Sensex, Nifty scale new peaks; SBI, Tata Motors in limelight

PTI  Mumbai, November 17, 2014

First Published: 16:58 IST(17/11/2014) | Last Updated: 17:05 IST(17/11/2014)

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Indian stocks on Monday galloped to a new highs with benchmark Sensex surging 131.22 points to 28,177.88 and Nifty rising 40.85 points to end at 8,430.75 boosted by solid buying in bluechips, like SBI and Tata Motors, and positive cues on the trade deficit front.

The 30-share BSE Sensex after opening in negative zone dropped further to touch the day's low of 27,921.34 on profit-taking at high levels and a weak trend at the other Asian bourses after data showed Japan slipped into recession.
Later, emergence of buying, spread over a broad front, helped the Sensex stage a strong comeback to hit an intra-day record high of 28,205.71, surpassing its earlier record of 28,126.48 reached on November 12. It settled for the day at 28,177.88, new record close, and gained 131.22 points or 0.47%. Its previous record close was 28,046.66 (Nov 14).

Sentiment was boosted after stocks led by banking, power and capital sectors rallied. Trade deficit in October fell to $ 13.35 billion compared to $ 14.2 billion in September.
"Indian markets closed at new record high after trade deficit data narrowed...Growth story becomes very positive compared to its global peers. FII inflow should take markets to newer highs of 29000 on Sensex and 8700 On Nifty by December," said Rajshekar Gowda, Senior Analyst, HBJ Capital.
Of the 30-share Sensex, 18 scrips ended with gains, while 12 others ended in negative zone. Country's largest lender SBI rose by 5.44% to close at its 52-week high of Rs. 2,940.15. Other gainers which supported the key index to hit new highs include Tata Motors (up 4.07%), Hero MotoCorp (2.15%), NTPC (1.71%), RIL (1.47%), BHEL (1.20%) and Bharti Airtel (1.04%).
RAJ KISHORE SHARMA
PGDM 3RD SEM
The 50-scrip NSE Nifty, after dipping to 8,349.10 at the outset, rebounded to breach the 8,400-mark to hit a new lifetime intra-day high of 8,438.10. It also ended at fresh all-time high of 8,430.75, up 40.85 points, or 0.49%.
This beat its previous closing peak of 8,389.90 touched on November 14. Also, its previous intra-day record high was 8,415.05 on November 12. Foreign Portfolio Investors had bought shares worth a net Rs. 645.90 crore last Friday, according to provisional data.
Sectorwise, the BSE Power index rose by 1.54%, Banking by 0.41%, Auto by 1.43%, and Consumer Durables by 0.91%, among others.

What's the future of retail? E-commerce challenges old players

Reuters  Mumbai, November 18, 2014

First Published: 08:12 IST(18/11/2014) | Last Updated: 10:07 IST(18/11/2014)

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The head of Future Group, one of India's largest and most established retailers, admits he can't keep up with web sites like Snapdeal and Flipkart when it comes to spending money to entice shoppers to buy online.

Private investors have poured $2.3 billion into India's e-commerce companies so far this year, according to consulting firm Technopak, giving them financial firepower to overwhelm shoppers with bargains and deals that brick-and-mortar retailers like Future Group, which runs a host of chains including Future Retail Ltd and Future Lifestyle Fashions, cannot match.
"It's all about money. The e-commerce guys have money to experiment - I don't have this kind of money to blow," Kishore Biyani, who pioneered modern retail in India and is chief executive of the Future Group, told Reuters in an interview.

In an attempt to match up, traditional retailers are forging partnerships with well-funded websites such as Flipkart.com, Amazon.com Inc  and Snapdeal to put their wares on the web without investing heavily in their own online infrastructure.
This tentative approach to e-commerce, however, leaves traditional retailers vulnerable to being completely overtaken by their better-funded online rivals in a country where a rapidly expanding middle class is doing more and more shopping on the web.

