Happiest Minds Partners With Coca Cola Bottling Company United In Their Robotic Automation Journey

Happiest Minds Technologies Limited (NSE: HAPPSTMNDS), a ‘Born Digital. Born Agile’, digital transformation and IT solutions company announced, it has successfully executed a digital transformation project for  Coca Cola Bottling Company United for streamlining its order management with RPA in Microsoft Power Automate.

Coca-Cola Bottling Company United (Coca-Cola United) has a long history of supplying Coca-Cola products directly to retailers and restaurants. But when Coca-Cola introduced its new Freestyle vending machine, Coca-Cola United, a privately owned company that isn’t owned by Coca-Cola, was challenged to streamline its order and invoicing procedures. It rose to the occasion quickly, using Microsoft Power Automate robotic process automation (RPA). Coca-Cola United is advancing the strategic Freestyle initiative with process automation that matches the individuality and innovation that the product represents.

“While building this solution, we resurrected high-value strategic projects that we couldn’t tackle before because of the constraints of legacy apps. We feel empowered to take advantage of any future opportunities that the business provides us.” Says Bob Means: Director of Business Solutions

Helping every customer with Power Automate RPA

The company faced two challenges as it explored solutions.                                

“It was too costly to create APIs for our legacy applications like SAP and others, and we also had to navigate a third-party website,” explains Allan McDaniel, Manager of Development for BI and Master Data at Coca-Cola Bottling Company United. “We used Power Automate RPA bots to fill these gaps and automate the process.”

Desktop flows in Power Automate automates repetitive processes in Windows and web applications—a perfect fit for high-volume but mundane data entry and transfer. Coca-Cola Bottling Company United collaborated with Happiest Minds to create a master automated service agent they’ve dubbed “Asa,” which consists of several bots. Built on Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Power Platform, “Asa” uses Azure Key Vault to help secure and control passwords and other sensitive data, and it relies on Azure DevOps for continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD).

The new, simplified process frees the dedicated CRM agent, allowing orders from all channels, such as inbound and outbound call center agents, field service sales representatives at customer sites, and via a customer self-service portal.

“We avoided having to hire 10 full-time employees. Better still, the existing CRM agent is now free to work on other projects.” - Allan McDaniel, Manager of Development for BI and Master Data, Coca-Cola Bottling Company United.

“Our team collaborated well, and the synergies led to the deployment of one of a kind solution, leading to realization of business benefits for our customers. We at Happiest Minds work as a partner with each of our customers in their digital journey and deliver solutions tailormade to the requirement of the respective customers.”  - Huzefa Saifee, Chief Technology Officer, Digital Business Services, Happiest Minds.

Using Power Virtual Agents,  Happiest Minds helped the company developed a bot that served as an intelligent front end to the new solution. Power Automate was used to drive the entire process. And by interoperating with other Azure services, such as Azure Key Vault, the system was able to securely access both internal and external systems and orchestrate the entire order process, from purchase order to reconciliation, in SAP.

Kaylan Cannon, Customer Service Manager, Coca-Cola Bottling Company United, is enthusiastic. “We are very excited about this solution,” she says. “It will dramatically reduce labor costs, minimize the various points of error in our current solution, and will allow us to rapidly expand the local Freestyle campaign to better support our customers.”

“It has been a very innovative and productive journey for us to work with Coca Cola Bottling Company United to automate their order management with RPA. Happiest Minds always strives to use technology as a tool to enable businesses to accelerate adaption of digital technologies and help modernize and transform their current environment.” – Rajiv Shah, Chief Executive Officer, Digital Business Services, Happiest Minds.

About Happiest Minds Technologies:

Happiest Minds Technologies Limited (NSE: HAPPSTMNDS), a Mindful IT Company, enables digital transformation for enterprises and technology providers by delivering seamless customer experiences, business efficiency and actionable insights. We do this by leveraging a spectrum of disruptive technologies such as: artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud, digital process automation, internet of things, robotics/drones, security, virtual/augmented reality, etc. Positioned as ‘Born Digital . Born Agile’, our capabilities span digital solutions, infrastructure, product engineering and security. We deliver these services across industry sectors such as automotive, BFSI, consumer packaged goods, e-commerce, edutech, engineering R&D, hi-tech, manufacturing, retail and travel/transportation/hospitality.

