Majority of Indian Workers Would Want to Work Completely from Home: Atlassian Survey

Atlassian Corporation Plc (NASDAQ:TEAM), a leading provider of team collaboration and productivity software and the maker of Jira, Confluence, and Trello products, has launched an India-based study highlighting the changing work practices of individuals, teams and organisations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the report titled - Reworking Work: Understanding The Rise of Work Anywhere, 83% of employees in India are still nervous about going back to the office while there’s no vaccine and restrictions are still in place. 

The study commissioned by Atlassian and conducted by Australian research agency PaperGiant, is an extension of the previous global survey conducted in early 2020 with knowledge workers in Australia, USA, Japan, Germany and France using observational, qualitative, and ethnographic research methodologies. In India, 1,425 participants from tier 1, 2 and 3 cities were surveyed for over four weeks in October 2020.  

As per the research findings, Indian employees were more likely to want to work completely from home (66%) than any other country surveyed. While people are still managing new challenges that come with remote work, many reported a sense of ‘relief’ being free from the usual presenteeism of the office environment. 70% of people reported their job satisfaction is better than before COVID-19 restrictions. In fact, 61% of employees find it manageable to effectively work at home during the COVID-19 restrictions. With all the positives surrounding remote work, the study also revealed that a majority of Indian workers (78%) were actually worried about what their home life looks like to their colleagues and what it says to them. 

A core finding mentions that 86% of employees in India thought the members of their team feel closer to each other now and 75% thought their team worked better together compared to pre-Covid. People are sharing more personal experiences with their team. The majority of Indian employees (89%) reported a feeling of unity and cohesion in their team. Another insightful revelation was that 1 in 2 (50%) of managers said their job security was much better now than before COVID-19. The pandemic has triggered a shift in managerial roles and managers are feeling more integral to workflows and productivity than ever. 

Dinesh Ajmera, Site Lead and Head of Engineering, Bengaluru, Atlassian said, “The research findings point to how the ‘new normal’ will shape work, relationships and collaboration in the future. These are the voices of real people facing real complexities. Now is our opportunity to use the insights we have been presented with to adapt for the better, guided by the experiences of employees around the world.” 

“We at Atlassian are embracing this change wholeheartedly and investing early in developing a workforce that can navigate this new environment, and thrive in it. We believe that our unique organisational culture and focus on employee wellbeing, will go a long way in making this transition smooth. It’s heartening to know that even during these difficult times, our India office has been steadfast with an uptick in hiring,” he further added. 

Consistent with the industry sentiment on digital adoption seeing a quantum leap during the pandemic, the study reveals that Indian employees are rapidly adopting digital toolkits and skills for worry of being left behind. The introduction of social distancing and remote working has accelerated the move to a digital-first environment, forcing people to adapt. 

From an organisational perspective, 88% of Indian employees believed their company was already well prepared for returning to the office, while 78% of the workforce in India were annoyed that it took a pandemic to allow them to work from home. While from a work-life balance standpoint, 81% of people in India say it’s more difficult to maintain boundaries between work and personal lives, compared to 79% in Australia and 58% in the US. 

To find out more about the research and download the report, please visit here. Assess your Work Life Impact with Atlassian Team Playbook.  

About the research 

The Reworking Work: Understanding The Rise of Work Anywhere was commissioned by Atlassian and conducted by PaperGiant, with the support of international research partners. Our research was conducted over four weeks in October 2020 – almost eight months since the pandemic began. The methodology used a mixed-method approach, combining 19 in-depth remote interviews via Zoom with various workers in India, a two-week global diary study of six participants as well as a 15-minute quantitative survey of almost 1,400 knowledge workers across tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 cities in India. Respondents for all three methodologies were between the ages of 25-64, at a company of 250 employees or more. 

