Impact of policy environment on funding start-ups in India

Funding has always been the biggest challenge that every venture has to face. Particularly the technology and knowledge based start-up enterprises that are based on intangible assets such as human capital and an entrepreneurial idea. In absence of physical assets, such start-ups find it difficult to secure bank financing and they need to approach equity financiers such as angel investors or VCs. Mostly start-ups do not even have access to working capital loans; though some finance companies offer collateral-free working capital loans to small enterprises with at least three years of operations.

Like any other investment, the investment in start-ups is influenced by the policy environment prevailing in the country. The current policy environment in India is reasonably conducive for start ups, but still leaves a lot more to be desired. Domestic money to VC/PE funds are either restricted or prohibited in current regulatory framework. For example SEBI regulations for Domestic Venture Capital Funds do not permit registration of a fund which would have corpus of less than Rs.5 crore ($ 1 million). This makes it difficult for angel groups and seed funds to get registered and raise funds. Pension funds, which are the biggest source of money worldwide, are not allowed to invest in VC/PE funds. Insurance companies are allowed to invest in infrastructure funds only; even banks’ exposure to VC/PE funds is severally controlled.

The National Innovation Act that proposes tax incentives for angel investors is likely to be passed by the government. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) in India also plans to incentivise venture capitalists (VC) who invest in small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). It is anticipated that with implementation and stabilization of Goods and Services Tax (GST), the environment will be more favourable for promoting entrepreneurship and business.

At present, for a business, planning to set up manufacturing units in India, the existing complex and high taxation structure consumes a large portion of the available cost arbitrage. Though the manufacturing cost of most products in India is nearly half than in the west, but due to tax levied at various stages, the cost advantage is reduced by almost 50%. The existing multi tax structures often compel manufacturers to base their inventory and distribution decisions on tax avoidance rather than on operational efficiency. The implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) is expected to reduce the hassles associated with the existing tax structure and facilitate investment decisions to be made purely on economic concerns, independent of tax considerations.

The policy environment in India is gradually evolving and regulations are expected to evolve in a manner that encourages more investment bringing it at par with that in the mature markets. However the timelines by which these proposed policy changes will be implemented and the overall impact on the VC community is yet to be seen.

First in the Race - Apple and Samsung

Apple and Samsung are embroiled in several legal fights; both are contending for global leadership of smartphone and tablet market, with Samsung poised to surpass Apple in the race in 2012. Smartphones are an interesting example of a product category where the second or third movers have considerably learned from the experience of the product innovators. Long before Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, IBM had released the first smart phone called Simon in 1993.

Often the pioneers spend a lot of resources to come up with new and innovative products, demonstrate it to the users and test the market. In the meanwhile, newer companies that are more agile and are quick to see the opportunity, understand the product – market fit, learn from the mistakes of their predecessors, make a big bang entry and harvest the potential in the market already created by the earlier explorers. They survive and even make it big.

Samsung, for example, has perfected the game of being the second mover. They study the market leader meticulously, copy every aspect of the market leader's strategy in minute details, and further improvise on the execution of the strategy.  They end up not only in catching up, but even surpassing the market leaders. It was the success of the iPad that made Samsung roll out the Galaxy Tab. Even the Galaxy Note was preceded by the Dell Streak.

On the other hand, there are companies such as GE or Siemens that have been successful in retaining the first mover advantage and in creating next generation products in a continuum while phasing out the older ones. One of the parameters of strategic health for GE is the proportion of revenue earned by products which have been brought out in the previous 2 years. It means that such companies need to have a whole range of next generation products in the pipeline. This is relatively easier for companies that cater to the B2B market, where customer expectations can be understood within a reasonable time frame, due to existing contractual relationships with the customers. It is more difficult for the companies to gauge the customer expectations in the B2C scenario, though the B2C market offers the advantage of high volumes.

This brings us to an interesting question that why the pioneers with all their obvious advantages such as a brand image, a customer base and a dealer network in place to push the new product, are still not able to retain the market leadership. Going back to the Kodak story, what could they have done differently so that having been the pioneers in digital technology, they would have continued to be so.

This steers the discussion towards a very important trait of executive leadership – the ability to foresee the horizon of changing technology and customer expectations. An organization has to be futuristic, open to accept that the world can change overnight and the confidence to believe they can be the leader in the changed world too. It requires the tenacity to persevere, understand the market’s perception of their products, support R&D to improve on the products and make required changes to their products or their marketing approach in order to sustain the market leadership.

The path to achieving this trait could be through corporate entrepreneurship, if promoted in a true sense within an organization. This group would need to be supported and backed by the topmost authority in the organisation and would have to be reasonably separated from the current culture of the organisation, to encourage them to think differently and foster a culture of innovation. This may also, at times, require convincing the shareholders and the board to take a dip in immediate returns for long term gains.

This leads to an interesting question next. Which of the items of mass consumption today is most likely to into oblivion replaced by a newer generation product in the next three to five years? Who knows? Plastic money could be one! Already some companies are developing mobile payments solutions that focus on the convergence of online (e-commerce) and proximity (face-to-face) payments.

