Meesho Partners With Cashfree Payments To Provide Instant Refunds To Customers

Meesho, India’s fastest growing internet commerce company, today announced its partnership with Cashfree Payments, India’s leading payments and API banking solutions company, to enable instant refunds for all Cash on Delivery (COD) orders placed via Meesho’s platform. This integration of Cashfree Payments is set to enhance the shopping experience of all Meesho users while also minimizing the need for manual intervention in certain orders.

Traditionally, in India, COD has been the preferred mode of payment especially for users from tier-II+ markets. Reducing the overall turnaround time taken to process refund payouts will enhance customer experience and also increase their trust towards online transactions. Through this partnership, Meesho aims to successfully process each refund payout in under 2 hours and eliminate drops in the payout funnel caused by technical failures or bank downtime. This entire refund process is automated by Cashfree Payments’ bulk disbursal offering ‘Payouts’. Further, the integration with Cashfree Payments will automate supplier payouts and also enable payout via UPI.

Commenting on the partnership, Kirti Varun Avasarala, Chief Product Officer, Meesho said, “In India, Cash on Delivery (COD) continues to be a preferred payment mode. We’ve noticed that any unexpected delay or hassle caused in processing refunds can cause inconvenience and lead to trust deficit. Meesho’s aims to become the preferred shopping destination for the next billion Indian consumers and our partnership with Cashfree Payments will address a very important aspect in the users’ journey and help us move closer to this goal.”

Reeju Datta, Co-Founder, Cashfree Payments said, “We are glad to collaborate with Meesho in solving the problem of slow refunds, especially in case of COD orders. Our bulk disbursal product, ‘Payouts’ will help Meesho delight its customers with faster refunds by crediting the refund amount to the customer's bank account in under 2 hours by automating the process. Queries around delayed refunds are a major source of customer tickets for e-commerce businesses, and we look forward to help Meesho reduce such queries to nil.”

According to a recent report by data.ai (formerly App Annie), Meesho was the most downloaded e-commerce app in the world last year. Over the course of 2022, the company will continue to fuel the discoverability of hyperlocal businesses and products, make e-commerce accessible to value conscious customers and innovate to become the preferred e-commerce destination for the next billion users in the country. Meesho also aims to reach 100 million monthly transacting users by December 2022 and increase its roster to over 50 million products.

About Meesho

Meesho is India’s fastest growing internet commerce platform. With a vision to enable 100 million small businesses, including individual entrepreneurs, to succeed online, Meesho is democratizing internet commerce and bringing a range of products and new customers online. The Meesho marketplace provides small businesses, which includes SMBs, MSMEs and individual entrepreneurs, access to millions of customers, selection from over 700+ categories, pan-India logistics, payment services and customer support capabilities to efficiently run their businesses on the Meesho ecosystem.

About Cashfree Payments

Cashfree Payments is a leading payment and API banking solutions company. It provides full-stack payments solutions enabling businesses in India to collect payments and make payouts via all available methods with simple integration. Cashfree Payments’ offerings include an advanced and easy way to integrate payment gateways, a split payment solution for marketplaces, bank account verification API and Auto Collect -- a virtual account solution to match inbound payments to customers. Founded by IIIT Hyderabad alumnus Akash Sinha and IIT Kharagpur graduate Reeju Datta, www.cashfree.com is among the leading payment service providers in India processing transactions worth USD 20 Billion annually. It has leveraged technology to lead payment disbursals in India with more than 50% market share among payment processors. Cashfree Payments enables more than 1,00,000 businesses with payment collections, vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds, expense reimbursements, loyalty and rewards. Apart from India, Cashfree Payments products are used in eight other countries including the USA, Canada and UAE. Cashfree Payments is backed by Silicon Valley investor Y Combinator, Apis Partners, State Bank of India (SBI) and was incubated by PayPal.

EKKI Pumps Appoints Cambridge Educated Manufacturing Guru Professor, Sujit Banerji of Warwick University As Chief Advisor

Pumps and Water Technologies major EKKI today announced the appointment of Dr. Sujit Banerji, Emeritus Professor, WMG, University of Warwick, UK as chief advisor.

