Inside India

The sleepy world of mattress production might not to be the sexiest of business models. Yet mattresses are no longer viewed solely as consumer staples; they are a sign of comfort and quality of life. And in recent years we've seen the explosion of mattress innovators and startups from all over the world. In India, where mattresses such as the ones we know here in the western world, are still very much perceived to be a luxury item, the growth of the mattress market is skyrocketing. This is primarily attributed to factors, such as rising income levels, growing health consciousness, and growth of the real estate and hospitality industries. There has been a visible shift in consumer perceptions where the main focus is now on comfort and functionality as incomes increase. Adapting to the changing times, mattress manufacturing companies in India have adopted innovative technologies and products to ensure customer satisfaction and improve sleep quality that sways the upper middle class in India. 

In today’s episode of Inside India, Ben Hayward is joined by Rahul Gautam, the Chairman and Managing Director of Sheela Foam, one of the largest manufacturers of mattresses and foams in India. Rahul is the man behind the success of Sheela Foam, a company founded in 1971 by his late mother, Sheela Gautam who required a government license to manufacture foam. The business has scaled great heights under their leadership as they've sold hundreds of thousands of mattresses on the Indian subcontinent over the last four decades. With the 1993 launch of their flagship brand Sleepwell, the company embarked on a remarkable journey of manufacturing and producing mattresses and other foam related products and has now branched out beyond India with factories and manufacturing hubs in Australasia and Europe. Join us as we hear from one of India’s most popular and experience CEOs in this quirky yet vital sub sector of consumer stapels. 

The use of credit is ubiquitous in American society and we have seen explosive growth in consumer credit over the last decade, as rates have remained low. However, as credit has been more widely available, it has also resulted in indebted households sinking into trouble jeopardising their financial security. Millions of families across America are burdened by this debt with many spiralling into monetary destruction. The economic wellbeing of an individual would be considerably improved if they were able to effectively manage their debt and make informed financial decisions. 

In today’s episode of Inside India, Ben Hayward is joined by Avi Patchava, CEO and Co-Founder of Bright Money, a mission driven consumer FinTech company, dedicated to helping everyone reduce their debt burden and build wealth. Bright Money, which was founded in 2019, promises to assist customers, to take control of their debt and start developing real wealth by handling all of their data crunching calculations and financial planning on their behalf. Customers allow Bright Money to thoroughly examine their banking credit card transactions and help them make financial decisions through the use of big data and analytics. Its mission is to help every American double their wealth by enabling better financial decisions, powered by data sciences and behavioural design. It is yet another example of the increasingly popular - Build in India, Sell in the Western world business model, with more than 95% of their workforce based in India, yet all of their customer base located in the US. Avi spends this episode telling us what it is about India that makes it such a right destination for building a 21st century tech business with product that can be exported around the world. 

India, a country that is always synonymous with tea, also happens to be one of the world’s major coffee producers. Despite its tea-loving heritage, India’s coffee culture continues to slowly evolve thanks to the changing consumption habits of the rising middle class, growing brand awareness as well as the emergence of specialty coffee startups. Specialty coffee, which provides customers with coffee freshly brewed per their preferences, is driving the growth of the Indian coffee scene. Moreover, the effort to build a dosmestic Indian coffee market is enabling farmers from the bottom of the supply chain to be connected to Indian consumers who have traditionally thought of coffee as a luxury item. Blue Tokai, named after an ancient South Indian term for the tail of a peacock, is a coffee startup that wants to popularize India’s vast coffee growing plantations and connect Indians to western style speciality coffee culture.  

In today’s episode of Inside India, Ben Hayward is joined by fellow coffee enthusiast and the Co-Founder of Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters, Matt Chitharanjan. When Matt and his wife, Namrata moved to India from the U.S., they missed drinking speciality coffee and began sourcing high-quality coffee from farms and roasting it at home. They soon discovered an immense customer base for speciality coffee. And as a result, in 2013, Blue Tokai was born. Blue Tokai’s vision is to bring great quality speciality Indian coffee to the mass affluent urban population of India. Over the years, the company has evolved and expanded its operations with standalone cafés and roasteries across the country. In less than a decade, Blue Tokai has roasted more than 1000 tons of coffee, served close to 3 million cups, from it’s network of over 50 cafes and remains India’s most fastest growing F&B start-ups. What started as a hobby back in 2013 has now turned into a thriving, fully fledged coffee business. 

The aviation industry in India has emerged as one of the fastest growing sectors in the country over the past few years. Robust demand, policy support by the government and increase in investments are some of the key drivers facilitating the growth of aviation in India. Currently, India has the third-largest aviation industry in the world and the fifth largest market for aircraft passengers both domestically and internationally. And when it comes to the domination of aviation in India, IndiGo is the largest passenger airline with highest market share. The company primarily operates in India’s domestic air travel market as a low-cost carrier with a focus on three pillars of offering low fares, being on-time and delivering hassle-free experience. 

In today’s episode of Inside India, to discuss all things Indian Aviation, Ben Hayward is joined by William Boulter, the Chief Commercial Officer of IndiGo. Willy has been in the airline industry for over three decades and worked all over the world with airlines including Cathay Pacific, Virgin Atlantic, South African Airways, Etihad, and an Emirates-sponsored team in Angola. Willy was also the CEO of Russia’s first Low Cost Carrier, Sky Express. 

