Ex-Britannia, Ex-Unilever Honcho, Neeraj Chandra Joins Innoviti’s Board

Leading provider of intelligent payment solutions, Innoviti Payment Solutions announced the addition of former Britannia and Unilever senior executive, Mr. Neeraj Chandra, to its Board of Directors as an Independent Director.  This position was created as a part of the structuring carried out during the recent fund raise from FMO and Bessemer.

An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and IIT Kanpur, Mr. Neeraj Chandra brings over 30 years of experience in diverse sales, marketing & business roles with exposure to 25+ countries in Asia & Middle East. He was previously associated with Emami Limited as the CEO of their Consumer Care Division. Prior to that he held a variety of leadership roles including VP & COO at Britannia and Regional Brand Director for Asia at Unilever.

Mr. Neeraj Chandra’s appointment is in-line with Innoviti’s aggressive plans of a) building exceptional, large new market opportunities through vertical focused products that connect to the customers in truly innovative ways, and b) building specialized market building & distribution models to rapidly scale up these markets while delivering high quality service. 

Innoviti is designing intelligent payment solutions that help every merchant extract the full power of digital payments, not possible with stand-alone terminals and QR stickers.  Architected as a network of networks, Innoviti is using data intelligence to bring together merchants with brand and bank networks, helping them connect, collaborate, and create new and unique offers for their common customers.  Networks use the power of modern technology to intelligently target customers, create superior offers, and grow their sales faster with unmatched efficiency. 

Processing over 6.5B$ of annualized offline merchant payment volume (~5% of India’s offline merchant volume, based on RBI data), Innoviti is transforming digital payments at scale. The company leads monthly terminal throughput at 7000$ per terminal, 2X of India’s average of all other payment providers (RBI data). The use of technology to relentlessly drive reliability and automate processes has further fuelled gross margins, making Innoviti the most capital-efficient company in this space (based on publicly available data).

Innoviti is backed by marquee investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, USA, SBI Venture Capital, Singapore, FMO, Netherlands, and Catamaran, India.  Series C funding was led by FMO and Bessemer.

Quotes:

“We believe designing great products requires an obsession with differentiation and excellence.  In a complex disruptively changing world of opportunities, Neeraj’s guidance will help sharpen delivery to our vision of creating great payment products.

Our customer centricity and focus on delivering sustainable value has already helped us become the most capital efficient company in this space.  A stronger Board will help prepare us for the next exciting phase of our journey as we leap and lead our market.” – said Mr. Rajeev Agrawal, CEO, Innoviti.

Vedanta Iron Ore Karnataka Ensures Safety of Employees through Precautionary Measures

Vedanta Iron Ore has put in place measures to help mitigate the risk from coronavirus to employees and their families. The measures are intended to provide greater security to the employees by restricting the spread of the virus. The company has taken plentiful precautionary measures to fight this pandemic. Vedanta as a responsible corporate is fully committed to the safety of people, their families who are extended part of the Vedanta family and the communities. 

Mr. Krishna Reddy, Director, Vedanta Iron Ore Karnataka Business said, “As per MHA guidelines, the company has resumed limited operations subject to necessary precautions as mandated by various advisories being implemented for a safe working environment. We are taking all responsible actions and mandated safety protocols issued by various authorities in order to help stop the spread of Coronavirus. We are providing utmost care to the safety of people working with our company. Life of people is of extreme importance for us and will always remain our furthermost priority.”.

Mr. Prasanna HP, Assistant Security Officer, M/s Walson Services Private Limited (Contractor Company) said, “Our team is stationed at the Iron Ore Karnataka Business to ensure a safe work environment for the people in this extraordinary situation. The initiatives taken by Iron Ore Karnataka management ensures workers’ safety inside office premises. The whole system is set in place by the management and all the employees adheres to it. The management has also provided our team with PPEs to restrict the spread and for us to carry out our duties without any chance of infection.”.

The biggest challenge faced by Iron Ore Karnataka amid the pandemic has been to motivate employees and keep the work momentum going with limited operations, limited workforce and maintaining all health protocols viz social distancing, use of PPEs etc. The company is ensuring strict adherence to precautionary measures. 

Vedanta Iron Ore Karnataka is taking the following actions aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19:

* Enhanced facility hygiene practices including increasing the frequency with which high touch surfaces are cleaned. Safety precautions including supply of sanitizers, protective gears, masks, regular temperature checks and recording of all the work force at the Entrance Gate and availability of 24x7 medical support for further course of action if there is any abnormality found in the workers. Hands-free hand wash basins are located at all entry gates and hand wash facilities spread across all the worksites. 

