SAP Empowers Partners to Strengthen Indian Ecosystem

Acknowledging the resounding success and power of a vibrant ecosystem SAP AG today reinforced its strategy of accelerating the Indian ecosystem by announcing an integrated approach to strengthen its newly launched OEM and ISV programs and encouraging partners to leverage the Managed Cloud as a Service (MCaaS) model to provide enhanced value to businesses. The announcement was made at SAP India Partner Summit 2014, being held in Mumbai, India on May 28-29.  

SAP has ambitious goals for 2015 – to double the size of our addressable market, achieve revenue of euro 20 billion and reach 1 billion people – goals which can only be reached as an open innovator in collaboration with our rich partner ecosystem.  With more than 420 partners today in India, SAP provides both local and worldwide support for all SAP markets and solutions to help fuel innovation and provide choice for customers of all sizes. By 2015, at least 40 percent of SAP’s software revenue will come from partners.

“Speed-to-market is the winning edge in today’s highly networked economy, and that’s why our partners are adopting SAP technologies for use in their solutions. They want to expedite development and create innovative offerings without having to invest more in R&D. When they turn to SAP business innovation platforms they accelerate their development, they help grow the ecosystem, which in turn fuels more innovation.” said Anthony McMahon, Senior Vice President, Global Partner Operations, SAP Asia Pacific Japan.

Developed to support partners with latest innovations, often tailored to a specific industry or use case by the ecosystem, SAP’s new approach aims to lead to a future of personalized products and services. Some of the key highlights announced at the Partner Summit include:  *  Strategic Roadmap for strengthening Partner Programs: So far, SAP has supplied only some of its products, such as Sybase DB and BusinessObjects, to its OEM and ISV partners, but it will now begin providing additional offering such as enterprise applications, mobility, SAP HANA and cloud solutions, to its partners. This means that OEM and ISV partners can provide offerings combining their industry-specific products with SAP solutions.

* OEM Program: Going forward, partners can embed SAP’s world-class solutions and platforms directly into their own applications – for greater market potential – by becoming an SAP OEM Partner. This will enable them to build more robust, more reliable products for less – and give customers the best of both worlds: unparalleled SAP functionality backed by a deep industry knowledge and expertise. SAP is cooperating with 2,000 companies around the world based on OEM partnerships.

* In India, Rolta- a leading provider of innovative IT solutions, leverages SAP’s big data, mobility and cloud technologies for managing its OneView Enterprise Suite and recently won the SAP Pinnacle Award for ‘OEM of the Year’.

* iCreate, a Banking Decision Sciences pioneer, delivers enhanced enterprise information management capability to the global banking sector in collaboration with SAP. iCreate has integrated its banking solution with BI solutions with SAP. This partnership is aligned with a shared vision between iCreate and SAP to help banks run their businesses faster and better with informed decisions. 

* Broader ISV Program: SAP also extended its commitment to a broad-based program for ISV’s in this market called “PartnerEdge for Application Development”.  Through this program, ISV’s of all sizes can develop, embed or migrate their products to SAP platform, currently consisting of 6 innovation packs ranging from Analytics, In-Memory computing, Mobile development platform and Database. With this exhaustive portfolio, SAP is ideally positioned to co-innovate with ISV’s to help take their products to the next level and exploit market opportunities today and in the future. India is a strategic market unit for SAP’s ISV business and SAP aims to grow its ISV engagement three-fold in the current year.

* Some of the key partners who have enrolled for this program are: TAKE Solutions, Arteria Technologies, Vantage Agora Inc, Defiance Technologies.

* Betting Big on MCaaS: Partners are increasingly embracing SAP’s MCaaS deployment model to reach out to a broader customer base and penetrate segments for whom on-premise deployments are either unmanageable or unaffordable. MCaaS reduces total IT costs by 30% compared to an on-premise deployment. SAP continues to encourage its partners to leverage this innovative program to cater to unique needs and growth ambitions of customers in India. 

* Partners like NTT Data Solutions is taking SAP HCM solutions to a large number of customers by leveraging their domain expertise in the HCM area and the simplicity of the managed cloud offering.

* Similarly, IT Champs, a premier consulting house that offers ERP in Cloud through MCaaS for customers based in upcountry locations in Karnataka and rest of South India.

* Compuage Infocom Ltd., leading IT Distribution Company based in Bangalore has partnered with SAP to offer SAP Business One offering to its target customers through managed cloud.

