Reliance Jio Crosses 300 Million Customers Mark on March 2, 2019

Telecom operator Reliance Jio has crossed the 300 million customers mark in two-and-a-half years of its operations, sources said.

The milestone was reached on March 2, they added.

Queries sent to Jio on the matter remained unanswered.

However, in its television commercials during the ongoing IPL season, Jio is shown 'Celebrating 300 million users'.

Jio became the fastest company in the world to achieve 100 million telecom subscribers in 170 days of starting commercial operation.

In its earnings report for the quarter ended December 2018, Bharti Airtel had disclosed that it had 284 million customers.

However, as per regulatory filings, Bharti Airtel reported having 340.2 million customers on its network in December and 340.3 million customers at the end of January.

Bharti Airtel crossed the 300 million customers mark in 19th year of its operations.

Vodafone Idea became the largest telecom player in the country with 400 million customers following the merger of mobile business of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular on August 31, 2018. 

Cure.fit Launches Incubator and Plans to Invest USD5 Million in Ten Healthy Packaged Food Companies

Integrated health care platform Cure.fit, has announced the launch of its first incubator to aid new age healthy packaged food brands.

With the increase in health awareness, Healthy and Better for You (BFY) packaged food segment is growing exponentially in India. A lot of new brands have come up in the last few years and even large FMCG companies are focusing on launching their health food range.

As part of their investment, Cure.fit will support the companies on aspects such as cutting edge health & nutrition research, consumer insights-that will help increase effectiveness of the products, branding & positioning , go to market strategy and provide access to custom sales channels – cult centres, Eat.fit cafes, Cure.fit app.

Some of the categories they are is looking to invest in:

·         Ready to eat Snacks (cookies, chips, munchies, trail mix)
·         Nutrition Bars
·         Juices & Beverages
·         Natural supplements
·         Meal Replacements
·         Ready to Cook Products & Meal Kits
·         Staples
·         Dairy Products

In February, Cure.fit acquired cold pressed juice brand, Rejoov for an undisclosed amount. In the next few months, Cure.fit is looking to scale the sales of packaged health food segments across multiple cities through its app & Cult.fit centres.

Commenting on the announcement, Ankit Nagori, Co-founder Cure.fit said, "While a lot of great products are being created, entrepreneurs find it difficult to raise capital and find shelf space in the market. At Cure.fit we want to enable these entrepreneurs to focus on creating healthy and tasty products for the end customers by giving access to capital and shelf space.”

Criteria for selection:

The first phase of the program will be focused on the categories mentioned above only. Companies with innovative products and a credible team can apply for the program. Though the applications for the program is open throughout the year, a quarterly evaluation of the received applications is performed. The shortlisted companies will be invited to pitch with Cure.fit’s investment committee post which the results will be announced.

Companies who are interested to apply for the incubator can mail to incubator@curefit.com

JioSaavn’s Programmatic Audio Inventory Now Available on Google’s DV360 Across Indian Market

JioSaavn’s programmatic audio inventory is now available on Google’s Demand Side Platform (DSP) - Display & Video 360 (formerly known as DoubleClick Bid Manager), adding all-new dynamics to the digital advertising gameplay in India. India registered about 150 million music streaming users at the end of 2018, paving the way for programmatic audio[af1] in the country. The product integration will lead to a new wave that pushes the evolving audio advertising to the frontlines for many brands and marketers.

Display & Video 360 is one of the most popular marketing platforms in India. With investments in audio ads by marketers on the rise, and the current association with Google, the audio space will see a boom in the months to come; from increased product exposure as well as better economics of ad production and diffusion.

Although still nascent, the audio advertising space is fast growing with a number of early adopters tasting success from the move. “Digital audio inventory is on a steep rise and major ad tech companies are enhancing their platforms with digital audio solutions, allowing marketers to diversify their audience reach. More recently, Google also took an interest in audio, allowing marketers to purchase audio inventory directly through Display & Video 360. Programmatic, in general, allows marketers to efficiently test, assess and maximize new capabilities and JioSaavn is at the forefront of efforts to educate, demonstrate and supply the benefits of programmatic audio advertising in India,” said Gaurav Kaushik - Global Vice President, Advertising Platform, JioSaavn.

Matt Brocklhurst, Head of Platforms and Publisher Marketing - APAC, Google commented, “It’s great to see JioSaavn joining DV360. Marketers now running campaigns through Google DV360 will have the additional advantage of adding audio advertising to the traditional mix of display and video formats, simplifying inventory tracking and measuring success for all programmatic buys in one place. What’s more, because Display & Video 360 uses IAB’s VAST standard of delivery, it provides insights for audio ads that are similar to video formats, like telling you when a listener hits a certain point in the audio ad or presses mute.”

Programmatic audio ads take into consideration a variety of data sets like age, gender, location, music genres/ audio interests etc., so each custom ad can be customized to reach the best matched audience Advertisers will be able to set up campaigns through the Digital & Video 360, monitor results in real-time, offering better campaign control and targeted communication. The ability to buy digital advertising properties virtually, significantly reduces levels of human intervention, lengthy negotiations and manual order entries, boosting efficiency and freeing up team time for more value-added activities.

