Willis Towers Watson Unveils Tech Innovative Risk Advisory Service ​

Willis Towers Watson, a leading global advisory, broking and solutions company, has launched a new advisory capability to help chief financial officers and risk managers reduce volatility and minimise their total cost of risk.  Connected Risk Intelligence is a single source for financial executives to establish optimal risk strategies across their organisation through a portfolio approach to risk.

Connected Risk Intelligence has been built around IGLOO, one of the leading proprietary decision support systems to the insurance sector. It brings advanced risk modeling and simulation capability, including dependency and correlation modeling, to the corporate sector. This process enables clients to significantly reduce risk while lowering costs.

Kevin Snowdon, Regional Director, Risk & Analytics, Asia, said “With the challenging environment today, the ability to combine analytics with industry data to better understand risk at a portfolio level is of upmost importance. This deeper understanding of the correlations of risk, especially for large and complex risk portfolios, helps organisations to identify better ways to reduce volatility by leveraging the benefits of diversification. It provides a decision framework for companies to select alternative strategies to dynamically respond to the ever-changing business environment. This optimisation can lead to a 10 to 30% reduction in risk and/or insurance cost savings per year.”

Connected Risk Intelligence identifies how to take advantage of market inefficiencies providing the ability for clients to optimise the balance between retained and transferred risk across a broad range of risks that affect their business.  It is an innovative approach which provides clients with a broad understanding of their risk portfolio to enable better informed decisions about their risk finance strategy in aggregate rather than within traditional line of business silos. This process reduces volatility, improves costs and ultimately liberates capital for better uses. It aims to transform the perception of risk management from a cost center to a value center.

John Merkovsky, Head of Risk and Analytics at Willis Towers Watson, added “’Today’s risk manager and CFO have only been able to view risk financing as individual transactions, compartmentalised by line of business. Connected Risk Intelligence is a combination of advanced modeling technology and our own optimisation expertise which will revolutionise the way organisations view risk management. By using Connected Risk Intelligence, we can help clients identify the combination of solutions that move their overall risk finance portfolio to the Efficient Frontier and exploit arbitrage opportunities along the way.  For the first time, companies can have absolute certainty that their risk strategy is exactly right for their business and that they are paying precisely what they need allowing effective capital deployment elsewhere.”

Connected Risk Intelligence is available for large corporate clients with complex risk portfolios.

Union Minister Mahendra Pandey Lays Foundation Stone for Indian Institute of Skills, Mumbai

Key Highlights

»        IISs in line with Institutes of Eminence including IITs and IIMs
»        Tata Group to invest Rs. 300 crore in setting up the 4.5 acres campus at Sion
»        IIS aims to enroll 5,000 students per year with campus placement of 70% trainees

In the quest to make India the Skill Capital of the World, Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, Minister for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), today laid the foundation stone of Indian Institute of Skills (IIS) at Mumbai to provide skill training in highly specialized areas to students who want to pursue technical education after completing Class X and Class XII, making them employable and industry ready for the New India and the global market. The vision behind setting up IIS was to build world-class skill training centres in line with reputed educational institutes like Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institution of Management (IIM), with first-hand learning facilities from internationally renowned existing skill institutions.

Amarjeet Mishra, MoS status Vice-Chairman of Maharashtra Film, Stage & Cultural Development Corporation Ltd (MFSCDCL), Shri Mangesh M Kudalkar, MLA (Kurla Constituency); Shri Malik Abdul Rashid (Kaptan), Corporator; Shri Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Tata Sons; Mr. AM Naik, Chairman, National Skill Development Corporation & Group Chairman, Larsen & Toubro Limited; Shri KP Krishnan, Secretary, MSDE and other senior officers of MSDE were also present at the inauguration of the IIS.

Tata Education Development Trust (TEDT) was selected as the private partner for setting up IIS at NSTI campus in Mumbai through a competitive bidding process. The Tata Group is investing about Rs. 300 crore in the 4.5 acres campus that aims to bring best-in-class infrastructure and facilities to students. The aim of the Institute is to ensure that 5000 trainees will be passing out every year with 70% placement opportunities.

