Corporates Expect Economic Normalcy to Take Nearly 17 Months: TRA Whitepaper in India

A fortnight after it released a survey on consumer insights, TRA Research, a consumer insights and brand analytics company today released its second report "TRA’s Coronavirus Corporate Insights 2020", a whitepaper from a research conducted across 16 cities with 101 corporate respondents from 8th April to 4th May 2020. The TRA survey indicates that corporates, on average, perceive it will take 66.1 weeks (16.5 months) to achieve economic normalcy, while for full health normalcy, they feel it will take 15 weeks (3.8 months) more.

N. Chandramouli, CEO, TRA Research, elaborated on the findings, “The biggest concerns of Corporate India are of Global recession which is 66% on the Worry Index, followed by India’s inability to overcome the health crisis at 59%. Three important factors of Business survival, India’s bleak economic outlook and Social unrest, all had a Worry Index of 57%, showing the many concomitant challenges that corporate India was grappling with at the moment. Shaky Consumer Confidence remains lowest on the Worry Index at 39% showing ‘Little Worried’, possibly implying corporates are currently more concerned about the larger picture leading to disruptions.”

“Considering the Covid impact, the highest was Revenues for the year at 75% Impact Index, followed by Advertising at 64% impact, showing that the first cuts were in immediately controllable expenses, especially in the light of the negligible demand for many sectors during the lockdown”, Chandramouli added.

The survey revealed the Coping-Worry gap among Upper Management was the highest at 32%, and perhaps there is just too much on the plate of the top management to cope with everything together. The other challenge of the Upper Management is perhaps the external show of strength they have to present, despite their personal fears and anxieties.

On the priority of corporates, OPEX reduction has the top slot with 69.5% priority, CapEx reduction is the second highest priority at 65.5%, Business Strategy taking 64.5% priority, Company Operations are at 56.5% priority and, contrary to what many would believe, Manpower cost reduction is the very last what that corporates look at, which stands at 51.5% priority.

About TRA Research

TRA Research, a Comniscient Group company, is a consumer insights and brand intelligence Company dedicated to understanding and analyzing stakeholder behavior through two globally acclaimed proprietary matrices of Brand Trust and Brand Desire. TRA Research conducts primary research with consumers and stakeholders to assist brands with their business decisions based on Consumer Behavior insights.

TRA Research is consulting brands on transitioning during and after the Covid-19 crisis, to help them be more aligned to consumer and client expectations. TRA Research is the also the publisher of TRA’s Brand Trust Report and of TRA’s Most Desired Brands.

Renault Opens Offices, Select Dealerships and Service Centres

Renault, the number one European brand in India, opened its office and select dealerships and service centres, and has introduced several safety and hygiene measures as it prepares to welcome back customers across all its touchpoints. Renault has opened more than 194 showrooms and workshops in line with the new safety protocols and the remaining touchpoints will be opened in a phased-wise manner based on permissions from the local authorities. Renault dealerships have ensured special care to sanitise their facilities and test drive cars. There are multiple training programmes, protocols and processes in place to monitor the execution of Renault’s customer-first initiatives and efforts, as a part of their ‘Welcome Back’ initiative.

“Globally, Renault is gradually resuming business operations, country by country. In India, we have started the business operations in a phased manner. We have a long-term commitment here and India plays an important role in the strategic operations of Groupe Renault. Customer safety and satisfaction is our main objective and is one of the driving forces behind everything we do. As the lockdown is gradually being lifted and business is slowly resuming, our primary focus is on ensuring that we safeguard our customers, by introducing rigorous safety and hygiene practices across all touchpoints. At the same time, the health, safety and well-being of all Renault employees, dealers and other stakeholders, their families and the community at large is of utmost importance, and we have taken necessary actions on all these fronts as well,” said Venkatram Mamillapalle, Country CEO & Managing Director, Renault India Operations.

As a first step, all dealerships - showrooms and workshop, will be completely fumigated before it is opened for customers. There is a manpower health screening for all dealership employees after resuming the job and only post that will employees be allowed to start work. There will be daily monitoring, necessary action and processes which will be adopted across all showrooms and workshops, to ensure social distancing and safety measures are implemented.

