Prachi Garg to Release Latest Novel ‘Legends of a Start-Up Guy’ in Bangalore

India's leading adventure travel influencer, women entrepreneur and award winning author Prachi Garg will release her latest novel ‘Legends of a Start-Up Guy’ at a formal book launch event to be held at Sapna Book House, Residency Road in Bangalore on Sunday, 10th March 2019 at 5:00 pm. The book has been published by New Delhi based publishing house, Srishti Publishers & Distributors and is priced at Rs. 175 /- .

“Bangalore is a city that is very close to my heart. I have been here a few times in the past for the launch of my previous books and the city has been extremely welcoming to me. It is an honour for me to be back for the launch of my latest book. I am thrilled and eagerly looking forward to sharing my exciting experiences with the people of Bangalore” Said Prachi Garg

Prachi is the founder of Ghoomophiro, which is an organization that promotes women travel and is completely run by women only. They run and promote all women tours, where they try to accommodate and empower maximum number of women vendors ( Drivers, tour guides , cooks etc). They also promote solo women travel and plan out complete tours for them.

Prachi Garg started her travel journey with her sister Himadri Garg in early 2007. In the past 12 years, the two sisters have travelled to the most remote and unexplored parts of the country. In the year 2010 she decided to take her passion to the next level to help other solo women also chase their travel dreams. This eventually lead to the birth of their travel start-up http://www.ghoomophiro.com.

Prachi’s book, ‘The Legends of a Start-up Guy’ is a tale of someone who was born with a silver spoon and yet, decided to write his own destiny, on his own terms and to bring meaning to his existence out of the shadows of his lineage. It is the story of how an entrepreneur is born, the story of his challenges, and his actions to sail through them, carefully interwoven with stories from the Hindu mythology, to bring to the table the wisdom of the gods.

In the past, Prachi  has authored  books like ”Superwomen”, the book that talks about the journeys of women entrepreneurs, "Supercouples" which is about couple-preneurs and their journey of balancing the relationship and work. “Supersiblings” was the 3rd in series and captures the essence of sibling and startup together. All her books feature many leading business tycoons from across the country

Prachi has interacted with students across over 50 colleges in India. She has delivered lectures at many IIT's, IIM's and many leading premiere institutes across the country. She has spoken across topics that include entrepreneurship, travel, writing, motivation, goal setting etc.

Blurb of the book:

‘Legends of a Start-Up Guy’ is a tale of Ganesha. Ganesha is jovial, intelligent and the youngest in the family. A foodie by heart and laid back by nature, always looking for ways to make life easier. Despite being born to the all-powerful Shiva and Parvati, with Uncle Vishnu and aunts Lakshmi and Saraswati to back him at every point in life, he has to battle through many ups and downs to establish his individual identity, just like his accomplished brother, Skanda. Under layers of perfection, benevolence and jovial extravaganza was a young boy battling to be found for who he really was.

Quantum Has Appointed Liz King as the New Chief Revenue Officer

Quantum Corp. has announced that Elizabeth (Liz) King has joined the company as Chief Revenue Officer. King brings more than 25 years of experience in global sales, with leadership positions spanning enterprise, public sector and telecom industries in over 30 countries. A veteran in the information technology market, she has held key executive leadership roles in sales, general management, product management, services, marketing, supply chain and operations on a global scale.

“Liz has been successful at seizing market opportunities and driving sales teams to achieve profitable revenue growth for some of the most respected companies in Silicon Valley,” said Jamie Lerner, President and CEO of Quantum. “She has a deep understanding of datacenter infrastructure - including servers, storage, networking, software, and as-a-service offerings – in addition to systems integration, high performance computing, data analytics and complex public sector projects. It speaks volumes that Quantum is attracting this caliber of talent and I’m delighted that we’ll have her extensive experience to accelerate Quantum’s transformation and bring our solutions to customers worldwide.”

King previously held the role of senior vice president, SGI Worldwide Sales for Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), which she joined when the company acquired Silicon Graphics International (SGI) in 2016. Prior to SGI she was vice president of strategic alliances for IBM and global systems integrators at Juniper Networks. Before Juniper, she was vice president and general manager of the Hitachi Server Group of Hitachi Data Systems where she was responsible for sales, marketing, operations and customer delivery of Hitachi servers and solutions.