About Atlassian 

Atlassian unleashes the potential of every team. Our collaboration software helps teams organize, discuss, and complete shared work. Teams at more than 182,000 customers, across large and small organizations - including General Motors, Walmart Labs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Lyft, Verizon, Spotify, and NASA - use Atlassian’s project tracking, content creation and sharing, and service management products to work better together and deliver quality results on time. Learn more about products including Jira Software, Confluence, Trello, Bitbucket, Opsgenie, Jira Service Desk, and Jira Align at https://atlassian.com. 

About PaperGiant 

PaperGiant is a strategic research and design consultancy that helps organizations understand and solve complex problems. PaperGiant specializes in combining qualitative and quantitative research to understand customers and communities and translates that understanding into designs for product, service, and policy. PaperGiant has offices in Melbourne and Canberra and works throughout Australasia. Learn more about their work and services at http://papergiant.net. 

Paisabazaar.com Transforms Lending with ‘Paisabazaar Stack’, a Digital Stack with Microsoft Azure and Azure AI

 

Paisabazaar.com, India’s largest digital marketplace for lending products, has developed ‘Paisabazaar Stack’ – a digital lending solution using Microsoft Azure technologies and Azure AI to optimize loan disbursals and credit card issuance. Built on the Azure platform, the Stack is integrated with Paisabazaar’s partner banks and NBFCs to enable consumers to access credit products through end-to-end presence-less and contactless processes. In addition to help consumers stay safe, the Stack is also enabling banks and non-banking financial corporations (NBFCs) to disburse unsecured loans in a presence-less, completely digital manner, within 3 to 5 hours as compared to 3 to 7 days earlier. 

Paisabazaar.com works with over 130 partners with lending products on its platform and caters to credit enquiries from over 1200 cities and towns every month. Traditionally, a loan application requires in-person meetings between the applicant and back representative to fill up forms, collection of supporting documents and verification of identity. This is followed by an additional manual verification by bank officials before a loan is granted or declined, and a final in-person signing of the agreement. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, there was a breakdown in these steps and processes. With the launch of the Digital Stack, the process has been restored digitally and the time required for loan disbursal been significantly reduced.  

According to Mukesh Sharma, Chief Technology Officer, Paisabazaar.com, “The Stack is actually a tectonic shift in the industry. Most large lenders and Fintechs were unprepared due to the lack of digital processes and infrastructure. We all had to wake up to a new reality and adapt to it. Everybody was impacted and our focus was to ensure that consumers could have access to the loans they needed, through completely paperless and presence-less processes. We recognized the potential of AI and Cognitive Services to make end-to-end digital loan disbursals a reality with our Digital Stack.  As the market leader with partnerships with most large banks and new-age lenders - and a culture of innovation since inception - we are well placed to accelerate this critical shift towards the much-needed digitization of the entire ecosystem.”   

To ensure continuity and minimize difficulties for customers, the start-up embraced a culture of innovation, which according to a study by IDC commission by Microsoft, identifies the synergy between technology, process, data, and people, that allows organizations to drive sustained innovation.  

Sharma also adds that the lockdown accelerated the process,” We were trying to create this stack before the pandemic hit us. We wanted to create paperless digital programs, but things were not moving because the industry was not ready. But when the lockdown happened, we were the first to launch this digital stack.”  

The Paisabazaar Stack is providing flexibility, scalability, security, and efficiencies to its lending partners. End users can access credit much quicker, from the comfort of their homes, with zero physical interaction. Each physical step in the lending process has now been built digitally: 

* KYC Verification – the Digital KYC Module in the Paisabazaar Stack includes offline KYC verification(O-KYC) and Video KYC that uses Azure Cognitive Services. Applicants can verify their identity and also their location and liveliness—ensuring they were real people and not bots.  

* Income & Employment Validation – The Stack accelerates income validation and employment verification of consumers. An applicant’s bank statements are analysed digitally using AI to determine his/ her financial health and provide results to Paisabazaar’s lending partners, which enables quicker decision-making. Additionally, customers can provide self-attested proof of income viz., bank statements and salary slips digitally.  

