Centuary Mattresses Commissions 240 KW System Solar Plant at its Manufacturing Unit

In its endeavor to champion sustainability, Centuary Mattresses has announced the successful commissioning of 240 KW solar system installation at its Kazipally Plant. Freyr Energy, one of India’s prominent full-service solar providers, was the preferred partner for this implementation.

While Centuary’s business operations grew and production of mattresses accelerated, the company wanted to make sure that it functions as a responsible business. Thus, they started to scout for solutions that would not only help their plant run effectively but also make them eco-friendly. After assessing a few options, they considered Solar for energy generation which would be a game changer. Professionalism, absolute focus on quality, and being upfront about all costs made them choose Freyr Energy as their solar partner.

After carefully analyzing the energy requirement, costs, savings involved and while keeping the safety risk at minimum, Freyr Energy had commissioned a pilot project of 25KW at Centuary’s Kazipally plant. Subsequent to the successful trial run, an additional 215kW solar power plant was installed in March 2019. With this installation, Centuary is expected to eliminate approximately 329 tons of greenhouse emissions which would be an equivalent of plant 3,750 trees annually. During the first year, the solar plant at Centuary would generate around 3.80 lakh kWh of clean power.

On moving towards green energy, Mr. Uttam Malani, Executive Director, Centuary Mattresses said,

“Renewable content is integral to our Business model – whether be its products we make or the way we operate. Centuary has for decades championed use of natural materials such as coir for sleep solutions and has consciously taken this step into renewable energy to further its sustainability quotient. I am positive about the wise choice we have made by partnering with Freyr Energy and look forward to installing solar panels at our other plants too”.

Commenting on the successful accomplishment, Mr. Saurabh Marda, Managing Director, Freyr Energy said, “We value Centuary Mattresses as an esteemed customer and applaud them for engaging with renewable energy for their energy requirements. We look forward to a long-term relationship where we continue to provide solar as a way to continually balance their energy needs in a sustainable way”.

LogMeIn Debuts Expanded Bold360 AI-Powered Customer Engagement Suite

Today, LogMeIn introduced the new Bold360 family of products, enabling businesses around the world to create next-level CX wherever the customer needs it most. Bold360 Advise and Acquire join the flagship Bold360 Customer engagement platform to deliver purpose-built AI-powered solutions that help organizations deliver impactful customer experiences from the very first engagement throughout the customer lifecycle.

 “Customer experience isn’t just about post-sale support,” said Paddy Srinivasan, General Manager, Customer Engagement & Support Solutions at LogMeIn. “Companies have an opportunity to make a lasting impression at every point in the customer journey.  We’re expanding Bold360 to deliver the technologies needed to humanize every interaction and create a seamless experience across channels – both digital and physical.  This new suite of solutions helps bring the best of AI powered bots and live agents to all the places customers need it most.”

The new Bold360 offers more streamlined integration between proactive sales, customer service and agent assistance, extending the impact of AI from the web and call center through to the front lines so both customers and employees are better supported whether online or in-person.   The new suite includes:

Bold360 Service

Bold360 Service allows companies to support every customer in the channel of their choice – live chat, messaging, email, SMS, social and a conversational chatbot.  From AI-powered self-service that drives improved operational efficiency and faster resolutions to personalized engagements with human agents that builds deeper customer relationships -- Bold360 Service offers the best of AI and agent technology in one solution.

Bold360 Advise

Bold360 Advise empowers all customer-facing employees including care representatives, in store and field teams to make the best decisions for their individual customers by making centralized information accessible to everyone.  It removes the friction associated with finding and leveraging job-critical information so employees can spend more time focusing on the customer and delivering a truly personalized and consistent customer experience.

Bold360 Acquire (Coming Soon)

With Bold360 Acquire, conversational chatbots proactively guide website visitors through personalized shopping experiences, accelerating product selection and answering buyer questions in real-time. By developing personalized experiences from the start and facilitating the purchase process with product discovery and education, Bold360 Acquire helps companies leverage AI to accelerate growth by increasing conversion and decreasing cart abandonment.

The updated Bold360 empowers companies to provide the customer experience of the future today. Whether it’s empowering front-line employees, helping customers seamlessly move through the sales cycle or helping customers answer questions in near real-time, the Bold360 family puts AI at work so human intelligence can reach new heights.

“There is no shortage of data in our digital world, and customers and employees alike often feel overwhelmed by the information available when making decisions,” says customer XX. “In this environment, a personal touch is one of our most important differentiators. Whether it’s the very first interaction or ongoing support, Bold360 helps us deliver amazing self-service for simple requests and arms our employees to better and more quickly manage more complicated inquiries. It allows us to work smarter to assist our customers wherever they are, rather than harder.”

Equitas Small Finance Bank Distributes Plant Saplings as Part of ‘World Environment Day’ Campaign

Equitas Small Finance Bank, the new age bank that gives children, youth, families and business people across India a new and fun way to bank, organized plant sapling distribution campaign on the occasion of ‘World Environment Day’ across all its branches in India.

