Microsoft India received four prestigious awards at the Frost & Sullivan India Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Awards, held on June 21, 2018 in New Delhi. Currently in their 16th year, these awards honor and recognize companies who push boundaries of excellence and achieve landmarks to deliver business outcomes using digital and disruptive technologies in the Indian market.
Microsoft received the ‘Public Cloud Provider of the Year’ Award and the ‘Unified Communication Vendor of the Year’ awards for the second consecutive year. In addition, Microsoft also received the ‘Enterprise Team Messaging Vendor of the Year’ and the ‘Information Rights Management Vendor of the Year’ awards.
Congratulating Microsoft Corporation (India) for the award, Parminder Kaur, Associate Director, Digital Transformation Practice, Frost & Sullivan said, ““Microsoft has been at the forefront of innovation and has enabled enterprises to transform their digital experiences. With a deep focus on empowering end users, Microsoft continues to make investments in cutting edge technology and industry solutions, backed by a strong go-to-market strategy. Its partner ecosystem, thought leadership and focus on trust, security and privacy make Microsoft an undisputed leader.”
Speaking on the occasion, Meetul Patel, Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft India, said, “Microsoft has made significant investments in creating the technologies for a world characterized by an intelligent edge network of devices powered by a trusted, intelligent cloud. We are pleased that our innovative new technology is helping fundamentally reshape the IT infrastructure in India to make access to the latest technologies easier for every segment of the economy.”
The award recipients were judged on a variety of parameters that included revenue growth, innovation, product portfolio diversity, key achievements, and Go-to-market Strategy. It involved in-depth primary interviews with various industry participants and secondary research conducted by Frost & Sullivan analysts. An elite panel of jury members comprising of prominent CIOs/CTOs from the industry evaluated the compiled data and incorporated the end-user perspective. Frost & Sullivan then presented the awards to companies that received the highest industry rank in each category.
ThoughtWorks, a software and digital transformation consultancy, has announced a 2-year partnership with Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) to design, develop, test and deploy automated data processing software for the MeerKAT radio telescope, a Square Kilometer Array precursor, that will break new ground in astronomical observations and will redefine our understanding of space as we know it. ThoughtWorks will archive, process, analyse and distribute data and/or data products for MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey (MALS) through the Automated Radio Telescope Data Processing Software pipeline.
Today’s announcement is a testament to ThoughtWorks’ expertise in data-intensive scientific discovery and the Engineering for Research (E4R) practice in India that secured the contract. Previously, ThoughtWorks designed and delivered software for the Thirty Meter Telescope, an observatory that will produce images ten times sharper than the Hubble Space telescope.
The MeerKAT project is led by Dr. Neeraj Gupta and Raghunathan Srianand of Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), India. Dr. Neeraj has this to say on the transformative expectation of the project, “The work to be completed by ThoughtWorks will allow us to use cutting-edge and innovative solutions required to tackle the big data challenge, posed by MALS and, improve our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve.”
“Engineering excellence is the backbone that powers technology,” says Sameer Soman, Managing Director, ThoughtWorks India. “Our work on the MeerKat project enables the continued evolution of discovery and design when it comes to managing and processing incredibly large data sets. Also, as always ThoughtWorks will look forward to enterprise level applications of our learnings from this futuristic project.”
E4R is ThoughtWorks India’s initiative to design and develop software tools for scientific discovery, as a part of the larger computational science community. The practice is focused on solving next generation computational challenges across various scientific disciplines such as astronomy and biology.
After 3-days of great display of passion and grit, the Southern Chapter of IndiaSkills Regional Competitions 2018 concluded today in a grand ceremony, held at BIEC - Bengaluru International Exhibition Centre (BIEC), Bengaluru. The regional finale was graced by the august presence of Anantkumar Hegde, Minister of State for Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE), Government of India, Dr. K. P. Krishnan, Secretary, MSDE, Rajesh Agrawal, Joint Secretary, MSDE, Jayant Krishna, ED & COO, NSDC along with other dignitaries from industry and central and state government.
More than 300 competitors from 14 states competed in one of the biggest skill competitions in the region. Organized between 21st to 23rd June, the competition was spread across 7 locations in the city, with BIEC hosting 25 out of 36 competitions.