Display and test drive cars, whether at the dealership or at customers’ homes will have multiple sanitization points after each customer interaction. The same detailed processes will be followed for all cars that come for servicing as well, to ensure customers have complete peace of mind.

In order to support the customer in these challenging times, Renault has announced a host of customer focused offers. Renault has rolled out a ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ scheme where customers can buy any Renault car in May and start paying their EMI after 3 months of purchase. The offer can be availed either at the dealership, on the Renault India website or the My Renault App. There are also offers across the product range including cash offers, exchange benefits and finance at a special rate of 8.99%. These are complemented by additional loyalty offers for its existing customers.

Renault has also significantly enhanced digital capabilities and portfolios with online booking options and other interventions. Customers can book cars from home on the Renault India website or the MyRenault App with zero booking amount, and can also get loan approvals remotely from Renault Finance.

On the service front, Renault has launched extended service warranty and extension of first free service. Renault has announced relaxation on Warranty (including the Extended Warranty policies) and Periodic service schedules for its customers during this lockdown period. Renault India’s 24X7 roadside assistance continues to ensure support for its customers in case of an emergency.

Renault Finance has also announced measures to support the customer which is the form of - Job Loss Cover and EMI Protect Plan.

Microsoft Introduces Back2Business Solution Boxes for Small and Medium Businesses in India

Microsoft has announced the launch of the Back2Business Solution Boxes for helping Indian small and medium businesses (SMBs) maintain business continuity and embark on their cloud adoption journeys. Curated for specific scenarios in different organization sizes, they bring together offerings across Azure and Modern Workplace.

Indian SMBs are facing multiple challenges in running their operations seamlessly during the current crisis, including access to remote working solutions in a secure and scalable environment, disaster recovery and advanced security with device management and threat protection. To provide support in keeping businesses running through any outages and reducing on-premise infrastructure management costs, these offerings are tailored to boost employee productivity and improve customer engagement.

“Small and medium enterprises are an integral part of the Indian economy. We’ve witnessed their resilience and entrepreneurial energy in action as we build the new normal in these difficult times. In our efforts to support these businesses operate today without constraints and be future-ready with the best-in-class technological platform and solutions, the Back2Business Solution Boxes offer speed in deployment and usage and flexibility with pay-as-you-go pricing, along with our commitment to privacy and security,” said Harish Vellat, Senior Director, Small and Mid-Corporate Business, Microsoft India.

Besides catering to near-term challenges through Covid-19 offerings around Windows Virtual Desktop and Microsoft Teams, there are solution packages designed to accelerate the cloud adoption journeys of SMBs. These are curated to help ramp up legacy systems, migrate workloads to Azure or modernize apps and websites. Standard yet easy to customize according to requirements of customers, the solution boxes come in four variants.

* Starter: Designed for small organizations that require remote working and collaboration solutions in a secure environment.
* Booster: Made for mid-sized businesses that need both online and desktop applications, customer management, backup service and a secure disaster recovery strategy.
* Modern Business: Crafted for SMB customers who require a simple security foundation along with their productivity suite.
* Advanced: Meant for SMBs that need advanced security capabilities, cost reduction and better infrastructure management.

Microsoft partners have the additional flexibility of customizing the boxed packages with their own value offerings for migration and deployment. Microsoft’s partner ecosystem is at the center of delivering technologies and driving business transformation for its customers. Together with its partners, Microsoft is committed to helping the small and medium business community in India navigate the current challenges and scale up their operations seamlessly.

Trend Micro Research Identifies Critical Industry 4.0 Attack Methods

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, recently released research describing how advanced hackers could leverage unconventional, new attack vectors to sabotage smart manufacturing environments.

For this report, Trend Micro Research worked with Politecnico di Milano in its Industry 4.0 lab, which houses real manufacturing equipment from industry leaders, to demonstrate how malicious threat actors can exploit existing features and security flaws in Industrial IoT (IIoT) environments for espionage of financial gain.