Additionally, reinforcing its commitment to building and expanding a qualified ecosystem, SAP India today felicitated 14 winners with the SAP Partner Awards 2014. The award recognized the best partners in India for having supported high business value for enterprises of all sizes and in every major vertical segment.

App Gives Android Users New Shopping Convenience

Myntra.com, a leading fashion e-tailer today announced the launch of its mobile shopping application for Android phones. The design and user interface of the app have been optimized for all Android devices and is intended to serve as an alternate vista to the large number of shoppers that log on to Myntra.com on the move. With high quality fashionable imagery, simplistic and clutter free layout, the app is designed to make browsing convenient as shoppers can maneuver through the 60,000+ products with ease.

India is currently the world’s fastest growing smartphone market fueled by the dominance of sub Rs 15,000 smartphones. The year 2013 saw a Y-o-Y growth of 172.2% with over 41 million units shipped across the country. According to IAMAI, India will have 185 million mobile internet users by June 2014.

Speaking on the launch, Shamik Sharma, Chief Product and Technology Officer, Myntra, said “We have seen an incredible amount of activity on the m-commerce front. Several studies conducted by us project that smartphones will be the preferred mode of shopping online in the next 12 – 18 months. Already, close to 30% of our business is driven by m-commerce and with the launch of our mobile app, we expect this number to grow to 50% by end of this fiscal (March 2015).”

To assist quick browsing through the vast collection is the user friendly and powerful ‘filter’ option. The elaborate filter not only sorts through common parameters like size, brand, shades, and price, but is also equipped to sort through nuanced requirements like waist rise, distressing, material treatments etc.

Shoppers have the option to share their shortlisted products with their family and friends via sms, email and social media channels. After finalizing one’s purchases, the checkout process is easy to follow with various payment options such as Cash on Delivery, Credit Card, Debit Card and Net Banking.

Blue Star & Grasp Tech Broadens Partnership

Blue Star Infotech, the global software services and solutions provider today announced the broadening of its strategic partnership with Grasp Technologies Inc., a leading provider of custom reporting, data management, and data consolidation solutions. Through this expansion, both organizations will continue to build a 360 degree relationship that will include joint product development, service delivery, go to market and customer engagement.

Blue Star Infotech will offer solutions based on Grasp’s platform and will bolster its implementation services / solutions delivery. Furthermore, a joint go-to-market strategy will complement both Blue Star Infotech and Graph’s plan to cross leverage mutual synergies and address business reporting problems for their customers worldwide.

After Blue Star Infotech’s strategic investment in Activecubes India Pvt. Ltd., a leading provider of Business Intelligence and Analytics Solutions in the last fiscal year, the partnership with Grasp will further enhance its capacity in the analytics sector with diverse world class solutions. Commenting on the occasion, Sanjeev Sethi, President, Blue Star Infotech (America), Inc. said, “We see this association as an opportunity to utilize Grasp’s expertise to expand our prospects and build even more robust solutions. By combining our strengths, we are well suited to handle the increased traction in BI and Analytics across any number of industry verticals. This will further enhance our capabilities and strengthen our foothold in the global analytics market which is growing exponentially.”

As a part of this partnership, the two companies will work together to develop solutions that will address the emerging needs of their customers in the BI and Analytics sector. It will provide a significant potential for both companies to accelerate their growth momentum and strengthen their ability to serve a large base of customers.

“Partners have always been a key part of our growth strategy at Grasp and we are pleased to work more closely with our partners at Blue Star Infotech.  We have found that our companies, teams, and cultures complement each other very well.” said Dave Lukas, Vice President, Grasp Technologies, Inc. "With Blue Star Infotech, we have a strategic partner that brings a lot of experience and knowledge across many different business verticals and is committed to innovation in the same way we are at Grasp. Our partnership provides us with access to their deep knowledge, capacity and delivery excellence in product engineering which will allows us to accelerate solutions delivery while sustaining world class quality and service standards. We also see great opportunity for creating new engagement opportunities and extending the benefits of our expertise in BI and Analytics space to more businesses across the globe. ”

Marie Hattar Appointed New CMO of Check Point

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd, the worldwide leader in securing the Internet, has announced the appointment of Marie Hattar as the company’s Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Hattar will lead Check Point’s brand and global marketing efforts, including product and solutions marketing, corporate marketing, field marketing, corporate communications and partner marketing. She and her team will drive Check Point’s corporate positioning strategy, messaging and communications to both internal and external audiences.

