Dream11 Appoints Vikrant Mudaliar as Chief Marketing Officer

Dream11, India’s biggest Sports Gaming platform, today announced the expansion of its leadership team with the appointment of Vikrant Mudaliar as Chief Marketing Officer. Vikrant will be responsible for driving Dream11’s marketing and brand strategy and further strengthen its leadership position in the online Sports Gaming industry.

One of the biggest names in Indian marketing, Vikrant Mudaliar has led some of the best-known brands in the country over the last 17 years. He joins Dream11 from Yatra.com, where, as the Chief Marketing Officer, he led marketing activities across all of its business-lines and group entities.

Vikrant has vast experience in varied aspects of marketing, sales and strategy functions across diverse sectors including e-commerce, media & entertainment, automobiles and consumer goods. Before Yatra, he was the Vice President – Brand Marketing at Tata Sky, where he was instrumental in making the brand a category leader. He has also been associated with Lenskart, General Motors India, Jumbo Electronics Dubai and Pepsi Foods Ltd.

Commenting on the expansion of the leadership team, Harsh Jain, CEO of Dream11, said, “With his unparalleled expertise and experience, along with his deep understanding of Indian consumers and the diverse Indian market, Vikrant is here to lead Dream11’s exponential growth from our current user base of 2 crore sports fans to 10 crore by 2020. Having led some of the top consumer-focused brands, we're sure Vikrant will make Dream11 a household name through exciting customer engagement initiatives.”

Commenting on his new role, Vikrant Mudaliar, Chief Marketing Officer said, “It is a particularly exciting time for Sports Gaming in India which is witnessing rapid growth as a business segment. The $7 billion daily fantasy sports industry in the US & Canada has over 60 million users. The fantasy sports industry in India, which has tremendous potential, is also set to grow exponentially in the near future. Dream11 has played a pioneering role in shaping this industry and is at the intersection of sports, entertainment and technology. I am excited to take the Dream11 brand to greater heights."

Vikrant will be based in Mumbai and report to Harsh Jain, CEO, Dream11.

Aeris Communications Launches Internet of Things Solution for the Social Sector

In a move designed to promote the adoption of Internet of Things across sectors, leading IoT platform and solutions provider Aeris Communications has announced the launch of an exclusive solution developed for the social/not for profit sector.

The first of its kind IoT solution for the not for profit sector offers a range of benefits to stakeholders connected with NGOs and similar organisations. Among other benefits it helps promote efficiency, operational transparency and better engagement between all stakeholders at all times. It provides aid from a single source including disaster relief and reconstruction support to long-term development cooperation projects with local partner organisations.

The launch customer for this solution is Welthungerhilfe, one of Germany's biggest private organisations for development and humanitarian aid, which is working on water conservation in India. 

“At Aeris, we have always worked towards broadening the spectrum of IoT adopters. IoT will be able live up to its potential only if it moves closer to mass adoption. Many social enterprises have already embraced technology to further their development agenda and with this solution, they will be able to use Internet of Things as well. This will not just help social enterprises but also the beneficiaries they work with,” said Dr. Rishi Bhatnagar, President, Aeris India.

The solution has been developed in association with Aeris’ solution partner Manacle. A variant of this solution is already powering enterprises ranging from large FMCG majors, logistics, telecom and manufacturing firms. With the availability of this solution, social enterprises will be able to leverage Internet of Things to achieve their goals around sales, order and cash management.

BookMyShow Sells Close to 5 Million Tickets for Padmaavat

BookMyShow, India’s largest online entertainment ticketing platform, said that it has alone sold close to 5 million tickets for Padmaavat since the release of the film on January 26, 2018. The Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh, Shahid Kapoor starrer enjoyed a two week clear run at the box-office, though a few cities were not part of the release.

BookMyShow, the category leader in online movie ticketing, contributed over 60% of Padmaavat’s opening weekend collection – a staggering contribution for a blockbuster release – achieving over INR 100 Crore collection on BookMyShow. The Sanjay Leela Bhansali magnum opus sold tickets across 340 cities and towns and was released in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, in 2D, 3D and IMAX.  The film’s first ticket was booked from Jharsuguda in Odisha, while maximum number of tickets for Padmaavat were sold in Mumbai, followed by Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.