A Great Place to Work-Certified™ Company, Happiest Minds is headquartered in Bangalore, India with operations in the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia and Middle East.

About Coca Cola Bottling Company United

Founded in 1902 and headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, Coca Cola Bottling Company United is the third largest bottler of Coca-Cola products in the United States.  Our 10,000 associates located across the southeast are engaged in the production, marketing, sales and distribution of some of the world’s most refreshing and recognized beverages.

Coca-Cola UNITED is one of the largest bottlers and distributors of Coca-Cola products in the United States. It has also been one of the fastest growing. While the company has been around for almost 120 years, most of its growth has occurred within the span of just four years. Microsoft Power Platform has turned out to be a key tool in helping Coca-Cola UNITED navigate this amazing growth.

Wastewater Management Is A Matter Of Survival For Textile Industry In India: Secretary, Ministry Of Textiles

* A national multi-stakeholder consultation organized by The ReFashion Hub and Centre for Responsible Business to encourage wastewater reuse and water conservation in the textile industry

The ReFashion Hub is a collective that aims to raise awareness and drive conversation about water stewardship in India’s textile industry for long term positive climate impact. As a part of this initiative, a national level multi-stakeholder consultation was organized by Centre for Responsible Business (CRB) with support from Alliance For Water Stewardship and Water Management Forum (under Institute of Engineers India), on 18 May 2021, to build consensus on establishing wastewater as a resource and dealing with it in a sustainable way by the textile industry.

Shri Upendra Prasad Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Textiles delivered the keynote address and subject matter experts such as Mr. Rijit Sengupta, CEO, CRB, Er. Narendra Singh, President, Institution of Engineers of India, Dr K Ramesh, Senior Manager - Process Engineering/R&D, Tamil Nadu Water Investment Company, Chetan Kumar Sangole, Head, Sustainability Desk, Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, Ankur Khanna (Owner, Khanna Industries), Dinesh Chopra (Member, Indian Chemicals Council and Ex-Director, Honeywell) and Archana Datta, National Coordinator, for India, Switch Asia - RPAC, United Nations Environment Program, discussed various aspects of wastewater reuse, policy interventions and incentives as panelists of the workshop.

During the virtual conference, industry leaders, textile industry bodies, government and development agencies addressed various aspects of wastewater reuse, holistic perspective of wastewater as a resource, policy recommendations, scheme incentives, and built a collaborative approach towards long-term and sustained action on waste management by the textile industry in India. 

Assuring his support to the campaign, Shri Upendra Prasad Singh, Secretary, Minister of Textiles, said, “Wastewater management is critical for survival of the textile industry in India and not a subject of charity. It is the responsibility of all stakeholders including the government, textile bodies and industries to invest in green technologies that conserve water.” Underlining the need for such initiatives he further said “There is enough knowledge on the supply side of water and wastewater management but not on the demand side. Efficient water and wastewater management can help suppliers/buyers engage brands/consumers.” Further, he suggested ‘condition assessment of clusters’ to generate baseline about need for water and wastewater management in textile and other high water-use clusters. Finally, he opined there is not as much awareness and information about water footprint of industries as is there on carbon/energy footprint and hence there is a need to raise awareness and knowledge about its importance.

A 2019 World Resources Institute (WRI) report ranked India as the 13th most water stressed country globally. The Indian textile industry alone uses 425,000,000 gallons of water daily and approximately 500 gallons of water are used in the production of just one pair of jeans[1]. Globally, by 2050, the textile industry is expected to double its water contamination, making it the second-largest polluting industry on earth. One of the major causes of concern is the high usage of water and the excessive water pollution that is caused especially in dyeing and processing. Fatal contamination of water sources has led to a gamut of regulations for the treatment and discharge of wastewater. Set up of common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) and, in some cases, ZLD systems has become a norm in India.

