Indian IT, Startups Likely to Hire 5 Lakh People in 2019: Mohandas Pai

India’s information technology (IT) services sector and startups together are expected to hire up to five lakh people in 2019 as demand for freshers are on the upswing, an industry veteran said on Wednesday.

Former Chief Financial Officer of IT major Infosys Ltd, T V Mohandas Pai said entry-level packages in the industry went up by as much as 20% in 2018, after stagnation in salaries for the past seven years. “Growth is coming back to the Indian IT services industry,” he said, talking about industry highlights in 2018 and prospects in the coming calendar year. Pai said 2018 saw “H-1B visa situation getting tougher,” Indian companies focusing more on Japan and Southeast Asia, massive expansion of captives and buy-backs by big companies.

Hyderabad has become a hot destination, with many new age companies coming to the Telangana capital, thanks to good infrastructure, and “very good marketing” by KTR (K T Rama Rao, who served as IT Minister in the previous TRS government), according to him.

He also said Indian companies were now trying to expand in markets in Asia.

Bangalore's Top 3 Most Attractive Brands 2018 – Samsung (Mobiles), iPhone, Maruti Suzuki

India’s Most Attractive Brands Report 2018 (MAB 2018), In its fifth edition, has listed the country’s Most Attractive 1000 brands by consumer choices, based on TRA’s proprietary model of Brand Attractiveness. The study is an annual syndicated primary research conducted with 2500 consumerinfluencers across 16 Indian cities. Much like the All-lndia list, consumers of Bangalore rank Samsung mobile phones as the Most Attractive brand in the city, followed by iPhone (All-lndia rank 3rd), and Maruti Suzuki (All-lndia rank 5th), at 2nd and 3′” places respectively. TRA Research has been scientifically measuring Buying Propensity conducting syndicated research on its’ proprietary matrices of Brand Trust and Brand Attractiveness since 2010.

However, the superficial similarities of the city brands with All-lndia ranks ceases after the third ranked, showing very different choices of the Bangalorean. Continuing the city ranks, ITC is 4th ranked (All-lndia rank 85th), Honda in four-wheelers ranked 5th (All-lndia rank 10th), Oppo Is 6th (All-lndia rank 12th), Titan is 7th (All-lndia rank 11th), Hewlett Packard is 8’h (All-lndia rank 36th), Vivo is 9th (All-lndia rank 1 5th) and Toyota is ranked 10th (All-lndia rank 19th). The other brands which surge ahead in city compared to All-lndia ranks – Pizza Hut (+799 ranks), Airtel (+681 ranks), Zomato (+572 ranks) & KFC (+490 ranks) (Bajaj Auto is at 4th rank and Toyota is 5th among the list’s most desired brands.

N. Chandramouli, CEO, TRA Research, emphasizing the unique differences in each of the cities said, “Choices of consumers based on attractiveness show their desire quotient for brands, and In turn reflect the city’s personality. The Most Attractive Brands brands chosen in Bangalore are completely different from that of the All-lndia ranks, showing that the Bangalorean has thinks and acts differently. Not knowing such nuances consumer behaviour is different cities can mean the difference between success and failure of brands.”

Brands which score very low by Bangalore as compared to All-lndia ranks are Apollo Pharmacy ranked 614th in Bangalore (49th in All-lndia), Land Rover ranked 582nd (82nd All-lndia), Yahoo ranked 567th (91st All-lndia), Bank of India ranked 616’h (146’h AllIndia) and Fanta ranked 546th (116th All-lndia). Other significant brands which face the scorn of Bangalore are Blue Star ranked 465th in Bangalore and 92nd All-lndia, Apple ranked 360th in city versus 46th in All India, Big Bazaar ranked 396th by city and ranked 80th All-lndia.

“The consumer of the Garden city behaves and acts differently as different cultural, environmental, political, social and terrain they encounter. For a city that spends much time beating the traffic, Bangalore adores its phones and its cars. Arguably, the most cosmopolitan of all Indian cities with Kannada, Tamil, Hlndi, English and, sometimes Telugu, are well understood. Their relationships with brands is low with brandconsumer compatibility at -20%. The city loves tech – but less of fancy gizmos and more of the useful tech”, Chandramouli added.

