Indians need not be reminded of the demonetization days which changed everything. The note ban brought about significant changes in the life of every individual across the country.
Apart from meandering queues outside banks and an increasing use of ATMs across the country, the note ban has had a positive as well as a negative impact on the economy. It has been more than a year the note ban came into the picture and here is how India has been impacted.
Improvement in personal finance
People are now choosing to deposit, whatever cash they have, into their savings account instead of stashing across different cupboards in the house. A large number of individuals have realized the importance of saving and deposit the same in their bank accounts regularly.
Increased use of digital payment systems
Indians have finally accepted the digital payment system. Demonetization proved that Indians can easily adapt to any changes and are open to learn about the use of latest technology. With a number of technology enthusiasts guiding others, even the most conservative individuals began using plastic cash and digital wallets.
Reduction of black money
The demonetization move was for a sole purpose – removal of black money from the economy. Almost 99% of the cash was deposited back into the banks since people had no other choice. They could not hold the cash anymore and had to bring it into the financial system of the economy.
A boost in tax payments
The direct impact of demonetization could be seen in an increase in the payment of taxes. There was a record increase in the number of income tax payers as well as first-time tax payers. Additionally, individuals also chose to pay advance tax and income tax returns on time.
Fall in GDP
Demonetization is considered as the main cause for the fall in the Gross Domestic Product [GDP] of the country. There was a significant slowdown in the economy. Also, there were a large number of layoffs across different industries in the country.
Diminished terror funding
Demonetization is considered as a strong reason to evaporate the cash reserves of a number of terror groups. Several terror organizations used fake currencies in order to fund their activities and the government took a very strong step to contain this.
Zero balance savings account
There was an immediate rise in the Jan Dhan or zero balance savings account after the announcement of the note ban. Many people deposited their cash into these accounts.
India’s largest online lending marketplace Paisabazaarhas entered into a partnership with Microsoft to drive ‘industry first’ technology innovations on its platform using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. As part of the overall partnership, Paisabazaar.com will move its entire infrastructure to Microsoft Azure.
Being India’s largest digital lending platform, Paisabazaar.com receives customers from varied segments from more than 750 cities and towns across India every month. By building cutting-edge technology on Microsoft cloud, Paisabazaar intends to offer customized, tailor-made and secure solutions for each consumer coming to its platform.
Paisabazaar will work extensively on futuristic technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to benefit customers in three key ways:
It will help identify customer needs more accurately, factoring in their lifestyle and life-stage.
It will help sharpen product recommendations and underwriting decisions. This will also expedite the processes on the Paisabazaar platform through further automation and digitization, in line with its philosophy of creating ‘paperless’ and ‘presence-less’ processes.
It will build innovative features like chat-bots, image recognition, voice analytics and language processing to take the customer experience to the next level.
At Paisabazaar.com, one of our aims is to simplify personal finance for our customers through technology. We are excited to partner with Microsoft in this journey where we would, together, not only delight consumers through a never-seen-before digital experience, but also help them save both time and money through more customized solutions.
Meetul Patel, Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft India said
We are happy to partner with Paisabazaar.com in their endeavour to deliver an innovative and unique customer experience. This partnership will enable Paisabaazar to utilize the power of Microsoft’s cutting edge AI services to develop novel solutions and deliver greater value to their rapidly growing customer base.
The traffic on the Paisabazaar platform is growing at 350% annually. Microsoft’s cloud-based system would help us not just create a frictionless experience but also world class data analysis systems. Both Paisabazaar and Microsoft are committed to build new technologies that will create a new normal in the financial services industry.
In sync with the Government’s recent financial technology announcements under its Digital India initiative, Paisabazaar, in partnership with Microsoft continues to enable financial growth for, both, individuals and MSMEs through world class digital financial management.
The Union Budget 2018 is being touted as a balanced one that puts primacy on affordable housing. The government seems all set to meet the Housing for All target by the year 2022.
