TenderCuts Reaches The Golden Milestone Of Opening “50th Store - Its Largest Flagship Outlet At Indiranagar”

TenderCuts, the fastest growing omnichannel meat and seafood major, is on a massive pan-India expansion mode and the brand opened its 50th store in the country. Within a year, TenderCuts has increased its retail presence by 70%  and manpower by 60%. 

The launch of TenderCuts’ 50th store in the cosmopolitan Bengaluru is pivotal in shaping the company’s growth strategy i.e having their presence in 8 cities by early 2022. Aiming to make Bengaluru the hub for the brand, this flagship store is all set to provide the widest opportunity of Customization and Personalization of a variety of meat and seafood under one roof. The brand that is constantly innovating itself, aims to provide a futuristic retail experience to its customers through its high-end store located at the 80-feet road at Indiranagar. The outlet, spread over 1300 sq. ft, reflects the brand’s promise of providing a unique and hassle-free meat shopping experience to its customers in Bengaluru.  

Speaking on the launch, Mr Nishanth Chandran, Founder & CEO of TenderCuts, “Having achieved the status of being market-leaders in Chennai and Hyderabad, we are excited to open our flagship store in Bengaluru. We have been continuously innovating on our stores and this flagship store comes as our commitment to reimagine the meat and seafood experience through innovation, creativity and design which further offer our consumers a unique shopping experience. This flagship store in Bengaluru will set a new benchmark in our endeavour to excel in providing the freshest and safest meat & seafood. The brand is currently on the count of 50 stores, and we feel zestful to gear up for the expansion across India with over 100 stores in the near future covering major cities. The expansion will also give boost to local employment.” 

TenderCuts being the only Government-funded meat and seafood company, is currently one of the very few brands in the country to continue its growth momentum breaking barriers amidst the pandemic and economic slowdown.  

About TenderCuts: 

TenderCuts a tech driven omni-channel Meat & Seafood Company, founded in 2016 by Nishanth Chandran, with a unique outlook on the process of meat and seafood retail. The company is FSSAI certified and provides fresh quality meat that complies with the standards of World Health Organization (WHO). TenderCuts is an innovative and a first-of-its-kind venture, which has brought a revolution in poultry farming and aquaculture in India. They offer the finest selection of chicken, seafood, mutton, and marinades that can be ordered online/ through the phone or at any of their TenderCuts retail experience stores in Chennai and Hyderabad and Bangalore. 

YES BANK Adds To The Festive Warmth With YES Family - A Proposition To Fulfil Every Family Member’s Needs

· Feature-packed proposition offers wide-ranging services and rewards to meet financial needs of entire family

· Benefits include priority servicing for whole family, huge savings and cashbacks, fee waivers, flexibility to maintain balance across family accounts and family privileges among other banking solutions

Celebrating togetherness this festive season, YES BANK has launched its YES Family proposition enabling customers to care for the well-being of everyone in their family – with bespoke services and privileges meant to be enjoyed together as a family.

Packed with unique benefits and exclusive offerings, YES Family has been thoughtfully curated to make everything from shopping and dining together to availing loans more convenient and rewarding for customers.

Among the key attractions of the proposition are: family healthcare benefits; dedicated Relationship Manager for the entire family; flexibility to maintain minimum balance across family accounts; free domestic ATM withdrawals, fee waivers on digital transactions; YES Rewardz points on banking transactions that can be transferred within the family, and exciting cashback and lifestyle offers, among other features.

The proposition is available across YES Prosperity, YES Premia and YES FIRST programs – each of which is designed uniquely to cater to different customer segments.

Commenting on the launch, Prashant Kumar, MD&CEO, YES BANK, said, “As family lifestyles witness a dynamic shift, we see enormous potential for family banking to evolve and keep up with the times. Recognizing that the financial needs and expectations of the modern family unit have changed, YES BANK has endeavoured to curate a program that reflects current realities and factors in practical considerations that come with intra-family financial interactions today. With YES Family, customers of varying income levels can collaborate and coordinate their spending together with their families, creating the opportunity for all family members to learn smart spending and fiscal responsibility. Through this proposition, we envisage increasing our monthly retail customer acquisition by 15% till December 2021.”

