Bengaluru, Mumbai, NCR Record Strong Office Rentals in Q1 2017

Office rentals in the cities of National Capital Region, Mumbai and Bengaluru will continue to outperform thanks to strong demand from office space occupiers, according to a recent RICS’ India Commercial Property Monitor. Bengaluru is in fact expected to do better than the other two cities.

RICS’ India Commercial Property Monitor is a quarterly guide to the trends in the commercial property investment and occupier markets. The guide is based on survey questionnaires sent out to RICS members over a month long period ending 10 July, 2017. Respondents were asked to compare conditions over the latest three months with the previous three months and give their views on the outlook.

Office rental forecasts over the next twelve months have been lowered slightly to 3.3% in Q2 from 3.5% in Q1 of 2017. This is due to a moderation in rent expectations for prime office space, though office rental forecasts are still seen up 6.3% over the next year.

“Strong economic growth is generating demand for office space.The last two years 2015 and 2016 have been quite good for the segment with pan India office vacancy at its lowest over 5 years. Vacancy levels in some cities such as Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune is around 5-10%. On the supply side, there is a shortage of grade A office space. It is less than half of the current office stock across top eight cities at 280 million sq ft. The gap between demand and supply of good quality office space Is keeping office rentals strong,” said Sachin Sandhir, Global Managing Director-Emerging Business, RICS South Asia.

Retail properties in NCR are however expected to see significantly less rental value appreciation over the next year than their counterparts in Bengaluru and Mumbai. The Q2 2017 results show occupier demand continuing to rise in the office sector, while, similar to Q1, respondents reported virtually no change in demand across the industrial and retail segments over the quarter.

investor demand was flat in Q2 though investment enquiries for offices increased during the quarter. This trend was mirrored in the data on enquiries from foreign buyers. The supply of property for investment purposes was unchanged for the third consecutive quarter across all three market segments.

Respondents are modestly bullish on capital values over the next three months. However, this is mainly driven by the office segment as the outlook for the industrial and retail segments are flat over the next quarter. Respondents however do expect capital values to increase across all market segments over the next year.

When viewed at the city level, respondents revised capital value forecasts over the next year lower, particularly in Bangalore. Headline capital values are now seen increasing 3.9% over the next year after contributors forecast a 6.1% appreciation last quarter. However, this market is still seen outperforming Mumbai and the NCR where headline capital values are seen up 3.8% and 2.9% over the next twelve months, respectively.

The Occupier Sentiment Index inched higher to +7 from +6 in Q1. This slightly positive reading indicates marginally positive momentum in the occupier market.

The Investment Sentiment Index moderated slightly from +9 in Q1 to +6 in Q2. This is consistent with only modest overall momentum behind the investment market.

HP Kicks Off Hai Jahan Bharosa Hain Wahan in Karnataka

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited has kick started their customer awareness campaign, Quality & Quantity (Q&Q) Assurance, from July 20, 2017, across all the HPCL outlets in Bengaluru region.  The month long drive is conceptualized to educate the customers on Quality and Quantity aspects of petroleum products and win the assurance of the patrons by inviting them to check the quality and quantity of petrol and diesel sold at the outlet before filling their vehicles.  The campaign is currently underway in Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural, Tumakuru, Kolar, Chikkaballapur, Chamrajnagar, Mandya and Ramanagara Districts.

Subhankar Datta, DGM Retail – Bangalore Regional Office of HPCL says, “We have come out with a dedicated slogan for this particular campaign called HP Hai Jahan Bharosa Hain Wahan, which translates our core objective of delighting our customers with competent, committed and transparent services.  I invite everyone to take this opportunity and participate in this drive and walk away confident about our product and services.”

