Special: Digital Business / 62
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The Business of Infotech
Vol XXX No 1 I January 15, 2012
THE
POLITICS OF IDENTITY The Parliamentary Standing Commitee has sent back the National Identification Act bill. Is this the end of the UID project? Far from it.
Forecast
2012
Indian IT’s CEOs talk about the cloud, social media, big data... and where tech is headed in 2012 100 pages including cover
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Contents Januay 15, 2012
16 The Politics of Identity
COVER STORY
COVER STORY
Policy
The Parliamentary Standing Committe’s return of the National Identification Authority Bill in its present form is not a mandate to scrap the project, though some vested interests portray it that way
21
Special Report
Forecast
2012 With the buzzwords like information, big data and connectivity reigning at top of the minds of CXOs, success in 2012 will depend a lot on intelligent usage of the same
| January 15, 2012
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DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
36| Vertical: IT for NGOs: IT is Also for the Minimalist
78| C-Change 2012: More than just a Think-tank Congregation
40| Vertical: Case study: Winning Winrock
82| Cloud Computing: APAC Going Beyond Revenue
42| Vertical: Case study: Planning for the next move
84| Data Management: Extracting Intelligence
Leading Indian NGOs have been proactive in adopting newer technologies like cloud, SaaS, to not only bring down the capex cost but also reduce the pain of managing the IT Deploying Microsoft software and standards helped Winrock International optimize the workflow, productivity and manage database Chennai-based CFDA was faced with the issue of duplication of job by saving the data in multiple medium and the fear of loss of data, which is a crucial factor for the villagers 50| INK Conference: INKing Success Stories
A first-hand report of the second edition of the annual INK conference--a confluence of ideas, intelligence, creativity, zeal, and entrepreneurship 54| Google Zeitgeist 2011: What Do 125 mn Indians Search the Web For?
The recently released Google Zeitgeist 2011 sees Anna Hazare, the anti-corruption leader, as the fastest rising personality in India followed by the hot model Poonam Pandey 56| Indian Manufacturing: The Time is Now
There is more reason for the world to look at India now for manufacturing. We must leverage our strengths, close the gaps and be upfront about our strengths and weaknesses 58| Spotlight: Preparing for the Next...
Impacted by the worst floods in Thailand’s history, businesses and commercial establishments demand disaster recovery sites other than those in Bangkok city to meet the future calamities 60| Design Engineering: Bringing the Benefits of Technology
By using DFM tools, organizations have achieved increased productivity, saving in cost, improved quality, and have been able to capture knowledge 76| Security Solutions: Enter, Virtual Patching
Customizing virtual patching tools to address privacy of data, security breaches, etc, in this era of colossal amounts of data, is the apt solution
CIO of the Month To Each His Own
44|
RK Chauhan additional general manager, IT, EOC NTPC
Partha Pratim Mitra GM, systems, Coal India
Vijaykumar Talreja director, IT, Ambit Holdings
Gopalakrishna L, group CIO, Emmvee Toughened Glass and Photovoltaics
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Gear up for a brain-storming session with achievers, guiding us on the tumultuous waves of changes, like Noah’s Ark pulling us through their visionary ideas Investment by the government, a favorable regulatory environment, and an effective broadband/IT infrastructure are critical for cloud development. Weakness in any of these factors will materially curtail development Transition from the traditional to Big Data calls upon the leaders to create a comprehensive strategy to analyze different types of data
86| Spotlight: Will WildFire Be the Future Face of Firewalls?
The latest security product is expected to replace the traditional firewalls, and claims a 60% market share by 2014
DBS 62| entrepreneurship: Despite Hiccups...
The author reflects on his entrepreneurial journey, which, despite being criss-crossed with many hurdles, was all about swimming through uncharted waters creating watershed moments for the market 64| Social Media Censorship: Blurring Boundaries?
On the one hand, the early movers in e-commerce are busy expanding their portfolio; on the other hand, newer players are entering with niche offerings. Which way will the nascent e-commerce industry go? 68| Social Media: Google: The Numero Uno Performer
The social media world is re-defining the way consumers engage with each other and how the brands too engage with the consumers 70| Incubator Model: Incubators in Focus
Incubators can play a decisive role in guiding inexperienced but motivated Indian start-ups through the labyrinths of the market towards success 72| Kaleidoscope: The Good and the Not So Good
REGULARS Online Content....................................................6 Edit....................................................................8 Inbox................................................................10 Ganesha...........................................................12 News..........................................................88-97 Afterthought....................................................98
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EDITORIAL Column Ibrahim Ahmad Group Editor
Aadharless in 2012 Shyamanuja Das Editor of Dataquest
Goodbye 2011, Welcome 2012
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EDIT
Aadharless in 2012
E Ibrahim Ahmad
ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in
ven though 2011 had its own ups and downs, I still wanted to say Happy New Year to welcome 2012. But I am not.
In fact, I am disturbed at the uncertainty that seems to be building around Aadhaar (and I am sure there are millions like me). For the first time in the history of India this unique ID number plan would have given all Indians an identity, and a chance to get included in India’s growth story—even if this growth story is for a handful as many of us would argue. I know and everybody knows that a project of the size of Aadhaar (ID number for 1.1 billion people living in India) is Herculean. Just conceiving a project of this size requires guts. And it needed even more courage to sit on the driver’s seat. Considering that right from Anna Hazare to Manmohan Singh to LK Advani to Sitaram Yechuri, everybody wants to reach out to Indians and help them grow and prosper, is getting a database of each and every Indian not the first and most fundamental step in the direction? How on earth will anybody plan schemes for them and deliver those schemes if information about them is not clear. The Parliamentary Standing Committee has condemned Aadhaar and it has every right to. But if that results in disbanding the project, it will be one of the most unfortunate things to happen in a country that is teaching the world how to leverage information technology. I strongly believe that if required, team UIDAI should go back to the drawing board once again, specially to re—work on the technology, privacy, duplication, and project management aspects. These are valid objections. An equal emphasis will be required to get all other ministries in. I have been saying for a long time that there is a lot of opposition—malignant as well as benign—to the Aadhaar project from within the government. As of now Nandan Nilekani seems to have been left on his own to defend and sell the project. We need a passionate leader to support Nilekani, so that he can focus on the project’s execution. Anna Hazare should become the crusader for Aadhaar. Anna Hazare and all those who support him want to end corruption in public life and governance. If they believe that they can get rid of corruption without correct and updated information about Indian citizens, they are sadly mistaken. If people are denied their rights, if they cannot access many of the things available to others, no amount of Lokpal will save them from exploitation, or prevent them from taking recourse to illegal methods. I appeal to team Anna to support Aadhaar rather than Lokpal. About 80.70 mn people have already registered and 5.75 mn Aadhaar ID cards have been issued across India within a year of the start of the project. And there are long queues outside Aadhaar registration booths. Surely people want it and hope it will do them good. Let’s not get bogged down by the question if Aadhaar is for very very poor people, very poor people or just poor people. Let’s have the database in place and then decide where and how to start using it.
Vol XXX No 1
January 15, 2012
CHIEF EDITOR: Prasanto Kumar Roy GROUP EDITOR: Ibrahim Ahmad EDITOR: Shyamanuja Das EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Atreyee Ganguly ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Shrikanth G (Chennai) SR ASST EDITOR: Shobha Sivakumar, Stuti Das SR CORRESPONDENT / ASST EDITOR: Akanksha Prasad (Bengaluru), Drishti D Manoah (Delhi), Kusum Kumari, Onkar Sharma, Rukhsar Saleem, Shilpa Shanbhag (Mumbai) SUB EDITOR: Ruchika Goel
| January 15, 2012
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DECEMBER 31, 2011
further heightened the debate. I think, this key issue wasn’t covered in the article. However women are realizing the benefits of working: Financial independence, self-reliance, ability to grow, etc, and it’s an amazing change for a country with strict patriarchal rituals for women since centuries. Deepshikha, New Delhi
The Ecosystem’s Getting Ready
Hire on Fire?
I read your article on ‘Hire on Fire?’(Dataquest, November 30, 2011). It was a good experience to read your article. Recruitment is a very crucial issue. It is true that the students hired by the IT companies last year are still waiting for their joining letters. There are many companies that are eliminating fulltime positions. It was satisfactory to read that the slowdown would have a limited impact on the IT hiring. Thank you for the information. Akash Saraswat, Gurgaon
The Balancing Act
This is with reference to your article ‘ The Balancing Act’ (Dataquest, December 31, 2011). It’s an interesting article and very informative. Historically, women have been balancing both work and home. However currently this issue has gained audience due to some key issues being faced by women working with MNCs. Inflation and other socio-economic pressures have forced women, willingly or unwillingly, to join work. Simultaneously, the issue of odd working hours has send your feedback FOR US to serve you better... For subscription related issues, contact us at
rsedqindia@cybermedia.co.in You can also write to Reader Service Executive, DATAQUEST, Cyber House, B-35 Sector 32, Gurgaon-122 001, Haryana Fax: 91-124-26380694
10 | January 15, 2012
This is with reference to your article ‘The Ecosystem’s Getting Ready’ (Dataquest, December 31, 2011). To write and discuss about working women’s second innings at their workplace was a refreshing change. It’s interesting to note that women are being encouraged by companies to get back to their respective jobs despite taking a break from work for personal or educational reasons. This indeed is extremely inspiring for women across India. Opportunity to make a comeback is a defining fact for women who are yearning to get back to their work. Also, it’s interesting to note the enthusiasm exhibited by these women, who are raring to go ahead despite the age-old junior-senior debate. As rightly mentioned in the article, these women do come with a clear mind and objective: To succeed! Thanks for such an amazing women oriented article! Gaurav Sinha, Jaipur
Corrigendum This is with reference to DQ-CMR Top T-Schools (Dataquest, December 15, 2011), where the table header on Page 57 should read as Dataquest-CMR T-Schools Survey 2011. n
Transcending Boundaries
Recently, I read your article ‘Transcending Boundaries’ (Dataquest, December 15, 2011). And, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed this article. It’s an extremely relevant article that focuses on the key issues of the market. Often, a business venture fails due to its inability to address cultural and other sociological issues. Imposing a particular culture and not assimilating differences can prove a discouraging factor for the workforce at their workplace. Raj, Gurgaon
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n This is with reference to the section ‘Changing Equations’ (Dataquest, December 15, 2011). In the table ‘Scores Over the Years’, the overall ranking of IIIT Hyderabad in 2010 should read as 5. Errors are regretted—Ed visit www.dqindia.com
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ganesha
Cyber Coolies or Net Zombies—NEITHER ! DR GANESH NATARAJAN
DR GANESH NATARAJAN
The IT software industry is being blamed for all the woes of other industries such as manufacturing, hardware electronics, etc, and perceived to be converting all its lakhs of employees into brain-dead screen watchers incapable of social interaction and callous citizens of a poor country
The author is CEO of Zensar Technologies and co-chair of the National Knowledge Council of the CII. He can be reached at maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
T
he most unexpected ambush occurred at the National Convention of the Indian Institution of Industrial Engineering in Delhi where I was delivering my annual keynote in December. An eminent scientist preceded my session with a veritable diatribe on the industry, accusing it of robbing all the engineers from the manufacturing industry, turning them into internet zombies and finally losing all its business to lower cost locations in Asia. And after my attempts to clear the air on these perceptions, one eminent former Government Secretary harangued that after killing the electronics hardware industry and using tax sops to steal an unfair advantage over other industries, the cruel software exports industry was now converting all its lakhs of employees into brain dead screen watchers incapable of social interaction and callous citizens of a poor country! This series of canards and poorly researched accusations was made doubly amusing for me because this was the week of celebrations at Zensar–for our many corporate achievements during the year, for the exemplary performance of many of our associates and our annual cultural extravaganza where over 5,000 young people cheered their colleagues at an evening of fun and games. Here is an industry which has set new standards for associate relationships and fair employment practices, given lakhs of young Indians the confidence to be truly global citizens, brought prosperity to multiple middle class families and transformed communities, towns and cities in its path to a 55% market share in global offshore services and 25% of India’s exports. So what bites some people still? Some introspection brings the answers home soon enough. The natural resentment that exists when people in their late forties and fifties see people half their age enjoying a somewhat extravagant lifestyle is fortified by the occasional negative stories in the 12 | January 15, 2012
“We in the industry do have some responsibilities–to keep all our stakeholders happy and do whatever is possible to extend the beneficiaries of our industry, through affirmative action/initiatives in all countries where we make profits and helping the vast majority of Indian businesses” press about lifestyles, health hazards of staring at a screen for too long and careless headlines like “BPO Employee’s bike crashes into tree”. It is easy to ignore the success of 25 lakh young people and over 2 crore indirectly affected citizens when somebody in your family joins an engineering college and finds many of his brighter colleagues join the IT industry while he gets left behind. And easy too to blame all the ills of the rich-poor divide and the Maoism problems on the prosperous IT sector. As somebody said, the Hindu rate of growth made eminent sense because it kept most Indians reasonably poor and that meant less scope for carping and petty jealousies. Having said that, we in the industry do have some responsibilities–to keep all our stakeholders happy and do whatever is possible to extend the beneficiaries of our industry, through affirmative action initiatives in all countries where we make profits and helping the vast majority of Indian businesses–the SME manufacturing units, the kirana stores and even small traders enjoy the benefits of information technology. As one more year ends and a troubled world economy awaits us in 2012, let us resolve to keep industry morale high and every IT heart beating for the country we love!
