[Ok to feel bi-polar at times] "It was a happy day. It was also the saddest day of my career" [Never allow fear to overcome you] "With few exceptions in my life, I have never worried too much about the future and I have never had too much fear about trying something and failing"...Something related to this that already existed in my moral compass was "Try and fail, but don't fail to try" [Finding good in everything] My sister says I look for good in everything. Iger mentions

2 Years back I was supporting  IDFC FIRST Bank   Vaidyanathan V  in their micro-entrepreneurs journey as part of their FAME Challenge where they wanted the bank to gain traction in the rural-lending segment (unsecured lending space). Today the whole industry is reeling under significant stress for obvious underwriting issues. In the same regard, I was having deep-conversation with industry veteran and  SVADHAN  CEO  Krishna Chandran V Today's auspicious day of Diwali and Laks

The Week Unpacked with Analyst Ankur : What we speak and what we do? 👉 [Private players in defence] While defense minister explicitly calls out "INR 50 Crore to be a good amount, only 79 projects being funded in 6 years and only 18 moving to development stage speaks of the acute shortage of funds and efforts. Earlier this year I remember hearing  Neel Mehta ,  Asteria Aerospace Limited  when he mentioned that unlike Automotive where the whole ecosystem is available, in next-

While we regularly hear VCs and brokerage houses being bullish about food delivery and quick-commerce, I believe a growth (speed-breaker) / impediment is near :- 👉 Business context : In the last couple of years (some may read as decade as well!) many new business models (app-first and based on convenience) have sprung-up largely to cater to Gen-Z populations (early adopters) based out of our urban centers 👉 Digital detox and rise of dumb phones : While I heard the term "dig

👉 For quite sometime, multiple conversations are running with narrative like "SaaS is dead" | "SaaS is losing its value" - these conversations are running as current AI support has enabled enterprises to build certain modules internally thus making some think "SaaS as redundant" 👉 While in my next post, I will cover the changing "landscape of SaaS" - I want to callout how  Klarna 's current move is distraction 👉 Klarna is a buy-now, pay-later provider (credit underwriting

Yes Bank MD and CEO, Prashant Kumar has listed couple of factors across both the asset and liability side. Lets dissect those and let me call out the red-flags which continue to make the bank and management unattractive to investors like me :- "Retail stress is attributed to aggressive unsecured lending." Two important fundas to focus here -  first is aggressive and second is unsecured.  The unsecured lending space has been very attractive for all the market participants sinc

I recently wandered through Thailand and found 1 in every 3 car to be an Isuzu especially in the city of Pattaya. It was peculiar since in my home country, India, it is not the case. We rarely see an Isuzu, or for that matter of fact such pickup vehicles being owned by civilians in handsome numbers I investigated a bit and found a couple of interesting reasons behind this trend:- Vehicle versatility : The vehicle seems to be a strong multi-utility engine of growth for Thai po

Did you understand what Ericsson  did recently by forming a new company with 12 global telcos? They are transforming network from a static commodity to a dynamic platform. Let me explain - Consider the newly formed company as a restaurant and now read below:- Traditional Restaurant : A Static Menu Imagine a restaurant that has a fixed menu (the network) with set prices. Customers can only order what’s on the menu, and the restaurant doesn’t allow any changes or new dishes. Th

As I got invited by the team at  Tata Consultancy Services  to visit the showcased offerings I could catch 2 important and differentiating factors in the semicon space:- 👉 First is the importance of academia research partners such as the  Indian Institute of Science (IISc)  and other premier institutes which are enabling the next generation of semicon journey. I could specifically see how TCS and the academic institute is collaborating to build multiple patents in a cross-di

We should see more action in the engineering outsourcing landscape at  Shell 👉 Shell has been quite aggressive in its R&D spending focused on transition to low-carbon energy. Along with this there are couple of other areas related to growth in LNG business and obviously the 2050 Net Zero target 👉 A quick view into their engineering outsourcing deals for 2024 suggests a strong push for digital EPC contracting (In May they contracted with a Chinese vendor and last week they s

