India’s passenger-vehicle market has witnessed astonishing growth in the past decade. Barring the current hiccups, on account of ongoing urbanisation, increasing expenditure from the middle-class and young generation, and the country’s economic growth and supportive regulations and policies, India is expected to emerge as the world’s third-largest passenger vehicle market in future. However, the growth story will bring severe challenges for the parking space segment, especially in metro cities for which parking space has been a perennial issue.

As per a survey, a person spends an average of 17 hours a year for searching parking slots in New York, and the situation is grimmer in India where on average a person spends around 80 hours per year on finding parking. However, the situation varies in different cities.

Amit Lakhotia, Founder and CEO, Parviom Technologies, which owns Park+, faced car parking-related issues like any other Indians residing in metro cities. “Every day, we face challenges in finding an available parking slot, be it in office parking, malls, hotels or any other busy places. This leads to frustration and loss of time and fuel as well,” says Lakhotia. Due to difficulty in finding spaces for parking, people park their vehicles in the non-parking area or on the roads that occupies half of the road and which again causes traffic congestion, accidents, environmental hazards and even criminal activities.

“Parking related day-to-day issues were on my mind for some time while I was working with Paytm,” recalls Lakhotia. Having faced such parking-related issues, Amit Lakhotia found a business opportunity and launched the App, Park+, in 2019, which provides a suite of solutions around parking and more. With the help of Park+ app, users can discover parking, book their slot as well as other services such as car wash and pay digitally. They also provide RFID based security solutions to apartments and corporate setups.

Early this year, Park+ has raised $11 million in a financing round co-led by venture capital funds Sequoia India and Matrix Partners India. Prominent angel investors, including Deep Kalra, Rajesh Magow, Ashish Hemrajani, Kunal Shah, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal also participated in the round. Park+ is also the first company to collaborate with Aarogya Setu app for crowd management in malls.

The Park+ business model starts with identifying hot spots and taking suppliers- parking operators -onboard in these areas. For a selected site, the company takes the responsibility to build and maintain the infrastructure needed for the business. Infrastructure includes different servers and hardware. Light hardware is used to monitor entry and exit, while complicated hardware is used for barriers, parking sensors and RFID based security solutions. “Deployment of infrastructure is based on the needs, but charges vary accordingly,” adds Lakhotia.

Park+ earns a commission from the parking operators of the parking space and a service charge from that availing of the service.

Lakhotia is confident that his app-based business will boom on the surging numbers of smartphone users and operators. Explaining further, he says, “Till 2015-16, the internet had not reached to the last mile space in any sector. Online search, ordering, payments, tracking and delivery were not as smooth as of today. However, Ola, Uber, Swiggy and other e-commerce portals brought a revolution in the online payment system and have made it very convenient for users and last-mile operators. Online businesses are also taking good efforts on their last mile employees for reading maps and handling deliveries. Till last a few years, parking operators did not have smartphones with internet connectivity, but now they have. Users and operators were ready, so we felt this is the right time to launch the business.”

India had the world’s second-largest internet population of around 483 million users in 2018, and, of these, 390 million users accessed the internet via their mobile phones. As per a report, India will have over 760 million smartphone users in 2021.

Mobile-phone based parking apps have already been running in the developed markets such as the USA and Europe, but challenges for Park+ will be unique and tough considering the rapidly concentrating population, unplanned structures, and scarcity and skyrocketing prices of lands in cities. Expansion of cities in the western world have been well planned, and vehicle parking has been an integral part of the design of the new cities and the development of old cities. With the growing urbanisation, India is likely to have over 500 million people living in cities by 2030.

Considering the challenges for finding and booking parking space in India, the sweet spot for the Park+ is to help users to find and book parking spaces more conveniently and parking operators to utilise parking spaces more optimally.

“Since there is a minimal scope to build new infrastructure to make parking sites, we focus on to make these parking spaces available more efficiently. For instance, on weekdays, parking space is fully occupied in corporate parks, but malls, hotels and shopping complexes are less crowded, so are their parking sites. This scenario is vice versa on weekends. If a corporate park is near to a mall, the former can use the parking site of the latter on weekdays; the same can be done vice versa on weekends. That is how parking space can be used effectively, and operators’ revenue can go up,” explains Lakhotia.

