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Economic Times
5 hours ago
- Economic Times
TCS to cut 2% of workforce, affecting around 12,000 jobs
Reuters India's largest IT exporter, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), has decided to lay off around 2% of its workforce, or roughly over 12,000 employees, over the year as macro uncertainties and AI-led technology disruptions continue to hit business of June end, the Mumbai-headquartered Tata subsidiary employed a workforce of 613,069. 'TCS is on a journey to become a future-ready organisation… As part of this journey, we will also be releasing associates from the organisation whose deployment may not be feasible. This will impact about 2% of our global workforce, primarily in the middle and the senior grades, over the course of the year,' the IT giant said in a statement to ET. 'This transition is being planned with due care to ensure there is no impact on service delivery to our clients… We understand that this is a challenging time for our colleagues likely to be affected. We thank them for their service and we will be making all efforts to provide appropriate benefits, outplacement, counselling, and support as they transition to new opportunities,' the company affected employees will receive payments for their notice periods along with an additional severance package. TCS will also look to extend insurance benefits and offer outplacement opportunities for the impacted layoff decision comes days after several TCS employees filed legal complaints against the company's recently tweaked employee bench policy, which allows employees only 35 annual days without being deployed on a project and to maintain at least 225 billable days software services companies, with a cumulative revenue of over $283 billion, are among the largest private sector employers, with TCS being the Friday, ET reported that job additions at the top six IT majors saw a decline of over 72% with a mere 3,847 employee additions in the April-June quarter, a drop from 13,935 people who were hired by the six firms in the March also stated it is making strategic initiatives on multiple fronts, including investing in new-tech areas, entering new markets, deploying AI at scale for our clients and ourselves, deepening our partnerships, creating next-gen infrastructure and realigning our workforce this, a number of reskilling and redeployment initiatives have been underway. Elevate your knowledge and leadership skills at a cost cheaper than your daily tea. From near bankruptcy to blockbuster drug: How Khorakiwala turned around Wockhardt Can Chyawanprash save Dabur in the age of Shark-Tank startups? Why Air India could loom large on its biggest rival IndiGo's Q1 results Apple has a new Indian-American COO. What it needs might be a new CEO. How India's oil arbitrage has hit the European sanctions wall Central banks' existential crisis — between alchemy and algorithm Short-term valuation headwinds? Yes. Long-term growth potential intact? Yes. Which 'Yes' is more relevant? Stock Radar: This smallcap stock breaks out from Flag pattern to hit fresh record high in July 2025; time to buy or book profits? For long-term investors: A moat of a different kind; 5 large-cap stocks with an upside potential of up to 38%
Economic Times
6 hours ago
- Economic Times
When Smriti Irani was forced to show medical papers to Ekta Kapoor post miscarriage: 'Would have shown her the foetus...'
(Catch all the Business News, Breaking News, Budget 2024 Events and Latest News Updates on The Economic Times.) Subscribe to The Economic Times Prime and read the ET ePaper online.