King was previously with Alcatel-Lucent (ALU), serving as vice president, strategic alliances and new business development, global sales. In that role she built ALU's global relationships and drove incremental sales with strategic alliance partners, achieving growth in new and existing markets including enterprise, public sector and regional mobility networks. King also held key senior worldwide sales and business development roles at Sun Microsystems, Raytheon, and Texas Instruments.

King earned a MBA in management from the University of Dallas and holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University.

“Quantum touches people’s lives every day in surprising ways.  Some of the world’s largest brands create and protect on Quantum – it’s there behind your favorite television show and supporting the development of the safest self-driving vehicles or the latest medical advances,” said Liz King, Chief Revenue Officer, Quantum. “I’m excited about the potential I see to extend the company’s reach, and to touch society in so many impactful ways.”

Tata Motors Mobile Service Van Brings Convenient Service Solutions at Your Door Step

Committed to providing quality after sales service and increasing customer satisfaction, Tata Motors has bolstered its program of Mobile Service Vans (MSV). Known as Tata Care Mobile Service Van (Car Assist and Repair Expert) - a service for customers on the go, the Company is offering convenient service solutions across 42 locations in multiple cities.

Tata Care is designed to provide periodical services (schedule free and paid services) to Tata Motors’ passenger vehicles. Through Tata Care, multiple service vans are deployed to fulfill the requirements of customers on the go or for customers who are not able to travel to the nearest service station. All periodical services can be availed at a customer’s doorstep through a team of specially trained mechanics.

Commenting on Tata Care, Mr. Subhajit Roy, Senior General Manager & Head Customer Care, Tata Motors said  "Tata Care is an initiative that is aimed at providing convenience and ease to customers for their basic servicing needs across India. It aims to provide the convenience to those customers, who are unable to get their vehicles serviced regularly due to paucity of time or their inability to visit the service centers. Keeping our customers at the centre of our business and encouraging them to keep their vehicles healthy, we have curated customized offerings that will work towards strengthening and improving our customer service initiatives. With and aim to better our services, Tata Motors will continue to innovate and build solutions which are aimed at increasing convenience and offering world-class after sales services.”

 To enable this service customers can visit the online booking section*on the Tata Motors Service website. These service vehicles are easy to locate as they are fitted with trackers to provide real time data to dealerships. The dealerships are then able to provide the location of the nearest service van to its customers thus providing a seamless and convenient experience. In addition to MSVs, the online booking also offers pick up and drop facility of the vehicle from the residence of the customer.

Successfully operating across 38 cities in India, Tata Care’s mobile service vans also act as a revenue generation medium for channel partners and help decongesting workshops which results in quicker turnaround time for vehicles with longer servicing needs.

In a constant endeavor to offer its customers with world-class after sales services, Tata Motors has secured a clear second rank with a score of 874 (above industry average of 838) in the prestigious J.D. Power CSI Study. In its 22nd year, the study measures new-vehicle owner satisfaction with the after-sales service process by examining dealership performance in five factors (listed in order of importance): service quality (30%); service initiation (18%); service facility (18%); service advisor (17%); and vehicle pick-up (17%).

Tata Motors has a countrywide presence with over 575 touchpoints, catering to customers with its large network of workshops and provides seamless quality-driven service to its customers.

Trend Micro India Seeks to Further Reward and Engage Channel Partners in 2019

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, recently held its annual Channel Partner Day event in the scenic mountains of Gangtok, Sikkim. The three-day event, attended by business leaders, CEOs, and heads of various organizations, featured engaging sessions on the changing security landscape in India, securing the connected world, and addressing the skill shortage; and an update on the new partner program initiatives by the company.

Building on the momentum around the TrendSetter Channel Rewards Program launched in 2018, the company looked to further incentivize its channel partners’ sales and technical teams for selling its strategic solutions.