Discounted locker rentals, competitive interest rates on fixed deposits, recurring deposits, home loans and auto loans along with offers on dining and shopping are among other benefits built into the proposition.

The YES Prosperity Family proposition is available to customers who maintain a combined average monthly balance (AMB) of INR 50,000; YES Premia Family for customers with an AMB of INR 2 lakh or a Net Relationship Value (NRV) of INR 10 lakh at a family level* while  YES FIRST Family is available to customers maintaining AMB of INR 8 lakh or a NRV of INR 30 lakh at a family level*.

Pre-Booking Is Open For First All-Electric MINI In The Indian Market

* The first all-electric MINI. Charged with Passion.

* Pulsating Performance, Iconic Design, A Silent Revolution.

* #TheFirstAllElectricMINI #ChargedWithPassion #BIGLOVE #MINIIndia #MINI #MINIGoesElectric

MINI India will open pre-booking for the much-awaited all-electric MINI 3-door Cooper SE from 29 October 2021 onwards. The car can be exclusively booked online at shop.mini.in for INR 1,00,000 only.

Mr. Vikram Pawah, President, BMW Group India said, “The revolutionary design principle of the classic Mini established the basis for maximum interior space within a minimal footprint. MINI in its new avatar offers a modern re-interpretation of creative space usage and unique riding fun that became the original in the premium small car segment. Now, with the first-ever MINI Electric, MINI once again is the frontrunner in the urban mobility segment. Charged with passion, the all-new MINI 3-door Cooper SE will be the first all-electric premium small car in India, paving the way to a sustainable yet at the same time highly emotional driving experience. With pre-booking, our customers and MINI fans have a chance to secure the purchase ahead of the launch and be the first in the country to drive the all-electric MINI.”

The first all-electric MINI 3-door Cooper SE is inspired by its roots, progressive yet iconic, a true trailblazer. It is changing the face of mobility and continues MINI’s tradition of making creative use of urban space with its eye on the future. With no exhaust, it reduces carbon footprint and does its bit for the atmosphere. The all-electric MINI 3-door Cooper SE fuses the legendary go-kart feeling with instant torque and zero emissions. With 184 hp/135 kW and a maximum torque of 270 Nm the electric MINI sprints from 0-100 km in 7.3 seconds. Dynamic yet gentle the all-electric MINI offers an entirely new driving experience. It is powered with a battery capacity of 32.6 kWh and a driving range of up to 270 km. The car will be available in four unique paintwork colours - White Silver, Midnight Black, Moonwalk Grey and British Racing Green.

MINI has successfully established itself as a premium small car brand in India. Presently, the MINI model range includes the MINI 3-door Hatch, MINI John Cooper Works Hatch, MINI Convertible and the locally produced MINI Countryman.

MINI has established nine authorized dealerships in India – Bird Automotive (Delhi NCR), Bavaria Motors (Pune), EVM Autokraft (Kochi), Gallops Autohaus (Ahmedabad), Infinity Cars (Mumbai), Krishna Automobiles (Chandigarh), KUN Exclusive (Chennai), KUN Exclusive (Hyderabad) and Navnit Motors (Bangalore).

InsuranceDekho Registers Staggering Growth, Grows Business 2X In H1 FY22

* Partner presence in 1100 + cities covering more than 85% pincodes across India 

* Partner income has increased on average 4x within a year of coming onboard 

* Health business grew 6 times faster than industry Sep 2021 YTD 

India’s leading Insurtech startup, InsuranceDekho, grew at a staggering rate during one of the toughest business years in recent history. By building deep distribution across 1100+ cities and offering best-in-class products & customer service; the company has registered an impressive 2X growth year to date in FY22.  

At present, InsuranceDekho has a partner presence in 1100 + cities and covers more than 85% pincodes across India. Over the last few months, InsuranceDekho has built an impressive partner ecosystem with more than 35,000 advisors across the country. 

The width & depth of the partner ecosystem is a testimony to InsuranceDekho’s tech-driven & distribution focused business approach. InsuranceDekho's IDedge app offers an array of opportunities to help partners succeed. The support system spans from onboarding to last-mile sales enablement. It covers all aspects of training across all insurance products, demand generation support, policy issuance, post-policy support, and claims assistance. A direct benefit being reaped by the partners of InsuranceDekho, as a result, is that their monthly income has increased on average 4X within a year of coming onboard. It is a win-win for all - the customers who get exceptional service, the partner ecosystem and InsuranceDekho.  