The Union Cabinet had given its nod to set up Indian Institute of Skills (IISs) in three locations of the country — Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Kanpur, to give wings to the Skill India Mission. These institutes will be constructed & operated on a PPP (Public-Private Partnership) model and in not-for-profit basis.

Envisaged as world-class skill training center imbibing best practices from internationally renowned existing skill institutions, the institute will facilitate learnings and trainings through strong industry connect in both public and private sectors. The courses in this institute will include modern training methodologies using digital and augmented learning platforms. It is also an important step towards promoting apprenticeship-embedded courses and offering higher order qualifications leading up to certificates, diplomas and even degrees in conjunction with universities.

Inaugurating the institute, Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, Hon’ble Union Minister for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, said, “The concept of Indian Institute of Skills (IIS) was envisaged by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji himself when he had visited the Vocational Education and Training Center in Singapore. It is under his able guidance and direction that this institute will be on the lines of the IITs and the IIMs that we have in our country. It will aspire to earn a similar reputation, stature and world-class infrastructure to cater to the demands of the international market and modern requirements. Just like how we are now being known for ‘Make in India’, soon we will be known for ‘Skilled in India’ as well.

The driving force behind setting up a state-of-the-art training institution like the Indian Institute of Skills (IISs) is to help candidates equip themselves with marketable skills. There is a need to build a skilled workforce equipped with the required skillsets to meet the demand of Industry 4.0, powered by technology like automation, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, cyber technology, energy conservation etc. The skill scenario is changing world over, and these institutes will keep us competitive. The setting up of the institute in Mumbai will also cater to aspirations of the youth of Maharashtra eager to become a part of the new-age industrial economy,” he added.

The Government has provided land to the private partner for a period of 25 years for the institute, with comprehensive project reviews every 5 years mapping performance outcome.

Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons extended his best wishes on the foundation ceremony and said that Tata is privileged to be a part of a project conceptualized by the  Prime Minister, himself. He said that jobs are critical for economic growth and with the current demographic dividend, skill development is the appropriate solution to get the youth productively employed. He said that we need to ensure that latest market relevant skills are imparted to make the youth ready for jobs of the future.

Along with the foundation laying ceremony, the dignitaries also undertook tree plantation today at the National Skill Training Institute campus in Mumbai.

Tata Motors Introduces Pentacare Warranty Package for Tata Harrier

Tata Motors has announced the launch of Pentacare Warranty- an extended 5-year warranty package for customers of its flagship SUV– the Tata Harrier. The announcement of this exciting package comes soon after the launch of the Dark Edition Harrier earlier this month.  As compared to the initial 2-year warranty package, this product extends the timeline of the warranty package on the Harrier upto 5 years for unlimited kilometres mileage to provide complete peace of mind. This product is available for purchase at a special price of INR 25,960 within 90 days of the purchase of the SUV.                                                                                                 

The package covers important maintenance services of the critical parts such as the engine and engine management system, air conditioning system, transmission system and gear box, fuel system and fuel pump, driver information system and many more. Additionally, any maintenance related to the malfunctioning of the clutch and suspension will now be covered up to 50,000 kms.

Commenting on the introduction of yet another exceptional customer friendly package, Mr. SN Barman, Vice President, Sales, Marketing & Customer Support, Passenger Vehicle Business Unit (PVBU), Tata Motors said, “In line with our endeavour to provide our customers with excellent services on their purchased TML products, we are delighted to introduce the 5-year Pentacare warranty package for the Tata Harrier. This package covers almost all major maintenance services for the Harrier and aims to provide our customers complete peace of mind during their ownership experience of Harrier. We hope that our customers will appreciate this service and give us an opportunity to continue to provide them with exceptional customer support in the future.”