US Startup Fines $900,00 for Launching Rogue Satellites on ISRO's PSLV in Jan 2018

If the American Federal Communications Commission (FCC) tells you not to do something — like launching satellites without their approval, for instance — it's probably in your best interest not to do that thing.

And if you ended up doing it anyway, as US-based startup Swarm Technologies did, you'll likely be hung up to dry and fined an inordinate amount of money — $900,000 in the case of Swarm Technologies, Quartz reported.

The American startup was fined for having launched four unauthorised satellites on an Indian Space Research Organisation 31-satellite rideshare mission in January 2018. Along with ISRO's 100th satellite to be launched into orbit, the mission also held room for 30 commercial satellites, coordinated by ISRO's commercial arm, Antrix Corporation.

Swarm's four 'SpaceBEE' satellites were deployed on ISRO's PSLV rocket despite having its application for launch denied by the FCC a month earlier.

The regulators expressed that the satellites were far too small to be detected in space by terrestrial detectors, threatening the many other satellites in orbit with a higher risk of colliding into them.

An investigation into Swarm Technologies began in March earlier this year, in which the FCC dug up more surprises. The FCC discovered quite a few "unauthorised weather balloon-to-ground station tests and unauthorised tests of its satellite and ground station equipment" following the launch of Swarm's SpaceBEEs.

Over the course of FCC's investigation, the agency gave Swarm approval to start communicating with their satellites in August this year. It also allowed a second, approved launch of the ultra-small satellites in November — this time, on a SpaceX rocket. This, because despite the FCC’s initial concerns, it was possible for Swarm's SpaceBEEs to be detected consistently by commercial radar stations since their (unlawful) January launch, which was the crux of FCC's concerns about the satellites, to begin with.

However, Swarm's illegal launch came home to roost in a case that was settled by them paying a hefty $900,000-penalty to the FCC. This, the FCC said in a statement, was because the “unauthorised deployment and operation of satellites" poses a risk of "satellite collisions and radio frequency interference, threatening critical commercial and government satellite operations.”

Interestingly, Swarm received grants (including one from the American government's National Space Foundation (NSF)) for their technology.

According to the grant, the satellites commissioned by the NSF were intended to support “the world’s smallest two-way communications satellites and associated ground hardware,” with applications focussed in “Internet of Things” devices.

Given the NSF's investment in the “unique launch economics afforded by the miniaturised satellites,” as the grant award calls it, funding from the American government appears to have played a part in the unauthorised satellites' launch.

Swarm appears to be at the tail end of its controversy and gotten away with having four illegally-launched satellites orbiting Earth for all intents and purposes for the time being. But, another takeaway from the episode was the lack of communication between two closely-related arms of the US government, the FCC and the NSF.

With space startups burgeoning in the US, particularly in Silicon Valley, the case has thrown a spotlight on the approaches taken by the US government to regulate space. Both US lawmakers and the Trump administration have announced that they are working to address this gap.

SpaceX’s US National Security Space Mission has an Indian Engineer Touch

SpaceX’s first national security space mission for US, launched on Sunday night (IST) had an Indian link. A young Indian-American engineer, Siva Bharadvaj, who works for SpaceX as an integration and test engineer for the company’s Falcon-9 rocket, co-hosted the nearly two-hour international webcast.

The mission carried the GPS 111 satellite for the US Air Force. During the webcast, Bharadvaj explained the details of the mission, which kept viewers engaged. He was selected in early 2018 to be a part of the SpaceX webcast team. It was his second live webcast of a SpaceX mission. On November 15, 2018, he co-hosted the launch of the Es’ Hail-2 communication satellite by SpaceX for Qatar.

