Accenture Interactive Named Largest Digital Network Worldwide by Advertising Age in Annual Agency Report for Third Year in a Row

Ad Age has named Accenture Interactive the largest digital network worldwide in its Agency Report 2018, published today. This is the third consecutive year in which Accenture Interactive was ranked the largest digital network worldwide. The analysis is based on an evaluation of more than 600 agencies, networks and companies.

 Ad Age’s annual Agency Report includes agency rankings based on worldwide and U.S. revenues in 2017. Accenture Interactive reported the highest worldwide revenue of any digital network, at $6.5 billion for Accenture’s fiscal year 2017 (ended August 31, 2017), reflecting year-over-year growth of 35%.

 Accenture Interactive ranked as follows:
 #1 – World’s 15 Largest Digital Networks
#1 – World’s 25 Largest Consolidated Networks
#6 – World’s 25 Largest Agency Companies

The rankings reflect a banner year for Accenture Interactive and significantly increased demand for its differentiated customer experience capabilities that connect creativity, strategy and technology.
“The future is all about creating the ultimate customer experience,” said Brian Whipple, global head of Accenture Interactive. “Brands today are built by a series of interconnected experiences consumers have with a company across multiple, increasingly digital, channels. Our model is purpose-built on assembling the right mix of digital and business transformation skills to deliver the best customer experiences on the planet. I’m extremely grateful to our clients and team who deserve all the credit for this success.”

Calendar year 2017 was a milestone year for Accenture Interactive, including having:
Pioneered inventions, including an AI-driven programmatic video format and Accenture Genome, next-generation personalization technology

Launched an Extended Reality group and added industrial design capabilities to its Fjord design & innovation unit

Entered new markets, including Buenos Aires and Colombia and opened a Digital Hub in Singapore – all collaborative work environments to foster co-creation with clients
Landed new accounts, including Maserati, The Vatican, and Wärtsilä 
Hired industry luminaries such as former Wunderman president Eduardo Bicudo  
Acquired award-winning agencies, including SinnerSchrader (Germany), Kunstmaan (Belgium), The Monkeys (Australia), MATTER and Wire Stone (US)             
                         
“Today’s clients face challenges of speed and agility and are looking for agencies built from the ground up for the digital world, providing the right brains and skills,” said Amy Fuller, Accenture’s chief marketing & communications officer. “CMOs are looking for equal parts strategic and creative partner, with a mix of multi-disciplinary skills – such as design, deep technology and marketing analytics – to help solve their toughest business and brand challenges. We’re proud that Ad Age has recognized Accenture Interactive and our successful model that brings unique capabilities and innovative services to the market.”

According to the Agency Report, digital overall captured 51% of 2017 U.S. revenue for agencies of all disciplines – reflecting a growth rate of 7%, versus 8% in 2016. The report notes that, despite overall lackluster category growth, parts of the agency market are thriving. Digital work in 2017 accounted for more than half of U.S. agency revenue for the very first time. Also, consultancies for the first time captured spots 6 to 10 on the list of the world’s biggest agency companies, and “are well-positioned with deep ties to the C-suite,” says lead writer, Bradley Johnson.

 Ad Age’s 74th Agency Report, published annually since 1945, includes rankings of the largest agencies and agency companies based on prior year revenue.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor sells 13,871 units Including Exports of 834 units of the Etios Series During April 2018

Toyota Kirloskar Motor sold a total of 13037 units in the domestic market this month of April 2018. The company exported 834 units of the Etios series this month thus clocking a total of 13871 units.  TKM sold a total of 12964 units in the domestic market and exported 1109 units of the Etios series in April 2017.

Commenting on the sales performance, N. Raja, Deputy Managing Director, Toyota Kirloskar Motor said, “This month was quite eventful for us with the bookings opening for the most awaited product Toyota Yaris. Yaris is loaded with first in segment features and offers great value proposition in terms of best in segment quality, comfort safety and performance.

