Keshav Murugesh, Group CEO of WNS shares his success story

Editor Himansu Sekhar Samal

Keshav Murugesh, Group chief executive officer (CEO) of New York Stock Exchange(NYSE)-listed WNS Global Services, says he had never heard of the company till somebody from private equity giant Warburg Pincus called him to discuss a job opportunity.
The conversation didn’t go anywhere as Murugesh was simply not interested and was well-entrenched in US-based Syntel, which had grown its headcount from 1,800 to 12,000 and revenues from $185 million to $410 million under him.
However, a few months later while he was on a business trip to Chicago, Warburg called again requesting a meeting at a hotel opposite the airport before Murugesh caught his flight back to India.
The meeting helped change his mind after he figured out that the gentleman from the private equity firm had flown into Chicago from the UK a short while ago just to meet him and was heading back to the airport to take the same plane back home.
The effort Warburg (which had acquired a controlling stake from British Airways in 2002) had put in to persuade him to come on board prompted Murugesh to read up a little more on WNS.
What he read wasn’t comforting at all: WNS was up for sale till recently and the numbers were such a “horror story” that nobody, not even its investors, was willing to touch it.
But Murugesh says his “turnaround instincts” and willingness to test himself all over again took over as he dug deeper and found WNS was earlier a captive unit of British Airways and had an impressive roster of clients across the world. He signed up in 2010.
We are at the Point of View, the business lounge at ITC Grand Central, for a sandwich-and-coffee lunch and it’s clear Murugesh is hardly interested in either of them. He dishes out figures that prove Warburg’s persistence in getting him on board has paid off.
The 52-year-old CEO grins from ear to ear while recounting his experience when he rang the NYSE bell on July 20 this year for a dramatic appreciation in market capitalisation (around 50 per cent over the past six months to $1.4 billion).
The company now has 29,000-plus employees, 37 delivery locations and presence in 12 countries.
His strategy of moving away from the traditional people-based model to a more outcome-based one had other fallouts too: WNS is leading the business process management (BPM) industry in terms of revenue growth and its profitability on an adjustment operating margin is now the highest among its peers.
Among the many hats that Murugesh wears, the one which he is immensely proud of is chairmanship of industry body Nasscom’s BPM Council whose focus is to carry forward the industry’s rebranding process from BPO (business process outsourcing) to BPM.
The earlier selling point of ‘your mess for less’ — essentially taking on low-end commoditised work of international clientele — is passé, he says, adding that the public perception about the industry being all about dead-end jobs has to end.
The focus of the BPM industry now is to help clients with decision-making and become partners that can offer end-to-end seamless processes to help clients get competitive edge.
“We still hear terms like ‘call centre’, ‘contact centre’ being synonymous with the industry. While the contact centre business is key to outsourcing, it is just one part of the industry,” says Murugesh.
The passion for being a change agent for the industry (he prefers being referred to as the chief sales executive for WNS and the rest of the industry) results in a rather long speech, the summary of which is as follows: The BPM industry today employs high-quality, specialised resources and drives excellence across various global brands and needs to be known for the innovations it enables and the thousands of patents it has created in the past decade.
The end-to-end transformation and client centrality in solutions will enable the BPM industry to touch $50 billion by 2020 from the present $26 billion as India is expected to be the ‘nerve centre’ or hub of the global BPM sourcing industry, developing best practices, as social media, enterprise mobility and other new technologies are set to drive demand for specialised services.
Murugesh is keen to explain how he has walked the talk at WNS, which became the first company in the BPM space to create an end-to-end vertically aligned structure and also created a model where revenue growth and headcount was delinked.
The company positioned senior domain experts with every client so that strategic discussions could take place.
“Today we have the ability to sit across the table with, say, the CFO (chief financial officer) of a global insurance company who knows he is dealing with highly specialised people in insurance. It’s indeed a very high-cost model but we did it because we wanted to be his partner for many years,” Murugesh says, adding that approach helps the insurance firm to associate WNS across broking, actuarial, retail, wholesale etc.
Not many people know that today’s BPM industry gives specialists great career options.
For example, Murugesh says WNS employs 8,000 accountants, 3,000 research and analytics people that include statisticians, economics PhD holders, mathematicians and doctors.
That, however, does not preclude graduates from joining the industry as most industry players have robust programmes to train fresh graduates. For instance, WNS has domain universities (specialising in specific domains) in different areas to create specialists from generalists.
The hot cup of coffee finally prompts Murugesh to go down memory lane. He chose to become a chartered accountant simply because as a student in Visakhapatnam, he saw everyone being extra respectful to the treasurer of the club where his father was the secretary.
As a student, he dabbled with at least two businesses — the first was that of a sub-broker where his job was to go to all the club members and friends and advise them to buy shares of particular companies.
“Almost all of them listened to me as they knew I was doing CA and hence thought I knew a lot more than them,” Murugesh says with a smile.
With the 1.5 per cent brokerage that he got, Murugesh invested in shares of ITC not because of any particular insights into the company but because he was highly impressed by the company’s advertisement for its convertible bond issue.
The ad with a catchy caption — “Meet the new Bond in town” — had the picture of a man standing with a gun asking people to invest in the bonds.
Murugesh did. After the bonds were converted into shares, he started getting ITC’s annual reports that he read copiously and underlined all the mistakes — a practice that played a critical role in later getting him a job at the Kolkata-based company.
Simultaneously, he started retailing generators made by Honda. The business picked up after he posted a series of small ads in local newspapers, saying, “Honda is selling like Bonda”.
Bonda is the name of a must-have dish in a typical south Indian tiffin, and the ad worked magically for his audience — the rural folk in Andhra Pradesh.
Murugesh says he was doing fine in his own little world but his mother, who was the first manager of the first Indian women’s cricket team, had other ideas.
It was she who spotted an ITC ad for a job in the company’s internal audit department and applied on Murugesh’s behalf — a decision that forced him to come out of his comfort zone.
He speaks fondly about his days at ITC from 1989 to 2002 where he rose to the position of general manager, Treasury group (investments and diversification group), which created businesses across financial services, agri-businesses and international trading.
He was also the first CFO of ITC Infotech, which he helped create.
Does he have enough time left to do anything else? Murugesh answers that with lightning speed: he still has enough time to travel with his family all over the world – for example, his next trip is to the North Pole. 

The inspiring story of a million-dollar company

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OrangeScape, one of the most successful start-ups in India, was in the news last month, when it was named the prime technology partner for 'Google App Engine'.

