Despite BJP’s Bar; Wal-Mart India To Add 50 Outlets

Wal-Mart Stores Inc on Tuesday announced plans to open 50 more wholesale outlets in India and start online operations to sell to small shopkeepers, several months after it decided against opening its own retail stores there.

The world's largest retailer said it would open the stores over four to five years.

The company already has 20 Indian wholesale outlets. They sell goods to small shopkeepers, who dominate the nation's $500 billion retail market, rather than directly to consumers. Wal-Mart has no retail stores in India.

Wal-Mart's growth in India has been stunted by an internal bribery probe, uncertainty over regulations on foreign investment in the country, and in October, the severing of a partnership with New Delhi-based Bharti Enterprises aimed at opening retail stores.

Full foreign ownership of wholesale, or "cash-and-carry", stores is allowed in India and has not generated any political opposition. Wal-Mart has been operating under the wholesale format in India since 2006.

Globally, Wal-Mart operates 359 wholesale stores, compared with 5,633 retail outlets, according to its most recent annual report.

In 2013, Wal-Mart did not open a single wholesale outlet in India despite plans to open eight during the year.

"We are evaluating and reinforcing procedures and programs relating to all compliance areas, including licensing and permits, food safety, and responsible sourcing, among others," Scott Price, Wal-Mart's Asia chief executive, said in a statement announcing the rollout.

A company executive in India said the first new outlets among the 50 would open soon in western and southern India, including the states of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

The executive, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said Wal-Mart would start the online business on a wholesale basis and sell goods to traders on a "very small" scale.

India does not allow foreign retailers to sell goods online directly to consumers.

Wal-Mart named a new India head in December and said then that its focus in the country would be on opening wholesale stores and building its supply chain.

The company's desire to enter India with supermarkets has been met with fierce opposition from small shopkeepers and political parties.

Sources at Wal-Mart have said they are waiting until after national elections in May before applying to operate retail stores in India in case a new government overturns a rule allowing direct investment in supermarkets.

On Monday, the political party expected to lead India's next government said it would bar foreign supermarkets.

* Source: Agencies

Tweet To Remember Encourages Indian Users To Vote

Timesofindia.com, India's global digital news destination, and Twitter, world's leading microblogging social network, have joined hands to delight users with a unique integration named "Tweet to remember". This joint social initiative will encourage users to exercise their core right as a citizen of world's largest democracy, India: to remember to vote.

The integration empowers the voters, by reminding them on the day it matters most. When a user tweets "@timesofindia [city name]" (like "@timesofindia Delhi", they will be guided through a process that easily enables them to add the date for their vote to their calendar on their phone or desktop.

In addition, timesofIndia.com has developed a Social News Hub, in partnership with Twitter & Frrole. It leverages trend analysis and sentiment analysis via algorithmically filtered tweets to display the latest trends and sentiments around candidates and parties, according to users, with real-time data and millions of data points. The data is beautifully presented with dynamic visualizations, sorted by day or week. You can check this out on the 2014 Lok Sabha election special page of TOI Online. The platform offers a new lens to understand the Lok Sabha elections, bringing community feedback as a source of news.

Speaking on these partnerships, Satyan Gajwani, CEO, Times Internet, said, "The social conversation is a new component in today's news cycle. As a news outlet, timesofindia.com is always looking for ways to bring new information and new value to its users. With Social Hub, we're bringing a new perspective that hasn't been readily visible before, and with Tweet To Remember, we hope to better enable the thriving democracy that powers India."

Rishi Jaitly, India Market Director, Twitter, commenting on the initiative said, "Twitter is the world's leading mobile, real-time information network where users follow, share and experience content that is live, public and conversational. During this election season, the Twitter platform has become a vital source of daily information, conversation and communication for citizens and political leaders alike. We applaud Times Internet for innovating on our platform with "Tweet to Remember" and ensuring its audience can use Twitter to add its polling date and additional details to their calendars."

* Source: Agencies

Fujitsu New Technique Enables 10X Data Transfers

Fujitsu has developed a new technology that can boost data transfer speeds by as much as 10 times, which could affect everything from the cloud to mobile applications.

The Japanese firm discovered a way of using data deduplication and compression to reduce the volume of data sent, allowing it to arrive much faster than before.

The reduced volume is accomplished by prioritising the saving of data that appears frequently on a network, which prevents unnecessary duplicate data on a mobile device's storage by as much as 80 per cent.

