Samsung Opera House In B'lore Celebrates One-Year Anniversary

The world’s largest mobile experience centre – Samsung Opera House -- is today celebrating its one-year anniversary. To mark this occasion, the iconic building located in the heart of Bengaluru hosted a fashion show by Prasad Bidapa and performance by local band Best Kept Secret for tech enthusiasts, influencers and socialites.

The century-old building, over the last year, has emerged as a hot-spot for tech enthusiasts in Bengaluru and across India. Built in the 1930’s, the property has had many avatars. From being a venue for Operas and dances to a famous movie theater and finally shutting down. It stood idle, until Samsung decided to restore this iconic heritage building to its former glory and give it a new avatar, as the Samsung Opera House. 

Samsung Opera House – The Melting Pot

Today, Samsung Opera House is a technology, culture and millennial hub that has hosted over 60 events in the last one year alone. Over the last one year, the unique experiential store has held many events with the biggest being the launch of Samsung’s flagship smartphone Galaxy Note10. It has become a cultural hub as events such as Galaxy workshops, music gigs, start-up talk shows and cultural music and dance performances have been organized here. Social media platforms like Instagram had also conducted a workshop on how to shoot food-related videos. These events have quickly placed SOH in the cultural map of Bengaluru where people have been witnessing a unique blending of culture and technology.

On the technology front, there’s much more to SOH than just mobile phones. Besides becoming a go-to place for people of Bengaluru to unwind and experience innovation, the largest mobile experience center has a VR Experience Zone, gaming and fitness zones where one can play high definition games like FIFA 2018, PUBG, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive among others and finally the latest addition, the IoT Zone. It even has simulated rides for the tech-adventure seekers.

The IoT zone is where Samsung demonstrates its unique ability to seamlessly ‘connect’ consumer experiences across Samsung devices. The zone is a contemporary representation of ‘connected living’ -- connecting devices over the internet and letting them ‘talk’ to each other using mobile applications.

One Glorious Year

To celebrate this success and mark the occasion, a fashion show by designer Prasad Bidapa showcasing his collection under the theme of ‘blend of fashion and technology’ was hosted at Samsung Opera House on Thursday. The evening didn’t just end there as the audience grooved to the music of popular local band – Best Kept Secret. The performance went into the night as everyone celebrated the iconic building’s one-year anniversary.

A millennial hub, a techie’s paradise or an architecture enthusiast’s greatest find – Samsung Opera House has become the destination to go to in Bengaluru. As Samsung Opera House completes one year, it celebrated becoming a place where like-minded people connect and experience innovative technology at its best.

ServiceNow Introduces an Employee Service Experience Delivery App

ServiceNow has announced its HR Service Delivery product is available on SAP App Center, the digital marketplace for SAP partner offerings. The announcement was made at SuccessConnect, the annual conference for SAP SuccessFactors customers being held September 16 – 18, 2019 in Las Vegas.

According to a recent ServiceNow research report, nearly half of employees struggle to get information and answers to basic work‑related questions, thus hindering workplace productivity. According to the research, employees want their experiences at work to be more like their experiences at home – like having mobile technology at their fingertips to make finding information and accomplishing tasks simple, easy and convenient.

ServiceNow’s employee workflows, powered by the Now Platform, help organizations simplify everyday work tasks for employees. Customers deploying core HR technologies to digitally transform their organizations will have more choice in how they provide HR services depending on their needs and strategy; they will also be able to deliver a unified employee service experience that not only moves beyond HR, but also cuts across, IT, and other departments. HR departments will be able to drive great employee experiences for critical moments in the employee journey, such as onboarding, that might begin in HR, but require additional services from departments such as IT, facilities, or security to ensure a successful first day start.