As such, the government has established an affordable housing fund with an increased allocation for Urban areas [PMAY] by 7.6%. According to the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, 37 lakh houses have been sanctioned for construction in Urban areas. However, the prime focus is being placed on Rural areas where over one crore houses will be constructed between the years 2017 and 2019.
As such, the Affordable Housing Fund is set to provide better access to capital for both urban and rural areas.
Some Claim there will be no real impact on Real Estate Sector
While the Affordable Housing Fund is all set to create houses, several real estate specialists claim that nothing has been done to actually impact demand and supply.
As such, an alternative view claims that the Affordable Housing Fund will have no real impact on the real estate sector. Ramesh Nair, the CEO and Country Head of JLL India stated that the Income Tax slabs have not shifted and no other direct measures have been taken to influence buying habits.
He further commented that the real estate sector had been reeling for the past three years, and as such, they needed some serious intervention to help them out. This is especially true because the real estate sector contributes to three of the major aspects of the economy. It factors into 7.7% of the GVA, has created 15 million jobs in just 5 years, and influences the exchequer.
A Push Towards Affordable Housing
While the Budget 2018 certainly has its detractors, most people are optimistic about the push towards affordable housing in both urban and semi-urban areas.
To quote Rishi Jain, the director of Jain Developers, ‘Affordable housing looks like a good bet now. And in fact, the continued focus on smart city projects is expected to boost real estate activities further.’
Furthermore, Ashish Jindal, the Co-head of Sanctum Wealth Management, believes that the Budget 2018 will encourage even the major real estate companies to delve into affordable housing, thus stimulating both the real estate sector and also providing access to affordable housing.
In terms of demand for housing, Ashish Jindal, said
The Budget has given a big relief by allowing up to a 5 percent gap between the two and this has the potential to remove the irritant and revive secondary market transactions.
The Rural Factor
One of the major advantages of the Union Budget 2018 is that it clearly aims to push up the farmers’ income. This will further help increase consumption in the economy. This, in turn, will further stimulate the real estate sector.
Harshavardhan Neotia, the Chairman of Ambuja Neotia Group, clearly stated that an increase in farm spending will directly impact the real estate sector.
That’s the basic gist of the Union Budget 2018 and all the different perspectives in regards to the effect it would have on the real estate sector. As such, it seems like an optimistic time to become a homeowner.
However, when you do, you should also get yourself a legit home insurance to financially protect yourself in case of unforeseen circumstances.
ACT Fibernet, India’s largest fiber broadband ISP brings ‘Free to air channels’ through ACT Fibernet App, powered by YuppTV. As a part of this association, all customers of ACT Fibernet across 12 cities can now enjoy 140+ live channels in 13 different languages. Furthermore, the latest offering will enable customers to access a bundle of live entertainment content at no additional cost. This service is currently in its beta version and is available now only on android devices. It will soon be launched on iOS.
To further provide an optimal entertainment experience, users of ACT Fibernet will be able to avail a 6 months complimentary subscription of YuppTV by using their ACT Fibernet registered email ID and mobile number app and website. This will allow customers to view premium channels, original TV series, movies, web series and more. On completion of the trial period these services will be available at a monthly rental of Rs.99 only.
Speaking on the new offerings, Haraprasad Khar, CIO, ACT Fibernet, said
Our vision is to become the most admired entertainment service provider and we are continuously striving towards achieving that. With over 1.2 million users, we understand the pulse of our customers and their requirements. Today, access to information 24*7 is an imperative necessity and this latest feature will allow customers to stay updated on news, entertainment, music and lifestyle anytime, anywhere. This is a starting step and we will be updating our app with more exciting features going forward.
