Haptik Joins Hands with vCommission to Boost Adoption of Conversational AI in Performance Marketing

Haptik, one of the world’s largest conversational AI platforms has announced its alliance with vCommission, leading Global affiliate network, to implement Conversational AI solutions in performance marketing. While Haptik will work with publishers in integrating chatbots on their digital properties, vCommission will work closely with marketeers to offer performance based advertising options which is  non-intrusive ad experiences within these properties.

With affiliate marketing set to grow in leaps and bounds in times to come, the association is the most opportune. The industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 27% and be worth USD 835 million by 2025, as per the industry reports, resulting in a staggering 8X growth when compared with the current valuation of USD 96 million.

Conversational AI is expected to usher the sector in its next stage of disruption and growth. In the past, most of a marketer’s attention has been devoted to engaging with audience across screens via taps, clicks, likes, comments, and shares. However, chatbots are moving the metrics of engagement by turning the attention towards conversations. As industry pundits are often heard saying, marketing as a discipline is headed towards ‘interactions’. Thus, every kind of user engagement must appear as a conversation, a feat easily available with the adoption of chatbots in the domain.

In order to simulate an interactive experience with the help of conversational AI, one requires experienced storytellers to help chatbots humanize the conversations. In this domain, Haptik has an experience of building over 100 chatbots, processing more than a billion conversations across multiple industry verticals including e-commerce, banking, insurance, telecom, hospitality, healthcare and automotive.. This experience has come in handy when the promise of technology is a reality and the market is ripe for adoption.

“Chatbots are the future and we are glad to bring about this new media in the affiliate marketing space, by partnering with Haptik. Their expertise in the domain will help vCommission bring innovation in otherwise cliched engagement & lead generation space. Having personally witnessed their complete stack of tech brilliance, we also look forward to creating awareness about Haptik’s chatbots amongst our sprawling network of associates and brand partners,” said Parul Bhargava (Co-Founder & CEO, vCommission).

Commenting on the association, Mr Aakrit Vaish, Co-Founder and CEO, Haptik said, “Leading the space of conversational AI, we have been looking for the right opportunity to diversify our reach and touch upon the performance marketing space. By associating with vCommission, we believe that the time is ripe for us to introduce chatbots for marketeers. With our domain expertise, we will be able to humanize the experience and further help the brand partners of vCommission to successfully reach and engage with their audience, despite the bottlenecks arising out of ad-blocks and frauds.”

Elaborating on the same, Pratyush Kukreja - Business Head, Monetisation, Haptik said, “Evolving with the rapid pace of technology, AI and tech-focused advertisement is the way ahead for marketers. In keeping with this vision, we associated with vCommission for homegrown brands to optimize their web and mobile marketing game. Through this association, we hope to extend our diverse marketing oriented tech solutions to vCommission’s affiliates and bring conversational AI for marketers to the fore.”

Chatbots also aim to resolve the challenges daunting the rise of affiliate marketing in India. These challenges include ad-blocking, which causes significant revenue loss to the performance marketing industry. Furthermore, the industry also suffers at the hands of its own fair share of frauds. For instance, using stolen data for lead generation or stolen credit card details to generate sales. Typosquatting or URLs hijacking domains that sound similar to a company’s name or products and thus picking up referrals from redirects, or cloning the affiliate’s site to steal traffic are other unfair hacks and frauds. Fraudsters may also buy Google AdWords on which the company or the product is ranking high or cookie-stuff all visitors to a website and benefit from unrelated sales. Lastly, scammers may also get people to download adware or spyware that automatically insert the affiliate code.

Since chatbots orchestrate a 2-way interaction, thus the user engagement with chatbots is organic, minimising the risk of fraud and completely by-passing ad blockage.

Zillious Solutions Offloads 80% Stake to Ebix Inc Supplier of On-Demand Software and E-commerce Services

Zillious Solutions Private Limited, an on-demand SaaS travel technology solution, with market leadership in the corporate travel segment in India has offloaded 80% stake to Ebix Inc., a NASDAQ listed leading international supplier of On-Demand software and E-commerce services to the insurance, financial, healthcare and e-learning industries through its Indian arm Ebix Software India.

