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Renault, partners, join forces to make new-gen automotive electric motor 

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BRL Editor
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Renault and its partners Valeo and Valeo Siemens eAutomotive announced plans to develop and manufacture a next-generation automotive electric motor vehicle in France. 

Starting in 2027, the businesses claim they will be the first to mass-produce a 200kW electric motor without the need for rare earths. The Renault Group’s Cleon facility in Normandy, France, will produce the motor for the automaker’s purposes.

The three partners will combine their knowledge and know-how to create a one-of-a-kind electric powertrain system that is unmatched globally, delivering more power with less energy and avoiding the use of rare earths. 

Each of the three partners will contribute to developing and manufacturing the rotor and stator, which are the two most important components of an electric motor.

Luca de Meo, Renault Group’s Chief Executive Officer, commented: “We are delighted to be partnering with Valeo, whose know-how is recognized the world over. Together, we will design and develop a new generation of high-tech electric motors, produced at our Cléon plant. This partnership is further demonstration of our capacity to be at the forefront of the electric revolution taking place in the automotive industry and to anchor the new automotive value chain in France”.

Christophe Périllat, Valeo’s Chief Executive Officer, commented: “This strategic partnership will result in a major step forward for electric mobility. Alongside Renault Group, we are creating a new-generation automotive electric motor that eliminates the use of rare earths. This new motor will meet the most stringent environmental requirements and the highest performance standards.”

ShareChat to own MX TakaTak in $700 million deal

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BRL Editor
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Two sources familiar with the matter said that the parent firm of India’s ShareChat would acquire local rival MX’s short-video platform for roughly $700 million, as competition heats up in a market where foreign investors have made big bets. 

Following an India-China border clash in 2020, New Delhi banned ByteDance’s TikTok and a few other Chinese apps, resulting in a surge in popularity for Indian short-video apps.

Following the ban on TikTok, ShareChat’s parent company, Mohalla Tech, launched Moj. This similar short-video sharing app has grown to 160 million users and competes with Meta Platforms Inc’s Instagram Reels. 

ShareChat’s parent company will buy MX’s TakaTak short-video platform in a cash-and-stock deal, according to persons familiar with the matter. 

According to one of the sources, the deal, which is valued at roughly $700 million, might be disclosed within days. 

ShareChat’s parent company now has two short-video apps in its portfolio, owing to the MX TakaTak acquisition. 

According to one of the individuals, the company aims to expand its use of artificial intelligence techniques and reach a much larger audience. Moj has around 160 million users in India and MX has roughly 100 million.

How can businesses make consistent profit through relationship marketing?

By
Amala Sree Murali
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Long-term customer relationships are important for every organization, and they demand a commitment as well as time and space to develop. According to a survey conducted by SuperOffice, the leading European modern CRM provider, 85% of businesses agreed that long-term customer relationships were extremely crucial to their growth. 

Today, most businesses are still mainly concerned with transactional marketing, which focuses on maximizing individual sales rather than building long-term relationships. Few companies invest in customer relationships, and relationship marketing helps them accomplish their strategic goals.

Relationship marketing aims to build long-term customer engagements and develop customer loyalty by providing exceptional products and services rather than driving a one-time sale. A lack of strategy is why many businesses do not invest in relationship marketing. Businesses commonly claim to be leveraging relationship marketing methodologies such as discount coupons, customized services, reward programs, etc. These are tactics; they are much more concrete and usually geared toward smaller phases and a shorter time frame.

To build a strong relationship with customers, businesses must form bonds with them, create relationships, and create feelings that no price changes, advertising campaign, or deal can match. Relationship marketing empowers organizations to bond with their customers’ minds through emotional connection and purpose-driven connection.

Let’s look at how to develop an effective relationship marketing strategy for businesses.

Emotional connection: Regardless of the nature of the business or the products/services offered, every customer has feelings. Businesses must delve into those feelings to develop an emotional connection with customers to spend more money with them. Trust is fundamental for business growth, and keeping promises made on every purchase significantly increases brand trust. Moreover, customers will naturally connect to the brand when the companies share posts on social media that feature the company’s employees or valuable customer feedback.

Valuable content: Regardless of their purchase purpose, loyal customers expect value from the business in addition to the products/services given. To boost customer loyalty, content marketing has become the most popular strategy globally. Instead of focusing on sales and promotions, curated content in any form should address customers’ concerns. Offering expert-level content, which includes data-driven insights that help customers succeed, is the recent trend that motivates customers to keep in touch with the business. To put it another way, being purpose-driven is a corporate growth engine.

Customized services: When a startup or well-grown business adopts a relationship marketing strategy, it should focus on the customers rather than the products or services. Everyone wants a brand that cares about them as individuals and truly knows their needs. A firm may captivate customers and make them loyal to their brand by providing personalized services.

Customer engagement: Consistently interacting with customers will strengthen the emotional connection between a customer and a brand. It encourages customers to return and spread the word about the brand’s product or service. Offering a high-quality customer experience is a key element of the customer engagement strategy. Engaging with customers in this digital world is a prerequisite by reaching out to them through their favorite platforms.

