Business
Strong delivery segment growth likely in 2022 as online shopping behaviour takes roots among consumers: Vahan
Despite the growing cases of the highly infectious Omicron variant of Covid-19 across the country, India’s flourishing blue-collar segment is anticipating higher demand growth for blue-collar workers across the delivery category in 2022.
Although this developing situation has raised some uncertainty of a possible third wave, there is a strong likelihood of it manifesting itself through/accelerating shift in consumer behaviour towards a more digital world and triggering lasting changes in online shopping behaviours.
Vahan, a technology startup that enables companies to hire blue-collar workers at scale, sees the year 2022 as one of further acceptance of online shopping behaviours by consumers across categories. The company believes that this emerging situation will lend support to a massive surge in demand for delivery workers where metros will contribute over 60 per cent of the overall demand in 2022 followed by tier two and tier three cities.
Vahan witnessed rapid demand for delivery workers in the August to November 1st week period last year fuelled by contests, discounts, incentives, etc. running across the board around the IPL season and T20 world cup.
A rapidly growing cohort of consumers identifies speed, convenience, and quality as the most important elements of a positive customer experience. This trend is likely to hold true in the near future where grocery delivery service providers will extend quick commerce service to attract and retain customers.
Vahan data shows that the grocery delivery service providers offered quick commerce and narrowed the delivery radius to 2-3 km during the festive season last year.
This stoked cyclist demand and brought more temporary workers thereby increasing the hiring pool. The company is expecting a month-on-month increase in demand close to 30 per cent across industries in 2022 as against 25 per cent across industries in 2021 with the food delivery category as the major contributor.
Bike taxis and food and grocery delivery have lent heft to the booming e-commerce industry in India. This has been corroborated by Vahan’s data which shows that companies hired almost double of their business-as-usual (BAU) numbers in the festive period of 2021.
As per Vahan, bike taxis emerged as a preferred mode of commute during the pandemic period and its sustained demand in the August to November 1 st week period indicates changing travel patterns of consumers at large. Vahan expects bike taxis to gain more popularity in 2022 with demand coming from all across the country and an upward spiral in demand for e-commerce in tier 2 and 3 cities with rising Internet penetration pan India and consequent changes in consumer buying habits.
The year 2021 was marked by the increasing focus of organisations in the delivery space to achieve gender parity at the workplace. This indicated a change in perception that delivery work is not appropriate for women. This trend is likely to take root in 2022 onwards and open space for the women to enhance their contribution to the delivery segment to 15 per cent in 2022 up from around 7-10 per cent of the overall hiring requirement per month of delivery staff across industries from food delivery to e-commerce in 2021.
According to Madhav Krishna, Co-founder and CEO, Vahan, “The blue-collar job market in India is set to repeat its astounding growth performance in 2022 as online shopping behaviour and preference for speedy delivery takes root in the country. Vahan, with its technology enabled recruitment platform which seamlessly connect employers and delivery workers effectively, with speed and at an unprecedented scale is clearly sitting in a sweet spot given the growing number of organisations embracing delivery model and increasing number of blue-collar workers wake up to a new dawn of comfort and convenience online recruitment portals like Vahan brings to them.”
India has over 250 million blue-collared workers, and this number is growing with a decline in agricultural employment and the addition of around 7-8 million new college graduates to the workforce every year, 60 per cent of which lack employability skills and end up joining the blue/grey-collar workforce. This presents a massive opportunity for placement in the blue-collar industry.
Interest in Vahan’s placement solution is high. It is currently recruiting 10,000+ people a month and is set to become India’s largest blue-collar recruitment platform in 2022.
Business
India Set To Lead The World In 6G, Says Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia
In a bold declaration at the inaugural address of the Indian Mobile Congress 2024 (IMC) on Tuesday, Union Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya M. Scindia has said that India will lead the world in the adoption of 6G.
In his address at the event, Scindia emphasized that India is now prepared to lead the world in the development of 6G technology.
India’s Technological Rise: From Following to Leading
“It is our belief and commitment that India, which followed the world in 4G and marched with it in 5G, will lead the world in 6G,” Scindia stated.
The minister highlighted India’s remarkable achievements in the telecommunications sector over the last ten years, the country has become a global leader in innovation and technology.
“It’s a fundamental change in approach towards technology development,” he said, attributing this transformation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.
Telecom Sector Growth Under PM Modi’s Leadership
“Prime Minister who has always put people at the heart of progress Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas Sabka Vishvas aur Sabka Prayas combined with his second motto, One Earth, One Family and One Future. It is combination of these two mottos that leads India under PM Narendra Modi leadership one of the leading sectors in the committee of Nations,” Scindia said.
Scindia underscored government’s initiatives to bridge the digital divide, particularly through the BharatNet program, the world’s largest rural broadband connectivity initiative to connect every panchayat of the nation. Over the past three years, the government has invested more than USD 10 billion and laid 7 lakh kilometres of fiber across rural India.