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited is a Navaratna PSU Oil Company, which operates the second biggest product pipeline network in India. The company strictly adheres to the Quality and Quality assurance and follows standard operating practices.  All of their dealers, forecourt supervisors and filling station attendants undergo rigorous training to impart a pleasant service to its customers.  A dedicated team has been chosen, trained and located at HP outlets, who will demonstrate the HP Quality and Quantity assurance and will be more than happy to answer customers’ questions.  The campaign is promoted by company officials and dealers with full enthusiasm and the response thus far from the customers have been overwhelming.

Chicco Breast Pump: Giving Your Milk is as Simple as Giving Your Love

Today’s modern mothers are constantly switching their daily roles. They are managing different transitions of life like taking care of baby while juggling their work deadlines and family commitments. For new-age mothers, sometimes it becomes difficult to breastfeed as often as they need to. In such situations, a breast pump is quite useful to keep your baby’s belly full while you take care of your daily tasks.

According to Dr. Laura Cintelli (Obstetrician), “The milk of each mother is the perfect food for her baby. It contains all the nutritional principals required for growth up to 6 months of age and is recommended by the WHO* even after weaning. Besides supporting the growth of our little ones to grow well, breast milk also protects them from infection s, obesity and diabetes. When you go back to work or if you have to briefly go out, you can use a breast pump to avoid losing all these benefits. This useful equipment will serve not only to allow you to continue to give your baby your precious milk, but also to avoid losing the stimulation of your breasts if at the feeding time, you cannot be with your baby.”

Chicco offers NaturalFeeling range of Breast pumps and other breast-feeding accessories to make this experience peaceful for a longer duration for the new-age mothers. Chicco’s Manual Breast pump extracts milk effectively due to itsChicco Exclusive System and gently with its extra-soft silicon cup. Moreover, its ergonomic handle, which is made of BPA free material provides maximum comfort to mother’s hand while pumping.

Chicco NaturalFeeling Electric Breast pump offers innovative features like memory function and adjustable expression to make pumping a wonderful experience.

According to Mr. Rajesh Vohra, CEO, Artsana India, “We at Chicco have always had the perfect relationship with mothers all around the world. We share every single day with them during an extraordinary period of their lives. A mother’s love for her children knows no boundaries and she will do whatever it takes to find the best for them. Our passion for creating solutions for mothers is similarly limitless. And when it comes to looking after babies, neither of us is prepared to compromise. We at Chicco have a holistic vision of babies and of the world they inhabit.”

Chicco’s vast experience in the infant world is consolidated in Osservatorio Chicco (Baby Research Center) that offers specific solutions to accompany children through every stage of their growth, day after day, for 36 months.

Health institutions recommend breastfeeding as the best choice for babies. It is essential to support mothers, offering them practical solutions to encourage the continuation of breastfeeding even in the presence of difficulties. Chicco NaturalFeeling breast pumps are a practical solution not only for mothers who have difficulties but also for working mothers, stay-at-home mothers who want to take out time for them.

Packaging –

NaturalFeeling Manual Breast Pump - Price: ­­­­­Rs. 2499

NaturalFeeling Electric Breast Pump - Price: ­­­­­Rs. 10990

Exaring Automates Entertainment Services Delivery Platform with Juniper Networks’ Solutions to Drive Digital Transformation

Juniper Networks, an industry leader in automated, scalable and secure networks, today announced that Exaring, a digital service provider based in Germany, is using Juniper Networks’ high-performance solutions to create a scalable and fully-automated infrastructure for its next generation IP-based TV services. 

Exaring’s platform offers German households diverse broadcast services in the cloud via a smart device. The company operates a comprehensive fiber infrastructure exclusively for the transmission of IP entertainment services, combining high-definition TV quality with the convenience of easy-to-use apps and the flexibility of the web. Exaring has also created its own TV platform waipu.tv.

Exaring, with the flexible and automated network architecture created by Juniper Networks’ technology, can integrate and deploy new services in a very short time, achieving lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and meeting consumers’ high demands for its IP TV playout platform. The automated platform also allows the company to monitor and dynamically adjust its network performance in real-time, based on data intelligence and analysis.

