RERA, Demonetisation Gloom and Unsold Stock Cripple Launches in Bengaluru: Knight Frank India

Knight Frank India has launched the seventh edition of its flagship half yearly report - India Real Estate. It presents a comprehensive analysis of the residential and office market performance of Bengaluru for the period January – June 2017 (H1 2017).

Residential Takeaways:

·         Bengaluru residential market continued to be restrained in H1 2017 and witnessed a marginal increase of 5% in new launches and 4% in sales over the figures in H2 2016

·         Despite the slight improvement, the  number of new launches  in H1 2017 lagged behind H1 2016 by 42%and sales lagged by 19% during the same period

·         Factors such as RERA, demonetisation hangover and considerable unsold stock played a major role in constricting the market

·         A significant chunk of new launches in H1 2017 lies in the INR 25-50 lakh range, a welcome development given the government’s focus on the affordable housing sector

·         South Bengaluru continues to lead in both new launches and sales, courtesy its healthy congregation of large IT hubs, and is preferred by both the local populace and expatriate population.

Office Takeaways:

·         Bengaluru records 5.8 mnsqft of office space transactions in H1 2017, depicting moderate activity,as compared to previous years. New completions at 3.7 mnsqfttake a hit.

·         Tepid growth in the IT/ITes sector, stiff competition from other cities and a dearth of ready office spaces are some of the major factors leading to the dip in transactions

·         While IT/ITeSsector continued to drive Bengaluru office market in H1 2017, a prominent development observed during this period is the quantum of office space taken up by co-working space operators

·         Vacancy rates, which had been declining steadily over the years owing to consistent transactions and restrained new completions, continued on its downward movement and are presently at 4%

·         The ORR office market, which has been struggling in the past few quarters on account of dearth of ready to occupy space, saw its share increase in H1 2017 owing to a slew of big ticket transactions

Speaking about the findings,Shantanu Mazumder, Director – Bengaluru said,“Until recently recognized as one of the most resilient residential markets in the country, today the market is reeling under pressure. However, things have started looking up slightly in 2017 and although the figures are still restrained, marginal improvements were observed in the number of new launches and sales at 5% and 4% respectively in H1 2017 on a YoY basis. A significant chunk of new launches in H1 2017 lies in the INR 25-50 lakh range, a welcome development given the government’s focus on the affordable housing sector. Moreover, the inclusion of Bengaluru in the Smart City list is expected to have a far reaching impact on the residential market in the forthcoming years, as that would lead to improved infrastructure in the city. This would, in turn, add to the overall attractiveness and brand image of Bengaluru as a residential market.

On the office market front, 5.8 mnsqft of transactions depict a slight dip, signalling moderate activity compared to previous years. This decline could mainly be attributed to dearth of ready office spaces that forestalled potential occupiers looking to expand. Another factor is the tepid growth the IT/ITeS sector - the key demand driver of the office market in Bengaluru. Having matured over the years the sector stands on a bigger base today thereby limiting the scope for remarkable expansion that was witnessed earlier. On the new completions front, the city witnessed the infusion of 3.7 mnsqft of office space in H1 2017, whichis slightly better than the quantum of new completions in H2 2016. However, this figure is considerably less in proportion to the demand observed in the recent periods. While the IT/ITeS share is gradually reducing due to the advent of newer service sectors, take up of space by co-working companies is a trend to watch out for.”

Cyient and KII Corp Partner for Smart City Deployments Across India

Cyient, a global provider of engineering, manufacturing, geospatial, network and operations management solutions, announced that it has signed a non-exclusive business alliance agreement with Kii Corporation, a leading Internet of Things (IoT) solutions enablement platform provider, to explore, bid and address business opportunities around smart city deployments.

Through this agreement, Cyient and Kii have decided to jointly pursue business opportunities globally, by leveraging their complementing skills and strengths. The partnership will combine Cyient’s domain expertise and geospatial capabilities with Kii’sIoT platform to develop connected solutions through smart devices and applications. Under the terms of the agreement, Cyient will also provide Kii with project delivery and implementation services.

Expressing confidence in the partnership, Sanjay Sahay, Vice President, Cyient said,“I am delighted that we have partnered with Kii Corporation.  Kii’s IoT platform will enable Cyient to create innovative solutions and better address smart city requirements for our clients. I look forward to a long and mutually rewarding association with Kii.”

Paul Barron, Associate Vice President - Partners & Alliances of Cyient said,“Together, Kii and Cyient will provide a unique offering to optimize smart city asset management systems. I am excited at the opportunities this brings to our customers.”

On signing the agreement, Masanari Arai, CEO, Kii Corporation, said, “The combination of our IoT solutions enablement platform and solution accelerators with Cyient's mature engineering design and delivery process presents new opportunities for both companies globally, within smart cities and other IoT segments, such as manufacturing, utilities, healthcare, transportation, and beyond.”

