E magazine january 2017

1 www.varindia.com January 2017

VOLUME XVIII ISSUE 05 JanUary 2017 PrICE rs. 50

Cisco and GoR sign a Sol Tally Solutions partners with CAIT

Tuesday, 24th January 2017 Hotel Mayfair Lagoon & Convention

Bhubaneswar, Odisha

2 January 2017 www.varindia.com


Cyber Security India Conclave 2017on

3rd Feb 2017,Hotel Shangri La's Eros, New Delhi

BUILDING INDIA’SCYBER SECURITY FRAMEWORK

Conduent is now an independent public company Conduent Incorporated has

completed its separation from Xerox and is now an independent public company trading on the New York

Stock Exchange. Conduent debuts as the world’s largest pure-play business

process services leader with approximately $6.7 billion in annual revenue, a portfolio of differentiated offerings and a vision focussed on technology and innovation to advance the client and constituent experience.

To mark the listing of its shares of common stock, Conduent representatives, including Chief Executive Officer Ashok Vemuri, will get together to ring the opening bell at the NYSE.

Google to digitally empower SMBsGoogle India has reaffirmed its

commitment to digitally empower India’s 51-million-strong small and medium business (SMB) community.

Making the announcement in New Delhi, Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google, said, “The Internet and digital technology

will be an engine of growth for the Indian economy. Today, anyone can become an entrepreneur, a developer, or a creator, but it is important that they have the right tools and skills to digitize. We believe it is important for us to invest in training and equipping these individuals and small businesses to accelerate their journey of growth.”

Google has launched Digital Unlocked, a training programme to empower thousands of Indian SMBs with essential digital skills that will enable them to get online and start using the power of the internet to grow their business.

D-Link launches new Omna 180 Cam HD Western Digital unveils SATA client SSDs

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40pgWhat are your Expectations from the Budget 2017–18?

27pg

4 November 2016 www.varindia.com


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2017 to welcome a new wave of Modern PCs Security perimeters must grow…..

HELLO INDIA

The impact of fast-changing disruption in technology promises to grow and be even more substantial as manufacturers and their suppliers deploy technologies across the entire manufacturing landscape. Software and hardware innovations that we see today position us all to continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

Technology giants are working on Mixed reality (MR), which is a mix of Virtual Reality (VR) that creates a totally artificial environment and Augmented Reality (AR) that uses the existing environment and overlays new information on top of it. Mixed Reality is the technology that integrates all digital information with the user’s environment in real time and this is going to change the way of communication, collaboration and the future of the workplace, merging the real and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualizations, where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time. Consumers get to experience Mixed reality through affordable PCs and head mounted displays (HMDs) that blend the physical and virtual realities in the coming days.

Secondly, a million dollar question is, could this Personal computer or personalised computers are secured from the cyber-attacks, since cybercrime is on the rise and there is a sense of urgency for qualified professionals to protect data is on the rise. In fact, data security is one of the fastest growing specializations in IT.

Today, cybercrime costs business as much as US$500 billion a year. The main cause of cybercrime is social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter that are driving new forms of social interaction, dialogue, exchange and collaboration. Social networking sites enable users to swap ideas, post updates and comments and participate in activities and events while sharing their wider interests. In business, organizations are using social media tools and ‘big data’ platforms to build brands and communities which can engage customers in regular feedback dialogues; HR managers look for job candidates on LinkedIn; marketers are initiating campaigns on social networks and technical support personnel use Twitter as a platform to discuss and announce critical issues in real time. But the very ubiquity of social media, its speed of growth and the increasing reliance individuals place, all of which makes them rich hunting grounds for cyber criminals.

Businesses have yet to wake up to the true level of risk posed by social media. Unless companies come to realise that their security perimeters must grow beyond the corporate firewall to encompass social media networks, the global cost of cybercrime will continue to mushroom and is likely to more than quadruple over the next three years, bringing the total cost of data breaches to US$2.1 trillion by 2019.

Hope Roof top computing, which is an emerging technology will address these privacy issues!


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Website: www.varindia.com

CONTENTS

Publisher: Deepak Kumar SahuEditor: S Mohini RatnaExecutive Editor: Dr. Vijay Anand Copy Editor: C. M. Dutta Consulting Editor: Pravin PrashantDeputy Editor: Samrita Baruah Sub - Editor: Aparna MullickArt Director: Rakesh Kumar Network Administrator: Ashok Kumar SinghManager-IT: Subhash MohantaManager-SEO: Bidyadhar Behera

BUSINESS:Commercial Manager: Amit Kumar JhaSr. Marketing Manager: Ashok Ranjan DashCirculation Executive: Manish KumarMarketing Manager: Dipendra Kumar

CORPORATE OFFICE: VAR House, A-84A/3 Rose Apartment, Paryavaran complex, Ignou Road, new Delhi - 110030Tel: 011-41656383, 46061809Email: [email protected]

Bangalore: Bureau officeMarketing Manager: S. Kamala kar Correspondent: L. g. SwamiD-103 g.F., Ashish JK Apartments Thubarahalli Extended RoadBangaluru- 560066 Tel: 080-49530399 | Mobile:09886280836E-mail: [email protected]

Mumbai: Bureau officeRegional Manager (West): Anil KumarSr. Correspondent: Mamta S.Anurag Residency, 203 - “B” Wing, Plot no-5, Sector-9, Kamothe, navi Mumbai-410 209 Tel: 022-65561292, Mobile: 08108017479E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

Chennai: Bureau office Branch Manager: M.S. Barani Door. no.8, Plot no.-837,89th Street,13th Sector, K.K.nagar, Chennai - 600 078Mobile: 09444077065E-mail: [email protected]

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Printed and Published by Deepak Kumar Sahu on behalf of M/s. Kalinga Digital Media Pvt. Ltd. and Printed at Pushpak Press Pvt. Ltd. Shed no. 203 - 204, DSIDC Complex, okhla Industrial Area, Phase-I, new Delhi-110020 and Published at A-84A/3 Rose Apartment, Paryavaran complex, Ignou Road, new Delhi - 110030, Editor - S Mohini Ratna.

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28pg

VAR SPECIAL

28| Digital Payments Committee Report Reduce Cash to GDP Ratio

from 12% to 6%

FACE TO FACE

25| Konica Minolta shifting towards Software Solutions in 2017

39| Surveillance moves beyond vigilance to real-time intelligence

46| Sirion drives efficiency and costeffectiveness for its Customers

COVER STORY

32| Digital Transformation to rule the roost in 2017

BUDGET SPECIAL

40| W h a t a r e y o u r E x p e c t a t i o n s from the Budget

2017–18?

VAR CORPORATE

44| Sify Technologies Limited Setting the pace

VAR COLUMN

47| 3 tips for IT channel sales in a digital-first economy

ISODA CORNER

49| ISODA plans to add new members

REGULARS

Round About 14

Hot Bytes 16, 18

On the Ramp 20, 22

Voice N Data 24

Channel Buzz 26

Produt of the Month 48

Movers & Shakers 45

Channel Guru 10

Channel Chief 12

LEAD STORY

50| Digi Dhan Mela Promotes Digital Payment

e-Governance

53| Gandhinagar: India's First Smart City

VAR MOBILITY

54| "We are now perceived as a utility industry and not perceived as a growth industry"

VAR SECURITY58| NEC Aims for a Smarter & a Safer

City


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Seagate Envisages the 3D Printing Market as a big Growth PropellerOnce a niche market,

3D printing is another burgeoning technology set to transform into an immensely profitable industry. According to Gartner, 3D printer shipments are forecasted to be more than double every year between 2016 and 2019. By this time the worldwide shipments are also expected to range more than 5.6 million. Furthermore, with established players entering the 3D printer industry, the trend is expected to bring many innovations.

“The adoption of 3D printing in India is expected to see a rise over the next several years, in terms of design applications and Direct Digital Manufacturing applications. The rise of 3D printing will further lead to the growth of digital data, due to the creation of huge backlogs of CAD (computer-aided design) files corresponding to the items they create, and these files can be massive and complex. CIOs and their data management teams will be called upon to maintain increasingly large data sets that can be easily stored and manipulated,” says Sameer Bhatia, Country Manager, India & SAARC, Seagate Technology

Seagate with its expansive product portfolio in storage infrastructure is committed to the growth of 3D printer vendors and the consumers. It sees immense opportunities and growth avenues by partnering as storage partners for 3D printing vendors. “We are always open for partnership to build the best-in-class solutions together. Generally a lot of 3D printers have little to no onboard storage; so most of them need to be hooked to a computer that has the 3D print file stored on it. In turn, we expect to see demand for external drives, larger capacity HDDs due to the growth of 3D printing,” observes

In addition to that, Seagate also observes that many 3D print

service bureaus offer the ability for customers to send or deliver a 3D print file in order for the service bureau to print the object. For such service providers with intense storage requirement, it sees the growing need for external drives and enterprise drives for servers. “Our focus is knowing what the industry needs, understanding why it is needed and offering the optimal solution,” asserts Sameer.

Seagate believes that all storage solutions have to be purpose-built and optimized to best fit into the specific applications to ensure that the hard drives can meet certain workload requirements. This doesn’t simply mean the drive should have high capacity and high speed. When Seagate calls it ‘optimized,’ it means the drive offers specific technologies that can best manage the data workload and maximize the value of the data in that specific application.

Prospects of 3D Printing in India

Though at an initial stage in India, the growth for 3D printing technology has been favorable with industries like architecture, aerospace, automotive, consumer goods, industrial machineries, medicine and education, exploring newer applications. As per the recent data released by 6Wresearch, the 3D printer market in India is projected to cross $79 million by 2021. The report also suggests that automotive application accounted for majority of the revenue share in India’s 3D printer market. For instance, the technology has immensely benefitted the Automobile industry by reducing investment and part costs, reducing the weight of production tools, helping them to stay one step ahead of industry challenges.

3D printing has also transformed the construction industry by enabling architects to visualize and

create precise design models, which facilitates quick design approval and faster customer input. “We have witnessed an upsurge in demand for 3D printers, with unit shipment growth rates increasing significantly in both enterprise and consumer segments. The growth can be majorly attributed to innovations in quality and performance, reduced time to market, minimized cost of errors, and prevention of confidential design leakage,” affirms Sameer. “We are also seeing innovative adoption of 3D printing in the fashion industry. In addition to using 3D scanners and printers for designing clothes, more and more apparel makers and fashion designers are taking interest in using 3D printing for manufacturing (printing) the end products,” he further says.

Navigating to find, build and offer the right storage system requires experience and expertise. That is why the channels and SI partners play a vital role for a storage player like Seagate. “We connect with our customers and partners in every local market through the Seagate Partner Program. Seagate has been continuously building industry-specialist partner base through this program, providing comprehensive training sessions and seminars as well as working on co-marketing programs. We see ourselves as not just a storage provider, but a business partner who can build the best-in-class solutions together,” Sameer reiterates.

Hence…India is one of the most

dynamic and vital markets for Seagate’s innovative storage solutions. Seagate has been offering its solutions and expertise to various industries for over 30 years. It will continue to work closely with customers in India to tackle the increasing need for storage, and help to ensure cost-effective performance and durability in these systems. n

The increasing popularity and usage of 3D printing would not only create a huge deluge of

data but would also require an efficient data storage infrastructure. Throwing more light on this, Sameer

Bhatia, Country Manager, India & SAARC - Seagate Technology speaks about the opportunities Seagate

sees as a leading storage infrastructure vendor -



CHANNEL CHIEF

Prysm Revolutionizing the Enterprise Content Collaboration Segment

In today’s time and age, it is crucial to stay connected across platforms. Collaboration is indeed a top priority for many business leaders. With the content collaboration space growing exponentially, Prysm tries to redefine this space with innovative collaboration techniques. Kumar G.B, Vice President – Asia Pacific, Prysm throws more light on this -

The content collaboration segment has made a significant shift from the days of vanilla video conferencing solutions. The next wave of growth in the enterprise collaboration and employee productivity space will come from the innovation of a different level altogether. This is where the concept of visual workplace comes into the picture.

Prysm visual workplace solutions are more collaborative as well as provide a richer user experience. “If we look at the current market dynamics, companies are using an amalgamation of tools intended to do specific tasks. For instance, companies have deployed Microsoft Skype for Business/Cisco telepresence for face-to-face collaboration and content sharing. With Prysm visual workplace solution, one can combine live applications, diverse content, video conferencing, and the web into a touch-interactive visual workspace. The solution allows teams to simultaneously create, edit, share and store content to maximize productivity, regardless of device or geographical location. Our robust yet easy and intuitive user interface further increases the effectiveness of teams,” Kumar G.B, Vice

President – Asia Pacific, Prysm.

Prysm solutions work seamlessly with most of the third-party collaboration tools and solutions, such as Cisco, Skype for Business, Microsoft Office 365, among others to provide maximum compatibility and transforming them into a unified touch-based agnostic platform. “The beauty of our solutions is the fact that Prysm Visual Workplace integrates applications and content into a touch-interactive visual workspace platform - regardless of device or geographical location. We also leverage our leadership in the display technology business to enrich the experience while bringing applications, content, video and the web into an interactive canvas. The ability to bring the quality of content anywhere, anytime and on any device is a unique value proposition for Prysm,” he says.

With the global enterprise content collaboration market expected to double by 2020, India will play an important part of this growth. “We have seen huge success in India since we have started our operations here in 2007. Initially, we had Indian customers who primarily purchased our products in the U.S. and deployed in their organizations. Today, with the evolution of technology and the understanding that customers possess here, we are able to gain businesses here and deliver directly. In fact, few of our customers who implemented our solutions in India are also now customers in the U.S. and Europe,” asserts G.B.

With the push towards ‘Digital India’, special-purpose clouds and applications that focus specifically on connecting devices and machines the government sector in India also holds huge potential for Prysm.

Prysm offers two ranges of products - one is the display solution and the other is its visual workplace enterprise collaboration software suite. Prysm Enterprise is the newest offering in its Visual Workplace portfolio. The solutions integrate applications, diverse and multiple content, video conferencing and the web into cloud-based visual workspaces where anyone can create, edit, share, and store work, and then go back and re-access the saved workspaces later from any device or location via the cloud.

“Looking at it from a day to day business perspective, cross geographical collaboration would be redefined with the use of Prysm Visual Workplace. For instance, a senior executive working out of California can seamlessly collaborate with his R&D team which might be working out of India or any other location. The experience that our solutions provide are so rich in nature that it’s no less than having them in a meeting room rather, you can do much more with the use of our solutions which really enhances the productivity at the workplace and does not restrict workplace to a specific geography,” G.B says.

In the coming years...With the content collaboration market to double in the next 5 years,

Prysm is well positioned in this space. The concept of Visual Workplace will become a common phenomenon in years to come as companies who have already invested in these solutions would be glued to it and are aware of the ROI of the solutions.

“The beauty of Prysm Visual Workplace solutions is that the entire experience of collaboration is enhanced to an extent that whatever one does while located in a workplace, one might as well do it while on the move. As we are planning to spread our presence across geographies, in the next couple of years, we foresee a multifold increase in deployments of our solutions in major Fortune companies around the globe,” he states. n



ROUND ABOUT

Fascinating world of IOTsA doctor examines a patient in a small town referred by a primary

health center situated in a remote area. The doctor gets alarmed by certain pathological condition of the patient and feels that the health condition of the patient is complex and needs to consult aspecialist sitting several hundred kilometers away. He calls up the doctor at the primary health center and then the specialist. Now all the three are in the loop. He downloads the Aadhar based health profile of the patient from the Internetand sends it to other two doctors. They use Skype for interaction and come to a conclusion as to what should be the course of treatment. Distance that separates the three doctors do not come in the way for holding conference and saves a life, which was in great danger.

There are many situations, which one can visualize. When I am explaining such situations, a person connected with Internet and its multiple uses might concede that I am not driving home broad contours of a rocket science. These are possible realms of now widely used concept of Internet of Things (IOT), which have made possible many things, which used to be unthinkable some decades back. What made these things possible? The short and crypt answer is chips, sensors, beacons, drones and the list of such devices is expanding with every passing day.

Friends, that is the way technology is growing and to put it mildly by leaps and bounds. What we feel impossible todaywill become possible tomorrow. How such things are happening? It cannot happen in a vacuum. There should be definitive efforts to make things happen in a seamless way. Research and development hold the key to unraveling the mysteries of the world. For any technology, there are two sides: human and abstract. Human dimensions help us to discern how any technology can be put to use for the welfare of the people. Then comes the abstract aspect, which decides how the new technology has helped us to move up in the value chain. The generation or finesse of the technology may not be relevant to the people who use it. They measure the value of new technology in terms of the easiness at which it can be operated, end results and how far it reduced shortcomings of the earlier technologies. Another important link is the commercialization of technologies. That should be at best defined as a way to ensure that it reaches the common man at an affordable price. Acceptability of digital technology lies in its affordability and scalability. As the culture of IOTs picks up and more gadgets are marketed to the masses, their prices will come down and their uses would spill over to every household irrespective of their income levels.

There are think tanks and futuristic groups, which are predicting what future holds for digital technology. Some of them come with bizarre predictions with the advent of artificial intelligence. What the human can do now, machines will be able to do tomorrow. You have driverless cars, pilotless aircrafts, robots doing most complicated surgery, machines imparting education to suit intelligence level of each student etc. The extreme prediction is that creation of designer children with the help of genome. That would mean one can chose what could be the level of intelligence, color, disposition etc of the baby they want to procreate.

The flip side of these developments, I am afraid, would be inequality among people living in different parts of the globe. People who are fortunate to be affluent will have all these facilities on asking, while those who cannot afford it, might lose on the game, unless there are global initiatives to plug the imminent digital divide that may creep in.

This example can be taken at a global scale. There are many countries which are primitive as far as the digital technology is concerned. These benefits will flow to people of these countries only when a strong infrastructure is built and people use broadband, mobile phones etc. That will take considerable time and efforts. Yet, a beginning has to be made. We have a number of institutionalized frameworks created under UN organizations for compliance of standards, promotion of local entrepreneurship, rule based trading, promoting small and medium enterprises etc. I still have to hear about a global organization dedicated to increase the computer literacy and its application globally. Even if there is one, I have not heard about its working. It is important for

UN organizations to embark on a strong network of organizations to promote computer applications across the world committing resources and manpower to achieve that goal. This cannot be left to private players since it would rake up many controversies like the one triggered by free use of internet. Hidden in that concept, it is alleged, was some smart move by Facebook to capture expanding horizon of India’s digital space.

What could be the glitch in a digitally connected world? Hacking or intimidating the system unlawfully for stealing data or corrupting the existing data is a matter of great concern. It has left a big question mark among the people who swear by the digital world. How far Internet can be reliable and what is the guarantee that it would make the systems transparent?

There are protagonists of net who finds the widespread hacking as an opportunity. They argue that the answer to hacking is creation of strong security systems to make hacking impossible or near impossible. That opens up businesses worth trillions of dollars for creating foolproof firewalls that cannot be compromised. That is also an area India can have tremendous opportunities to develop new technological platforms that are impenetrable. We have to invest handsomely in this domain to move up in the value chain.

Advent of IOTs has opened up a challenge to India. We have to make our presence felt in the embedded technologies. But the fact is that we are yet to travel some way to get close to marking our footprints in the embedded technologies, which should have been our forte having regard to the fact that we had a solid start in software development and solutions. IOTs work on chips, sensors and beacons. Our laggardness in this domain is matter of great concern. Let me dole out some statistics. China is one of the largest producers of electronics hardware and their yearly export of this item alone is higher than the overall export of India. India’s production of electronics hardware is a miniscule as compared to that of China. Mapping of our inadequacies in the hardware sector needs immediate attention. It is not an easy task. For the last decade or so we have been embarking one plan or the other to attract global majors to invest in India but with very little success. The irritants that prevent us from going ahead should be carefully looked into and ameliorative actions taken urgently so that we do not miss the bus this time around.

Undeniably IOT is a game changer and that is going to be the case for some time now, whether we like it or not till the next generation of technology eclipse the existing ones. It is time for India to catch up with the big changes that are happening to consolidate our position and to emerge as a true technology leader in the times to come. n



HOT BYTES

ASRock partners with ICT SmS India for post-sales service

Avaya announces completion of “UP 100” Project

Tally Solutions partners with CAIT

Informatica partners with Ingram Micro Cloud

Intex Technologies signs MoU with UPSDM

Cisco and GoR sign a Sol

ASRock is working towards providing

one of the best post-sales services for its channel community in India. ASRock has joined hands with Wistron Group subsidy ICT Service Management Solutions (SmS).

Manoj Kriplani, Manager India, ASRock Inc, Taiwan, commented, “ASRock is known for its quality products and we have always looked at focussing on the needs of our customers, be it the end-users or our channel partners who are putting in

Avaya has announced the

successful completion of its UP 100 project with the state government of Uttar Pradesh. One of the largest and most ambitious projects ever undertaken by the Uttar Pradesh police force, the UP 100 project is designed to provide integrated emergency services across the entire state, including rural areas, on a 24 x 7 basis.

The solution is based on an integrated communication model,

their efforts in promoting and selling ASRock products. Our tie-up with ICT SmS India is a step in the direction of further strengthening our buyer-seller ecosystem. We are providing 3 years warranty on our motherboards and continuously introducing new and exciting products for the Indian market.”

capable of responding to multiple communications channels, including phone, mobile, e-mail and social media. The contact centre supports all dialects of Hindi and some foreign languages. Video calling features also support users with special needs, with agents available that can read sign language and help provide support to people in distress.

