ITV

Tag: Omni Channel

  • FirstCry parent company Brainbees files IPO application

    FirstCry parent company Brainbees files IPO application

    Mumbai: According to SEBI (Security Exchange Board of India) filings, Brainbees solutions parent company of Omni channel FirstCry submitted an application for an IPO (Initial Public Offer) on 28 December 2023.

    Launched in 2010 headquartered in Pune, It is an e-commerce company focused on a niche sector of baby products. In 2020 FirstCry raised Rs 1000 crores for series E funding. As per media reports in fiscal year 2023- 2024 the company reported revenue of Rs 1406.9 crores. The IPO fund can utilise procurement, employees benefit expenses, advertising expenses. The startup currently owns more than 300 stores and around 615 franchise based stores across Pan India.

    According to Moneycontrol reported, FirstCry is looking to raise funds of Rs 4200 Crores through IPO, rest 60 per cent fund will garner through OFS (Offer For sale). The company is looking further for expansion and growth.

    Company spent Rs 159.2 crores on Employees Benefit Expenses (EBE) before the IPO. In the fiscal year 22-23 the company suffered losses. According to DRHP filed before the regulator renowned names of institutions like M & M, SoftBank, Apricot, Investments, Valiant, Mauritius, TIMF, Think India will sell its stakes from FirstCry.

    The OFS consists of 5.4 crore of equity shares. In 2021, the company raised funds from equity funding.
     

  • Gupshup announces launch of bot builder platform gupshup.io in India

    Gupshup announces launch of bot builder platform gupshup.io in India

    MUMBAI: Gupshup, the world’s leading messaging platform trusted by developers in more than 30,000 businesses, has announced the launch of its new bot builder platform, gupshup.io, poised to lead a new wave of bot revolution in India. The Gupshup.io platform consists of omni-channel messaging APIs and bot builder tools. The omni-channel APIs enable connectivity to almost every messaging channel including SMS, Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram, Teamchat etc, with more to be added soon. The bot builder tools support the entire bot lifecycle including development, testing, deployment, hosting, publishing, monitoring, tracking, search and discovery of bots.

    With messaging apps recently opening up APIs for businesses to build bots, we’re now on the verge of a once-in-a-decade paradigm shift in the tech industry. After desktop and clients in the mid-80s, browsers and websites in the mid-90s, and mobile OS and apps in the mid-00s, messaging platforms and bots are emerging as the next wave of tech revolution. Virtually everything that we do today on websites or apps will soon be done through bots. Bots will enable shopping, ordering food, banking, trading and most other activities through your favourite messaging app.

    “Bots are the new apps. Bots will transform virtually every aspect of our lives, making it simpler and easier to engage with businesses and brands just by chatting with them”, said Gupshup founder and CEO Beerud Sheth. He further added, “Every business and brand will have to develop a bot strategy quickly. Gupshup.io offers the most advanced tools globally for developers preparing to meet the explosive demand for messaging bots and services.”

    Gupshup used its extensive experience with the bot building process to automate common tasks performed by every bot developer. The Gupshup platform enables a developer to build, test and deploy a bot across multiple channels in minutes. The bot is automatically hosted with a one-click deploy process.  Post-launch monitoring and tracking of bots has also been automated. An omni-channel bot store enables the search and discovery of bots, helping developers to promote their bots. Instead of using a patchwork of tools, the Gupshup platform offers an end-to-end integrated platform for developers that frees them up to focus on their specific workflows.

    Gupshup continues to operate its smart-messaging app Teamchat, which pioneered the concept of smart messages i.e. structured fields within chat messages. Teamchat was the earliest and most bot-friendly messaging app, currently being used by over 2,000 businesses, including companies like HDFC, ICICI, Biostadt, Meru Cabs, PNB Metlife and others. Bots built on Teamchat continue to support enterprise use-cases such as CRM, HR and ERP.

  • Gupshup announces launch of bot builder platform gupshup.io in India

    Gupshup announces launch of bot builder platform gupshup.io in India

    MUMBAI: Gupshup, the world’s leading messaging platform trusted by developers in more than 30,000 businesses, has announced the launch of its new bot builder platform, gupshup.io, poised to lead a new wave of bot revolution in India. The Gupshup.io platform consists of omni-channel messaging APIs and bot builder tools. The omni-channel APIs enable connectivity to almost every messaging channel including SMS, Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram, Teamchat etc, with more to be added soon. The bot builder tools support the entire bot lifecycle including development, testing, deployment, hosting, publishing, monitoring, tracking, search and discovery of bots.

