upGrad Records An Annual Revenue Run Rate Of Rs 1200 Crore; Clocks Rs 100 Crore Monthly Revenue In March

* Forecasts 25% revenue growth & profitability in the next Quarter  

upGrad, South Asia’s largest higher edtech, today announced that it has crossed the milestone of INR 100 Crore a month and achieved an Annual Revenue Run rate (ARR) of INR 1200 Crore. The edtech major now targets 25% revenue growth in the next quarter (April-May-June) with profitability in sight.

Ronnie Screwvala said, “It’s been a tough Covid year. I know many have said 2020 was a break-out year for EdTech, but on the contrary, I can clearly see Higher Education hitting its massive inflection point once the pandemic settles down.  Most of us are wondering what will ‘change’ post the pandemic, but at upGrad we are building on what will not change for the next many decades - the future of Online and LifeLongLearning. And, that allows us to build a global company, at scale, out of India for the world.”

2020 was a year where upGrad grew by 100% in revenues, tripled its course offerings, hit the ball out of the park on global MBAs, scaled university partnerships, put together a crack India & global team, crossed 1 Million learners across 50+ countries, delivered 10 Million hours of Learning experiences, and closed 3 acquisitions.

“For us to get to our USD 2 Billion Revenue goal by 2026, we are well placed in all our building blocks. In 2021 & 2022, we will be linking all the dots in LifeLongLearning - from anyone entering college, to all the way to retirement, and everything in between. The consolidation of our international expansion and strategic acquisitions will further fuel non-linear revenue growth in 2021. upGrad’s differentiator of deep learning, record 85% course completion ratio, along with meeting career goals of learners, will keep us a market leader and a partner of choice for our learners and academia alliances around the world,” concluded Screwvala, Co-founder & Chairman, upGrad.

About upGrad

upGrad is an international online higher education leader offering 100+ courses in collaboration with top-notch global universities like Deakin Business School (Australia), Duke CE (US), Michigan State University (US), Liverpool Business School (UK), IIT Madras (India), IIM Kozhikode (India) and others. The edtech major has impacted over 1 million total registered learners over 50+ countries across the world.

upGrad has ranked No.1 in the LinkedIn Top Startups India 2020 list. This is the third time in a row that upGrad has been featured in the LinkedIn Top Startup list after 2018 and 2019. It is also amongst GSV Global EdTech 50 List.

Why Desktop As A Service (DaaS) Could Be A Great Advantage For All SMBs Across Indian Market

With remote working on the rise, and companies adopting digitisation and cloud-only solutions, how viable is the Desktop-as-a-Service? Let us know what the industry leaders have to say.

By Vikas Bhonsle, CEO at Crayon Software Experts India

In plain words, Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is a cloud-based solution, just like any other SaaS, PaaS or IaaS, through which a service provider allows the user to access a virtual desktop from anywhere through the internet. In DaaS, you get the entire package of the desktop which includes the operating system (OS), SaaS and legacy applications, without getting into the hassles of separate software procurement and their management.

The payment is on a 'pay-as-a-go' subscription basis, making it easy to scale-up or scale-down, as per changing demand. It is a turnkey service, which is easy to manage as it simplifies many of the IT admin tasks of desktop solutions. It is similar to a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) but, unlike VDI, where the organization deploys virtual desktops from their own on-premises data centres, DaaS is entirely cloud-based.

Why DaaS:

IT is one of the most extensive overhead in traditional PC environments. Every organization has to invest in a dedicated IT team for running the entire digital infrastructure, right from managing employee password resets to updating security patches in applications.

DaaS can be a viable solution for customers who prefer the centralization, security and management of a VDI but prefer the cloud provider to handle the desktop management on their behalf. DaaS simplifies IT operations and delivers desktops with the OS and apps securely to its workforce.

With DaaS, workers can now easily access their work from anywhere on any device, especially for those who are remotely-based. At times, IT can become a big challenge or crisis for the employee based out of a remote location. It can not only affect employee productivity but also affect billing hours. With DaaS, the complexity of OpEx is reduced to a great extent as the entire platform is cloud-based and any anomalies arising can be managed remotely, online by the service provider. Also, the companies can excuse themselves for the operations and management of the desktop, which is otherwise involved in traditional IT or VDI. It can be rapidly scaled up or scaled down as per the needs, keeping IT costs inline. DaaS takes care of securing access points for users, and the organization's data is securely stored and protected against data loss or device theft. It is an advantage in terms of business continuity and security.

