Daybreak The Ken

A few years ago, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy had set a target of 40% growth across all categories for Flipkart. But in 2023, it was still stuck at 20%. So the company is now on a mission. It wants to push growth, gain market share, and turn a profit.

So in January this year, Flipkarts top execs along with the CEO came together for a meeting to outline a roadmap for 2024. Krishnamurthy wanted Flipkart to introduce a loyalty programme for top spenders, give out more incentives to ensure customer loyalty, push up transaction numbers and average order sizes, and also focus on brands.

In the same meeting he also admitted that the company had faced quite a few hurdles the previous year but he was sure they’d make a comeback and hit profitability before the IPO.

But here’s the thing, prepping for an IPO often has long term effects on a company’s culture. And the cracks are already beginning to appear inside Flipkart.
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Also listen to: What Swiggy's IPO prep means for its employees
Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Even though EV sales just make up a fifth of the Tata Motors’s overall sales, the automobile-maker is still the reigning giant of India's growing EV ecosystem. It is also leading the cab industry’s shift to EVs.

Over the next 3 to 5 years, it has promised to sell at least 50, 000 EV four wheelers to cab companies. Based on the deal made over a year ago, half of them are meant for Uber. But it's been over a year since the deal with Uber and only 4000 Tata EVs are up and running in Uber's fleet?
Did Tata Motors make a miscaculation? 
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Nearly half of India’s 200 million workforce that is over the age of 45 suddenly has the sword of an involuntary retirement hanging over their heads. These are loyal employees from sectors like pharma, retail, manufacturing, and banking who are dealing with shorter career spans but for whom retirement is not a voluntary choice.
Those aged between 40-60 years are facing long periods of joblessness after quitting or losing a job. But finding a job has become increasingly difficult for them and it is leading to a lot of stress and financial issues. 

In a nutshell, their career span has shortened from more than 40 years to just 20 or 25 years. 

Why is this happening?
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In the last decade or so, French retailer Decathlon has managed to completely change how most of us shop for anything sports and fitness related. 
It replaced mom and pop sports stores by becoming a one-stop shops for all things sports and fitness related. Cult.Fit wants to pull off just that with the help of its in-house athleisure and fitness equipment brand, Cult.sport.
But it doesn’t help that it’s been a pretty rocky ride for Cult.Sport this far. The brand hasn’t really taken off the way Cult had hoped. 
So with its heart set on an IPO, is Cult’s retail project a good idea? Or could it just end up being a distraction?
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

More people switching to Electric Vehicles (EVs) is not just great for our environment, it's great for hackers too. As EVs become more popular, hackers are constantly looking for opportunities to exploit the widening network of digitally connected vehicles. Between 2018 to 2021, incidents related to breach of cybersecurity in the auto industry rose by more than 200%. And it is only going to get worse in the coming years.
In India though, it is not much of a concern yet due to the low penetration of EVs so far. But it won’t remain that way for long without proper safeguards in place.
The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act 2023 is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough.
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

A damning investigative report about Swiggy recently revealed how the foodtech giant has been depriving its delivery workers of their health insurance coverage if their ratings fall. 
It comes at a time when the company is prepping to make its stock market debut to raise more than a billion dollars. Earlier this week, Swiggy  also got the official green flag for the IPO from its shareholders.

But so far, only its food delivery business is profitable. So now, the company is running on overdrive to hit profitability before it goes public. 
And Swiggy employees are bearing the brunt. 
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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.