Mr. Rijit Sengupta, CEO, CRB said, “Centre for Responsible Business has the mandate to promote sustainability, sustainable businesses and also oversee how businesses integrate sustainability in their core operations. In a country like India, when we talk about sustainability there is a need to strike a balance between the three aspects - economic, social and environmental, which involves trade-offs and compromises. In case of water, this implies striking the balance between – water as a key industrial input, societal need for equitable access to water and ensuring conservation of water as a resource. In our quest to find solutions to help strike this balance, CRB advocates for applying the principles of circular economy/resource efficiency in industrial/sectoral strategies to enable water use efficiency. Finally, the process of finding solutions is also critical and needs to be co-designed locally based on multi-stakeholder collaboration.”

During the multi-stakeholder consultation, it was discussed that there is a need to raise awareness on water stewardship, existing incentives and policies that aim to address the issue of water conservation in the textile industry. Experts also urged the industry to adapt sustainable business practices and ensure that they look at wastewater as a resource. It was highlighted that the model used in Haridwar and Sarai which is hybrid annuity model-based sewage treatment plant has been successful and the textile industry can apply learnings from there for wastewater treatment. A key point for consideration was that current and updated data will underpin any intervention that is planned. Moreover, the Ministry of Textiles can facilitate awareness programs and enable cross location learnings to develop a sustainable roadmap for the sector in consultation and collaboration with other ministries.

There is a need to enable the textile processing industry for process optimization by adopting best clean techniques, incentives for automation and up-gradation of machinery and effective mechanisms to reuse water. Industries should be apprised of clear policies and how it can provide cost benefits. Cross sectoral learnings are essential to track technological developments in other sectors and customize those for the textile industry to ensure best possible and sustainable wastewater treatment. The industry and governments at various levels are collaborating on solutions to address this crisis. Moreover, consumers are being more conscious of sustainable production and consumption. It is evident that a long term, collaborative approach towards better water management in the sector is required.

About The Refashion Hub:

The ReFashion Hub is a collective working to bring together multiple stakeholders invested in wastewater reuse and management in the textile industry with long term positive climate impact. The stakeholders include fashion businesses, textile bodies, industry leaders, young designers, artisans and consumers. The Fashion Hub will collectivise and engage stakeholders in 4 states - Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab and Karnataka to raise awareness and drive conversations about water usage and wastewater generated by the fashion industry, call for commitment from textile bodies and fashion businesses to reduce the fashion water footprint and for treatment of textile wastewater and engage with government departments on reuse or management of textile wastewater.

About Centre for Responsible Business:

Centre for Responsible Business (CRB) was established in 2011 as a think-tank to pursue its vision, ‘businesses integrate sustainability into their core business practices’. Given that sustainability is a multi-dimensional problem especially in the context of India and other emerging economies, CRB has adopted a model of engaging multiple stakeholders to develop action plans for promoting sustainable/responsible business, across various sectors in India.

Indian Medical Association’s National President, Prof. DR. J.A. Jayalal To Come Live On Mitron TV To Address Queries Related To COVID-19

Mitron TV, India’s leading homegrown short-format video app, has got on board the National President of Indian Medical Association (IMA), Prof. Dr. J.A. Jayalal, who will address questions related to COVID-19. As part of Mitron TV’s #VirusToVaccine campaign, Prof. Dr. J.A. Jayalal’s session will focus on creating general awareness related to the virus and preventive measures one should undertake. The live session will stream on Saturday, May 22 at 7:00 PM on the ‘Live Samvaad’ feature. 

Prof. Dr. J.A. Jayalal is the current serving National President of IMA, the country’s largest professional council of healthcare personnel. He is widely recognized and has been associated with the IMA for many years. 

