Bring Your Own Device To Continue Strong Growth: IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) announces that it expects the Asia/Pacific Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) market to continue strong growth in 2014 and into 2015 as consumer smartphone and tablet continue gain market across the region.

In IDC’s latest BYOD studies, “Asia/Pacific (Excluding Japan) Bring Your Own Device End-User Survey 2014” and “Asia/Pacific Bring Your Own Device 2014–2018 Analysis and Forecast”, BYOD is defined as part of enterprise mobility. The practice of BYOD refers to devices that users have personally purchased with their own funds, without help from the employer. The employer is not obligated to subsidize any part of the device nor is it responsible for supporting the devices' hardware and software.  IDC’s findings show that across Asia/Pacific, mobile devices utilized under the BYOD model has accounted for 22.5%, 4.9% and 11.7% of all consumer smartphone, tablet and notebook PC shipped in 2013, respectively.

"The momentum of BYOD has definitely increased over the past 12 month and IDC expects it will continue the upward swing in 2014 and well in 2015," says Ian Song, Research Manager for Enterprise Mobility at IDC Asia/Pacific. "With the user experience of mobile devices improving, end users can start to perform more complex task on those devices. In addition, the price of device has also dropped to a level where increased proliferation becomes possible." Song notes that enterprises across the region are also becoming more open to the idea of BYOD as a way to drive mobility in their organizations.

"Close to 60% of all surveyed organizations across Asia/Pacific stated that they have some kind of mobility policy that cater to the practice of BYOD." He observes that BYOD in Asia/Pacific is being driven primarily by the usage of personally owned smartphones in the enterprise.

IDC expects that close to 155 million consumer smartphones will be used in the BYOD model across the region in 2014, a year-on-year growth of 40.4%. Tablet BYOD will grow to nearly 4 million units, a year-on-year growth of 62.7%. Notebook PC, on the other hand, will see a steep decline as the PC industry slows down and BYOD users migrate to other BYOD platforms. IDC expects just 3.1 million units of consumer notebook PC will be utilized under the BYOD model, a year-on-year decline of 20%. However, IDC does not anticipate the BYOD growth will last.  "BYOD smartphone utilization will peak around 2016 to 2017, and tablets will peak around 2017 – 2018," says Song.

He explains that the bottom line is BYOD is a compromise between users and the enterprise.  “While BYOD has a capability to streamline some of the internal operations, personally owned devices will not be able to drive core business functions without compromising security and management."

To this end, IDC believes that enterprises across Asia/Pacific will begin to revisit the corporate-liable model with a twist: giving employees options to chose the device they want to use. IDC calls it Choose Your Own Device (CYOD). CYOD may eventually take some of the steam away from BYOD, but IDC believes that most organizations will adopt a hybrid BYOD/CYOD policy that address device ownership and usage base on requirement.  "IDC expects that developed markets like Australia or Singapore will see a decline in BYOD adoption as early as the first half of 2016 as mobile devices saturate the market and this hybrid model begin to take hold," says Song. "Developing markets will take quite a bit longer before smartphone and tablet BYOD start to decline as these types of devices are still in high growth phase in those markets, and maturity toward enterprise mobility is low."

BT Helps De Beers Connect To Diamond Resources

BT has won a significant new contract with The De Beers Group of Companies.  The six-year agreement, worth US $37m, sees BT orchestrate a wide range of IT services across 70 De Beers Group sites, including exploration and mining locations across the world.

Established in 1888, De Beers is the world’s leading diamond company. Its diamond exploration, mining and marketing operations directly or indirectly employ more than 20,000 people globally.

De Beers and BT teams are bringing together a full range of BT Connect networking technologies including fibre, microwave and satellite. These will give De Beers staff, whether they are located in the frozen Northwest Territories of Canada, the Bushveld regions of southern Africa or the cities of Europe, Middle East and Asia, access to business applications and data storage as well as voice and conferencing services.

BT is also helping De Beers to tune its network to its business needs.  BT Connect Accelerate allows De Beers to prioritise its critical business applications accessed across its global network to ensure a better and more productive user experience for all employees.

BT One high-definition video conferencing is a crucial application for De Beers. As many of its sites are remote, travel is expensive and time consuming.  Furthermore, it is important that De Beers can extend the reach of its experts wherever they may be, allowing them to work effectively with its global workforce.