Dr. Sujit Banerji will hold responsibility for strategy at the group level. In addition, Dr. Banerji will lend his expertise in globalization and operations management, across the group. The Warwick professor, who has been commended as ‘a leading advisor and thought leader’ will help EKKI and the group management to design and execute an appropriate strategy.

Dr. Banerji a close friend and confidant of Late Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya, Chairman of Warwick Manufacturing Group moved to the University of Warwick upon his request. Dr. Banerji studied at IIT, Kharagpur for the B.Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering and M.Tech degree in Industrial Engineering. He then did his PhD in Operations Research at the University of Manchester and Cambridge University. He has also taught at the Singapore Management University. He is a US citizen.

Prior to The University of Warwick, he spent more than 30 years with IBM. With the boom in the economy of the Asia-Pacific region he spent the latter years spearheading IBM’s Strategic Outsourcing business, first as CIO and Vice-President of IBM (India), and then at the company’s ASEAN headquarters in Singapore.

While with IBM, along with publishing 80 major internal papers, he won numerous lifetime achievement awards for his work. He switched to full-time academia in late 2004 when he retired from IBM. Dr Banerji has worked with many Fortune 500 companies in several different countries and has served on several boards of top companies.

Mr. Kanishka Arumugam, CEO of EKKI said, “Water is still one of the least technologically influenced industries on the planet. This provides big opportunities for EKKI. For more than 5 decades Professor Sujit Banerji has been at the heart of business and a powerful advocate of manufacturing. His wisdom, passion, and advocacy of the importance of globally competitive manufacturing, technology, research teaching, and training has helped guide national and international leaders, business figures and policy makers.

We are very fortunate to associate with Prof. Banerji, who will play an important role in guiding us in our future growth. EKKI is making a strategic transition to become a Sustainable Water Technology Company and we are currently focused on creating multiple platforms that will accelerate our growth and create significant societal value through digitalization, servitization and being a system solutions provider for the water industry”

About EKKI:

EKKI is one among India’s advanced Pump and Water Technologies provider. The privately held family-owned firm provides water in an efficient and sustainable way for agricultural, building services, industrial and public utilities markets through its innovative products and services. Established in 1981 this family business produces a wide range of pumps and water technologies from its 4 world-class production centres. Internationally EKKI is establishing its global presence. It has several manufacturing collaborations with Technology leaders and distribution partnerships with Global Distributors. Today EKKI’s products are sold in more than 20 Countries. The EKKI Group has an International Joint Venture Alliance with HOMA of Germany, a world leader in waste-water technology.

South India’s Sona Group 50:50 JV With Australia’s Mycelium Biotechnology

* To lead in Mushroom and Mycelium based extraction, research and drug delivery applications

South India’s diversified Sona Group has forged a 50:50 joint venture with Australia’s Mycelium Biotechnology Group to set up a state-of-the art Mycelium research and production facility in Salem.

Mycelium Biotechnology is an Australian group known for pioneering innovative solutions to optimise human and planetary health, using mycelium and other extracts from Mushrooms, an abundantly available and sustainable natural resource. As a global mushroom biotechnology group, Mycelium Biotechnology is engaged in mushroom growing, global distribution and offering biotechnology and nutraceuticals solutions through global partners.

According to Mr Chocko Valliappa, Vice Chairman of The Sona group, “We are happy to forge the Mycelium Sona Biotech joint venture with Australia’s Mycelium Biotechnology, a research focused world leader in Mycelium based products and solution provider. The partnership will leverage Sona Group’s research and innovation framework to add to the vast range of IP and patentable technologies.”

The JV named as Mycelium Sona Biotech (MSB) has set up a research facility at Salem to focus on Nanotech Research, IP development, Extract Manufacturing, Milling, Bottling and eCommerce. Billed as one of the largest mushrooms laboratories in India at Salem with best Global Manufacturing Practices, MSB laboratory will research and grow high end mushrooms, extract Mushroom and Mycelium compounds, produce nutraceuticals that conform to FSSAI and FDA certification.