Cyient provides engineering, manufacturing, geospatial, network and operations management services to global industry leaders. Cyient leverages the power of digital technology and advanced analytics capabilities, along with domain knowledge and technical expertise, to solve complex business problems. As a Design, Build and Maintain partner, Cyient takes solution ownership across the value chain to help clients focus on their core, innovate, and stay ahead of the curve.

Relationships form the core of how Cyient works. With nearly 14,000 employees in 21 countries, Cyient partners with clients to operate as part of their extended team, in ways that best suit their organization’s culture and requirements. Cyient’s industry focus includes aerospace and defense, medical, telecommunications, rail transportation, semiconductor, utilities, industrial, energy and natural resources.

Jetking Set to Launch Networking Course in Collaboration with Microsoft

Realizing the growing need of skilled employees in IT Industry and as a part of Prime Minister’s Skill India Vision, India’s leading hardware and networking institute Jetking takes digital education a notch higher with launch of its digital courses in association with Microsoft.

This certification course will validate candidates to boast the essential skills for running a highly efficient and modern data centre, Designed to reduce the gaps in digital domain, this master course will include 360 degree training on Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert Server Infrastructure credential by Microsoft certified faculties across Jetking’s training centres.

With 91% of hiring managers considering the certification as part of their hiring criteria, this offering is a blended learning experience for the students to cater to different industry requirements of the technology honchos. This Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) certification will not only equip students with the required digital skillset but also enable them to become the technology architects of tomorrow.

Elaborating on strategic collaboration with Microsoft, Avinash Bharwani, Vice President – New Business, Jetking says, “We believe in providing comprehensive training to our students and have a larger goal of helping them to achieve their career goals. It is always better to learn the content created by creator of the technology and hence it is important that a student learns using the official curriculum which is internationally recognized. Through this partnership we look forward to make a talent pool of students with competencies that the field desires from today’s professionals”

Active.AI Joins Infosys Finacle’s Growing FinTech Ecosystem Globally

Infosys Finacle, part of EdgeVerve Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Infosys has announced a partnership with Active.AI, a Singapore based FinTech that offers an Enterprise AI platform for banks globally. The Active AI platform, integrated with Finacle, will help financial institutions offer conversational banking services through chat and voice based interfaces across their digital channels. Banks can leverage the joint solution to harness artificial intelligence to automate and enhance customer experience.

Active.AI is one of the companies that was recognized in the recently concluded chapter of Finacle FinTech Connect, an initiative that builds on ongoing alliances and the Infosys Innovation Fund program to identify promising new FinTechs.

Highlights

·         The Active.AI platform, integrated with Finacle, will be delivered with pre-integrated banking services and pre-trained data models for banking services

·         With this joint solution, end customers will be able to interact with software bots in natural language through voice and chat interface to access account information, pay bills, make transfers and access several other banking services

·         The joint solution will use artificial intelligence to better understand customer interactions across channels. It will also be able to personalize conversations to make tailored offers to customers

·          The solution will be available in multiple languages and will be offered through Finacle digital channels solutions such as Finacle Online Banking and Finacle Mobile Banking

Sanat Rao, Chief Business Officer, Infosys Finacle says, “Elevating customer experience and reducing servicing costs are two of the strategic goals banks across the world are pursuing. The advancement in artificial intelligence technologies offer a significant opportunity to achieve these twin goals. Active.AI conversational banking offering focused on financial services will complement our suite of digital banking offerings and will help our clients make banking simpler for their customers.” 

Parikshit Paspulati, Chief Technology Officer, Active.AI says, “We are building the next generation of secure and scalable technology for financial services with an AI first approach. Our enterprise AI platform will enable banks to be ready for the conversational era. Partnering with Finacle helps us greatly increase delivery velocity for our mutual clients. Axis Bank is one of the first banks, where we have integrated our AI platform with Finacle ecosystem.”

Honeywell and HackerEarth National Hackathon Challenge Attracts Over 2,000 Tech Students

Honeywell hosted its first Honeywell Hackathon Challenge on June 9 in Bengaluru, India in association with HackerEarth, which is a provider of enterprise software solutions that help organizations in their innovation management and talent assessment endeavors. The first in a series of similar events scheduled for this year, The Honeywell Hackathon Challenge was held at Honeywell Technology Solutions’ office with more than 2,000 participants.

The Honeywell Hackathon Challenge is designed to stimulate creativity and innovation on technologies that are defining our increasingly connected world. The first Hackathon ideated on Chatbots, Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality, Predictive Analytics, Image Recognition, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, and Real-Time Location Sensing / GPS. The 169 entries were evaluated based on the innovativeness of the idea, its relevance as a solution to the problem, and the maturity of technology employed. Twenty-two shortlisted teams comprising 41 contestants then participated in the day-long offline Hackathon held at the Honeywell Bengaluru campus.

