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<ul><li>Organized by Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) &amp; The Advertising Club (TAC), the event will be held from 7th to 9th April, 2022.</li><li><keyword id="8989426" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="jaideep-gandhi" source="Orion">Jaideep Gandhi</keyword> has been elected as the Chairman for the <keyword id="135079" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="goafest" source="Orion">Goafest</keyword> 2022.</li><li><keyword id="1193084" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="rana-barua" source="Orion">Rana Barua</keyword> is the Chairman of the Awards Governing Council to the coveted <keyword id="138019" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="abby" source="Orion">ABBY</keyword>’s 2022.</li></ul>After a hiatus of 2 years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Goafest is back for its 15th edition. The event that recognizes consummate industry talents is curated by Advertising Agencies Association of India &amp; The Advertising Club and is set to be held in Grand Hyatt, Goa from 7-9 April, 2022. The three-day grand event will be helmed by Jaideep Gandhi as the Chairman of the Goafest 2022 Organizing Committee. Rana Barua has been elected as Chairman of the Awards Governing Council for the renowned ABBY Awards 2022. Being organized from the last 50 years, ABBY Awards is a prestigious, one-of-its-kind ad award show which is attended by more than 1500 to 1800 professionals from the marketing, advertising, media, research and PR fraternity. Speaking about the 15th edition of Goafest, <keyword id="937472" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="anupriya-acharya" source="Orion">Anupriya Acharya</keyword>, President, AAAI, said, “Goafest is the definitive festival for the advertising, media and marketing industry in the sub-continent. This time the festival is coming after a gap of two years and so one can imagine the anticipation the industry professionals will have! We also expect a lot of first timers this time given a lot of new young talent has joined in these two years. Goafest 2022 will be a good platform to celebrate our industry’s resilience as well as the potential.” On Mr. Jaideep Gandhi’s appointment as the Chairman, she further added, “Jaideep is a seasoned industry professional with vast experience on Goafest. Certainly, it will translate into a delightful and engaging festival experience for all.” Speaking about the return of the prestigious event, Jaideep Gandhi, Chairman, Goafest Organising Committee, said, “It’s the illustrious return of Goafest 2022, with its 15th edition, where recognition, innovation, collaboration and celebration all happen under the same sky. Ensuring all safety protocols that’re necessary in a post-pandemic world, I believe it’s time for the industry to rediscover the power, joy and magic of connecting once again in the real world. I’m grateful to the previous Chairmen ‘Mr. <keyword id="1635027" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="nakul-chopra" source="Orion">Nakul Chopra</keyword>, Mr. Ashish Bhasin’ for the learnings I received from them and thankful to the President of AAAI - Ms. Anupriya Acharya for her continuous support and encouragement.” Ecstatic on the return of the premier event, <keyword id="274365" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="partha-sinha" source="Orion">Partha Sinha</keyword>, President, The Advertising Club and President, Times of India said, “The return of ABBY and Goafest not only mark the return of normalcy in the advertising, marketing and media landscape of India but it also underlines the reason for which most of like this profession – the celebration of excellence. The ABBYs is the highest honour in this country for excellence and we wanted to ensure that we bring the big one back with all its glory. We have used the hiatus to our advantage and the award will witness some big forward movements in this Goafest. Watch this space for more details.” On Mr. Rana Barua’s appointment as the Chairman, he added, “Rana has first-hand experiences of organising and winning both creative and media awards. His experience will be hugely beneficial as the Chairman of the Award Governing Council. It’s a complex job and we had to entrust the right person with that job.” Speaking about the forthcoming ABBY’s, Mr. Rana Barua, Group CEO, Havas Group India and Vice President, The Advertising Club and AGC Chairman, said, “After 2 extremely tough years for the industry, I am extremely happy to say that ABBY’s is back. ABBY’s has always been recognized as the best in creativity for our industry and winning Abby’s will continue to be an inspiration and motivation for the new generation of marketers, agencies and brand custodians. Since the period of entries will be from 16th February, 2019 to 15th February, 2021, I encourage all to come forward and celebrate their best work.” The Awards Governing Committee for ABBY’s Awards includes: Rana Barua, (AGC Chairman), Group CEO, Havas Group India Jaideep Gandhi, (Chairman – Goafest Organising Committee), Founder, Another Idea Partha Sinha, President, Times of India Shashi Sinha, CEO-India, IPG Mediabrands Ajay Kakar, Chief Marketing Officer, Aditya Birla Capital Limited Ajay Chandwani, Managing Committee Member, The Advertising Club Malcom Raphael, Senior Vice-President, Times Response Anupriya Acharya, CEO South Asia, Publicis Groupe Prasanth Kumar, CEO-South Asia, GroupM Media (India) Pvt. Ltd. <keyword id="32716" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sam-balsara" source="Orion">Sam Balsara</keyword>, Chairman and Managing Director, Madison Communications Pvt. Ltd. Rohit Ohri, Group Chairman &amp; CEO, FCB Group India Hephzibah Pathak, Vice Chairperson &amp; Chief Client Officer India, Ogilvy &amp; Mather Pvt. Ltd. Presented by the Advertising Club and AAAI, the Goafest 2022 will once again see the entire advertising and marketing fraternity to come together in Goa from 7th to 9th April, 2022.