Padmaavat, which was clearly the movie of the month for the Indian film industry, contributed to over 35% of the total movie ticket sales on BookMyShow in the month. BookMyShow also rolled out an ad film (BookMyShow TV Ad | Touchy Topic) and a digital film (BookMyShow Video Ad | Padmaavat – Jao Book Now) around the movie which was viewed and shared by millions of movie lovers across the country.

Marzdi Kalianiwala, VP- Marketing and Business Intelligence, BookMyShow said, “Padmaavat has definitely given the movies business a great start this year. BookMyShow sold over 500 tickets a minute, making our contribution as high as over 60% to the film’s opening weekend collection. With some exciting releases lined up, we do expect February to be a good month for the movies business.”

“As market leaders, we also continue to work closely with production houses and movie theatres to increase footfalls, and drive ticket sales – in line with our endeavour to increase the overall share of online movie ticketing in India. Our extensive marketing strategies, backed by real time user engagement data and incisive understanding of the entertainment industry, allows us to play a larger role in the growth of the overall category”, added Marzdi.

In 2017, close to 1500 films were listed on BookMyShow. For mega blockbusters like Baahubali 2, BookMyShow alone sold over 16 million tickets.

IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Trichy and IIM Calcutta Win the Coveted CFA Institute Research Challenge India Finals

CFA Society India announced IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Trichy, and IIM Calcutta as winners of the national final of its CFA Institute Research Challenge India 2017–18. These future investment management professionals will represent India at the Asia Pacific Regional competition to be held on 25–26 April 2018 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Eight teams—IIM Indore, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Trichy, NMIMS, Mumbai, AIMS Institute, Bengaluru, IIM Calcutta, IIFT, Delhi, IIM Raipur—participated in the national final. Suresh Krishnamurthy, CFA, Senior Director, Global Head of Research – ‎CRISIL Global Research & Analytics, Pramod Gubbi, CFA, MD and Head of Equities, Ambit Capital and Pankaj Murarka, Founder, Renaissance Investment Managers, were the judges.

The 11th edition of the Challenge saw the participation of 55 business schools from 25 cities across four zones. They pitched their equity research on four companies—Indigo (Inter Globe Aviation), Hero MotoCorp, Titan and Asian Paints—in a brief, time-bound presentation followed by a round of questions.

“As an association of investment professionals, our endeavour is to interact with the next generation of investment professionals, build their understanding of the investment management industry, and mentor them to build successful careers. The CFA Institute Research Challenge gives them a unique opportunity with live environment equity research almost akin to the practical world. The rigour of research supported by quality professional mentors, the rigour of presenting to an experienced fund manager, is unmatched,” said Kishor Bagri, CFA, Director, CFA Institute Research Challenge India.

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition that provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis. Students work in teams to research and analyse a publicly traded company — sometimes even meeting face-to-face with company management. Each team writes a research report on their assigned company with a buy, sell, or hold recommendation and selected teams present and defend their analysis to a panel of industry professionals.

Sophos Introduces Predictive Protection in Intercept X with Advanced Deep Learning

More effective than traditional machine learning, deep learning gives Sophos
Intercept X the highest detection rates and lowest false-positive rates in
the next-generation endpoint security market

Sophos, a global leader in network and endpoint security announced the availability of
Intercept X with malware detection powered by advanced deep learning neural networks.
Combined with new active-hacker mitigation, advanced application lockdown,
and enhanced ransomware protection, this latest release of the
next-generation endpoint protection delivers previously unseen levels of
detection and prevention.

Deep learning is the latest evolution of machine learning. It delivers a
massively scalable detection model that is able to learn the entire
observable threat landscape. With the ability to process hundreds of
millions of samples, deep learning can make more accurate predictions at a
faster rate with far fewer false-positives when compared to traditional
machine learning.