Zillious is a pure-play on-demand technology initiative which enables end-to-end technology needs of travel management companies (TMCs), corporate, travel agents and Online Travel Agents(OTAs) in the travel industry. The Company is a market Leader in the Indian Corporate Travel technology space, serving 7 out of top 10 TMCs.  The Zillious Exchange processes over 8 Million travel bookings annually, with Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) of approximately $1.4 billion per annum.

Zillious will remain a non-aligned technology platform, and Ebix will promote it internationally in key markets like the Middle East, US and Asia, besides further establishing it as a pure-play on-demand travel technology exchange within India. Both the promoter founders of Zillious, Harsh Azad and Rohit Gaddi, along with all their domain intensive team will continue to work towards this endeavor. Accordingly, the Zillious platform will continue to be offered to the entire travel industry with a glass wall protection for the client base.

Ebix is funding the transaction in cash, using its internal cash reserves. The acquisition is expected to be accretive to Ebix earnings immediately.

“Our decision to offload a majority stake to Ebix was based on our Long term Vision to have a Global footprint by expanding to US, UK, Asia, Australia & New Zealand. With Ebix’s Global reach we will be able to fulfill this vision faster and seamlessly. We at Zillious have been passionately Non-Aligned and independent. In Ebix, we found a partner which was in tune with our core philosophy. This decision will benefit our existing and potential customers immensely”, says Mr. Harsh Azad, Co-founder and Director Zillious.

“Ebix will help us grow across the globe and the Zillious team will continue to grow with us. Infact, to meet the increased volume of work, we will look at hiring tactically, shortly. Our customers will not only be serviced by the same Zillious teams but will also have access to cutting edge technology on a global level. We remain committed to working with our clients and spearheading the team in the best way possible. We will remain at the helm and lead from the front”, says Mr. Rohit Gaddi, Co-founder and Director Zillious.

Ebix Chairman of the Board, President and CEO Robin Raina said, “Ebix has a successful track history of two decades in terms of providing non-aligned technology solutions, with Ebix bullet proofing its clients from data privacy or data sharing or any alignment concerns. We have been in the business of setting up technology airports to power transactions, without taking any sides for decades now. Thus, this acquisition was a natural one for us as it allowed us to do the same in India’s fast-growing travel industry.”

End-to –End Functional Solution for Travel Industry

The Zillious product range is a complete end to end technology suite which encompasses its industry leading booking engine using multiple sources of fares and availability to ensure the lowest and most accurate fares, combined with comprehensive reporting and management capabilities. It provides a single window to address all the travel booking needs of the travel agency staff and business travel center staff to serve all their booking queries.

Zillious platform is interfaced with all the key GDS service providers globally.

With powerful reporting and corporate compliance, multi-channel consultant, implant and Self Booking Tool (SBT), comprehensive user management and auditing, highly sophisticated mobile booking application, multi-product booking engine etc., the Zillious platform is today seen as the most powerful travel technology platform for the Corporate sector.
The Company has the unique solution of offering its core travel technology platform (SBT) to corporates directly apart from the TMCs.

The Company recently expanded its operations in Middle East and has already successfully on-boarded three large travel accounts in Middle East.

Fujifilm India Launches its First ‘WONDER PHOTO SHOP’ at Whitefield, Bangalore

Following the success of its ‘WONDER PHOTO SHOP’ in Chennai and Mumbai, FUJIFILM India today unveiled its exclusive experiential store in Bangalore – ‘Wonder Photo Shop’, making it the third concept store of its kind for the ultimate photo printing and brand experience in India.

Located at Phoenix Market city, Whitefield Main Road, the latest Wonder Photo Shop in the city aims to celebrate Bangalore’s love for photography, art and culture. The store embodies a holistic vision of photography, from picture taking to printing, sharing and social networking, as a creative life experience. With the theme ‘Photo Renaissance’, the store offers an opportunity to experience an immersive and interactive retail space with Fujifilm’s state-of-the-art products and services to meet the aesthetic taste of discerning customers especially the youth.