The Harrier, which is built on the OMEGARC and derived from Land Rover's legendary D8 platform, is the perfect combination of stunning design and excellent performance. Powered by cutting-edge Kryotec 2.0 Diesel engine and Advanced Terrain Response Modes, Harrier assures an exhilarating performance on the toughest of terrains.

India’s Pulp Strategy Develops a Product for US-Based InCom Mail to Send Personalized Items to Loved Ones Posted on the Line of Duty

If you are one of those who get emotional while watching those surprise military reunion videos, read on. Pulp Strategy, India’s largest independent agency in the digital communications and technology space, acquired the mandate to develop and market a product for InCom Mail that allows users in the USA to send heartfelt messages to their loved ones posted far away on the line of duty.

The product, which is Android, iOS and Web native, aims to bring back the touch of heartfelt communication into people’s lives with the help of technology and allow users to truly convey their messages in a manner that is extremely personal, creative and filled with warmth. Users can and send personalized postcards, greeting cards, picture letters, high quality photos, books, magazines, and more to your loved ones.

InCom Mail is the recent product developed under Pulp Strategy’s Product development and marketing suite of services dedicated for start-ups. The product was developed by Pulp Strategy post sustained discussion with the client team, who wished to enable families of defense personnel connect with them in the most emphatic manner.

Jessica Stewart, Co-Founder and Director of Marketing, InCom Mail said, “In the LOL, emoji, TTYL and 160-character tweet generation, the care, love and scope of language as an effective emotional communication tool is getting lost somewhere. Today, instead of laughing out loud, we just type it, or worse, share an emoticon. Our vision is to rekindle the traditional ways of communications with the help of modern technology, in the same old heartfelt and personalized way. We live in a world where our brave soldiers and offshore troops may not have access to simple joys which we take for granted, the graduation of their daughter or the 1st ball game from their sons league, the prom, the 1st birthday or a mothers day card. InCom Mail makes these little joys possible. We are re-bonding families by enabling them to send out these moments easily from their phones and the printed communication reaches their soldier where ever she or he is posted across the globe. That printed letter on the desk, or in his pocket, while a soldier is thousands of miles away it makes the world of a difference, it is priceless”.

Jessica Stewart further added, “Pulp Strategy realized this idea perfectly, and the end result has become something, which we are extremely proud of. Through diverse customization options in terms of content, font, background and the option to transform virtual messages into something tangible, such as a greeting card, a letter or other items, users can give form to their feelings and shape to the precious memories and moments. The team is extremely professional and has enabled us to shape the product idea into a beautiful product. In addition to the product they have built our brand and guidelines as well in the marketing of InCom Mail.”

ABB India, NITTTR Sign MoU to Setup the First-of-its-Kind Digital Simulation Lab in Chandigarh

The first-of-its-kind multi-physics ‘Simulation Center of Excellence’ (SCoE) in the country will enhance skill development for critical electro-mechanical equipment design and manufacturing, catalyzing ‘Make in India’ for the students and the faculty members of the institute.

ABB signed the MoU with NITTTR, a flagship institute under the aegis of the Ministry of Human Resource Development and one of the initial four institutes, set up in the country to realize the need for training better quality technical manpower to meet the large-scale industrialization of the country. The funding for the project is part of ABB India’s CSR initiative.

‘The Simulation Centre of Excellence’ has added another feather in the cap of educational hub of Chandigarh and Mohali, having institutes of repute ranging from business schools to state of the art research institutions. Chandigarh and its adjoining areas have also become a sought-after destination also for outsourcing industries.

Students from electrical and mechanical engineering department of the institute have been working with ABB on online remote condition monitoring of motors and issues of motor casings. Though the SCoE was established with focus on electromechanical systems, the high-performance computing feature of workstations in SCoE has also been used by students of Computer Science Department of NITTTR for their post graduate thesis work in the domain of Machine Learning.

