Sameer Aggarwal Appointed New CFO of Manipal Health

Manipal Health Enterprises Private Limited ( MHPEL) has announced the appointment of  Sameer Aggarwal as the new Chief Financial officer (CFO) .

In his new role, Aggarwal will head the finance team to ensure smooth and efficient functioning of the finance department by providing an array of services to the business right from financial planning and analysis, treasury, tax and other finance operations. Having over 19 years of rich experience in strategic and operation finance across pricing, taxation, corporate accounting, and treasury and investor relations he is all set to take on the role of CFO with great zeal . He will be donning several hats to drive major financial goals.

His key focus would be to align business and finance strategy, to ensure growth of the business by taking up new business initiatives like improved enterprises cost optimization, pricing execution and other fiscal process improvements and innovations that add value to the organization. Additionally, he would also focus on compliance with financial regulations with a clear purpose of ensuring positive and continuous growth curve.

Aggarwal has diverse experience across organizations like Marico, Coke, Ingersoll-Rand and Wipro. In his previous organization at 3M he was responsible for overall finance function and in order to drive governance and compliance. In view of the new appointment, Ramoji the current Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary will be moving to  Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG) to head a senior role.

Dr.Ajay Bakshi, MD and CEO, Manipal Health Enterprises said, “We welcome Aggarwal to the Manipal family. With his diverse and rich experience, we are sure he will be an asset and would drive the organization to greater heights. I wish him   good luck for his new and challenging role.” 

SAP HANA is One Stop Solution for Real Time Huge Data Processing

By Manu Sharma

Companies are always trying to find the best way to store data in a meaningful format so that they can make better business decisions. Since the birth of data warehousing almost 30 years ago, numerous innovations in data management have been made - such as Hadoop and NoSQL. SAP has contributed High-Performance Analytic Appliance (HANA), a platform for processing high volumes of operational and transactional data in real time. According to experts, SAP HANA has established itself as a baseline for further innovation.

SAP HANA is about 350 times faster than other conventional ERP technology. It is also known to provide the best user experience in the world. However, there are a few challenges while migrating /from other platforms to SAP HANA which are related to differences in file formats, structure, concept etc. In this regard, Arun Kumar VC, Senior General Manager - Enterprise Solutions, HTC Global Services shares insights on developments and challenges faced by companies while adopting SAP HANA. Excerpts of the interview.

How is HTC Involved with SAP HANA?

HTC is a successful SAP Partner currently providing strategic consulting, evaluation, implementation and on-going optimization of SAP solutions to organizations across the globe. HTC will help SAP customers design, implement and integrate solutions, optimize business processes, and provide strategic business consultation.

Many companies have been working with DBMS over the years, while ERP evolved later. What will companies do with the existing system? How is the migration going to take place?

Evolution of technology has always been embraced by organizations and has proved to be the most decisive factor in introducing innovations in businesses. SAP HANA is an innovative next generation business platform that combines the strengths of evolution in hardware and software technologies. The accumulation of massive amounts of data and the requirement to promptly process it in real-time makes SAP HANA the one stop solution. SAP HANA leverages in-memory platform, combines ACID compliant database with advanced data processing, application services, and flexible data integration services. SAP HANA has the ability to process structured and unstructured data in real-time and enables reporting without latency. SAP HANA delivers high volume transactional processing (OLTP) and high volume real-time analytical processes (OLAP) based on a unified data model without the redundant data layers typically required by traditional RDBMS based systems. Existing systems can be seamlessly migrated to SAP HANA with the help of multiple SAP migration tools.

What are some of the main challenges in migration of existing DBMS customers?

The key challenges in migration include:

·         Budgetary considerations

·         Developing strong, compelling, and convincing benefits

·         Streamlining the chores of migration

·         Getting the services of a trusted and dependable SAP authorized partner

·         Optimizing sizing and infrastructure

·         Finalizing Deployment option - on premise / cloud (private / public cloud) muddle for TCO Adopting the right migration strategy

·         Executing migration by managing downtime

·         Unicode and Dual Stack Split

·         Code Optimization

·         Cutover

Challenges can be overcome by fixing the budget, having a well-defined business case based on existing and new landscapes, proper planning for optimizing sizing and infrastructure with SAP authorized hardware vendors, resolving the on premise / cloud (private / public cloud) muddle based on security strategy, performance, accessibility factors,   migration strategy (old / new methods) depending on prerequisite check on the existing landscape, managing downtime for ensuring business continuity, custom code optimization to enhance performance, etc.

