MANGESH SHINDE Founder
SHUBHI AGRAWAL Co-founder
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2021 Vol.-01 Issue-04
Editor’s Note O
ver the past few years, India has witnessed a significant rise in its startup ecosystem. It all could become possible due to factors such as proliferation of internet, evolution of technologies, availability of an environment with innovation-led culture, higher literacy rates, etc.
TAKING THE CHARGE OF AN UNDULATING JOURNEY
Maharashtra, being the home state to many of the successful companies, has taken huge strides to strengthen this ecosystem and seen an immense growth in the number of startups. Many great ideas were born in this state that left a positive impact in the society. Even the Government of Maharashtra has come up with several initiatives to boost innovationdriven entrepreneurial ecosystem, due to which the business landscape of the city has been continuously evolving and has come a long way. This growth somewhere took a pause after the pandemic occurred. Many startups, except for those who are engaged into delivery of essential services, educational technology, gaming, or
Darshan Parmar Managing Editor
darshan@insightssuccess.com
streaming services, etc. had to face formidable hurdles. The pandemic not only affected their businesses, but also hampered their operations process. There was no other option available other than adapting to the present situation, focusing on the need to innovate, and diversifying their business techniques and its operations. To survive in a longer run, some startups had to undertake severe cost-cutting measures due to which they had to lay off their staff and cease all other expansion plans and projects. Few of the companies even came on the verge of shutting down. Despite this crisis like situation, there were some startup companies in Maharashtra, which by constantly being at the forefront of innovation, emerged bravely and left imprints in their respective sectors through their cutting-edge solutions. To shed some light on the inspiring stories of such startups based in Maharashtra, Insights Success has curated a list of ‘Most Emerging Startups in Maharashtra’. This listing presents the stellar line-
up of startups and ingenious minds behind them, who made a difference with their top-notch solutions in the light of COVID-19. Let us unveil more alike and inspiring stories of such ambitious leaders and spread the word about their contribution in making this world a better place. Lastly, you might come across the articles written by our in-house editorial team and CXO standpoints of some of the leading industry experts to have the know-how about the industry. Make sure to scroll through them, while flipping through the pages, Let us start reading!
DarsHP
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CXO Real Estate Insights Real Estate's Expectations from 2021-22 Union Budget
ARTICLES
16
Creative Insights Creative Ways to Lead a Business
26
Opportunities Unleashed Maharashtra State as an Emerging Business Hub
10 Baclinc Digital Marketing with A Twist
12 Locobuzz Streamlining and Enhancing Customer Experience Dynamically
22
Robolab Technologies Pvt Ltd. A Platform to Explore, Learn and Build Ideas
28 Swarajshop Handicrafts A Leading Brand Promoting Indigenous and Ethnic Products
Editor-in-Chief Sumita Sarkar Managing Editor Darshan Parmar
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Assisting Editor Hitesh Dhamani
JANUARY, 2021
Contributing Writer Sharad Chitalkar
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Company Name
Management
Brief
11sports Pvt. Ltd.
Vita Dani Chairperson
11Sports Pvt. Ltd. is a Mumbai based company exclusively established for the promotion and development of the game of Table Tennis.
Baclinc
Abhishek Yadav Co-founder, Shalmali Parkar Co-founder
Baclinc is a full-service digital agency offering coherent and bespoke solutions for brands and businesses.
ExtraaEdge
Abhishek Ballabh Co-founder
ExtraaEdge facilitates a powerful CRM and marketing automation software that helps your admission teams enhance, manage, and predict their onboarding processes.
Locobuzz
Shubhi Agrawal Co-founder
Locobuzz builds software to smartly connect brands and customers to each other.
Robolab Technologies
Pratik Deshmukh, Amol Gulhane, Ajit B. Pawar, Co-founders
Robolab Technologies has been striving to develop an ecosystem which gives people access to technology, enables important resources, training and cultivates innovation by motivating them to solve real-life challenges.
Swarajshop Handicrafts
Mangesh Shinde Founder
Swarajshop is a leading manufacturer of fashion jewellery on a global level.
WGBL
Deep Bhong Founder
WGBL is advanced digital design agency based in Pune offering design and branding solutions for startups to buildstrong prescence among their clients and audiences.
White Horse Agency Private Limited
Rajendra Rao Founder
The team at White Horse Agency is providing all the digital marketing services like, SEO (Search engine optimization), Local SEO (Google My Business), and Web designing for all kinds of busineses.