* The residential doctor at Vedanta Iron Ore Karnataka distributes triple layered masks on a daily basis and has provided personal sanitizer bottles that have to carried every day (strict checking is done) for the safety of the employees, contractors and workmen working at the mines. Working during these times can be highly stressful, the residential doctor conduct awareness sessions on the importance of mental health. 

* Ensuring minimal gathering and social distancing protocols at workplaces. To ensure the social distancing inside the company premises is been maintained, a team of 3 ESM Security Personnel’s in 1st & 2nd Shift and circles are made at Sesa 01, Canteen area, Gates and attendance reader installed locations.

* Providing employees with flexibility around work schedules and recommending that they work from home, to the extent feasible and appropriate. Direct and indirect employees residing in affected and suspected have been asked to not report to work & there has been no denial on their salaries. Additional commute buses operate to maintain social distancing during travel to work. 

* Verification of the travel history of workforce has been initiated by the company before an employee is re-joining the company along with a declaration in prescribed format.  All essential business-related travel has been restricted for all the employees. Quarantine facility has been made available at a dedicated company apartment and those arriving from other states are tested for COVID-19 with a swab test & are quarantined mandatorily for 14 days. 

* To ensure safety, security and wellbeing of our stakeholders, especially our communities and employees,  Vedanta Iron Ore Karnataka handed over a drone camera with tablet to the Office of Superintendent of Police, Chitradurga to assist them to safeguard the people of the district in the pandemic. Provision of drone camera will benefit business continuity and safety as it guarantees proper surveillance and assures a safe environment for our employees, contractors and workmen to work, commute and live in. 

* Fumigation and sanitization in the Mines facility and transportation are being done on frequent basis. Continuous awareness on the situation and preventive measures are being conducted for direct and indirect employees via tool box talks and virtual platforms. 

In line with Vedanta philosophy of care and community welfare, Vedanta Iron Ore Karnataka Business has also been working in close- coordination with the Office of District Administration of Chitradurga, to help them in providing necessary infrastructure and provisioning of protective equipment across COVID- 19 medical facilities in the district. Apart from the contribution of Rs. 201 crores by the Group Chairman Mr. Anil Agarwal to combat COVID-19 pandemic, Vedanta Iron Ore Karnataka has donated Rs. 1 crore each to the CM Relief Funds of Goa and Karnataka state government. 

Vedanta Iron Ore at Karnataka has always had a symbolic relationship with Chitradurga Community for many decades and in this critical situation the company has handed over 10 ICU cots and 10 Multi- Para Monitor to the District Administration set to be installed at the COVID – 19 Relief District Hospital along 500 sanitiser bottles, 2500 triple layer N95 masks, 500 personal protection kits and an ambulance for emergency medical facilities. The company has also, handed over 3400 ration kits to the District Administration Office to help them be well prepared in the current situation. Besides this, Vedanta Iron Ore at Karnataka distributed 2600 three layered cloth masks to police officers, health workers and the community people across Chitradurga district handmade by local SHG women over the course of two weeks.

Future Generali India Insurance Announces Increment for all its Employees in Wake of COVID-19 Pandemic

In the face of an ongoing economic crisis, Future Generali India Insurance Company Limited (FGII), the general insurance arm of the joint venture between retail giant Future Group and global insurer Generali, announced promotions, annual increments & variable payouts to all its employees. The company declared that there will be no layoffs of its employees during these unprecedented and volatile times.

They also made provision of an immediate relief fund of INR 50,000 to each of its business-active agents and their families if they are tested positive for COVID-19. 

With over 125 branches across India, the company has decided not to compromise on hiring and plans to recruit employees as per the business requirement. During this lockdown phase alone, FGII has onboarded over 70 employees across various levels using various digital tools for engaging, interviewing, enrolling, and inducting. The company will continue to hire as in any other year. 

FGII has also taken multiple initiatives towards employee wellness and engagement during the lockdown period. The company has introduced a confidential counselling helpline for employees and their families to help them cope with changes brought about by the pandemic such as anxiety, stress or work-life balance. This is supplemented by live sessions promoting physical and mental health through yoga sessions. It has also organized various engagement programmes such as talent shows and conducted virtual training sessions for employees to help them connect and learn while they work from home.

Mr. Anup Rau, MD & CEO, Future Generali India Insurance said, "We are a people-first company, period. We made sure that every single employee- right from the CXOs to our housekeeping staff - got their due credit and bonuses and increments in time. I don’t believe one can be a customer-centric company without being employee-centric; they are both congruent. Now, more than ever, our employees and partners need certainty and stability in their lives. We are building an organization for the long term and have the wherewithal to handle uncertainty. We are a fundamentally strong company and have the ability to respond to the new realities of the marketplace.”

