Retail Chronicles Special Edition

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Chronicles Monthly Newsletter | Volume 5 | Issue 6 | September 2020Â

CONTENTS

03

DATA - THE VIRTUAL SWORD

06

THE HUMAN NATURE OF FINANCE

10

PRESENT, PAST, AND FUTURE OF OTT

WRITERS Furquan Shaikh | Riya Shah | Smit Shah | Akash Desai | Daivat Bhagat | Priya Singh | Nitish Bhardwaj | Siddharth Chand

DESIGN TEAM Pushpak Holani | Ayush Goyal | Shikhar Gupta | Jeet Doshi

EDITING TEAM

14

AMAZON'S GRIP ON THE INTERNET

17

THE JIO JUGGERNAUT

20

COVID-19: REALIZING PRIORITIES

23

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE FOR POLITICS MAY TAKE YOU DOWN

27

SMALL TOWN GUY

Abhishek Wakode

DATA

THE VIRTUAL SWORDÂ

FURQUAN SHAIKH MBA FS Retail Chronicles | Page 3

September, 2020

Inquisitive of what happens every internet minute? But before stressing our eyes in front of the white screen let us scout for the roots that launched us into an era, where we witness the historic flux & experience the virtual reality.

With the multi-fold advancement of technologies over time, data served as a bedrock that unveiled the new dimension.

Back in 1956, a huge crate of single IBM hard drive weighing a ton was loaded into an airplane & the astonishing part that it had a capacity of 5 MB. Just 5 MB. Sweeping times, we have a 128 GB pen drive weighing 10 grams probably less than a screw on the IBM drive, having capacity 25600 times more. Gordon Moore, the co-founder of the chipmaker Intel, predicted way back in 1965 that the number of transistors in a chip will double approximately every

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two years & his concept of geometric progression seems to be our reality.

Running back to our childhood fantasy stories, ever wondered how the wall opened up and sealed by some sacrosanct spells in the “Alibaba & the forty thieves” to guard the secret treasure. Drawing a parallel in the contemporary times, the gateway walls are being fortified through technologies like voice recognition, bio-metrics & iris scanner through the immense rise of big data, dissemination of disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Internet of Things, Cloud computing & many more.

The paradigm shift from “dot com” age to “Digital Age” has quadrupled the information activity behavior of the consumers, and economies are built

September, 2020

on data. As the chrysalis unfolded, the immortal bytes swiftly stormed into our lives through the internet, social websites, E-commerce, gaming platforms, etc. & created an ecosystem where everyone’s a spy.

identity theft & malware attacks. The recent banning of 59 Chinese apps by the Government of India over possible violations of national security has already led to virtual data wars between nations..

As the cost per bit is going down, internet traffic is on the rise exponentially. The advent of attaining the highest speed of data transmission led to the development of technology with a downloading speed of 178 terabits per second capable of unfathomable possibilities.

We use the XYZ’s of the technologies incognizant of their ABC’s.

With greater powers, comes greater responsibilities & so does their privacy.

Cyber-security & digital privacy are on toes to guard our crucial packets of data that can be hacked by corporations or anonymous entities for their heinous purpose of phishing,

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Every internet minute Zoom hosts 2,08,333 participants in meetings, Netflix users stream 4,04,444 hours of videos, Instagram users post 3,47,222 stories, YouTube users upload 500 hours of videos, Facebook users share 1,47,000 photos & WhatsApp users share 41,666,667 messages.

Data never sleeps.

Be carefully careless with the data.

September, 2020

The Human Nature of Finance - RIYA SHAH MBA B

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September, 2020

Finance isn’t divine. However, it isn’t wicked either. Over the years, especially post-financial crises, finance is not often seen in an affirmative way. Maybe this isn’t true in a room full of people involved in academia but to the mundane, it remains unerring.

A way to change this common perception is to open the ideas of finance for everyone to interpret. This means to provide access to what finance has to offer in order to enable learning. To put it simply, increase financial literacy.

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It seems to be a straight forward task when put this way except implementing it becomes challenging. This is mostly because there exists a language barrier while this communication occurs. The language of finance makes sense to those few who know to speak it. It is not universal consequently expecting the non-finance individuals to acknowledge it becomes futile.

September, 2020

Nevertheless, there is a solution. Truly there are multiple solutions. However, the one that worked the best for me involved bringing out the human nature of finance. Perceiving finance from the eyes of humanities and relinking financial lessons to stories will help us, as a society, to impart knowledge and prosper.