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CORPORATE OFFICE Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd. Off No. 22 & 510, Rainbow Plaza, Shivar Chowk, Pimple Saudagar, Pune, Maharashtra 411017. Phone - India: 020- 7410079881/ 82/ 83/ 84/ 85 USA: 302-319-9947 Email: info@insightssuccess.in For Subscription : www.insightssuccess.in
Most Emerging Startups in Maharashtra
Digital Marketing with A Twist
B
eing an entrepreneur is a daunting yet thrilling endeavour. Many people have ideas for a business or a product or a service, but only a few take the necessary leap of faith to try their luck out with turning that idea into reality. The advent of the internet brought numerous opportunities, opening doors for creators and innovators to traverse new territory. The world wide web not only transformed the way business was conducted but also created new avenues for entrepreneurs to explore. With an internet connection and a computer, entrepreneurs today can set up shop at a cafe, at a library, at their homes, or pretty much wherever they prefer, and live a lifestyle in a way they deem fit. Abhishek Yadav and Shalmali Parkar, did just that and chose the life of being internet entrepreneurs. Abhishek and Shalmali, driven by a passion for entrepreneurship and technology, with a blend of expertise in digital marketing services founded Baclinc – a one-stop-shop for all things digital marketing. Baclinc is a full-service digital agency offering coherent and bespoke solutions for brands and businesses. It provides its clients with detailed, highly-actionable advice and services that help them get a grip in the digital
10 | January 2021
space. They deal with a multitude of services like SEO, social media management, Facebook and Instagram ads, influencer marketing, and content writing to an overall strategy and more. In the following interview, Abhishek and Shalmali share the story of their incredible journey, and also give us some insight into how two young individuals came up with such a simple yet sublime idea for a startup. Kindly take us through the journey of your company and its objectives. Baclinc is a digital marketing company based in Mumbai that provides end-toend digital marketing services to small and medium companies. It was established in December 2017 by me (Abhishek Yadav) and Shalmali Parkar when we were 18 and 17 years old, respectively. Back then the goal of the company was to grow and manage the blogs that I had been running for the past 2-3 years handling it by myself and with Shalmali’s help later on. The blogs grew to an extent where we had to quit our jobs and have a team working for and an office to help us to grow and optimise our blogs and websites. We continued this till late 2018 to solely focus on the blogs and their growth. But after a point, we realized that we were only making money, but no one knew us and our team in the digital marketing space for the kind of
skill set we had. Soon we concluded that this is not the best for the long run as we were in the initial stages of our career and did not have anything tangible to showcase to the world except for the case studies of our blogs. And that is when we made the shift of our business model to start providing digital marketing services to clients. We established Baclinc in 2017 itself when we started our office to manage the blogs, but we opened our doors to clients only in early 2019. Our aim is to provide high-quality, end-to-end marketing services to everyone and create a difference in the digital marketing space. Tell us more about the services that Baclinc provides? We specialize in SEO as that is the service I have been practicing for years and now so has my team in the journey of building up these blogs into online businesses. We have been in the SEO industry since the days it was all about ‘Keyword Stuffing’ and you were ranking overnight. We have a very minute understanding of the Google algorithms and have seen it evolve over time and we are on top of our techniques to get our way around it and make sure that our sites, as well as our client’s sites, always rank on top. R&D is critical to the success of the company. What measures do you
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take to keep the focus on research and stay a step ahead of the competition? Our SEO team always stays on top of the game by keeping ourselves updated by reading blogs like “searchenginland.com”, “SEORoundTable” and more, we are also very active on Twitter where Google officials share official updates and insights about the algorithms and search performance. Apart from it, we run a lot of experiments trying various techniques on our blogs and our A/B testing (split testing) always turns useful. What according to you is the one takeaway from the Covid-19 pandemic? When the world came to a pause and our clients had to face the trouble of losses in their business, it affected us as well but our blogs, SAAS websites helped us stay afloat in this tough period. What we learned was the importance of having multiple offerings to share with the world because that means new ways of generating revenue and maintaining a solid base at all times. The lockdown also helped me give time to projects close to my heart such as launching my Podcast, ‘Internet Bread’ where I teach people how to make money online. The goal of the podcast is to cover 101 ways to make money online in 101 episodes. This is my way of giving back to the community and to enable more people to start the career digitally. What are your views regarding the start-up business scenario in Maharashtra? Our office is located in Powai which is kind of like a ‘Startup Hub’ within Mumbai. We see a lot of businesses coming online, the digital revolution is
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Abhishek Yadav Co-founder
really pushing every company to become heavily reliant on technology. But Maharashtra needs more successful startups and the youth should be more focused on bringing their ideas to life. I see Maharashtra lagging behind Bangalore and Delhi in this one particular thing, despite Mumbai being the financial capital of the country. What are the company’s future objectives and where do you see yourselves in the near future? We are expanding into new services and bringing a lot of services inhouse and growing the team that we earlier had to outsource or partner with other companies to fulfil. We now have a full-fledged graphic design and content development division which is really helping us change gears in the quality of services that we offer and deliver results instantaneously. We are really excited to launch our upcoming startup, which has been in development for almost a year now, which is called ‘PostBing’ it is a content distribution platform that can help startups reach new audiences and help make the most out of their content. We are expecting to launch it by the end of January 2021.
