Dilip Jose Appointed MD & CEO of Manipal Health Enterprises Ltd

Manipal Health Enterprises Private Limited (MHEPL) today announced the appointment of  Dilip Jose as the Managing Director & Chief Executing Officer (M.D &CEO) of the company and will take charge from Dr. Ajay Bakshi who was associated with MHEPL for the last three plus years.

Having over 25 years of rich experience in various sectors and across functional areas he dedicated the last 16 years to the Healthcare industry. Dilip Jose served as a senior advisor to TPG Capital for close to two years and prior to this he was the group CEO of Care Hospitals, Hyderabad. He was also the Regional Director with Fortis Healthcare, managing their operations in Southern Region. He has held several leadership positions/ roles in the areas of para-medical education as well as tertiary healthcare delivery. In his previous role at TPG, and as senior  advisor to the Manipal group Jose has contributed immensely in terms of operational excellence , and has provided value and knowledge of the best practices in the Healthcare industry.

He is a management graduate from IRMA and has attended several Executive Development Programs at institutions such as IIM (A), XLRI and ISB. He is a member of the National Healthcare Council, CII and the GLG Healthcare Council. His interests include trekking and volunteering for social causes.

Commenting on the appointment Dr. Sudarshan Ballal, Chairman, Manipal Hospitals said “We congratulate and extend a very welcome to Dilip Jose on taking over this assignment. He is undoubtedly one of the finest minds in the Healthcare Industry and I am confident that he will take MHEPL to new heights with his strong vision and dynamism.” We wish him the very best in this endeavor

Office Rental Projections to Remain Strong Across Primary Markets like Bengaluru

Office rental projections for the next one year continue to point to solid growth across all prime markets, according to a recent RICS’ India Commercial Property Monitor. In terms of the city breakdown, Bengaluru exhibits stronger rental growth projections when compared with Mumbai and the National Capital Region (NCR).

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 6 October, 2017. Respondents were asked to compare conditions over the latest three months, with the previous three months and give their views on the outlook.

Capital value expectations for the next one year for office, retail and industrial segments are slightly lower. Still, solid growth is expected across segments over the next one year. Likewise, respondents also lowered their expectations for rental growth for a second consecutive quarter, with the largest downgrades coming in the industrial segment. 

Credit conditions have improved slightly in Q3, possibly because of a further cut in the RBI’s key policy rate in August, this year. The Investment Sentiment Index was unchanged during Q3, again posting a reading of +6. This measure is an indication of marginally positive momentum behind the investment market. Investment enquiries increased in the office sector, with the pace of growth, exceeding that of the previous quarter. Meanwhile, demand was flat in the retail portion of the market, and fell for industrial assets. The supply of property for investment purposes held steady for the third consecutive quarter. 

Tenant demand increased at a reasonably solid pace in the office sector, picked up only marginally in the retail sector, while demand for industrial space fell during Q3. Availability of leasable space was more or less unchanged for the second successive quarter, although a slight rise was reported in the retail segment. Meanwhile, landlords opted to increase the value of incentive packages in the office and retail portions of the market

As far as market valuations are concerned, around three quarters of respondents are of the opinion that the commercial real estate market is either at or below fair value currently. This proportion rose modestly when compared with Q2, when around two thirds of contributors took this view.

U2opia Mobile to Help Banks and Insurers Speed Up the Aadhaar Verification Procedure

Linking of Aadhaar (Unique Identification Number), issued by the UIDAI, has become an important part of our lives. The government has made it mandatory for financial institutions, including banks and insurance companies, to verify and link Aadhaar of their customers with their bank accounts. There are millions of people across the country who still haven’t completed the formality because of either lack of awareness or due to their busy schedules. U2opia Mobile is helping banks with accelerating this tedious process with its Aadhaar Verification Service.

U2opia Mobile ensures an easy process of linking one’s Aadhaar with their bank account as customers can get their KYC done from the comfort of their home and at a time of their convenience. The user will have to dial a USSD short code from their Registered Mobile Number, then type their Aadhaar number and they will get verified instantly. The simple three screen verification process will remove the need for OTP verification or paper-based verification for KYC.

’We are trying to help the Banks and Insurance Companies complete the Aadhaar verification of all their customers on time by making the procedure easy and hassle-free. U2opia Mobile’s Aadhaar verification Service works well on all mobile handsets as USSD is a basic 2G/3G mobile feature’’ added Sumesh Menon, Co-Founder, and CEO, U2opia Mobile. 

Commvault Announces Partnership with Google Cloud

Commvault, a leader in enterprise backup, recovery, archive and the cloud, today announced a new strategic partnership with Google Cloud to help enterprises leverage the range of cloud services available on one of theindustry’s fastest growing cloud platforms, Google Cloud Platform. The partnership will be highlighted at Commvault GO, Commvault’s annual customer event, with a keynote delivered by Google executive Adam Massey on how this new relationship addresses the increasing need for data protection for fast growing multi-cloud, hybrid IT environments requiring flexibility, security, high data availability, and business agility.