The story of Jaya and Vijaya, the gatekeepers of the celestial abode of Lord Vishnu is known by all. This tale from Bhagavata Purana was told to me as well but in a slightly different manner. The plot remained the same.

Jaya and Vijaya get cursed to lose their divinity as they prevented the four Kumaras to appear before Lord Vishnu.

After pleading to Lord Vishnu to lift the curse, they found themselves facing a dilemma. The curse couldn’t be lifted but on completing their life sentences,

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they were allowed to return back to their stature. As far as the life sentences were concerned, they were to choose between taking birth seven times as a devotee on earth or three times as the lord’s enemy. They opted for the latter. This right here highlights one of the most basic concepts in finance – debt and equity.

September, 2020

While the goal remains constant, return in the first case takes seven years and the second takes three. Former represents debt while the latter is equity. Each involves risk however, risk of something going wrong or risk of volatility is grater in equities and it is thus compensated with a higher return.

Or in our story, quicker return.

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Unlike formulas, stories stay with people. It speaks to masses and imparting knowledge using tales has been part of our culture for centuries now. Promoting financial literacy by allowing people to humanize financial theories rather than intimidate them will let finance once again be meaningful.

September, 2020 August, 2020

THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF OTT - SMIT SHAH MBA RM

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September, 2020

The Recent Past Why was it a shock that Netflix and other OTT platforms grew so large so fast? The traditional movie industry has a wide gap between the motivation of the people making the movies and the platforms where they will be released. Let us talk in length!

The traditional film industry works in a way where the producers, directors have different goals as compared to the cinema halls, which have a different business model altogether.

At first, it might seem like people come to watch movies and cinemas earn money, but the margins on those tickets are abysmally low (when you include the cost of maintenance of infrastructure required to facilitate those shows). The majority of their margins come from selling food and

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beverages. The cost of simple foods such as popcorn is hysterically low (so low that sometimes the bag/tub in which the popcorn is sold, is more expensive than the cost of corn used in that popcorn). Long story short, theatres only care if people are walking in and buying their food and beverages and they need the movie infrastructure to keep that flow going.

Some other flaws in the business model are, it is not customer-centric.

Movies that are hyped or talked about even before they are launched, are sold at really high prices. Another setback is the physical restrictions on the number of screens available at any theatre, which limits the number of movies that can be cast at the same time. Since the move timings are FIXED, people cannot walk in anytime to see their desired movie but have to plan before-hand to enjoy the leisure of seeing the movie.

September, 2020

Present Day OTT scenario

Future Scope and Prospects

Firstly, they are producers of their content. Their business model does not depend on other things for revenue. They need to have good content without which people will stop subscribing to the platform (subscription is one of the most important factors for consumer satisfaction). It is no surprise that inhouse production houses have delivered superior content time and again.

Secondly, it does not discriminate on ticket prices; it is not arbitrary or subject to change. It is a fixed monthly subscription and NOTHING ELSE! No hidden costs, no extra efforts, customers pick a title and play whatever they like whenever they want! You have the assurance that you and your friend will have access to the same title at the same time. It is not something big and prominent but, it changes the need for the OTT platform from a personal want to a social want (Did you see dark season 3? How have you not seen Money Heist yet?). Couple these reasons with the pandemic where we all know, no one would prefer to go to a place that is open to the public and would have so many people coming in and out throughout the day. Although I argue that pandemic was just a mere catalyst. The OTT platform is a more customer-centric platform than traditional cinemas. It was never a question of ‘Will they’ but more like ‘When will they make it big?

[Referring to the article (Times, 2019)], about 91% of the viewers come from Urban and Tier 1 cities. There are a lot of scopes for OTT platforms to penetrate the rural market. That comes with its own set of challenges too. Rural consumers are unorthodox and enjoy a relatively slower pace of life. They are not eager to maximize their free time by binging on TV shows. They have a more traditional outlook where spending time with family and community is given importance, than being updated with the latest TV series. Other than this, their viewing habits are imbibed with a lot of orthodox thinking. With very little regulation, the OTT platforms have been very open in publishing any all types of content without much restriction. What is worse is they only have two filters for content moderation, i.e., Kids’ or ‘Adults’; this has the chance to be a threat in rural areas. The stigma attached to watching such content prevents them from being open-minded

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However, these two things can be customized to suit the needs of the rural market. Entertainment content should be of a shorter length so that they consume it as a TV show and attach the image of OTT with their traditional TV. But there is no question they need to go slow before they go all in. The rural market is reluctant to sudden change and gradual change plays well in the long run. Secondly, there needs to be a content filter

September, 2020

option for adults too. Imagine someone getting caught seeing obscene scenes on any of the OTT platforms. These things are not taken lightly in rural areas and might lead to a communitywide consensus on banning that OTT platform and tarnishing the brandimage if there are some extreme judgments passed against the person caught viewing (for example, there might be consequences for a rural housewife if she is seen viewing such content).