Shalmali Parkar Co-founder
OUR AIM IS TO PROVIDE HIGH-QUALITY, END-TO-END MARKETING SERVICES TO EVERYONE AND CREATE A DIFFERENCE IN THE DIGITAL MARKETING SPACE January 2021 | 11
Most Emerging Startups in Maharashtra
Locobuzz Streamlining and Enhancing Customer Experience Dynamically
M
aharashtra has always been in the forefront of supporting the startup ecosystem. By creating accommodative government policies, taxation laws, and providing a market for domestic consumption of new technologies, Maharashtra state has nurtured an ecosystem for the start-up community - especially the SaaS domain. A typical SaaS company thrives if the ecosystem provides: • Skilled talent pool • A resourceful environment that provides supportive mentorship and incubators supported by conducive government norms • Large market to test new concepts and drives domestic consumption of deep-tech solutions • Strong SaaS heritage with experience in technologies like AI, ML, CRM, etc.
One such thriving start-up in Maharashtra making its way to the top is Locobuzz. Locobuzz was founded and established March 2015, Mumbai. The founding team always believed in the power of Big data analytics, and its infinite possibilities when converged with the right technologies. The founding team were keen on observing how social engagement and chatter for brands as a key channel of engagement was starting to gain prominence at the time.
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Thus, the idea of bringing powerful analytics, driven by data from various social media channels were formed and Locobuzz’s “location-based buzz came into the picture. “We started with simple plain analytics on unstructured data, focused on processing large volumes of data in real time to further augmenting it with sentiment analysis,” says the team at Locobuzz.
example, some of them are simply a ticketing platform, while others are a combination of listening and ticket management. In Locobuzz, there are numerous features and functionalities that provide for a complete CX solution. Locobuzz offers a unified platform so unique, that it stands apart from most others competing in this domain.
Going Loco
Locobuzz has displayed successful potential in different technological ventures with the power of AI and Machine learning, such as chatbots, Image recognition, Emotions, etc. Even though it is remarkably known to be a reliable ORM platform, Locobuzz as a product invests in superior technology and detailed capabilities. “We have incorporated some of the commonly sought-after and popular features of consumer engagement, making Locobuzz an influential leader in this space,” shares the Locobuzz team.
With time, the team observed how consumer expectation was changing rapidly - from little to no dialogue with brands, to needing a meaningful twoway conversation - social platforms were key drivers of this change. This is when the company started focusing on team- workflows and other customerengagement initiatives. As data volumes soared and technology advancements were made in Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence, Locobuzz integrated powerful NLP capabilities along with various data models for language detection, intent detection, deviation alerts, emotions, etc. Now, it has also created a fully cognitive chatbot enabler. Locobuzz evolved into a fully integrated, unified Customer Experience Platform. Locobuzz builds software to smartly connect brands and customers to each other. Locobuzz has a unique advantage over competitors. For
A Buzzing Leader Shubhi Agrawal is a Co-founder at Locobuzz. With an MBA degree from California State University and a strong background in business development, alliances, she has worked closely with varied technology teams to build and deliver solutions, making her an excellent relationship builder and thought-leader. She has been successful in driving and achieving business objectives, collaborating with
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regional and global leaders and has strong communication skills. Shubhi loves to travel and read. In addition, she is also a fitness enthusiast. Shubhi saw the value of customer experience, early on in her career, and how it is the single most important differentiator for companies to maintain a longer relationship and thus create a significant impact in the lifetime value of a customer. With experience in building strategic partnerships and launching new products, her skills are ideally suited to help build a great CX solution along with some great partnerships for Locobuzz. “The road map of Locobuzz is to become a one-stop shop for all things related to customers – not just understanding the customers and engaging with them but also to provide powerful marketing applications to help the brands reach out to their target audience,” says Shubhi.
Locobuzz in Future Locobuzz’s team have clearly established its platform as a leader in the domestic markets where several marquee clients in the space of BFSI, retail, hospitality, automobile, and consumer durables etc. use this platform and are able to streamline customer experience for their brand and increase the lifetime value of the customers.
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Locobuzz recognizes the role of machine learning and is investing heavily on it. In its product roadmap lot of features are based on machine learning which are currently non-existent in this domain. “The future is quite exciting and we are working on a lot of new and exciting features, that will change the way people look at platforms like ours,” describes Shubhi. As a next logical step, the company envisions its platform to be expanded globally on the lines of sales force to provide support to its customers building mutually rewarding relationships with them. “We strive to help them in creating impactful connect with the customers and maintaining relationships which go beyond transactions,” concludes Shubhi with her team.
Shubhi Agrawal
Co-founder
“
In this ongoing pandemic, just keep building and winning customers. Keep your expenses low and most importantly, keep calm
“
According to her, Locobuzz as a technology company is ambitious about being ahead of the competition. They always prepare for the next step of the logical extension of the customer’s perspective. Enough and more research goes into building technology which then supports these requirements and fits into the company’s current architecture seamlessly.