Today’s partnership announcement with Google Cloud Platform outlines new opportunities for joint enterprise customers to scale faster, innovate easier, and more securely protect, store and use data in the cloud. By supporting all four Google Cloud Platform storage classes for content repositories – Coldline, Nearline, Regional and Multi-Regional – Commvault helps customers optimize their cloud investments byenabling them to achieve the right balance between access and cost economics of data storage. Google also made its cloud platform available for the India region today with option for making payment in Rupees. With this partnership, Commvault will enable businesses in India to have speed, security and analytics they need to grow.

According to a recent Commvault executive cloud survey conducted in partnership with CITO Research, 56 percent of responding organizations are cloud-only or plan to move 100 percent of their workloads to the cloud. In a separate cloud security survey commissioned by Google, research by MIT Sloan found that 75 percent of IT and business executives said data storage was their top workload deployed in the cloud today. These findings underscore the importance of cloud adoption for modernizing IT processes, improving operational efficiencies and increasing business agility.

“Our enterprise customers are looking for support for their migration strategies to Google Cloud Platform,” said Adam Massey, Director of Strategic Technology Partnerships, Google Cloud. “And with that comes a requirement for comprehensive data protection. Commvault will help our customers accelerate their migration by making it easier and faster to move data to Google Cloud Platform.”

Commvault compression and global deduplication help enterprises rapidly and cost-effectively move huge volumes of data to Google Cloud Platform. Across on-premises and cloud storage locations, the Commvault platform provides a single comprehensive view of data, making it simpler and more cost-effective to manage data and satisfy regulatory requirements. With Commvault, industry standard encryption secures data in motion and at rest, providing additional peace of mind in meeting security and compliance requirements.

Through the strategic partnership, Commvault and Google Cloud are empowering enterprises to transform their businesses by deploying a single solution for holistic data management, including data backup, recovery, management and e-discovery across on-premises, Google Cloud Platform and other cloud environments.

“Enterprise customers need flexibility to ensure high availability and reduced risk across their entire data infrastructure, which is why we support so many cloud storage options,” said N. Robert Hammer, Chairman, President and CEO, Commvault. “Our analytics on cloud usage and recent surveys continue to reinforce the increasing need for the Google Cloud Platform as a high performance, flexible and reliable option for customers. Through the power of the Commvault Data Platform, we’re helping enterprise customers in both the public and private sectors takeadvantage of the capabilities of Google Cloud Platform as they continue on their multi-cloud journey.” 

Commvault helps Google Cloud Platform customers securely and optimally move, manage and use data. Commvault supports most common enterprise-class applications running inside Google Cloud Engine, including various file systems on Windows, Unix and Linux. Applications and databases, such as SAP, Exchange, Oracle and DB2 are supported, as are big data applications such as GPFS, Mongo DB, Hadoop and more. Commvault also offers data management capabilities on Google Cloud Platformfor GSuite applications such as Gmail and Google Drive,including backup, recovery and management.

“The ability to use Commvault across Google Cloud Platform and our on-premises data store backups has made it simpler and more cost effective to protect, access and manage our information assets,” said Phil Ventimiglia, Chief Innovation Officer at Georgia State University. “This capability has helped increase our operational efficiency and advance our business continuity and disaster recovery efforts." 

Tech Mahindra, Unity Join Hands to Work on Next-Gen Immersive Reality Technologies

Tech Mahindra, a specialist in digital transformation, consulting and business re-engineering today announced its partnership with Unity Technologies to open a Centre of Excellence (CoE) targeting Communication and Media & Entertainment segment. Unity Technologies is credited with producing the world’s most popular creation engine, which reaches nearly 3 billion devices and powers nearly 2/3rds of all Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) content.

The CoE will be located at Tech Mahindra’s campus in Bangalore and will specialise in solutions targeted at Communication, Media & Entertainment segment which will be completely developed by Tech Mahindra using Unity 3D as a platform. It will also focus on catalysing and facilitating training, consulting, advice and research to the developers in the domain.

Dave Rhodes, Chief Revenue Officer, Unity Technologies, said, “The next cutting-edge technology will be in the AR/VR space which is fast catching up in almost all major domains. We recognise the scope for growth and development in telecom and Media & Entertainment space and are pleased on partnering with Tech Mahindra for the Centre of Excellence. Tech Mahindra gets the expertise in building world-class products for a dynamic industry vertical like boardcasting, making them our preferred partners in disrupting innovation. ”

Indraneel Ganguli, Senior Vice-President & Global Head, Marketing at Tech Mahindra commented:“Our customers in Gaming and Media & Entertainment industry are seeking more options around immersive experiences. Through this partnership, we are delighted to be one of the earliest players to focus our expertise in developing AR/VR/MR solutions at faster pace, helping customers in adding value to their end-users/consumer experiences. Our partnership with Unity would help us penetrate the space more aggressively and significantly as a one-point solution for all sub-segments in the Media & Entertainment space.”

As a trusted Digital Transformation partner for global organizations, Tech Mahindra is aggressively pushing ahead with its D.A.V.I.D strategy, which constitutes of five key pillars such as digitalisation, automation, verticalization, innovation and disruption. The company believes that AR/VR is going to be one of the key technology areas that would hugely contribute towards shaping the future in an increasingly digitalized world. “We are creating a Centre of Excellence that will build comprehensive business solutions combining AR/VR applications with enhanced personalised user experience that will improve business value for our customers,” added Ganguli.

