However, working from home doesn’t mean you are on your own. In fact, you tend to contribute more hours, when working from home. Many progressive companies are now letting their employees work from home. They are preferring to hire freelancers, digital experts, and others, who don’t need office and mostly prefer working from home. One of the major advantages of working from home is you can save a lot of time and money on commuting from home to office and vice versa. In metros, this is a real time burner, where you waste your maximum time jammed in the traffic.

Working remotely not only allows increased flexibility but also autonomy for employees. Nine out of 10 workers, who are currently working remotely, plan to do the same for the rest of their careers. With supporting technologies such as videoconferencing software, collaboration platforms, and cloud services, people are now connected 24X7. This is allowing them to have meetings and complete projects from anywhere, anytime. But it is not just employees who benefit, employers are starting to view remote work as an important part of hiring. Retaining top talent, staying competitive in their field, and even saving on business costs are some of the few added advantages employers are witnessing with the work from home benefit.

Globally, working from home was not the new concept. With the ability to work from anywhere, anytime, remote work was a full-on global work movement even before the Covid-19 pandemic. But now this pandemic has forced millions to work from their homes. In the year 2018, over 50 per cent of the US workforce was showcased to be working remotely. Not just the US, Europe’s remote workers have also surged from 7.7 per cent to 9.8 per cent in the past decade. By providing the flexibility to work when and where, companies can give big advantages to their employees. But for India, working from home is surely a new trend after the coronavirus pandemic. Before the lockdown, it was mostly IT companies, which used to allow their employees flexible working. But now everyone is jumping into this to make work from home possible.

People who have worked with startups must know that they are famous for their relaxed environment and entrepreneurial spirit. CEOs and founders interact with each and every level working in the organisation. These startups give everyone opportunities to help design and deploy organisational strategies and drive innovation. And that is the reason every employee comes with the best ideas to take it forward. There are a lot of intangible rewards working with a startup. You can take real ownership over your work, be proud of your contributions, and have a measurable impact on the company’s performance. There is a greater sense of individualism and self-governance at a startup compared to a large corporation, where most of the time rules are lax. You will likely to find more flexibility when it comes to your work schedule, dress code and telecommuting options.

In general, you can also expect a more collaborative environment. When there’s a smaller workforce, you’ll spend more time interacting with your colleagues. This can present unique and fulfilling learning opportunities. You will have unparalleled access to organisation leaders and work alongside some of the most dedicated and creative individuals in the industry. There is a big emphasis on team dynamics and work culture. This can facilitate lifelong and meaningful relationships with colleagues and mentors. Working at a startup gives every individual the power to shape the organisation as a whole and the way to interact with each other.

Making The Curve Straight

The pandemic had not only hindered businesses but also slowed the financial growth last year. As a result, many companies were forced to shut their doors forever. On the same side, there were few startups that entered the unicorn club after reaching $1 billion in valuation. This year, startups are likely to observe a strong hiring uptick this year. This is expected due to a bounce back in business and revenue, with the growth for some even outstanding the pre-pandemic levels.

A survey by debt fund InnoVen Capital in its annual Startup Outlook Report showed that 72 per cent of respondents expect higher hiring in 2021 as compared with the last year. The sectors that are bullish on hiring this year, include logistics, digital media, e-commerce and deep tech. Similarly, health tech, enterprise and fintech expect hiring at the same level. Also, less than one fourth of respondents have over 20 per cent women among their leadership teams, compared to 21 per cent last year.

However, gender diversity continues to be a challenge and there has been no improvement over the last few years. In the same way, the survey also highlighted that the top challenge for startup founders is in finding the right talent. Over 52 per cent of founders said hiring right is their biggest challenge, consistent with last year’s survey.

Coworking Space: The Big Deal

Coworking spaces are basically shared workspaces. They offer affordable office space for those looking to escape the isolation of a home office or coffee shop. These shared workspaces offer a suite of office-like amenities such as hot-desks, private meeting rooms, kitchens, coffee and more. Often, they also offer a community. Occupants typically are freelancers, entrepreneurs, start-ups and small teams, who want to take advantage of a flexible space.