In addition, ACT Fibernet has also partnered with HOOQ TV, Fastflimz, AltBalaji and Hungama TV to bring the best entertainment content to customers. The below table captures the offerings details
India’s leading mobile health and fitness platform, HealthifyMe, have raised $12M Series B round of funding led by Sistema Asia Fund, the India focused fund of Russia’s largest Conglomerate. Silicon Valley based Samsung NEXT, Singapore’s Atlas Asset Management and Japan’s Dream Incubator are the other participants in the latest round of funding alongside existing investors IDG Ventures India, Inventus Capital, Blume Ventures and Dubai based NB Ventures. The Rainmaker Group was the advisor to the company on the transaction for which the term sheet was signed in October 2017.HealthifyMe has grown 3.5 times in 2017 to 4 million users, spread to 200+ cities, and is booking US$ 4.5M in ARR [Annualized Run Rate] revenue. With more than a million monthly active users, HealthifyMe enjoys about 10% of the Indian market share in the health/fitness category as per AppAnnie. HealthifyMe users have tracked 200 million foods, workouts and exchanged 10 million messages with their nutritionists and trainers.
Learning from this, HealthifyMe launched the world’s first AI nutritionist ‘Ria’ in late 2017, which is now guiding its paying consumers alongside human nutritionists and trainers. The HealthifyMe app itself has also become the highest rated app on Google Play in India achieving a rating of 4.6 and Google’s Best app of 2017 recognition – third year running.
HealthifyMe intends to use this fresh round of funding to deepen its presence in India by offering health foods, diagnostics and insurance products beyond its digital nutrition/fitness services portfolio. HealthifyMe also hopes to enter other emerging markets. The company recently launched in the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Countries] market and is already in the top 3 on Google Play, UAE. Additionally the company intends to use the funds to further its AI and Data Science capabilities.
Our vision is to build the world’s largest online health and fitness service. We want to help millions of consumers achieve their goals by engaging with nutritionists and other health experts empowered with Artificial Intelligence. ‘Ria’, our AI nutritionist that we introduced last quarter will have a game changing effect on fitness/nutrition access to Indians. We are already India’s go-to health app, this funding will help us to launch in other emerging markets where obesity and lifestyle diseases are growing exponentially. It will also help us expand our offerings portfolio to affiliated products and services that our customers need.
We are strong believers in preventive healthcare. People all over the world associate healthcare mostly with disease treatment, but ideally healthcare should prevent diseases. HealthifyMe team is disrupting this vitally important sector with its technology platform, transforming everyday behavior of people, and measurably making them healthier. We are happy to back the company in its mission.
HealthifyMe is the leading digital health app in India, and a very compelling mix of both human and machine intelligence. Its network of coaches helps users stick to their diet and fitness plans, the AI they have developed helps the coaches be more efficient. We were also impressed with the sheer amount of data the company has gathered, including the database of Indian foods.
HealthifyMe was co-founded by Tushar Vashisht and Sachin Shenoy who worked previously at UIDAI [Aadhar, Govt of India], Deutsche Bank and Google across India and Silicon Valley. The HealthifyMe app is available to download for free and enables users to keep a track of their calories, set personal fitness goals and measure progress. It boasts of the world’s largest database of Indian foods and syncs with all leading wearables, Google Fit and Apple Health. As part of its subscription services, HealthifyMe connects users with qualified nutritionists and trainers who review their progress, provide diet and exercise plans and work with the users to help them achieve their fitness goals.
HealthifyMe also has curated a digital workplace wellness program and has worked with clients such as P&G, Unilever, Accenture, Cognizant, Shell, Philips amongst others. The Company also works as a digital/preventive partner for top healthcare providers in India like Medanta, Manipal, Apollo ACODE etc. In early 2016, HealthifyMe had setup its global headquarter in Singapore and received Series A funding of US$6 Million led by IDG Ventures India, Inventus Capital, Blume Ventures and NB Ventures.
ICOs are the new series B while they create new bubbles they are also unlocking new kind of value as we speak. This is how Naval Ravikant, CEO of Angel List and one of the most influential thinkers in silicon valley described ICOs. Before I go about explaining my take on various ways in which ICOs will influence startup markets let’s have a quick primer on what are ICOs.