Craig Charlton, CIO, De Beers Group of Companies, said: “Whether it’s connecting our mining assets or our global distribution network, we need a partner with a strong track record.  Using BT’s network will better connect our global operations.”

Luis Alvarez, chief executive officer, BT Global Services, said: “IT has become an art as much as a science.  We’re working together with De Beers to orchestrate people, applications and systems around highly-tuned intelligent networks to deliver the best performance at the most competitive cost.”

“BT networks will bring together all De Beers sites whether they’re in the frozen north of Canada, which can only be reached in person for three months of the year, or the far reaches of Botswana.  This is a master-class in the art of connecting, all designed to deliver stunning business outcomes.”

CRMnext Bags Asian Banker Award 2014

CRMnext, a leading global CRM (Customer relationship Management) product company with practice leadership in more than eight industry verticals, has been recognised as the winner of the ‘Best CRM Implementation Project Award’ during the eighth Asian Banker Technology Implementation Awards Programme, held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur on May 21^st 2014. 

The awards ceremony was held in conjunction with The Asian Banker Summit 2014, the foremost annual meeting for decision makers in the financial services industry in the Asia Pacific region.

“We are extremely pleased and honoured to receive this award. This award is yet another feather in our cap showcasing our innovation leadership in the CRM space and highlights our commitment to deliver excellence to our customers as their preferred technology partner.” said Sushil Tyagi, Director Global Sales and Marketing, CRMnext, on the side-lines of the award ceremony.

CRMnext customers include large banks and global financial services brands like HDFC, ICICI, Axis, TATA AIA, Reliance, Max, Fullerton etc. It has enabled its customers to implement a comprehensive CRM project on a single platform to achieve its “One bank” vision. The solution, provided by CRMnext, covers an extensive range of functions including sales force, customer service, business process and marketing automation, digital application platform, document management system, reporting and analytics. Its customers have achieved a 360 degree customer view and an integrated customer service and sales platform.

At HDFC Bank, the solution was implemented across all channels and devices, including branch, internet and mobile banking, covering more than 40,000 users and 73% of workforce. It has brought about impressive improvements in cross-selling, lead conversion rate and sales turnaround time, and reduced customer complaints by 30%.

The awards programme, administered by The Asian Banker and refereed by prominent global bankers, IT consultants and academics, is the most prestigious of its kind. A stringent three month long evaluation process determines the winners from across Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The winners are honoured at a glittering event that recognises their efforts in using the best technology to run their institutions and bring superior products and services to their customers.

Tableau Soft Appoints Deepak Ghodke As Country Mgr

Tableau Software, a global leader in rapid-fire, easy-to-use business analytics software, today announced its launch in India. The company also announced that Deepak Ghodke will be heading up its India presence, including driving the sales growth and ensuring the success of customers. Tableau’s India debut comes as the result of a sizeable domestic opportunity.

Ghodke has been with Tableau for the past six years. He started with the company as Director, Sales in 2008, where he was responsible for the Central region of the United States. He has been working with companies in India to educate them about the value of data analytics since his move to India in 2012. Prior to Tableau, he was associated with Oracle Corporation and worked in product marketing at Hyperion Software. He attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai.

Commenting on the India launch, Ghodke said, “Data is a lifeline of any business – it gives people a view into the opportunities and risks involved in any decision. Since our inception in 2003, our software has systematically helped people access information, perform analytics and get instant results, in the office and on-the-go. Our India entry is in response to market demands in the region, and the growing business opportunity it offers. We are particularly excited about the scale that we have achieved so far, and are looking forward to translating that into the Indian market.”

Said JY Pook, Vice President of Asia Pacific for Tableau, “Asia Pacific has been a fast-growing market for us. We are excited to launch in India and see tremendous promise in developing the market, as well as partnering with organizations to meet their data and business intelligence needs. The initial response we have received so far has been very encouraging and with Deepak’s experience and expertise, we’re looking forward to reaching a wider audience and further strengthening our presence in the region.”

Tableau’s award-winning software helps people see and understand data. It delivers fast analytics and business intelligence through creation of visualizations, reports and dashboards in minutes and can be shared in seconds. Organizations use Tableau in a broad range of use cases such as increasing sales, streamlining operations, improving customer service, managing investments, assessing quality and safety, studying and treating diseases, and improving education. Its products include Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online and Tableau Public. The software is used by more than 19,000 customer accounts including Fortune 500 corporations, small and medium-sized businesses, government agencies, universities, and non-profits worldwide. Tableau has already been working with some clients in India over the last year, and with the India centres of their multinational customers. With this launch, the company will be more closely connected to these customers, while growing its reach further into the subcontinent.