Goafest to be held in physical form between April 7-9

<ul><li>Recently, <keyword id="6354630" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="mark-zuckerberg">Mark Zuckerberg</keyword>, CEO, Facebook reiterated the importance of India for Facebook in its global scheme of things. </li><li>Over the years, Facebook has been testing and rolling out new features from here. Currently, its testing <keyword id="6662415" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="instagram-lite">Instagram Lite</keyword> in India, to make the platform accessible to everyone.</li><li>We spoke to <keyword id="248909" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Manish-Chopra">Manish Chopra</keyword>, Director and Head of Partnerships, <keyword id="736869" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Facebook-India">Facebook India</keyword>, to understand the organization’s areas of focus for the next year and how its working on making its offerings more accessible to users and more effective for businesses and advertisers.</li></ul>While the world almost came to a standstill in 2020, owing to the pandemic-induced lockdown, it was digital players like Facebook that kept the world moving, even while people stayed indoors. The pandemic led to people spending more and more time on the internet, and understandably, Facebook saw an increase in the time people were spending on their platform. According to data from eMarketer, in H1 2020, people flocked to Facebook so they could share information and keep in touch with friends and family while staying at home. That led to user increases in nearly every world region. Currently, India has the largest user base of Facebook users. With around 272.2 million users in India in 2020, the country’s user base is expected to swell to 329.1 million by 2024. It therefore shouldn’t come as a surprise that the company is serious about its presence and growth here. During Facebook’s Fuel for India event recently, Mark Zuckerberg reiterated India’s importance in the global scheme of things for Facebook. During the chat, he said that the largest communities for Facebook and WhatsApp are in India and <keyword id="819905" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Instagram">Instagram</keyword> is also getting there. Facebook has been testing and rolling out new features from here. From the launch of Reels on Instagram, to Watch on Facebook and Payments on WhatsApp, India is playing a crucial role in the way products are being designed for the future. Facebook is currently testing Instagram Lite in India. The app, which is less than 2 MB in size, has been created to bring the core Instagram experience to people currently unfamiliar with the app. The platform is also giving a push to its video offerings, opening up opportunities for advertisers and businesses to get closer to their target audience, virtually. We recently caught up with Manish Chopra, Director and Head of Partnerships, Facebook India, to understand the organization’s areas of focus for the next year and how its working on making its offerings more accessible to users and more effective for businesses and advertisers. Excerpts: Q) You're currently testing Instagram Lite in India. What are your plans for taking it to the market? When will you launch it officially? Our research conducted in India to ascertain the attractiveness and comprehension of new products showed that compromised internet experience as a result of low memory phones and heavy-sized apps was a barrier. This set the context for the test of Instagram Lite, and India is a primary test country for it. The Instagram Lite app is created to bring the core Instagram experience to people who do not have an Instagram experience today. The app is made for Android and this new version has improved speed, performance, and responsiveness. The experience is similar to the core Instagram app experience, though there are some features that are not currently supported such as Reels, Shopping and IGTV. The app will be available in Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu. However, we don’t have the timing to share on when the app will be rolled out more broadly. Q) The pandemic led to many behavioural changes among consumers. What were some of the biggest changes you noticed during the past few months, especially in India? In the context of 2020, there’s been a fundamental change in digital consumption, which we’ve witnessed by the engagement we’ve seen on the Facebook family of apps. In many countries hit hardest by the virus, total messaging increased by more than 50% on WhatsApp and Messenger, in March. Similarly, in places hit hardest by the virus, voice and video calling doubled on Messenger and WhatsApp. In India, there was a 60% rise in Instagram Live views in March, on a week-on-week basis. Creators focused on keeping their communities informed and inspired. This began with social messages delivered through challenges like the #SafeHandsChallenge and the use of the ‘Stay Home’ sticker. It went on to keep people inspired, like Deepika Padukone and The Live Laugh Love Foundation released a Guide on Instagram that focussed on mental health. On Facebook, new Groups were formed to help people. These include groups like Mahita Nagaraj’s ‘Caremongers India’, a purely volunteer driven group providing frontline assistance ranging from cooked meals to transportation, to the needy, senior citizens, expecting mothers, and the physically challenged during the lockdown. A bunch of national and regional musicians, such as Armaan Malik and Lisa Mishra, performed in Live music concerts called ‘Live In Your Living Room’ to keep people entertained and people also raised funds for COVID-19 relief efforts through our platforms. We facilitated this with the launch of Facebook Fundraisers, which has an in-live donation option too, using which creators like Varun Purthy and Ashish Chanchalani raised funds as part of Facebook Social for Good Live-athon. The year also offered new opportunities, for instance, with short-form content, offered by new features like Reels. This has helped discover a new generation of influencers who’ve grown exponentially on Instagram. Few creators like Ankush Bahuguna and Sakshi Sindwani have also focussed on breaking stereotypes associated with gender and body types. Q) We saw people warm up to live videos during the pandemic, artists, musicians etc used it extensively to stay connected to their fans. What will your strategy be to make sure that people keep using your live features even once they start going out and once things get back to normal? Our community is at the heart of our platforms. We’re hearing them and constantly innovating. For e.g at the start of the lockdown, we saw the rise in Live’s and need from people to save that content to their IGTV and hence we introduced that feature. Earlier this month, we also launched Live Rooms, which gives people the ability to go live with upto three additional people on Instagram Live. With this feature, creators have more opportunities to have conversations with their communities, and to expand their reach and use cases for Live, such as starting a talk show or a podcast, hosting a jam session or co-creating with other artists, leading to more engaging Q&amp;As with those they’re going Live with, or