Indian Businesses

According to a report by technology company Zendesk, customers are also expecting more from the brands with which they do business, and the vast majority of them (80 per cent) say their customer service standards have improved in the last year. "This year, our CX Trends shows that this shift in behaviour has prompted leaders to invest in technology that creates an immersive, yet seamless experience.

More than 50 employees are now based in the state-of-the-art facility, with an additional 450 jobs to be filled over the next four years, the company said. The facility is co-located with Pratt & Whitney's India Capabilities Centre (ICC), which opened in 2022 to provide integrated global supply chain support, and the recently inaugurated Collins Aerospace engineering and global operations centres.

In a report, Moody's said the marketing losses for Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) will go down. "Still, overall earnings for fiscal 2023 ending on 31 March 2023 will be weak because of marketing losses

WPI-based inflation was 5.85 per cent in November 2022. "Fall in prices of food articles, mineral oils, crude petroleum and natural gas, food products, textiles and chemicals & chemical products contributed to a slide in wholesale price index-based inflation," a statement issued by the Union Commerce Ministry said.

According to L&T, the SWC business comprises the smart and safe segment and communications segment (including all software platforms, IPs related to these segments and employees) of SWC business. The transaction excludes the military communications segment and certain identified customer contracts.

To put this in perspective, tech companies globally sacked 28,096 workers in the January 1-January 5 period, according to layoff tracking website Layoffs.fyi. In December last year, over 17,000 tech employees were shown the door (holiday season may be one of the reasons for lower numbers). This shows 2023 may become the worst year in the history of the tech world.

Although some startups, like fintech platform KreditBee ($200 million), Foodtech platform HealthKart ($135 million) and HRtech software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform BetterPlace ($40 million), raised decent funds in December last year and in the beginning of January, the scene overall is grim as VC money has squeezed.

Total expenses went up 131 per cent to Rs 9,574.5 crore in FY22. According to its annual financial statement with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), during the last quarter of FY22, Swiggy turned "decacorn" (with a valuation of $10 billion and above) after raising a $700 million round led by Invesco.

India minted a total of 21 unicorn companies (VC-funded startups valued at $1 billion or more) in 2022, 18 of them during the first six months of 2022 and less than half the 44 Unicorns minted in 2021. In fact, the final quarter of 2022 did not see any new unicorns being created. SaaS companies accounted for 29 per cent of all the new unicorns in 2022, followed by Fintech companies with 19 per cent. Overall, unicorn startups in India attracted $9.8 billion worth of investments in 2022, down by 61 per cent compared to the previous year (which saw $25 billion invested in unicorn startups).

The acquisition provides Biocon Biologics with direct commercial capabilities and supporting infrastructure in the advanced markets and several emerging markets, bringing it closer to patients, customers and payors, the company said. With this acquisition, Biocon Biologics emerges as a world-leading biosimilars player with eight commercialised products.