Today the consumers are passionate about exploring their creativity to print photos and organize them in a fun and imaginative manner. Staying true to its commitment to spread the joy of photo developing, Fujifilm’s Wonder Photo Shop enables customers to discover the wonder of photography and learn how they can bring their favorite photos from smartphones and cameras to life by printing, personalizing, decorating and framing their image creations based on their personal preferences and artistic palate along with unique DIY photo creations.

Wonder Photo Shop will be a learning center, giving customers an opportunity to experience the various product features thus enhancing the ultimate customer experience.

With the full range of Fujifilm’s instax instant print cameras and Share Printer SP-2, the award-winning line of X Series digital cameras and high-quality lenses on display to touch and try, consumers will see the true photographic heritage of Fujifilm and develop their own vision of how to creatively use their photos.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Haruto Iwata, Managing Director, Fujifilm India said, “After the success of our Photo Shop stores in Chennai and Mumbai, we are delighted to take another step towards our goal of bolstering our imaging business with this third store launch in Bangalore. With this expansion, we are confident that we will receive the same recognition and appreciation from our consumers.”

“Bangalore is renowned for its food, culture, art, architecture and diversity. We hope that with the launch of Wonder Photo Shop in the city, customers will experience an ultimate photography experience with memorable prints.”

This Wonder Photo Shop has been shaped in line with the brand’s philosophy of “Value from Innovation’ to create a warm, welcoming environment for guests to spend their time and discover new ways of enjoying photos and to raise the level of creative output to newer heights. A few of the exciting products and services include: Personalized Value Added Printing Products, Wonder Print Station Printings, Photo Related Goods and Accessories.

Store hours

The Wonder Photo Shop will be open all days from 10:30 AM - 10:00 PM.

TKM Sets-Up Centre of Excellence at Sri Venkateshwara College of Engineering, Bengaluru

Reiterating its long-standing commitment towards Skill Development, Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) today inaugurated the Toyota Centre of Excellence at Sri Venkateshwara College of Engineering, Bengaluru. The concept of establishing Toyota Centre of Excellence at various colleges and institutes is in line with Toyota’s focus to enhance the skill sets and offer well trained-qualified workforce to the automotive industry. Through this skill initiative, the institution can be elevated to impart high quality skill standards, by providing expert trainers, facilities, and equipment.

In order to facilitate in-depth knowledge of engine composition at the grass-root level, Toyota handed over one cut section of the vehicle engine and an assembled engine. The key focus is to provide comprehensive learning opportunities for the students, offering them a first-hand experience of the vehicle engine, that being the most important aspect of a vehicle. The engine cut section will showcase the component set-up in an engine and its related functioning. While the engine assembly section enables the students to gain an insight of the real orientation of the assembled engine including the dismantling and re-assembling techniques, thus achieving high quality skill sets in engine operating mechanism as part of the Skill Enhancement program.

This initiative is basically incorporated to pursue Toyota’s main objectives to promote, setup, monitor, govern and regulate institutions and academies for skill excellence through development of core employability skills, competency standards and to train on advanced technologies to meet the industry demands globally.

The event was graced by Dr. Shashidhar Muniyappa - Chief Executive Director and Dr. Suresha – Principal of Sri Venkateshwara College of Engineering in the presence of senior representatives of Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Mr. K V Rajendra Hegde – General Manager and Mr. M K Swamy – General Manager.

Commenting on this initiative, Dr. Shashidhar Muniyappa - Chief Executive Director, Sri Venkateshwara College of Engineering, said, “Skill enhancement is a key aspect for the socio-economic development of the nation and being a member of the fraternity, I feel it is our responsibility to impart quality education amongst our students.

It is heartening to see Toyota leading by example being a responsible corporate citizen through its various initiatives to cover broader societal issues. Over the years Toyota has pioneered in manufacturing cars of global standards, Quality and Excellence being their DNA.

It is our absolute honour to partner with Toyota in a noble cause as this. Through this program, we are confident that the students would gain a better insight into the complexity associated with the engine, which is an essential part of a vehicle, while enriching their overall learning experience.”