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Policy
The Politics of Identity The Parliamentary Standing Committe’s return of the National Identification Authority Bill in its present form is not a mandate to scrap the project, though some vested interests portray it that way Shyamanuja Das shyamanujads@cybermedia.co.in
R
ecently, Google released its annual Zeitgist for 2011, that gives an idea of what people searched online globally and in a particular region throughout the year. Among the top 10 searched news/events in cricket crazy India were, not surprisingly, IPL and World Cup 2011. Events such as Japan Earthquake, F1 and Osama Bin Laden did occupy some of the other top spots, along with Lokpal and CBSE results. And then, there was the Aadhar card—a phrase that came into existence only a year earlier. With no glamour of an IPL or an F1 accompanying it, or no shock value of Japan quakes and Osama’s death associated with it, this government program’s popularity just reflects how desperately Indians long for an identity that would last a lifetime! It is not that they do not have a proof of identity. In fact, they have too many of them. Yet, every time they go to open a bank account or get a passport, they are faced with the stark reality: Despite staying in the country from your birth, voting and even paying income tax for a few decades, you still have to struggle to establish that you are a citizen of India who stays in so-andso address! The expectation from Aadhar is that it would put a stop to all that hassles. Whether the project has been able to meet that expectation—with whatever implementation progress that it has made—is, surely, a matter of debate. And that debate is healthy in a democracy, despite the extra amount of time that it adds to the rollout. With the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance sending back the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010, in its “present form” to the government, that debate has entered the public domain. This essay contributes its two cents to that debate. But to say that the program is undesirable, redundant and the project has been “rejected” (as opposed to sent back in its “present form”) is gross mis16 | January 15, 2012
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representation of the truth. As the Google data shows, people are looking for it. It is not a sensational issue that people just want to read about. Like CBSE results, it is something that is of use to them. The fact that it is not ‘Unique ID’ or ‘Unique ID bill’ or even ‘Aadhar’ but specifically ‘Aadhar card’ that they are searching for gives us a clue to what they actually are after. The debate, hence, is not about whether we need a program like this but how to go ahead implemeting it so that national effort is not duplicated, there is an optimized utilization of resources, and yet we achieve the dream. But what exactly is the dream?
The Politics
For sure, it is not to build a big database. That is, if anything, a means to achieve the big dream—inclusion. The promise on which the UPA came to power. Many of the steps and stances of the UID project that are being questioned and debated can be understood much better, if seen in that context. The UPA government understood that achieving social inclusion without achieving financial inclusion would not be practically possible. Whether it is the aggressive push by RBI to reach out to the unbanked by PSU banks, establishment of the business correspondent model to help achieve that or the Unique ID project, they are all part of the bigger plan of inclusion. The Unique ID project is the most ambitious manifestation of that dream. Dataquest, in its issue dated January 31, 2010 (that is about two years back) had pointed this out in a cover story and noted clearly that “the Unique ID project has to be seen in that context”. There can be a citizen database with an entire different objective as well. In fact, the whole concept of the Unique ID project, in the way it DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Yashwant Sinha, chairman parliamentary standing committee on finance
is being envisaged/rolled out now is just about three years old. It is only on November 4, 2008 that the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by the then external affairs minister, Pranab Mukherji, with ministers of home, IT & communications, Law and Panchayatiraj as members, approved the establishment of a Unique Identity Authority, under the Planning Commission. UIDAI Chairman Nandan Nilekani, who was outside the government at that time, had been speaking about the need for such a database for a long time. Almost a year prior to that, on December 11, 2007, on the Dataquest Annual Award Night, Nilekani, the chairman of the Dataquest Jury, in his address had passionately talked of an urgent need to create a national identity system in India. Most part of his speech was dedicated to this topic. But the concept of a national citizen database is much older. It originated during NDA rule. Way back in August 2003, an empowered council of ministers, headed by the then home minister L K Advani had agreed to create what it called the Multipurpose National Identity Card (MNIC). visit www.dqindia.com
But the objective was entirely different. A press release issues on August 21, 2003, parts of which were reproduced by Dataquest in its January 2010 story, makes it amply clear. “Illegal migration has assumed serious proportions. There should be compulsory registration of citizens and non-citizens living in India. This will facilitate preparation of a national register of citizens. All citizens should be given a Multipurpose National Identity Card (MNIC) and non-Multi-purpose National Identity Card (MNIC) and non-citizens should be issued identity cards of a different color and design. This should be introduced initially in the border districts or may be in a 20-km border belt and extended to the hinterland progressively. The Central Government should meet the full cost of the identity card scheme”. A URL, http://mnic.nic.in, which was created for the purpose was there well onto 2010. BJP again included it in its IT vision document—part of its 2009 poll manifesto—and accused the UPA government of sleeping over it. The most prominent point that the Standing Committee, headed by Yashwant Sinha, a senior minister in the NDA government, has raised just brings out that old question. “The Committee have received a number of suggestions for restricting the scope of the UID scheme only to the citizens and for considering better options available with the Government by issuing Multi-Purpose National Identity Cards (MNICs) as a more acceptable alternative,” it notes. MNIC was the NDA’s version of the Unique ID project. The primary objectives of the two projects, though their means are the same, are completely different. To measure one with the yardstick of the other, is not just unfair but would never yield any result. January 15, 2012 | 17
Policy The problem statement for NDA was India was facing a lot of illegal immigration problem. MNIC was its solution to that. The problem statement for UPA was Rajiv Gandhi’s observation two-and-a-half decades back that every one rupee spent by the government results in the desired recepient receiving only 15 paise. Unique ID project is the foundation stone on which its solution to that problem is based. The Dataquest cover story in January 2010 pointed this out unequivocally, calling the UID project as “the government’s primary vehicle for financial inclusion”. The idea in this essay is not to go into evaluating which is a more worthwhile issue to tackle but to point out that the two problem statements are separate. And hence the two solutions have to be different. We will not go anywhere trying to measure the succcess of one with the other objective in mind. What about creating something that would address both the issues and more? The National Population Register (NPR) is a step towards that direction. That would be a mega database with all the information. While that has its own questions associated with it—such as privacy, who has access to information, how do you collect reliable information, what is the cost associated with it—it is surely something worth exploring seriously. As a developing nation, we need to esnure that we do not overspend and work out avoidance of duplication of efforts. There may be cost-requirement trade-offs in certain cases that need to be decided on a case-to-case basis. But that is not reason enough to wait till we get answer to all our questions so that we can create a perfect system. That would be neither be good governance or good politics. That would be Utopia. 18 | January 15, 2012
The Gaps
But that does not mean that the Unique ID project—enrolment for which has started—has been all smooth. In fact, far from it. There are many issues that have not been properly addressed. Anyone who has been to an Aadhar enrolment camp/office would know that. The process of enrolment has been outsourced to some agencies, some of which have further subcontracted it. There are long
Two years back, Dataquest noted that the UID project was shaping up as the government’s primary vehicle for financial inclusion
queues (as in any process in India) and more often that not, the process is as efficient as the operators want. If an operator comes late, everyone has to wait. The machines work too slowly. And the entire process is very slow. On probing, the operators tell you with their wisdom that it is because it is so secure, it has to be slow. You may have heard some other pieces of wisdom. The experince in a government owned voter ID registration is much better. The agencies say it is primarily because the machines are slow. Many operators complain they get too little to do the work. visit www.dqindia.com
But the bigger problem is, the process is not in any any manner more reliable or convenient than any other such process. Biometrics is the only differentiator. And those who have managed to get the number wake up to the reality that it is just another number. This writer, while trying to help the bank account of someone opened with the card, was told sternly by the bank officer that it is yet to be accepted. On insistence, he agreed to accept it as an identity proof, not a residence proof. This bank has signed MoU with UIDAI to be a registrar for the project! While one can still give some benefit of doubt as far as enrolment is concerned, because it is a new process using new technology, the non-acceptance of Aadhar as the only thing needed to “open a bank account” , the big promise on which it has been marketed to people, is a letdown. If banks, which are supposed to be more progressive, as compared to government departments, act this way, what can one expect from babus in the government? Even if temporary, that is the big challenge before the UID project—how to ensure that its big promise is kept. Else, what is the point creating yet another identity card?
Myths & Fallacies
But all the gaps mentioned above—and there may be more such implementation issues— still do not negate the basic raison d’être of the UID project. It still is one of the most important projects of the government, promising to create a system that will bring millions of Indian citizens to the financial systems, and ultimately to be active contributors to and beneficiaries of the national economic progress and wealth creation.
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Policy Some of the fallacies have to be called out while some myths have to be busted. Here are the most important myths that are doing the round and why they should be rejected decisively: UK has scrapped it. So we must be doing something wrong. This is an argument many politicians and academicians alike have put forward. In an article in The Hindu, R Ramkumar, an associate professor in the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, called the UID project to be based on a platform of myths. His essay started by comparing the UK and India projects and concluded that since UK has scrapped the project, India has good reason to follow siut. Without going into too many technicalities, it must be pointed out that the UK system did not have clarity of purpose and right from day one, people never liked it. On the other hand, the UID project has not been an objective by itself but a platform to achieve a clear cut objective of inclusion. And the popularity of the project among common people has been decisively proved by Google Zeitgist data. But interestingly, the coalition government has started work on a similar project again. So, it is even fallacious to argue that UK has scrapped the national identity project. It has just scrapped Blair’s version of the project. Biometrics identification systems are not fool-proof. This is not an incorrect statement. But it is like Churchill’s famous assertion that democracy is bad except that it is better than all other forms of government. Biometrics has failure rates. But it is still the best known identification system today. According to International Biometrics Group studies, depending upon which biometrics system you are using, the failure rates are anywhere between 0.01% to 6.5%. For example, IRIS scores over palm 20 | January 15, 2012
apply to defaulters. It would make the entire process a little slower but there is no legal gap. The bill is not for UID project but giving statutory power to the body, which would make its functioning smoother.
Critical Issues
Nandan Nilekani, chairman UID
vein when it comes to false acceptance rate (FAR) but it has a higher false rejection rate (FRR) as well. So, typically, a combination of two or three systems are used. The UID project too is doing that. The only other option is to wait till such a time when a perfect system comes. Private agencies are involved and hence the cost goes up for the end user. The standing committee too makes this claim. It is not a UID specific reality. While we have no way of knowing if that is true or not, we need to then question the entire PPP model in everything. Toll roads charge money. Earlier, roads used to be free. CSCs also charge money. Almost every government service is today being provided at a price but are far more efficient. People seem to like it. UID is just another project, which follows the model. UID project has no clarity of purpose. As argued above, it is all about a very clear objective. Inclusion. UIDAI has gone ahead without legislative sanction. As clarified by the Planning Commission during the forming of UIDAI, till the time the authority has no statutory powers, the specific laws would visit www.dqindia.com
The Parliamentary Standing committee has raised a few very important questions while returning the bill to the government in its present form. Since the two projects, NPR and UID have a lot of things that can be combined, we, as a nation, must not duplicate efforts and cost. That has to be optimized. If money needs to be spent because we need something absolutely, that must be a decision. But just lack of coordination should not be the reason for duplicating efforts. The Standing Committee has also pointed out that National Data Protection Law, which is at draft stage, with the government must be a pre-requisite. One could not agree more. The legislation should be speeded up.
Endnote
Many are using the Parliamentary Standing Committe’s non-acceptance of the Bill in its current form as a thumbs up to their opposition to the project itself. That is clearly not true. The committee has not asked the government to scrap the project. And that must be very clear. In a democracy like India, whichever opinion one holds, one must treat these processes with utmost respect. They make your system a little slow but ensure that the best is ensured for the people. One just hopes that the government will use this as an opportunity to address the gaps that exist in the project. A project of such magnitude would always have scope for such gaps. And it is processes like these that ensure that they are addressed before it is too late. n
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Forecast
2012
With the buzzwords like information, big data and connectivity reigning at top of the minds of CXOs, success in 2012 will depend a lot on intelligent usage of the same
Special Report
Sudip Nandy CEO, Aricent Group
I
feel 2012 will belong to ubiquitous connectivity. Connectivity powered by communications and mobile technologies will lead innovations across a variety of businesses and change them for good and forever. Eighty five percent of the world’s population is covered by wireless (compared
to 80% coverage of electricity grids). Smartphones and tablets now outsell traditional desktop PCs. 2012 will see technology adapt to human behavior more than human adapting to technology. Touch will reach new dimensions and gestures/expressions will be inputs to gadgets. Connectivity now is a horizontal, rather than a vertical, that is a key ingredient to improving almost every business. To take just one example, almost everything interesting happening in healthcare is related to connectivity, social networking, or both, as healthcare systems around the world struggle to find innovative systemic solutions to sharing information, rising costs, aging populations, and living with chronic diseases. In the traditional telecom space, we see 4G/LTE beginning to roll out as network operators invest in next generation data-ready IP networks. Mobile IP traffic is growing at over 90% each year, and overall global IP traffic is expected to quadruple by 2015. 2012 will be a key year of maturation as a confluence of technologies hits the mainstream, namely: Ubiquitous mobile broadband, mobile social networking, mobile payments, cloud computing and services, and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. Analytics & Metrics will become centric on outcomes and business decisions. This will transform the intelligence tools that are being adopted by organizations. n Data center management will see more migration towards data center services as a proposition under infrastructure as a service n IT service outsourcing will see more consolidation as organizations are looking to reduce the number of service providers they are willing to handle to avoid multiple ownership of maintenance service responsibilities. n Managed print services will see more adoption. It will move towards the entire gamut of MDS that includes digitalization, archival, retrievals and workflows. This will bring more efficiency and 5Cs in the workings which are cost, control, confidentiality, convenience & collaborations. n More enterprises will subscribe to some cloud services. In fact, we will see more networking devices having ‘cloud accessibility’ as a default option. Business communication will see migration to more color printing due to better controls. n ‘Bring Your Own Devices’ will gain acceptance as the cultures undergo transformation. As mobility and social networking are increasingly becoming an integral part of personality of the new-gen workforce, there would be pressure on CIOs to connect more smart devices to their network. n
Dr Alok Bharadwaj senior VP, Canon India
I
n today’s age, IT is no longer just a tool to connect people. It is a catalyst to economic growth of a nation. IT today forms the backbone for any economic activity and development of any country. I foresee these areas to be different and progressing in 2012 in terms of technological adoption. 22 | January 15, 2012
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DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
R Chandrasekaran, president and managing director, global delivery, Cognizant
T
he increased uncertainty in the global economy, together with dynamic industry and technology changes, has put enormous pressure on businesses, they are looking for a trusted partner that will work closely with them to reduce costs and also drive innovation opportunities that are enabled by the
Rajesh Janey president, EMC India & Saarc
A
s we enter 2012, we are at the center of the two most transformative, disruptive and opportunity-rich trends in IT history—namely, hybrid cloud computing and the explosion of
Big Data. As per a study in 2011 by EMC-Zinnov ConsultDATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
forces of the future of work. Besides searching for cost savings to fund growth and innovation, businesses are increasingly looking to complement the benefit from labor arbitrage by the improved efficiency and effectiveness that third-party providers are delivering. They are focusing more intensely on operational efficiency, closely examining what activities are core to them and what should be done from somewhere by someone else. As a result, in 2012, companies will continue to drive more work and corresponding budget to a global delivery model, especially in areas such as IT infrastructure services, business process outsourcing, enterprise analytics, and engineering and manufacturing solutions, in addition to traditional application development and maintenance. Discretionary spending will increase on the back of companies embarking on transformational programs to address secular changes in their industries. Domestic and international regulations, particularly in the financial services and healthcare industries, will open up another opportunity. In this virtualized, globalized environment where new technologies like cloud computing and social networks intersect with the millennial generation, businesses will look for better ways to organize teams, cultivate innovation, allocate resources, and reinvent knowledge processes. ing, there is an increased preference of cloud adoption over the next five years in India. The study also highlights that private cloud market will create 1 lakh additional jobs in India by 2015—a big opportunity for students and the workforce. The “cloud dividend” in terms of cost-savings, better IT and ultimate business agility is now exceedingly difficult to deny. With cloud computing gaining acceptance, we are already witnessing the IT landscape going through a transformation and this is set to grow at a more rapid pace in the coming year. ‘Big Data’ refers to datasets whose size is beyond the ability of traditional enterprise technology to capture, store, manage, and analyze. We crossed over from linear growth to exponential growth in digital information well over a decade ago. Blame the internet, blame declining technology costs, blame mobile devices, and blame whatever you like. My view is that we are transitioning to an information economy. Big Data and analytics are central characters in the next chapter of this play. Information—in all its forms—is now the asset that can potentially create wealth, avoid risks, and improve our lives. And during 2012, fewer people will see this as a problem, and more people will see this as an opportunity.