“Employees want great experiences at work, using technology that helps them easily get stuff done,” said Blake McConnell, ServiceNow’s senior vice president of Employee Workflows. “While great employee service experiences often are led by human resources, they typically require cross‑functional coordination and collaboration across IT, facilities, finance and legal. ServiceNow makes cross‑functional enterprise workflows simple and easy. With SAP SuccessFactors, we’re making great experiences and greater productivity across the enterprise possible.”

“Employees want to spend more time delivering value to themselves and to their employers, and less time navigating administrative hurdles,” said Steve Goldberg, Ventana Research’s vice president and research director for HCM. “This means the technology they use daily must simplify and empower them. Both ServiceNow and SAP SuccessFactors provide robust solutions for removing friction for employees, and their complementary product capabilities will be better equipped to meet employees where they are in their journeys.”

Organizations will be able to:

·         Access their ServiceNow and SAP SuccessFactors to‑do’s, tasks and approvals anytime, anywhere via an omni‑channel service experience with ServiceNow Virtual Agent and Now Mobile app.
·         Deliver great employee service experiences for tasks or moments that might begin in HR, but require additional services from departments like IT, finance, legal, or facilities to complete.
·         Get efficient service in ServiceNow because service teams have access to pertinent employee work‑related data from SAP SuccessFactors.

ServiceNow recently announced the general availability of its Now Platform New York release, which allows customers to leverage the power of ServiceNow with SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite.

The SAP App Center provides customers with real‑time access to more than 1,900 innovative partner solutions that complement and extend their SAP solutions, enabling digital transformation of their business. SAP App Center customers can buy solutions directly from partners and centrally manage purchases, billing and vendor communications.

UL and Underwriters Laboratories Announce New Leadership Succession

UL and parent company Underwriters Laboratories today announced that, after 15 years of service, Keith Williams has decided to retire as president and CEO. Mr. Williams will continue to support each organization through an interim period to ensure a smooth transition.

The UL Board of Directors has appointed Jennifer Scanlon as president and CEO of UL and a member of the UL Board of Directors, effective September 30, 2019. Ms. Scanlon most recently served as president, CEO and a director of USG Corporation, a 116-year-old innovative building products manufacturer and one of UL’s oldest clients. Over her 16-year career at USG, Ms. Scanlon led the company through some of its most significant strategic moves, including establishing the global joint venture, USG Boral Building Products, and divesting L&W Supply. In 2018, she negotiated the sale of USG to Knauf for $7 billion, which represented a 76 percent premium to the Company’s stock price compared to when Ms. Scanlon was named CEO. The transaction closed April 24, 2019. She is the first woman to serve as president and CEO of UL.

James Shannon, chair of the UL Board of Directors and of the Underwriters Laboratories Board of Trustees, said, “Jenny brings exceptional integrity, experience, talent and technology expertise to UL. A Chicago-area native, Jenny also has a global perspective that is certain to benefit UL having previously led USG’s 8,000 employees around the world. Given her dedication to safety and innovation and her demonstrated success in growing a global business, we are confident she is the right leader for UL at this time.”

“It is an honor to be joining UL as technological advances continue to drive dramatic changes in UL’s clients’ operations,” said Ms. Scanlon. “As a mission driven organization with a record of innovation, UL is in a unique position to assist our clients in enabling the safe adoption of their products. I look forward to working with UL’s 14,000 talented associates around the world to advance our capabilities and build on UL’s 125-year legacy of safety and trust.”

Underwriters Laboratories also announced that its board of trustees has appointed Terrence Brady, currently president of Underwriters Laboratories, as president and CEO of Underwriters Laboratories, effective January 1, 2020, upon Mr. Williams’ retirement from that role. Mr. Brady will continue to lead the transformation of the 125-year-old non-profit organization to become the world’s leading safety science research and standards development institution.

Mr. Shannon continued, “Given Terry’s strong track record at our organization, we know that he will continue to be a significant asset as the new president and CEO of Underwriters Laboratories. At Underwriters Laboratories, Terry has excelled in all of his leadership positions, helping to develop our strategy and drive its execution. Terry’s first-hand knowledge of Underwriters Laboratories, its history, mission and opportunities will serve Underwriters Laboratories and its stakeholders well.”