Tally Solutions last month rolled out

its nationwide “Campaign on GST” in a mission to train and educate the (non-corporate sector) trading community for easy GST compliance and transition. An extension to the educative session was witnessed in Pune, held on 9th January, 2017. The meet witnessed a footfall of more than 140 traders from across the community, orienting them in the areas of focus in GST.

Bharat Goenka, MD, Tally Solutions, said, “It is evident from the

overwhelming response to our GST programme held in Pune that every businessman is anxious to understand and get ready for this massive change. Our partnership with CAIT was motivated by this need to maximize reach to the trading community, who are likely to be the most dramatically effected section of business.”

Informatica has signed a distribution

agreement with Ingram Micro. Through this relationship, Informatica’s suite of cloud data management products will be available to Ingram Micro Cloud’s extensive channel partner network in India.

As cloud computing continues to gain increased market traction in India, businesses need the right solutions to ensure data quality when moving between on-premise systems and the cloud. Informatica’s cloud-based data management solutions will enable Ingram Micro

Cloud resellers to address the growing need for high-performance data integration and help customers achieve a trusted 360 degree customer view, while increasing agility and end user productivity.

“With Informatica Cloud Data Management solutions, our value added resellers can help organizations unify data from different sources with prebuilt connectors and benefit from a consistent and accurate view of their customers across multiple systems and applications,” said Harish Laddha, Director, Cloud Sales, Ingram Micro India.

Intex Technologies will provide

E m p l o y m e n t - l i n k e d Skill Training to 2,500 unemployed and underprivileged youth in Uttar Pradesh over a 3-year period. For this project, Intex has signed a Memorandum o f Understanding (MoU) with the Uttar Pradesh Skill Development Mission (UPSDM) operated by a society under the UP Government to undertake Skill Development Training in Mobile/IT products Manufacturing (Assembly, Testing, Packing, Sales,

Service and Repair) in Uttar Pradesh. In the first year, Intex will train 500+ youth in the age group of 14-35 years at its Noida plants.

The MoU was signed

and exchanged between Hon'ble. Minister for Vocational Education & Skill Development Prof. Abhishek Mishra and Amitabh Khurana, Head – Manufacturing and Satyendra Mallik, Head – HR, Intex Technologies.

Cisco has announced a series of strategic

initiatives under its Jaipur Lighthouse City program initiative to help accelerate the digital transformation of Rajasthan. The announcement is the latest in a series of initiatives to accelerate the digital transformation of Rajasthan. Cisco and the Government of Rajasthan have signed a Statement of Intent (SoI) to roll-out digital classrooms in women colleges to support and advance women working in the technology sector and expansion of Jaipur lighthouse program

to include Smart water for water management.

The SoI between Cisco and GoR was signed in the presence of the CM of Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje, Government dignitaries, Cisco Executive Chairman, John Chambers and Cisco India and SAARC President, Dinesh Malkani.

Atos collaborates with NASSCOM Foundation Atos and

N A S S C O M Foundation have jointly announced the launch of National Digital Literacy Mission (NDLM) centres dedicated to training and imparting digital literacy at Vadodara (Gujarat). The NDLM centres will conduct skill development programmes in the area of Information Technology for the aspiring persons interested to undertake IT literacy programmes.

Atos will endeavour to leverage the IT training as envisaged under the NDLM Scheme with the objectives of appreciation of Digital Literacy – that aims to make a person IT literate, so that he/she can operate digital devices like mobile phones, tablets among other electronic devices and send and receive emails and search the internet for information.

Teradata Database on AzureTeradata has

a n n o u n c e d imminent availability of Teradata Database on Azure before 31st March, 2017, providing customers more choice of cloud options for Teradata software.

Sunil Jose, MD Teradata India, said, “The Teradata Database on Azure combines Teradata’s industry-leading data warehouse software with the agility and flexibility of Microsoft Azure infrastructure. The solution will offer self-service, under-an-hour provisioning, pay-as-you-go, and integration with a wide variety of Azure and Teradata software tools. Many of the features of the Teradata Database on Azure speed time-to-market, offer quick time to value, increase efficiency and reduce risk and will enable workload portability between cloud and on-premises systems."



HOT BYTES

MobiKwik to expand its footprint

Genpact Launches Global Center of Excellence

Mahindra Comviva Ushers Enterprises into Digital Era

MediaTek to accelerate “Make-in-India” initiative

Verizon collaborates with SevOne

DJI partners with Seagate to address Data demands MobiKwik has

announced the company’s expansion strategy and plans for growing business to enable 150 million users in India in transacting with MobiKwik platform by early 2018. The company has announced that it will set up offices in 13 cities by the end of Q1 2017 and hire over 1,000 employees to drive business growth in these centres.

Upasana Taku, Co-Founder of MobiKwik, said, “We will be investing over Rs.50 crore in setting

up new offices to cater to regional requirements and will be hiring over 1000 employees, pan India, across technical and non-technical requirements.”

The cities in which

MobiKwik will be expanding its footprints are Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad, NOIDA, Lucknow, Vijayawada, Kochi, Jaipur and Chandigarh.

Genpact has u n v e i l e d

the Global Center of Excellence in Jaipur as part of Cisco’s Lighthouse City

project, a global initiative designed to deploy next-generation technologies to impact citizens and society. With this initiative, Jaipur will gain access to Cisco’s global network and channel program

capabilities helping the city benefit from economic and social transformation as the country embarks on the next phase of the Digital

India program. Hosted and operated

in Genpact’s state-of-the-art facility in Jaipur, the Center will serve

as an innovation lab for Genpact and its partnering technology firms to rapidly test and deploy the latest smart technology advances from Cisco to help Jaipur become a fully responsive, smart and connected city.

Mahindra Comviva has launched

its Infinity Digital Engagement platform for the Indian Market. The platform embraces the power of mobile data provided by telecom o p e r a t o r s to enable enterprise digital transformation. Infinity Digital Engagement Platform enables enterprises to create rich and contextual digital engagements with their consumers, employees, partners and connected devices while leveraging the operators’ data channel infrastructure and assets. The launch of this digital platform is geared towards key government initiatives

like Digital India, Smart India and Make in India that focus on the digital channel to accelerate the economic growth of the country.

Enterprises are

taking the lead from the government’s digital initiatives, and shifting their focus towards the digital channel for engaging with their customers and delivering enterprise services. In order to make this digital transformation possible, operators stand as the prime enablers with their vast, widespread network and infrastructure.

MediaTek has announced its

“Smartphone Design Training Program” created to accelerate the “Make-in-India” initiative has concluded successfully. MediaTek has developed this training program to foster and educate talent for India’s fast-growing handset industry, by sharing its smartphone expertise and knowledge with a group of handpicked senior managers and engineers from the smartphone industry in India.

The training program’s

closing ceremony was held at the MediaTek headquarters in Hsinchu, Taiwan on 13th January. Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary of MeitY, joined the ceremony via video conference and recognized historical value of the training program to foster talent for India. MediaTek Chairman & CEO, Ming-Kai Tsai, congratulated all the participants who completed the training in person, along with Ming-Ji Wu, Director General of Industrial Development Bureau, MOEA.

Verizon and SevOne are joining forces

to deliver added levels of visibility in the performance of Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD WAN) services. With these new capabilities, Verizon’s enterprise clients benefit from a singular view that spans multi-vendor technology without the burden of managing disparate monitoring systems.

“Companies are well into their journeys with

next-generation virtualized environments to accelerate their businesses, yet many don’t have the required level of operational insight,” said Jack Sweeney, CEO, SevOne. “The collaboration between SevOne and Verizon provides organizations with unprecedented business agility that allows them to proactively manage more of their digital infrastructure, visualize and report and troubleshoot quickly.”

DJI and Seagate Technology have

announced a strategic partnership to work jointly to address data demands of UAV users. As drone

cameras gain resolution and drone flight times grow longer, DJI and Seagate are focusing their efforts to securely and efficiently store, manage, download and share hundreds of gigabytes of data that can be generated from a single

drone mission.“DJI is proud to

pioneer advances in drone technology, and we are excited to work with Seagate on developing innovative

ways to manage the increased data flows generated by our most sophisticated products,” said Michael Perry, Director of Strategic

Partnerships for DJI. “Our unparalleled UAV expertise and Seagate’s deep data prowess mean our customers can look forward to smart, efficient and reliable ways to manage their growing drone data storage needs.”

Gemalto powers AT&T’s IoT offeringsGemalto is

supplying AT&T with a remote subscription management solution that will help enable its customers to deploy new and highly secure IoT applications in the U.S. and globally.

“AT&T is an industry leader in the Internet of Things with more than 30 million connected devices on our network as of the third quarter of 2016. At the same time, we are expanding our offering of connected services to include automotive telematics, infotainment, and smart safety solutions," said Chris Penrose, President, Internet of Things Solutions, AT&T. "Gemalto's On-Demand Connectivity and eSIM platform are ideal solutions to help AT&T sustain dynamic growth."

NIIT and Microsoft collaborate NIIT Technologies

has announced the deployment of BankingEasy its Core Banking Solution on Microsoft’s Azure platform. The collaboration will empower small and medium banks across India to operate with more flexibility and become RBI compliant.

With the availability of cloud services through datacentres locally in India, banks will be able to leverage Microsoft’s Azure, Office 365, CRM Online and Disaster Recovery Services based on their needs. The solution will substantially improve service experience with any branch banking, with more computing power and secured value added services. 16 banks across Delhi, UP, Rajasthan, MP, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Maharashtra in India are already using BankingEasy.



ON THE RAMP

Dell EMC unveils ProDeploy Client Suite

Trend Micro launches TippingPoint NX Series NGIPS

MSI launches new 7th Generation Laptops

D-Link launches new Omna 180 Cam HD

Konica Minolta unveils AccurioPro Software Platform

Fujitsu presents PRIMEFLEX for Hadoop

Trend has made available of

the latest Trend Micro TippingPoint NX Series Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention Systems (NGIPS), including a first-to-market standalone NGIPS solution that delivers up to 100 Gb inspection throughput with low latency. Designed to cater to data centers and enterprise networks with high- performance requirements, the TippingPoint 7600NX protects critical infrastructure, data and vulnerable applications

Dell EMC has launched

ProDeploy Client Suite, enabling customers to deploy PCs with greater speed, less effort and increased control. With three different service levels, training and certification, customers have the flexibility to choose the specific service to meet their needs.

Customers can trust Dell EMC and partner experts to lead all the aspects of their deployment from planning, configuration and installation to data migration and knowledge

transfer. Customers are assigned an engagement manager as a single point of contact to manage the deployment and receive access to TechDirect, a self-service portal for configuration and status updates whenever they want. Addressing the needs from the simple to the complex, the suite has three offers that align to common deployment scenarios.

in real time from known, undisclosed and unknown vulnerabilities without adversely affecting network performance.

The 7600NX provides data centers processing massive amounts of traffic with a comprehensive security solution that can easily scale to evolving performance requirements. It uses a combination of technologies such as deep packet inspection, threat reputation and advanced malware analysis to detect and prevent attacks across data center environments.

MSI India has announced the

roll out of its latest 7th generation Intel based laptops as well as a whole series based on these newest CPUs. These new Kabylake CPUs feature a significant boost to Core speed, Multimedia Playback, and 4K video capability. MSI is able to include all the benefits of the new i7 CPUs and the GTX 10 series GPUs in their most powerful and efficient laptops ever.

MSI GT83VR 7RE

Titan SLI is the first VR-optimized laptop with an IPS level screen powered by Kabylake i7-7820HK+CM238 GPU and dual GTX 1080 8GB GDDR5X GPU. The GT83VR 7RE Titan delivers unprecedented performance, power efficiency, and next-generation gaming experiences. Running Windows 10 on Super Raid 4-512 GB NVMe SSD and 1TB 7200rpm HDD, the programs and in-game maps load instantly.

D-Link has introduced the

new Omna 180 Cam HD (DSH-C310), the Apple HomeKit- enabled camera at the ongoing CES 2017. The first in D-Link’s Omna family of HomeKit-enabled devices, the Omna 180 Cam HD provides an easy way for users to monitor their home for extra peace of mind.

With an elegant, modern design, the Omna 180 Cam HD offers a comprehensive 180-degree field of view to monitor an entire room and Full HD 1080p video quality for crystal- clear

surveillance. The HomeKit-enabled camera includes advanced security features with end-to-end encryption and authentication between the camera and an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Apple HomeKit technology also allows users to set up the 180 Cam HD within seconds, in just a few simple steps via the Apple Home app in iOS 10.

Konica Minolta has unveiled

AccurioPro software platform, offering end-to-end production automation and integrating the best features of in house and cloud-based software. The solution is specifically tailored to be modular (pay only for the components needed), flexible (integrates with other common graphic arts software), scalable (supports small-to-large operations), and comprehensive (features beyond prepress to incorporate colour management and finishing).

AccurioPro Conductor

has been tailored for centralised and intelligent output management. Job specs (via JDF) can be leveraged from a print MIS to effectively and efficiently load balance production across a fleet of digital presses without operator intervention. The conductor can also support finishing automation with the possibility for out-of-the-box integration due to a unique JDF converter.

Fujitsu is now making it easier

for enterprises to tame big data and extract valuable business intelligence from multiple data sources, by extending its PRIMEFLEX for Hadoop i n t e g r a t e d systems to also fully support SAP HANA Vora.

SAP HANA Vora allows enterprises to bridge SAP HANA and Hadoop to undertake big data analysis across both datasets. It is

an in-memory distributed computing solution for business that leverages and extends the Apache Spark execution framework to

provide enriched i n t e r a c t i v e analytics on enterprise and Hadoop data. It combines an in-memory query engine and powerful

functions including an in-memory graph database for real-time graph analysis and a time series analysis engine.

Edimax launches GP-101ITPoE Edimax Technology

has introduced Edimax GP-101IT, a PoE injector which provides a seamless way of deployment on the existing LAN infrastructure. The increasing adoption of the PoE technology for supplying electricity to powered devices is due to its advantages such as low cost of installation, high convenience and reliability.

"Not every network installation is newly designed .PoE power comes from a central and universally compatible source rather than a collection of distributed wall adapters. It can be backed up by an uninterruptible power supply or controlled, to easily disable or reset devices. The networking solutions must evolve rapidly to meet new challenges," said Sanjay Joshi, Country Manager, Edimax Technology.

Acer expands its product portfoliosAcer has unveiled

three new Aspire series devices, including two new high-performance notebooks and a desktop PC, all designed with entertainment and performance in mind while featuring Windows 10.

The Aspire V Nitro Black Edition models (V Nitro 17 and V Nitro 15) and Aspire VX notebooks are ideal for people who like their videos crisp, games smooth and audio clear. Likewise, Aspire GX series desktop PCs are also ideal for users who are passionate about entertainment.

Both notebook series come with up to a 7th-Generation Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor that is designed to bring incredible performance and responsiveness, immersive 4K entertainment and longer battery life to mobile devices.



ON THE RAMP

GIGABYTE unveils New AORUS Motherboards

Microsoft announces New Azure Enhancements

Epson launches WorkForce WF-100 Wireless Mobile Printer

Western Digital unveils SATA client SSDs

HPE announces composable initiative to Cloud Solutions

AMD unveils New Graphics Architecture

GI G A B Y T E T e c h n o l o g y

has announced its new AORUS Gaming line of Motherboards which support Intel’s 7th-/6th-Gen Core processors. These motherboards, designed for enthusiasts, allow for customization and personalization through unique features such as liquid cooling support, fully customizable RGB LEDs as well as new and improved smart fan controls which are all meticulously incorporated into this platform to give gamers more control as well as the ability for them

Microsoft has introduced new

Azure enhancements, to enable enterprises to move their largest workloads into the cloud and run them without any changes, with the best-in-class support for large workloads, and the lowest possible cost.

The new SLA is the result of extensive work by Microsoft to improve availability of the Azure infrastructure. This includes building innovative machine-

to express themselves.“Personalization and

customization is something we know our customers want, we recognize that because of all the different case modes we see using GIGABYTE motherboards,” said Henry Kao, Vice-President of GIGABYTE’s Motherboard Business Unit.

learning algorithms to predict failing hardware early and offering premium storage to help improve reliability and performance of attached disks. The new 99.9% single-instance availability SLA will better support applications that cannot easily scale beyond single VMs.

With these announcements, you can deploy even more applications and solutions into Azure ease, speed and low cost.

Epson has launched Epson WorkForce

WF-100, world’s lightest and smallest wireless mobile printer. Designed for professionals on-the-go, the WorkForce WF-100 includes built-in wireless connectivity, Wi-Fi Direct and an integrated rechargeable battery, for printing from nearly anywhere.

“Epson has always been committed to delivering tools that meet the evolving needs of today’s mobile workforce. With WF-100, we aim to make printing on the go easier and convenient

for professionals. It is often a necessity if using a smartphone, tablet, or laptop is an essential part of your daily workflow.,” said Siva Kumar K, Deputy GM IJP, Sales & Marketing, Epson India.

Western Digital C o r p o r a t i o n

has announced the first WD-branded SATA client SSDs, the WD Blue and WD Green solid-state drives (SSDs). The new additions are in sync and complement the company’s industry-leading family of hard drives for PCs and workstations, providing a full portfolio of WD storage devices for virtually any application.

Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director – South Asia, Middle East and Africa, Western Digital, said, “We are proud to introduce the first WD-branded SATA client SSDs to deliver competitive

performance, leading-edge reliability and capacity benefits to our customers. They are designed to drive SSD adoption in mainstream computing platforms for both corporate and end consumers. We believe the newly-introduced WD Blue and WD Green Solid-State Drives will perfectly answer our customers significant demand for a flash-based storage option.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has

announced expansion of its composable initiative with the addition of a new hybrid cloud offering and technology extensions to HPE hyperconverged systems. By extending HPE Synergy’s fully programmable infrastructure to HPE’s multi-cloud platform, HPE is enabling IT operators to deliver software-defined infrastructure as quickly as customers’ businesses demand.

“Customers’ business needs can change quite rapidly, and they need an infrastructure platform that can support that rapid change,” said Vikram K, Director, Datacenter and Hybrid Cloud, HPE India. “With HPE Synergy, we delivered a new class of infrastructure providing the speed, efficiency and flexibility of the public cloud on-premises, so IT can focus on being an internal service provider instead of maintaining infrastructure.”

AMD has unveiled p r e l i m i n a r y

details of its forthcoming GPU architecture – Vega. Conceived and executed over five years, Vega architecture enables new possibilities in PC gaming, professional design and machine intelligence that traditional GPU architectures have not been able to address effectively. Data-intensive workloads are becoming the new normal, and the parallel nature of the GPU lends itself ideally to tackling them.

“It is incredible to see

GPUs being used to solve gigabyte-scale data problems in gaming to exabyte-scale data problems in machine intelligence. We designed the Vega architecture to build on this ability, with the flexibility to address the extraordinary breadth of problems GPUs will be solving not only today but also five years from now,” said Raja Koduri, Senior Vice-President & Chief Architect, Radeon Technologies Group, AMD.

Fortinet releases FortiOS 5.6Fortinet has

a n n o u n c e d enhanced offerings that provide the building blocks for tomorrow’s self-provisioning, self-operating and self-correcting, Intent-Based Network Security. The latest innovations in the Security Fabric include the release of FortiOS 5.6, an advanced security OS along with Fortinet’s new Security Operations Solution.

According to a recent report by Joe Skorupa and Andrew Lerner, “Intent-based networking adoption is being driven by digital business transformation's requirements to increase network agility while increasing reliability/availability. The increasing complexity of networks, combined with critical skills shortages in design/deploy/operate tasks, are increasing pressure on infrastructure and operations leaders to find a better way."

Juniper Networks launches 5G Evolution Juniper Networks

has announced that leading mobile and internet data services operator LG U+ has successfully rolled out Korea’s first-ever carrier-grade virtual routing deployment as part of a broad infrastructure solution, supporting its evolution towards a cutting-edge 5G network.

With the exponential rise in today’s data traffic levels, increasingly high demands are placed on service providers to implement networking solutions that provide significant improvements in flexibility, adaptability and reliability, all the while maximizing cost-effectiveness. This is particularly crucial for leading operators like LG U+ that are rapidly transitioning their infrastructure for next-generation 5G networking.



VOICE-N-DATA

BT partners with MediaTek to deliver Total Wireless Connectivity

NETGEAR unveils Nighthawk Smart Wi-Fi Router

Airtel deploys “Dual Carrier” technology in Delhi-NCR

BlackBerry partners with TCL Communication

DoT raises awareness on EMF radiation

Ericsson to accelerate 5G deployments

MediaTek has a n n o u n c e d

that BT has selected MediaTek’s Adaptive Network technology to power their Whole Home Wi-Fi solution, delivering full-coverage wireless connectivity that is simple to set up and guarantees a stable signal throughout the home. The announcement, made at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) demonstrates the role that both BT and MediaTek are playing in the growth of our connected future.

“Customers expect wireless connectivity that’s seamless, simple and speedy – and with our investment in a smart, distributed

NETGEAR has launched the new

Nighthawk X4S AC2600 Smart Wi-Fi Router (R7800) in India. Nighthawk X4S is an ideal router for fast-paced gaming hobbyists, as Nighthawk X4S not only delivers an extremely fast Wi-Fi connection to any device, but 160MHz-capable mobile devices enjoy up to twice the throughput provided by other routers.