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16 | January 2021
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TO LEAD A
Creat i v e Ways B U S I N E S S
Creative Insights
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A
running concern to an entrepreneur is like one’s own child. There is every reason to fear that the child might hurt itselfdespite age and size. But like a child, a concern, despite all its failings and vulnerabilities, must be given space to grow and flourish. Otherwise, it just might resemble an awesome sea-going craft that never made it to the sea to understand its true potential as it was always tied to a small harbour. Leading a business is thus not an easy job for various reasons. First, it demands skills in diverse fields, some of which may call for higher and tougher education followed by a degree. Remember, most entrepreneurs are always short of time! Second, it may call for being presentable, a feat not many are comfortable with. Third, it may call for delegating and leaving the field open to specialists, something only a micro-miniscule percentage are ready to do willingly. That said, one does have to lead a business that one has brought into existence and lead it to victory. No entrepreneur is ever known to have started a business with the aim to bring it to an end unless the intent is to defraud! We present 10 creative ways to lead a business in these turbulent yet interesting times! 1. Hands-on The very Indian, small-scale yet most original of styles, it is OK till the time the concern and all its workings can be controlled by its owner within his (or her) personal capacity. It seems to be making a come-back with start-ups raining through the skies at high speeds with one essential and big difference. Singleton businessmen are getting the best support from technology like it did
never before. Be it SAAS, Cloud, AI or the likes, everyone has the small guy in their crosshairs! 2. Hands-off but influence on The exact opposite of the hands-on is the hands-off style where essential dayto-day details are left to either employees or outside specialist including those on contract for specialized activity or for specific times. Here the entrepreneur typically formulates goals and key-result areas and assigns the tasks to specified persons/ bodies to accomplish either in full or to the extent possible in the given circumstances. The advantage here is that specialists can take independent decision for the growth of the organization to the expected standards. Also, with owners out of the day-to-day functioning, cronyism and nepotism is almost nil with the entire accent being on productivity and goals. The flip side is that without owners to guide it on its goals, external management can sometimes take the organization on a different route just so that their goals are met. Goals in the latter case may also mean surreptitious ownership of an organization. 3. Delegate and drive While an organization may have a single objective, within itself, each department may have different goals which may sometimes clash. For instance, human resource. While Finance finds HR a cost-centre, the Human Resources department may itself see it as resource centre. In such times, owners of an organization may be left with no option but to delegate the staff functions, and themselves drive the line functions. Staff functions typically are support functions that help the main, line functions and may need specialists to drive. The former
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may sometimes hamper the latter’s speeds and may thus need specialists to handle. The latter, ie line functions may still be retained by the owners and their managers. 4. Appoint external managers Project Management is one area of an organization which is akin to firefighting where action takes place only when a fire ignites and goes out of hand. Rest of the time, it’s business-asusual with little activity. For such times, it makes sense for businesses to appoint external specialists with the mandate to handle ONLY specialized projects while leaving the rest to the existing leadership/ management of the organization. With the project coming to an end, the specialists depart while leaving the newly commissioned projects in the hands of trained existing managers and owners. Such a system is quite natural in given circumstances and has advantages of speed and efficiency in project execution while lowering costs overall. 5. Appreciate internally available talent and promote Organizations that have been around for a significant amount of time develop internal systems of identifying and promoting talent within the organization. This is the most natural selection where those with promise who have been with the organization for long, are promoted to leadership position purely based on merit. Though this may seem the most ideal, it does not work in places where kinship is held in higher esteem when compared to calibre. It certainly does not work in smaller concerns where the family itself does most of the things.
Leadership may sometimes mean a complete clean-up of the existing business management team and its being replaced by a new one. Though it may sound brutal, it just could be the only available solution before the ownership to clean out deep-seated rot that may have set-in in an organization. Professional management sometimes runs the risk of being in the hands of those with compromised integrity or those whose depth of knowledge does not suffice.
entire management team is of specialists of equal calibre and importance and on whom the organization depends for its existence. It can also happen in the case of highperformers and specialist whom managements and ownership may want to retain for their calibre and productivity. They may not be specialists per se but given their credibility and calibre, owners may be inclined to treat them in a different order.
7. Appoint a thought-leader
9. Franchise a business
Organizations may sometime need the guiding spirit of a Guru who could be a mix between a technocrat and a spiritual leader taking care of various goals of an organization. Entities may sometimes have everything going in their favour but may still struggle with end-goals or may see their productivity stall for no apparent reasons. It is in these times that the leadership may look towards a ‘Thought Leader” who besides being an expert in the field, is also a people’s person who can motivate teams to go beyond themselves and their circumstances and achieve higher goals- despite obvious shortcoming and setbacks. Though this system of leading businesses may seem mystical and in the realms of fantasy and the occult, there is in reality only elements of genuine motivation which makes it very plausible and doable!
