03-Jan-21

Business Today

For Managing Tomorrow

Business Today2 min read
Mettle Of The Best CEOs
2020 was indeed a reset year — as much for India Inc. as it was for the world. It reset work as WFH got a new dimension. It rebooted strategies as firms had to scramble to deal with lockdowns and unlockdowns. It recast technologies, giving rise to ne
Business Today1 min read
Business Today
Editor-in-Chief: Aroon purie Group Editorial Director: Raj Chengappa Editor: Rajeev Dubey Group Creative Editor: Nilanjan Das Group Photo Editor: Bandeep Singh Executive Editor: Anand adhikari Deputy Editors: Ajita Shashidhar, Naveen Kumar (Money Tod
Business Today2 min read
Not A Pretty Picture
Y-o-Y Growth (%) April-October AUTO SEES SERIOUS DECElERATION FEW TAKERS FOR CONSUMER DURABLES TEXTILES SHRINK BIG TIME METAL & MINING: NEGATIVE CHARGE OIL & REFINERY: MAJOR SLIPPAGES Y-o-Y Growth (%) April-October BOOST FOR FARM/ALLIED SECTORS DRUGS
Business Today6 min read
Oriflame India:
Oriflame has traversed a passionate journey of 25 years bringing millions of smiles on the faces of India's beautiful people with its beauty and wellness products. It is a momentous occasion that marks the Swedish company venturing into India 25 year
Business Today7 min readLeadership
"Every Company Now Is A Technology Company….."
Dr. Vas Narasimhan, is Chief Executive Officer {CEO} of Novartis which has annual revenues of more than $50bn (£41 bn} and 125,000 employees around the world. Under his leadership, the company has completed over USD 70 billion in strategic transactio
Business Today4 min read
Staying On Top
Most young executives dream of making it to the corner room one day. A vast majority never gets to the top job of a CEO. But for those that do, life could be lonely at the top, even frustrating and disappointing at times while searching for the right
Business Today8 min read
Institution Builder
Of the eight years that Kundapur Vaman Kamath spent at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in the late 1980s, he was in Indonesia for four years. A fast learner, Kamath, an IIM Ahmedabad alumnus became fairly fluent in national language Bahasa Indonesia
Business Today3 min read
Bagman Of India Does Business But Takes Care Of Environment Too
At the beginning of this year, the corporate sector was anxious to know what 2020 would hold for their companies. No one would have guessed what was actually coming. Then, the COVID-19 virus arrived and crippled businesses globally and shook everythi
Business Today6 min read
Universal Reinventor
On January 12, 2017, N. Chandrasekaran walked in late for the third-quarter earnings conference call of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The group had announced his appointment as Chairman of Tata Sons just a few hours before the call. Chandrasekaran
Business Today6 min read
Mercurial Transformer
Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion, stated boxing legend Muhammad Ali. That applies to billionaire Mukesh Ambani too. In 1997, his father Dhirubhai Ambani asked him to build Asia’s largest petroleum refinery at Jamnagar in 24 months, against t
Business Today4 min read
Dhruv Galgotia
I am fond of Indian cuisine and prefer to have Indian food cooked at home most of the time. Quiet often I cook myself when I get time, specially the first and last meal of the day. I prefer to watch fast paced thrillers such as Narcos, Money Heist, M
Business Today6 min readAutomotive
The CEO For All Seasons
To say that FY20 was a challenging year for the Indian automotive industry would be an understatement. Overall auto industry volumes declined almost 18 per cent in FY20, the worst showing in a financial year in over two decades. What’s more, the dome
Business Today3 min read
Unravelling The 'Mantra' To Success
Some businesses shut down, many others struggled, butfew registered a performance as stellar as Mantra Properties, a young Pune-based real estate organization. As Mantra Properties sold a record 675 units between August and October 2020, the buzz aro
Business Today5 min read
Niine: Redefining Norms For Safe Menstrual Hygiene And Being A Game Changer
Hit by a raging pandemic and the after-effects of the governmenten-forced lockdown, while many companies were scaling down their operations, laying-off employees and trimming salaries, Niine was doing just the opposite. It expanded its operations, re
Business Today5 min read
The Empowerer
On March 17, as India started reporting cases of coronavirus, Hindustan Unilever decided to ask employees to work from home. As the fear of contacting the virus loomed large, MD & Chairman Sanjiv Mehta’s message to his core team was: “Look after our
Business Today6 min readMedical
Footprints On The Sands Of Time
He spent a lot of time on the ground at various levels, working with people and turning goals into victories with them. He went on to take up an executive course of Masters in Business Administration, and he landed up at the premier IIM Kolkata. The
Business Today6 min readWorld
Coach And Captain
Despite running a company that has been increasing revenues at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 12 per cent over the past four years, Ashish Bharat Ram thinks growth is not his biggest concern. He says while he does talk about growth an