S u b h o d e e p Bhattacharya, Regional Director – India and

wireless internet solution we can continue to exceed expectations,” said Erik Raphael, Director of BT Devices. “We are committed to delivering the best experience to our customers and our Whole Home Wi-Fi ensures fast, reliable connections for multiple devices throughout the house. Whole Home Wi-Fi with MediaTek’s Adaptive Network technology allows customers to install a smart and secure network designed for today’s connected world.”

SAARC, NETGEAR, said, “Nighthawk X4S is a great router choice because of its amazing combination of the fastest network processor used in a retail router with the latest Wi-Fi technology for ensuring your mobile devices support the best possible online experiences today and in the future. Fast-paced gaming enthusiasts will be thrilled by this 2016 CES Innovation Award honoree, the industry’s first shipping router to offer 1.7GHz processor and 160MHz bandwidth."

BlackBerry has entered into a long-

term licensing agreement, providing acceleration to BlackBerry’s transition into a security software and services company. Under the terms of the agreement, BlackBerry will

license its security software and service suite, as well as related brand assets to TCL Communication who will design, manufacture, sell and provide customer

support for BlackBerry-branded mobile devices.

BlackBerry will continue to control and develop its security and software solutions, serve its customers and maintain trusted BlackBerry security software, while

TCL Communication will manage all sales and distribution and serve as a global distributor of new BlackBerry-branded mobile devices.

An awareness p r o g r a m m e

was organized under the aegis of the Ministry of Communications on Electromagnetic Field (EMF) Emissions and Mobile Towers. This is part of a nationwide programme to facilitate digital India initiative. Shri Manoj Sinha, Hon’ble Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Communications, graced the occasion as Chief Guest in the inaugural session of this programme and delivered

the inaugural address. Shri O. P. Meena, Chief

Secretary, Government of Rajasthan, participated as a Special Guest in the inaugural session of this programme, along with Shri J. S. Deepak, Secretary, DoT, DDG TERM, DoT, and other senior officials of the Government of Rajasthan in the panel. Shri Rajpal Singh Shekhwat, Minister of Industry, Government of Rajasthan, also graced the occasion and supported the initiative.

Er i c s s o n , Q u a l c o m m

Technologies Inc. and AT&T have announced to conduct interoperability

testing and over-the-air field trials based on the expected 5G New Radio (NR) specifications being developed by 3GPP, which will form the basis of the global standards. The trials intend to help move the mobile ecosystem to faster 5G deployment based on standards-compliant 5G NR infrastructure and devices

once 3GPP completes the first release of the official specifications, which is expected as part of Release 15.

The trials will support operation in millimetre Wave (mmWave) spectrum, aiming to

accelerate commercial deployments in the 28GHz and 39GHz bands. In the trials, the companies will showcase new 5G NR mmWave technologies that utilize wide bandwidths available at these higher frequency bands to increase network capacity and expect to achieve multi-gigabit per second data rates.

Idea 4G now covers 37% of KarnatakaIdea Cellular has

rapidly expanded its 4G network in Karnataka, covering 1,579 villages and towns across all 30 districts and covering 37% of its population.

Idea’s high-speed wireless broadband services covers Bangalore, Hubli, Dharwad, Mysore, Mangalore, Belgaum, Davanagere, Tumkur, Hassan, Udupi-Manipal, S h i m o g a - B h a d r a va t i , Bellary, Bijapur, Raichur, Bidar, Hospet, Gadag-Betigeri, Chitradurga, Kolar and Chikmagalur.

Rajat Mukarji, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Idea Cellular, said, “Idea is preparing itself to substantially enhance customer’s wireless data experience and capture a higher share of the exponentially growing mobile data business."

10digi offers its services in Delhi/NCR10digi has launched

its services in Delhi/NCR, by recruiting 500 mobile retailers (MRs). The company has invested over 75 lakh in the initial phase and a further investment of Rs.2 crore for the Delhi/NCR market will be made.

Ozair Yasin, Co-Founder & Director, 10digi, said, “We are pleased to announce 10digi’s foray into the Delhi market, presenting this attractive/one-of-a-kind offering for businesses across India. This will provide us the first mover’s advantage in the market, where we intend to tap 5% of the customer base across 135 cities within a year. To accomplish this, we will hire 10,000 MRs across India in a phased manner. We intend to provide end-to-end telecom products before exploring other industry products in future.”

Airtel has rolled out an upgraded

mobile network in Delhi-NCR. As part of the network upgrade, Airtel has deployed state-of-the-art “Dual Carrier” technology to combine the spectrum capacities of two 5MHz carriers in the 2100 MHz band. Airtel is the first mobile operator to deploy “Dual Carrier” technology in Delhi NCR.

The highlight of “Dual Carrier” technology deployment is that customers will be able to enjoy 4G like data speeds

even when they are on the 3G. The technology will also help in optimizing the back-end engagement

between the network and mobile devices, enabling customers to enjoy extended battery life on their mobile devices. With this deployment, Airtel will now offer the widest 4G experience across Delhi-NCR.


Konica Minolta shifting towards Software Solutions in 2017

In a chat with VARINDIA, Kuldeep Malhotra, Vice-President, Sales Division, Konica Minolta, speaks about the printer market, latest technologies, effects of demonetization, channel strategy and achievements of the company

We will divide it into two. One is the office segment and another is production device. We are expecting good growth in the device production segment because the people are looking at the short length runs. Now, a lot of commercial printers are adopting digital technology, besides working on the offset. The office segment is also growing, but the overall market is not growing. The growth is just 8% to 10%.

How are you strategizing to overcome this sluggish market?

Everyone needs to work together – both customers and OEMs. What technology can do for you it’s not just copy and print it can do beyond that like scanning, faxing or can print directly from your USB pen drive. More education is required in this. But when you look at the overall market, people still feel that they can afford A4 but not A3. They still feel A3 is a bigger machine and A4 is the smaller one. So that mindset will take some more time to change and understand that you need to look at the overall TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). You may have to invest more initially, but if the running cost is lower in that equipment, In the long run, it will benefit you.

Secondly, the life of A3 equipment is more than A4 as people use it for two to three years, while people can easily use A3 for five to seven years. So the life is double, the running cost is lower. Only the hardware cost is more. So people can adopt A3 rather than A4 devices. The price of A4 is more than Rs.16 lakh. So some of that market should shift towards A3 which as an OEM and vendor we are educating customers. Both corporate and the government are cutting the cost. People are reducing the printing cost, so people are not buying new devices.

Another biggest challenge is colourization. 10-12,000 units is nothing when you compare it with inkjet colour. The perception is that colour prints are very costly.

Do you think that the government is apprehensive of adopting this new technology?

Konica Minolta is gradually shifting its focus from hardware to software

solutions. The solutions will help customers to increase productivity and lower printing cost. The company is registering higher growth in the production segment than Office Automation. Moreover, the company is trying to educate customers on A3 printers as the Total Cost of Ownership of these printers is low and also the lifespan is longer than A4 devices.

Konica Minolta views demonetization as a slowdown in the decision-making process of a customer to invest in printing devices. It also feels that, with the gradual improvement in cash flow, the market condition will get better.

How would you recap 2016 in terms of technology and business?

Our financial year is from April to March. We have not yet closed our financial year, even though the calendar year is finished. We have completed three quarters where we have shown a double-digit percentage increase. During the first half (April–September), our growth was 25% which may have come down in the third quarter. Business came down during the October- December quarter, but we were able to maintain our double-digit growth in terms of performance.

In terms of technology, we have launched 18 new products in the beginning of our financial year. So we are getting good response and even in the last quarter we have launched two new products which are in the 25ppm and 30ppm category.

What are the latest technologies that will be coming up in 2017?

We are looking more into the software solutions. Till date, what we have done is more of hardware. Now we are trying to offer software solutions also which will enable customers to increase their productivity and minimize their expenses in printing. DMS e-biz Vault is one of the examples. It is more of scanning, retrieval software and then in future we may come out with more solutions for our office segment. Similarly, for production also we are coming out with print management, colour management, Web to print solutions. So both in the office as well as printing, we are working on the solutions workflows.

How do you see the printing industry moving, especially the office automation one?

To some extent, yes. They have no control who is printing. So they need to adopt that technology which restricts people who can print and who cannot. How many can one print? If he prints more, he has to pay VAT so charge VAT to that department and allocate the budget, quota allocation so that people will be more careful.

Need to educate what is the benefit and how they can restrict the employees to have a limited set of prints for colour so that they can minimize the expense also.

How Konica Minolta is facing the demonetization challenge?

It is a slowdown process which has happened in customer’s decision-making to invest money in these equipments. That is why it has the impact on the overall business in the third quarter. I think in the fourth quarter government wants to spend because their budget will be exhausted and anyway they have preponed their budget to February 1. So the new budget will come and I am hopeful that people would like to spend money.

Slowdown is there, but when will it improve it is difficult to say because cash flow is now slowly improving and it is getting back on track.

What is your channel strategy for 2017?

We have over 150 direct partners who are promoting our office products range which is A3 and A4. Our strength lies in copy shops, SMBs and government, but our major gap is mid-size large-size corporates and we want to further improve our SMBs and government segment. So we will be focussing on how to penetrate more in these segments to grow our overall market share both in black and white as well as colour.

In Tier-II and Tier-III cities, business is growing and more expansion is happening in those markets. We already have a good coverage network which we have created in these cities and have started paying us back. We would be focussing more on reaching out to those customers who are participating in road shows, product demonstrations, local exhibitions to showcase our products.

What are the achievements of Konica Minolta in 2016?

We would be closing our year at around Rs.500 crore which will give us a double-digit growth. We will improve or try to improve our market share. The current market share in mono is 18%+ and colour 24%–25%. n

FACE TO FACE


CHANNEL BUZZ

ASIRT appoints new Board Members RAH Infotech expands its business to Nepal

Vertiv conducts Annual India Channel Conference 2017

TAIT organizes "Bollywood Nite"

Jiten Mehta has been unanimously elected as the

new chairman of ASIRT at a board meeting held in December. ASIRT Founder and Chairman Kshitij Kotak has resigned from the board due to increasing professional demands of his business expansion. His longstanding request to take a break has been reluctantly accepted after a long discussion at the meeting and he has formally handed over reigns to Jiten.

Kotak is a charter member and was the first president of ASIRT having subsequently served as Chairman till his resignation last month. Under his leadership, ASIRT has grown from strength to strength and he leaves an unparalleled legacy of service to the industry. We wish him all the best in his future endeavours.

The board has co-opted Chetan Shah, founding chairman of ASIRT, who completed his tenure last year as a mentor and guide.

The Board retains other following members in their respective capacities -

Jiten Mehta ChairmanPankaj Shah Vice-ChairmanArvind Singh PresidentLimesh Parekh SecretaryTushar Shah TreasurerVimesh Avlani Jt Secretary Sujit Uchil, Nityanand Shetty and Hitten Shah have been elected as

Vice-Presidents.

RAH Infotech has continued its expansion spree with the

launch of its Nepal operations. The company has announced its arrival into Nepal market by conducting the first Channel Fest in association with its OEMs - Radware, Exinda and WinMagic.

In this gala event held at Hotel Yak & Yeti, over 55 IT personnel from 25 different partner companies took part, making the event a grand success. Sabin Upadhyaya, Country Manager, Nepal for RAH Infotech, delivered the welcome speech introducing RAH Infotech and its OEMs to the partners gathered.

Suchit Karnik, Senior VP, RAH Infotech, took the audience on a RAH Infotech journey and explained why RAH Infotech has been the fastest-growing value-added technology distributor in India for the last three years in a row and what value it can add to partners’ business and how they can benefit from working with RAH Infotech.

Speaking on the occasion, Karnik said, “Nepal is an important region for RAH Infotech and hence we are setting up our operations here with a dedicated team to cater to this market. We have been the

fastest-growing VAD in India and with continued support from the Nepal channel community, we expect to replicate the success in this market as well,” he added.

Representatives from Radware, Apurva Bhatnagar and Vandit addressed the gathering about the application delivery and cybersecurity challenges and opportunities in the market and how Radware can help partners address customer challenges while benefiting from working with Radware.

Abhishek (RSM, WinMagic) educated the audience on the importance of data security and data theft issues plaguing organizations and how the same can be effectively overcome using WinMagic encryption and data security solutions. Rahul Kumar, Country Manager, WinMagic, announced exciting incentive schemes for the partners.

TAIT has organised the annual Winter Mela for

its members. The much-awaited event was already causing ripples of excitement three weeks prior to the event.

"The TAIT Winter Mela is one event which members look forward to every year", said Parag Shah, Director, TAIT. Along with fellow directors Ajay Parekh and Devang Thakore, Shah was responsible for creating the framework and managing the execution for the event. Considered a marquee event in the entire IT Partner Community pan-India, the show attracted about 600 enthusiastic participants - TAIT members, their families and guests from the IT industry.

The event was conceptualised by TAIT members Rahul Zaveri and Manish Kapasi, ably assisted by TAIT Directors - Samir Mehta, Magan Gangani and Kripashankar Chaube. The theme selected for the gala event was "Bollywood Nite" - accordingly, huge cutouts of popular cine personalities were

set up all around the venue, where the stars of the night were the esteemed TAIT members and their loved ones.

The infectious bonhomie at the TAIT Winter Mela brought back

fond memories for many members. Umesh Ashar who has been handling guest registrations for the past several years said he was overwhelmed with the enthusiasm, going by the serpentine queues at the entrance. The highlight of the event was the Bollywood Quiz played on the large LED screen, which ended in a nail-biting finish.

Children kept the Tattoo Artist busy, while it was the ladies thronging the Nail Art counter. There were plenty of prizes for the children to win at the special game counters.

Vertiv has announced the successful conclusion

of its annual “Annual India Sales, Service and Channel Conference FY 2017” in Goa. The conference was organized from December 16 to 19, 2016 with the theme “Start Strong, Finish Strong”, and saw an attendance from over 360 participants.

The conference witnessed the grand launch of the new Vertiv brand at the hands of the Asia-Pacific President, Stephen Liang. It saw attendance from top executives at Vertiv which included Stephen Liang, President – Asia-Pacific; Terry Purcell, Chief Financial Officer – Asia-Pacific; Sunil Khanna, President & Managing Director – India; along with other senior management. This year’s theme “Start Strong, Finish Strong” highlighted Vertiv’s ability to scale new heights – by streamlining and simplifying processes, structure, and strengthening its position as an industry-leading infrastructure provider.

Stephen outlined the company’s commitment to India and said, “India stands tall with the highest expected GDP growth rate for 2017 out of the eight countries that are expected to grow beyond the world average of 5-per cent growth. With a growing impetus to digitization and a proliferation of broadband connectivity, India today is the cynosure of every investor and thus an important market for Vertiv. We have more flexibility to make business decisions and move quickly like a start-up.”

With a healthy and holistic exchange of ideas and thoughts between employees as well as channel partners, the Annual India was announced as a grand success.

Jiten Mehta, Founder & Director of Magnamious Systems, brings with him a rich experience of three decades in the industry and has served the industry at many forums leading in various capacities. He has been on the ASIRT board for two years and ASIRT looks forward to many innovative ideas under his leadership.

Cyber Security India Conclave 20173rd Feb 2017, Hotel Shangri La's Eros, New Delhi

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The conference is being organized by VARINDIA, India’s leading ICT media publication.

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BUILDING INDIA’S CYBER SECURITY FRAMEWORK

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Government AgenciesNetwork Solution ProvidersIndependent Software VendorsConsulting firmsManaged Security Service Providers (MSSPs)Infrastructure Providers Financial InstitutionsFinancial InstitutionsMobile Network OperatorsApplication ProvidersRegulators and Policy MakersOEM’s & System IntegratorsICT Hardware/Software VendorsAcademiaIndustryIndustry Associations

How cyber security will impact digitization of enterprises and what should be their strategic moveHow to achieve secure proof Digital India by 2020Innovations in cyber security space by startups andestablished players How to make our smart grids safe and secureKnowing the gaps with respect to skill development and meeting them with requisite trainingmeeting them with requisite trainingHow to build and manage public trust identification systems to deliver mass financial servicesHow Brands make a difference to enterprise and consumers

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Cyber Security India Conclave 20173rd Feb 2017, Hotel Shangri La's Eros, New Delhi

Cyber Security India Conclave 2017 is a premier one-day event dedicated towards bringing mul-tiple stakeholders from the enterprise and Government sectors together.

The conference is being organized by VARINDIA, India’s leading ICT media publication.

An exciting conference which includes range of keynote presentations, panel discussions and exceptional networking opportunities provide a rare chance to learn and speak with leading cyber security subject matter experts and solution providers from across the country.

Entry to the conference is complimentary for Government, Large Enterprises, Media and Industry Associations.

Click Hereto

Register

BUILDING INDIA’S CYBER SECURITY FRAMEWORK

Kalinga Digital Media Pvt. Ltd.A84A/3, Rose Apartment, Paryavaran Complex,IGNOU Road, New Delhi - 110030

Quick Contact:Ph: 011-41656383, 011-46061809Website: www.varindia.com

Join us to Understand: Who Should Attend:

Government AgenciesNetwork Solution ProvidersIndependent Software VendorsConsulting firmsManaged Security Service Providers (MSSPs)Infrastructure Providers Financial InstitutionsFinancial InstitutionsMobile Network OperatorsApplication ProvidersRegulators and Policy MakersOEM’s & System IntegratorsICT Hardware/Software VendorsAcademiaIndustryIndustry Associations

How cyber security will impact digitization of enterprises and what should be their strategic moveHow to achieve secure proof Digital India by 2020Innovations in cyber security space by startups andestablished players How to make our smart grids safe and secureKnowing the gaps with respect to skill development and meeting them with requisite trainingmeeting them with requisite trainingHow to build and manage public trust identification systems to deliver mass financial servicesHow Brands make a difference to enterprise and consumers

For Bespoke Opportunities & Branding Partnerships

Mr. Deepak SahuMob: +91-9818928406Email: [email protected]

Mr. Yogesh JoshiMob: +91-9811431951Email: [email protected]


Today, it is possible to build secure payment solutions suited to ordinary

Indians which are as convenient as sending a message as about sixty-five per cent of the population have active mobile telephony, ninety-nine per cent have electronic identity in the form of Aadhaar and about thirty-five per cent have already adopted use of technology in the form of internet and social messaging.

According to experts, the phenomenal global growth in digital payments may be attributed to four factors: Digital and technology revolution; entry of several non-banking PSPs into payments space; customers becoming more demanding and expecting instantaneous and one-touch payment solutions; and progressive changes in the regulatory framework.

Likewise, in the payments market, the government and the regulator may lay down the ground rules for a competitive market so that markets constantly improve solutions, reduce prices, retain existing consumers and find new ones. This might also mitigate the need for government to intervene regularly.

The vision of Ratan P. Watal Committee is to set a roadmap for digital payments to grow substantially over the next three years from the current level of about five per cent of personal consumption and twenty per cent of all transactions. India’s Cash to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio is among the highest in the world. Over the next three years, it is the vision of the committee to reduce this ratio from about twelve per cent to six per cent.

Ratan P. Watal Committee’s

recommendations on Digital Payments

Create Digital Payment Regulator: The committee has discussed two options: Creating a new payments regulator or make the current Board for Regulation and Supervision of Payment and Settlement Systems (BPSS) within RBI more independent. The committee recommends that the BPSS be given an independent status which today lacks by being a sub-committee of the central board of RBI.

The statutory status of the new board within the overall structure of RBI called Payments Regulatory Board (PRB) should be enshrined in the Payments and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 and finalization of structure of PRB may be done in 30 days.

Update Payments and Settlement Systems Act, 2007: Update the current Act to include explicit mandate for: competition and innovation; open access and interoperability; consumer protection including penalties and independent appeal mechanism; regulations on systemic risks; data protection and security; and process of regulatory governance.

Promote Digital Payments: Promote digital payments and receipts within government by: Adopting digital payments for all its needs; withdraw all charges levied by government department and utilities on digital payments and bear the cost of such transactions; mandate government departments and agencies to provide option to consumers to pay digitally; incentivise consumers to make payments (including payment of fines and penalties) to government

electronically by giving a discount or cash back; enable consumers to make payments (including taxes) to government through suitable digital means like cards and wallets; special emphasis to promote digital payments for recurring low-value transactions; and reduce custom duties on payments acceptance equipment. Steps may be initiated in 30 days and reviewed fortnightly.

Create DIPAYAN Fund: Create a fund proposed as DIPAYAN from savings generated from cashless transactions to expand digital payments. A time period of 60 days may be considered for initiating implementation by user agencies.

Create Ranking & Reward Framework: A ranking and reward framework should be created to encourage and recognize government departments, state governments, districts and panchayats and other market participants who lead the efforts on enabling digital payments. The framework should be implemented by NITI Aayog along with state governments. Development of the framework may be achieved in 60–90 days.

Provide Disincentives for Cash: Implement other measures to promote digital payments including: Promoting Aadhaar-based eKYC and paperless authentication; providing disincentives for usage of cash; and creating awareness and transparency on cost of cash. Implementation by MoF, UIDAI, CBDT, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Ministry of HRD, DoPT and RBI to be initiated in over 60–90 days.

