Amazon, At no. 1 position in India

Just two and a half years after launching, Amazon has staked claim to ecommerce supremacy in India. According to a press release Amazon issued Dec. 14, Amazon.in became the most visited ecommerce site in India in October 2015, which includes the busy Diwali shopping season, according to the global analytics firm comScore.ComScore’s numbers do show that Amazon.in had 30.1 million visitors in October, and surpassed Flipkart.com (just under 27 million visitors) in monthly visitors for the second time in 2015 (In May, Amazon.in topped Flipkart.com by about 100,000 visitors).“This is a huge milestone, and we’re all raising a glass to toast our colleagues in India,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “Customer response like this is so energizing for us, and we’re grateful. Customers and sellers can count on us to continue innovating and investing heavily in India – it’s very much still Day One at Amazon.in.”But is Amazon telling the whole truth about being Number 1 in India, or is it just using comScore’s numbers as an excuse to run a celebration sale in the U.S. with 50% off a selection of Bollywood digital videos at Amazon.com, as it says in a press release?Adam Lella, Senior Analyst, Marketing Insights for comScore, Inc., told Multichannel Merchant via email that its figures are based on desktop visits, which includes desktops and laptops, but does not include smartphone and tablet visits.And as Multichannel Merchant has documented, India’s ecommerce customers are largely mobile-first.In April, Flipkart co-founders Sachin and Binny Bansal told Ystats.com that they expect to be largely a mobile-based ecommerce company in a couple of years. The Times of India also reported that Flipkart will be shutting down its ecommerce site within a year and move to an app-only format.“Last year, we had more on the app, but still did our web and desktop.  In the next year or so, we’re going to be only mobile,”Michael Adnani, vice president for retail and head of brand alliances at Flipkart told The Times of India. “A year ago, 6% of our traffic was coming from mobile. In less than 18 months, that traffic is tenfold. That shows the significance of what a mobile phone is doing for the consumers and consequently doing for us.”On top of the comScore report, Amazon’s press releae claims that the app analytics firm App Annie reported that Amazon.in app downloads grew by over 200% year-over-year in October.According to the App Annie database, as of Dec. 17, Amazon is the 5th most-popular iPhone free shopping app in India, while Flipkart is ranked number-two. Wish is the most-popular free shopping app for the iPhone in India, according to the App Annie database.Ecommerce marketplaces are on the rise in India, and sales there are growing faster than those in China.

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Flipkart Beats Amazon In Terms Of Diwali Traffic

 The Indian e-commerce industry has already witnessed plenty of fireworks much before Diwali crackers have started bursting. As the online festive discount season draws to a close, it seems Flipkart is ahead of the rest in terms of traffic, in spite of the consumer backlash that it had to face on October 6.

The biggest rival for Flipkart, Amazon, which concluded its week-long Diwali Dhamaka on October 16, witnessed a 200 per cent (two-fold) jump in its traffic on the first day of the week long sale, the company said. For Flipkart, the growth in traffic was 10 times that of a normal day on October 6. Incidentally, traffic growth doesn't always translate into higher sales as one might not finally order a product after visiting the site. On actual sales, Flipkart said it had a GMV (gross merchandise value) of $100 million on the Big Billion Day (October 6). Given that Flipkart had achieved sales of $1 billion in annual GMV in 2013-14, its average daily sales last financial year should have been about $2.7 million. So, Flipkart recorded almost 40-times growth in sales on October 6, going by the numbers given by the company. Amazon does not share its GMV. 

Experts say that Flipkart as an Indian brand generates more expectations when it comes to deals and discounts. "They are seen as more street smart as a brand when compared to Amazon which is known internationally for quality service and consumer satisfaction rather than discounts," Santosh Desai, MD & CEO, Future Brands, had told this newspaper recently. However, many are also of the view that loyalty is rarely witnessed in online buying patterns and the cheapest deals would find the highest takers. And, Flipkart mostly offered deeper discounts than its rivals.

While the guerilla campaign over Diwali sales were primarily built by Flipkart and Amazon, Delhi-based Snapdeal turned out to be a smart gainer. Snapdeal not only gained positive reviews on social networking sites, it was also the top trending topic on Twitter on October 6.

It witnessed a 15-times growth in traffic on Flipart's Big Billion Day and announced sales worth Rs 1 crore a minute.

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Gartner Predicts Positive Modi Effect On e-India

Prime minister narendra Modi’s much-hailed ‘Digital India’ initiative, which earned a vote of confidence from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (who met the PM in early October) is expected to boost the government’s IT spending by 5 percent to $7.2 billion in 2015, estimates technology research firm Gartner.

A chunk of these expenses is expected to be incurred in the revving up of external IT services and telecommunications, the development of broadband and cloud-based initiatives, and the creation of digitally-governed smart cities across the country.

Anurag Gupta, research director, Gartner, said in a statement, “The delivery of a citizen-centric and transparent government is only possible through the extensive use of technology and by leveraging digital government.”