Talking about prospects in Urban Markets, the next step would be to deliver engaging and customized content. OTT platforms have started making a shift towards this by introducing story-based content, where the viewer decides on behalf of the

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character in the movie and the movie then has different outcomes correlating to the decisions taken. If we want to take the narrative one step further, imagine OTT platforms coming up with “PODS�, which cater to only one person at a time and are designed, to give an Augmented Reality experience tothe viewer. Instead of taking few decisions in the story, they will be playing the character throughout the movie. The whole movie will be from their point of view of the consumer.

Every movie will be a world of its own (Imagine such a pod for Dark). It is just one possibility in the endless ocean ahead. Especially with technological reforms (IoT 4.0), the scope for personalizatio will keep on expanding.

September, 2020

Amazon’s Grip on the Internet

SEPTEMEBER 2020

- AKASH DESAI MBA C

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Semptember, 2020

Play a song on Spotify, binge watch a show on Netflix, communicate with like minded people on Slack, or access your photos on iCloud, all these actions have something in common and no, it’s not that they are all internet-based services, It is that they all rely on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for handling their data and feed the demand of their consumers.

Started in the early 2000s as a system to help other departments of Amazon to carry out efficient storage and interdepartmental transfer of data, the engineers realized the actual potential of the system and their skills in 2003 when they considered to take their data storage prowess to the next level and thus in 2006 Amazon Web Services (AWS) was born.

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Today, AWS controls more than 40% of the total cloud storage business in the world and this 40% includes major players on the internet. Starting from Amazon’s own online retail division, the largest in the world to other big names like Apple’s iCloud service, Netflix, Spotify, and even governments and banks. Every third website accessed daily around the world is linked to AWS in some form or the other. Zoom, the go-to app for application for video conferencing and lectures was able to handle the continuously increasing traffic on its platform because of AWS. AWS was adding 5000 to 6000 racks of servers every night to meet demand.

Businesses today are data-driven and AWS is a master at handling data!

Does this mean AWS has no competition? Absolutely not!

Semptember, 2020

There are services like Microsoft’s Azure and Google’s Cloud platform and are equally good and capable of handling all the data thrown at them, but Amazon has a clear edge over them in factors which are extremely essential for companies in this everincreasing web of data; scalability, adaptability, and reliability.

Netflix can consume up to 30% of the world’s internet bandwidth at peak hours and yet it works like breeze, thanks to AWS and its customdeveloped servers that handle these usage spikes.

AWS’s thirst for expansion is enormous and its recent investments in major undersea cable projects like HAWAIKI and even JUPITER, a 14000kms cable system that would connect Asia and the USA proves that for AWS, it is just the beginning!

Paraphrasing Kemens von Metternich, “When Amazon sneezes, the internet catches a cold” So remember,next time you access any website, binge watch a series, listen to your favorite song, Amazon brought it to you!

The sheer penetration and scale of AWS on the internet are daunting and horrifying. AWS makes up almost half of Amazon’s annual profit. It’s a cash cow! and an extremely reliable one.

Amazon, can thus make use of this huge cash surplus and undercut its competitors in other businesses without breaking a sweat! Amazon Basics is an example of such a business model wherein Amazon manufactures products in demand and undercuts the competitor’s pricing and eventually dethrones it.

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September, 2020

THE JIO JUGGERNAUT DAIVAT BHAGAT MBA IB

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September, 2020

“DATA IS THE NEW OIL AND DATA IS A NEW WEALTH” This statement by Mr. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries Limited heralded the beginning of the telecom giant’s expansion into eCommerce, television screens, and the upcoming forays into the gaming and virtual reality segment.

telecommunication industry had over8 players vying for market share. Within 2 years of its launch, it edged out many smaller rivals forcing them to shut shop and others had to either merge (Vodafone-Idea) or infuse massive funding (Bharti Airtel) to stay afloat making it essentially a 3 if not a 2-horse race now.

