitamins. He is a de-influencer and there ...
Aug 13, 2023•12 min•Ep. 106
After a delay of almost a year Ola Electric finally released its financials this week. The company was valued at $5 billion last year and so far it has raised nearly $800 million from investors, including Softbank. With a 40% market share, it is the leader of the two-wheeler EV market in India. It has already sold over 250,000 vehicles. Ola Electric has set up 600 experience centres around the country where people can go take test rides. But the company only has 200 service centres. Its lack of ...
Aug 10, 2023•10 min•Ep. 105
Known for its high-end EV models, earlier this year, Tesla went on a cost-cutting spree. Six months ago, though, the EV maker was on the verge of shutting down its office in India. But last week, the company took up a sprawling office space in Pune on a five-year-long lease. And last month, it was reported that Tesla plans to set up a factory in India with a yearly capacity of 5 lakh EV units. Now, at a time when there is a general fall in EV prices, it is admittedly chasing growth—even if it co...
Aug 08, 2023•11 min•Ep. 104
The voice of the gig worker is getting louder, and it's coming to a point where neither delivery companies nor the government can afford to ignore it for much longer. Last month, the Rajasthan government came up with a new law that aims to establish a welfare board and a dedicated social security fund for platform-based gig workers in the state. One could say the new law sets a precedent for gig workers across the country. However, that is so only if you take it at face value. Once you look beyo...
Aug 06, 2023•11 min•Ep. 103
UPI or the Unified Payments Interface has revolutionised the way we use money. So much so that we don't think twice about freely accept financial connections with strangers. Since its launch seven years ago, 300 million users in India are on the UPI platform freely carrying out financial transactions. But did you know that your bank can block your account without a warning or any explanation? And what's worst, you could even come under the radar of law enforcement authorities like the cyber crim...
Aug 03, 2023•12 min•Ep. 102