Business Today5 min read
Melting Magic Mysurpa
Ever wondered about the story behind Mysurpa? Where did it come from? You can trace Mysurpa's origin to the modest kitchen chambers of Sri Krishna Sweets (SKS) Coimbatore. It all started in 1979 with a small retail sweet shop in Rathinasabapathy Pu r
Business Today5 min read
The Caretaker
Soon after the lockdown began, the Indian shrimp industry plunged into an unprecedented crisis. Exports stopped due to fall in overseas demand and logistic disruptions, while shrimp processors got stuck with their frozen or value-added stocks. Upstre
Business Today2 min readTechnology & Engineering
Delta Electronics Committed To Innovation And Energy Conservation Celebrates Its 50th Global Anniversary
Delta Electronics, founded in 1971, is a global provider of power and thermal management solutions with a mission, "To provide innovative, clean and energy-efficient solutions for a better tomorrow;' focusses on addressing key environmental issues su
Business Today6 min read
Back From The Brink
In the summer of 2003, Nikhil Nanda, Chairman and Managing Director of Escorts Group, found himself perspiring in the CEO’s cabin of the company’s factory in Faridabad on outskirts of the national capital. Despite the heat, the reason for the power c
Business Today3 min read
Like a Phoenix
Back in the day, Plato described necessity as the mother of invention - something that holds even today. The modern times, with an increased emphasis on diversification of knowledge, has led to the proliferation of e-learning. Dwelling on the same te
Business Today6 min read
Best Yet To Come
He is one of India's most admired and longest serving professional CEOs. During his 26-year stint at the top, Aditya Puri created India’s second-largest bank from scratch. He may be an inspiration for many entrepreneurs and CEOs, but Puri himself loo
Business Today2 min read
Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices (HMD)
Hindu stan Syringes & Medical Devices (HMD) one of the Top 5 Manufacturers of Disposable Syringes in the World and the largest for Auto Disable Syringes is lead by its dynamic leader Mr Rajiv Nath, Managing Director, to become one India's leading Med
Business Today4 min read
Cementing Gains
In the middle of the coronavirus crisis, the ₹12,000-crore, Kolkata-based Shree Cement went ahead and cemented a partnership with one of India’s iconic football clubs — East Bengal Sporting Club — soon after it completed 100 years. Shree Cement picke
Business Today3 min read
Vibhu Agarwal: The Man Behind Ullu And The Indian Ott Overhaul
Vibhu Agarwal's prospective vision, hard work and superior leadership style led Jaypeeco India to become the backbone of major national and multi-national companies throughout India. His altruistic attitude and hunger for providing more to people als
Business Today4 min readChemistry
The Chemical Man
About seven-eight years ago, Deepak C. Mehta, Chairman and Managing Director of 50-year-old Deepak Nitrite was planning an aggressive expansion in Europe, backed by acquisitions. During one his meetings in the country, a veteran European industrialis
Business Today4 min readSmall Business & Entrepreneurs
VUNGARALA V SUBRAHMANIYAM: BREAKING THE EDUCATION BARRIERS THROUGH Al
The young entrepreneur started his immaculate journey at Manipal Institute of Technology. In the first year of engineering, he set up the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Manipal Chapter. This marked his first step in creating out-of-the-box
Business Today5 min read
Self-reliant CEO
The one thing that Anil Rai Gupta, the Chairman and Managing Director of Havells, among India’s largest consumer electronics companies, misses the most during the pandemic is ability to travel and meet distributors, retailers, vendors and sometimes e
Business Today4 min read
Quantum Leaper
Gauging the risk of lending is the primary task of Rajeev Jain, Managing Director and CEO, Bajaj Finance (BFL), as the non-banking finance company’s (NBFC’s) profit lies in the last instalment of loan repayment. That is why Covid-19 and the resultant
Business Today6 min readWorld
Dhanuka Agritech Limited
Under your leadership Dhanuka Group has soared new heights and now Dhanuka Agritech is among the top five companies in Crop Protection sector nationally. Looking back and taking a pause how was the journey? We began our journey almost four decades ag
Business Today6 min read
Growth Architect
It's been five years since Suresh Narayanan, Chairman and Managing Director, Nestle India, took over the ₹ 12,000-crore food major. His report card speaks for itself. The company has achieved an organic CAGR growth of 11 per cent in the last five yea
Business Today3 min readDesign
Ajmera Fashion: A Journey that Inspires
Founded in 1992 in Surat, it was a dream-come-true for a young 20-year-old Mr Ajay Ajmera who hailed from Sikar Rajasthan. He stepped into the Surat Textile Industry to change the way it works forever; as a result, he has come to be known as a trends
Business Today5 min readTechnology & Engineering
Raising The Bar
