Flock Releases ‘How India Corporates Worked Remotely Through Covid in Report 2020’

Flock, the leading workplace communication and collaboration platform has released an extensive report on how Flock users in India which include corporates, decision-makers, senior executives, individual contributors, and more from businesses of all sizes have changed the way they work since March 2020. The study takes a look at data from 48 small businesses and 70 enterprises amassing 53,000+ active users. This report showcases a clear picture that the work from home or work from anywhere age is a welcome change for many organizations during Covid.

The findings of the report state that working habits of employees remained the same more or less: Flock users in India started their day at 8:00 am and ended their day at 6:00 pm on an average. A lot of the user activity dipped between 12:00 pm and 3 pm, during typical lunch time hours. It was also understood that users tend to be online longer on Thursdays, presumably to chase their remaining work at the end of the week. And while most Flock users are offline on Sundays, the platform saw a lot of activity on Saturday afternoons.

Interesting findings on How India worked in 2020:

* An average amount of calendar invites sent per user per day on Flock increased by 22% after March 2020.

* There has been a 13% increase in 1:1 messages sent between individual users since March 2020 as the teams have been working together a lot more

* Thousands of channels have been created to help groups communicate and get the job done: public channels have increased by 76% since March.

* The platform also noticed collaboration and communication occur out in the open more, too—the number of private channels created decreased by 28% in India.

* The collaboration platform also saw small businesses in India increase their amount of files shared by 55%

Commenting on the findings of the report, Bhavin Turakhia, Founder and CEO said, “It’s no surprise that people are working online more than ever now. But it’s the steps they’re taking to ensure their productivity and efficiency increases in the remote workplace. Despite the biases against remote work, businesses and employees alike continue to prove that working from home is indeed an effective alternative. Businesses are continuing to communicate and collaborate in new, innovative ways that are transforming the modern workplace each passing day. And people all around the world are comfortable with a new style of work as it suits their requirements.”

Gaurang Sinha, Director, Go-to-market Strategy at Flock commented, “In 2020, we saw people begin to work their own way, utilizing new tools and the newfound flexibility of the workplace. New features on Flock, like voice notes and Zoom integration empowered our users to build happier, more productive workplaces by adding different ways of communicating with co-workers. We’re optimistic and excited to see the ways people and companies will thrive in the new normal in 2021.”

Flock introduced its voice notes feature in March and since then the number of voice notes posted increased by a massive 379%. Another very interesting finding by the platform states that Flock’s shared to-dos tool, which allows users to assign a task to an individual and set a deadline and reminders, saw its usage increase by 37%. This means employees and managers are being more proactive in getting their tasks done, and sharing their status with others in the team.

Flock’s most used features are video conferencing, to-dos, notes, file sharing, and reminders. Last quarter the platform announced that it had seen massive 40% revenue growth for the past three consecutive quarters.

About Flock

Flock is a real-time communication and collaboration app for companies. It offers a rich and intuitive messenger, as well as modules to help teams manage their people and processes better and automate workflows. Flock comes with a powerful platform that allows users to integrate frequently used external apps and even build custom apps, bots, and integrations. Flock is supported across all platforms, including Desktop (Windows and Mac), Mobile (iOS and Android), and the Web. To know more about Flock, visit ​www.flock.com or follow Flock on​Twitter​,​Facebook​, and LinkedIn.

Trend Micro Announces World's First Cloud-Native File Storage Security

Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), the leader in cloud security, today announced the world's first cloud-native, fully serverless file storage security tool for organizations building applications in the cloud. Trend Micro Cloud One – File Storage Security is designed to mitigate threats across the cloud environment and support strict compliance requirements. 

The explosion of cloud-based file and object storage presents a new attack vector for threat actors to target with malicious files. Cloud One – File Storage Security provides automated anti-malware scanning to keep information safe and ease compliance needs. 