Mr. Brady said, “For 125 years, Underwriters Laboratories has strived to instill trust through the science of safety. I am excited to build on this heritage as president and CEO to further the trust in our organization, which will remain key to our success. Ground-breaking safety research, standards development and outreach all continue to be priorities as we look to collaborate with our stakeholders to make the world a safer place.”

Speaking about Mr. Williams’s tenure at and retirement from UL and Underwriters Laboratories, Mr. Shannon said, “In his 15 years with our organization, Keith has made significant, long-lasting contributions that have enabled us to successfully extend our safety mission around the world. Today, UL and Underwriters Laboratories each benefit from a strong operating foundation to support their respective growth and leadership well into the future. We wish Keith the best in his retirement and also offer our deep gratitude for his dedication and service to UL and Underwriters Laboratories.”

Mr. Williams said, “I am proud of all that we have accomplished over the past years and thank the outstanding associates across UL and Underwriters Laboratories who have joined me in transforming – and strengthening – our organization. I pass the baton to the next generation of leadership knowing that we are better positioned than ever to help advance innovation and solve the critical safety, quality, security and sustainability challenges around the world.”

Tata Motors Partners with what3words - Redefines Navigation with Just 3 Words

Tata Motors, India’s largest automobile manufacturer today announced its partnership with the innovative location technology provider, what3words. Tata Motors will be the first manufacturer in India to bring what3words addressing system in its cars.

In a first for the Indian automotive industry, the partnership with Tata Motors and what3words will enable car-drivers to enter a 3 word address by voice or text input, and then navigate to the accurate address within 3 meters of the destination location. This is especially relevant in the Indian context, where addresses are non-standard and complex network of roads make it difficult for last-mile navigation. This accurate & unique 3 word-addressing system will make the last-mile navigation simple, safe, hassle-free and less time-consuming for the Indian customers. The what3words system is available in 36 languages, including 5 Indian languages: Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi.  The addition of these new native languages means that what3words will be making this technology more accessible for the Indian consumers.

Commenting on this partnership, Mr. Mayank Pareek, President - Passenger Vehicle Business Unit (PVBU), Tata Motors said, “Tata Motors is proud to be the first automaker in India to collaborate with what3words. With this collaboration, our customers will now be able to navigate to accurate 3-word addresses represented by what3words; offering a clear solution to a very visible problem related to the non-standard traditional address system. The three-word addressing will not only provide a more seamless navigation experience, but will also increase efficiency with drivers not spending a lot of time locating their destinations and reaching the precise location (within 3m of space) with minimum hassle and effort. Globally, the what3words technology comes as a unique offering only in the premium car models, but customers can expect this groundbreaking technology to feature in our mainstream line-up of products very soon.”

“India has a rapidly growing economy, but like many other countries, it still suffers from the big three infrastructural challenges - the unbanked, the unconnected and the unaddressed,” said Chris Sheldrick, what3words CEO and Co-Founder. “Our partnership with Tata Motors will begin to change this, as together, our impact will expand across humanitarian, travel, e-commerce - and of course automobile industries. This will also be a breakthrough for the tourism industry as it will make travelling very convenient for incoming tourists.’’

With the increase in the usage and ownership of smartphone devices across the country and India’s rapid growing economy, the need for a sophisticated location technology has never been more pronounced. The varying regional address formats across the country, its oft unnamed streets and localities coupled with more often than not buildings with no numbers, further compound this problem. To solve this real-world issue, what3words has taken the entire world, divided it into 3mx3m squares, and assigned each square a unique identifier - made of three random words.  For example, Gateway of India can be found at ///holiday.surpises.design.