The coworking phenomenon started in the West in the late 1990s. It is quite famous among freelancers, startups, entrepreneurs, and the tech industry. coworking was initially driven by the idea that creative workers would join forces to work together yet independently. Hence, everyone would contribute to maintaining the space.

On the same side, coworking spaces promised a different way of working. It is somewhere between standard work life in a traditional workspace. The vision of this new work was guided by the ideals of freedom, self-reliance, as well as community participation. Over the time, the numbers and diversity of spaces increased and coworking became an industry catering to a broader range of people and organisations.

Many consider that working from home might affect one’s productivity. However, one also cannot deny the advantages of working in sweat pants and prep for dinner during a quick work break. Maybe even throw in some laundry between client meetings, but soon you will realise that it is not easy to juggle too many things at the same time. Well, multi-task and working from home has drawbacks!

Ways to make recruitment process efficient

Describe the Job in Detail

Describing the job in detail is not actually a part of recruitment strategy, but it is a quick way to improve your recruiting success. Hiring a top talent means you need to attract elite candidates. If you want your company to stand out in a crowd, then this is the best way. The best job descriptions are specific and clear. They outline what the job entails and what actually they are looking for in a candidate. Try to keep your job description clear and precise so that applicants feel comfortable reading through it entirely. It can be beneficial to ask your team to help write the job description so it is as accurate as possible.

Place an emphasis on writing reasonable job descriptions. Some companies ask for significantly too much or too little in their job descriptions. A company looking for an entry-level employee may ask for three to five years of experience in a role, which may not be a reasonable request given the volume of recent college graduates applying for entry-level jobs. Other companies may use broad phrases like ‘seeking someone with an entrepreneurial spirit,’ which is ambiguous and subjective. Write specific and reasonable job descriptions. Be fair about what you are asking for, and make sure the qualifications you want are specifically addressed.

Simultaneously, it is important to be detailed and reasonable in your job posting. Sometimes job postings ask for too much and plenty of qualified people drop from the listing because they feel they can’t do the job. Make sure that you put down the actual things that are required for the job. Don’t put 10 years of experience as a requirement when someone can do it with just two years of experience.

Using Social Media For Recruitment Process

Social media is an important tool that can set your business to new heights. On the same side, it can help the company to recruit new talents. The company can use its social media accounts to give its potential employees a sneak peek of its work or what it is like to work for its business. Social recruiting also known as social hiring and social media recruitment is a method of using social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook to advertise jobs. This tool also helps in finding new talents, and communicating with potential recruits about company culture. These platforms also help a company in making a job post much more interesting than just bullet points on a page describing duties.

Choose the Best Channels to Attract New Customers

It is best for the business to meet potential customers on the channels they frequently visit. Are they on social media? Would they prefer email? You can determine how your customers prefer to be contacted by gathering data from your existing customers. However, do not put all your eggs in one basket! These days customers are joining several new platforms daily. A multi-channel marketing strategy is always best for attracting new customers.

There are huge benefits of social media that can be ignored easily. Most of us can handle Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn, but what if you’re not reaching the right audience? A reliable way to tap into a whole new group is to explore new social media sites, especially ones where your customers are hanging out. Joining these social platforms will surely increase the traffic of your business’s online presence. But the audiences on social media can vary a lot from site to site, so do your research, find your market, and follow where they are!

Deals Sites Can Help in a Big Way

Daily deals sites are another trend that are picking up fast. Websites like Cashkaro, Nearbuy.com, Grabon.in, Mydala.com and more can add value to your business. You offer a discounted price, while they promote to their deal-loving audiences. Daily deals sites are great for getting first-timers in the door. Consumers are much more likely to try something new when it is a steal offer, which in return gives you the opportunity to turn one-timers into repeats.

Make it Realise that Customer is The King

Make your customer realise that they are the king and they are important as an individual. In most industries, consumers want to know if they will be taken care of or not. They want to feel like they aren’t just the mode for the business. A reliable way to attract new customers is to show them how well you look after your current customers. Show your customers genuine concern and communicate with them on a regular basis. These communications don’t need to be business related, but it can be personal. This will give the customer an impression that you are sincerely concerned to talk to them. Sometimes selling things is not important, but making contacts for the business matter.