ICO [Initial Coin Offering] is a way to raise funds where-in a startup or an existing business sell tokens to public or private entities in exchange for ether/bitcoin or fiat money. ICOs are a recent phenomenon and the first ICO happened in 2013 with Mastercoin ICO. Some of the big projects which have raised money using ICOs include Ethereum, Stratis, Stellar lumens, Ripple and many more. Tokens offered do not give you any ownership in the companies and hence cannot be treated as security.
ICOs exploded in 2016 with many startups joining the bandwagon to sell tokens and raise money coinciding with the boom in Crypto-currencies and lured by easier money availability, fewer regulations, etc.
Below are the six ways ICOs have/might impact Startup Funding:
Easier Access to Money in short term
ICOs or token sales have suddenly created a new funding mechanism which is far easier to access than any traditional funding methods.You suddenly have the whole world as a possible investor.
With money raising strictly dependent on demand and supply dynamics and a large demand fueled by Crypto boom of last two years, Founders have never had it easier with large demand for anything blockchain and everyone looking to make quick money the whole ICO space has snowballed into tons of dumb money chasing projects.
VC Unfriendly/Open Source projects getting funded
While ICOs have eased access to capital and lot of dumb projects are getting funded It has also created a great way to fund ideas with no immediate commercial viability or ideas which VCs think are unpopular.
ICOs can be a great way to fund new protocols or next generation of smart technologies which will lay the foundation for a new wave of applications and products to be built on these new technologies. ICOs might be the best thing to happen to open-source projects adding a much needed incentive layer for developers.
Disrupting the existing VC model
ICOs are disrupting the existing VC models where Venture capital firms traditionally not only provide seed capital for MVP and building a product market fit but also growth investing to grow the business.
With ICOs and token sale as an alternative entrepreneurs with running businesses can just launch a new coin and raise funds required for growth. Token sales result in no dilution of equity and provide a great way to build community the value creation shifts from stakeholders to coin holders. It is entirely possible that community might become a strong moat for businesses in future and token holders will signal real value of the company.
Also some of the core open source projects can raise money without worrying about how VCs might dilute their vision.
Community Development becomes integral to Startups
Two skills which are going to become integral to blockchain startups are technical expertise on new set of technology and skills to build, nurture and harness communities. Startups which can build strong communities will have access to funds, new customers and new business at fraction of the cost.
Velocity and Value of the tokens will be directly linked to how strong and connected your community is to your product which can bring in new and unique network effects.
Lot of Scams in the Short Run
As is with anything path breaking it attracts a lot of unwanted folks and scamsters lured by easy money, fame or both. ICOs driven startups are going to have a fair share of scams. Not just scams majority of startups will not be able to deliver on promises. The deluge of ICOs hitting market include scamsters, failed ideas which could not raise money in traditional ways, forced token ideas where tokens are not required even blockchain is not required.
So brace up for many scams and failed projects in the short to medium term until the dust settles and sanity prevails and we are able to see the real gems. This is very similar to what happened during the heydays of the internet boom.
New Governance Models for startups
While in traditionally funded startups there were checks and balances built with early stage investors have a board seat and experiences VCs/Investors not only providing money but also helping with setting up processes and governance mechanisms.The new Crowd funded startups will have not have an obligation to investors and hence will create new challenges on oversight and governance sides.
How will token holders keeps teams honest. Will token holders be able to influence roadmap or prioritization. How much influence can token holders have on founders and the executive team. Can they throw out CEO for non-performance these are all very interesting questions.
Finally, ICOs are at a very early stage of evolution and almost all players are making their moves. Some of the best VCs have already started investing in tokens and leading early round of token sales. Entrepreneurs who want to raise growth funds are watching on the sidelines watching intently on how this evolves and does it create new options for them to grow their business. Finally regulators are grappling with how to treat token sales.
