Audio
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Flipkart Big Saving Days versus Amazon Prime Day — what's different this time?
Amazon and Flipkart are both kicking off their annual discount sales starting the 15th — the one for two days and the other for four days. Ankur Bisen, Senior Partner and Head - Consumer, Food and Retail at Technopak Advisors, a consultancy, who's been tracking the ecommerce scene for close to 15 years now, joins us on ToThePoint today to give us a sense of what might be different this time. Ankur walks us through changes in consumer preferences for various categories and the evolution of India's ecommerce rules over the years
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India more attractive than China, says Invesco — here's some perspective
India has emerged ahead of China as a more attractive investment destination, according to the latest edition of an annual study by Invesco, a $1.48 trillion money manager. Sanjay Anandaram, co-founder of JumpStartUp one of India's earliest US-India cross border VC funds, and a widely respected investor and mentor in India's growing entrepreneurial landscape, joins us on ToThePoint today to offer some perspective on this development. Anandaram also talks about how, while India has changed a lot, there is much more red tape to be cut in this game that is ours to lose
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After Foxconn's breakup with Vedanta, what next for India's semiconductor plans?
Hon Hai Technology Group, better known internationally as Foxconn, is parting ways with Vedanta Group, ending a partnership that was working to establish India's first large-scale semiconductor foundry — to make chips that could go into a wide variety of electronic devices. The statement yesterday suggested that it was pulling out because the project was progressing too slowly for its taste. Forbes India's Manu Balachandran, who's been tracking India's semiconductor plans, joins us on ToThePoint today to talk about what might be the next steps for Vedanta
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Aneesh Reddy on why it's a great time to buy in SaaS if you have the money
In this episode, Aneesh Reddy, co-founder and vice chairman at Capillary Technologies in Bengaluru, looks back at his first attempt at cracking the US market and some of the learnings from that experience—10 years ago. He also talks about how Capillary is well on its way to becoming a global leader in the loyalty management solutions space. He expects the company to grow as much as 80 percent this year and hit $100 million in revenue in two years. Aneesh also talks about how acquisitions are helping Capillary's global expansion and why it's a great time to buy now
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Can the Indian EV industry sustain itself without subsidies?
Electric two-wheeler sales data from the government's Vahan portal showed that June has been the worst month this year. Does this reflect the cut back in subsidies that the government announced recently, and what does it say about the sector's prospects? Amitabh Saran, co-founder and CEO of Altigreen Propulsion Labs in Bengaluru, joins us on ToThePoint today to explain what's happening in the industry. While the timing can be debated, the industry will have to prepare itself for the day when there will be no subsidies, he says
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Maruti Suzuki's Invicto versus Toyata's Innova Hycross — which one would you pick?
Maruti Suzuki's Invicto, which many are saying is a rebadged Toyota Innova, is out. So, is it? Forbes India's Manu Balachandran joins us on ToThePoint today to talk about this latest offering from Maruti, its first in this segment, which is priced a tad lower than the Innova Hycross, its Toyota twin. After the success of the Grand Vitara, will the Invicto help Maruti chalk up another win or is the Innova too well entrenched in Indian psyche as the top people carrier? Manu points out that both vehicles have already garnered thousands of bookings
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IT services outlook: How TCS, Infosys and others are evolving differently from each other
Tata Consultancy Services will kick off earnings results for India's top IT companies next week for their fiscal first quarter that ended on June 30. We asked Yugal Joshi, a partner at Everest Group, to join us today to talk about the outlook for the sector. "Deceleration does not equate with decline," says Yugal. Companies like TCS and Infosys are so core to the operations of the world's biggest corporations that, barring black swans, the future can only hold growth. In the near term, an important phenomenon to pay more attention to is the number of senior exits, he says
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Praval Singh on how Zoho's entrepreneurial culture has expanded its upmarket reach
Praval Singh, vice president of marketing and customer experience at Zoho, talks about how the company has achieved strong traction with larger enterprise customers. Over the last three years, Zoho grew its mid-market and enterprise segment at 65 percent CAGR. The segment accounts for 50 percent of its annual recurring revenue in India and a third of its entire business, which has more than 90 million users from over 600,000 businesses. Singh, who started as an entrepreneur and a customer of Zoho himself, talks about how Zoho plans to build on its achievements
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India's SAFF victory: What it means for the future of Indian football
India won its 9th SAFF Championship final yesterday and Sunil Chhetri took home his third Golden Boot award. But how bright is the future of Indian football? In this extended edition of ToThePoint, Kathakali Chanda is in conversation with the well-known sports presenter Joe Morrison. They speak about how far the game has come in India from its darkest day of recent memory when Chhetri had to appeal to fans to come watch the match to the current growing interest in the game. And, did the latest championship reveal glimpses of who might inherit Chhetri's mantle?
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Meta's Threads vs Twitter: Is this the real Mark vs Musk cage fight?
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg may have had to contend with less than spectacular success with the metaverse, but will Instagram's Threads become an instant hit, as a "Twitter rival" or something better? Hitesh Rajwani, CEO of Social Samosa, joins us on ToThePoint today to talk about how Meta's ecosystem might finally have us in its full embrace. Hitesh also offers his views on why Threads might be the first real threat to Twitter, at a time when the microblogging platform continues to reel under the impact of Elon Musk's experiments
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India's generative AI opportunity: Founder-investor views from Pratyush Rai and Vaibhav Domkundwar
In this episode, Pratyush Rai, co-founder of Foyer and Vaibhav Domkundwar, CEO at Better Capital, discuss the generative AI opportunity in India. Pratyush and his two co-founders, Sirsendu Sarkar and Siddhartha Saxena, are developing a Chrome browser extension that they've named Merlin, which allows users to tap the power for ChatGPT from whichever website they're on. The product has found strong traction within months of its release and is backed by investors, including Better. The founders expect to build deeper features around personalisation and the mobile phone