HGS Acquires Majority Stake in Element Solutions in the Buy-Side Segment

Hinduja Global Solutions Limited, announced that its subsidiary Hinduja Global Solutions UK Limited has today entered into a definitive agreement to acquire 57 percent equity stake in Element Solutions LLC, USA, a digital consulting services company, for a consideration of US$ 5 million. The transaction is expected to close in the next 15 days. 

Element Solutions provides high-end digital rategy and solutions in customer digital experience, data-driven marketing and cloud managed services areas. With over 160 successful digital engagements, the company supports more than 35 top Fortune 500 brands, primarily in the healthcare, manufacturing and retail industries. 

The modern customer lifecycle has two broad areas: Buy-side – comprising of market and sell segments and the Own-side – comprising of support and serve segments. HGS has traditionally been focused on the Own-side but started to cater to the Buy-side in the last couple of years. The acquisition of Element will help HGS Interactive (HGSi), HGS’ digital services division, to strengthen its Buy-side portfolio by adding new capabilities and expertise in customer digital experience and digital marketing. It will also bring together a complementary client base across sectors and add significant onshore presence for HGSi.  Post acquisition, HGS will add over 75 employees comprising strategic thinkers, digital marketers, user-centric designers, software engineers and developers, of whom 33 are in the US and the rest in India. 

“As part of our strategy to drive digital-led transformation for clients, HGS has been investing significantly in technology and solutions to reimagine customer experiences. The investment in Element Solutions expands on this strategy and helps position us as an end-to-end digital transformational leader who can impact the entire customer lifecycle for brands,” said Partha DeSarkar, Chief Executive Officer, HGS. “I am pleased to welcome the talented team of Element to the HGS family and look forward to leveraging their expertise to drive higher value.”

“The partnership with HGS will help us deliver better on our brand promise of ‘Creating Digital Experiences that transform traditional businesses to digital innovators’ at scale. We are excited about the opportunities ahead and are committed to working with our clients to drive impact,” said Venkatesh Korla, Founder & CEO, Element Solutions.

An innovative, global digital agency, HGSi provides global brands an array of 360 degree digital solutions including digital marketing, social CRM and web/ mobile apps to several marquee clients in CPG, hospitality, BFSI and ecommerce sectors. The business has over 150 employees, most of whom are based in Mumbai. Analyst firm NelsonHall recently named HGS as a LEADER in its Digital Marketing Services NEAT report 2018.

Lava Unveils Z91 with Face Recognition, Full View HD+ Display

LAVA International Limited, a leading Indian multi-national company in the mobile handset industry, today announced the expansion of its most successful Z series of smartphones with the launch of LAVA Z91. Z91 is a perfect amalgamation of design and new technologies - comes packed with innovative features including face recognition which unlocks the phone by scanning users’ face within 0.7 seconds.  Z91 looks stunning with its striking blue color, 18:9 wide-screen display and an exceptional glass finish.  Priced at Rs. 9,999, the device will be available at over 100,000 retail stores by mid-April, 2018. 

Dual-SIM LAVA Z91 sports an impressive design with a 5.7 inch HD+ display (18:9) resolution, 2.5D curved design, very sleek body (7.7 mm thick), yet providing convenient one-hand navigation.

Gaurav Nigam, Head – Product, Lava International said, “We are super excited to announce the launch of Lava Z91. We always strive to provide valuable and innovative technologies at pocket-friendly prices to our consumers and Z91 is a perfect example of this. Z91 is an amalgamation of latest technology and beautiful design, aimed at meeting all the needs of consumers and providing them with the best user experience. The face recognition feature, full screen display, and exceptional good looks are the USPs of the product, besides durability and the robustness of the device which comes with every mobile handset from LAVA. We are sure that this latest addition to our very successful Z series, Z91 will be loved by our consumers.” 

Z91’s tough and scratch resistant screen makes it a sturdy and reliable device. It also comes with an incredible backup with 3000mAh battery for usage up to 24 hours, through a single charge. 

The device is powered by Mediatek Processor (MTK 6739) - comes with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, and an expandable memory upto 128 GB.  Thus, the smartphone provides consumers with ample storage for music, videos, pictures, applications and other data.

Lava Z91 is equipped with 13 MP rear and 8 MP front camera with flash, providing brighter and sharper images.  Further, its Bokeh feature makes the photographs appealing by making the objects stand out from the background.  

The smartphone also comes with a two-year warranty, re-affirming company’s focus on product quality and reliability, backed by robust investments in research & development and product manufacturing. LAVA Z91 is bundled with a very attractive cashback offer of Rs 2,000 from Bharti Airtel.

Additionally, the device comes with a special launch offer of free one-time screen replacement, in case screen breaks within one-year from the date of purchase.

ABB’s Smart Factory for Electrical Safety and Energy Efficiency Products in Bangalore

ABB India has inaugurated one of the first smart factories in Bangalore for the production of electrical protection and connection solutions. The facility will be located on the existing factory premises of Nelamangala in Bangalore, the start-up and IT capital of India. The smart factory enables continuous monitoring of the production process through visualization of operational data, to increase efficiency and flexibility of the manufacturing process.  

The smart production line can track and display operational performance parameters across the entire manufacturing chain in real time. The factory also has digital lifecycle management with interconnected automation components, machines as well as data about processes and products. Real-time feeds monitor the entire manufacturing process.

Remote access and wireless communication with Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID) manage the production process, work orders and testing parameters. Taking the Make in India initiative to the next level of precision and smart technology, the newest member of the portfolio, Emax 2, includes product line features such as product assembly on track guided vehicles (TGV) powered by electric motors on a closed loop track.