Success may also affect the way an organization grows, more so in the case of industries in the foods, beverages, entertainment, and education where using patented process are said to bring in higher productivity and resultant returns. KFC, Pepsi, McDonalds, Little Kickers, Dino World, Mathnasium Learning Centre and The Learning Experience are prime examples of leading a business by building brands that have excelled by putting proven methodologies in place that may in some cases also include secret ingredients (Coke’s closely-held secret of what they put in the drink, KFC’s chicken-making secrets etc) which bring out the best in its users and guarantee good returns to its franchisebuyers and franchise-owners. Though not strictly in the realms of leading a business, given their apparent success, and the lines of franchise-buyers at their doors, it does qualify to be on this list.
8. Contract with employees for productivity Organizations in their initial stages may have employees as part of their management with remuneration being a mix of fixed and variable in order to denote their direct contributions. This typically happens in cases where the
- Purushottam
6. Bring about a complete change in top management 18 | January 2021
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Real Estate’s
Expectations from 2021-22 Union Budget H ave the government and RBI done enough to bail out the economy - and, by implication real estate? After all, the realty industry remains one of the most precise bellwethers of the state of India's economy. While the country waits for the first vaccines to roll out, Union Budget 2021-22 presents several opportunities to give the sector a shot in the arm, too. Given that real estate contributes more than 8% to the Indian economy, it has justifiable expectations. Multiple measures were announced in 2020 to beat the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 on the overall economy and the real estate industry: • RBI’s massive repo rate cut of 140 bps (leading to the lowest home loan interest rates in over 15 years) • A six-month moratorium on EMIs • Restructuring of loans of real estate companies at the project level • At a state level, stamp duty reductions in Maharashtra • A liquidity boost to NHB, and • The first real-time deployments of rescue capital from the SWAMIH fund These measures were proactive and commendable - but not surprisingly, given the depth of pain in the real estate sector, they were not enough. The housing industry needs to be focused on measures to further bolster demand in 2021. This year, the demands go beyond the usual suspects of single-window clearance and industry status. Affordable housing is very likely to get another booster shot. However, the budget also needs to focus on the larger market as more than ever before, homebuyers and investors need focused tax incentives to get mobilized. Also, as the government is aware, developers’ liquidity woes need to alleviate to forestall further market mayhem.
rates under Section 24 of the Income Tax Act to at least INR 5 lakh to generate healthier housing demand, most notably in affordable and mid-segment housing.
• Personal tax relief, either by tax rate reductions or amended tax slabs - The last increase in the deduction limit under Section 80C (to INR 1.5 lakh a year) was in 2014 and an upward revision is long overdue. • GST waiver for under-construction homes - The present GST rate on under-construction properties is 5% minus the ITC benefit for premium homes (>INR 45 lakh) and 1% for affordable homes (<INR 45 lakh). Even a limited period waiver of GST will reduce overall property cost and thus push demand for under-construction homes, which have been slacking presently. Funds from buyers can aid developers towards project construction and thus lessen their dependence on financial institutions. The most-recent limited-period Stamp Duty cut in Maharashtra significantly boosted demand in both MMR and Pune. • More incentives for private sector investments in affordable housing - Despite the benefit of infrastructure status for this critically important segment, developers are unable to get funding from major banks and NBFCs at an affordable cost. The profit margins for affordable housing projects continue to be extremely low. • Ease liquidity - The liquidity crunch had a cascading impact across sectors, including real estate. Project delays - the biggest fallout of the cash crunch – had severely dampened buyer sentiments in the last two years. Developers need a rational capital flow to keep up the supply pipeline, especially for ready-to-move-in homes that are in the highest demand - healthy. Increased supply also helps to keep property prices range bound.
Demands: • Hike the INR 2 lakh tax rebate on housing loan interest
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Real Estate Insights
Anuj Puri
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chairman ANAROCK Property Consultants
Anuj Puri is Chairman and Founder of ANAROCK. He has over 30 years' experience in Indian and global real estate markets and is a trusted adviser to developers, occupiers, investors, and the government. Anuj is widely acknowledged with revolutionizing the sector with his visionary outlook and technologybased solutions.
