Tag: COVID-19 Pandemic

Categories
MSME

SMEs Shifted Towards Online Marketplace to Cope-Up with COVID-19 Pandemic, Says Report

SMEs adopted digital platforms to cope up with COVID-19| Representational Image (Photo Credits: Pixabay)
SMEs adopted digital platforms to cope up with COVID-19| Representational Image (Photo Credits: Pixabay)

Various businesses suffered huge losses this year owing to the COVID-19 outbreak and the consequent lockdown. All the economic activities, expect for essential items, came to a standstill. However, many businesses did find an alternate route to keep going – the online business platform. Firms increasingly took their businesses online and avoided the traditional physical marketplace. Small and Medium enterprises also entered the digital business spectrum. According to a survey report by CRISIL, smaller enterprises have shown a “big digital shift” to shore up sales in pandemic times. National Startup Awards 2021: DPIIT Invites Entries to Reward Outstanding Startups; Know Eligibility, Prize and How to Register Online at startupindia.gov.in.

The survey was undertaken in November with the aim to find out the level of change in digital activities and access of the small businesses owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey concluded that, the adoption of digital sales channels among micro and small enterprises (MSEs) has increased significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic struck. According to the survey by CRISIL, around 60 per cent of the respondents adopting digital selling said it helped them weather the pandemic-induced stress, while the rest said it boosted sales. 5 Auspicious Dates in January 2021 to Kick-Start a Startup!

10 Lakh महीने तक कमाओ | Low Investment | Business Idea | Dr Vivek Bindra | IBC 

 

“These respondents were also more positive about their near-term business situation compared with those that didn’t take the digital route,” said Bhushan Parekh, Director, CRISIL. “About 29 per cent of the MSEs surveyed were using digital sales channels such as online aggregators or market places, social media, and mobile marketing before the pandemic struck,” added Parekh.

“That number has shot up to 53 per cent among small enterprises and 47 per cent among micro enterprises as of November. Despite their limitations, micro enterprises are not very far from small enterprises in digital adoption. Also, many more are now saying they will take the digital route soon,” he said. “This underscores the fact that increasing digitalisation enlarges the footprint of MSEs, helping them tap newer markets and improving their access to credit,” said CRISIL’s director.

In the manufacturing industry, SMEs belonging to gems, jewellery and textile sector recorded the maximum improvement, as per the survey. Textile SMEs showed a massive jump of 38 percentage points in adoption of digital channels. Adoption in pharmaceuticals was unchanged at 29 per cent because of relatively higher offline demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

Categories
Finance

Gold And Jewellery Industry Hopes to See Demand Recovery in H2FY21: ICRA Report

Gold
Gold (Photo Credits: Pixabay)

Mumbai, November 27: The gold and the jewellery industry expects a demand recovery in H2FY21. According to a report published by ICRA, the industry believes that demand will improve on the back of occasions like festivals and weddings. The gold jewellery retail industry had witnessed a sharp 64 per cent contraction in H1FY21.

A positive trend highlighted in the survey was that the opening of the stores post the coronavirus pandemic induced lockdown has seen a steady improvement in footfall although these were still much lower than last year.

The report further mentioned, “Further, factors like rising preference towards gold as an asset class, favourable rural output amidst good monsoons, expectations regarding the further rise in gold prices etc are likely to support demand in the next few months.”

The industry is grappling with a decade-low level of demand during FY2020, battling multiple headwinds like weakened consumer sentiments amid a sharp rise in gold prices, subdued rural output, and fall in consumer surplus.

Categories
MSME

Stimulus 3.0: Narendra Modi Govt Announces Fresh Relief Package, From Creating More Jobs to Credit Guarantee Support Scheme, Here’s How MSMEs Will Benefit

Stimulus Package
Stimulus Package (Photo Credits: Picpedia)

New Delhi, November 12: FM Nirmala Sitharaman announced a slew of measures as part of stimulus 3.0 with an attempt to give relief to the stressed sectors amid the coronavirus pandemic.