“We see great opportunity in the Indian market moving forward. Sona’s background in health tech and research development is a perfect partnership for us to further advance our nano compound extraction IP. The launch of the first MSB facility in Salem comes at the most opportune time soon after signing of the Free Trade Agreement between Australia and India” says Mr William Scott, Chairman of Mycelium Biotechnology group.

With R&D, Business and Distribution centres located across Australia’s East Coast as well as manufacturing facilities in Wisconsin (USA), Mycelium Biotechnology owns scores of IP. The bulk of this IP relates to cultivation methods and associated medium formulations for nearly 20 mushroom species, extraction processes of mushroom and mycelium biomass and formulations of mushroom extracts.

The medicinal mushroom industry is expected to grow exponentially as more and more of the 5.1 million mushroom species are researched. The global fungi industry is forecast to exceed USD $86B by 2025, up from $53.7B in 2019. Growth will be powered in part by culinary demand, but an even larger driver will be rising adoption by the pharmaceutical industry. Varieties such as Chaga, not ever seen on a dinner plate, are now in the supplement spotlight.  www.thesonagroup.com

Some of the key portfolio companies expanding through the joint-venture include:

REMbiotics, one of the divisions of Mycelium Biotechnology, addresses the global issue of depression (MDD, TRD, PTSD) using specific mushroom mycelium bioactive compounds combined with Australian native bush foods for a beneficial and synergistic effect. www.rembiotics.com

Preotica is an evolutionary life sciences company that has been focusing on enhancing animal immunity and microbial health. Utilising mycelium biotechnology extraction processes, the Preotica product has been able to produce some remarkable results, specifically in the poultry industry, aquaculture industry and for beekeepers across Australia. www.preotica.com

Shroompac focuses on mushroom and mycelium-derived sustainable eco-packaging materials for industrial and consumer applications.

About the Sona Group

Founded by Kalaithanthai Karumuttu Thiagaraja Chettiar in 1920s, the Sona Group has pioneered India’s growth in the fields of agriculture, textiles, construction, IT, and education. Mr Thiagaraja Chettiar committed himself to setting up world-class institutions of higher learning in engineering.

The group’s IT services firm Vee Technologies provides to over 150 hospitals in the US, including six of the Top 20, handling their clinical coding and revenue cycle management in addition to providing e-learning and e-governance solutions. www.veetechnologies.com

The Sona Group of Education institutions include the NIRF ranked Sona College of Technology known for its cutting-edge research through its 35 R&D laboratories, the 64-year-old Thiagarajar Polytechnic College that enjoys the AICTE-CII status to mentor over 3,500 polytechnics in India and the Sona College of Arts and Science.

3i Infotech Bags Rs. 12 Cr Digital BPS Transformational Deal With A Leading Insurance Company In India

3i Infotech Limited (BSE: 532628, NSE: 3IINFOTECH), a global Information Technology company, committed to accelerating business transformation, has signed a premium high margin Digital Business Process Services (BPS) transformational deal worth Rs. 120 mn (Rs. 12 cr), with one of India's leading Insurance TPA companies. The contract is spread over three years and the process will be delivered from their new centre at Hyderabad. As part of the deal, the company will be driving customer experience transformation through its integrated omni channel contact centre platform with automated service quality automation and end-to-end business process management linked to the client’s business KPI. 

The omni channel platform will be embedded with self-learning AI systems to assist customer support associates with real-time Cognitive assistance. It would also come bundled with Virtual Agent Assist, Email Automation and Flow Based Chatbots to cater to customer's claim queries. The process will involve delivering inbound voice customer services and slowly transforming the digital tools to deflect call volumes to digital channels which include app, chat and email using self-service bots.  

In the next phase, 3i Infotech will work on automating their claims management and also partnering in transforming their IT applications. 