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January 15, 2012 | 23
Special Report
Sunil Singh, chief, Asia Pacific & MD, India, GlobalLogic
T
he consumer is becoming tech savvy by the day, and users are taking control of the device. Globally there are about 5.3 bn mobile subscribers with 449 mn smartphone users. Exponential growth of the tablet worldwide and the audience is more likely than ever to be out of the of-
Harsh Chitale CEO, HCL Infosystems
A
midst a fluid overall environment, 2012 will see an increasing role of technology in transforming lives—in driving transparency in governance, spread of quality education, in enabling affordable healthcare and in enabling inclusive growth. In short the IT industry’s share in nation building will be on the 24 | January 15, 2012
fice, socially connected and always online. Some of the trends that will definitely rock the coming year are: Revenge of Tablet: 2012 will be the year where at last there are some serious alternatives to the iPad. This will in turn drive even greater consumer and enterprise adoption. Android created some serious competition for Apple with smartphones, it’s about to do the same with the tablet. Social goes Enterprise: For a long time corporations fought the proliferation of social networks. I predict that 2012 will be the year when most corporations start to embrace them and look for ways to harness the value. Cloud computing and storage as more and more companies are finding themselves sitting on data, without knowing what to do with it. With sensors showing up in everything, the amount of data we can gather and keep is exploding. What if all this data found its way back to the cloud? Voice has a Voice: Voice interfaces have been around a while but with Siri on the iPhone 4S you can bet voice applications are about to get a major lift. One by-product of this is that we’ll almost certainly see phones start to get smaller again. In fact it won’t be long before we’ve a phone the size of your bluetooth headset that needs no screen. rise in the coming year. Mobility will be the magic word in 2012 and will take roots in the market across different price segments. Other hot trends like 3G and LTE will be a big catalyst for spread of mobile computing and mobile internet. Cloud will become more prominent and gain more acceptances and demand for remote services will be on the upswing. Sizes of databases will continue to grow at a rapid pace which in turn will necessitate solutions to not only manage but interpret these growing mass of data—hence BI solutions that will feature predictive intelligence will be a strong trend. Some of the sizzlers of the past year will continue to stay in the news—Education, Healthcare and IT/ITeS will continue to flourish. Along with all these highs in the sector, we should also be aware of the various challenges that will create an impact. High interest rates and the overall economic mood might dampen demand in some manufacturing and SMB verticals. The Government sector which is traditionally a big buyer (about 30% of the IT Spend) will also be impacted by fiscal challenges and with slowdown in certain decisions, this sector is likely to show some lag. Prices of the hardware have already firmed up and are likely to firm up even more in early 2012 with forex impacts and escalation in component costs dues to shortages created in Thailand floods.
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DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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Special Report
Neelam Dhawan managing director, HP India
C
onsumer centric innovation, cloud computing, data analytics and security are likely to be the key themes of 2012. As the business environment gets tougher with slower GDP growth, depreciating rupee valuation and tighter monetary policies, businesses will need to look inwards
Pradeep Bindal President, India Business, HCL Technologies
F
rom an IT industry perspective, we will see more deals coming through due to vendor consolidation; we will also see CIO’s demanding more value for the same money spent. Organizations will use technology not only to cut operational expenditure but to expand business and prepare 26 | January 15, 2012
to see how they can better optimize capital expenditure and their IT infrastructure. Cloud computing has begun to transform the IT landscape, from creation of infrastructure to developing applications, platforms and ecosystems for public, private and hybrid clouds. Cloud computing also brings associated business requirements in terms of security, interoperability and manageability. All these requirements present business opportunities in unstructured and structured data analytics, remote infrastructure services, security solutions and managed services. Mobility will continue to be a key theme and businesses and consumers will look at PCs, and mobile computing platforms to stay connected and meet both the demands of their personal and professional lives simultaneously. Thinner, lighter and more powerful form factors such as ultrabooks and tablets should see increased traction and the use cloud platforms to deliver web services such as e-printing, pay-per-use services, e-commerce and entertainment-on-the-go should see more traction. Finally, managing the explosion of information and extracting meaning from that data to drive insight, foresight and better decision making will also be a key technology driver in 2012. ground for future growth. Hence, they will align IT with business needs. The year 2012 will see CIOs focus on Business aligned IT (BAIT) and how IT can contribute in achieving larger business objectives. Most CIOs will build their IT strategy around the three pillars of Business Aligned IT – Performance Improvement, Operations Transformation and Cost Optimization. Performance Improvement can be achieved by developing an IT environment in a way that it helps in achieving business objectives like reduced time to market, lower inventory cost or increased customer satisfaction. CIOs looking to survive and flourish in 2012 will align these business objectives with their IT landscape so that they can deliver value to their organization. Operations Transformation will be achieved by analyzing the value delivered by IT investment and how this can be increased without increasing the investment. CIOs would be looking to simplify their IT environment and partner with a vendor who can transform the way operations are run. The change in 2012 will be that CIOs would look for strategic cost and performance management and not just cost optimization. We will see adoption of flexible and advanced engagement models such as Pay as you go which will help them adapt better to economic realities and grow exponentially.
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DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Hanuman Tripathi group managing director, Infrasoft Technologies
Y
ear 2011 was a rare year where new technology models emerged to leapfrog the banking industry’s reach to the masses. Primarily for the smaller banks, Core Banking on Cloud provided a very promising alternative to on-premises installation leading to several advantages, which ex-
R Sivakumar, managing director, sales & marketing group, Intel South Asia
C
onsumers have driven technology adoption for the better part of the last decade. 2011 saw the Smartphone get legitimized in the Indian market as a usable and affordable internet access device, particularly among value conscious buyer. Indians were looking for always-on, always-connected, DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
tended beyond costs. The next most important landmark has been growth of NPCI’s network which will promote Mobile Banking in India in the coming years. Government’s agenda on Financial Inclusion has also encouraged co-operative banks to enhance their reach & services base. In addition, we see there will be more focused approach to BI based applications in financial services industry in India. This is obviously the next step after adoption of core systems in most industries worldwide. Additionally, enhanced competition, vistas opened by mobile platforms and uncertain market conditions will also cause BI to take a center stage. The other new areas of certain growth will be Business Process Management and Workflow Enablement, because these are real tools that will help to enhance productivity in changing business conditions. We definitely see smaller banks all over India slowly accepting shared services model (Cloud services, ASP, SaaS etc) by deploying Core Banking. This will open a new leaf in IT industry, will strengthen co-operative banking industry and will generally improve economic health of the lower strata of banks as well as boost financial inclusion. Lastly, mobile will propel internet usage in India and will cause humongous leverage on services delivery in untouched geographies of the country. mobile devices for near ubiquitous connectivity to the internet. Thus devices across screen sizes from laptops to tablets to smartphones will need to have day-long battery life that allows the user to access information anytime, anywhere. These are not new trends, but a combination of ingredient and platform technologies have made them increasingly possible. Growth in consumer oriented services has paralleled this expansion of devices that allow easy access to the internet. E-commerce sites enabling basic shopping have dominated the first wave. However, as the consumer legitimizes online trade the experience will get more sophisticated driven by growth in connectivity and incorporation of newer payment methods, visual and security computing technologies. Today the laptop and smartphone represent “musthave” platforms for most consumers, spanning the spectrum between rich usage and ultra-mobility. A number of platforms in the middle today occupy the “nice-to-have” space. However, as end user lives get populated by devices of many different form factors the need for seamless access across them will be needed, representing a “compute continuum” where data can be moved around and in an increasingly secure manner. In addition, solutions and services will increasingly define consumer platforms that are locally relevant and solve unique problems. Ad meliora!
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January 15, 2012 | 27
Special Report
Amar Babu managing director, Lenovo India
T
echnology is a dynamic business to be in. It never ceases to evolve, and I think that 2012 will be yet another year of surprises. The traditional handheld has transformed
Vishnu R Dusad CEO and managing director, Nucleus Software
O
ver the last few years, it has become an imperative for the Banking and Financial Services industry to develop the capabilities and intelligence to make informed decisions and build a more customer centric eco28 | January 15, 2012
into so much more than a mobile calling device; computers are getting thinner, sleeker, smarter, PCs are slowly fading out of attention, and tablets have made their grand entry into our lives. In my opinion, the future lies in devices that will be able to integrate multiple functions—content consumption, content creation, and entertainment, gaming, and so on. Portability, ease of use, convenience and mobility will be the propellers of this change. While the pure-play computing device will never go out of style, 2012 will also see a greater move to the cloud. Consumers will increasingly demand content that is not directly hosted on their machines, workplaces will see a growing number of personal and professional devices, and an inevitable convergence of the two will take place. The need to be mobile and social will take precedence. And finally, I think the future will reassert the P of the PC/PDA. Devices will become more personal, customized, and smart. Individuals will be more connected, content will be increasingly consumed on-the-go, social networks will become all-pervasive, and the boundaries between work and play will blur even more. system. Mobile-centric applications and interfaces with the exponentially increasing adoption of mobile devices by masses has triggered the use of these devices for various transactions. Banks and financial services institutions will increasingly adopt cloud services in the coming year. While most of the organizations are expected to adopt private cloud, organizations will deploy public or hybrid clouds as well depending on their need and investment capacity. Product companies face the challenge of data loss prevention, the challenge is to identify and protect confidential information to prevent data breaches, reduce the risk of external attacks and the insider threat. The companies will focus on deploying most appropriate DLP solutions in the upcoming quarters. Thousands of customers are being added to the banking sector every year. With this increasing database, identifying customers and ensuring accurate and timely information for better customer service, is becoming difficult. Customer centric solutions with customer information file (CIF) number focused on having a consolidated overview of the customer and the respective accounts helps Banks to offer better services and solutions to customers and delight them.
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DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Special Report
Sandeep Mathur MD, Oracle India
I
n the past 12 months, I have never seen more excitement in the enterprise IT marketplace with emergence of new technologies and themes. Cloud computing widened its market acceptance, real-time and decisive analytics paved the way for standard analytics functionalities, big data has sown its seeds and I know this will become
Anil Batra MD, Riverbed Technology India
W
ith CIO budgets being squeezed further and terms like cloud computing, big data, and desktop virtualization growing to be buzz words among the enterprise; predicting what will emerge as key trends in the digital era becomes imperative. In my opinion, 30 | January 15, 2012
a big game changer in the next 2 to 3 years. We expect the cloud to move from boardroom conversations to reality and many organizations will evolve their consolidated infrastructure to a self-service private cloud— offering the same flexibility and incremental cost advantages to end users as public clouds do, but with less perceived risk and greater assurances of security and accountability. In 2012, some or all of these significant trends will very likely converge. As social and mobile computing in enterprise infrastructure make a greater impact, the unstoppable onslaught of consumer technology—mobile devices will become more central to our on-the-go, professional and personal lives—will push enterprises to facilitate greater collaboration between individuals and teams to create solutions that encompass a broad range of social tools designed to capture information from people, enterprise applications and business processes. Another significant trend that will make an impact in 2012 is an urge to do deeper and more sophisticated analysis of both structured and unstructured data. For decades, companies have been making business decisions based on transactional data stored in relational databases. Beyond that critical data, however, is a potential treasure trove of nontraditional, less/multi structured data like weblogs, social media, email, sensors, device logs and images that can be mined for useful information. some of the trends that will be shaping the coming year include: n The growth of rich internet applications such as video, mobile applications, and cloud based applications leading to increase in data growth n Web page optimization will become increasingly desirable as underperforming data stored in the public cloud will grow faster than expected as cloud storage prices continue to decline. Hybrid cloud will emerge as a hot trend as an increase in flexible APIs and interoperability with existing IT assets will grow steadily n With the growth of networked devices including smartphones, tablets, and the adoption of cloud based services, computing will become even more ubiquitous. By the end of 2012, the number of web-enabled smartphones and tablets will surpass the number of PCs in use n The continued consumerization of IT and increased mobility will spur the adoption of SaaS based applications n With maturing trends such as cloud computing, virtualization, and virtual desktops, a growing number of organizations will own lesser IT assets n Video usage in the enterprise is expected to gain momentum
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DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Special Report
Peter Gartenberg managing director, SAP India
C
ompanies need IT that not only support their businesses, but can also adapt to the needs of this business network. In the coming years, with the proliferation of low-cost smartphones/ tablet devices, and the availability of high-speed internet connectivity, a large section of the population accessing
Ajay Goel managing director, Symantec India and Saarc
A
s we begin a new year, we are in the midst of significant changes in the business and technology environment. Information has become the most valuable asset; it is a key differentiator for market leaders in the knowledge economy and protecting it from theft and 32 | January 15, 2012
the internet will choose a handset over a desktop as their primary device. This will lead to a convergence of Social and Mobile computing—changing how information is accessed and used in business operations. Given this backdrop, we at SAP clearly see 3 key trends emerging: Mobility: In the next two years, almost all the computing experiences in the world will go through a smart device. Today, smartphones and tablets are outselling PCs as companies increasingly allow, and even encourage employees to bring their consumer devices into the workspaces and access corporate applications. Real-time Computing: Complexity is growing, providing organizations with more data to manage, more decisions to make and less overall certainty. Organizations today see information automation as the next step to business process automation to enable cost effective management of large data volumes, provide current and complete information and more importantly, get immediate answers to any questions. Cloud Offerings: Hybrid cloud will be a major focus in 2012. They are fast becoming the norm—Organizations will choose services for different purposes, from both public and private clouds and integrate with ‘on-premise’ solutions. Companies will manage mission-critical data and business processes either in a private cloud or ‘on-premise’. misuse—by sophisticated cyber attackers as well as malicious/negligent insiders—is a growing concern. Yet as digital data grows in volume—managing and securing the most critical data can be a challenge as it drowns under a sea of non-critical information. It is evident that faced with the onslaught of newer and more sophisticated cyber attacks, traditional approaches are obsolete. That’s why we believe the security industry is heading in a new direction, beyond traditional fingerprint/behavior based detection. As information volumes grow, critical information such as intellectual property often gets buried under a sea of non-critical, often unstructured information such as emails, documents etc. In order to ensure that information is secure and well-managed, enterprises first need to understand where their most critical data resides and who owns it. Cloud and virtualization really dominated conversations in 2011, and we did see virtualization adoption increase. But the reality is that enterprises have not virtualized all of their IT infrastructure—rather, physical and virtual assets need to seamlessly work together. For this, the business first needs to have visibility into the virtual machine; they need to be able to look inside so they can secure, protect, back-up and recover the virtual machine as well as the data.
