Georgekutty’s Electric Rickshaws Could Be The Answer to Kerala’s Pollution Woes

Carbon-free public transport is my dream begins Georgekutty Kariyanapally, when asked about the electric rickshaw.

“On an average, a person spends approximately Rs. 120-150 on auto rides. While some of us can afford it, commoners can’t. Also, this could be a step closer to reducing congestion in city traffic,” says Georgekutty, who started Lifeway Solar Devices, a company that manufactures devices and gadgets that run on solar power like lanterns, inverters, and solar lighting systems.

Easy to charge

Economy

January 20, 2017

Kochi’s Entrepreneurs Come Together for the First Meeting of ‘The Startup League’

Recently, The Kochi Post wrote about how and why startups shut down prematurely in Kerala and what can be done to help sustain them. The Startup League, an organisation is all about startups, had it’s very first meeting on Thursday in the city. The event that took place at Park Residency, Kakkanad, saw nearly 40 entrepreneurs from all parts of the State come together. Heralded by Manoj Chandran, founder of the organization, and Harish Nair, co-founder, the meet saw industry leaders address a group of enthusiastic businesspersons.

“The main reason startups close down soon is because there isn’t the right kind of awareness, no handholding. These are mainly freshers who get carried away by the startup hype. A lot of them don’t know how to take their business to the next level,” says Manoj.

He says the league hopes to create a eco-system in which startups that are trying to find their ground can be nurtured and sustained.

Economy

January 19, 2017

Traditional Utensils Are Seasoned with Love at Radhika and Priya’s ‘The Village Fair’

When was the last time you had Mezhakuperatti made in a cast iron vessel or Kanji in a clay pot? When you last visited your grandmom perhaps? The new generation or the millennials as we call them would probably have no idea what a clay pot fish curry would taste like.

“Apart from flavour, traditionally seasoned cookware come with many benefits,” says Priya Deepak, co-founder of The Village Fair, a startup that specialises in hand-seasoned cookware.

The idea was born when founder Radhika Menon read about a doctor in Canada who invented the method of dropping a cast iron fish into a wok while cooking to cure iron deficiency.

Economy

January 7, 2017

Taking a Closer Look at Start-ups in Kerala

In a growing economy like ours, start-ups have become common. According to a report in 2015, Start-up Village based in Kochi creates one entrepreneur a day. Since its inception in 2012, it has produced 533 start-ups till 2014. Of these, 293 have been student start-ups from which, 116 are active, 149 inactive, and 28 fizzled out. So, why is there is high rate of failures among start-ups? Here’s taking a closer look.

Lack of Drive

“The drive to take up a challenge and turn it into a success is very low,” says Manoj Chandran, founding partner of Start-up League, an organisation that aims in building responsible entrepreneurs. “Nearly 90 per cent of start-ups originate looking at the success of others and not due to their own passion,” he says.

Economy, Technology

January 2, 2017

How a Boy from Wayanad Grew up to Start the 100-Crore iD Fresh Foods

India is a country where education is given immense priority. This could probably be one of the reasons why education has also grown up to become a business sector that gains huge profits. Competition among the brightest students is so tight that students who are not toppers are left behind in the race of getting a good academic education and then a successful career.

However, there are exceptions. There are a few people like Mustafa P.C. who have run the race and also claimed the trophy, despite being considered not even eligible to take part in the competition. Who knew that a boy who failed class 6, hailing from a remote village in Wayanad, would one day own iD Fresh Foods a 100-crore company that sells fresh idli and dosa batter to many homes across Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, Delhi, Mumbai, and even Dubai and become a role model and inspire many to overcome their constrains and fulfill their dreams.

And for all those who think that universities like NIT and IIM are only for a special category of students, Mustafa’s story says otherwise. His father was a coolie and his mother didn’t even have any formal education. Even then he graduated from these universities with top scores proving once again that anything is possible, just that one requires to identify his/her dreams and work towards that.

Economy

November 28, 2016

Four Top Talents of DDB Singapore Start a New Creative Agency BLK J

Four top talents of DDB Singapore, one of the top advertising and communication agencies in the world, have decided to move on and start a new venture, BLK J, an independent creative agency with the focus to create great advertising across as many media as needed with the least number of buzzwords. The four founding partners of BLK J, Rowena Bhagchandani (Managing Director), Joji Jacob (Group Executive Creative Director), Khalid Osman and Lester Lee (Creative Directors) have been working together for about ten years at DDB. Their partnership helped the agency to win multiple new businesses as well as making it one of the most awarded agencies in the world.