With this, OrangeScape has moved to a different league in the PaaS (Platform as a Service) space. The $5 million company with 50 people is aiming to be a billion dollar company in the next 5 years.
The journey of Suresh Sambandam, founder and CEO of OrangeScape as an entrepreneur, started at the age of 19 in Cuddalore, a small town in Tamil Nadu. Today, he is not only a successful entrepreneur but a man with a few patents to his credit and an angel investor in start-ups in Chennai.

As the CEO of OrangeScape, he shuttles between India and the United States.

Here is Suresh Sambandam's success story...
Growing up in a small town
I grew up in a small town in Tamil Nadu called Cuddalore. I became an entrepreneur at 19 when I was not even aware what entrepreneurship was. I would say I was an amateur entrepreneur then. I did not have this urge to be an entrepreneur; I only wanted to be independent and free.
When I finished my 12th standard in 1990, my father's real estate business was in trouble. So, I had to opt for distant education in Commerce from the University of Madras.
Photographs: Sreeram Selvaraj

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Having free time in the evenings, I and my friend decided to learn typewriting as it was in vogue then. That was the turning point in my life. Other than the typewriters, the institute also had one computer. Computers were just entering our lives then. When the institute manager offered to teach me computers for Rs 50 a month, I joined the course.
I had no idea what computers were. I just started learning and it opened a new world.
From Basic, I soon moved to dBase and sitting in a remote corner of India, I created an airline reservation system when I had never travelled in an aircraft or seen it at close quarters.
I was so fascinated by computers that I went in the afternoons also to the institute when it was deserted so I got more time to learn.

Starting a computer centre
The idea to start a computer centre came to my mind when I felt that was the only way I would get to work on computers all the time. Five of us (friends) decided to pool in Rs 25,000 and start a centre.

When I asked my father for Rs 25,000, he refused to give me but my persistence worked and I borrowed the amount from him.
I was so happy finally when we opened the centre in 1993. The other four guys were only financial partners as they had other work. I got the centre all to myself.
Our plan was to teach students in the mornings and evenings and also create some products. We had already gone to some industries at the SIPCOT in Cuddalore with proposals, and we got offers to do automation process in many companies. The centre used to make Rs 30-35,000 every month which was just break-even for all of us. The only one who had fun was me.
I went to Pondicherry and bought computer books as there were no such books available in Cuddalore. I was like Ekalavya, I learnt Basic, dBase, Cobol, C, C++, and Unix by reading books.
In 1996, when we decided to close it down, all of us got back what we had invested. It was in addition to what we made every month.

Had internet arrived in Cuddalore at that time, we would have been able to continue the centre for some more time. Anyway, after we closed the centre, I gave the money back to my father!
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From Cuddalore to Bangalore
After finishing my graduation, I decided to work in a company so that I would get an idea of how the corporate sector worked.

At that time, only Bangalore and Mumbai were the places to be if you wanted a career in computers. Chennai was not in the picture at all. So, off I went to Bangalore.

Going from a small town to a place like Bangalore was very intimidating. Even the way I dressed was so different from what others did. Luckily, I had a good command over English as I studied in a convent school.
I literally roamed the streets looking for a job. I must say it was by sheer luck that I got one. Java had just becoming popular and I had learnt it. I saw an ad in the paper that Hewlett-Packard was looking for people who knew Java, and I applied.

I did well in the test and interview, and was offered the job as I was the only one among the applicants who knew Java.
I came to know later that HP selected me because in one portion of a project, they needed someone who knew Java. Later they and I found out that there were only 10 lines of Java code! Anyway, as I was proficient in C and C++, I also did the rest of the 10 million lines.
I started off as a Software Engineer and got three promotions in three years and became Software Analyst.

A successful entrepreneur who has invested in 20 start-ups

Editor-Himansu Sekhar Samal

 

Image: Serial entrepreneur Sashi Reddi. Photograph, courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

 

 

After selling AppLabs, an independent software testing company with 2,500 professionals, to Computer Sciences Corporation in September 2011 for Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion), giving 10 times return on investments to Series-A investors such as Westbridge and Sequoia Capital India, Sashi Reddi returned to his original passion - investing in start-ups.
A serial entrepreneur, Reddi had started three other companies prior to AppLabs: web content management firm EZPower Systems, which was acquired by DocuCorp and eventually became a part of Oracle; group purchasing dotcom iCoop; and game developing company FXLabs, which was acquired by Foundation 9 Entertainment.
The founder and managing partner of SRI Capital, a Hyderabad-based seed-stage venture capital fund with an initial corpus of Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion), Reddi has in his portfolio start-ups such as Glassbeam (machine log analytics for technology support), ThinCI (graphics chip design firm), Identropy (identity management services firm), Edutor (tablet-based e-learning player), iMomentous (mobile-based talent engagement platform), Hello Curry (quick service restaurant chain), YuppTV (live Internet TV channel streaming platform), GIBSS (green energy leader), and NumberMall (hyperlocal marketing).
In Edutor and GIBSS, SRI Capital was the first institutional investor and Reddi is on the board of the two companies. Both firms have successfully raised a Series-A round within two years of SRI's investment.
"The opportunity in India currently is in the consumer space as start-ups try to build Indian versions of Uber (Ola), Open Table (Zomato), etc. This will be an exciting area to watch over the next five years as some of these Indian players win or lose against their global counterparts," says the technocrat, who is also a member of the investment team at Gabriel Investments.
"In the US, I focus on enterprise SaaS (software as a service) opportunities since the consumer story has now played out with a lot of very well-funded start-ups in every large category. There is a shortage of capital in the enterprise tech space so it is where I can play a role."
Known for his business acumen, gentle manners and an unflappable style of functioning, Reddi has so far made 10 investments in the US in his personal capacity, while his SRI Capital has made an equal number of investments in India, which translates into one new investment per quarter.
"We invested in Applabs, a company founded and managed by Sashi. I served on the board of the company for more than five years. Sashi is a rare combination of being an outstanding businessman and a fine gentleman. We prospered significantly having invested in the company and made fantastic returns. In the past 10 years, we as a group invested in 75-odd companies and I would rate Sashi as one of the top five entrepreneurs we backed. In my five years of being on his board, I never saw him ruffled or agitated. He build a great business that was valued nicely by a global major and all that without much ado," said Sandeep Singhal, founder and managing director of Westbridge Capital.
The latest investment of SRI Capital is Hyderabad-based NumberMall, which started out as a phone recharge business but is now evolving to using that customer data to provide hyperlocal offers to customers from nearby merchants.