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DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Raj Mruthyunjayappa, senior VP and managing director, Talisma Corporation
2
012 will continue to see the emergence of many definitions of customer experience management and I don’t see any consensus emerging in this area anytime soon. The coming year will see business spending more on areas such as business intelligence, consumer sentiment analysis
Amit Nath country head, Trend Micro India & Saarc
H
igh profile attacks will continue to hit major organizations in 2012. Important and critical company data will be extracted through malware infection and hacking. These information can be leaked through DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
and exploring the mobile wallet. Businesses will strengthen their technology initiatives to listen, connect, engage and respond to customers changing needs and work towards demolishing silos in managing customer experiences. Since the economy is still in recovery mode, the focus will clearly be on getting more from existing customer relationships. This would mean investment in understanding customer priorities and personalizing customer experience. So businesses will keep a hawk’s eye on points of sale, transaction and interaction to learn more about their customers. Brand conversations on social media will also be harvested to a greater extent to understand customer behavior, feedback and gain a complete view of them. Business owners are already assigning customers individual ranking based on their ability to influence prospects and buying behavior of other customers and this process will gather momentum in 2012. With customer spending expected to stay steady or even decline, business will seek innovative ways to engage the customer in loyalty programs and this is where personalized customer experience comes in. All the information they have collected on their customers will be used to incentivize transactions in relatively cheaper channels. Overall I feel 2012 will be the year of learning for businesses. sniffing and intrusion; intrusion to servers, exploiting vulnerabilities and placed attack tool to establish the path to get into the whole system. As a result significant data loss incidents will ensure potentially affecting thousands of users and the personal information. The incidents can result in significant direct and indirect losses to concerned parties. That’s why it is extremely critical to hub and ideal server security mechanism in place. In 2012, more and more CXOs will be looking at ideal server security systems which should prevent intrusion, detect intrusion at the earliest and detect information leakage. The real challenge for data center owners will be the increasing complexities of securing physical, virtual, and cloud-based systems. While attacks specifically targeting virtual machines (VMs) and cloud computing services remain a possibility, attackers will find no immediate need to resort to these because conventional attacks will remain effective in these new environments. Virtual and cloud platforms are just as easy to attack but more difficult to protect. The burden will thus fall on IT administrators who will have to secure their company’s critical data as they adopt these technologies.
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January 15, 2012 | 33
Special Report
T Srinivasan MD, VMware Inc India & Saarc
W
e do see some clear trends emerging in the year ahead. Some thoughts on what is likely to be hot in 2012 are as under: Software Defined Networking will become a mainstay of data center architectures and 2012 will begin to see the deployment of SDN techniques
Shouvick Mukherjee VP and CEO, Yahoo! India R&D
O
ne of the key trends in 2012 that tech industry will witness is the way interfaces between man and machine will change this year. The technology driving gesture control, voice command, motion and facial recognition are likely to see incorporation of these concepts in devices like mobile 34 | January 15, 2012
including network virtualization, logical networks and software controllers, as server virtualization, massive consolidation and convergence, and mobility requirements begin to expose the shortcomings and expense of existing static, IP based, 3-tier data center networking. The security industry status quo is due for a major overhaul, with emphasis shifting towards proactive, and security guards moving closer to the resources being protected. With the crumbling perimeter due to mobility and omnipresent HTTP, perimeter defense is no longer sufficient, necessitating bringing security controls closer to critical resources ie, data center cluster based, or even hypervisor based security. The continued rise of big data and big analytics with enterprises looking to harness all of the information they connect. They speak to high-scale, real-time data analytics, ultimately helping companies provide better service, gain better insight, and spend their time and money more wisely. These apps will trigger new architectural foundations as well. We’re already seeing the rise of in-memory databases as well as more leverage of distributed systems for scale. Continued growth in “Open PaaS” with huge growth in adoption with offerings like “Cloud Foundry” gaining rapid momentum and PaaS area is critical to turn the hype cycle of cloud into reality. phones, laptops, tablets and TVs. This will change how these machines interact with humans. Cloud computing will continue to gain momentum this year. As enterprises warm up to cloud computing and as the cloud services mature, we are going to see a steep increase in the interest for cloud services. We’re now getting to the point where everything we deploy is done in a service-oriented way, and cloud is being simply accepted as the delivery platform for applications and services. While the web is becoming increasingly fragmented between PC, TV, mobile and tablets, users are starting to expect a consistent and seamless experience across every screen. This device explosion has lead developers to build web application frameworks which use a single code base across platforms to ensure a seamless migration for users from one device to another without disrupting their browsing experience. The internet experience will go beyond simple connectivity across devices—users will be able to move from once device to another seamlessly discovering, engaging, and sharing the media and content that’s most important to them. Personalization with the huge amount of content available to users on the web, connecting people with fast, easy and intuitive digital experiences through personalization will a be a key trend this year. n
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Vertical: IT for NGOs
IT is Also for the Minimalist Leading Indian NGOs have been proactive in adopting newer technologies like cloud, SaaS, to not only bring down capex but also reduce the pain of managing the IT Akanksha Prasad
akankshap@cybermedia.co.in
applications Smile Foundation has also saved cost across board.”
On Cloud Already
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nformation Technology is not a luxury but a need, a necessity in everyday life/everyday business and functioning. When technology becomes indispensable, one cannot hold but spend. And the next question is the pocket. How and where do you spend? With limited budgets, it becomes critical how judiciously you choose between hardware, software, networking applications keeping in line with the growth plans. A non-profit organization faces this question every time. According to a media report, India is having close to the largest number of not-for-profit organizations, and that possibly there is one NGO for approximately every 400 Indians. Spread in small clusters, NGOs form an active vertical for information technology service providers. All NGOs are tied with the common goal of social development of children, women, old, poor, or needy and for. For this, the organizations are looked up with respect. But one of the most important factors questioned is transparency of their funds. And IT has been a major help here. “For an NGO like us, our goodwill is our asset and IT helps us in making the work efficient and transparent,” says Baljeet Asthana, director, information technology, HelpAge India. Adds, Santanu Mishra, executive trustee, Smile Foundation, “IT for us has not only been crucial in complying with transparency mechanism and good governance as a whole but also been making the operations much easier. By inducting relevant and cost effective IT 36 | January 15, 2012
HelpAge India, for example, recently adopted the ERP and on-demand CRM. According to Asthana, various questions came up when she first proposed the plan for implementing on-demand solution. “It took us around 6-7 months just to understand the scenario and the need for ERP. But given the apparent benefit of systematic flow of information, transparent track of funds and investments, thankfully we could convince our management to extend the budget for this implementation,” she adds. Helpage India had an infranet application based on Microsoft sharepoint technology. This was developed by an in-house team. They also deployed an application for registering the IT services requests across all locations/ center of HelpAge India and managing escalations. Child Rights and You (CRY) India has been another forward-looking organization that evaluated cloud. It is currently using cloud based Microsoft online services for all web conference requirements and exploring further possibilities in this direction. It also implemented various modules of ERP. Another leading organization, Smile Foundation has been on cloud for almost two years now and deployed many customized applications for various programs to look at project management as well as data security. It has a GPS based digital monitoring system of projects and a few low-cost custom-made applications like data management systems, webcast, project monitoring systems, digital monitoring system based on GPS etc. These are integrated in functions such as accounting, project management, donor reporting, and sensitization of masses. Beyond the known names, smaller organizations too are taking the IT route. Established in 1936, Kalakshetra is dedicated to preservation of the traditional values of Indian art in music, dance and visual art. The organization had a paper based student management system.
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Vertical: IT for NGOs One of the major reasons for adopting cloud is the ease of manageability so that the organization can spend the minimum needed for the maintenance and operational aspects and look forward to newer technologies.
Skilled Manpower Baljeet Asthana
Sridhar Guduthur,
director, Information GM, IT, CRY India Technology HelpAge India
Santanu Mishra, executive trustee, Smile Foundation
It is now working towards creating an architectural framework, technical design and processes document for a centralized system and database for all Kalakshetra business units. Govind Venkatesan, project consultant, Kalakshetra, says, “An NGO runs very much like any other firm, but they have more constraints than the other firms and need IT support system to track their process which involves large data from across various units. We had a system for managing student data, finances, library, payroll etc, but that was not enough. There were loopholes and we lacked a complete integrated suite to manage all the discreet processes.” In partnership with IBM, the organization process of putting an integrated IT system to better manage administration, finance, HR, student records and library records, among other tasks of the organization. Praxis Institute for Participatory Practices is another NGO committed to poor and marginalized sections of the society. It runs a project, 365x6 with the support of BMGF (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). The project helps in building networks of community based organizations (CBOs) and other forms of collectives of female sex workers (FSW), men having sex with men (MSM), transgender people (TG) and injecting drug users (IDU). It plans to set up Information and Facilitation Centers or community participation information hubs that would provide information on government schemes, employment opportunities, healthcare assistance, etc. It is working on a business plan with IBM to build services, technology, applications, and staffing.
Shoestring Budgets
While the typical budget in an organization is around a percent of their overall funds, this largely goes in ensuring upgrade and maintenance. Sridhar Guduthur, GM, IT, CRY India shared that the IT department in a non-profit organization needs to have a hawk’s eye on the available technology and solutions, in terms of infrastructure & software solutions. This requires a constant check on available technology and solutions relevant to the non-profit sector, and optimizing the available options for the organization. 38 | January 15, 2012
Another important aspect to be looked at is unlike any other firm, irrespective of size, these organizations face the bigger issue of availability of skilled professionals. CRY India has an IT team of 6 for operations across 5 branches in the country. And they feel that biggest challenge has been in finding the right mix for infrastructure and business process mapping expertise. As Mishra shares, Smile Foundation has a small IT team of two people, supported by a few volunteers and a couple IT firms. It is always difficult to work in the absence of an in-house staff of minimum strength. He says, “One of the most difficult tasks has always been planning of the software. It requires a lot of attention as most of our application are used by our grassroots partners and, many a time, non-technical staff members. Also an important aspect is the internet penetration in our project areas spread across India. So we try putting more efforts on planning the application. Maintenance has also been a demanding and costly process.” Despite the constraints while the organizations continued paving their ways to adopt IT, several IT companies like Cisco, Microsoft, and Oracle among the leading names have been assisting NGOs by donating free software, solutions thus helping fulfill their dreams. Microsoft, for example, was seen providing free licenced software to these organizations. Other organizations like Ybrant Digital and BITSCAPE have been supporting partners for Smile Foundation, while CRY received aid from Eagle Conferencing for tele-conferencing requirement, Net Magic Solutions for hosting its web servers, D-Link and Cisco for networking components, Mncebiz and Symmetry Infotech for software solutions. HelpAge India got support from Microsoft for the Sharepoint licences. And there have been examples like TechSoup, a non-profit that looks at providing other non-profits and libraries with technology.