By Prashanth GJ, CEO at TechnoBind

Desktop as a Service has been around for many years now - almost over 15 plus years. They had not really taken off all these years for various reasons ranging from bandwidth constraints to limitations of the technology which ended up in a very poor user experience. It wasn't just the user experience that hampered large-scale adoption of DaaS. Although today the cloud will seem an obvious choice, there was widespread reluctance to move corporate data onto cloud infrastructure in the early days of hosted desktops. But things have changed today - may companies I have been speaking to have already a "cloud-first" strategy in place. But the most significant development is the black swan event of the pandemic which is bringing about a major change in work environments across the world.

With the WFH here to stay and corporates seeing obvious benefits coming out of it, DaaS is one strategy that CIOs will look to take care of some of the challenges that a WFH may bring about. Control and Security are amongst the top advantages that DaaS gives and with employees working from diverse locations the IT never had control on the kind of networks being used to access corporate data or for that matter devices and the environment from which employees were accessing corporate data. DaaS helps you manage the risks that naturally come with giving your staff the freedom to work anywhere and on any device. It enables you to control the essentials such as data access and compliance without being overly restrictive. You no longer have to worry about what data is held on a user's device as the data remains in the data centre at all times. This gives you control over all company assets because access can be revoked with the touch of a button. DaaS moves the security risk from hundreds of end-user devices and put it all into the controlled and managed environment of a data centre. Lost or stolen laptops no longer provide a security risk. No data is on the local machine. As DaaS removes the need to create VPNs to access applications and data held by the company it also removes the problem of users trying to bypass the security in the belief that it will make their life easier.

India Becoming A Leading Global Hub For Nutraceuticals Post-Covid

* Interest and investment on the rise, says Amit Srivastava, Nutraceuticals evangelist

Leading international nutraceutical companies are making a beeline for India, with India showing the potential for becoming both a large market, as also a source innovation and ingredients. According to a report by International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce, United States, the nutraceuticals market in India is expected to grow from an estimated $4 billion to $18 billion by the end of 2025.  Currently, the Indian market imports US$ 2.7 billion worth of nutraceuticals.  

Nutrify Today, a nutraceuticals B2B platform, which creates India entry strategies, marketing strategies, innovation strategies and efficient sourcing strategies, recently signed up with Myhealth (Belgium), Kamedis (Israel), Kreivo Health (Singapore) and Baker Dillon Group (USA), confirmed the global focus on India and Amit Srivastava, Chief Catalyst, said, “There has been a spate of interest in international companies on India and they want to access the Indian market swiftly while others want to source from India efficiently. Responsible Nutrition and evidence-based nutrition is at the center of all these conversations. This sector also has opened significantly to attract foreign investments.”

“Government of India has recently opened 100 percent FDI in this manufacturing sector under automatic route, and entities can sell their products through wholesale, retail, or e-commerce platform. A report shows that FDI into the country increased from US$ 131.4 million in 2012 to US$584.7 million in 2019 and is only likely to increase in the post-Covid scenario. It is extremely encouraging to see that global companies are looking at India for innovations and technology expansion strategies also, like our recently signed deal with California-based Baker Dillon Group for U.S. expansion of their technology platform”, Srivastava added. 

MyHealth of Belgium, and Kamedis, Israel, are attempting to find a base in India to drive innovation from botanical ingredients. Commenting on this partnership with Nutrify Today, Roni Kramer, Founder & CEO, Kamedis said. “Kamedis has excelled in patented formulations of botanical extracts for dermatological conditions. The formulations have been subjected to stringent clinical trials and have been a success story in Israel, and now entering US markets. Engaging Nutrify Today will enable Kamedis to find a strong foothold in the Indian dermatology market”. 

Jurgen Broeck, Founder, and CEO, Kreivo Health, Singapore, a market access leader focused on ASEAN, European and African markets, said, “Engaging Nutrify Today will enable Kreivo Health to tap into an innovation pool in India fortifying its portfolio into its core areas of specialization. We have charted an aggressive growth strategy and intend to double up our portfolio in Europe and Africa. We also plan to tap into about USD 5 million worth of Nutra innovation portfolio from India. With Nutrify Today at our side, we are confident in tapping innovations that support responsible nutrition standards.”

Commenting on My Health’s India strategy, Raf Dybajlo, CEO, My Health said, “The portfolio at My Health undergoes clinical trials in the standards of pharma to ensure desired health outcome. My Health has witnessed success in Europe and now it is well primed to enter key markets like India. The products comply with standards of responsible nutrition set by Nutrify Today and eligible for clearance from Indian regulatory.”

Tata Communications Recognised As A ‘Leader’ In The Gartner Magic Quadrant For Network Services, Global

* Evaluation based on ‘completeness of vision’ and ‘ability to execute’ in global network services

For the eighth year consecutively, Tata Communications, a global digital ecosystem enabler, has been recognised as a Leader in the March 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Services, Global.