In October, Future Group tied up with Amazon's Indian arm to sell its brands online. A month earlier, electronics retailer Croma, owned by the Tata Group, struck a similar arrangement with Snapdeal.
According to Technopak, organized retail in India is expected to grow to $182 billion in 2020 from the current $46 billion. E-tailing is forecast to expand at a faster clip, to $32 billion by 2020 from $2.3 billion now.
India's protectionist government policies have long shielded established retailers from competition. As a result, they never felt the need to invest in state-of-the-art technology, said Bhavit Desai, a U.S.-based strategy consultant who has worked with companies such as Walmart International, the global unit of Wal-mart Stores Inc, and Target Corp.
"Many huge players in the market have invested very little in technology and have been followers at best," Desai said.
Mom-and-pop to online sales
In 2012, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government opened the retail industry to foreign operators, allowing companies such as Wal-Mart and Tesco Plc to own majority stakes in Indian chains for the first time.
But the government left it to individual states to decide whether to let in foreign retailers. Few have stepped up, and the big foreign chains that might have shared their online expertise with India's stores are largely absent.
Instead, local online marketplaces have proliferated, backed by billions of dollars coming in primarily from abroad. Last month's $627 million investment by Japan's SoftBank Corp in Snapdeal illustrated a widening gap. The portal has also attracted funds from eBay Inc and billionaire Ratan Tata.
Flipkart.com raised $1 billion earlier this year, in a round of funding from Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, along with existing investors Tiger Global Management LLC and South African media company Naspers Ltd.
That leaves traditional Indian retailers vulnerable, say industry advisers. Online marketplaces don't need to pay high commercial rents or build stores to serve India's 1.3 billion people, and they're soaking up outside investments and expertise from their international backers that can help them move faster to profit.
Organised retail is still developing in India. More than 90 percent of shopping is done at informal roadside shacks and in bazaars. These small shops are seen as the lifeblood of the economy and successive governments have protected them.
But the same policies have also shielded much larger players like Shoppers Stop Ltd, Future Retail and others. At the same time, online stores are racing ahead, modernising the retail industry at a pace that traditional chains cannot match.
"It is exactly like what happened in telecoms," said Harminder Sahni, managing director of Wazir Advisors. "In India, we never took landlines to every single home - mobiles came in and leapfrogged that
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vijay kr yadav
pgdm 3rd sem
sou- times of india

NEWS: Facebook gives users more control over their News Feed

Facebook has unveiled a new settings for its News Feed, giving users more control over the updates they see.
News Feed settings now lets users view updates from people, Pages or Groups or see an overall summary. It allows users to unfollow any friend, Page or Group if they no longer want to receive updates from them, and can re-follow anytime.
Meanwhile, the social network  is allowing users to hide stories by simply clicking the arrow in the top right of the update to hide it. After hiding the story the user will be asked if they would like to see less form this person or Page.
These settings could make it even more difficult for businesses to advertise on this platform without paying for updates
sumit kumar singh
pgdm 2 year.
comment by -sumit kumar sumit
It is message to message working in facebook

Yen off 7-year low after Japan official's comments cool election talk

Reuters | Nov 12, 2014, 10.34AM IST

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The yen had been flirting with a seven-year low against the dollar on growing views that Abe will postpone a sales tax hike and call a general election in December.

TOKYO/SYDNEY: The yen pulled back from a seven-year low against the dollar on Wednesday, after comments from a Japanese government official cooled heightened speculation that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would call a general election in December. The yen had been flirting with a seven-year low against the dollar on growing views that Abe will postpone a sales tax hike and call a general election in December, offering investors an excuse to sell the currency.

In the wake of growing expectations Abe would strengthen his political standing, Japan's top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga reiterated that it is up to the prime minister to decide whether to call a snap election. The dollar, which had popped above 116 yen earlier in the Asian trading session, was down 0.2 percent at 115.55. It had risen as far as 116.11 the previous day - a high not seen since October 2007. "There were concerns towards a political vacuum forming and Suga's comments prompted traders to buy back the yen," said Takako Masai, head of markets research department at Shinsei Bank in Tokyo. The dollar's losses were limited, however, as comments from the top government spokesman were not enough to douse the speculation after days of intense media coverage.