For a man who has built his empire using the oil and petroleum product, this is the perfect analogy that explains the importance that he attaches to this new and hitherto underdeveloped sector in India. The revolution began with the introduction of free calling and dirt-cheap data prices which instantly made it a favored choice among the country’s young, data-hungry population prompting the massive consolidation in the sector. Before Jio’s entry, the

With the telecom sector space firmly secured, the next target was the relatively unpenetrated rural cellphone market. With Nokia moving out from the market and companies like Micromax failing to deliver, the feature phone market was waiting to be captured. JioPhone 1 and later JioPhone 2 easily captured this market without any opposition on the back of tailor-made plans for these models. At one point it enjoyed a market share of 47% in the overall cellphone market

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September, 2020

giving strong competition to cheap Chinese manufactured Karbonn and Lava phones.

The September launch of the Jio Gigafiber pit it directly against wellestablished players like TataSky and Videocon in the D2H segment. However, with High Definition picture quality, the presence of multiple OTT platforms, and the advent of the smart set-top box gave it a real technological edge.

Repetitive disruptions especially during the monsoon season in the television services further increased consumer interest in this latest entrant. It crossed the 1 million subscriber mark in March 2020.

Being the only Indian company to get substantial investments to the tune of 1.04 lakh crore, achieving its target of becoming net debt-free by 2021 wellÂ

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before its target date. These same investments along-with the launch of the JioMart platform with an average of 2.5 lakh orders per day have propelled Mr.Ambani to the position of the 4th richest man in the world. It has also provided him with a war chest to take on the likes of Amazon and Walmart backed Flipkart in the highly competitive eCommerce market place.

With the end of the economic slowdown that has engulfed the globe nowhere in sight, very few firms currently have the financial muscle to stop the Jio juggernaut which is continuously expanding into newer horizons and using technological innovations as a spearhead for each of its forays.

September, 2020

Covid-19

REALIZING PRIORITIES

PRIYA SINGH MBA HR Retail Chronicles | Page 20

September, 2020

Covid-19, the Global Pandemic of our century has shaken the economy of various countries. No one had thought that an invisible virus could be a stumbling block to the world’s progress.

Nations that have been considered as an epitome of superpower and are already ahead in terms of technology & innovation also knelt before this pandemic. Here comes the need for good management.

To understand this in a better light, let us look at the data. If we see the number of deaths caused by the coronavirus in India up till 26th August 2020, it is 58,390, but same for America is 1.77 Lakhs. These numbers don’t just reflect the casualties but the fact that despite being the second-most densely populated country in the World how we managed to reduce the death counts.

This is bizarre that nations which Retail Chronicles | Page 21

succeeded in developing a nuclear bomb are juggling to produce a safe vaccine and also every nation has become a part of this rat race of who is going to come up first with the vaccine, and the saddest part is that collectively they are running but no one is getting perfect results.

If we jog our brains and go by the news, it is yet not clarified where this virus has actually come from, but it is visible that it is going to stay with us for long.

This virus has caused the unforgettable pains and hardships. We saw many daily wage earners losing their jobs due to nation wide lock down, and being forced to migrate from cities to their respective hometowns, barefooted with no food and water. Most people among them thought that they will now have to look for the opportunities within their hometown, because of the fear of coronavirus.

September, 2020

Coronavirus spread across the countries very rapidly and has transformed human lives completely. We were forced to stay at home which has given birth to new perspectives about life, work, and family. Now that the virus has already stayed for few months, we are getting adapted to the new challenges and means.

I want to summarize the whole experience by a short poem When the first-time corona surfaced, Nobody had thought it would make masses dead.

Officials turned out to be sloppy, Their protocols, no one was ready to copy.

Even people did not take a stiff stand, All were enjoying instead of a social rant.

Now the affairs have become much shoddy, We were dippy to assume ourselves a gaudy.

Everything has come to a standstill, Nature is alleviating and making the earth refill.

This time reminds us that basic is not so basic, Need for food forming the penniless sick.

Our hearts get wrenched by seeing needful plight, We are hell-bent to stay at home and trust me this is no delight.