The campaign was initiated to create awareness on preserving the environment and encourage the customers to plant for a better future. 9 branches of the bank spread across Karnataka participated in the campaign and over 900 native plant saplings were distributed free of cost to the customers.

The main objective of this campaign is to involve the customers directly in the campaign so that the green pockets of the cities could be enhanced, in addition to spreading awareness about the importance and impact of trees on human life. Equitas Small Finance Bank aims to make the country a better place to live and ensures to initiate the process of replenishing our natural resources. The campaign intends to contribute for a greener environment by spreading the importance of planting today to save for a better tomorrow.

Adani Solar Top PVEL Performer for Second Consecutive Year

Mundra Solar PV Limited (Adani Solar) received the Top Performer title for the second consecutive year for its high efficiency products by PVEL – the world’s largest resource of independent energy experts.

PVEL published its fifth annual PV Module Reliability Scorecard report, the most comprehensive publicly available comparison of PV module reliability test results. Results of the 2019 PV Module Product Qualification Program has rated Adani Solar for its high efficient products that passed rigorous tests for quality checks.

For 2019, global Solar Installations is expected to cross the 120 GW mark. Growth in increased installations are driven by higher efficiency PV modules with new materials projecting higher returns and lower LCOE (Levelised cost of energy). The new high efficiency PV modules such as PERC and PERT Technologies do not come with significant track records and hence a reliability and durability testing demonstrating the lifetime warranty of the modules and its technology is vital.

The annual PV Module Reliability Scorecard reports the results of PVEL's PV Module Product Qualification Program (PQP).  Adani Solar has a capacity of 1.2 GW with a mix of Multi, Mono-PERC, Bifacial PV Modules and has its factory located in Mundra SEZ, Gujarat, India. It is noteworthy that Adani Solar is the only Indian BNEF Tier-1 Manufacturer with an in-house cell and Module capacity with a top performer award at PVEL PQP Program.

Ramesh Nair, Chief Executive Officer of Mundra Solar PV Limited (Adani Solar) commented, “PVEL's PV Module Reliability Scorecard is an invaluable tool that developers and lender’s engineers use to ensure that projects are built with reliable and durable products that would perform as expected. We at Adani Solar will continue to allocate more resources towards innovating new and high efficiency solar technologies and their application to the market. We will continue to provide the most reliable and high efficiency products through stringent test procedures for material selection and continual in-house Reliability Tests, which have also enabled us to create benchmarks for ourselves.”

He further stated “Developers and investors should always be aware that not all manufacturers have their modules tested for quality and reliability. Procuring unevaluated modules could have major ramifications for their projects. Adani Solar is a committed manufacturer, with state of the art facility with best industry practices ensuring superior performance and reliability of its products”.

Bengaluru Rates Dell As the Most Trusted Brand Across India

Dell has been rated the most trusted brand in Bengaluru by TRA's Most Trusted Brands Report, 2019, which has listed the country's most trusted 1,000 brands based on a primary study with consumer influencers.

The 2nd most trusted brand is Amazon (All-India rank 4th) followed by Tanishq at 3rd. Titan, ranked 4th in the city (All-India rank 39th) is also a leader in the Category of Watches. The report has seven brands from the Super Category of Internet; 3 each from apparels, personal accessories and technology that make it to the list.

N Chandramouli, CEO, TRA Research said, "The internet-tech scenario and the entrepreneurial spirit in Bengaluru are booming. An evident shift can be seen from software-factory model to a startup mindset. To remain competitive in today’s economic landscape, brands have to keep innovating and nurture trust-relationships with its customers. Bengaluru remains ahead in this and can be evidently seen in the national listing in TRA’s Brand Trust Report 2019."

Dell is followed by Jeep in second position, which also becomes the Most Trusted Automobile Brand of India this year. LIC and Amazon are ranked 3rd and 4th and Apple iPhone is India’s 5th Most Trusted Brand.

The consistent brands from Bengaluru include Foodpanda (up 516 ranks from last year), Swiggy (up by 440 ranks), Big Basket (up 290 ranks), Bharti Axa (up 245 ranks), Café Coffee Day (up 119 ranks), and Canara Bank (up 119 ranks).

Seven brands from the city lost Brand Trust ranks with Wrangler leading the fall with 639 ranks down from last year, BPL down 526 ranks, Myntra eroding 289 ranks and Wipro slipping 219 ranks.

The study covered 2,315 consumer-influencers across 16 cities in India. Indian Statistical Institute is TRA’s statistical partner for the research.