Outsourcing RTGS and NEFT: The RBI may, within the existing regulatory framework

Digital Payments Committee Report

Reduce Cash to GDP Ratio from 12% to 6% The Committee on Digital Payments chaired by Ratan P. Watal,

Principal Advisor, Niti Aayog, has come out with thirteen recommendations to help digital payments grow exponentially

VAR SPECIAL


of Payments and Settlement Act, 2007, immediately initiate steps to consider outsourcing the function of operation of payment systems like Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT). Overtime, multiple payment system operators should be encouraged and payment systems should be operated by market entities. Consultation paper may be released over 180 days.

Payment System Upgradation: Upgrade payment systems like RTGS and NEFT to operate on 24x7 basis in due course of time. RBI should progressively increase their timings over due course and release consultation paper in over 90 days.

Non-Bank PSPs to Access Payment Systems: Allow non-bank PSPs to directly access payment systems. Regulations may be released for consultation over 60 days.

Expand NPCI To Include More Banks: Ownership of NPCI should be diversified widely to include more banks and include non-banks. The NPCI board should be represented by majority public interest directors and include shareholder directors. NPCI should be allowed to function independently. Regulations may be released for consultation over 60 days.

Make Payments Interoperable: Enable payments to be interoperable between banks and non-banks as well as within non-banks. Mobile number and Aadhaar-based fully interoperable payments should be prioritized. NPCI may

enable this on its platforms over 60 days. Enable Business Models: Create a formal

mechanism to enable innovations and new business models. Consultation paper may be released over 90–120 days.

Promote New Measures: Implement other measures to promote digital payments including issuing regulations on Systemically Important Payment System (SIPS) and Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs), growing acceptance network, enabling faster and cheaper credit and promoting cross border payments. Regulations may be released for consultation over 60–180 days.

The RBI may, within two weeks of releasing

this report, develop a comprehensive metric to quantitatively measure and monitor the enhancement of digital payment services in India.

India is a cash-heavy economy, with almost 78 per cent of all consumer payments being effected in cash. India’s preference for cash as a payment instrument is further reflected by India’s significant cash to GDP ratio of (12.04 per cent), which is substantially higher than comparable countries. India’s dependency on cash imposes an estimated cost of approximately Rs.21,000 crore on account of various aspects of currency operations, including cost of printing new currency, costs of currency chest, costs of maintaining supply to ATM networks, and interests accrued.

Transitioning to digital payments is estimated to bring about a significant

reduction in costs incurred on account of inefficiencies associated with cash and other paper based payments. For instance, by certain estimates, transitioning to an electronic platform for government payments itself could save approximately Rs.100,000 crore annually, with the cost of the transition being estimated at Rs.60,000 to Rs.70,000 crore.

The success of the transition will depend on the acceptance of the report and its implementation by respective government organizations related to Digital Payment. n

Pravin Prashant [email protected]

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Digital Transformation to rule the roost in 2017

Digital will be the way ahead in 2017 and will be the latest buzzword in the country. Organizations in 2017 are going to spend a considerable amount of time and energy on understanding what they need to be doing to accelerate their digital business.

industry. We see consumer domain having the maximum uptake.”

IOT adoption and cloud will face newer threats aimed at exploiting the vulnerabilities in the systems, like the large-scale DDoS attack conducted last year through Mirai worm. There are however a few turnkey orchestration tools to successfully manage IoT security. For IoT to survive and live up to what it promises, it is vital that technology companies master security and unlock the possibilities of integration. “The real “winners” are going to be companies who can code their own solutions to ensure their products are secure,” says Sajan Paul, Director of Systems Engineering & CTO at Juniper Networks in India and SAARC.

According to Harsh Marwah, Country Manager, Verizon Enterprise Solutions India, “The IoT focus will not be on the ‘thing’, but on its potential for transformation. It’s all about how IoT drives supply chain convergence, transforms processes and revolutionizes operating models - the practical application,

2016 has been eventful year from every aspect. While prominent instances like

Brexit, US presidential elections etc. have had a defining impact on the world, on the local turf, the recent demonetization move took the market by surprise. Demonetization did impact the country’s economic growth significantly in the short term, but in the long run it is expected to define the economic development of the country in a calculated manner and keep the momentum going for programs like Make in India and Digital India Mission.

Nevertheless, while trying to come to terms with the recent market developments, companies at the same time are also trying to comprehend what digital transformation really is.

Talking about the technology predictions for 2017, apart from digital transformation, artificial intelligence, IoT, SMAC, hyper cloud model are some of the key trends that will continue to shape the technology and business landscape in India.

IoT/ Artificial IntelligenceInternet of Things (IoT) will offer huge

business prospect for telecom players in future. It is witnessing a huge traction in surveillance, vehicle tracking, home automation etc. But as per Sajan Paul, Director of Systems Engineering & CTO at Juniper Networks in India and SAARC, in IoT security is the biggest concern. He is of the opinion that though the adoption of IoT is in nascent stage, technology companies should strengthen its solutions from the security point of view. “The Internet of Things (IoT) is a unique domain that offers tremendous business opportunities for telecom players in the years to come. The total revenue generated from IoT industry would be USD 300 billion and India would have a share of 5-6% of the global IoT

not the theory. This means looking at what can be achieved through multidimensional data analytics. If you’re focused solely on location, catch up to 2017.”

Snehashish Bhattacharjee, Global CEO & Co-Founder, Denave opines that the difference between virtual and real is decreasing rapidly. The revolutionary technology, Artificial Intelligence is picking up in a fast pace in the technology world. Cloud technology will also be gaining grounds.

“Artificial Intelligence is already revolutionizing the industry in a major way and this trend will see nothing but an exponential upward swing in the coming year. We can certainly anticipate machines replacing human intervention in the service sector to start with, followed by more such developments in the manufacturing segment. Cloud convergence will also further drive the industrial momentum and build huge economies of scale replacing highly repetitive human interventions,” views Snehashish Bhattacharjee.

Artificial Intelligence has made huge progress in the past few years but human assistance is required in larger scheme of things and Hybrid Intelligence will play an important role. It helps to understand the information and improves productivity of both computers and humans.

“Artificial Intelligence has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years; the human element however still plays a crucial role in the larger scheme of things, and this is where Hybrid Intelligence will play a crucial role. What Hybrid Intelligence will essentially do is help us make more sense of all the information we gather and make meaningful connections, which is the essence of creativity and productivity,” explains Parag Arora, Area Vice President & Country

Sajan PaulDirector of Systems Engineering & CTO at Juniper Networks in India and SAARC

Parag AroraArea Vice President & Country Head - India Subcontinent, Citrix

Snehashish BhattacharjeeGlobal CEO & Co-Founder, Denave

Harsh MarwahCountry Manager, Verizon Enterprise Solutions India

COVER STORY


Head - India Subcontinent, Citrix. On Artificial Intelligence Vishal Dhupar,

Managing Director, NVIDIA – South Asia says, “The Intelligent Industrial Revolution is here, thanks to a powerful new form of AI called GPU-accelerated deep learning. This approach has brought AI out of the realms of science fiction and into our daily lives. The power of deep learning to solve some of the world’s most critical and complex challenges is being proven on a daily basis as organizations at every level, from start-ups to large enterprise, begin to realize its potential. Innovations are moving forward at a rapid pace globally as well as in India.”

PC/ Laptop/ TabletsIt is expected that in the year 2017, the PC

industry will witness some developments as adoption of hybrid computers are prominent. These computers can be used as consumption as well as productive devices. Acer has witnessed the consumer trend moving towards convertibles and the company offers a wide range of products in this category.

“2017 seems a year full of many interesting developments, especially for the PC industry. We are seeing a large adoption of hybrid computers. This laptop will compete both in the PC market as well as the portable device market thereby expanding the potential market and sales figures. We can also look forward to VR (Virtual Reality) taking more prominence with entertainment industry,” predicts Chandrahas Panigrahi, Sr. Director and Consumer Business Head, Acer India.

Reiterating similar views, Rajesh Thadani, Head Executive Director Consumer Online and E-commerce Lenovo India said, “2017 will undoubtedly see an abundance of convertible and detachable devices in the market as portability and versatility remain on top of mind of PC users who are becoming more mobile at work and at home.”

In the commercial space, analysts forecast PC-as-a-Service (PCaaS) will help PC vendors transform transactional PC sales into longer-term and more profitable engagements by expanding their services portfolios bundled with PC sales. IDC also surveyed IT buyers across a range of company sizes about PCaaS and found that almost half of respondents said they engaged in the past 12 months or are considering engaging in the next 12 months in PCaaS. This means IT decision makers are positioned to drive and grow the PC market with customized add-on services to maintain and extend the lifecycle of the device.

Cyber SecurityDemonetization has impacted India not only

economically but also digitally. The economic move has triggered the growth of mobile wallets. But this has also prompted fraudulent misuse of payment networks and theft of data. It is becoming increasingly important to identify the risks associated with it.

“Post demonetization, while the uses of online payment platforms have gone up, the fraudulent misuse of payment networks and data theft has grown. In the given scenario, the

foremost of all threats is identity. Considering the recent breach incidences with 3.2 million Debit Cards being compromised, it is important to know every customer, partners, their customers and most importantly your own employees. Furthermore, the security provisions and applications still remain the same. While people are getting comfortable with mobile wallets and banking through apps and smartphones, Wi-Fi networks continue to have major security flaws that can make it very dangerous to conduct transactions using mobile device,” advises Amit Nath, Head of Asia Pacific (Corporate Business) - F-Secure.

Rajat Mohanty CEO and Co-Founder, Paladion Networks also predicts similar threats. According to him the cashless payments system will be targeted due to lack of awareness among the users. Moreover he also says that the SME sector can be an easy target due to inadequate security implementations. He adds that new threats like DDoS attacks can be witnessed in IoT and Cloud technology. Another major security trend that he has mentioned is the upcoming centralized response platforms in Security Operation Centres (SOCs).

“Demonetization has led to a massive influx of cashless payments systems, but there is little awareness amongst most users about these tools. This gap is what cyber criminals will seek to exploit through social engineering attacks such as phishing, rogue apps, email frauds, identity thefts, and confidence tricks. Large-scale tech adoption across industries also means that cyber criminals might shift their focus to the SME sector, which is easier to breach owing

Amit NathHead of Asia Pacific (Corporate Business), F-Secure

Sean DucaVice President and Regional Chief Security Officer, Asia Pacific, Palo Alto Networks

Chandrahas PanigrahiSr. Director and Consumer Business Head, Acer India

Rajat MohantyCEO and Co-Founder, Paladion Networks

Vishal DhuparManaging Director, NVIDIA – South Asia

Rajesh ThadaniHead Executive Director Consumer Online and E-commerce - Lenovo India


COVER STORY

to a lack of proper security implementation,” says Rajat Mohanty CEO and Co-Founder for Paladion Networks.

As the number of connected devices is increasing, these devices will become targets of cyber criminals. The endpoint devices act as an entry to the potential threats and so these devices need to be secured.

“Market research firm Gartner predicts that the number of connected ‘things’ will rise from 6.5 billion in 2015 to almost 21 billion by 2020. However, connected devices will also be a target for cybercrime, even more so because people place enormous trust in third-party vendors being safe. In 2016, we saw the first real challenges appear where compromised devices were connected together in a botnet to launch attacks against banks and key parts of the internet infrastructure. Committed cybercriminals will use every trick in the book and be creative in trying to access the information they want, and look at what ways they can gain entry,” says Sean Duca, Vice President and Regional Chief Security Officer, Asia Pacific, Palo Alto Networks.

Tarun Kaura, Director - Solutions Product Management - APJ, Symantec says, “We will continue to see a shift toward the modern workplace as businesses allow employees to introduce new technologies such as wearables, virtual reality and IoT connected devices onto the network while supporting a rapidly dispersed workforce made possible by cloud applications and solutions. Enterprises will need to shift their focus from safeguarding endpoint devices toward protecting users and information across all applications and services.”

Talking about cyber security, Sunil Sharma, Vice President, Sales, Sophos India and SAARC views, “Security has been high on radar for CIOs. Unfortunately, many organizations still don’t have their security basics right and are extremely vulnerable for cyberattacks. There are six key measures that organizations should put in place to help keep more complex threats at bay-

a) Move from layered to integrated security b) Deploying next-generation endpoint

protection c) Prioritizing risk-based security d) Automating the basics e) Building staff and process to deter and

mitigate social attacks and f) Improving defender coordination.” According to Altaf Halde, Managing

Director Kaspersky Lab South Asia the top five threats will be APT (Advanced Protection Threats), Ephemeral Infections, Espionage going mobile, Resilient payment systems and lying ransomware.

“As much as we all hate ransomware (and with good reason), most ransomware thrives on the benefit of an unlikely trust relationship between the victim and their attacker. This criminal ecosystem relies on the tenet that the attacker will abide by a tacit contract with the victim that once payment is received, the ransomed files will be returned. Cybercriminals have exhibited a surprising semblance of professionalism in fulfilling this promise and this has allowed the ecosystem to thrive. However, as the popularity continues to rise and a lesser grade of criminal decides to enter the space, we are likely to encounter more and more

‘ransomware’ that lacks the quality assurance or general coding capability to actually uphold this promise,” predicts Altaf.

To counter cyber crime only security of devices does not meet the requirement. An integrated security from IoT to Cloud is needed to defend the threats.

“Customers need integrated security, from IoT to the cloud, with actionable analytics across their multi-vendor networking and security solutions. Fortinet’s commitment to an open, integrated Security Fabric, allows customers the flexibility to deploy Fortinet solutions alongside their existing or new security technologies for truly integrated protection,” states Rajesh Maurya, Regional Director, India & SAARC, Fortinet.

Surveillance/ Video AnalyticsThe Previous year has witnessed an increase

in the number of HD cameras and this year it is expected that panoramas, higher resolutions, sensors will be trending. More shift from analog to HD cameras will be observed along with capabilities like compression, streaming, storage, and analytics.

“2016 saw a surge in camera counts - especially HD cameras yielding considerably more data to manage. In 2017 we expect the adoption of cameras with wider panoramas, higher resolutions, and more sensors will accelerate. Watch for more installations to transition from analog and HD cameras, with a demand that more surveillance capabilities – compression, streaming, storage, and analytics – be bundled into cameras for greater value. The influx of data will strain storage and make

Sunil SharmaVice President, Sales, Sophos India and SAARC

Tarun KauraDirector - Solutions Product Management - APJ, Symantec

Altaf HaldeManaging Director Kaspersky Lab South Asia

Rajesh MauryaRegional Director, India & SAARC, Fortinet

Johan PaulssonCTO, Axis Communications

Wayne ArvaindsonVice President of Video Surveillance and Security Solutions, Quantum


an intelligent, multi-tier storage strategy more vital than before. With improved intelligence in cameras, storage management software will effectively manage the influx of data will become even more important,” observes Wayne Arvaindson, Vice President of Video Surveillance and Security Solutions - Quantum.

According to Johan Paulsson, CTO, Axis Communications, customers who are unable to manage complex systems will adopt security as a service. “As many other technologies have done, we expect customers will stop looking at physical security as simply being a collection of hardware and software connected to a network. Instead, we think they will start to see their security as a service – remote and professionally hosting and monitoring of video transmitted from the customer’s premise. Whether by themselves, or more likely by sector-specific specialists who can not only take away the burden of managing the complex systems involved, but also reduce the costs of keeping those systems up to date and secure.”

With the growing popularity of Smart devices it is expected that cameras will be integrated into every devices. Moreover, IP Cameras, Analytics, multisite video surveillance will also be trending in this year. Talking about the present market condition, Balasubramanian Jayam, Head, Marketing Communications, Hikvision sys that the market is favourable for quality products and the government initiatives has widened the opportunities for security industry further.

“Smart devices are fast becoming integrated in our businesses and lives. Wearables will go beyond wrist. Cameras will be built into almost

everything. Mobile applications will be much sought after. Robotics will play a crucial role. Integrated solutions, IP Cameras, Analytics, multisite video surveillance and increased office and home automation will feature in 2017. There is indeed a lot of scope for the security industry in India in the coming years,” explains Balasubramanian.

With the emergence of Internet of Things (IoT) the periphery of security application has been widened. Connected homes and cars, unmanned devices, multiple mobile applications etc are impacting the growth of traditional security.

“In the world of The Internet of Things (IoT), IP surveillance cameras should be able to connect and interact with IoT devices. The boundary of security applications has been broken by the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. The demand for multiple mobile applications, connected homes and cars, and unmanned devices, like drones and robots, is also influencing the development of ‘traditional’ security products and technologies. So thinking out of box to provide solutions for verticals/applications and also for purposes beyond security, is important,” states Sanjeev Gulati, Country Manager-India & SAARC, VIVOTEK.

SMACIn 2016 it has been observed that businesses

have now started looking for real-time analysis of the data to understand customer needs & buying trends, external changes and much more. Data analytics is helping businesses to get better

insights on customers, buying trends etc. The trend will continue in 2017 as well.

“Business needs arising out of SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) will drive customer buying behavior in 2017,” says Vikram Mulye, Head, Enterprise Business Group, Lenovo India. “To gain better business insights, organizations need to manage the volume, variety, and velocity of data, while applying analytics. Analytics is helping businesses in getting opportunities, partners and suitable customers. Whether your business supports a high-performance data centre or a small office with limited IT resources, analytics solutions will help your organization to align and integrate processes, communicate with employees, partners, suppliers, and customers in new ways, improve efficiency, and fully use your IT investment to increase the value of your business. We also see a trend of customers moving towards a hybrid cloud wherein customers balance their workloads across a private cloud and a public cloud,” he says.

Reiterating similar views Virender Jeet - Sr. VP Technology at Newgen Software says, “SMAC technologies are currently driving business innovation by creating an ecosystem that allows a business to improve its operations and get closer to the customer. Businesses can now leverage the best of traditional Business Process management (BPM) offerings in combination with cutting-edge, emerging technologies such as Social, Mobility, Analytics, Cloud (SMAC) to attain speed and agility. Case Management Framework built on top of BPM offerings allow you to build customer centric

Sanjeev GulatiCountry Manager-India & SAARC, VIVOTEK

Balasubramanian JayamHead, Marketing CommunicationsHikvision

Vikram MulyeHead, Enterprise Business Group, Lenovo India

Virender JeetSr. VP Technology Newgen Software

Balaji RaoManaging DirectorVeritas, India

George ChackoPrincipal Systems Engineer & Lead Technical Consultant, Brocade India


COVER STORY

processes and gain a distinct competitive advantage.”

Software Defined (Networking/ Storage)

Adoption of Cloud technology will not eradicate the traditional storage system. In 2017 the new technology called Software Defined Storage will help businesses to arrange and combine cloud and on-premises strategies.

“Accelerating towards the cloud does not mean that businesses’ storage needs will disappear. Companies will need to be able to manage storage holistically based on real business needs, such as uptime, cost and responsiveness. In 2017, as organizations look for more turnkey-style solutions for managing storage across their hardware, a new generation of software-defined storage will help them align and merge their cloud and on-premises strategies,” predicts Balaji Rao, Managing Director, Veritas, India.

Another technology Software Defined Network will rule the technology space. The adoption of this technology will increase beyond early adopters and enterprises and private datacenters will reap value from this technology.

“2017 is expected to see complete software-defined network infrastructure solutions that are commercially available, multi-vendor, based on a viable ecosystem of SDN and NFV components. Proprietary platforms will begin to feel uncomfortably closed as users realize the extent of their lock-in. And adoption will rise, beyond the early adopter service providers,

as enterprises and private datacenters begin to see a manageable path to achieve the value of a flexible infrastructure,” adds George Chacko, Principal Systems Engineer & Lead Technical Consultant, Brocade India.

According to Sundar Balasubramanian, Senior Director, General Business (Commercial Sales & Partners) VMware, “In the history of networking and security, we are on the verge of something special – a major change in how we interconnect and secure workloads. True SDN, such as VMware NSX, will be utilized by thousands of companies in 2017 to take their network and security operations enormous leaps ahead. Complete network stack which include load balancing and security will be organized in minutes and managed across several data centres and clouds. Applications will realize security granularity corresponding to each application having a dedicated data centre. This solution will also form the base for end-to-end network encryption.”

Digital IndiaThe new government initiatives uphold

the digital growth in India which has created an array of opportunities for the companies. The Government is playing a major role in driving internet growth in the country through initiatives like ‘Digital India’, ‘Smart City’ and ‘Make in India’. And this opens up huge opportunities for different companies.

“India is a significant market for us; we see immense opportunity for growth here as India goes through a momentous digital change. We have an apt model in place and we believe that our growth (in India) will continue

to rise. It is expected that by end of this year, 90 percent of companies will be competing on “Customer Experience”. We can clearly see that customer experience is driving every major business decision for most enterprises, and for good reason,” says Vishal Agrawal, Managing Director (India and SAARC), Avaya India.

The initiative of going digital by the Indian government has pushed the growth of the networking market. Many state governments have come up with various plans which is further boosting the networking growth.

“One good thing is that now there is a lot of government push towards digitization and the growth of a networking market is a part of this push. Several state governments have rolled out various plans. 4G is coming up in a big way with Airtel and Reliance and such roll outs have given a push to the networking market. On the enterprise networking front, I see growth in wireless controllers and that is mainly because there is a lot of requirement of wireless hotspots,” asserts Mandar Joshi, Head - Channel Business, DIGISOL Systems Ltd.