Explaining about the idea that led them to start such a venture, Mr. Jacob says,

Economy

November 21, 2016

Fed up with Long Queues Outside the ATM? Singaporean Start-Up SoCash Has a Solution

We all are familiar with the long queues outside ATM counters, especially over the last couple of days with the demonetisation of 500 and 1000-rupee denominations. Every day we come across various instances of people having to return home disappointed after the cash in the ATM gets over. How useful it would have been if we could get cash from every shop we visit. The idea may seem alien to Indians, but has already been conceived by a Singaporean fintech start-up SoCash.

SoCash has been awarded a grant by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) for this innovative idea of turning every store into cash points, allowing customers to make cash withdrawals without going to ATMs. The best part of SoCash, however, is that unlike ATMs, the platform enables money transactions without imposing any charges.

Explaining the concept behind SoCash, CEO Hari Sivan says, “Cash logistics is a supply chain problem. We are used to withdrawing money from ATMs and branches, but we never think that there is always cash ‘floating’ around us. The shops near us have cash, our neighbours have cash. If we can match demand and supply of cash in a community, we don’t need ATMs. Therefore, through SoCash, we have built a secure digital platform for exchange of cash, backed by transfer of funds between bank accounts, complying with regulatory frameworks of banking compliance, risks management and money laundering control.”

SoCash works with banks and integrates into their mobile banking or mobile wallet applications. These mobile applications and platforms settle each transaction as electronic fund transfer between the bank accounts involved in the transaction, which means that cash circulates within the community without having to go through the ATM supply chain and in turn is very useful to the customer as it allows quick and easier access to cash without being charged for basic banking services.

Economy

November 14, 2016

Three Entrepreneurs Started Zarnik and Turned It into a One-Of-Its-Kind Hospitality Startup in Kerala

India has a diverse portfolio of niche tourism products that has earned it the 15th position in the world in terms of international tourism receipts. There has been an increasing interest to develop the tourism industry. The accommodation facilities for tourists in India range from a simple homestay that provides local home-cooked food, to resorts and five-star hotel groups. These take extreme care in maintaining the Indian feel but provide a true international experience to the people who visit India. Therefore, it is very important that these hotels are provided with necessary items in terms of toiletries, clean linen, etc. on a timely basis. Keeping this in mind, three friends from Kochi in 2014 started Zarnik Hotel Supplies.

Azhar Umar, Prashobh Kumar and Rahul Jayan are the entrepreneurs behind the initiative. Two years of research, market study and small operations gave them the courage to take their ideas and knowledge from a 200-sq.ft. office to start building India’s first technology-enabled hotel supplies company, which is a business-to-business commercial distributor of operating supplies for hotels, restaurants, and catering industries.

Explaining the concept behind Zarnik, Prashobh, co-founder and director of business development, says, “The biggest struggle a hotelier faces is coordinating with multiple vendors while creating the perfect guest experience. This is where our organization comes as a help and becomes a single-source vendor for luxury hotels across India. From guest amenity kits to luxury toiletries, slippers and linens, we are a one-stop shop for the hospitality business. Zarnik will be backed by the first-of-its-kind B2B online ordering system, best-in-its-class Enterprise Resource Planning, fulfilment centres and a well-coordinated delivery network that will cover more than 19,000 locations. All this is dedicated to cater to the hospitality industry.”

The company has already set up a warehouse in Kochi as Kerala is rated in the top five tourist destinations in India and, therefore, is a crucial market. According to them, Kerala has approximately 1,800 small and big hotels and accommodation establishments, which require the immediate attention of companies like Zarnik. Moreover, hotels at tourist destinations that are detached from cities – like Munnar, Thekkady, Ooty, Coorg, Manali, Srinagar, Shimla, etc. are the ones that are really in need of service and assistance. The company primarily targets to enable

serviceability to such locations. To make this possible, team Zarnik has partnered with more than one logistics service provider.

Prashobh says that evaluating companies based on their material handling quality and procedures, transit time, traceability, quality of trucks, etc. at different regions is a very challenging yet a very important task as it directly

affects the perception of service quality offered by a budding company like Zarnik.

“Once this is complete, we will have deliverability to locations that even Amazon and Flipkart are unable to reach,” he added.

The team also has plans to launch an e-procurement app that will enable small restaurant owners to order supplies from their mobile phones and deliver right at their doorsteps. Azhar, the founder and MD of Zarnik, assures that their company is not about “money first” and they are very passionate about helping hoteliers reduce their cost by guiding them to find the right products and advise them on optimum and efficient usage.

“Once a hotel signs up with Zarnik, our goal is not to increase the volume of the product the hotel procures every month, but to show them how they are able to reduce the consumption and cost of a particular product within a time frame. Helping hoteliers reduce their cost will be a part of the culture we want the employees we recruit to imbibe,” he added.