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January 2021 | 21
Most Emerging Startups in Maharashtra
Robolab
Technologies Pvt Ltd A Platform to Explore, Learn and Build Ideas
E
xperiential Learning, particularly Learning by doing enables students to grasp concepts clearly and also how they can be implemented in real life. This is especially helpful in today’s dynamic environment where technology acts as an enabler to learning and needs to be learnt as well. All one needs is a platform that gives freedom to experiment, make mistakes and learn. Empowering people with the use of technologies, Robolab Technologies Pvt Ltd has been striving to develop an ecosystem which gives people access to technology, provides necessary resources, training and cultivates innovation by motivating them to solve real-life challenges. First-generation entrepreneurs and Co-founders, Pratik Deshmukh, Amol Gulhane and Ajit B. Pawar share their experience. Kindly take us through the journey of your company and its objectives. Robolab Technologies came into existence out of our rigorous efforts as an attempt to transform the Educational facilities in the country,
22 | January 2021
provide an innovative platform to the students to show their skills and implement their ideas and create employment for the youth. Instead of taking up lucrative jobs, we chose to start a company. Having worked in the Robotics field for four years of our Engineering and being associated with the Robotics and Automation Laboratory- Robot Study Circle in COEP, Robolab Technologies was bound to happen. Having worked on a variety of projects, participating in various types of competitions and securing laurels for the Alma Mater at all levels, we decided to continue with the same zeal and impart the knowledge to the newcomers and other students. The idea was finalized when we came across a survey which showed the laggardness in the “Research and Development Facilities and Center of Excellences in India” Robolab Technologies is incubated under and supported and mentored by BHAU Institute of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Leadership (BIEL). Robolab is your very own, on campus, Centre of Excellence in Robotics, Internet of Things (IoT),
Artificial Intelligence (AI), Rapid Prototyping (RP) and Industrial Automation, tailor-made for you. It is an advanced, state of the art platform to explore, learn and build robots and related technologies. We provide innovative and interactive training by experts consistent with the latest curricula and the industry requirements. Kindly share your professional journey and what factors made them choose the industry they are in? Robolab was officially incorporated on Friday the 13th September 2013; we had already started working on the business model and plan well before that somewhere in May. For almost 5 months, Robolab team met several institutions in and around the region but got rejected for not having prior business experience. We did not lose hope, instead, left our comfort zone and started approaching early majority institutions all over India with the solutions. The pool was large, but it needed us to target somewhere and thus, we chose Andhra Pradesh and began approaching Professors and HoDs of top colleges.
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ABOUT THE CO-FOUNDERS Pratik Pravin Deshmukh (Co-founder and Vice President-Sales) Pratik’s right mix of technology and business skills come in as a great positive feature to the innovative company. He has earned experience in technology consulting & solutions in the area of business analytics, analysis and consulting space. He is well versed in executing technology projects and has deep knowledge of various industry methodologies. His vision is integral in maintaining Robolab’s leadership in its key focus verticals and in making it one of India's best and most recognized technology, services, and business solutions provider. Amol Ashok Gulhane ( Director and Chief Executive Officer) Amol,a roboticist, has deep experience in designing and manufacturing complex and task-specific industrial robots. He has a profound knowledge of educational, and defence robots and is specialized in digital image processing, embedded programming, design analysis and optimization. Widely respected for integrity, innovation and dynamism, Amol has successfully established and grown partnerships with customers, partners and industry bodies, setting benchmarks in governance, cooperation and co-innovation. With his entrepreneurial, management and technical skills and being an accomplished sports-person, he implements his unique ways to motivate the entire team and get the best out of people. Ajit Balaji Pawar Chief Operating Officer Ajit is immensely passionate about Robotics right from his graduate studies earned expertise in design & development of robots. He took part in many national & international robotics events and has won laurels for his Alma Mater COEP. His knowledge in product design and his way of approach to product development is commendable. He has deep experience in 3D CAD modelling, simulation, animation and analysis of the products. His exceptional people skills and sincerity have been instrumental in building an innovative enterprise. His experience in management and business operations is an asset to our company.
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And within 2 months of starting this exercise, we succeeded in breaking the ice. We got our first order from the Guru Nanak Institutions Hyderabad. What we needed was necessary momentum and that’s what the first order gave us. Within a short period of 5 years, Robolab has reached more than 50 key organisations spread across 13 states in India and has collaborations with Indian Armed Forces and various Industries. Please share your flagship product/service that stands out and how? For Colleges and Research and Development Centers • Center Of Excellence in Robotics (COE-R) • Center Of Excellence in Internet of Things (COE-IoT) • Center Of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence (COE-AI) • Center Of Excellence in Mechatronics (COE-M) • Center Of Excellence in Industry 4.0 (COE-I4.0) • Center Of Excellence in Rapid Prototyping and Scanning (COERPS) • Center Of Excellence in Pneumatics Technology (COE-PT) • Center Of Excellence in Vacuum Technology(COE-VT) • Center Of Excellence in Industrial Automation(COE-IA) • Faculty Development Programs (FDP) • Research and Development (R&D) • Consulting, Guidance, Mentorship
For Industries, Defense and Research Organizations
good to have a strong backup plan you can switch to in case of an emergency of this kind. Last but not the least, try to make the maxim of the opportunity which is disguised as an obstacle.
• Research and Development Consulting • Product Development
What are your views regarding the start-up business scenario in Maharashtra?
R&D is critical to the success of the company. What measures do you take to keep the focus on research and stay a step ahead of competition?
The entrepreneurial ecosystem is gradually building up. However, there’s still a long way to go. The implementation of various initiatives and programs are key to the spread of entrepreneurship. Also, the policies of the government should be more inclined towards “Ease of Doing Business”
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab • Rapid Prototyping Lab
Robolab as an organisation acts as a perfect amalgamation for Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Internet of Things, Automation, and similar latest technologies in hardware and software. With the kind of talented workforce that we are having, we can disrupt any industry we put our eyes on. The team offers a diverse experience and skillsets to tackle the challenges. The team is highly motivated and great at executing things at super-fast pace keeping an eye for the details. We have developed a complete package for the Center of Excellence in Robolab consisting of various study robots, research robotic platform, tools & equipment, mechanical & electronics robot building material and experiment sets. With the kind of synergy and collaborations that we have with the technology leaders, we provide the best in class products and services for the technology needs. What according to you is the one takeaway/lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic?
