Tableau Soft Appoints Deepak Ghodke As Country Mgr

Tableau Software, a global leader in rapid-fire, easy-to-use business analytics software, today announced its launch in India. The company also announced that Deepak Ghodke will be heading up its India presence, including driving the sales growth and ensuring the success of customers. Tableau’s India debut comes as the result of a sizeable domestic opportunity.

Ghodke has been with Tableau for the past six years. He started with the company as Director, Sales in 2008, where he was responsible for the Central region of the United States. He has been working with companies in India to educate them about the value of data analytics since his move to India in 2012. Prior to Tableau, he was associated with Oracle Corporation and worked in product marketing at Hyperion Software. He attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai.

Commenting on the India launch, Ghodke said, “Data is a lifeline of any business – it gives people a view into the opportunities and risks involved in any decision. Since our inception in 2003, our software has systematically helped people access information, perform analytics and get instant results, in the office and on-the-go. Our India entry is in response to market demands in the region, and the growing business opportunity it offers. We are particularly excited about the scale that we have achieved so far, and are looking forward to translating that into the Indian market.”

Said JY Pook, Vice President of Asia Pacific for Tableau, “Asia Pacific has been a fast-growing market for us. We are excited to launch in India and see tremendous promise in developing the market, as well as partnering with organizations to meet their data and business intelligence needs. The initial response we have received so far has been very encouraging and with Deepak’s experience and expertise, we’re looking forward to reaching a wider audience and further strengthening our presence in the region.”

Tableau’s award-winning software helps people see and understand data. It delivers fast analytics and business intelligence through creation of visualizations, reports and dashboards in minutes and can be shared in seconds. Organizations use Tableau in a broad range of use cases such as increasing sales, streamlining operations, improving customer service, managing investments, assessing quality and safety, studying and treating diseases, and improving education. Its products include Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online and Tableau Public. The software is used by more than 19,000 customer accounts including Fortune 500 corporations, small and medium-sized businesses, government agencies, universities, and non-profits worldwide. Tableau has already been working with some clients in India over the last year, and with the India centres of their multinational customers. With this launch, the company will be more closely connected to these customers, while growing its reach further into the subcontinent.

Valyoo turns to Tableau for rapid-fire decision making

A Tableau customer since 2012, Valyoo, a New Delhi-headquartered e-commerce company, wanted to increase its reporting efficiency, help managers make decisions faster, and keep up with increased reporting demands without hiring additional staffers. Nikhil Doeger, Head of Business Intelligence and Analytics, explained why Tableau was chosen, “We evaluated Tableau and other software solutions. We used the Tableau 14-day trial and we thought it was easier to implement and it fulfilled all our requirements”.  Deogar added, “Even if we’re not using Tableau we would still be focused on the data, but maybe it would have taken longer to make the same decisions, or it would just be harder to get that data”.

Marico discovers new company insights with Tableau

Marcio, India’s leading consumer products and services companies in the global beauty and wellness space, use Tableau to analyse a large amount of data on retail behaviour, sales and marketing, inventory movement and procurement of key inputs, allowing them to gain detailed insights into the company’s performance. Girish Rao, Head of IT & Business Analytics, shares that Tableau is a tool that the company plans to invest in for the long-term, “The kind of work we have produced with Tableau has been very well-received by both our peers and management within Marico. Tableau has also consistently released regular updates to its software and this reaffirms my faith in a company which is willing to be innovative and willing to invest in their product for its customers.”

The demand for BI in Asia Pacific continues to grow

The market for business intelligence (BI) platforms in Asia Pacific is expected to grow 7.4 percent to reach almost US$1.4 billion in revenue in 2014 and more than $1.6 billion by 2017, according to Gartner, Inc. * Tableau has been positioned as a ‘Leader’ for two years in a row in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms** report. The full report is available on the Tableau website at http://www.tableausoftware.com/gartner-magic-quadrant-2014.

Industry Cloud Needs Partners & Developers Expertise

SAP AG has announced plans to bring industry solutions to the cloud by combining its unrivaled expertise in industry-specific business processes with the technical creativity of its global ecosystem and broad customer base. To meet this goal, SAP has created a dedicated Industry Cloud organization, led by Simon Paris, in which the company’s historic industry strength will be used to develop prescriptive, industry-based cloud road maps that will help simplify and transform businesses. 

