Last year, Nykaa decided to reshuffle its marketing structure after the company’s previous Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) exited the company. Instead of immediately filling the spot, Nykaa decided to break the role apart and have two marketing heads. One to look at performance marketing – the more technically, data-driven side of e-commerce, and another as the head of organic marketing – the creative, freewheeling stuff. The move sent out a clear message: a singular CMO is no longer necessary. Th...
Nov 11, 2024•15 min•Ep. 357
Last month, in October 2024, the government of India launched the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, a health insurance coverage for all senior citizens aged 70 and over, regardless of income. This is big news for healthcare in India because for the longest time, this is exactly the age group that has pvt insurance companies have been ignoring. To give you a clearer picture, a person aged over 60 years pays anything between Rs 30,000–50,000 as annual premium for coverage as low as...
Nov 10, 2024•13 min•Ep. 356
Ever since the pandemic, the world of skincare has witnessed nothing short of a revolution. Almost overnight, that jar of Ponds cold cream that had stood the test of time on dressing tables across the country was replaced by elaborate six-step skincare routines. The legacy brands we grew up with – the likes of Loreal, Ponds, Johnson and Johnson – were dethroned almost overnight. In their place came an explosion of new brands. Today, everyone wants some skin in the game. Traditional FMCG companie...
Nov 07, 2024•27 min•Ep. 355
Lately, new breed of millionaire heirs have been dabbling with family offices in India . These are entities that exist solely to manage the fortunes of these ultra-rich families. While these offices have been around in some of the world’s biggest financial capitals for a long time now, in India, they are catching on now . What’s really interesting is that these single and multi family offices haven’t just been popping up in big metro cities, they are also gaining popularity in tier 2 cities like...
Nov 06, 2024•31 min•Ep. 354
Here’s a riddle inspired by true events. We all know that pay TV subscribers have been declining for a while now. But at the same time, overall TV viewership has only been increasing. How can that be? Well, for that we have Youtube to thank. In the first half of 2024, Indians spent 8 trillion minutes watching videos. More than 90% of this was on Youtube. Now, generally when someone says the words ‘watch on youtube’ you imagine a mobile phone or a laptop right? That seems to be changing as a lot ...
Nov 05, 2024•11 min•Ep. 353
Last month, India’s second largest automaker – Hyundai – went public. But this was not your run of the mill IPO. This was widely speculated to be the largest public listing ever seen in the Indian stock market. So there was naturally a lot of hype around it. But on October 17, just hours before Hyundai’s public issue was set to close, most stock market circles across the country were stumped. There was a growing sense of disbelief. Panic even. Because only half of the nearly Rs 28,000 crore offe...
Nov 04, 2024•11 min•Ep. 352
A new generation of designers is on the rise. These designers are expected to be a lot more than just “one trick ponies”. The new-age ‘Designer X’ is expected to bring a little bit of everything to the table. They understand the basics of sustainability, how their designs would impact things like climate change and culture. And they would also generally know a little bit of coding too. And that is because the whole perception of design has shifted. Just last month, IIT Delhi announced a new cert...
Nov 03, 2024•10 min•Ep. 351
* This episode was originally published on July 12, 2024 Have you ever heard of a 'f*** off fund'? Or better yet, do you have one? For the uninitiated, it is a sum of money that women should ideally set aside to get out of a difficult situation – think toxic job, abusive relationship or family situation, you get the drift. The term was coined by freelance writer, Paulette Perhach, in 2016. We recommend that you read her powerful essay on financial independence. The idea is for it to give you eno...
Oct 31, 2024•37 min•Ep. 350
In the 2024 financial year, Apple sold products worth $8 billion in India. This was a third more than the previous year. But how did a premium company like Apple that hates giving discounts sell products worth 8 billion dollars in a country as price sensitive as India? Apple obviously knew that its phones were unaffordable for most people in India? It found an answer was easy financing. After the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020, Apple made financing tie-ups with banks a mainstay. And one of the most i...
Oct 30, 2024•9 min•Ep. 349
For a whole decade, Ola and Uber dominated the cab-hailing market. But cut to 2024 and that scenario is shifting. Both these companies are drifting. And a third contender – Rapido – is making the most of it. Both homegrown Ola and US-based Uber are dealing with a unique set of problems. The whole ride-hailing business seems to have taken a backseat for Ola, which is now knee deep in the electric vehicles business. Meanwhile, for Uber, the problem is stagnation. And those factors combined have ta...