In the first quarter of FY19, HCL Tech went past Wipro to become the third-largest IT services company in India after TCS and Infosys. The architect of this rare change in the industry’s top order was C. Vijayakumar, who took over as CEO of HCL Tech
Business Today2 min readPsychology
Feeling Of Success
BIGGEST STRENGTH OF YOUR INSTITUTION: For any University, the biggest strength is the students followed by the Intellectual capital represented by the team of Faculty and other administrative staff. I am basically a team player and for me everybody w
Business Today7 min read
Full Throttle
Can someone buying latest floor tiles for his home in a remote village influence profits and revenues of a city gas distribution (CGD) company which he has not even heard of? It can, in case of Gujarat Gas, India’s largest GGD company and one of the
Business Today5 min read
The Pain Controller
Premchand Godha, Chairman and MD of Mumbai-based IPCA Laboratories was amused to hear US President Donald Trump term Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) — a drug Trump claimed was helping him ward off Covid-19 — as an antimalarial medicine. The observation was
Business Today4 min read
Eye On The Future
Gurdeep Singh, Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of NTPC Ltd, recently got a five-year extension till July 2025, making him one of the longest serving CMDs of the country’s largest power generator. This is an acknowledgment of his role in maintain
Business Today2 min read
How We Did It
This is the ninth edition of BT’s ranking of India’s Best CEOs. This year also, we teamed up with PwC to work out a methodology for the survey. This takes into account both quantitative performances as well as qualitative aspects. For this year, we s
Business Today3 min read
Reinventing Businesses
A few weeks ago, the market capitalisation of listed global companies crossed $100 trillion for the first time. This comes in a year overshadowed by the worst global crisis in memory. All major economies, barring China, are projected to be in recessi
Business Today3 min read
Quality Stocks Hold Key
With 2021 just around the corner, here’s a glimpse of what to expect in the new year — in stocks, insurance or gold. Read on what lies ahead also in mutual funds, debt instruments, real estate and borrowing in the following pages. The year 2020 could
Business Today2 min readInvestments & Securities
Stay Invested, Rebalance Your Portfolio
2020 was a mixed bag for mutual fund investors. The year started out with all-time high index levels, but Covid-19 brought the markets down. There were plenty of exits, but those who stayed invested made stupendous gains. Resilience was the buzzword.
Business Today3 min read
Hold And Buy The Dips
The year may have been challenging in many aspects, but it was a golden year for those who invested in the yellow metal. Gold prices touched an all-time high of ₹ 56,191 in August as uncertainty around the pandemic persisted and stock markets tanked
Business Today3 min read
Go Beyond Life, Health Policies
Product innovations and the urge to protect families in case of eventualities arising out of Covid-19 drove people to buy insurance in 2020. Most life and health insurance products saw demand directly coming in from customers. But the fact is the ins
Business Today2 min read
Good Time to Buy Real Estate
Real estate is one of the most significant investments which consumes years of savings. The sector, already struggling in most parts of the country, was brought to a grinding halt due to the lockdown. Things improved from July when the unlock process
Business Today2 min readFinance & Money Management
Lower Rates, More Tech
Good times are back for borrowers, especially those taking new loans and already servicing floating rate loans. The reason: the repo rate is at its lowest level since 2000. Will this continue in 2021? Pandemic-led restrictions have hit economic growt
Business Today1 min read
Kataria’s Sporting Adventures
Getting one’s business to stay afloat and inspiring team members to be resilient during a black swan event such as the Covid pandemic can become extremely stressful, especially for the CEO of the business. As India began to enter the unlock phase in
Business Today1 min read
Panag’s Shooting Escapades
Sherbir Panag, Partner in law firm Panag and Babu, took to shooting as a sport at an early age. He started skeet shooting at the age of 12, and went on to compete professionally, including representing the Junior Indian Team at two world cups in Germ
Business Today1 min readHorses
The Horse Rider
For Jitu Virwani, Chairman and MD, Embassy Group, horses are his second passion, the first being the real estate business. Virmani has been instrumental in nurturing the sport in India. What he purchased as a farmland (now close to the Bangalore inte
Business Today2 min readPsychology
Best Advice I Ever Got
Q. What was the problem you were grappling with? A. After college, I joined the sales team of Pond's. I had the opportunity to lead team members who were far senior to me by age. After the acquisition of Pond's, I joined Unilever’s marketing function

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