TMS,Ep 49:Conglomerates breaking up, craft spirits, markets, online frauds

Three iconic companies, General Electric, Johnson and Johnson and Toshiba, recently announced that they will each split into multiple entities. It raised serious questions about the future of multidimensional conglomerates in India too. Should large business groups, which share many similarities with traditional conglomerates around the world, reconsider their organisational structure? Or, do the demands of an emerging market like India require them to adopt a different approach?
 
While experts in the West might have reached their conclusions, the debate for and against conglomerates still continues in India at least. Moving away from conglomerates, a clutch of smaller, independent and home-grown distilleries in India are brewing their success stories in different corners of the country. They are catering to the ambitious young Indians who also want to try local and ‘handcrafted’ premium booze. So, several new-age liquor brands have emerged in India with a focus on quality of their ingredients. 
 
In the market, after falling the most in seven months, the benchmark Sensex index oscillated over 1,100 points in intra-day trade and ended higher for the first time in five days on Tuesday. The Nifty50 index also gained half a per cent yesterday.

 
On the other hand, the country’s march towards the digital economy gathered pace in the last two years, especially during the period marked by pandemic. And online payments, led by UPI transactions, challenged the monopoly of cash. But, at the same time, the country also witnessed a jump in online payment frauds. 
Listen to all these and more in this episode of the posdcast.