SRI had invested Rs 5 crore (Rs 50 million) in this start-up in January 2015, and Reddi joined the board of NumberMall.
In this risky world of angel investing, where investors look to exit firms at the earliest, Reddi has not made any major cash exits from his portfolio companies as yet.
Except for some minor exits such as KonciergeMD, which was acquired by Accolade (both Philadelphia-based healthcare companies), and Shopo (co-invested with Sequoia India), an Indian designer and handcrafted products marketplace, which was acquired by Snapdeal in 2013.
"The average age of my investments are only two years with only a few being three years. The expectation is that in the next 12 months, we should see two to three exits in the portfolio. In the normal course, barring some exceptions, successful start-ups will move on to raise more funding and grow - just as we saw with Edutor and GIBSS. I am expecting another two-three of my start-ups to raise the next round of funding, like Hello Curry and NumberMall. Most start-ups that exit would be those where there is little upside for investors. Only in a few exceptions will an exit be due to the phenomenal success of a start-up," says Reddi.
Reddi, who received his BTech in computer science from IIT-Delhi, an MS in computer science from New YorkUniversity, and later a PhD from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, serves on the advisory board of Wharton Entrepreneurship and the board of Ben Franklin Technology Partners.
FACT BOX
Professional graph: Serial entrepreneur; founded four companies EZPower Systems, iCoop, FXLabs, and AppLabs
Investment interests: Floated SRI Capital in 2012 and has so far invested in 20 start-ups both in his personal capacity and through SRI Capital
Major investments: Rs 3 crore in quick service restaurant chain Hello Curry in March 2014, Rs 16 crore in Internet TV provider YuppTV for 10% stake in April 2014, and Rs 5 crore in NumberMall for minority stake in January 2015

  

A 20-year-old entrepreneur's success story 

Editor-Himansu Sekhar Samal

     

Besides being a successful entrepreneur, he is the world's second youngest writer of books on ethical hacking.

At the age of 20, when most youngsters are still pursuing their studies and are undecided about their future, Ludhiana-based Trishneet Arora is an internationally recognised ethical hacker who assists industry in IT security, the police in cracking down on cyber crime, and companies in training employees.
Arora, a first-generation entrepreneur, set up his own company - TAC Security Solutions - in 2012.

Trishneet Arora during a training session with crime branch officials in Mumbai. Photograph: Courtesy, TAC

It offers training, consulting and IT security solutions, and his clients include MNCs as well as domestic organisations such as Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Ralson (India) Ltd, the police forces of Punjab and Gujarat, and the Central Bureau of Investigation.
He is listed by Microsoft Social Forum at third position (after Ankit Fadia and Sunny Vaghela) among India's Top 10 Ethical Hackers.

A back-bencher in school, he failed in the class VIII examination and completed his class X and XII through open learning. Arora is also an author, speaker, cyber crime consultant and investigator.
"My father is a senior accounts officer in a private firm and my mother is a housewife. With no formal education in business, setting up my own business was a very challenging task. But the passion to do something unique and the growing number of cases of IT security motivated me to set up my own business in 2012," he explained.

Trishneet Arora talks to CBI officers. Photograph: Courtesy, TAC

Arora said, "It was difficult to get the company registered with the Registrar of Companies as I had no idea about all the legal formalities. But I finally incorporated my own company. I feel passion is the most powerful weapon in any work, and since I had the passion to do something unique, I established myself as a prominent player in the field of IT security."
He added: "After incorporating our own company, in a week's time we managed to get a client who asked us to do his web security. We charged him fees that were lower than the actual cost, as we believe in client satisfaction. Gradually we moved on and managed to get good clients."
Arora says that while the big companies invest money in ensuring IT security, SMEs do not, due to the lack of awareness: "They fail to understand that they are secure only as long as there is no cyber attack. Their data and network are vulnerable."

His company, he adds, provides them with IT security through customised solutions.
Citing an example, he added, "A Punjab-based exporter came to us and said that his buyer had sent payment for an order thrice, but he didn't receive a single penny. While working on the case, we found that somebody had hacked the exporter's network, and the hacker had total control of communication between the two parties."
Breaching security, the hacker forwarded his own account for payment, and the exporter failed to get his payment. "There are numerous examples where SMEs come to us. Recently we solved a case where an industrialist had become a victim of credit card cloning," said Arora.
Arora is also planning to open a training centre on ethical hacking in Dubai or the UK.

Trishneet Arora during a training session with Ludhiana police officials. Photograph: Courtesy, TAC

Besides being a successful entrepreneur, he is the world's second youngest writer of books on ethical hacking.
He has written two books - The Hacking Era and Hacking Talk. The latter was recently released.

Success story: Shashank started a healthcare start-up when he was just 20!

Editor-Himansu Sekhar Samal

Image: Co-founded by Shashank ND. Photograph, courtesy: Practo

 

 

Seven years ago, twenty-year-old engineering graduates from National Institute of Technology, Suratkal, Karnataka  dared to take  a different path, even as many of their classmates took up regular jobs in the corporate world.
Co-founded by Shashank ND and Abhinav Lal, Practo is an online health service platform, which assists patients to fix appointments with doctors, build a software platform to digitise their health records and have online consultations as well.
Practo today boasts of an impressive list of clientele comprising two lakh doctors, 10,000 hospitals and 5,000 diagnostic centres based in 35 cities and four countries.
The online service has made rapid strides, raising $124 million so far, the biggest by any healthcare start-up.
So much so, that high profile investors like Russian billionaire Yuri Milner have invested in Practo, reinforcing its commitment to boost the healthcare sector.

Image: Co-founded by Shashank ND and Abhinav Lal, Practo is an online health service platform. Photograph, courtesy: Practo

 

 

With the mission of making ‘mankind live healthier, longer lives’, Shashank wanted people to find the right doctors and keep their records online so that it can be accessed from anywhere in the world.
“Healthcare is one of the last industries to be completely transformed by technology. In an era, where I can book movie tickets without getting out of bed, I have to jump through hoops to find a doctor. In the age of Internet, I have billions of spam emails but getting my health records digitally is a surprisingly difficult task. All this is going to change as technology permeates every aspect of healthcare and makes it digital,” explains Shashank ND, founder & CEO, Practo.
Optimistic about India’s entrepreneurial success, Shashank points out, “There is talent, access to capital and a sense of belief in the system that great global products can come from India and that is the direction we should all move in.”
Shashank ND shares the experience of starting Practo and how he plans to transform the healthcare sector in an interview with Manu A B.

 

Did you always want to start a company on your own? What were your plans when you joined NIT?  
The goal has never been about being an entrepreneur or starting a company – it has always been about solving a problem we care deeply about – a problem that, no one is solving but when solved, will impact billions of lives and make them better.
We started Practo because of personal incidents that made us realise how broken healthcare was and how poor the experience was for consumers and decided that there has to be a better way – and then went ahead and built it.
How difficult was it to start working on a new idea? How were your early days?
We were pretty convinced that this was a meaningful problem for humanity and that we were going to solve it.
We started with Practo Ray – our cloud based practice management software that helps doctors and clinics manage digitise and make their practice more efficient.
We found great acceptance and interest from doctors. Further, we actually found them passionately interested in the product and over the last several years, Practo Ray has evolved based on direct feedback from doctors and is therefore keenly tuned into their workflows and specific needs.