Gartner also identified the top strategic technology trends for 2015 in its report. It defines “strategic trends” as those that are likely to have a significant impact on an organisation for the next three years and have “a high potential for disruption of the business [for both end users and IT] and the need for a major investment”.

Gartner analyst David Cearley noted that “the merging of the real and virtual worlds, the advent of intelligence everywhere, and the technology impact of the digital business shift” will define tech in the coming year.

Some of the trends to watch out for are:

• Computing everywhere with the rise of handheld devices
• Rise of 3D printing
• Advanced analytics with every app becoming an ‘analytic app’
• Convergence of cloud and mobile computing
• Growth of ‘smart machines’ in which advanced algorithms will allow systems to understand their environment, learn for themselves, and act autonomously
• Advent of ‘web-scale IT’, a pattern of computing that delivers the capabilities of large cloud service providers within an enterprise IT setting
• Risk-based security and self-protection

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Cisco Chairman John Chambers Bullish On India

 Pinning hopes on the new NDA government, global tech major Cisco chairman John Chambers today said he is is quite bullish on India and expressed confidence that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will drive reforms and deliver.

"The change in government, I think Prime Minister Modi is going to be a great leader...I am extremely optimistic about this leadership change in India and the future of the country," he said at the Internet of Things (IoT) Conference here.

I see an openess to really make a difference, he said. The three-time Gujarat Chief Minister steered the BJP to a landslide victory in general elections, with the party winning an absolute majority in Parliament. It is the first time since 1984 that a single party has won a majority on its own.

Asked if there is perceived change in business confidence, he said, "most of the challenges that existed in India was self-inflicted. So I think you are going to see great economic opportunity and good environment for business if they execute right.

He expressed hope that India will accelerate growth to 7-8 per cent.

Among emerging markets, Chambers said he is betting most on India, adding, "I have been very public in my comments that emerging markets are going through some tough times."

Cisco has about 12,000 employees in India across cities like Bangalore, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune and Hyderabad. Of these, 8,000 people are part of the R&D set up.

Although the company gets about 2 per cent of its over $48 billion global revenues from India, it is confident of this share growing.

It expects to garner 5 per cent of its revenues from the Indian market in the next five years with business targeted to grow over 20 per cent during the period.

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Flipkart Looks To Restructure Team, Focus On Marketplace

 Flipkart, which adopted an online marketplace model in letter a year ago, has now set into motion actions to embrace it in spirit too.

Even after it technically became an online marketplace last year, a bulk of the goods sold on its site were through a former subsidiary, WS Retail. But India’s largest online retailer wants to change that and is taking steps through an internal restructuring to make its marketplace that serves as a platform for other merchants to sell their wares more effective.

This conscious embrace of the marketplace model will make it easier for the Bangalore-based company to achieve its target of having at least 10 times more merchants on its platform within a year. Flipkart had about 4,500 merchants earlier this year, much less than its rivals Snapdeal or Amazon.

“They want to make the marketplace more competitive and hence are giving it more teeth,” said one person who is directly involved with the process.

Flipkart did not respond to emailed queries. The company had started out as a direct retailer of products, but as regulations made it mandatory ecommerce firms with foreign ownership to operate a marketplace model, it opened up its platform to third-party sellers last year.

Flipkart had registered Flipkart Marketplace Pvt Ltd in 2012, but internally the marketplace team was just another vertical. Now that is set to change.

“A completely new structure is being created for marketplace and a team is being built for this. New hires for this will run into a few hundreds,” said another person, who works with Flipkart in an advisory capacity.

The company, which has about 14,000 employees, has earlier declared its intention to increase its headcount to over 25,000. Its marketplace head Ankit Nagori was promoted to senior vice president this year.

Experts said the move to be more aggressive on the marketplace front is a step in the right direction. “A stronger marketplace focus can give e-tailers an opportunity to attract more customers and a larger product base allows platforms to up sell and cross sell,” said Harish HV, partner at financial advisory firm Grant Thornton India.

One of the sources said “there is a de risking aspect as well,” in the move. “WS Retail is now completely owned by a different set of people and Flipkart has no legal control over it, so it makes sense to start leveraging other merchants on its platform,” said the person.

WS Retail accounts for as much as 80 per cent of Flipkart’s sales, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the company’s sales. Flipkart is targeting $3 billion (Rs 18,500 crore) in overall sales this fiscal, but has not revealed how much of this will come from WS Retail. Most of the products sold exclusively, such as Moto G phones, are also through WS Retail.

Flipkart has created a maze of complex legal structures for regulatory purposes, said a legal advisor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“It has a wholesale arm, a marketplace and has spun out what was earlier its subsidiary business-to-consumer company (WS Retail) into a completely different legal entity.”

Under Indian regulations, an online company with foreign investment cannot retail directly and can only offer a platform.