Oct 29, 2024•13 min•Ep. 348
Welcome to the world of luxury-lifestyle management, where firms like RedBeryl, Indulge Global, and Quintessentially play the role of concierge for their ultra-wealthy clients, making the impossible possible. Now this sort of thing has become even easier for the rich. Because their wealth managers are also taking care of some of these requests. It isn’t a one -off thing. Companies like RedBeryl, Indulge GLobal, Quintessential – all of which play the role of concierge for their ultra wealthy clie...
Oct 28, 2024•11 min•Ep. 347
Zomato planning to raise 8,500 crore rupees again. This comes just three years after its grand IPO where it had raised almost the same amount. The company's stock prices have doubled in the last ten months. Interestingly, this fundraise is going to be through a qualified investment placement or QIP when a listed company raises capital from domestic markets without the need to submit any pre-issue filings to market regulators. Only qualified institutional investors are allowed to participate in t...
Oct 28, 2024•10 min•Ep. 346
If all the women of the world had a collective wallet where we could put in a penny for every time we heard the words “your biological clock is ticking,” we could move to Venus and run our own planet. But as unfair as it may be, it is true. There is an ideal time period in a woman’s life when she can have a baby. Or when she is the most “fertile.” Unlike men who are biologically not limited by such constraints, women are born with a limited number of eggs. And turns out, this number of eggs sees...
Oct 24, 2024•45 min•Ep. 345
For a country that boasts of its digital public goods infrastructure like Aadhar and UPI, it is a wonder why telecom has been so ignored. After nearly 1500 crore rupees of was reportedly lost to digital fraud in the financial year 2024, the govt’s Trai is finally scrambling to catch up with CPAN or the Calling Name Presentation (CNAP) service, its own version of Truecaller. Truecaller, the Swedish call-screening company, meanwhile, has been holding the fort for a while now. Users count on it to ...
Oct 24, 2024•25 min•Ep. 344
Late last month, the Supreme Court made a very strong statement about NRI quotas at medical colleges. It essentially said that the whole thing was a fraud. But the thing is, since the Supreme Court called it out, the practice has only gotten murkier. So The Ken reporter Alifiya Khan conducted an investigation. She scoured several social networking sites only to find countless posts promising seats in medical institutes to aspirants who scored way below the required cutoff and even those who were...
Oct 22, 2024•10 min•Ep. 343
There is an unusual one-of-kind competition brewing within the Indian fintech space. It is so disruptive that its leaving founders and chief executives of some of India’s biggest fintechs feeling pretty intimidated and also helpless. The funny thing is, the brains behind this new competitor that’s left the whole industry feeling pretty blindsided is the Reserve Bank of India itself. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the banking regulator. And it’s called the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub or RBIH....
Oct 22, 2024•12 min•Ep. 342
Earlier this month, CRED, released its financials for the year ended March 2024 at a press conference. Cred claims to have about 13 million monthly active users. For the financial year ended March 2024, it saw revenue rise more than 60% to nearly $300 million, and losses shrink by around 40% to about U$70 million. Plus, its monthly transacting users grew by more than 30%. Shah said how it's the top 10% of households who drive 60% of consumption. Even with UPI, he said, it was the top 30–40 milli...
Oct 21, 2024•10 min•Ep. 341
A little more than a week ago, we read a really strange piece of news . Apparently, an expert committee recommended the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) to ban the over the counter sale of emergency contraceptive pills like i-pill and Unwanted 72. They suggested women should be only allowed to access it with a doctor’s prescription because of concerns over side effects. This was weird for many reasons. One, levonorgestrel, which is what these pills contain, is one of the safest emergency...
Oct 17, 2024•42 min•Ep. 340
Back in 2004, two sisters, Kainaz and Tina Messman, decided to turn their life-long passion for food and baking into a full fledged business. They set up Theobroma, a small cafe tucked away in a corner of Mumbai’s posh Colaba. Today, there are more than 200 Theobroma outlets in over 30 cities across the country. The bakery chain’s evolution has been nothing short of remarkable. It has managed to build a profitable business that too in a category known to have products with one of the shortest sh...
Oct 16, 2024•21 min•Ep. 339
Today, most conventional or slow clothing brands like Lee, Wrangler, United Colours of Benetton, Pepe Jeans and Levi’s are facing a tough new reality where they aren’t just trying to outperform each other. They are also up against fast fashion brands that are now dominating the industry. In the process, many of these slow brands have lost relevance in the larger scheme of things. In this episode we are going to talk about two of these brands in particular – Lee and Wrangler. Both are internation...