The Gartner Magic Quadrant assesses providers’ completeness of vision and ability to execute. According to the report, “Driven by cloud IT service adoption and accelerated by COVID-19, the market for

global enterprise network services is undergoing a generational shift in technologies and provider landscape”. “Services like managed SD-WAN, network on-demand services, NFV and uCPE, which transform the enterprise networking market, are being rapidly deployed to help improve the agility of providers’ network solutions. The inclusion and evaluation criteria for this Magic Quadrant and its companion Critical Capabilities research have been evolved to reflect these trends."

Speaking on this recognition, Genius Wong, Chief Technology Officer, Tata Communications said, “We are humbled to be named a Leader for the eighth year in a row, especially for this last year which has been truly exceptional. We scaled up our network services and infrastructure almost overnight to move our customers’ employees to work remotely and shift workloads seamlessly across borders as part of their business continuity plans. As a result, we witnessed increased demand for network capacity, together with requirements for bespoke solutions that enabled efficient and secure remote working. Whether the focus is Cloud, Mobility, Security, IoT or Business Collaboration, our Tier 1 network has evolved to facilitate the complex, global connectivity issues that businesses need to solve in this new environment. As we now move into reimagining and remodelling our network for a new tomorrow, I would like to thank our customers and look forward to strengthening our relationships with them.”

According to Gartner, “Most global network service providers are continuing to move toward a more platform-based approach using a software-driven, as-a-service model, with increasing levels of visibility and self-service via portals and APIs available to enterprise customers.”

Tata Communications is a Tier 1 network provider, offering a portfolio of services from cloud and IoT connectivity to security solutions. The collective offering is fortified by the company’s global network infrastructure that reaches countries representing ~98% of the world’s GDP. The Tata Communications global network includes one of the most advanced and largest submarine cable networks, spanning 240,000+ kms of subsea cable and 90,000+ kms of terrestrial cable.

Gartner Disclaimer

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

2020 Autocar Maintenance Study Ranks Ford Vehicles Among The Most Affordable To Own

Ford yet again delivered on its promise of greater value of money to its customers with the 2020 edition of Autocar India’s Vehicle Maintenance study rating its cars & SUVs as the most affordable to maintain in their respective segments.

According to Autocar report that covers all vehicle segments and manufacturers, Ford products were among the most economical - ranging from INR 20,682 or 34 paisa per kilometer for Ford Figo to INR 42,548 or 71 paisa per kilometer for Ford Endeavour - to maintain against segment leaders over a 60,000-kilometer or five-year ownership cycle.

The study found Ford Figo Petrol to be the most affordable mid-range hatchback, costing just 34 paise per KM to maintain, 28% less than the segment volume leader. The Figo Diesel, with its most powerful and bigger engine, was also among the most inexpensive, costing just 45 paise per kilometre to maintain.

Amongst compact SUVs, both Ford Freestyle Petrol and Diesel variants were least expensive to maintain, requiring 35% and 38% lower spends of just 34 paise and 45 paise per kilometre respectively. Ford EcoSport, with spends of about Rs. 21,754 for petrol and 27,882 for diesel over a 60,000-kilometre ownership cycle, once again set a benchmark.

In the Premium SUV segment, the study showed 2020 Endeavour to be nearly 12% cost-effective to maintain compared to the market leader. While the Ford Endeavour owners spend just 71 paise per kilometre to maintain, those who drive its competing model spend 81 paise per kilometre to keep their SUV in shape.

“We have been working to ensure our products continue to deliver wonderful value of ownership throught out their ownership cycle and address misconceptions. The Maintenance report by Autocar is a great boost and validation of our untiring efforts,” said Vinay Raina, executive director for Marketing, Sales & Service at Ford India.

Autocar India’s annual study analyses the amount owners are expected to spend to keep their cars in shape and factors recurring expenses on periodic service, labour, routine spare part replacement such as spark plugs, filters (oil, air, fuel, air-conditioner) and essential fluids (engine oil, brake oil, coolant).

“The Autocar India Study 2020 gives an idea of just how much one would spend in maintaining a car, including service parts, their service life, labour rates as well as the service intervals,” said Hormazd Sorabjee, Editor, Autocar India. “Through authentic, well-researched data in our annual survey, we are glad to play a small part in empowering customers make informed purchase decisions.”

Salarpuria Sattva Knowledge City Wins Best Construction Project At 12th CIDC Vishwakarma Awards

* Awarded for “Achievement for Best Construction Projects”- Building (Commercial)

Salarpuria Sattva Group, India’s leading Property Development, Management and Consulting organization, has been named a winner at the 12th CIDC Vishwakarma Awards 2021 held in New Delhi recently. Salarpuria Sattva Knowledge City, Hyderabad won in the category “Achievement for Best Construction Projects- Building (Commercial).