simply hanging out with friends. This feature first was tested in India with creators, and then India was among the two countries it has launched in, ahead of a global rollout. Even with Instagram Lite, the context for the launch is research done in India, where people mentioned a compromised internet experience, as a result of low memory phones and heavy-sized apps. Hence Instagram Lite is less than 2MB in size and is built to deliver an Instagram experience that remains fast and reliable for more people. Beyond product innovation, we continue to work with public figures, creators, groups and organizations to discover opportunities where our platforms can add value to people’s lives. Q) How are advertisers making the most out of your Social Video offerings? Instagram launched a bunch of branded content updates at the end of November. These include: Branded content tag on Reels and Live - To help increase transparency, the Branded Content tag has launched in Reels, and will begin testing in Live in the coming weeks. New creation flow for Branded content ads - Until today, Branded Content ads could only be created by promoting the existing posts from creators. Instagram is now launching a new workflow where advertisers can create Branded Content ads without the need for creators to post organically on Instagram first. Now brands have more flexibility with fewer constraints when they want to run Branded Content ads. This new process has been designed with creator control in mind - creators can approve and pause any ads published from their handle. Branded Content ads in Stories - Branded Content ads in Stories can now include tappable elements, such as @mentions, location and hashtags. We want brands to have access to organic Stories’ creative that is native and authentic to the Stories experience. Branded Content ads with Product Tags - We’re introducing the ability for businesses to promote branded content posts with product tags. Q) How are you strengthening your offerings for advertisers? How are you making sure they are able to make the most of your video offerings to connect with their audiences? As a company, we are deeply committed to supporting the economic recovery of both small and large businesses, and especially understand the support that small businesses need right now to recover from the crisis. As part of our $100 million global grant program to support small businesses across 30 countries, we recently announced a grant of USD 4.3 million for small businesses in India. More businesses are moving online as a result of the digital acceleration fueled by the pandemic, and we’re keen to make this journey seamless for them through skilling, tools, and customized support. We recently released a local offline to online SMB Guide in Hindi and English that is free and publicly available but we also proactively reached out to 9 million small businesses across the country to ensure that it reaches the businesses that need it the most. We’ve also taken several of our industry-leading digital skilling programs online to ensure seamless learning and support in these times; Our flagship program for skilling small businesses, ‘Boost With Facebook’ is now being delivered in Hindi and English through Facebook Lives. We have video ad solutions for all the distinct ways in which people create, connect with, and consume video. Keeping in mind the increasing time being spent on mobile phones, and the reducing attention spans, we encourage advertisers to make Thumbstoppers - short-form mobile video ads that are built for the mobile, and tell the story effectively in a few seconds. We also have In-Stream ads for videos that are longer than three minutes on Facebook. These ads enable advertisers to tell a more complex story to people who are actively engaged in watching content with sound-on. We’re also focused on developing formats that are interactive and embrace the way people want to consume in feed. That’s why we have ad solutions including Poll ads, Augmented Reality (AR) ads, Instagram poll stickers for Stories ads, and Brand Playables. Interactive Ads enable instant two-way communication and get people involved, which is a natural fit for how people, especially the youth, engage on mobile phones. Q) Facebook has now started actively advertising in India, with the IPL as well as the Diwali ad. Why did you start advertising now, and what will your marketing strategy be going ahead? Consumer marketing is a relatively new strategic area of focus for Facebook and one that will significantly increase our global investment in communicating directly to consumers. Over the past year, our consumer marketing team has been focused on two important things - building trust with people who use our products and services and to build value around each of our apps. We launched the ‘More Together’ campaign for Facebook in India, earlier this year in March as a demonstration of our core belief that people can do more together than alone. Over the past few months, we have seen numerous instances where these stories have played out on our platform, where people can connect and come together to find and offer information, help, and support in the face of these unprecedented times. Many of these stories are on display at our first Facebook Fuel for India annual dialogue event. Q) Going ahead, what will your key focus areas be, to further grow your presence in India? One of our key agendas is to focus on providing social video experiences, through both <keyword id="4243508" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="facebook-watch">Facebook Watch</keyword> and Instagram. Videos now make a third of all posts for Instagram in India, and India is one of the leading markets for Facebook Watch. Our video strategy for India is truly reflective of the width of consumer tastes in the country. We are investing in forging partnerships to bring culturally relevant, of-the-moment videos across sports, entertainment, news and lifestyle like ICC, FilmFare Awards and IIFA Awards to people. Additionally, we are also launching India-first products on Watch in line with the local consumer tastes and content preferences on the platform in response to the growing consumer affinity for video. India was among the first countries where music videos have been launched along with a music destination on Facebook Watch to enable people to view their favorite music videos and come together through music. We’re also listening and taking inspiration from what our community wants - and they’re telling us they want the opportunity to create and watch short-form, edited videos. Keeping that in mind, we launched Reels. The unique part of Reels is a dedicated tab, which allows people to be discovered by Instagram’s large and diverse community. We continue to innovate with IGTV too. This year, we partnered with a set of creators, such as Kusha Kapila, Arjun Kanungo and Shirley Setia for launching their own IGTV shows with original content. Moving forward, we will continue to invest in creating and facilitating active social viewing experiences on our platforms where the consumers can not only watch, but also have an opportunity to comment, like, share groups messages, use reactions and polls, and even hold Watch Parties; making the experience interactive and personalized.