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Dedicated e-Store To Help Microsoft Harness India Market

 Microsoft is the latest to join ranks of big brands launching their e-commerce stores in India. The company could launch the site as early as November, said a person who is working on the project. Microsoft operates an international online store that ships to multiple countries. The site sells all Microsoft products from software like its Office suite to its Xbox in markets like the US. However, in India, it just offers its software downloads through the global site.

This will change once the India-focused site opens up. "They wanted to launch microsoftstore. in before Diwali but that is not going to happen. It will open up towards the end of November and will offer all the products of the company," said a person, who has knowledge of the plans. Last year, Microsoft launched an online flagship store on Chinese marketplace TMall. The company did not deny or confirm the development.

'We do not have anything to share at this stage," a company spokesperson said. A number of traditional retailers have recently launched their own e-tailing ventures.

The over eight-decade-old textile and apparel company Arvind Ltd launched customclothing site Creyate in August. It is set to launch a multi-brand online store next year. The Aditya Birla Group is also set to launch ecommerce businesses.

"The online channel has become too big for Microsoft to ignore. They know there might be cannibalisation of offline channel but they are willing to take that risk," said one of the people who briefed ETon the matter. Online retail sales accounts for just 0.4 per cent of the overall retail market. However, it is expected to account for 3 per cent of the overall market and reach $32 billion ( Rs 1.96 lakh crore) in size by 2020, according to retail advisory firm Technopak.

Experts said India's massive market ensures that there is enough space for both traditional brick-and-mortar retail and ecommerce. "Even if customers do research on the company's ecommerce site and then buy the product elsewhere, it is still win-win for the brand," said Pinakiranjan Mishra, partner and national leader (retail and consumer products) at consulting services firm EY. He said an own e-store will help brands provide better information and price transparency.

"If a brand has its own site, it directly gets valuable customer data," said Mishra. "On another online portal the customer data does not belong to the brand." Microsoft earned revenue of $86.83 billion (Rs 5.3 lakh crore) last fiscal.

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CMC To Merge With Tata Consultancy Services

 IT firm CMC today said it will be merged with India's largest software services firm Tata Consultancy Services.

"The Board of Directors of CMC and TCS have approved the amalgamation of CMC with TCS pursuant to and subject to the provisions of Sections 391 to 394 of the Companies Act, 1956," CMC said in a filing to the BSE.

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Amazon To Hire 80000 Seasonal Employees

 Amazon has said it would hire 80,000 seasonal employees in the United States to help with an expected flood of holiday sales. 

The figure is 10,000 more than Amazon announced last year. Amazon is adding employees in its warehouses and other centers that manage sales and deliveries, and noted that it offers "competitive hourly wages and a comprehensive benefits package." 

Some of these employees will be kept after the holiday season, Amazon said, noting that 10,000 of those hired for seasonal jobs last year were retained for permanent positions. 

"We're excited to be creating 80,000 seasonal jobs, thousands of which will lead to regular, full-time roles with benefits starting on day one and innovative programs like Career Choice for employees to further pursue their education," said Amazon vice president Mike Roth. 

Amazon now has more than 50 'fulfillment centers' which manage product deliveries in the United States and will have more than 15 sorting centers by the end of 2014. 

Amazon is also reportedly set to open physical brick-and-mortar stores in some cities for the first time, possibly as 'pop-up' locations that would operate only for a few weeks. 

The US National Retail Federation has said it expects a 4.1% rise in holiday shopping purchases this year.

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Placement Season: Startups To Hire Most Freshers From IITs

 Flush with a record billion-dollars-plus raised during the first nine months of this year, dozens of startups are making a beeline for IIT placement season set to kick off in December this year. 

Already, the number of startups who have enrolled for the campus placement season this year has doubled or trebled at many IITs, according to campus sources. 

For example, IIT Madras which had only seven startups last year, expects at least 30 to come calling this year. "Over 14 startups have already registered, out of which 11 will hire exclusively from us," Vishranth Suresh, academic affairs secretary, IIT Madras, said. Similarly, at IIT Kanpur, 35 startups have already registered for this placement season, with the final tally expected to cross 45. Only 24 visited the campus last year. 

The presence of such a large number of cash-rich startups will cause a fierce talent war with well-known recruiters like Google, Oracle, Samsung, Schlumberger and Goldman Sachs for the best among the 9,000-plus students who will graduate from 16 IITs next year. Many startups are first-timers at the IIT placements. Two-to-four-year-old companies are offering Rs 12-15 lakh pay packages, on a par with salaries offered by core companies and IT firms, a placement coordinator at one of the older IITs said.

Campus and industry sources believe startups could upstage larger companies. "Startups are the ones providing problem-solving opportunities that can have an immediate impact to students early on in their career," Sandeep Murthy, partner at venture capital firm Lightbox Ventures, said. 

"Till a couple of years ago, the pecking order for an IIT student was an MNC, then a product development company and finally, an IT firm. Now, because of the job exposure, competitive salary and challenging work environment, startups are on a par with MNCs," Sharad Sharma, angel investor and co-founder of iSpirt, a think tank for software product companies, added. 