Joining a growing list of media outlets reporting on the subject, the Sankei newspaper, citing unnamed government and coalition officials, said Abe would also delay a planned second sales tax increase by a year and a half and take the issue to voters. Investors had already been selling the yen after the Bank of Japan shocked markets last month by expanding its massive stimulus spending to help reinvigorate an economy that has lost momentum after a sales tax hike in April. Now, Abe appeared likely to delay the second tax increase. "If it were to happen, that decision would be justifiably JPY negative, to the extent that it would further deteriorate an already ugly fiscal picture," said Raiko Shareef, currency strategist at the Bank of New Zealand. Observers also pointed towards other reasons the yen could come under pressure if Abe was to call a snap election and emerge victorious - a possibility that has fanned hopes for a second round of stimulus steps dubbed "Abenomics" to be implemented and boost equities. "Deteriorating fiscal discipline is of course a concern, but it is a mid- to long-term matter. Expectations towards further equity market gains is a key factor weighing on the yen at the moment," said Masashi Murata, a senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman in Tokyo. The euro stood little changed at $1.2463.

Investors kept a wary eye on the Swiss franc, which raced to a two-year high of 1.2021 francs per euro on Tuesday and tested Swiss National Bank's resolve to defend the 1.20 per euro ceiling ahead of the country's Nov. 30 referendum on whether the central bank should boost its gold reserves. A 'yes' vote would force the SNB to buy around 70 billion Swiss francs ($72.51 billion) worth of gold and could limit the bank's capability to maintain the stability of its currency, the central bank chief warned. Focus was also on the Bank of England's inflation report due later in the day. The BOE's forecasts are expected to confirm a push back in the expected timing of a first rise in interest rates long into 2015, something that is already broadly priced into UK money markets. 

 

 

vijay kr yadav

pgdm 3rd year

sou- times of india

Indian e-commerce market to reach $20 bn next year

The e-commerce market in the country is expected to grow 37 per cent to reach $20 billion by next year on the back of growing internet population and increased online shoppers, a report has said.
"E-commerce in India is a $11 billion market, and is estimated to reach $20 billion by 2015, growing at a CAGR of 37 per cent over 2013-15," Motilal Oswal Securities said in its report on e-commerce.
The research firm said their are multiple enablers for this growth which include increase in the number of internet users and an increased proportion of online shoppers within those users, growth in the per-shopper transaction value and continued flow of capital by willing investors.
The report said currently online travel dominates the e-commerce market but in the future, e-tailing will drive the growth.
Online travel constituted 71 per cent of the e-commerce market in India, followed by e-tailing (16 per cent). Travel has grown at a CAGR of 32 per cent over 2009-13.
"However, going forward, e-tailing will be the biggest growth driver, with expected CAGR of over 60 per cent to $7 billion in 2016 from $1.7 billion in 2013. Within e-tailing, fashion is likely to be the driving segment," it said.
Fashion was $559 million in 2013, and estimates peg the growth in fashion e-tailing to anywhere between $3 billion and $6 billion by 2016.
The research firm said heavy discount on online sales is a direct reflection of the industry's competitive intensity.
"The amount of money raised by Flipkart, lately Snapdeal, and that committed by Amazon is all yet to be invested, indicating that we may not be anywhere near the end of round-the-clock discount seasons at online stores," it added.
                                                       NAME RAHUL SINGH 2 
                                                               PGDM 3 SEM

COMMENT: indian  e-commerce market to reach $20bn next year. it is very happiness news for e-commerce company.

Modern Marketing Equals Social Engagement

Key Takeaways

• ​Thanks to social media, marketing is everyone’s job.
• Successful social marketing is the result of a well-structured social business, which requires organization-wide buy-in, employee training and an evolved infrastructure.
  
• The end goal—transparent social marketing—may be simple enough, but this goal must be consciously woven into the very fabric of an organization’s values  to ignite a workforce of engaged brand ambassadors. 

Thanks to social media, marketing is everyone’s job. Social media now is a prospective buyer’s primary research tool ahead of purchase. The brand best equipped to provide useful content about a product or service and engage individual prospects through authentic brand ambassadorship is far more likely to win that prospective customer’s business. 

Such engagement requires specialized knowledge about the product or service in question, which often means that the employee, team or department responsible for a specific product or service also is the best-suited to talk about it. On one hand, this is a fantastic opportunity for the public to get information directly from the source. On the other hand, asking more employees to engage the public as part of their jobs inevitably means trusting people who aren’t trained marketers.

These are the needs of modern marketing, and it is important that businesses and marketing departments invest in the cultural infrastructure necessary to meet this challenge. This, of course, begs the question: If marketing today is everybody’s job, what does the modern marketing department look like?