With the what3words technology, a 3 word address can simply be entered into the car navigation system, manually or via speech recognition. To prevent errors, every 3 word address is unique, and similar addresses are located far apart to avoid confusion. Additionally, the intelligent AutoSuggest feature helps drivers to spot and correct their mistakes immediately and effortlessly redirects them to the accurate address.

The latest version of what3words will be available in the upcoming products by Tata Motors in future. Customers will be able to download the what3words application for free via iOS and Android platforms. The easy adoption is what has made what3words a popular tool for businesses around the world and has helped them improve their customer experience and enhance efficiency, while reducing expenses and environmental impact. 

Eightfold.ai Appoints Sandesh Goel as MD of New India Office

Eightfold.ai, the creator of the Talent Intelligence Platform, has announced the appointment of Sandesh Goel as Managing Director for India operations. This senior leadership appointment follows a period of significant growth, with enterprise customers added on four continents, significant partnership announcements, and a Series C fundraise that brings the total investment in Eightfold.ai to over US$55 million.

Eightfold.ai India, under the supervision of Sandesh would be providing Eightfold AI platform to India enterprise businesses. Sandesh is responsible for driving Eightfold business operations across the country.

With this expansion of the senior management team in India, Ashutosh Garg, CEO & Co-founder at Eightfold.ai said, "Sandesh Goel brings a wealth of team building, customer and sales management experience and valuable knowledge to the team here at Eightfold.ai. He is a valuable asset to our organization. With Sandesh on board, we are confident of expanded outreach in India and across the region."

Sandesh spent his first 10 years of his career in the US, building innovative products and teaming up with other renowned engineers. Over the next 12 years, he was bootstrapping and leading high performance IT teams for various companies. He has more than 65 issued US patents in the area of wireless networking and has driven key technology initiatives at Marvell, Cisco, Aruba HPE, and many startups. Being among 0.001% of the top folks in IIT Entrance examination, he holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from IIT-Delhi and a Masters degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

"Right talent is critical for any organization. Throughout my career, I have learnt that a great hire can make all the positive difference and a bad hire can be a huge drain on companies' time and revenue. When I first heard about what Eightfold.ai does, a lot of the concepts resonated with the way I often felt and simply wanted to be a part of this potential hiring", said Sandesh Goel, Managing Director at Eightfold.ai. "I am quite excited and honored to undertake this new role. I look forward to working with a team of tech enthusiasts, all driven towards a common goal of integrating the latest technologies like AI to re-define HR operations."

"Artificial intelligence has already started automating numerous repetitive processes smart work by analyzing big data to identify and leverage new opportunities in almost all sectors. As HR is a strategic business function, we believe there is a vast scope to adapt to newer technologies. AI can drastically transform the way the HR industry operates. And that's exactly what Eightfold.ai is committed to", added Mr. Goel.

Built by co-founders Ashutosh Garg and Varun Kacholia, distinguished engineers out of Google and Facebook, Eightfold.ai's 'Talent Intelligence Platform' empowers enterprises to solve the major challenge faced by chief executives and chief human resource officers today - hiring and retaining top talent.

QuEST Global to Launch Asset Management and Performance Monitoring Platform Eagle 2.0 at Gastech

QuEST Global, a global product engineering and lifecycle services company, will launch Eagle 2.0, an end-to-end customizable open source platform to enhance asset management and performance monitoring at Gastech Exhibition and Conference in Houston, Texas, USA. The platform will help key players in the Oil & Gas and Power industries to realize benefits of connected assets and connected factories by aggregating data from various disparate sub-systems, remote devices and multi-sites. The customizable Eagle 2.0 framework, which can be integrated with third-party platforms, will be demonstrated at Stand # S300 from September 17 - 19, 2019.