Today, Practo Ray has over 90 per cent market share in India and doctors use Practo Ray to manage healthcare for millions of patients every month.
A couple of years ago we launched Practo Search – to help consumers find great doctors. Millions of consumers visit Practo every month to find the right healthcare practitioner for them.
Today, we are present in 35 citiies in India and in Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia. We will continue to expand our foot print to 100 cities in India and 10 countries across South East Asia, Latin America, Middle East and Eastern Europe. 

 

Was it difficult to convince people to join you? Were your parents supportive?
We have always looked for and continue to look for a unique blend of talent and passion for solving the problem we have taken up.
We have found that if people understand and believe in the vision and care about the problem, then they will join you to solve the problem – else why would you want them there in the first place?
My parents have always been supportive and continue to do so.
What difficulties did you face initially? Was it easy to raise funds?
When you aim to redefine an industry the challenges are many but that also helped us in getting better.
When we started building Practo Ray, the biggest challenge was how to build a hyper responsive product in a market where Internet penetration was low and speed not as good as what we see in many other markets.
While building Practo.com, the biggest challenge was how to get reliable information about doctors and clinics.
We have an on-ground team that goes to the streets, city by city, to capture doctor and clinic information which is then put through a rigorous verification system to ensure we only have genuine doctors with absolutely accurate details. Scaling this to traverse all of India and of course globally is complex but we believe the effort is worth it because we want our customers to be able to trust and rely on the information we provide.
Third challenge, we face of course is building the right infrastructure to scale our product.
We are growing at an extremely fast pace – we get over 4 million searches every month – and this is growing at a scorching pace every month!
So obviously, the infrastructure, servers etc. have to keep pace  and also maintain the highest levels of security and encryption.
So we keep a dedicated team that ensures our service is always available and is hyper responsive. 

 

How many doctors/hospitals use your software? What are the advantages of using this software?
We designed Practo Ray from the ground up to simplify practice management and help doctors focus on the patients.
We realised that the reason many healthcare practitioners and establishments were averse to adopting software was because it turned them into IT managers instead of being doctors – they had to worry about computers, software updates, data backups and of course, security and privacy.
This is why we built Practo Ray to be cloud based – there is zero installation issues, automatic upgrades, continuous data backups and world class security and privacy policies.
How many people use the search engine to look for doctors every month? How useful is this service?
When we were building Practo Search, we wanted to provide consumers maximum choice and help them find the best doctors for them.
We collect information about the doctor, verify it and the publish the profile online. We provide incredible details about their experience, specialisation, and expertise.
We can also provide exact location and turn by turn directions. We list all doctors for free – we don’t charge consumers to find and book appointments or for doctors to receive these appointments.
Consumers love the product and millions of them visit Practo every month to find the right healthcare professional.

 

What kind of an impact do you intend to make in the healthcare space?
I imagine a world where all your health records are digital, where test reports and fitness stats flow into this account automatically.
You can consult with any doctor, anywhere in the world by sharing your records with one click.
A world where you live healthier, longer because technology helps you make better healthcare decisions. 
Does Practo see a big scope in expanding business abroad?
Every person in the world should have access to better healthcare. We are already Asia’s leading healthcare platform with presence in India, Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia.

By end of this year, we plan to expand to 100 cities and 10 countries across South East Asia, Middle East, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Our expansion will continue – both within India and internationally as will the aggressive drive to get the best talent on the planet.

 

How has the Practo software made things easier for doctors and patients?
By digitally connecting patients and doctors we have been able to simplify the access to quality healthcare. Within a few clicks patients can book an appointment with a doctor without waiting in long queues.

They can also do diagnostic search by the test name instead of lab name to see the list of labs near them that offer that test.

They can check the quality of the lab by reading through the accreditation information, see real high quality photographs and filter results by proximity, home pickup facility as well as price. All this can be done in a matter of seconds.
From a doctor’s perspective, Practo Ray has simplified healthcare practice management and has streamlined processes that can prove to be tedious for healthcare providers such as maintaining appointment calendar, healthcare records and customised billing.
How’s the feedback from doctors and patients?   
It has been phenomenal. Practo Ray is still growing rapidly in India and around the world.

Our Practo Search product has grown 6 times in just the last few months with millions of consumers now coming to Practo every month to find the right healthcare professional.
Over the next year we will expand into 100 cities in India and 10 countries across South East Asia, Latin America, Middle East and Eastern Europe.

 

How different is your software from the existing ones?
We are the only company (perhaps in the world) that is solving the healthcare problem simultaneously from both - the doctor as well as the patient side.

As more and more doctors digitise their practice, it improves the consumer experience by providing them with digital health records, digital prescriptions (and reminders), easy repeat check-ups or existing appointment reminders etc. Practo is your health app. We want it to become the only app you need for any healthcare related activity. 
Do you face competition in India? What are the challenges you face now?
We are the leaders in the digital healthcare segment. As more and more doctors digitise their practice, it improves the consumer experience by providing them with digital health records, digital prescriptions (and reminders), easy repeat checkups or existing appointment reminders etc.
From a Practo Search perspective, the biggest challenge is to get reliable information about doctors and clinics.

We want information to be 100 per cent reliable and accurate so we decided to build our own healthcare map of the world.
It is vital to build the right infrastructure to scale our product. We are growing at an extremely fast pace. We are growing at a phenomenal 50-100 per cent every quarter.
So obviously, the infrastructure, servers etc. have to keep pace and also maintain the highest levels of security and encryption. Hence, we keep a dedicated team that ensures our service is always available and is hyper responsive.

 

How do you plan to transform the healthcare sector?
Healthcare is one of the last industries to be completely transformed by technology.
We are now seeing the growth potential and effect of these services and products on patients as well as healthcare providers.
Doctors and healthcare providers want to improve patient healthcare experience but so far, all the technological change had been focused on large medical devices and new medicines.
But the next phase of innovation will be centered around improving patient ability to make more informed healthcare decisions and making all the magic of modern medicine accessible to consumers easily, transparently so they can live healthier lives.
We at Practo envision a world where technology will help consumers find the best doctors with a few clicks.
Generating, accessing and storing health records would be entirely digital.
Patients will have a single health account linked to their families that will store their health information securely, and provide helpful information in a timely manner and also prescription reminders to take medicines.
Investors are bullish on Practo. How much have you raised so far?
We have so far raised a total of to $124 million, which is one of the largest in the world of digital health.
We received $4 million from Sequoia Capital in 2012; $30 million from Sequoia Capital and Matrix Partners in 2015, and $90 million from Tencent, Sofina, Sequoia India, Google Capital, Altimeter Capital, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital Global Equities and Yuri Milner in 2015.

