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.

O. P. Jindal Global University Granted Autonomy by the UGC

O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) has been granted autonomous status by the University Grants Commission (UGC) under graded autonomy Regulations 2018. This announcement was made by the Union Human Resource Development Minister Mr. Prakash Javadekar on 20 March. JGU has become the first and only private university in Haryana and also one among the two private universities in India to be granted autonomy. 

In an endeavour to introduce a liberalised regime in the higher education sector and emphasizing the linking autonomy with quality, UGC and MHRD granted autonomy to 52 universities, out of which 5 are central universities, 21 state universities, 24 deemed and 2 private universities. There are more than 300 private universities in India but only two have been granted this special status, one of them being O.P. Jindal Global University. Significantly, none of the other reputed private universities or other such institutions in India have been granted the “autonomy” status in this historic recognition by the Government of India. 

 Naveen Jindal, Founding Chancellor, O. P. Jindal Global University said, “This feat reiterates JGU’s commitment to shaping India's aspirations of building world-class universities through comparative and international dimensions. We are grateful to MHRD and UGC who have appreciated our endeavour. It is imperative for India to take stock of the state of its universities and redefine their roles in the fast-changing global scenario. It is time for India to join ranks with world-class universities and improve the academic environment for our students.

“This recognition initiates a major paradigm shift that will mark the future of Indian universities and encourage our pursuit of institutional excellence in higher education. This is a big milestone in JGU’s journey and I wish to congratulate all JGU stakeholders, including faculty members, students, staff, alumni, parents and the State Government of Haryana, as well as the regulatory bodies, for their support. Our Sincere thanks to Mr. Naveen Jindal, Founding Chancellor of JGU, for reposing trust and confidence in our ability to contribute towards institution building. It is his vision, philanthropy and drive that has culminated in this success,” said Prof C Raj Kumar, Founding Vice Chancellor, JGU. 

This status will allow the University the freedom to introduce new courses and departments, and enter into collaborations with foreign educational institutions, without seeking the UGC’s permission. There will also be exemption from regular UGC inspections, with appraisals being obtained on the basis of self-reporting. Besides, JGU will be allowed to hire global talent for up to 20% of their total faculty strength while filling up 20% of seats with international students.

OYO Embarks on New Phase of Corporate Growth with Acquisition of Novascotia Boutique Homes

OYO, India’s largest hospitality company, today, inked its first business acquisition, entering into an agreement with Chennai based service apartment company – Novascotia Boutique Homes. The acquisition will add to the company’s existing portfolio and strengthen its deep operational expertise in delighting corporate customers and reiterating its focus on creating India's largest corporate service brand. It is the first in a series of acquisitions, collaborations, innovations and launches for OYO, all of which are aimed at creating a strong and sustainable ecosystem for entrepreneurs, hotel partners, asset-owners and travellers. 

Commenting on the development, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO – OYO said: “We are thrilled that our very first business acquisition involves an established brand like Novascotia. Though in the niche segment of boutique homes, Novascotia brings with it the expertise in catering to the corporate travel segment, an area we have seen great potential and established ourselves as the market leader with varied offerings across 230+ cities including all major corporate hubs. The acquisition forms an integral part of our inorganic growth plan, in line with our ambition to create beautiful and quality living spaces and adding value to every form of real estate. OYO is poised to deliver 180,000 keys by the end of 2018 and with Novascotia’s Strength, we will be adding service apartments to our existing portfolio - which includes budget rooms, OYO Townhouse, OYO Home, enabling us to offer a wide range of choices to our customers.”

With this acquisition, OYO will bring its distribution, operational, transformational and technological capabilities on board for offering corporate travellers quality accommodation options with complete focus on privacy, safety and home-like care. The acquisition will boost OYO’s portfolio by 350 exclusive rooms across locations where Novascotia has its footprints further strengthening OYO's position as the largest full stack hospitality tech company in India. With 100% of its demand coming from corporates and a healthy EBITDA of 14%, Novascotia has built a strong portfolio for itself while providing executive furnished accommodation to corporates for their personnel stay in locations, including Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Kochi and Trivandrum and OYO plans to expand these offerings to 12 cities by the end of 2018. These serviced apartments are located in the heart of business hubs equipped with spacious rooms, upscale interiors, meals, gym and dining area to cater all the requirements of business travellers.

G. Madhu Manohar and Girja Madhu, Co-founders, Novascotia, said, “Novascotia is a brand built over years with a lot of commitment and hard work. With OYO, we saw similar passion towards solving a problem and we are thrilled to become a part of the entity which is driven by perseverance and innovation. We are convinced that OYO with its wide experience in the hospitality business and hunger for delivering quality customer experience has every potential to take the Novascotia brand promise of ‘home away from home; forward. We are delighted with the support and professionalism received from OYO, its teams and our advisers at ANOVA Corporate Services for taking this to closure. We are excited to be onboard.”

Ritesh further added, “OYO was built from the ground up in 2013 with the mission to create beautiful living spaces. The value proposition both Girja and Madhu bring to the table through their skills in hospitality and interior designing is something exceptional and visible in the way the Novascotia has grown as a brand. We are upbeat about our India story and plan to go deeper into the market by exploring new opportunities and changing the way people stay away from home and this takes us a step ahead in that direction. We look forward to scaling up this business and offering corporates what they look for the most while travelling - a homely and enriching experience. This acquisition is in line with our quest to support India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and create infrastructure for new companies to grow. We want potential partners and fellow entrepreneurs to know that their ideas and energy will always find a home at OYO.”

With technology as a driver, OYO has successfully established itself as India’s largest hospitality company. It works in close proximity with hotel partners through multiple operating formats and currently, over 95% of their business is being driven by exclusive full inventory partnerships. The company has developed capabilities to add up to 10,000 rooms per month and will end the year with 180,000 keys - cementing the brand's leadership over traditional hotel players and start-up emulators by more than 20X. OYO aims to serve customers through their existing brands - OYO Rooms, OYO Townhouse and OYO Home.