Planet of the Apes

In the last post, there were comments on organizational inertia. Putting up this comic snippet shared by a  friend that gives an interesting perspective into organizational inertia - how it is difficult to change the prevailing norms, values, beliefs and accepted patterns of  behaviour.                                                                            
                                                                                   

      

More often than not, people who try to change the existing culture are deemed as misfits within an organization and are pulled down by the others. 

     Organizations that have been successful in doing things in a particular way, often tend to stick to the same way of working even after it becomes obsolete, since they are accustomed to it and so they resist changes that might help them to compete better. 

At times it is perceived to be easier to change employees than to change their culture.

-Contributed by Shalini Verma

Kodak – Image Blurred

On 19th Jan, 2012, investors woke up to the news of Kodak’s filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in US Bankruptcy Court in Lower Manhattan. This gives the company an automatic stay for 6 months during which it has protection from creditors and the time to reorganise itself.

Founded in 1880, by George Eastman, Kodak became one of America’s most notable companies that established the market for camera film and then dominated the field. Neil Armstrong used a Kodak camera to take pictures on the Moon in 1969. Eighty films that have won Best Picture Oscars were shot on Kodak film and the phrase “Kodak moment” captured people’s imagination.

Analysts feel that the firm's late entry into the digital market is a key factor in its recent troubles. Although Kodak was one of the original inventors of digital photography in the mid 70s, it did not commercially begin to manufacture digital cameras for the next two decades due to the fear of the cannibalisation of film. As a result Kodak failed to keep pace with developments in the market and competitors steadily eroded its share of the market.

Since the late 1990s, the sales of photographic film declined and the revenue from the sale of film started fading. Since 2003, the company took the decision to halt investing in its film product, closed 13 manufacturing plants and reduced its workforce by 47,000.

Kodak adopted a product innovation strategy for digital technology, and came out with model offering consumers top-quality cameras at reasonable prices and other innovative products such as a printer dock. Consumers could insert their cameras into this compact device, press a button, and watch their photos roll out. By 2005, Kodak ranked No. 1 in the U.S. in digital camera sales.

Although Kodak's digital camera business became a roaring sales success, business it could not replicate the rich profits of the film business, as mass-market cameras yield slim profit margins. As other competitors raced into the market, the digital cameras soon became commodities that further eroded the profit margins.

To boost profit margins, Antonio Perez, who became Kodak CEO in 2005, tried a number of turnaround strategies and cost-cutting efforts. He steered Kodak away from its traditional market in cameras to focus on home and commercial printers with the hope it would create a competitive advantage. Kodak turned to patent lawsuits to generate revenue, winning settlements from LG of South Korea. Kodak also attempted to sell its digital imaging patents, but failed to garner enough interest among potential buyers, driven in part by fears of Kodak’s deteriorating financial health.

Since 2004, Kodak has reported only one full year of profit, so the attempts to reinvent the company's core business model have yet to bear fruit. Kodak has secured $950 million in financing from Citigroup to stay afloat during Chapter 11 proceedings. It remains to be seen if the company can emerge from bankruptcy, reorganize its business structure to increase productivity, reduce cost and keep pace with the evolution. Kodak could even be looked at as a takeover target.  

A stubborn culture, refusal to push forward with digital technology after creating one of the first digital cameras, and inability to reinvent the core business model led to Kodak’s failure to remain competitive in a changing world. This also shows that companies, when they are successful with a certain way of working, imbibe a strong culture, which is the company’s strength, but the same culture may also impede the company from adapting to changing needs.

What’s in a name?

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" quoted William Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet; thereby implying that names do not really matter. This could not be farther from truth in the present times, when strategic acquisitions are made with a view to acquire a brand name.

Chatting over a cup of coffee yesterday, a friend brought up the topic of SBC Communication’s acquisition of AT&T in 2005, followed by changing its name to AT&T Inc. SBC CEO Edward Whitacre had mentioned that they had factored the great name of AT&T & its strong worldwide brand in the acquisition decision.

When a company is sold, it seeks to obtain a value over and beyond that of its tangible assets. This is referred to as `goodwill' and can be thought of as a "premium" for buying a business over and above the fair value of the net tangible assets acquired. Firms sometimes pay large premiums for acquiring firms with valuable brand names because they believe that these brand names can be used for expansion into new markets.

Conventionally the value of a brand has been regarded as part of goodwill, which arises only when a business is sold. As a consequence, the value of acquired brands is included in companies’ balance sheets but the value of internally generated brands remains unaccounted for. To do away with this inconsistency, in the recent years some major consumer brands have been capitalised, which means that a value has been put on the brand and included in the balance sheet as an asset of the company.

Like beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, the value of brands lies in the perception of the people. Building these perceptions can take years but it can be destroyed overnight due to some marketing failure, resulting in the brand worth to fluctuate and erode quickly.

The "Brandz 2011" survey by Millward Brown ranked Apple as the most valued brand at $153bn, up 84 per cent on last year, and Google at $111bn, down two per cent. The McDonald’s brand accounts for more than 70 percent of shareholder value. The Coca-Cola brand alone accounts for 51 percent of the stock market value of the Coca-Cola Company.