"Traditional machine learning models depend on expert threat analysts to
select the attributes with which to train the model, adding a subjective
human element. They also get more complex as more data is added, and these
gigabyte-sized models are cumbersome and slow. These models may also have
significant false positive rates which reduce IT productivity as admins try
to determine what is malware and what is legitimate software," explained
Tony Palmer, senior validation analyst with the Enterprise Strategy Group
(ESG). "In contrast, the deep learning neural network of Intercept X is
designed to learn by experience, creating correlations between observed
behavior and malware. These correlations result in a high accuracy rate for
both existing and zero-day malware, and a lower false-positive rate. ESG Lab
analysis reveals that this neural network model scales easily, and the more
data it takes in, the smarter the model becomes. This enables aggressive
detection without administrative or system performance penalty."

This new version of Sophos Intercept X also includes innovations in
anti-ransomware and exploit prevention, and active-hacker mitigations such
as credential theft protection. As anti-malware has improved, attacks have
increasingly focused on stealing credentials in order to move around systems
and networks as a legitimate user, and Intercept X detects and prevents this
behavior. Deployed through the cloud-based management platform Sophos
Central, Intercept X can be installed alongside existing endpoint security
software from any vendor, immediately boosting endpoint protection. When
used with the Sophos XG Firewall, Intercept X can introduce synchronized
security capabilities to further enhance protection.

"Predictive protection is the future of IT security. Sophos has taken a huge
step forward by bringing deep learning neural networks into the industry
leading exploit and ransomware protection of Intercept X," said Sunil
Sharma, Managing Director Sales at Sophos India & SAARC. "Being able to
protect against the next unknown attack instead of waiting for it to arrive
will change the way IT operations in every organization can protect their
users and assets. Intercept X can bring the most advanced next-generation
protection to any organization, regardless of their current strategy."

According to an  ESG Lab Validation Report, every company should assume it is always under attack from cyber threats. In recent ESG research, when asked the primary reasons they believe
cybersecurity analytics and operations are more difficult today, more than a
quarter of respondents said it was the difficulty of keeping up with rapid
change in the threat landscape.

First launched in September 2016, Intercept X has been proven in tens of
thousands of organizations worldwide. Customers and partners who took part
in the Early Access Program for this latest version of Intercept X commented
on the new features:

"We are particularly impressed with Intercept X. In evaluating security
products from other vendors, Sophos is the only company offering this level
of automated anti-exploit and anti-ransomware protection. The addition of
deep learning will enhance the level of threat analysis and reduce the
amount of time we spend in addressing threats. We look forward to rolling
out Intercept X across our organization", said, Siddharth Gupta, Manager,
Network Operations Centre, Vaibhav Global Limited.

New features in Intercept X include:

Deep Learning Malware Detection

*         Deep learning model detects known and unknown malware and
potentially unwanted applications (PUAs) before they execute, without
relying on signatures

*         The model is less than 20MB and requires infrequent updates

Active Adversary Mitigations

*         Credential theft protection - Preventing theft of authentication
passwords and hash information from memory, registry, and persistent
storage, as leveraged by such attacks as Mimikatz.

*         Code cave utilization - Detects the presence of code deployed into
another application, often used for persistence and antivirus avoidance

*         APC protection - Detects abuse of Asynchronous Procedure Calls
(APC) often used as part of the AtomBombing code injection technique and
more recently used as the method of spreading the WannaCry worm and NotPetya
wiper via EternalBlue and DoublePulsar (adversaries abuse these calls to get
another process to execute malicious code)

New and Enhanced Exploit Prevention Techniques

*         Malicious process migration - Detects remote reflective DLL
injection used by adversaries to move between processes running on the
system

*         Process privilege escalation - Prevents a low-privilege process
from being escalated to a higher privilege, a tactic used to gain elevated
system access

Enhanced Application Lockdown

*         Browser behavior lockdown - Intercept X prevents the malicious use
of PowerShell from browsers as a basic behavior lockdown

*         HTA application lockdown - HTML applications loaded by the browser
will have the lockdown mitigations applied as if they were a browser

Lenskart.com Invests $ 4Mn in Eyewear Brand John Jacobs; Targets $ 78Mn Plus Brand by 2021

Lenskart.com, India’s leading eyewear company today announced a strategic investment of $ 4 Million in affordable-premium eyewear brand John Jacobs. Launched with an aim to secure a position in the affordable luxury segment, John Jacobs, in a short span of over two years, has established itself as one of the leading premium eyewear brands in India with 5 standalone stores in Delhi, Gurgaon and Bangalore. The brand has clocked over Rs 100 Cr sales and plans to open 20 more outlets in Delhi, Gurgaon, and Bangalore along with entering Mumbai in 2018. 