Unity exists to democratize development, solve hard problems and enable success -- three core values that are the driving forces of Unity’s adoption by millions of creators. Unity powers more than 50% of all new mobile games and over 2/3rds of all AR and VR content. Interactive content made with Unity reaches nearly 3 billion devices worldwide.

Indian Gaming Market Now Ranked Third in Global Installs, Surpassing Brazil and Russia

Unity Technologies, creator of the world’s most popular creation engine that reaches nearly three billion devices worldwide, announced that India is now ranked third in global gaming installs, surpassing Brazil and Russia (source: Unity Analytics). This came from shared insights into the latest Indian gaming ecosystem trends that were presented at Unite India 2017 in Hyderabad. The debut of Unite India 2017 was hosted in collaboration with NASSCOM Game Developer Conference 2017, the premier event for the Game Developer Community in India.

According to Unity Analytics, latest market research shows that India has risen from the ninth position in January of this year to the third spot in global install rankings, surpassing Brazil and Russia to become one of the world's largest gaming markets. This is due to the spike in India’s adoption of high-end mobile devices with larger RAM size. In one year, mobile device count with 1GB RAM has grown from 31.6 million to 100 million in October 2017.

“Unity analyzed and studied the ongoing market trends and development in the Indian Mobile Industry,” said Quentin Staes-Polet, Director of South Asia Pacific at Unity Technologies. “Based on our findings, we believe the mass adoption of high-end mobile devices will give the Indian gaming ecosystem ample opportunity to innovate and provide compelling content to development platforms.”

“Driven by the massive rush of cost-effective, high-end smartphones and the 4G revolution that began last year, the Indian mobile gaming market has been expanding at a rapid pace,” said Rajesh Rao, Chairman at NASSCOM Gaming Forum. “Every Indian with a smartphone today is trying out games, and it’s not just young people. Additionally, the developer ecosystem is maturing rapidly, with several high profile games made in India seeing international commercial success. There has also been strong interest in the Indian market from venture capitalists. As a result, we expect this growth to increase and help the budding Indian gaming industry become one of the leaders in the global market.”

Unity is uniquely positioned to help understand trends across the mobile industry, with 87K made with Unity games and experiences generating 2.4 billion installs across 1.1 billion unique devices globally each month.

Unity Analytics research identified the following trends in the Indian gaming industry:

●        Card games, Word games and Sports games are the top three genres by time played per day in India in 2017.

●        Adoption of high-end mobile devices has dramatically changed the Indian gaming market in the last few years, which now includes over 200 games development studios and service providers.

●        User engagement sessions reveal that non-gaming genres such as Social, Medical, Financial, Food & Beverage and Travel, are growing faster in the application development industry.

Unite is Unity’s global developer conference hosted in eight countries and is the most important gathering of Unity developers, artists, publishers, educators and enthusiasts. The conference witnessed gaming industry experts and prominent spokespeople from the industry, under one roof, to give deep insight into the world of evolving technologies. More information on Unite India 2017 can be found here.

Unity exists to democratize development, solve hard problems and enable success -- three core values that are the driving forces of Unity’s adoption by millions of creators. Games and experiences made with Unity reach more than three billion devices worldwide and were installed more than 16 billion times in 2016 alone.

Cult.Fit Signs Up Indian Cricketer K L Rahul as its Fitness Ambassador

In a significant partnership to further expand its brand outreach, Cult.fit, a chain of premium fitness centers, one of the offerings from the parent company cure.fit, has announced cricketer K L Rahul as its brand ambassador. The deal was facilitated by Cornerstone Sport- a brand consultant and talent representation agency. 

The young and talented cricketer, who has created waves both in the domestic and international cricket, has visited Cult.fit centers couple of times as part of his workout, thus making him an ideal spokesperson for brand’s unique philosophy of equipment free fitness.   

Speaking on the occasion, Ankit Nagori, Founder of Cure.fit said, “At Cult.fit, we are dedicated to build a community of fitness enthusiasts. We are proud to associate with K L Rahul, an emerging talent in the Indian cricket team and a strong proponent of healthy living and an active lifestyle. With his firsthand experience of what we offer, we strongly believe that he would make a great influencer of our approach to fitness.”

Commenting on his association with Cult.fit, cricketer K L Rahul said, “I am extremely happy about my association with Cult.fit. As a sportsperson, fitness not only plays crucial role to enhance on field performance but also has a positive impact on wellbeing. I am impressed with Cult.fit’s machine-free workouts, which can be practiced by anyone who wishes to be fit and that too without using heavy equipment”

 CULT currently has 17 fully functional centers across Bangalore training more than 7500 people. Cure.fit will soon be launching CULT centers in Malleshwaram and Mahadevpura, increasing the total count of their offline centers to 19 in the city. 

“We have received a phenomenal response to our CULT programs and are looking to expand rigorously pan India by setting up more than 500 CULT centers across 15 key markets,”  Nagori said.