Now, Book an Ola Directly from the Kotak Mobile Banking App

Kotak Mahindra Bank (Kotak) and Ola - one of the world’s largest ride-hailing platforms, today announced a first-of-its-kind partnership that will enable Kotak customers to directly book Ola cabs and autos across 150 cities in India from within the Kotak mobile banking app.

The API integration - the first such implementation in the Indian banking industry - provides a faster, more secure and one-click check-out experience seamlessly to its customers. Customers can directly book, track and pay for Ola rides through their Kotak mobile banking app, without having to shuffle between apps. The integration enables customers to book an Ola ride under the ‘KayMall’ tab in the Kotak app, using their Kotak customer credentials.

Deepak Sharma, Chief Digital Officer, Kotak Mahindra Bank said, “The Kotak mobile banking app is one of the highest rated banking apps in the country. It is a super app that combines the best of banking and lifestyle use cases such as travel, hotel bookings and shopping. Urban mobility is an important part of our full suite of travel offerings and with this partnership with Ola, our customers can now book a ride with a secure and seamless one-click payment experience. The Kotak super app eliminates the need to download multiple apps and provides a wider choice of products and services, helping us deepen engagement with our customers.”

Rahul Maroli, Vice President - Enterprise Business & Strategic Alliances, Ola said, “Improving the customer’s experience is a constant focus at Ola and strategic partnerships play a significant role in accelerating such efforts. Integration of services empowers the customer, making their lives convenient. Through our partnership with Kotak, the two brands will capitalise on each other’s technological strengths to offer a wonderful experience to our consumers.”

With this partnership, Kotak users will have access to Ola’s multi-modal commuting offerings, from pocket-friendly options such as Ola Auto, Micro and Mini to premium and distinct categories such as Ola Prime, Ola Prime Play, Ola Prime SUV, Ola Rentals and Ola Outstation.

The Ola in-app integration is currently available to Android users and will shortly be available on the iOS operating system as well. Booking an Ola ride on Kotak’s mobile banking app will not attract any additional charges and Kotak customers will also be able to avail special offers.

This initiative is part of Kotak’s digital-first organic growth strategy that is driven by its ABCD charter that focuses on -- AI enriched App, Biometric enabled Branch, Context enhanced Customer Experience and Data empowered Design.

As a part of Kotak’s digital banking strategy and in its journey towards becoming a one-stop super app, Kotak has been expanding the scope of offerings on its mobile banking app. ‘KayMall’ on the mobile banking app offers customers a secure and convenient in-app shopping environment across a range of categories such as travel (flight, train, bus and cab bookings), hotel bookings, shopping on e-commerce websites and magazine subscriptions.

Honda 2Wheelers India Donates Rs 1 Crore for Flood Relief in Karnataka

Strengthening its commitment to strive to be a company the society wants to exist, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Pvt. Ltd., today donated Rs 1 crore towards the relief & recovery efforts for Karnataka post the devastation caused by torrential rains and the flood crisis in the state.

The contribution is aimed at providing relief and rehabilitation for affected people and reconstruction of areas devastated by the floods that hit the state in August.

Cheque amounting to Rs 1 crore was handed over to Sh. B. S. Yediyurappa, Chief Minister of Karnataka towards the Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority for Rehabilitation & Reconstruction in Bengaluru.

Official statement of Honda 2Wheelers India: “Honda family expresses our deepest empathy to all the affected people of Karnataka who lost their dear ones, their homes and their livelihoods in this colossal calamity. As a socially responsible corporate, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Pvt. Ltd. is committed to contribute in restoration of the devastated infrastructure and helping rebuild lives of the affected people. Honda is at the forefront to provide all kind of possible support to Karnataka dealers and customers.”

Dr. Pandey Makes a Strong Case for India as the Next Skilling Hub

Urging ministers and representatives from 40 nations to make the most of a global platform aimed of youth displaying their skills across trades, Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, Minister for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE), said it is critical for governments and industry to come together to turn skilling into a ladder for economic growth for all countries. He said that nations can leverage from India’s demographic dividend and India’s youth can contribute to their growth and development. Dr. Pandey was addressing a summit of ministers from different countries at Kazan, Russia, where the WorldSkills International Competitions, a biennial event, is underway. A 48-member Indian team is participating in the competition played out over six days across trades like namely mobile robotics, prototype modelling, hairdressing, baking, confectionary & patisserie, welding, brick laying, car painting, floristry, etc.