Till now, Mitron has hosted four renowned doctors on its platform and has seen audiences joining from across the metro and hinterlands of India. Last week, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri awardee Dr. Ashok Seth (Chairman of the Fortis Escorts Heart Institute in New Delhi and the Head of the Fortis Group of Hospitals’ Cardiology Council) addressed concerns about the vaccination drive and gave out information regarding the precautions one needs to take for Covid-19.

Mitron’s #VirusToVaccine campaign is an initiative launched to dispel existing myths about the vaccine. The fight against COVID-19 is ongoing across India and the globe. Through this campaign, the short-format video app ensures that every individual is guided in the right direction and educated about COVID-19 and the vaccination programme from the best doctors.

All the live sessions are being conducted every Saturday at 7:00 PM on Mitron TV. For any further guidance and support on vaccination, users can send their queries to info@mitron.tv.

Audi India Announces Extension On Standard Warranty, Extended Warranty & Service Plans

 

· Valid for Audi customers whose plans lapse during the lockdown months of April, May and June 2021

· Extension on Standard Warranty, Extended Warranty and Service Plans till June 30, 2021

· Customers facing challenges owing to the lockdown will benefit from these extended plans 

Audi, the German luxury car manufacturer today, announced an extension on Standard Warranty, Extended Warranty and Service plans for its customers in India. For all Audi customers whose Standard Warranty, Extended Warranty and Service Plans were set to expire during the lockdown periods of April, May and June 2021, an extension of their policy till 30th June 2021 will be applied. This initiative is a part of Audi India’s relentless focus on Customer Centricity.

Mr. Balbir Singh Dhillon, Head of Audi India, said, “Safety is of paramount importance to Audi India. In line with the need of the hour of staying home and staying safe, we are rolling out extensions on Standard Warranty, Extended Warranty and Service Plans for existing Audi customers until June 30, 2021. Audi customers can be rest assured that they have the opportunity to extend their plans and receive seamless services for their Audi cars.”

Let’s come together to follow all safety protocols - #AudiTogether.

Paytm Payments Banks Leads As Largest Beneficiary Bank For UPI Payments

 

- Achieves 430.04 million beneficiary transactions in April 2021

- Registers the lowest technical decline rate of 0.01% both for beneficiary & remitter transactions

- Rapidly gains traction as the remitter bank with 164.47 million transactions

India’s home-grown Paytm Payments Bank Ltd (PPBL) today announced that it has continued to lead as the largest UPI beneficiary bank ahead of all other banks in the country. According to the latest report by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), PPBL has registered 430.04 million transactions in the month of April 2021 as a beneficiary bank. No other beneficiary bank has been able to cross the milestone of 400 million monthly transactions. It is also rapidly gaining traction as a remitter bank and registered 164.47 million transactions in the same month.

PPBL has also continued to outperform other banks in terms of the success rate of UPI transactions. The NPCI data reveals that it has the lowest technical decline rate at 0.01% both as a beneficiary & remitter bank. The bank has further improved on these parameters as compared to the month of March when it clocked a technical decline rate of 0.03% as compared to all UPI beneficiary banks and 0.05% as compared to all UPI remitter banks.

All other banks rely on third-party apps to drive the UPI transactions and have a much higher technical decline rate of around 1%. PPBL is the only bank in the country that organically drives UPI transactions from Paytm's ecosystem and is the largest enabler of digital payments in the country driven by merchant payments & increased adoption across small cities and towns. Both customers and Merchants are increasingly preferring to use Paytm Payments Bank for sending and receiving money via UPI, given its superior in-house technology that ensures the fastest payments and highest success rates.

Satish Gupta, MD & CEO of Paytm Payments Bank Ltd said, "We are humbled by the trust our users have shown in our service making us the largest beneficiary bank in the country yet again. UPI payments are an integral part of PPBL's ecosystem and we have built one of the finest technology infrastructures to facilitate such transactions. During this ongoing pandemic, we are doing everything possible to help our account holders get access to all banking services digitally and seamlessly so that they do not have to step out for any banking-related activities. Our performance as highlighted in the latest NPCI report is a testament to the trusted & long-lasting relationship that we have with our partners.”

