Altroz, India's New Premium Hatch Unveiled with Gold Standard in Safety, Design, Technology and Driving Experience

Key highlights:

* GNCAP 5-star rated Altroz (India’s safest car in its category) enters the premium hatch segment
* Altroz is Industry 1st, fully BSVI ready diesel hatchback

Marking its entry into the premium hatchback segment, Tata Motors today launched – the Altroz. The Altroz will be available in five trim levels across all Tata Motors authorized dealerships at an introductory price starting from INR 5.29 lakhs for the petrol version and INR 6.99 lakhs for the diesel version.

The Altroz is the first vehicle developed on the new ALFA architecture and the second vehicle showing the Impact 2.0 design language. With its striking design, bouquet of industry-first features and the most recent achievement of Global NCAP 5-star rating, it has set the GOLD Standard in Safety, Design, Driving Dynamics, Technology and Customer Delight. All set to entice customers, Altroz will come with 6 different factory-fitted customizable options.

According to Mr. Vivek Srivatsa, Head - Marketing, Passenger Vehicle Business Unit, Tata Motors, “We are delighted to announce the launch of our premium hatchback – The Tata Altroz. The Altroz is already a product that we are proud of as it is the second Tata as well as Indian car, to have received a 5-star Global NCAP rating. It is a landmark product and is a true representative of the Gold Standard in Safety, Design, Technology, Driving Dynamics and Customer Delight. We are confident that this product will not only deliver the best driving experience to our customers, but also set new benchmarks as we set foot into the premium hatchback segment.”

Gold Standard of Safety

The Altroz sets the Gold Standard in safety with its 5 Star Global NCAP rating. The car comes with best-in-class safety features such as Advanced ALFA Architecture, ABS, EBD & CSC as standard and Dual Airbags. This comprehensive safety system along with the energy absorbing ALFA architecture ensures that the occupants of the Tata Altroz are recipients of world-class safety.

Gold Standard of Design

Based on the Impact 2.0 design philosophy, the Altroz’s futuristic design consists of modern, intelligent and tastefully crafted interiors. The 90 degree opening doors ensure that there is enough space for passengers to get in and out of the vehicle. The laser cut alloy wheels and premium black piano finish on the interiors result in an unmatched road presence and help the customer arrive in style.

Gold Standard of Technology

Equipped with a 17.78 cm touchscreen Harman infotainment and class leading acoustics, the Altroz also comes with Voice command recognition, Apple Car Play, Android Auto and the Turn-by-Turn feature, ensuring a seamless experience.

Gold Standard of Driving Dynamics

With its powerful petrol and diesel engines along with a fine-tuned suspension, the Altroz truly gives the customer a dynamic driving experience. The Cruise Control feature along with multi drive modes ensure comfortable driving in the city and on the highway.

Gold Standard of Customer Delight

The flat rear floor, rear AC vents, cabin space and 24 utility spaces ensure that the driving experience is convenient and comfortable. Spacious interiors along with a wearable key fob result in a hassle free experience for the customer.

About 92% of Talent Professionals in India Say ‘People Analytics’ is Future of HR: LinkedIn Report

LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking platform, today launched the 10th annual edition of the LinkedIn Global Talent Trends 2020 report, which highlights 4 key trends that change the way organizations attract and retain talent.

The report looks at survey results from 7,000 talent professionals, platform data, and interviews with leaders to provide insight into the key topics impacting HR leaders today.

This year’s Global Talent Trends report focuses on how empathy is reshaping the way employers hire and retain talent, with companies working harder than ever to understand their employees more deeply, and better serve them. This year’s 4 key trends are:

Employee Experience
People Analytics
Internal Recruiting
Multi-Generational Workforce

Highest globally, 92% talent professionals in India consider People Analytics to pave the way for the future of HR and recruiting; and 95% of talent professionals in India believe employee experience will shape the future of HR in the coming years.