For the first time in the regionals, skill competitions were organized in unique trades such as Floristry, Print Media Technology, Landscape Gardening, Industrial Control, Aircraft Maintenance among others. The event also witnessed a lot of competitors breaking stereotypes by participating in non-conventional trades, e.g. a male competitor from Jammu & Kashmir participated in Beauty Therapy and a female competitor participated in the competition for Plastering & Dry Wall skill.
Karnataka won the highest number of first positions at the event (11), followed by Kerala (6) and Andhra Pradesh (4). The winners were felicitated by Anantkumar Hegde, Minister of State for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Government of India.
Addressing the closing ceremony, Anantkumar Hegde said, “Skill India should be reverberated amongst the youth to create a movement for nation building. In this endeavor, I am happy to see IndiaSkills competition being organized in Bengaluru for the first time. It is heartening to see the enthusiasm and hard work of all the participants who competed at this event.”
“I am proud to see large number of competitors breaking the conventional stereotypes and are showcasing their talent through this unique platform. I am sure the confidence that all of them gain through this event will help them contribute significantly to the growth of our country. Our journey for WorldSkills 2019 has begun and I am confident that our youth will make India proud at this event”, he further added.
Commenting on the initiatives, Dr. K. P. Krishnan said, “Skills form the backbone of all our national missions. IndiaSkills competitions are designed with an objective to showcase the highest standards of skills in India and motivate youth to consider vocational education as a mainstream career option. This is a unique amalgamation of government, academia, industry and other stakeholders, all coming together to develop best in class skilled manpower in the country.”
IndiaSkills competition, organized by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) under the aegis of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), has brought together 50+ corporates and academic institutes, along with 22 state governments all with one vision of making India the skill capital of the world. Leading corporate like Toyota, Maruti, Tata Motors, Festo, VLCC, Future Group, Schneider Electric, Hindustan Aeronautic Limited among others, have partnered Skill India Mission for this unique initiative.
Since April this year, 500+ district and state level competitions have been organized across India. The southern chapter of IndiaSkills regional competition is the third in line of four such competitions across the country. The next regional competition for the eastern region is scheduled in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha from 15th to 17th July 2018.
The winners from these regional competitions will compete at the National Competition at New Delhi in September 2018, where the final winners will get a chance to undergo best in class industry training and represent India at WorldSkills International Competition 2019 in Kazan Russia.
India won 1 Silver, 1 Bronze and 9 Medallion of Excellence and ranked 19 among 56 countries at the last WorldSkills 2017 in Abu Dhabi. More than 1300 competitors competed in 51 skills at this event.
There is so much talk of the death of brick-and-mortar retail as a consequence of the aggressive advent of e-commerce into the country, when the fact is that shopping malls have just got started in India - and they are definitely here to stay. As developers learn through trial and error and come up with more winning formulas for their malls, and as a retailers get more into omnichannel selling, we will see the Great Indian Mall revolution spin into its next cycle of evolution.
Why the Indian Mall Story Rocks
Unlike 'couch potato' e-commerce shopping, malls offer an experience... a touch-and-feel benefit which online shopping cannot. Also, going to a mall becomes an outing for the family and friends, often coupled with a meal at the food court and a movie at the cineplex. All this in air-conditioned comfort, escalators and lifts connecting everything to the parking below, and scrupulously cleaned sanitary facilities at all levels. The massive Indian middle class loves this experience and online retail is unlikely to put malls in the shade in India anytime soon.
The Impact of E-commerce
This is not to say that e-commerce has not had an impact. Definitely, Indians who know how to navigate the online world (and they are quite a lot - about 300 million Indians use the Internet today) may not go to a mall if they need just a few things and for which they can wait a few days. The commute to and from a mall is an important factor considering that going to the car park and waiting for your turn to take the elevator is a daunting task, and it is definitely not worth it just for picking up a handful of non-critical items. However, Indians are also quite open to deferring smaller purchases for the weekends, when they can couple the shopping with other activities which a mall can offer.
No doubt, online shopping portals offer more variety and deeper discounts. However, it is generally known that the deep discount ethos will eventually go the way of the dinosaur. These portals have been investing heavily into garnering a loyal customer base, and margins have been thin at best.