Commenting on the new client win, Kiran Chittar, Business Head - Digital BPS, 3i Infotech Limited said, “We are seeing a huge uptake in our Digital BPS services offering, and this latest win of ours will add to our marquee set of clients who are on the path to digital transformation. Organisations are looking at higher return on investments and greater scale in this highly competitive market, and we will partner them in achieving this. With the human to humanoid convergence, our digital integrated programs for CLM, Sales, Collections, Tech HelpDesks, and Back Office Automation will deliver the above proposition. Our multiple innovative ‘Tech Implants’ will drive superior customer experience and increase revenue.” 

“Our digital-first strategy involves disrupting the traditional vanilla BPO business by adding an AI/ML led ‘Digital Command Centre’ layer over and above the people & contact centre operations, thereby empowering the agent as well as optimizing customer experience across all communication channels and processes,” he further added. 

This announcement comes at the back of 3i Infotech’s plan to hire 500 employees for its newly set up BPS division in HITEC City, Hyderabad, to serve its regional and market specific clientele. 

About 3i Infotech  

Headquartered in Mumbai, India, since inception in 1993, 3i Infotech has been committed to driving business value across multiple industry verticals. 3i Infotech, today, has emerged as a leading name in propelling the current wave of digital transformation initiatives, with deep domain expertise across BFSI, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Retail and Government sectors. The Company has over 5000 employees in 32 offices, 15 countries and across 4 continents. With a wide range of IT services, 3i Infotech has successfully transformed business operations of 1,200+ customers across 50 countries. The Company has a very strong foothold and client base in geographies like North America, India, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

V-Trans (India) Ltd Continues Its Accelerated Drive-Into Environment Sustainability

* Walks the talk in becoming a clean, green, environment-conscious logistics service provider in the country 

V-Trans (India) Ltd, a preferred single window logistics solution provider has always been a believer of sustainability. Since our inception, we have held onto our reputation of being an ethical and responsible organization. With other CSR work, we have undertaken environmental sustainability initiatives like green tree plantation, rural life upliftment and energy conservation. We are working towards harnessing the power of the sun and are determined towards less polluting vehicles in our fleet. In addition to this, we recently became the proud owners of the first CNG truck produced by Ashok Leyland. The CNG truck being highly efficient and eco-friendly is driving us in our environmentally sustainable responsible company mode. 

We are keenly monitoring the Electronic Vehicle segment and are planning to move towards sustainable automobile solutions. We consider sustainable automobile solutions are important in unlocking the potential of Sustainable Logistics which will shape the future of the commercial transportation industry. This will lessen oil dependability, improve financial efficiency, and will protect our environment. 

Commenting on this, Mr. Mahendra Shah, Group Managing Director of V-Trans (India) Ltd said “We are proud to be the first owners of the CNG vehicle produced by Ashok Leyland. We aim to make sustainable living convenient, sustainable business profitable and sustainable change fashionable. Our aim is to be committed to a greener future for mankind. We look forward to being a sustainable-oriented company. We seek to see what more is to come in the sustainable commercial automobile section from Ashok Leyland group in future, that will help us contribute more towards nature and society”. Further he added, “We have also procured CNG trucks from Swaraj Mazda, Tata Motors, and Eicher, and now we have a good number of less-polluting-vehicles in our fleet”.  

About V-Trans (India) Ltd: 

V Trans India Ltd is a preferred single window logistics solution provider. A 6-decade old company that has evolved from a traditional transport player to a national logistics solution provider company. 

V Trans group with its 3 business verticals, V Trans, V Xpress, and V Logis, provides all solutions of surface transport, multimodal express cargo movement, and warehousing & 3PL. Reach across the nation, the experience of diverse industry needs, and the solid ethical foundation provides V Trans group an unmatchable positioning. From small loads to ODC consignments, from single shipment to the requirement of full project handling or the complex 3 PL solution, our group has it all.  

Our intentions are to solve the business problems of our clients and to become their logistics edge. We consider our role more than a logistics service provider, and we act as a business partner to our clients. 

Association of Direct Selling Entities of India (ADSEI) Says Industry Safeguarded By Rules & Regulations

Association of Direct Selling Entities of India (ADSEI), an apex industry representing body has reaffirmed the industry members commitment to the rules and regulations laid down by the government with respect to the direct selling industry in the country.