Addressing an audience comprising government representatives of 40 other countries at a Ministers’ Summit organised along the side lines of the competition, Dr. Pandey said India is making all efforts necessary to utilise the potential of its unique demographic dividend. “India is a young nation with the median age of 27.6 years. We will have the largest working population during 2022-2034. We have adapted global standards of skilling to strengthen the young workforce with competent skills,” he said. “We have undertaken several initiatives to provide opportunities for the workforce, including prominent international recruitments to enhance their skill level.”

Participants at the Ministers’ Summit included Ms. Tatyana Golikova, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation; Ms. Olga Vasilyeva, Minister of Education of the Russian Federation; Mr. Jos de Goey, Vice President for Strategic Affairs and Chair of the Strategic Development Committee at WorldSkills International; Mr. Tang Tao, Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security, People’s Republic of China, among others.

Making a strong case for India as the next skilling hub, Dr. Pandey said, “Currently, 10 million Indian youth enter the workforce every year. Upskilling and increasing industry interface to provide access to multiple skilling opportunities in a short time frame is critical. India has adopted accelerated modular competency-based programs of 200-600 hours duration aimed at enhancing the employability of youth coming out of these programs. We are also laying emphasis on industry-led apprenticeship programs so youth directly entering the labour market are trained on in-house bridge courses by industry.”

Dr. Pandey stressed that a fruitful partnership between Government, industry and academia is essential to synergize the skills and zeal of the youth.

India has collaborated with several countries to ensure a young workforce is exposed to international best practices and different working environments. In October 2017, MSDE signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with Japan to initiate the Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) facilitating Indian workers to gain experience and learn from their peers in the country. TITP promotes international collaboration through transfer of skills, technology and knowledge among countries, contributing towards human resource development. NSDC has also collaborated with the Emirates Driving Institute (EDI) in the UAE. Besides setting up driver training institutes in India, the partnership also aims to address the need for quality drivers in the UAE and other countries in the Middle East.

Dr Pandey also inaugurated Skill India Pavilion at WorldSkills, Kazan in Russia, showcasing the multicultural experiences of India and unity in diversity which is the beauty of our nation. Skill development will further strengthen the bilateral relations between India and Russia.

Brands Training India In New Age Skillsets for Young Minds

In the age of digitalisation, cybersecurity, data literacy and analytics, have come to be some of the most sought after skillsets. However, the nascent fields are fast-evolving, thus falling short on the required curriculum for training the young minds. However, several established conglomerates in the respective fields have taken it upon themselves to impart essential skills and training and these important disciplines. Here’s taking a quick look at some of the well-established enterprises that are also venturing into imparting training & development in the field of education, data analytics, cybersecurity, and more. 

Qlik: The Qlik Academic Program

Having served over 50,000 customers across the globe, including some of the leading names in India like BookMyShow, Bajaj Auto, Micromax and more, Qlik is a data analytics and business intelligence platform that believes that data literacy is an important skill.  Qlik’s emphasis on data literacy is crucial for a future workforce that needs to be comfortable with data regardless of what industry they are in. When we talk about becoming data literate, it’s not about becoming a data scientist. It’s about learning a skill that is now as important as the ability to read and write. To the same end, Qlik has expanded its ‘Qlik Academic Program’ to over 150 universities across India. The program now runs in some of the most noteworthy institutions in India, like IIM-B, IIM-A, TISS, SP Jain School of Global Management, NIT Karnataka, NIT Patna, and more.

The adoption of the Qlik Academic Program in India is most prominent across engineering institutions since analytics aligns well with subjects such as data mining, database management and programming. However, there has been an uptake in other academic streams such as business management and social sciences, which are starting to use the program to both assists with research projects while also to learning to improve decision-making processes through data. Through this free-to-use online program, Qlik is helping India’s young minds and professionals to be job-ready, equipped with essential skills in advanced analytics and data literacy.