This is coupled with a new lightweight data compression technology, which searches for repeating patterns for faster compression of files.

Automated process

Because deduplication and compression are only useful for large volumes of data, the Fujitsu technology will analyse the data size, available network bandwidth, and CPU power to decide to go ahead with the technique.

This automates the process and prevents slower data transfers of small data volumes that are better off sent as is.

The company will showcase the technology at the Fujitsu Forum 2014 from May 15-16 in Tokyo. It plans to commercialise the technology during its fiscal 2014.

Facebook Now Eyes One Billion Users In India

Facebook, the world's largest social media company, has crossed 100 million active users in India — the second country, after the United States, in which it has done so. "We crossed the landmark on March 31," Javier Olivan, vice-president, growth & analytics, Facebook, told an leading business daily in India on a video call from its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on April 7. 

The ascent of Facebook in India has been speedy and has been powered by the mobile phone. When the American company set up its first India office in 2010, in Hyderabad, it had 8 million users in the country. Further, according to Facebook, 84 million of its 100 million users in India access the social networking site from their mobile devices. 

Facebook, which was set up in 2004, had 1.23 billion users across the world, as of December 31, 2013. "If Facebook continues its current growth trajectory, we can see it as a core communications tool for the world," says Neha Dharia, analyst with UK-based research firm Ovum. "This besides being a media platform where users can share and engage in a range of media such as videos, pictures and games. We expect to see a stronger move around storage (cloud-based) and utility services from Facebook." 

For Facebook, the US remains its biggest market, with about 183 million users, though perhaps not for long, given the inflexion point India is at with regards to Internet usage, especially on the mobile. According to Olivan, who is one of the three people in the company who report directly to founder Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook is now "looking forward" to 1 billion users in India, a numerical figure it intends to chase with specific initiatives aimed at increasing connectivity, affordability and relevance. "That (1 billion) is a different focus and challenge," he says. 

Olivan says much of the challenge of going from 1 million to 10 million in India was about optimising the product for users. For example, removing the condition that a user needed to have an email ID of an American college to access Facebook. From 10 million to 100 million, he adds, it was about improving experience on low-end devices and offering it in languages other than English. "For 1 billion, we need easy connectivity, the biggest challenge of our generation," he says. 

One of the initiatives it is focused on to widen connectivity is internet.org, a partnership it has with six mobile technology companies to provide affordable Internet access to the unconnected. It is also working with telecom companies to increase data adoption among users in emerging markets like India. On this trajectory, it's only a matter of time before the Facebook user base in India crosses that of the US.

InTech50: Perpetuuiti Among 50 Most Innovative Firms

Perpetuuiti Technosoft Services, a global software product company in business continuity, disaster recovery and process automation space, announced today that its ‘Continuity Patrol product has been shortlisted by InTech50, a joint initiative by iSPIRT and Terrene Global Leadership Network, providing platform to Indian software product companies to showcase their products to the global audiences, among the 50 most promising software product companies in India for the year 2014.

There were more than 200 nominations and each nomination was reviewed and judged from a panel of over eight Global CIOs and Venture Capitalists. The shortlisted companies will receive advice, on-going mentoring, product marketing support, and funding to scale their offering to the global markets. The event will be held on April 9 and 10, 2014, in Bangalore.

Speaking on the occasion, Rohil Sharma, Co-Founder and CEO, Perpetuuiti Technosoft, said, “We are glad to be shortlisted among the 50 most promising software product companies in India. The recognition is an embodiment of Perpetuuiti’s perpetual endevour to innovate and excel in the space of business continuity and disaster recovery.”

Sharad Sharma, Co-Host, InTech50, Governing Council Member & Co-Founder, iSPIRT Foundation, said, “InTech50 Innovators stand out for having embraced scale, security, social, smart, and seamless in their product offerings. They have the potential to be effective partners to CIOs for driving the innovation agenda within the enterprise.”

The shortlisted 50 companies will be given a chance to present a 10-minute pitch to the global CIOs, and a chance to discuss their ideas further with companies interested in their products. Apart from being a platform to showcase their innovative products, it will also be an opportunity for entrepreneurs to network with big names in business, which might prove to be a stepping stone for mergers and acquisitions for them in the future.

