The Venture Intelligence Blog

Manish Sabharwal, Co-Founder of leading staffing services company Teamlease, that pulled off a successful IPO in the choppy environment of early 2016, weighed in with typical flourish on various issues as part of the inaugural panel at the Venture Intelligence APEX'16 PE-VC Summit  (Bangalore; March 9). Some highlights: "India's Brand is Warm - Not Hot or Cold" India's brand is that 'We won't be Hot or Cold; we will be consistently Warm'. We will be 'between 5 and 8' - in terms of growth rates. If we are growing at 5%, don't worry, we'll soon go to 8%. If we are growing at 8%, then we'll pretty soon we will go down to 5%. I don't think we'll ever grow at 13%. Which is why, for us entrepreneurs, the current economic weather is not so relevant. Click Here  for the related video Lessons from China - Decentralization and Strong Leadership  Decentralization and Strong Leadership are more important lessons to ta...

Writing in Business Standard , former chief economic adviser to the government Shankar Acharya has evaluated the notable economic and financial developments during the first six months of Modi Sarkaar. Extracts: Both the July Budget and subsequent developments have made plain this government's aversion to attempting "big bang reforms" through legislative amendments to populist entitlement laws (rural employment, food security, education), the onerous new land acquisition act, the Indira Gandhi vintage, job-destroying central labour laws or even the notorious, retrospective "Vodafone amendment". However, since the disappointing July Budget, clear signs of a pragmatic, incremental approach to policy improvements have emerged. ...Will incrementalism work? That's the big question. As Zhou Enlai reportedly said about the success of the French Revolution, it's too early to tell. One has also to ask whether there really is an alternative? The so-called ...

The Hue and Cry over onion prices hitting Rs.100 pr kg, made me revisit this Economic Times feature (written on Oct 1, when the prices were Rs.80 per kg) which had some revealing details on why the License-Permit-IT Raid Raj is alive and well. Extracts (emphasis mine): As it is, the number of traders in onion mandis is not increasing. In important onion markets, it adds, most commission agents and traders have been there for 10-15 and only one or two new licences have been issued . "Such long presence with each other in the market has helped them to develop mutual understanding and gives undue advantage to these established trading firms in the onion trade," says the report. It's anomalous that though most of the produce enters the onion mandis between October and February, this is when prices are highest. This suggests, says the report, that "other exogenous factors like hoarding, market cartels, etc are influencing onion prices." According to Himanshu, sinc...

Arjun Parthasarathy has this interesting take on this ancient fable (ironically by Greek author Aesop) via blog post at InvestorsAreIdiots.com The European nations who have been playing while the world was working are struggling to come to terms with the issues facing them. The normal way of life with state support, low number of working hours, extended summer holidays and assured jobs is a thing of the past and the normal European is having tough time adjusting to the new environment. Jobs are scarce, government is bankrupt and people find they have to work hard for their money. It is no wonder that the Greeks and the French are rejecting austerity and it is most likely to spread to Spain, Italy and Portugal as well. However, rejecting austerity will not help the Europeans in any way and it is a long hard grind to come back to normalcy. ...India is also a part of the ant and the grasshopper story. In India the ant is the people who work hard and save money for the future. The governm...