How is the migration going to take place in traditional companies and PSUs?

Size doesn’t matter – and an apt example to highlight would be that of the Indian Railways, which is one of the world’s largest rail network, is all set to be powered by SAP HANA - On an average Indian Railways sells close to 21 million tickets daily. The capabilities of SAP HANA will be utilized to make life simple and easy for the railway employees as well as passengers by bringing in reforms in the Ticketing System. HANA’s capability to process large volumes of data in real time, has made it to be the game changer for all organizations, irrespective of their size and type.

Saas in Cloud platforms are based on the concept of pay for the usage, how is Saas licensing going to impact the customers on the pricing side?

SAP has been traditionally an on premise based ERP. With the evolution of S/4 HANA, SAP has widened its reach into the cloud platforms with both private and public cloud offerings. The pricing model is subscription based and corresponds to the different versions such as – SAP S/4 HANA, public cloud enterprise edition – SAP S/4 HANA, public cloud professional services edition – SAP S/4 HANA public cloud marketing edition. Often, the pricing for SAP solutions (especially in the on premise world) is calculated on the basis of the number of named users. Pricing metrics for SAP’s cloud offerings have often been based on other factors, some of them being – customer’s corporate group’s revenue, number of expense reports processed per year by customer, etc. 

Companies are not open to sharing data with a third party organization, What is SAP HANA going to do to overcome this security challenge?

With the onset of SAP HANA, SAP ERP underwent innovations and transformed into SAP S/4 HANA. Customers can choose from various deployment options– On Premise, Cloud or Hybrid. This would be in line with the customers’ security compliance requirements. In addition to the security provisions in the SAP ERP, SAP HANA provides various security functions such as – User Management, Authentication and Single Sign-on, Authorization Framework, Audit Logging, Communication Channel Encryption, Data Encryption and so on. Also, S/4 HANA Private Cloud is designed for customers who are looking for increased security and privacy and who do not want to share a database container with other customers.

Over 5600 Applications So Far for IET India Scholarship Award 2016

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) witnessed incredible participation from the engineering community with over 5,600 registrations for its 4^th edition of The IET India Scholarship Awards 2016.

Highest number of applications are from Tamil Nadu this year, followed closely by Uttar Pradesh. Maharashtra, West Bengal and Karnataka follow. 

IET India instituted the annual IET India Scholarship Awards in 2013 to underscore the organisation’s commitment to India’s engineering community and to incentivise young people entering the engineering and technology profession.

The scholarship provides a combined grant of Rs. 8 lakhs and is designed to reward and celebrate individual excellence and innovation among undergraduate engineering students by challenging them to solve the social causes with their technical know-how.

The IET India Scholarship Award is organized in four levels, from eligibility to theoretical and practical engineering case resolutions. The focus of the award is to demonstrate economically, socially and technologically viable ideas to resolve challenges around our society.

“We are absolutely delighted with the response we have received so far for the IET Scholarship award. It is one of the focused initiatives of The IET, as it underlines the organizations commitment to create an enviable brain pool of engineering community in India. It gives me great joy to reward and celebrate the ingenuity of these undergraduate engineering students”   says Mr. Shekhar Sanyal, Director and Country Head, The IET India.

The deadline for submission of applications is April 30, 2016. For more details please visit – http://scholarships.theiet.in 

HPS’s Digital Transformation Business Helps in IIoT Benefits

Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS) has announced it has established a new business unit to help manufacturers harness the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and more rapidly deploy technologies that will allow them to better manage and analyze data, making their operations safer, more reliable and more efficient.

“Since HPS’s introduction of the modern automation control system, we have helped plants and manufacturing sites around the world use an increasing amount of data to solve customer’s productivity and safety challenges” said Vimal Kapur, HPS president. “As manufacturers are looking to take the next step to manage and exploit data across multiple sites in locations across the globe, our new business unit will be a focused resource to provide that expertise.”

Andrew Hird has been named vice president and general manager of Honeywell’s new Digital Transformation unit and will report to Kapur. Hird most recently served as HPS’s global vice president of sales, where he gained exposure to customers in industries ranging from oil and gas and mining to power generation, and pulp and paper. Hird has more than 20 years of industry experience, including 12 years with Honeywell.

“Honeywell’s deep expertise in IIoT allows us to solve customer challenges by consolidating data in the cloud from multiple disparate systems, applying higher-level analytics and leveraging experts who are often physically remote from the customer site,” Hird said. “Honeywell is in a unique position of being the recognized leader in automation and control room solutions for a wide range of process industries, plus we have advanced knowledge in connectivity with OPC UA, cyber security and advanced software development.”

