Answer 1

The COVID-19 crisis accelerated an expansion of e-commerce towards new firms, customers and types
of products. It has provided customers with access to a significant variety of products from the
convenience and safety of their homes, and has enabled firms to continue operation in spite of contact
restrictions and other confinement measures. E-commerce transactions in many countries have partly
shifted from luxury goods and services towards everyday necessities, relevant to a large number of
individuals. Despite persistent cross-country differences, the COVID-19 crisis has enhanced dynamism in
the e-commerce landscape across countries and has expanded the scope of e-commerce, including
through new firms, consumer segments (e.g. elderly) and products (e.g. groceries).

This pandemic have provided all people other than the essential service sector employees,” work from
home” which has provided them ease of working with the comfort of family’s company as well. Also,
there is lockdown at many areas within the countries from time to time as a precautionary measure to
stop COVID19 spread, which has influenced more and more users to opt for online shopping. Most
people working from home are looking for “Home delivery” rather than “typical market shopping/retail
purchase”. This has provided a boom to the E-commerce sector. It can be for groceries, for fooding
requirements, for home applicances, for any household requirement or even any repairing or grooming
service too. We can imagine a service and same is available in E-commerce industry now. This pandemic
has forced self employed segment to come up with an online business idea rather than typical
traditional market shop approach.

Even as many large traditional retailers are announcing huge lay-offs and store closures due to the
pandemic, it has in contrast giving e-commerce a major boost. According to Kantar Consulting Group,
international e-commerce grew 41 per cent in only 3 months compared with 22 per cent growth for
2020 as a whole to date. India is similarly not untouched by this development.

Amazon's Handicrafts Mela - which showcased over 55,000 unique products - helped customers discover
and purchase products from artisans and weavers from different parts of the country by visiting specific
sections like handloom zone, handicrafts home decor, kitchen items, handmade toys, handcrafted
festive collection and others. Over eight lakh artisans and weavers associated with 1,500 Amazon Karigar
sellers and 17 government emporiums including Tantuja, Harit Khadi, Tribes India and national-level
artisan organisations like Craftmark and Dastkari Haat Samiti will benefit from this mela. Amazon’s most
recent program Local Shops is another example that helps customers as well as the small kiranas in the
neighbourhood. This has led amazon to ensure delivery to 100% pin codes in India. There has been a 50
per cent increase in new seller registrations on Amazon versus the pre COVID-19 times. They have
enabled ‘on-demand disbursement’ feature that enables sellers to get their disbursements daily. They
brought various kinds of fee waivers which helped their sellers to navigate the economic challenges
during these critical times. These and many such enabling programmes are helping the sellers to run
their business successfully and are also encouraging many new retail shopkeepers to resort to online
business approach during lockdown period.
Technology has given small-scale manufacturers the potential to connect with several clients via e-mail,
social networks, blogs, and other social media forums. Hence small business owners can take the
opportunity and link up with the clients by getting feedback and applying the feedbacks to develop their
businesses. Below are few statistics for small scale businesses.

 27% of small businesses do not have IT support (SMB Group).

 Just 53% of small businesses have a website (Statistic Brain).
 80% of small businesses are still using a manual integration tool (SMB Group).
 Mobile apps save small business employees 725 million work hours per year (CNBC).
 66% of small business would fail without wireless technology (AT&T Small Business Technology
Poll).
 66% of small business owners rely on mobile devices to manage operations (Constant Contact).
 92% of small businesses are using one or more cloud-based solution (SMB Group).
 Cloud solutions decrease small business workload by at least 42%.

Looking at current business scenario, after the pandemic is over, I feel that there will still be a boom in
the online business market, but there will be some share of manufacturers still involved in face to face
selling business. It is because, this pandemic gave rise to awareness about the online business where
there is no shop rent, no expense bills, better awareness about their products as more and more people
will get the see the product line available with them. Despite the boom in B2C e-commerce sector in
India, majority of Indians continue to have more faith in the neighbourhood brick & mortar stores for
shopping as they prefer touching and feeling the products and negotiating discounts over-the-counter,
before buying. As a result, e-commerce will be the future of businesses even after COVID 19 pandemic
since its benefits are numerous.