Expressing his views on the occasion, Mr. Naveen Soni - Vice President - Toyota Kirloskar Motor, said, “The pace of learning and innovation in a country is critical to economic success. Specialist skill shortages often emerges affecting the quality outputs. Governments, Corporates and Training providers need to work together to fill these critical skills gaps.

Toyota focuses to create a platform to make available steady supply of highly skilled workers to boost productivity and sustain the growth momentum. One way to do this is by establishing centers of excellence, which can help drive rapid, targeted improvements in the quality of training.

We, at Toyota, stand strong for this noble cause through our social initiative of establishing Centres of Excellence in association with various colleges and institutes across the country, providing more comprehensive learning opportunities for the students at the grass-root level. Being a responsible corporate citizen, our objective is to empower the students to be future ready with desired skill sets and competencies, while contributing to the nations’ growth and Industry’s employability ratio.” he added.

The company has been tirelessly working towards enhancing the employability quotient in the automobile manufacturing industry across India, by promoting unique skill sets.

As a part of its commitment towards developing world class skilled workforce for the emerging Indian Auto Industry, Toyota in 2007 established the Toyota Technical Training Institute (TTTI) which offers a three-year rigorous full-time training in – Automobile Assembly, Automobile Paint, Automobile Weld and Mechatronics (a combination of mechanical and industrial electronics) to financially challenged students hailing from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families from across Karnataka. This institute exclusively emphasizes on over all development of the trainees as per industry requirements & towards “Perfecting people” and there by contributing young multi skilled, energetic, ideal students to the nation. Training Curriculum is a unique blend which focuses on the holistic development of Knowledge (16%), Skill (34%), Body and Mind (50%) of the students. Last year Toyota’s TTTI institute accomplished the key milestone of being selected for “Manufacturing Skill Transfer Promotion Programme” under the MoU signed by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Government of Japan (METI) and Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Government of India (MSDE).

Some of the key highlights of TKM’s other skill initiatives follows:

* Gurukul is a well-equipped learning center at TKM imparts diverse training to employees at all levels which helps them to improve their abilities and thoroughly fulfill their roles. Everyone who works in Toyota experiences 70% of their development through the job itself; and the experience serves as a driving force in developing the next generation.

* Toyota Technical Education Program (T-TEP) provides technical know-how training to ITI students across India along with providing hands-on real-time experience within Toyota dealerships

* Toyota Apprentice Scheme (TAS) – Under TAS, TKM has trained over 12,000 Apprentice Members (ITI, Diploma and Engineer) since 2002, which makes it one of the largest sources of providing such manpower to the industry.

* National Skill Contest– Launched in 2014, National Sales & Service Skill Contest is an initiative that provides Toyota’s dealer sales & service personnel to showcase their skill levels with a view to identify gaps and improvise. Held at three levels – across dealership, regional and national levels, the contestants are evaluated on various parameters such as knowledge, process demonstration, soft skills and role plays among others. Continuous training skills are imparted to hone the dealer personnel skill sets to meet the growing expectations and deliver Toyota’s best-of-all Quality, Durability & Reliability for ultimate customer delight.

SBI Life Partners with Parikrama Humanity Foundation to Provide Education to 550 Lesser Privileged Children

SBI Life Insurance, one of the most trusted life insurance companies in the country, partnered with Parikrama Humanity Foundation taking on the happy responsibility of the complete development of 550 lesser privileged children.

The end-to end model will see SBI Life supporting the children right from Kindergarten through university (by providing higher education and scholarships) and will also further support them to be meaningfully employed. 330 children from Classes KG through X and 220 students enrolled in Classes XI and XII (Junior College) at the Parikrama learning centre in Sahakaranagar, Bangalore will be supported by SBI Life.

Mr. Sanjeev Nautiyal, MD & CEO, SBI Life Insurance handed over the cheque to Ms. Shukla Bose, Founder, Parikrama Humanity Foundation in the presence of Mr. M Anand, President- Zone II, SBI Life Insurance, Mr. Debasis Chatterjee, Regional Director-Bangalore, SBI Life Insurance and other dignitaries from SBI Life Insurance.

