Tag: Coronavirus in India

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Startup

Home Business Ideas: 4 Brilliant Work From Home Ideas That You Should Consider Taking Up

Home Business Ideas (Photo Credits: Pexels)

At a time when the world is battling the coronavirus pandemic, people have been forced to work from hone than ever. Whiles some are working remotely, some have started their own small businesses amid the crisis. Staying productive and maintaining a balance between professional and personal life is the only way out to survive the crisis. Amid the crisis, employers are encouraging or requiring people to work from home for an indeterminate amount of time. If you are planning to start a home-based business, you need to first understand what interests you and what you are good at!

Remember, a business will survive if there is a need of your product in the market. The struggle comes when you have to create a demand for your product, which takes a great deal of time, efforts and funding. Of course, there are pros and cons to consider when deciding whether a home-based business is right for you. If you’re new to the work-from-home lifestyle, you will have to change some of your routine habits to make working from home a success.

Buy products in bulk to sell

If you want to start with a small business, this hack can work wonders! Amid the pandemic and COVID-19 restrictions, people avoid venturing out to buy things. If you have good contacts, you can buy products in bulk and sell them in your circle, neighbourhood and among your pals. These products can be really simple ones, like cups, mugs, coasters or maybe other daily essential items. Maybe you know of some unique products that aren’t readily available in your market despite a demand for them.

Sell homemade products

Be your own boss and sell what you make. There is no other joy that creating something of your own and selling your own handmade products. If you are the maker yourself, you can consider turning your hobby into a business. If you like making candles, cushion covers, curtains, dresses, or anything else, you can create your products and make it commercial. You can also sell gift baskets, handmade jewellery, sweets, homemade cookies, personalized gifts, etc. The only thing you should focus on is to promote and make it reach large audience via social media. As home business idea, there are plenty of opportunities for designers to create and sell their own clothing from home.

Baker

If you enjoy cooking, especially baking, and you can spend a great deal of time baking in order to create enough goods to sell, taking up baking as a profession is meant for you! It is rewarding which fetches you decent income. With too much competition in the market, it is tough to stand out in the crowd. To take up baking business, buy some equipment and set up a commercial kitchen at home. You can sell your products to local shops or businesses or sell products online. Read up on regulations to be compliant!

Freelance Writer

If you are fond of writing and can play with words, it has huge potential to be one of the most profitable business ideas. Freelance writing is the perfect job for people planning to set up their own blog or digital content firm. You don’t need any formal training to become a freelance writer.

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Technology

‘Nayi Shuruaat’, a Campaign Launched by Facebook to Celebrate the Success of Small Businesses in India Amid Crisis; All You Need to Know

Facebook (Photo Credits: Pexels)

In a bid to spread the success of the small business and their growth in India, social media giant Facebook on Tuesday launched ‘Nayi Shuruaat’. The newly launched campaign celebrates the small businesses of across the country. The campaign will help these businesses crawl back to normalcy and make a new start or a ‘Nayi Shuruaat’ amidst the deepest crisis the world has seen in recent times. The campaign by Facebook celebrates many such real stories of optimism, strength, and economic recovery from across the country. Facebook on Tuesday said that it is committed to help India quickly recover economically and socially in 2021 from the pandemic-hit year, by deepening support for small businesses and test and roll its new features from the country to the rest of the world.

About ‘Nayi Shuruaat’ campaign:

  1. The ‘Nayi Shuruaat’ campaign was launched during Facebook’s ‘Fuel for India’ event. It is an ode to the resilience of small businesses amid crisis.
  2. Nayi Shuruaat celebrates many such real stories of optimism, strength, and economic recovery from across the country
  3. Several such stories were also be unveiled during the upcoming Facebook Fuel for India virtual event on December 15 and December 16.
  4. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg via a virtual address during the event said that India’s building local capabilities and tech capacity to power innovative new business models and provide the citizens access to digital financial inclusion.

Facebook said it will continue to work closely with key partners to build a stronger ecosystem for small business growth in the country by investing in skilling programmes such as Boost with Facebook, entering in key partnerships such as with venture capital funds for the VC Brand Incubator program, and by giving people new ways to support small businesses such as the Instagram Food Stickers.