InsuranceDekho.com, the B2C insurance platform grew 10X in H1 FY22 over the same period last year. The platform saw a 20X MoM spike in traffic in Sep’21 post the launch of its marketing campaign featuring Jeetendra Kumar of the ‘Kota Factory’ fame. 

This clearly reflects the phenomenal business growth that InsuranceDekho has witnessed across all products. The Health portfolio is growing at 110% YoY and the Life portfolio, which was launched earlier this year grew 3X QoQ in Q2 FY22. InsuranceDekho's health business grew 6 times faster than industry Sep’21 YTD. The company plans to further accelerate this growth in the coming quarters and grow 3X YoY by the end of FY22.  

Talking about the growth, Mr. Ankit Agrawal, Co-founder and CEO, InsuranceDekho, said, “This growth is testimony to our strategy of putting our customers and partners at the core of everything. The pandemic has created significant awareness about and a need for insurance across the country especially in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. We believe that this growing interest in insurance will only increase in the future" 

FADA Hails For Auto Dealer’s Protection Act In Indian Market

The Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) released a Policy Brief to introduce Auto Dealers Protection Act in India.

After GM (2017), MAN Trucks (2018), UM Lohia (2019), Harley Davidson (2020), Ford is the 5th Auto OEM to stop domestic sales thus exiting a large and untapped India Market. Such exits adversely impact the interests of consumers who are often left with no avenues for after-sales services and with resale value of their vehicles nosediving. Ultimately, this casts an unfair burden on the Dealers who have to step in to ensure that their relationships with consumers are not ruined, while also facing the endless barrage of consumer complaints due to the OEM’s unilateral actions.

However, the plight and suffering of Dealers is an everyday issue that is often dismissed by OEMs in a business-as-usual manner. Automobile Dealers in India are predominantly small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which are either family-owned businesses or partnerships firms and have significantly lower bargaining power in comparison to their OEMs which in-turn are large corporations. The entrenched unethical and imbalanced power structures with OEMs have caused a great deal of anguish to Automobile Dealers as the existing laws are not adequate to protect their interests.

The Study

In light of this, FADA commissioned an in-depth analysis of the relationship between OEMs and Dealers in India, through a detailed study of various dealership agreements. Through this work, a comparative analysis of foreign dealership agreements and legal protections available to Automobile Dealers in different countries such as the USA, Australia and South Africa was also undertaken.

This analysis clearly shows that unlike the imbalanced Indian agreements, foreign agreements often have more balanced and comprehensive clauses on termination, indemnification, repurchase obligations and afford more flexibility to the dealers.

The detailed findings have been incorporated into a Policy Brief which is available at https://fada.in/press-release-list.php . The summary of the same is mentioned below:

·         Dealership agreements in India do not have a standardized term with certain agreements having tenures as low as 1 year. It takes anywhere between 3-5 years for a dealership business to break even. Short term of agreement is detrimental to the dealers as they do not give adequate opportunity to the dealers to recover the heavy investments made by them.

·         Indian dealer agreements also tend to have vague and broad grounds of termination that provide greater flexibility to OEMs, in comparison to dealers. This adversely impacts Dealers’ ability to negotiate during OEM exits, causes employment losses, and also affect consumers who are left with no recourse with respect to after-sales services.

·         Absence of repurchase obligations under the Indian dealer agreement, which would mandate OEMs to buy back leftover stock including vehicles, spare parts etc. in cases of termination, leads to added costs on the Dealers.

·         OEMs are free to open multiple dealerships in the same territory without giving any rationale to the existing dealers. This makes planning difficult and significantly affects the dealer’s ability to recoup their investments.

·         Dealers are often made party to consumer complaints even though the liability may lie with the OEM, due to lack of clarity in indemnity provisions.

·         Dealers are not afforded the required flexibility in taking business decisions and they also have little to no role in deciding stock projections and targets in a particular financial year. There is very little consultation between the OEM and Dealer in this regard, and Dealers are often forced to accept the stock orders that the OEMs push them on to.