While strolling through  Yahoo Finance  and  CNBC-TV18  feed today, I came across interesting views by  Ravi Kumar S  on the changing landscape of tech services. Capturing some of the thought-provoking stances below for wider reach across my IT and engineering services network:- 👉 Current period of tech discontinuity is defined by both uncertainty and change. Uncertainty caused by on-going wars/geo-political conflicts and change due to fast progress in AI. So while, AI-led i

Over the last couple of months, I got chance to interact with multiple stakeholders across SME, MSME and new India digital services vendors as my friends at  Confederation of Indian Industry ,  Sharp Electronics Corporation USA   Vodafone Idea Limited ,  ZEE Business  and  Profectus Capital Pvt. Ltd  invited me to showcase partner events. Couple of quick observations below:- 👉 Digital Competition Bill (DCB), 2024 might have counter implications, SME and MSME apprehend high a

Responsible Tech, genetic diversity and ownership hold key to unfolding of 19th July MSFT-CRWD saga!! 👉 Couple of months back, probably in early 2024, we saw  Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM)  coming up with CAS (complex adaptive system) approach to regulate AI. This was running parallel to the RAI (responsible AI) initiatives being run across technology providers ( Microsoft ,  Google  taking the lead here) and system integrators such as  Accenture  

Impact and key implications of growing GCC's on outsourcing and the broader provider landscape! 👉 For a first,  Tata Consultancy Services  in recent results acknowledged the impact of GCC since the GCC wave picked up momentum in H2'2023 👉 Considering the strong GCC scale-up plans publicly advertised by enterprises by the end of CY2024 the impact will be more profound.  Kraft Heinz  plans to move from 400 to 2,000 FTEs while  adidas  in their first GCC in Asia (outside China

👉 [Oct'23] Biden administration ordered safe, secure and trustworthy usage of AI. Specific usage of the term "Responsible AI (RAI)" 👉 [Nov'23]  Accenture  appointed  Lan Guan  as Chief AI Officer 👉 [Dec'23]  nasscom  study revealed that 60% of Indian businesses' have started or are planning to take steps for mature RAI adoption Fast forward to May'24... 👉 [Chief RAI and related appointments]  Accenture  appointed  Arnab Chakraborty  as Chief RAI while  NASA - National Aer

👉 [A&D] Distinct conversations with  Gauravkumar Patel  on the fast-paced growth that is expected in A&D along with key enablers and challenges. Focus on relationships and compliances remain key to penetrate tough A&D walls across critical and non-critical support areas 👉 [GTM innovation] We discussed at length synergistic GTM models that the firm leverages in sync with its parent  Arrow Electronics  to create a win-win for all the ecosystem partners 👉 [Importance of IP ac

Happiest Minds Technologies CTO Sridhar Mantha mentions AI to be an iPhone moment in the industry. He says “When the iPhone came, it was not meant for a specific industry like retail or banking or entertainment. AI is such a powerful horizontal technology” I second his thought process as we have already seen fairly successful AI implementations and WIP in fields which required: - 1. Hyper-personalized Customer Experience 2. Real-time Fraud Detection 3. Natural Langua

You know, it is said, sometimes we forget what made us successful at the first place and then we keep wondering what is wrong!! 👉 We as individuals diverge, sometimes we collectively as part of organizations fail to see what founder's soul envisioned - maybe under investor pressure, or maybe at times to just swing with the wind!! 👉 Those who know me, know  The Walt Disney Company  remains close to my heart and would like to reiterate what Sir Walt Disney envisioned it as -

Indian drone arena offers a mixed bag.... Recent conversations with  Rajan Luthra ,  Neel Mehta  and Secretary DGCA, GoI got some interesting views around demand, supply and regulatory oversight:- 👉 Demand : Over last couple of years demand has been driven largely by public sector enablements focused on government's mission to double farmers income through drone based spraying solutions or those for defense use cases. Enterprise demand is still awaited! 👉 Supply : Neel's be

Last couple of weeks saw multiple announcements which might have disheartened futurists seeing EV as the future of mobility :- 👉 [R&D cut down] Apple canceled EV R&D and nullified their decade long effort 👉 [Lower than anticipated EV demand] As Mercedes-Benz AG CEO Ola Kaellenius emphasized the importance of hybrid vehicles (also highlighted in Toyota Motor Corporation strategy) and need for cost cutting as investments in capacity and technology developments have outrun act