Facebook is strengthening its social video experience for its next phase of growth in India

BANGALORE: TCS has become the world's third largest employer of people in the technology sector, with over 3 lakh employees. And given the pace at which it is growing, it could become the second largest employer this year, crossing Hewlett-Packard, and would be fast closing in on leader IBM. 
 
In India, it's one of the biggest creators of jobs in recent years, possibly even the biggest. Besides the Indian army, government departments like the Indian Railways and India Post, and PSU companies like Coal India, there's perhaps no other company that has more employees. And unlike the government departments, which are mostly reducing their staff strength, TCS numbers are rising each year by between 25,000 and 35,000. 
 
 
READ ALSO: <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/TCS-joins-top-10-global-IT-services-companies-club/articleshow/34067479.cms">TCS joins top 10 global IT services companies club</a> 
 In the last fiscal year, the $13.4-billion <keyword id="146310" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Tata-Group-company">Tata Group company</keyword> hired 61,200 people, with the net addition being 24,268, discounting those who left the company. The net addition in each of the past several years has been along similar lines or higher. 
 
 
 
 
 
On the contrary, for some of the leading global tech companies, numbers are dropping given the transformations they are going through to deal with shifts in technology towards areas like cloud computing and mobility. HP had 349,600 employees in 2011, but that number is now down to 317,500. IBM, which has about 4.3 lakh employees, is also in the midst of layoffs. 
 