Currently, audio buying can only be transacted by means of a Programmatic Guaranteed deal type. However, as the market matures, OpenRTB protocols will be the norm, similar to display ad formats.

Marketers now running campaigns through Google Display & Video 360 will have the additional advantage of adding audio advertising to the traditional mix of display and video formats, simplifying inventory tracking and measuring success for all programmatic buys in one place. What’s more, because Display & Video 360 uses IAB’s VAST standard of delivery, it provides insights for audio ads that are similar to video formats, like telling you when a listener hits a certain point in the audio ad or presses mute.

JioSaavn has been the industry leader in the programmatic audio advertising business and was the first to run a programmatic audio campaign for mobile devices in the country back in 2016. Apart from Google, JioSaavn enjoys audio product integration partnerships with well-renowned DSP providers like Appnexus, Adswizz, Triton Digital, Targetspot, SpotX.

Seven in Ten Consumers in India Willing to Share Significant Personal Data with Banks and Insurers

Seven in ten consumers in India would be willing to share significant personal information, such as location data and lifestyle information, with their bank and insurer in exchange for lower pricing on products and services, according to a new report from Accenture (NYSE: ACN).

The data is part of Accenture’s global Financial Services Consumer Study, which was based on a survey of 47,000 consumers in 28 markets, including 2,000 consumers in India, and found that more than two-thirds of Indian consumers would share that data for benefits including more-rapid loan approvals, discounts on gym memberships and personalized offers based on current location.

At the same time, however, people believe that privacy is paramount, with nearly four out of five consumers (81 percent) saying they are very cautious about the privacy of their personal data. In fact, data security breaches were the second-biggest concern for consumers in India, behind only feeling like their complaints are not dealt with in an acceptable manner, when asked what would make them leave their bank or insurer.

“There’s a growing appetite for personalization of products and services based on targeted consumer financial data,” said Rishi Aurora, a managing director at Accenture who leads its Financial Services practice in India. “The large number of people willing to share more of their personal data for more efficient services at better prices underscore the role of digital technologies in the distribution of financial services in India. At the same time, there’s also growing concern about safeguarding of this data, so financial institutions need to make that a top priority as they look to address their customers’ evolving needs. If consumers don’t see the level of personalization, offers and products they want from their banks or insurers, they will certainly look for it elsewhere.”

Synechron Demonstrates Commitment to Innovation and Creativity in Digithon

Synechron Inc., a leading Digital IT Consulting firm for financial services, has today announced the winners of its annual Digithon, underscoring the company’s commitment to continual innovation. The Digithon was a global research & development initiative which challenged Synechron employees to compete to strategize, conceptualize, and deliver digital applications that best demonstrate client business relevance, strength of consulting and technical delivery, user experience design, and marketability / commercial relevance.

Participants were asked to build a full, working prototype application in 12 weeks in one of four categories: Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, UI/UX, or a freestyle project; to create a complete GitHub repository of the application source code; and to demo their application to a panel of five global judges across Synechron’s Management and Financial Innovation Labs (FinLabs) teams. This year, there were an overwhelming 192 participants across 66 teams, and 13 teams made it to the finish line with completed Digithon projects. The five winners were selected based on a scoring methodology considering Creativity, Technicality, and Readiness.

The first-place winners built a blockchain-based loyalty coin application on the Ethereum platform, branded as SyneCoin. The application was designed to increase global collaboration and build brand ambassadors within Synechron through a tokenized loyalty, reward and recognition program bringing together Synechron employees, Managers, Human Resources, prospective employees, and even clients. The gamified engagement experience was designed to support Synechron’s Employee 2020 goals for innovation, ambition, responsible behavior, empowerment and limitless opportunity – making it easy to acknowledge and incentivize these behaviors through a distributed ledger scoreboard – with data protected by private keys – and to recognize those employees through branded merchandize, appraisals, and value-added benefits. The innovative application has bolstered further Synechron’s already industry-leading suite of award-winning blockchain Accelerators available for clients.

In addition to SyneCoin, the other winning projects included:

a personal banking assistant that uses advanced Data Science to create personalized customer experiences,
a solution for information extraction to enhance resume sorting and prioritize relevant candidates for recruitment initiatives, and
a mobile, digital insurance application that uses Machine Learning and Internet of Things (IoT)-data to provide microinsurance.

Faisal Husain, Co-founder and CEO of Synechron said, “Accelerating digital and supporting innovation initiatives are key aspects of what makes Synechron special – and the participants of the Digithon embody that spirit of innovation, ambition, and creativity that sets Synechron apart from our competitors and allows us to guide our clients through developing and implementing their digital strategies in a rapidly-changing banking, asset management, and insurance landscape. Congratulations to the winners, and to future participants, we can’t wait to see what you come up with next.”

Use of Machine Learning Becomes the New Norm for Financial Community

 

Refinitiv announced the new research findings that confirm the use of machine learning is pervasive across the financial community and is critical to its success in the future. Ninety percent of the c-level executives and data scientists surveyed have already deployed machine learning, while all of the c-level participants said it is core to their business strategy. And while machine learning initiatives in Asia are not yet as mature as they are in other regions, with a corresponding lower allocation of investment, momentum behind the use of the technology is clearly building.

