In Chennai, during Dussehra a 10-day festival, there is a tradition of inviting people for Golu, where people display dolls and serve a lentil snack called sundal. This Dussehra, a bank used Golu to reach out to customers. Bank employees placed a stack of dolls in a mini-truck and took it door to door to…
Amidst a cluster of stores at Delhi’s popular IT and computer peripherals market in Nehru Place is eWorld, an Apple-authorised reseller. The store is desolate. A resigned silence combines with the white interiors to create an eerie, sterile emptiness. Even as one enters, the staff show no enthusiasm to push products. Their inertia is the…
Noida-based Dish TV no longer looks like Dish TV. Dish TV was India’s first-ever private direct-to-home (DTH) operator, launching in 2003—almost seven years after the first DTH proposal was floated (and turned down). The idea then was simple: offer better quality, better pricing and better television services to subscribers via satellite, bypassing local cable operators…
Crucially, despite its claims of surrendering its tax-exempt registration in 2015, Tata Trusts has not paid taxes since. This has significantly weakened its standing in the matter. In 2018, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Indian Parliament stated that Tata Trusts spent its money in a way that not only violated the I-T Act but…
Miniso may have competition in India in chains like Market99 and Muji or category leaders, but the company is gaining a foothold in India on the back of pricing and its pace of expansion. Plus, a similar retail format of a pan-India variety chain has been largely missing in India, “possibly because pricing, rentals and…
It’s the jam-packed parking lot that you notice first. Everyone is moving towards the same shop in the area. It’s a new one, with a little red shopping bag sign. You enter. There’s almost no room to walk without bumping into people in the aisles packed with anything and everything. Earphones and power banks. Stuffed…
In ancient Greece, Epigamia was the law that defined the rules of marriage between people from different cities or states. It also formalised relations between two countries. And just this past week, it was Epigamia, the Greek yoghurt brand produced by health food makers Drums Food, that cemented an unusual relationship in the world of…
Pranab Naik* was puzzled when the letter first arrived. It was a show-cause notice from the Income Tax (I-T) department. Naik, who runs an eight-year-old content company, had received the notice for a delay in payment of tax deducted at source (TDS). Naik admits there was a five-month delay in paying TDS. “It happened around…
“Dear Amit, we’re sad to know that you applied for a job with our competitor, Acme Online. But you’re a valued member of our team. So we’re increasing your salary by 25%. And throwing in an extra week of paid leave annually. Love, HR.” Wait, what? How did your company’s HR come to know about…
Five Star goes after customers who are usually single-shop owners like kiranas or barbers or self-employed, like plumbers and electricians. Rangarajan says, even though the ticket size of Rs 3-4 lakhs seems small, that’s the size of loan their customer needs. They recover the loan over a 5 to 7-year period. Longer tenures typically help…