* Repayment Set-up & Agreements –Using the stack, Paisabazaar has been able to fast-track the NACH process and streamlined verification of bank account details and set up repayment instructions through digital mandate on behalf of its partner lenders.  

Moreover, their ‘Chance of Approval’ feature enables Paisabazaar to provide customized lending solutions to using a predictive algorithm model. Paisabazaar.com also provides ‘pre-qualified offers’ from partner banks and NBFCs.  The model which is built using big data, machine learning and mass scaled using Azure Kubernetes and Container Services, matches a borrower's profile like income, credit score, age, among others, with the various lending criteria of different lenders. It then provides customers with the odds of getting their loan application approved—Excellent, Good, Fair or Poor—against each lender.  This has improved loan approval rates considerably over the last 18 months since the feature was launched. 

Rajiv Sodhi, Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft India, said, “Organizations in India understand that they need to improve across all culture of innovation dimensions, especially technology. It is encouraging to see business leaders recognize this, and plan to focus on technology to drive sustained innovation and realize their digital transformation ambition. Achieving success in digital transformation requires both the adoption of tools and technologies as well as enhancing own people’s capabilities – what we term as tech intensity – a critical component of the culture of innovation. Our goal is to realize an inclusive future where all organizations in India are dynamic and resilient – to recover well and thrive despite the crisis. At Microsoft, we are committed to working with organizations in India to make this happen, together,”  

Culture of Innovation  

Microsoft India and IDC have recently published a study highlighting that looks at the relationship between a culture of innovation and an organization’s growth. The Culture of Innovation refers to an organization’s ongoing ability  to respond quickly to challenges and successfully perform in four dimensions - People, Processes, Data and Technology capabilities.  

The study highlighted that innovation is not an option anymore – it is a necessity. The findings included the following:  

·         77% of Indian organizations have found innovation to be critical or important to their performance and resilience  

·         In a short span of six months, organizations in India have increased their ability to innovate by 4% by maturing their Culture of Innovation.  

·         Close to 78% of India organizations are speeding up digitalization in a variety of ways to adapt to the new reality. This included launching digital products and introducing digital payments to embracing ecommerce and automation.  

·         As a result, Indian companies are aiming at increasing their revenue from digital products and services to 50% in the next 3 years from 36% at present.  

·         64% of respondents acknowledged that innovation has become easier in the post-COVID-19 era. Prior to the pandemic, only 32.5% of Indian business found innovation in their products and services easier.  

·         45% organizations indicated that for the next 12 months, they will focus on Technology as most essential for business resilience and recovery.  

Importance of Organ Donations and Saving Lives Through Kidney Transplant

Due to the fear of COVID-19 infection, at the end of March 2020, the Government of India had stopped all elective surgeries for some time. However, it is important to adapt and co-exist in these uncertain times and Manipal Hospitals as a patient centric institution has once again shown the way by giving hope and setting a benchmark when it comes to transplantations and organ donations. The Hospital has successfully carried out few such emergency kidney transplants during the extended lockdown maintaining an infection-free environment throughout. In recent months, Manipal Hospitals has carried out 13 kidney transplants i.e, 6 including a cadaver transplant in September, followed by 3 in October, 4 in November. One more transplant scheduled to happen this week.

Dr. Sudarshan Ballal, Chairman of Manipal Hospitals says, “At Manipal Hospitals, we have come to realize that the new normal in our lives has to coexist with the pandemic. Also, over a period of time, it becomes inevitable especially in emergencies, living transplantation is the only chance of saving a life. Manipal Hospitals was one of the first to give hope and set another benchmark by deciding to step up to the new normal situation.”