“Past manufacturing cyber attacks have used traditional malware that can be stopped by regular network and endpoint protection. However, advanced attackers are likely to develop Operational Technology (OT) specific attacks designed to fly under the radar,” said Bill Malik, vice president of infrastructure strategies for Trend Micro. “As our research shows, there are multiple vectors now exposed to such threats, which could result in major financial and reputational damage for Industry 4.0 businesses. The answer is IIoT-specific security designed to root out sophisticated, targeted threats.”

“Politecnico di Milano is fully committed to supporting Industry 4.0 in addressing crucial aspects related to security and reliability of automated and advanced controls, especially as they gain relevance in all production sectors and increasingly impact business,” said Giacomo Tavola, Contract Professor in Design and Management of Production Systems and Stefano Zanero, Associate professor in Advanced Cybersecurity Topics for Politecnico di Milano.

Critical smart manufacturing equipment relies primarily on proprietary systems, however these machines have the computing power of traditional IT systems. They are capable of much more than the purpose for which they are deployed, and attackers are able to exploit this power. The computers primarily use proprietary languages to communicate, but just like with IT threats, the languages can be used to input malicious code, traverse through the network, or steal confidential information without being detected.

Though smart manufacturing systems are designed and deployed to be isolated, this seclusion is eroding as IT and OT converge. Due to the intended separation, there is a significant amount of trust built into the systems and therefore very few integrity checks to keep malicious activity out.

The systems and machines that could be taken advantage of include the manufacturing execution system (MES), human machine interfaces (HMIs), and customizable IIoT devices. These are potential weak links in the security chain and could be exploited in such a way to damage produced goods, cause malfunctions, or alter workflows to manufacture defective products.

The report offers a detailed set of defense and mitigation measures, including:

Deep packet inspection that supports OT protocols to identify anomalous payloads at the network level
Integrity checks run regularly on endpoints to identify any altered software components
Code-signing on IIoT devices to include dependencies such as third-party libraries
Risk analysis to extend beyond physical safety to automation software
Full chain of trust for data and software in smart manufacturing environments
Detection tools to recognize vulnerable/malicious logic for complex manufacturing machines
Sandboxing and privilege separation for software on industrial machines

Vedantu Equips Early Learners with LIVE and Personalised Coding Online learning Tutorials

Vedantu, a pioneer in LIVE online tutoring in India has launched its early Learner classes - “Vedantu Superkids” for students belonging to Kindergarten right till Grade 5. Research indicates that children learn more quickly during their early years than at any other time in life and need best support as they grow and develop. Therefore, this program is defined by a holistic approach to impart life skills in children in both academics and non-academics. The program will include project driven coding program for students between the age group of 6-12 years. English reading for children between the age group of 3-6 years will be launched shortly. The program not only focusses on the learning outcomes but also the developmental outcomes including Cognitive, Sensory and Linguistic.

Owing to COVID-19, 8,58,01, 393 students in the pre-primary and primary schools have been affected in India alone. On a global level, there have been 191 country wide-school closures (as per UNESCO). Responding to the disruption in educational institutions, Vedantu has strongly stepped in to guide pre-primary and primary school students (3-12 years) so that their learning can continue from the safe confines of their home.

Using state-of-the-art technology, the Vedantu Superkids platform is designed to cater to a child’s needs through a best in class learner experience. To keep the child engaged and provide a rich learning experience, the session will be conducted by a certified educator one-on-one on Vedantu’s LIVE online learning platform. Vedantu’s certified educators across domains will hand hold the child in his or her learning process, completely personalizing the experience. Rich animation & gamification will be used to make the sessions more interactive and engaging. The entire gamification will be tracked, analyzed and reported for tangible outcomes. A parent’s presence is mandatory for the language program and optional for the Coding session. The duration for the Language Program will be 40 mins and Coding classes will be 1 hour. Vedantu is offering FREE trial classes for children to experience the session first-hand.