Valyoo turns to Tableau for rapid-fire decision making

A Tableau customer since 2012, Valyoo, a New Delhi-headquartered e-commerce company, wanted to increase its reporting efficiency, help managers make decisions faster, and keep up with increased reporting demands without hiring additional staffers. Nikhil Doeger, Head of Business Intelligence and Analytics, explained why Tableau was chosen, “We evaluated Tableau and other software solutions. We used the Tableau 14-day trial and we thought it was easier to implement and it fulfilled all our requirements”.  Deogar added, “Even if we’re not using Tableau we would still be focused on the data, but maybe it would have taken longer to make the same decisions, or it would just be harder to get that data”.

Marico discovers new company insights with Tableau

Marcio, India’s leading consumer products and services companies in the global beauty and wellness space, use Tableau to analyse a large amount of data on retail behaviour, sales and marketing, inventory movement and procurement of key inputs, allowing them to gain detailed insights into the company’s performance. Girish Rao, Head of IT & Business Analytics, shares that Tableau is a tool that the company plans to invest in for the long-term, “The kind of work we have produced with Tableau has been very well-received by both our peers and management within Marico. Tableau has also consistently released regular updates to its software and this reaffirms my faith in a company which is willing to be innovative and willing to invest in their product for its customers.”

The demand for BI in Asia Pacific continues to grow

The market for business intelligence (BI) platforms in Asia Pacific is expected to grow 7.4 percent to reach almost US$1.4 billion in revenue in 2014 and more than $1.6 billion by 2017, according to Gartner, Inc. * Tableau has been positioned as a ‘Leader’ for two years in a row in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms** report. The full report is available on the Tableau website at http://www.tableausoftware.com/gartner-magic-quadrant-2014.

Industry Cloud Needs Partners & Developers Expertise

SAP AG has announced plans to bring industry solutions to the cloud by combining its unrivaled expertise in industry-specific business processes with the technical creativity of its global ecosystem and broad customer base. To meet this goal, SAP has created a dedicated Industry Cloud organization, led by Simon Paris, in which the company’s historic industry strength will be used to develop prescriptive, industry-based cloud road maps that will help simplify and transform businesses. 

SAP plans to co-innovate with customers and partners to deliver industry-specific solutions expected to rapidly proliferate across the 25 industries SAP serves. In the industry cloud model, partners and customers are envisioned to co-innovate with SAP on industry cloud offerings. These industry cloud solutions are anticipated to offer customers specialized, next-generation business processes and intuitive interfaces that can be easily and quickly deployed across a public, private or hybrid cloud infrastructure, depending on which model best serves the customer’s needs. These industry cloud solutions are intended to run on SAP Cloud powered by SAP HANA via SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, a fully managed, subscription-based cloud service used by customers today to run mission-critical SAP applications and manage vast amounts of Big Data all on one real-time business platform.

“Working in industries with highly specialized challenges, we will focus on our customers’ most relevant business problems and then work creatively and collaboratively to develop industry cloud solutions,” said Paris. “With SAP’s proven integration, consistency and coherency across all lines of business, mobile, analytics and technology, we are primed to deliver the deepest and broadest industry cloud solutions in the world, offering tremendous value to our significant customer base, our-ever growing number of new SAP customers and the global SAP ecosystem.”

Cloud-Based Momentum Climbing Across Industries
SAP has already achieved notable success in leading the way to the industry cloud model, including in the following industries:

* Chemicals: To better serve the chemical industry, SAP has launched a “chemical-company-in-a-box” solution, offering pre-configured enterprise resource planning (ERP) for chemical manufacturers in the cloud. Supporting industry-specific requirements, SAP is partnering with Qnovate with plans to develop chemical-specific functionality for the SAP Cloud for Customer solution, and is already delivering a cloud-based service for product safety and hazardous materials management with the SAP EHS Regulatory Documentation OnDemand solution.

