MakeMyTrip to enhance business-to-business segment to tap corporate travel

 

Online travel benefits firm MakeMyTrip on Tuesday said it is intending to upgrade its business-to-business section, focusing on enormous corporates and miniature, little and medium endeavors to tap the open door in homegrown corporate travel.

The organization presently has north of 1,650 mid-to-enormous corporates and in excess of 30,000 MSME clients. It has connected more than 2,6000 disconnected travel planners as it designs a greater play in the business travel portion.

"The homegrown corporate travel has opened across fragments, and we expect that the development will speed up in the times to come," MakeMyTrip prime supporter and Group CEO Rajesh Magow said in an articulation.

To tap the open door, he said, "We are focusing on enormous corporates and the SME fragment through Quest2Travel and MyBiz stage".

In addition, he said the organization is drawing in with more than 26,000 disconnected travel planners through the 'MyPartner' stage and fueling other internet based stages, for example, Amazon Pay by utilizing the capacities of the organization's 'MyAffiliate' stage.

Remarking on how the B2B section has taken care of business for MakeMyTrip, Magow said, "From being an immaterial giver, the B2B space is currently ready to convey more than 10% of our GMV. It is essential that notwithstanding a poor start, we have arisen as the biggest OTA (online travel service) in the corporate portion regarding GMV as well as income".

MakeMyTrip said its ongoing appointments show that the corporate travel fragment has become by almost 46% from pre-COVID levels....READ MORE

Adani Wilmar acquires Kohinoor rice brand in India to strengthen position

 

Adani Wilmar Limited (AWL) on Tuesday declared the obtaining of a few brands, including the eminent Basmati rice brand - Kohinoor for the India area from McCormick Switzerland GMBH for an undisclosed sum.

The procurement would give AWL selective freedoms over the brand 'Kohinoor' basmati rice alongside 'prepared to cook', 'prepared to eat' curries and suppers portfolio under the Kohinoor Brand umbrella in India. The Kohinoor brand portfolio includes Kohinoor - for premium Basmati rice; Charminar - for reasonable rice and Trophy for inns, eateries, providing food (HORECA) section.

"The option of Kohinoor's homegrown image portfolio reinforces Adani Wilmar's administrative role in the food FMCG classification by enlarging a solid item bin with premium brand alongside potential to scale esteem added items," Adani Wilmar said in a stock trade documenting.

"It additionally use the compass of Kohinoor brand to drive collaborations for AWL across geologies and supplements the scope of its lead image 'Fortune' in the food FMCG area," it added....READ MORE

IT organization Cyient to obtain Finland-based Citec for almost Rs 800 cr

 

IT organization Cyient will get worldwide plant and item designing administrations organization Citec for about Rs 800 crore to reinforce its business contributions.

Citec was established in 1984, as a global plant and item designing administrations organization serving clients across the energy, mining, interaction, oil and gas, and assembling enterprises. It has 1,200 representatives worldwide.

Cyient said that it will be the biggest outbound securing by an Indian designing administrations organization and, surprisingly, the organization's biggest obtaining to date.

The obtaining will be finished during the quarter.

"This obtaining will upgrade Cyient's situation as a forerunner in the plant and item designing area, fortify its presence in the energy business with an attention on clean energy and grow its European impression in the Nordic nations of Finland, Norway, and Sweden, and in Germany and France," Cyient said...Read More

Govt seeks tech-based proposals from Indian firms to curb Covid-19 pandemic

The Technology Development Board (TDB), a body under the Department of Science & Technology, has invited proposal from Indian companies to address protection and home-based respiratory intervention for Covid-19 patients, DST Secretary Ashutosh Sharma said on Sunday.
The proposal may include technologically innovative solutions like low-cost masks, cost-effective scanning devices, technologies for sanitisation of large areas as well as for contactless entry, rapid diagnostic kits and oxygenators, and ventilators.
Sharma said the DST is looking at low-cost masks which can capture virus from the air and absorb respiratory droplets, cost-effective thermal scanning, large area sanitisation and sterilisation (including electrostatic spray and Ultra Violet treatment for various available surfaces like glass, ceramic, wood, textile).

He said the DST is also looking at bioinformatics and surveillance, rapid and accurate diagnosis kit (paper-based and other point of care devices), Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things (IOT) solution for contact-less entry, low cost and portable oxygenators and ventilators (low-cost and portable).
"The TDB Board provides financial assistance by means of soft loans (up to 50 per cent of project cost at 5 per cent simple interest per annum, equity participation (up to a maximum of 25 per cent of the project cost) or grant in exceptional cases, for encouraging the commercial application of indigenously developed technology and for adapting imported technology to wider domestic application," a statement said.

The proposals have to be submitted on or before March 27.
On the other hand, several start-ups are also coming up with technology-driven solutions to identify cases and help the government track the movement of those who have been tested positive.
For example, Bengaluru-based Healthtech start-up Mfine has rolled out a coronavirus assessment feature which enables virtual medical consultation to assess patients who have flu-like symptoms.
Healthcare company Portea has developed a chatbot called Cobot-19 which will disseminate information related to coronavirus.

Bajaj Allianz too has rolled out an app with the Social Trackback feature, which is designed to help individuals maintain a real-time database of the people they have interacted in-person. The company claims this will help authorities track the details in case a user has been tested positive for the novel virus.

Ex-Tata executives start fund to spur change at Indian companies

Company News

Some ex-Tata group executives have teamed up with a veteran investor to seek to bring change at Indian companies, in a rare attempt to influence management in a country where shareholder activism has largely failed to take hold.

Former Tata employees including Mukund Rajan and Govind Sankaranarayanan have partnered with Ajit Dayal, the founder of mutual fund firm Quantum Advisors, to set up a fund to invest in smaller stocks with a view to working with managements to help them improve in areas such as corporate governance.

The team expects to get regulatory approval for the tentatively named Active Engagement Fund by May and seeks to raise and invest $1 billion in the next three years, Sankaranarayan said in an interview in Mumbai. The fund expects to begin investing from September.

Sankaranarayan, who spent more than two decades at Tata Group, says the fund deliberately shunned the activist moniker and positioned itself as an environmental, social and governance vehicle because aggressive activism just wouldn’t succeed in India. The reason, he says, is that founding shareholders typically tend to own as much as 40 percent of companies. Instead, the fund will invest in smaller companies where owners are more likely to be open to change, he said.

“Unlike the U.S., activism is less likely to work in India as founders at most companies are very influential because of the substantial stakes they hold,” Sankaranarayan said. “We need to engage with the founders in a persuasive, meaningful way to drive our ESG agenda.”

 Corporate India is grappling with a range of governance issues, everything from business relationships with related parties to poor disclosures on debt.