Toyota Kirloskar Motor Launches Social Academy of Learning by Toyota to Train and Empower NGO

Toyota Kirloskar Motor, in its sustained outreach to create a better ecosystem in the area of CSR, today announced the launch of the first-of-its-kind ‘Social Academy of Learning (SALT) by Toyota. With this program Toyota aims to further build the capacity of NPOs, ensure quality management, work excellence following the Toyota Way. The first ever five-day residential cohort of the Social Academy of Learning by Toyota will be organized from 2nd -7th February, 2020 at the Toyota plant in Bidadi with the support of KPMG India and Common Purpose in India.

SALT, conceived to develop NPO leaders to become more entrepreneurial, strategic and high-performing in order to create large-scale social change saw an overwhelming response from NPOs working for diverse cause. The pilot program aims to be an opportune platform for senior leaders of NPOs to express their challenges, explore best practices and develop capabilities by leveraging the strengths of sector experts and peers from within the group. The sessions will explore a number of areas such as project planning, tax and regulations, branding and communication, sustainability and monitoring and evaluation which ultimately results in an effective delivery of a project.

Participating NPOs were selected on parameters such as specialization, number of years in service, fund flow and funding pattern, complete documentation for incorporation.  At the end of the training, NPOs will benefit from a result and process oriented session along with a thorough assessment report that allows them to evaluate themselves and their organization, thereby helping them position themselves in the market.

Commenting on the launch of this distinctive learning program, Mr. Vikram Gulati, Senior Vice President, External Affairs, Corporate Social Responsibility & Public Relations, Toyota Kirloskar Motor said, "At Toyota Kirloskar Motor, social contribution activities are vital part of our business DNA. Since 2000, we have been focusing on the holistic development of the community partnering with various NGO partners to ensure large scale impact at grass root level.  NPO’s have played a vital role in educating community and making the community responsible for maintenance of facilities in our CSR interventions.   It gives us a pleasure in introducing this learning and training program for NPO’s who have participated from across India. “Social Academy of Learning by Toyota” is a

unique approach aimed at arming NPOs with requisite professional skills to effectively develop and manage their organisation, which in turn will result in better delivery of the intended benefits to the society. This is our attempt to reach out to relevant organization who make a significant impact. Rather than focusing on a single project that may have minimal impact, we aim to improve the quality of delivery of a large number of NPOs which we hope will make a difference to a wider group.”

Pre and post assessment of the organization will also be conducted. The gap analysis report would be submitted to these organizations to improve the processes at their end. The respective organization will submit the implementation report which will be evaluated and recognized as per their performance

India’s rapid progress and emergence of manufacturing sector has turned tables and caused focus to shift to compliance of CSR regulations and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of 2030, thereby encouraging patterns of social sector funding. Sensing this shift, Toyota conceptualized SALT to develop conscious and effective leaders to deliver largescale social change.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor has had an illustrious journey of two decades in India and throughout this journey, it has taken various CSR initiatives to bring in a positive change in the society, supporting and enriching them through sustainable solutions. The company constantly working towards harmonious, scalable and sustainable development of society emphasizing on Education, Health & Hygiene, Road Safety, Environment and Skill Developments through various CSR initiatives. The effectiveness of such CSR should reflect to bring in a big difference in one’s life, nurturing the well-being.

CSR has been the integral part of Toyota since its inception, from 2001 onwards. TKM was recently awarded 10th position in CSR & Sustainability. According to the report ‘Responsible Business Rankings’ this recognition commemorates Toyota’s commendable efforts under Corporate Social Responsibility in creating a socially responsible and sustainable society through its Sanitation projects.

Further, TKM remains committed to responsibly drive its business & social commitments with an aim to live in harmony with nature and enrich many more lives, bringing joy to the community with diverse needs, in a sustainable manner.