Though as now of Park+ is offering its services in major cities, it sees opportunities in Tier -2 as well. Residents in metro cities are still reluctant to buy a car owing parking and traffic issues and opt for the shared mobility but growing middle-class incomes pushing car sales in Tier-2 cities. “What parking-related issues we are facing in the Tier-1 cities, eventually we will face the same in Tier-2 in future. So, we also see big business opportunities in Tier-2 cities in the country,” predicts Lakhotia.

Park+ will also explore possibilities to tie up with city corporations which operate parking sites in the cities. “We are looking for such tie-ups. It is just a matter of time when we can have to tie up with municipal corporations.”

Apart from the core service, Park+ is also offering services for insurance, pollution control certificate, RTO service, and information on traffic rules and fuel prices. The company now plans to widen its service offering with vehicle services, maintenance, washing and others. “Some of these services will be provided by third parties, while some services we will provide to the customer directly,” adds Lakhotia.

The company will also explore the option to have tie-ups with OEs to provide the Park+ inbuilt services in their vehicles. “We will try to make available our services to OEs as the business scales up.”

Lakhotia has spent more than ten years building significant size internet businesses. He is ex-Paytm, Tokopedia and Makemytrip and played a critical role in scaling them to multi-billion dollar companies. His experience with the internet business is helping him to build his own business. “Paytm is a digital platform which is being used by masses in India. It is being used by auto drivers, tea sellers, literally by everyone. The distribution of Paytm is available everywhere for both users and merchants in both urban and rural areas. When we started the business, we never thought we would go that big. It does not matter how great your product is; it should work on all devices and networks. The product should win the trust of users since you are handling their money. Transparency is must in internet businesses,” says Lakhotia.

Today, the company has around two lakh subscribers, and Lakhotia expects the subscriber number will reach two million by 2021. The company adds 40,000 cars to the network every month, and 300,000 cars have their RFID tags. So far, the company has set up 800 sites in India. “Currently, we have around 18,000 real-time slots available, and overall, we have 60,000 slots.”

Talking on challenges, Lakhotia says Park+ is a pioneer in the business, and the challenges are new and unpredictable. “Since it is a real-time business, the challenge is how to deliver the services in the expected time. Also, this is a low-ticket business; we will have to make sure it will work smoothly.” (MT)

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TIP Group has been named one of the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For in Europe. The list, produced by Great Place to Work, draws on employee feedback gathered through the Trust Index survey, so it mirrors workers’ own experiences on the job rather than external assessments.

This honour represents the newest step in TIP’s broader Great Place to Work journey, which has brought employer recognition across Europe for several years. The company’s workplace culture rests on three core values: team spirit, integrity and reliability and people. These principles guide how colleagues collaborate, serve customers and fuel success across the region.

TIP earned Great Place to Work certification in all nine countries surveyed in 2023 and has since extended it to 11 European nations. TIP France was recognised among France’s Best Workplaces for companies with 250 to 1,000 employees in March 2026, while TIP UK was named a Best Workplace in Manufacturing, Production & Transportation in September 2026. Rooted in employee experience, these honours reflect a culture of collaboration, trust and mutual support. As TIP expands across Europe, it stays committed to investing in its people and fostering an environment where careers grow and success is shared.

Arjen Kraaij, CEO, TIP Group, said, “This recognition reflects our people and the culture they create every day. It is especially meaningful because it is based on the experiences and feedback of our employees. Their teamwork, dedication and willingness to support one another are what make TIP special. I would like to thank all colleagues across Europe for helping build the company we are today.”

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Good Business Lab brought together senior automotive executives, industry actors and shopfloor workers at a leadership conference in New Delhi to discuss strategies for increasing female workforce participation across India's automotive manufacturing sector.

The event followed the organisation's September research report, which revealed that women account for 8.7 percent of the combined original equipment manufacturer and component manufacturing workforce across the country.

The conference addressed findings from a three-year study by Good Business Lab spanning over 55 automotive firms, 400 stakeholders and 1,900 individuals. Discussions focused on practical shopfloor interventions to improve recruitment and retention, including talent supply chains, night-shift operational frameworks, last-mile transportation solutions and childcare infrastructure.

Industry panels examined career progression pathways, performance metrics for middle management retention, and workplace safety conditions required to support long-term employment.