Elaborating on the topic, Dr Vishwanth. S – HOD and Consultant - Nephrology, Transplant Physician, Manipal Hospitals, Old Airport Road said, “Approximately 220,000 people in India require kidney transplantation annually due to kidney failure mostly resulting from long-standing diabetes and hypertension. However, only 7500 transplants are possible due to the lack of donors. Some of the most common barriers to living donation include donor's concern r egarding complete recovery post-transplant. Living donors have a very low chance of long-term health problems in most cases and can be expected to live a full, healthy life as any other person. At present, cadaver kidney transplantation accounts for only 10% of all kidney transplants. As per the Indian law, intensive care doctors can request for organ donation in the event of brain death to promote decreased donation rate in India. Though the rates of cadaver kidney transplantation rates have improved over 3 times since 2012, it has dropped down significantly in the wake of the pandemic”

Though transplant is elective, sometimes it can be lifesaving. Living donor success rate is as high as 90-95% and the rate of survival in patients receiving a cadaver kidney is about 80-85%.  The hospital restarted the transplant programs with all the precautionary care needed. Coupled with globally accepted state-of-art infrastructure and able and expert hands of doctors and staff of the Manipal Hospitals Old Airport Road was triumphant in driving 12 live renal transplants and one cadaver renal transplant to successful completion during the recent months. Further, to minimize hospital exposure, postoperative hospital stays were made shorter and video conferencing was also being undertaken for follow-ups.

Dr Deepak Dubey, HOD and Consultant – Urology, Robotic Surgery and Renal Transplant, who was extremely pivotal in performing some of the transplants, remarks that, “A kidney transplant offers a better quality of life than dialysis for those with end-stage renal disease. With the covid-19 pandemic, there is an obvious concern about the risk of acquiring an infection during the transplant process. Our team has been successfully conducting renal transplants during the pandemic with very positive outcomes. All precautions are being maintained to prevent covid transmission during the transplant process.”

Helia Raises $3M From Silicon Valley Investors, Including Neo, Abstract Ventures and Kevin Hartz

Helia, a US based enterprise security startup by Indian origin co-founder, Ashwin Sreenivas, along with the company’s US co-founders, Russell Kaplan and Daniel Berrios, today announces that it has raised USD 3 million. The funding round was led by some of the top venture capital firms and investors in Silicon Valley including Neo, Abstract Ventures and Kevin Hartz, the cofounder and chairman of Eventbrite.

Helia’s SaaS platform enhances physical security within enterprises by autonomously reviewing security camera footage in real time. Rather than requiring large teams of human guards, Helia uses cutting edge deep learning to monitor cameras for security events, and alerts teams of breaches instantaneously, before they escalate into security incidents. Helia does this without requiring specialized cameras. Instead, it integrates with existing security cameras, processes their feeds on an enterprise’s premises using Helia’s deep learning stack, and centralizes results to the cloud where they can be viewed securely.

Helia has worked extensively with teams in India on product development, particularly in start-up hubs like Bangalore that are filled with deeply technical and entrepreneurial teams. Furthermore, Ashwin has deep connections to India, having spent the majority of his life in Cochin, Kerala.

“We are honored to have this incredible group of investors backing our vision and helping Helia on its journey” said Ashwin Sreenivas, co-founder of Helia. There is growing demand within enterprises for security teams to change posture from reactive to proactive. Rather than simply addressing the consequences of a breach, Helia allows security teams to prevent the incident altogether.

*  Helia's AI autonomously monitors all existing security cameras, and alerts security teams of breaches in real time, allowing officers to respond before the breach can escalate.

*  Breach detection ensures that only authorized employees have access to spaces.

*  Enterprise risk reports quantify risk over time allowing security leaders to uncover access control vulnerabilities and allocate guard staffing optimally

About the Founders: Ashwin Sreenivas, a technology entrepreneur from Kerala, is one of three co-founders at Helia; prior, he was a deployment strategist at Palantir Technologies, and has graduated with degrees in computer science and AI from Stanford University (BS, MS). Russell Kaplan, co-founder, was formerly a senior machine learning scientist at Tesla, and also has degrees in AI from Stanford University (BS, MS). Daniel Berrios, co-founder, worked in the TMT investment banking group at Goldman Sachs, and has a degree in economics from Stanford University.