Nilesh Jain, vice president, Southeast Asia and India, Trend Micro, said, “We have always been a channel-focused company and try to deliver all our solutions through the channel. Our channel partners are part and parcel of Trend Micro’s success so far, and we plan to do more with them. Now, we are trying to build an ecosystem where we leverage our channel partners’ security operations centers (SOCs) and existing capabilities, and work together with them to deliver innovative solutions to the customers. Our end goal is to grow together with the channel partners, creating a win-win situation.”

At the event, Trend Micro also officially announced the availability of managed detection and response (MDR) services in India, an outsourced service to enterprises looking to deepen their threat-hunting and investigation capabilities. Addressing the shortage of cybersecurity professionals in the country, MDR augments a company’s existing security team by providing external expertise and resources to proactively hunt for stealthy threats in an IT environment. By uncovering and stopping such threats early, organizations can potentially avert data breaches.

Nilesh also shared the roadmap and focus areas for India this year. These include Apex One for endpoint security, cloud security for companies operating in the hybrid cloud environment, network defense, virtual patching, and providing even more visibility through connected threat defense – a Trend Micro approach to sharing threat intelligence across the IT environment. The company also saw tremendous growth in endpoint detection and response (EDR) and MDR in India, and had closed a few large enterprise deals around it.

Among Trend Micro’s enterprise customers in India, 33 out of the 40 large banks and seven of the top energy companies rely on its connected threat defense solutions. The top five IT and IT-enabled services (ITES) companies are using its hybrid cloud security solutions, and all the three private telcos have implemented its network security and hosted email security solutions.

One of the highlights of the event was a discussion around Trend Micro’s certification program in IT security (CPITS) - a fully-sponsored, two-month certificate-granting upskilling program recently launched at the company’s state-of-the-art infrastructure training facility in Bangalore. The program equips the computer science and engineering graduates with practical, hands-on knowledge and skills, helping them take advantage of systems engineering job opportunities in the IT security industry and with Trend Micro.

Trend Micro has been identified as an endpoint protection leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms since 2002 and is a leader in the IDC MarketScape. Its Deep Discovery solution for network security has also been recognized by the NSS Labs as the “most effective recommended breach detection system” for two consecutive years.

How Enterprises of Today are Promoting Inclusive Workplaces for the Female Workforce

The theme of this year’s International Woman’s Day is #BalanceforBetter, promoting the idea of a gender-balance world. Employment or mere access to employment avenues go a long way in the genesis of a world that is balanced and inclusive. For generations, women have struggled to make their way into the sprawling corporate corridors. However, that story is changing as women claim their share in the workforce of today. Furthermore, several leading enterprises have been supporting the ambition of women by coming up with favourable policies and initiatives for the female workforce. As we celebrate the International Women’s Day 2019, let’s discover the women-friendly initiatives and policies helmed by the leading enterprises in India:

Cybage: 32% of women propelling the engineering force

Women in tech is a rarity but not for the technology consulting organization, Cybage. Determined to create a transparent, unbiased, capability-driven ecosystem in the workplace, the engineering force of Cybage flaunts 32% representation of women a number that has consistently and consciously increased year-on-year.

In addition to the limited representation of women in tech, another hard-hitting fact is a gender wage gap. However, Cybage attempts to rectify the same with a performance-driven appraisal system, ensuring equal pay for equal work. To further ensure proper work-life balance for women employees Cybage offers benefits such as close-by daycare facilities, flexible maternity leave policies, late-night transport services and the provision of additional shadow resources. Ensuring safety at the workplace, the company swears by a zero-tolerance sexual harassment policy in place with a special committee to ensure the enforcement of the same.

Cybage further aspires to achieve a 1:1 ratio in its workforce. However, the dream is difficult to achieve with only 29% of engineering graduates being females in India. Thus, to further the education of girls in the STEM field, the company actively works through its CSR arm, CybageKhushboo. CybageKhushboo has sponsored thousands of students for their higher education, specifically giving birth to a new generation of female engineers with an aim to reduce the gender gap at a country-level and achieve a balance for better.

Satya MicroCapital: All-Women Managed Branches

Another field that largely snubs women workforce is banking and finance. However, India’s leading NBFC-MFI, Satya MicroCapital has 8 dedicated branches that are only managed by the women workforce. Furthermore, these branches are based in the hinterlands of India, in cities like Azamgarh, Varanasi, Balia, Gorakhpur, Sultanpur, Jaunpur, Ghazipur, and Chandauli.