"Global organizations are increasingly looking to public cloud providers to drive IT agility, cost savings and business growth. But while the provider deals with security of the cloud, the customer is responsible for everything inside their cloud environment," said Mark Nunnikhoven, vice president of cloud research for Trend Micro. "This is a highly scalable, automated scanning tool that's fast to deploy with no added infrastructure, allowing organizations to confidently store cloud files and data associated with their cloud applications." 

Backed by Trend Micro's 30+ years of cybersecurity experience and industry leading threat intelligence, the tool blocks known bad files, and looks for hidden or changing malware variants. 

The scanner itself is a lightweight, cloud-native serverless function that's designed for minimal operational overhead. This architecture enables fast, seamless deployment and flexible integration with organizations' existing custom workflows for added value. 

The tool supports various compliance requirements that call for anti-malware scanning of cloud files while maintaining data sovereignty. 

Trend Micro Cloud One – File Storage Security is available now for AWS S3, with support for Microsoft Azure Blob storage and Google Cloud Storage coming soon. 

Using Trend Micro's Cloud One platform, teams can implement a range of security services and compliance checks without hindering agile cloud development and deployment. This single cloud-native security seamlessly complements and integrates with existing AWS, Microsoft® Azure™, VMware®, and Google Cloud™ toolsets. 

About Trend Micro 

Trend Micro, a global leader in cybersecurity, helps make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Leveraging over 30 years of security expertise, global threat research, and continuous innovation, Trend Micro enables resilience for businesses, governments, and consumers with connected solutions across cloud workloads, endpoints, email, IIoT, and networks. Our XGen™ security strategy powers our solutions with a cross-generational blend of threat-defense techniques that are optimized for key environments and leverage shared threat intelligence for better, faster protection. 

Powered by Microsoft Azure and Developed by CoRover, IRCTC’s AI Chatbot AskDISHA Enhances User Experience

Powered by Microsoft Azure, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation’s (IRCTC) AI-powered chatbot AskDISHA has helped improve satisfaction of customer interactions by 70%. Developed by conversational AI platform CoRover, the virtual assistant uses technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) to answer passenger queries. Following the success of AskDISHA, IRCTC is partnering with CoRover to co-sell and re-sell AI products and services to government and private organizations across industries.

Earlier checking train running schedules or status of tickets through phone, email or interactive voice response (IVR) was a lengthy process. The nature of queries was highly repetitive, yet passengers had to experience significantly long waiting periods for even minor queries. In search of instant responses, users sought information from unverified sources. Interactions with the virtual assistant have provided customers with instant responses and frequent queries now have zero wait time.

Since its inception in October 2018, the AskDISHA chatbot has handled over 10 billion interactions benefiting more than 178 million passengers. Supporting both voice and text capabilities in English and Hindi, it is available on both web and mobile app interfaces. The chatbot can answer user queries on ticket reservation, refund status, PNR search, cancellations, probability of ticket confirmation, as well as other travel and tourism offerings of the Indian Railways subsidiary.

AskDISHA processes about 1,50,000 passenger queries daily and customer queries across other channels like social media, phone calls and emails have been reduced by 70%. Passengers receive immediate responses with 90% accuracy and user feedback on the chatbot service has been 85% positive. AskDISHA has also received the Asia Leadership Award for Innovation Using Technology 2019 for being the first chatbot for any government organization in India.

Ankush Sabharwal, Founder, CoRover, said, “Across sectors, cognitive technology can help organizations generate revenue, save cost, improve customer experience and operational efficiency. With secure and scalable architecture on Microsoft Azure, conversational AI platforms like AskDISHA can offer multi-format, omni-channel as well as multilingual support using different technologies like AI, ML, NLP, AR, VR, or RPA. Easy to integrate as well as create and train, CoRover’s chatbots also offer real-time analytics for quick decision-making.”

CoRover has helped in the seamless automation of customer engagement services for organizations across banking and financial services, healthcare, retail, travel and tourism, energy, transportation, and media and entertainment sectors. Their chatbot-as-a-service offering is compatible with over 13 Indian languages and more than 100 international languages and is available in multi-channel support for websites, mobile applications, SMS, and social media among other platforms. With over 275 million unique active users, 4 million daily active users and 800,000 concurrent users, CoRover’s platform meets stringent security norms and processes.