 

How do you see the interest of Yuri Milner in your project?
Each investor brings unique value proposition on board. If you look at the investors we have, they are complimentary to the other and together make for one of the greatest set of investors of any company anywhere in the world. Our investors share our vision of creating a better, healthier world.
Do you believe India needs more entrepreneurs? What keeps India from becoming a product giant like it is in services?
The past few years has seen a boom of entrepreneurship in India. Many young ventures are now looking at solving a problem and not just starting a company for the sake of it.
Today, entrepreneurs are getting the opportunity to create product and services that are world class.
There is talent, access to capital and a sense of belief in the system that great global products can come from India and that is the direction we should all move in.
We are definitely seeing phenomenal acceptance for our products in all the countries we’re going to.
What do you think about the innovation and start-up boom in India?
Startups boom in India is fuelled by innovation and creation of ground breaking products and services.
Companies are working on a real-time basis and are hungry to stay ahead in the game. Startups have empowered a new breed of thinkers and nurtured talent to constantly push the envelope and think out-of-the-box.
New ventures are now being seen as exemplary business models and are attracting funds for venture capitalists, which re-assures the fact that the product is unique and has the potential to scale up at a fast pace.

What’s the reasons for your success? What does it take to become a successful entrepreneur?

 

Over the last 7 years that I have been building Practo, there are a few things that I’ve learned.
First, always optimise for the vision. Articulate the vision continuously and ensure each step you take is towards this. Vision helps align the entire team behind a common purpose.
Second, usage is king. Focus more on the usage of the product than how much the users are paying for it. Usage is the single most important metric to determine product value. Pay close attention to what your customers tell you. Product insights will come through interpretation of customer feedback
Third, solve hard problems. At the start, try picking the tough problems to solve. These are usually the ones no one else would have tried solving. Ask yourself, ‘Why hasn’t anyone done this before?’ Logically, due to technology advancements, problems that were harder to solve so far, would become easier now.
Fourth, hire 'A' players only. That should be one of your top priorities. Only get the best of the best. They can give you exponential growth. Ensure they buy into the vision of the company and focus equally hard on retaining them. One of the keys to retention is to build a great culture from day one. It will remain through the life of the company.
Fifth, think global. One of the best things we did was launch in Singapore. The market there really stress-tested our product and helped us improve by leaps and bounds, which was instrumental in us getting such a high market share so quickly.
Sixth, get advisors & consultants. There are many industry experts out there. Take advantage of their expertise, its faster. Don’t try to do everything on your own.
Seventh, growth is the only oxygen for a startup. Continuously focus on the growth. Take risks and do everything possible to grow fast.
Eight, build great products. Never ever ship a subpar product. Customers have an innate sense to detect carelessness. They will penalise you by moving away.
Ninth, choose the right investors. Don’t optimise for valuations, optimise for building a great product or service that people love. Investors will see value in that. Optimise more for who is investing in you than how much. Investors can be great partners in helping you grow so they must share your medium and long-term vision and their goals should be aligned to that.
Tenth, focus. You have limited resources and time. Don’t spend too much time attending conferences, networking events etc. Focus all energy on ensuring there is progress. In our earlier days, we used the mantra of ‘Code & Sell’, everything else is useless.
And finally, have fun. You will spend long hours doing this so make sure you love doing it and are excited by it. There is no room for half-heartedness.

 

How do you spend your leisure time? If not an entrepreneur, what would you like to be?
Squash is what I turn to when I need to unwind. I play squash on a regular basis and apart from unwinding, it keeps me fit and agile too.
I am an avid reader and I used to read a book a month. Now I try to read a book a week.
Also, if there is a subject that interests me, I pick up 3-4 books and dig into it. When I get time, I enjoy catching up on good movies as well. 
What are your future plans?
Over the next 2-5 years we will continue to transform the industry globally and deliver on Practo’s promise of being ‘Your Health App’.
We will add more features, products and several more categories including hospitals, diagnostic centres as well as spas, salons, wellness and fitness centers as well.
We also continue to add top notch talent to its world class team of 1500 Practeons to continue to build the best products that will transform healthcare for consumers around the world.
In the next year, the footprint will expand from the current 35 Indian cities and four countries to over 100 Indian cities and 10 countries across South East Asia, Latin America, Middle East and Eastern Europe.

 

Inspiring success stories of 3 entrepreneurs

Editor-Himansu sekhar

Image: Nithin Kamath (L) can afford to smile now. Photograph, courtesy: Zerodha

 

All my IIT cousins now want to do startups: Nithin Kamath, Founder and CEO, Zerodha
"I come from a family where if you don't go to IIT or a regional engineering college, you're considered to have done nothing with your life. So I was the guy all the cousins in the family were told not to hang out with!" Nithin Kamath, the Bengaluru-based founder and CEO of Zerodha, says with a smile.
Kamath can afford to smile now - it is fairly obvious as soon as you step into the premises of the financial services startup he launched in 2010 by offering the lowest broking charges in the country.

A black Audi A6 stands outside the office in JP Nagar, while a golden Audi Q5 is parked in the porch of the main building.
The foundation for Zerodha - which Kamath says sees a daily turnover of Rs 7,000 crore (Rs 70 billion), serves 56,000 customers and had pre-tax profit of Rs 30 crore (Rs 300 million) last year - was laid when he was 17.

That was when he was initiated into the nuances of trading by his Marwari friends, who took him to "bucket shops" in the city, essentially less than legal outfits where you could place bets on the stock market, which he continued to do till he finished his engineering in 2001.
That turned out to be a particularly propitious year because derivatives trading was introduced in India, ICICI Bank and IndiaBulls had just launched their online trading interface and Kamath bought an Internet connection, so he could now trade in indices at home instead of bucket shops.

Image: Team Zerodha. Photograph, courtesy: Zerodha

 

His parents never discouraged his trading, though they were from fairly conventional backgrounds.
His father, Raghuram Kamath, was an executive with Canara Bank and his mother, Revathy, taught the veena.
"I always had confidence in him," says the senior Kamath. He also let him handle the trading accounts in his name and his wife's before he turned 18. The son jokes that his father knew the state of his finances by his shampoo and shaving cream: if he didn't make money, he would start using his father's.
But soon after he started trading online, the dotcom bust happened. "The Rs 4 lakh I had saved over four years was wiped out in a couple of months. That was a big amount in those days," says Kamath.
He then joined a call centre because it left his days free to trade, which he did feverishly with the sole aim of accumulating enough trading capital. "I think for those three-and-a-half years, I must have slept only on weekends."
Those were heady days for call centres but he was still not earning enough to quit and trade full time. And then the miracle happened.

