HSIL Limited EBIDTA Jumps by 48% to Rs.109.15 Crore for Quarter Ending December 31, 2018

HSIL Limited today reported revenue of Rs.735.72 crore for quarter ending December 31, 2018 as against Rs.579.45 crore for the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The consumer business division of the Company grew 55% Y-o-Y in the quarter and the packaging business saw strong growth in revenue of 30% Y-o-Y.

Operating profit (EBIDTA) for the quarter stood at Rs.109.15 crore, and grew 48% Y-o-Y in the quarter. Profit before and after tax for the quarter ended December 31, 2018 was Rs.38.93 crore and Rs.25.50 crore, respectively, against the Profit before and after tax of Rs.24.80 crore (including exceptional loss of Rs.6.94 crore) and Rs.15.58 crore, for the corresponding quarter last year.

Sandip Somany, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, HSIL Limited said, “These solid sales gains, along with cost efficiencies generated Rs.25.50 crore profit for us this quarter. Our substantial investment in businesses outside of bathware space are yielding results, and this is visible from our initial success of plastic pipes and fittings business and profitability of consumer business. We have maximized our manufacturing capacity utilization and the same has aided us to achieve a strong result this quarter. “

He further said, “We expect sales and financial results across our businesses to further improve over the remainder of the current financial year driven by our investments in technology, digital tools and core innovation in products. We look forward to a strong FY 19-20.”

Financial highlights of the quarter ended December 31, 2018

Key Highlights of FY18-19 Q3:

·         Operating Revenue at Rs.735.72 crore up by 27%
·         EBIDTA at Rs.109.15 crore up by 48%
·         PBT at Rs.38.93 crore up by 57%

Tata Motors Bags Order to Supply Tigor EVs to Capgemini India

Tata Motors, has announced the next milestone on its journey of driving electrification, through its partnership with Capgemini, to deploy Tigor Electric Vehicles (EV) in three major cities. Capgemini, a global leader in consulting, technology services and digital transformation, will deploy the Tigor EVs at its Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad campus, reinforcing its commitment to a sustainable environment. Tata Motors has collaborated with Karthik Travels, a mobility solutions company to manage a smooth induction of the Tigor EV fleet into Capgemini’s transport ecosystem. The first batch of Tigor EVs was handed over by the Tata Motors team to Capgemini officials, at an event held at the company’s Bengaluru campus.

Commenting on the deployment of Tigor EVs, Shailesh Chandra, President – Electric Mobility Business and Corporate Strategy, Tata Motors, said, "We are delighted to partner with Capgemini on their thoughtful initiative of promoting zero-emission vehicles for the employee mobility needs. Tigor EV, recently awarded as the ‘Electric Car of the Year’ by Assocham India’, will join Capgemini’s existing fleet of cars. Tata Motors will continue to work towards bringing aspirational e-mobility solutions for the customers, leading the drive towards faster adoption of electric vehicles in the country. "

Tata Motors is playing a lead role in proactively driving the electric mobility in the country. To build a sustainable future for India, the company has been working collaboratively on various electric and hybrid vehicle solutions.

Urgent Need to Invest in R&D, Skill-Building, and Capacity Building for Skilled Individuals: Dr. Sriram Birudavolu.

Micro Focus Guides Enterprises into the Digital Transformation Era

Micro Focus has announced a critical milestone in a years-long effort to create and deliver solutions that help organizations transform their business in accordance with rapidly evolving IT requirements. By combining industry-leading software and domain expertise in four core areas – Enterprise DevOps, Hybrid IT Management, Predictive Analytics and Security Risk and Governance – the company is now uniquely positioned to deliver on all critical aspects of enterprise digital transformation to help customers innovate faster with less risk.

