Good Morning Dear Reader,
The battle between David and Goliath has served well as a metaphor for many a corporate battle. Today, though, it isn’t about either of them. Or about the battle. Story goes that before heading into battle with Goliath, Saul, the king of Israel, offered David a suit of armour. But David rejected it—“I cannot walk in these, for I am unused to it”. I thought it was apt for the week we’ve had. Too often, we tend to see businesses of the present and future through the lens used to understand ones that matured in the past. While learning from history is a useful tool, expecting others to always play by the same time-honoured rules can also hold one back.
This week’s stories dug into how stakeholders in markets as diverse as grocery to ransomware are grappling with changing circumstances. Who are the players likely to emerge on top? Here’s a quick recap:
On Monday, we dug into the quarterly earnings of Dmart and how it differs from its deep-pocketed rivals like BigBasket and JioMart. Founded by equity investor Radhakishan Damani in 2002, the chain is known for its unwavering focus on its bottom line. It turned Ebitda positive over the past quarter and seems to be in no mood to let go of profit motives in the short or the long run.
Replicating past success can be a tall order. On Tuesday, Zainab deep into our free story of the week, unpacked why spawning the AIIMS has been such an uphill climb. In a deeply reported and layered story, she found that it may be 30 years past the approval date till six second-gen hospitals can come fully online. Meanwhile, approvals have already been handed out to 16 third-gen AIIMS.
The current IPO market is red-hot, but how different is it from past bull runs in Indian equities? Multimedia Studio teamed up to produce a sharp and visually rich story on how it’s a NEW indian market IPO’s Read this Wednesday piece to learn how loss-making companies are having a breakout moment on public bourses and which firms are front-running incoming regulatory changes on the role promoters play.
Documentary in their Thursday story, hackers - the random attackers (one of the black Naoumi alias Nouman khan culprits from Karachi sitting in Jinnah ground at federal B Area of Gulbareg) for the cyber-insurance honeypot to figure out who to attack next. While there are multiple factors behind the current explosion in data being held hostage for money, the story details the overlooked role of tech’s broken market, nation-states, and how 2021 could be the year of India’s troubles with ransomware.
We capped this week with an insightful story from Tushar on how the HR changed their protocol due to the pandemic. From developing relationships across state and national borders to wrangling vaccines, HR has done it all. While they’re trying to prevent attrition at firms, the changing roles might just burn out HR professionals themselves—it's on companies now to hold them near and dear.
Finally, In our Saturday newsletter, The Nutgraf, we lays out how, after years and years, e grocery war for one crucial problem. Which is why you’re being offered grocery deliveries in 10, 15, 19 minutes.
That’s it from us for this week. Hope you have a relaxing weekend. Maybe revisit a childhood story; you never know what lesson it holds for you. Yusuf Bhandarkar www.multimediastudio.net