Various approaches to measuring brand value have developed, but still the capitalisation of a company's brand value on the balance sheet remains contentious due to problems in a realistic assessment of brand value and the fact that the brand worth can fluctuate quickly.

Fall of the Rupee – Part II

Continuing from the last post, let’s see how the price of rupee is determined vis a vis dollar.

The market determines the price of a currency vis-à-vis another based on its demand and supply.  Some countries that permit exchange rate to be determined by the market do not impose any restriction on the amount of local currency to be exchanged for foreign currency. On the other hand, countries with a nonconvertible currency policy, fix the exchange rate by diktat. The Indian rupee is fully convertible on current account but there are restrictions on convertibility on capital account. This means that though foreign exchange for trade in goods and services is determined on the basis of market demand and supply, but the government has put in some restrictions on flow of different forms of capital in & out of the country.

Some of the probable causes of the rupee’s depreciation against dollar are - 

Deficits in the trade of goods and services - India reported a trade deficit equivalent to $196 billion in October 2011 as compared with $104.4 billion in March 2011. The widening trade deficit poses downside risks to the weak Indian currency. Surpluses and deficits in trade of goods and services reflect the competitiveness of a nation's economy and impact the value of currency. The decrease in growth of exports coupled with the increase in imports has contributed to a widening deficit in trade of goods and services.

Fiscal deficits - India has been running large fiscal deficits due to dwindling growth in tax revenues, rising subsidy bill and the government’s failure to raise funds through stake sale in state-run firms. The market usually reacts negatively to widening government budget deficits the impact is reflected in the fall in the value of rupee.

Capital flight - The government has attributed the depreciation in rupee to the withdrawal of funds from India by the Foreign Institutional Investors. A number of scandals, governance deficit, policy delays and slowdown of growth in India, have seen FII’s pull funds from India.

RBI has taken short term steps to stabilize rupee by reducing banks' forex trading limits and curbing speculative activity resulting from exporters cancelling their earlier contracts and rebooking exports to take advantage of sliding rupee, thereby fuelling depreciation. To increase the supply of dollars, RBI may announce a scheme for overseas Indians to bring in their funds, or offer higher returns to NRI’s. RBI may also sell dollars to oil management companies to prevent spikes in demand for $ due to large imports. But there are limitations in selling dollars from capital reserves as India's foreign exchange reserves are mainly created by purchase of dollars bought in by FIIs and may be needed if FIIs choose to exit.

While RBI might not introduce capital controls to prevent outflow of dollars from the country, as it is against India’s policy of moving towards full capital convertibility, but RBI may ease rates in future to bring in liquidity. This will boost the equity market & money will flow into the country as growth picks up. 

Related articles

• CHART OF THE DAY: The Indian Rupee Is Getting Absolutely Brutalized (businessinsider.com)
• Fall Of Rupee
• Currency crisis in the Emerging Markets 

Fall of the Rupee

The Indian rupee continues with its free fall against dollar having fallen up to 18% in Dec 2011 from its year’s high in July 2011. Rupee has been Asia’s worst performing currency this year.

The depreciation of rupee against dollar means that now it takes more rupees to buy a dollar; thus indicative of an increase in the demand of dollar. In absence of sufficient dollars to cater to the increased demand, there is supply-demand mismatch which causes the price of a dollar to rise against the Indian Rupee.

The impact of a depreciating currency varies across businesses. Export oriented industries such as IT services which earn revenues in $ and incur costs majorly in rupee gain from the fall in rupee. In contrast, the import oriented industries such as Oil Management Companies which import crude are negatively impacted due to fall in rupee as they end up paying much higher for the imports. Furthermore the Indian companies that have raised debts in foreign currency will have increased burden to service interest payments.

One way of reducing such losses is to hedge against currency movements. But since it is very difficult to forecast exchange rate, the risk due to sharp changes in currency rates are not completely mitigated . How much a company hedges and at what rates, is therefore based more on the risk appetite of a company rather than on the accuracy of forecasts.  Among the top 3 Indian IT firms, Infosys, is the biggest beneficiary of the current depreciation given that its hedging for $ receivables is lower than that of TCS & Wipro.

None the less, the sudden movement in exchange rates is discomforting for business as well as government. It becomes difficult for the government to meet its targets of fiscal deficit.

Left on the markets and the economy, exchange rate adjusts on its own and again settles to a value such that there is no arbitrage. Till the rate settles, changes in exchange rate will have large implications on the domestic prices, company’s profitability and government finances. But sometimes, these movements can be very steep and a sharp incessant fall can destabilise the economy and put government under pressure to intervene. Which is when, the Reserve Bank of India, central bank to the Government of India takes rescue measures by selling or buying dollars or other open market operations to improve dollar supplies and ease the fall of rupee.

Related articles

• CHART OF THE DAY: The Indian Rupee Is Getting Absolutely Brutalized (businessinsider.com)
• Fall Of Rupee - Part II
• Currency crisis in the Emerging Markets