About Future Generali India Insurance Company Limited

Future Generali India Insurance Company Limited is a joint venture between Future Group – the game changers in Retail Trade in India and Generali – a 189 years old global insurance group featuring among the world’s 60 largest companies*. The Company was incorporated in September 2007 with the objective of providing retail, commercial, personal and rural insurance solutions to individuals and corporates to help them manage and mitigate risks.

Future Generali India has been aptly benefitting from the global Insurance expertise in diverse classes of products of Generali Group and the Indian retail game-changer Future Group. Havingfirmlyestablisheditscredentials in this segment and effectively leveraging on the skill set of both its JV partners, Future Generali India has evolved to become a Total Insurance Solutions Company.

*As per Fortune Global 500 Ranking (2017)

*Future Generali India Insuranceiscertified ‘Great Place to Work’ (December2019-November 2020)

About Generali Group

Generali is an independent, Italian insurance Group, with a strong international presence. Established in 1831, it is one of the largest global insurance providers present in over 60 countries with total premium income exceeding €68 billion in 2017. With nearly 71,000 employees in the world and 57 million customers, the Group has a leading position in Western Europe and an increasingly significant presence in Central and Eastern Europe as well as in Asia.

IMTMA Supports Indian Machine Tools for MSME Tool Rooms

Recently, the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) with a view to modernize Tools Rooms and Training Centers had floated a tender with the assistance of the World Bank to acquire CNC Machines, Measuring Instruments and Accessories. 

Indian machine tool manufacturers had bid for this tender. However, none of the Indian machines offered were selected due to some minor deviations from the tender specifications, while international vendors were selected.

In this context, IMTMA is working closely with the Ministry of MSME and other government departments requesting a reconsideration of the offers submitted by Indian manufacturers, who are members of IMTMA. We are hoping that our request will be considered.

About IMTMA

IMTMA was formed in 1946 the year before India got its independence when around 20 machine tool manufacturers joined hands to form an Association. Over a period of over seven decades it has grown in size to have more than 450 members representing around 90% of the organized machine tool and allied equipment manufacturers as on date.

Today, IMTMA is the apex body and single point of contact for the entire machine tool industry of India and plays a critical role in the development of the metalworking industry.

A not-for-profit association, IMTMA’s initiatives range from government advocacy to industry and export promotion, trade fairs and events, training and seminars, technology missions, publication of various industry and technical writings, structuring of regional councils, and development of clusters.

GIIS Campuses Win Multiple Awards at MQH Best Practices Competition in India

Global Indian International School, a chain of international schools headquartered in Singapore, won a number of awards recently at the MQH Best Practices Competition organised by IMC Ramkrishna Bajaj National Quality Award (RBNQA) Trust, taking the total tally of awards won by the school to 154.

GIIS, which has 21 campuses across 7 countries - India, Japan, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, is acclaimed for its award-winning educational pedagogy and best practices in education that fosters holistic development among students. The institution has received 154 awards till date and has been recognised by coveted national and international organisations including Asia Pacific Quality Organisation, Institute of Directors, Enterprise Singapore, and Indian Merchants Chamber among many others.

The school has a dedicated Global Centre for Excellence in Education (GCEE) team that is committed to establish the highest standards in education excellence and carve the path to achieve awards and recognition for GIIS across countries.

In the recently held MQH Best Practices Competition organised by IMC Ramkrishna Bajaj National Quality Award (RBNQA) Trust, eight GIIS campuses won awards. The competition was held virtually from 23rd to 26th June during which students and faculty from various campuses presented on different topics and won accolades for their ideas and presentation skills.

The participating GIIS teams were from - Kuala Lumpur, Bangalore (Whitefield), Abu Dhabi, Singapore (Punggol SMART Campus), Singapore (East Coast), Ahmedabad, Tokyo, Pune (Balewadi).

GIIS Abu Dhabi swept the Winner Trophy for their presentation on Heartfulness Intervention. GIIS SMART Campus was the First Runner Up for presenting on #SMART-TECH-ULARS, followed by GIIS Tokyo and GIIS Ahmedabad as the Second Runner-up. GIIS Ahmedabad’s topic was Building Responsible Green Citizens while GIIS Tokyo on The Unival Tree.

Students spoke confidently on their topics and presented information with the help of statistics and data to explain their point of view. Post every presentation, the panel of judges, comprising eminent personalities from various fields, asked questions from the students and the rating was done on were shared during the sessions and along with that are of relevance in today’s times and also of possible solutions to control the situation.

