By Suroopa Chatterjee

In recent years B2G has been emerging as the new buzz word in the business landscape.

Businesses worldwide have undergone rapid transformation in the way they operate as they compete in an extremely challenging and dynamic environment. Procurement or buying procedures have become volatile and complex, particularly in the B2B, B2C and B2G segment.

Much like private companies, governments too must purchase materials and services for their operational requirements.
So, public procurement and outsourcing is a huge business that involves a government or state owned enterprise buying goods and services from private players.

B2G or Business-to-government (also sometimes called business-to-administration) is a business agreement to supply goods, services, and information between businesses and government at all levels (state, local and federal or central).

A big or small business that engages in service or goods supply to a government agency it’s a B2G transaction, irrespective of whether it involves billions of dollars in the defense sector or selling IT solutions for governmental administrative work. If providing sanitation personnel to a government institute or a small firm supplying office stationery to local or state agencies.

Then of course there is B2G e‑commerce, which is nothing more than using the internet in this procurement process as well as for licensing procedures and other operations related to commerce between companies and the public sector.

What are the opportunities for B2G, especially for SMEs? Many governments award lucrative contracts yearly to private players, clearly that means immense opportunities for both newbie startups and well-established private suppliers. And, most businesses see stable business in partnering with public companies and governmental entities. The volume and money involved is far more than in the private sector.

In addition, the governmental stamp offers some assurance to private suppliers as public procurements are governed by some specific rules and laws given that they utilize a sizable portion of taxpayer’s money. Tender processes make it free from discrimination. Of course navigating through these processes ensure that funds are utilized efficiently, legitimately and effectively with transparency that, ideally, involves very little waste of public resources.
The basics are different for government bodies when compared to private companies, because the former’s purpose is not to make a profit for its shareholders.

What are the opportunities for startups in India? In a country like India, government tenders offer a good pilot opportunity for startups that have had limited success in bagging private projects. Also, by giving startups this opportunity, governments open a wider spectrum of vendor choices as startups are more proactive than corporate vendors, often providing cheaper and more creative alternatives.
For businesses to thrive and grow, ultimately it is all about the customer. And, a vital part of sales strategy is to do business with the government.

Despite their advantages, startups do face challenges in trying to launch a smooth stream of business contracts as they must submit a previous track record of handling similar projects.

The selection criteria for public buyers to opt for a particular supplier vary from that of a private sector. Often, to be eligible for selection, suppliers must keep abreast of requirements in terms of prices, quality, ethical standards, and financial stability as these are vital criteria.
According to experts it’s always a better practice for suppliers to establish a firmer foothold with buyers before the actual tender is issued. This allows suppliers to understand the buyer and use innovation to highlight their edge over other competitors by providing more value than just products or services.

Which sectors offer the most opportunity in India? The central government, each of the 29 state level governments, and seven union territories are the largest purchasers of supplies and services. In India, a combination of central and state government tenders totaling around 75,000 are published monthly.
Government tenders account for around 10% of the GDP. Indian Railways, the CPWD (Central Public Works Department), MES, State level PWDs and PSUs like BPCL, HPCL, NTPC, to name a few, usually float tenders. The value of these can range from anywhere between INR 2 lakhs to a few thousand crores which makes it a huge business opportunity for SMEs.

Asides from seeking potential customers from consumers and industry, foreign companies also look to the government sector for optimizing their investment returns in India. Of course many foreign companies operating in India face issues of lack of transparency, absence of standardization, and an excess of red tape, which delays processes.

There have been a several initiatives from the government – namely Make in India, Skill India, Smart Cities, Urban Transformation, FDI reforms, EODB or Ease of Doing business reforms along with a strong push from the Ministry of railways, power, transport, aviation, food processing, and construction – that have created and will continue to build a huge market for large and small enterprises in India over the next two decades.

Recently awareness has focused on how urgent it is for state governments to improve their ease of doing business, as many across the world look to India as a future partner. Different states have implemented reforms to make the processes easy for business and speeding up clearances for pending projects. This has also generated enthusiasm within states themselves to invite more development investments.

Ever since systems went online with regards to opportunities and bidding, procurement processes have become more user-friendly and, to an extent, eliminated the challenges previously encountered offline. Also, government officials have updated their skills and are working professionally for a smoother execution.

Construction and infrastructure companies are two sectors that have relied on contractual work with state and local governmental agencies.
Contractors are often consulted for new office buildings, landscape development, road repairs or construction. Agencies then seek requests for proposal (RFP), outlining work they require and the submission guidelines. Company owners submit bids that include an estimate of the cost and time required for completion. Then the L1, or lowest bidder, bags the project. But experience and quality sometimes take precedence in matters of selection.