ITC Infotech Offers IMS To FRHI Hotels & Resorts

ITC Infotech, a leading global IT services and solutions company, and a fully owned subsidiary of ITC Ltd., announced that the company has successfully deployed Helpdesk and Infrastructure Management services (IMS) at FRHI Hotels & Resorts (FRHI), a luxury hotel management company headquartered in Toronto, Canada. The company operates three distinct brands: Raffles Hotels & Resorts, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, and Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts, which together provide a distinctive portfolio of luxury and upper upscale hotels.

Says Vineet Gupta, Executive Vice President & CIO, FRHI Hotels & Resorts, “With a significant footprint globally, we required a highly technical and experienced partner to support our IT infrastructure and make our helpdesk processes more streamlined and efficient. ITC Infotech ensures faster turnaround for issues that are reported by end users. Technical challenges are well supported by ITC Infotech, enabling our team to focus solely on strategic business initiatives. We are pleased to be associated with ITC Infotech whose top management focus is helping the company grow.”

ITC Infotech, with its proven capabilities in technical helpdesk management and extensive experience in service management and monitoring solution implementations offers a 24x7 Internal Help Desk support, Guest Help Desk support and Monitoring Services for FRHI from a dedicated offshore delivery centre. ITC Infotech’s rich experience in the hospitality industry, and their capability to provide multilingual support in languages such as English, French, Mandarin and Arabic  offer unmatched value for FRHI.

Commenting on the deployment, L N Balaji, President - North American Operations, ITC Infotech said, “We are happy to have partnered with one of the most prestigious hotel groups worldwide. Handling the helpdesk operations and monitoring infrastructure of a global hotel company that operates more than 105 properties, with over 40,000 users, is challenging and complex. Our deep understanding of the hospitality domain and proven capability in infrastructure management services makes us one of the leaders in this space. We are confident that FRHI Hotels & Resorts will benefit from this partnership and be able to realize significant value.”

ITC Infotech is a niche player in the workspace transformation domain and has been helping global enterprises to blueprint their infrastructure roadmap while evaluating and adopting right fit technologies. The company designs, builds and manages scalable infrastructures and ensures 24X7 availability of all business applications. ITC Infotech’s services have delivered consistent total cost of ownership (TCO) reduction for Fortune class customers, through multiple delivery models and service-level agreement (SLA)-based services which guarantee the best solution for customers.

Jay Bhow Joins NetApp India As VP Engineering

NetApp has announced the appointment of Jay Bhow as vice president of Engineering, based in Bangalore. In this role, Jay will be responsible for NetApp’s global Quality Engineering function for the industry-leading, world-class Data ONTAP storage operating system.

With over 25 years of industry experience, Jay joins NetApp from Oracle India, where he was vice president of the Retail Global Business Unit. Although a significant part of his career has been spent in the United States, Jay has led multicultural teams across multiple countries. After working in start-ups including Retek and Inteka and in established corporate entity Oracle, Jay has a rounded view of how a business operates globally

Commenting on Jay’s appointment, Deepak Visweswaraiah, MD, NetApp India R&D, said, “We are delighted to have Jay join the NetApp family. At NetApp, we have repeatedly set industry standards with game-changing innovation that can transform businesses. India plays a pivotal role in our global product innovation focus and is one of our fastest-growing markets. Jay brings with him rich experience in product development, sustained engineering, and product quality engineering. This experience will certainly strengthen our commitment to deliver cutting-edge technology to enable customer success. NetApp continues to add key global roles based in India.”

Rich Sanzi, VP of Engineering for Data ONTAP, said, “I am very pleased to have Jay own the quality mantle on the team. Given his experience in product quality engineering I am confident that Jay will build on NetApp’s tradition of delivering high-value innovations for our customers. We are thrilled to have him on the team, and look forward to his contributions to customer success.”

Jay, whose work has taken place in fast-paced environments with a strong focus on building excellence in both start-ups and large organizations, said, “Excellence is what I strive for, and I believe it is the key differentiator that enables us to deliver world-class products to our customers.”

Acknowledging the fact that the culture and values of a company play a critical role in motivating employees to excel and explore their potential, Jay added, “NetApp’s culture of ‘one team’ cross-functional collaboration, combined with a rich technology focus, puts NetApp in a position of strength. We have an opportunity to expand on the leadership position of Data ONTAP.”

The commitment to outperform, outexecute, and continually push boundaries to explore new opportunities is what keeps the spirit of innovation alive at NetApp.

Jay holds a B.E. degree in computer engineering from the University of South Florida.