FM announced Atmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana to boost employment and create jobs. This will be effective from October 1, 2020. Under the new scheme, any EPFO-registered employer takes on new employees or hires those who lost jobs between March 1 and September 30 will be given some benefits.

The other measure was Credit guarantee support scheme, which was launched for the healthcare sector and 26 sectors stressed due to coronavirus pandemic. The scheme can be utilised for 100 percent guaranteed collateral-free additional credit at capped interest rates in these sectors.

The entities from these sectors with an outstanding credit of above Rs 50 crore and up to Rs 500 crore as of February 2, 2020, will be benefited in this scheme, the further FM added.

As part of PM Garib Kalyan Rozgar Yojana, an additional outlay of Rs 10,000 crores will be provided for in the current financial year, to boost rural employment.

Categories
Startup

Reopened Your Hotel or Homestay Yet? Now Is the Time As Hotel Occupancy in India Improves in September

Hotels and Homestay (Photo Credits: Pexels)

New Delhi, October 29: If you are thinking of the right time to repoen your holiday home or hotel, this is it! Ever since the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic, the hospitality segment was brought to a grinding halt by the pandemic. The sector is slowly limping back to normalcy and is seeing an improvement in demand as hotel occupancy in the country improved in the last two months. According to a report by HVS India and Anarock, the hotel occupancy improved 10-12 percent in September 2020 compared to that in August 2020.

The ‘HVS-ANAROCK Hotels & Hospitality Overview – October 2020’ showed that last month, average occupancy stood at 24-26 percent. “The hotel sector is showing early signs of recovery with occupancy improving M-o-M across most major markets driven by the gradual revival of domestic leisure travel in the country,” the report said.

According to the report, leisure destinations such as Goa and Jaipur have been witnessing a noticeable improvement in occupancy as people started travelling for a change of pace, albeit to destinations closer to their cities. It adds saying that with the growth in demand, the revenue per available room (RevPAR) also improved 12-14 percent to Rs 815-935. The average daily rate (ADR) of Indian hotels stood at Rs 3,400-3,600, 2-4 per cent higher on a month-on-month basis.

Categories
Strategy

Atmanirbhar Bharat Is About Creating Globally Competitive Enterprises, Says PM Narendra Modi

Narendra Modi (Photo Credits: Facebook)

New Delhi, October 28: In a major boost to the government’s ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called upon exporters to create ‘globally competitive’ enterprises in India in the spirit of his flagship mission. In his message to the EEPC India, Modi said that the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ is about creating globally competitive enterprises in India. The four-day virtual expo opened on Tuesday.

The Prime Minister made this announcement during the inauguration of the engineering exporters’ apex body, EEPC India’s first virtual exhibition, ‘India Subcontracting Expo 2020’ for overseas buyers. During his message, the Prime Minister conveyed that science and engineering have a major role in realising the objectives of the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ programme.

The Prime Minister said that India is creating the right ecosystems for local manufacturing and supply chain. Modi said that technology has become an enabler in the wake of challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.” Digital tools have guided and helped in transforming such challenges into opportunities. The world requires skilled hands and we in India have the talent to cater to these global needs,” he said.

According to EEPC India, as many as 100 engineering exporters would be showcasing their products and technologies to major buyers from Europe, including the UK through a virtual exhibition, seeking to bag manufacturing contracts, giving a boost to the ‘Make In India’ and ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ programmes.

According to a report by IANS, the virtual exposition platform sports several features like 24×7 access for buyers and sellers, virtual B2Bs, chat rooms, among other. Besides, the CXO Forum would be held with a theme-India-EU advanced opportunities for business cooperation in COVID-19 world.

Categories
Finance

India’s Economic Growth in FY21 May Be Negative or Near Zero Due to Ongoing Coronavirus Pandemic, Says Nirmala Sitharaman

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. (Photo Credit: PIB)
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. (Photo Credit: PIB)

New Delhi, October 28: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said that India’s economic growth in the current financial year may be in the negative zone or near zero amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking at the India Energy Forum of CERAWeek, Sitharaman, however, noted that signs of revival are visible now and India would be among the fastest growing nations in the next fiscal. She added that the festive season will further spur the economy which may lead to positive growth in the third and fourth quarters of the current financial year.