Data is vital and handling it efficiently also offers a huge opportunity for companies whose core strength is Information Technology. From filing taxes, to managing sensitive records, government agencies handle a huge volume of data that requires swift and accurate information retrieval. Small companies can find opportunities by offering consultancy and software development services to government agencies.

GeM or Government e‑Marketplace, an online procurement platform, is the most widely used method for public procurement in India. MSMEs and startups, as well as small to medium companies can register as vendors and offer their services or products directly to government appointed personnel. GeM has launched GeM Startup Runway, an initiative allowing startups to reach out to government buyers by offering innovative items with unique process, design and functionality aspects.

In 2020, Tech Bharat held their first start-up conclave, Tech Bharat 2020, to connect and create a platform to build opportunities in private, manufacturing and government sectors. The conclave saw participation from the Government of India and the Government of Karnataka. With business development as their objective, the conclave intends to bring in national and business leaders as well as decision makers from large and mid-size enterprises. Tech Bharat wants to grow towards sustained growth by focusing on future technology adoption and vibrant ecosystems for innovation.

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The first technological innovation hub focused on encouraging the development of open innovation programs, and stimulating the diffusion of digital technologies in the design sector, is being established in Milan.

Dubbed DesignTech Hub Milano, it is part of the Milan Innovation District (MIND) located in the area that originally hosted Expo 2015, which is being redeveloped by International property and infrastructure group, Lendlease.  

In a 2109 press release, Dan Labbad, CEO for Lendlease Europe, said: “Work is already underway on our plan to create an exceptional new district in Milan. The Milan Innovation District is a scheme with huge potential and one where, working alongside our partner Arexpo, we are looking to build a world-leading centre of scientific excellence alongside an outstanding and active mixed-use neighbourhood.”

As part of MIND, DesignTech Hub’s objective is to construct a large Living Lab with integrated co-working, co-living and co-factory spaces, designed to support and facilitate the rapid prototyping of new products by companies and startups.

Design Tech will also host suppliers of technologies and digital solutions that can help design companies scale-up emerging technologies.
The organization plans to achieve this goal by bringing together architects, designers, companies and industry professionals with technological startups from the most advanced innovation ecosystems at theinternational level – many of which are already present in Milan – to create a global design innovation hub under one roof.

But where did this concept come from? In a recent interview, posted in the online journal Today, Ivan Tallarico, founder and CEO of Hi-Interiors and DesignTech Hub Milano said: “during [Milano] design week we organized an open innovation event in Piazza Castello in the Fuori Salone circuit: realizing how difficult it was for young companies to scale up this business model, we proposed ourselves as a ‘bridge’between other start-ups in line with technologies linkedto the sector and an audience of industry insiders: professionals such as architects, designers and entrepreneurs.”

The hub’s facilities will include about 5000 m2 of integrated spaces for events, showrooms and a co-factory: a fully digitized laboratory designed to support rapid prototyping of new products from corporates and startups.

Startups and industry professionals can participate in this structure through a membership subscription (monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or annual) which will include desks and/or beds while established companies will have access to corporate memberships through packages that offer the use of co-working and co-living facilities for offsite R&D and HR teams in search of innovation and talent, as well as a hospitality structure for staff and clients in Milan.

While the DesignTech Hub facilities are planned to provide a neutral space for the design industry to meet and collaborate with startups, scaleups, innovative SMEs, and big tech companies, promoting and facilitating open innovation dynamics along the value chain, obviously the pandemic has slowed the project’s completion.

However,  it has also sparked new conversations about the technology and design of future living and working spaces: “Covid has created a sense of urgency in the organization of living spaces in which we spend a lot of time” – explains Ivan Tallarico –“there is much more to be done to technologically enhance these places, from the use of effective air purification systems to smart materials with antibacterial characteristics”.

DesignTech Hub’s founder also agrees that, with the remote working boom, there is now a new urgency to redefining the use of spaces and social organization. Something that was confirmed by the Piepoli Institute survey – commissioned for DesignTech’s recentwhitepaper, entitled “DesignTech for the future: A Design Force to shape the post Covid-19 world” – which reports that 3 out of 4 Italians want to continue remoteworking (referred to as smart working in Italy).

The survey also noted that 8 Italians out of 10 thought that design would play an important role in redefining some aspects of everyday life, and 2 out of 3 believe that it will be vital to reorganize private spaces, while 85% think that public spaces will need to be revamped as well.

This means that workspaces must be completely redesigned: “The newly designed buildings will have co-working plans and proximity services,” Tallarico states, “what we expect is that 30% to 40% of office space will be occupied in the coming months, this will create real estate transformation systems.

Smart working is already a reality but must be managed, from digitization to virtualization of work, from ergonomic solutions to lighting.” Challenged by the constantly changing situation, DesignTech Hub has remained true to its founding concept and is rising to meet the challenge of the post-Covid city.