The winners were Lezwon Castellino, Jaison Chacko and Rahul Acharya, students at Christ University, Bangalore, whose application was a Self-Driving Artificial Intelligence. Says Lezwon: “We have participated in other Hackathons before but were truly inspired by the caliber of solutions designed by other teams at this event. It was great to meet and talk with the engineering and development teams at Honeywell. We deeply appreciate the steer and mentoring we got from Honeywell to optimize our solution.”

The Honeywell Hackathon Challenge saw 1,200 students from the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Regional Engineering Colleges, and school children from across the country submit their ideas. Gaurang Bharti, a student of Oakridge International School, whose idea made it to the final shortlist, was among the youngest participants. “Our idea was appraised by professionals. We received feedback on improving the idea for mass use. This is a very rare opportunity and a great learning exercise”, said Bharti.

Dr. Akshay Bellare, vice president and general manager of Honeywell Technology Solutions, India, Honeywell’s technology development and engineering arm, said: “I’m delighted to see the thirst for learning among such a young group of technology enthusiasts. As Honeywell transforms into a software industrial company, with about half of our 23,000 global engineers working on software, we recognize that digital and physical solutions will become more and more connected to change the way we live and work. We are committed to nurturing Indian engineering talent and supporting the tech community in making it more robust and in-step with the latest technology trends.”

Honeywell will hold two more Hackathon Challenge events in the coming months to enable the developer community to innovate and ideate on focus areas consuming the technology world today.    

Hero Motors Sales Growth Up 13% in Motorcycles and 22% in Scooters for June 2017

Hero MotoCorp Ltd (HMCL), the world’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer today announced record sales performance for the first quarter of the Financial Year (FY’18).

Registering strong sales, the Company sold 18,49,375 units in first three months (April 2017 – June 2017) of this fiscal - the highest-ever sales by Hero MotoCorp in any quarter. The Company’s previous highest quarterly sales was in the second quarter (July-September) of FY16-17, when it sold 18.23 lakhs units.

With sales of 624,185 two-wheelers in June 2017, the Company registered a growth of 14% over the corresponding month of the previous fiscal when it sold 549,533 units.

Hero MotoCorp has clocked such robust volumes in the month of June on account of strong growth in both motorcycles and scooters. The Company sold 547,185 units of motorcycles during the month of June,  thereby growing by 13% over the corresponding month last year. Hero MotoCorp sold 77,000scooters in June, registering a 22% growth over the corresponding month in 2016.

Motorcycle segment volume growth was supported by the wedding season and the very successful in-market activations for Hero's portfolio of trusted brands including Glamour, Splendor, Passion, HF Deluxe and Achiever. Scooters have gained volumes driven by the very effective ‘360 degree’ Go-To-Market programmes along-with the introduction of new upgrades and refreshes earlier in the quarter.

Hero MotoCorp has welcomed GST as a game-changing tax reform in the country.

The Company has passed on the benefit of GST to its customers with a reduction in the prices of models across its product portfolio in most of the states w.e.f. July 1, 2017. The quantum of reduction ranges from Rs 400 to Rs 1800 on mass-selling models. The actual benefit varies from state to state, depending on the pre and post-GST rates. Some of the premium segment models see a reduction of up to Rs 4000 in certain markets. In one or two states, such as Haryana, where the pre-GST rates were lower than the post-GST rate, the prices of a few models have gone up marginally.

Zippo Shines Bright at the 6th Edition of Bangalore Open Air

More than 1500 music lovers from across India came together to celebrate and enjoy pulsating rock and metal music, at the 6th season of the Bangalore Open Air music festival. Hosted at the lush Royal Orchid Resort and Convention Center, the festival witnessed some of the best talents from both Indian and International bands.

The definitive highlight of the festival was the Zippo Flame Art which was setup at the venue. Symbolizing the passion and love for rock music, the jaw-dropping flame art entranced the audiences, creating a magical moment that the crowd won’t forget for years to come!

An exciting highlight of the festival was the Zippo Flame Art which was setup at the venue. Symbolizing the passion and love for rock music, the flame art created fun and magical moments for the artists and the crowd, which they won’t forget for years to come!

The festival goers also got to witness the Zippo Encore area in all its glory! From unleashing their creative spirits at the ‘Zippo Custom Contest’, to trying their luck at the ‘Zippo Wheel of Fortune’ and celebrating their inner-passion through face-painting, the Zippo Encore Area had an activity for everyone. The attendees also had a chance to find their perfect Zippo windproof lighter from the host of exclusive collectibles available.