Students know MNCs consider a startup work experience favourably should they switch jobs later. 

Zomato, Myntra, Wooqer, Housing. com, TinyOwl, Gram Power, Monraft, Browser Stack, Maxheap Technologies (Commonfloor), Rays Power Experts, Olacabs, Continuum Energy, Indus Insights, Red Bus and Hike are among the startups that have registered so far. Many of these have IIT alumni as founders or cofounders and recruiting from alma mater is part of their strategy. 

"A major chunk of the recent startups are either tech-based or have an analytics-related work profile, and hence, engineering colleges seem to be the first choice," Mohak Mehta, placement manager for the placement cell of IIT Bombay, said. 

"The 60 core firms are staple, but 30 startups will be the real gamechangers," said a senior placement team member of IIT Roorkee. From 15 new-age companies last year, this IIT plans to get 35 this year, while 22 have already registered. 

"There has been a huge increase in student interest in joining startups," Aditya Jain, a fourth-year student of IIT Kanpur, who is also part of the placement team, said. "These startups provide a really good learning opportunity across domains; and in particular, serve as a great learning ground for those interested in launching their own ventures. It's good exposure and since many startups are scaling up so fast, the growth opportunity is that much more," he added. 

Flipkart, one of the largest recruiters from campus last year, has registered itself under category of 'Private IT Company' in some of the IITs rather than as a startup. 

"We expect to hire 50-100 people in the next six months, mostly on campus," Saurabh Sharma, cofounder and CEO of Gurgaon based Big Data firm Indus Insights, a five-year-old firm, said. 

In the first nine months of this year, 189 early-stage deals worth Rs 6,764 crore were struck. This is significantly higher than the deal flow for all of 2013, when there were 179 deals worth Rs 3,900 crore. All the money raised will come in handy as ammunition in the war for IIT talent this placement season 

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100 Ex-Infosys Respond To Sikkas Call, To Join Company Again

 More than 100 former Infosys executives are returning to the company, heeding new CEO Vishal Sikka's call to them to rejoin the one-time software industry bellwether in what could be a big confidence booster in its efforts to attract fresh talent and prevent existing employees from jumping ship.

Once an employer of choice in India, Infosys steadily lost that status in the past couple of years, hemorrhaged talent, including at senior levels, and left it with industry-leading attrition levels that has seen almost one in five employees leave the company.

After Sikka took charge of Infosys on August 1, one of his first actions was to issue an open call to former Infosys employees to come back to the company. In an email titled "A new beginning", Sikka urged former employees to consider joining back, saying: "Our focus on finding new, exciting ways of working together has never been stronger. I have often heard it said that once an Infoscion, always an Infoscion. Friend, you stand testimony to this fact, and I know I can look forward to our continued association and your support as an ambassador for Infosys."

That plea has since started yielding results, with the number of returnees, which stood in the low teens on average in the last 12 months, now steadily rising. Infosys has long had a programme called "Green Channel" to woo back former employees into the company, but this time around special care is being put to make their return smooth.

"There has been an overwhelmingly positive response to the messages that have gone out to former Infoscions," confirmed Srikantan Moorthy, executive vicepresident and head of human resources at Infosys. "I don't have a definitive number because these are all people that apply for a position and then we look through and see how many have applied that were former Infoscions. But I can definitely say it will be more than 100." He did not share details about the levels or roles at which people were returning or whether these included some high profile names.

This will be a shot in the arm for Sikka, who, in his first interview to ET since taking charge, had listed managing Infosys' high attrition levels as one of his main short-term challenges alongside reviving growth. For the quarter to end-September, attrition stood at 20.1 per cent or one in five employees had left the company. Return of former employees will be perceived as a sign of renewed confidence in the company, and help Sikka and his executive team to attract talent in their attempts at rebuilding Infosys.

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Flipkart After Sale Effect: ED Probing FDI Violations Rules In E-Commerce

  Enforcement directorate (ED) on Tuesday said it has not launched any probe into the massive discount sale by e-retail giant Flipkart last week but is continuing its earlier investigation into alleged violations of FDI rules in their e-commerce business. 

Refuting media reports that the recent online mega sale of Flipkart was being probed, an ED official said there is no truth in such media reports. 

In the wake of complaints from huge number of customers regarding alleged predatory prices on goods and unfair trade practices adopted by Flipkart, commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman had last week acknowledged that government had received complaints in this regard.

"We have received many inputs. Lot of concerns have been expressed. We will look into it," Sitharaman had told reporters here. 

Flipkart's 'Big Billion Day' online sale took place on October 6. 

A Flipkart spokesperson while reacting to the media reports said, "We are in complete compliance with the laws of the land and will cooperate with authorities when required." 

The ED, however, is probing allegations that Flipkart and other such e-retail companies violated the foreign direct investment (FDI) norms of e-commerce sector. 

As per the current policy, FDI is not allowed in domestic e-commerce companies conducting B2C (business-to-consumer) transactions while 100 per cent foreign investment is permitted in B2B (business-to-business).