The world class sedan has been well appreciated nationwide since its first appearance at the Auto Expo 2018. It comes at an exciting Introductory price in the range of  ₹ 8,75,000/- to  ₹ 14,07,000/, there has been very good initial response from customers.  The deliveries to customers will begin from mid May.

Fortuner and Innova Crysta continue to maintain a strong position in the market as undisputed segment leaders. We are thankful to our customers for their continued trust and loyalty to the brand.

We look forward to a positive growth momentum in the domestic sales in the upcoming month and expect good sales volume for our new entry Toyota Yaris.

Script Huddle- Kitchen Masterclass with Celebrity Chef Sarah Todd in Bangalore

Celebrity chef Sarah Todd executed her exciting Kitchen Masterclass at ‘Script’, Bangalore’s newest furniture and accessories store. 

The Masterclass was a part of ‘Script Huddle’ which brings together like-minded people in a deep and meaningful way, in a series of in-store workshops, curated panel discussions, meet-ups and performances that cover design, décor and DIY yes, but also music, literature and work-life balance.

 The event witnessed Bengaluru food lovers in full strength as they attended Sarah’s knives workshop and learnt some unique techniques of prepping, plating and setting the table. Inspired by the concept of ‘Freedom of Living, Script believes that such events just like their products will also strive to deliver a life which is fluid, enjoyable, beautiful and purposeful.

Forcepoint Announces APAC Channel Partner Awards to Fuel Growth in Delivering Human-Centric Cybersecurity

Global cybersecurity leader Forcepoint today announced its partner award winners, presented during the gala dinner at its APAC Channel Partner conference in Taipei, Taiwan. Forcepoint’s partner awards celebrate the global partner community and the innovation and value-added services they deliver to Forcepoint end-user customers. Key channel partners from across the region attended a two-day conference to learn more about Forcepoint’s human-centric security strategy and Risk-Adaptive Protection.

The winners this year are:
·         APAC Distributor of the Year: Inflow Technologies (India)
·         Top Cloud Distributor: TECH DATA (Australia)
·         Top Data Distributor: Data World (Hong Kong)
·         Rookie Distributor of the Year: Netpoleon (Thailand)
·         Platinum Partner of the Year: Hitachi Systems (India)
·         Platinum Partner of the Year (Cloud): IBM (Australia)
·         Platinum Partner of the Year (Data): ACPL Systems (India)
·         Gold partner of the Year: Radmik (Malaysia)
·         Rookie Partner of the Year (Cloud): Equate Technologies (Australia)
·         Rookie Partner of the Year (Data): Answer Co. Ltd (Korea)

“We are delighted to celebrate the success which investment in our human-centric security approach brings to our APAC network of partners,” said George Chang, vice president of APAC at Forcepoint. “Forcepoint is driving an inflection point in the cybersecurity industry. With traditional approaches no longer working, and breaches getting bigger and causing more damage and disruptions, the industry needs to move towards Risk-adaptive Protection to meet today’s sophisticated security threats.”

To further support partners in delivering differentiated, human-centric cybersecurity capabilities, Forcepoint announced the appointment of Alex Lim as senior director of channel and alliances for Asia Pacific and Japan at Forcepoint.

In his new role and working closely with Tom Flink, vice president of global channel sales at Forcepoint, Lim will lead the APAC channel team in expanding business opportunities via channel partners, service providers, system integrators and distributors through Forcepoint’s differentiated and high-growth security systems. Previously, Lim successfully led and grew business for Forcepoint’s Southeast Asia region for more than 10 years helping enterprise customers protect their users and critical data while enabling partners to adopt the Human Point system of cybersecurity capabilities that included DLP, UEBA, CASB, NGFW and web/email security.

“Alex has been an experienced leader and a passionate advocate of the channel’s ability to enable organizations to keep their people and IP safe in this digital world,” said Flink. “He will play a vital role to expand the APAC channel eco-system and work with our partners to deliver Risk-Adaptive Protection innovations to businesses demanding a fresh approach to security.”