·         Dealers are also often forced with procurement and selling of accessories (such as spare parts, aesthetic additions, music systems etc.) consumables (including lubricants, paints etc.), loans and insurance from the OEMs themselves or from a short list of approved vendors. This leads to increase in dealer costs, the burden of which is eventually passed on to the consumers.

The Way Ahead

Based on comprehensive research on how the aforementioned issues are dealt with under foreign jurisdictions, it is clear that OEM-Dealer contracts in India are not balanced or equitable.

Commenting on the same, FADA President Mr. Vinkesh Gulati said, “Many countries in the world recognize the inherent power imbalance between OEMs and Dealers within the automobile sector and have enacted legislation to level the playing field. Unfortunately, the existing legal regime in India is inadequate to address these specific concerns of Dealers. While OEM-Dealer agreements are governed under the Indian Contract Act, the law does not contain any clear solutions for us.

India should also urgently consider the introduction of an Automobile Dealers Protection Act to make contracts more balanced and equitable. Such legislation should introduce robust contract enforcement and dispute settlement measures by incorporating a special authority with adequate representation from the Government of India, FADA and SIAM.”

The prevailing OEM practices are extremely problematic and against the principles of equity, justice, and good conscience. FADA hereby requests the intervention of Government of India to level the playing field between financially strong OEMs and the smaller automobile dealers.

JK Tyre Revenue Up By 31 Percent During Q2 Of FY 2021-22

Indian tyre industry major, JK Tyre & Industries Ltd. (JK Tyre) announced its un-audited results for 2nd Qtr.  of FY21-22.

Commenting on the results, Dr. Raghupati Singhania, Chairman and Managing Director, said, “JK Tyre has been attaining continuous sales growth despite partially disrupted market place. The sales in the replacement market registered healthy growth whereas institutional sales recorded a quantum jump during the quarter. JK Tyre’s continued thrust resulted in 35% rise in Exports.

The rising inputs costs impacted operating margins. This could be partially mitigated through enhanced volumes and selective price increases”.

The Company’s subsidiary - Cavendish Industries Ltd continues to contribute to revenue growth.

JK Tornel, the subsidiary in Mexico has also performed well with significant growth in revenues and profitability.

Good efforts on vaccinating the population of the country has led to economic recovery which indeed augurs well for the tyre industry in the coming period.

JK Tyre & Industries Limited

The flagship company of JK Organisation, JK Tyre & Industries Ltd is amongst the top 25 manufacturers in the world. Pioneers of radial technology, the Company produced the first radial tyre in 1977 and is currently the market leader in Truck Bus Radial segment. The Company provides end-to-end solutions across segments of passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, farming, Off-the-Road and two & three-wheelers.

A global force, JK Tyre is present in 105 countries with over 180 Global distributors.  The Company has 12 globally benchmarked ‘sustainable’ manufacturing facilities - 9 in India and 3 in Mexico – that collectively produce around 32 million tyres annually. The Company also has a strong network of over 6000 dealers and 650+ dedicated Brand shops called as Steel Wheels and Xpress Wheels.

JK Tyre’s unwavering commitment towards innovation is reflected through its state-of-the-art global research and technology centre – the Raghupati Singhania Centre of Excellence - in Mysore, which houses some of the world’s finest technologies and techniques.

JK Tyre launched India’s first ever ‘Smart Tyre’ technology-and introduced Tyre Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) which monitors the tyre’s vital statistics, including pressure and temperature. The company recently rolled out its 20 millionth Truck/Bus Radial tyre becoming the first and the only Indian company to achieve this milestone.

It is the only Indian tyre manufacturer to be included in the list of Superbrands India in 2019 for the seventh consecutive year. JK Tyre has been conferred the Sword of Honour for Safety across its plants by the British Safety Council, UK. The company entered the Limca Book of Records with the country’s largest off-the-road tyre - VEM 04.

JK Tyre is also synonymous with motorsport in the country. For over three decades, the Company has relentlessly worked towards shaping India’s positioning as the motorsport hub of Asia, developing the right infrastructure for the sport and promoting young talent in the arena.

IBM Study: 99% Of Organizations In India Are Using Varied Combination Of Hybrid Cloud Architecture

* Managing cloud operations across environments from a ‘single pane of glass’ is important or extremely important for 78 percent of the respondents in India for successful digital initiatives

* Despite escalating cyber-attacks, a third of global and India respondents do not have security as their top priority

According to the results of IBM's (NYSE: IBM) new global study on cloud transformation there has been a drastic shift in business needs as only three percent of respondents reported using a single private or public cloud in 2021, down from 29 percent in 2019 – establishing hybrid cloud as the dominant IT architecture.

