Goldmine’s ‘Forward’ Wins Social Media Mandate for Bank of Baroda

Established in 2014, Forward - Goldmine’s digital arm, has once again won the Social Media mandate in a multi-agency pitch and will service Bank of Baroda, India’s second largest public sector bank for another 3 years starting April 2019 across creative, media and ORM-led services.

Forward has launched the bank’s various digital platforms in 2016 and has helped Bank of Baroda connect with a new audience and push its new digital banking products. The agency has also assisted the bank leverage its partnerships with multiple events across the country.

Commenting on this development, Mr. O K Kaul, General Manager, Marketing, Corporate Communications & WMS of Bank of Baroda said, “We are delighted to extend our association with Goldmine as our social media partner. Thanks to their strategic insights, digital expertise, in-depth knowledge of the category, our visibility online is very strong today. The campaigns they have created and executed have helped us establish a good digital footprint within the banking sector. Being a technologically strong Bank, we particularly appreciate that Forward has deployed QuickMetrix, a strong social analytics and management software that supports all digital activities with relevant data.”

To this, Aastha Singla Co-founder, Forward, Goldmine said, “Servicing Bank of Baroda has always been a learning experience for us. Given the current dynamics, the next three years seem crucial especially with the three way amalgamation of Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank, making it a financial powerhouse. With a positive outlook, we look forward to the challenges and opportunities that come in the near future.”

From the onset, Forward deployed QuickMetrix (India’s leading Social Media Listening and ORM software) for a strong technology platform to manage the Bank’s online presence across social platforms.  QuickMetrix is integrated with the Bank’s internal systems to build a seamless experience for its customers’ service requests originating from social media.

Pleased with this extension, Surendra S. Baliga, Co-founder, QuickMetrix said, “It is a matter of great pride for us that Bank of Baroda has deployed QuickMetrix since 2016 and has chosen to do so for the next three years. We have learnt a lot from Bank of Baroda and QuickMetrix will continue to evolve to serve India’s second largest Public Sector Bank.”

Magnet360, Mindtree’s Salesforce Practice, Named a Leader in Professional Services for Salesforce Sales and Service Cloud by ISG

Magnet360, the Mindtree Salesforce practice, has been named a leader in Professional Services for Salesforce Sales and Service Cloud in the U.S. ISG Provider Lens for the Salesforce Ecosystem. This recognition is attributed to our sustained investment in Salesforce solutions as well as our ability to apply Salesforce expertise across a range of industries.

The ISG Provider Lens report on the Salesforce Ecosystem examines service providers that offer capabilities covering the system integration aspects of a project for Salesforce customers. This report is focused on companies using the Salesforce Sales and Service Clouds.

“The complexity of large enterprise technology landscapes, including legacy systems, creates challenges for businesses to get the most value from their investment in Salesforce Clouds,”.,” said Matt Meents, CEO of Magnet360. “This recognition from ISG reflects the investments we’ve made over many years to help our clients tap into the full potential of the Salesforce Platform to transform their businesses.”

The ISG report cites Magnet360’s strengths in the following areas:

·         Industry solutions and accelerators: Magnet360 has several industry solutions, including offerings for consumer-packaged goods and retail, manufacturing (including IoT aspects), financial services (where it has a focus on insurance and partners with Duck Creek) and the Patient Engage solution for healthcare. Connected Manufacturing from Magnet360 provides a powerful solution for Service Cloud that extensively uses IoT elements.

·         Methodology: Magnet360 brings a well-developed methodology to project engagements and includes a variety of accelerators to support specific project activities. These include Code Analyzer, Org Optimizer, Risk Base Testing and others. Magnet360 applies a strong focus on the initial project phases, where it applies its Fast Forward methodology for strategy development and roadmap planning.
·         Attention to data quality: Magnet360’s project methodology is laser-focused on data management, including measuring data quality as part of the business performance assessment.
·         Customer commitment: Magnet360 has a growing global customer base and has won multiple Salesforce Partner Innovation Awards for its work with customers.