Sangeeta Bavi, Director – Startup Ecosystem, Microsoft India, said, “Microsoft Azure helps CoRover deliver highly scalable solutions like AskDISHA that allows organizations like IRCTC engage effectively with their customers. We are excited to partner with CoRover as their chatbot-as-a-service platform is adopted across industries.”

Microsoft is committed towards empowering startups in India and helping them become enterprise-ready with its deep technical expertise and go-to-market resources, including support from its global enterprise sales and partner ecosystems.

About Microsoft India

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Microsoft set up its India operations in 1990. Today, Microsoft entities in India have over 11,000 employees, engaged in sales and marketing, research, development and customer services and support, across 11 Indian cities – Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, New Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune. Microsoft offers its global cloud services from local data centers to accelerate digital transformation across Indian startups, businesses, and government organizations.

About CoRover

Human-centric conversational AI Platform, CoRover’s proprietary cognitive AI technology, offers managed Chatbot as a Service with self-onboarding support to help organizations generate revenue, save cost, improve customer experience and operational efficiency. Founded in 2016, CoRover has seen highest user traction in India and provides AI virtual assistants to enterprises in India, US, UK, UAE and Japan. CoRover’s proprietary and patent protected platform offers various products like Chatbot, VoiceBot, VideoBot, IVR Bot, WhatsApp Bot and various IM and Social Media Bots in 12+ Indian/Vernacular and 100+ foreign languages.

Iacharya Ties up with BSS to Launch Diploma Courses in Solar Design & Installation

Iacharya, one of the largest online training providers in renewable energy space, today entered into a partnership with Bharat Sevak Samaj (BSS), (formed by Planning Commission of India under the skills mission) to offer online Diploma and Advanced Diploma Courses in Solar Design and Installation.

The partnership will offer 3 diploma courses namely, BSS Diploma in Solar PV Design & Installation, BSS Diploma in Solar PV Technical Sales, BSS Diploma in PV Design Using PVSYST, PVSOL & SAM and one advanced diploma course ‘BSS Advanced Diploma in Design of Solar Utility Power Plants’. The fee for these courses ranges from Rs. 9,000 to Rs. 11,000.

Mr. Karthik Ramakrishnan, Co-Founder Iacharya said “This partnership with BSS is a milestone for Iacharya as it will take our result-oriented training programs in the renewable energy space to the next level. We always thrive to provide our students with specific knowledge and training so that they will get an edge in the employment market. Our aim is to help our students remain competitive and keep their skills up to date. So far more than 2000 Iacharya students have started their own small businesses. I am sure these Diploma Courses powered by BSS will be a vital cog in our country’s push towards renewable energy”.

Iacharya is already offering certification courses from National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE), a unit under Ministry of New & Renewable Energy and NABCEP (North American Board of Certified Energy Professionals). Having trained and certified over 6000 professionals, IAcharya offers high quality training programs at affordable rates to empower small entrepreneurs, ITI, diploma students and professionals.

About Iacharya

Iacharya was started by Mr. Karthik Ramakrishnan, Technocrat from Anna University with MBA from California University in USA and Mrs. Uma Ramakrishnan, a Post Graduate, one of the leading women entrepreneurs and an Industrialist since 1975. Mr.Karthik Ramakrishnan has over 27years International experience in sales, marketing and running various manufacturing industries. Mrs. Uma Ramakrishnan has over 45 years’ experience in running various Electronic and Engineering industries and was involved in the initial set up of one of the first solar manufacturing companies in India.