Researcher from Queen’s University Belfast Develops Algorithm to Make Artificial Intelligence Fairer

Dr Deepak Padmanabhan, a researcher from Queen’s University Belfast has developed an innovative new algorithm that will help make artificial intelligence (AI) fairer and less biased when processing data. Dr Padmanabhan has been leading an international project, working with experts at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (Savitha Abraham and Sowmya Sundaram), to tackle the discrimination problem within clustering algorithms.

Companies often use AI technologies to sift through huge amounts of data in situations such as an oversubscribed job vacancy or in policing when there is a large volume of CCTV data linked to a crime. AI sorts through the data, grouping it to form a manageable number of clusters, which are groups of data with common characteristics. It is then much easier for an organisation to analyse manually and either shortlist or reject the entire group. However, while AI can save on time, the process is often biased in terms of race, gender, age, religion and country of origin.

A researcher in the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology at Queen’s, Dr Padmanabhan explains: “AI techniques for data processing, known as clustering algorithms, are often criticised as being biased in terms of ‘sensitive attributes’ such as race, gender, age, religion and country of origin. It is important that AI techniques be fair while aiding shortlisting decisions, to ensure that they are not discriminatory on such attributes.”

It has been reported that white-sounding names received 50 per cent more call-backs than those with black-sounding names. Studies also suggest that call-back rates tend to fall substantially for workers in their 40s and beyond. Another discriminatory trend is the ‘motherhood penalty’, where working mothers are disadvantaged in the job market while working fathers do better, in what is known as the ‘fatherhood bonus’.

Dr Padmanabhan says: “When a company is faced with a process that involves lots of data, it is impossible to manually sift through this. Clustering is a common process to use in processes such as recruitment where there are thousands of applications submitted. While this may cut back on time in terms of sifting through large numbers of applications, there is a big catch. It is often observed that this clustering process exacerbates workplace discrimination by producing clusters that are highly skewed.”

Over the last few years ‘fair clustering’ techniques have been developed and these prevent bias in a single chosen attribute, such as gender. However, Dr Padmanabhan has now created a method that, for the first time, can achieve fairness in many attributes. Dr Padmanabhan comments: “Our fair clustering algorithm, called FairKM, can be invoked with any number of specified sensitive attributes, leading to a much fairer process. “In a way, FairKM takes a significant step towards algorithms assuming the role of ensuring fairness in shortlisting, especially in terms of human resources. With a fairer process in place, the selection committees can focus on other core job-related criteria.

“FairKM can be applied across a number of data scenarios where AI is being used to aid decision making, such as pro-active policing for crime prevention and detection of suspicious activities. This, we believe, marks a significant step forward towards building fair machine learning algorithms that can deal with the demands of our modern democratic society.”

Savitha Abraham, researcher at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, commented: “Fairness in AI techniques is of significance in developing countries such as India. These countries experience drastic social and economic disparities and these are reflected in the data.

“Employing AI techniques directly on raw data results in biased insights, which influence public policy and this could amplify existing disparities. The uptake of fairer AI methods is critical, especially in the public sector, when it comes to such scenarios.”

The research, which was conducted at Queen’s University’s Computer Science building, will be presented in Copenhagen in April 2020 at the EDBT 2020 conference, which is renowned for data science research.

Haptik Develops Virtual Assistant for Kotak Life: KAYA for 24X7 Assistance, Easy Instant Solutions

Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company (Kotak Life) has announced the launch of its voice assistant KAYA – AI-driven conversational assistance to get instant solutions. Kotak Life At Your Assistance (KAYA) has been developed by Kotak Life and Haptik – one of the world’s largest conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform developers. KAYA provides 24X7 assistance and easy instant solutions to consumers thereby enhancing customer experience by resolving queries about premium payment, policy renewals, policy statements, policy information and bonus / fund value.
Presently, Kotak Life’s customer service department handles a huge number of customer queries on a day-to-day basis. KAYA’s integration into customer service department significantly reduces human dependency and call waiting time, and importantly, ensures queries do not go unattended.