They are not securities in the traditional sense. Some tokens have utility on the platform other apparently do not have any utility so regulating token markets is going to be another area which evolves in due course of time.
About the Author
Sarabdeep Singh is ex-Head for Digital Marketing and CRM for Ebay India. He Co-founded Bodhik.com an online mutual fund investment service. In his spare time he is building sipacoin.com a simple service to set up Bitcoin Price Alerts. He tweets infrequently @sarabdeep
Swiggy, India’s leading food ordering and delivery platform, has raised USD 100 million in Series F funding, its largest round yet. Led by Naspers, a global internet and entertainment group, and one of the world’s largest technology investors, the Series also includes new investor Meituan-Dianping, China’s largest service e-commerce platform.With this new funding, Swiggy will further strengthen its market leadership position by introducing a host of unique and advanced products and services. As part of its long-term strategy of solving for existing supply gaps in the marketplace, Swiggy will also make investments in its New Supply business line.
After the successful launch of its first New Supply initiative, ‘Swiggy Access’ last November, the new capital will be used for further expansion. Swiggy will also continue innovating its core technology platform, especially in the areas of data-driven self-learning systems that leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence. The company will build on its adaptive, real-time prediction and optimization systems to further improve consumer choice and personalization, along with speed, volume and efficiency of deliveries.
As India’s leading food ordering and delivery platform with a network of thousands of restaurants and millions of users, Swiggy has become part of consumers’ everyday lives. We want to continue to bring convenience, choice and reliability to our users as we fulfill our mission of ‘Changing the Way India Eats’.
With this funding, we will further invest in building differentiated offerings, plugging the white spaces in the ecosystem, and developing our technology while keeping superlative customer experience at the core.
Since the last round of funding, Swiggy has introduced a slew of new initiatives like Swiggy Access, long-distance deliveries and Capital Assist to help restaurants serve consumers in new and more powerful ways.
The company also strengthened its senior leadership with several additions to the team including those from the recent acqui-hire ofgourmet food startup 48East. The top-rated food app also underwent a revamp, making it more intuitive and personalized to each consumer, enabling a great food ordering experience. Swiggy has posted a record increase of 500 percent in revenues in the last financial year and saw order volumes nearly double since its previous funding in May 2017.
Swiggy has continued strong growth through 2017 and now has a clear lead in the market. The company’s performance is all the more impressive given the intense competition we see in the food ordering and delivery business in India. Swiggy has shown it has the ability to rise above the competition and create long-term relationships with its users.
Over the last three years, Swiggy has steadily leveraged its understanding of the Indian consumer to identify market gaps and introduce disruptive and differentiated service offerings. The fastest food delivery service in the country, Swiggy’s average delivery time is an industry benchmark of under 35 minutes. It has also unlocked the business potential of partner restaurants across eleven locations in India, including Delhi, NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Chandigarh.
Are you looking to double your profit with email marketing? Then you have landed on the right place. Here I am going to explain the most accurate and authentic information to make your efforts easier with email marketing. Commonly Email marketing is the action of sending an economic message, generally to a group of people using email. But a better definition of email marketing is the use of email to develop relationships with potential customers. It is gaining popularity among the trade for many good reasons, such as effective and easier to reach audience, low cost of marketing, etc. You can easily double your profits by adopting some simple practices that will take your email marketing to unprecedented levels. While it has become one of the best sources of generating opportunities and gains in the market, there is more you can do with email marketing.
The main two big advantages of email marketing are cost and ease of access. Emailing is a cost free method to advertise your company and its products and services compared to many other types of marketing. It is also utterly easy way to set up and route an email marketing campaign. So in this post, I would like to show you how to maximize your profit with 5 tips on email marketing.
Make sure that your emails can be symbolize
Email symbolization has proven greater results of improving transaction rates, conversion rates and more. So, it is the first and best way to double your profits using email marketing .The symbolized email can give you more revenue than non- symbolized email. The higher level of symbolization you use will boost up your emails.