Eagle 2.0 is a next-gen cloud-based multi-site data integration framework that will enable users to realize digital use cases for agile operations. The framework will help the oil majors, oilfield service companies (OFS), original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their suppliers in Oil & Gas and Power industries to handle diverse data, in terms of volume, velocity, variety and veracity, making it a powerful foundation for full-fledged asset management and maintenance. Depending on industry requirements and use cases, the Eagle 2.0 can be easily integrated with new age technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

To help the Oil & Gas and Power industries, the Eagle 2.0 framework has two parts in it - the Eagle Edge and Eagle Cloud. With the help of Eagle Edge, a powerful local data aggregation hub, users can interface and capture data from all devices in the field and can ingest the data to Eagle Cloud or any other standard cloud platform. The customized versions of this cloud based remote monitoring platform can be implemented to address application/industry specific data integration requirements such as Oil & Gas plant asset management, monitoring of micro-grid & smart grid, transmission & distribution networks, substations and factory equipment.

Arun Pai, President, New Business Development, QuEST Global said, “While the current wave of digital disruption is sweeping through the Energy industry, operators are still grappling with the same old set of complex market dynamics. The highly customizable and vendor agnostic Eagle 2.0 framework will help oil majors, oilfield service (OFS) companies, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their suppliers in the industry address various engineering challenges with the help of data engineering and ensure greater efficiency and accuracy. We strongly believe the Eagle 2.0 will support the digital transformation journey of organizations for both their global and regional presence.”

QuEST Global has more than two decades of experience with highly skilled and industry specific engineers around the globe across the complete product lifecycle, helping our clients develop better products, establish new markets and improve efficiency and quality. Using next-generation technologies such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), cloud and edge computing, augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence, big data and predictive analytics, QuEST aims to enable key players in the Oil & Gas and Power industries accelerate product development and reduce cost throughout the product lifecycle.

CX Leader HGS Unveils HGS Digital to Provide Intelligent Innovation Solutions for Enterprise Clients

Hinduja Global Solutions Ltd. (HGS) launched HGS Digital, a new practice  focused on providing high-end digital strategy and transformative digital-first solutions. HGS Digital aims to be the top facilitator for leading disruptive change in the consumer journey, and transforms organizations into digital innovators by combining deep domain expertise in customer care with digital analytics, marketing technology and advanced technologies like cloud, intelligent  automation and artificial intelligence.

"We pride ourselves on being brilliant at the basics and providing advanced customer engagement solutions using intelligent innovation,” said Partha DeSarkar, Global CEO, HGS. “With HGS Digital, we advance our capabilities well beyond traditional care to eCare transformation that will benefit the CIO, CTO and CMO as well and provide more holistic digital experience solutions along the entire consumer journey.”

HGS Digital will build upon the award winning DigiCX® value proposition and set of transformative solutions, leveraging HGS domain expertise to address industry specific challenges across the stages of the consumer journey. HGS Digital is helping:

* Retailers convert more browsers to buyers.
* Consumer packaged goods brands grow their direct to consumer sales platform.
* Healthcare payers simplify the care experience while reducing claims exceptions and waste.
* Travel companies automate and simplify bookings and reservation changes to create more loyal repeat buyers.
* Fortune 100 companies build positive online reputations with HGS EPIC™ Social Care.

As a leader in Customer Experience (CX), HGS is constantly innovating to meet the needs of today’s consumers.

“We have made significant technology-led investments in making our clients more competitive,” said Natarajan Radhakrishnan, President and Chief Innovation Officer, HGS. “The HGS Digital practice will leverage our global talent, domain expertise and solutions to help unlock the potential of digital transformation”.

HGS Digital combines HGS’ deep customer engagement expertise and leading-edge technology to provide clients with digital transformation solutions that create a measurable business impact.

"Our focus is developing strategic solutions that help our partners create memorable customer experiences. The launch of HGS Digital is an important evolution on this journey,” said Venk Korla, CEO,

Element Solutions &  Head - HGS Digital. “HGS Digital creates the frictionless digital experiences that our clients seek and their customers expect. We thrive on tackling complex business problems in ways that deliver business results and epic customer experiences."