News Highlights:

• Juniper Networks QFX Series switching technology was selected by Exaring to deliver automated television services to end-users, including high-definition (HD) and 4K (ultra HD) video, via customers’ existing internet connections without additional installations. 
• Exaring’s functions run in a cloud environment created by Juniper’s QFX switches, which are high-performance, high-density switching platforms with open architectures that serve as universal building blocks for automated, programmable fabric architectures. This environment supports applications that move hundreds of gigabits of video.

• Exaring deployed the Juniper Networks’ QFX10000 at its data center edge, which has IPv4 and IPv6 peering functionality and low latency transport, together with Juniper’s ASIC functionality, such as Virtual output Queueing (VoQ) technology.
• The overall switch network infrastructure is underpinned by Junos OS, Juniper’s single operating system for centralized management, which further streamlines and simplifies Exaring’s network operations. The automation capabilities of Junos OS, running on QFX Series switches, integrates seamlessly into Exaring’s broader orchestration and automation infrastructure.

AT Conceptualized Free Android App that Works in 11 Indian Languages

Agrahyah Technologies (AT) is been conceptualized by three friends turned entrepreneurs - Sreeraman Thiagarajan, Rushabh Vasa, and Uppal Shah. The young Turks are developing AT as software technology start-up to build a suite of apps (applications), products, and content ground-up for the millions of Indians who are non-English literates.

Agrahyah Technologies aim to make technology useful for everyone and remove English as a barrier for getting full advantages of the internet. Calculator for India is our first product. It is fully functional and free calculator that is available in 11 Indian vernacular languages including, Hindi, English, Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, Punjabi, and Telugu.

In past six months since inception, AT is working to build apps and content in Indian vernacular languages which cater to the masses in a culturally and a contextually relevant way. Technology giants and government are working to get more people online by increasing connectivity, but it raises an acute challenge in terms of inclusion. Of the approximately 400 million plus Indian users online, only 175 million users are comfortable with English.

The World Wide Web is dominated by English. India has over 400 million Hindi literates but WWW has less than 0.5% of Hindi content online. These stark differences will grow further if the language divide is not addressed adequately and urgently.   

There is a huge gap in the availability of high quality apps and content in vernacular languages. This is where AT steps in to build a bridge with a unique approach of building high quality apps and content for users in vernacular languages.

Our philosophy at AT is to be culturally and contextually relevant for each language. For instance, AT has developed 'Calculator For India' a free Android app that works in 11 Indian languages and also has GST calculation feature.

This is the first step to build multi-vernacular web for the growing number of Android users in India. AT is also launchingHotFridayTalks.com later this month, which is a Lifestyle and Entertainment portal that aims to be a tech lead, mobile first, new age hangout for youth. The vision is to develop a lifestyle portal with content written in each of the vernacular languages rather than merely translate it.

Another application in the works is called “MyNews”. An Android app to keep track of people, places, and things we care about in a language of our choice. For example the app lets you set a tracker for ‘Mysuru’ in Kannada or 'Narendra Modi' in Bengali. Once set, all the relevant news will be smartly delivered to the user and they can even choose to read it without ads and save it offline.

AT is a boot-strapped startup based in Mumbai. The men behind the dream include Sreeraman Thiagarajan, who’s been in the business of marketing for the last 15 years. An active Google evangelist, he has been a part of developer relations programs for past four years and listed as Google Expert. 

Rushabh Vasa started a full service digital marketing agency when India had less than 50 million internet users, and has come a long way in digital marketing, and remains the technology lead behind the idea. 

Uppal Shah is the staunch businessman, who has taken on a challenge to add technology to each arm of his vast family business which has presence from Kolhapur to Dubai.

With a vision to make technology accessible to everyone, the trio has taken the path less travelled on India’s digital landscape, by planning to localize the internet for the non-English masses in a country where the dialect changes every 50 kilometres, they have taken on an audacious task to break the language barrier and make Digital India truly inclusive. 

