Top Dell Executive To Head Mu Sigma India Operations

Mu Sigma, a leading pure-play providers of decision sciences and analytics solutions, announced today that Ganesh Lakshminarayanan has joined the company as Managing Director, India Operations. Ganesh will report into Dhiraj Rajaram, Mu Sigma’s Founder and CEO. Ganesh will work closely with the current leadership team to enhance the India delivery function and help the company continue to scale globally.

Commenting on the new appointment, Dhiraj said, “We must keep pace with the speed and scale of shift in the Big Data Space. Having known Ganesh for more than a decade, I am sure his rich experience in scaling operations will significantly help Mu Sigma in its journey of growth. We will continue to add leadership to achieve our endeavor to build a category defining company”

Ganesh joins Mu Sigma with more than 25 years of experience in the technology domain.  Prior to Mu Sigma, Ganesh was associated with Dell, heading its Asia Pacific and Japan sales operations. He is also credited with starting Dell’s India operations, and was instrumental in accelerating the company’s growth. 

R Chandrashekhar, President of NASSCOM said “We definitely see India well on its way to becoming the centre of excellence in the space of Big Data and analytics. There is increased convergence in this sector of man and machine, products and services. My best wishes to Mu Sigma for their journey towards building a unique ecosystem of people, processes and platforms.” 

“Mu Sigma’s approach of combining math, business, technology and behavioural science to help companies solve business problems has always interested me,” said Ganesh. “The frameworks and platforms used by Mu Sigma, which helped it grow from a disruptive start-up to an industry-leading provider of decision sciences, is exciting. I am thrilled to be part of this transformation and look forward to enabling the company to rise to even higher levels,” he added.

Mu Sigma also announced today that former Forrester Research executive Tom Pohlmann has joined the company as head of values and strategy. “These senior hires are key to helping Mu Sigma continue on its path of fast growth,” said Dhiraj.

Oracle Sees Finance, Healthcare & NGOs Adopt Cloud Marketplace

Oracle today announced that they are seeing widespread adoption of the Cloud Marketplace in India. Companies like Helpage India, Siemens, Kotak Bank, Reliance Finance and many more companies are now using the Oracle Cloud Marketplace.

The explosive growth of cloud, mobile, and social technologies is driving the need for organizations to gain faster and easier access to innovative and trusted business applications.  To address this need, Oracle launched the Oracle Cloud Marketplace at Oracle OpenWorld 2013.  Oracle is the first organization to have created a ground-breaking enterprise app store, the Oracle Cloud Marketplace. It is the corporate equivalent to consumer-oriented app stores such as Google Play and Apple App Store.

Oracle Cloud Marketplace features hundreds of business applications developed by Oracle partners, and enables Oracle Cloud customers to easily browse, evaluate, and license trusted business applications.  Oracle Cloud Marketplace also allows customers to find a wide range of systems integrators and services to meet their unique needs.

Featuring more than 100 business applications developed by Oracle partners, the Oracle Cloud Marketplace enables Oracle Cloud customers to easily browse, evaluate, and buy trusted business applications. It is a one-of-a-kind app store for enterprises.

Oracle is uniquely positioned to accelerate time to value and drive out complexity by designing, engineering, and testing our market leading software and hardware to work together, in the (public/private) cloud and in customer's (on-premise) datacenters.  Cloud Marketplace partners can leverage the industry’s most complete and best in class Cloud Stack at every layer, from Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Applications-as-a-Service (SaaS).

Partners also take advantage of Oracle’s flexible offerings to provide customer choice for their Cloud deployment models (Public, Private, Hybrid), allowing customers to leverage their investments in open industry standards without being locked into proprietary technologies and cloud stack.

The Oracle Cloud Marketplace is a great opportunity for partners and customers to connect on a single platform. Oracle partners can leverage the latest in cloud technologies to grow their businesses and it also enables them to quickly and easily develop, integrate, publish, and monetize their applications. With the Oracle Cloud Marketplace, Oracle’s extensive ecosystem of 400,000 customers, 25,000 partners, and 15 million community developers can foster and cultivate an environment of shared innovation.

According to Niraj Kaushik- Vice President, Applications, Oracle India, “During our conversations with multiple customers, we realized that enterprises were facing issues in managing applications and the process was getting increasingly complex. In order to get the applications to work effectively, it is critical that enterprises themselves get access to the right applications at the right time. This is at the heart of Oracle's Cloud Marketplace. Oracle Cloud Marketplace is designed and focused on meeting the needs of Businesses, and Business Users.”

He added, “Cloud computing is driving a significant part of Oracle’s product development plans and is a key part of Oracle’s strategy.  Oracle's long history of technology innovation, along with over seven years of relentless engineering and key strategic acquisitions, enables Oracle to now feature the most comprehensive cloud offerings in the world.  With our focus on simplifying IT for our customers, we have seen tremendous traction for our cloud solutions across sectors, while growing a complete cloud ecosystem.”