Speaking at the occasion, Mr. Sanjeev Nautiyal, MD & CEO, SBI Life Insurance, said, “Karnataka continues to be an important region in terms of our business priorities and as a market leader, we believe it is our responsibility to work towards holistic development of the state. Education being the most powerful tool to build a sustainable future, we at SBI Life are committed to provide accessible quality education for all. We hope our humble efforts can help build a better community for the next generation.”

SBI Life has emerged as a leading life insurer in Karnataka registering Rs. 561 crores of new business premium collection from the state for the nine months ended 31st December 2018, as compared to Rs. 495 crores in the same period last year, growing a healthy 13.5% over last year.

Parikrma Humanity Foundation, is a non-profit organization that aims to ensure that the poorest of children can access the best possible opportunities in the world. Over the years, Parikrma has helped transform the lives of 1700 children, from 69 slum communities and 4 orphanages across the city. Parikrma students have successfully integrated with mainstream institutions across different segments of society, and are contributing towards positive change in the country.

TECNO Brings 8MP AI Selfie Camera & 3GB RAM in Sub 8K, Set to Change the Game with All-New CAMON iACE2X

Bolstered by the success of “CAMON” series, TECNO, an offline smartphone brand of TRANSSION India showcases the sharp rise in demand and remarkable acceptance by the consumers of India for TECNO as it has become the fastest-growing smartphone brand in 2018 witnessing 221% YOY growth in terms of shipment as per Counterpoint Research Market Monitor 2018 year-end report.

Heading into the new year with refined commitment to camera-centric phones, the brand today announces the launch of 2019 first duo offerings from their deck, namely CAMON iACE2x and CAMON iACE2. The smartphone flaunts many industry-first innovations in the sub 8K smartphone segment such as the 3GB RAM, 8MP AI selfie, and new gradient color.

Mr. Arijeet Talapatra, CEO, TRANSSION India said, “We are a youth-centric brand, listening to and understanding the voice from our customers have formed a part of our very DNA. CAMON portfolio is designed to cater to the aspirations of today’s tech-savvy millennials who consider smartphone as their first & preferred choice of taking decent pictures and sharing them via social media. The software algorithm of camera is optimized on Indian Skin tone and delivers best-in-class photography in any type of challenging environments.

Talking about the new smartphone launch, Mr. Talapatra further added, “In 2019, we are leveraging this momentum to continuously challenge ourselves by offering our consumers with premium smartphone products at affordable prices to maximize the value for money.  The new CAMON iACE series have created a powerful fusion of style and technology with exhaustive specs in every dimension of design, performance, and user experience. It is a future-ready budget smartphone that comes loaded with meaningful innovations such as anti-oil fingerprint, bigger RAM storage, intelligent camera kit, new gradient color, and localized free back panel, which make it one of the best ‘All-rounder champion’ phone in sub 8k category.”

Giving more power in the hands of customers, all TECNO smartphones come with a unique promise of “111” under which it offers 1-time screen replacement, 100-days free replacement, and 1-month extended warranty. Apart from that, it comes with the commitment of bringing to consumers the best after-sales services through its service brand — Carlcare — which has two COCO (company-owned, company-controlled) service centers and more than 960 multi-brand service touch points for its customers across the country. It is this ownership of the end-to-end customer journey, both before and after the purchase, that has helped build trust and confidence among our consumers and partners.

The new smartphones will be available for sale starting from today across more than 35000+ retail outlets PAN India.

Experience smart photography with Intelligent camera kit

These smartphones are equipped with 13MP AI rear camera with f/1.8 aperture & VGA for brilliant photo shooting. With AI Auto Scene Detection (ASD) based on deep learning algorithm, it detects all type of light conditions and automatically adjusts the brightness and contrast ratio to ensure the best image output in any outdoor environments. Your beauty will still shine even in the dark thanks to the embedded dual LED soft lights.

Both the smartphones come with 8MP AI selfie camera with f/2.0 aperture & front flash which helps in capturing more light for better quality selfies, no matter what kind of scenes and light conditions you are in. Furthermore, the device comes with AI beauty algorithm that scans up to 228 facial points to create a more detailed and beautiful selfie.  It also comes with AI Bokeh mode that blurs the background to make the subject stand out.