    With messaging apps recently opening up APIs for businesses to build bots, we’re now on the verge of a once-in-a-decade paradigm shift in the tech industry. After desktop and clients in the mid-80s, browsers and websites in the mid-90s, and mobile OS and apps in the mid-00s, messaging platforms and bots are emerging as the next wave of tech revolution. Virtually everything that we do today on websites or apps will soon be done through bots. Bots will enable shopping, ordering food, banking, trading and most other activities through your favourite messaging app.

    “Bots are the new apps. Bots will transform virtually every aspect of our lives, making it simpler and easier to engage with businesses and brands just by chatting with them”, said Gupshup founder and CEO Beerud Sheth. He further added, “Every business and brand will have to develop a bot strategy quickly. Gupshup.io offers the most advanced tools globally for developers preparing to meet the explosive demand for messaging bots and services.”

    Gupshup used its extensive experience with the bot building process to automate common tasks performed by every bot developer. The Gupshup platform enables a developer to build, test and deploy a bot across multiple channels in minutes. The bot is automatically hosted with a one-click deploy process.  Post-launch monitoring and tracking of bots has also been automated. An omni-channel bot store enables the search and discovery of bots, helping developers to promote their bots. Instead of using a patchwork of tools, the Gupshup platform offers an end-to-end integrated platform for developers that frees them up to focus on their specific workflows.

    Gupshup continues to operate its smart-messaging app Teamchat, which pioneered the concept of smart messages i.e. structured fields within chat messages. Teamchat was the earliest and most bot-friendly messaging app, currently being used by over 2,000 businesses, including companies like HDFC, ICICI, Biostadt, Meru Cabs, PNB Metlife and others. Bots built on Teamchat continue to support enterprise use-cases such as CRM, HR and ERP.

  • Future of retail in the age of e-commercialisation

    Future of retail in the age of e-commercialisation

    The India retail industry accounts for over 10 per cent of the country’s GDP and contributes to around eight per cent of the employment. This space is undergoing transformations due to scores of e-commerce firms gaining huge popularity. In such a scenario, it is the brick and mortar companies that are gradually feeling the heat waves of the rising competition level in the Indian market. The truth is, the future of Indian retail holds value both in offline and online retail, especially in impulse categories like fashion jewellery and accessories.  

     

    Over the last decade, the Indian retail industry has grown phenomenally with a remarkable shift towards organised retailing formats. It is gradually shifting towards a modern concept of retailing, which is a seamless blend of online and offline formats. This concept is called ‘Omni-Channel’ retailing, which focusses on employing all kinds of shopping channels like internet, brick and mortar, television, direct mail and radio among many others. Merging the two formats of online and offline retailing is to blend technology with smart merchandising and imbibe community building, customer engagement and targeted marketing in their operations. For instance, to tackle the queue problem at its stores, customers have the option of shopping online and opting for home delivery or store pick up at WalMart. Customer friendly tactics such as this have helped WalMart to be counted among the top five online retailers in the US with estimated revenues of $10 billion in 2013 from the online segment alone.

     

    It is predicted that the Indian retail market will grow by seven per cent over the next 10 years, eventually becoming a whopping $850 billion industry by 2020. Coming specifically to traditional retail, a growth of five per cent is expected in the same and is estimated to reach a size of $650 billion (76 per cent). Organised retail is likely to develop by 25 per cent and reach a size of $200 billion by 2020. Since the last five years, Online Retail, both direct and through marketplaces has had a roller-coaster ride in metamorphosing itself from being at a nascent level to becoming the most promising sector in India.

     

    For the future growth of the industry, retailers are also set to embrace Targetted Marketing to augment their operations and keep themselves on par with global standards. Targetted Marketing aims to make the promotions, pricing and distribution of the products and services easier and more cost effective. It envelopes all the aspects of marketing and involves breaking a market into segments and paying more attention to the ones that are of paramount importance for the company. For instance, firms can create e-mail campaigns and send to a specific set of customers depending on who the company wants to target. In order to know their target audience, companies can use various nifty tools like social media. These have helped marketers and SMEs track the target audience in real time through the fan pages of other companies. Besides this, they also provide an in-depth graphical data about every person who is connected with the page. Targetted Marketing is the mantra for finding the target audience that will help the retail sector survive cut throat competition. Innovative thinking and technology aided growth strategies are what will separate the lions from the lambs when it comes to this ever-evolving industry.

     

    (These are purely personal views of Youshine founder Ashish Sood and Indiantelevision.com does not necessarily subscribe to these views.)