Two Indian business giants are innovating during Covid19.

Expansion often means exploring the unexplored.

Two of India’s largest companies have done it.

Reliance Industries Ltd on Wednesday said it’s going to expand its food-and-grocery play in JioMart to include fashion, consumer electronics, and smartphones by this festive season. Tata Consulting Services (TCS) on July 8 launched Quartz smart solution to offer cryptocurrency trading.

JioMart’s plan to revolutionise the e-grocery space involves the Kirana stores, the oldest form of local mum and dad retail in India.

JioMart has been bringing small stores online, thereby putting kirana store owners at the centre of its plans. What’s in it for Reliance? The Kirana stores become last point of delivery in the logistics trail, plus, by digitising a local store you open a minefield of hyperlocal information. With a larger size of kirana-store customers, B2B e-commerce platforms get a robust database of actual sales instead of estimates. This data can be sold to brand manufacturers. It’s one of the biggest revenue streams for any company taking kirana stores online. RIL is one smart business!

TCS is looking to get an early-mover advantage with Quartz, having a big impact in the global enterprise blockchain-solutions market. Its new product, Quartz, aims to make swift inroads into cryptocurrency trading in countries such as Switzerland and Singapore where it’s legal. TCS is eyeing high-net-worth investors, private banking, and wealth-management segments. However, Quartz may not find takers in India in the absence of regulatory clarity.

Author: Stephen Manallack

Former President, Australia India Business Council, Victoria and Author, You Can Communicate; Riding the Elephant; Soft Skills for a Flat World (published by Tata McGraw-Hill INDIA); Communicating Your Personal Brand. Director, EastWest Academy Pty Ltd and Trainer/Speaker/Mentor in Leadership, Communication and Cross Cultural Communication. Passionate campaigner for closer western relations with India. Stephen Manallack is a specialist on “Doing Business with India” and advisor/trainer on “Cross-Cultural Understanding”. He is a Director of EastWest Academy Pty Ltd which provides strategic advice and counsel regarding business relations with India. A regular speaker in India on leadership and global communication, his most recent speaking tour included a speech to students of the elite Indian university, Amity University, in Noida. He also spoke at a major Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) global summit, the PR Consultants Association of India in Delhi, the Symbiosis University in Pune and Cross-Cultural Training for Sundaram Business Services in Chennai. He has visited India on business missions on 10 occasions and led three major trade missions there. He provides cross-cultural training – Asia and the west. View all posts by Stephen Manallack