Report Highlights (includes India data and global data)

I. EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE is the new HR

The employee experience (EX) is everything an employee observes, feels, and interacts with as a part of their company. It represents a wider view of the traditional human resource function, and empathy is at its core. Talent professionals say focusing on EX increases retention and productivity, meets high expectations of younger workers, and attracts more candidates in this tight labour market. Top areas under employee experience that need fixing however are compensation and benefits and an increasing need for simplified administrative processes.

IN INDIA:

●  95% of talent professionals in India consider employee experience to shape the future of HR.
●  77% of talent professionals in India say they’re increasingly focused on employee experience to increase employee retention
●  44% of Indian respondents feel that lack of leadership’s focus and prioritization is a significant barrier to improving a company's employee experience

GLOBALLY:

●  96% of HR and TA leaders say employee experience is becoming more important
●  There’s been a 2.4X increase since 2014 of job titles on LinkedIn with “employee experience”.
●  98% of talent professionals in Australia say employee experience is crucial to HR, and are a global leader, followed by the US, Canada, UK, and Southeast Asia.

II. PEOPLE ANALYTICS GOES MAINSTREAM

Meaningful insights will inform talent decisions at every level of the recruiting cycle, and therefore understanding and capitalizing on analytics is quickly becoming a must-have skill in HR. Companies are applying data to evaluate recruiting channels, identify skills gaps, and assess talent supply and demand. Currently, companies are primarily using analytics to measure employee performance and strategic workforce planning.

IN INDIA:

●  92% talent professionals in India say people analytics will be very important in shaping the future of HR and recruiting (world average is 85%; Southeast Asia (90%) and China (89%))
●  72% of talent professionals in India currently use people analytics for measuring and improving performance in HR operations

GLOBALLY:

●  A 242% increase globally in HR professionals with data analysis skills in the past 5 years.
●  Measuring employee performance, strategic workforce planning, and identifying skills gaps are the most popular People Analytics practices currently in use and in 2025.

III. INTERNAL RECRUITING: YOUR NEXT HIRE WILL COME FROM WITHIN YOUR COMPANY

Organizations are rediscovering how cost-effective it is to recruit their own people. Workplace learning is also helping to build skills internally so there’s less need to import them from elsewhere. Top ways internal candidates are recruited are through jobs on internal job board and hiring managers reaching out to employees they know. Internal Recruiting matters because: Improves Retention; Accelerates New Hire Productivity; and Accelerates Hiring Process.

IN INDIA:

● 96% of talent professionals are placing their bets on internal recruiting to shape the future of HR and recruiting in India.
● 83% of talent professionals in India feel internal recruiting improves employee retention
● 70% of talent professionals in India say employees find internal opportunities listed on an internal job board

GLOBALLY:

●  81% of talent professionals agree that internal recruiting improves retention and better retention may be why companies with higher than average internal hiring see their employees stay 41% longer.
● According to LinkedIn data, there's been a +10% increase in internal hiring since 2015.
● 81% of talent pros agree it improves retention, 69% agree it increases productivity, and 63% agree it retains institutional knowledge.

IV. MULTI-GENERATIONAL WORKFORCE: GOOD TALENT WILL BE AGELESS

Carving out new career paths, offering flexible benefits, developing longevity strategies and promoting informal interactions across generations are some of the ways in which companies are driving a radical explosion in workforce age diversity.  While all generations value companies with purposeful missions, it’s Boomers who are most likely to call it a top priority. Gen Z, meanwhile, is most likely to value training—36% call it a top factor when considering a new job.

IN INDIA:

●  80% of talent professionals in India agree that having a diversity of generations is an important factor in recruitment efforts.
● 74% of talent professionals in India say their company will focus on recruiting millennials in the next 5 years.
●  77% of talent professionals in India surveyed feel that generational differences in management styles is a significant challenge for companies towards maintaining a multi-generational workforce.

GLOBALLY:

● 89% of talent pros say a multigenerational workforce makes a company more successful, and 56% have recently updated policies to appeal to all ages.
●  56% of companies say they have recently updated policies to appeal to a multigenerational workforce.
● Baby Boomers stay 18% longer than the average employee, and Gen Xers stay 22% longer than average (almost 2x longer than Millennials!)