“The human-centric approach to cybersecurity represents a largely untapped opportunity for the channel as customers seek to rapidly respond to and eliminate risk in an ever-evolving threat landscape,” said Lim. “I’m excited to support our channel partners in growing their business as they modernize their customer’s cybersecurity capabilities.”

At the APAC Partner conference, key partners from across the region came together to learn more about Forcepoint’s transformation of cybersecurity and the opportunities to grow in 2018 and beyond. In the last three months alone Forcepoint has been recognized by CRN on its 20 Coolest Cloud Security Vendors list, the 2018 Cloud 100 and 2017 Products of the Year for Forcepoint CASB. Forcepoint’s Flink was also named to the prestigious list of CRN 2018 Channel Chiefs.

The conference delivered insight to APAC partners on how focus at Forcepoint is shifting to the end user, by enabling Risk-Adaptive Protection to continuously assess risk and automatically provide proportional enforcement that can be dialed up or down. This capability is enabled through the power of human-centric behavior analytics that understand interactions with data across users, machines and accounts. With the industry's first automated enforcement capability that dynamically adapts, security analysts are now freed to focus on high value activities and eliminate the backlog of alerts from traditional security tools.

In addition, partners had an opportunity to hear the APAC perspective on cybersecurity industry issues from leading IT analyst firm Frost & Sullivan and the National Bureau of Investigation, Philippines.

In the past six months, Forcepoint has added many strategic partners to its channel programme including Sify Limited in India, Zillione Limited in Sri Lanka, Quann Asia Pacific Pte Ltd in Singapore, and Avantgarde Technologiesand Equate Technologies in Australia.

Arvind Gautam, executive vice president and head of TIS Business, Sify Limited said, “Our customers are asking us to deliver a cybersecurity strategy that not only allows them to innovate and but also deal with security threats effectively as they happen. Our partnership with Forcepoint has allowed us to offer revolutionary human-centric cybersecurity solutions and we are confident that we can continue to grow together.”

Subex Setsup IoT Security Lab and Hosts Cybersecurity Symposium with Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Subex, a pioneering entity in the Cybersecurity space, hosted the first edition of its Cybersecurity Symposium with Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU). The Symposium aimed towards creating a collaborative platform for the industry and academia to discuss ideas and initiatives around cybersecurity education. Representing NTU Singapore was esteemed NTU Academician and cybersecurity practitioner Prof Lam Kwok Yan, who provided his overview of the cybersecurity landscape in Singapore and perspectives on how the lessons learnt can be applied to the Indian ecosystem.

Also taking place on the same day was the launch of Subex’s IoT Security Lab, which will solve threats specific to IoT industrial control systems (ICS) and IT Systems. Using the world’s most comprehensive IoT and ICS focused honeypots of over 400 different architectures and over 4000 devices, Subex IoT Lab collects threat intelligence across multiple verticals including Telecom, Academics, Enterprises, Defense and Smart City projects. As part of the lab inauguration, Subex also announced that it will be opening its lab up to public-private partnerships with universities such as NTU and other colleges in Bangalore with a goal to create specific IoT security threat detection and prevention mechanisms for IoT ecosystems.

The Cybersecurity symposium also witnessed the formation of a Cyber Security Academic Forum with the objective of establishing an ecosystem in the country for cyber security research to emerge and grow, with the main mission to foster “A Safer Cyberspace”. This forum will provide a unique opportunity to meet and discuss the current issues of cyber disruption and the ever-changing landscape of cyber security and IoT security related threats.

Speaking at the Cybersecurity Symposium, Vinod Kumar, CEO and MD, Subex said, “With increasing threats in the Indian and Global cyberspace, we believe that education and awareness around cybersecurity will play an important role towards preparing and securing our critical assets against these threats. However, the topic of cybersecurity is yet to gain prominence within colleges in India, leading to gaps in the available talent pool. We are extremely proud to be partner with NTU Singapore to host the Cybersecurity symposium, and play a part in addressing this gap. The symposium witnessed collaborative discussions and brainstorm sessions between the industry and academia to identify ways to improve cybersecurity education in the country. Having Prof. Lam Kwok Yan provide his expertise on the topic was of tremendous value.