Bharadvaj studied at University of California, Berkeley and Cornell University. He has worked in Boeing, where he was selected as one of the “14 Young Engineers of Tomorrow”. His father, Bala Bharadvaj, is the managing director of Boeing India. An hour after the successful deployment of the air force satellite around 10pm (IST) on Sunday, his mother Ramaa Bharadvaj tweeted: “My son, Siva, is once again face of SpaceX as he co-hosts the international webcast of the Falcon-9 as it takes into space a GPS satellite for the US Air Force. Yayyy!”

On December 5, 2018, SpaceX launched a satellite ExceedSat-1, designed in Mumbai and integrated in Hyderabad, which is mainly for the benefit of ham radio operators.

SpaceX’s ties with India is not restricted to rockets and satellites alone. Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone had, a few days ago, reacted to SpaceX chief Elon Musk’s tweet about ‘Bajirao Mastani’. Elon shared the song ‘Deewani Mastani’ and a GIF featuring Ranveer Singh.

Indian Domestic Airlines Carry 11.5% More Passengers in Nov 2018

GoAir reported the best on-time performance in the month of November 2018. The domestic airlines flew 1.16 crore passengers in November registering a year on year growth of 11.5 per cent over the 1.04 crore passengers flown by the industry in the same period last year.

The latest data released by the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) show that IndiGo topped the list with 50.06 lakh passengers. Jet Airways took the second position carrying 14.87 lakh passengers while SpiceJet carried 14.55 lakh passengers giving it the third spot.

Air India flew 14.18 lakh passengers, GoAir (10.19 lakh), AirAsia (6.18 lakh), Vistara (4.15 lakh) and JetLite (1.75 lakh) during November.

SpiceJet reported the highest Passenger Load Factor (PLF) among all domestic carriers at 91.1 per cent followed by GoAir (87.6 per cent), AirAsia (86.5 per cent) and IndiGo (84.9 per cent). Passenger load factor shows how many of the total seats on offer by each airline are getting filled.

GoAir reported the best on-time performance (OTP) at 87 per cent at the four metro airports — Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Vistara at 86.1 per cent took the second position followed by IndiGo (79.2 per cent). Jet Airways, Jet Lite (76.6 per cent) and Air India reported an OTP of 64 per cent at the four airports.

The industry paid over ₹3.34 crore to the over 1.44 lakh passengers affected by cancellations, delays and those who were denied boarding in November this year. This includes paying over ₹1.5 crore to over 2,600 passengers from among the 1 lakh who were denied boarding. The industry also paid over ₹1.27 crore to over 1.15 lakh passengers affected by delays.

"Fall in oil prices and holiday sales by airlines will ensure stable airfares and will continue to shoulder the passenger traffic growth in the month of December,” said Aloke Bajpai, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder ixigo.

Yes Bank Unveils 20 Data Driven Products Co-Created with Data Scientists at Yes Datathon

Yes Bank conducted the finale of YES Datathon launched in September 2018 on December 22-23 in Bangalore. This was India’s first bank led Datathon aimed at augmenting Yes Bank’s embedded data analytics & ML units to drive rapid prototyping of AI/ML based products, optimize digital product suite, and enhance product/service design and delivery, in an accelerated 100 day period.

The initiative saw participation from over 6000 data scientists/engineers and developers who participated in diverse Machine Learning challenges. Some of the top models/products developed were based on:

·         Predictive service delivery to enable the bank to provide proactive service
·         Sales recommendation models
·         Customer Transaction Relation Graph, equivalent to a social network of transactions
·         Fraud Detection and analytics for card customer
·         Customer Sentiment Analysis to predict Customer engagement etc.
·         Customer 360 tool to provide comprehensive products & services to each customer
·         Personal Finance Management tool without requiring access to customer SMS

The top 200 teams comprised of students from top technology institutes like IIT Bombay, Chennai, Kharagpur and ISI Kolkata along with professionals from organizations like IBM, Walmart Labs, Siemens and Amazon Development Centre among others. The teams received support from over 20 data science experts from across industries who helped them in the product development process.