Hattar brings over 20 years of marketing leadership experience spanning the security, routing, switching, telecom, and mobility markets. Prior to joining Check Point, she was vice president at Cisco where she led the company’s enterprise networking and security portfolios. Prior to Cisco, she worked at Nortel Networks, AlteonWebSystems, and Shasta Networks in senior marketing and CTO positions.

Amnon Bar-Lev, president at Check Point Software Technologies said, "Marie brings a unique blend of marketing leadership, analytical thinking, sales focus and thought leadership to Check Point. She is a key addition to our executive team; her knowledge and insights will enhance our strategic focus on delivering best-in-breed products, while increasing Check Point’s brand awareness and accelerating our growth in the security marketplace.”

Hattar received her Master of Business Administration from York University and her Bachelor of Applied Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto.She will be based at the Check Point U.S. headquarters in San Carlos, California. 

Modi’s Mantra Of Hope For The Real Estate Market

By Santhosh Kumar, CEO – Operations, JLL India

For the common man of India, the dream to own a house will soon turn into reality with the Narendra Modi-led NDA government taking charge. Issues such as affordability of real estate, delayed construction projects, delays due to litigations surrounding real estate projects, etc. impacted developers as well as consumers.

The new government promises to aggressively promote affordable housing. Property is once again going to become the most popular investment option, as there will be significant appreciation in real estate prices on the heels of higher demand in the coming years. With the easing of regulations, developers are expected to speed up the construction process, providing relief to buyers who have already invested.

The big names of the Indian industry have welcomed the new government with a hope that it will bring the economy back on track and raise the currently plummeting GDP to 8-9% in the coming fiscal. The new government at the centre is expected to infuse life in the existing policy paralysis in the country by removing the major bottlenecks that are deterring growth.

Revitalized Funding Flow

FDI in the Indian real estate sector is expected to get a lift, resulting in amplification of fund flows and strengthening of the battered Indian rupee. With a clear majority triumph, the incumbent government will enjoy unwavering stability at the centre, which will in turn encourage investors’ sentiments with regards to the real estate market. Global investors are now markedly optimistic about the Indian economy, which is expected to witness more than 100% increase in foreign investment inflows, both via FDIs and FIIs, to above $60 billion in the current financial year, as compared to $29 billion during FY 2013-14.

The urban development ministry is expected to repeal the existing restrictions on real estate firms by allowing foreign investment up to 49%, free of all conditions. This will help the real estate sector to raise foreign capital at competitive rates and reduce stakeholder dependency on the beleaguered local financial institutions. Foreign capital for urban renewal and slum redevelopment projects is also expected to see major relaxations.

Boost To The Retail Sector

The retail sector is also expecting significantly enhanced domestic as well as foreign investments. India’s large but capital-constrained retailers have welcomed the liberalised rules that are expected to bring funding and new technologies into the sector. As a result, demand for retail space is going to increase enormously as more and more domestic retailers plunge in to reap the benefits of the new policies.

Fast-Tracked Infrastructure

The completion of large infrastructure projects like the DMIC (Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor) and the DFC (Dedicated Freight Corridor) will be expedited. This, in turn, would mean development of many new cities across the belt of these projects. These massive on-going infrastructure projects will lead to a huge demand for warehouses, thereby giving a significant boost to warehousing and logistics-related real estate demand. Once completed, the growth of real estate at India’s hinterlands that will be connected by these corridors will be exponential.

In terms of real estate, some of the urgent steps that the NDA government needs to take with immediate effect are:

·         Reversal of the land acquisition act

·         Clearance of pending receivables to the private sector via fast-tracked bureaucratic decision-making

·         Provision of fiscal stimuli to improve industrial growth

·         Creation of investment-friendly real estate market via lowered interest rates and increased employment generation.

Further, the real estate market expects the government and the RBI to be on the same page with respect to checking inflation and curtailing of interest rates, so as to revive the tumbling demand for property in India.

Developers’ Hopes

India’s developers are hoping that:

·         The new government will expedite the process of granting regulatory approvals. The chronic lag in this regard has been a major obstacle for most of their projects

·         The Real Estate Development Regulation & Development bill, which has been lingering for quite some time now, will be passed

·         The new government will ease land acquisition parameters so that availability of land is no longer a major constraint. Difficulties in acquiring land due to the current policies have led to vastly escalated real estate cost.

