Samsung Electronics has organized the Global Startup Acceleration Program in Bangalore in partnership with the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) to mentor startups in varied fields in order to support the sustainable growth of local entrepreneurs in the country.
Thirty one employees from Samsung’s global headquarters in Korea and five university students from Korea have been mentoring 20 shortlisted startups remotely for the last two months as part of the Samsung Employee Volunteer Program. These volunteers are using their own vacation time for this program.
From August 6, the startups and their assigned mentors came together for a five-day bootcamp at IIIT-B to better understand the hurdles faced by the startups in developing their products and services.
The startups and their mentors showcased their business models to several Venture Capital firms that were present at IIIT-B on August 9. On August 10, the startups gave individual pitch presentations to a panel comprising Dr. Aloknath De, Chief Technology Officer, Samsung R&D Institute, Bangalore, DV Jagadish, CEO, Outreach at IIIT-B and representatives of two venture funds.
Hexpressions, which offers affordable, ready to assemble homes made out of Composite Paper Honeycomb panels, was the winner of the Global Startup Acceleration Program award and was given a prize of INR 200,000. The first runners up Ziroh Labs that works in the area of privacy engineering and runtime encryption of data was given a prize of INR 150,000 while the second runners up Olly Credit, with a business model around mobile micro credit cards for millennials was given a prize of INR 100,000.
Social enterprise Geriatric Care Network, which provides preventive and wellness focused healthcare solutions for the elderly, and BrownPacket, a mobile app for hyperlocal medicines and wellness products delivery, won the Best Improvement Award for showing the most improvement through the two month mentoring process.
Geriatric Care Network also won the Best Potential Award, which was also given to Susurla VS Suresh of Startoon Labs, which offers a solution that assists physiotherapists to accurately measure recovery of mobility and muscle strength of patients undergoing physiotherapy.
The Best Social Impact Award was given to Avidia Labs that offers immersive learning experiences for schools using augmented reality and virtual reality
“At Samsung we strive to encourage young minds and nurture the spirit of innovation. With the Global Startup Acceleration Program, our experts and engineers from different domains are volunteering to support the sustainable growth of local entrepreneurs in the early stage,” said Dr. Aloknath De, Chief Technology Officer, Samsung R&D Institute, Bangalore.
Since 2010, about 1,500 employees have joined this program in 43 countries. This year, Samsung is focused on supporting local entrepreneurs and helping them build their businesses for a sustainable impact on society.
This program is being held globally in Indonesia, Malaysia, India, South Africa between July and September with 80 selected startups. Among winners in four countries, five startup will be invited to Samsung headquarters in Korea.
The 20 selected startups in India work in a wide array of areas such as security for cloud data, AI powered solutions for educators and students, information management systems for schools, AR, VR, healthcare solutions for the elderly, use of IoT for healthcare, energy efficient IoT devices and ready to assemble homes, among others.
Samsung employees who are mentoring the startups as part of the Samsung Employee Volunteer Program bring their global business experience and expertise in domains such as B2B market research, pricing strategies, strategic planning in the area of IoT, AI, cloud, data, strategic investments and planning, databases, machine leaning algorithms, Android programming, healthcare business, computer vision technology, biomedical engineering, among many others.
In India, IIIT- B invited applications from startups for the Global Startup Acceleration Program starting May. Of the applications that were received, Samsung Electronics and IIIT-B shortlisted 20 startups based on the problems that they were trying to solve, their business model, motivation levels of participants and their passion towards their venture, amongst other factors. Based on the domain of the startups, mentoring teams were allocated to address their business problems.
As part of its corporate social responsibility, Samsung R&D Institute, Bangalore (SRI-B) signed a MoU with IIIT-B under which three startups will get extended support from the local incubation center at IIIT-B for the next 24 months.
“The kind of support a startup receives in its initial phase can define its success. As a company that strongly believes in co-prosperity as one of our core values, we are proud to partner with a prestigious institution such as IIIT-B to provide best infrastructure and mentorship to early-stage startups, helping grow the local startup ecosystem,” said Dipesh Shah, Managing Director, Samsung R&D Institute, Bangalore.
Simplilearn, one of the leading digital economy training providers, in partnership with People Matters, announced the launch of a research study on “Trends & Best Practices in Onboarding”. The findings of the report provide insights into how Indian companies are approaching employee onboarding.