Globally, respondents also acknowledge that poor-quality data impedes their ability to fully leverage machine learning and artificial-intelligence technology, with 43% citing this as the biggest barrier to adoption followed by a lack of data availability (38%).

Despite being a technology area that’s seen a recent ‘war for talent,’ expected growth in the data science roles associated with machine learning is currently lower in Asia compared to North America, but ahead of EMEA.  Overall, however, challenges around data quality were ranked ahead of access to talent, which was highlighted by a third of respondents globally.

This information was compiled for the inaugural Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) Survey by Refinitiv, featuring in-depth interviews with nearly 450 financial professionals across Asia (170), Europe (161) and North America (116). Its findings confirm how far the industry has evolved since 2017 research that indicated technology companies were the primary adopters of artificial intelligence (AI) and only 28% of financial-services firms were deploying it.

Other key findings from Refinitiv’s new research include:

90% of financial firms are using machine learning, either in multiple areas as a core part of their business (46%) or in pockets (44%); the 10% of firms that have not yet deployed machine learning are experimenting with it
75% of firms are making significant investments in machine learning
Respondents in Asia are significantly less likely to work with structured data (49%), compared to those in North America (64%)
62% of c-suite respondents plan to hire more data scientists in the future as banks and asset managers seek to give themselves a data and technology edge over competitors
The main applications for using machine learning were in risk use cases (82% of respondents), followed by performance analytics and reporting (74%), with alpha generation in third place (63%)
AI/ML adoption is primarily driven by extracting better quality information (60%), increased productivity and speed (48%), and cost reduction (46%)

“Machine learning and artificial intelligence are often described as emerging technologies, but the fact is they are already being widely applied across financial services,” said Tim Baker, global head of Applied Innovation at Refinitiv. “Whether it is an increasingly complex regulatory environment, the need to find new sources of alpha, or winning the fight against financial crime, the industry is turning to data and technology, and data scientists are increasingly important as the alchemists charged with turning big data into insight.”

“While Asia may currently be behind the Americas and Europe in the maturity of its adoption of machine learning initiatives and the investment put into them, there is clear momentum building behind artificial intelligence applications in the region,” said Sanjna Parasrampuria, Head – Applied Innovation Asia. She added, “The c-suite of all the firms we surveyed view it as a core part of their business strategies, and this will result in them needing access to better quality data, access to world class talent, and powerful cloud-based tools. Efforts in Asia appear particularly focussed in areas of risk mitigation and wealth management.”

Microsoft Kaizala Enables Indian Railways to Connect its “Three Million Employees with Healthcare Services”

India’s largest employer, Indian Railways, will be using Microsoft Kaizala to connect its employees across the country with quality healthcare facilities.  Microsoft Kaizala app will enable serving and retired railway employees to avail healthcare services of 125 railway and 133 private recognized hospitals. The Kaizala  group, managed by doctors from South Central Railways will be complemented with focused groups of doctors, paramedical staff and nurses.

On registering for the healthcare services, Indian Railway employees will be able to search on Microsoft Kaizala, nearest hospitals and doctors, list of empaneled diagnostic centers and health units. Employees can book doctor appointments, share diagnostic lab reports directly with their doctors and save digital records in ‘Me Chat’ of Microsoft Kaizala. They will also be able access key announcements, share their feedback to improve quality of medical service with built in action cards.

Kaizala enables Indian Railways to enable direct communication with their employees including achievement bulletins, educative bulletins and informative bulletins to spread awareness around CPR, general first aid, immunization and vaccination, including others. The doctors on this Kaizala group can view medical history of an employee, pull out case sheets and aid in taking timely decisions. Microsoft Kaizala is a mobile-only product that makes it simple for organizations to seamlessly communicate, collaborate and complete tasks, bringing together desktop users and mobile-only users.

Commenting on the development, Vinod Kumar Yadav, Chairman Railway Board, Indian Railways, said, “As one of the largest employers in India, we are committed towards providing rich experience to our employees. Ensuring quality medical care facilities for our employees is one of key focus areas, integrating it with Microsoft Kaizala will help us take this vision with ease to all our employees, including those situated in remote locations in India.”

“Microsoft Kaizala is a simple and secure chat-based app for work. It offers organizations to easily connect with everyone in their organization and beyond in simple way to share data for insightful decision making and gives employees an easy-to-use solution for efficient collaboration and improved productivity. Powered by Microsoft’s trusted cloud platform, mobility and enterprise security, Microsoft Kaizala is a perfect fit for the unique needs of one of India’s largest job creator. We are optimistic that our experience of working with large scale customers across private and government sectors will help us serve millions of railway employees effectively” said Rajiv Kumar, Corporate Vice President, Experiences & Devices Group, Microsoft.

Microsoft Kaizala offers large organizations like Railways easy and simple way to share data for insightful decision making and gives employees an easy-to-use efficient solution.