Geoff Thomas Appointed President Of Polycom APAC

Polycom, Inc. has announced that Geoff Thomas has joined the company as President, Polycom Asia Pacific. In this role, Thomas is responsible for leading the company’s regional sales strategy and execution to drive customer success, brand affinity and profitable growth.

Thomas joins Polycom from Juniper Networks, where he was Vice President Enterprise Sales Asia Pacific. He also has a long career history with Microsoft Corporation, where he served in several leadership roles, which included business development in emerging markets.

“Geoff’s leadership and strong background in sales, emerging markets, and business development will steer Polycom’s business in the right direction in the critical Asia Pacific region,” said Peter Leav, President and Chief Executive Officer, Polycom. “Every market in this region has unique opportunities as more organisations discover the benefits of video, voice and content collaboration. Geoff will place renewed emphasis on strengthening our partnerships and providing our customers with the industry’s best experience.”

A dynamic sales and business leader, Thomas has successfully led large teams spanning several geographies, including Australia, the United States, and Greater China. His expertise lies in strategic partnerships, channels, solutions selling, and go-to-market strategy across multiple business verticals.

“I am delighted to join Polycom and lead the company’s team and growth plans in Asia Pacific,” said Thomas. “Polycom helps businesses of all sizes, in virtually every industry, defy distance and improve productivity through authentic collaboration experiences. I look forward to working closely with our partners and sales team to deliver the industry’s best solutions to our customers and driving their success.”

At Juniper Networks, Geoff led the company’s enterprise business across all markets in Asia Pacific, namely Australia and New Zealand, Greater China, India, South East Asia, Japan, and Korea. This role came with the responsibility of achieving over $300 million revenue, and the successful implementation of the company’s enterprise strategy across all APAC markets. Prior to his role at Juniper Networks, he had a successful 15-year career at Microsoft, where he held several executive leadership positions.

Firstsource Launches First WF Suite For Contact Centres

Firstsource Solutions Limited, a global provider of customised business process management (BPM) services to the banking & financial services, telecom & media and healthcare sectors, today announced the launch of First WF Suite, a service offering designed to improve resource availability & utilisation in the contact centre.

Firstsource has a track record of bringing efficiency to customer service operations, while ensuring customer satisfaction. Driven by these twin objectives, the First WF Suite enables enterprises to set up a Workforce Optimisation practice that effectively utilizes their most crucial resource—people. It aligns with all outsourcing delivery models such as onshore, offshore, work at home and more. The service suite supports optimisation in a multi-channel environment including voice, web, chat, email, back-office and social media.

First WF Suite has been enhanced to encompass Consulting, Managed Services and Capability Development. This end-to-end offering will now drive all workforce optimisation requirements and will deliver savings in the range of 10-15% in operating costs.

“The launch of First WF Suite is an exciting development for Firstsource as it is in line with our productization strategy and is a significant step in simplifying business processes. The accuracy of forecasting, scheduling & real-time analytics in First WF Suite will help service oriented organisations to reduce their operational costs through effective resource utilisation,” said Bhupendra Gupta - SVP, Head of Service Quality, WFM & Process Excellence, Firstsource Solutions.

For a large private sector bank, First WF Suite helped redesign the forecasting process, collected historic volumes and performed a causative study. This deployment helped improve the forecasting accuracy from 66% to 92% and service levels increased from 43% to 85%.

For a leading telecom company, the Consulting Services under First WF Suite, helped reduce the operating cost by $2.1mn.

PayPal to Host Chennai’s First Startup Weekend From July 11-13

PayPal today announced that it will host the upcoming Startup Weekend from July 11 to July 13, 2014, at its Development Center in Chennai. The 54-hour long event is a creativity-fueled workshop that provides a platform for participants to meet like-minded enthusiasts, build their network, get face time with thought leaders and learn new skills. Startup Weekend is a global movement to promote entrepreneurship, which takes place in more than 550 cities.

This is the first time that a Startup Weekend event will be hosted in Chennai, paving the way to building a sustainable startup ecosystem in the city. Ranga Kanapathy, Director & India Head, PayPal Data Technology, and Arun Athiappan, CEO & Founder, Ticketgoose.com, will be among the keynote speakers for the event that is expected to bring together about 100 startup enthusiasts, well-established CEOs, and a network of angel investors.

Anupam Pahuja, General Manager, PayPal Development Centers, India, said, “We are delighted to host Chennai’s first Startup Weekend in line with our broader goal of strengthening the entrepreneurship ecosystem in India. PayPal believes in fostering the entrepreneurial spirit as innovation is the key to a better world.”

“With its origins as a startup, PayPal has grown to become a global leader in the payments industry today, and we are proud to help the new wave of aspiring entrepreneurs take their first steps towards a successful venture,” he said.