Dimension Data’s Chief Technology Officer, Ettienne Reinecke said, “Digital is about building truly customer-centric business models on IT including the network, data centre, applications, and other infrastructure - which may be on-premise, or cloud-based. Today, there’s no such thing as a digital strategy – just strategy in a digital world. And while the digital age is creating a degree of uncertainty for some organizations, it is also opening the doors to exciting possibilities and ushering in an era of infinite potential.”

While talking about Digital India and

Sundar BalasubramanianSenior Director, General Business (Commercial Sales & Partners) VMware

Mandar JoshiHead - Channel Business, DIGISOL Systems Ltd.

Vishal AgrawalManaging Director (India and SAARC)Avaya India

Rajesh GuptaCountry Manager of SanDisk India and SAARC Retail Sales and Marketing, WD Corporation

Dr. Keshab PandaMD& CEO, L&T Technology Services

Anil ValluriPresident NetApp India & SAARC


its opportunities, Dr. Keshab Panda, MD& CEO, L&T Technology Services says, “Digital Engineering will be our key offering for the market of new technologies in 2017. Our Digital Engineering portfolio includes as i-BEMS our energy management solution for smart buildings and our UBIQWeise platform that connects disparate devices and helps move data securely to the cloud.”

StorageAs the demand for computing devices,

smartphones, tablets etc is growing, it is expected that the demand for storage devices for transferring data will grow simultaneously. With the massive technology disruption, the storage industry is expected to mature more than ever in the near future.

“Storage devices are all about improving performance and efficiency. We can improve every aspect of the customer experience by ultimately transforming the speed and performance of the products. The increased dependence on smartphones and higher rate of content creation and consumption, provides a massive opportunity for our brand as we have a product portfolio called - Mobile Memory Solutions (MMS) suite which has been specially designed keeping in mind storage issues faced by consumers,” says Rajesh Gupta, Country Manager of SanDisk India and SAARC Retail Sales and Marketing, Western Digital Corporation.

In the Enterprise segment, companies look for faster delivery of data storage solutions and All-Flash storage solutions offer them better efficiency than traditional storage.

“Enterprises are looking for fast delivery data storage solutions to meet their data management demands. All-Flash Solutions offers them greater efficiency compared to traditional HDD storage. They can scale-out the solutions depending on their needs and demands,” mentions Anil Valluri, President NetApp India & SAARC, India Predictions.

MobilityThough globally the sale of smartphones

has slowed down, India has still posted a growth of 23% year-on-year. The increase in the 4G penetration will further augment in the rise of smartphone users.

“Despite India’s population of 1.25 billion,

barely 250 million use smartphones, signifying the market’s tremendous growth potential. As 4G LTE penetration rises, India could have 500 million smartphone users in the next five years. Indeed, in Q1 2016, more than 45% of mobiles shipped were smartphones, with two-thirds being LTE-capable devices,” points out Narender Bansal, Chairman and Managing Director, Intex Technologies (India) Ltd.

It is believed by Zen Mobiles that Tier II and III cities will play a major role in boosting the digital transformation which acts as a catalyst in smartphone adoption.

“We believe, Tier II and Tier III cities will play a major role in accepting the digital transformation thus fueling smartphone sales. With the introduction of our 4G VoLTE devices in the market, we aim to help in digitizing Indian consumers across. So far, our major focus has been on feature phones market but affordable 4G devices will be a game changer catering to the unwavering spirit of today’s youth, what we call is ZENERATION 4G,” believes Sanjay Kalirona, CEO, Zen Mobile.

India is one of the largest smartphone markets and a phone that offers maximum convenience to the users will see huge demand. Ziox has plans to come up with 4G budget smartphones to compete in the market.

“India is set to become the second largest smartphone market in the coming year and multitasking will be the need of the hour. Phones that offer maximum convenience to the users while making no comprise on speed will be in higher demand. As far as, Ziox is concerned we have already laid out a strategic plan to introduce 4G Smartphones within the price range of 6K,” says Deepak Kabu, CEO, Ziox Mobiles.

PrintingFor Epson, retail, SOHO, healthcare etc.

has earned a good number and the company is optimistic that this trend will last and the upcountry markets will also see growth. Moreover, digital printing which is replacing analog printing is slowly gaining ground.

“India is currently in the growth phase with an immense potential across markets. A lot of markets are not tapped to their full potential and 2017 will open doors for more business. Over the last few years Epson has witnessed a steady growth. We believe this trend will continue and upcountry market will see better growth over

developed cities in India. Traditional analog printing in industrial printing markets such as textiles, labels and signage are also being rapidly replaced by digital printing and gaining in importance and will see a lot of traction in the year 2017. Increased use of mobile applications could trigger also demand in portable POS printer,” explained Samba Moorthy, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Epson India.

Speaking on Digital Printing Balaji Rajagopalan, Executive Director- Technology, Channels & International Distributor Operations, Xerox India says, “The digital printing industry is seeing significant transformation with new technologies & innovative applications providing cost-effective and customized solutions. The office printing segment will continue to grow and there will be an increased demand of MFPs as companies look for innovative solutions to simplify business processes. We shall continue to see accelerated movement towards more integrated work flow solutions.”

Konica Minolta is looking forward to offer software solutions in 2017 which will help customers to lowers their printing expenses and increase productivity.

“We are looking more into the software solutions; till date what we have done is more of hardware. But now we are looking to offer the software solutions which enable the customers to increase their productivity and minimize their expenses in printing. Similarly for production also, we are coming out with print management, color management and Web to print solutions. So both in the office as well as printing we are working on the solutions workflows,” says Kuldeep Malhotra, Vice President (Sales Division) - Konica Minolta.

Infrastructure AutomationMost companies involved in the development

of infrastructure offerings and tools have built solutions that are unnecessarily complex. In 2017, infrastructure automation is going to become more relevant as DevOps will continue to become more simplified.

“Businesses would increasingly adopt solutions that are simple, performant and cost effective - enabling their teams to quickly build, test and deploy their innovative applications and products," says Prabhakar Jayakumar, India Country Manager, DigitalOcean.

We’ve seen the channel have to make

Kuldeep MalhotraVice President (Sales Division) - Konica Minolta

Samba MoorthyVice President, Sales & Marketing, Epson India

Balaji RajagopalanExecutive Director- Technology, Channels & International Distributor Operations, Xerox India


Narender BansalChairman and Managing Director, Intex Technologies (India) Ltd.

Sunil Kumar ThakurCountry Manager - India, BMC Software

Sanjay Kalirona CEOZen Mobile

Ezra Hookano VP ChannelsBarracuda

Deepak KabuCEO Ziox Mobiles

Prabhakar JayakumarIndia Country ManagerDigitalOcean

adjustments over the years anytime end-user IT purchasing and deployment decisions change course, and the age of the cloud is no different. Moving forward in 2017 we’re going to see traditional VARs have to adjust the way they approach customers in everything from the conversations they’re having to the solutions they sell and support. We’re already beginning to see customers pass over their traditional solution providers and go about tackling small cloud projects alone, which will only result in customers looking elsewhere for help with larger cloud projects. 2017 will be a defining year for the channel in that those who adapt and are able provide added value to cloud deployments for customers with expertise in areas like cloud security, will be able to move forward and work effectively with their customers as more data and applications move off premises.

And so...Going by the trends of different

technologies, 2017 sounds to be a great year. It is predicted that we will go beyond talking about digital transformation to having a real dialogue about what organizations actually need to be doing to evolve, survive and thrive in the era of the Digital Industry.

Talking about the channel industry, the year has in store lot of promises for them too. Traditional VARs are considering to adjust the way they approach customers in everything from the conversations they are having to the solutions they sell and support. “We are already beginning to see customers pass over their traditional solution providers and go about

tackling small cloud projects alone, which will only result in customers looking elsewhere for help with larger cloud projects. 2017 will be a defining year for the channel in that those who adapt and are able to provide added value to cloud deployments for customers with expertise in areas like cloud security, will be able to move forward and work effectively with their customers as more data and applications move

off premises,” explains Ezra Hookano, VP Channels, Barracuda.

According to Sunil Kumar Thakur, Country Manager - India, BMC Software, this era is being fuelled by three core elements that act as accelerators for Digital Industry – “firstly, a culture of high speed innovation which is underpinned by both modern infrastructure

and digital-enabled employees. Secondly, organizations across all industries will know how to leverage the power of digital technologies to create new and disruptive business models. And lastly, only those businesses who embrace a new mindset to protect and preserve their existing infrastructure while investing in new digital technologies will reshape markets, deliver apps and services at hyper scale and become the leaders of the new digital industry,” he sums up.

As per, Sunil Manglore, Managing Director, India at CA Technologies, “2017 will have more and more businesses that will start using Software and digital technologies to transform the way they interact with their customers.

o Customer loyalty will be determined by the experience that customers have with the company’s app.

o Businesses will increasingly adopt analytics to respond to customer feedback on a real-time basis.

o As the time available to companies to respond to changes in the environment keeps getting compressed Devops and Agile methodologies will gain importance.”

The industry is quite optimistic about 2017 and everyone believes that this will be a year of technology spelling a stupendous industrial growth, not only for sales but for entire gamut of trade practices. n

Samrita [email protected]

Aparna [email protected]

COVER STORY

Sunil MangloreManaging Director, India CA Technologies


Surveillance moves beyond vigilance to real-time intelligence

In a chat with VARINDIA, Pulkit Punj, Director, AnG India explains the transformation of the surveillance industry, its trends, opportunities, positioning of the company and future plans

India surveillance market is witnessing a shift from traditional analog to IP digital cameras as these cameras provide better surveillance and threat protection. It has transformed the surveillance industry as this technology offers real-time intelligence and analytics.

“The Indian market is shifting from traditional analog to the intelligent IP digital cameras; these analytical technological enhancements provide superior quality of surveillance and threat prevention. IP-based interpretative surveillance systems can analyze and provide real-time intelligence. This breakthrough technology will transform the way surveillance and monitoring is done across the world. The shift is very positive for the industry as the price gap is not that huge, but the benefits of having this superior product far supersede the price crunch. Since it is a tech industry, the R&D happens at a cursory pace and the price breaks quick as well in returns, hence the customer can make a shift to a new concept or technology without compromising on their budget,” explains Pulkit Punj, Director, AnG India.

The different sectors of India market follow different trends. Sectors like defence, military etc always welcome new technologies as security is of prime importance to them. Whereas, other industries adopt any technology once they are tried and tested.

“The Indian market is divided into various sectors which operate independently with their own different trends. Sectors such as defence; military, air force, navy and banking industry which have zero compromise or tolerance policies, they tend to adopt new technologies and concepts fairly at earlier stage and move in pace with fast R&D process of the industry. Other industries try and stick to conventional methods and adapt technology once they are tried tested in the market and have thrived in the industry for long time,” adds Pulkit.

TrendAt present, surveillance is being looked upon

as to prevent a crime rather than only recording it. The QRT and the security mechanism help in real-time analysis and opposing the crime taking place. Moreover, new technologies like CMS are new tools for the vigilance sector.

“The current trend is to deter the crime taking place rather than having only a record of the happening. QRT (quick response teams) and electronic security mechanisms that help in

negating the crime taking place in real time is the new effective trend in the surveillance industry.

The real time analysis and prompt reaction to such activities results in a proactive approach to deter crimes and identifying potential threats. Also, Central Monitoring System (CMS) and alert based Command Centres are the new fighting tools in the vigilance sector,” says Pulkit.

OpportunityGovernment initiative like Smart City has

boosted the surveillance industry as it has pushed the public infrastructure, IT and security expenses.

“Smart city is definitely boosting the Indian market as there is a high demand for all types of surveillance solutions across all states. The amount of cameras along with support mechanisms to be installed is enormous and there is a very vast scope of work to be done. The smart city initiative has fueled the growth of public infrastructure, IT and security expenditure. The smart city initiative has worked in favor of the surveillance market increasing its installations creating a lot of data, which needs to be stored for analysis and monitoring by the authorities. Surveillance is shifting to a mandatory security measure adopted by the government,” observes Pulkit.

Positioning of the companyAnG has positioned itself in the market

as a system integrator that provides electronic security solutions to its clients. The company offers customized solutions which have enabled to create its own identity as a brand.

“The customized designing of our solutions magnifies the uniqueness of our brand. With intricate system designing one can integrate numerous technologies and make extensive solutions which cater to a wider range of security and surveillance problems. We want our clients to feel secure and safe with our top-of-the-line security solutions. We ensure highest level of protection and a responsive customer service fulfilling the unique needs of each client,” states Pulkit.

Further adding to it he says “AnG humbly manages 10% of all the banks electronic security needs throughout India. We have surveillance installations in the remotest locations in the Indian banking sector catering to clients such as SBI, SBOP, Corporation bank, Axis, ICICI, HDFC, IndusInd etc. The banking sector gives us the largest chunk of our business.”

Future plansThe company is looking forward to expand

its business in the Canadian market. AnG is witnessing a good response for its CMS concept and the company is constantly widening its product portfolio to cater to varid customers.

“AnG is exploring the Canadian market for business expansion and taking the necessary steps for it. We have seen an average growth of 15 -20 % in the performance of AnG. The CMS concept is also seeing more and more clients relying on it and choosing it as a viable option. So far 2500 branches are managed throughout India on this platform. New customized solutions after heavy R&D are constantly added to cater to a wider network of clients,” concludes Pulkit. n

FACE TO FACE


W h a t a r e y o u r E x p e c t a t i o n s f r o m t h e B u d g e t 2 0 1 7 – 1 8 ?

Dr. Gulshan RaiNational Cybersecurity Coordinator, National Security Council, PMO, Government of India

carry out transactions in order to bring an upsurge in the purchase of goods but also empower the consumer to boost the demand. However, the proposed GST rate of 28% for the CEHA industry will have a great impact on the product price leading to an unexpected hike. Going forward, we hope that the budget will be in favour of the manufacturing industry and encourage Government initiatives such as Make in India and Startup India.

At the same time, as we are moving swiftly towards digitization, cyber security has become one of the biggest

Boost to the Digital India As the country is advancing towards

becoming a knowledge economy under the Digital India initiative with technology as the pivot, many think that the upcoming budget is a perfect opportunity to reinstate the blue-print for sustained growth and showcase ‘e-economy’.

Anirudh Dhoot, Director, Videocon says, with the implementation of GST, we are looking forward to a budget that can help the economy to grow further. We are expecting the upcoming budget to not only address and encourage alternative ways to

concerns of enterprises and Government. Nitin Bhatt, EY India’s Risk Advisory Leader, “Disruptive innovations and the digital transformation of businesses and governments are exponentially enhancing cyber-risks. What is worrisome is that the response gap - which is the difference between the abilities of the attackers and the capabilities of organizations is increasing as well, leading to this lack of confidence in the cyber security function.”

Further added, outdated information security architecture and controls has most increased risk exposure for India Inc over

The Union Budget 2017–18 is going to be unprecedented in many aspects. For the first time the budget will be announced a month ahead of schedule on 1st February which otherwise is passed around the last week of February. The overall expectations from the upcoming budget is to provide a transparent taxation policy announcements to sustain the momentum, attempt 100% India manufacturing, promote cashless economy, boost digitalization, among many other things

Anirudh Dhoot Director, Videocon

Nitin BhattRisk Advisory LeaderEY India

BUDGET SPECIAL


Anil ValluriPresident NetApp India & SAARC

Rajiv SrivastavaManaging Director HP Inc India

Alok DubeyCFOAcer India

the last 12 months, with as many as 61% of the respondents citing this aspect as their topmost vulnerability. Careless or unaware employees is their second-most important concern (58%), while vulnerabilities related to mobile computing, social media and cloud computing also feature prominently as contributing to enhanced risk exposure for corporate India. Among threats, the majority (54%) believe that cyber-attacks are primarily targeted at defacing/disrupting organizations or towards stealing intellectual property or data (51%), followed by fraud (48%). The need of the hour is for organizations to review if their security governance and architecture is adequate to protect their crown jewels. Since cyber resilience cannot be achieved by buying “security-in-a-box,” organizations need to focus on gathering periodic threat intelligence, enhancing their threat-hunting and breach-detection capabilities, and institutionalizing a robust incident-response framework, says Nitin.

Dr. Gulshan Rai, National Cybersecurity Coordinator, National Security Council, PMO, Government of India. Explains, we are at the cusp of a cyber security paradigm shift and it is imperative that for the overall national security we join hands to share, evaluate and acquire threat intelligence and develop a robust operational framework to use this with security technologies. We will need immense focus to encourage technological innovations in cyber security to secure national critical infrastructure from cyber criminals.”

The use of IT in all industries is primarily to provide a strategic leverage and better the customer experience. Technology has been at the forefront of India’s recent economic growth and digital transformation. Rajiv Srivastava, Managing Director, HP Inc. India, says, “With the upcoming Union Budget 2017-18, the Government should look at rolling out initiatives to boost adoption of technology for education, skilling, manufacturing and infrastructure development that are key to India’s growth story. For the digital empowerment of citizens, the Government should look at making technology more affordable and introducing initiatives to encourage PC buying in the country. Government needs to

create conducive environment and support eco-system where we have at least one PC per family as a means to accelerate technology proliferation and migration towards a digital economy. While the relaxation of FDI and the introduction of several initiatives have helped citizens embrace economic transformation and digitization, additional initiatives to boost domestic manufacturing will also help them adopt technology in its most tangible form.”

On the business front, IT manufacturers are bracing themselves for the implementation of the much anticipated Goods and Services Tax (GST). The Government’s objective should be to enable this transition from the current taxation system as smooth and orderly as possible — both for itself and for businesses and consumers. It will be important to outline a roadmap for IT manufacturers for the implementation of the new GST policy well in time.

“The previous two budgets have systematically gone about creating frameworks and processes to give wings to the dreams of multiple sections of the society like Start-up India, Stand up India

and shrink wrapped with a larger vision of Digital India. With the recent move of demonetization trying to shift our cash driven economy of 1.2 billion people and getting them to leap frog to the digital world is unprecedented in history. This is a significant leap towards becoming a digital economy and the budget now needs to focus on how digital can become entrenched and become a way of life, while continuing to focus on growth and providing adequate support to the various pillars of each program so that the economy is on a sustained growth path,” states Anil Valluri, President, NetApp India & SAARC.

Alok Dubey, CFO, Acer India feels that the Union Budget for the year 2017-18 is likely to be unique as many prime factors like demonetization, GST, cashless economy measures, will play a key role this year. “We are expecting favorable change in the Income Tax slabs and rates, as customer spending is still anticipated to decline for short term due to demonetization.”

Alok also expects the budget to focus

on shaping the IT infrastructure and urges the government to provide tax deductions on purchase of PC for consumers as well as providing easy short-term loans for retailers for working capital requirement. “This is required to accompany India's emergent IT sector and further help the industry make improved technology more accessible to Indian market to fulfill the government’s push for a digital economy, says Alok.

“In this budget the Government should take further steps to accelerate its flagship initiatives which have been structured holistically. There is a dire need for a strong and well-structured innovation agenda/policy for ‘Digital India’, ‘Make in India’ and ‘Start-up India’ to be a reality. Greater support for Digital India initiatives (in terms of allocating certain % of funds for Ministries/State Govt. departments) and enhancing access to internet connectivity in rural India should be a priority to boost economic growth and income-generating activities which in turn will boost domestic spending. To have a wider participation and deep technology penetration in rural India, a set of organizations/products are not sufficient and Government should encourage IT SMEs and start-up organizations focusing on domestic sector with innovative solutions/products,” states Debashis.

“In 2017, we expect the Government to further promote cashless transactions. That is why we await the announcements in the upcoming budget to understand the government’s move on additional SOPs

Manish SharmaPresident & CEOPanasonic India & South Asia

Pratibha K AdvaniChief Financial Officer Tata Communications


for promoting cash less transactions. Regardless, this will mean an increased adoption of digital payment modes which can be vulnerable to cyber-attacks. So, at this juncture holistic security measures are the need for the hour, as a security solutions provider, our solutions enable organisations to enhance data security,” remarks Sanjai Gangadharan, Regional Director – SAARC, A10 Networks.

“Minimal IT budgets and lack of skilled resources to combat cyber security threats can ultimately cost organizations millions. The Government needs to allocate sufficient budget, time and focus to strengthening cyber security in parallel with the growing volume of digital transactions that are taking place in the country,” cautions Murali Ramalingam , Country Head- Ixia Technologies.

While the consumer durable industry awaits to recover from the demonetisation phenomenon, it also anticipates to be placed in the lowest - 18% slab in the upcoming GST reforms. “The historic budget of 2017 will be a nail-biting affair. The common man can expect a revision in the lower tax slab rates indicating higher tax savings. A healthy passbook in turn will further aid in a better lifestyle as consumers will spend more on consumer durables. Moreover, imposition of a higher basic custom duty on goods will curb imports and promote local manufacturing. Further, clarity on Duty Differential for mobile handsets will give the necessary impetus to Make-in-India under the GST regime,” states Manish

Sharma, President & CEO, Panasonic India & South Asia and Executive Officer, Panasonic Corporation.

Pratibha K Advani, Chief Financial Officer, Tata Communications observes, “The past year has been an eventful one across economies and industries, but we look to the future with optimism and some very specific expectations for our sector. With the expected increase in tax collections due to demonetisation of Rs.500 and Rs.1000 currency notes, we are looking forward to a reduction in the rate of corporate tax and the abolition of all the surcharges/cess, etc. This is in line with the Hon’ble Finance Minister’s promise in his budget speech in 2016. Additionally, we expect a write-off of loans and advances as deduction from taxable income at par with bad debts.”