Further, we also inaugurated our IoT Security Lab that will now be open to public-private partnerships with universities. The lab provides research opportunities on IoT Security threat intelligence using a one-of-its kind honeypot network. This along with the continuous monitoring of over 8.5 million customer devices have enabled us to obtain 30% more IoT and ICS threat signatures and thereby offer a comprehensive IoT threat intelligence and prevention solution to our customers.”

Smart Parking Startup Get My Parking ; Acquires Bangalore-based Constapark in a Consolidation Move

Delhi based smart parking platform Get My Parking has acquired Bangalore based Constapark. Post-acquisition, the Constapark founders and team will join the Bangalore office of Get My Parking. This acquisition is a sign of consolidation in the rapidly evolving mobility industry and will help strengthen the domestic market leadership of Get My Parking.

This acquisition comes on the heels of Get My Parking’s recent $3 Million Series A funding. Investors who participated in that round included their existing pre-series A investors, IAN Fund, BEENEXT and others. They have raised $4.5 million in total so far.

Get My Parking  (GMP) was founded in July 2015 by Chirag Jain and Rasik Pansare with the aim to digitize the fragmented parking industry. Since then the team has grown to 65 members with offices in Delhi and Bangalore. GMP has digitized more than 300 parking locations that process 2 Million parking transactions monthly. They have done some stellar projects like Maha Kumbh Mela in 2016 where they digitized 400 hectares of parking space in Ujjain for 200,000 car spaces. They were recently awarded the Amazon AWS Mobility Awards 2017 for Travel App of the Year (emerging).
GMP provides an interoperable, plug-n-play platform to parking operators and smart cities. This enables any type of parking to be digitized and connect to consumer mobility, offering seamless parking experience across all touch points.

Talking about the acquisition, Chirag Jain, CEO GMP, said, “We value the immense experience that the Constapark team brings to the table, especially now that we are expanding our footprint both domestically and globally.” Co-founder Rasik Pansare added, “For any organization, including ours, the team forms the core foundation. As such, we are enthusiastic about this deal as the Constapark team has a proven passion and execution expertise around solving parking.”

Get My Parking now has 2 projects outside India and is hiring across technology and business profiles for international growth. This global outlook in strategy came after they won the Tech Rocketships Award by British government at the UK-India Tech Summit and were taken to UK for exploring opportunities. They plan to be in 16 countries by next financial year.

Constapark was founded by Chetan Chauhan and Mehul Pangtey in the year 2015, with a vision of creating digital parking ecosystem. Constapark manages 30,000 parking spots on its platform and parks 4000 vehicles on daily basis across Bangalore. In year 2015, CNN IBN & Ericson chose it as Top 5 startup. It implemented on street parking management for Electronic city, Bangalore, and subscription and ticketless parking for BMRCL (Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited).

Talking about the move, Chetan Chauhan said, “We started Constapark, with a desire to solve the parking problem and Get My Parking shares like-minded mission to create sustainable parking ecosystem.” Mehul Pangtey added, “Both the teams are aligned on common objective and we are glad to consolidate our efforts to achieve the same.”

Globally, the smart parking space is seeing a spree of consolidation. In recent months, BMW has acquired American startup Parkmobile, Dish Network has acquired ParkiFi, and Volvo has acquired valet parking startup Luxe. This is not surprising, considering that the global parking market is worth over $100 Billion as per Frost and Sullivan. Unorganized parking affects citywide mobility, congestion, pollution, and government revenues. This long ignored problem will finally get innovative solutions now that startups like Get My Parking are aggressively making a move.