The competition was participated by over 40 organisations from various categories like Service, Health, Education and Manufacturing.

Apart from the above-mentioned eight GIIS campuses, Mahatma Gandhi Global Indian Eklavya School (MGGIES) Tilakwada which is run by GSF participated in NGO category also participated in the competition and won first runner-up for their presentation on Amrut Sandesh.

About Global Indian International School

Winner of 150 international awards, Global Indian International School (GIIS) is a global network of premier international schools with more than 15,000 students across 21 campuses in Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, UAE, Vietnam and India. Founded in 2002, GIIS offers a range of International and Indian curricula for Kindergarten to Grade 12 students. These include the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP), Cambridge IGCSE, IB Primary Years Programme, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Global Montessori Plus programme. 

GIIS’ mission is to nurture young minds into global leaders and innovators of tomorrow through skills-based approach to education which believes in academic and extracurricular excellence. This approach, called the Nine GEMS methodology, balances excellence in academics with sports, performing arts, entrepreneurship and character development. GIIS is a member of the Global Schools Foundation (GSF) which has been recognised worldwide for high standards of governance and established academic criteria. 

Google Cloud, Netmagic Partner for Center of Excellence in India

Netmagic Solutions (An NTT Company) a leading managed hosting and multi-cloud hybrid IT solution provider in India, today announced its partnership with Google Cloud to create a Centre of excellence (CoE) that will enable their customers to accelerate their hybrid cloud journey by modernizing their mission-critical IT infrastructure and applications that leverage the advanced capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Analytics at scale.

The CoE will serve as a multi-disciplinary customer showcase hub to develop and deliver solutions, leveraging Google Cloud’s modern application platform, Anthos, for consistent development and operations experience across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

“We are extremely pleased to partner with Google Cloud to enable our customers to enhance their digital experiences capitalizing on the capabilities, value and benefits of an open, collaborative and secure cloud platform,” said Sharad Sanghi, MD and CEO of Netmagic (An NTT Company). “This partnership reinforces our commitment to our customers with an integrated approach to hosted infrastructure, connectivity, security and managed support – helping them derive greater value while delivering business outcomes.”

Karan Bajwa, Managing Director of Google Cloud India said, “We’re excited to partner with Netmagic and help businesses make a smooth transition to the cloud. The CoE will help businesses leverage Google Cloud’s leading infrastructure, platform capabilities and industry solutions to  build for the future; and Netmagic, as a managed hosting and hybrid cloud IT solution provider, is uniquely positioned to help customers along this path.”

Through the strategic partnership with Google Cloud, Netmagic will be able to help organizations in their cloud journey, from strategy and design, to implementation and management of their hybrid architecture, which includes capacity and billing management, comprehensive support across cloud adoption through logical data center extension and getting a unified view of their entire hybrid cloud ecosystem.

By leveraging Google Cloud Partner Interconnect program, Netmagic customers can also securely and privately connect to Google Cloud’s global network. This will enable them to run a wide variety of mission critical workloads, including bare met al solutions to GCP-native managed offerings and help reduce their operational overhead and drive innovation and agility. This logical extension will also provide low latency support for other workloads such as on-premise to GCP migration, disaster recovery, and burst capacity for existing Netmagic customers.

About Netmagic

Netmagic, an NTT Company, is India’s leading Managed Hosting and Multi-Cloud Hybrid IT solution provider serving more than 2000 enterprises globally. Headquartered in Mumbai, Netmagic also delivers Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM) services to various enterprise customers globally across Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific region. The Company was the first in India to launch services – Cloud Computing, Managed Security, Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) and Software-Defined Storage. Netmagic has been recognized with 8 awards at the CIO Choice 2020, and 2 awards at the Datacenter Dynamics India 2019. To learn more, visit us at: www.netmagicsolutions.com

About NTT Ltd.

NTT Ltd. is a leading global technology services company bringing together 28 brands including NTT Communications, Dimension Data and NTT Security. We partner with organizations around the world to shape and achieve outcomes through intelligent technology solutions. For us, intelligent means data driven, connected, digital, and secure. As a global ICT provider, we employ more than 40,000 people in a diverse and dynamic workplace that spans 57 countries, trading in 73 countries and delivering services in over 200 countries. Together we enable the connected future. Visit us at our new website https://hello.global.ntt

OVHcloud Launches Managed Web Hosting Offers for India Businesses

OVHcloud is responding to India’s rapidly growing digital economy by introducing a new all-in-one web hosting and domain names solution, to further its commitment to partners and resellers competing in the web hosting market. In addition to its extensive portfolio of Cloud solutions, OVHcloud offers small and medium tech businesses, regional web hosting service providers, and web and digital agencies a comprehensive suite of solutions with the best price-performance ratio to give them an edge in pursuing small office/home office (SOHO) and small and medium enterprise (SME) markets.