Vamsi Krishna, CEO & Co-founder, Vedantu, said, “As a pioneer in the LIVE online learning model, it was natural for us to address the needs of smaller children whose learning schedules have been disrupted. This is a time when children need to be engaged with the right learning experience in the comfort of their homes. Through Vedantu Superkids, we are creating a series of programs as steppingstones to achieve the larger objective of developing a strong foundation in children. Our teachers will take a 360-degree approach to teach children about life skills. Our pedagogy is unique, and all our resources are well researched as well as scientifically developed to meet all learning and developmental needs. We are confident that children will enjoy the sessions, learn more and parents will be equally satisfied with the outcomes of Vedantu Superkids.”

Here are a few reasons why Vedantu Superkids is the ideal LIVE, online learning platform for young minds:

Certified Teachers & Adaptive Learning
World class curriculum and innovative pedagogy
LIVE & interactive sessions
Detailed assessment report & after class projects
Extra classes for Revision
Life-time access to e-learning resources
Certificate from IIT Bombay alumnus
Apps developed will be published on Play Store

To enroll into Vedantu Superkids click on this link-  https://www.vedantu.com/superkids

Vodafone Idea Achieves Milestone with IBM and Red Hat for its Open Universal Hybrid Cloud for Network and IT Workloads

Milestone Deal

* Open Universal Hybrid Cloud Platform can now run a wide range of IT and network applications using a single common cloud architecture; provides significant optimization for OpEx, CapEx, automation investments and skills across IT and network

* Vodafone Idea and IBM already partner together to deliver mobile security services, and intend to build on that success with further B2B offerings leveraging the new Open Universal Cloud as edge computing, network and IT are brought together in a single common infrastructure


IBM announced that Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) has delivered the first major production milestone for core network functions on its Open Universal Hybrid Cloud, powered by IBM and Red Hat. The platform now enables IT and network applications to run on a common cloud architecture – designed to deliver breakthrough ROI improvements through optimization of CapEx, OpEx, skills and automation investments across both the Network and IT application domains.

The Open Universal Hybrid Cloud is a hybrid cloud platform that is based on open technology and open standards from IBM and Red Hat. It enables Vodafone Idea to better serve its more than 300 million subscribers by simplifying and transforming its IT and telecom network operations. The new platform is deployed across many distributed Vodafone Idea cloud microsites across India, as well as its central IT operations which are also run by IBM.

This platform enables radical automation through standardization. A wide range of capabilities from IBM and Red Hat, including Watson AI and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, will strengthen VIL’s capability in network and IT planning. New network cloud microsites and IT capacity will now be able to be provisioned in an agile way, enabling faster deployments and cost efficiency.

This platform, which has the potential to deliver a step change in the cost and quality of core network delivery, enables new distributed edge compute capabilities that can seamlessly blend network and IT functions. IBM and Vodafone Idea’s breakthrough secured hybrid cloud is also built for business and the provisioning of highly differentiated B2B services to the India market. Vodafone Idea and IBM plan to work together as Vodafone Idea brings additional B2B services to market, like blockchain based solutions, in key industry verticals such as retail and financial services.

IBM has been a key IT partner to Vodafone Idea for more than a decade. Today’s news extends and builds upon previous hybrid cloud collaborations between Vodafone Idea, IBM and Red Hat. This includes the agreement in May 2019 to deliver an enhanced customer experience to millions of connected consumers and businesses in India through further enhancements of Vodafone Idea’s IT hybrid cloud, resulting in the delivery of the IT facet of the company’s Open Universal Hybrid Cloud.

It also builds on the October 2019 announcement of Vodafone Idea’s adoption of Red Hat technologies to build, operate, automate and orchestrate the Network Cloud. This paved the way for integrating network function into the Open Universal Hybrid Cloud.

Today’s announcement brings it all together, with a single Open Universal Hybrid Cloud supporting both IT and network function within Vodafone Idea, and enabling those capabilities to be taken to market with extreme agility.

"Through our collaboration with IBM and Red Hat, we are adopting open standards and leading with highly automated, machine learning based hybrid cloud solutions to create India’s first Open Universal Hybrid Cloud that supports our most mission-critical operations across Network and IT systems, and B2B Enterprise customer offerings. This is part of our transformation journey to set up a robust, future ready network,” said Vishant Vora, CTO of Vodafone Idea Limited.