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Indian Firms See Foreign Grads As More Job Ready

 Employers in India believe foreign university graduates have better technical skills for jobs, according to the India Employability report unveiled by The British Council.

The research surveyed 200 foreign and Indian companies on ascertaining the attractiveness of Indian and foreign university graduates for jobs on parameters such as skill-sets, availability and quality of talent pool. It revealed that 39 per cent of the respondents deemed far more graduates from foreign universities as better prepared for the job than those from Indian universities, perceiving them to require lesser extensive training, according to 14 per cent of employers.

Rob Lynes, director of the British Council spoke to Anumeha Chaturvedi about the findings.

Please explain the key findings.

This report is looking at employability of Indians in general. It is about what young people need to do to get jobs. The report looked at particularly those who studied in India or overseas and tried to assess whether the latter have an added advantage. With 200 respondents, it’s not a huge corpus to look at, but what the report does say is that some employers feel those who have studied overseas are better prepared for the job market. And this could be attributed to exposure, critical thinking abilities and better understanding of business concepts. These were employers who hired students with overseas experience. I guess it doesn’t make them better employees but gives them something extra. Even in the UK, we encourage people to get some exposure overseas. This is the first time we have looked at elements like employability in context of the Indian market.

What are the concerns regarding overseas education?

Higher education is becoming more transactional in nature. There are various courses and campuses education programmes and we hope that in future, there are more opportunities for such programmes for UK universities in India, so students don’t have to go overseas for foreign education. At the moment, it’s difficult in India. Massive Open Online Courses is another area if institutions have to reach out to large numbers. But, the catch there is quality. How do institutions accredit and certify certain courses? These are challenges institutions are going to face.

How are training interventions for institutions and companies panning out in India?

Soft skills are critical communication presentation skills, and these are essential for any job. Students may be academically brilliant but if you cannot communicate and engage you’ll find it difficult to survive. The British Council works broadly with 12 states in India. We train the trainers to teach language. We’ve had tie-ups with companies and higher institutions looking at soft skills training. There is a demand for that in India.

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Oracle Slapped With Bribery Charge In India

 Oracle India looks to be in the middle of yet another bribery issue, and multiple sources told TOI that Sandeep Mathur's sudden exit as managing director of the company is linked to this.

Mathur quit soon after returning from an Oracle conference in San Francisco earlier this month. Shailender Kumar, group VP of key accounts for Oracle India, has taken over as interim MD. 

This is the second such episode for Oracle in India. Two years ago, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had filed a complaint against Oracle alleging that the company's Indian subsidiary had possibly indulged in bribery or embezzlement. Oracle agreed to pay a $2 million penalty to settle the SEC's charges.

The latest concerns have allegedly been triggered by compliance issues arising from a database contract that Oracle had won from the Andhra Pradesh police department a few years back. TOI has learnt that the issue came to light when an anonymous whistleblower wrote an email to Oracle alleging that one of its channel partners violated its contract norms to win the contract. Sources said that action may be taken against several Oracle India officials. 

TOI sent a mail to Oracle detailing the charges being made, but the company said it would not comment on the matter. 

Mathur was responsible for multiple lines of business: technology, applications, systems and Fusion Middleware as well as driving growth across public sector and key accounts. Prior to his role as MD, he was VP of technology at Oracle India. Mathur joined Oracle in 2003 as director of Oracle Direct, North America sales. 

In the previous SEC investigation, it was found that Oracle India secretly parked with distributors a portion of the proceeds from certain sales to the Indian government and put the money to unauthorized use, creating the potential for bribery or embezzlement. Oracle India's distributors allegedly held approximately $2.2 million of the proceeds in unauthorized side funds. 

The SEC alleged that Oracle India employees would then direct its distributors to disburse payments out of the unauthorized side funds to purported local "vendors." "Several of the 'vendors' were merely storefronts that did not provide any services. Oracle failed to accurately record these side funds on the company's books and records, and failed to implement or maintain a system of effective internal accounting controls to prevent improper side funds in violation of the FCPA, which requires public companies to keep books and records that accurately reflect their operations," SEC said. 

Several MNCs operating in India have over the years been investigated for violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of the US that bars bribing officials of foreign governments. Following such an investigation of Walmart in Mexico, the retailer initiated an investigation in 2012 into allegations of bribery in its India unit. Several executives in the India unit were suspended and some quit.

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Indian Companies Among Biggest Victims Of Cyber Attacks

 Companies in China, Hong Kong and India have reported the highest number of cyberattacks linked to nation-states, causing an estimated average financial loss of USD 2.7 million globally, according to a new survey.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers in 'The Global State of Information Security Survey 2015' has said the number of respondents who say they have been compromised by nation-states has increased by a huge 86%.

The survey found a striking 64% jump in security incidents attributed to competitors, some of whom may be backed by nation-states.

"Given the ability of nation-state adversaries to carry out attacks without detection, we believe the volume of compromises is very likely under-reported," it said.