Integrate technology: Customers will inevitably come to the business through an organic relationship built on personalized products or services. It is impossible to connect with every customer as the firm grows. By using technology to automate the processes, every customer will receive communications from the company and chances to interact. For instance, firms can use automated marketing systems to streamline their workflow and generate more leads and email automation to send the appropriate message to the right people at the right time.

Domino’s pizza invested in voice-based solutions to connect with customers to increase customer loyalty. The company has also invested in various solutions, including mobile apps, a new loyalty program, and even self-driving delivery vehicles, in addition to voice-based technology. The management believed that having a diverse technology portfolio and loyalty program allows it to focus on “meeting customers where they are and where they feel comfortable.”

An organization must ask for feedback when it has created a devoted customer base through meaningful connections with customers. Working with their feedback and addressing buyer pain points can help them tailor the relationship marketing strategy to their target market’s needs. 

Relationship marketing is a key component of corporate growth in today’s competitive world. Building, nurturing, and growing customer connections over time are the responsibility of the business. Organizations can employ relationship marketing strategies to appeal to customer emotions and stand for a good cause rather than just profit to build a loyal customer base.

ITC Hotels launches new app for all bookings

By
BRL Editor
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0

ITC Hotels, a Cigarettes-to-hotels conglomerate, has launched an app for room and restaurant reservations, food delivery and takeaway, and loyalty membership across its hotels and subsidiary Welcomhotels and Fortune Hotels in some locations. 

The company said that customers would book stays at about 55 of the business’s hotels and resorts using the app. According to the company, business travellers can also book stays at their firms’ negotiated corporate rates through the app.

Anil Chadha, divisional chief executive, ITC Hotels, said, “The mobile app is a natural progression for the brand that prides itself on moving with the times and serving its customers in the most modern and efficient way possible. We are living in a digital world and want our guests to enjoy the experience with the convenience, efficacy, innovative and interactive interface that it offers, along with benefits and privileges.”

Food delivery and takeaway will be available in 14 cities, including Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Goa, Agra, Jaipur, Vadodara, Amritsar, and Coimbatore. He stated that two more cities, Bhubaneswar and Guntur, would be included soon. 

These would be clubbed together under the umbrella of ‘Gourmet Couch,’ the company’s pan-India food delivery initiative. Table reservations will be available through the app at around 75 of the company’s restaurants.

ITC Hotels launched Mementos, a new luxury hotel brand, last year. According to the company, the hotel division’s asset-right strategy, in which the company is rapidly growing its footprint across the country through management contracts with standalone properties, will be strengthened by this new brand.

Isthara plans to broaden the food court business

By
BRL Editor
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0

Isthara, a smart food court and co-living brand, has increased its smart food court footprint in the country by opening its 40th smart food court in Hyderabad, bringing the company’s total number of smart food court seats in the country to 10,000. In the next three years, the company plans to expand to 150,000 seats in a market with more than two million people. In Telangana, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu, the company has already signed up more than 50 food courts.

“We believe that the smart food court format will be a norm in the next few years. We are excited to bring this new concept to more cities in the near future and look forward to bring about a revolution in the institutional cafeteria ecosystem. Additionally, through the multi-vendor format, the smart food courts are enabling budding F&B entrepreneurs to scale and set new standards in the institutional cafeteria dining segment,” Krishna Kumar, co-founder of Isthara, commented.

Letsmobility, a software product engineering firm, was also recently acquired by the brand. The company plans to use Letsmobility’s private cloud-based micro app platform, Livet, to introduce advanced tech solutions and expand its capabilities in the institutional cafeteria domain due to this acquisition.

“While we started with housing, we quickly realised that food was also a major concern for this target segment. We started the smart food court segment as a college cafeteria transformation exercise. Seeing our work in the co-living space, we were approached by a large education institution to transform their hostel cafeteria and turn it into an Isthara-standard property. While we were working on this, we realised that a lot of institutions were facing challenges in their cafeterias as they were run by local unorganised vendors, and there were issues in terms of the quality of the service and food,” Kumar commented.

Interestingly, the corporate sector had a comparable requirement. Since then, the company has used the smart food court concept in the workplace. By taking over the institution’s cafeteria space and bringing in the appropriate vendors, technology, and procedure, the company runs in a fixed shared model or a revenue shared model, depending on what suits the institution best. 

Apart from corporations and educational institutions, the company aims to work with hotels, schools, hospitals, and other institutions to scale its cafeteria. “This would help more industries in creating a great revenue yield for their organisation and optimising the food court space efficiently. By delivering the right product at the right time to the right people, we believe in building long term relationships that spread beyond the mere transaction of service offerings,” Kumar added.

“During Covid, we re-structured our business model to make it a sustainable, long term business model. There was also a change in customer habits and safety and hygiene standards became a priority. This opened up new avenues for us as we identified the gaps and challenges that the pandemic presented. As a result, we believe that today, we are stronger and more efficient as compared to the pre-Covid phase. We also used this phase to invest further in our tech to make our product and offerings superior,” he further informed.

Even though the hospitality industry was going through a difficult period, the company could recruit a large number of new employees who were interested in working for startups. During the pandemic, the overall number of employees climbed from 400 to 900. Kumar says Isthara is in a better position to meet the market’s needs now that more workplaces and educational institutions have reopened.