“As major communication service providers like Vodafone Idea continue to modernize, they are turning to IBM as their strategic partner to build, deploy and manage their networks as an open cloud platform with telco-grade security,” said Steve Canepa, Global Managing Director and Worldwide Head of Telecommunications, Media & Entertainment Industry, IBM. “By selecting IBM and Red Hat, VIL will benefit from our commitment to open architecture, our scale investments in   automation and AI capabilities, and our proven industry expertise.”

"We are pleased that Vodafone Idea continues to build on Red Hat as one of the core technologies to deliver its Open Universal Hybrid Cloud.” said Ashesh Badani, Senior Vice President, Cloud Platforms, Red Hat. “By accelerating automation of the network and serving as a key enabler of converging its network and IT domains with a common architecture, Red Hat is helping Vodafone Idea to bring the platform to a broad range of customers, including small to medium-sized enterprises and start-ups.”

Airtel Selects IBM and Red Hat to Build Open Hybrid Cloud Network

Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), one of India’s largest integrated telcos, has selected IBM and Red Hat to build its new telco network cloud, designed to make it more efficient, flexible and future-ready to support core operations and enable new digital services. Under the agreement, Airtel will build its next generation core network, analytical tools and new consumer and enterprise services on top of this cloud platform based on open standards.

With the new network cloud, Airtel intends to deliver a better customer experience through enhanced network performance, improved availability, operations automation and scaling the network to the edge. This is designed to reduce latency and improve bandwidth availability and automation, thereby strengthening the overall quality of the network.

India's data consumption is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 70% by 20221. Adopting a modern hybrid cloud architecture enables communication service providers (CSPs) to deliver more responsive networks that tap into automation and AI to address growing customer needs and deploy new services at the right location and network tier.

Using IBM and Red Hat’s portfolio of hybrid cloud and cognitive enterprise capabilities, Airtel plans to adopt an open cloud architecture that uses Red Hat OpenStack Platform for all network workloads and Red Hat OpenShift for newer containerized workloads. It will also tap into Red Hat's ecosystem of network OEMs. In the future, Airtel’s open hybrid cloud platform is expected to help enable new revenue streams with the on-boarding of third-party services including gaming, remote media production and enterprise services. By embracing IBM and Red Hat’s hybrid cloud technology all the way to the network edge, Airtel aims to achieve improvement in time-to-market of services, reduction in operating expenses and reduced capital expenses.

The network cloud will also position ecosystem partners, including B2B and B2C application developers, to create value-added services, including new edge offerings. The multicloud platform and end-to-end intent-based lifecycle management will help onboard these services faster on the network cloud and seamlessly integrate these services with current fulfilment, assurance and billing processes. Additionally, the network cloud is embedded with AI, designed to facilitate automation in onboarding and improvs monitoring and predictive capabilities for different services from network equipment providers.

“As part of our endeavor to build a 5G ready network for India’s requirements, we are pleased to collaborate with IBM and Red Hat in our cloud journey,” said Randeep Sekhon, CTO, Bharti Airtel. Our goal with this powerful, seamless horizontal approach is to make our network future ready and enable Airtel to efficiently serve the massive surge in data consumption. The hybrid cloud architecture will resonate with our customer-obsession by providing improved flexibility, network stability and performance and bringing agility and automation in our network operations.”

“Through its collaboration with IBM and Red Hat, Airtel will be building a modern, innovative and more responsive network infused with automation and AI, that will provide the consistency and agility needed for today’s rapidly changing marketplace,” said Steve Canepa, Global Managing Director, Communications Sector and Worldwide Head of Telecommunications, Media & Entertainment Industry, IBM. “IBM is a valued collaborator to many of the world’s largest and most innovative communications service providers like Airtel as they transform their networks into open and secure hybrid multicloud platforms and prepare for the 5G and edge computing era.”

“Red Hat is providing innovative open source solutions to help Airtel improve flexibility and reduce development time, so they can stay competitive in the rapidly evolving telecommunications market,” said Darrell Jordan-Smith, global vice president, vertical industries and accounts, Red Hat. “By adopting a more agile approach to network operations based on Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud technologies, Airtel is building a future-ready platform to meet the evolving needs of its customers.”