Nation-state driven cyberattacks are routinely conducted on a global scale to defend national sovereignty and project national power.

Nation-states often target critical infrastructure providers and supplies to steal IP and trade secrets as a means to advance their own political and economic advantages, the survey said.

Globally, the estimated average financial loss from cyber incidents was USD2.7 million, a 34% increase over 2013.

"It isn't surprising, therefore, to find that nation-state incidents are most frequent among sectors such as oil and gas (11%), aerospace and defence (9%), technology (9%) and telecommunications (8%)," said PWC.

This year, 15% of survey respondents cited organized crime as a source of incidents, up from 12% last year.

By region, theft by organized criminals was particularly high in Malaysia (35%), India (22%) and Brazil (18%).

Globally, 59% of the respondents say their organizations' executives are worried about government surveillance. Concerns are markedly higher in China (93%), India (83%) and Brazil (77%).

Over 9,700 respondents said the number of cyber incidents detected increased at a compound annual rate of 66% since 2009. As the frequency of cyber incidents have risen so too has the reported costs of managing and mitigating them.

The survey cited a recent study by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies estimating annual cost of cybercrime to the global economy in the range of USS375 billion and USD575 billion.

"Despite greater awareness of cybersecurity incidents, global information security budgets actually decreased 4% compared with 2013," said Vincent Loy, cyber risk leader, at PwC Singapore.

"We know that it can cost much more to remediate cyber incidents than prevent them, so it seems counterintuitive that organizations would choose to invest less overall," he said.

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The Tech Story Behind Flipkart Big Billion Sale

 Around two and half months before the Big Billion sale day the IT team of Flipkart started focusing on the project. The biggest challenge was to scale up the IT infrastructure to match the 20 to25 times spike in the traffic they were expecting.

Controlling mobile application remotely was another challenge for the e-tailer. The IT team wanted to create a new buying experience for the day. They had to roll out the new features on all mobile platform on the same day.

On the D-day it turned out that Flipkart's calculation was not upto the mark. The management, it seems, did not have fair idea about the expectation of customer and growing popularity of their brand

  "It was our first time. We had no prior experience, all we had to look upto was our pervious experience of flash sale of mobile handsets" said Amod Malviya, Chief Technology Officer, Flipkart.

The engineering company, as Flipkart founders call themselves, had added 4500 servers permanently to its compute capacity to create an internal hybrid cloud to manage the traffic.

As the spike in the traffic was higher than expected a few of the services were affected.

Product service, which leads a buyer to add product to shopping kart, was badly hit because of the humongous traffic. The error affected almost 30% of the buyers during the early sale.

The IT team had to reshuffle compute resources to ensure the service remains live. As a result they have to suspend review and rating services, which they could have easily afforded.

"Another calculation that went wrong was the duration of spike in the traffic. We were expecting spike for few hours only. But actually, it lasted through out the day and started dying around end of the day" Malviya told to ETCIO in a video chat from Bangalore.

The company, expecting a high amount of cyber attack, has also created a separate team for digital security.

One of the beauties of the entire planning was preparation for failure. The IT team has created a contingency plan, as they knew that failures were bound to happen. Whenever, their was a failure a team of engineers was dedicated to ensure the services remain live and while another set just focused on fixing the bug.

As many as 500 engineers worked through out the day.

The company will now re-allocate the new storage capacity for internal use.

"One of the key lessons that we have learnt is to create a better transparency mechanism for such day. Also we need to have a strong testing mechanism for the services and applications that we roll out" concluded Malviya

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Flipkart Aims To Win Back Customers, Vendors Via Sops

 Flipkart is planning a slew of measures to win back customers and vendors who were left fuming after several glitches marred the online retailer's massive Big Billion Day sale on Monday.

The Bangalore-based company will now offer gift coupons to customers who were unable to buy products at advertised prices and earmark specific dates beginning tomorrow for vendors to showcase wares on the marketplace.

"We are sourcing additional stock in some categories or offering refunds," said Mukesh Bansal, board member of Flipkart. For instance, the company is arranging for additional stock of televisions that will be offered to customers at the discounted prices. "Importantly, we are putting in place processes to ensure this does not happen again."
Bansal, who heads fashion at Flipkart, said the company is using the data they got on Monday to make stock forecasting more robust. It is also in talks with payment gateways to ensure that transaction failures are not repeated.

These processes will soon be put to the test as the company is set to launch its second big sale on Friday. The sale will last until October 16. "We had over five times our usual sale on Monday. We could have sold more but they blocked orders," said a fashion merchant on Flipkart, who did not want to be named.

Bansal confirmed that Flipkart would have an additional sales event, but declined to share specifics.

The largest merchant on the Flipkart marketplace, WS Retail, is expected to have minimum involvement in the new sale that will kick-off on Friday. "The deals of other merchants will have prominence," said a person who directly involved with the planning.

According to filings with the ministry of corporate affairs, WS Retail "sources products from Flipkart India Private Limited under a valid and non-exclusive supply agreement and resells it to the end-customer on the e-commerce marketplace platform www.flipkart.com."