As is stated in the introduction to the project’s white paper, they havechosen “to initiate a debate over how design, togetherwith technology, can play a fundamental role in tracing the path from ‘before’ to ‘after’ Covid-19.”

Bonnie McClellan-Broussard 

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By Suroopa Chatterjee

India has seen a recent spate of entrepreneurs or startups that have drawn a great deal of attention and reflect the immense opportunities that exist for transforming waste into usable products.

While India has ranked very poorly in the world pollution index, with many cities on the most polluted list, a Mumbai-based material and design startup – Carbon Craft Design – has successfully produced the world’s first carbon tiles from polluted air. This altogether changes the game in the field of construction, which has often been the biggest contributor to carbon pollution.

Founded in 2019 by architect Tejas Sidnal, Carbon Craft Design is collaborating with US based startup, Air-Ink – which processes the air pollutants to convert to soot that is used in the tile production. The soot is then fused with marble chips, powder and cement along with a binder. The effort is a very positive step towards commercializing environmental solutions.

In a statement given to The Better India, the founder affirmed that “Each carbon tile is equivalent to cleaning 30,000 liters of air! Moreover, these tiles consume only one-fifth of the energy required to manufacture vitrified tiles. This means, instead of burning the tiles to come up with the finished product, we use a hydraulic press that helps us in manufacturing these tiles.”

After all the heavy metals and harmful components are removed from the soot, attractive tiles are made in six shades of grey, black and white by traditional craftsmen who are brought in from other states. Orders have started pouring in and promise to increase; what’s more these tiles have several advantages over conventional vitrified tiles, which need far more energy to be produced and cost more. Talks are on between the startup and established names like Larsen & Toubro and JSW.

Another startup from Kerala, “Malai Biomaterials”, founded in 2018 by Susmith C Suseelan and Slovakia’s Zuzana Gombosava, caught public attention when they ventured and innovated on producing a vegan, eco-friendly, leather substitute that looks and feels like the real thing but is made using coconut water.

The chief ingredients of this bio leather are bacterial cellulose that is derived from the coconut water, banana stem fiber, fibers from hemp and sisal trees along with natural dyes, natural gums and starches. The startup works with coconut cultivators and processing units, collects and uses the coconut water to produce bacterial cellulose. For a report given to The Hindu, Susmith had stated that their product was an attempt to create a material based on bacterial cellulose that was ecologically friendly and usable for commercial products.

“Our criteria was to keep it as sustainable as possible, both environmentally and socially. About 320 sq meters of Malai can be made from 4000 liters of water per day collected from a modest coconut processing unit. “While their main focus is the production of the material, they have also ventured into making bags and accessories. They are supplying the material to foreign brands like Ethical Living (UK), Playbag (Czech Republic) and Riti (India).

Northeastern India has also had three engineers teaming up to eliminate carbon emissions and pollution by making bricks with electric machines and not from conventional kilns. Based out of Guwahati, Assam, the startup Zerund Bricks , was co-founded by Rupam Choudhury, Mousum Talukdar and David Pratim Gogoi in 2018.

Using an electric machine, the trio developed a patented lightweight brick with embedded plastic using fly ash from thermal power plants, waste plastic, cement and other materials. 70% of the brick composition is from waste and since they are avoiding kilns it is reducing carbon emissions. The bricks are 10% lighter than conventional ones and also far more cost effective. They offer better thermal insulation, keeping homes cooler in summers and warmer in winters. The startup has sold over 2.5 lakhs of bricks since they started operations and have catered to more than a thousand clients for buildings in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

Another element that contributes to environmental pollution is plastic and, sadly, India contributes around 9.46 million tons of plastic waste according to recent data from Un-Plastic Collective (UPC). Recognizing the need to better this, Ayodhya-based Yash Pakka – a four-decade-old paper and packaging company, founded a brand called CHUK in 2017 that provides a variety of 100% biodegradable, lightweight tableware that is food safe.

The startup was founded by Ved Krishna who wanted to transform his business into something that was pro-environment. He wanted a solution to substitute for single use plastic and Styrofoam products that are so widely used. His tableware is made of bagasse, which is sugarcane fiber. In a statement given to yourstory.com, Ved Krishna said, “The advantages of using bagasse are that it makes the products lightweight, flexible, microwaveable, and strong enough to prevent leakage. CHUK also recovers 95% of cooking chemicals used in manufacturing, thereby making it even more environmentally-friendly. CHUK procures waste from sugarcane locally, converts it to pulp, molds that into products, and then sells them.