Answer 2

The e-Governance scenario in India has come a long way since computers were first introduced. The
focus now is on extending the reach of governance to have a major impact on the people at large. As
stated earlier, e-Governance is an important tool to enhance the quality of government services to
citizens, to bring in more transparency, to reduce corruption and subjectivity, to reduce costs for citizens
and to make government more accessible. A large number of initiatives have been taken in this category
by the Union and the State Governments.

Gyandoot is an Intranet-based Government to Citizen (G2C) service delivery initiative. It was initiated in
the Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh in January 2000 with the twin objective of providing relevant
information to the rural population and acting as an interface between the district administration and
the people. The basic idea behind this project was to establish and foster a technologically innovative
initiative which is owned and operated by the community itself. Initially, computers were installed in
twenty village Panchayat centres and connected to the District Rural Development Authority in Dhar
town. These were called Soochanalayas which were operated by local rural youth selected for this
purpose (called Soochaks). No fixed salary or stipend was paid to them. Later, 15 more Soochanalayas
were opened as private enterprise. The Soochanalayas are connected to the Intranet through dial-up
lines. Charges pertaining to availing any below mentioned service are directly paid to the government in
the form of online payment, card based payments(POS) or cash payments with receipts.

The services offered through the Gyandoot network include

i. Daily agricultural commodity rates (mandi bhav)

ii. Income certificate
iii. Domicile certificate
iv. Caste certificate
v. Public grievance redressal
vi. Rural Hindi email
vii. BPL family list
viii. Rural Hindi newspaper.

There is a prescribed service charge for each service which is displayed at each kiosk along with the
information about the expected delivery time. The citizen generally submits his application online (with
the help of the Soochak) and has to go back to the Soochanalaya to collect the response. If the service is
related to obtaining some certificates or documents, the citizen will have to collect them by visiting the
government department. Alternatively, they are mailed to the citizen.

The implementation of this e-governance initiative led to awareness among the villagers to get some
important certificates generated online and charges are directly aid to the government. This led to a
decrease in corruption levels at the village front.

Answer 3 A

Benchmarking is the process of obtaining measurements and discovering the best performance being
achieved. The information gained can be used in identifying gaps in the industry for competitive
advantage. For instance, when there is a need to improve Leh city to Smart City, Singapore would be the
best city for benchmarking for the improvement.

The first reason to prefer benchmarking in Singapore is that the city is considered the smartest
city. Benchmarking in the best city would help get the best results in improving Leh city,
consequently making Leh the best if Singapore's information is well analyzed and implemented.
Secondly, proximity would be a factor in choosing Singapore for benchmarking. Singapore and
Leh are on the same continent, making the distance close. Therefore, it would be easy and less
costly to travel during the course.
Singapore would be a priority for benchmarking because the city is much populated Leh city.
Singapore, a country on its own, has a larger population than Leh, just a district. Therefore, any
 technology or development involving people and has succeeded in Singapore will work even
much better in a less populated city like Leh.

Benchmarking is fundamental in setting the foundation for improvement intended in any industry.
Proper use of the obtained information from the benchmarking course brings better results in any
intended improvement.

Answer 3 B

To transform Leh into a Smart city, I would suggest below mentioned technological services to be
incorporated.

 Connected traffic lights receive data from sensors and cars adjusting light cadence and timing to
respond to real-time traffic, reducing road congestion.
 Connected cars can communicate with parking meters and electric vehicle (EV)charging docks
and direct drivers to the nearest available spot.
 Introducing digital data collection using sensors would make Leh a smart city. Digital information
collection throughout the city using sensors linked to aggregation boxes would ensure data
collected is enormous and is sent to appropriate agencies for analysis and action in delivering
services.
 Smart garbage cans automatically send data to waste management companies and schedule
pick-up as needed versus on a pre-planned schedule.
 And citizens’ smartphone becomes their mobile driver’s license and ID card with digital
credentials, which speeds and simplifies access to the city and local government services.
 Also, digitalizing services would be vital in making Leh a smart city. For example, introducing a
monitoring system for bus drivers using artificial intelligence will help reduce traffic accidents
caused by fatigue. Besides, such an innovative technology reduces paperwork and makes service
delivery efficient.