Razorpay Powers Cross-Border Trade for Indian Businesses, Launches Digital Payment Support for 100 Currencies

Razorpay, India’s first converged payments solution company, today announced that it now supports 100 currencies for international digital payments - including all popular currencies such as U.S. Dollar (USD), European Dollar (EUR), British Pound (GBP), Arab Emirates Dirham (AED) and Singapore Dollar (SGD). With this offering, the company aims to open new growth avenues for the MSME segment, by enabling them to accept payments from other countries.

For the longest time, businesses in India have been losing out on potential customers and partner businesses due to the inability to accept payments from other countries. However, the past few years have witnessed a range of changes in global trade paradigms, unveiling new emerging markets and channels for global business expansion. During April-February 2018-19, the Indian goods exports grew by 8.85 per cent to $298.47 billion. This depicts how the cross border e-commerce will only see an upward spike through the next five years. Enabling businesses with support for international transactions will play a key role.

Razorpay’s International payments is integrated across the entire range of its product offering including Payment Gateway, Payment Links, Payment Pages, Subscriptions and Invoices. The International Payments capability on the Razorpay platform will help businesses with:

-          accepting payments through cards issued by foreign banks
-          instant payment gateway integration and activation
-          currency conversion

Shashank Kumar, CTO & Co-founder, Razorpay said, “India’s position in global trade has seen a significant shift over the last 5 years, evolving both in product mix and destination markets. Today, with the rising digital influence on consumers globally, online as a channel for trade is witnessing an enormous growth. On the flip side, businesses often report issues about unpaid international invoices and time taken for international transactions. With the launch of support for international payments, we will be able to help businesses tackle these issues quickly, and make payment acceptance for cross-border e-commerce seamless, thereby helping SMEs & MSMEs access a larger pool of consumers across the world.”

India’s rising prominence in the global export markets coupled with growing international opportunities offer scope for Indian players to expand internationally in travel, brands, real estate, SaaS, media and entertainment, among many other verticals. Razorpay through this offering aims at transforming the way businesses find and retain their customers, and make the transaction experience seamless.

The company has been charting an exponential growth since its inception. Razorpay currently powers digital payments for over 2,00,000 small and large businesses, including Airtel, BookMyShow, IRCTC, Aditya Birla Capital, NSE, among others. Razorpay has clocked in a healthy growth rate of 15-20% month-on-month on the merchant count and is geared up to increase this to 3,50,000 this year. This converged payments solution company expects a 5x growth in its revenue by the end of the next fiscal year.

Half of Consumers Would Pay More for Sustainable Products Designed to Be Reused or Recycled: Accenture Survey

More than half of consumers said they would pay more for sustainable products designed to be reused or recycled, according to results of a survey from Accenture (NYSE: ACN).

The survey of 6,000 consumers in 11 countries across North America, Europe and Asia, results of which were previewed at the American Chemistry Council (ACC) Annual Meeting today, found that while consumers remain primarily focused on quality and price, 83% believe it’s important or extremely important for companies to design products that are meant to be reused or recycled. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of respondents said they’re currently buying more environmentally friendly products than they were five years ago, and 81% said they expect to buy more over the next five years.

“The shift in consumer buying, with more consumers willing to pay extra for environmentally friendly products, reinforces the need for companies to increase their commitments to responsible business practices,” said Jessica Long, a managing director in Accenture Strategy. “Companies across industries have started to lead with purpose, including embracing the circular economy as a greater opportunity to drive growth and competitive agility.”

Unsurprisingly, quality and price led consumers’ considerations when making purchases, cited by 89% and 84% of respondents, respectively, compared with 49% who cited health and safety considerations and 37% who cited environmental impact.

The survey findings also indicate that consumers believe that the chemical industry — which plays a key role in driving recycled and reusable technologies and materials — lacks concern about its environmental impact. Specifically, one in four consumers (26%) said they believe that the chemical industry is the least concerned of nine industries included in the survey about its impact on the environment.

Consumers also ranked chemical companies the lowest among industries for the reliability of communications regarding the environmental impact of their products and services, with 72% not very confident or not confident at all in these communications.

“While some of the survey results are encouraging, there are also implications for chemical companies, including the need to overcome negative consumer sentiment and to produce sustainable materials at a competitive price,” said Rachael Bartels, a senior managing director at Accenture who leads its chemicals and natural resources practice. “The chemical industry is a critical enabler to the circular economy and can speed up its adoption, and the reality is the industry must get in front of this now, or risk being left behind.”

In other survey findings, plastics was perceived to be the least environmentally friendly type of packaging, cited by more than three-fourths (77%) of consumers, with paper products perceived to be the most environmentally friendly, cited by 55% of respondents.

Resolving these and other challenges could help chemical companies fuel growth. For instance, the ACC estimates that a circular economy for plastics could add 38,500 jobs and billions of dollars to the U.S. economy by expanding the use of pyrolysis and other advanced plastic recycling technologies. Chemical companies have an opportunity to catalyze and capture a significant share of the US$4.5 trillion in opportunity presented by a move to a circular economy, according to circular economy research from Accenture Strategy.