The survey saw the participation of 106 organizations and some of the key findings of the report include:
i . The Current State of Onboarding: Trends and Challenges
· 93 percent of companies have a formal onboarding process, and of which 61 percent have different programs for fresher and lateral hires
· Orientation programs (70 percent), an impeccable Day 1 experience (80 percent), and engagement activities during pre-boarding like technical skill-training, projects and mentoring sessions by leaders and managers, etc. (68 percent) are the most sought-after methods by companies to engage and assimilate new hires
· Getting new hires accustomed (44 percent), involvement of managers (44 percent), and learning engagement (42 percent) are among the top challenges companies face in their onboarding programs
· However, only 27 percent companies are satisfied with the outcomes of their current onboarding programs
ii. Use of Technology in Onboarding Process
· The overall adoption of technology solutions in onboarding is yet to reach critical mass in India. A whopping 76 percent of the participating companies responded that they do not have a dedicated onboarding technology solution
· The top areas where technologies are being leveraged in onboarding programs across organizations include orientation (57 percent), constant communication during pre-boarding (46 percent), first-day experiences (45 percent), goal setting and expectation management (44 percent), and training & assessments (36 percent)
· The top technical domains for upskilling new hires according to the survey are Big Data, AI & Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, Programming, Cyber Security and Data Science & Business Intelligence
iii. How Can Organizations Improve Their Onboarding Practices?
· The study revealed that it takes 3-6 months to train campus hires and make them productive for the job. Hence, it is necessary for organizations to begin their onboarding right from the time the campus hire accepts the offer, i.e. Pre-boarding.
· 44 percent of the companies said that they begin pre-boarding the new hires while they are still on campus.
· 58 percent of the participating companies confirmed having a planned engagement during pre-boarding. However, the pre-engagement activities primarily included communication and new hire documentation. It was also unusual to find that while Indian companies have expressed their discontent with skilled talent available to perform jobs on new technologies, only few of them (32 percent) are implementing skilling and training initiatives for new hires while they are still on campus.
Speaking on the findings of the report, Krishna Kumar, Founder & CEO at Simplilearn said, “Onboarding is the golden period for companies and new hires to get aligned. In this age of digital transformation where upskilling is a critical focus, it was surprising to observe that only 24 percent of the companies leverage technology in onboarding. Companies are in an endeavor to save time and costs to get their new hires up to speed with core technical skills required for the job. I believe there is a huge potential for companies to leverage technology to engage and offer training during onboarding which leads to employee productivity and clear business ROI.”
“Onboarding is often overlooked as a formality rather than a key strategy to ensure well-performing new employees become productive and culturally aligned in an organization”, said Ester Martinez, CEO & Editor-in-Chief at People Matters. “Onboarding offers a great opportunity to augment competitive advantage by creating a committed talent pool that gives the desired performance. It remains an untapped area of creating an impact to the bottom line.”
Juniper Networks, an industry leader in automated, scalable and secure networks, today announced that Ricoh Group has successfully implemented Juniper Networks’ high-performing solutions to modernize and simplify the operations of its core networking and security infrastructure that supports approximately 500 locations and 34,000 users in Japan.
Ricoh Group has several partner companies and branches utilizing the same network. Coupled with the increase in cloud deployments, this led to more operational complexities and a lack of scalability over time. As such, a high-performance network was required to support the rising demand for increased bandwidth and to alleviate Ricoh’s existing network issues while simplifying operations across three particular areas:
Internet connectivity: Due to the increase in network usage, speed slowed significantly and cloud applications could not function at their optimal level. The network had to be managed and operated separately across various locations, leading to increased operational expenses.
Wide Area Network (WAN): As Ricoh’s WAN services were managed externally through multiple service providers, its customers’ requests were not processed quickly enough, leading to delays in response rates. Due to this, streamlining and maintaining consistency of network functions across the entire organization remained a challenge.
Local Area Network (LAN): With the growing demand for access to data centers and the internet, there was a drop in overall speed and connection. To mitigate, Ricoh’s service providers had to troubleshoot issues individually, resulting in management inefficiencies and added costs in coordinating multiple investigations across different locations.