According to two recent reports from Gartner, there are indications that Digital Transformation is a priority in 2019:

“Growth is the number one priority for CEOs, and many see digital business as the primary means of achieving its growth objectives. Only 33% of enterprises have managed to reach the scaling stage of digital business.” Getting to the Details of the Digital Platform: A Gartner Theme Insight Report, Bill Swanton, December 7, 2018 

“Only 4% of organizations have no digital initiative at all, which signals a shift from digital as an option to digital as a mainstream platform.” Smarter with Gartner, “CIO Agenda 2019: Digital Maturity Reaches a Tipping Point”, October 16, 2018

“Digital transformation is forcing organizations to look at IT from more perspectives than ever before, as an effective strategy spans many different - previously disconnected - technology disciplines and investments,” said Tom Goguen, Chief Product Officer at Micro Focus. “Leading organizations today are looking for complete sets of solutions to achieve greater speed and agility, supported by a high level of protection and an advanced analytics ecosystem, to balance managing the top and bottom lines without the added risk of starting from scratch. Through a concerted effort that combines M&A and an aggressive R&D agenda, Micro Focus is now in a position to deliver on this promise.”

Micro Focus has Built Solutions that Target the Four Areas Most Critical to Lasting Digital Transformation Success

Enterprise DevOps—Build and deliver better software faster
Winning the race to innovate requires a high-speed approach. Micro Focus solutions unleash the power of DevOps across the hybrid IT landscape, quickly bringing innovative ideas to life at the pace of business to securely deliver high quality software and services faster

Hybrid IT Management — Run and transform
IT Infrastructure, services and even purchasing models are rapidly evolving.  Maximizing business value and accelerating outcomes compels organizations to find new ways to extend existing investments and take advantage of new platforms – from containers to public clouds to IoT. Micro Focus solutions help organizations run ITOps at the speed of DevOps, delivering services on demand and generating operational and business insights, all while helping organizations address security, compliance and governance requirements

Predictive Analytics—Analyze in time to act
Data lakes are valuable only if the business can surface the insights hidden within its depths. Micro Focus helps leverage machine learning to transform unlimited volumes of data into accurate, actionable, automated insights at the speed of your business. Be in a position to make predictions and influence business outcomes quickly and efficiently with comprehensive and relevant real-time intelligence

Security, Risk, and Governance—Secure what matters most
Cyber threats are escalating. Aging apps and processes (along with new ones) are full of unforeseen risks. Privacy and compliance requirements are mounting. Micro Focus provides the industry’s broadest set of integrated security, risk, and governance solutions, with an analytics-driven approach to securing what matters most - identities, applications and data

By delivering a holistic set of solutions that can be integrated together and with existing legacy systems, Micro Focus has differentiated itself by better matching the current and future enterprise IT reality – all in a market largely dominated by point solutions that are often not interoperable and only address a specific portion of collective IT needs. The breadth of the portfolio, depth of enabling analytics and proven ability to protect the organization’s most important assets gives customers the confidence they need to transform their business on their own terms, no matter where they are in the IT lifecycle.  The end result is greater speed and flexibility with lower overall risk.

This announcement follows a number of deliberate steps over the past 24 months to round out Micro Focus’ digital transformation capabilities. In order to deliver on the wide-ranging and complex requirements, the company pursued a two-pronged strategy. One step has been to strengthen the company’s overall portfolio through M&A. The acquisition of HPE software was an important first step to strengthen the company’s overall bench, and subsequent acquisitions have added further depth while at the same time previously announced divestitures have allowed the company to stay focused on its core strategy without negatively impacting customers. At the same time, the company has been executing on an aggressive product development strategy – such as launching a modernization approach for core business systems and announcing new data protection solutions for virtualized and Hybrid IT environments – to evolve its offerings and align to this overall strategy. 

Insurtech Startup Kruzr Raises $1.3 Million from Saama Capital and Better Capital

InsurTech startup Kruzr has raised 1.3 Million USD (Rs. 9.5 Cr) for its seed round led by Saama Capital with participation from Better Capital. Kruzr is a preventive motor insurance technology which helps insurance companies personalize policy premiums & improve their risk model by delivering an engaging preventative driving assistant to their customers. Kruzr is founded by Pallav Singh, Ayan, and Jasmeet Singh Sethi.

Kruzr blends the power of voice technology and artificial intelligence in its personal driving assistant that helps drivers minimize mobile distractions, drowsy driving, speeding and external risks like weather and accident-prone zones. In pilots with insurers, Kruzr managed to cut down distracted driving by 80%. Kruzr is working with motor insurance companies in Europe, UK and India to bring its technology to their customers to prevent accidents & improve claims.