“We look forward to the budget to provide positive support in terms easing of taxes on these products to make it competitive for every Indian. We expect the Government to cut the tax rates and spend more on infrastructure development, and honour its fiscal deficit commitments. Apart from offering the IT and Electronic

manufacturers of India or Make In India product as the first preference of choice for the government projects which would encourage the entrepreneurs of India to expand and create more job opportunities,” says P G Lakshminarayan, VP - Finance - eScan.

The mobile handset industry is another fast growing Industry and has become an imperative part of our everyday life. India is moving towards a digital economy and mobile banking and smartphones will play a crucial role in supporting this vision. “The entire country is looking forward towards mobile banking which shall create a new user base and fuel the growth in mobile Industry. As an industry, we expect a long-term and stable policy on mobile manufacturing in India. The industry has huge potential and can supplement government initiatives of ‘Make in India’ with highly technical product if focused. Incentives to create sufficient technical manpower will lay the foundation of a strong and robust manufacturing base in India. Further, a clearly laid out research and

development policy is necessary to succeed in a highly technical industry like ours and will help bring component manufacturing base in India to save precious foreign exchange. In the end, to create a truly inclusive digital economy, affordable mobile handset or consumer durable items up to certain value should be given a concessional duty treatment,” tells Rajeev Jain, CFO, Intex Technologies.

Cashless Transactions picking up

The 8 November decision of the government to demonetise the high-denomination currency notes has impacted the working of the Indian economy. The decision is bound to have an impact on the coming budget proposals. While the impact of demonetization in the long run is yet to be completely ascertained, there is no doubt that it has led to mixed investment sentiments. With sectors adopting a wait and watch attitude (most likely till budget), the expansion plans have been put on hold. However on the positive side, the Govt. promoting a Digital and cashless economy, the investments from broadband service providers and telcos will see an upward march. Also investments from Govt in building a wide broadband infrastructure will increase.

Post demonetization, a remarkable increase in adoption of transactions through mobile wallet, payment bank, IMPS/NEFT/RTGS is observed. However, to realize the vision of a cashless economy, the government

Ramki GaddipatiCTO & Co-founderZeta

Rajeev JainCFOIntex Technologies

P G LakshminarayanVP - Finance eScan

Debashis NagVice President - IT & E-Governance IPE Global

Murali RamalingamCountry HeadIxia Technologies

BUDGET SPECIAL


Snehashish BhattacharjeeGlobal CEO & Co-FounderDenave

K Krishna MoorthyChairmanIESA

Harshvardhan LuniaCo-Founder & CEO Lendingkart Group

should announce further measures to campaign and encourage digital payments. “There is a need for RBI to subsidize switch charges to promote cashless payments. To glide through from cash based to card based products, MDR on debit card could be kept at feasible percentage for a prolonged duration. Measures may be taken for further securing the digital payments and organise focused financial education campaigns among merchants and cardholders,” says Debashis Nag, Vice President - IT & E-Governance, IPE Global.

Secondly, with demonetization significantly altering the dynamics of the entire national economy, expectations are high from the upcoming budget. Alongside countering black money practices, this move has helped the government in expanding the bracket of tax-paying population. This in-turn, equips the government to offer considerable tax rebates and SOPs focused towards societal development and growth. The ambiguities present in the modern-day service sector operations can be lessened with apt reform provisions in the budget. Lastly, for a holistic growth and development, focus on building a world-class infrastructure and real-estate industry is also critical. Both these sectors require better regularization and standardization support in order to foster an efficient business environment. I expect the upcoming budget to cater to this as well, through incentivized SOPs and other measures. ”says, Snehashish Bhattacharjee, Global CEO & Co-Founder, Denave

With the Govt. of India promoting Digital and cashless economy, the industry also expects benefits to be given to investments in building the IT network infrastructure. “As digital payments take off, we'd like this year's budget to focus on financial inclusion. We hope the Government of India reduces indirect taxes and charges levied on digital transactions. Further, income tax incentives should be provided to people who use digital payment options. It's also time that digital payment and documents be treated legally on par with physical instruments. We also hope that the Government increases the ceilings on employee tax benefits as they're now quite overdue. To aid merchants, the Merchant Discount Rate on card payments

should be abolished. The industry can also benefit from tax incentives provided to organisations operating in the digital payments space. says, Ramki Gaddipati, CTO & Co-founder, Zeta.

With this the IT penetration in the country is yet to reach satisfactory levels and providing tax benefits to consumers purchasing IT products, at regular intervals, will help to increase the penetration levels.”

Thrust on SME GrowthThere is also an expectation that the

budget relooks at procurement norms to focus on quality and cost based procurement while encouraging wider participation from SMEs and Start-Up companies. “We hope that the Government will come up with some

positive announcements and tax sops to cut through the growth barriers,” says Debashis. “Any thrust on growth, infrastructure, job creation and skill development is likely to have a positive impact for the IT/BPO sector. The government should also consider reducing excise duty on hardware (e.g. mobile phone, computer/laptop/Tab and other computing infrastructures) so that better technology becomes more accessible to wider populations.”

"I believe most of the SMEs in India are still facing funding shortage at their 'required time' and thus, are not able to scale up to their true potential. Being part of the SME lending ecosystem, I am looking forward to get this sector supported by an efficient

policy framework,” observes Harshvardhan Lunia, Co-Founder & CEO - Lendingkart Group. “I expect the budget to incentivize lenders to create fast, easy and reasonable loan options for SMEs across the country. Recently, the government has announced extension of credit guarantee limits of SME loans to INR 2 crores and extending the same to loans disbursed by NBFCs. It is a great step considering lot of new-age alternate SME lenders will also get covered under this scheme and increase penetration into this segment.”

To attract larger institutional players and create liquidity for SME loans, the government could possibly provide an institutional framework akin to bank in a box system. SME loans, individual and pooled, could be recognized as a separate asset class and listed accordingly.

And so... Post demonetization, we believe, some of

the above measures mentioned by different vendors would certainly help to create an ecosystem which would facilitate adoption of digital transactions and moving towards Government’s vision of cashless economy.

The question however is how to make it sustainable. “The infrastructure to sustain this is still in nascent stage. The National Fiber Network is still incomplete as it was envisaged. For the Cashless and Digital economy to become the prima donna, the user experience has to be uniform, reliable and absolutely secure. At present while many wallets and other payment options have come up post demonetisation with many payment options, except that of a few banks, many still do not have a solution that is highly secure and have an ‘easy to use’ user interface and experience. This may need us to write a very good India specific standard, adopt international technologies like Tokenisation and OEM pay solutions if needed or still better enable the Indian start up eco system to develop India OEM pay solutions under the UPI structure. Once this becomes available the adoption will be automatic,” sums up K Krishna Moorthy, Chairman, IESA. n

Samrita [email protected]

Sanjai GangadharanRegional Director – SAARC A10 Networks


Sify Technologies Limited

Setting the pace

Sify Technologies Ltd. is an ICT pacesetter that is continuously evolving through knowledge and expertise, to keep its customers ahead. Being curious, young and bold, Sify is ever-enthused to take on any challenge on the ICT front, offering customized solutions to large, Enterprises, SMBs, Government and PSUs. Sify’s expertise makes it the ideal technology partner to manage the full spectrum of the IT needs of all organizations, across sector and scale.

The company’s ‘Bring it on’ attitude, scalable portfolio of services and superior solutions have enabled it to transform its image in the technology space. Sify has metamorphosed from a Telecom-Network and Data Center (DC) service provider to becoming a full-fledged and converged ICT player, with capabilities that spread across Telecom, Cloud and Managed solutions, DC Transformation, Applications Integration and Transformation Integration Services. Today, it offers end-to-end ICT solutions to 8,000+ organizations and acts as a true B2B technology transformation player.

As a comprehensive ICT partner, it brings business-oriented solutions on a pay-per-use model by integrating world-class services and resources. It assesses, creates, migrates, secures, manages and optimizes them so that the solution it delivers to its partners enables them to transform their businesses.

As an integrated transformation enabler, Sify offers domain-specific solutions that improve asset productivity and contribute significantly to business growth.

• Telecom Services: Sify’s suite of telecom services goes beyond enabling business applications to help adapt to rapid growth, data

intensive applications, information security threats and evolving technologies.India Data BusinessGlobal Data BusinessWholesale Voice

• Data Center Services: Sify’s network today connects 43 DCs across India, including Sify’s 6 Tier 3 DCs in Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru. The suite of services include: Colocation Services Managed Hosting DC Migration DC IT Services DC Transformation

• Cloud & Managed Services: Sify offers Public, Private and Managed Cloud services, leveraging enterprise-class technology to guarantee high availability, performance, scalability and security. Enterprise Public Cloud Enterprise Private Cloud Cloud-based Disaster Recovery Managed IT Services

• Applications Integration Services: Sify offers the entire range of consulting-led IT software application services and products to diverse domestic and global clients. MSIS: Managed SAP Integration Services Microsoft Solutions E-Learning Forum Nxt: End-to-end SCM Solutions Talent Management Solutions iTest: Online Examinations Skype for Consumers

• Transformation & Integration Services: Sify’s TIS offerings are well aligned and integrated with its core strength in telecom and data center space. Data Center Build and Transformation Network Build and Integration Information Security Services Collaboration Services End-user Computing Services Collaboration ToolsSify has partnered with major OEMs and also demonstrated its prowess in many DC transformation projects by implementing best-of-breed solutions – thus enabling customers to experience the best-fit solution to address their business demands and de-risk technology adoption.

Today, Sify’s converged ICT ecosystem is transforming small to enterprise-grade organizations with solutions that are scalable, flexible and reliable.

VAR CORPORATE

[email protected]

Our end-to-end ICT services • telecom services • data center services • cloud & managed services

• transformation & integration services • applications integration services


TCS appoints Rajesh Gopinathan as CEO; NG Subramaniam as COO

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has appointed Rajesh Gopinathan as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director and NG Subramaniam as Chief Operating Officer. Gopinathan takes over from N Chandrasekaran who has been appointed as the Chairman of Tata Sons, effective February 21, 2017. N Ganapathy Subramaniam, (NGS) who is currently president, TCS Financial Solutions has been appointed as the President and Chief Operating Officer. Ganapathy has also been appointed as a Director on the board of the Company. “I look forward to a continued relationship with TCS and the management team,” said N Chandrasekaran, chairman, Tata Sons.

Airtel appoints Badal Bagri as CFO-India & South Asia

Bharti Airtel, India's largest telecommunications services provider announced the appointment of Badal Bagri as chief financial officer for its India & South Asia operations with effect from January 16, 2017.

In his new role, Badal will lead the finance teams across India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to drive Airtel’s growth strategy. He will report to Nilanjan Roy, global chief financial officer, Bharti Airtel. This will be Badal’s second stint with Airtel. He had previously worked with Airtel from 2010 to 2014 and was the chief controller for the consumer business as well as the global financial controller. In his last role, Badal was the chief financial officer at Aircel. Prior to this, he was the chief financial officer at Micromax.

IBM Appoints Karan Bajwa as MD, Vanitha Narayanan as Chairman

IBM has appointed Karan Bajwa as Managing Director of IBM India Pvt. Ltd, succeeding Vanitha Narayana who is appointed as Chairman of IBM India Pvt. Ltd. As Managing Director of IBM India, Karan will be responsible for all strategic and operational matters related to IBM's sales, marketing, services and delivery operations in the India/SA region, including Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. As Chairman, Vanitha will play a critical role in enabling capabilities across IBM’s global missions in India, global centers of excellence, research and innovation labs. IBM will rely on her leadership to engage and further strengthen the Government and Regulatory affairs initiatives.

N Chandrasekaran appointed Chairman of Tata Sons

The board of directors of Tata Sons, at its meeting has unanimously appointed N Chandrasekaran as executive chairman, Tata Sons. N Chandrasekaran shall take charge from February 21, 2017.

Chandrasekaran was the chief executive officer and managing director of Tata Consultancy Services since 2009. A Tata lifer, he had joined the company in 1987 and was appointed as a director on the board of Tata Sons on October 25, 2016. On his appointment, N Chandrasekaran said, “I am humbled and honoured to be chosen to lead a truly great institution that occupies a unique position in hearts of the people in India and the world. I am proud to have been part of the Tata family for over 30 years and assuming this position is a great privilege."

Avnet appoints Sundaresan K as CGM

Avnet has has appointed Sundaresan K as Country General Manager of Avnet Technology Solutions, India. In this role, Sundaresan will be responsible for developing and executing the business strategy in the country, with a focus on driving profitable growth and enhancing Avnet’s solutions specialist offerings for the local market. He is based in Mumbai and reports directly to William Chu, President, Avnet Technology Solutions, Asia- Pacific. Sundaresan succeeds Naresh Desai who now leads Avnet’s regional Cloud, Security and Enterprise Networking, and Mobility business units.

Sundaresan is an accomplished leader, having held management roles within high-growth organizations.

Corning Appoints Amit Bansal as MD

Corning Incorporated has announced that Amit Bansal has been appointed the company’s new managing director for its operations in India. Bansal will be based in Gurugram, Haryana and spearhead the company’s growth and operations while contributing to strategic planning for Corning in India.

Bansal will drive synergy across the various commercial organizations to grow Corning’s business in the country. Additionally, he will oversee Corning’s manufacturing operations in the country, business development efforts with the science and technology organization, and pursue new global supply management opportunities. Bansal has also been appointed to the Corning Finolex Board of Directors.

BICSI India appoints Ninad Desai as District Chair

BICSI has appointed Ninad Desai as District Chair who will spearhead BICSI India in catalyzing the growth of the ICT industry and strengthening the professional community, while enabling the fulfilment of its future goals and aspirations. Ninad Desai will further drive BICSI’s strategic programs and related key initiatives to empower ICT professionals to excel in their field of operation by placing key emphasis on education & training for ICT industry professionals.

Ninad Desai, District Chair, BICSI India said, “There is a greater demand to ensure consistency in enterprise & communications network standards and need for stricter adherence to Quality of Service (QoS) requirements.”

Infogain announces promotion of Jon Guyton to VP

Jon Guyton has been promoted as Vice-President of Infogain’s Retail Practice. During the past three years at Infogain, Jon held the leadership position of Senior Director, Sales and Development for the retail practice. In his prior role, he led the sales transition for Oracle’s xStore Point of Sale (POS) system for several clients. Reporting directly to Sunil Bhatia, CEO, Jon’s new responsibilities include developing and implementing key sales strategies to drive future growth of the retail practice, in addition to consultation and client relationship management. “The retail industry is competitive with increasing demands for digital transformation strategies. Jon’s leadership abilities, innovative thinking, customer mindset and consultative approach will add value for our clients. His strengths in the new position will take Infogain’s Retail Division into an exciting future,” said Sunil Bhatia, CEO, Infogain.

Movers & Shakers


Sirion drives efficiency and cost-effectiveness for its Customers

A Sequoia funded company, SirionLabs is transforming the supplier experience for enterprises in the rapidly emerging on-demand/service economy and has received several industry recognitions.

Devinder Jeet Singh, GM – Marketing – SirionLabs, during a casual chat with VARINDIA shares the company’s GTM strategy and details about its customer base across the globe -

SirionLabs was founded in 2012 by Ajay Agrawal and Claude Marais. Today it has 200+ employees working across multiple global locations including India, US, UK, Singapore, Denmark and Germany.

SirionLabs has developed a novel SaaS product called Sirion, which assists large organizations to manage their strategic services suppliers (e.g. IT outsourcing, BPO etc.) by extracting the obligations within the contracts and tying the performance of those obligations to invoices received from the suppliers. “Our solution enables organizations to streamline the way they manage their key outsourcing suppliers and reduce the value leakage in those engagements by as much as 15-20% of annual contract value. Sirion has created a new product category within procurement technology called Supplier Governance,” says Devinder Jeet Singh, GM – Marketing – SirionLabs.

Sirion is used by strategic sourcing, procurement, vendor management, IT delivery, contract management, and finance departments at Fortune listed companies to effectively manage their strategic services supplier engagements. SirionLabs’ current clients include Fortune 1000 organizations with significant services outsourcing engagements such as IT, BPO, Logistics, Facilities Management, etc.

SirionLabs has 100+ professionals in its R&D team consisting of architects, developers, QA and product managers. Its technical team primarily comes from premier technology institutes such as IITs, NITs and BITS with rich domain experience at top technology companies

Go-to-Market strategy Sirion is delivered on a SaaS /subscription fee model, hosted on Amazon

Web Services and is built on a multi-tenant architecture. Implementation of Sirion for a single customer generally implies access to thousands of users from both buyer side and supplier side. “Most Sirion customer engagements are multi-year as strategic services contracts commonly span 5-7 years. Additionally, the scope of our engagements expands over time to include additional contract types pushing up the annual contract value of the engagement,” explains Devinder.

Sirion reaches its customers through multiple channels – sales team, strategic alliances (with some of the top global strategy consulting firms), industry conferences, analyst relations etc.

“By implementing Sirion, organizations are able to reduce the manual effort in managing their suppliers by around 44%. This brings down the

cost of supplier management significantly due to the reduction in the number of resources required to manage suppliers, but it also increases the efficiency and hence the capacity of the existing team to manage a broader base of suppliers,” he says.

Future Roadmap...Sirion’s goal is to double its annual revenue run rate to $6-9 million

in the next 12-18 months. In addition to making further in-roads into its strongest markets – North America and Europe – Sirion will increase its focus on new markets such as Australia where it is seeing strong interest. “We will also look at specific segments in the Indian market (large suppliers and enterprises),” Devinder concludes. n

UCLH Case Study - How the Trust could save £20m over 5 years’The Challenge

University College London Hospital (UCLH), one of the largest NHS trusts in the UK has a large number of contracts, with an annual spend on commercial suppliers of about £110m.

The Trust thought that it may be over-paying (or under-charging) its commercial partners but did not have the evidence or capacity to challenge. It did not understand its contractual obligations and important opportunities to re-negotiate terms were missed. UCLH conducted a review of their existing contract management environment and recognized that in many cases the business processes did not support the Trust’s obligations under the contracts, the relationships were not formally managed, the contracts were often changed informally or unintentionally and, the documentation was difficult to locate or was out of date.

The SolutionUCLH commenced an initiative aimed at driving improved efficiencies and savings in its commercial arrangements through an effective combination

of processes and technology. As part of this initiative, UCLH commenced a proof of concept engagement with the deployment of a large client services contract (for delivering a range of technology, medical and facilities management services to a large patient care services company) for management on Sirion. This was quickly followed by a large procurement contract for IT and BPO services.

The ImpactIn the summer of 2016 the implementation of the Sirion solution was completed for the first two contracts. The contracts are now stored in

a fully searchable centralised document repository. All the obligations in the contracts have been captured and assigned to individuals. Similarly, all service levels are now monitored and performance is reflected in the invoice validation process. The system captures issues and actions which are all logged through the system and managed as a part of a formal governance process. Even during implementation of the first two contracts the trust found £500,000 of previous under billing and £250,000 of annual savings.

FACE TO FACE


3 tips for IT channel sales in a digital-first economy

Byline article by Sumir Bhatia, Vice President, Data Centre Group, Asia Pacific at Lenovo

We hear so much these days about our customer organisations pursuing a digital-first strategy. Digital transformation

remains a big priority for C-suite leaders and their teams, something borne out by research from Frost & Sullivan and other analysts.

But what does this mean for technology channel partners?

Think digital. Putting mobile and web experiences first is a big priority for companies and the public sector alike. It’s this digital-first – or if you like customer-first – strategy which requires considered support from technology partners and the channel.

With this definition in mind, here are some strategies to help channel partners and professionals navigate forward.

1. Tailor your digital-first conversation The first step is deeper consultation. Take the time to understand

the motivations of your business customers, along with the processes required to get from A to B (which of course also means defining where A and B actually are in your strategy). Technology consulting, products and services help to achieve the digital outcomes that have been articulated.

How are digital-first priorities defined? Thought-works describes digital-first as a focus on ‘content first’, made Omni-available and leveraged across multiple platforms. Inherent is the emphasis on delivering greater customer experiences, and you won’t find many client businesses disagreeing on that point!

Next, what are we talking about, and what are we selling? The role played by technology consulting includes cloud computing, analytics, hardware, software development, mobile solutions, and social platforms – which should all be geared to helping organisations deliver more positive product and service experiences to customers or stakeholders. For example, in a digital-first framework, self-service and efficient contact centre tools help to deliver customer loyalty, while transforming the efficiency of more productive employees inside organisations.

These are the conversations channel partners need to be having with customers.

2. Focus your sales efforts for better results Your key priorities need to be met quickly in a digital-first world, so

it’s all about securing fundamentals. Channel customers – like everyone – are looking for timely information, responsiveness and solutions.

Where can we look for process excellence? McKinsey cites the concept of creating a world-class sales operation as a key advantage in meeting needs going forward. What does such an operation look like? The key here is giving your sales team the ability to more easily do what they do best. That means programs and process improvements that reduce wasted time and bottlenecks. McKinsey mentions account-planning re-engineering, CRM simplification efforts, streamlined bid management, and proposal desks as examples that help get the job done.

Lead from the front with weekly, monthly and quarterly reviews along with sales planning clinics for your key markets and accounts. Finally, we don’t as an industry talk enough about the importance of sales operations and good data, but advanced analytics will produce better results in prospect targeting, go-to-market strategy development, and customer engagement. A focus on analytics can mean the difference between ‘maybe’ and ‘definitely’ in your sales strategies and outcomes (and the difference between ‘likely’ and ‘possible’ in revenues).