“Salesforce customers are looking for partners who can support multi-cloud implementations which require a well-developed procurement model to be successful,” said Jan Erik Aase, a director and principal analyst at ISG. “With their Magnet360 practice, Mindtree is able to marry 15 years of Salesforce expertise with the ability to cover integrations with other technology packages and positions them as a leading partner in the complex Salesforce ecosystem.”

The ISG Provider Lens Quadrant report series provides valuable insights on service provider capabilities based on ISG’s unique methodology, which blends empirical, data-driven research and market analysis with the real-world working experiences and observations of ISG’s global advisory team.

Renaissance Strī for Women by Bangalore Watch Company

Bangalore Watch Company, an independent boutique watch brand from India, after a lot of success with their debut collection of gentleman’s timepieces, has introduced ‘Renaissance Strī’, an extension of their debut, the Renaissance Automatic line in a women-friendly aesthetic.

The Renaissance Strī consists of a total of five categories — three of them in rose gold plated stainless steel and two in stainless steel. The watches are available in dial colours — Opaline, Anthracite and a unique Emerald.

The watches of the Renaissance Strī collection are made with surgical-grade steel, scratch-resistant Sapphire crystals, a slim case design adorned with 72 Swarovski crystals, powered by Swiss quartz movements with genuine leather straps and presented in beautiful lacquer finished wooden boxes. The price range of the collection is between INR 28,000 and INR 32,000.

Speaking about their newest watch collection for women, Founder and Creative Director of  Bangalore Watch Company  Nirupesh Joshi says, “Often, we have been asked to introduce an exclusive collection for women. This strong demand lead to the launch of Renaissance Strī, a vintage-inspired classic watch for women.”

The Renaissance Strī collection is now open for orders for the watch lovers. Renaissance Strī collection available at https://www.bangalorewatchco.in/order-renaissance-stri

India Food Services Industry to Add 2 Million Jobs Over the Next Two Years: Nandan Nilekani

Looking at the job scenario, the food services industry is a big driver in the country and will add another 2 million jobs over the next 2 years, said Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani after releasing the fourth edition of the 'India Food Services' report 2019, compiled by the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) in Bengaluru. He said presently this industry employees over 7 million to and this is expected to grow to 9 Million.

Indicating formalisation of the food services industry was inevitable in India, Nilekani on Monday advised stakeholders to have a certification system for skills of their employees in the supply chain.

"I urge you to bring out a certification system to raise the skills of millions of people. This will help you build employment for the industry and can go beyond 10 million in the near future," said Nilekani after releasing the fourth edition of the 'India Food Services' report 2019, compiled by the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) here.

Noting that multiple forces play a major part in the growth of the multi-crore industry, he said the Goods and Services Tax (GST), digital payments and food quality were the other major factors that would formalise the industry with an ecosystem of its own.

"They are frenemies. Though brick and mortar always thrive, the restaurants need to make sure they have a good supply chain to support the tight timelines the delivery boys have," Nilekani said.

NRAI President Rahul Singh said the Indian restaurant industry employed 73 lakh people in the last fiscal 2018-19.

"The organised food service sector, which is 35 per cent of the total market, contributed a whopping Rs 18,000 crore as taxes in the last fiscal, which is 12 per cent of the total organized market," said Singh.

According to the report, compiled once in 3 years, growing urbanisation, rising income levels and improved investment climate have made the food service sector grow at 11 per cent during the last 3 years and it is estimated to be at Rs 4,23,865 crore in 2018-19.

Growing at 9 per cent, the sector is projected to reach Rs 599,784 crore by 2022-23.

In terms of employment, the organised sector provided jobs to 37 lakh people, or 51 per cent of the total in 2018-19, the unorganised sector to another 36 lakh people (49 per cent) of the total workforce. This is estimated to grow 6 per cent to 92 lakh in 2022-23.