Image: Zerodha office. Photograph, courtesy: Zerodha

 

"I used to work out with a US-returned guy in the gym. We met for a drink one evening, where I told him what I was doing and showed him my performance for the last three years. He was so impressed that he gave me a cheque of Rs 25 lakh to trade on his behalf. And all this over our first drink!" says Kamath.
On the phone later, Prakash, the "gym buddy" who declines to reveal his surname, plays down what sounds like a huge gamble.

"He seemed like a very intelligent guy and I thought I would help him out," is how he self-deprecatingly puts it. As soon as he got the money, Kamath quit and started working from home under the name of Kamath Associates to give some gravitas to what he was doing.
His client base grew to 40, mainly through word-of-mouth. Then, in 2008, when Reliance Money launched, Kamath Associates became its sub-broker. Soon, his turnover became bigger than all the other franchisees put together.
Sudip Bandyopadhyay, former CEO of Reliance Money, does not confirm this but recalls Kamath as a "young, bright guy" who performed very well. "He had a lot of energy and ideas, and took Reliance Money's model of fixed fees forward with Zerodha," Bandyopadhyay says.
That was also the year he got married to his girlfriend, Seema Patil, who he had met when they were working at the call centre.

Image: I'm the rock star of the family, says Nidhin Kamath. Photograph, courtesy: Zerodha

 

Seema says she was not very worried about how his business would do, especially Zerodha. "I knew that if it did not work out, he would come up with something else."
Her parents, though, were not so easy to convince because, like most middle-income folks, they wanted a son-in-law with a steady job.

"For them, share markets and business sounded very risky and they thought that when the markets fell, Nithin would lose everything," Seema says. Her father went to the Reliance Money office and tried to figure out what they were doing.
In May 2009, Kamath made what he calls "the dumbest move in my life" when he exited all his positions just before the results of the general election because he did not want to take a risk.
Except that the market jumped 40 per cent in four days. A despondent Kamath and his team closed the office and went to a resort where, after a few drinks, he decided he did not want to trade for clients any more.
Instead, he would build a brokerage firm that would be completely online, and offer the broking services he himself had needed 10 years ago.
Thus was launched Zerodha in August 2010, which offered a flat brokerage fee of as low as Rs 20. "The cost of executing a trade does not increase according to the size because the effort is the same, so we could offer a flat rate. We also brought in transparency through a brokerage calculator, and by offering the same deals for all customers, we could also be a lot more efficient than other brokerages," he says.
Having given up active trading once Zerodha was born, he now gets his adrenaline rush through playing poker for high stakes. And have his relatives finally come around?
"Oh yes, I'm the rock star of the family. All my IIT cousins now want to do startups, and you know who they turn to," he says, laughing.

Image: Richa Kar, Founder, Zivame. Photograph, courtesy: Zerodha

 

"I knew that if this did not work out, for whatever reason, I could go back to a corporate job: Richa Kar, Founder, Zivame
"Apne friends ko kya bolungi? Meri beti bra-panty bech rahi hai, computer par? (What will I tell my friends? That my daughter is selling bras and panties online?)"

Zivame founder Richa Kar's mother, a homemaker, exclaimed in shock when her daughter, an engineering graduate from BITS-Pilani with an MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, told her she was planning to quit her corporate job and launch an online lingerie retail store.
"She wasn't as concerned about the fact that I would not have a regular salary," Kar recalls, laughing. She adds that her father, who retired from Tata Steel in Jamshedpur, did not quite understand what exactly she wanted to do, but neither of her parents discouraged her, for which she was thankful.
Three years on, Kar's mother and her friends are among the over 500,000 customers who shop from Zivame, which raised $6 million in its second series of funding in December 2013.
Entrepreneurship happened to the slim 33-year-old  by chance: there were no role models in the immediate family and the e-commerce landscape in 2011, the year she launched Zivame, was only developing the contours we see today.

Image: Zivame office walls have black and white images of women in lingerie on various walls. Photograph, courtesy: Zerodha

 

It was her stint at SAP, where one of her clients was lingerie giant Victoria's Secret, that drew her attention to a sector which she realised had so far been below the radar in India.
"I saw the numbers and other details, and then it struck me that this was a great category," she says at her office in Domlur in Bengaluru, which has black and white images of women in lingerie on various walls and a collage with images of models in bras behind the reception.
Visits to various shops in the city selling lingerie strengthened her conviction.

"Though Indian women come in all shapes and sizes, retailers were only stocking a few standard sizes because of lack of shelf space. And then there are the sales girls who laugh if you want something lacy and racy!" she says.
So after eight years in the corporate sector she decided to take the plunge and launch a portal which would sell bras in as many sizes as possible, offer advice on the right fit, discreet packaging and money back if you were not satisfied.
Kar says she was not nervous then about venturing out on her own. "I knew that if this did not work out, for whatever reason, I could go back to a corporate job. It was just a question of being able to support myself for a year."

Image: Team members of Zivame. Photograph, courtesy: Zerodha

 

Kar quit in March 2011 and launched Zivame in August ("Ziva" in Hebrew is "brilliant", "me" was tagged on by the founder) from the first floor of a house in Domlur with a commercial permit she shared with batchmates from BITS who were running a consultancy for social ventures.

Her first customer, incidentally, was a man, who was trying to place an order for Rs 7,000 from Indore.
Those days, her only hire was an office boy (the technology part was outsourced), which expanded to a girl to answer calls the next month. And when the girl quit to join Infosys, Kar answered calls in her name, Sindhu.

In November, five more employees were hired. Kar's then boyfriend and now husband, Kedar Gavane, says he lent a hand when he could, and was able to offer some advice about online companies since he was with Comscore, the Internet analytics firm.
Though Zivame was launched with Rs 35 lakh from her savings, friends and family, the company was burning cash quickly because it was gaining traction, and Kar knew she had to seek institutional funding.

The first round, or Series A, came from venture capital funds Kalaari Capital and IDG Ventures.
Vani Kola, the managing director of Kalaari, was able to grasp the potential of the business quickly. "But when there are men on the other side of the table, we tell them to check with the women in their team or in their families to understand whether there is a real problem because they can never relate to the embarrassment of buying lingerie and other issues women have to face," Kar says.
Though she had just launched the company, the families of Kar and Gavane were also impatient for the couple to tie the knot, since she was 29.