Zuckerberg on Tuesday said its partnership with Jio Platforms will help support millions of small businesses in India. Zuckerberg made the remark during a conversation with Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries at the first Facebook Fuel for India 2020 event.

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Technology

Eric Yuan, Founder and CEO of Zoom, Named ‘Businessperson of Year 2020’ by TIME Magazine

Eric Yuan (Photo Credits: Twitter)

Eric Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom, has been named the ‘Businessperson of the 2020’ by TIME Magazine for the growth of his video conferencing platform amid the coronavirus pandemic. Yuan, who began at WebEx as a coder, soon became integral to the creation of his video-conferencing platform that served as a communication medium for millions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The birth of Zoom by the 50-year-old founder and CEO became successful after he struggled for a decade to build the no-frills, highly functional conferencing platform for businesses. With his determination and hardwork, Zoom was now being used in all sorts of unexpected places, from delivery rooms to grade schools.

Zoom’s popularity grew in 2020 as the world was hit with the pandemic at start of the year, which forced people to stay indoors, maintain social distancing and work from home. With the pandemic spreading its arms over the world, Zoom started growing with leaps and bounds, helping people to continue with the work through online mode. The video conferencing platform allows individuals to communicate virtually face to face. Zoom is now in the business of connecting everybody, originally intended for businesses and universities. Business Ideas For 2021: Here Are 4 Business Ideas Which You Can Start Next Year.

“We never thought about consumers or K-12 schools when we started planning the year 2020,” Yuan was quoted by TIME while speaking over Zoom from his home in the Bay Area. He had ordered employees to work from home in early March, but it wasn’t until weeks later—around when U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted a photo of a Cabinet meeting over Zoom—that it dawned on Yuan that his company might play a major role in this new virtual world order.

Yuan soon found himself serving as the world’s relationship liaison, social chair, principal, convention-center host, chief security officer and pallbearer. Despite competition from corporate behemoths like Google, Apple and Microsoft, Zoom jumped out in front of the video pack, catapulting from 10 million daily meeting participants in December to a staggering 300 million in April. Zoom became a verb and a prefix, a defining syllable of a socially distant era. As his company’s valuation soared, Yuan crashed into the Forbes billionaires list.

Zoom’s software was released in 2013, promoting a free basic service for different-size organisations along with many paid levels. Although many other startups relied heavily on free goods to cause widespread saturation, Zoom targeted modest school and company networks that would pay year after year for subscriptions.

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Finance

MSMEs in Maharashtra: State Government Mulling Relief Package For Lockdown-Hit Sector, Says Industries Minister Subhash Desai

MSME (Photo Credits:
Emergency Credit Facility Under ECLG for small businesses hiked from Rs 25 crore to Rs 50 crore by NCGTC. | Representational Image.

In what is believed to be a move to revive the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector in Maharashtra, the state government is planning to provide some relief to the sector which has been severely impacted due to coronavirus lockdown. Maharashtra industries minister Subhash Desai was quoted in a TOI report saying that the MSME sector has asked for relief which includes interest subvention, relief in electricity duty and support for wages to be dispensed during the lockdown.

Desai said that the state government will consider providing a relief package to MSME sector after this issue comes up in the cabinet. The state has 20 lakh units registered as MSMEs, of which, six lakh are in the manufacturing sector, while the others are in service sector.

Indian Merchants Chamber president Rajiv Podar said that the biggest challenge for MSMEs is a fund crunch and a large chunk is blocked by PSUs. “In addition, 65% of MSMEs are below the investable grade and are therefore, not able to access the Centre’s relief package,” he said. Podar said the RBI’s interest rate transmission has not trickled to MSMEs adding that the government will need to stimulate demand in the economy.

Meanwhile, Anant Singhania, director of J K Organisation and CEO of J K Enterprises was quoted in the report saying that the Centre’s Atmanirbhar package catered more to MSMEs, who were already borrowers, to able to borrow more. He said the rest got excluded from the package and are in need of help. “The industrial sector on the whole, “faces a funding challenge since cash flow has come to a grinding halt,” said Singhania, adding that the industry is functioning at a sub-optimal level, facing a lack of demand and lack of workers.

Further, Singhania said that the governments had to give some assurance to the large number of migrants who left the cities so that they would return. “There also needs to be some monetary infusion in the market from the government and public sentiment needs to change on the ground,” he said.