PPBL has also become the top enabler of digital payments in the country by registering over 975 million digital transactions in the month of March 2021. This achievement has been led by the growth in transactions on Paytm Wallet, Paytm FASTag, Paytm UPI, and internet banking over the last several quarters. It has also achieved an all-time high monthly target by opening over 1 million new savings & current accounts that have helped in propelling the total number of bank accounts to 64 million.  

Ozonetel Launches Google Business Conversation Solution On Its Cloud Agent Platform

 

Ozonetel, India’s leading provider of on-demand cloud communication/telephony solutions, has recently integrated with Google to launch Google’s Business Message on its Cloud Agent platform. CloudAgent’s Google’s Business Message solution is a simple, yet advanced feature that enables businesses to chat with customers and prospects whenever they type in a business query on Google.

Typically prospects first search for a product or solution on Google, which leads them to the contact form on the business’ website. Cloud Agent’s newly launched conversation add-on now makes it possible to create a lead in the company’s CRM solution; this lead can then be followed up by the sales team. With this conversation, add-on prospects searching on Google can directly converse with a chatbot or live agent. This feature fundamentally cuts down lead response time, tracks customers across multiple channels and enables the efficient use of chat and calls to close sales.

Some of the key features provided by the Cloud Agent Google’s Business Message Solution are:

24x7 Chatbot, which is an AI-driven chatbot that can greet customers, ascertain intent, and answer simple queries. Intelligent Agent Routing, another key feature, helps route queries to live agents within the right department based on skill and nature of customer query, and agent availability.

Smart Assist is another feature where agents can see AI-driven real-time suggestions and grammar checks that improve response time and chat quality. Contact Management & Tracking, helps in sorting Chat transcripts against customer/prospect name and details available in the contact manager.

Performance & Reporting helps with comprehensive agent performance reports live dashboards with chat queues, agent’s status, and more.

Commenting on this integration, Chaitanya Chokkareddy, Chief Innovation Officer, Ozonetel, said, “This is an important integration for us and our customers will now have an unparalleled business advantage. Google drives trillions of website visits1 & millions of calls2, every month, and many customer journeys begin with Google. It is seen that sales are 391% higher if contact is made in the first minute and 78% of prospects buy from their first responders. Availability is key to customer experience and sales. Leads coming and attending directly through Google are highly qualified which has great chances of conversion.”

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. 

Kimberly–Clark Contributes USD 2.5 Million To Fight The COVID-19 Surge In India

* Donations to support partners including UNICEF and various local interventions

Kimberly–Clark Corporation has contributed USD 2.5 Million (INR 18 crores) to help the ongoing national efforts to combat the current COVID-19 surge. These emergency relief funds, channelled through its partner UNICEF, will be immediately deployed for procurement of life-saving supplies and healthcare essentials especially oxygen concentrators, setting up of oxygen plants and other requirements. The company will also support other local interventions, which are helping in COVID-19 relief efforts. Furthermore, the company will continue to facilitate all other assistance to care centres in select areas wherever it has ground presence.

Kimberly-Clark has also launched an internal global donation drive so that all its employees across the globe can contribute in helping fight the pandemic and tackle the current situation in India. The Kimberly-Clark Foundation has pledged that it will match and contribute the funds raised through this initiative as well to support India.

Commenting on the announcement Mainak Dhar, Managing Director, Kimberly–Clark India said “Our efforts to fight the pandemic will be multi-pronged, dynamic and timely. The second wave in India is unprecedented and proving to be extremely deadly and the only way for us to win is by unifying all our efforts. Saving as many lives as possible precedes all other priorities.”

Dr Yasmin Ali Haque, UNICEF Representative in India said, “The pandemic is impacting each one of us in unimaginable ways. None of us can tackle it alone. We need more of such investments which help in providing life-saving assistance to the people of India. We thank Kimberly-Clark for working with UNICEF in delivering critical supplies to where they are needed the most. I hope this will encourage more private sector firms to come forward and do their part as well, for the children who need it the most.”