5th Edition Of SCPC Council Hosted By JDA Software

JDA Software Group, Inc., a leading supply chain planning and execution solutions provider hosted the prestigious event, the 5th Edition of the Supply Chain Practitioners Council (SCPC) in Bangalore.

The event focused on topics such as the supply chain reorganization journey, adaptive supply chain, designing profitable supply chains through differentiation, and challenges in grocery e-commerce. Practitioners from different companies collaborated hands-on on a case study to come up with innovative solutions and shared industry best practices.

The key presenters of the event were V. S. Sudhakar, Co-Founder & Executive Director, BigBasket.com, Vinay Krishna, Supply Chain Director, Cypress Semiconductor, Manish Ghosh, Vice President Global Consulting Partner - Manufacturing, JDA Software, Vijayakumar Seelam, Project Manager, SanDisk, Rohit Saksena, Senior Advisor, Supply Chain Analytics, Dell, and Narasimha Kamath, Product Director, JDA Software.

“SCPC is growing at a rapid pace. We started with the need to connect as supply chain professionals at an individual level.  In the last year, we have been able to extend this connection to an industry level. Of course, our long term vision is to take it to a level where we can influence policy making like other industry associations,” said Rohit Saksena, Senior Advisor, Supply Chain Analytics, Dell.

According to V. S. Sudhakar, Co-founder & Executive Director, BigBasket.com, “Burning cash is easy as VC’s are currently funding heavily in Indian e-commerce space, but one needs to take a balanced approach to make sure that the foundations are strong. A key differentiator in this journey would be supply chain.”

“Order lead time and on-time delivery metrics have significantly improved through supply chain simplification, dual-source manufacturing, and consolidation to turnkey sites,” said Vinay Krishna, Supply Chain Director, Cypress Semiconductor.

Manish Gosh, Vice President, Consulting Partner – Manufacturing, JDA Software, talked about how global companies are leveraging the differentiation and the fast evolving segmentation approach to create value added experience for their customers.

“Inventory postponement is one of the key strategies driving supply chain excellence at SanDisk.” said Vijayakumar Seelam, Project Manager, SanDisk.

Dr. Narasimha Kamath, Product Director, JDA Software, connected the dots by effectively packaging the learning through a case study participation and discussion to ensure the audience left with enriched supply chain knowledge.

SCPC’s first edition was hosted by Dell followed by Cisco, IIM Bangalore and Honeywell.  This edition  witnessed participation of 70 JDA associates and  over 100  senior supply chain experts from various companies like BigBasket.com, Britannia, Café Coffee Day, Cisco, Cypress, Dell, Honeywell , IIMB,  Krypt, Lennox International, Lenovo, Lifetech, Madura Fashions, Maxim, ON Semiconductor, Optum, PepsiCo, SanDisk, Schneider Electric, Sical Logistics, Target, Tata Steel, and Titan. Chainalytics, HCL, HP, IBM, MindTree, Oracle, Systematics, Tally Solutions, and TCS  were also present at this event.

openSUSE Project Board Chaired By Richard Brown

IThe openSUSE Project has announced Richard Brown has been appointed chairperson of the openSUSE board. The openSUSE board provides guidance, governance and support for the openSUSE Project, developer of the reliable, modern and easy-to-use multi-purpose Linux operating system. The board members are elected by the community, and the chair is appointed by SUSE.

“Richard brings a tremendous amount of experience and understanding to his new role as openSUSE board chair,” said Ralf Flaxa, SUSE vice president of engineering. “openSUSE is fortunate to be supported by an active, enthusiastic community – a community Richard is a part of and knows well. His leadership combined with the community's diligence and support will help advance the project to even greater heights.”

Brown has been active in the openSUSE community since 2005 when the project was launched, and he has served as a board member since early 2013. Initially active in testing, bug reporting and providing support via the project's IRC channels, Brown has worked with the Artwork, Marketing and Advocates (formerly Ambassadors) teams and helps maintain GNOME and the branding/theme packages in openSUSE. He is also currently on the openSUSE Membership Officials team that recognizes community contributors. In 2012, Brown was a mentor for openSUSE's involvement in Google's Code-In. In recent years he has led the organization of openSUSE's presence at the FOSDEM conference, the largest FOSS event in Europe. He has more than 10 years of experience as a sysadmin and is currently a QA engineer for SUSE.

Brown said, “As a long-time Linux user and community developer, it is both humbling and exciting to participate in the openSUSE Project as board chair. Hard work and collaboration in the openSUSE community has contributed to a remarkable Linux distribution, and I'm looking forward to ongoing growth in both the community and the openSUSE distribution.”

Innovative Mobile Talent Hunt For Aspiring Film Directors

Continuing to engage with audiences through Cinema, Idea Cellular, India’s 3rd largest mobile operator, has announced ‘Raju Ban Gaya Director’, a unique mobile based contest on its flagship digital property – www.IdeaPopcornStreet.com – to hunt for talent for film making.

