About UPI Ban By Small Merchants – Part 2

I recently covered the primary issues related to the ban of UPI by small merchants: Do small merchants make so much money? Why refuse UPI? Why avoid GST? Are small merchants evading GST? What about Income Tax? In this blog post, I’ll explore some secondary issues. For the sake of completeness, I’ll continue with the … Read more

B2B Appointment Booking: T&M or Output or Outcome Based Pricing Model?

A B2B Appointment Booking firm (herewith “Acme”) serves B2B technology vendors for whom it creates awareness, generates interest and sets appointments for meetings with decision makers of companies in their Ideal Customer Profile. Acme employs people to do research, understand the vendor’s (i.e. its client’s) product or service, create compelling messaging, develop email flyers, telescript … Read more

About UPI Ban By Small Merchants – Part 1

Facing mounting GST notices, many small merchants in Bangalore and elsewhere in the state of Karnataka are declining UPI and other digital payments, and insisting on cash from their customers. They include streetfood vendors, pushcart sellers, and khirana stores (India’s version of mom-and-pop stores selling grocery). This is causing major inconvenience to consumers who have … Read more

Witness Swears To Tell “The Whole Truth” – But Can He?

In courtrooms, witnesses take a solemn oath to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” At the same time, they’re also instructed to “only answer the question asked.” (In fact, they can be cut off or even censured if they go beyond the specific scope of a question.) I’m not a … Read more

How AI Can Propel Personalization To A Higher Orbit

One of the hottest use cases of AI in Marketing is Personalization. The dictionary meaning of personalization is as follows: Personalization: The action of designing or producing something to meet someone’s individual requirements e.g. the goal of search personalization is to help the searcher save time. In the context of marketing, I’ll slightly rephrase this … Read more

Harvard Mumbai: Innovative Or Harebrained?

The US federal government recently announced plans to carry out social media vetting of visa applications of all foreign students desiring to pursue higher studies in USA. This has sparked outrage in the media all over the world, including India. In its article entitled Visiting students can’t hide social media accounts from Uncle Sam anymore, … Read more

BlinkIt – Height Of Location Friction In Hyperlocal Apps

In Why Do Hyperlocal Apps Have So Much Location Friction?, we had a look at several location-related friction hotspots in hyperlocal apps like Dunzo, Ola, Pizza Hut Delivery, Rapido, and Uber. Subsequently, in Three Innovations To Remove Location Friction In Hyperlocal Apps, we looked at how these friction hotspots are caused by certain fundamental limitations … Read more