The sale will coincide with Amazon's big Diwali sale. Experts said such steps are necessary. "They need to take these steps to correct their image, otherwise it will affect future sales," said Saurabh Srivastava, director at director at advisory firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) India.

Flipkart's team is also in talks with brands that have been vocal about their displeasure over the steep discounts, said a person who did not want to be named. Electronics giants like Sony and LG have made known their ire about the selling practices of e-tailers. PwC's Srivastava said despite the threats brands cannot ignore e-commerce anymore.

"Brands need brick-and-mortar and ecommerce. They are trying to keep both happy," said Srivastava. Flipkart sold $100 million worth of products on Monday, while rival Snapdeal said it registered sales of over Rs 1 crore every minute on the same day.

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Amazon In Talks To Acquire Jabong

 Amazon is in preliminary talks to buy Jabong, part of the US-based online retailer's plan to bolster its presence selling fashion products, four people aware of the discussions told ET. 

Jabong is one of the fashion portals that Amazon is interested in acquiring and Jabong has other suitors, the sources said, cautioning that a deal is not imminent. A regulatory filing by Rocket Internet, which incubated Jabong, put the value of the fashion portal at 388 million euros, or $500 million (Rs 3,000 crore). 

A person with direct knowledge of negotiations said that Jabong is holding out for much more — at least $700 million. Amazon said it does "not comment on anything we may or may not do in the future." Jabong did not reply to emailed questions. 

Deal to be complicated
"After Myntra got acquired by Flipkart, Jabong is the ideal candidate," said a person who is working closely with Amazon on the negotiation. A big chunk of the $2 billion that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has promised to invest in India is meant for acquisitions, this person said. Amazon is battling leader Flipkart for dominance in one of the world's fastest-growing markets for online retail, expected to reach Rs 50,000 crore by 2016 according to consultancy Crisil.


Last month, Bezos told ET that the value of goods sold by Amazon India in a year had topped $1 billion and that fashion was one of the "exciting frontiers" for the Seattlebased company. Jabong, which counts Germany's Rocket Internet and Swedish investment firm Kinnevik among its investors, is the second-largest fashion portal in India after Myntra, which was acquired by Flipkart in May for an estimated value of $370 million. 

According to industry estimates, the Flipkart-Myntra combine has a market share of over 50% in fashion retail and Jabong 25%. Fashionara and Limeroad are the other significant fashion portals. ET has not been able to establish if they are in talks with Amazon. For Amazon, getting it right in India is vital to its fortunes, especially because its presence in China is negligible where Alibaba dominates. 

And the key to getting it right in India lies in fashion, the fastest-growing category for online retailers. According to retail consultancy Technopak, fashion accounts for 25% of the online retail industry's sales. To boot, operating margins in fashion are around 35% in an industry where gross margins are in negative territory. 

Amazon India started offering fashion products on its marketplace in May, and an acquisition offers a swift route to scaling up. In the United States, Amazon chose a similar strategy to improve its fashion credentials by buying Zappos in 2009. Shares of UK-based clothing portal Asos have been on the rise after rumours of an acquisition by Amazon. 

A deal with Jabong, while it may be desirable, will be complicated, said a source who is directly involved in the talks. The complication arises from the fact that in September, investors Rocket and Kinnevik began the process of merging five of their international fashion ecommerce companies, including Jabong, into a single global entity.

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Forbes 2014 India Leadership Awards

 What happens when the choicest of business minds meet, converse and contemplate? A fine, insightful evening ensues…

From their favourite films to silent fears, India Inc’s brightest minds revealed much at the fourth edition of the Forbes India Leadership Awards (FILA) in Mumbai on Tuesday evening. Business honchos exhibiting candour is rare, but at FILA 2014, top entrepreneurs, bankers and chief executives of companies let their guards down. 

FILA’s nine awardees hail from different sectors of the industry, but have faced (and overcome) similar challenges — wrong strategies, fear of rejection by customers, social dogmas, apprehensions of failing a new client base, problems of scaling up, keeping personal and institutional independence aligned, and even something as nerve-wrecking as a terrorist attack. What unites them is their perseverance. 

For Naveen Tewari, whose InMobi won Outstanding Startup, the highs haven’t come without deep lows. InMobi started in 2007 as an SMS-based search platform, and then changed its business model. Today, it is the number one independent mobile advertising company tapping into 800 million mobile users every month in 165 countries. Its 2013 revenues stood at $200 million. For a company that eyes 100-200 percent growth every year, the challenge lies in giving up ideas as quickly as possible if they don’t have the potential to be billion-dollar-businesses in two years. 

“In the mobile internet world, we look at the opportunity at a very different scale and pace. Therefore, the failure for us is a lot more about giving up small opportunities for the larger ones. We hope that we fail more often because that’s when we will look at larger opportunities,” said Tewari, who was accompanied by his wife and InMobi co-founders Abhay Singhal, Amit Gupta and Mohit Saxena. The young promoter is not very fond of wearing formal suits but made an exception for FILA. “It also feels a little different because we have been forced to wear a suit for the first time. But it’s all right,” he said, on a lighter note. 