The Finance Minister said that the focus of the government is on public spending to boost economic activity. Earlier this month, she had said that another round of stimulus for the economy is not off the table.

Categories
MSME

Big Relief for MSMEs! Ahead of Diwali, Govt Waives Interest on Interest for Loans Up to Rs 2 Crore to Help MSME Borrowers Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

New Delhi, October 25: With the onset of the upcoming festive season, the government announced a major relief to borrowers. The Modi government on Friday announced waiver of interest on interest for loans up to Rs 2 crore irrespective of whether moratorium was availed or not. Reports inform that the Department of Financial Services came out with operational guidelines in the backdrop of Supreme Court’s direction to implement the interest waiver scheme. The scheme is likely to cost the exchequer Rs 6,500 crore.

MSME loans, housing loan, education loans, credit card dues, auto loans, consumer durable loans and consumption loans are covered under the scheme. Talking about the eligibility criteria mentioned in the guidelines, the accounts should be standard as on February 29 which means that it should not be Non-Performing Asset (NPA).

On October 14, the top Court had directed the Centre to implement the interest waiver on loans of up to Rs 2 crore  under the RBI moratorium scheme ‘as soon as possible’ in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. The top Court said that the common man’s Diwali is in the hands of the government. As per the guidelines, the scheme can be availed by borrowers in specified loan accounts for a period from March 1 to August 31, 2020. “Borrowers who have loan accounts having sanctioned limits and outstanding amount of not exceeding Rs 2 crore (aggregate of all facilities with lending institutions) as on February 29 shall be eligible for the scheme,” it said.

As per the scheme, the lending institutions shall credit the difference between compound interest and simple interest with regard to the eligible borrowers in respective accounts for the said period irrespective of whether the borrower fully or partially availed the moratorium on repayment of loan announced by the RBI on March 27, 2020. The scheme is also applicable on those who have not availed the moratorium scheme and continued with the repayment of loans.

The lending institutions after crediting the amount will claim the reimbursement from the central government. Hearing the matter on October 14, the Supreme Court observed that it was concerned about how the benefit of interest waiver would be given to borrowers and said the Centre has taken a “welcome decision” by taking note of plight of the common man, but authorities have not issued any order in this regard.

A bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan had said that ‘Something concrete has to be done’ adding that the benefits of waivers to borrowers up to Rs 2 crore must be implemented as soon as possible. The top court, which posted the matter for hearing on November 2, told the advocates appearing for the Centre and banks that “Diwali is in your hand”.

The Centre recently told the apex court that going any further than the fiscal policy decisions already taken, such as waiver of compound interest charged on loans of up to Rs 2 crore for six months moratorium period, may be “detrimental” to the overall economic scenario, the national economy and banks may not take “inevitable financial constraints”. The top court is hearing a batch of petitions which have raised issues concerning the six-month loan moratorium period announced due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Categories
MSME

Credit Guarantee Scheme: Banks Sanction Rs 1.86 Lakh Cr to 50 Lakh MSMEs Impacted by Slowdown Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

New Delhi, October 17: The Finance Ministry announced that banks have sanctioned loans of about Rs 1.86 lakh crore to 50 lakh business units under the Rs 3-lakh crore Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) for the MSME sector, those who have been affected by a slowdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to a report by PTI, over 27 lakh MSME units have received about Rs 1,32,246 crore till September 29.

Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme is part of the fiscal component of the Rs 20-lakh crore Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan package that was announced to lessen the stress caused by the lockdown due to coronavirus pandemic.

The scheme will be applicable to all loans sanctioned under GECL facility during the period from the date of announcement of the scheme to October 31 or till the amount of Rs 3 lakh crore is sanctioned under GECL, whichever is earlier.