Kirti Patil, Chief Technology Officer, Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Co. Ltd. said, “KAYA is a major milestone in Kotak Life’s digitalization journey. KAYA has reduced the wait time for our customers by as much as four times, and has reduced human dependence to resolve a large number of routine queries. With its self-learning architecture, KAYA can connect to various sections of the support team for a smooth customer experience.”

KAYA, with a comprehensive understanding of the complex processes, is self-learning and is also equipped with advanced agent chat solution, where complex queries outside its scope are seamlessly transferred to Kotak Life’s customer support teams. Quite a few processes were re-imagined and re-designed to provide simplicity for customers.

Kartik Poddar, Business Head, Haptik said, “Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) is really transforming the customer support function by providing real time, accurate and emphatic resolution at scale. We are delighted by KAYA’s immediate impact as she resolves large number of queries while offering consistent experience to each caller. Together, we will keep evolving the virtual assistant KAYA as she becomes the epicenter of customer engagement at Kotak Life.”

Users can start conversations with KAYA on Kotak Life’s website.

Singapore Tourism Board Partners with Zomato to Bring the Singapore Food Experience to Bangalore

The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has partnered with Zomato for Zomaland Season 2, a multicity food and entertainment carnival across ten cities in two formats – Zomaland in Pune, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai; and Zomaland Picnics in Jaipur, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Chennai and Ahmedabad. Please refer to Annex A for details on the upcoming Zomaland and Zomaland Picnics.

This association is an integral part of STB’s efforts to engage with foodies in India through a designated “Singapore Experience Zone” at Zomaland by the Singapore Tourism Board.

Over the weekend, the Singapore Experience Zone at Zomaland Bangalore saw attendees participating in the fun and interactive games, indulge inauthentic Singapore cuisine like Kaya toast, Ice Milo, Kueh Pie Tee and other popular Singaporean dishes like Chicken Satay, Nasi Goreng (Fried Rice) from restaurant chain, Nasi & Mee and pose for photographs against iconic structures of attractions in Singapore like Gardens By The Bay, Sentosa, Wildlife Reserves Singapore and Jewel Changi Airport. Attendees for the event also interacted with one of the biggest draws for the zone - the Singapore’s Merlion mascot ‘Merli’.

Speaking about this association with Zomato, GB Srithar, Regional Director – India, Middle East & South Asia (IMESA), Singapore Tourism Board said, “We are happy to partner with Zomato, for the very first time, to engage with the Indian audiences on a favourite topic that both Indians and Singaporeans are passionate about – food. As part of our continuing efforts to engage the Indian consumers in innovative ways, we look forward to participating in this important consumer outreach initiative across ten cities. In line with our brand Passion Made Possible, we will highlight culinary offerings, appealing to the Foodie passion tribe. We look forward to engaging families and young Indians through this lifestyle, events, entertainment and food event series.”

Speaking about STB’s partnership with Zomaland, Ms. Lim Si Ting, Area Director, India and South Asia said, “We are happy to partner with Zomato for the first time, and believe Zomaland brings us closer to the Indian audiences through a common love and passion for food. By highlighting authentic Singaporean cuisine and the varied dining options, we hope to entice more Foodies in India to visit Singapore for even more culinary delights. We look forward to sharing more of such immersive experiences at Zomaland Bangalore and the other upcoming Zomaland events.”

The STB has, in recent months rolled out a series of activities to engage the Foodies, including a 3-part video series titled #CheatWeek in Singapore  with popular Indian celebrity chef Saransh Goila highlighting the culinary offers in Singapore.

Paytm Launches All-in-One Android POS for Indian Small Businesses and Merchant Partners

Highlights

* Paytm All-in-One Android POS accepts payment through all methods – Cards, Paytm Wallet, All UPI apps, and even cash
* It has All-in-One QR code that supports all contact and contactless payments
* The device comes with integrated billing software and customized solutions for different industry sectors ranging from ticketing, catering to parking among others
* The handheld compact device features an in-built printer, a scanner and generates bills

India's largest payments platform Paytm (owned by One97 Communications Limited) today announced the launch of All-in-One Android POS device for merchant partners across the country. This device helps merchants to accept payments through Paytm Wallet, all UPI based apps, Debit & Credit Cards and most importantly - Cash. Besides accepting payments, merchants will also be able to generate GST compliant bills and manage all transactions and settlements through their 'Paytm for Business' app at one go.

