Did you read my last blog post about the need for an app or website to keep travelers updated about delays in flights and my thought that Makemytrip.com or any other company should offer this service? How coincidental is it that I ended up interviewing Deep Kalra (Founder & Group CEO, Makemytrip.com ) for the Emerging India series 10 days after posting that thought? In its 10th year the Emerging India Awards (presented by ICICI Bank and CNBCTV18 ) continue to honour the best SMEs in the country and as a build up to the awards, I met 7 industry stalwarts and got them to mentor some promising SMEs. Today, I met Deep Kalra as he played mentor to Pushpinder Singh (Co-Founder & CEO of Travelkhana.com ) . Using Travelkhana.com a train traveler can book a meal online and have it delivered to his seat in the train, at a station of his choice. While talking about business sustainability (the theme of this episode), Deep spoke about the 4 P's of business sustainab...

After Bangalore, Pune and Kolkata we touched down in Delhi to talk about digital disruption. Digital disruption helped me in my travel as well, since my flight from Mumbai to Delhi was delayed by 2 hours owing to fog. While sitting in the plane on the Mumbai tarmac, I saw a tweet from Indigo Airlines saying that flights had started taking off from Delhi, and then in under 5 minutes the captain came on the PA system and announced that we would finally be taking off. This is a small example, but this could be a great opportunity for Makemytrip.com or similar companies or even a new start up to develop a business around providing travel updates- flights or trains delays, road traffic jams, etc - pan india.  Anyway, back to the symposium, the keynote speaker for the evening was the former President of NASSCOM ( the premier body for the indian IT industry) Mr. Som Mittal .  He spoke about how Voice as an activation tool is coming up and will make a marked difference in...

As a build up to the Emerging India Awards presented by ICICI Bank & CNBC TV18, I caught up with Vinita Bali (former MD of Brittannia Industries) to talk about diversification, whether SMEs need to diversify & if yes then what’s the best way for them to accomplish this. We shot with her at the lawns of the beautiful Leela Palace in Bengaluru. A pleasant breeze accompanied our conversation as Ms. Bali stated that SMEs need to first identify whether they really need to diversify before they blindly jump onto that bandwagon. Especially in a country like India, where there is such a huge untapped market, SMEs should be focussed more on expanding in their existing market before looking at diversification. But that said, when diversifying, SMEs should be cognizant of their strengths and do in depth research about their new market they want to get into before getting their feet wet. For the 2 nd part of the shoot, Ms Bali & I were joined by the VP, Sales & Marketing...

Do big symposium - Kolkata 18th December 2015 As the anchor/moderator for the Do Big Symposium presented by Tata DoCoMo business services and powered by CNBC TV18, I was in the city of joy - Kolkata -recently for our 3rd pit stop of the series. With a strong turnout of approx 200 delegates, the evening began with the Managing Director of SREI Infrastructure Hemant Kanoria addressing the audience about his views on digital disruptions. Some of the key points of his address: * The Holy Trinity of Hindu Mythology - Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh - are also disrupters in their space * Technology can be used to provide employment in rural areas * His company allows customers in rural areas, who dont have access to banking services, to use their product offering (S-Cash) to buy products * Essential to digitise so as to make it easier for your customers This was followed by the MD of Tata Teleservices Ltd., N. Srinath's presentation on digital disruption which began with a thought prov...

Why DDTD? - Because when a great opportunity comes knocking, opening the door isn't enough - you need to break the damn door down. - Because we often hide behind "figurative" doors that need to be broken down for us to get out of our comfort zone and achieve our full potential. - And because the 2010s saw a flurry of CID jokes that I still haven't gotten over. Welcome to my blog where every Sunday I share some general knowledge nuggets about an event that has made news that week. Hope you enjoy it. I would love to hear your comments.