ServiceNow to Acquire Loom Systems to Help Companies Prevent and Fix IT Issues

ServiceNow, the leading digital workflow company making work, work better for people, today announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Loom Systems, an Israel-based AIOps company. The transaction will extend ServiceNow’s AIOps capabilities, giving customers deeper insights into their digital operations so they can prevent and fix IT issues at scale before they become problems.

“Today, IT departments struggle to meet performance expectations and keep pace with the growth in demand for new, great digital services,” said Jeff Hausman, vice president and general manager of IT Operations Management at ServiceNow. “By bringing together Loom Systems’ ability to analyze log and metrics data with ServiceNow’s AIOps and workflow automation capabilities, IT departments will be able to proactively pin-point and resolve operational issues, enabling seamless experiences for their customers and employees.”

Loom Systems extends ServiceNow’s IT Service Management (ITSM) and IT Operations Management (ITOM) solutions, which help companies unlock productivity and drive operational efficiency on a single platform. With Loom Systems, ServiceNow will increase customers’ ability to apply AI to their knowledge base of issues and fixes for better insights into root causes and allow them to automate remediation tasks, reducing the number of Level 1 IT incidents.

Enterprises undergoing digital transformation often face new problems that can’t be defined in advance. Loom Systems helps automate manual processes, mitigate operational issues in new environments and maintain a high standard of availability for customers and employees. Within hours, IT teams will be able to identify issues that may not have surfaced using traditional log management tools.

“As a strategic partner to the world’s largest enterprises, ServiceNow is enabling digital transformation and driving customer success,” said Gabby Menachem, CEO of Loom Systems. “By joining forces, we have the unique opportunity to bring together our AI innovations and ServiceNow’s AIOps capabilities to help customers prevent and fix IT issues before they become problems. We are excited to join the ServiceNow team to help IT organizations respond at the speed of today’s digital business.”

Loom Systems was founded in 2015 by CEO Gabby Menachem, CTO Ronny Lehmann and Vice President of Product Dror Mann.

Seize This Swipe Season: Tinder Activity Reaches an all Time High Now

It’s 2020, people. And we can’t think of a better time than a new decade to shake up our dating habits. And as it turns out, the beginning of the year is also peak dating season. In fact, Tinder activity reaches an all-time high between January 1 and February 13.

New Decade, New You (and someone else)

During Swipe Season, Tinder members will swipe an average of 100 more times per person than other similar length time periods. And with millions of new people joining Tinder in the New Year, these extra swipes really add up. In fact, compared to other similar 6 week periods, the total number of matches worldwide during Swipe Season 2019 was more than 40 million higher on average. Guess we’re not the only ones who put ‘broaden our dating horizons’ on our New Year’s resolutions list.

So how can you make the most of this Swipe Season 💯? Here are a few hacks to help you change your dating perspective in 2020.

● Stop and smell read the bios. We’re all scrolling so fast these days, it’s easy to miss a gem. If you’re looking for a new kind of connection in 2020, it might be time to slow your swipe. Pumping the brakes on your Tinder routine may give you more time to separate substance from style. In fact, people who spend more time on each profile they pass enjoy nearly double the matches and have nearly 20% more mutual conversations than folks who speed through. So if you want to open your dating aperture, try pausing longer on each profile and taking time to read the bios. You might just pick a better match because of it.

●  Okay, now that the ‘new’ you has opted to take your time on Tinder, what exactly should you be looking for to put those 💯swipes to work? Here are 3 bio breadcrumbs that may lead you to greener pastures partners in 2020.

1.       Look for someone who champions your cause. We know it’s not always easy to find a partner who’s willing to hold your petition clipboard. Thankfully, causes are growing as a connector on Tinder. Climate Change mentions in bios alone increased 80% in the last year. And topics like the environment, social justice, volunteer, equality and of course, politics, all popped in 2019. So come 2020, look deeper into someone’s profile to see if they call out the causes you care about.