Awards Galore: • National Entrepreneurship Award Winner 2018, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), Government of India • Recipient of Young MSE Achiever Award by Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) and The Economic Times 2018 • Chosen for the Startup India Initiative, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Government of India • Best ICT Start-Up in India by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, ASSOCHAM and ERICSSON • Best Startup award in the field of Artificial Intelligence Innovation Domain in Education and Industry by MITSOT, ITU, The IET • Winner of the HOT100 Startup Award by CORE
For Schools • • • •
Atal Tinkering Lab Do it yourself (DIY) Lab Robotics Lab Internet of Things (IoT) Lab
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That, Your business is entirely dependent on your team members. It helps to have standard operating processes and systems. Also, situations are rarely in our control. It’s always
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MAHARASHTRA
State
as an
EMERGING
BUSINESS HUB 26 | January 2021
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Opportunities Unleashed
C
alling the state of Maharashtra an Emerging Business Hub can be confusing. It is already one. But where it makes sense is in the fact that parts of the state other than the developed centres of Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Aurangabad, and their suburbs are now gearing up as emerging business hubs. Welcome to the Maharashtra that was till now in the shadows but with saturation hitting the Tier I & II cities and Covid-19 pushing us to stay home, these smaller places could just be what most industries would want. With naysayers in these parts in more than expected numbers, the most obvious question on everyone’s minds is: What makes these places so great as emerging business hubs? - Cost of setting up places - A Cushman & Weikfield report mentioned that 11 tier II and III cities may see extra housing demand of 9.4 lakh units in 5 years. This report being on an all-India basis nevertheless highlights the significance of Tier III cities in the state of Maharashtra. Despite rentals falling due to the Covid-19 lockdown, lack of business which has seen small business closing shop, sees quite a few of them relocating to smaller towns or the suburbs of Tier I and II cities. Saving at any cost being the requirement, smaller towns in Maharashtra could see a boom in times to come with entrepreneurs leaving bigger towns and city centres and moving to smaller locations. - Availability of talent - Education in Maharashtra at one time was predominantly the preserve of bigger towns like Mumbai, Pune, and Nashik. But like industries, educational institutions too have spread their base to smaller towns like Sangli, Kolhapur, Satara, Osmanabad to name some. Be it engineering, medical commerce or the rest, these are available at most semi-urban centres. In almost all cases, these are affiliated to known bodies or
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are themselves deemed universities whose quality of education are quite stringent and high. - Infrastructure - Maharashtra has some of India’s best infrastructure when it comes to setting up industrial plants. Good roads, reasonable rail network, industrial parks of various kinds that cater to every kind of industry including IT, software, digital mediums, and the likes make it possible to set up plants of scale that directly affects the cost of the products. Being one of the biggest states in India today, land to set up plants is not a problem. In fact, Maharashtra is one of the states in India where the trickledown effect is most evident. Cost of land being high in established Tier I cities and its suburbs, businesses now look for real-estate in smaller town and in the process sometimes go deep into the interiors- a good sign when it comes to decentralizing and decongesting places. - Markets within India - With a population close to 11 crores, Maharashtra by itself is a substantial market for most goods and services. Adding to it is the fact that Maharashtra has India’s highest statewise GDP which means the per-capital earnings and disposable incomes are quite high in the state when compared to the other states in India. What this means to any business being set up in the state is that it shall find ready spenders quite early and gain immediate profitability and longevity. There’s another angle to the story. Maharashtra is surrounded by states like itself with equally high disposable incomes. Setting up a base here, be it for business or products can be profitable due to the sheer size of markets.