You can easily add a symbolization token in your emails like a first name or location to your email subject lines that will also help you double your profits through emails. It also makes the customer feel comfort and familiarity when opening up about their desires and expectations with your business. You can symbolize your emails by using phrases/symbols like ‘top listener’ be the first one to get accesses’ as it provides a sense of exclusivity to the customer, making them feel important.
Make sure to keep your email brief and charming
Another important tip for email marketing is to make sure to keep your email short and charming. With the increase in the number of emails in the inboxes of the audience, people do not have time to read each and every one of the emails completely. Like this time, it is the best way to keep your emails brief and eye catching, so that the customers can read and understand what you have to deliver very easily.
Short and informative like charming emails easily snap attention of customers to the call to action button. Elegantly, emails should not be longer than a few sentences. You can annotate the important message as bullets in your emails. You can see the changes in your profit while sending very charming and attractive emails.
Make sure to send your emails regularly
Normally inboxes of your customers are being full filled with numerous emails everyday from anywhere in the world. So, it may cause to lose your client’s precious attention. You have to speak up and communicate with your clients regularly. Many marketers are afraid of making their list by emailing customers too often.
One of the most essential ways to create a profitable business is to get your prospects and customers to trust you. Most companies are less willing to send emails periodically to their customers, as they fear that their subscribers will be excluded from their list. To develop an impassable bond and a good relationship with customers, just as you slowly build a good relationship with a new person you know and who eventually becomes your trusted friend. It is the amazing way that client starts emailing their list more often.
Make sure to use unique content and give some offers to customers
Use unique and rare content is another method to improve your profit. Nowadays the number of emails getting in the inbox of customers increasing invariably, it has been observed that the email opening rates are falling rapidly. Hence, you have to work strong for audience to open your marketing emails.
One of the best ways to do this is to create an unconventional and stunning headline which is the brief description of the matter inside the email. If you are providing some offers to the customers like promotional gifts, discount codes, or coupons, then it will help to earn more profit for your business. Take use of more imagination while creating a headline, as these are the ones that represent your email. Your customer will decide whether to open your email or not from the heading and offer you provide. Brief and peculiar headings are easier to read and grasp the curiosity of the customer to know what is further written in your email.
Make sure to categorize your customers and collect feedback
Customer categorization is another method lead to increase your profit on email marketing. There are several methods to categorize the customers based on gender, language, location, age, behavioral, demographic, social data segmentation etc. By categorize your list and sending only relevant information to customers of each list.
Then you can see that the improvement in your profit. And also collect feedback from each and every customer. While collecting feedback from customers you will get an idea about what they need exact from your end. Then you can work for making changes in your email. Once you have made changes, announce it to your entire audience via email.
Though we have touched upon some of the important strategies of Email Marketing, it is very important to understand the Dont’s of email marketing. Though there would be plenty of resources available on the internet, it is always handy if the information comes in a very concise format, preferably an infographic. The handy infographic from Campaign Monitor details email marketing Do’s & Don’ts every marketer should know before the email campaigns are delivered to their customers.
According to my opinion these are the most five important tips to double your profit on email marketing. By following these tips you can see the change in your profit day by day. You can reach your target audiences directly in your inbox. Deliver personalized messages that drive more conversions than email. And giving some offers like promotional gifts, discount codes, or coupons to the customers, it will help to increase the audience attention and getting more profit. Email marketing strategies can be utilized by a small, medium and large scale business, and if done properly and regularly you might just find your customer doubling or tripling in size.
So start fixing the holes in your email marketing campaign…
About the Author
Jamie Alexander is a leading writer at HealthExeData, which delivers a full range of affordable sales and marketing solutions to help businesses acquire, manage and retain customers. His main affection is to help people in all forms of email marketing and content marketing.