To resolve these challenges, Ricoh set out to reconfigure its entire network infrastructure based on a carefully developed framework that involved the simplicity of network configuration across multiple locations, automation capabilities to reduce operational complexities and operability that aligned with industry standards. After a stringent selection process, Ricoh selected Juniper Networks to undertake the modernization of its network infrastructure.
Juniper’s MX480 5G Universal Routing Platform, SRX5800 Services Gateway, EX9214 Ethernet Switch and the data center fabric switch QFX5100 were deployed to address the various network issues while significantly improving operability, stability and security across the Ricoh Group’s network.
At the core, the MX480 provides the agile infrastructure, pervasive security components and adaptive disaggregated software that offers the strong programmability required by the solution. Investment protection is also secured with the newly-released Juniper Penta silicon-powered MPC-10E line cards, which provides high-interface density at 1/10/100GbE, enabling 1.5 Tbps throughput per slot and inline data-plane security, eliminating complexity without any performance penalties.
Alongside the implementation of the SRX5800 firewall, Ricoh was able to streamline its network connectivity and secure its network infrastructure through advanced threat detection and prevention. The organization also deployed Junos OS to further automate and simplify its network operations.
To optimize LAN connectivity in approximately 500 locations, Ricoh centralized the group’s network operations across its large-scale branches by utilizing the QFX and EX series switches leveraging Virtual Chassis technology, cutting its infrastructure footprint by 50 percent and energy consumption by 33 percent.
Additionally, with Junos OS being a common operating system, Ricoh was able to reduce its operational workloads through the unified configuration of network devices.
In the next phase of deployment, Ricoh aims to further implement the SRX series to unify, enhance and automate its security strategy through Juniper’s Software-Defined Secure Network (SDSN) framework.
“New threats continue to emerge as technology advances. With Juniper Networks, we receive guidance and detailed advice on how best to mitigate and prevent these threats, while ensuring that our network operates seamlessly. Juniper has also been very flexible in handling issues around our network modernization. We are pleased to have Juniper Networks’ continuous support, along with their high-quality technology and solutions,” says Tomotake Wakuri, Digital Transformation Division, Ricoh Company, Ltd.
“Juniper Networks is pleased to play such a crucial role in significantly transforming Ricoh Group’s large-scale network into a simplified, secure and automated infrastructure. We look forward to a continued strong partnership as we create innovative solutions that can solve Ricoh’s networking complexities so that they can focus on driving business growth,” Tomohiro Furuya, Japan Country Manager, Juniper Networks.
Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) (listed in BSE & NSE) has announced its unaudited First Quarter results for FY2019.
Speaking on the results, Partha DeSarkar, CEO of HGS said: “HGS continued its business momentum in the first quarter of FY2019. For the second quarter in a row, overall revenues crossed the Rs. 10,000 million mark to register Rs. 11,008 million, an increase of 18.7 % YoY. Of this, 5% was organic, 4.7% from forex gains and the rest 9% came from the acquisitions of AxisPoint Health and Element Solutions.
During the quarter, we signed nine new logos, expanded our relationships with eight existing clients and won five DigiCX deals, reflecting how our offerings are resonating with the evolving needs of clients. Looking at the sales pipeline, we see big opportunities for our technology-led services including DigiCX, analytics, cloud services, RPA and machine learning, and continue to invest in strengthening our capabilities. The healthcare vertical posted strong growth and accounted for over 50% of the revenues for the third quarter in a row. The two recent acquisitions helped increase share of healthcare vertical revenues from 51% to 54%.
From a margin perspective, the performance of legacy business was as per our expectations. EBITDA margins stood at 9.5%, excluding the acquired businesses. While most of our businesses showed good growth, the India CRM business continues to see twin pressures of drop in volumes from telecom clients and increase in minimum wages.
Element Solutions has done well and we expect this business to play a key role in driving our digital offerings in the social media and cloud segments. AxisPoint Health’s performance was below expectations, with costs higher than anticipated. We have initiated the necessary cost management measures and these are expected to be in place in Q3.”
The innovative digital label printing solution provides superior productivity, colour stability, and profitability, along with easy operability and cost-efficient operations
Konica Minolta Business Solutions, a leading global provider of advanced imaging and networking technologies, has recently installed AccurioLabel 190, its state-of-the-art digital label printing solution, at Hora Art in India. The Hora Art installation marks the first roll-to-roll label printing installation made by Konica Minolta India and further strengthens the company’s domain leadership position in the country.