OPC UA is Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture, a machine-to-machine communication protocol. 

IPO Opens on April 28, 2016 for Ujjivan Financial with Price Band of Rs 207 – Rs 210

Ujjivan Financial Services Ltd. (“UFS” or the “Company”) is a Non Banking Financial Company – Micro Finance Institution (“NBFC-MFI”) which started operations in 2005 as a Non Banking Financial Company (“NBFC”). As of December 31, 2015, UFS has served over 2.77 million active customers across 24 states and union territories through a network of 470 branches and 7,862 employees. The IPO opens on April 28, 2016 and closes on May 02, 2016, with a price band of ` 207 – ` 210 per Equity Share of face value of ` 10 each. The Anchor Investor Bid/Offer Period shall be one Working Day prior to the Bid/Offer Opening Date, i.e. April 27, 2016.

The IPO consists of a fresh issue of Equity Shares aggregating up to ` 3,581.61 million by the Company and an offer for sale of up to 24,968,332 Equity Shares by Elevar, FMO, IFC, IFIF, MUC, Sarva Capital, WCP and WWB. The Company, in consultation with the BRLMs, has completed a Pre-IPO Placement of 14,236,057 Equity Shares for cash consideration aggregating to ` 2,918.39 million. The size of the Fresh Issue as disclosed in the Draft Red Herring Prospectus dated December 31, 2015, being ` 6,500 million, has been reduced accordingly.

The Offer is being made through the Book Building Process, wherein 50% of the Offer shall be allocated on a proportionate basis to Qualified Institutional Buyers (“QIB Portion”). The Company and the Selling Shareholders, in consultation with the BRLMs, may allocate up to 60% of the QIB Portion to Anchor Investors on a discretionary basis (“Anchor Investor Portion”), at the Anchor Investor Allocation Price. At least one-third of the Anchor Investor Portion shall be reserved for domestic Mutual Funds, subject to valid Bids being received from domestic Mutual Funds at or above Anchor Investor Allocation Price. In the event of under-subscription, or non-allocation of the Anchor Investor Portion, the balance Equity Shares shall be added to the QIB Portion. 5% of the Net QIB Portion  shall be available for allocation on a proportionate basis to Mutual Funds only, and the remainder of the Net QIB Portion shall be available for allocation on a proportionate basis to all QIB Bidders (other than Anchor Investors), including Mutual Funds, subject to valid Bids being received at or above the Offer Price.

Further, not less than 15% of the Offer shall be available for allocation on a proportionate basis to Non-Institutional Bidders and not less than 35% of the Offer shall be available for allocation to Retail Individual Bidders in accordance with the SEBI ICDR Regulations, subject to valid Bids being received at or above the Offer Price. All potential Bidders (except Anchor Investors) shall participate in the Offer mandatorily through the Applications Supported by Blocked Amount (“ASBA”) process.

Any Bidder who, either by himself directly or indirectly or along with the relatives, or associated enterprises, or persons acting in concert (as described under section 12B of the Banking Regulation Act) (“Other Persons”) associated with it, Bids for such number of Equity Shares that (along with the existing aggregate shareholding in the Company of such Bidder and the Other Persons associated with such Bidder), results in such Bidder, together with the Other Persons associated with such Bidder, holding 5% or more of the post-Offer paid-up share capital of the Company, shall obtain a valid and subsisting approval of the RBI to be eligible to acquire and hold, after considering its existing shareholding if any, in the Company, together with the existing shareholding in the Company, if any, of the Other Persons associated with such Bidder, 5% or more of the post-Offer paid-up share capital of our Company, either individually or on an aggregate basis with the Other Persons associated with such Bidder, as the case may be, subject to the subscription level in the Offer.

The Company proposes to utilise the Net Proceeds of the Fresh Issue for augmenting its capital base.

Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Limited, Axis Capital Limited, ICICI Securities Limited and IIFL Holdings Limited are the BRLMs to the Offer, while Karvy Computershare Private Limited is the Registrar to the Offer.

The Equity Shares of the Company are proposed to be listed on the BSE and the NSE.

ITC Infotech Implements PTC’s FlexPLM 10.2 for Fashion Students of University of Huddersfield

ITC Infotech, a global scale full service provider of technology solutions, has completed implementation of PTC’s FlexPLM 10.2 for UK based University of Huddersfield for its Fashion and Textile Buying Management course. ITC Infotech is also providing PLM training and assistance to the University’s lecturers, to enable faster adoption and deeper understanding of the technology platform.