Cyberbit Range – Cybersecurity Training & Simulation Platform

Despite substantial investments in cybersecurity products, organizations are not prepared for cyberattacks because their cybersecurity teams will only experience their first cyberattack while on the job. Furthermore, organizations are experiencing a drastic shortage in cybersecurity professionals, projected to reach 3.5 million globally by 2021.

Cyberbit Range is the world-leading platform for training cybersecurity teams. It uses a unique, hyper-realistic simulation approach, which immerses cybersecurity teams in a virtual security operations center (SOC), and confronts them with real-world, simulated cyberattacks. Trainees use commercial security tools to detect, investigate and mitigate the attack. This approach mirrors a real-life attack scenario and therefore prepares security teams more effectively than ever before, to be at peak performance during the attack. Cyberbit Range is used by enterprises, governments and universities worldwide to train and upskill cybersecurity experts, educate students, and address the cybersecurity skill shortage.

ONVU Learning by Onvu Tech

Surveillance systems are gradually becoming a part and parcel of modern educational institutions. ONVU Learning is taking this burgeoning infrastructure one step forward by integrating it with Video Analytics and Artificial Intelligence. This approach enables the respective educators to gain superior insights into their pedagogical techniques and address the challenges that they are not able to otherwise visualize. Similarly, it also helps them in better class management, thanks to 360-degree cameras which capture the complete view of the class throughout their lecture.

Samsung Smartphone Sales Grew After Six Consecutive Quarterly Declines Globally: Gartner

Global sales of smartphones to end users declined 1.7% in the second quarter of 2019, totaling 368 million units, according to Gartner, Inc.

“Demand for high-end smartphones has slowed at a greater rate than demand for midrange and low-end smartphones,” said Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner. “To try to boost smartphone replacements, we’ve seen manufacturers bringing premium features such as multilens front/back cameras, bezel-less displays and large batteries from their flagship smartphones into lower-priced models.”

Among the top five global smartphone vendors, Huawei and Samsung exhibited the strongest annual sales increases in the second quarter of 2019 at 16.5% and 3.8%, respectively (see Table 1). “As a result, they both grew market share in the quarter, which led them to account for more than a third of total smartphone sales globally,” said Mr. Gupta.

The Huawei ban announcement led to a sharp decline in Huawei’s smartphone sales in the global market in the second quarter of 2019, although sales did improve slightly on the ban’s deferment. While its smartphone sales total was weaker globally, strong promotion and brand positioning helped Huawei sell a record number of smartphones in Greater China in the quarter, growing 31% in the region.

Samsung Returned to Growth, Apple Continued to Decline

Samsung sold over 75 million smartphones in the second quarter of 2019 and grew its share by 1.1 percentage points year over year. “Strong demand for Samsung’s new Galaxy A series smartphones and the revamp of its entire entry-level and midrange smartphone range helped this positive performance,” said Mr. Gupta. “Demand for Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S10 started to weaken during the quarter, however, indicating that achieving growth in 2019 as a whole will be a challenge.”

Sales of iPhones continued to decline year over year, although at a lesser rate compared with the first quarter of 2019. Apple sold just over 38 million iPhones in the second quarter, a 13.8% decline year over year. “Too few incremental benefits are preventing existing iPhone users from replacing their smartphones,” said Mr. Gupta.” Apple has reached an inflection point marked by shifting its business toward services, which represented 21% of the vendor’s total revenue in the first quarter of 2019.”

China and Brazil: Only Countries in the Top 5 to Show Smartphone Sales Growth

Among the top five countries in smartphones sales, China held the No. 1 position with 101 million smartphone sales in the second quarter of 2019, up 0.5% year over year. With more 5G smartphone models available in the second quarter, vendors in China had to clear out inventory of 4G high-end smartphone models. Achieving 10.8 million smartphone sales in the same period, Brazil was the only other country in the top five to exhibit growth (1.3% year over year). As the economy in Brazil is starting to slowly recover, this smartphone growth is a small indicator of stronger economic growth expected in 2020.

India sold a total of 35.7 million smartphones, achieving market share of 9.7% in the second quarter of 2019. Those sales in India represented a 2.3% decline year over year, however, mainly due to slowing consumer upgrades from feature phones to smartphones.

Global smartphone sales will remain weak for the rest of the year. Gartner analysts expect that sales of worldwide smartphone sales to end users will total 1.5 billion units in 2019. 