The Future
While CRY is further evaluating cloud and virtualization, Smile Foundation plans to introduce virtual classrooms to connect remote centers and similarly introduce a tele-medicine solution. An internet channel for project monitoring is another innovation in the pipeline. NGOs are no longer hesitating to adopt technology, especially leapfrogging the technology where they would pay lesser for capex and management. n
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Vertical: Case Study
Winning Winrock Deploying Microsoft software and standards helped Winrock International optimize the workflow, productivity and manage database Akanksha Prasad
W
akankshap@cybermedia.co.in
inrock International India(WII), based in Gurgaon, Haryana, is a non-profit organization working for natural resources management, energy, and environment, and climate change. The organization has around 70 employees with centers across Hyderabad, Kawardha (Chhattisgarh), Baripada (Orissa), Bhopal, Lucknow and Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh). WII primarily looks after encouraging the use of natural resources, managing them in a sustainable manner so that they are reusable and available in abundance. They educate the communities about the global climate change and the need to develop a long-term strategy for the rural regions to adopt use of natural resource in daily lives that are ecologically friendly and easily accessible in their areas as well. As a part of the task, the team travelled to villages across the centers, promoting the use of renewable resources, reducing carbon usage in daily. This included building communities, institutions, and group for people. They organized workshops and training classes on several occasions. While they accrued the hardware long back, they realized the need for software upgrade. With tight budgets purchasing new licences software was a distant plan. The organization recently deployed Microsoft Office 2010 Standard, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 40 | December 31, 2011
and Client License for Server and Exchange in their infrastructure. As a result of it, they could optimize the work flow and productivity, manage database, maintain the records and work efficiently with the latest in technology. They learned about the BiGTech software donation program. BiG Tech was launched in August 2007, under the NASSCOM Foundation, wherein companies were offered free licensed software. This program was launched in partnership with TechSoup, a US based non-profit organization. WII registered for the program and after the due diligence, they received the software from server to hardware level. The President of Winrock International India, Dr KinsukMitra said to Nasscom, “We were in the middle of a crisis when our old server reached its maximum limit and we were faced with the task to upgrade the hardware and software.” With the help of the new donated New Microsoft Office 2010 software, WII can prepare documents, spread sheets, and presentations in a far better and easier manner that previously, as well as be able to optimize the work flow and productivity. Mitra goes on to add, “This has helped our organization very much in terms of costs as well as providing our employees with new and licensed software which also helps in productivity and work flow. The funds saved are now utilized for other strategic marketing work.” n
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Vertical: Case Study
Planning for the next move Chennai-based CFDA was faced with the issue of duplication of job by saving the data in multiple medium and the fear of loss of data, which is a crucial factor for the villagers
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Akanksha Prasad
akankshap@cybermedia.co.in
entre for Development Alternatives (CFDA) was formed in the year 1990 by a group of development professionals for aiding under-served population. Started as a team of 3, lead by Jayachandran Rajarethinam, CFDA started providing institutional credit services for the low-income groups. They built a micro financial service in 1995 for women from these low-income groups by promoting savings and credit centered micro bank groups. CFDA today serves around 1,500 households spread across 4-6 villages providing credit worthiness and financial management of women. For more than 15 years this entire process was complete pen-paper based, where a determined team of 5 volunteers would visit the villages on a stipulated day of the week, and collect the money, data manually on papers. This data was, then, fed to the computers in the Chennai based head office. The data was fed manually in the excel sheets and maintained under individual accounts. The organization uses its customized program for consolidation. At present, this in-house application helps in maintaining individual financial record but they plan to introduce another functionality of consolidation that would help in classifying the individual accounts into various levels like group, family, cluster and village. While the organization was planning to increase its reach and support to more villages, they were facing the 42 | December 31, 2011
issue of duplication of job by saving the data in multiple medium, and the fear of loss of data, which is a crucial factor for the villagers. On the other hand, the organization was also facing a huge challenge from the other micro financing firms, which were making inroads in these villages. Says Jayachandran Rajarethinam, CEO, CFDA, “We look forward to expanding our services to other remote villages, and are in talks with the local government of respective villages, but we realized that with our limited team, we were increasing the risk-factor and wanted to adopt a solution to make our functioning more effective. And given the competition from other micro-finance firms, it was becoming important to fix the necessary loopholes and then expand.” The organization got aid from IBM’s Corporate Service Corps (CSC). Under this, IBM experts, Frederic Lavigne (France) and Jana Dudova Chlebusova (Slovakia) took on the project to create a technology plan for CFDA. The preparations for the project started at the IBM office 3 months prior to India visit. They spent a month on location (at Chennai), and the next two months back at IBM sharing their experience with the IBM teams. The team is looking at introducing a low-cost mobile platform, which can help in data collection and feeding the data in the office reducing the errors. It is also toying with the idea of introducing smart card for the villagers, that will further enable process led banking, setting a PC center, etc. n
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CIO of the Month
To each his own... It’s been an interesting debate: Public sector versus the private sector CIO and challenges, and to give due credit to the CIOs of the respective sectors. To be fair, while the private sector CIO has the freedom of decision-making, but it is the public sector CIOs who notwithstanding the challenges of mindset and longer decision-making cycles manage to come out triumphant and implement technologies that are changing the way India works. But with cloud computing and consumerization of technology that gap is fast diminishing. Here, we ask 4 CIOs from the public and private sector to list out their challenges and opportunities RUKHSAR SALEEM, SHILPA SHANBHAG, AVISHEK RAKSHIT, AKANKSHA PRASAD maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
Technology at a Competitive Cost
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e all know that technology has considerably speeded up the operations and changed the ways organizations have worked, irrespective of the fact whether they belonged to the public or the private sector. But the fact, which is of greater significance, is the noticeable change in the approach/outlook of the top management of the public sector, which still follows a long procedure of approvals at various levels before reaching any final conclusion. On the other hand, public sector organizations always enjoy the availability of budgets for any new any technology adoption and implementation. The real challenge for the CIOs of public sector is to introduce/upgrade/implement technology to improve manpower productivity in a major way, without increasing the headcount and cost associated with it. “Therefore the need for increased productivity of the employees keeps them on toes to look for the best solutions in the market. For example, none of the products available for workflow management were suitable for our power domain, so we had to customize the product as per our need with the help of our in-house IT team. Now that product is considered so valuable 44 | January 15, 2012
RK Chauhan additional general manager, IT, EOC NTPC
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in the industry that major technology players want to partner with us to market it globally,” says RK Chauhan, additional general manager, IT, EOC, NTPC. Another aspect which is also equal importance is the scale of these PSUs. For that Chauhan says, “We are a very big organization spread over different geographies. And, it adds to our advantage as most of the projects are similar, so we can run pilot projects in one location and can easily replicate in other locations depending on the results.” He then goes on to list out the advantages of working with a management that is IT-savvy: “Our senior management has a clear focus: To make best of the technical
advancement, so we are on a look out for better storage management and Data Leakage Protection (DLP) in the coming year after successfully integrating network switches with the dissimilar platforms and open protocols this year,” informs Chauhan. So CIOs have a hectic, but planned, charter for the whole year to deploy/improve technology judiciously at a competitive cost to add convenience to the working of the employees. Therefore they have to religiously work in synergy with the strategic goals of the organization, to understand the actual need and then use technology products that are either available in the market or customize them accordingly.
Do More with Less in the Private Sector
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urrently, there exists a big divide between the 2 functions: Private sector CIO and public sector CIO, with each set vouching for its advantages on a bigger picture. This picture can be aptly described as ‘tendering versus non-tendering’ scenario. “As a private sector CIO, I would definitely vouch for my position and not like to trade shoes with any of my counterparts from the public sector,” shares Vijaykumar Talreja, director, IT, Ambit Holdings. Recounting his experience, Talreja informs, “I would support being a private sector CIO has its own advantages from one particular experience. We had to implement a project of migrating a business-critical equities trading application from a very old version to the latest version, which no other broker in India had implemented, having multiple internal as well as external stakeholders, in a very short period of time. We took on the challenge knowing fully well that we were getting into an uncharted territory, where the risks were very high. We created a team comprising of members from all relevant internal functions, as well as the vendor, and implemented the project successfully in time due to excellent teamwork and full support from the management, thereby becoming the first and only brokerage house in India to implement this latest version. Had it been a government concern, we would not have been able to deliver this project on time; but considering the fact that it is a private concern, we were fully empowered to do whatever it takes and turn the implementation into a memorable experience.” DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Vijaykumar Talreja director, IT, Ambit Holdings
For any IT procurement, Talreja undergoes a detailed technical and commercial evaluation of proposals received from 3 vendors as a part of the IT procurement process. After evaluation on various parameters, the best-fit vendor is awarded the deal. “With the size and scale of IT projects for most public sector concerns, it offers them more clout with the vendors
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January 15, 2012 | 45
CIO of the Month and the advantage to procure IT equipment at a lesser rate as compared to the private sector companies. The private sector offers the CIO with more empowerment for decision-making, more flexibility, and absence of bureaucracy that flavor the corridors of a public sector concern. But the advantages are lined with bigger responsibilities also. There is always the need to be highly accountable and bear the pressure on costs with
ease. The mantra is to do more with less in the private sector,” feels Talreja. Looking at the road ahead, with the advent of cloud computing services, increasing consumerization of IT, etc, the divide between CIOs from both these segments is expected to diminish. Both are expected to be on the same plane, but the only differentiating factors are expected to be their scale and bureaucracy.
The Need for Constraint
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he question of adaptability and upgradation of systems in the public sector units has for long been a pertinent question in the PSUs, with CIOs and heads of IT departments often complaining of the slow movement of internal policies, applications, and user adaptability of IT at large. However this has not hampered the process, as Indian PSUs are fast gearing up to IT optimization to untangle the complexity of technology for its users by providing a user-ready interface for its employees. For a Maharatna company like Coal India, the task of optimizing IT across its divisions is nevertheless easy or straightforward. Recently, the company has rolled out its largest and most ambitious IT project of implementing ERP across its offices and mines as well as opt for a 3-tier enterprise solutions project. Estimated at around `700 crore, the project includes `500 crore of IT purchases in the hardware and support category and `200 crore for software, solutions, and maintenance slot. The project is out for grab for the SIs and Coal India will be resorting to ‘schematic adaptation’ of the project. However PSUs have their own challenges and resources, as pointed out by Partha Pratim Mitra, GM, systems, Coal India. According to Mitra, the major benefit of the CIO working with a PSU is the availability of resources at ease. “We have good manpower, apt to handle the IT scenario across our branches. Not only is the PSU CIO blessed with an abundant pool of experienced talents for a project, but what I infer from the trend in the industry is that a major chunk of people from private industry and IIT freshers are taking up PSUs as a career choice.” According to him, already over 1,000 joining letters have been issued by Coal India to IT professionals in a recent recruitment project. Also, the gigantic scale of the projects undertaken often by the PSUs is another fact that a PSU CIO can be optimistic of. “The gigantic scale of deployments and national rollouts gives the entire core IT team scope to enhance and enrich their experience.” True to the state46 | January 15, 2012
Partha Pratim Mitra GM, systems, Coal India
ment, projects in the Maharatna companies often exceed crores of rupees. Like any business unit, the PSUs have their own challenges and norms, and the CIO is no exception to the system. The primary objectives of the Indian PSUs were not profit maximization or business needs but to secure national control over resources and bring it to the masses at the most feasible pricing possible. Also, employment generation was another core objective and, true to its essence, the PSUs can be considered to be successful in this approach.
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However what puts down the CIO at times is the factor of the lag and the decision-making process, including the internal hierarchy. “We have to abide by the hierarchy and in this process often decisions are hampered or temporary halted. It’s not always the case to be taken in the negative sense, but I think it’s also needed as we have to keep in mind the objective of the
PSUs as well as the amount (monetary) of deployments we undertake.” With IT playing a major role in the government sector and PSUs and state units gearing up to the latest in technology, CIOs in the public sector units are poised to play the most crucial role in evolving the Maharatnas into a new and tech-savvy India.
Never Been There
“T
he choice between working for the public or the private sector is all a matter of individual choice and preference,” shares Gopalakrishna L, group CIO, Emmvee Toughened Glass and Photovoltaics. In his previous stints, he has worked with renowned organizations like 3M and Smithkline Beecham India, etc. Certain factors like age, family, work time of 8 hours, and low risk are some of the advantages of working in a PSU; however as the dynamics are changing, IT is becoming a business decision and we hear talks about the CIOs/CTOs making it to board level of privatelyheld firms. This is big inspiration for the CIOs: To think beyond and work for a private firm. The competitive environment has definitely brought a similarity in the functioning of CIOs across the firms, but freedom of decision-making, onus of risk, leadership, and agility have been and continue to be major difference. By nature, PSUs have a defined process for all functions and work in silos. Gopalakrishna shares, “In a few instances, I have received approvals in a reply to my email. This quick decision-making would have been impossible in a PSU scenario, which would have made all my plans go haywire and perhaps lose to competition, which would result in loss in business.” Another advantage that Gopalakrishna finds working in the private firm is that he reports directly to the managing director at Emmvee Toughened Glass and Photovoltaics. The CFO will, but naturally, always look at finance, hence the interfaces that do not touch finance directly may not be looked at seriously, including IT; although working under the CEO, the CIO can identify the need of IT and business gain from IT well in advance and this decision and approval comes as a secondary step in the overall business growth plan. The CIOs working in private firms are said to be agile, proactive, and risk-taking. However in a private firm, failure is directly connected to performance DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Gopalakrishna L, group CIO, Emmvee Toughened Glass and Photovoltaics
and can bring bigger repercussions. According to Gopalakrishna, while the onus of any decision and its failure falls on the CIO, what matters is the approach; the CIO needs to judge the risk-factor in the decision and keep the management informed about it. Gopalakrishna had a similar experience when he was insisting on implementing SAP ERP for 2 legal entities. It was complicated and required a lot of discipline, automation tools, and even shifting the data center from one location to another. He adds, “I had visualized and suggested to my team that in order to move to newer technologies and safeguard the future from a bigger risk, it was important to take the stride. Again, it’s important to have that complete visibility of risk involved and chances of failure but also have the confidence of making it through.” n
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January 15, 2012 | 47
Glimpse the future This March 2012, join CEOs,CTOs,CIOs, innovators, scientists, investors and policy makers from across India’s only Emerging Technologies showcase convention – EmTech India 2012! As India takes its place among the leading nations in emerging technologies, EmTech India gives you an opportunity to learn, network and speak alongside decision makers from across all verticals.
Be the first to know and Stay ahead of the curve!
Why attend EmTech India 2012? The largest Innovation congregation in India. Discover critical innovations across the technology spectrum, in industries including energy, biomedicine, web, computing, communications, manufacturing, materials, aerospace, infrastructure, BFSI. O Showcase the most important emerging and transformative technologies and explain their impact on you, your customers and your business. O Access to the most innovative labs, companies and entrepreneurs. O With speakers from MIT, EmTech will bring together the technological innovations that are changing the face of business and driving the global economy. O Network with close to 500 leaders in business and technology. O O
INDIA MIT’s Magazine on Innovation
emtech INDIA March 27-28, 2012 | ITC Royal Gardenia, Bangalore
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* Offer valid for limited number of seats and expires on or before January 15, 2012
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INK Conference
INKing Success Stories A first-hand report of the second edition of the annual INK conference—a confluence of ideas, intelligence, creativity, zeal, and entrepreneurship
INK is all about identifying and recognizing new heroes, people who have dared to take a different path, one that is less traveled
50 | January 15, 2012
Gyana Ranjan Swain gyanas@cybermedia.co.in
W
hen Shakespeare defined “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women mere players”, he had perhaps forgotten to widen his talk on who is more important than the other. But time and again, stages are made around the world, men and women are invited to act and it is purely left to the audience to decide who has made a bigger impact on the society through their roles, no matter in which form and which part of the planet, and at times, beyond the planet. The second edition of INK Conference, recently held in Pink City, Jaipur, tried to put up a great stage to showcase some of the greatest heroes and most of them are not celebrities in the common parlance, but have performed more heroic acts than the superstars. Many of them have conquered mountains literally and some have conquered death, some have given a million people a reason to live, and some have made efforts to provide the means for a billion people for their living. The conference that stands for Innovation and Knowledge (INK) was staged this year around the theme ‘Power of the Journey’, and true to its theme, the event in the small town of Jaipur took the 1,000 plus audience to some journeys—from some short visit www.dqindia.com
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Leisure
Aisha Choudhary, who defied death and now full of life to tell her story
journeys limited to a geographical area of a small town to the longest journey possible to the space. “INK is all about identifying and recognizing new heroes—people who come from among us,” says Lakshmi Pratury, the lady who designed the INK. She says these are the people who have dared to take a different path, one that is less traveled. “They redefine success in times when everything is so myopic, during an era of a mad rush towards success. This attitude stands in contrast to the general trend that focuses only on results—rather than enjoying the path that leads towards results,” says Pratury, whom once Forbes considered as among the 100 most powerful women in the world.