RaaS Champions the Case for Relationship as a Service Held Recently in Bangalore

Talocity RaaS Talks, is a CXO’s round table, that focusses on conversations around RaaS: Relationship as a Service where-in Human focusses on relationships & machine manages the rest. The Talks bring together some forward looking discussions around future technology trends, disruption in industry’s best practices in the areas of Talent Hiring and Talent Management & successful case studies of implementation across growth companies. The latest edition of the RaaS Talks took place in Bangalore, Hotel Shangri-La and was graced by some of the top CEOs, CHROs, TA Heads and CTOs; who engaged and brought out ways to drive change and adopt new TECH within hiring & talent management.

Currently, Talocity RaaS Talks happens over breakfast across major cities in India. This is a focused group meet-up (invitation only) of CHROs, TA Heads & CTOs to discuss the current and future technology trends, disruptions and industry best practices sharing, in the space of Talent Hiring and Talent Management. We also envisage partnering with many research studies and presenting expert views going forward.

Invigorating CXO roundtable on TECH adoption in Talent hiring & management touched more points that include:
a)        The problem is that the core is not defined. The people strategy is not in place & HR is searching for which TECH to use
b)       Driverless HR function for transactions will be a reality, anything transactional will be automated by 2025
c)        Companies that take the leap forward on HR TECH will move ahead. Its all going to change in 5 years
d)       TECH is not a band-aid. We need the strategy first and that has to come from HR
e)       Patience of the HR TECH sponsor is key to change management. Patience will come with defining success parameters
f)         It’s a candidates market. Do what it takes to reach a candidate. Video interviews makes it easy
g)        The recruiter is a millennial, the candidate is a millennial but the hiring manager is not. So who has to change is clear
h)       Mr CEO if your HR is not working its your problem & it’s your mistake

Post the Talks, Ketan Dewan, founder and CEO, Talocity said, In the digital & connected world, the power of relationships is the key & the core to all our people related strategies and agendas. I know him very well | He did so much for me that I am... | I am indebted to her for the support…| He got me my first job & many more thoughts that we all experience in our lives around people and relationships. Isn’t it !. While we all have access to each other and our employees & prospective employees; yet there is a need for connect beyond an electronic connect.  And no machine can provide that connect. It can at best provide the access. Having said that, we spend so much of time evaluating the access points that we are left with no time to create the connect. The time for human love for transactional work has to go away. If humans manage relationships then machines can do the rest.

Thus the people strategy and agenda comes to the core yet again at the Talocity RaaS Talks that was conducted with a full house of CHROs, Talent Leaders and a distinguished CEO who graced the Talks. Dhiren Kanwar, President & MD of Griffith Foods; who is a top CEO and TEDx speaker started the Talks with the thought,’ HR TECH is too less & too late.’

The What we need to do has to be very clear- our people strategy and what we want to achieve as an outcome of it, in the near term and the mid-term, is core to Talent management & recruitment. The How can be solved using TECH & there are some very interesting niche technologies providing point solutions available in the market.  The Talks revolved around the change management around The What & The How and the leaders who graced the occasion include: Raj Narayan: CHRO, Titan Industries Limited; Karthik SM: Director Talent Acquisition, IQVIA; Balachandar N: Group Director- HR, Coffee Day Group; Sudhir Mattoo: Director- Talent, IBM; Sumathi Sampath, Head Talent, Infosys BPO, Amreeta Mazumdar: Head of India Tech Staffing, Google; Paneesh Rao: CHRO L&T Technology Services Limited; Somnath Bhagavatula: HR Director- Atkins; Hirendra Badhiye: VP- HR, Northern Trust; Uday Shetty: Head HR, Stanley Lifestyles; Rajnesh Khosla: Head HR, LG, Om Sahay: Associate Director- HR, Neilsen; Ashok G: Chief Working Officer, Nexleap; Prithvi Shergill: Founder, Tomorrow; Srinivas Yelandur, Venture Advisor and many more friends from HR & media.

On one side the business is burning & on the other side good TECH in Recruitment & Talent management is waiting to be deployed; but still companies take a long time to decide. Lets wish good morning to RaaS. Talocity had representation from its core team members including: Debi Prasad Das: Growth Founder & Chief Mentor & Ketan Dewan, Co-founder & CEO.