Business Today
27-Jun-21A leading business magazine read by the business leaders for staying ahead and managing challenges that comes right away in the ever changing world of business.
in this issue
tech’s great leap
Even by conservative estimates, in the 18 months since the onset of Coronavirus on Indian shores in January 2020, tech adoption in the country has leaped by as much as a decade. Probably more. Digital now plays a vital role in work and life as firms, individuals and newer businesses adapt to technology like never before. Anywhere Tech is BT’s special annual compilation to showcase tech-novation across the country. Take the case of the financial services industry where the big Q has long been whether banks of the future will be traditional banks as we know them or will technology finance firms such as Google, Facebook or Amazon dominate tomorrow’s banking industry. The advent of Fintechs and their roaring success in customer adoption, business ramp-up and valuations rattled the traditional banking…
it for a new world
Since April 2020, Cisco’s collaboration platform, WebEx, has on an average clocked 25 billion meeting minutes a month. Outside the United States, India has been the second-highest user, recording 40 per cent year-on-year increase in March 2021. Does this mean in-person meetings will become history? Probably not. However, most changes at the workplace triggered by the pandemic are here to stay. This is not surprising. Adoption of digital technology has seen a decade's growth in the past 12-15 months as companies shifted to the distributed remote work model. This meant increased demand for Cloud service providers. Companies also adopted digital tools to make operations more efficient. These included Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA), which involves automating repetitive tasks. As digital became big, cyber attacks also…
marriage of convenience
A decade ago, the entry of Fintechs in the fast-growing financial services space was a shocker for traditional banks. Bankers were worried that at some stage in the future, Fintechs would eat their lunch. Be it payments, software as a service, or lending, the new age start-ups in the financial services space went all out with innovative models in underbanked and unbanked areas to woo customers. But banks, too, followed with their digitisation drives, pushing Fintechs back. Regulators also stepped in to fill the gaps and encourage innovations. For instance, the Unified Payment Interface-based plat-form hit mobile wallet players hard. On the other side, the entry of Techfins such as Google Pay, Amazon Pay and WhatsApp started changing the rules of the games. While the tug of war still continues,…
the 5g dilemma
There are still believers of the flat earth theory,” says S.P. Kochhar, Director-General, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), a lobby body representing Indian telecom operators. “The doubting community will always be there. It’s not black and white. Enough studies have been done already,” he says on the issue of fresh concerns over possible links between 5G technology and the spread of Coronavirus. Over the past couple of months, telcos and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) officials have been fighting a perception battle against a group of people who believe that 5G could harm humans. Last month, telecom towers in certain parts of Haryana and Punjab were vandalised and DoT issued an official statement to allay concerns. “It has come to the notice of the DoT that several misleading messages are…
the future is electric
The pandemic may have come as a rude shock for doubting Thomases who believed that the future of mobility is something else. While sale of conventional passenger vehicles and two-wheelers in the country declined over 9 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively, in FY21, electric two-and four-wheelers bucked the trend and posted impressive growth. Sales of electric two-wheelers surged over 64 per cent, while four-wheelers grew over 68 per cent. Yes, this is on a small base, but encouraging. In a year where nearly two months were lost due to lockdown, it is the clearest indication yet that after sputtering for years, the electric mobility story is on track towards an inflection point when it will become mainstream. $206 BILLION The market opportunity for EVs in India by FY2030. Cumulative sales may top…
classes go hi-tech
Institutes of higher education in India have been looking beyond physical classrooms and paper-pen assessments for a long time. In spite of this, adoption of education technology, or EdTech, did not become a huge trend. The Covid-10 outbreak has changed this. As the pandemic forced education institutions to abandon face-to-face teaching, educators turned to technology for everything, right from conducting entrance exams and course delivery to assessments and managing their knowledge repositories. Digital whiteboards, hybrid classrooms, adaptive tracking camera systems, display equipment and audio-visual technologies are the new buzzwords at education institutes. “Today, India finds itself doing well in the global EdTech Index with Bangalore and Delhi at 7th and 14th positions, respectively, globally. While the EdTech space had been growing at a steady pace over the years, the pandemic accelerated…