Indian Express
7 hours ago
- Indian Express
Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy: A brief history of quick commerce, its rise, impact, and possible future in India
Blinkit, the quick commerce (q-commerce) arm of technology firm Eternal Ltd, outpaced its food delivery unit Zomato in net order value in the first quarter (April-June) of 2025-26, the company reported this week. Higher investments in the q-commerce segment, however, pulled down the company's consolidated net profit by 90% year-on-year to Rs 25 crore. Eternal's shares rose after the results were announced, The Financial Express reported. How do q-commerce platforms such as Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, and the recently-launched Amazon Now work, and what is their business model? What is q-commerce, and how does the company ensure that goods ordered on its platform reach customers quickly? Quick commerce (q-commerce) refers to the rapid delivery of goods ordered online, usually between 10 minutes and 30 minutes. For q-commerce to work effectively, firms must invest in opening and efficiently stocking so-called 'dark stores', which are stocked like standard retail stores but are used only as storage and are not open to the public. Dark stores are critical working infrastructure that make expedited fulfillment feasible in the area of operation of the q-commerce firm. Next, the firms must implement effective order management systems, and for the relevant information to be processed properly and directed to the closest dark store. At the store, the order details are automated using a dispatch software that swiftly redirects them to the warehouse staff and delivery personnel. Then, orders are delivered using transport vehicles (primarily two-wheelers such as motorcycles or electric e-scooters) to the customer's address using the most time-efficient routes. In 2013, grocery-delivery app Grofers was founded in Gurgaon by entrepreneurs Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar. Soon afterward, Grofers announced 90-minute deliveries, rapidly connecting kirana stores to consumers. Towards the end of 2015, Grofers was getting almost 30,000 orders per day, and the company had received $120 million in funding from investors such as Softbank and Yuri Milner. In 2016, as competition emerged from other online grocers such as Dunzo, and having experienced a period of relative drought in sales, Grofers decided to adopt an inventory-led model. The company ended 2017 with an annual revenue run-rate of approximately Rs 1,000 crore, with sales having tripled from February to November of that year. In FY 2019, Grofers' revenue had skyrocketed to Rs 2,500 crore. Then, during the COVID-19 pandemic, an even quicker model for q-commerce emerged: under-30-minute deliveries. By the end of 2021, Grofers had changed its name to Blinkit and was fulfilling over 125,000 orders daily. Over the next couple of years, the Indian q-commerce business grew rapidly. In 2024, the q-commerce industry boasted a market size of approximately $6.1 billion, thanks in part to changes in consumer preferences and behaviour brought about by the pandemic, and the entry of other players such as Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, and Flipkart Minutes. More than 20 million people are currently estimated to be placing orders on q-commerce portals annually in India. Blinkit is the largest player, accounting for more than 40% of the q-commerce market share. On its website, Eternal says Blinkit is present in 100+ cities, and more than 16 million customers use the app every month. The three largest q-commerce companies in India — Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart — together receive approximately 4.3 million orders every day. The industry has been disruptive, most notably in decreasing the dependence of customers on the estimated 13 million kirana stores across the country. According to a survey by Datum Intelligence, q-commerce has reduced consumers' spending on kirana stores by around $1.28 billion, with 46% of respondents expressing a partial or major shift in expenditure. Approximately 200,000 kirana stores have been forced to shut down due to pressure on their businesses from q-commerce, according to the trade body All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation (AICPDF). In towns and cities across India, these local stores with their smaller budgets and tight margins find it difficult to compete with well-funded q-commerce companies that offer rapid home deliveries at competitive prices and over long hours of the day. The shrinking of traditional kirana stores and the disappearance of jobs in that sector present a difficult policy challenge. And are the quick commerce companies themselves doing well? Despite the boom, no major q-commerce player has truly reached profitability – even though most remain optimistic of being able to do so in the near future. The challenges to the model arise due to a few reasons: q-commerce companies have high operational costs that consist of maintaining and managing a large number of dark stores, thousands of delivery personnel and staff, and large-scale, functional software. These costs have continued to increase as q-commerce companies have rapidly expanded their footprint. A large number of customers buy only a few items at a time – usually essentials such as milk and bread, chips, cold drinks, instant noodles, party supplies, etc. – and low average order values (AOVs), ranging from Rs 500-600, make profiting from most deliveries a challenge. There is also fierce competition in the market among a handful of q-commerce companies that are constantly trying to one-up one another, which makes it difficult for them to make decisions based solely on profits. Concerns have been raised over the safety and security of the gig workers who often work without adequate legal protection and social security, and face risks of accidents and injury trying to deliver orders within short times. In the end, despite the popularity of q-commerce and the great convenience that it offers to customers, it faces a range of stresses and challenges, and the profitability and sustainability of this model over the longer term remains an open question. The writer is a student and a summer intern at The Indian Express