“Road accidents cause over 1.3 million deaths globally every year, and motor insurance companies lose billions of dollars due to these. However, more than 75% of accidents are actually preventable with timely driver assistance. We at Kruzr are building technology to minimize these accidents and help make motor insurance truly preventive and customer-centric.” says Pallav, co-founder and CEO.

The funds raised will be utilized to grow the technology team, scale the product, and expand the business in Europe and UK.

“We were very impressed by the founding team’s vision for Kruzr and their significant customer progress in the European automobile insurance market.  We believe Pallav, Ayan and Jasmeet can build a world-class product company out of India serving this sizeable and growing global market,” said Suresh Shanmugham, Managing Partner, Saama Capital.

“Kruzr is leveraging the latest advances in mobile, big data, and AI to build a unique preventive driving technology that will save lives and help motor insurance companies design personalized policies. I’ve watched the Kruzr team learn and iterate to build traction with the world top insurers & am excited about the future ahead”, said Vaibhav Domkundwar of Better Capital.

Urgent Need to Invest in R&D, Skill-Building, and Capacity Building for Skilled Individuals: Dr. Sriram Birudavolu

Distinguished speakers from NASSCOM and DSIC discussed on cybersecurity measures required at the organizational level, and the need for amending current laws to emphasize on data protection

The need for better cybersecurity practices in Industry 4.0, a stronger regulatory environment for data and IT security, and investments towards improving the cybersecurity landscape were among the major topics under discussion during the 27th Convergence India 2019 expo and conference. The integration of IoT across industries like healthcare, manufacturing, and in consumer durables is a huge opportunity for businesses to achieve unparalleled levels of efficiency, while also enhancing their offerings through more intelligent collection and analysis of data. IoT has also seen a growing adoption in the global healthcare industry, with around USD 1036 billion being invested towards the development of devices and systems. There are currently about 87 million devices connected across the world, which are being leveraged to reduce costs and enhance quality of services across the healthcare value chain.

The increasing use of IoT and digitization across industries like healthcare and manufacturing also throws open challenges related to data and IT security. A panel discussion session titled ‘Cybersecurity/Cybercrime: Breaching data is a reality. What is the way ahead?’ saw speakers from the IT and cybersecurity, as well as academic domains discussing the current data security scenario both at the enterprise as well as consumer/user level.

Dr. Sriram Birudavolu, CEO – Cyber Security Centre of Excellence, Data Security Council of India (DSCI) said, “Classifying data according to the level of sensitivity is imperative for companies today and the first step towards creating robust data management systems. Simply implementing laws is not enough for cybersecurity. Rather, a culture needs to be instituted in the country for managing data and keeping it secure like any other asset. This is always a more practical alternative to creating hundreds of laws that end up stifling innovation, and curbing the growth of smaller, emerging players across industries. But given the lack of adequate laws in place to govern data management and protection in the present business landscape, the onus is on companies to perform extensive due diligence through effective data classification, storage, and conducting regular audits to ensure best practices.” Dr. Sriram also emphasized on the urgent need for the government and the industry to invest in R&D, skill-building, and capacity building to meet the rapidly increasing demand for both skilled individuals and stronger cybersecurity solutions.”

One of the points discussed during the panel discussion was the need to relook at the IT Act, which was enacted first in the year 2000 in accordance with international standards. In addition, the speakers also touched upon what needs to be done at the organizational level, in addition to amending the current laws to emphasize on data protection and securing IT assets in compliance with international laws and global standards.

Vishal Kumar, Director - Cyber Education & Services, Quick Heal Technologies Private Limited also said during the panel, “Data needs to be structured and controlled in a more efficient manner at the business and organizational level for it be protected properly. Cybersecurity mechanisms are no longer just an IT requirement, but rather a business need – from the basement to the boardroom. Organizations and enterprises dealing that deal with large amounts of data need to establish policies and train employees on how to handle sensitive data and protect the interests of the organization as well as its customers.”