“A combination of knowledge and expertise developed through the right skilling initiatives would be key to take the Indian economy to the next level of growth. ABB India over decades has been working on various initiatives to catalyze teaching, learning and skill development on best in class global technology and practices,” said Sanjeev Sharma, Managing Director, ABB India. “We are happy that our partnership with NITTTR, one of the oldest institutes of technical training in the country, has made the first of its kind digital simulation lab operational in the emerging educational hub of Chandigarh. Such digital infrastructure in the academia will be the stepping stone to prepare future generations to navigate technology disruptions across the industry,” he added.

“The upgraded computing, simulation and analysis facilities available in SCoE has brought opportunities for NITTTR students and faculty for research of complex industrial systems. With the availability of SCoE infrastructure, NITTTR faculty has been able to introduce new short-term courses in the domain of Finite Element Analysis for the technical teachers,” said Prof. Shyam Sundar Pattnaik, Director, NITTTR. “Thus, SCoE has a cascading effect in improving the quality of technical education system through state-of-the-art learning tools. NITTTR, Chandigarh through SCoE will address the industrial requirements as well as provide an opportunity to the faculty and research scholars to work on real-life for industrial projects and latest technologies of digitalization like machine learning and latest computer aided engineering software,” he added.

High-end computing workstations and complete suites of ANSYS & COMSOL Multiphysics software for the SCoE were procured. Some of the sophisticated Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) software such as ADSTEFAN (for casting simulation), Simufact (for forming & forging simulation), KissSoft (for gear design) etc. were also ported on the high-end workstations for enhancing the efficiency of simulation and provide superior learning experience for the students.

The focus on clean energy and digitalization in the manufacturing and energy sector has also led to higher demand for superior quality, connected and innovatively designed products and solutions for the domestic and international markets. Optimal and robust design of electro-mechanical equipment in the current context is guided by the recent advances in computing machines, parallel processing and simulation tools. Proliferation of advanced automation, digitalization with industry 4.0 has also revolutionized the world of digital product designs and prototypes with digital twins, 3D modelling, robotics on the foundation of thermal, mechanical and electromagnetics.

Trend Micro Hosts Discussions Around Hybrid Cloud Security and Detection and Response During CLOUDSEC India 2019

CLOUDSEC, the leading global cybersecurity conference, will take place in Mumbai on October 10th, 2019. Hosted by Trend Micro Incorporated, CLOUDSEC India 2019 provides an avenue for enterprises and organizations to discuss and collectively address issues such as the increasingly complex cyberattacks, shifting IT environments, and the upcoming industry trends and morphing threat landscape, with this year’s theme being ‘Picture This! See. Secure. Go further’.

The cybersecurity landscape continues to introduce challenges amid exciting new technologies. Organizations need to see order in chaos, see things from a different perspective, and even step back to see the big picture. Having visibility through the power of collective and connected intelligence helps businesses build cyber resilience and allows them to go further and do more. CLOUDSEC offers a platform for industry professionals to convene and share best practices and insights to combat cyber threats.

The day-long event will feature an interesting keynote, engaging theme-based sessions, and fireside chat and breakout sessions. At CLOUDSEC India 2019, some featured speakers include:

Nilesh Jain, Vice President, Southeast Asia and India, Trend Micro
Ramachandra Hegde, SVP, CISO, Genpact
Sriram Lakshmanan, Vice President, Cybersecurity Assurance, Genpact
Brijesh Datta, Vice President and CISO, Reliance Jio Infocomm
Mathan Babu Kasilingam, CISO, NPCI
Venkatesh Subramaniam, Global CISO, Olam International

Commenting on the event, Nilesh Jain says, “It is important for the enterprises to have broader visibility of the risks and detect more complex attacks that otherwise remain unnoticed. Endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools have been available for a while, and many organizations have adopted the technology. While absolutely necessary, EDR is no longer sufficient to meet the requirement of faster detection and response. The industry is now moving to XDR - the ability to detect and respond across email, endpoint, server, cloud workloads, and network via a single platform or managed service. Trend Micro recently became the first to deliver XDR across all these vectors.”