Superior Design for budget smartphone

As for display, yet again the brand has not compromised, CAMON iACE is endowed with 5.5” HD+ Full View display with 18:9 aspect ratio. The smartphone is light weighted at just 150 gms and is perfect for one hand operation. The smartphone flaunts a stylish design, with a unique fusion back cover color that catches the eye. It is available in 3 amazing colours – Midnight black, Champagne Gold and Nebula black (new Gradient colour available in CAMON iACE2x) and City Blue (in CAMON iACE2)

With 2.5D curved edges, 80.5% screen-to-body ratio, slim bezels & 8.48mm thickness, the smartphone exquisite looks make it an ideal device for consumers who want their brand to reflect their personal style.

Power-packed performance under 8K

The duo smartphones come with improved performance to budget-level smartphones by offering long battery, spacious storage capacity and smart processing power and performance.

It is equipped with 2.0GHz Helio A22 64bit Quad-Core processor powered with HiOS 4.1 based on latest Android Oreo 8.1 operating system is snappy and runs efficiently without any lag lets you reap the benefits of multi-tasking & enable faster processing.

CAMON iACE2x becomes first in the 8K segment to offer 3GB RAM. It is available in two storage variants of 3GB + 32GB priced at INR 7599 & 2GB + 32GB priced at INR 6699.

As smartphone privacy and security is key these days, it comes with advance AI led face recognition technology which provides quick Face Unlock under 0.3 sec.  Another highlight of CAMON iACE2x is its unique localized feature of an anti-oil fingerprint sensor that provides hassle free access to the phone under all Indian lifestyle and weather conditions.

Clocking in at a 3050mAh battery, the CAMON iACE allows you to enjoy a 24-hours non-stop battery life on a single charge along with AI power management which tracks the consumer usage pattern of the smartphone and optimizes the battery life according to the usage.

The device also allows consumer to use 4G VoLTE in both the SIM cards at the same time. It is a dual SIM smartphone with dedicated microSD card slot, which can support expandable memory upto 128GB.

Increasing Capabilities of QuEST Global for Converging Mechanical, Electronics and Engineering Tech: Zinnov

QuEST Global, the pioneering engineering services provider, has announced that it has retained leadership position in the “Zinnov Zones 2018 - Engineering and R&D Services Rating”, for the fourth consecutive year. The report was published by Zinnov after evaluating more than 35 global engineering service providers in major industry segments. The key parameters for the study included product development capabilities, innovation, client relationships, eco system linkages, scalability etc.

According to Zinnov Zones 2018 report for ER&D Services, QuEST has been positioned in the leadership zone in automotive, transportation, medical devices, energy & utilities and aerospace verticals. The company has gained presence in artificial intelligence & machine learning, design and simulation engineering, and platform engineering where, Zinnov has placed QuEST in the expansive and established zone. Zinnov has also placed QuEST in the execution zone for consumer software, enterprise software, computer peripheral, consumer electronics and industrial automation sectors.

Commenting on this achievement, Ajit Prabhu, Chairman and CEO, QuEST Global said, “This recognition from Zinnov is a re-affirmation of our dedication to solve engineering problems of our customers by converging mechanical, electronics and software technologies. With the help of our proven expertise across the spectrum of advanced technologies, we are committed to enable OEMs and Tier1s across the world to launch new products and discover newer possibilities. Our integrated local-global solution delivery approach and more than two decades of in-depth engineering experience across industries enable us to address the increasing market demand for safety critical and reliable connected products that provide superior customer experience.”

As a pioneer in the engineering services and solutions industry, QuEST has been helping customers to identify problems, proactively create innovative solutions and make products safer and more reliable in today’s digital age. The company’s strong capabilities in areas such as artificial intelligence, connected engineering, augmented reality and software technologies is enabling OEMs and Tier1 suppliers cross the digital divide, while continuing  to provide a reliable backbone of support in the mechanical and electronics world.