Sudhanshu Mittal, Director – Industry 4.0, Centre of Excellence for IOT, NASSCOM said during a panel discussion ‘Industry 4.0: Innovation through digital collaboration’, “Industry 4.0 will enable businesses to adopt digital technology no matter at what stage of maturity they are in when it comes to the use of technology in the enterprises. But it is also important to understand that digital transformation is a journey and not a one-time activity. Businesses need to try out different solutions and systems and see what works for them, and then take the necessary steps to integrate the right ones into the organization. Technology developers need to identify specific problems faced during industrial processes, like manufacturing for instance, involving assembly line operations and production equipment. IoT offers the ability to connect various stages in the manufacturing process and existing knowledge related to each process which can enable optimization of inputs, save costs, and improve unit economics.”

Organized by India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO) and Exhibitions India Group, the event builds upon Government of India’s ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’ initiatives through a display of a vast array of products pertaining to fields such as ICT, IT & ITeS, broadcast & digital media, emerging technologies & enterprise solutions, virtual & augmented reality, artificial intelligence, robotics, cloud services, semiconductor manufacturing, etc.

Award Winning Photographer Shiv Gandhi’s Maiden Expo in Bengaluru

Shiv is popular among collectors for his wide picture collection ranging from Wildlife, Heritage, monuments and Tribute to Painters [Raja Ravi Varma, John William Godward]

Award winning Ace Photographer, Ad Film maker and a Wildlife Conservationist Annechira Shiva popularly known as Shiv Gandhi, will exhibit his rare and prestigious collection of photographs at his maiden photo exhibition, ‘SCAPES OF INDIA’ at RêVES Art Gallery from February 1st 2019 to Feb 11, 2019. The pictures captured during his passionate photographic journey are a rare collection covering nature including mountains, rivers and some mesmerizing pictures of lesser known travel destinations.

Travel and Nature Photography is not as easy as ‘just Click’, says Shiva. The sketch/framework of the image created in his mind, which then is slowly and carefully nurtured into series of thoughts linking it to its heritage, history, present and to its timeless beauty.  These deep compositions in his mind create an imaginary picturesque of the scene.  He transfers this imaginary picture into his Camera. This requires perfect lighting knowledge, combination of various angles, camera adjustments, and indeed lots of patience and perseverance.

The images displayed in this collection are captured and presented in their original form thereby retaining its natural beauty without much interference from photo editing softwares.  His photography brings about a stronger emphasis on nature’s aesthetic value as he gives life to the images utilizing nature’s lights, communicating to us the mysterious, awe-inspiring hidden wonders and facts of the nature.

The collection at ‘SCAPES OF INDIA’ will be available for patrons in 3 sizes -12x18, 16x24, 20x30 inch sizes.

Venue: RêVES Art Gallery
467, Marenahalli Rd,
8th Block, Jayanagar,
Bengaluru
Time: 10am – 8pm

Indian AI Start-Up Shortlisted to Showcase at NBA All-Star Weekend in Charlotte, USA

Bengaluru based edisn.ai, a sports tech firm building the next generation fan engagement platform using artificial intelligence, has been selected to showcase its innovative products in Charlotte, U.S.A., on February 15th during the NBA All-Star weekend. edisn.ai is the only company from Asia selected for this showcase by the Sports Tank Innovation Studio.

Sports Tank Innovation Studio is a Shark Tank style demo day that will be attended by Business Executives, Athletes, Brands, and Investors across the sports industry. Only 5 companies are shortlisted every year and the event tends to be a developmental gateway for sports tech companies.

Three awards will be handed out at the invite-only event, including the “Innovation Award” from Under Armour and the “Audience Choice Award.” A group of professional athletes will be also on-site to select a winner for the “Athletes Choice Award.”

Ashok Karanth, CEO of edisn.ai, said, “This is an unbelievable opportunity to showcase Indian sports technology at a prestigious global platform. We are honoured to be the only company shortlisted from Asia for this event. Our state-of-the-art player recognition and contextual content delivery will redefine the future of sports content consumption.”

edisn.ai counts a leading sports broadcaster, an E-sports platform and an Olympic sports federation amongst its growing list of clients. The company is said to be in closing a seed investment with a leading investor and will make a formal announcement soon. The company is headquartered in Bangalore with sales offices in Europe and USA.