Leaders in business and academia will also attend Startup Weekend Chennai to guide the participants with their proposals. The applicants at Startup Weekend Chennai will brainstorm their ideas, form groups based on their interests, meet mentors and discuss varied topics such as code designing as well as market validation before presenting their final plans at the end of the weekend. Each team at Startup Weekend Chennai gets $100 of free AWS Credit, $500 of Google Cloud Platform credits to build mobile and web apps, and a free .co domain.

The Startup Weekend sessions organized in India have so far witnessed the launch of seven startups, including SocialShout, Ridingo and Gaze Metrix, two of which have received angel funding. Interested applicants can register for Startup Weekend Chennai at http://em.explara.com/event/swchennai.

                       

In Chennai, PayPal supports the local entrepreneurship ecosystem through Start Tank that provides early stage startups a world-class incubation space and access to global mentors, angel investors, and venture capitalists. The Start Tank runs globally across PayPal offices in Boston, London, and Chennai. PayPal formally launched its Chennai startup incubator in association with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Chennai in November 2013 and currently hosts four startups.

JDA Soft To Host 5th Edition of Supply Chain Practitioners’ Council

JDA Software Group, Inc., today announced that it is hosting the 5^th Edition of the Supply Chain Practitioners Council (SCPC) at its Bangalore office on July 18. The daylong event will bring together supply chain experts from different industry verticals and organizations. Presenters include Vinay Krishna, Supply Chain Director, Cypress Semiconductor, Manish Ghosh, Global Vice President Global Consulting Partner - Manufacturing, JDA Software, Vijayakumar Seelam, Project Manager, SanDisk, and Narasimha Kamath, Product Director, JDA Software.

SCPC provides senior supply chain practitioners a great platform to deliberate and discuss industry issues and solutions. It is a great event to network and collaborate. The event will include presentations on supply chain reorganization journey, adaptive supply chain, designing profitable supply chains through differentiation, and caselet discussions.

“SCPC, an event by invitation only, helps senior supply chain practitioners come together and facilitates interaction with a panel of eminent speakers. It is a great opportunity to share current challenges, discuss their problem solving approaches and learn industry best practices,” said Dr. Narasimha Kamath, Director, Product Management, JDA Software India. “We hope these presentations and discussions will enrich every attendee’s understanding and experience.”

Senior supply chain experts from Accenture, AT Kearney, AXA Technology, Biocon, BPCL, Britannia, BSNL, Caterpillar, Chainalytics, Cisco, Cypress, Dell, FlipKart, HCL, Honeywell, HP, IBM, Intel, Lenovo, Madura fashions, Metro C&C, Miebach, Mindtree, Motorola, MuSigma, Phillips, PWC, Renault, Sabmiller, Schneider Electric, Target Corp, Tata Hitachi, Tata Steel, TCS, Titan, TVS Logistics, TVS Motors and Unilever will also be present at this event.

JDA has a large client base in manufacturing, distribution, retail, category management and store operations. It is our privilege to provide a platform that helps supply chain professionals to actively collaborate, think collectively and act decisively. It helps promote understanding of the current market problems, the way they are currently being solved and provides guidance on moving enterprises to the next level of supply chain maturity.

Over 100 Participants For Techathon Event

Avaya, a global provider of business communications, collaboration systems and services hosted India’s popular technology event Techathon 2014 today in Bangalore. The event, attended by more than 100 of Avaya’s key customers & partners in India, and the keynote was addressed by Avaya’s new Managing Director, India and SAARC, Priyadarshi Mohapatra. Participants at the event received an update on Avaya global strategy and innovation focus, and enjoyed a showcase of the entire portfolio of Avaya’s solutions and services. The Techathon event is being held in three cities - Bangalore, Pune and Gurgaon - over a 3 week period and enables Avaya customers and partners to experience first-hand the latest innovation in the company’s rich portfolio of communications and collaborations solutions.

Avaya’s innovation focus is on bringing to market revolutionary business transformation solutions for both medium sized businesses and larger enterprises, focused on mobile video collaboration, next-generation data networking and cutting edge collaboration and customer experience management solutions-Avaya has signed recent deals across multiple sectors including IT/ITES, financial services, BPOs, hospitality, manufacturing, Government  and transportation. The company brings organizations into the new age of connectivity, communications and collaboration with simple, intuitive solutions providing simplicity to its customers by reducing their Total Cost of Operation (TCO) and optimizing their maintenance costs.

India is at the heart of Avaya’s innovation focus, and represents the largest R&D center globally, spread across Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune. The Bangalore R&D center has a large pool of talented engineers, researchers and product management staff with a state-of-the-art research and engineering lab and infrastructure with Data Networking and Unified Communications being the primary focus areas. 

The Bangalore team contributes significantly to the Avaya Fabric Connect technology and associated data center, core and distribution switch platforms, the Avaya Identity Engines Access Control and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) platform, WLAN, Unified Branch, and common network management and orchestration software product suites. 