The academics use PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) to teach the key stages of apparel product development within their course, thus providing opportunities to develop creative business skills and an understanding of the fashion and textile sector for the next generation of industry professionals.

The University of Huddersfield recognizes the value of PLM and is the first UK University to adopt a PLM approach for its Fashion Textiles Buying Management course. The institute has introduced PLM education at all levels in the course in order that graduate students enter employment with a baseline of the solution knowledge, recognising the realistic outcome it can generate, the problems it can solve and opportunities it can provide.

ITC Infotech provided the solution installation and implementation on the University’s servers as well as advising the Fashion Textiles Buying Management team on how best to configure the system to meet the needs of the course curriculum. Additionally, ITC Infotech provided training services to the University’s lecturers to get them up to speed on using the solution and PTC provided the requisite FlexPLM v10.2 licenses.

Hardeep Singh Garewal, President – Europe, ITC Infotech, said, “Implementing and installing PTC FlexPLM v10.2 for Huddersfield University has been a very interesting and rewarding journey. ITC Infotech has been enabling clients in the Retail and Fashion industry to create and adopt cutting-edge technology solutions and analytic tools to help them stay ahead of the competition. Our engagement with Huddersfield University truly reflects the collaboration of academia and business, working together to prepare the next generation of professionals.”

With the successful implementation of the solution, PLM experience has become a key differentiator in competitive employment markets.

“Our students now benefit from a tiered integrated industry technology focused learning experience” stated Jo Conlon, Senior Lecturer at the University of Huddersfield, “firstly as individual users of the FlexPLM 10.2 system, then at a process management level and finally exploring strategic real world applied opportunities for extended and innovative PLM technologies. We have benefited enormously from the expertise and commitment of ITC Infotech to support and embed each stage, developing a rich understanding of PLM as a holistic business process solution.”

PTC's Windchill-based enterprise solution for the retail and consumer industries is designed to address both industry-specific challenges as well as everyday business pressures. It offers a high-performance, Web-based platform that provides line planning, product specification development, materials management, sourcing, costing, quality and compliance features with full supply chain collaboration capabilities.

ATOM & Eka Software Partner Eco-System to Support Growth in Energy and Agriculture Industries

Eka Software Solutions, the leading global provider of Smart Commodity Management software solutions, announced today its partnership with ATOM Solutions, an IT consultancy serving commodities companies. This partnership provides commodities companies with a third party source of experience from a team of domain experts with a substantial history of successful implementations.

ATOM Solutions delivers technology oriented solutions and services to companies involved in the commodities chain. The company works with clients to develop IT strategy and to craft and implement technology solutions by leveraging ATOM’s deep domain expertise and by employing industry best practices.

"Since the recent launch of Commodity Analytics Cloud, we’re seeing growing adoption of analytics by the commodities market as well as continuing interest in our ETRM and CTRM platforms,” said Michael Schwartz, EVP & CMO at Eka. “Based on our strong pipeline, we expect the remainder of 2016 to be a very good year for Eka. We’re excited to partner with a company such as ATOM that has tremendous industry expertise and an impressive track record implementing ETRM and CTRM software solutions.”

Eka's Smart Commodity Management includes Commodity Analytics Cloud, an advanced analytics solution that brings commodity specific analytics to all business users, and InSight CM, a next-generation ETRM and CTRM integrated system for managing commodity transactions end-to-end throughout the value chain. These two solutions provide the analytical and operational solutions that commodities companies need to manage in today’s complex and volatile markets.

“Our team of industry veterans has deep experience advising customers on the selection of ETRM and CTRM software solutions as well as successfully implementing solutions utilizing our OnTarget Project Delivery Methodology™,” said Firoz Jhaver, CEO at ATOM Solutions. “We are very excited about forging this new relationship with Eka and educating the marketplace about their solutions. The Commodity Analytics Cloud platform in particular is very intriguing to us as we see tremendous potential for its adoption in the industry. Eka has created a paradigm shift by decoupling analytics from its core product. This enables the solution to be used across all systems utilized in an organization; including competitive E/CTRM software used in ‘best of breed’ environments. We look forward to working closely with Eka to help our mutual customers rapidly realize value from their IT investments.”

Eka has built a strong partner eco-system to deliver industry-leading solutions that bring business value to customers around the world. The partner eco-system consists of top tier partners whose hardware, software, and services complement Eka’s offerings.