The talent hunt will give an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to aspiring film directors to intern with celebrated Bollywood Director, Imtiaz Ali. Aspiring movie directors from across the country can fulfil their dream to work with leading Bollywood directors and step into their shoes to experience the world of Indian cinema by just participating in the ‘short-movie making on mobile’ contest.

According to Sashi Shankar, Chief Marketing Officer, Idea Cellular, “Cinema is core to Entertainment in India and forms a key genre of brand engagement for Idea. Our flagship Bollywood destination, Idea Popcorn Street is designed keeping this insight in mind, and forms an unique and innovative platform which not only entertains users but also encourages them to showcase their creativity. ‘Raju Ban Gaya Director’ is India’s first mobile hunt for film makers, and I am confident that this will provide a stepping board for many aspiring directors to demonstrate their talent and become famous.”

Speaking about the talent hunt, Imtiaz Ali, said "Gone are the days of the legendary 'struggle'. For today's generation a great film is just a mobile phone away. And there are stories everywhere waiting to be captured, and opportunities waiting to be explored.”

Any mobile user in India can participate in ‘Raju Ban Gaya Director’ contest, by just creating an original concept movie of 1 to 3 minutes on the mobile phone and upload it on www.ideapopcornstreet.com. The Jury, comprising of experienced film makers, will shortlist the Top 30 films in the first Round, which will then be put up on the portal for public viewing and voting. Basis the number of votes, the Top 10 films will be selected and the makers of these films will then be asked to create another 5 minute duration film, based on a script given by the Jury, which will once again have to be shot using a mobile phone. The directors will be given two weeks to make this film and will be required to promote and popularise their movie using social media.

These Top 10 movies will also be showcased on www.ideapopcornstreet.com as India’s first mobile film festival. Of these, the Top 4 film makers will be selected who will then go through an interview with the Bollywood Director and his team. The final winner will then get to spend time with the Director, Imtiaz Ali, on the sets of his next venture and get an opportunity to intern with him. 

Last date for submission of the film is July 22, 2014. More details on www.ideapopcornstreet.com

Riverside Selects Accenture To Implement SAP Billing Applications

Accenture has been selected by Riverside Utilities Private Limited (RUPL), a franchise of the Central Electricity Supply Utility (CESU), the largest electricity distribution company in the state of Odisha, to implement and manage a new deployment of the SAP Billing application.

As part of a three-year agreement, through Accenture Enterprise Services for Utilities, Accenture will assist RUPL to implement and run the new solution, which is designed to improve the accuracy and efficiency of meter readings, and customer billing and collections processes. This will help the company enhance its customer service, drive customer satisfaction and reduce complaints. It will also enable the company to better control electricity leakage and more closely monitor its distribution.

“We strive to provide our customers with great service and accurate and timely bills, irrespective of the amount on the bill,” said SS Vashisht, VP Operations, RUPL. “In order to do that in a cost-effective way, whilst also keeping pace with our customers’ rising expectations, we need a billing system that is robust, agile and able to support our growth agenda. We selected Accenture for the implementation due to its extensive experience with integrating SAP solutions and its vast knowledge of the utilities industry.

Sandeep Dutta, managing director, Accenture’s utilities industry group in India, said, “The challenge faced by regional utilities like RUPL is two-fold; first energy losses tend to be quite high, due to commercial and technical leakage; and secondly they have to service a large population of customers in remote regions. This puts a lot of pressure on costs and infrastructure. This new billing solution will help RUPL better manage these costs, while also driving improvements to its customer service.”

Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Mphasis Wins Silver In ContactCenterWorld’s 2014

Mphasis, a leading IT services provider, has been awarded the Silver medal in the prestigious Contact Center World’s 9th annual APAC Top Ranking Performer Awards – 2014. This award, widely recognized as the Number 1 Global Contact Center accolade, recognizes the breadth of Mphasis’ offering, the strength of its partnership-style of working, the quality of its people-related processes in addition to the strong impact of its results on the client’s business. Mphasis was awarded the Silver medal under the APAC Large Outsourced Contact Center Category. The award was presented at the regional Contact Center World 9th annual APAC Top Ranking Performer Awards, held in Singapore in early June 2014.

Mphasis was selected as a finalist in a long process, from around 700 entries in APAC, and went on to compete and present at the APAC event, and win the Silver. The Mphasis Banking & Capital Markets BPO team will later compete for the Global Awards amongst the Silver Awardees to be held at Las Vegas in November 2014.

Over the past eleven years, the winning team has grown from a 40 Full Time Equivalents (FTE), single-work stream, simple back-office processing operation, to a multi-channel, 350 FTE center (plus 75 managers and support staff) that provides the full gamut of inbound and outbound customer-facing services for our client’s customers. In the past year, the team has produced excellent customer satisfaction scores (Fizzback Average of 4.6), exceeded targets in key areas, and was awarded an unprecedented score of 100% by the client’s independent UK auditors for LSB (Lending Standards Board) call compliance.