The company was started by a humble capital that the three friends pooled in. Despite the small start, the company is running successfully and is turning out to be a boon for multiple institutions. Zarnik delivers to multiple branches of the same hotel anywhere in the country with just one contract, one price, one order, and one invoice.

Their success has also enabled them to set up the first fulfillment center in Bengaluru, which will cater to Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, and Goa. The setup is expected to be completed by March, 2017.

Rahul, Co-Founder and Director of Operations, is of the opinion that this will ease the procurement of products and enhance timely delivery, which will in turn boost finance management.

“We hope that GST will be enabled as soon as possible because this will make our inter-State purchase and delivery easier,” he said.

They attribute their growing popularity in the industry to the present market that has been spoiled by vendors with vague delivery commitments, poor product handling, and packaging. Azhar, who has a five-year experience in the hospitality industry, is very keen on providing transparent services to the clients with proper pricing, facility to track orders online, e-invoicing, and other important services.

Zarnik is also partnering with NGOs to implement a nation-wide soap collection programme, through which the hotels collect gently used soap bars from check-out guest rooms and then send them to NGOs, which then sanitize the soaps. The NGOs then distribute these recycled soaps for free to the people today who can’t afford them. JW Marriott, The Four Seasons, Taj, and Novotel are already a part of similar programmes.

Zarnik has also come up with a linen buyback programme through which discarded linen is collected from hotels and is shredded to make fiber for recycled linen or articles like recycled tote bags.

The company that started with 20 odd products has grown to include more than 300 products by building a network of quality hotel supply manufacturers. Zarnik now works with some of the finest hotels in India, upholding their motto of showing commitment in helping hoteliers enhance guest experience.

Economy

October 2, 2016

As LuLu Mall Gains Popularity in Kochi the Others Fall Behind

Kochi has been a favourite destination of traders and explorers from time immemorial. It was the main port from which the export of spices from Kerala took place. Many of these traders, including the Portuguese, Dutch and British lived here for decades. Modern day Kochi, therefore, is a kaleidoscope of the cultures grafted on to a tropical coast.

Today, Ernakulam has developed at an alarming speed. As the place has already seen a blend of various cultures, it was never hard for the city and the natives to accept more people and their culture.

With major IT giants opening branches at InfoPark, Naval officers and their families settling here, and other firms operating here, the mood of the city has undergone many changes in last two decades. With more people coming into the city to earn their living, the city also had to change in order to cater to the likes and needs of all these people.

Economy

August 9, 2016

All Eyes on GST: How Will Kerala Benefit?

By Dr. Martin Patrick

The implementation of the long-pending indirect tax reform – Goods and Services Tax (GST) – has become closer to reality with the passing of the GST Constitutional Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha on August 3, 2016 and further with approval of the amendment by the Lok Sabha on August 8, 2016. There is still a long way to go and many hurdles to surmount before the GST becomes a reality.

In fact, there are many formalities and procedures to complete for the rolling out of GST from April 1, 2017 onwards. It is expected that the GST Council will be formed at the end of September. There will be six more months to complete other formalities. The crucial problem will be the passing of the State GST Bill by at least 16 States i.e. more than half of the States in India. It is hoped that all the formalities will be over by February, 2017 and the Bill will be rolled out from April, 2017 onwards.

Economy

August 5, 2016

Why the Gaming Federation Is Lobbying to Legalise Poker in Kerala

The All India Gaming Federation (AIGF) approached the Kerala government recently in a bid to seek the possibility of including poker and other skill-based games under Section 14A of the Kerala Gaming Act. The Act currently restricts the above mentioned games and the federation had approached Nalini Netto, the Additional Chief Secretary (Home), Government of Kerala, on the issue.

AIGF said that the government has agreed to review the list and consider the inclusion of the games, after consulting with the Law Department.

AIGF is a non-profit organisation that focuses on policy advocacy, research, and is a forum for discussion for stakeholders in the gaming industry.

Economy, Politics

April 1, 2016

Alarm Bells: Kochi Smart City Mission Shrouded In Secrecy

Smart Cities Mission obliquely tinkers with the 3-tier democratic structure. The Corporation will have no say in the running of the Kochi Smart City

Kochi has been riding a wave of euphoria ever since it had been ranked 5^th among 20 cities in India in the 2^nd round of the Smart Cities Challenge conducted by the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India.

We have been wowing ourselves: You can hear it on the radio and you can see it in print and it was a selling point in the local body elections in 2015. And very likely to be used for the assembly elections too.

Economy