As per industry estimates, the direct selling industry in India is providing enormous opportunities for women empowerment and growth of MSME sector. The sector has also been instrumental in providing employment to nearly 12.2 crore people, who lost their jobs during the pandemic-impacted period. It not only provides livelihood to many Indians, but also helps bridge the gender divide and provides skilling opportunities to millions of women and youth.

Shri Hem Pande, Secretary of ADSEI and former Secretary of the Union Ministry of Food Distribution and Consumer Affairs, said, “Direct selling companies continue to play a key role in enabling empowerment of millions and making them financially independent, which is crucial to the Government of India’s vision of an Atmanirbhar Bharat. Despite economic setbacks during the pandemic the direct selling has grown exponentially creating economic opportunities for the large Indian population in the tier 2 and 3 towns as well. There are strict guidelines and a regulatory framework within which all industry members operate to maintain transparency and compliance. The industry and its stakeholders continue to put their faith in the Indian law and abide by it. We believe in the industry’s resilience and its ability to show strength in the face of adversity.”

To enable transparency and safety, the direct selling industry has now switched to the use of technology to conduct digital transactions. This has aligned the industry with the government’s vision of creating a Digital India and bring in much-needed clarity in the way businesses are conducted in India. This has also enabled better quality check with the products and a centralized platform of engagement with customers and distributors.

Symphony Limited’s Latest Campaign Draws Synergies Between Favorite Indian Snacks And Cost Of Cooling For One Day

With the temperature soaring high, Symphony Ltd has launched a new campaign to promote its newest air cooler offerings with an innovative approach, “Ek Samose ke kharche mein poore din ki Cooling - Garmi Ko Karo Symphony”. Known for technology, modernization, and consumer-first approach, the brand’s recent survey revealed the cost of quintessential Indian snacks such as Chai in UP-Bihar, Kachori in Rajasthan, Khaman in Gujarat, a Samosa in Delhi, or a Vada Pav in Mumbai is the same as the cost of daily cooling of Symphony air coolers. We in India, truly resonate with these favorite tea-time snacks since our childhood days and reminisce savoring them with our family. The innovative concept resonates with the fact of the minimum pricing of these food offerings for a price-sensitive consumer in India. Coolers as a category are close to 27% penetration in urban India and yet there is a huge scope to enhance penetration. The concept delves deep into the daily cooling cost as affordable as a humble food offering.  

Commenting on the campaign, Mr. Anuj Arora, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Symphony Ltd says, ‘As we begin our journey in the new financial year, we are confident in achieving our goals and setting new records. We as market leaders are taking the lead in category creation and providing an upgrade for our consumers. This campaign is truly aligned with our aim to resonate with our target audience by drawing synergies between a favorite Indian snack and the cost incurred for one day of cooling. The campaign is a creative expression of consumerizing the product benefit and contextualizing the low running cost of air coolers. With the temperature soaring high, it is of utmost importance to keep our homes cool and breezy. We have ensured that our consumers find value for money and have an impeccable shopping experience.” 

The campaign will be visible on platforms such as print and outdoor media including other digital platforms for an extensive outreach. The PAN India outdoor campaign will put up billboards across central locations targeting residential areas, and public places in about 200 cities across the country. The billboards will connect with consumers in native languages and the region’s popular snacks such as Samosa, Idli, Kachori, Chai, Khaman, Vada Pav. 

About Symphony Limited:  

Symphony, an Indian Multi-National Company with presence in over 60 countries is the world’s largest manufacturer of air-coolers. From inventions to innovations, energy responsibility to environment stewardship, Symphony is a market leader which has been cooling customers for generations. The massive supremacy of Symphony coolers in the residential, industrial, and commercial segments has made the brand synonymous with ‘cooling’. Founded in 1988, in Gujarat, India, Symphony Limited established a new category of evaporative air-cooling in India, taking it to the globe. As a disruptor of a highly unorganized sector, the company has set high benchmarks comprising 201 trademarks, 64 registered designs, 15 copyrights and 48 patents, defining the gold standard of air cooling.