3. Partner with companies that understand digital

transformation

Cross-industry disruption and digital-first priorities are clearly the “new normal”, so channel go-to-market strategies should support these demands. At Lenovo, we’ve embraced disruption in the data centre space, and we’re encouraging our channel partners to learn how and why we’ve repositioned to become the definitive data centre challenger brand.

95% of our data centre group’s business is now conducted through our network of 15,800 channel partners across Asia Pacific. To that end, we’re developing an always-on Asia Pacific Channel Portal to help our channel partners do business with greater ease across the region. Watch this space!

Change is a constant. Digital transformation is taking place in every industry around the world, providing plenty of opportunities for channel partners switched on to the digital-first dialogues customers want to have.

Only the organisations which manage their own digital transformation will succeed. The stakes couldn’t be higher, so for technology channel partners, I believe focusing sales efforts toward an elevated level of strategic consultation along with best practice operations will be a powerful way forward. n

VAR COLUMN


Lenovo’s Thinkcentre X1The Thinkcentre X1 comes styled in the usual

Lenovo charcoal-grey color scheme, with a 23.8-inch, 1920x1080 non-touch display featuring an anti-glare coating. This All-in-one PC ideally save space, minimize clutter, and allow unrestricted access to the surface they reside on.

X1 is Super Slim. The aluminum-alloy crafted chassis is just 11 mm thin/0.43 inches. Thinkcentre X1 is powered with 6th gen Intel Core processor with vPro, Windows 10 Pro operating system, mechanical (up to 500GB) or solid state (up to 1TB) hard drives and up to 16GB of RAM DDR4 memory. Pack this all-in-one with performance to power through work, collaborate through online meetings, or sit back and enjoy high-definition entertainment. This all-in-one features a widescreen 23.8″ full HD antiglare display (1920 x 1080). The display has been treated at a micro-level to scatter light and prevent glare – so you get a vibrant, clear screen, even in brightly-lit environments.

The X1’s thoughtful design is the arrangement of its ports and switches. Everything you are likely to leave plugged in connects to the back of the system: gigabit ethernet, Kensington lock port, power jack, a bi-directional Display 1.2 port and three USB 3.0 ports. For more daily use, you will find two USB 3.0 ports (one of which is always on, for charging purposes), a combination headphone/microphone jack, and a media card slot on the lower left hand side.Wireless keyboard and mouse are supplied with this machine.

LG “KarSalaam” initiative dedicated to Indian soldiersLG Electronics India is going to

celebrate this 68th Republic Year of the country, with the launch of the KarSalaam initiative, dedicated to the Indian soldiers. The campaign invites the whole nation to come forward and send their wishes to the Indian Armed Forces.

Through this initiative, LG will salute the soldiers’ spirit of selfless contribution and service towards the country. LG is committed to walk the extra mile, providing a good life to the citizens of India. Accordingly, the company will extend their support and solidarity to our soldiers who play a great role in ensuring that we lead a fearless and good life in this country.

LG will reach out to citizens through radio, on ground and digital communication to capture the wishes of the citizens of India for our soldiers. The company also plans to invite people through social media platforms and encourage them to #KarSalaam (express their gratitude). All Indians are invited to post their wishes for soldiers on www.karsalaam.in. LG also seeks participation from the families of the soldiers to send their heartwarming messages to their near and dear ones who brave all odds to protect our country.

Taking this campaign forward, LG will be contributing a certain amount on every LG product purchased till 26th January towards the “India National Defence Fund”, which is dedicated to the welfare of soldiers.

Amit Gujral, Head – Corporate Marketing, LG Electronics India, said, “We salute the spirit of our soldiers who valiantly give up their life to protect the country, but hardly find an opportunity to reach out to them. Therefore, we took this initiative to bring together the citizens of India to express their gratitude to our soldiers. The selfless devotion our armed forces calls for adulation and what could be a better occasion than this Republic Day. We invite all to pour their heart out and leave no barriers to reach out to them. As a small token of our effort to salute the spirit of India, LG will contribute a certain amount to the National Defence Fund and our citizens’ wishes will be shared with the Indian soldiers. Let’s celebrate heroism, patriotism and a good life! KarSalaam.”

PRODUCT OF THE MONTH


ISODA CORNER

ISODA 2016 – A Flashback2016 has been quite eventful for the IT industry in general and also for

Infotech Software Dealers’ Association (ISODA) in particular. New IT products, payment gateways, mobile wallets, etc all recorded a sudden surge in 2016 due to the demonetization initiative taken by the Government. SAP HANA, Big Data and Analytics and Hyperconverged infrastructure have been some of the biggest drivers of 2016.

Companies are looking forward to adopt software-centric architecture that integrates computation, storage, networking and other vitalization resources. A large number of new customers have embraced SAP HANA as well.

Traditional partners are now restructuring their businesses and are trying to make themselves more relevant to the changing times. 2016 also experienced stiff competition between Indian and global Solution Providers without indicating any

noteworthy trends.There was an increase in the number of Ransomware attacks on customers in 2016.“Gartner's prediction shows that there is a considerable increase in the number of companies which have leveraged cloud solutions to generate

valuable business insights,” says Kavita Singhal, Chairperson, ISODA.

ISODA’s Roadmap for 2017ISODA hopes to start one new chapter and is planning to strengthen the body by

inducting at least 40 new members and also conduct around two regional events every quarter. The organization is looking forward to change the current look of ISODA website and make it more useful and resourceful for the benefit of its members. Moreover, ISODA is keen to make a mobile app for the ease of website usage by the members. It aims to join hands with global associations like NASSCOM, etc.

Cyber threat, Ransomware is the biggest buzzword of this year and hence solutions to prevent this menace will be in great demand.

New skills and opportunities for 2017 technology have opened up the doors for new avenues and customer sets. Hence, it is completely up to us to actually skill our teams and avail the opportunities.

The new technologies and skills are also required for the BFSI and manufacturing sector as we see a lot of niche applications being developed.

The pre-sales resources require advanced training and skills to improve their knowledge on technology and help the clients to make an informed choice.

“In 2017, we are confident of improving the visibility for ISODA amongst the Government and other agencies and look forward for more competition among all ISODA members irrespective of their technology verticals,” said Rajeev Mamidanna, Vice-President, ISODA.

Forecast for 2017With new regulations and technologies coming into place, 2017 will attract more

investments and opportunities for the industry. Tech Summit 7 (TS7) is also going to be a game-changer. It is likely to bring in more members and a whole lot of new opportunities for many of us.

The Government of India has taken many new initiatives and they are likely to make huge investments in automation which is a good sign for the IT industry. We are sure that it will lead to a sustained growth in business opportunities for the industry as well.

Increase in the number of companies adopting cloud technologies will open up new opportunities in 2017 and the stringent security measures and solutions to handle Ransomware, machine learning, hyperconverged infrastructure, DR-as-a-Service, Work area recovery, IoT and 3D printing are going to be the buzzwords during 2017.

The Government of India is promising huge investments in technology and partners and those who work for the government stand to be benefited most. After the implementation of GST, multi-state operations will become easier and 2017 will also see a lot of consolidations to bring about greater focus and market engagement.

“The corporate world is moving cautiously and I hope that they too will come forward and invest in new initiatives, resulting in overall business growth opportunities for IT in India,” predicts Vipul Datta, Chairman, ISODA.

ISODA plans to add new members

ISODA Business Excellence AwardsThe ISODA Awards are most sought after award ceremony. The growing number of nominations and categories clearly indicates the benchmark that

has been set across the industry. The ISODA Awards recognizes the efforts of its member community. This year also ISODA is coming up with its 7th Tech Summit from the 16th-19th February, 2017 at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam with the theme “Xcel. Xcellerate. Xceed”. The honorable jury members for this year are Alok Gupta, (CEO, Softmart Solutions), L Ashok, (CEO, Futurenet Technologies) and Mr Dhru Dua, (ISODA Tax Advisor).


Digi Dhan Mela Promotes Digital Payment

The government is planning Digi Dhan Mela in 100 cities to encourage digital payment adoption by citizens

The Government of India seeks to promote digital payment methods to encourage consumers and merchants to increasingly shift to these payment modes. To take this initative forward, Lucky Grahak Yojana for Consumers and Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojana for Merchants were launched on 25th December at Vigyan Bhavan. The schemes are aimed at encouraging people to move towards significantly higher usage of digital transactions through the offer of incentives. Winners will be selected on a daily and weekly basis under the Lucky Grahak Yojana and weekly basis under the Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojana, respectively, leading up to 14th April, 2017, when the schemes will culminate with a mega draw.

The draws for these events will be taken out in 100 different cities around the country, in a ceremony accompanied by a digital payments adoption fair called Digi Dhan Mela. As part of the Mela, to encourage adoption of digital payments by local residents, booths and help centres will be set up by banks, mobile operators, mobile wallet companies where citizens can get apps downloaded and learn how to do digital transactions.

At the event, huge public participation was seen thronging different stalls put up by various banks, telecom companies, Aadhaar and different departments of the State Governments and Central Government to gather first-hand information about various digital schemes of the Government of India.

The Lucky Grahak Yojana for Consumers has a daily reward of Rs.1,000 to be given to 15,000 lucky consumers for a period of 100 days; weekly prizes worth Rs.1 lakh, Rs.10,000 and Rs.5,000 for consumers who use alternate modes of digital payments, e.g. UPI, USSD, AEPS and RuPay Cards, but will for the time being exclude transactions through private credit cards and digital wallets. The Digi Dhan Vyapari Yojana for Merchants has prizes for digital transactions conducted at merchant establishments. The weekly prizes are worth Rs.50,000, Rs.5,000 and Rs.2,500.

There will be a mega draw on 14th April, i.e. Ambedkar Jayanti where three mega prizes for consumers worth Rs.1 crore, Rs.50 lakh, Rs.25 lakh for digital transactions between November 8, 2016 and April 13, 2017 will be announced on 14th April, 2017. There are three mega prizes for merchants worth Rs.50 lakh, Rs.25 lakh, Rs.12 lakh for digital transactions between November 8, 2016 and April 13, 2017 to be announced on April 14, 2017. To ensure that the focus of the scheme is on small transactions,

incentives will be restricted to transactions within the range of Rs.50 and Rs.3,000. All transactions between consumers and merchants, consumers and government agencies and AEPS transactions will be considered for the incentive scheme. The estimated expenditure on the first phase of the scheme is likely to be Rs.340 crore.

Kamalja Raut, DGM, State Bank of India What are the initiatives of SBI towards digital banking?

We have retail internet banking and corporate internet banking which is available through laptop or desktop. It is the first initiative that was launched and is very popular amongst corporates as well as retailers and individuals. We have launched our mobile apps and we have State Bank Freedom which is for low end mobiles. Besides that we have State Bank Anywhere which has retail as well as corporate customers. Besides that we have various other initiatives like PoS machines for merchants, cash at PoS. We also have our own Buddy, which is our merchant wallet. It seems it is very popular these days and was launched last August. We already have 70 lakh registrations and we are expecting that within few days it will cross 10 crores.

How are you trying to create awareness about these products?

We have various means of doing it and has been participating in these events. Besides, SBI employees have been going around various ministries as awareness camps have been organised and we are also doing publicity over media. As SBI have the largest number of employees so we are trying to convert each and every employee into a digital ambassador. So that is really going to take us forward. For the government also once each and every employee of us is ready whether it is public or small traders we can take them at par and take this initiative forward.

How SBI is helping prime minister's vision of Digital India?

If you see any developed nation the requirement of cash is very less and in our country it is very unfortunate that the cash requirement is too high and it is creating a lot of problems. The prime minister has led the foundation earlier itself by opening Jan Dhan Yojna and various other schemes. So with that the awareness has increased. In Delhi 84 per cent of SBI transactions are alternate channels and digital channel, hardly 14 -

LEAD STORY


15 per cent are through banks. For the banks migrating to digital channel is more convenient, less expensive and more convenient for customers also. So from that point of view we have really been promoting it and is well accepted by everybody.

Navnit Saurabh, AVP – Merchant Business, UDIO Would you tell us about the UDIO product?

We are a digital wallet company connected called UDIO with a visa card. One distinction UDIO has over other wallets is that we do not have to acquire customers since we are using Visa network and both online and offline customers are accepting Visa so just by creating a wallet you own a card which is accepted everywhere, thereby helping customers to reach all the target merchants.

The other basic problem is that India does not have enough credit or debit cards because of the banking guidelines. The telecom penetration is really good in India as there are close-to one billion customers who are using mobile phones and we give all the mobile phone customers an opportunity to create a wallet. It can be created either by going online, but at the same time we are also catering to the feature phone customers which is a larger chunk in India. The feature phone customers can have UDIO card and call IVR services to activate the card. So in a way we are creating an environment where the issuance of card is easy for everybody. That is how we are helping Prime Minister's vision of Digital India.

How many cards are active recently?

Currently, close-to 28 lakh cards are active in the market. There are no subscription charges right now and one can buy this card at Rs.49 and the card is valid for five years.

Shrikant Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation

How is NASSCOM contributing to Digi Dhan Mela?

In Digi Dhan Mela, the most important work is to provide volunteering support to the people who walk in. It is important for them to understand where the banks are located and also help the exhibitor with the technology. Our volunteers are also helping people to understand how to get on to the net and download the app. The reason behind this support is that, if you look at the IT industry today, if more and more underserved people become part of the Digital India, then we would be very quickly moving towards a developed nation. This Jan Dhan Mela is a step to realize the vision of Digital India.

Would you be participating in the Digi Dhan Mela organized by the government in other cities?

We will be happy to support Digi Dhan Melas in other cities. Apart from this, we have also launched a campaign "Each One, Teach One". The IT industry deploys around four million people and by Each One, Teach One we can get more and more number of people in the Digital India fold.

How will Digi Dhan Mela help Prime Minister's Digital India mission?

On the one side, we are already running digital literacy and helping them through over 150 centres to get people digitally literate, but even if they are digitally literate and do not get on to the financial platforms they will still be left behind. That is where this is going to propel them to Digital India

Saqib Khan, AGM, Idea MoneyWould you explain about the Idea Money?

Idea Money is a platform which we are providing to the customer. Idea Money is a very easy-to- use interface for subscribers’ day-to-day needs. All kinds of payments like utilities, DTH, electricity, insurance, etc are handled by Idea Money. This is done by creating a wallet in the mobile number of the customer and it need not be an Idea number. It can be of any operator. After creating the wallet, the customer can load in money in that and start using our services.

We have ensured that this wallet is not only available on smartphones but also on the USSD platform. So a lot of feature phone users are also able to use this platform through USSD. We have also started making merchants in the market. If a customer goes to the shop and asks for

payment options and if the Idea Money is available, then he can pay through the Idea money also. We are fully in support of the Government of India’s plan of going digital and moving towards cashless economy. We are very well geared up as we have a huge distribution network throughout India not only in urban but also in rural areas.

How many subscribers do you have?

In Idea Money, we have already crossed around six and a half million and we are soon moving to seven million.

How do you see competition like Airtel Money, Jio Money and others?

The competition is good as it helps in creating awareness among the merchants. We have also started moving in the same space and we have been received very well in the market.

How secure are these platforms?

The platforms are well secured as they are protected by two-tiered security. At the time of registration, it is secured by an OTP and at the time of transaction there is MPIN to complete a payment.

How are you helping Prime Minister’s Digital India Mission?

This is a very good initiative by the Prime Minister and whatever possible is being done by us and other operators. We are helping the customers by educating them not only through our channel but also through prepaid channels.

Vipin Chopra, Vice-President, Jio MoneyWould you explain about Jio Money and what is its USP?

Jio Money is a very secure product because we have the security passwords for customers. Without the security password, no one can use Jio Money. Playstore customers can download Jio Money app, fill some columns and make their security passwords. So for any transaction the customer has to use the security password. It is a cashless journey for the customers.

Second, we have an option for pay at shop. The customer can visit any retailer who accepts Jio Money and the only thing the customer needs to do is to click pay at shop and enter the mobile number after the name of the shopkeeper which will reflect and one can pay the desired amount.

We have a code creation offer, i.e. when the customers download Jio money app, he will get a voucher worth Rs.15,000 free of cost.

How can a merchant subscribe Jio money?

We have recently launched a merchant app. If any merchant wants to subscribe Jio money, he can visit the playstore and download the app. After the download, he has to mention the mandatory details on their wallet and a cancelled cheque. The merchant can take a picture of the cancelled cheque and upload into the system and within three minutes he will become a Jio Money merchant. So we configure their account with the bank and the money directly goes to his bank account. We have another facility of code creation. If a customer wants to promote his shop, we have a code creation facility. If he creates a code into his system, then all the Jio Money customers will get a notification.

How does Jio Money help government's Digital India mission?


Due to demonetization, most of the people are going through cash crunch and they have debit/credit cards so they can upload their Jio Money app and load it through cards and can pay the amount to any of the retailer.

Jaseel PC, Chief Manager – IT, Indian BankWould you brief us about the Indian Bank’s mobile products?

We have two unique products. One is e-purse. It is a combination of wallet, debit card and gift card. For this you need to have an Indian Bank’s Internet banking account. You can login to the account and create up to three virtual accounts. Each of the accounts will be issued with a debit card. Master Card can be used at shopping establishments, online transactions and ATM cash withdrawals as well. You can gift it to anybody whose name can be printed on the card. You can load it through Internet banking and can also take it back as well.

We also have a mobile banking product called In Pay app where you have a unique feature of scan and pay. A consumer can walk into a merchant establishment and pay to the merchant. He will be provided with a QR code by the bank. He can be a customer of any bank. The person who has In Pay app can scan the QR code and make the payment.

How secure are these products?

We have OTP-based validation for all the transactions. You have a password to login into In Pay, a password for making transaction and there is also an OTP-based authentication. We are also providing another app called IB Smart Remote where you can control your debit card and credit card remotely. You can switch off the debit card and in In Pay Internet banking and mobile banking can be switched off facility. You can switch it back to on status when you want to use it. So while it is switched off nobody can use it.

How does the Indian Bank help in the Government of India's Digital India mission?

We are going aggressively on this scan and pay application. In the remote villages of Tamil Nadu, the street merchants are using our application. We are also canvassing PoS machines for rural, urban and semi-urban merchants.

Ankit Anand, Manager – Marketing, PayworldPlease tell us about the new device launched by Payworld?

It is a small MPoS device which can be connected through Bluetooth to the smartphone. The device also acts as a micro ATM and any debit or credit card can be accepted through this machine. The user can even withdraw any amount, as per the RBI norms.

How is Payworld’s new device useful for merchants?

In the current scenario, due to demonetization there is cash crunch and majority of the people are running out of cash. People are also facing many difficulties in withdrawing cash from ATMs to make payments in merchant outlets so these machines are working as a boon for them as the merchants can get these machines from Payworld and accept card payment.

How many machines have you sold and what is the cost of the machine?

After 8th November, we have sold 5,000 machines and nearly 1,000 orders are in the pipeline as well. These machines cost around Rs.3,500 and there is a monthly rental of Rs.250 as well.

Bharat Bhushan Dhall, Chief Relationship Manager, Syndicate Bank

Please enlighten us about the Digi Dhan campaign?

We are organizing a number of camps for Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana and also for digital banking awareness. On an average, around 10 campaigns are being organized in Delhi only. For digital banking, we are not only organizing camps but we are also educating corporate customers. Syndicate Bank is aggressive on mobile banking and e-passbook awareness and our customers are also getting benefited from this campaign. We are also organizing Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana campaigns for opening saving accounts in villages.

Ambarish Kumar Sharma, Manager, Oxigen Would you talk about different products of Oxigen?

Oxygen is a 12-year old company which is into digital payments and it is easing the market by providing solution to go cashless. We have a revolutionary product called Super PoS which is a micro ATM basically which is very beneficial for the country right now. We also have Oxygen Wallet which facilitates payments without using cards. One distinguishing feature of the Wallet is virtual Visa card. One can create a virtual visa card and use the Wallet balance to create it. The benefit is that it is completely risk free and is like a credit card. If you lose your credit card, then your complete account is in risk but by virtual visa card the benefit is you create the card on your own so if you want to spend Rs.500 you can put it on the card through Oxygen Wallet. Once the amount is exhausted, the account gets deleted. So there is no risk at all.

How are you helping Prime Minister’s Digital India mission?

Super PoS is beneficial for the country as it encourages you to do cashless transaction. We also see long queues outside banks and ATMs. Instead of that people can come to the retailer shop, deposit and withdraw money through this machine. So it is going to reduce the pain of the country.

Tarun Anand, market development manager, M-PESA

Please explain Vodafone M-Pesa?

It is a unique service launched by Vodafone in 2012 with the core objective of money transfer. We wanted to help the workers and migrants to transfer money from banks to relatives. If I talk about remittance, we had a huge success as we have achieved the mark of Rs 1,000 crores of money transfer a month before demonetization. Post demonetization the volume has dropped by 50% as it is process of conversion of cash into electronic money. We came up with the features of utility bill payments, DTH recharges, post paid bill payments etc. We have also tied up with few etailers and food joints where people can pay through M-PESA. The latest entry we have done is into merchant space.

We are looking at this in a very strong manner and want to explore more. We have a huge distribution potential. In Delhi we have more than 100 distributors, 2,000+ people on ground who can explore all these opportunities and we would like to target approximately 5 lakhs of merchants in coming three months in Delhi.