The event featured three panel sessions covering business metrics, worker perspectives, and sector-wide operational scalability. Executives participating in the discussions included Suman Mishra, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Mahindra Last Mile Mobility; Viveka Bhandari, Chief Operating Officer of Padmini VNA Mechatronics; Sunil Arora, Managing Director of Abilities India Pistons & Rings; Satyaprakash Patil, Chief Human Resources Officer of Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India; and Vinkesh Gulati, Chairperson of the Automotive Skills Development Council.

A panel of female shopfloor associates from Abilities India Pistons & Rings, Asahi India Glass, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India and Sansera Engineering detailed their career trajectories and operational experiences in vehicle assembly and component production.

Nirmal Deshpande, Managing Director of Good Business Lab, said, “The evidence increasingly mirrors what we are hearing from industry: women’s participation is no longer just an inclusion imperative, but a business necessity. Several leading firms are already showing what is possible; the challenge now is scale. We brought business leaders, women workers and the wider ecosystem together to chart the path ahead. The opportunity is clear: now we need to turn what works into action across the sector.”

Good Business Lab plans to collaborate with automotive manufacturers, philanthropic organisations and industry bodies to pilot shopfloor solutions and co-design workforce frameworks across the manufacturing sector.

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JSW MG Motor India, one of the leading passenger vehicle manufacturers, has announced the eight winning startups selected for the 6^th edition of the MG Developer Program.

The startup engagement initiative, centred on the theme 'Innovation in Automotive', evaluated over 130 applications before selecting the finalists for pilot deployment consideration.

The selected startups comprise Nayan Technologies, Technod8.AI, LiveNSense, LW3, Smaartbrand by Acquink Solutions, Fitsol, Cautio and Meta Materials Circular Market.

The chosen entities specialise in artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, industrial software, battery supply chain tracking, mobility intelligence, supply chain decarbonisation and automotive circular economy systems.

The winners will collaborate with the vehicle manufacturer and program partners to test and implement pilot projects across industrial operations, manufacturing, customer experience and mobility services.

Anurag Mehrotra, Managing Director, JSW MG Motor India, said, "We are entering an era where the boundaries between mobility, data, and artificial intelligence are rapidly converging. The next wave of transformation in the automotive industry will be driven by innovators who can connect these ecosystems and create solutions with real-world impact. Through the MG Developer Program, we are committed to providing startups with a platform to collaborate, experiment and scale breakthrough ideas. The winning startups of Season 6.0 represent some of the most promising innovations across automotive technology, sustainability, industrial intelligence, and mobility services. We look forward to partnering with them to explore pilot deployments and unlock new possibilities for the future of mobility."

The sixth season was conducted in partnership with DPIIT, Startup India, JSW, NCPI BHIM, Jio, Gulf Oil India, TiE Delhi NCR, iCreate, Allianz Partners India, TERI, BSES Rajdhani Power Limited, LICO Materials and Pulse Energy.

The program saw more than 40 startups shortlisted for presentations, with 18 reaching the final jury stage. Since its launch in 2019, the program has evaluated over 1,680 startup applications covering connected vehicles, electric mobility, artificial intelligence, and manufacturing technologies.

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Cummins India has announced the appointment of Gbile Adewunmi as Managing Director and India Regional Leader, effective 1 November 2026. Adewunmi will assume the position alongside his current role as leader of Industrial Markets within Power Systems, where he will continue to direct business operations for the division.

In his current role as Vice-President, Power Systems Industrial Markets, Adewunmi oversees customer and partner operations across industrial segments, including mining. His work in the division has focused on hybrid-electric retrofit systems, mining technologies, and power solutions aimed at operational efficiency and emissions reduction.

Jenny Bush, President of Power Systems, Cummins, said, “Gbile is a respected global leader with deep experience across Cummins and a strong track record of delivering customer-focused growth and business performance. His enterprise perspective, ability to build high-performing teams and commitment to our customers make him exceptionally well positioned to lead Cummins India Limited and the India region while continuing to advance our Industrial Markets strategy.”

Adewunmi said, “I am honoured to take on this expanded role and to work alongside the talented teams across Cummins India, the India region and Industrial Markets. “India is a critical market for Cummins, and I look forward to partnering with our employees, customers and stakeholders to build on our strong foundation and continue powering a more prosperous world.”

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