The Bangalore R&D facility also contributes to the Avaya Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) architecture that includes orchestration and monitoring software interfaces with Open Stack,cloud orchestration and the innovative full-stack Avaya Collaboration Pod that includes an end-to-end solution with 3^rd party compute, storage and virtual machine products.

 The Bangalore R&D center also contributes significantly to Avaya’s strategic focus in mid-market unified communication solutions including its flagship IP Office solution. The Bangalore R&D team works closely with the Avaya sales team in providing the most appropriate products and solutions to Avaya’s customers in India spread across business functions and verticals, including leading companies and public sector institutions.

“Avaya Techathon is a great platform to unveil Avaya’s portfolio to all our customers and partners. This is a great opportunity for enterprises to gain insights of our customer’s experience with the latest Avaya solutions and meet the dedicated R&D team. India has Avaya’s largest R&D center and is brimming with a set of most talented workface. 

Avaya takes organizations into the new age of collaboration with simple, intuitive solutions that address the core needs of Indian businesses. The company works towards providing a strategic direction to Indian operations, managing business priorities, and enhancing Avaya’s position as a leading business communications company. Strengthening channel partner relations and driving significant growth in the mid-market segment will be my key priorities for now. The motto of the organization has been to drive more effective collaboration and a superior customer experience to drive business growth in India and that’s where our focus would be in this year,” says Priyadarshi Mohapatra, MD, India and SAARC, Avaya.

Lenovo Pledges Support To YUWA SuperGoats

Football is the flavour of the season all over the world. Lenovo, the No.1 PC maker worldwide (according to IDC) and an emerging PC Plus leader, is associating with YUWA, an NGO empowering rural girls through football, to represent India in the USA Cup. The talented team called the SuperGoats comprises of 18 girls from Jharkhand who have been trained and led by Franz Gastler, Founder of YUWA, an NGO empowering rural girls through football.

Hailing from a small village in Jharkhand, these 18 girls have overcome many limitations and societal barriers to achieve the extraordinary. They impressed millions across the world with their show of skills, determination and perseverance at the Donosti Cup in Spain last year and are now poised to win laurels for our country at the USA Cup being held in Minneapolis this July.

Lenovo as a brand has always believed in supporting the indomitable spirit of the ‘doers’ who beat all odds and achieve the extraordinary. This belief has led to a strong collaboration between Yuwa and Lenovo, where Lenovo attempt to document the SuperGoats amazing journey and also provide technological support through this journey. Lenovo shall also create awareness and buzz on what these girls are set to achieve at the US tournament with the #BleatforIndia initiative, urging all football fans to come together and root for their own homegrown team – YUWA SuperGoats.

Speaking about this association, Bhaskar Choudhuri, Director, Marketing, Lenovo India said, “The SuperGoats story is a celebration of the indomitable human spirit. We are proud to be associated with this team. We are privileged to document their achievement and aid their preparation with our Lenovo devices. For them as for us, technology is not just a badge; It is a tool “for those who do”.

“In rural Jharkhand, one lakh girls are trafficked every year, six in ten can't read or write, and seven in ten drop out of school before passing 10th standard.  Six in ten girls get married when they are still children.  The future changes when a girl joins Yuwa. Girls in Yuwa spend an average of 1,000 hours in our program every year. Society teaches girls to fit in. Yuwa coaches girls to stand out. We're grateful to Lenovo for joining this campaign to take the first team ever from India to USA Cup, the biggest football tournament in the United States.” said Franz Gastler, Executive Director and Co-Founder of YUWA.

The team is geared up to compete in the tournament between 15-19 July. They will be playing with the world’s best teams and are looking forward to better their impressive performance in Spain last year.

Blue Slate Acquired by BPO Firm EXL

Business process solutions company EXL has acquired New York-based Blue Slate Solutions to enhance its business process management capabilities.

Through this acquisition, the Nasdaq-listed EXL will also strengthen its ability to apply technology solutions to improve clients’ business operations.

“This acquisition brings us a set of domain experts who have significant experience advising large enterprises, optimising their business processes and also architecting and implementing changes to their technology applications and infrastructure,” Rohit Kapoor, Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, EXL, said.

Blue Slate specialises in transforming operations through business process optimisation, data integration and analytics, leveraging innovative techniques and technologies, he said.

It has domain experience and success in delivering services within insurance, financial services and manufacturing industries and the team is comprised of industry leaders who come from senior positions within healthcare, financial services, manufacturing and software industries.

Its clients include 11 Blue Cross Blue Shield organisations, national and Governmental health plans and multiple Fortune 500 organisations.

EXL recently unveiled its Business EXLerater Framework, which combines operations management expertise, sophisticated analytics and technology tools to reduce costs and improve performance for clients.