NRAI's Bengaluru chapter head chef Manu Chandra said the average spend per household per month on eating out has been estimated at Rs 3,586 in the tech hub, which was higher than the national average of Rs 2,500.

Empirical Data Blockchain Solution Brings Transparency to CSR Projects

Empirical Data, a new breed blockchain solution provider, today announced the launch and introduction of RedShift, a first of its kind blockchain solution for corporate CSR. This game changing solution provides a robust platform for corporates to ensure smooth CSR project execution. RedShift brings a simple, efficient and affordable enterprise solution that helps corporates to focus and execute humanitarian and social projects.

"A well-executed CSR project is the best way to give back to the society. We are excited to introduce RedShift which will help create greater transparency and visibility in daily corporate CSR transactions. With RedShift we aim to change the way businesses interact with various stakeholders in the CSR activities," said Karthik Ramarao, Founder & CTO at Empirical Data.

Empirical Data is incorporated as the Indian subsidiary of trANa Technologies, headquartered in Singapore, providing groundbreaking enterprise solutions on its blockchain - Fusion Core. By adding leading-edge innovations and enhancements to the open source blockchain framework, Empirical Data has successfully integrated blockchain with sensors, IOT and ML to introduce new breed of solutions for enterprises.

RedShift enables a shared system of immutable single data source for all stakeholders. Its applications reach far beyond the scope of CSR and philanthropy. Apart from providing step by step execution of activities, this tamper proof solution provides a consistent set of records for the whole value chain to see and review. RedShift enables stakeholders and auditors to easily trace the provenance of the data as well as to be prepared for random inquests from government audit bodies.

Blockchain is an enabler for RedShift, providing fundamental change, transparency and empowerment for the execution of CSR in India. Redshift's SXCAL engine is equipped with advanced features such as alarms, flags, invoice creation, payment initiation and more. With RedShift corporate enterprises can now make use of unprecedented benefits such a conservation of time, effort and also get instant reconciliation and updates.

Availability
The Redshift solution is available from the 20th of May 2019.

Homegrown Smart Wearables Startup KaHa Raises US$6.2M in Series B Funding

KaHa, a Singapore-based end-to-end IoT platform startup for smart wearables, has raised US$6.2 million in Series B funding to accelerate its growth in Asia. The funding round was led by ICT Fund, a specialized deep-tech venture capital fund and an existing strategic investor from Europe.

The funds raised in this round will enable the company to boost its research and development and scale its operations in the Asia Pacific region. APAC is the world’s fastest growing smart wearables market, outperforming Europe, the Americas, and Africa.

KaHa will be expanding its presence in Singapore as well as play a more significant role in the country’s IoT ecosystem. This year, the firm launched the COVE R2C IoT Innovation Lab, a multipartite IoT innovation and research lab in one-north technology hub. In close collaboration with public and private partners, KaHa is currently developing innovative use cases on smart wearables. Valuable partners across the IoT development value chain include Singapore research institute A*STAR SIMTech, Bridgestone, Curtis Australia, MHA Manufacture de Haute Accessoirie Partners, Tex Line, and Titan.

“As a company with a mission to create a better and safer environment, it is important to us to bring innovative and relevant technologies into a consumer’s everyday life. Apart from helping us expand our product line, this new round of funding will allow KaHa to discover more breakthrough products that can support the health and wellness, sports and fitness, safety and digital payments needs, as well as increase the COVE platform’s availability internationally and improve our accessibility and affordability,” said Pawan Gandhi, Founder, and CEO of KaHa.  “With the continued support of our existing strategic investor and new partner ICT Fund, we are strategically positioned to make our mission possible.”

Brijesh Pande, managing partner of ICT Fund said: “We are delighted to partner with KaHa, which is well placed to capitalize on the fast-growing market opportunity in smart wearables. Consumer product brands will increasingly need to offer ‘smart’ products to maintain leadership and KaHa, with its innovative end-to-end platform, is a perfect partner for global brands.”