In the end, it is evident that both online shopping and physical retail will continue to coexist in India, without impacting each other too much. In the West, online retail has proved to be a major disruptor for physical retail - especially given the fact that there is no dearth of things for families to do on weekends.
As a result, visiting a mall ranks much lower on the general population's priority list. In India, our cities have developed haphazardly, open spaces are vanishing and public transport is often shaky and unreliable. In such a scenario, a visit to a clean, visually vibrant and centrally air-conditioned mall is a major attraction.
A Growing Spread
Cities that have seen maximum malls include Gurgaon, Noida, Greater Noida and Delhi in NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru and Pune. Over the next 5 years, nearly 85 malls are expected to come up in India, and more than 30 new malls accounting for nearly 14 million sq. ft. area are expected to open just in the top eight cities by 2020.
Low vacancy levels and high rentals in Tier I cities are now also paving the way for retail expansion in tier II cities like Lucknow, Coimbatore, Chandigarh, Mangalore and Ahmedabad, to name a few. In fact, sensing immense opportunities and easy penetration into the Indian retail diaspora, overseas retailers are now expanding not just in metros but even tier 2 cities namely Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Lucknow and Jaipur. This has led to mushrooming of malls all across the country.
We are definitely NOT looking at a deathbed scenario here - as a matter of fact, just the opposite. However, like every other real estate vertical in India, retail has also had to evolve with the times in order to retain its allure.
Diversification - the Mixed-use Mantra
It has become increasingly evident that no mall in India today can depend solely on shopping as its prime source of revenue-generation and footfalls. Developers have understood that they need to transform their malls into community spaces to stay relevant to today's far more discerning customers. Besides seeking a holistic shopping experience, consumers want to be comfortable and have something that inspires them to stay longer and, more essentially, persuades them to return.
This has led to a constant effort by Indian mall operators to provide the required specialized experience. Thus, most malls are striving to become prominent ‘shoppertainment’ locations. Today’s top-performing shopping malls are mixed-use businesses that incorporate social entertainment options, provide unique appeal along with certain depth in the shopping experience, and are in prime locations that are easily accessible by both public and private transport.
Size DOES Matter
Since large malls are better able to incorporate all the features required for successful operations, they tend to do better than the smaller ones. For instance, the footfalls in Total Mall at Sarjapur Road in Bangalore are far less than Phoenix Market City in Whitefield area. The latter is much larger and provides a complete ‘experience’ including shopping, entertainment, restaurants, movies etc. In contrast, the former is a smaller mall with just a few retail outlets and minimum entertainment facilities.
Reinvented Malls - What Lies Beneath?
Despite the incessant consumer appetite for malls in India, many malls did not work out. This can happen for a variety of reasons – the wrong location lacking public transport access, insufficient or unscientific parking arrangements, lack of research for what kind of retailers will work in a given micro-market (leading to an unsuitable tenant mix), lack of a food court, etc.
Strata-ownership of shops was also a major issue in many of the failed malls, as this invariably meant that the mall did not have the benefit of centrally paid-for professional mall management services. This results in the poor upkeep of facilities, no promotional activities to drive footfalls, and no professional advisory services on how the mall should be tenanted - or, if necessary, reinvented.
In fact, many malls that have failed to perform as per expectations over the years have either been converted into commercial office spaces or even been developed into residential buildings. Some classic examples include Ansal Plaza in Delhi which has been converted into more of a commercial complex, while Jewel Square, Kakade Centre Port and East Court in Pune have also been converted into office spaces. Malls such as Nirmal Lifestyles, Mumbai are being 'reborn' as residential buildings.
Endless Evolution
It is more than evident that the Indian retail industry has been on a steep unlearning/learning curve. This process is by no means complete, and in fact will never be complete. The retail scene in India, as well as the rest of the world, is changing far too rapidly for players to become complacent. What works today may not work five years from now.
In other words, the process of evolution for the retail industry is a constant work-in-progress - and yes, there will always be winners and losers. However, given the rapid pace of adaptation we are seeing today, it is more than likely that ten years from now, there will be far more winners than losers. Shopping malls are simply to cost-intensive to warrant adventurous experimentation and risk-taking. At any given time, only the tried-and-tested models will actually work.
The 5th India International MSME Start Up Expo witnessed encouraging sessions for the young innovators by experts focusing on innovation, reformation and transformation at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.