Digital Payments and UPI: Pillars of India’s Digital Economy
He cited staggering growth in mobile and broadband connectivity, with mobile connections rising from 94 million to 1.16 billion, and broadband users growing from 60 million to 924 million in just a decade. India’s optical fibre cable (OFC) networks has expanded from 11 million kilometers to 41 million kilometres over the last ten years, he added.
The minister further said that this growth is accompanied by the success of India’s digital payment systems, the 4G stack, and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which serve as pillars of India’s digital economy are expected to contribute significantly to the global digital infrastructure.
Scindia further noted that the government’s efforts to ensure that policy frameworks keep pace with the rapidly evolving digital landscape. “The recent changes to the Telecommunications act 2023 is a case in point. It has been drawing light upon hither to undressed areas such as a high potential sector of satellite communications, addressing the challenges of the digital leader. The most important being cyber security. The telecom sector much like other growth critical sectors in India is aggressive, is ambitioushe said.
“The telecom sector much like other growth critical sectors in India is aggressive, is ambitious and its outlook in our Journey from Amritkal to Shatabdikal is to lead the world,” Scindia said. By mid-next year, India will have achieved 100 per cent saturation of 4G across the entire country, covering even the most remote villages, the minister said.
He emphasised PM Modi’s vision of India as a first mover in 6G technology, underscoring the nation’s resolve to lead the world in future telecom innovations.
“The attitude put forward by the prime minister of not just embracing, but raising ourselves to becoming the first mover in the 6G technology,” he added.
Business
Indian Markets Gave Better Returns Than China In Last 5 Years, Says Sebi Member
Sebi Whole-time Member Ananth Narayan G on Monday reminded investors that Indian equities have consistently delivered 15 per cent returns over the last 5 years whereas the same has been zero or even negative in China.
Terming the Indian markets “sone pe suhaga” for delivering higher returns for lower risks, Narayan also flagged a few areas of caution for investors and asked them to be conscious of the risks.
“There’s a lot of talk about China markets over the last few days. But over the last five years, while Indian markets have given around 15 per cent compound annual growth rate consistently, Chinese markets are nowhere close to that. It’s almost zero. In fact, in some cases, like in Hong Kong, it’s actually negative,” Narayan said.
Speaking at an event marking the start of the Investor Awareness Week at NSE, Narayan said FY24 was a “remarkable” year for India, with the benchmark indices returning 28 per cent and the volatility just 10 per cent.
“That’s like ‘sone pe suhaga’. It’s like the best of all worlds: low risk and very high return,” Narayan said, underlining that there are side effects of this as well.
Making it clear that it will not be the same going forward and investors should not assume it to be a one-way street, Narayan said such handsome returns can lead to complacency and pointed to a lot of youngsters opening up demat accounts to join the bandwagon.
Educating people about risks is very important, Narayan said, giving the analogy of driving a car. “There has to be a light push on the accelerator to get more investors to provide risk capital for the economic growth, we also need to be aware of risks and use the brakes if need be.” He said that 40 per cent of the small and midcap scrips have shot up by 5 times in the last five years, because of an imbalance between inflow of investor money and supply of new paper.
On its part, the capital markets regulator is trying hard to ensure that fund-raising clearances are done early so that there is a steady stream of quality paper supply in the market.
From a broader, longer-term perspective, Indian markets will only go north from here given the economic growth prospects in the country, Narayan said, issuing specific advice to investors.
Investors need to have the right intermediaries to capitalise on this opportunity presented by India, and not fall for the unregistered and fly-by-night ‘finfluencers’ who might be driven by vested interests, he said.
Using the oft-repeated idiom of “all roads lead to Rome”, Narayan remarked that Rome is not a traveller-friendly place and one may get scammed there as well. Therefore, it is important to seek advice from the right people for the investors, he said.
He also said that it is in investors’ interests to trade less and stay invested for longer for higher returns, and added that studies prove the same.
Sebi, which has flagged certain areas like derivatives recently, is not against speculation or participants taking short-term trades, but it would want investors to understand the risks, Narayan said.
Business
Ratan Tata Rubbishes Rumors Of ‘Critical Health’; Says No Cause For Concern
Tata Group’s Ratan Tata has denied rumours of his critical health that have been reported and have surfaced in the recent hours.
Ratan Tata’s associates took to his official Instagram account to debunk the news of him being ‘Critical’.
In the post, Ratan Tata said, “I am aware of recent rumors circulating regarding my health and want to assure everyone that these claims are unfounded. I am currently undergoing medical check-ups due to my age and related medical conditions.
There is no cause for concern. I remain in good spirits and request that the public and media respect refrain from spreading misinformation.
For more than fifty years, Ratan Tata has led the Indian business community’s entrance hall. The 86-year-old has been suffering from illnesses associated with ageing. Tata has participated in social life to the best of his limited ability despite his health issues.
Recently, on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, on October 2, Ratan Tata, expressed his congratulations to the Prime Minister on this occasion. “I congratulate the honourable Prime Minister on the 10-year commemoration of programmes that have benefitted millions in rural India.”
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