About Helia: Helia is structuring and understanding the world's video. Billions of hours of video are created every day, but almost none of it can be used to create value; Helia changes this by using AI to autonomously review video in real time. The company uses advanced computer vision to integrate with existing security cameras and access control systems to monitor for breaches. Security teams are then notified of incidents in real time, along with a video clip of the event, allowing for quick identification, triage, and response.

HiHi – New Vibrant, Online Community Launched Across Indian Market

* App has clocked 47,000 downloads till date 

Meotida Pvt. Ltd. announces the launch of a vibrant, interactive and user-friendly dating app in India – HiHi - for young and dynamic individuals seeking friendship and meaningful relationships from their smartphones. Launched in Aug. 2020 on Google Play Store, the app has already made over 47,000 individuals fall in love with the platform within a short span of time and the numbers keep on increasing.

HiHi is dedicated to facilitate smooth conversations between young, like-minded and free-thinking individuals wherein they can interact, make friends, engage in discussions, share thoughts and views and even go on potential dates.

Speaking about this launch, Mr. Jistesh Bisht, CEO, HiHi (Meotida Pvt Ltd.) said, “We are extremely happy to build a thriving community of so many young, energetic and dynamic users via HiHi who continue to engage and interact with one another.  Soon after we commenced our operations, our aim was to create a platform where these active individuals can find like-minded people to engage with and befriend them through a safe, secure and clutter-free platform like ours. We look forward to becoming a leading player in India's online dating market by continuing to expand this thriving community.”

The app’s unique aspect lies in its advanced algorithms which scans and ensures authenticity of all profiles via a detailed registration funnel in order to find a perfectly compatible partner for the members. It also has an easy user interface which enables one to set up their profile and customise it further basis their preferences. In addition, it allows users to communicate only with people who are swiped ‘Left’ by another user thereby making it a safe place to converse without limits.

According to Online Market Researcher Statista’s report, the user penetration in the Indian online dating market is estimated to touch 3.2% by 2023, testimony to Indian society evolving culturally at a rapid pace over the last few years augmented by the extensive access to technology, especially smartphones. HiHi’s focus now lies in steering its user growth and increasing user engagement by adapting to their needs.

YES BANK and Worldline Support Merchants and Communities by Providing Remote Payment Solutions Through SMS Pay

 

·         Merchants can accept remote payments through SMS PAY using the POS Terminal

·         SMS Pay is offered to YES BANK Merchants at no additional cost

·         Assists in maintaining social distancing by providing remote and contactless payment solutions

YES BANK announced the launch of SMS Pay functionality on POS terminals in partnership with Worldline, enabling merchants to accept contactless and remote payments from their customers. This initiative is in line with the Bank’s commitment to support small and medium businesses in restarting their businesses while providing safety to their customers. SMS Pay is a step towards facilitating merchants to accept remote payments on their POS machines and enabling their customers to transact safely from the comfort of their homes.

Through this, a safe and simple platform is created for shopkeepers and merchants including local kirana stores & departmental stores enabling them to request payments against invoices by simply entering amount and customer contact details on their POS machines. Instantly an SMS is triggered to the customer’s mobile number with a payment link, allowing them to pay securely through their domestic debit and credit cards.

Speaking on the launch, Rajanish Prabhu, Business Head - Credit Cards and Merchant Acquisition, YES BANK, said “In line with the Bank’s strategy of building a transformed Digital Bank, we along with Worldline have been working on supporting our merchant partners through innovative solutions which help them unlock their businesses in a safe and convenient manner. SMS Pay is a simple yet convenient value addition to our merchant POS solutions and provides an alternative channel of payment acceptance for our merchants at zero incremental cost. SMS Pay will help in boosting business by providing merchants dual benefit of enabling them to serve outside their vicinity as payments can be made remotely as well providing safety and convenience to their customers.”

Speaking on the launch, Deepak Chandnani, Managing Director, Worldline South Asia and Middle East said, "Consumers continue to increasingly prefer digital payment options over cash. Technology enabled contactless payment solutions are the need of the hour and Worldline is in the forefront of this emerging trend. We will continue to innovate and enhance the functionalities of all our acquiring solutions including POS terminals in order to provide convenient, frictionless and secure solutions for merchants as well as customers. We are pleased to extend our relationship with our trusted partner, YES BANK to provide the SMS Pay feature for their merchants.”