The key speakers at the event included Minister of State, Department of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution CR Chaudhary, Chairman ITDC, UAE SK Aggarwal, Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Chairman Stic Travels Subhash Goyal and many others.
The three-day event starting June 22-24, 2018 was spearhead by the MSME Development Forum, a not for profit organisation, which has been at the forefront of growth and promotion of small businesses with a thrust on start-ups towards building entrepreneurs in India. The Forum works as a catalyst for interface between government and entrepreneurial activities and has been relentlessly working towards developing an entrepreneurial culture in the country.
Addressing the event, Minister of State, Department of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution CR Chaudhary, emphasised on encouraging young entrepreneurs. He states, “There is a need of more employment and export in the country. Employment is generated by new setups. Young people have new innovative ideas. In fact, more than 60% of stalls have been taken by young innovators country need. Even as per our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, youth should be encouraged to an entrepreneur. One must become service provider not service seeker. Thus, SMEs should be given more assistance and support. Only then the moto – ‘Perform, Reform and Transform’ will happen. People of Delhi and nearby areas should come and take advantage of the expo and should encourage new innovators.”
Discussing about agriculture sector, Ministry of Agriculture Gajendra Singh Shekhawat says, “The two major problems of our agriculture sector are fragmentation of land and high pressure on resources. There is no capacity building in agriculture sector. MSME is the only way to revive the sector in India. The holistic solutions provided by the government have helped in improving the sector but to sustain it we need MSME involvement to take it further and this will help in doubling the income of the farmer”
Rajnish Goenka, Chairman, MSME – DF says, “We are aiming to make India as World's manufacturer and sourcing hub alternative to China. Importantly, we have also tried to create a political will among political parties to acknowledge this movement.”
There were various topics covered in the on-going expo in different sessions that is Innovative Financing & Founding Opportunities for MSMEs & Startups, MSME in Tourism, Logistics & Service sector, Vendor Development in Railways, Defence & Govt/PSUs and Agri Business: Doubling Farmer’s income.
The agenda of the exposition is to promote entrepreneurship & self-employment to generate maximum job opportunities. The event will also provide one stop global platform to connect, network, partner and share information with Domestic & International SMEs to find new business opportunities in either country. The expo also aims to spread awareness about Government’s promotional schemes to make new Entrepreneur and transform job seekers to job creators. It accelerates growth of MSMES , Startups and Budding entrepreneur .In addition, it focuses to bring Small Entrepreneurs on a single platform and address their persistent issue and concerns. The agenda will also target to be the leading MSME Startup Advocacy Forum.
The event witnesses more than 20,000 visitors, 250 exhibitors, 100 B2G/B2B Meetings, 50 Embassies & Global Participants, 30 banks and investors, 15 PSUs-Government Departments and 10 concurrent summits.
Self-driving car rental company Zoomcar has launched 25 electric vehicles at Miyapur metro station here for daily metro commuters.
The company introduced 25 Mahindra e2oPlus cars.
"This will help facilitate the travel of metro commuters looking to complete their last mile journey affordably with the convenience of self-drive", Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited (HMRL) Managing Director N V S Reddy said.
The EV rental charges currently start at Rs 8.50 per km and it is a cost-effective and eco-friendly option for commuters.
In the near future, Zoomcar plans to expand the service to enable one-way movement to Madhapur and Gachibowli for IT employees, who can use these services to commute between their office and metro stations.
Along with this, Zoomcar's cycle sharing service PEDL, has deployed around 500 cycles across Hyderabad (in Gachibowli, Madhapur, Ameerpet, Begumpet etc) for people to cover last mile connectivity.
The present charges are Rs 3 for 30 minutes.
"Hyderabad has shown a good response in terms of demand for both cycles and EVs and has also helped commuters save money and help the environment by adopting these eco-friendly and cost-effective modes of transport," Reddy added.
By Manu Sharma
India's leading venture capital firm - YourNest - announced that it will raise funds amounting to Rs 300 crore as its second round of funding. As India has the 3rd largest startup ecosystem and deep technology startups is superseding all other's expectation, YourNest will focus mainly on 3-4 deep technology startups and create unicorns over the next few years.