SAP plans to co-innovate with customers and partners to deliver industry-specific solutions expected to rapidly proliferate across the 25 industries SAP serves. In the industry cloud model, partners and customers are envisioned to co-innovate with SAP on industry cloud offerings. These industry cloud solutions are anticipated to offer customers specialized, next-generation business processes and intuitive interfaces that can be easily and quickly deployed across a public, private or hybrid cloud infrastructure, depending on which model best serves the customer’s needs. These industry cloud solutions are intended to run on SAP Cloud powered by SAP HANA via SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, a fully managed, subscription-based cloud service used by customers today to run mission-critical SAP applications and manage vast amounts of Big Data all on one real-time business platform.

“Working in industries with highly specialized challenges, we will focus on our customers’ most relevant business problems and then work creatively and collaboratively to develop industry cloud solutions,” said Paris. “With SAP’s proven integration, consistency and coherency across all lines of business, mobile, analytics and technology, we are primed to deliver the deepest and broadest industry cloud solutions in the world, offering tremendous value to our significant customer base, our-ever growing number of new SAP customers and the global SAP ecosystem.”

Cloud-Based Momentum Climbing Across Industries
SAP has already achieved notable success in leading the way to the industry cloud model, including in the following industries:

* Chemicals: To better serve the chemical industry, SAP has launched a “chemical-company-in-a-box” solution, offering pre-configured enterprise resource planning (ERP) for chemical manufacturers in the cloud. Supporting industry-specific requirements, SAP is partnering with Qnovate with plans to develop chemical-specific functionality for the SAP Cloud for Customer solution, and is already delivering a cloud-based service for product safety and hazardous materials management with the SAP EHS Regulatory Documentation OnDemand solution.

* Financial Services: In corporate banking, SAP has developed the innovative SAP Financial Services Network, which helps simplify transactions between corporations and financial institutions. The network offers multiple services over one single channel while supporting the deployment of new services. Customers like Visa, Inc. and Citibank N.A. use SAP Financial Services Network to help reduce payment rejection rates and provide enhanced visibility to corporate treasury.

To enable insurers to quickly offer the right insurance offerings to clients, SAP has introduced the SAP Circular Authority for Insurance application, a cloud-based solution for tracking, interpreting and analyzing Insurance Service Office (ISO) circulars. The intuitive user experience provides quick, concise insights into circular changes while helping to reduce overall regulatory management efforts and costs.

In the area of fostering new innovation in the banking and payments industry, SAP has become a global sponsor of the SWIFT 2014 Innotribe Startup Challenge, a year-round program that offers up-and-coming entrepreneurs the opportunity to showcase new concepts and products to leading global financial institutions and early-stage investors. This initiative supports young companies dedicated to bringing new and innovative solutions that can help transform the industry and improve people’s financial lives around the world.

* Healthcare: In healthcare, SAP HANA is increasingly the co-innovation platform of choice for select personalized care startups, including Vancouver’s PHEMI, which has introduced a Big Data Services Platform that lets healthcare organizations offer value-based services like personalized medicine, population health management, business intelligence, research registries and more.

* Higher Education & Research: To support education, SAP has undertaken multiple design thinking sessions with universities worldwide to develop a next-generation cloud-based student information system (SIS). SAP intends to offer higher education institutions the best of both worlds: access to a redesigned SIS built for cloud, mobile and 21st-century students and administrators as well as the ability to extend and take advantage of existing SAP investments.

* Industrial Machinery and Components: The convergence of the classical world of machines with the internet, referred to as “Industry 4.0” or “Industrial Internet,” has created a host of new opportunities. SAP is working with leading manufacturers to build solutions based on SAP HANA Cloud Platform for predictive maintenance and service in a co-innovation approach. With this type of solution, companies are envisioned to be able to significantly improve their service model and ultimately move toward a usage-based business model with their customers.

* Professional Services: Transforming the bid management process for project-based professional services customers through the cloud, SAP for Professional Services solutions link the bid management sales process directly with project execution. The offerings are designed to help firms to win more deals, improve profitability and secure execution against project plans by integrating SAP Cloud for Customer, the SAP Jam social software platform, the SAP Commercial Project Management application and business intelligence analytics capabilities developed specifically for the professional services industry.