Pradeep Hora, Managing Director and Sanjay Hora, Director of the company, Hora Arts, said, “We wanted a digital label printing solution which could seamlessly cater to our various small-lot printing requirements. The AccurioLabel from Konica Minolta is perfectly suited to our business needs and allows us to deliver superior quality prints at fast speed, with better overall productivity and profitability.”
Speaking at the latest equipment installation, Ashok Sethi, EGM PP & IP Sales, Konica Minolta Business Solutions India Pvt ltd, said, “The growing demand for differentiated labels and packaging options has made it necessary for print and printing businesses to look beyond the conventional and towards more advanced, future-ready solutions. The installation of AccurioLabel 190, our first roll-to-roll label printing installation in India, follows close on heels of its India launch and is proof that the print and printing market is ripe for disruption through technological innovation.”
A compact, high-performance digital label printer, the AccurioLabel 190 from Konica Minolta operates at the optimal intersection of performance, quality, and cost. It uses dry toner electrophotography to deliver outstanding high-quality images. The AccurioLabel 190 ensures extremely accurate image processing and formation for industrial printing requirements; the print quality is as high as the most high-end digital label printers and is comparable to offset printing.
The AccurioLabel 190 also boasts of the highest speed and most stable printing performance in its class with per-minute speeds of 18.9m, 13.5m, and 9.45m, depending on the paper type. It can handle a wide range of media such as ordinary/matte paper, glossy paper, tack paper, synthetic paper, and film with paper thickness of 60-250 micron and maximum input width of 330 mm. All of this makes the AccurioLabel 190 perfect for new-age label printing operations such as small-lot printing, VDP, and barcode printing.
The AccurioLabel 190 is equipped with advanced colour adjustment software, allowing it to deliver consistent, stable, and superior quality output from sample production to actual production. This enables the AccurioLabel 190 to ensure higher productivity and better profitability, even for small-lot printing.
“Through our range of offerings, Konica Minolta aims to deliver best-in-class productivity, profitability, ease-of-usage, and cost efficiency to its customers, while enabling them to cater to the ever-evolving print requirements of the digital age.
The installation was followed by a grand inauguration event at the venue on August 9, 2018. At the event, Vijay Kamat, Product Manager IP and Shayak Mukherjee, Business Consultant R2R interacted with the media to discuss the differentiation that the innovative solution delivered for print and printing businesses.
Spread across 13 acres, Ikea first store at ech hub HITEC City under Cyberabad. Nestled between tall office buildings and under-construction sites, the 400,000-square-foot outlet is the culmination of years of research and an investment of Rs1,000 crore ($146 million).
IKEA expects this store to attract 7 million visitors annually. Towards this, the company has localised and tweaked its offerings.
For instance, the in-house 1,000-seater restaurant (its biggest yet) will sell samosas starting at Rs10, besides its signature cinnamon buns, coffee, and meatballs. Such pricing is attractive in price-sensitive India.
It will offer 7,500 affordable, good quality, value-for-money home furnishing products, all under one roof.
The store will remain open 365 days from between 10.00 am and 11.00 pm.
The logo of IKEA is seen outside its under construction store in Hyderabad on July 18, 2018
Local and affordable
Understanding Indian shoppers’ price sensitivity, the store offers around 1,000 products priced under Rs200. For instance, among the 7,500 items on offer are chopping boards for Rs100, mugs at Rs59, door-mats priced at Rs99 and monotone sofa throws that cost Rs180.
There are armchairs for Rs4,990 (onwards) and tables such as the India-made Lack table starting at Rs599.
At the restaurant, too, the dishes are modestly priced. For example, a portion of Hyderabad’s famed biryani (a steamed rice, meat, and, spice preparation) costs just Rs99, while IKEA’s signature chicken balls are available for Rs149.
Besides ensuring affordability, IKEA has also tweaked the product categories that it will push more in India.
While textiles is a major focus area for it globally, in India, it is betting on kitchenware and dining products. The company estimates that kitchenware can generate upwards of 10% of its turnover in the country.