How is M-PESA different from other?

In M-PESA, the customer who has cash can go to the M-PESA outlets and can convert the cash into electronic money. This feature is not available in other wallets. Secondly, if anyone is KYC customer then he can transfer money to any unregistered operator and the person who has received the voucher can go to M-PESA outlet to withdraw cash. If you talk about M-PESA Pay, it is a much secured wallet as It is a pin based wallet and nobody can misuse it. n

Pravin Prashant & Aparna [email protected] | [email protected]

LEAD STORY


Gandhinagar: India's First Smart City Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation is

India's first smart city to launch citizen-centric smart city services like city-wide Wi-Fi, IP surveillance, smart street lighting, centralized command centre, digital signages and smart call centre

Gandhinagar has become India's first smart city to provide citizen-centric smart city services. The smart city services were designed, built and managed by Sterlite Tech and conceived by Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation under the Swarnim Jayanti Mukhya Mantri Saheri Vikas Yojana with a grant of Rs.22 crore. The project was awarded by GMC to Sterlite Tech on January 15, 2016 and completed in September 2016.

The smart services project includes services like city-wide Wi-Fi, IP surveillance, smart street lighting, environment sensors, digital display, speed & face detection, automatic number plate recognition system, public address system, smart call centre and a centralized command centre to monitor and control all activities.

The high-speed Wi-Fi service covers 75 per cent geographical area of Gandhinagar municipal area and has 125,000 citizens already registered and offers 30 minutes free Internet service for registered users. As per the records of GMC, around 400-500 people are daily registering for Wi-Fi services.

To regulate the city traffic and for safety of its citizens, GMC has installed 207 cameras which include: PTZ camera can click 360-degree

photograph (means photo of all directions); fix camera can be fixed at a specific angle to click photographs of the defined road; speed detection camera can detect the speed of the vehicle in motion; ANPR Camera (Automatic Number Plate Recognition Camera) helps in recording the vehicle number plate, so that in case of violation of any law, the violator can be caught; face detection camera can help in

capturing a criminal who enters Gandhinagar municipal boundary.

CCTV Surveillance helps in monitoring all activities within the city. All the records of the services are kept at the SP office located in Sector 27 which is the designated centralized command and control centre for the Gandhinagar Smart City project.

The CCTV surveillance helps in live monitoring of transport as well as the citizens' activity of all city roads due to which, at the time of any accident, all the related information along with police detection information can be made easily available.

The smart tweet lightning system will help in 30-per cent electricity saving for GMC. Places where digital signages have been installed, Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation will give information related to government programmes and other important information. Over and above,

citizens will be provided information related to environment forecast.

D. N. Modi, Commissioner, Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation, said, “The launch of smart city services in Gandhinagar has got us closer to realizing the Digital India vision of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. With this, Gandhinagar becomes the first smart city model.”

The smart services will help the government deliver digital services to its citizen and encourage them to avail seamless connectivity, security, cost savings and system transparency for better governance,” added Modi.

Pravin Agarwal, Vice-Chairman, Sterlite Technologies, said, “The smart services project will set a benchmark in digital infrastructure and smart living for citizens. We are proud to be associated with GMC.”

"The deployment of smart services through the urban infrastructure will address essential administrative needs of the citizens and empower them with easy access to critical information," added Modi.

The deployment of smart services at Gandhinagar has transformed the urban infrastructure that addresses the needs of its citizens by addressing administrative challanges to improve effciecy. It empowers them with easy access to information through Wi-Fi services and smart mobile app, ensures public security with IP surveillance, reduces electricity cost with smart street lighting, keeps the citizens updated on weather and pollution information through environment sensors, public announcement and advertisement through digital signages.

The system has 24/7 call centre which addresses citizens complaints and queries. All the smart services can be controlled and monitored through the central command centre. All these smart services will definitely help in providing better governance to 2 lakh Ahmedabad citizens by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. n

Pravin Prashant [email protected]

Gandhinagar Smart CityWi-Fi 750 Access Points installed covering 75% area Smart Lightning System 1,000IP Cameras 209 Public Address System 13 Environmental Sensor 5 Digital Signage 5 Source: VARINDIA

e-Governance


"We are now perceived as a utility industry and not perceived as a growth industry"

Mats Granryd is Director General of GSMA and he leads GSMA in supporting its global membership through a range of industry programmes, advocacy initiatives and industry-convening events.

Mats brings to GSMA a wealth of experience and a proven track record of success. Before joining GSMA, Mats was President and CEO of Tele2, one of Europe’s fastest-growing telecom operator.

Previously, he spent 15 years in a various high-profile capacities at Ericsson. Before joining Ericsson, he was a management consultant in telecom strategies at Arrigo and Andersen Consulting.

In an exclusive chat, Mats Granryd spoke to Pravin Prashant, Consulting Editor, VARINDIA, on UN Sustainable Development Goals, digitization of telcos, mobile economy’s contribution to overall economy, mobile broadband impact on society, mobile operator app ecosystem, innovations and 700 MHz spectrum pricing. Excerpts of the interview:

What all did you discuss in the GSMA board meeting held in India?

We covered a full bouquet of mobile operator’s issues and challenges. That is to say, we covered a strategy as to what will an operator look like in ten years, public policy, product and services availability and what we as an industry need to focus on. We also spoke about the purpose of work like are we just here to provide connectivity or do we have a bigger purpose as we are committed to 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and no other industry is better equipped than our industry as it has a huge impact on SDG.

What are you views on Sunil Bharti Mittal taking over as the new chairman of GSMA?

He is a true statesman and phenomenal individual. As a serial entrepreneur, he also has the outreach and phenomenal connections across the globe. He is also representing Asian region which is the fastest-growing region in the world not only from the growth perspective but a lot of innovations also come from Asia.

4.8 billion individuals subscribe to mobile in the world and this makes you the No. 1 association in the world. So how do you see your responsibility considering the large ecosystem?

We take this responsibility very seriously. 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals and the kind of outreach will influence you and me as to how conduct our businesses. SDG app will inform and help you to collaborate. Mindful of privacy and integrity of business, we start to work with other types of NGOs to bring this outreach in a good way.

How GSMA is supporting UN Sustainable Development Goals?

We have done two things. First, we have the app which has been globally launched and we have launched the impact report also. A fairly elaborate report which has a scientific approach to our impact on each and every of those 17 goals and the ambition is to measure it every year to realize the goals. 17 Sustainable Development Goals have 155 sub-goals

Mats GranrydDirector General, GSMA


"Today, we don't have a spectrum issue, but we have a pricing issue"

and we are measuring these sub-goals even. We will continue to work with 4.8 billion people and we will continue to innovate on UN SDG.

What UN Sustainable Development Goals will be achieved before 2030?

Financial inclusion is an important as the cost of remittance through mobile money programme will be achievable. Goal No. 9 infrastructure is also doing very well. Goal No. 5 is gender equality will perform well. In India, 114 million fewer women than men have mobile devices and it is a business opportunity for the industry.

How will digitization impact telcos globally? We are starting to see the Internet of Things (IoT) and M2M all around

us. I think it is the next leap how the industry will increase productivity, but it is also good for the climate as we need not travel that much. Fish farms in Norway are using IoT to feed the fish with the right kind of composition.

What is the contribution of mobile economy to the global GDP?

Globally, mobile contributes around 3.2 per cent of the total GDP which is equal to $3.1 trillion in terms of GDP. For India, it is 6.5 per cent of GDP and it is Rs.900,000 crore and this is expected to reach Rs.1,200,000 crore by 2020. The mobile industry, directly or indirectly, deploys around four million people. Not only connectivity but India is the second-largest smartphone market overtaking the US and of the 250 million smartphones market around two-thirds of all smartphones are manufactured in India. That is a huge step forward.

How do you see mobile broadband globally and its impact on transforming society?

I think it is absolutely pivotal and with the introduction of 4G now picking up dramatically I think we have the capability of having enough speed and low latency that will last us for a while. Around the corner we have 5G that will be standardized in 2020 and we will see the first network at the same time. We have now trial speeds of 10 Gbps with few millisecond of latency. With 5G, one can imagine the types of applications and services that are going to be available like self-driving cars or may be remote surgery. We are going to open up a completely new arena of services and applications with 5G.

How do you look at mobile operators valuation with reference to app ecosystem?

We are now perceived as a utility industry and not perceived as a growth industry. This industry sees double or triple demand of data every year, but we have an issue with monetization and we are working hard. We are doing lot of analysis and that's the reason we are working extremely on this and we had a board meeting on strategy of our industry going forward and it is fairly natural as well as industry's nature and you get introduced to different phases and we are not happy that our total shareholder return is 20 per cent and we should like it to be much bigger.

What are the new innovations which will impact mobile ecosystem?

I think we will see more IoT and more 5G. Significant in terms of identity or Aadhaar and Aadhaar identity is important when it comes to mobile money, mobile identification and mobile verification with whole flora of different kind of services. You will have a different kind of integration with your phone. Voice will be a more important recognition as you might not need your PIN and you can speak and the phone will unlock so these are some of the most important innovations.

What are your views on Digital India? First of all, it is a commendable dream. I think there is an ample amount

of proof points of having a society that is well connected. And that is the type of society that thrives and has an inclusive population and India is a good way on that there. Today, there are 3 million 4G connections and by 2020 it is forecast to reach 280 million 4G connections and that is a good growth story. I think you need to be mindful of backhauling, more spectrum being deployed, competition as price level is a very, very low in India. I think you need to be even more innovative in terms of new

services.

GSMA views on spectrum pricing on 700 MHz? I think it is a delicate balance for any government authority to strike

between a very well-connected society with all the positives like inclusion, like thriving economy, like business being developed that is a good thing. And on the other side, having just a financial impact at one time, it is a delicate balance to strike. This time 700 MHz was priced very high considering the low ARPU levels here in India. Today, we don't have a spectrum issue but we have a pricing issue. We have enough spectrum available, but it is not being deployed. That's a shame as spectrum needs to be deployed and used.

How mature is vendor ecosystem in 700 MHz? Vendor ecosystem is quiet mature in 700 MHz and is being used by TV

broadcasters and it is the most sought-after spectrum. 800 MHz was the same thing, but 700 MHz has better propagation.

India will need $34 billion for mobile infrastructure by 2020. Where will this money come from?

Globally, as an industry we have to invest $900 billion by 2020. It has to be done by innovation in OTT players, sharing music, collaborating tool, social media fuelling our network. We are the ones who are connecting everyone and everything and to a better future. And if we are not able to find money, we will not be able to connect and I think we are in big trouble. We are doing to our very best but spectrum pricing is so high that operators will not invest. There should be innovation in terms of pricing models and innovations in terms of different services.

Initially, mobile operator was a carrier but now it is transforming to become a content player. How do you see this shift?

I think you will see lot of different strategy from mobile operators. We used to be an analog luxury product which is not the case. We are a ubiquitous digital product which every one possesses. We are seeing operators buying banks in France. SKT and KT are also buying banks. Japan is also moving with different kinds of business models. As you said, content is being created in several parts of the world. In Mexico, America Movil is doing content with their Claro range of products. Certain operators will take a different path and certain operators will say we will provide good connectivity and there is nothing wrong with that as long as you have the cost structure which can cater to your business model. Some operators will become more horizontal and add on more services and banking is fairly close due to identity and KYC impact and that is the outreach of most operators. n


LAVA Launches X50 Plus smartphone

Videocon launches Ultra30

Josh Mobiles announces its latest "Mint"

ASUS launches 4G smartphone -Zenfone Go 4.5 LTE

Lenovo unveils the Lenovo P2Lenovo has launched

the all-new power-packed Lenovo P2, which has been designed to keep up with your uninterrupted life.

”2016 was an exciting year for us as we launched an array of successful smartphones and emerged as a prime challenger brand in the Indian smartphone market. We are kicking off 2017 in a fully charged way by launching Lenovo P2, a powerhouse smartphone with longest battery and fastest charging. We are resolving the biggest pain point of consumers, i.e. worrying about running out of power with Lenovo P2’s 3-day battery that lets you work and play uninterrupted,” said Sudhin Mathur, Executive Director, Lenovo Mobile Business Group India

Ajay Yadav, Head – Mobiles, Flipkart, said, “Our commitment towards making smartphone technology accessible and affordable for our customers, has helped establish Flipkart as the market leader in the smartphones space online, with over 65% market share. Following the hugely successful launch of the K5 Note and K6 Power in 2016, we are ready to host yet another power-packed launch of the new Lenovo P2 exclusively on the platform. With Lenovo P2 being the third launch in a row in less than six months, we are excited to be part of the Lenovo India journey and witness it unfold to greater heights.”

The Lenovo P2 enhances your gaming and video experience and makes texts look amazingly sharp and stunningly brilliant.

The Lenovo P2 also comes with super immersive TheaterMax technology that turns all your existing media and games into a large screen experience boasting smooth graphics, life-like surround sound and responsive 3D gameplay.

ASUS has launched its latest 4G

smartphone, the Zenfone GO 4.5 LTE, at a breakthrough price of only Rs.6, 999/-.

Sporting a premium metallic IMR hairline finish and with diamond-cutting technology, the smartphone offers a perfect balance of beauty and strength, and boasts of an incredible slim form factor, measuring just 3.5 mm at its thinnest edge. The new Zenfone Go 4.5 LTE has a highly-intuitive control layout featuring a physical rear-facing volume key.

Equipped with ASUS’ PixelMaster technology, the smartphone has 8MP + 2MP (rear + front) cameras with 11 special camera modes to help users capture sharp and crystal-clear images. The smartphone has advanced

LAVA International has announced

the launch of Lava X50 Plus. Lava X50 Plus is a testimony to the brand’s value proposition of making aspirational technology accessible by offering reliable products and services. Lava X50 Plus is a holistic smartphone with an excellent combination of space and speed it provides. On this smartphone, mobile application loading is 45% faster, thanks to its 32GB ROM. The smartphone offers faster and seamless mobile apps experience aiding consumers to multi-task easily on their phone. Lava X50 Plus comes at a pocket friendly price of Rs. 9,199/-.

Lava X50 Plus is the only device which comes with 32 GB ROM at this price point, which stores three times more data compared to 16 GB ROM providing the consumers with ample storage for music, videos, pictures, applications, and other data.

Lava X50 Plus sports a glossy glass back cover that merges smoothly with the stunning 13.67 cm (5.5”) HD IPS On Cell display – which enhances the video watching experience specially in sunlight.

It comes equipped with Smart Screen Gestures for users to get easy and direct access to apps and features by simply gesturing to the phone - such as w for browser, m for music, and more. Additionally, it comes with a feature ‘Swipe to capture’ which lets users take a screen shot by swiping down the screen with three fingers.

Vi d e o c o n Smartphone has

announced the launch of its latest device – Ultra30 – in partnership with online portal Snapdeal.com. Packed with advance features such as 4,000mAh battery, 3GB RAM, 32GB ROM, MiraVision, Cast Screen, camera with LED selfie Flash, Dual WhatsApp, SOS-Be-Safe, Gesture Control, Ultra30 intends to continue the standard set by Videocon in design and craftsmanship in the handset market.

The Ultra30 sports a 13MP Auto Focus with Dual LED Flash rear camera while also housing a 5MP Front Camera with LED selfie Flash. The rear camera has Gorilla Glass Camera Lens which protects it and with the Phase Detection Auto Focus, you’ll be able to capture the perfect shot every time. The camera

also has Smart Wide Dynamic View (SWDR) and ISOCELL technology to enable wide-angled panoramic shots and ensures that images are clear and sharp.

The Ultra30 also sports Voice-Over-LTE for high-quality calls and faster call connection as compared to a traditional GSM or CDMA call.

Josh Mobiles has introduced new-

age mobile phones in the entry-level segment, brings another extension to its feature phone portfolio with the launch of its latest "Mint" which is all about long battery life paired with the right entertainment value. With the announcement of its latest feature phone, Josh expands its foothold in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, which seek for quality yet budgeted phones with longer life.

With compact design Mint sports a curvy polished body which makes the design look attractive. Its bright 1.8-inch screen display gives a clearer viewing experience which is further enhanced with the VGA camera which is supported with video recording.

The dual-SIM phones also features auto call recording facility, enabled with Bluetooth and GPRS. The phone also offers,

easy access to the internet. additional features such as wireless FM radio with recording not only lets you tune into your favourite local FM station, but also records your favourite songs without connecting any earphones. In terms of the battery, Mint packs a huge 1,000mAh battery, delivering an exceptional talking and standby time. For user convenience, it comes with a built-in LED torch.

camera modes such as the low-light mode that enables excellent photographs in reduced lighting, the Backlight (HDR) mode for better brightness and contrast, the Manual mode for a DSLR-like experience, and the Beautification mode for image enhancement.

The device runs on Android Marshmallow 6.0, along with ZenUI that offers immense customization and utility options.

VAR MOBILITY

57 www.varindia.com December 2016


The surveillance and security market has tremendous growth prospects in India.In the past few years, the market has matured at a very fast pace owing to the increasing demand for public safety offerings. The increasing need for secured infrastructure, rising government focus on smart cities, growing IT spends by government have given the necessary impetus to this industry. Other factors like rising crime rates and terror threats, growing public and private infrastructures have resulted in the increased demand for various kinds of surveillance systems in India.

Today, security solutions like facial recognition technology are used across more than 40 countries worldwide for fighting crime, preventing fraud and improving public safety. A large number of corporates are also seen spending more on security and surveillance today. The Government has also enhanced its investments in verticals such as city surveillance, smart cities, airports, seaports, and the infrastructure sector.

Leveraging on its leading position in biometric solutions, NEC has been able to consistently provide high-end public safety solutions across industries such as law enforcements, border security and identity management application. It collaborates closely with its customers to create solutions for a variety of public safety categories, including law enforcement, emergency and disaster management, cyber security, public administration services etc.

Public Safety & Smart City – A big Opportunity for NEC

The Indian government has been actively promoting its mission for delivering 100 Smart Cities to promote urban transformation. Government initiatives like these are great opportunities for companies like NEC as it will give it an opportunity to bring its global expertise and contribute to the government’s smart cities mission. In India, NEC is working closely with the central and state governments to understand the need of utilising technology for tackling governance challenges and making a smart city safe. The company envisages to

In Aug 2016, NEC India deployed facial recognition systems in Andhra Pradesh for a large-scale religious festival, providing real-time surveillance for the safety and security of event attendees.

“Currently, NEC India is open for technology partnership and working on its business model to work with the global and local partners. We are looking to put smarter ways of communication, public safety, transportation, and overall governance that can empower India to achieve its growth and development objectives. The strategy has worked for Japan and several other countries across the globe, and is even more relevant today with technology playing a much larger in building smart cities a reality,” says Takayuki.

The Future for NEC...NEC has proven products and solutions

that are important part of surveillance solution requirement by customers in India. It has partnered with major system integrators to participate in the surveillance projects in India. The company has also invested into its production facility, entering into new areas like transportation and energy, creating resources and looking for alliances.

At present, several state government are installing CCTV cameras to make cities like Mumbai and Delhi safer. According to NEC, just installing cameras is not a solution as it requires more agility and software. It is hence working with the governments, and is sharing its deep knowledge and expertise cutting edge technology like facial recognition and analytics. “Our business domain covering entire ICT not only has IT but also has security and network; we have the entire portfolio to manage the safe cities. Moreover, NEC is bringing global solutions to make contribution to 100 smart cities initiative. NEC has more than 2000 resources for software and solution development in Bangalore and Chennai. NEC group has different subsidiaries for developing software and solutions around these new avenues,” concludes Takayuki. n

make smart cities not just smarter but aims at creating safer and a more secure environment for its citizens.

“Public safety and security is one of our priorities and focus in India. We offer a variety of solutions including biometrics and fingerprinting technology for police forensic departments and cybercrimes. NEC has already successfully deployed our advanced Face Recognition System, in Surat Safe City for Surat Police, and at Lemon Tree Premier, Delhi Airport in India. These solutions empower security teams to prevent crime by offering real-time blacklist and white-list management using highly intelligent live CCTV feed analysis. We are also one of the biometric solution providers for India’s largest national ID project,” asserts Takayuki Inaba, MD - NEC India.

NEC has concentrated on developing stronger face recognition methods within the framework of biometric security systems and is now applying face recognition technology to law enforcement and other markets. NEC has successfully developed and executed high quality projects in countries like Singapore, Argentina, New Zealand, etc. Within a short span of time, NEC has many breakthrough references in public safety domain.

Manoj Taskar Country Manager, India & SAARCTenable

The increasing need for surveillance products has led to the demand and eventually the growth of the security & surveillance market in the country. Throwing more light on this, Takayuki Inaba, MD - NEC India tells VARINDIA of how NEC tries

to fit into this industry with its cutting edge technology products and the roadmap it has set for the Smart City project -

NEC Aims for a Smarter & a Safer City



RNI - NO 72399/1999 Reg. No: DL-SW-1/4030/15-17Printing Date 18 & 19Date of Posting 20 & 21

every month

60 pages including cover

DigitalMarketing

IT Solution

Broadband

Networking &Security

Smart Cities

Education&HealthCare

Project Management

Cloud

By considering our values our mission is to provide necessary long term growth with customer satisfaction. We provide enough opportunities for growth and enrichment to our employees. Overall the company continuously grows in an atmosphere where new innovative ideas take place and we are stick on our chosen strategic direction.

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E magazine january 2017

News & Politics