 
 
 
TCS has said it will hire 55,000 people this year. If the net addition is half of that, it will be well ahead of HP's number by the end of this fiscal. Among Indian IT companies, Infosys is almost 50% of TCS with 1.6 lakh employees. 
 Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research, says TCS is ahead of many of its Indian peers in identifying new areas of growth, making <keyword id="6362476" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="investments">investments</keyword> and all the right noises. "It is betting big on the Digital Five Forces—mobility, big data, cloud, social media and robotics," he said. 
 
Analysts also find it remarkable that it has grown its people strength so quickly, and yet created an organizational structure nimble enough to handle these numbers. Equally, it has kept its people costs under such control that it is seen as a major factor in its extremely high operating margins (over 28%), perhaps the highest among large companies in the global IT services industry. 
 
Pradeep Mukherji, president and managing partner in global management consulting firm Avasant, said TCS is managing the huge workforce by breaking it into smaller business units that each function virtually as a smaller company. "The depth and breadth of middle management and work delegation, managing a good onshore and offshore mix are some of the key drivers in managing the employee pyramid effectively," he said. 
 
TCS' employee cost has risen from Rs 90 billion in 2007 to Rs 319.2 billion in 2013, but the cost per employee has barely risen in these past seven years. The cost per headcount has grown from Rs 11.5 lakh in 2007, to Rs 12.4 lakh) in 2013, an annual increase of a mere 1.2%, said a report by US-based IT advisory firm HfS Research. "A conservative estimate of 8% annual wage hike in India, 2% hike in developed countries and 4% hike in developing countries will lead to about 7.5% weighted average annual wage hike for TCS' mix of employees," said HfS analyst Pareekh Jain. In other words, TCS has been able to offset its salary hikes through other measures. 
 
One of the biggest of these looks to be a sharp increase in its fresher intake relative to the intake of experienced employees. The percentage of freshers hired (of total hiring) increased to 81% in 2013 from 51% in 2007, finds HfS. 
 
"They have stretched the employee pyramid with an army of junior employees. TCS is aggressively hiring in tier-2 and -3 cities that offsets cost to a large extents TCS has also focused on automation and reusable software tools and frameworks to improve employee productivity," said Sudin Apte, CEO of IT advisory firm Offshore Insights. 
 
Jain believes that hiring more freshers has given TCS the flexibility to deploy them in lower value and transactional activities, thus freeing up experienced resources for higher value work. "Secondly, training freshers for new skills is easier than retraining old resources for new skills," he said. 
 <keyword id="1643718" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Ashish-Chopra">Ashish Chopra</keyword>, IT analyst with brokerage firm Motilal Oswal, noted that TCS had also significantly reduced the proportion of employees at client sites overseas, thus reducing the salary burden. 
 
But some also caution that adding employees in such large numbers may not be the best way to go in the longer run. "Linear employee growth is not a sustainable solution in the long run as newer technologies are nudging IT firms to explore non-linear revenue growth, growth delinked from headcount," said Mukherji. 
 
Gogia echoed that: "With new technologies, especially automation, shaping the world, it's only prudent that TCS utilizes its employees effectively."