The employees across all of these branches and various zonal business teams are women, including Entrepreneurship Development Officers (EDOs), Branch Heads and Assistant/Deputy Credit Managers, with each team member working in tandem to ensure quick and efficient decision-making and credit disbursements.

The all-women officers in the Easter Uttar Pradesh branches serve as catalysts for uplifting less-privileged women and households socio-economically. In addition, the network of branches and officers also play a crucial role in helping uplift economically backwards and vulnerable women across as many households as possible.

Zoomcar: #SheDrives campaign to ease women’s access to personal mobility

Another populist stereotype insists upon claiming women to be bad drivers. However, Zoomcar is challenging the same stereotype, while easing women’s access to personal mobility. On the occasion of the International Women’s Day, the self-drive car rental company has launched a campaign titled #SheDrives. The campaign encourages more and more women drivers to hit the roads by helping them complete the entire spectrum of learning how to drive via their neighbourhood licensed driving school and helping them own a car by subscribing to one.

Inviting women to conquer the roads, Zoomcar is providing 10 women with 3 months’ free car subscription from ZAP Subscribe. And that’s not all! Those women who wish to subscribe to a car and have procured a driving license in the past 6 months can have their fee reimbursed from Zoomcar as well, simply by showing the receipt of the driving school.

MG Motor: 31% of women in an Auto Major

Carmaker MG (Morris Garages) Motor India has, time and again, showcased its commitment towards diversity and community development. Right from top management to basic job titles, MG has given wings to women by hiring 31% women employees, more than any other auto major. At the corporate office of MG, 166 out of 400 workforce are women on the shop floor. From marketing to product engineering, women workers are charging several pivotal tasks at MG Motor India.

The enterprise has also partnered with PeopleStrong to increase the participation of female professionals across the board ahead of the launch of MG Hector, the brand’s first India-centric product, in Q2 2019. Currently, total women employees are 31% out of 1,200, compared with 26% earlier, and MG plans to take it to 1,500.

MG Motor India also signed MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with IIMPACT, an NGO engaged in providing quality education to the girl child through its learning centres in remote villages across the country. Under the programme, MG Motor India will adopt and support 30 learning centres run by the NGO across India.

Tata Motors Signs an MoU with Wise Travel India to Supply Tigor EVs in New Delhi

Tata Motors has announced the next milestone on its journey of driving electrification, through its partnership with Wise Travel India Pvt Ltd (WTi), to deploy Tigor Electric Vehicles (EVs) in New Delhi. WTi one of the largest and the fastest growing company in People Ground Transportation space catering to B2B customers, will deploy the Tigor EVs in their fleet at Delhi, reinforcing its commitment to service clients while enhancing sustainability. The first batch of Tigor EVs was handed over by the Tata Motors team to Wise Travel India officials, at Concorde Motors, Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi.

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

Tata Motors is playing a leading 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.

Speaking at the occasion, Mr. Ashok Vashist, CEO Wise Travel India Pvt Ltd, said, “Our business is based on our deep understanding of the opportunity in various people transportation verticals and customers’ expectations from such services. We are committed to support our client’s objective of providing world-class services. The inherent benefits of zero emission and lower operating costs of EVs will help us fulfil the aspirations of our customers economically and sustainably.”

CULT Salutes the Woman of Today as She Shatters the Ceiling!

A world number one athlete, surgeon, combat pilot, top notch businessperson, an actor, biker, the woman of today is breaking free from the confines of tradition and prejudice of the Indian society every single day to emerge and stay on the top. Today, they have spread their wings and are not defined by one role or responsibility - they are not just homemakers but stand shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts in equal or higher roles outside the homes.

On the eve of World Women’s Day, Cult Fitness celebrates the grit and gumption, passion and perseverance of the woman of today and congratulates her achievements and wishes to honour her contribution in making our world a truly better place! Be it a small town or an urban landscape, women are recognising their own talent and stepping out to shatter the ceiling! This Women’s Day, we’re proud to be a part of the society that is witness to women breaking stereotypes and emerge stronger and successful.