* Financial Services: In corporate banking, SAP has developed the innovative SAP Financial Services Network, which helps simplify transactions between corporations and financial institutions. The network offers multiple services over one single channel while supporting the deployment of new services. Customers like Visa, Inc. and Citibank N.A. use SAP Financial Services Network to help reduce payment rejection rates and provide enhanced visibility to corporate treasury.

To enable insurers to quickly offer the right insurance offerings to clients, SAP has introduced the SAP Circular Authority for Insurance application, a cloud-based solution for tracking, interpreting and analyzing Insurance Service Office (ISO) circulars. The intuitive user experience provides quick, concise insights into circular changes while helping to reduce overall regulatory management efforts and costs.

In the area of fostering new innovation in the banking and payments industry, SAP has become a global sponsor of the SWIFT 2014 Innotribe Startup Challenge, a year-round program that offers up-and-coming entrepreneurs the opportunity to showcase new concepts and products to leading global financial institutions and early-stage investors. This initiative supports young companies dedicated to bringing new and innovative solutions that can help transform the industry and improve people’s financial lives around the world.

* Healthcare: In healthcare, SAP HANA is increasingly the co-innovation platform of choice for select personalized care startups, including Vancouver’s PHEMI, which has introduced a Big Data Services Platform that lets healthcare organizations offer value-based services like personalized medicine, population health management, business intelligence, research registries and more.

* Higher Education & Research: To support education, SAP has undertaken multiple design thinking sessions with universities worldwide to develop a next-generation cloud-based student information system (SIS). SAP intends to offer higher education institutions the best of both worlds: access to a redesigned SIS built for cloud, mobile and 21st-century students and administrators as well as the ability to extend and take advantage of existing SAP investments.

* Industrial Machinery and Components: The convergence of the classical world of machines with the internet, referred to as “Industry 4.0” or “Industrial Internet,” has created a host of new opportunities. SAP is working with leading manufacturers to build solutions based on SAP HANA Cloud Platform for predictive maintenance and service in a co-innovation approach. With this type of solution, companies are envisioned to be able to significantly improve their service model and ultimately move toward a usage-based business model with their customers.

* Professional Services: Transforming the bid management process for project-based professional services customers through the cloud, SAP for Professional Services solutions link the bid management sales process directly with project execution. The offerings are designed to help firms to win more deals, improve profitability and secure execution against project plans by integrating SAP Cloud for Customer, the SAP Jam social software platform, the SAP Commercial Project Management application and business intelligence analytics capabilities developed specifically for the professional services industry.

* Public Services: For social services, SAP has become a Code for America Brigade sponsor in 2014, partnering with the developer community and connecting the grassroots skills and energy of more than 3,000 volunteers worldwide to SAP technology and innovation, including free developer access.

* Retail: For customer insight, SAP has launched the SAP Customer Activity Repository application, a retail data repository powered by the SAP HANA platform that serves as an underlying foundation for all operations. This enables retailers to leverage the true potential of omni-commerce as well as the demand for the personalization for the individualized shopping experience. Recent efforts have been made by SAP partner gicom, which is working to provide one of the first solutions built on SAP Customer Activity Repository.

* Sports: In athletic event planning, cloud-based SAP Event Ticketing software helps to generate ticket sales for events across all sales channels, offering an overview of customers and costs to maximize revenue per seat.

For player management, the SAP Scouting solution helps executives, coaches and scouts identify and acquire talent, compare draftees in real time and ultimately help put the best product on the field. The cloud-based solution provides advanced capabilities for both college and professional scouting, offering new insights and the tools to efficiently asses and compare players.

* Travel and Transportation: SAP enables travel providers to better connect with their passengers and partners to create a new revenue stream with consumer engagement solutions from SAP. The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) is combining a top-ranked mobile app with the cloud-based SAP Precision Marketing solution and SAP HANA to connect passengers to retailers and event, sport and cultural venues to deliver compelling, personalized offers in real time. STM was recognized as an innovation leader with the Constellation Research SuperNova Award for redefining the passenger travel experience.

“We intend to shake things up for ourselves and the market by asking a new generation of customers to help us solve their next-generation business problems,” said Christoph Behrendt, senior vice president, Application Innovation, and head of Suite and Industry Platform Unit, SAP. “They can imagine forward-looking industry-specific use cases better than any team of in-house software developers. Industry IT leaders are going to embrace a partnership that brings together their needs with the deep industry expertise of SAP to co-innovate elegant, simple solutions for the cloud.”