John Jacobs offers premium quality eyeglasses and sunglasses at a disruptive pricing model due to their unique supply ownership model. John Jacobs has teamed up with the globally renowned Italian design house – Mazzucchelli for material and design partnership. With its exclusive stores, John Jacobs offers a wide range of trending designs made from high-end materials like titanium, Italian handcrafted acetate, pure wood etc – all under one roof.

John Jacobs is ushering in a new way of consuming eyewear where consumers can access a pair of premium sunglasses and prescription eyeglasses at an unheard price point of Rs. 4500. The brand urges customers to explore more styles, mix & match and break monotony.

Commenting on the investment, Peyush Bansal, Founder & CEO, Lenskat.com said,“The urban Indian millennial is changing the dynamics of the Indian market. Presently, India needs a premium eyewear brand which brings latest fashion but not at 10x prices. John Jacobs is a trendy designer eyewear brand, that is fast creating a name for representing top international styles at surprisingly affordable prices and that’s their USP. With this strategic investment, we continue our mission of creating enthusiastically satisfied customers and providing great value for money to Indian consumers.”

Given the vastness of the market and the growth opportunities, John Jacobs is expected to grow ten times to become a Rs 500 crore business by 2020. There will be about 50 stores across tier 1 and tier 2 cities in India, and also across a few marquee international destinations by 2020.

Keeping in mind the requirements of its target audience, some of John Jacobs’ existing outlets include one of a kind retail experiences, including a mini café, travel books, polaroid photo booths and props for an engaging consumer experience. The premium brand currently retails through 5 exclusive outlets – Khan Market (New Delhi), Galleria (Gurgaon), Indiranagar (Bangalore), Koramangala (Bangalore) and Vega City Mall (Bangalore) in addition to its exclusive online destinations www.John-Jacobs.com.

John Jacobs also retails through www.lenskart.com, Lenskart offline stores and services online orders from Australia, Philippines and the UK. The brand is now also readying itself to tap new geographies like the US and Canada to expand its presence globally.

Yatra eCash Enhances Loyalty Program to Drive Customer Engagement

Yatra.com, one of India’s leading online travel portals, has further enhanced its loyalty program making it more lucrative for its customers. The eCash program, which allows customers to save on every booking made on Yatra.com, now gives additional benefits to its users. Customers whose eCash is expiring within 30 days can transfer it to their loved ones who can use it to avail of a price benefit on their bookings. There is no restriction on the number of times this transfer can be made. Besides transferring of eCash, one can also convert their eCash expiring within 7 days into shopping coupons from over 20 brand partners which Yatra has tied up with. These include brands such as Big Basket, Jabong, Urban Ladder, Croma and many more. Currently, on an average over 1000 customers daily are availing of vouchers in exchange for their expiring eCash.

Launched in 2014, the eCash programme is very simple in its structure with 1 eCash being equal to 1 INR. eCash is integrated with the payment process, making the redemption of eCash smooth and easy. There are no black-out dates on usage of eCash and there is no restriction on combining it with other offers. Since the launch, there has been a very significant year-on-year growth in customers opting for e-Cash. The program has helped in increasing the customer stickiness and has helped to build a stronger connection with consumers, both new and old.

Commenting on the same, Sharat Dhall, COO (B2C), Yatra.com says, “As customers’ expectations continue to evolve, we are focused on delivering services and experiences that are important to them.Our eCash program has been a major contributor in driving repeat purchases and currently over 81% of our customers come back to us for future purchases. We are confident, that with the launch of these new features, the value of eCash has been significantly enhanced, which should further add value to the whole customer experience on Yatra and ensure brand stickiness and loyalty in the long run.”