Some worry that marketing departments will get absorbed, get outsourced or simply go away. Fortunately, we’re not seeing any of those options play out. Instead, social business leaders such as IBM, Adobe and Dell have redesigned their organizational models to prize employee empowerment through social training programs and increased access to useful branding or product information. 

Marketing may be everyone’s job, but someone still needs to be there to show them how to do it properly. And brand ambassadorship in social media depends on transparency and authenticity. While there are attendant risks, the potential rewards are far greater. 

Marketing in a Transparent Organiz​ation 

Transparency is, in some ways, both the problem and the solution. Today’s social marketing department must be much more involved in all aspects of the business than before. These employees may not have direct control over every outbound marketing channel, but they have a responsibility to empower social employees to represent their brand consistently through those channels. Members of the marketing team should be seen as leaders within an organization, as coaches for social engagement and as invaluable branding resources.

In fact, this is precisely what’s starting to happen within organizations that are a little farther ahead on the social adoption curve—and this change is being driven in the C-suite. According to a study of 524 CMOs released by IBM in April 2014, organizations with chief marketing officers who are considered “digital pacesetters,” or drivers of social business, were 60% more likely to be “outperformers” in revenue growth and profitability compared with industry peers. 

This data speaks to the power of leveraging a brand’s marketing message through both internal and external channels. And never has communication been more important at the executive level. According to the data, organizations in which the CMO and CIO “work well together” were 76% more likely to be outperformers. Further, 63% of CEOs actively involved their CMOs in business strategy decisions, making the CMO the second-most consulted executive behind the CFO (72%) in influencing such decisions.

Plotting a Course

Although the marketing department, led by the social CMO, is coming to have a more central role in business decisions, these changes do not happen in a vacuum. They must come about as part of an enterprise-wide effort to maximize the value of both social strategies and technologies. Even with organizational buy-in, adjusting to the marketing needs of the social business doesn’t happen overnight. 

In many organizations, a gap exists between aspiration and implementation, or what a marketing team wants to do versus what present organizational infrastructure is set up to support. The IBM study’s findings show that 94% of CMOs believe that advanced analytics will help them achieve their goals, yet a full 82% say that their organizations are not prepared to capitalize on this opportunity.

The question, naturally, is how to address this considerable gap. And the answer carries with it the idea that social marketing is an organizational value. Successful social marketing is the result of a well-structured social business, and a well-structured social business requires organization-wide buy-in, employee training and an evolved infrastructure. In other words, a commitment to social marketing means a commitment to a much larger process. A brand cannot communicate externally unless it first learns to communicate internally. A company’s external branding success, then, is merely a reflection of a successful, thriving employee culture.

So how does an organization plot a course for social business? It starts with commitment from the C-suite, including much-needed input from the CMO. The next step is to launch a pilot program, which can be structured around the following framework:

1. Discovery and insight gathering: Establish a task force to determine what organizational assets are available, define and prioritize organizational needs, and outline a strategy to begin moving forward. Identify employees interested in becoming social business evangelists and seek their input.

2. Social media policy: A 2013 Altimeter report found that while 85% of organizations surveyed had at least a minimal social media policy in place, only 52% had guidelines for engaging through external channels. For social marketing to succeed, employees must understand and internalize a set of organizational guardrails that will empower their actions.

3. Employee and executive training: Employees at all levels of a social business need to have at least a basic understanding of how organizational policy meets day-to-day practice. Employees interested in taking their training further often have the opportunity to become social leaders within the company.

4. Social and collaborative platforms: Organizations must remember that “social media” doesn’t just pertain to externally facing platforms. How social employees engage, share information and collaborate within an organization is even more important, and a variety of tools are available to meet organizational needs. 

5. Metrics and alignment to goals: Companies are increasingly coming to find that they’re able to measure just about anything, but the tricky part is knowing what to measure. For every push to justify ROI, there should be an equal push to justify ROC: return on human capital.

Naturally, organizations will approach their pilot programs differently, but however the details shake out, the results will reflect an organization’s commitment to the process. The more the marketing department is engaged in this process, the more these specialists are ready to act as branding coaches for the rest of a company’s employees, and the more authentic all employee interactions across an enterprise will become. The end goal—transparent social marketing—may be simple enough, but this goal must be consciously woven into the very fabric of an organization’s values in order to ignite a workforce of engaged brand ambassadors. 

Ajeet Kumar
PGDM 3rd SEM