Platform Benefits:

·         Zero contact payments

·         Remote & quick setup on POS terminals

·         Trusted and secure

·         Easy to operate

Simple and Instant Payment Process Flow

YES BANK POS terminals have an SMS Pay option displayed in the terminal menu

Upon selecting SMS Pay, the terminal prompts merchant to enter customer’s mobile number and sale amount

The customer receives URL for making payment via SMS

Customer completes the payment remotely via Internet payment gateway (IPG) page through his or her preferred mode of payment (domestic credit or debit card)

Once the payment is complete, charge slip is generated from the POS machine and merchant can deliver goods or services.

BharatPe’s POS Business Grows to US$ 2Bn Annualized Transaction Value in 3 Months

BharatPe, India’s largest merchant payments company, today announced that it has recorded the fastest ever scale up on POS in the industry. BharatPe’s POS business has grown to US$ 2bn annualized transaction value in just 3 months post the launch. The company announced that its POS business now contributes to 25% of the annualized transaction value. The company currently offers this product in 10 cities of the country and plans to ramp it up to 40 cities by the end of the current fiscal year. It has set a target of US$ 5bn POS annualized transaction value from the POS business by end of FY21. 

BharatSwipe, the POS machine from BharatPe launched in the second half of 2020 is India’s first zero rental card machine that offers the merchants the option for zero transaction charges. It allows the merchants to accept payments from a range of credit and debit cards. Additionally, the merchant can generate receipt for both card and QR transactions. BharatSwipe has received an overwhelming response from small merchants across industries including kirana store owners, restaurant owners as well as entrepreneurs with 4-5 outlets. 

Talking about the success of BharatSwipe, Mr. Suhail Sameer, Group President, BharatPe, said, “BharatSwipe has been one of our biggest success stories. In just about a quarter, our POS business is now 1/4th of our annualized transaction value. We launched POS machine with zero rental and zero transaction fee which resonated well with the merchant community and helped us get a headstart in this competitive market. This success is also a testimony of our in-depth understanding of small merchants’ financial services requirements. Interestingly, our average daily active merchants on POS are much higher than the industry average. We will be aggressively focusing on building this business as we expand to newer markets. We currently have close to 35,000 machines in the market and are targeting 1,00,000 POS machines deployment by the end of the current fiscal. Also, we have recently launched cash advance loans based on the merchant’s POS transaction data and initial data looks very promising. We will be scaling this up in the coming months.” 

BharatPe offers a range of fintech products to help small merchants grow their business.  These include industry’s first interoperable UPI QR with zero transaction fee, a range of credit and insurance products, the POS machine and digital gold. It recently announced its aggressive expansion plans across Tier-1, 2 and 3 cities in the country. The company is currently present in 35+ cities and plans to scale up its presence by adding another 30 cities to its list by December 2020. 

About BharatPe 

BharatPe was co-founded by Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani in 2018 with the vision to make financial inclusion a reality for Indian merchants. BharatPe launched India’s first UPI interoperable QR code, first ZERO MDR payment acceptance service, and first UPI payment backed merchant cash advance service. In 2020, post-Covid, BharatPe also launched India’s only ZERO MDR card acceptance terminals – BharatSwipe. Currently serving over 50 lakh merchants across 35 cities, the company has grown business 30x in 2019 and is a leader in UPI offline transactions, having processed 5 crore+ UPI transactions a month (annualized TPV of US$ 7+ Bn). The company has already facilitated disbursement of over Rs. 500 crores to its merchants since launch. BharatPe has raised US$ 142.5 million till date. The company’s list of marquee investors includes Beenext, Sequoia, SteadView Capital, Ribbit Capital, Coatue Management LLC, Insight Partners, and Amplo.