Leading cloud service providers - Amazon Web Services (AWS) and VMware will join the event as platinum sponsors and share their insights on securing various types of cloud environments. At the event, Trend Micro researchers will also be sharing findings and insights around emerging threats. During the event, Trend Micro will showcase demos of their newly launched XDR technology.

CLOUDSEC India 2018 saw close to 750 participants in total. With 18 speakers, 85 CIOs, and 402 companies gracing the event last year, it was a huge success.

JLL Spark Invests in Qdesq, India’s Leading Digital Broking & Co-Working Technology Platform

Silicon Valley-based venture capital arm of JLL, JLL Spark, has invested an undisclosed amount in India’s largest flex-space technology platform, Qdesq. Through this investment, the proptech focused fund has marked its first India focused investment, it said in a statement today.

Founded in 2015 by Paras Arora and Lavesh Bhandari, Qdesq is a digital platform that allows companies to transact flexible workspaces, managed workplaces, virtual offices and individual offices. The company lists India’s largest inventory of available flex spaces in near real t ime and currently transacts one desk every 20 minutes on behalf of corporates looking to avoid locking themselves into long term leases. At present, Qdesq has approximately 2,200 centres, lists over 500,000 desks in near real time, covering the top 35 Indian cities and has rapidly emerged as a dominant distribution channel for co-working operators like WeWork, 91Springboard, AWFIS, Regus, Smartworks, Innov8 and Oyo.

With this investment, the company plans to invest heavily into the analytics capabilities of its technology platform to allow enterprises to better self-solution their futur e real estate footprint and to allow commercial asset owners to create viable co-working and flex spaces within commercial complexes.

“The investment in Qdesq taps into the growth opportunity that the flexible workspace segment offers. JLL’s strong corporate relationships across the globe, combined with Qdesq’s technology platform and preferred partnerships with flex space operators, will help us provide a more comprehensive solution to our clients across 35 cities in India,” said Ramesh Nair, CEO & Country Head – India, JLL.

Demand from corporates, startups and entrepreneurs in India has resulted in a huge jump in the co-working share in total office leasing. According to a JLL study, the share of co-working office leasing has risen to 15 percent in the first six months (January to June) of 2019 from the 8 percent level seen in 2018. The segment has absorbed 10.1 mn square feet of cumulative space since 2017 to the first half of 2019, according to the findings.

“Qdesq sits at the cusp of one of the largest disruptions in commercial real estate. Companies are no longer interested in inefficient leases with long lock-ins. Businesses are increasingly looking for the flexibility to easily expand or contract their footprint. With their comprehensive inventory of real time availability of managed spaces, Qdesq is able to dramatically reduce the lead-time to occupancy for companies,” said Anuj Nangpal, Asia Pacific Lead, JLL Spark.

As per JLL estimates, currently there are approximately 325 to 330 flexible workspace operators in the top seven cities in India. The study finds that the average size of transactions in the co-working segment increased from 37,000 square ft in 2017 to 52,000 sq ft in 2018 and further to 97,000 sq ft in the first half of 2019.

“The average time it takes to close a fixed time lease today is anywhere between three and six months. In comparison, Qdesq is able to close even large enterprise occupancy requirements within days. Our transaction volumes have been growing over 400 percent year-on-year and, with our shared vision with JLL, the opportunity is to scale the platform across Asia,” said Paras Arora, Co-founder of Qdesq. The company recently launched in the Philippines and plans to be present in most of Asia’s gateway cities in the near term.

Qdesq has solutioned real estate occupancy requirements for a wide variety of clients ranging from super high growth te chnology companies like Zomato, Phonepe and Zerodha to more established corporates like Bank of Baroda, Nagarro and Hyundai. India is one of the largest potential markets for co-working spaces in Asia, second only to China.

NA Shah Associates and Fortitude Law were advisors to the transaction.