OVHcloud’s decision to provide its web hosting and domain names offerings in India to resellers and partners comes at a time where businesses are looking to accelerate or kickstart their digital presence upon witnessing the digital economy’s massive potential in the current digital-first world. It has been predicted that by 2021, digital transformation will add an estimated US$154 billion to India’s GDP, and increase the growth rate by 1.0% annually. Beyond Asia Pacific, the web hosting and domain name offerings are also available in Europe, Latin America and Canada, enabling OVHcloud to support international scaling and development.

A secure offer, a predictive price, a powerful plan

The addition of web hosting and domain names enhances OVHcloud’s Asia Pacific portfolio of solutions which already consists of Dedicated Servers and Public Cloud offerings. From the design of servers, management of datacenters to the orchestration of the fiber optic network, OVHcloud maintains the integrity of the entire chain in order to generate maximum value, ease of use and seicurity.

With a diverse set of tools, OVHcloud’s new offerings are easy to use and scale for a wide variety of users, ranging from small businesses to large multi-faceted organisations, making it simple for resellers and partners to support professional websites, blogs, online retailers – any project that needs the support of the cloud to launch and scale.

In India, OVHcloud's web hosting offers guaranteed optimal online visibility and centralisation of all services, with the Performance Hosting package catering to web agencies, developers and resellers in particular. Designed for the most complex or growing web activities, including multi-sites or ecommerce sites, the Performance Hosting package allows the easy adjustment of resources to manage the most demanding projects on an ad hoc basis, using the Boost option or permanently leveraging the four performance levels.

These adjustments ensure users always have the resources guaranteed to help to absorb peak loads. In an all-inclusive offer with content delivery network (CDN), structured query language (SQL) and SSL, the Performance offer will support the development of online stores, web agencies and developers, small and medium enterprises, software as a service (SaaS) publishers, resellers and corporate websites. The high performance and ultra-competitive hosting include unlimited monthly traffic, anti-DDoS protection, free domain name for the first year, free Let’s Encrypt Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate, choice of four content management system (CMS) modules and the following features:

1 free domain name

500 GB of disk space

Boost Option

Up to 1000 email addresses

Optimised for WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Prestashop

An idea, a project, a domain name

Every web project starts with a domain name that is included* across all hosting options. With over 800 extensions available (generic, thematic, geographic), professionals and distributors can build a project in their own image. They also benefit from OVHcloud's security expertise to safeguard their digital identity and protect against fraudulent transfers.

Additionally, the ultra-competitive price and the absence of hidden fees upon renewal makes OVHcloud domain names the ideal offer to optimise the lifespan of online projects. Advantages of OVHcloud domain names include:

Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC): protection against cache poisoning (Domain Name System (DNS) server poisoning)

Easy Redirect: simplified implementation of a redirection from your domain name to a social network, for example

DNS zone management for greater flexibility and customisation

Renewal without hidden fees

For Indian users, OVHcloud will provide local extension i.e. “in” as a TLD (Top Level Domain) for businesses looking to create country-targeted websites; Will be available at US$ 10.49 (ex. GST) per year.

OVHcloud will also provide SLDs (Second-Level Domain) such as .co. in, firm.in and .ind.in

Since 1999, OVHcloud has established itself in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific as the Cloud alternative, perfecting an open, reversible and transparent model that places freedom of choice and data protection at the heart of its priorities. Today, the European leader in Cloud solutions powers more than 3 million websites and 18 million applications in its 30 data centres around the world, with strict respect for the digital sovereignty of each of its users.

OVHcloud also supports local customers with Sales, Research & Development and Support teams based in Bengaluru.

*Free domain name offered for the first year on all hosting offers

About OVHcloud

OVHcloud is a global player and the leading European cloud provider operating 400,000 servers within its own 30 data centres across 4 continents. For 20 years, the Group has been leveraging an integrated model that provides full control of our value chain, from designing our servers to managing our data centres through to orchestrating our fibre-optic network. This unique approach enables OVHcloud to cover, independently, the full spectrum of use cases for our 1.5 million customers in more than 130 countries. OVHcloud now offers customers latest-generation solutions that combine high performance, predictable pricing and full data sovereignty to support their unfettered growth.