TCS May Soon Be World's Second Biggest Tech Employer

<ul><li><keyword id="14170500" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="beunic" source="Orion">BeUnic</keyword> is an e-commerce and fashion marketplace that showcases lifestyle products created by queer entrepreneurs. </li><li>One of its founders, Simmi Nanda, was inspired by her son Aashish Chopra, to build a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community. </li><li>Though they failed to strike a deal, the founders’ story left the sharks visibly impressed. </li></ul>The core idea of <keyword id="11924074" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="shark-tank-india" source="Orion">Shark Tank India</keyword> is for its sharks to find investable startups and help them grow. However, BeUnic, the latest startup to appear on S2 of the show, left a mark on the judges despite failing to strike a deal. The inspiring story of its founders — the mother-sons trio of Simmi Nanda, Aashish Chopra and Vishesh Chopra left the sharks impressed. Started in 2019, BeUnic is a Delhi-based startup that functions as an e-commerce marketplace and fashion brand which curates and produces lifestyle products, from queer creators and entrepreneurs. “A mother has so many dreams for her son – he studies well, gets married and has children. I had these dreams too. But when I learned about Ashish’s sexuality, I was very saddened. I thought my dreams would never come true. But they’re just dreams. You can weave new ones. This was the beginning of my new journey,” shared Nanda on the show. While Nanda works on BeUnic full-time, Aashish works on it part-time. He has a full-time job in the HR department of Google. He’s worked with Philips and Amazon in the past. His elder brother, Vishesh, also has another business revolving around NFTs and cryptocurrency. The diversified interests of the founders led to the sharks backing out from investing in the brand, but Nanda’s story of accepting her child’s sexuality and starting a community left the panel visibly impressed. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="‘Closet is not the place to be’" comment="subhead2" text="‘Closet is not the place to be’">‘Closet is not the place to be’</cmsannotation> A law graduate from Delhi University, Nanda shifted to Nagpur after her marriage and ran a business with ex-husband, selling dental and medical equipment. After 22 years of marriage, she divorced her husband. Consequently, she undertook multiple courses to ‘transform’ herself, including a course on public speaking. In 2016, she got to know through her sister and niece that her son, Aashish, is gay. Aashish was 19 at the time. Her first reaction was one of shock and hurt, and for four months she and Aashish were not on talking terms. Her elder son Vishesh educated her about the community and helped her process the information. Gradually, she came to the realization that this was normal and Aashish needed her support. “I thought I should help Aashish, he must have struggled enough already. Our public speaking mentor told us to deliver a speech that’s close to our hearts, in front of a group of 40-50 people. I prepared a speech for him (Aashish) and accepted him in front of everyone – Love them, hug them, and kiss them because the closet is not the place to be in,” shared Nanda on the show. Inspired by his own fondness for heels and the lack of inclusive footwear, Aashish started BeUnic as a gender-fluid and inclusive footwear brand. It expanded into an online marketplace after Aashish attended a conference in Bengaluru for LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs. He realized that most queer entrepreneurs sell their products primarily through social media channels like Instagram because setting up a website was costly and complex. Today, apart from footwear, BeUnic offers clothes, accessories, footwear, stationery, and home decor. It currently has 500 products from 26 creators, which have been shipped to 12 countries. The startup commissions designs from queer artists. It also uses models from the community to promote its products. “The other platforms are just selling merchandise. Our platform’s specialty is that we’re trying to build a community,” added Nanda. BeUnic generated sales to the tune of ₹20,000 in FY20. The following year, when the founders tried building a marketplace, Covid-19 impacted their business. BeUnic sold merchandise worth ₹1.25 lakh in FY21 and ₹50 lakh in FY22. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Too early to invest" comment="subhead2" text="Too early to invest">Too early to invest</cmsannotation> While all of the sharks were moved by the founders’ story, they saw little merit in investing in the startup. BoAt co-founder Aman Gupta was the first to back out, stating that BeUnic appeared to be a ‘side project’ for the founders. Sugar Cosmetics’ co-founder <keyword id="246967" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="vineeta-singh" source="Orion">Vineeta Singh</keyword> backed out stating that bringing together the two parts of BeUnic—community and commerce—would take 3-4 years and the startup was at a stage too early for her to invest in. <keyword id="544908" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="namita-thapar" source="Orion">Namita Thapar</keyword>, executive director at Emcure Pharmaceuticals, agreed with Singh. “If you can strengthen the community you’re building to reach sales worth ₹2-₹3 crore, then it can become an investable business. However, your (Simmi) journey has inspired me, and I believe, will inspire many other people,” remarked Thapar. Shaadi.com founder Anupam Mittal echoed Thapar’s sentiments about the founders’ story being incredibly inspiring while advising them to build a community app or network that could later be leveraged or converted into commerce. Lenskart co-founder Peyush Bansal, however, made an offer of ₹25 lakh for 25% equity, along with ₹75 lakh in debt on the condition that founders convert BeUnic from a marketplace to a D2C brand and work on it full-time. He even offered the founders to create BeUnic eyewear for Lenskart. “I’d like you to make eyewear for BeUnic too, and I’d sell that brand on Lenskart. If you wish to use the community to source your designs, I’ve no problem with it,” said Bansal. However, the founders declined the offer and walked away without a deal. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/to-not-police-childrens-creativity-moms-create-child-friendly-art-products-find-investors-on-shark-tank-india/articleshow/97480472.cms">To not ‘police’ children’s creativity, moms create child-friendly art products &amp; find investors on Shark Tank India</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/iit-startup-solinas-integrity-working-to-end-manual-scavenging-in-india-wins-big-on-shark-tank/articleshow/97296983.cms">The IIT-Startup working to end manual scavenging in India wins big on Shark Tank</a>