GTU & Oracle Academy To Develop IT Skills In Students

 O   Oracle and Gujarat Technological University have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to integrate Oracle Academy curriculum into the educational programs of the state’s colleges to help inspire the next-generation of technology professionals and prepare them for exciting careers in IT.

This initiative will allow GTU to build a strong foundation of technology programs to prepare 35,000 students from 140 institutions in the state, for successful IT careers, and help meet growing local demand for a highly skilled technology workforce.

As part of this MoU, 460 faculty members will undergo specialized training on the Oracle Academy curriculum that will be delivered to 35,000 students from 140 institutes in Gujarat, including the state’s engineering colleges, polytechnics and degree colleges over the next three years.

Oracle will deliver a train-the-trainer course to ramp-up 100 faculty members as instructors through Oracle Academy’s Introduction to Computer Science program.

Subsequently, select GTU institutions will be offered the Oracle Academy Advanced Computer Science Program that offers access to world-class software, Java development environments, faculty training, curriculum, support for Computer Science clubs, certification preparation, and more − all designed to help students increase the relevance of their academic programs and easily expand their course offerings.

With this, students from GTU colleges will have an opportunity to gain first-class IT skills, which can help them prepare for careers in exciting fields such as computer engineering, application development, web development, IT consulting, systems integration, database design/administration, IT product management, IT product marketing, technical support, and more.

T     “The Gujarat Technological University (GTU) has been working towards improving the quality of education and the learning environment in the colleges in Gujarat. GTU has been making major efforts to eliminate the gap between industry and academia. Our collaboration with Oracle Academy will help us in this endeavour and help make our students more employable in the industry,” said Dr. Akshai Aggarwal, Vice-Chancellor, Gujarat Technological University. “By making Oracle Academy programs available to our students during their education course, we are confident that our students will gain a competitive advantage as they prepare to enter the global workforce.”

“Oracle Academy offers a comprehensive program that helps students gain vital business and technology skills needed for success in today’s workforce,” said  Krishna Sistla, Senior Director, Oracle Education Initiatives, Oracle Asia Pacific. “We are honored to collaborate with the Gujarat Technological University to help cultivate student knowledge, interest and awareness of engineering, computer science and technology that will give them a head-start before they even enter the workforce.”

New-Age Branch Of IndusInd Offers Video Interactions

IndusInd Bank has launched a new customer-centric service titled Video Branch. This innovative offering enables the customers to do a video conference with the bank staff. They can schedule a Video call with the Branch Managers/Relationship Mangers or connect to the central Video Branch instantly. This is first-of- its- kind initiative in the banking industry which facilitates customers to interact with the Video Branch at their own convenience either from his desktop/laptop computers or Apple and Android smart phones. This facility will be available to all existing and new customers of IndusInd Bank.

Digitization of businesses is the key focus area of the Bank in this financial year and this initiative is a step forward to the on-going Responsive Innovation theme. The new facility allows customers to interact with their branches through a Video Branch app from Google Play Store and Apple App Store on their smart phones or avail this facility on the desktops through Bank site www.IndusInd.com.

This service enables customers to benefit the present Contact Centre services and four financial transactions – FD booking, RTGS, NEFT & funds transfer through a video chat with the Contact Centre executive instantly or arrange a video call with the branch manager/relationship manager.

Commenting on the development, Sumant Kathpalia, Head – Consumer Banking, IndusInd Bank said, “In a move to digitise the banking experience for all customers, IndusInd Bank Video Branch is a 24x7 unique innovative service allowing customers to interact Face-to-Face with their bank branch using their desktop, tablet or smart phone. IndusInd Bank customers can now do all the transactions they do at a bank branch without going to it, right from the comfort of their office or home using the Video Branch App. IndusInd Bank Video Branch is yet another new service under the Bank’s theme of Responsive Innovation to offer innovative and unique banking experience to all customers, while keeping their convenience in mind. Digitisation is the future of banking and we are hopeful that the new service will be immensely useful to all our customers.”

IndusInd Bank Video Branch is the latest service to be added to the series of innovative products and services launched by IndusInd bank in the recent past. In line with the theme of Responsive Innovation,  IndusInd Bank has  launched unique products and services such as Cash on Mobile, Choice Money ATMs, Direct Connect, Quick Redeem Service, and the latest being My Account, My Number service propositions.