Also in this letter:
■ Cred stops using Paytm QR codes on its own placards after NPCI steps in
■ Zomato cofounder and CTO Gunjan Patidar quits
■ IT firms slash hiring mandates after a year of turmoil
Mukesh Bansal steps back from Tata Neu’s day-to-day operations
Mukesh Bansal, president, Tata Digital, has stepped back from the day-to-day operations of Tata Neu, adding to the ongoing top-level churn at the company, multiple sources told us.
Bansal, cofounder of fashion etailer Myntra, joined Tata Digital as its president in June 2021, but is no longer involved in key matters of Neu’s primary businesses, our sources said. He is likely to stay on in an advisory role, they added.
Pratik Pal is the CEO at Tata Digital and oversees all business decisions at the firm, people who have worked at Neu said.
Differences: One of the people directly aware of the goings-on said Tata Digital is not in favour of a growth-at-all-cost strategy and wants to manage its unit economics simultaneously. “The difference in approach on how to scale a new internet business played a role in these internal changes,” this person added.
Bansal is also looking at setting up a new venture, according to sources aware of his thinking. However, these plans are in the very early stages.
Churn: Other senior executives at Tata Digital, including Prateek Mehta and Sharath Bulusu, have also recently left the company, as we reported in December. Mehta and Bulusu were hired by Bansal along with other senior executives from the Flipkart group, Udaan, Blinkit and other startups.
Read | Who’s in, who’s out: Biggest executive moves in tech & startups in 2022
Tata Neu updates: Tata Neu, launched about nine months ago, has seen muted growth so far. The group recently added jewellery brand Tanishq and watch brand Titan to the platform.
“It will take some time before any visible impact on market shares. They were also cognizant of the problems they were facing with the Superapp and it took some time to fix those,” one of our sources said.
Cred stops using Paytm QR codes on its own placards after NPCI steps in
Bengaluru-based fintech firm Cred has stopped using Paytm’s merchant QR codes on its branded placards at offline stores after the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) took up the matter with the Bengaluru company following a complaint from Noida-based Paytm, multiple sources told us.
The move comes barely three months after Cred entered the offline payment segment through the launch of its ‘Scan & Pay’ feature, which allows its users to make offline payments by scanning a QR code.
Catch up quick: As part of its latest experiment to promote offline payments, Cred had printed the QR codes of merchants linked to various other payment players, including Paytm, BharatPe and PhonePe, on Cred-branded placards, giving the impression that it had issued these QR codes.
Paytm, which has been pushing to grow its offline acceptance network over the past few years and create its own branding at offline stores, complained to NPCI about Cred’s move. Paytm had 29.5 million merchants registered on its platform, according to its September quarter results.
QR code wars: In August 2022, PhonePe filed a police complaint in Greater Noida against three Paytm employees for burning its QR codes en masse.
In September 2020, BharatPe courted controversy after its merchant acquisition team distributed pamphlets to merchant partners, pointing out the foreign ownership of competitors Paytm, PhonePe, Google Pay and Amazon Pay.
Paytm served BharatPe a legal notice and PhonePe asked the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to halt the marketing campaign.
Zomato cofounder and CTO Gunjan Patidar quits
Zomato cofounder and chief technology officer Gunjan Patidar has resigned, the company informed stock exchanges on Monday. Patidar’s last day is yet to be decided and the company is expected to commence its hunt for a new CTO soon, sources told us.
Exodus: This is the fourth big exit at the Gurugram-based food-tech company in recent months. Patidar is also the fourth cofounder to leave Zomato.
An IIT-Delhi alumnus, Patidar had been with the company since 2008, and as CTO, was responsible for all tech verticals. He was the third person to join Zomato.
In November, cofounder Mohit Gupta quit the company. In the same month, Rahul Ganjoo, head of new initiatives, and Siddharth Jhawar, vice president and head of intercity legends service, also resigned from their posts.
Two months after Zomato’s IPO in July 2021, cofounder Gaurav Gupta quit the firm. Mohit Gupta and Gaurav Gupta were elevated to cofounder positions in 2020 and 2019, respectively. In 2018, Zomato’s initial cofounder Pankaj Chaddah left the company.
Also Read: Swiggy’s losses doubled to Rs 3,629 crore in FY22
IT firms slash hiring mandates after a year of turmoil
Technology companies are sharply reducing their hiring mandates, with industry estimates pointing to a near 90% drop in December 2022 from a peak of over 110,000 monthly active openings a year ago.
Rough waters: This sharp correction comes even as India’s $220 billion software services industry prepares for an uncertain economic scenario, top recruiters told us. The sharp deceleration in hiring, which began with a near 50% dip in June 2022, is being seen across both large and small IT services companies but demand for specific skills remains high, they added.
The sharp downturn in new job openings gained pace in the second half of 2022, as inflation and recessionary concerns deepened across the US and European markets.
Hiring boom: The top Indian IT majors Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Tech had hired around 2.2 lakh employees during fiscal 2022 amid concentrated demand for digitisation triggered by the pandemic.
However, macroeconomic concerns stoked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and recessionary fears in the US have dimmed the outlook for technology services.
Firms should get at least two years to comply with data bill: experts
The government should give companies at least 24 months to comply with and implement the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill once it is passed, experts have said.
This will allow enterprises to make any “behavioural corrections” which may be needed before the provisions of the Bill are enforced strictly, said the experts, who were part of an ET Roundtable organised by EY.
Quote: “It is essentially creating a whole ecosystem of privacy which possibly does not exist in the country so far because, as an individual citizen, we are always casual about giving our information,” said Amit Bhasin, the chief legal officer and general counsel of Marico Group.
Catch up quick: In November 2022, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology released the draft bill for stakeholder consultation. The ministry initially gave stakeholders 30 days to submit their views but later extended the deadline by 15 days to January 2.
Govt proposes self-regulatory framework for gaming firms
The government has proposed a self-regulatory mechanism for online gaming firms.
Details: In draft rules released on Monday, it has also made it mandatory to verify players through know-your-customer (KYC) checks. Gaming companies will also be required to have a physical presence in India.
The draft rules are part of proposed amendments to the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code in the Information Technology (IT) Rules of 2021.
The IT ministry has invited comments on the draft until January 17.
Gaming firms will also need to appoint a grievance officer, a chief compliance officer and a nodal contact person who can coordinate with law enforcement agencies.
Those that do not comply with the new rules will lose their safe harbour protection and may be prosecuted, said Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar. The ministry hopes to unveil the final rules by the end of February, he added.
Other Top Stories By Our Reporters
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Ad giants’ India revenues up 75% in FY22: Top multinational digital majors swept up advertising worth more than Rs 49,400 crore in India in FY22, a 75% increase over FY21. The ad revenue of the top six MNC tech players — Google, Meta, Hotstar, Amazon, Myntra and Flipkart — was Rs 28,177 crore FY21, according to their filings.
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