On receiving the award, Mr. Bijay Agarwal, Managing Director, Salarpuria Sattva Group said, “We are overjoyed to have received this honor from such a distinguished jury. Our goal at Salarpuria Sattva is to constantly innovate and create projects that are of world class design. The award recognizes our achievements in developing a cutting-edge IT project and infrastructure. At Salarpuria Sattva, we believe in maintaining the highest standards of international quality in construction as a true mark of excellence.”

Construction Industry Development Council (CIDC) is an apex body established by the Planning Commission jointly with the Indian construction industry. CIDC is committed to fostering best practices in the Indian construction industry and assisting it in achieving global recognition. The jury comprised of senior industry captains and representatives of government departments. The awards were shortlisted based on the applications and post analysis of each application, the award matrix was discussed in detail for each award category. 

Knowledge City is one of Asia’s Best IT Tech Parks and is located in Hitec City, Hyderabad. This futuristic park is designed to facilitate a creative and balanced work life. The entire ground floor areas of all the towers encompass a retail and F & B hub. The zoning of these areas has been formed to create an interesting space, which will provide recreation and hang out spaces. This area also support banks, ATMs, Crèche and F&Bs.

Knowledge City is a Grade A corporate office of 7 million sq ft and is an IGBC platinum rated project. It also includes multiple entries and exits, a Central Podium Area covered with ETFE roofing, Podium Glass Lifts and Facade lighting. The Amenity block offers an amphitheater, multi play zone/ town hall, business bay, banquette, health and wellness, swimming pool on the terrace, restaurant, futsal, indoor games, banquet halls and terrace basketball.

About Salarpuria Sattva Group:

With 3 decades of expertise, the Salarpuria Sattva Group has grown into one of the most trusted builders in the country today. Headquartered in Bengaluru, India, it also a well-known name in Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, Coimbatore and Goa. The Group will soon be expanding its presence in Mumbai. With 56 million sq.ft spaces completed, 34 million sq.ft under construction and 32 million sq.ft in the planning stage, the Group is one of the premium builders in India today. The Group’s cutting edge upcoming projects in Hyderabad include: Knowledge City, Knowledge Capital, Knowledge Park and Image Towers (Innovation in Animation, Multimedia, Gaming, and Entertainment), a PPP based model with the Telangana State Government. By further expanding into various verticals such as co-working, co-living, education, hotels, facilities management and warehousing, the Group today stands tall as a frontrunner, shaping India’s growth story. The Group’s unwavering adherence to quality has given it the “trusted” tag among builders in the country, renowned for its “A Stable” CRISIL rating.

Ozonetel Partners With IstTek To Expand CloudAgent Contact Centre Solution Across EMEA Region

Ozonetel, India’s leading provider of on-demand cloud communication/telephony solutions, has announced an exclusive partnership with Contact Centre Technology Master Distributor IstTek to bring the CloudAgent Contact Centre Solution across the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region.

As a leading cloud contact center solution provider, Ozonetel’s introduction to the EMEA market brings an unparalleled feature rich contact centre solution built on a fully customizable open API architecture, enabling true omnichannel cloud capabilities that are scalable and flexible – all at a very competitive price point.

IstTek aims to continue to bring together new vendors with the latest technologies to their reseller partner network to drive business and improve customer & user experience. IstTek's mission is to challenge and innovate how the channel works, to create unparalleled value for vendors, resellers & end customers.

Commenting on the partnership, Murthy Chintalapati, CEO of Ozonetel said "We are very excited to have joined in an exclusive partnership with IstTek to deliver our Cloud Contact Centre Solutions across EMEA. The partnership will provide the opportunity for customers to enjoy a feature rich solution at a very competitive price bracket."

IstTek CEO Josh Ayres says, "The dramatic shift in the way people have been working over the last year has highlighted the need to bring to market a feature-rich and affordable cloud-based Contact Centre solution. With the introduction of Ozonetel, our timing really couldn't have been better. The comprehensive Ozonetel CloudAgent product is well suited to this change in working patterns and is priced very competitively."

About Ozonetel:

Headquartered in Hyderabad and Singapore, Ozonetel has several industry firsts to its credit in the area of Cloud Communication. A complete ‘Made in India’ story, Ozonetel is a leading CCaaS (Contact Centre as a Service) player today, creating and deploying cloud contact centre solutions globally. The company has over 1000 enterprise clients across US, India, and UAE, and its platform supports over 50,000 live agents and has handled over 3 billion calls.