At the finale, the top 50 teams showcased their final models which were trained and tested on more than a terabyte of created and tokenized datasets - the 10 best solutions won cash prizes worth Rs.20 lakh. The winning team Oracle was adjudged ‘Data Wizards’, for creating a ‘360 degree model for profiling of every customer to predict next best action’. Team Insight from Sri Lanka was adjudged the best student team and was also one of the top 5 teams. This student team developed a model for ‘predicting customer product and service affinity’. The other teams in top 5 were Finance Data Dons, Reverse Atlas and Django Unchained, who presented models on Predictive Payments to create a Personal Finance and Investment Management Tool + POS Anomaly Detection, Creating a community akin to social media sites using transaction analysis and Predictive model for customer relationship managers to target existing and new customers using transaction nodes, respectively.

The top 20 models identified by the Bank will be taken live within a month and the remaining will be moved to the Bank’s product library to be iteratively developed and taken live within a period of three months. This will also be a first of its kind data product library which will be iteratively expanded to 100+ products within 6 months

Talking about the event, Rajat Monga, Senior Group President, Financial Markets, Yes Bank, said “Yes Bank embarked on a data centered business model as part of our TechTonic initiative and now has a full stack of technology and talent capability built up. In order to leap frog on this data native transformation, Yes Datathon provides us with an opportunity to engage with 6000+ data scientists. It has helped us identify newer use cases as well as statistical techniques and also incorporate cross-industry best practices.

Going forward, Yes Bank will also host AI/ML challenges and data engineering workshops to deepen practical and technical knowhow of future technology leaders and to facilitate this, has partnered with top IITs and BITS Bombay to further develop the data science ecosystem, allowing students the opportunity to build algorithms and data models in a deployment ready environment. The 6 Machine Learning challenges hosted in partnership with the IITs and BITS will lead up to Datathon 2019 to be hosted in June 2019.

Tata Motors on its Way to Win Sustainably in the Passenger Vehicle Business After a Successful 2018

The year 2018 has been a turning point in the history of Tata Motors’ passenger vehicle business with consecutive growth for 35 months. The PV business grew on the back of the new generation products. Commencing with the launch of two new platforms (ALFARC and OMEGARC) and the showcase of the H5X (now christened as Harrier) & 45X concept cars at the Auto Expo in February, 2018, this year was instrumental in paving the path towards enabling Tata Motors to be at the forefront of the Indian automotive industry. The company also introduced the new dual-architecture strategy, which will deliver 7-8 products/ variants from these two platforms ensuring greater coverage and sizable economies of scale.

Additionally, the rollout of the Turnaround 2.0 strategy, laid its focus on ‘winning sustainably’ in the PV Business. Acting as a catalyst, this strategy led to multiple wins for the PV business in this year.

Star launches:

The PV business witnessed a firework of four new product introductions during the festival season, which included the launch of the Nexon KRAZ, Tiago NRG, the all new Tigor and the JTP twins. Launched by JT Special Vehicles (JTSV), the 50:50 joint venture with Jayem Automotives and Tata Motors, the JTP range of performance vehicles – the Tiago JTP and the Tigor JTP are all set to bring back the ‘Joy of Motoring’ in everyday commute. In addition, this year the Nexon and the all new Tigor made their way into various international markets.

Aggressive Marketing Strategy:

In its constant effort to connect with younger consumer groups, this year the PV business fortified its brand presence across key marathon events. However, the highlight of the year was Tata Nexon’s association with VIVO Indian Premier League as their official partner. This year witnessed many strategic digital campaigns that resulted in optimum brand buzz and created more excitement for new products. Additionally, experiential marketing played a key role in increasing customer engagements. Adding some style to the year, Tata Motors also signed-up the popular Bollywood superstar - Hrithik Roshan as the brand ambassador for its all-new stylish sedan, the Tata Tigor. This and lot more led to an improvement of the PV brand in its Net Promoter Score from -1 to +18 this year.