BeUnic: Closet is not the place to be says this mom who built an LGBTQ+ community marketplace

<ul><li>Tejashwi Yadav clocked over 1.24 million engagements in October overshadowing incumbent Bihar CM Nitish Kumar who managed only 133,879 engagements. </li><li>The IPL was the flavour of the season for cricketers where expectedly India captain and expectant father Virat Kohli topped Twitter engagement with 2.4 million engagements. </li></ul>Twitteet, a social media analytics firm released its October analytics report today. This is the first time social media analytics for Twitter engagement by 20 categories have been done on a daily and monthly basis. The categories whose Twitter engagement have been analysed include Politicians (party-wise), Journalists, Business Leaders Founders &amp; Investors), Sportspersons (cricket and other sports), Movies stars (Bollywood and regional), Authors, Chefs, and Comedians. Here are the winners from some key categories: <ol><li>Politicians – Narendra Modi - 72,15,913 Twitter Engagements</li><li>Bollywood – Sonu Sood - 24,36,601 Twitter Engagements</li><li>Business Head – Anand Mahindra - 4,08,882 Twitter Engagements</li><li>Cricketer – Virat Kohli - 24,65,918 Twitter Engagements</li><li>Sports Star (non-cricket) – Vijender Singh - 4,27,006 Twitter Engagements</li><li>TV Star – Sidharth Shukla - 3,90,901 Twitter Engagements</li><li>Journalist – Deepak Chaurasia - 18,88,720 Twitter Engagements</li><li>Founders – Kunal Shah - 60,093 Twitter Engagements</li><li>Comedians – Kunal Kamra - 11,46,111 Twitter Engagements</li><li>Regional Cinema Star – Mahesh Babu - 7,32,964 Twitter Engagements</li><li>Authors – Anand Ranganathan - 5,36,874 Twitter Engagements</li><li>Investor – Mohandas Pai - 99,741 Twitter Engagements</li></ol>Key highlights of the first report include the remarkable rise of Tejashwi Yadav who clocked over a 1.24 million engagements in October overshadowing incumbent Bihar CM Nitish Kumar who managed only 133,879 engagements. Expectedly, Prime Minster Narendra Modi topped the overall Indian Twitter engagement rankings with over 7.2 million engagements. Among Indian Politicians Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is at #2 with 3.5 million engagements, UP CM Yogi Adityanath and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were 3rd and 4th in the Indian Politicians engagement rankings. Surprising inclusions in the top 10 among politicians were BJP Spokesperson Sambit Patra at #8 who clocked a 1.1 million engagements; Dr Kumar Vishwas at #5 who got 1.2 million engagements. Sonu Sood’s humanitarian work during the pandemic saw huge resonance on Twitter where even at a Twitter following of a tenth of super star Shah Rukh Khan (Sonu Sood’s 4.6 million followers to SRK’s 41.3 million followers) he topped Twitter engagement among Bollywood Stars with a phenomenal 2.4 million engagements. The Bollywood Badshah Shah Rukh Khan was at #2 with 7.3 lakh engagements. Akshay Kumar with 6.72 lakh engagements was at #3, and Anupam Kher with 4.74 lakh engagements was at #4. Former Maharashtra CM, the late Vilasrao Deshmukh’s actor-son Riteish Deshmukh was at #5 with 4.2 lakh engagements. Pooja Hegde was the surprise entrant into the top 10 with 2.51 lakh engagements. In the Business Leaders category, Anand Mahindra towers over others with over 4 lakh engagements. RPG Group’s Chief Harsh Goenka is at #2 with 2.2 lakh engagements. Chinese mobile phone brands India CEO’s Manu Kumar Jain of XiaoMi and RealMe’s Madhav Sheth are at #3 and #4 respectively with 1.5 lakh and 1.1 lakh engagements respectively. Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji with 49K engagements is at #5, Biocon’s Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw with 41K engagements at #6, Marico’s Harsh Mariwala with 24K engagements is at #7, Micromax co-founder Rahul Sharma with 19K engagements at #8 and Chairman of JSPL and former MP, Naveen Jindal with 16K engagements is at #9. Google’s Global CEO Sundar Pichai with 15K engagements is at #10. The IPL was the flavour of the season for cricketers where expectedly India captain and expectant father Virat Kohli topped Twitter engagement with 2.4 million engagements. Suresh Raina was at #2 with 1.9 million engagements. Former stars Sachin Tendulkar at #3, Harbhajan Singh at #5, and Virendra Sehwag at #6, actively engage with fans and followers on Twitter with 1.5 million; 6.8 lakh and 6.3 lakh engagements. Aakash Chopra, now a commentator is also hugely popular and ranks #4 with over 9.65 lakh engagements on Twitter in October. Perennial favourite Mahendra Singh Dhoni was completely inactive on Twitter in October despite more than 8.1 million followers. Among Indian sports persons, outside of cricket, Olympic medallist and pro-boxer Vijendra Singh tops with 4.27 lakh engagements. Perhaps the India’s best kept secret in sports is veteran pistol shooter, coach and sports enthusiast 88-year old Dadi Chandro Tomar, better known as ‘Shooter Dadi’ from Baghpat, UP. Since learning to shoot when she was well into her sixties she has attained national fame as an accomplished shooter having won more than 30 national championships. She was at #2 in the non-cricket sports category with a phenomenal 2.84 lakh engagements leaving superstars like Saina Nehwal, Babita Phogat and Jwala Gutta behind! In the intensively competitive Journalists category, News Nation’s Deepak Chaurasia topped Twitter engagement with a whopping 1.88 million engagements. Aaj Tak’s Rohit Sardana was at #2 with 1.1 million engagement followed by Sushant Sinha with 1.05 million engagements. Veteran journalist and India Today’s Consulting Editor Rajdeep Sardesai was at # 8 wit6 6.6 lakh engagements and Rana Ayyub was at #6 with 7.6 lakh engagements. In other categories, Comedians and Start-up founders made their mark. Among comedians, Kunal Kamra topped impressively with 1.1 million engagements, followed by Ashish Chanchlani at #2 with 4.92 lakh engagements, Vir Das at #3 with 3.2 lakh engagements, Atul Khatri at #4 with 2.21 lakh engagements and Amit Bhadana with 1.1 lakh engagements at #5. Cred Founder Kunal Shah lead the Business Founders category with 60K engagements and Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma was next with 23K engagements. Said Twitteet co-founder Sandeep Amar: “Our core objective is to provide social business intelligence, social monitoring and actionable insights to the leaders across various domains and also to businesses and marketers. We run daily analysis of all engagements – which are the total of likes and retweets, collate these every month, across categories; and then slice and dice them to mine actionable insights. At some level a leaders Twitter engagement gives one sense of his connect with his constituents and what are the key issues that matter. We hope to sharpen this data over time and broad base our offerings to other social platforms and geographies.”