As per reports, deep technology offers an opportunities to reach 20 percent from current 7 percent of exports. Just as IT as a service outgrew expectations, YourNest portfolios of Fund 1 & Fund 2 are aligned with the trend and intend to enable disruptor's.
"Deep tech companies represent the next growth wave in India and are poised to grow exponentially, enabling Indian startups to become unicorns i.e. a start-up company valued at more than a billion dollars and also build global businesses," said Sunil K Goyal, Founder & CEO, YourNest Capital Advisors P Ltd.
He adds that YourNest wants to focus on advanced robotics and invest in firms that will automate manufacturing, improve healthcare for the elderly and make lives safer for those working in hazardous conditions. We are looking at startups in electronic system design, enterprise, SaaS, software delivery, automation, deep learning and artificial intelligence.
Some of the deep tech startups, YourNest has invested includes: emotix, arya.ai, pCoudy, Cove, Golflan, CRON Systems, Uniphore Software, mycity4kids, Rubique among others. Here are some of the startups, YourNest hopes to see emerging as 'Unicorns' over the next few years.
Future Unicorns
Miko: Miko is India's first children companion robot from Emotix. The firm is a new age Indian robotics and consumer electronics company founded on the pillars of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Internet of Things has secured a $2M investment through funds advised by IDG Ventures India and YourNest. Founders Sneh Vaswani, Prashant Iyengar and Chintan Raikar have been building robots from their student days, but seeing an un-addressed market need with room for impact, the trio co-founded Emotix in 2014.
Emotix, is positioning its first product—Miko—as an emotionally intelligent companion robot capable of engaging, educating, and entertaining a child. The Emotix team spent almost two years perfecting the product and aims to launch more products in this space. Currently retailing for Rs 19,000 and sold in retail outlets and also on Flipkart and Amazon, Miko needs to be paired with a smartphone via Bluetooth and can provide three hours’ worth of conversations on one charge and about 1.2 hours of movements and conversation. Parents can also have access to a dashboard via a mobile app and can tweak Miko’s interactions with their children as they see fit.
pCloudy: pCloudy is owned by Smart Software Testing Solutions Inc. and was founded by former software testing experts at Oracle, Adobe, HCL Technologies, and Wipro. Collectively, they have over 50 years of experience and a strong understanding of the business challenges that enterprises encounter.
Their expertise has allowed them to design and integrate two signature cloud-based technology products, OpKey and pCloudy. Both tools focus on streamlining and improving the software development lifecycle by employing manual and automated testing. OpKey focuses on more traditional PC-based software while pCloudy targets the accelerated mobile application software space. These testing tools ensure that SSTS Inc. as a global industry provider of a complete software testing solution.
COVE & COVENET: Singapore-based IoT solutions company KaHa founded in 2015, the company, which also has offices in Switzerland, India and China, develops customisable IoT wearable platforms for companies under its brands COVE and COVENET. These white label solutions include electronics design, printed circuit board assembly, application framework for IoS and Android, cloud services, data analytics and smart after-sales service tool.
The firm primarily target consumer verticals such as health, wellness, sports and fitness, safety, smart payment, sensor-based gaming, smart fashion, home automation to smart automobile. Some examples of the products it has developed include smart bracelets, smart bands, full touch smart watches, smart T-shirts. According to a Analyst Gartner report, the global wearables market expected to grow 17 per cent this year with US$30.6 billion in revenues. Pawan Gandhi, Founder and CEO feels his company is primed and ready to meet the growing needs of this market segment.
VEGA: An end-to-end platform from Arya.ai, VEGA simplifies complex AI processes enabling developers and enterprises to focus on core product features. The startup was funded by Vinay Kumar Sankarapu and Deekshith Maria.
VEGA solves end-to-end deep learning product journey from building a neural network to production system design. Arya.ai is working in the banking and insurance and manufacturing sectors by deploying a man+machine ecosystem around VEGA to increase the efficiency of the performance, reduce the errors and track frauds. VEGA with features like agility,control, reliability, collaborate modelling and multi-functionally can jump start an enterprise, build the architecture and also the applications. Arya.in empowers its customers with a quintessential work bench, which enables companies to optimise deep learning from running their businesses successfully. The firm has banks and insurance customers in UK and are now targeting Indian customers.