“We are very pleased with KaHa’s progress and track record and it’s been clear that its platform can be scaled across various brands.  We are excited about increasing our investment in KaHa on this next phase as it continues to drive scale and growth in the wearable tech and IoT space," said Andy Raswork, board member of existing strategic investor.

Incorporated in Singapore in 2015, KaHa is one of the few companies in the world to have an end-to-end IoT platform for smart wearables including electronics design, printed circuit board assembly, application framework for iOS and Android, cloud services, data analytics and smart after-sales service tool.  The platform enables partners and customers to incorporate the latest technology without prohibitive financial costs and speed up their go-to-market time for smart products including smart bands, smartwatches, smart accessories and smart apparel. 

Stanley Black & Decker Launches STANLEY Earth With a Solar-Powered Water Pump to Empower Farmers in India

Stanley Black & Decker has launched STANLEY Earth in India, the company’s new brand for purpose-driven product technologies that innovate for social good. With this launch, the company aims to leverage its core technology expertise and broad partnership network to create solutions that address unmet societal needs including critical sustainable development challenges such as water, energy, and climate.

Aligned with the solar agricultural revolution underway in India, STANLEY Earth’s first product is NADI, an eco-friendly, efficient solar-powered brushless DC water pump that facilitates reliable irrigation for agricultural applications for farmers across the country. NADI™, which means “river”, uses STANLEY’s highly efficient brushless direct current (BLDC) motor technology to drive the pump along with solar panels that power the entire system.

Commenting on the launch of STANLEY Earth in India, Jim Loree, President and CEO, Stanley Black & Decker said, “The world around us is facing a growing number of increasingly critical societal issues today. As a company which makes products and services that help create and shape our world, we have an obligation to leverage our resources and expertise to create new solutions to address these very challenges. Our new brand STANLEY Earth is a reflection of our commitment to ‘Innovating with Purpose,’ a core pillar of our CSR Strategy and 22/22 Vision.”

“The launch of products like these will play a key role in helping our company create positive change and get us closer to achieving our goal of enhancing the lives of 500 million people. We want to be reckoned as a force for good in alignment with our purpose, for those who make the world,” Loree added.

NADI offers a sustainable alternative to the 25 million inefficient diesel and alternating current (AC) pumps currently used for agriculture, which draw almost 20% of the electricity generated in the country and pose a huge environmental pollution challenge. The smart pump has an intelligent controller that enables micro-irrigation. It incorporates an IOT-based agricultural platform complete with sensors that connect to the cloud and mobile networks, providing real-time data on the pump health along with key environmental metrics. This will enable farmers to efficiently monitor pump performance and conduct preventive maintenance as needed.

“Nearly two years ago, we set out on a mission to deliver a self-sustaining irrigation solution that can provide millions of farmers in India, a solution to one of their key challenges – reliable and consistent access to clean water,” said Ramana Gogula Vice President of Clean Technology Innovation at Stanley Black & Decker.

He went on to add, “Through the innovation of our STANLEY Earth’s team and collaboration with key partners, we have delivered an affordable solution that can help transform not only the lives of farmers in India, but also the lives of farmers in any part of the world that face water scarcity. NADI™ embodies the mission of STANLEY Earth, but it is the first of many products to come – we’re excited about the difference we can make.”

NADI was piloted in India with a farmer who was initially growing only fruits and vegetables. After installing the technology on his farm, he was able to add rice to his crop mix and manage his water supply well enough to produce multiple harvests per year. The smart pump will be made available to rural farmers across India through a strong partnership network that includes Agri-Retail Networks, distributors and systems integrators.

STANLEY Earth is also forging strategic alliances with key financial partners in the agro-domain, to make this solar technology intervention more affordable for the farmers in the country.