Narendra Modi, Sonu Sood and Anand Mahindra top Indian Twitter engagement in October 2020, shows report

Representational Image Reuters 
 
In a bid to refurbish the present business model, home furnishing ecommerce firm Fab Furnish has axed its workforce by one fourth. Having fired almost 50 of its employees, the Rocket Internet funded Fab Furnish is vacating warehouses as part of a business restructuring, as per a news report by The Economic Times. According to sources that the company said it has "undertaken a resource optimisation exercise" and is "hiring a talent pool ideal for our new business positioning". 
 
Weeks after German Rocket Internet have replaced the management at FabFurnish. Cofounders Vikram Chopra and Mehul Agrawal have moved out of day-to-day responsibilities and senior directors Ashish Garg and Ankita Dabas has taken over the reins. 
 
"The chief technology officer has left and the whole marketing team has been laid off," a source told the ET, while talking on the development. He said he has already interviewed several of the sacked employees for possible jobs at his firm. While this person put the number of employees who lost job at 50, another person said the company fired around 70 people. FabFurnish had around 200 people on its pay role. 
 
"The situation was chaotic. While people who had been hired just two to three months ago were being asked to go and simultaneously more were being hired without any clear or defined roles," a person who had resigned from FabFurnish within 10 days of joining. 
 
"There was much confusion… we have had to rejig headcount to bring fresh talent and perspective,” Ankita Dabas told the financial daily. In an emailed response to queries she said: "Our technology and marketing team are very much intact. We are currently hiring for key positions in both the teams aggressively." 
 
In coming months, FabFurnish will reduce its inventory and move towards a marketplace-heavy company, Dabas said. It plans to bring its inventory level down to 20-30% from about 50% at present.

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