With the slowdown in home sales, developers have been battling a severe liquidity crunch and a rise in their inventory levels. Many prospective buyers have abstained from investing in property because of market negativity, an unstable government at the centre, high inflation, high interest rates on home loans, etc.

Now, with the stock market rocketing and the Indian rupee appreciating, these buyers are expected to snap into action. Increased sales, along with availability of funds from both domestic and foreign investors, will bring significant respite to developers and finally bring an end to the liquidity crunch that they have been facing.

The Hope Mantra

The three major promises made by the NDA in their manifesto that have direct pertinence to the real estate sector are:

1.     The development of 100 new cities

2.     Putting a new land use policy in place

3.     Planning for low-cost housing

Modi’s pledge to implement an affordable housing policy and thereby provide homes to every Indian family presents a $150 billion business opportunity to the sector. The real estate industry now also has real hopes of being granted the coveted industry status, which will further ease fund flows.

Meanwhile, consumers are optimistic about the impact that the new government will have on real estate pricing, and expect a reduction in home loans, the implementation of the proposed GST framework and the implied tax benefits to buyers.

Paytm & Uber Offer Cool Credits On Travel

Paytm, India’s largest mobile commerce platform, has tied up with Uber to bring cool offers to its customers. Uber is a mobile app that connects riders with safe, reliable and convenient transportation providers at a variety of price-points in cities around the world. Customers can now recharge, pay a bill or shop on Paytm and earn Uber Credits.

The Paytm-Uber offer enables customers to recharge, pay a bill or shop for Rs. 500 or more and get 500 Uber Credits or for Rs. 300 to Rs. 499 and get 300 Uber Credits.

Acknowledging this tie up, Deepak Abbot, AVP, Paytm said “We constantly strive to look at novel ways through which we can enable our customers to save money in their day to day transactions. Keeping up with the company policy of providing the most attractive schemes and offers to our customers, our tie up with Uber is another step towards achieving this endeavor.”

Speaking about the offer, Gagan Bhatia, General Manager at Uber commented "We are really excited about this partnership. As the preferred portal for mobile and DTH recharge in India, Paytm is uniquely positioned to bring Uber's seamless service to customers who might not have experienced Uber before. This amazing offer for Paytm customers is just the beginning of a long standing relationship."

The terms and conditions of the offer include:

1. Promo Code shared by Uber after recharging on Paytm can be used once per user

2. Valid across all transaction types, which includes wallet transactions and wallet refill

3. Valid only in cities where Uber is available – New Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai & Chennai

4. Valid till 30th June, 2014

5. Users who do a mobile recharge, pay a bill or shop for Rs. 500 or more get 500 Uber Credits

6. Users who recharge, pay a bill or shop for Rs. 300 to Rs. 499 get 300 Uber Credits

7. Users can only avail one of the Uber offers of Rs 500 or Rs 300

8. Applicable for Mobile Recharge & Bill Payment done on both Paytm.com & Paytm Apps

9. You need to download the Uber app & create an account to apply promo-code

10. Offer available to both new and existing Uber users.

11. Shopping on Paytm can be done on the iOS & Android app.

12. Uber Promocode will be mailed within 72 hours of your order on Paytm.

Mindtree Announces Results of Postal Ballot and Fixes Date for 1:1 Bonus Shares

Mindtree, a global technology services company, today announced the results of the postal ballot for issuance of bonus shares, power to borrow and related resolutions.  The company is happy to confirm that all the resolutions were approved by Shareholders with an overwhelming majority.

Pursuant to this, the record date to determine the Shareholders who are eligible to receive the bonus shares has been fixed as June 4, 2014.   For Shareholders, whose shares are held in dematerialized form, the bonus shares will be credited to their account on or before June 9, 2014 and such shares can be traded on or before June 14, 2014.  For Shareholders who hold their shares in physical form, share certificates would be sent to them in due course, within the applicable timelines.

Earlier, the Board of Directors at their meeting held on April 16, 2014 recommended the following:

·        Increase in Authorised Share Capital

·        Issuance of bonus shares

·        Power to borrow

·        Power to mortgage assets

Pursuant to this, the Company sought approval of Shareholders for the above resolutions.  The voting process is complete and the scrutinizer appointed for this purpose has given his report with the final results.  The Company is happy to confirm that all the resolutions have been passed with an overwhelming majority.