So a large section at the two-storied store is dedicated to all things kitchen: pots and pans, spice boxes, idli-makers, cutlery, bowls, plates, containers, and tiffin boxes.
“We anticipate this is the very area where we can see huge volumes going forward,” John Achillea, the Hyderabad store manager, told media.see huge potential in this (kitchenware), even more than textile because India is already a big textile market. While we will have some work to do in textiles, the reality will be that cooking and eating products will be required right from the beginning.”
Even in this, there have been some adjustments made for India based on research—IKEA visited over 1,000 homes to understand how Indian families live. So, for instance, the cutlery sets will only include spoons and forks since Indians hardly use knives to eat.
And it doesn’t stop there.
IKEA OFFERS
The IKEA store in Hyderabad will exhibit two full homes that reflect 'Life at Home in Hyderabad', besides different room sets based on different parts of the home like bedroom, kitchen, children's room and living room.
It will also have a market hall where you will find home kitchen utensils and accessories, textiles, rugs, lighting, decoration, stationary and even live plants.
The store will house a 1,000-seater restaurant, IKEA's largest and possibly India's largest restaurant, a cafe which will offer coffee, bakes, frozen yogurt and many more for purchase.
It also offers a kids' play area named Smaland where customers can leave their children as they shop for things.
IKEA RESTAURANT
The IKEA restaurant will offer 50 per cent Swedish specialties like salmon and chicken and vegetarian meatballs and 50 per cent local delicacies like Hyderabadi biryani and samosas, apart from other Indian delicacies, at affordable prices.
IKEA AND FDI
IKEA got Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) approval in 2013 which allowed 100 per cent FDI for single brand retailers in India.
With that, IKEA became the first major single retailer to get the FDI approval and plans to open several stores and multiple touch points across the main cities in India.
IKEA IN INDIA AND FUTURE PLANS
While the first IKEA India store open in Hyderabad, the global retailers has a plan to open another store in Navi Mumbai in 2019.
IKEA has also acquired land sites in the states of Karnataka and Delhi/NCR and continues to look for more in other major cities.
IKEA has been sourcing from India for its global stores for more than 30 years.
Its plan to open retail stores in 40+ cities across the country reinforces its long-term commitment and deep connection with India.
Speaking to India Today, Peter Betzel, CEO, IKEA India said that the company thanked the Telangana government for its tremendous support. He added that he hoped that the people of the fast growing city will enjoy the shopping experience.
The IKEA store employs 950 co-workers with 50 per cent women employee in Hyderabad directly and 1,500 indirectly in services and expects to host close to 7 million visitors each year.
There are currently 403 IKEA stores in 49 countries with a sales volume of 38.3 billion euros. As many as 936 million customers visited IKEA stores in FY17 and more than 2.3 billion people visited IKEA online.
Global technology platform and digital payments leader, PayPal, and HDFC Bank, the largest credit card issuer in India, today announced a strategic partnership that will result in a safer, faster and more convenient payment experience for HDFC card holders and help drive incremental digital spend. HDFC cards will be presented as a payment option during enrollment and subsequent payments, with the ability for consumers to easily open PayPal accounts and set it as their preferred payment method.
HDFC Bank has more than 35 million credit and debit cards issued in India, while PayPal is available in more than 200 markets globally with a network of 19 million merchants. This partnership will create a number of joint growth opportunities that will advance PayPal and HDFC Bank’s shared vision of offering consumers greater choice and flexibility in managing their money.
This agreement will take effect immediately, with new experiences available to customers that are designed to drive incremental digital spend.
Speaking about the partnership, Anupam Pahuja, Managing Director, PayPal India, said, “Offering choice to our customers has been at the core of our strategy, and the partnership with HDFC Bank is another step in this direction. Through this partnership, we’re enabling HDFC Bank to provide its customers with the ability to shop how, where and when they choose, by leveraging the power, safety and convenience of PayPal.”
Parag Rao, Country Head of Card Payment Products, Merchant Acquiring Services and Marketing at HDFC Bank Ltd., said, “We are delighted to partner with PayPal. This agreement is about offering choice and partnering with companies in the payments ecosystem that we feel can help us create meaningful products that benefit both consumers and merchants. This partnership allows us to reach millions of existing and potential new PayPal customers across India.”