Oct 15, 2024•12 min•Ep. 338
Earlier this year, Zomato acquired ticketing platform Paytm Insider. With this, Zomato was able to take its 'going out' strategy to the next level. Since 2018, Zomato has been holding live events. You have probably heard of its its massive carnival-style event called Zomaland. The idea behind it is simple: a big part of going to a movie, or a music festival, or pretty much any live event is the food and drinks. So by being associated with live events, Zomato is able to expand the company’s reach...
Oct 14, 2024•12 min•Ep. 337
The PM’s internship scheme wants to provide 10 million internships to freshly minted students over the course of the next five years. Students from premier institutes like IITs and IIMs or students with professional degrees like CA, CMA or masters are not allowed to apply. The idea is to address India’s problem of youth unemployment by making students from lower socio-economic backgrounds employable and giving them real world exposure. It sounds great. If it is implemented well, the scheme has t...
Oct 14, 2024•10 min•Ep. 336
Back in 2014, Ashoka University introduced India to the concept of a liberal arts education. The private research university, tucked away in Sonipat, Haryana, came along at a time when the cracks in India’s higher education system were starting to become pretty glaring. It positioned itself as everything a conventional Indian college was not. Ashoka promised to offer ‘holistic, liberal, multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary’ education. Simply put, it was offering choice. And that simple yet p...
Oct 10, 2024•22 min•Ep. 335
About a month ago, news broke about Reliance's plans to merge Disney+ Hotstar with JioCinema after their Star-Viacom18 merger. While the merger is pending approvals from the Competition Commission of India, data from Google Play Store data shows Disney+ Hotstar had over 500 million downloads while JioCinema had over 100 million downloads. While the idea makes sense from a consumer's perspective who has to deal with too many subscriptions and too many choices, things don't quite add up from a str...
Oct 10, 2024•24 min•Ep. 334
So far, buying medicines in India has been a complete minefield. Allow me to elaborate with the help of a completely plausible hypothetical scenario. Say you catch the flu one day and need 75 mg of the antiviral drug Oseltamivir. More often than not, we don’t really check the price tag of these drugs. But what if I told you the prices can swing anywhere between Rs 30 and Rs 125 per capsule, depending on the manufacturer and the doctor prescribing it. Now, variable pricing is not really a revelat...
Oct 08, 2024•12 min•Ep. 333
Back in the day, being from one of India’s prestigious boarding schools – the likes of Doon or Mayo – was the ultimate stamp of honour. Most of these schools were established close to a century ago, during British rule. And for the longest time, they were infamous for taking that legacy pretty seriously. In fact, that was exactly why they remained the go-to destination for India’s elite. But now, things are changing. In the recent past, the likes of Doon and Mayo have had to change their approac...
Oct 07, 2024•10 min•Ep. 332
Sarvam, a generative AI startup based out of Bangalore, managed to raise more than $50 million from investors like Peak XIV and Khosla Ventures, in less than 6 months after it was launched last year. Last month, Sarvam released a range of new multilingual products—Al agents, voice and text models, and a workbench aimed at legal professionals. Enterprise customers who used Sarvam's services are satisfied with the performance of its products. But developers have flagged issues with its voice-based...
Oct 07, 2024•12 min•Ep. 331
Every time you take a domestic flight and don't have to break a fixed deposit to buy a ticket, you have Captain GR Gopinath to thank. In 2003, he launched Air Deccan, India's first budget airline. Before that, only the rich and powerful could afford to fly. So, planes were like mini 5-star hotels – you would be waited on hand and foot, would have access to luxurious lounges, get served gourmet food. And of course, it came with an outrageous price tag to match. With Air Deccan, flying was finally...
Oct 04, 2024•30 min•Ep. 330
Phone calls from Bajaj Finance offering loans are almost inescapable and the non-bank has been facing quite a backlash for it. But telecalling has been an enduring sales channel for the company which boasts of a loan book worth nearly $30 billion. And despite the massive size of its loan book, it’s been growing at a phenomenal rate. But now, Bajaj Finance has become a prisoner of its own growth rate. It has to maintain it anyhow. Tune in Don't forget to s end us your recommendation for this Thur...
Oct 03, 2024•12 min•Ep. 329
Not so long ago, Birkenstocks were considered the antithesis of high fashion. For the longest time, the 250-year-old German brand’s characteristic chunky sandal was seen as nothing more than an orthopedic shoe meant for hippies and old people. And then, everything changed. In the last decade or so, Birkenstock had a major glow up. It all started with the brand deciding not to settle for being just another comfortable but cringey sandal anymore. So to make Birks cool the brand began collaborating...
Oct 02, 2024•11 min•Ep. 328