A Platform for Thinkers
The annual INK conference, being held in association with TED, aims to fuel innovation and foster knowledge by giving a platform to thinkers and doers from a range of disciplines to share their stories. TED or technology, entertainment, and design is a global set of conferences owned by private not-for-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate innovative ideas. Every year, the TED-INK collaboration helps 20 self-believers or entrepreneurs, called the INK fellows, travel their long cherished path, most of the time, defying the conventional and reach their dreams that they have been chasing for so long. This year’s edition that spanned for 4 days, DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Anusheh Ansari, world’s first female space tourist
apart from the INK fellows, brought together a host of other speakers who have been no less innovative in their fields. Ruchi Shangvi is one of them. As the first woman engineer at Facebook Inc, she helped build technologies for the social networking site—including the news feed and Facebook connect—that have contributed heavily towards making it the phenomenon it is. After the initial success, she quit the firm to return to India to marry a person of her family’s choice, but only to return soon. She quit the company again in 2010, even as Facebook has achieved 700 mn users and is staring at one of the most successful initial public offers ever for a technology firm. “I was getting complacent because of the success,” she reasons. Sanghvi has now founded an internet venture called Cove along with other former Facebook employees. She is not ready to share more information on the idea she is working on. “It will be in the area of consumer internet and will be platform-agnostic,” is all she says. However she has already raised seed financing from private investors. “I wanted to give it one more shot, do it all over once more,” she says referring to the thrill of creating something from scratch. Deepak Ravindran of SMS Gyaan is another speaker and a great example of the ‘power of the journey.’ In his journey, along with his friends, he tries to answer quesvisit www.dqindia.com
Ayesha Khanna, talks on Smart and generative city
tions on myriad topics like Why are the birds so angry in Angry Birds? Why is the apple half bitten in the Apple Inc logo? Why is the popular sandwich called a hot dog when there is no dog meat in it? How to impress a girl? Ravindran’s SMS Gyaan seeks to address just about any query through the text service of the ubiquitous mobile phones, keeping the privacy of people’s various dilemmas. The idea was born when Ravindran, 23, realized that most people in the country don’t have the luxury of Googling for information, but are equipped with a mobile phone. He tried his luck to use the power of mobile phones to provide answers for any question under the sun. The venture that was born from the helpless condition of Deepak on not being able to answer his friend’s question on ‘how to impress a girl’ while sitting at his college corridor in Kerala, is now bustling with success. The success of the venture, now available with most telecom service providers, is ascertained by the fact that its research and development team in Bengaluru processes 500,000 queries in a day. SMS Gyaan went live in March after a short-testing phase. Ravindran, who hopes to clock a turnover of `15 crore this year, says the firm has already broken even. “There is supposed to be a holy grail of sorts when it comes to content that the Indians like to savor—astrology, Bollywood, cinema, January 15, 2012 | 51
INK Conference
Deepak Ravindran, founder of SMS Gyaan
and sex—but there are more queries about news or politics these days,” he says. “People are not afraid to ask questions anymore.”
Enjoy the Journey
There was no dearth of inspiring examples in this edition of the INK conference and each of the 20 INK fellows narrates a story that all of us would like to put our names on. However the INK fellows were chosen after an exhaustive online process, where applications were sought from around the world. Pratury, host and curator of INK, who is also credited with bringing TED to India in 2009, says the one thing that binds the INK fellows is their accomplishments. “These people might not be glamorous figures, but what they are doing is having a huge impact on the society. They bring something out-of-the-box, a fresh perspective along with a sense of humility, and INK is just a platform for them to express themselves and share their stories, which may inspire others too” she says. Kalyan Varma, another INK fellow, gave up his job at Yahoo! Inc to spend time in the jungles as a wildlife photographer. He returned after a full year. “My savings were getting exhausted, so I thought maybe I’ll take up another job,” he says. On coming back, he posted his pictures on the internet with the idea of sharing them with others for free. Soon, cheques arrived at his doorsteps after film-makers made 52 | January 15, 2012
Kalyan Varma, Freelance wild photographer
posters of his photographs or people sold paintings based on them. Today, he is a freelancer for leading magazines and channels including National Geographic and BBC. “Give freedom to people and they will respect it,” he says. US based Ayesha Khanna loves to live in cities but in smart cities. She says that the 21st century and beyond would be dominated by cities and around 215 mn people would be migrating to urban areas in India by 2025. ‘’And today’s cities can barely handle the burden of their current populations,’’ says Ayesha Khanna, a technology and innovation strategy expert. Speaking at the 2nd edition of INK Conference in Jaipur, she said that at this point of time, core services like energy, water, communications, transportation, and public safety are wasteful, inefficient, and decrepit. Even though cities occupy only 2% of the landmass of the Earth, they consume over 75% of the Earth’s resources. ‘’The only way to prevent rapid urbanization from being an environmental disaster is to operate cities in a brand new way: faster, smarter, cleaner,’’ she said to an enthralled hall of audience. By referring to ‘smart city’, she told the audience that it will happen only when all parts of its infrastructure and government services are digitally connected and optimized and city dwellers become the ‘stakeholders’ of the city. Giving visit www.dqindia.com
Lakshmi Pratury, curator of INK
some examples, she said the city’s intelligent infrastructure is powered by three key technologies that share environment and citizen data constantly: Sensors, the cloud, and smart interfaces. Sensors, tiny devices that can measure variables such as motion, sound, and bacteria, collect information and send it back to a central database—the cloud. The founder and director of the Hybrid Reality Institute, a research and advisory group focused on human-technology co-evolution and geotechnology in the US, said that in India, there would be around 7 smart cities developed in the near future that would stick to the guidelines of the smart and generative city concept.
Aiming High...
The 4-day conference had different sessions in which the speakers, doers, and thinkers across different disciplines and across the globe were sharing their experience, innovations, and knowledge. The storytellers at the conference have defied their ages to become examples for all. The speakers, ranging from 15-year-old Aisha Choudhary to 80year-old Anupam Mishra, narrated their real life stories to spell-bound the audience and instilled the confidence that age, cast, geographical location, and religion do not matter when you want to do something for the religion of the world-humanity. The stories, equipped with testi
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Leisure
Madhumita Halder, who created Aksharit for kids to learn alphabets in their mother tongue
Nayana Somaratna, creator of Prognosis, an app for medical practioners
monials, made the audience believe that sky is no more the limit, even you can reach the space, only if you want to reach there. Anousheh Ansari, on September 18, 2006, made her point when she became the first female space explorer. Anousheh is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder and chairman of Prodea Systems, a company that will unleash the power of the internet to all the consumers and dramatically alter and simplify consumer’s digital living experience. After spending 20 mn and putting 7 months of rigorous training, she created history to spend 11 days in space. Madhumita Haldar, a 24-yearold IITian, while playing computer games, discovered that there is no word game for kids in the Indian language. Just a thought and she quit her job to set up her own company MAD Rat Games to develop Aksharit, a game-cum-learning tool for kids to know their alphabets in their own mother tongue. ‘’There are no word games based on the Indian languages and children of NRI communities find it a little difficult in learning their mother tongues, so we launched this app,’’ says Madhumita Halder, founder, MAD Rat Games. Very soon, IT major Intel is going to launch applications based on Indian languages targeting the NRI communities on its tablets. Intel would be launching Aksharit, an app that helps children learn Indian
languages through very interesting games, designed for kids for various ages in one month’s time. Google has already launched this application for its Chrome Book and Nokia for its N8 smartphones. Speaking at the sidelines of the INK conference in Jaipur, this IITgraduate said that within 2 years of launch, this game based learning product has been well accepted by more than 2,500 schools across 4 Indian states including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh.
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Overcoming the Difficulties
The annual international conference also witnessed achievers from all walks of life narrating their ‘stories of life’ at the event themed as ‘power of the journey’. Among the speakers who shook the audience was 15-year-old girl Aisha Chaudhary, afflicted with a serious lung disease, with her 5 lively messages she learnt from the ups and downs of her challenging life. She said that she was diagnosed with incurable immune deficiency disorder at the age of 6 months following which she underwent a bone marrow transplant and faced challenges in leading a normal life. Having cue-cards in her hand to remember points in the speech, she took the audience through her early days when she was wheelchair-ridden and destined to inhale oxygen with the help of a tube clipped to her nose. “... but there was a smile on my face, visit www.dqindia.com
Prakash Amte, doctor and social healer
always. I saw dreams...walking in London’s market, dancing in my cousin’s wedding, and getting out of the wheelchair and it all happened. I walked in London’s market, danced in the cousin’s marriage, and now I am on my feet,” she said with attributing all these to a strong willpower. She said that ‘believe in miracles’, ‘live in the moment’, ‘opportunity in difficulties’, ‘dare to dream’, and ‘pets are the best medicines’ are the 5 messages she has learnt. “You live every moment twice, once in your mind and once when you actually live it,” she said to a standing ovation. Among other speakers were American film and Opera director Julie Taymor, author Amish Tripathi, jewelery designer John Hardy, conservation biologist Claire Kremen, technology and global policy expert Parag Khanna, social entrepreneur Mohamed Ali Niang, and doctor-turned-social healer Prakash Amte who uses his medical knowledge and his life for the upliftment of tribes in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. A Magsaysay awardee Prakash Amte runs Lok Biradari Prakalp to provide community services to the tribal people and he has not kept himself limited to them but for the animals in the jungle as well. Aptly supported by his able physician wife Mandakini, the legendary Baba Amte’s son says ‘to dine with the lions in the jungle, the only equipment you need is love’. n January 15, 2012 | 53
Google Zeitgeist 2011
What Do 125 mn Indians Search the Web For? The recently released Google Zeitgeist 2011 sees Anna Hazare, the anti-corruption leader, as the fastest rising personality in India followed by the hot model Poonam Pandey TEAM DQ maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
G
oogle is now the virtual gatekeeper of the web. What people are searching on the web through Google, hence is a good indicator of what is in vogue, what is on top of the mind, and what is zeitgeist. Google has started releasing the list globally and region-wise for the last few years. This year too, it has recently come out with the list for 2011. Not only does it provide who and what occupy our collective mindspace, it also brings out a time-tested trait of the Indians. That is how diverse their choices could be. So, if Anna Hazare, the anti-corruption crusader, was the fastest rising search phrase among personalities, he was followed at the second spot by someone who could not be more poles apart. Poonam Pandey, a small-time model who hit the headline by announcing that she would run naked if the Indian cricket team won the World Cup, followed Anna in the rising popularity list. The third in the list was someone yet again very different from the two: the legendary Steve Jobs, whom we lost in October. But do not get surprised by the lack of Bollywood personalities. This is only the fastest rising people in terms of Google search. In terms of overall popularity, Katrina Kaif continued to top, while Anna followed her, with Salman Khan and Poonam Pandey following them.
Mapping the Indian Internet User Psyche
The behavior of 125 mn Indian internet users is no less than a replica of the world where people love, laugh, shout, scream, opine, and moan. Their inadvertent and sometimes thoughtful reactions for various events and happenings in 2011 show their dependence on the internet. In the Google searches, Katrina Kaif continued to reign as the queen of Bollywood and is the most searched celebrity on the net for the 4th year in a row, followed by the heartthrob Salman Khan at #3. New entrant in the list is Anushka Sharma, slated to be Bollywood’s new glam sensation. Not to lag behind, in top searched movies for 2011, the Khans seem to have topped the list where Salman Khan stole the #1 position for Bodyguard from Shahrukh Khan for his Ra.One, that came on #2. Likewise, in the top searched events/news list, IPL was the #1 choice while World Cup 2011 was #2. According to the fastest rising people list, anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare became the fastest rising person in that list, followed by Poonam Pandey, who became the center of public cynosure with her ‘running naked’ statement. Also, the interests of the Indian internet users took a cosmopolitan makeover as they are also influenced by international events and personalities. 54 | January 15, 2012
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Leisure
Anna Hazare
Katrina Kaif
In 2011, from local politics in India and looking for information on Lokpal bill and Aadhar cards, to looking for news on the Japan earthquake and Osama Bin Laden’s death, people turned to Google to learn more about what was happening in India and around the world. “Google Zeitgeist 2011, truly makes India come alive, giving us insights into India’s development as a nation. 2011 saw Indian Internet becoming mainstream—over 70% of search happened in non-metros, a lot of internet usage moved to mobiles and we hit the 125 mn users’ mark. And for the first time, the online world mirrored the sentiments of the aam aadmi, with Indians logging on to the net to share opinions, voice concerns, apart from searching for entertainment, edutainment, and jobs,” says Lalitesh Katragadda, country head, India products, Google (as quoted in the Google press release).
Trends of the Time on the Roll
Fashion and trends, that became vague in 2011, did also have heavy rounds over the internet as the Google search data showcases some fascinating cultural fads and trends that took over India in 2011. In a country where cricket is a religion, it came as no surprise to see the Indian net buzzing with excitement with the historic World Cup win, IPL, and Sachin Tendulkar’s batting prowess. Along with, Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) was one of the fastest rising searches, showDATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Poonam Pandey
Salman Khan
ing high interest in online applications for government employment. The Indian railways continued to be a popular search term, with Indians getting online to book tickets and searching for train timings and other railways-related information. Like the rest of the world, India searched for international heroes, with searches for technology pioneer Steve Jobs rising following his resignation in August and spiking dramatically following his death in October. Justin Bieber also features in the top searched people lists for his music, love life, and hairstyles. Consumer technology remained hot and the social web continued to give a strong showing as Indians logged on to stay connected with family and friends and wanted more from their mobile phones by searching for ‘Way2SMS’.