For Shriram Transport Finance, which won the Conscious Capitalist award, the challenge has been to rise above social dogmas and lend capital to a community of people who are doing great service to the society, but are not adequately financed. “There was a lack of financing opportunities for those entrepreneurs who have no access to formal financial system. They couldn’t even get into a bank because the doorman would not allow them in, and those were the people we were able to help to build a sustainable business,” said Arun Duggal, chairman, Shriram Transport Finance Company. 

Simplicity seems to be hallmark of the bespectacled Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, founder, chairman and managing director of Bandhan Financial Services. Clad in a sea-green shirt and brown trousers, the unassuming Ghosh received the loudest applause when he went on stage to receive the Entrepreneur with Social Impactaward. At Bandhan, he has managed to create a source of living for India's underprivileged, and is now looking to bring over 58 lakh unbanked customers under the banking purview.  

“In my 13-year journey, I have not forgotten my roots. So, even when we become a bank, I will stick to my roots. Along with them [13,000 employees], I would like to serve other people who are still not introduced to banking services and are unbanked in this country,” Ghosh said. 

FILA 2014 was not just about awarding people. There was a fair bit of brain-picking too. Harsh Mariwala, chairman, Marico, initiated an interesting three-minute Oxford-style debate on the topic: ‘Jugaad is innovation’. Novartis India country president Ranjit Shahani spoke against the motion, while Pawan Goenka, executive director and president – automotive and farm equipment sectors, Mahindra & Mahindra, spoke otherwise. Goenka said, “Jugaad is the concept of making the best in all limitations.” Seventy percent of the house agreed with him.  

For Arup Roy Choudhury, chairman and managing director, NTPC, keeping a track of the end goal and not getting wavered along the way is the success mantra. Roy Choudhury won Best CEO – Public Sector for shaking NTPC out of its complacency and increasing its power-generating capacity from 1,000 to 3,000 MW annually, in less than five years — the fastest ever in the history of India. Roy Choudhury, who came with a convoy of about eight people including one uniformed guard, believes there is no difference when it comes to working for a private firm or a public sector undertaking. "In the public sector, you are not working for one lala [bureaucrat], but many lalas,” he said, adding that as long as one is clear that one is working for a lala, and is answerable to him, a company will grow. 

For film buff Shikha Sharma, who heads Axis Bank, Casablanca has been most inspirational. Sharma won Best CEO –Private Sector and revealed that she manages to remain “a romantic at heart in the hard world of business”. She also called Casablanca the “ultimate romance”. 

Keita Muramatsu, president and chief executive, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, was declared the Best CEO – MNC. He said that gaining customer satisfaction would be Honda’s ticket to success in India’s competitive auto market. “Our drive is to improve customer satisfaction and make them choose our product against competition,” he said. 

The evening’s second Oxford-style debate moderated by Mariwala saw speakers assess the need for an exit policy for company managements. Anil Singhvi, chairman of Ican Investment Advisors, spoke for the motion, while Bobby Parikh, chief mentor and partner at BMR Advisors, said exit policies are already in place and need to be enforced rather than new legislations created. Sixty-eight percent of the house agreed with Singhvi on this. 

The new darling of private equity investors, Yogesh Mahansaria (founder and chief executive, Alliance Tire Group) was NextGen Entrepreneur for the Year, for having scaled up a niche, B2B business worldwide. Mahansari has also been successful in getting on board blue chip investors like Warburg Pincus and KKR. On being asked if he would like to change anything about PE investors, he said he has only benefitted from them in terms of gaining a global vision, increasing execution capabilities and building strategic partnerships. 

While most promoters grapple with business strategies going haywire and markets turning kaput, Prithvi Raj Singh 'Biki' Oberoi, executive chairman, EIH, the flagship company of The Oberoi Group, faced something almost shocking. His hotel, the Oberoi Trident in Mumbai, was the target of a devastating terror attack in 2008. “When I went to see [the hotel] after the attack, I was horrified. We didn’t show the building to anybody outside because it was such a disaster,” the octogenarian recalled, adding that till a month after 26/11, they didn’t know how to begin the rebuilding and renovation. The iconic hotelier, FILA 2014’s Lifetime Achievement awardee, received the sole standing ovation of the evening. 

The last (but in no way the least) award went to Dilip Shanghvi, managing director, Sun Pharmaceuticals. He was anointed Entrepreneur for the Year. The soft-spoken Shanghvi asserted that he isn’t preoccupied with being the number one pharma company in the world. “If becoming number one helps us manage our future better, we will do it,” he said. Shanghvi, who’s India’s second-richest man, remembered his father. “He used to say that if you make more money, you will become a richer person, but not a better person. Try to be a better person,” he said. And that, in no small measure, became the perfect note to end the evening on.

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