And so she did, over a weekend in Bengaluru because that was all the time she could afford to take off.

"I took leave on Friday, got married on Saturday and was back at work on Monday," she says.
Zivame had raised Series A funding in February and the wedding was in April, so her focus was on scaling up the company and hiring, and not the wedding and honeymoon. "But since I've enjoyed building the business, I don't complain at all."
The next round of funds, Rs 33 crore (Rs 330 million), came from existing investors and Ronnie Screwvala's Unilazer Ventures.
"Kar has a high sense of confidence about her, is focused on her execution and what struck me was her deep knowledge of the sector she had founded," says Screwvala.
Asked what she thinks she might be doing 10 years down the line, Kar says longingly that she hopes she would be relaxing by a beach and giving gyan as chairman, while a CEO actually ran the company.

"But before that I want Zivame to become a very big brand and company."

Image: Cherian Thomas (L), Arun Prabhakar Co-founders, Cucumbertown. Chris Luscher (right) helped with the design. Photograph, courtesy: Cucumbertown

 

A passion for cooking and blogging: Arun Prabhakar and Cherian Thomas, Co-founders, Cucumbertown

When Arun Prabhakar's senior from Model Engineering College in Kerala, Cherian Thomas, sounded him out for help with his pet project, a sort of social network for sharing recipes, he agreed to do so in his spare time but was not immediately convinced about the potential.
"I thought: A recipe-sharing site, really?" says the bespectacled 27-year-old CTO and co-founder of Cucumbertown, which has attracted angel investment of $300,000 from names like Farmville co-creator Sizhao Zao Yang and Silicon Valley seed fund 500 Startups.

The site allows users to post and browse recipes, interact with cooks and follow them, and get tips and suggestions, building a community united by their love for cooking.
When Thomas contacted him, Prabhakar was at education startup TutorVista. Thomas was with gaming company Zynga, which had bought Farmville. Neither of them planned to make it a full-time business.
Meanwhile, Thomas, who was driven by his passion for cooking and blogging, had also reached out to Chris Luscher of Information Architects, a leading design firm based in Zurich.

He had never met Luscher, but by a remarkable coincidence, Luscher replied that he had been thinking of starting something along similar lines and agreed to help with the design.

Image Cucumbertown is the literal translation of a phrase in Malayalam, vellarikka pattanam, which means a place where anything is possible. Photograph, courtesy: Cucumbertown

 

When Thomas showed the proof of concept to his boss at Zynga, he fell in love with it and said he would fund it.
Thus, what was meant to be a part-time project rolled out as a full-fledged startup in October 2012 under the quirky name of Cucumbertown - the literal translation of a phrase in Malayalam, vellarikka pattanam, which means a place where anything is possible.
Thomas says his wife knew he was destined for something like this and was relieved when he quit and launched the startup, rather than watch his mounting frustration at working in a big company. What convinced him to quit, he says, was users' reaction to the website.
Aparna Balakrishnan, a former social worker, is one of them. "The high from getting appreciated by other people is quite nice," says Balakrishnan, who has some 100 followers on Cucumbertown and was introduced to it by friends.

From 100,000 users in 2013, the site now has over 500,000, of whom only 35 per cent are from India.
Thomas adds, tongue in cheek, "Besides, when we launched I was in my 20s and in world-domination mode!"
For Prabhakar, who got to know Thomas through the computer club at college, which he headed, it was the chance to be a co-founder of a startup.

Unlike most engineering graduates, he did not succumb to the pressure to join a big firm when he graduated. Instead, he joined a startup for brands, which ended up shutting shop in six months.

"My mother had been completely against it and had wanted me to join Infosys or a multinational corporation that would give me a steady income."

Undeterred, he then joined TutorVista, quitting that when it was bought by Pearson, to co-found Cucumbertown with Thomas.
Cucumbertown stands out among the ever-increasing startups from India because it managed to attract funding even without a clear revenue model.

This is also why it's not surprising that funding had to be from the US, where investors are used to seeing consumer Internet companies like Twitter or Facebook which, in the initial years, concentrated only on growing its user base.
The company has just eight employees so far, working out of a rented house in HSR Layout, a favoured neighbourhood for startups in Bengaluru.

"There's no time to relax," Prabhakar says, with a grin, since he clearly does not have a problem with that.
Just about everything about launching Cucumbertown was a challenge, Thomas says.

The laundry list is long, from running out of cash to uncertainty about what the next day would bring to balancing work, family and friends. But the users make it worthwhile, he says. "Any work of art that gets recognised takes you to cloud nine."

And Prabhakar says his mother has come around to the idea that he would not be joining one of the big infotech firms.

Thinking of joining a fitness centre? These 5 startups will help you choose the best one

Editor-Himansu sekhar samal

Most of us daydream of washboard abs and lean-athletic arms while slouching in front of our office laptop with oily Chinese takeout for company. Even being barraged with images of perfect hips, muscled biceps and thigh gaps from the fitness industry doesn’t help the cause most times.
Payal Kadakia who, along with Mary Biggins, founded ClassPass in June 2013, a monthly membership service for fitness classes across multiple gyms and studios in the US wanted to help people keep their devices aside to do more enriching activities. And, in the process, experience better lives.

Today, after raising $84 million in five rounds, the company shows there is still plenty of opportunity for growth in the fitness industry.
In March it was reported that the ClassPass app allows you to book fitness classes across 30 cities including New York, London and Sydney. The monthly fee set at 79 British Pounds gives you access to around 8,000 studios across the world.
Closer home are our very own Indian fitness startups that started sprouting all over the country since 2013. We take a look at some of them:

1. GymPik – The Zomato of the health sector 

Founded: Founded by Ajay and Amaresh Ojha in August, 2013
Funding raised: The startup was bootstrapped for the initial six months but later raised a seed fund of $135,000 to strengthen its technology and business team.
Later, it raised $2 million in an ‘ads for equity’ deal with Brand Capital. The startup also claims to have raised a pre-series A funding from RoundGlass Partners last month.
Propostion: GymPik.com is an online marketplace and aggregator for fitness service providers, which helps consumers find gyms, aerobic classes, martial art centres and dance classes with further information about trainers and professionals.
Their focus areas include  aerobics, gym, zumba, dance, dietitian, physiotherapy, and yoga.
Traction:  As of 2015, the startup claimed to have more than 6,000 centres and 4,000 trainers listed on its website, with presence in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi-NCR and receiving 2,000 plus daily unique visitors.
Acquisition: In September 2015, GymPik acquired FitnessPapa which owned a network of more than 500 fitness centres across Bengaluru, Chennai, and Coimbatore. They had a similar monthly plan like ClassPass called ‘Passport’ where members were allowed to use any fitness centres across their network.
Website:  www.gympik.com