Top Searched People n n n n n n n n n n
Katrina Kaif Anna Hazare Salman Khan Poonam Pandey Justin Bieber Aishwarya Rai Sachin Tendulkar Kareena Kapoor Steve Jobs Priyanka Chopra
Fastest Rising Searches n n n n
Facebook IBPS Google+ World Cup 2011
visit www.dqindia.com
n n n n n
Steve Jobs
Bodyguard Ra.One Anna Hazare IPL 2011 Poonam Pandey
Fastest Rising People n Anna Hazare n Poonam Pandey n Steve Jobs n Anushka Sharma n Salman Khan n Justin Bieber n Kajal Agarwal n Katrina Kaif n Vijay Mallya n Aishwarya Rai
Top Searches
Facebook YouTube Gmail Yahoomail n Google n Yahoo! n IRCTC n Rediffmail n Indian Railways n Way2SMS n n n n
Top Searched Movies n n n n n n n n n n
Bodyguard Ra.One Harry Potter Delhi Belly Singham Ready Mankatha Transformers 3 Dookudu Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara January 15, 2012 | 55
Indian Manufacturing
The Time is Now
There is more reason for the world to look at India now for manufacturing. We must leverage our strengths, close the gaps and be upfront about our strengths and weaknesses
A
s a wildlife photographer and film maker, I often have to rely on importing lots of sound recorders, amplifiers, microphones, viewfinders for video cameras, etc, and realize that many of those can be designed and manufactured in India provided there is easy access to components and testing labs. If we are able to create free trade warehousing zones which stock components and act as a hub for supplying to other countries and allow some of those to be sold to the DTA (Domestic Tariff Area), I am sure our entrepreneurs will be able to buy and try those without investing in significant amount of time, shipping cost and energy. This will help them to create unique products tuned for the unique needs of the Indian consumer. This would also be important since the Department of IT has plans to lay fiber optic cables to each Panchayat and lot of public services are going to ride on it. These issues sit on the top of my mind as I begin my innings as the executive director of MAIT. I believe this is the right time for Indian IT manufacturing also to take off.
The Challenges
The Tsunami in Japan reminded everybody that the tier-3/4 or below are still in Japan. The recent floods in Thailand, described as the worst in the century, reminds us that we are still dependent on suppliers in Thailand for hard disks and other components. Apart from the challenges of natural disasters and foreign exchange fluctuations, delays in supplies, the cost of logistics is a major factor. If the entire manufacturing ecosystem is close by, the transportation cost is reduced, flexibility is increased and makes the industry globally competitive. Today, destinations in India compete with those abroad for attracting investments. In such a scenario, the infrastructure needs to be scaled up to the global standards. 56 | January 15, 2012
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So the airports–as a lot of IT products and components are low volume and high-value items and hence airfreighted–need to be benchmarked with a Singapore or Hongkong airport to name a few. The roads need to be better. Though the SEZ scheme was created after studying the zones in China, our SEZs are much smaller and often struggle to get uninterrupted power supply. The quality of power is also an issue. Few states like Gujarat have dedicated feeders to supply power to industry, however that is not the norm everywhere. The cost of power, cost of land as well as the challenges of acquiring land are also other issues. There are many State Governments where single window clearances are promised, however, there are still delays which add to the cost and uncertainty.
Need to Think Big
While interacting with a number of existing Indian manufacturers (SMEs), I realize that a number of them lack the ability to think big. For example, given the opportunities that are going to open up, a 70-crore manufacturer need to think about a 700-crore turnover, if not more. So if any of these existing businesses want to become a tier-1/tier-2 supplier to large volume MNC manufacturers, then it becomes difficult due to the huge scales involved. In such a scenario, I feel there is an acute need for large business groups like the Tatas, Ambanis, Birlas and others to engage in acquisitions abroad and quickly setting up manufacturing in key areas of the IT manufacturing ecosystem.
The Social Imperative
Indian IT Services sector has done pretty well and for sometime India has been known for its services economy. The relatively young population—often fondly referred as the Demographic dividend—acted as a major driver DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
along with other advantages like cost. However, a huge economy like India cannot progress riding solely on the shoulders of the services sector. Though the services sector, especially the IT/ITeS area can function even from smaller towns, it can only fulfill the employment needs of a certain level of people. The IT manufacturing, on the other hand, needs and employs people with 10+2 and/or 10th class pass people as a major chunk of its workforce. These group of people hardly find any employment in the organized sector, except in the various departmental stores. So, the IT manufacturing sector is doing a great service to the nation by employing the people who would not have found employment elsewhere and would have contributed to the various societal problems associated with unemployment. Furthermore, the IT manufacturing employs predominantly women in its workforce, as women have better hand-eye coordination and are suited for fine finger work. A major benefit is that these women now contribute to the decision making process in their house as well as are much sought after for their advice on various issues by their neighbours. I am yet to see a government scheme that has as much impact in empowering women. India with its huge consumer base is a net importer or ICT products and by 2020 the net imports is expected to be larger than even the oil imports. So encouraging manufacturing in this sector is of strategic importance for a country like India. And when we know that manufacturing is going to reduce our unemployment levels, increase women empowerment, it becomes imperative to make it a key priority area. In the IT manufacturing in India, even the lowest level workers (operators) have a dream in their heart. They want to learn the entire visit www.dqindia.com
manufacturing process and often offer good suggestions that can be immediately implemented resulting in cost savings and increased efficiency.
Protecting Manufacturers
The cost of manufacturing has increased in China and many manufacturers are moving into interior China to lower the cost. There are manufacturers who want to derisk and follow the China Plus One strategy ie. creating another manufacturing base in addition to China. The level of IPR protection in China is also a matter of concern to many MNCs. In such a scenario India with a policy of 100% FDI in manufacturing, IPR protection and other laws can become a viable alternative. So there is an opportunity to be tapped as well. I am sure the government is working towards creating a budget that is forward looking and will help in nation building. Among other things, I am hopeful that the budget will help in creating a level playing field for manufacturers in India vis-a-vis those in other destinations abroad. I believe manufacturing is an idea whose time has come. We have to take it to its logical conclusion. I have always been straightforward in explaining the positives and the areas for improvement with respect to Indian cities as manufacturing destinations. After one such meeting, the IT minister in Japan had written to me that they would come to India despite the infrastructural deficiencies. India’s time has come. We need to realize our strengths and focus on those to take the manufacturing to the next orbit. n
Sabyasachi Patra
The author is executive director, MAIT maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in January 15, 2012 | 57
Spotlight
Preparing for the Next...
for employees to work from home, and temporary DR sites to support branch offices and provide high bandwidths for a short duration,” Kongsyok told CyberMedia News over phone from Bangkok. “In terms of city’s IT infrastructure and networks, the damage was just 2%, but the overall impact of that damage on businesses and enterprises is very huge,” he estimates.
Impacted by the worst floods in Thailand’s history, businesses and commercial establishments demand disaster recovery sites Migration to Flood-free Regions other than those in Bangkok city to meet the Floods have badly hit the manufacfuture calamities turing plants of many IT hardware and consumer device companies that operate in Thailand, causing delay in production supply to the international markets. According to Kongsyok, Bangkok city is the country’s biggest commercial and trade hub as most of the service providers and IT infrastructure are based here. “However, due to these floods, large companies and organizations like banks are looking for disaster recovery sites in other parts of Thailand. Though the government is trying to push IT infrastructure in Chiang Mai and Phuket city, it is yet to develop there,” he explains.
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t’s been close to 2 months since Bangkok, Thailand’s capital city, has been fighting against Chao Phraya river’s raging flood waters and hoping for human survival. Flood waters in the city’s central parts have left several hundreds dead and rendered thousands homeless. That has come as a wake-up call for business and commercial establishments that are in search of disaster recovery (DR) sites to support their trade activities and customer needs.
List of Demands
Giving an account of the situation and business impact, Passakorn 58 | January 15, 2012
Answering the Key Question Kongsyok, department director, international business, United Information Highway (UIH) says, “In the last 2 weeks, 7 industrial parks have been affected by floods. As we speak, 2 out of 7 parks have fully recovered, but the remaining will take nearly 2-3 weeks. Customers will be able to start their businesses by mid-January.” UIH is one of the 3 private telecommunication service providers of Thailand and it has 2 DR sites—one in Bangkok and second outside the city. “Due to floods, many customers are demanding DR sites outside the city. They demand services like co-location or re-location, SSL VPN visit www.dqindia.com
UIH has presence in Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Laos. “Technically, Bangkok based customers can be offered disaster recovery sites from the neighboring countries, but it would be very expensive for the customers,” Kongsyok shares. Though the flood waters have started to recede, it is leaving the business and commercial establishments to find an answer for the key question: What will happen next year? “Every company is now thinking about what will happen next year and it’s really hard to think,” Kongsyok notes. n PANKAJ MARU
pankajm@cybermedia.co.in (The author was hosted by NetEvents APAC and Analyst Press Summit in Phuket, Thailand)
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Design Engineering
Bringing the Benefits of Technology By using DFM tools, organizations have achieved increased productivity, saving in cost, improved quality, and have been able to capture knowledge
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ll new products start with an idea or a concept which is then crystallized either on paper or using software. Thus, the design stage is important in terms of expanding on the desired form, fit and function of the product. Design decisions may influence or drive many manufacturing decisions, such as the choice of processes, tools, machines, etc. Thus, the design stage has a huge influence on the cost, quality, and time-to-market for the product. Simple examples to illustrate this concept are: n A design with holes using non-standard diameters will necessitate either procurement of custom tools or manufacture of the hole using a combination of processes. This has an adverse impact on schedule and cost n Thick walls in plastic parts which are outside the recommended range can lead to sink marks, thus causing quality problems n Sharp corners in molded and cast parts can lead to built-in stress leading to cracks and premature failure during operation
Tools and Techniques
DESIGN COST AND FLEXIBILITY
CONCEPT Figure 1
60 | January 15, 2012
DESIGN
Given infinite time and resources, one could possibly manufacture anything (well almost!). However the resources at our disposal are always scarce. Organizations strive to launch new products in the market ‘as quickly as possible’ to thwart competitors. At the same time, the cost of the product has to DESIGN CHANGE COSTS be within control and the product cannot compromise on quality. Traditionally, designs would be sent to the manufacturing department, which would provide its review comments. They would take into account the impact on cost, schedule, and quality and provide DESIGN FLEXIBILITY design changes, if any. This could lead to iterations between design and manufacturing, thus causing delays PROTOTYPE MANUFACTURING in time-to-market and increasing cost due to rework. ‘Design for Manufacturing’ (DFM) or ‘Design for Manufacturability’ is a set of tools and techniques, which ensure that the designed product is easy and cost effective to manufacture. visit www.dqindia.com
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DFM is practiced worldwide in many forms; as under— n Some organizations have a well structured review process including peers and seniors in the organization. These organizations may also involve their suppliers early in the design cycle to gain their perspective on the design for ease and costeffectiveness in manufacturing. n Manufacturability handbooks are developed to include guidelines and best practices based on well known standards and organizational process capabilities. Consideration is primarily given to the manufacturing capabilities and constraints of the organization. n Based on the standards and best practices, checklists are developed, which the designers or reviewers can refer to. n Automation tools, which enable validation of the design for ease of manufacturing within the computeraided design (CAD) environment. (Figure 2)
Moving Forward...
The concept of DFM and accompanying tools have been very popular in the electronics industry to modify the design of integrated circuits (IC) and printed circuit boards in order to improve their yield, reliability, and cost. On the mechanical side, DFM has been spreading slowly, but surely with tighter budgets and cut-throat competition. DFM is a key tool for every organization to improve its efficiency in cost, quality, and schedule. Many DFM tools are still used downstream by manufacturing engineers and not by design engineers, where they would add the highest value. Some of the reasons for this anomaly include lack of CAD integration, lack of ownership for the DFM initiative, the need to educate employees in these skills, etc. However new emerging DFM tools offer a high-level of CAD integration, allowing design engineers DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
to verify their designs for ease of manufacturing right within the CAD environment. A structured DFM initiative supported by meaningful automation helps organization in multiple areas like— Knowledge and Competency: A knowledgeable organization is in the best position to be nimble and responsive to the market needs. Hence it is important to capture and apply manufacturing knowledge right when it matters. This prevents loss of valuable know-how when people move in and out of the organization. Creating a knowledgebase also facilitates training of new engineers joining the organization on the manufacturing capabilities and best practices followed. Cost: In today’s uncertain financial conditions, cost reduction initiatives are very imperative. DFM initiatives aided by tools help reduce and avoid scrap and expensive tooling. Time: Avoiding non-productive work helps improve time-to-market. Rework is one of the key concerns in typical schedule delays experienced by organizations, which can be avoided by having structured reviews. Additionally, the time spent in manual reviews can be reduced by adopting automated DFM review tools. Quality: It is possible to capture ‘lessons learnt’ and improve designs to prevent quality problems. Collaboration: A well defined DFM process, suitably assisted by automation tools, truly facilitates a global organization. Designs can be created in one part of the world and manufactured in another. The ‘design anywhere, manufacture anywhere’ paradigm becomes a reality. Design for manufacturing cannot succeed as a stagnant system. It needs to continuously evolve and stay abreast of the available tools visit www.dqindia.com
Figure 2
and technologies in computers and manufacturing. DFM tools, integrated within the computer-aided design environment, can verify designs for ease of manufacturing and provide inputs as a design is created and updated on the impact on the ‘producability’ of the design. The organizational knowledge-base related to the availability of tools and manufacturing processes/equipments must be regularly updated; this will ensure that DFM as a practice leads to significant benefits to the organization.
Conclusion
DFM itself is not an isolated field—it has many offshoots, thus leading to a generic term—Design for Excellence (DFX). This, in turn, has many addressable areas like design for assembly, design for service, design for reuse, and many others including design for manufacturing. All of these focus on improving the designs in order to benefit downstream activities and the resulting product. In a nutshell, focusing on getting better designs results in multiple benefits to the organization. n
RAHUL RAJADHYAKSHA
The author is product manager, Geometric Software maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in January 15, 2012 | 61
entrepreneurship
Despite Hiccups... The author reflects on his entrepreneurial journey, which, despite being criss-crossed with many hurdles, was all about swimming through uncharted waters creating watershed moments for the market
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he thought to pen down my professional journey has filled me with thrill and emotions and has revived the memories of the starting days of my career. Letting my words give life to my thoughts and expressions always gives me tremendous satisfaction; and I am glad to put forth my fun-filled professional journey to you all. I was a commerce student and did my charted accountancy from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. My experience on various aspects of business from across verticals coupled with my undying endeavor on building relationships with all of my stakeholders—employees, customers, and partners, have played a pivotal role in building up a defining entrepreneurship journey.
Tasting Different Waters
I always wanted to do something on my own and outshine in the crowd. Even so my first venture bordered on the outlandish, ie, prospecting for gold. In 1995, I set up India’s first private sector gold mining venture, taking over an old mine abandoned by the British in the forests of Jharkhand’s East Singhbhum district, close to Jamshedpur. However ambition alone does not make for a successful gold prospecting. Nonetheless, it was a great learning experience. Before incepting Yebhi.com, I was the COO and head of corporate strategy at the prestigious Onicra Credit Rating Agency. Prior to that I was the operations controller at Modi Xerox Corp. With my wealth of experience and strategic insights accumulated I became the CEO of Vishal Retail.