Awfis to add 1500 seats in Noida

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BRL Editor
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0

Awfis, a flexible workspace provider, has leased 85,000 sq ft in Noida’s River Side Tower. According to a media statement from the company, the centre will feature approximately 1500 seats and will open by the end of March 2022. 

Awfis now operates 11 coworking centres in the Delhi-NCR region, with ambitions to expand to 10-15 more by the end of 2022.

Amit Ramani, CEO & founder, said, “We are delighted to partner with River Side Tower to open this new workspace in Noida. The sharp recovery and the growing demand for flex workspaces from this region inspired us to continue to create grade-A flex workspaces, so as to facilitate businesses of all size in the market. We are confident that this trend will continue to grow and even the most traditional companies will see merit in setting up hub & spoke offices to help people work in close proximity to their homes allowing them to spend lesser time in commuting.”

In the last 15 months, the company claims to have opened over 50 centres with 30,000 seats and entered three new markets. 

By the end of 2022, Awfis wants to open 200 centres. It currently operates 121 centres in 14 cities, with 70,000 seats.

TresVista intends to double its workforce

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BRL Editor
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0

TresVista, a diversified service portfolio provider, stated that it intends to double its workforce to over 2,000 by the end of the current calendar year. 

TresVista will hire freshers and experienced professionals with dynamic skill sets for strategic business and scaled expansion across three office locations in Mumbai, Pune, and Bengaluru, according to a statement.

Sudeep Mishra, Co-Founder and MD, TresVista, said, “Our employee base has increased more than threefold since 2017 to our current strength of over 1,100. This has helped us match our business growth across delivery centres and add new service lines.”

Mishra further said, “We have unprecedented demand for our services and see this momentum continuing for the next several years. Our increasing rate of growth is a testament to our ever-expanding and supportive client base. This visibility allows us to aggressively hire, train, and develop the best talent with a long-term outlook.”

With over 1,000 individuals expected to join TresVista this year, a corresponding investment in employee engagement, in-depth training and induction, office infrastructure, and other intangible investments in a diverse and inclusive office culture will be made as part of the expansion plans. 

According to the statement, TresVista is led by over 42% women employees and has a close-knit alumni group of over 450 people from all backgrounds and professions. 

TresVista’s future expansion ambitions are impressive, with a new distribution centre set to open in Europe in 2024.

The company plans to visit more than 30 prominent institutions and colleges for recruitment, including IIMs, NMIMS, Christ University, and the University of Delhi.

Xiaomi collaborates with Shell India to broaden its mainline reach

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BRL Editor
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0

Xiaomi and Shell India announced a partnership on Tuesday to increase Xiaomi’s mainline channel reach in India and make Xiaomi accessories more accessible to more consumers. 

According to an official statement, the companies’ partnership began in Bangalore. The pilot is now live at five Shell fuel stations where customers can purchase Xiaomi accessories such as the Mi Portable Electric Air Compressor, Mi Smart Band 5, Mi Beard Trimmer 1C, Redmi Earbuds 2C, Redmi Power Bank 20000 mAh, and others, round-the-clock.

“Through our partnership with Shell, our aim is to increase the availability and accessibility of Xiaomi India’s range of accessories in the country for consumers,” said Sunil Baby, Senior Director of Offline sales, Xiaomi India.

“With this partnership, we are excited to explore the world of electronics and look forward to creating a long lasting relationship with the brand,” added Sanjay Varkey, Director, Shell Retail India.

Xiaomi India claims to have over 9,400 Mi Preferred Partners, over 4,000 large format Retail partners, and about 3,000 Mi Stores. 

Xiaomi India managing director (MD) Manu Jain said last year that the company would invest Rs 100 crore over the next two years to increase its offline retail presence in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, towns and rural India. 

It plans to increase the number of exclusive stores it has now, from 3,000 to 6,000+ in the next two years, resulting in direct employment for 10,000 individuals in its offline retail channel.

Livspace becomes unicorn with $180 million KKR-led funding 

By
BRL Editor
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0

Livspace announced that it had reached a billion-dollar valuation after obtaining $180 million in a late-stage funding round sponsored by KKR & Co, as it tried to expand internationally and compete against local rivals. 

According to Venture Intelligence Unicorn Tracker, the home renovation platform is India’s 86th “unicorn” in an era of record fundraising for Indian start-ups, with 43 companies joining the club last year alone. 

Ikea and Jungle Ventures, Venturi Partners, and Peugeot Investments were among the investors in the round.

Livspace, a Singapore-based company with extensive operations in India, has received over $450 million.

“Our business is growing exponentially in both India and Singapore, and we aim to replicate this playbook, launch new solutions and accelerate our launches across new markets with operations across APAC, MENA and Australia,” Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Anuj Srivastava said in a statement.

The deal is the latest in a succession of consumer internet transactions for private equity firm KKR, including Indian eyeglasses shop Lenskart, China’s digital dairy startup Adopt A Cow and small business-focused platforms GrowSari and KiotViet in Southeast Asia.

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