2.       Follow the (star) signs. Any person of the Internet has likely noticed the recent resurgence of astrology.. And use of astrological signs in bios grew 16% on Tinder this past year. (In a surprise to no one, Leo’s are most likely to shout their sign from the rooftops). This low-hanging celestial fruit lets you make a quick connection or easily strike up a conversation about wherever Mercury is at these days. Interestingly, 18-24 year olds are 43% more likely to name a star sign. So get in on this star-sign train stat, and watch the Super Likes roll in.

3.       Introduce yourself to an Introvert. In 2019, more Tinder bios mentioned a Myers’ Briggs personality type than called out Game of Thrones, Drake and Stranger Things combined. So if you’re looking for a new kind of common (or uncommon) ground, look no further than ESTPS and INFJs. What struck us most is that Introverts are having a major moment on Tinder. The top 3 most commonly called out MB types on Tinder are Introverts. The rarest type of all, INFJs (they make up 1% of the world), are actually most likely to make their Myers’ Briggs known to potential partners.

Qlik Launches Industry’s First Data Literacy Consulting and Service Offerings to Enable Customer Success

Qlik has launched the industry’s first Data Literacy Consulting Service and Signature Services designed to help organizations adopt a Data Literacy as a Service approach to creating a data-driven culture. These always-on education, consulting and support services will help organizations drive higher data literacy rates while optimizing the value trapped in their data.

“Around the globe, organizations consistently tell us they believe data literacy is essential to their ability to scale data-driven decision making and increase value from data,” said James Fisher, Chief Product Officer at Qlik. “What they are struggling with is how to best blend the people, process and technology elements necessary for a culture to become truly data-informed. Our new offerings, through a proven structure and expert resources, enable a higher level of customer success when bringing data-driven decisions to every aspect of their business.”

The interest in data literacy services as an enterprise-wide value driver has been steadily growing in the past two years. Qlik’s Data Literacy Index data shows that large enterprises with higher corporate data literacy experience $320-$534 million in higher enterprise value (the total market value of the business). This has driven investments in technology to empower employees, which has created unintended consequences that limit data and analytics adoption. In new research co-sponsored by Qlik and Accenture, only 21% of the global working population surveyed reported they are fully confident in their data literacy skills, leading almost two thirds to report being overwhelmed. This has resulted in employees spending at least one hour a week procrastinating over data-related tasks and adding billions in lost productivity per year, estimated at $109.4B annually in the U.S. alone.

This employee resistance adds a new dimension to the adoption plateau organizations face when deploying data and analytics solutions, increasing the difficulty in extracting ongoing value from data. This has driven demand for over 250 Qlik-led data literacy workshops over the last two years. Organizations found these popular workshops valuable, yet CDOs in particular noted they need even more help in creating a widespread cultural shift to data literacy. Qlik has launched these initial services under the banner of a Data Literacy as a Service approach, highlighting the importance of closing this gap and helping organizations address the people, process and technology challenges that can limit success and company-wide confidence in the use of data.

“At Nemours, we’ve been addressing the data literacy gap through a mix of technology and training, working closely with Qlik on our approach and rollout. While the initial results have been promising, like many on this journey we now want to scale and embed these capabilities across the organization,” said Rishi Muchhala, Manager of Enterprise Intelligence at Nemours Children’s Health System. “We’re excited to explore these new services from Qlik on our path to creating a fully data literate culture.”

Data Literacy as a Service is a holistic always-on customer success approach designed to drive a data-informed culture by optimizing three components: the value of analytic technology and processes, human capital through a comprehensive, ongoing and product-agnostic data literacy adoption program, and mission-critical analytics with a 24/7 enterprise support foundation. The initial Data Literacy Consulting and Signature Services are available today via subscription, and like other subscription services can be customized over time to evolve with customers’ unique needs.