Understand Market Information and Recent Trends to Launch New Products

Information that are published can provide useful insights into market conditions and recent trends. As a growing business, your own experience can be even more valuable. You should build up an in-depth information of what customers want, their market behaviour, and your best marketing approaches that work well with customers.

Customer interaction on frequent occasions pays off. Taking the time to talk to key customers help in a big way. Your suppliers and other business partners can be important sources of market information. You should encourage your employees to share what they know about customers and the market. Effective IT systems can also make it easier to share and analyse key information such as customers’ purchasing behaviour, and preferences.

Furthermore, you can also extend your research to test customer reaction to new products. This you might do it yourself, or use a freelance researcher or market research agency. This will give you a quick reaction on your new products. This can be done on spot, or through digital platforms.

Importance of Intellectual Property in Business

This crisis has highlighted new ways for companies with actual or potential intellectual property to generate income. And in some cases, to recapitalise themselves. Apart from tangible assets, they can also generate capital through these intangible assets such as goodwill, brand recognition and intellectual property. 

All enterprises can create economic value by leveraging their assets in order to fund their operations and future needs of capital. In the past 50 years, the value of assets has taken a shift. During the industrial economy, mostly tangible assets held the most value. But with the changing times, this scenario has changed. Now it is intangible assets too such as knowledge-based, intellectual-capital assets that are considered as the most valuable assets. These consist of brands, intellectual property such as trademarks, patents, copyrights, trade secrets, licenses, and trade dress, human capital, databases, contracts and other knowledge-based assets.

Most of the crucial aspects of a business’s worth are often unnoticed. Value of intellectual property is often disaccredited, with large corporations sometimes overlooking their intellectual property positioning. So, how can you make the most from an acquisition as part of your company’s exit strategy? More importantly, how can you use intellectual property data to show your investors that your exit strategy will bring them value?

Why Digital Enablement is Crucial for Businesses?

Responding to Evolved Market Demand

With the coronavirus pandemic, the need to get connected digitally has surged. The pandemic is changing the manufacturing operations to a new degree. As organisations and leaders are seeking ways to safeguard the health and safety of their people, they are also reacting to supply-chain shifts as these shifts are affecting sourcing and distribution logistics. Supplier resilience is being brought into sharp focus. On the same side, labour shortages are bringing many production lines to a standstill. In order to resolve the crisis, eventually production facilities will require to move rapidly to respond to new sources of supply and shifting customer demands. It is because of these types of pressures that digital capabilities are so important. 

Operating in a New Location

Digital Enablement also helps in providing flexibility and resilience manufacturers the need to mobilise and operate in an unknown territory. A digital enablement plan became more important for a business to leap on the digital transformation wave and achieve business growth in this pandemic time.

Reviving Enterprise Business Model

To make this digital enablement more approachable, powerful technologies such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, big data, mobile broadband, internet of things, and machine learning are used to its fullest capacity. Digital enablement is helping them in a big way in achieving efficient business processes, engaging the workforce, delivering exceptional customer experience and reviving the enterprise business model.

The Right Approach? 

Capacity building, also referred to as capacity development, is a process that is used by both businesses and non-profit companies to help grow your firms and their employee’s bandwidth. Capacity building involves several strategies that are intended to make your business more adaptive and approachable so that it can be more successful in today’s changing conditions. There are plenty of capacity building activities and approaches that you can use to achieve this goal.

Capacity is generally believed as the ability to see, understand and do. That is the reason when you are building capacity at your business, you are making it more fluid and agile. And this in turn will make your business much more effective. There are various ways you can accomplish this. Most of the companies are focusing on human resource capacity building, as humans always have the potential to grow. There are many different ways you can improve the capacity of your employees, including providing them with greater access to resources, training programmes, consultations, expert advice and coordinating group efforts. 

Simultaneously, you can also focus on leadership development since leaders have a role that involves making changes, which lead to progress. Apart from this, other capacity building activities include strategic planning, the creation of new roles within the company, organisational development, and networking opportunities. When you are determining the right route to go forward, then you need to consider your access to consultants and capacity builders. This also includes your organisational readiness and resources such as equipment, money, facilities, expertise and time. Let’s discuss these capacity building activities in detail. 