The global study, conducted by IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) in cooperation with Oxford Economics, surveyed almost 7,200 C-suite executives across 28 industries and 47 countries including 287 executives from India. The findings indicate that the cloud market has entered the hybrid, multicloud era and concerns around vendor lock-in, security, compliance and interoperability remain paramount. The study found:

Cyber threats are at an all-time high 

Infrastructure complexity is creating cracked doors that cybercriminals are exploiting.

Yet, surprisingly more than a third of respondents did not indicate improving cybersecurity and reducing security risks are among their largest business and IT investments.  

At the same time, 80 percent of global & India respondents said data security being embedded throughout the cloud architecture​is important or extremely important, in most cases, to successful digital initiatives.

Security concerns posed as a significant obstacle to improving business performance in some, most or all parts of their cloud estate for 54% of respondents in India.

Companies are denouncing vendor lock in and require interoperability and portability between environments

Nearly 79 percent of global respondents and 71% of India respondents said workloads being completely portable with no vendor lock-in​is important or extremely important to the success of their digital initiatives.

Nearly 69 percent of global respondents and 68 percent of India respondents said vendor lock-in​is a significant obstacle to improving business performance in most or all parts of their cloud estate.

While in India, 63% of respondents said lack of interoperability among clouds is a significant obstacle to improving business performance in some, most or all parts of their cloud estate.

Nearly 64 percent of respondents in India said workloads being completely portable, where developers can build, run and move workloads across private and public clouds, is important or extremely important for the success of their digital initiatives.

In India, 74% of the respondents highlighted that the ability to run Governance and compliance tools across multiple clouds is important or extremely important to the success of their digital initiatives.

“In the beginning of their cloud journey, many companies dabbled with several different clouds that created complexity and disconnected piece parts, potentially opening them up to major security threats,” said Howard Boville, Head of IBM Cloud Platform. “Today’s finding reiterate that security, governance and compliance tools must run across multiple clouds and be embedded throughout hybrid cloud architectures from the onset for digital transformations to be successful.”

Sandip Patel, Managing Director, IBM India said, “As organizations progress on their journey to the cloud, adopting Hybrid, multicloud has become essential and is a clear winner in the race to become the dominant architecture for enterprise cloud estates in India. We are witnessing Indian organizations experience enterprise-scale improvements by harnessing the power of a Hybrid cloud architecture to digitize their existing products and services, enhance customer experience, increase business resiliency and reduce security risks."

The study revealed that enterprises need to assess how they use the cloud in terms of adoption, velocity, migration, speed, and cost savings opportunity. Other recommendations include: 

Focus on security and privacy - determine where your critical workloads reside and scrutinize who and what has access to them. Regularly test that security controls and privacy policies are being adhered to, but also that improperly configured assets and software vulnerabilities are being promptly addressed.

Ask which workloads should move to the cloud – take inventory of the IT environment to successfully determine which workloads and applications will yield the most value in the cloud and which are better suited to stay on-premises. 

Make data work for you – analyze workloads using AI driven tools and best practices to determine where and how to put them in the right place for the right reason. 

Set a tactical approach – address the technology trade-offs, such as selecting the best approach to modernize specific applications and manage important issues like security, governance, and disaster recovery.

Determine the right team – put a cross-disciplinary team of people to work rethinking how your enterprise creates value for its customers.

Additionally, another recent study by the IBM Institute for Business Value,‘Unlock the business value of hybrid cloud’ further revealed that:

The revenue impact of cloud investments for Indian companies can be amplified up to 13 times when orchestrated as an end-to-end reinvention of the enterprise.

Open and extended organization and culture amplify revenue impact on cloud by almost 3X for Indian organizations. In addition, 4 of 5 Indian executives highlighted that drawing ecosystems closer together is a key strategic driver for establishing a hybrid cloud.

The ability to move data and have an appropriate data governance in place is crucial. Advanced cloud adopters in India with more sophisticated data capabilities gained 56% revenue growth rate premium over other advanced cloud adopters.