The company, Iacharya, initially focused on Solar training and Solar consulting in association with UL India Pvt Ltd., Bangalore (an associate of Underwriters Laboratories, USA for certification), started its Solar EPC and solar trading division in 2012. Later the also diversified in the Installation of Solar Power Projects including a sizerable residential Solar Roof Top market share in Tamil Nadu. The company has over 1.4 GW (Giga Watt) of solar consulting experience and over 4 MW (Mega Watt) of installation experience in the Roof Top solar market for leading Corporate, Educational Institutions besides various Governmental departments and Temples under HR&CE, TN Government. The company has traded over 25mw of solar products to small installers across south India.

https://iacharya.in/

Tata Motors Partners with Karnataka Bank to Extend Retail Finance Support to its Customers

Tata Motors, India’s leading automotive brand has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Karnataka Bank in a joint effort to introduce attractive financing offers for its customers to purchase their favourite Tata car*. Customers can now take advantage of a variety of schemes on their future vehicle purchase available across 857 branches of Karnataka Bank which include 199 semi urban and 67 rural branches, making vehicle buying easy and affordable nationwide.

Under this collaborative initiative, customers can avail loans of up to 85% on the on-road pricing of a Tata Motors vehicle with an interest rate linked to External Benchmark Lending Rate (EBLR) which will be updated on the bank’s website periodically. The tenure of this loan is set at a maximum timeframe of up to 84 months.

Commenting on the partnership, Mr. Rajan Amba, Vice President, Sales, Marketing and Customer Service, Passenger Vehicle Business Unit (PVBU), Tata Motors said, “We are elated to be partnering with Karnataka Bank to introduce attractive finance schemes for our customers. This is in alignment with our constant endeavor to make safe personal mobility solutions more accessible to individuals and families, while contributing to the joy of their overall ownership experience. We hope, that these offers will boost customer morale and make the process of purchasing a car more convenient for all.”

According to Mr. Mahabaleshwara M.S, Managing Director & CEO of Karnataka Bank, “This partnership with Tata Motors will be another milestone in our efforts to meet the aspirations of our esteemed customers to fulfil their dream of owning world class products from Tata Motors. Tata Motors will now offer preferred financier status to our bank for financing acquisition of four wheelers manufactured by the company. The proposition becomes even more attractive for the customer with Karnataka Bank now offering car loans through an end to end digital platform developed in house for existing as well as new customers, enabled with faster processing capabilities primarily envisioned for greater customer delight. The dreams of many of our customers to own a personal vehicle will now become a reality with this facility and I am sure this partnership will turn out to be a win-win arrangement for both the brands in their future growth journey.”

In addition to the above, the individuals applying for the loan have to be at least 18 years of age and need to be income tax assessees. The scheme can also be availed by customers who are agriculturists and are owners of farming lands as well as by Non Resident Indians (NRIs). A company/ firm/ trust/ association/ society availing the loan in its name or in the name of its executive/ managing director/ managing partner/ managing trustee/ president/ secretary is also eligible for finance under this program.

As of present day, Tata Motors has the youngest and the safest range of passenger vehicles in the Indian vehicle market. All the products under its New Forever range of cars have been lauded for their design, safety and performance. The Company is witnessing visible demand and growth in bookings for all ‘New Forever’ range of cars and UVs, including the recently launched Harrier 2020 and the Altroz. The rising demand for these products has resulted in a market share of 7.8% (YTD).

For more information on the product range, please visit – cars.tatamotors.com.

* Customers looking to avail the benefits have to qualify as per certain criteria issued by the Karnataka Bank. For more details on scheme details, please visit - www.karnatakabank.com.

* T&C apply

#StayHomeStaySafe

Lodha Ventures Signs on Blue Lotus for its Public Relations Mandate

Lodha Ventures, an Abhinandan Lodha Group (ALG) company, which invests long-term proprietary capital into listed businesses and backs early-stage entrepreneurs to help build successful brands, has signed up Blue Lotus Communications, a 19-year-old, award-winning public relations and investor relations agency for its national public relations mandate.

Commenting on the new mandate, N. Chandramouli, CEO, Blue Lotus Communications said, “We are excited to be joining hands with Lodha Ventures which has diverse interests in financial services.  The phenomenal progress of the company under the leadership of Abhinandan Lodha over the last 5 years is a story to be told. The business acumen and financial acuity of Lodha Ventures’ leadership is visibly demonstrated in the organization’s rapid growth in just five years since formation.”