Digital Transformation and IoT Will Drive Investment in IT Operations Management Tools Through 2020

The growth of digital business and the Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to drive large investment in IT operations management (ITOM) through 2020, according to Gartner, Inc. A primary driver for organizations moving to ITOM open-source software (OSS) is lower cost of ownership.

 "While acceptance of OSS ITOM is increasing, traditional closed-source ITOM software still has the biggest budget allocation today. Moreover, complexity and governance issues that face users of OSS ITOM tools cannot be ignored. In fact, these issues open up opportunities for ITOM vendors. Even vendors that are late to market with ITOM functionality can compete in this area," said Laurie Wurster, research director at Gartner.

 Gartner believes many enterprises will turn to managed ITOM or ITOM as a service (ITOMaaS) enabled by open-source technologies and provided by a third party. With OSS, vendors can provide more cost-effective and readily available ITOM functions in a scaled manner through the cloud.

Through 2020, public cloud and managed services are expected to be leveraged more often for ITOM tools, which will drive growth of the subscription business model for both cloud and on-premises ITOM. However, on-premises deployments will still be the most common delivery method. This imposes multiple challenges to incumbent ITOM vendors. First, those vendors that do not offer a cloud delivery model will face continuous cannibalization from ITOM vendors that can deliver ITOM through both cloud and on-premises.

 Second, platform vendors, such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS), are providing some native ITOM functionalities on their public clouds. Customers that are running workloads solely on these platforms may prefer these native features. There are also "hybrid" requirements for ITOM tools that can seamlessly manage both cloud and on-premises environments.

 Future of Cloud Services and OSS for ITOM

 "Customer demand has driven traditional software vendors to transform and adapt to the changing technology and competitive landscapes. Competitive pressure from cloud (SaaS offerings) and commercial OSS (offerings with a free license plus paid support) is forcing ITOM providers to move toward subscription-based business models for both cloud and on-premises deployments," said Matthew Cheung, research director at Gartner. "This shift will eliminate revenue growth spikes as the large upfront investment seen in traditional models is spread out over time in a repeatable revenue stream."

The influx of new, smaller ITOM vendors focused on one or two major tool categories will continue to cause disruption for large traditional suite vendors. Given this situation, traditional vendors will need to react by changing how their products fit together. More importantly, traditional vendors need to change how their solutions are sold as customers exert significant pressure to shift to offering cloud-based services.

Schneider Electric Appoints Meenu Singhal as Head of Industry Business in India

Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management and automation, announced the appointment of Meenu Singhal as the Vice President of its Industry business. In his new role, Meenu will be responsible for accelerating Schneider Electric’s growth of the business with a focus on automation of industries and will drive the push for Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) platform across businesses for building greater efficiencies.

Meenu’s joining comes at an exciting time in industrial automation, with the IIoT offering unprecedented possibilities of building efficiencies across an entire system of an industrial operation. Schneider Electric is at the forefront of this technology wave with its cutting-edge solutions and Innovation at Every Level— which is being delivered through EcoStruxure™, an IoT-enabled, open and interoperable system architecture and platform for plants and machines.

Speaking on the appointment, Anil Chaudhry, Managing Director and Country President, Schneider Electric India, said, “Meenu joins us at a time when businesses are looking at leveraging the Make in India campaign to develop India as a hub of global manufacturing-Meenu’s immense experience will facilitate and front end delivery from our businesses to this critical requirement in the market.”

Meenu Singhal brings with him a rich experience of over 26 years in the field of automation. Following his graduation as an Electrical Engineer he took a post graduate degree in in Marketing Management from IMT, Ghaziabad

Sharing his views on joining the Industry business at Schneider Electric, Meenu said, “I am excited to take over as a leader of Industry and Automation at a time when businesses are looking at leveraging technology to automate and drive serious efficiencies in business. Schneider Electric is uniquely positioned as a global leader in automation industry and our focus as a team is to ensure business continuity and value creation through innovative offerings. I look forward to bringing in my experience on board at Schneider Electric to take the business forward.”