Maharashtra as a state has the largest number of SEZ and India’s most prolific Free Trade Warehousing Zone which put together make the act of exporting, importing, and importing for exporting rather simple and troublefree. These in total give India a healthy forex reserve besides generating substantial employment for local youth. - Mumbai, the financial capital of India - If the above weren’t reasons enough, Maharashtra has the jewel of India’s economic and financial crown! Mumbai. In itself, the city has a GDP which is more than that of countries like Pakistan and sub-Saharan Africa. With such a big magnet which attracts everything from ideas, products, services, finances, employment, what more could a business ask for. And as for Mumbai itself, its area of influence (with dollops of help from technologies like the metro, hyperloop, hovercrafts and more) is only increasing by the day, a good sign when its about businesses in an emerging business hub. - A most-likely 2nd capital at Nagpur If Mumbai makes entrepreneurs and business-persons drool, think of what it would be when the 2nd capital of Maharashtra comes up at Nagpur. Maharashtra is a big state in terms of size and controlling it with just one capital city howsoever accomplished can become difficult. Mumbai is also at one extreme of the state. A 2nd capital as and when it comes up shall be more than a game changer for the more modest parts of Maharashtra which in itself has the potential to be an emerging business hub. It could propel Maharashtra into a league of its own when it comes to per-capita earnings. - Purushottam
- Markets outside India - Maharashtra has a fairly long coastline and some of India’s biggest and busiest of ports. Exporting to and importing from countries is a possibility with relatively less hindrance. Besides ports,
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Most Emerging Startups in Maharashtra
Handicrafts
A Leading Brand Promoting Indigenous and Ethnic Products
I
ndian clothing throughout the ages have changed and evolved multiple times. The country was one of the first places to develop and use cotton for manufacturing clothes. The primary source of motivation for Indian attires are taken from the temples in India and many monuments that are an epitome of human art. There have been various clothing trends in the country that have progressed through testing times and emerged glorious taking their place in the history. Numerous segments of Indian clothing for male and female has been derived from garments like langota, lungi, sari, gamcha, and dhoti. Traditional clothing in the country mainly depends on the faith that people follow. Different religious group have distinct attires. That is what makes India not only a cultural hub, but an enabler for diversified lifestyle. Catering to this country with diversity is one such organization, Swarajshop Handicrafts.
It is a leading manufacturer of fashion jewellery on a global level. “We are a one-stop online portal for women-centric products worldwide,” says Mangesh Shinde - Founder of the company. Swarajhop is regularly exporting to countries like Canada, USA, Germany, UAE, Dubai, etc. The brand has surpassed its complete milestone in the world of designer jewelleries and sarees. The company has most trusted and prime selling brands across various marketplaces in India and abroad. “We have satisfied customers all over the world,” states Mangesh. The company’s vision is to become globally recognized for women-oriented jewellery products manufacturer having to be known as one of the largest marketplaces online (an ecommerce platform) worldwide. “Our mission is to deliver the choicest quality products, with every client leaving with
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a smile on their faces. We glorify families at Swarajshop, as jewels often stay within families,” narrates Mangesh. How it all began…. Swarajshop initiated its operations in 2010, as an e-commerce marketplace in India. The company was independently focusing on the manufacturing and supply of candles with a third-party delivery system in order to meet customer demands in the start. In 2015, Swarajshops moved away from the third-party integration overcoming the reliance and dependencies by starting its own manufacturing with Copper Alloy for different pieces of jewelleries. This operation is based out of Malad, Mumbai which gives the company an edge over its competitors as resource availability and facilitation is optimum in the town. When 2017 was around the corner, Swarajshop came up with a crafting design to cover every segment of jewellery fan by introducing the isolated mixture of alloy from Zinc and Mazak, to please the customers without having a price constraint. “We started this to maintain the purity of the jewelleries for our valued customers,” states the team of Swarajshop. “With our focused research team who always strives to make Swarajshop the largest marketplace by meeting the trends in the jewellery business, we add value to the customer by enhancing their experience,” adds Mangesh. The company came up with different varieties of highquality beautifully crafted jewellery design by manufacturing the Big Kunden jewellery at low units for yielding high-quality results. All of this happened in 2019.
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Mangesh Shinde Founder
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January 2021 | 29
“
Discover a whole new world of ethnic wear and jewelleries with us
“
Currently, Swarajshop is happily continuing its business through its e-commerce marketplace with delivering countless smiles every day. Swarajshop is heading towards beoming India’s No.1 e-commerce marketplace for indigenous products, especially jewelleries that are manufactured in-house by the excellent team of artisans, working in Swarajshop. The company is planning to take their brand operations global, emphasizing on its jewellery business. Dynamics of Swarajshop Quality has always been a key factor for Swarajshop. It has been a core element for the company where its team wants the products to last while being continuously used without any tampering. Ensuring the highest quality standards are maintained, Mangesh likes to oversee the entire development and production process, from the first sketch to the final stroller. Sourcing raw materials for the final products in the lockdown during the advent of Covid-19 was quite difficult for the team of Swarajshop. Apt design solutions were also not available when Covid-19 hit the streets of India. “It took a great amount of work for us to deliver high standard products to our clients in this ongoing pandemic,” shares Mangesh. The company suffered financially as well. But Swarajshop made a great comeback. The team focused on the South Indian style designs for sarees which turned out to be the latest hit in the market and now the company is keen on pursuing that segment.
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The team of Swarajshop guarantees that the customers’ personal information is protected when they surf the website of the company. The e-commerce platform stores the information acquired by customers on a secured server. Also, SSL is utilized for checkout process all the while keeping the billing info safe where no credit details are saved on its system. “We don’t share your personal information with any other third-party sources,” describes Mangesh. Swarajshop’s marketplace is growing at a normal pace and its team is driven to provide customers with an experience that is digitally rich and easily accessible. “We want to give our customers something extra, hence our approach is now more inclined towards customer delight,” concludes Mangesh.
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