“ABB has continued to invest in building capacity to cater to the evolving trends in the Indian market and bridging them with best in class global technology. At ABB, we use smart technology to make solutions that help our customers get digital-ready,” said Sanjeev Sharma, Managing Director of ABB India.

 The smart factory, which is part of ABB’s manufacturing 19-acre Nelamangala campus, will house the production line for the entire range of ABB’s protection and connection business, which helps to protect power systems from surges and enables a reliable power supply for various installations. 

The Bangalore facility will manufacture ABB’s range of air and molded case circuit breakers, electronic and thermal relays, contactors, pilot devices and ABB’s latest range of plug and play low-voltage circuit breaker, Emax 2. The products are key in optimizing resources, reducing energy and life-cycle costs and boosting the productivity of industrial installations across sectors like process industries (cement, textile, chemicals, and metals), marine, data centers and automotive. 

 Smart, connected factories are the future of manufacturing. ABB was instrumental in kick-starting the second and third industrial revolutions and is leading its customers into the Fourth, where machines and factories are connected and increasingly autonomous and self-learning. Today ABB is leading the way into the new era with a range of products and solutions under the name ABB Ability. The Ability platform leverages intelligence gathered from ABB’s vast global installed base of 70 million connected devices and 70,000 control systems and uses this intelligence to not only help the customers optimize operations but also uses the insights to develop new business models. ABB Ability currently has more than 210 solutions.

“As digitalization gains traction across Indian industries, ABB’s smart factory will take the production of power equipment to the next level. Digital technologies enabling the manufacturing of various next-generation plug and play solutions will cater to a rapidly evolving market. Such world-class, smart facilities will be the stepping stone for the next level of growth for the nation,” Sharma said. 

 “This smallest and feature-rich power circuit breaker results in space savings of about 25 percent and a reduction in assembly time by 10 percent with network analysis and preventive diagnostics powered by cloud connectivity for any installation,” Sharma added.

 India wants to increase the contribution of manufacturing to the nation’s GDP to 25 percent by 2020 from 16 percent. At the same time, India experiences an increase in adoption of cloud, mobility and analytics technologies that rely on computing and a storage infrastructure. Managing and controlling the power supporting these industry requirements will need new energy management platforms such as the Emax 2 system. The new line of manufacturing at ABB helps to meet these growing demands for energy management.

How Chatbots are Changing the Customer Service Business in India

Sales and customer support services have already undergone a sea change from how they were a decade back. With artificial intelligence and chatbots, they’re leapfrogging into another era. Chatbots are already getting into the forefront of enterprise interaction with their customers.

Chatbots allow customers to interact with companies through simulated conversations. Companies can cause improve customer experience through chatbots, respond faster and engage customers better. Though complete automation of customer service isn’t advisable, even if it is partially automated with the help of chatbots, it can help save a considerable business expense, that too at an at par efficiency.

Talking about customer experience, the faster response time from chatbots will be an immediate relief to customers. Chatbots can analyse call history and understand the query sensitivity, allowing them to respond better when their problem will be resolved, and may even set an automated process in motion for the resolution, in near future. They can even be the future of brand engagement, with promotions of a customized offer that can be initiated through chatbots, and customers can get all their queries answered about the offer through the chatbot itself.

24X7 customer service may be a misnomer in current times, but it can be a reality with chatbots at the forefront of customer service, active at any given point of time to answer your questions.

From the enterprise point of view, chatbots are relatively much cheaper than mobile apps, and are adaptable for various messaging platforms. Today, the cost-effectiveness of customer service is measured in terms of the ability to reduce the number of customer calls and average handling time, while in case of chatbots, the additional cost of handling more conversations and higher handling time is negligible. So the paradigm of service effectiveness will shift to encouraging higher customer calls and for longer, if that provides better customer service. 

Moreover, chatbots can be really effective when customer queries and requests are in a specific area with predictable solutions. Simple troubleshooting and customer education queries can be scripted and the resolutions can be guaranteed to be of higher reliability and accuracy. Human workforce can be freed up for more complex tasks or issues.

Although enterprises will need to move ahead on automating customer services through chatbots with caution. They need to begin the transition with a ‘hybrid’ approach, where human agents supervise and train chatbots and at times intervene when the task becomes too complicated to handle. Chatbots should ideally be avoided in cases where customer is already too aggrieved to be handled by a non-human interface. Automated conversations should be designed carefully over a period of time.

Take, for example, ICICI Lombard’s chatbot platfrom MyRA, which addresses queries on two and four-wheeler insurance, as well as fire and burglary insurance for SMEs. The platform encompasses all stages of policy purchase/ renewal – starting from product selection, premium calculation and product fitment to even online sales closure. It also enables comparison between products. Being modelled on NLP (Natural Language Processing) it is conversational and easy to understand. In case of a complex issue needing resolution, it automatically transfers the chat to a customer care executive for a live chat. Another unique feature is that it predicts the next possible query from the customer and displays it in a predictive box. MyRA has been used by over 2,39,407 customers since its launch in December 2016, and has sold as many as 3,288 insurance policies.

The buzz about chatbots has been doing the rounds in business parlance for more than a year now, and will continue to be there as chatbots become an important part of the customer service mix. Since the cost of introducing chatbots and making them efficient over a period of time are declining, along with increases in significant potential benefits, a largely automated customer service experience is not far from reality. Given recent predictions about machine-learning and advanced artificial intelligence, we soon may be presented with opportunities for chatbots to learn through each customer’s individual history to provide an unparalleled level of customised service and personalization in query resolution.