* Public Services: For social services, SAP has become a Code for America Brigade sponsor in 2014, partnering with the developer community and connecting the grassroots skills and energy of more than 3,000 volunteers worldwide to SAP technology and innovation, including free developer access.

* Retail: For customer insight, SAP has launched the SAP Customer Activity Repository application, a retail data repository powered by the SAP HANA platform that serves as an underlying foundation for all operations. This enables retailers to leverage the true potential of omni-commerce as well as the demand for the personalization for the individualized shopping experience. Recent efforts have been made by SAP partner gicom, which is working to provide one of the first solutions built on SAP Customer Activity Repository.

* Sports: In athletic event planning, cloud-based SAP Event Ticketing software helps to generate ticket sales for events across all sales channels, offering an overview of customers and costs to maximize revenue per seat.

For player management, the SAP Scouting solution helps executives, coaches and scouts identify and acquire talent, compare draftees in real time and ultimately help put the best product on the field. The cloud-based solution provides advanced capabilities for both college and professional scouting, offering new insights and the tools to efficiently asses and compare players.

* Travel and Transportation: SAP enables travel providers to better connect with their passengers and partners to create a new revenue stream with consumer engagement solutions from SAP. The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) is combining a top-ranked mobile app with the cloud-based SAP Precision Marketing solution and SAP HANA to connect passengers to retailers and event, sport and cultural venues to deliver compelling, personalized offers in real time. STM was recognized as an innovation leader with the Constellation Research SuperNova Award for redefining the passenger travel experience.

“We intend to shake things up for ourselves and the market by asking a new generation of customers to help us solve their next-generation business problems,” said Christoph Behrendt, senior vice president, Application Innovation, and head of Suite and Industry Platform Unit, SAP. “They can imagine forward-looking industry-specific use cases better than any team of in-house software developers. Industry IT leaders are going to embrace a partnership that brings together their needs with the deep industry expertise of SAP to co-innovate elegant, simple solutions for the cloud.”

GTU & Oracle Academy To Develop IT Skills In Students

 O   Oracle and Gujarat Technological University have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to integrate Oracle Academy curriculum into the educational programs of the state’s colleges to help inspire the next-generation of technology professionals and prepare them for exciting careers in IT.

This initiative will allow GTU to build a strong foundation of technology programs to prepare 35,000 students from 140 institutions in the state, for successful IT careers, and help meet growing local demand for a highly skilled technology workforce.

As part of this MoU, 460 faculty members will undergo specialized training on the Oracle Academy curriculum that will be delivered to 35,000 students from 140 institutes in Gujarat, including the state’s engineering colleges, polytechnics and degree colleges over the next three years.

Oracle will deliver a train-the-trainer course to ramp-up 100 faculty members as instructors through Oracle Academy’s Introduction to Computer Science program.

Subsequently, select GTU institutions will be offered the Oracle Academy Advanced Computer Science Program that offers access to world-class software, Java development environments, faculty training, curriculum, support for Computer Science clubs, certification preparation, and more − all designed to help students increase the relevance of their academic programs and easily expand their course offerings.

With this, students from GTU colleges will have an opportunity to gain first-class IT skills, which can help them prepare for careers in exciting fields such as computer engineering, application development, web development, IT consulting, systems integration, database design/administration, IT product management, IT product marketing, technical support, and more.

T     “The Gujarat Technological University (GTU) has been working towards improving the quality of education and the learning environment in the colleges in Gujarat. GTU has been making major efforts to eliminate the gap between industry and academia. Our collaboration with Oracle Academy will help us in this endeavour and help make our students more employable in the industry,” said Dr. Akshai Aggarwal, Vice-Chancellor, Gujarat Technological University. “By making Oracle Academy programs available to our students during their education course, we are confident that our students will gain a competitive advantage as they prepare to enter the global workforce.”

“Oracle Academy offers a comprehensive program that helps students gain vital business and technology skills needed for success in today’s workforce,” said  Krishna Sistla, Senior Director, Oracle Education Initiatives, Oracle Asia Pacific. “We are honored to collaborate with the Gujarat Technological University to help cultivate student knowledge, interest and awareness of engineering, computer science and technology that will give them a head-start before they even enter the workforce.”