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September, 2020

Unconditional Love for Politics may take you down - NITISH BHARDWAJ MBA A

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September, 2020

Love for politics is increasing day by day, and Y-o-Y growth of such love in India may even be higher than shares of cosmetic companies. But what is wrong then? It is a capitalizing thought; it is boosting our economy, at least virtual footfall on social media, TRP of TV news, and Whatsapp intellectual debates have certainly increased. Wouldn’t these companies be paying a lot of taxes soon? Yes, but at a price.

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The reasoning behind political affiliations has moved towards a higher degree of subjectivity. Despite having a humongous quantum of facts and opinions, zeroing down on a few most correct ones is not only difficult but is impossible. Who knows the brand value and brand creation more than the legacy of our political classes? They know how to stimulate the right side of your brain, swiftly bypassing the logical left side and capturing a seat in your heart, and thus securing a seat in the Honourable house.

September, 2020

There are different layers in the belief system of the human brain. The outer layers are dynamic, and the inner layers are rigid (Core beliefs). Core beliefs are formed in the early years and are likely to remain the same until a difficult situation forces your brain to discard an incorrect core belief.

They also act like individual units resonating with each other on similar frequencies. But these core beliefs, when attached with reins of information stimulating it, could make way for manipulation of opinions, which can further validate or invalidate policies of a particular party or its affiliates.

Such vigorous steering of our brain goes against our conscience, leading to cognitive dissonance. And to damage control, cognitive biases come to our rescue. No wonder how a common man would survive this Post Truth era of misinformation without cognitive biases. The Primetime debates are classical examples of cognitive biases, especially like an Ostrich bias where a person chooses to ignore unfavourable information, selective perception where a person allows his expectations to influence his perception, and many more.

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September, 2020

A Bias saves the participant but confuses the listener at first. Gradually, the listeners' mind also starts to behave just the same way and starts using biases and eventually assumes a stand amid contrary views. This culture of taking the support of cognitive biases to sustain an opinion/ ideology is contagious. Contrary to a rational man, someone close to biases will be more likely to judge any situation from selective perspectives only. By the time you’ll realize your views will be polarised. You will start to label the diversity of people just based on their political opinions.

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Political debates are low hanging fruits for the news media houses. It easily keeps the business running and attention high. It does not let you construct your own opinions but serves you ready-to-eat opinions. Political enthusiasts should analyze things from multiple perspectives rather than idolizing personalities. People should walk away from Darnab and Rubbish before their breaking news breaks away their grey matter into pieces.

September, 2020

SMALL TOWN GUY

BY SIDDHARTH CHAND MBA DÂ

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Semptember, 2020

Who are we? We belong to the places where we don’t have many facilities available but somehow manage to dream big.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni is another small-town guy. I won’t call him gem because he was no different than all of us. He saw dreams as we did. So, where did he go different? He saw that single dream every day but made sure to face reality when eyes are wide open, kept working on his innocent ambition. Did he face any hardships?

Yes, for sure, he did; we all saw and could feel the pain in his biopic.

I won’t say that kids from big cities don’t have to deal with all this stuff, but the magnitude of things with the other guy is a bit bigger. He is a man with fear and emotions like all of us, but with time he adapted to the situations. Which made him what he is today.

What made him go every time it seemed impossible?

Saying that impossible wasn’t a word in his dictionary will be too filmy. Let’s talk real, He dealt with almost every impossible as a kid, and till the time he grew up, his bucket was full of it, and his brain now denied to accept any impossible requests further.

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Semptember, 2020

Why is he referred to as “THALA”?

“Thala” means head or a leader in Tamil, his teammate calling him “Thala” is different, But when a big city like Chennai refers to him as their boss, it is an achievement. As a captain, you will have to step back many times, and give your boys a push ahead, identify the positives out of dozens of negatives in a person. Boost your people and, most importantly, remain calm in tense situations. Make your rival captain busy in solving the mystery. He made us believe in the real and forgotten definition of a leader.

Instead of having a bright future as a top-order batsman, he decided to play down because when you are a leader, you have to refuse to look at your book and focus on only one thing, how can I make the team; strong and fierce.

For sure, he may have made mistakes, may have relapsed, who doesn’t. But he managed to stand and believe in something good.

For us, that is people from every corner of India, whether small or the big city. Dhoni will not be remembered as a Cricketer but will always be admired as “THALA”.

Why is he different from every other Cricketing legend?

If we go statistically; His chart shows the same runs, stumpings, and the number of matches played. But the way he achieved those milestones has hundreds of stories in it. And we all love stories than the stats.

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September, 2020

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