The new services include:

* Data Literacy Consulting Services – New education, consulting and change-management subscription services to drive and create an organization-wide culture of data literacy. The services include a 6-step adoption framework supported by services to help organizations adopt data literacy, designed and delivered by a team of data literacy experts who are globally recognized in the field of data analytics and science.
* Signature Services – Qlik Signature is a customer success subscription service for strategic customers, delivering a personalized and prescriptive path to success with Qlik experts by their side and aligned with their business priorities. New tailored recurring services span consulting and education to ensure customers always optimize their landscape and continue to drive new value at every step, ensuring they are constantly maximizing the technology and processes that support their ability to read, work, analyze and argue with data.

Credit Saison, Capital Float Join to Offer Digital Financing to SMEs

Credit Saison, one of Japan’s largest financial institutions, has partnered with Capital Float, India’s leading fintech NBFC, to deliver working capital financing to Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) across India. The two companies have jointly developed a unique co-origination model through which they will both contribute capital to deliver last-mile credit to MSMEs across the country. MSMEs will be able to apply for these loans online and receive approvals within the quickest turnaround time in the industry, powered by Capital Float’s path-breaking technology and credit underwriting platform integrated with Credit Saison’s systems.

Kosuke Mori, Managing Director, Credit Saison Asia Pacific, said, “Credit Saison plans to invest significantly in India and build a loan book of US$1 billion in India over the next few years, a significant part of which will flow into the MSME sector. Our alliance with Capital Float – Credit Saison’s first SME-focused partnership in India – will be a formidable enabler for both entities to deploy a large portion of this capital towards the sector. We have also integrated closely at a technology stack and API level, enabling a seamless experience for the end-borrower.”

The partnership is also unique in that it will operate through a co-origination model. Co-lending of SME loans was pioneered by Capital Float, and has been encouraged by the Hon’ble Finance Minister as a game-changer for scaling up MSME lending. This partnership will be the first instance of a global lender teaming up with an Indian player to address this gap. Capital Float today manages the largest co-origination ecosystem in India.

Sashank Rishyasringa, Co-Founder, Capital Float, said, “Capital Float has already lent INR 8,500 Crore in digital credit across India; we plan to further lend INR 1,500 Crore to MSMEs in the next year, supported by this partnership. Together with Credit Saison, we continue to double-down on MSME segments where credit demand is severely underserved, with a particular focus on Tier 2 & 3 cities. Our focus will be on providing credit to small manufacturing & services firms, followed by small retailers using digital payment modes.”

The partnership between Credit Saison and Capital Float has gone live this month, with plans to scale up rapidly over the coming quarters.

Trend Micro Creates Factory Honeypot and Traps Malicious Attackers

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, today announced the results of a six-month honeypot imitating an industrial factory. The highly sophisticated Operational Technology (OT) honeypot attracted fraud and financially motivated exploits.

The six-month investigation revealed that unsecured industrial environments are primarily victims of common threats. The honeypot was compromised for cryptocurrency mining, targeted by two separate ransomware attacks, and used for consumer fraud.

“Too often, discussion of cyber threats to industrial control systems (ICS) has been confined to highly sophisticated, nation-state level attacks designed to sabotage key processes. While these do present a risk to Industry 4.0, our research proves that more commonplace threats are more likely,” said Greg Young, vice president of cybersecurity for Trend Micro. “Owners of smaller factories and industrial plants should therefore not assume that criminals will leave them alone. A lack of basic protections can open the door to a relatively straightforward ransomware or cryptojacking attack that could have serious consequences for the bottom line.”

To better understand the attacks targeting ICS environments, Trend Micro Research created a highly realistic, industrial prototyping company. The honeypot consisted of real ICS hardware and a mix of physical hosts and virtual machines to run the factory, which included several programmable logic controllers (PLCs), human machine interfaces (HMIs), separate robotic and engineering workstations and a file server.

Trend Micro urges smart factory owners to minimize the number of ports they leave open and to tighten access control policies, among other cybersecurity best practices. In addition, implementing cybersecurity solutions designed for factories, like those offered by Trend Micro, can help further mitigate the risk of attack.