New-Age Branch Of IndusInd Offers Video Interactions

IndusInd Bank has launched a new customer-centric service titled Video Branch. This innovative offering enables the customers to do a video conference with the bank staff. They can schedule a Video call with the Branch Managers/Relationship Mangers or connect to the central Video Branch instantly. This is first-of- its- kind initiative in the banking industry which facilitates customers to interact with the Video Branch at their own convenience either from his desktop/laptop computers or Apple and Android smart phones. This facility will be available to all existing and new customers of IndusInd Bank.

Digitization of businesses is the key focus area of the Bank in this financial year and this initiative is a step forward to the on-going Responsive Innovation theme. The new facility allows customers to interact with their branches through a Video Branch app from Google Play Store and Apple App Store on their smart phones or avail this facility on the desktops through Bank site www.IndusInd.com.

This service enables customers to benefit the present Contact Centre services and four financial transactions – FD booking, RTGS, NEFT & funds transfer through a video chat with the Contact Centre executive instantly or arrange a video call with the branch manager/relationship manager.

Commenting on the development, Sumant Kathpalia, Head – Consumer Banking, IndusInd Bank said, “In a move to digitise the banking experience for all customers, IndusInd Bank Video Branch is a 24x7 unique innovative service allowing customers to interact Face-to-Face with their bank branch using their desktop, tablet or smart phone. IndusInd Bank customers can now do all the transactions they do at a bank branch without going to it, right from the comfort of their office or home using the Video Branch App. IndusInd Bank Video Branch is yet another new service under the Bank’s theme of Responsive Innovation to offer innovative and unique banking experience to all customers, while keeping their convenience in mind. Digitisation is the future of banking and we are hopeful that the new service will be immensely useful to all our customers.”

IndusInd Bank Video Branch is the latest service to be added to the series of innovative products and services launched by IndusInd bank in the recent past. In line with the theme of Responsive Innovation,  IndusInd Bank has  launched unique products and services such as Cash on Mobile, Choice Money ATMs, Direct Connect, Quick Redeem Service, and the latest being My Account, My Number service propositions.

German Village Drives New Digital Revolution

Too isolated and with few inhabitants, the tiny village of Loewenstedt in northern Germany is simply too small to show up on the radars of national internet operators.

So the villagers took their digital fate into their own hands and built a broadband internet network of their own. Peter Kock, who runs an agricultural technology supply firm in the village, couldn't be happier.

Data files that used to take two hours to load onto his computer screen now appear in just 30 seconds. “It's brilliant. There's no comparison,“ he enthused. And that benefits his customers, too, be cause thanks to the new high-speed connection he can check the availability of parts much more rapidly.

Surrounded by wind power generators and fields, 30km from the Danish border, the picturesque brick houses and gardens of Loe wenstedt, with its population of just 640, are spread over about 500 acres.

With around 22km of network needed to link up all of the houses to the high-speed data highway , “we would never have found a company willing to supply the necessary fibre-optics,“ said mayor Holger Jensen. Some 58 other communities in Northern Friesland face similar difficulties and so the idea was born of clubbing together -businesses, individuals and villages -to secure access to a modern technology that is taken for granted in most German towns and cities.

Mounted on the walls of Kock's store room are two white boxes bearing the initials BBNG or Citizens' Broadband Network Company , set up in 2012 to collect the funds and build the fibre-optic network.

The firm with five staff has collected more than $3.4m in funds, thanks to its 925 shareholders who each contributed a minimum of $1,363, said BBNG chief Ute Gabriel-Boucsein.

Source: Agencies

SpiceStellar 360 Comes With 3G, QWERTY & Jellybean

Building on the success of the Stellar range of smartphones, Spice Retail Limited, a leading mobile internet company hascunveiled SpiceStellar 360, the 3Gtouch and type QWERTY phone under its Stellar series. Coupled with advantage of 3G network, this new dual sim Android Jellybean smartphone runs with 1.3 GHZ dual core processor and comes with an efficient Opera Mini browser for a better browsing experience. Its advanced VA display offers rich and dynamic colors with greater depth, along with higher contrast ratio, better image quality and a wider viewing angle. The unique feature of this smartphone is its combination of a touch-sensitive screen and a user-friendly QWERTY interface, offering users more choices in the way they use their smart phones. Free BBM to BBM voice calls makes this device even more appealing.