The disruption was created in the traditional supply chains due to the pandemic-led lockdowns. During this period of lockdowns and coronavirus, a group of agritech startups came forward with innovative ways and lent their hands to farmers in connecting with buyers. They not only saved their crops and harvest from complete loss but also helped farmers in building automated supply chains. The agritech startups are gaining farmers’ confidence by structuring the next layer of data analytics in order to drive efficiency through the application of technologies. These technologies include data digitisation and data platforms, data analytics, artificial intelligence, internet of things, machine learning and software as a service.

Making A Difference

The country’s mushrooming start-up ecosystem has been actively playing its part in disrupting the agriculture sector. Agritech start-ups are operating in an attractive market with an estimated potential of US$24 billion by 2025, according to an EY report. Last year despite the pandemic, investors pumped in more than US$500 million into agritech deals, as compared to US$248 million in the previous year. In the past five years, the country’s agritech startups have been burgeoning in this space like never before, building farmer platforms, B2B agri marketplaces, rural fintech enterprises, farm-to-fork brands, among others. The country has more than 600 agri start-ups endeavouring to solve challenges in the agri value chain.

In spite of this robust investment activity in the past few years, the market penetration in the agriculture sector is still very negligible. It accounts for merely 1 per cent of the potential market opportunity of US$24 billion. However, it is expected that the untapped market potential and opportunities in the agritech ecosystem will continue to grow and pick-up pace over the next decade.

As the agritech ecosystem evolves further, there are a few other potential scenarios that could play out in the sector. There is an opportunity for players to expand vistas across the agritech segments to develop the end-to-end relationship with the farmer. There is also an opportunity for some of the large retailers and e-commerce companies to expand their grocery presence through backward integration into the agritech space. And through this, food processing companies could also obtain agritech companies to keep a tight check on their quality and operations.

Going ahead, we could witness a surge in penetration of segments such as financial services, precision agriculture and farm management and quality management and traceability. Also, it should be considered the tremendous market potential that these segments offer and the degree of investment funding these segments have witnessed. Agritech startups need to develop scalable business models with higher unit economics. And this should be done through enabling instead of displacing traditional value chain participants to succeed in these segments.

Adoption Is The Key

Business models in the agritech space are still budding. Revenue models could differ from margin-based to subscription-based to transaction-based depending on the segment addressed by the agritech player. The pressure on accomplishing higher unit economics emerges on agritech start-ups. And there is a change of witnessing a horizontal expansion of companies into platform-based play, where these firms can own the end-to-end relationship with the farmer.

Further, there could be a possibility of alliance in the industry as larger players have started to acquire regional players to achieve leverage in market linkages. Attractive market opportunity, nascency in investment funding and miniscule penetration by incumbent agritech players offer an opportunity for established players such as institutional retailers, e-commerce players and food processing companies. They are helping them to create impact at a larger scale. And large scale transformation of agriculture through agritech requires investment funding at scale along with patient capital.

Let’s see how innovation be the growth strategy for Indian Agritech startups.

Modernisation in Agritech Startups

Modernisation in agriculture technology (agritech) offers accurate solutions for sustainable farming, which includes indoor vertical farming, hydroponic farming, and modern greenhouse practices. Adopting these practices are set to redesign the farming experience with innumerable benefits. They produce healthier, fresh, and more nutritious food that has a longer shelf life. Similarly, these practices will help in saving valuable water, land, and labour resources. Furthermore, the controlled growing system enables farmers to produce food free from harmful chemicals and residue.

Complementing Consumer Preferences

With the changing times, consumption patterns are also changing. People are becoming more alert and aware of whatever they are eating. Eating healthy and fresh is becoming a habit now. Besides, the Covid-19 pandemic has also forced consumers to change their dietary habits and consume food that helps them in preventing infections and building strong immunity against the infections. The techniques of ultra-modern tech farming are optimising crop production and quality, at the same time offering food safety all year round. Through these modern techniques, farming, farmers are grown in nutrient-rich water pesticides, harvested a few hours before it reaches the customer’s plate. This has strengthened the power of making good choices and brought in a behavioural change to create a healthier food system.