CSS Corp Wins Gold Stevie Award in 2019 International Business Awards

CSS Corp, a new-age IT services and technology support company, today announced that it has won the Gold Stevie® Award in the “Best Technical Support Solution – Computer Services” category at the 16th Annual International Business Awards® 2019. CSS Corp was acknowledged for its Digital Customer Experience Suite which leverages emerging technologies to revolutionize complex enterprise technical support ecosystems. The awards will be presented to winners at a gala awards banquet at the ANDAZ Hotel am Belvedere, Vienna, Austria on 19 October.

CSS Corp’s Digital Customer Experience Suite enables it to provide a comprehensive set of services that offer a 3-pronged strategy to transform enterprise support - digitized end-user experience, automation-driven operational efficiency, and technology-amplified engineer productivity. The modules included in the platform are cognitive assistant, mobile-based support, process automation and integration, smart case analytics, and customer 360 workbench. The platform leverages cognitive technologies like AI, intelligent automation, and advanced analytics to accelerate customer resolutions, reduce operation costs, optimize workflows and amplify employee performance. It empowers enterprises to simplify their complex technical support function by improving service outcomes, boosting efficiency, and reducing overheads.

Speaking on occasion, Manish Tandon, Chief Executive Officer, CSS Corp, said, “Modern technology ecosystems are complex, and so are their support needs. Enterprises need to use automation to optimize their support resources and deliver stellar customer experiences. As automation experts, CSS Corp is a frontrunner in building AI-enabled automated technical support solutions that solve customer problems swiftly while also amplifying the support agents. The efficiency gains from support automation have brought about tangible cost advantages to our customers while boosting CX.”

“We are excited to be recognized once again by Stevie, for our suite of automated support solutions.  We will carry the momentum forward by continuously upgrading our offerings to drive better outcomes for our customers.”, he further added.

The IBA judges from across the world were highly impressed with the platform’s capabilities. One of the judges noted, “Perfect! You address not only the end-user but also the support engineer. In creating a seamless support experience, this is an absolute prerequisite.” “CSS Corp's integrated intelligent enterprise solutions help various clients to simplify their digital transformation journey.”, another judge commented.

More than 4000 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were evaluated in this year’s competition. Stevie Award winners were determined by the average scores of more than 250 executives worldwide who participated in the judging process from May through early August.

Instamojo Crosses Rs 110 Crores Milestone of Sachet Loans Disbursal for Small Businesses

Instamojo, the full-stack solutions provider for MSMEs, recently crossed the 110 crore loan mark for their MSME-focused product - Sachet loans. The company has achieved this milestone in less than 10 months post the launch of Sachet Loans as of last year. With an aim to further empower nearly 7 crore Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the country, it was in September last year that the company expanded its suite of products and services with the launch of mojoCapital and mojoXpress. While mojoCapital addressed the capital needs of small business owners, mojoXpress offers shipping services to merchants.

MSMEs are a significant part of the Indian economy, contributing to 29% of the country’s GDP, despite a population of 63 million MSMEs in the country. Speaking on the milestone achievement, Sampad Swain, Co-Founder & CEO, Instamojo said, “The challenge of Cash Crunch has long been a growth hurdle for small businesses across the country. At Instamojo, our focus has always been towards empowering the growth of the MSME sector through our products and services. Through sachet loans, thousands of small businesses have benefitted, opening up several growth avenues. The tremendous response we have received since the launch of our lending arm is a witness to this positive development. This also indicates the progressive transition of the otherwise traditional MSME sector, towards digital methods which in turn also contributes to the larger purpose of Digital India.”

Sachet loans offer Next Day Payouts, Instant Payouts and Same Day Payouts which was recently introduced. Of the Tier I markets, Bangalore, Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai top the list with the maximum loans issued, while in Tier II, cities like Gurgaon, Ahmedabad and Lucknow saw maximum loan disbursals. Of the three segments, Next Day Payouts is the most-sought after payment option, followed by Instant Payouts.

Instamojo provides a host of services ranging from digital payments, logistics to lending. The company today works with and enables over 900,000 MSMEs to build, manage and grow their business. As part of their upcoming plans this year, Instamojo aims to introduce promotional services, helping the MSME sector stay relevant in a competitive digital business landscape.