Commenting on the launch, T M Ramakrishnan, CEO - Devices, Spice Retail Limited, said “Spice Retail has always been at forefront in bringing innovative products to its customers. Spice Stellar 360-3G is one such product which offers the convenience of both touch and type features with Free BBM to BBM voice calls& 2GB free storage on Spice Cloud for users who are qwerty lovers but wish to explore the touch experience at the same time. All spice devices are designed keeping the convenience and demands of its customer in mind. The New Product Spice Stellar 360 with touch and type QWERTY keypad has also been designed keeping in mind the ease of both, keypad admirers and the touchpad buffs.”

Spice Stellar 360 sports a 3.2 MP camera with a 1.3 MP front camera and comes with pre embedded applications such as Whatsapp, BBM, Opera, Twitter and utility apps like Spice Cloud, Getit, and OLX.BBM to BBM free voice call can be enjoyed through this phone. Owing to the 3G connectivity this smartphone offers faster browsing experience and lightning speed download, keeping pace with the demand of the GenX. The handset also comes with certain other fascinating features as well, such as Flip to Mute, Pop-up Play, Intelligent Answer, etc. It has advanced sensors like Proximity sensor and G-sensor amid other attractive features. On the storage aspect, Spice Stellar 360 has an inbuilt memory of 4 GB ROM + 512 MB RAM which can further be expanded upto 32 GB with a microSD card. The phone also has a Mali 400 GPU for better gaming experience. Stellar 360 comes along with a Free Pouch worth Rs.500.

The BBM to BBM free voice call service makes the device more tempting, especially for the youth. It has been quite some time now that android smartphones come embedded with BBM and allied features. Apart from these, this new smartphone gives access to Spice Cloud that gives the user 2 GB free storage space and enables them to access data on multiple devices. Users can access them using the web interface at www.spicecloud.in.

With an MOP of Rs. 4,799/- the Spice Stellar 360 will be available across India through www.amazon.in and www.saholic.com.

Hunt for India’s Most Innovative Minds Contest Is On

Accenture, in partnership with Yahoo India, opened registration for the third season of Innovation Jockeys: The Hunt for India’s most Innovative Minds.  Undergraduate, graduate and post graduate students across India are welcome to submit innovative ideas for using technology to transform India.

This year’s contest, which will focus on disruptive technology innovations related to the themes Internet of Things and Digital Government, aims to discover bright, young, home-grown innovators – and encourage them to take responsibility for driving significant change.

“We’re looking for India’s next generation of innovators – young people with drive, passion and creativity who will make a difference in the way businesses and society function,” said Sanjeev Vohra, Managing Director, Technology Platforms, Accenture India. “In the previous two seasons, the program drew a record 5,900 idea submissions from over 520 campuses and more than 70,000 newsletter sign-ups from students at 1,000 colleges across India. This year we are expecting even more students to come forward and showcase their solutions.”

This year’s contest winners will be selected by an renowned jury, including: Kiran Karnik, member, National Innovation Council of India; Dr. Raja Krishnamurthy, R&D Head, 3M India region; Deepak Ajwani, Deputy Editor and Editor - Online, Forbes India; Lakshmi Pratury, Host, INK Conferences; Arvind Sanjeev, Founder and Chief Innovator, ARS Devices and winner in Innovation Jockeys Season 1; Dr. B.S Satyanarayana, Principal, RV College of Engineering; Hari Vausdev, VP & Head, Yahoo India R&D; and Sanjeev Vohra, Managing Director, Technology Platforms, Accenture in India.

“With its reach across 1000 campuses, this contest serves as a catalyst for innovation in India. In the last two years we have seen bright, young minds generate ideas that can potentially solve real-world problems in India. We are happy to support Accenture for fostering this kind of innovation and look forward to even more exciting possibilities in this year’s contest,” said Hari Vasudev, VP & Head Yahoo India R&D.

Each member of the winning team will receive a trip to Accenture Technology Labs, China, Apple products and an accelerated interview process at Accenture.  Winning entries for each category will also receive Apple products, Google Nexus tablets and an accelerated interview process at Accenture. The winner of “Yahoo Digital Innovation Jockey” will receive an iPad mini, and the winner of Jury’s choice category will get a certificate and an accelerated interview process at Accenture, as well as an iPad Mini.

                                                                 

To find out more and participate in Innovation Jockeys: The Hunt for India’s most Innovative Minds, log on to innovationjockeys.yahoo.net. The last date for submitting entries is July 20, 2014.