Buy now pay later also known as BNPL is a financing option that allows you to buy a product or service without having to worry about paying for it in one go and instead financing it over the subsequent weeks and months. Due to the rise of e-commerce and digital payments, low credit card penetration, and rapid increase in the adoption of FinTech, many of whom are disrupting traditional financial services, business models. The market for BNPL businesses is booming in India. The BNPL offers an alternative way of consuming goods and services via the ease of credit. And it’s fast becoming the preferred purchase method among gen Z consumers and young millennial. 
In today’s episode of Inside India, Ben Hayward is joined by Lizzie Chapman, CEO and Co-Founder of ZestMoney. ZestMoney is India’s largest and fastest growing buy now pay later platform and uses mobile technology, digital banking, and AI to make life more affordable than millions of young Indian consumers. Lizzie has continuously been promoting the concept of digital finance and driving its adoption in India. She envisions a feature where India has a fully digital economy and every Indian has access to affordable credit, her passion for the potential of technology to disrupt the delivery of financial services to me encapsulates the new India.

SaaS or Software as a Service has become a buzzword in recent years and India has seen exponential growth in SaaS investments in the last decade. And is now regarded as one of the global SaaS powerhouses. The question is what makes India such a successful global SaaS hub? The success of local SaaS companies that have made their market globally, years of experience in IT a well as BPO services as well as world class engineers are multiple factors that have played a role in this. 

In today’s episode of Inside India, Ben Hayward is joined by serial enterpreneur Ben Merton, Co-Founder and CEO of Unifize. After spending more than 15 years invarious operational and customer-facing roles at manufacturing companies across the world, Ben discovered that existing software in the industrial sector was dated and out of touch. So he teamed up with two of his old friends to establish Unifize, a collaboration software that helps manufacturing companies drive efficiences in their and countless companies like Airbus, John Deere and Target are his biggest customers. Ben’s unique take on the India story as a country to manufacture products and export it to the developed world rather than tackling the vast consuming middle classes of India makes his views slightly different from most of our guests but nonetheless just as interesting. 

India’s economic liberalization began in the early 1990s and included industrial deregulation, reduced control on foreign trade and investment and privatization of state owned enterprises. Moreover, India is known to have a diversified financial sector undergoing rapid expansion with strong growth of existing financial services firms as well as new entries entering the market with the introduction of new policies and reforms. The Government of India has introduced several reforms to liberalise, regulate and enhance this sector. With a combined push by the Government and the private sector, India is undoubtedly one of the world's most vibrant capital markets scenes.

In today’s episode of Inside India, Ben Hayward is joined by Benjamin Parkin, South Asia Correspondent of The Financial Times. Benjamin talks to us about how he ended up in India and he gives us his unique perspectives from his front row seat to all of the actions there in New Delhi. Join us as we touch on how India dealt with COVID, India's tech startup scene and Ben’s views on the Modi administration including GST and demonetization.

Emerging MedTech solutions have the potential to create holistic and inclusive healthcare ecosystems, especially in a country like India. From the startups to the established tech giants, new innovations and emerging players in health technology are challenging healthcare organizations to redefine and reimagine the way they deliver value and care to patients. As of 2021, India continues to import over 75% of its medical devices from overseas, and with the emergence of an entire ecosystem of medical technology players in India, this statistic has the potential to be turned on its head. The Indian medical device sector is embracing futuristic technologies and paving the way in growing trends like telemedicine, digital medicine, and personalized medical devices.

In today’s episode, Ben Hayward speaks with Himanshu Baid, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Poly Medicure, one of the fastest-growing Medical Device companies in India with a wide range of more than 125 different types of products and successfully been granted more than 215 products and process patents globally. Himanshu’s story of rags to riches, leaving the comforts of his family plastics business in Jaipur to branch out and build his own company from scratch was a risk that would resonate with thousands of budding Indian entrepreneurs. This was of course a high risk but for us, this is one of the great success stories of the Indian Healthcare sector over the last 20 years and Himanshu’s work with Polymed has helped put India on the MedTech map globally.

India's healthcare sector was worth about 160 billion U.S. dollars in 2017 and it is estimated to double to around 372 billion dollars by 2022. The country's healthcare market has become one of the largest sectors in terms of revenue and employment and the industry is growing at a rapid pace. India has a universal multi-payer health care model that is paid for by a combination of public and private health insurance alongside tax-funded public hospitals. However, healthcare spends per capita in India remains one of the lowest in the world making it one of the great long-term growth opportunities for the country’s budding entrepreneurs.

In today’s episode, Ben Hayward is joined by Avani Singh, CEO of SpiceHealth and the daughter of Ajay Singh, Founder of one of India’s largest low-cost airlines, SpiceJet. At just 24 years of age, Avani quit her job at McKinsey to launch SpiceHealth in November 2020 amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Concerned with the high cost of virus detection, Avani and the SpiceHealth team launched the business to offer disruptively low price and accessible COVID-19 testing and has so far conducted over a million tests as of August 2021 - making them one of the fastest-growing diagnostics company in India. Avani’s fascinating story embodies modern India - as this young female entrepreneur is striving to improve the life and health of millions of people one test at a time.

India and the United Kingdom share a modern partnership bound by strong historical ties. India's growing youth population, higher purchasing power, and rising relevance on the global stage make it a strategic interest for governments across the world.

In today's episode of Inside India, Ben Hayward is joined by Lord Karan Bilimoria, Founder, and Chairman of Cobra Beer. A British-Indian entrepreneur, Karan wears multiple hats - he is also the Chancellor at the University of Birmingham, an active member of the House of Lords, and a very prominent supporter of strengthening the UK-India relationship - and was the founding Chairman of the UK India Business Council. So, today we’ll bring you Karan’s story of how he turned a small idea in a university pub in Cambridge into a multi-million dollar brewing business. Cobra was one of the pioneering export beers and Karan’s vision of bringing a taste of India to Britain back in the 1980s has played a prominent role in the rise of Indian food culture in the UK.