The startup is focused on B2B segments like quick-service restaurants, institutional canteens and caterers. It has managed to bag an impressive client list in just three years with orders even coming from large firms, such as Indian Railways. It is also supplying some of the leading airports and five star hotels like Hyatt and The Park. Other clients include well-known names like Haldirams, Google, PVR, Inox, and Starbucks to name a few. It’s also eyeing the B2C segments and looking to partner with e‑commerce platforms. From its inception it has earned revenues to the tune of 46.6 crores.
As businesses with an environmental bent develop, look for more success stories to emerge in the days to come.

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By Suroopa Chatterjee

India, often viewed as the crucible of entrepreneurs or entrepreneurship, has thousands of success stories both within and outside its geographical boundaries. Much of a nation’s growth is fuelled by the innovations and entrepreneurial skills of its citizens.

According to a PWC report, India’s corporate sector lacks the capacity to generate the 12 million jobs needed each year to absorb the flood of job market entrants unleashed by India’s demographic dividend. The entrepreneurial sector must therefore also play a major role; it has the operational nimbleness and conceptual depth to create the radical new solutions required for a vibrant future economy.

Experts see the tech industry reaching phenomenal heights, spearheaded by countries like China and India.
With India’s open market of over a billion consumers, 40% are expected to emerge from poverty over the next two decades, a number of them being first time tech users. Many see Asia as the future of the internet—with over 60% of the global population—and as a place where everything will gradually go online with 5G.

For the last couple of years the world has been driven and almost moulded by the tech industry. Disruptions like AI, data analytics, and robotics are new formats that almost all sectors are adopting. Disruptions usher in sudden changes that alter norms and make the existing environment embrace challenges. New trends and ways of doing things spring forth, making it a defining moment.

Entrepreneurship is a driving force that should not just limit itself to growth-oriented business sectors in urban metropolitan areas but should seep into the heartland of its smaller villages and towns.

Women innovators and entrepreneurs are progressively making a noticeable dent in guiding this force, which is impacting essential sectors like healthcare, agrobusiness and the like. India has seen the emergence of many new faces and their contributions, before and after the start of the pandemic, which are helping to create a bright future for women’s entrepreneurship.

However, while it has its advantages, in many societies and especially in the Indian context, technology has also alienated a vast section of the senior population. For the most part, older people still feel more comfortable in an analogue world.

Aparna Thakker, CEO and Founder of Empowerji, has successfully identified the need for learning opportunities for seniors and made training videos on how to use Apps, websites and other technologies, as these are part of literally everything one does in the new world. Her content is driven by what seniors might find useful to empower them to understand and effectively use technology to take care of their daily needs.

Megha Agarwal, Founder and CEO at Leap Skills Academy, started her organization in New Delhi having identified the need for girls, especially those from suburbs, who required their basic skills to be integrated with technical skills to make them job ready or employable. The focus of the academy is to work with motivated students from smaller towns and cities and give them a leg up to realize their aspirations by creating a high-quality, large-scale solution with a sustainable cost structure.

Women technopreneurs have been outstandingly effective players when it comes to using technology to find solutions in this dynamic world with ever changing needs.

For Ayushi Mishra, biomedical engineer and co-founder of Dronamaps, based in Gurugram, it was all about using technology with purpose that paved the way for solutions during the recent pandemic. She and her team designed a live dashboard that tracked and traced COVID patients, which was initially designed for a Punjabi Government project.

But its success has seen it spread to other states. Dronamaps has been used to fence off quarantined patients, cluster analysis of the spread and also aid in location tracking as well as making predictive analyses for spatial spread on the basis of specific parameters.

Recently featured in Vogue India, she joins the ranks of two other technopreneurs—Dr Rachna Dave and Dr Pooja Rao—who also made an impressive impact by using technology for providing life solutions.

For Dr Rachna Dave, microbiologist and co-founder of Chennai-based Microgo, it’s all about keeping lives safe and conserving resources. Her product, Goassure, is a cost-effective hand sanitizer that saves on water waste. Currently she and her team are engaged in finding a solution that would help people avoid wearing a mask in flu-like conditions.

For India’s leading data scientist Dr Pooja Rao—who co-founded Qure.AI, located in Mumbai—AI was a tool that she wanted to use to create state of the art tools in the diagnostics field. She identified the lacuna in healthcare delivery because of an inadequate number of healthcare professionals for bringing instant diagnostics to the patients. She and her team developed a system that analyses and diagnoses medical images like X rays, CT scans, and MRI scans.

The Covid crisis also further caused QURE.Ai to devise AI-fuelled response solutions. With the onset of the pandemic she and her team redesigned their Xray AI tool.
Through specific algorithms they were able to effectively detect a specific type of pneumonia, in the same way that real doctors can identify new diseases based on past learning. Many clinics and hospices in the UK and India are using this tool after seeing its utility, especially during the ongoing pandemic.

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