Incredible performance by the manufacturing plants:

The Company’s plants too made it really proud this year, as they continued operating at their optimum levels. While the Ranjangaon plant rolled out its 50,000th Nexon in August, Sanand kept bettering its own record for the highest ever production since its inception. Rolling out its 50,000th passenger vehicle in October 2018, the Sanand plant not only won the Best Plant Safety Performance Award but also received CII’s Greenco Platinum certification.

In addition to the above, for the upcoming, born of pedigree product, the Harrier, Tata Motors set up a new, world-class assembly line in the Pune facility under JLR’s guidance for ensuring high levels of dimensional accuracy and build quality. Top of the line international manufacturing practices like geo pallets, inline measuring robots, MFDC controlled welding, Bosch timers and JLR NUMMI process will ensure every Harrier rolled out from assembly line follows stringent quality standards. With close to 95% automation level, the Harrier assembly line uses 100 ABB & KUKA robots.

Increasing network footprint:

With a renewed focus on increasing its footprint, Tata Motors has currently activated 27 new dealerships in its top 20 serviceable markets with another 17 more under activation. In Kerala and Maharashtra alone, 7 new dealerships each were added. Additionally, in a recently concluded event, the Company also added 6 new dealerships in the state of Rajasthan in a day – the fastest expansion drive done by its PV Business in one day.

All this put together, Tata Motors has appointed an additional count of 59 dealerships and 142 Emerging Market Operations (EMOs) in 2018. These additions have helped the Company to expand its presence to an additional 90 cities this year. Adding to this, Tata Motors has also introduced the ‘Ashwamed Project’ in Uttar Pradesh - an upgradation of EMOs in Uttar Pradesh.

Constantly improving its customer service:

The PV Business constantly explored unique ways to build consumer loyalty. In an effort to do so, the business introduced 24x7 Road Side Assistance service which offers quick assistance to distressed customers within 45 mins. Thanks to the constant training and skilling sessions for its executives targeted at ensuring customer centricity, Tata Motors’ customers now attest to an informed and pleasant experience at the Company’s many dealerships. New digital intervention in customer service like introduction of the Service Buddy app (ready reckoner used by service advisors), Tata Motors Service Connect app (Customer App), Tata Motors Service application (Job card opening  app) were highly appreciated by customers. However, the proof of the pudding was when the PV business bagged the second spot for the second year running, this time doing even better – a clear second position in the JD Power CSI Study, 2018.

Commenting on the fruitful year gone by, Mayank Pareek, President – Passenger Vehicles Business Unit, (PVBU) Tata Motors, said, “We started the year on a high note, as we clocked the highest sales figures in 63 months in January 2018. Moving forward, this year witnessed an array of launches from the PV Business including four new product introductions during the festival season, which helped us to grow our volumes during what was a rather sluggish period for the entire auto industry. While we bucked the trend to a large extent, we have also felt the effects of a few adverse external economic factors, during the last few months. Not being deterred by these headwinds, our PV Business registered a remarkable improvement in brand perception in 2018 owing to our forward-looking market strategy, leaving the close competition significantly behind.

Having said that, we are happy to conclude this year with the unprecedented response by our customers and partners for the Harrier, at our nationwide preview events. With its launch scheduled for early 2019 and with the continuous love showered on our existing new generation product range by our customers, we will continue to strive towards driving volumes and increase our market share as part of our on-going Turnaround journey.”

Tata Motors has been steadily expanding its offerings in the Indian market and manufacturing best-in-class products with its advanced technological prowess. The business manifesto of the passenger vehicle business for 2018 was built on three strong pillars which include sales enhancement, cost reduction and operational efficiencies.

The Company is confident of capturing a larger pie of the domestic market next year by building on the already strong foundation it has laid in 2018. As a challenger brand, Tata Motors will strive to continue to outperform the market and aim to make the Company the most loved and cost-effective company in the world. In the words of Pareek “365 days bring with it 365 new opportunities.” Having said that, with a number of hits in 2018, Tata Motors is all geared to step up its game in 2019.