Paytm All-in-One Android POS is a fully-loaded payment acceptance device with many industry-first features & services. The android based device comes with a full-size display and is pre-bundled with cloud-based software for billing, payments, and customer management. The device can be used to accept payments, print bills and scan items for faster checkout at the counter. The device works on Wi-Fi and also comes with a pre-installed sim card ensuring round the clock connectivity with all of Paytm's bouquet of services.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder & CEO of Paytm said, "Over the past 18 months, we have invested a lot of time in understanding the needs of small businesses around digital payments. Today, we are launching this incredible Paytm All-in-One POS device with a super sleek android form factor with cloud services. This device offers a comprehensive business tool right on the desk of millions of small businesses. We strongly believe that offerings like these will help expand the market and drive further acceptance of digital payments, and at the same time enable our merchant partners to operate their business more efficiently."

Nandan Nilekani, Co-founder and Chairman, Infosys and founding Chairman UIDAI said, "What Paytm is doing is exactly what we envisioned which is democratizing payments. And nobody has done a better job than them. Paytm is a pioneer and I am grateful for their contribution. I think Paytm All-in-One Android POS is a very important device. We do have multiple options and this device brings all together. If small merchants across the country can accept digital payments, that's should be the future. I am glad that Paytm is doing this."

Paytm All-in-One Android POS also supports many industry-specific solutions that will help SMEs to automate their business processes and be more efficient. E.g. Its ‘Restaurant Management’ can accept orders of individual tables and directly relay them to the kitchen. The machine is equipped to generate and maintain separate bills for every table in the outlet. Similarly, it is bundled with TicketNew and Insider.in, two of the biggest ticketing and events platforms in the country. Event organizers, as well as movie halls, can directly issue tickets with the All-in-POS android machine and accept payments. Event organizers can even let go of the hassle of creating box-offices during open-air concerts and can sell tickets using this handheld device. The company aims to include support for many more industries going forward, all of which could be updated and made available automatically in the future without change of device.

Paytm has done a series of successful pilots in different spaces including bus ticketing service, parking management, BFSI, logistics, and home delivery. One of Paytm's most valuable partner - IRCTC is using the Paytm All-in-One Android POS machines to bill food items sold inside trains. It helps in keeping track of sales and is turning out to be a strong tool for inventory management.

Paytm Launches All-in-One Payment Gateway and Business Solutions for Indian SMEs

Highlights

* Introduces 'All-in-One PG' to collect digital payments through multiple methods quickly and seamlessly
* 'Paytm Business Payments' now enables automated vendor payments, employee salaries, and customer refunds among others
* Technology savvy-startups and developers can now readily integrate these comprehensive services using PG APIs

India's largest payments gateway provider Paytm (owned by One97 Communications Limited) today announced the launch of two innovative business solutions for SMEs that will help them streamline & digitize their business processes. The company has introduced 'All-in-One PG' and 'Paytm Business Solutions' that increases the overall efficiency of both accepting payments and making payments. Together, these two solutions complement the newly launched 'All-in-One POS' device that is set to revolutionize the retail industry in India.

Paytm's All-in-One PG empowers SMEs to collect digital payments across all payment methods without the need of any website or app. Merchants with an annual turnover of over Rs 50 crore stands to gain the most from this service, as they are required to comply with recent Government notification to provide the facilities for accepting payment through digital modes. SMEs can easily create and share payments links & invoices without investing time & resources to build their own platform. In addition, they have a choice of building their own web storefront using Paytm and further expand their business by acquiring new & digital-savvy customers.