The team at Gympik

2. Fitternity – Extension of a founder’s personal fitness journey

Founded: Neha Motwani in early 2014
Funding raised: In July 2015, Fitternity Health E-solutions had raised pre-series A investment of $1.1 million led by TV Mohandas Pai’s Exfinity Venture Partners.
Propostion: It is an online hyperlocal discovery and booking platform for fitness programmes including gyms, yoga, zumba, marathons, and cross fit training. The platform also tries to promote healthy eating through tiffin services, snacks and beverages.  Read more here.
Traction: As of 2015, Fitternity.com had 8,000 listings across Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Pune, with more than 65,000 users accessing different fitness options.
Their engagement and repeat rate was placed at 25 per cent, according to the founder.
Website: www.fitternity.com

The team at Fitternity

3. Gymer- The pay-as-you-go model 

Founded:  The business was co-founded by Srikanth Balakumar and Kushal Kumar with the app launched in 2015.
Funding raised: Raised an undisclosed seed round of funding   
Proposition: With a ‘pay–as-you-go’ model, Gymer works as a mobile app and web-based service, which allows users to book workout sessions with gyms.
Users can pick the closest centre to them through a list of verified gyms on their network. The platform aims to tackle the persistent issue of members paying heavy fees and not returning to the gym. Read more here.
Traction: As of July 2015, the platform had partnered with over 180 gyms across Bengaluru.
Website: Gymer, App

The team at Gymer

4. Playnlive – The fitness + sports aggregator 

Founded: Nakul Kapur and Rahul Wadhwa started operations in September 2013, but launched the website only on February 1, 2014.
Funding raised: Undisclosed
Proposition: Like others on the list, Playnlive is an online fitness discovery platform, but also allows customers to subscribe to sports activities.  It provides information on sports, coaching academies, sports clubs, gyms and fitness centres.
The platform allows users to book personal training sessions for yoga, fitness, self-defense, nutritionists, and dietitians etc while also allowing users to book grounds or courts for various sports. They have a monthly pass facility as well. Read more here.
Traction: Present in five cities, Playnlive gives users access to free trial booking options for about 9,000 facilities across locations. It supports 25 sports with 50+ activities. Members with a pass facility, which is live in Delhi NCR, can subscribe to 250 facilities across 40 activities.
Playnlive claims to have over 10,000 verified listings.
Website: www.playnlive.com

Founders of Playnlive (L to R): Nakul Kapur and Rahul Wadhwa

5. BYG – The new kid in town 

Founded:  Devi Prasad Biswal and Avijeet Alagathi started BYG in November 2015 with the app launched in January 2016.
Funding raised:  The firm has raised an angel round of close to Rs 2 crore.
Proposition: Operational in five cities including New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Bhubaneshwar, the platform allows customers to not just buy gym membership but also book hourly sessions. Taking an app-only approach, it also allows users to book group sessions like yoga, zumba, crossfit, martial arts, and sporting activities like swimming, skating, and summer classes.
The platform also has a B2B CRM solution for gyms which helps them manage their members while updating their diet and workout plans online. Read more here.
Traction:  As of last month, the firm tied up with more than 780 fitness centres, and clocked 3,030 transactions in the first 40 days of starting operations. Every day, the platform is adding 10 centres while closing almost 150 transactions across locations.
The BYG app has 4,500 downloads with 1,700 users making active transactions.
Website: BYG App

The team at BYG

There are several other platforms like Flexipass (partnered with 400 gyms across Mumbai and Delhi NCR); Fitpass (claimed to have partnered with 1000+ gyms in Delhi NCR) and Fiticket (partnered with 450 studios) working on the same business models. Bangalore also has a fitness startup called Cult, which is working on training programmes that use no machines or equipment. Additionally, there are home service players like HouseJoy and UrbanClap that aim to connect consumers to fitness and yoga trainers for sessions at the comfort of their homes.
Another active segment is healthy diet, with players like HealthifyMe, a calorie intake and fitness tracker; Truweight, which claims to help lose weight with Superfoods; and Fitho, which is a technology-based weight management service. Moreover, with technology players disrupting the space, the fitness market is expected to grow rapidly, expecting to touch Rs 250-300 billion in the next five years.
However, looking at the booking platforms and marketplaces now crowding the space, it looks like mergers and acquisitions will be the next wave to beat competitors in scale.

Ola and Uber drivers can now operate simultaneously on both platforms 

Editor-Himansu Sekhar Samal

Next time you try to hire a cab on the Ola or Uber platforms in Bengaluru, be a little wary. In case your driver is unable to find you, he may not even try. Because he is not losing out on his income. In fact, he will be able to switch to the other platform. And you will have to try booking again.
Karnataka Transport department on Saturday released new rules under Section 212 of the Motor Vehicles act 1998, allowing drivers on on-demand transportation technology aggregators’ platforms to operate simultaneously with multiple aggregators. YourStory is in possession of the documents, which says:
“The license shall:

1. Give liberty to the permit holder who is in operation under his company to operate his vehicle simultaneously with any other aggregator as per his discretion.”

This means more business for drivers. For instance, if a driver is in Indiranagar and can’t find a customer on Ola, he does not have to keep driving to another location to get a passenger. He can switch to his Uber platform and get a passenger if there are any.
The State government’s notification is based on the advisory issued by the Central government (in October 2015) directing State governments detailing the aspects to be considered for the purpose.
Yet, the option for inter-operability can become a recipe for trouble for passengers, as currently the drivers will find the passengers, even with some effort, as their income depends on it. But now with an option to work with another platform simultaneously, things can change.
Neither Uber nor Ola employs their drivers but gathers them as service providers who use their tech platform. Till now, both had allowed their “driver-partners” to work with other platforms, but not at the same time.
Uber, which has always been particular in stating that the drivers are not attached to their company, has been keeping their fingers crossed for government approval on this particular bit.  However, Ola was strongly against it, due to probable issues on accountability.

 Like Mumbai, Like Bengaluru

Drawing parallels with the Mumbai version of the rule, which was released a few months ago, the Karnataka government has also stated that the vehicles shall be fitted with a yellow display board with “Taxi” visible from the front and the rear. [The board shall be capable of being illuminated during the night hours.]
The rule has also specified other mandates such as GPRS and a physical emergency button, among others.
The better news for the customer, and not-so-good for the aggregators, is that the fare, including other charges if any, shall not be higher than the fare fixed by the government from time to time. So the next time when you try to book a cab during the “peak hour” and it does not show 5X on charge rates, do not worry that your app is not working – the government is just watching out for you.