Abhinandan Lodha, CEO, Lodha Ventures reflected, “We are happy to partner with Blue Lotus for our public relations mandate. Lodha Ventures has an aggressive growth plan over the next five years, and we feel the time was right for embarking on a planned communication campaign for the company.”

About Lodha Ventures

Lodha Ventures, an Abhinandan Lodha Group (ALG) company, is a privately owned and managed business that invests long-term proprietary capital into listed businesses and backs early-stage entrepreneurs to help build successful brands. Lodha Ventures was started in 2015 by Abhinandan Lodha and apart from it, the Abhinandan Lodha Group consists of Lodha Finserv, a RBI registered NBFC, and Tomorrow Capital, a $100 million early-stage fund that invests in consumer-focussed businesses.

Hero Motocorp Team Rally Begins 2021 Dakar with a Solid Stage 1

Hero MotoSports Team Rally delivered a solid stage 1 at the 2021 Dakar Rally today.

All three riders finished the stage safely and reached the bivouac. JRod finished the stage at the 22nd place followed by Buhler at the 29th and Santosh at the 43rd positions.

Starting first for the team, Sebastian Buhler started the stage well but chose a wrong track along with a group of riders about 20 kms into the stage, which resulted in him riding alone in the dust for most of the stage. Having lost time, he finished the stage at the 29th position.

Joaquim Rodrigues started well but decided to exercise caution to avoid any unwarranted incidents right at the start of Rally. Indian ace C S Santosh too decided to ride safe and finished at the 43rd position.

Overall, it was a cautious day for the trio of Hero MotoSports riders. However, it also provided a lot of confidence to the Team. The Stage also saw the new Hero 450 Rally bike passing its first big test of the Dakar with a flawless performance.

The riders will try to get into a better competitive rhythm in the second stage that is scheduled to go underway tomorrow. The 685 km Stage 2 will include a really long 457 km special taking the competitors from Bisha to Wadi-Ad-Dawasir.

Joaquim Rodrigues (Competitor No. 27) said, “It felt like a really long stage today. I didn’t start very confident and definitely my speed was also not up there. So, I decided to focus on navigation throughout the stage. But as soon as some riders passed me, there was a lot of dust and I lost my way a bit. But I am happy that the first stage is off my shoulder and now we take on the second one tomorrow.”

C S Santosh (Competitor No. 50) said, “It was definitely not an easy stage today. It was a really physical stage with a lot of rocks to go through so it was slow and you had to always watch the roadbook. There were lots of direction changes and tricky navigation to set you off the track. So overall I think it was a very tough first stage of the Dakar and it sets the precedence for the stages to come ahead.”

Sebastian Buhler (Competitor No. 24) said, “Today was a hard stage in general. It was more like an enduro stage but over stones. I made a small mistake in the beginning in choosing a track and after that I was pretty much riding alone in the dust which was very difficult and risky.  But it’s only the first day so I am happy to be back at the bivouac safely and tomorrow we will try to do better.”

Provisional Rankings – Stage 1

1. Toby Price RedBull KTM Factory Team       03h 18m 26s

2. Kevin Benavides Monster Energy Honda Team       +31s

3. Matthias Walkner RedBull KTM Factory Team         +32s

23. Joaquim Rodrigues Hero MotoSports Team Rally       +16m 27s

29. Sebastian Buhler     Hero MotoSports Team Rally         +31m 54s

43. C S Santosh    Hero MotoSports Team Rally         +49m 55s

Provisional Overall Rankings at the end of Stage 1

1. Toby Price RedBull KTM Factory Team       03h 43m 58s

2. Kevin Benavides Monster Energy Honda Team       +23s

3. Matthias Walkner RedBull KTM Factory Team           +01m 12s

22. Joaquim Rodrigues Hero MotoSports Team Rally       +16m 31s

29. Sebastian Buhler     Hero MotoSports Team Rally   +31m 30s

43. C S Santosh    Hero MotoSports Team Rally         +52m 47s