Further, All-in-One PG enables developers and start-ups to collect user payments across all payment methods on their apps in a seamless in-app manner without any redirections to payment gateway providers thus avoiding possible dropouts and hence higher success rates. Paytm network today has over 200mn+ unique saved cards and bank accounts repository; this feature enables partner apps the ability to drive faster conversions and reduce transaction times while making payments on All-in-One PG.

Paytm Business Payments is a breakthrough in SME payments that enables both large and small businesses to track and pay all their payments from one place. Businesses can use APIs or Paytm for Business Dashboard to make bulk payments to Bank Accounts, UPI addresses, and Paytm Wallets instantly. With this, the company is aiming to simplify and digitize payments for both B2B and B2C players who make regular payments to a large number of vendors, salaries and food allowance to employees, rewards or instant refunds to their customers and even other expenses like utility bills for multiple offices.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder & CEO of Paytm said, "Government initiatives like Zero MDR and encouraging digital acceptance for businesses have opened up new opportunities for digital payments in India. Today, we are announcing our All-in-One PG and Business Payment solutions for SMEs. These services will further deepen the importance of digital payments in their business and bring to them the advantages of the digital economy.”

Paytm Payment Gateway is a leader in India with over 50% market share. It is the preferred service provider for India’s leading digital platforms including IRCTC, Uber, Zomato, OYO, Swiggy, UrbanClap, PVR, Club Factory, Dominos, Jio, and Idea, among others.

At Least Two Top Global Retailers Will Establish Robot Resource Organizations to Manage Nonhuman Workers By 2025

Gartner, Inc. predicts that by 2025, at least two of the top 10 global retailers will establish robot resource organizations to manage nonhuman workers.

“The retail industry continues to transform through a period of unprecedented change, with customer experience as the new currency,” said Kelsie Marian, senior research director at Gartner. “The adoption of new digital technologies and the ever-changing expectations of customers continues to challenge traditional retailers, forcing them to investigate new-human hybrid operational models, including artificial intelligence (AI), automation and robotics.”

Gartner research shows that 77% of retailers plan to deploy AI by 2021, with the deployment of robotics for warehouse picking as the No. 1 use case. Warehouse picking involves smart robots working independently or alongside humans. In the future, retailers will establish units within the organization for procuring, maintaining, training, taxing, decommissioning and proper disposal of robot resources. In addition, they will create the governance required to ensure that people and robots can effectively collaborate.

Many retail workers want to use AI specifically as an on-demand or predictive assistant, meaning the robot will need to work alongside humans. “This means the robot will have to “mesh” with the human team — essentially meaning that both sides will need to learn how to “collaborate” to operate effectively together,” said Ms. Marian.

An example is an autonomous robotic kitchen assistant that learns an operator’s specific recipes and prepares them according to the wishes of the operator. The robot can work in harmony with the operators who, in turn, are having to adapt to changing consumer tastes.

Choosing the right candidate — human and machine — for the job is critical for success. A combined effort from HR, IT and the line-of-business hiring managers will be required to identify the skills needed to ensure the pair work together effectively. “Retail CIOs must provide ongoing maintenance and monitoring performance for effectiveness. If not, the team may be counterproductive and lead to a bad customer experience,” said Ms. Marian.

The introduction of AI and robotics will likely cause fear and anxiety among the workforce — particularly among part-time workers. It will be vital for retail CIOs to work with HR and business leaders to address and manage employees’ skills and concerns; and change their mindset around the development of robot resource units.

Gartner clients can learn more in the report “Predicts 2020: Consumers Determine Retail Success Well Before the Sale.”

Learn more about Gartner’s 2020 Predictions in the Special Report “Predicts 2020: Barriers Fall as Technology Adoption Grows.”

Gartner Customer Experience & Technologies Summits

Customer experience trends will be further discussed at the Gartner Customer Experience & Technologies Summits 2020 taking place February 13-14 in Tokyo, June 8-9 in London and June 16-17 in Sydney. Follow news and updates from the conferences on Twitter at #GartnerCX.

About Gartner

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