By 2009 my entrepreneurial bug was back, I had had enough of working for others. My next dive into entrepreneurship seemed even more bizarre; I decided to Bitten by the Entrepreneurial Bug sell shoes online By 2009 my entrepreneurial bug was back, I had had enough of working
for others. My next dive into entrepreneurship seemed even more bizarre; I
62 | January 15, 2012
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digital business decided to sell shoes online, after a chance meeting with Danish Ahmed Abdullah. We decided to start our own online business of shoes that we started in 2009 by the name of bigshoebazaar.com. The journey was not devoid of hiccups because there was no ecosystem for e-commerce at that time. However there was a huge potential of growth. There were certain apprehensions from the supplier’s side after we commenced the business, which too vanished with time. It’s so because online venture is such that it requires time to gain trust of other economic agents. Hence the biggest challenge was to convince the major brands, manufacturers, and suppliers that online retail can generate large volumes. It took us a good 6 months to convince brands to come on board. As you know, the last 10 years of online retail scenario had given them a perception that online retail is very small and perhaps even an insignificant channel where putting their resources may not be such a good idea. Online shopping was synonymous with surplus or substandard inventory. This perception had to be changed. Hence to ensure credibility, we stored bulk purchases of the latest fashion and style shoes and ensured a comprehensive 3-step stringent quality check process before taking the products to the customers.
Expanding Horizons
After tasting the success fruits, we planned to expand our horizon. Therefore we took a step further to accomplish our cherished dream and decided to create a new domain, which does not have a category-specific name. Hence as a logical extension to our business, we ventured into multiple categories and christened it as Yebhi.com to give it the identity of an allround fashion portal. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
There was no ecosystem for ecommerce at that time; however there was a huge potential of growth. There were certain apprehensions from the supplier’s side after we commenced the business, which too vanished with time
Yebhi.com: Interactive Fashion Portal
With our constant efforts and endeavor, we managed to take Yebhi. com to new heights, offering a wide variety of the products for modern lifestyle shopping—apparel, footwear, accessories, bags, jewelry, clutches, and much more. Today, we have over 130 brands and 70,000 designs on a single platform. We realized that a lot of investments had to be done in getting the user interface right and making the visit www.dqindia.com
product viewing feature as lifelike as possible. In an effort to become the most interactive fashion portal, we launched a customer service page on Facebook. Today, we have more than 7,000 interactions in a day and over 200,000 fan followers on our Facebook page. We are going from strength to strength, with an annual turnover of `20 crore in 2010-11, and the current year is also likely to see an exponential growth. We see an unprecedented rise in the turnover for the years to come owing to diversification into myriad categories. Over the years, I have understood that a society contributes in heaps to help an entrepreneur grow; and so it is essential for an entrepreneur to be ethically and socially responsible. That is what makes a successful entrepreneurial journey! n
MANMOHAN AGARWAL The author is the CEO of Bigshoebazaar India and spokesperson of Yebhi.com maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in January 15, 2012 | 63
Social Media Censorship
Blurring Boundaries? On the one hand, the early movers in e-commerce are busy expanding their portfolio; on the other, newer players are entering with niche offerings. Which way will the nascent ecommerce industry go? RUKHSAR SALEEM rukhsars@cybermedia.co.in
O
nline retailers have not only attracted different customers from diverse age groups, but have also attracted venture capitalists who are vying to invest and reap benefit from this tremendously growing segment. Therefore many online portals have successfully raised VC funds in the last quarter of FY11. Fashionandyou.com raised $40 mn from Northwest Venture Partners and Intel Capital, Naaptol. com—$25 mn from New Enterprise Associates (NEA), dealandyou. com—$17 mn from a group of investors including Mayfield Fund and Northwest Venture Partners, Lenskart.com—$4 mn from IDG Ventures India, Freecultr—$4 mn from Sequoia Capital. Basically, these funds are utilized in branding and new customer acquisition. However when the question arises of customer retention, great customer experience is certainly a challenge, which lingers over every online retailer’s mind. Nevertheless, players like flipkart.com, fashionandyou.com, Homeshop18, firstcry.com, myntra.com, rediff. com, snapdeal.com, 99labels.com, 20north.com, and Naaptol.com have championed the art of delivering the quality products and on time to the customers’ delight. They have been fairly successful as they realized and addressed the operational challenges in time as some of them started their own delivery of products (flipkart.com) and few of them tied up with multiple logistic vendors (Naaptol.com, babyoye.com, and myntra.com) to ensure unique shopping experience on their portal. So quite a few of these e-commerce players, after becoming a brand and carving a niche for themselves by satisfying their particular segment of customers, want to leverage that to expand to multiple categories of products or target altogether newer sets of customer groups. Resultingly, few of these players diversified their portfolios. Few of them have started offering different categories of products under the same brand name, like flipkart.com now offers electronics, computers, mobiles, home appliances, and personal healthcare items along with its initial expertise in delivering books; snapdeal.com now sells cosmetics, accessories, lingeries, and perfumes in addition to its previous niche area of selling deals; and yebhi.com now sells apparels, lifestyle products, electronics, mobiles, home and kitchen appliances, and lingeries in addition to its earlier niche product line of shoes. 64 | January 15, 2012
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digital business “The Indian e-commerce industry will take its own time as first it will flourish horizontally and later vertical growth will happen, like it happened in the US” Manu Agarwal, founder and CEO, Naaptol.com
“Ten firms on an average are getting funded every 2 months, which demonstrates the bright prospect of this industry” Manmohan Agarwal, founder and CEO, Yebhi.com
“The e-commerce industry also rests on few basic pillars, including a capable business model, strong logistics support, supply chain network, credible online payment gateway, and regular infusion of investment to create a smooth customer experience”
Sunnyraj Agarwal, co-founder, Heavenandhome.com
Is it Niche Versus All-in-one Players?
If on one hand, where the early ecommerce players, who are now the established ones, are also diversifying, then on the other hand, a huge number of new players are entering in e-commerce industry excluding travel online portals to compete with the existing niche category players. Niche category is also expanding fast and adding depth to its offerings with improvised supply chain network and logistics support. In each niche product category various players are present, like perfumes through DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
perfumes2order.com, beautymart. in, and perfumes2direct.com; baby products are available through babyoye.com, balgopal.com, hushbabies. com, MyBabyCart.com, firstcry.com, johnsonsbaby.com, hoopos.com, kidloo.com, onestepahead.com, mybabycart.com, littlehood.com and many more; health and fitness products are available through urbantouch. com, health-shoppe.com, and snapittoday.com; and electronic items are available through anythinginit.com, anytimeretail.com, cafegadgets.com, cpupark.com, edigiworld.com, BitFang.com, LootSpot.com, Next.co.in, visit www.dqindia.com
smartshoppers.in, and LetsBuyProducts.com. Another interesting niche range of products is lingerie, which is available through a large number of players like mMyself.com, strapsandstrings.com, ngaloriginals. com, victoriassecretin.tarazz.com, mylace.in, and oyegirl.com. The trend of groups buying and providing deals had made the online space extremely versatile initially, later apparels and lifestyle products started competing aggressively. But now with the recent entry of players like Grabbon.com, SoSasta. com, Dealivore.com, Grako.com, Dealsonline4u.com, DealsYantra. com, and DealsNow.co.in, deals category has witnessed a slight jump once again. Similarly for used and new books many more portals have come up namely books4u.in, firstandsecond.com, friendofbooks. com, and hindglobal.in. With various reports and predictions about the e-commerce industry huge potential by credible market research companies (CyberMedia Research, Ernst & Young, Gartner, and Frost & Sullivan) and industry experts, respectively this industry can definitely hope for great times ahead. “Indian e-commerce industry will take its own time as first it will flourish horizontally and later vertical growth will happen like it happened in the US,” says Manu Agarwal, founder and CEO, Naaptol.com. Siddharth Puri, head, marketing, Fetise.com feels, “Comparing the Indian e-commerce industry with the US counterpart or any other market is like comparing oranges with apples.” According to a recent report by Ernst & Young, by 2015 more than 90% of the 187 mn broadband users in India are expected to surf the internet through the medium of wireless devices like smartphones and tablets. So e-commerce industry is definitely going to invite many more January 15, 2012 | 65
Social Media Censorship “It is actually about acquiring and retaining a customer”
Arindam Bose, founder, timtara.com
“Comparing the Indian e-commerce industry with the US counterpart or any other market is like comparing oranges with apples” Siddharth Puri, head, marketing, Fetise.com
“Making a choice between niche portal and multibrand/product portal is like asking a customer the difference between Shoppers Stop and an exclusive watch store” Peyush Bansal, founder and CEO, Lenskart.com
niche players to enter and many to diversify their portfolios.
Is there a Middle Path?
So where exactly is this industry heading towards? Will it be all-inone type players that will survive or niche players will shape this tremendously expanding e-commerce industry? To that a few entrepreneurs sounded very hopeful, whereas a few clearly outlined the challenges to be taken care of while diversifying or operating as niche players. “Ten firms on an average are getting funded every 2 months, 66 | January 15, 2012
which demonstrates the bright prospect of this industry,” says Manmohan Agarwal, founder and CEO, Yebhi.com. However Peyush Bansal, founder and CEO, Lenskart.com said that making a choice between niche portal and multi-brand/product portal is like asking a customer the difference between Shopper’s Stop and an exclusive watch store. However the expertise/mastery over one model of operating in the domain has given many players enough confidence to reach out to the multiple segments and sell multiple products. Whereas many visit www.dqindia.com
also do not want to dilute their existing brands. They tried being more innovative and thus experimented to give another segment of players to the industry. They are now targeting different set of customer groups through separate portals altogether under the same parent company such as lenskart.com for eyewear, bagkart.com for bags, and watchkart.com for watches. Similarly, Smile Group offers fashion accessories through fashionandyou.com, deals through dealsandyou.com, and shoes through bestylish.com; and Brainbees Solutions provides baby products through firstcry.com; and fashion accessories, cosmetics, and lifestyle products through goodlife.com. Few entrepreneurs felt that it is not niche against all-in-one, but the important thing is to deeply analyze the preparation with which many have diversified their product offerings or they have just joined the bandwagon to copy others. To which many entrepreneurs responded pragmatically: It is easy to enter the ring of fire, but not so easy to sustain the momentum, if the homework has not been done aesthetically. “Like any other industry, the e-commerce industry also rests on few basic pillars, including a capable business model, strong logistics support, supply chain network, credible online payment gateway, and regular infusion of investment to create a smooth customer experience,” says Sunny Raj Agarwal, co-founder, Heavenandhome.com. Similar opinion was echoed by Arindam Bose, founder, timtara.com that the real catch is a mature business model, which can take care of marketing, merchandising, delivery and operations, customer and loyalty, etc. The question is actually not about selling one category of products or many. It is about acquiring and retaining a customer. n
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Social Media
Google: The Numero Uno Performer The social media world is re-defining the way consumers engage with each other and how the brands too engage with the consumers
STUTI DAS stutid@cybermedia.co.in
G
oogle, the internet behemoth, is the best performing brand when it comes to social media performance, according to a Sociagility Top 50 report, which has analyzed social brand values of the world’s leading brands and competitive influences that determine their social media performance. However, surprisingly, as per the report, tech biggies like Apple, BlackBerry, and Google—all have very low receptiveness scores, risking a perception of arrogance. The top 50 report is an assessment of 50 of the world’s most valuable brands, drawn from independent studies of Millward Brown’s BrandZ and Interbrand’s Brand Value. The report then goes on to make a revised top 50 ranking according to their social media performance. This is defined by the PRINT Index social performance score—a key component of Sociagility’s proprietary methodology. With the exponential growth in the social media platforms, consumers are increasingly going online to share, discuss, and sometimes even vent out their views or dissatisfaction with the brands. It is becoming imperative for the brands too to take note of their social media performance and how they are being perceived in the social media world. Therefore the social media world is re-defining the way consumers engage with each other and how the brands too engage with the consumers. As always, the brands are first about their performance but they are also about how they are being perceived both in the offline and online world. Companies and marketers have been quick to notice the trend and are paying attention to their online perceptions too. In a competitive world and an equally competitive online environment further accentuated by the prevalent economic circumstances, social media and networks are becoming critically important. Even as many brands are forging ahead with their social media marketing strategies and in turn, spending millions of dollars, the executives across spectrum are grappling with the issue of how these dollars should be best spent. According to a recent Econsultancy report, 41% respondents said that they don’t know the return on any of the money they invest on social media marketing.
Performance Analysis
Not surprisingly, Google occupies the top spot in many parameters but fails on the perceptiveness parameter, conspicuous by its absence. Strangely, the internet behemoth also falls short on the trust scale, beaten by Disney and Starbucks. Predictably, it also has the highest web score and tops the Twitter and YouTube tables, but when it comes to utilizing the social network, Facebook draws a blank. Interestingly, Disney is one of the rare brands that has shown the most consistent performance across all the parameters and platforms and also has the 68 | January 15, 2012
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digital business highest trust score, something which the brand will be proud of. The report goes on to list a few surprising overall ‘laggards’ that include the likes of IBM, Gillette, and VISA. For IBM, the performance should sound like a wake-up call considering the fact that the brand is focused on ‘social business’. Sector-wise, telecom and financial services are 2 of the worst performing sectors. Starbucks’ strong showing means that after combining with McDonalds’ below average score, restaurant brands finish second. The other sectors that have shown above average scores include technology brands (141), beverage brands (127), and retail brands (109). The telecoms brands have perhaps the biggest cause for concern, mustering only 60 points on average—the same as the battered financial service brands in the top 50. Brandwise, Berkshire Hathaway and Marlboro both have the weakest social media performance, figuring at the bottom of the rankings. However in the case of Marlboro, it is the
Average Scores by Sector Rank Sector 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Media Restau- rants Technol- ogy Beverages Retail Transpor- tation Sporting goods FMCG Apparel Automo- tive Luxury Diversified Telecoms Financial services Tobacco
Brands in Average PRINT Top 50 Index™ 1 294 2 164 12
141
2 3 4
127 109 94
1
82
3 2 4
79 79 78
1 3 6 5
69 63 60 60
1
17
Source: www.sociagility.com
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
The Soci‘agility’ Top 50 in Full Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
Brand Google Disney Apple Starbucks BlackBerry Coca-Cola Amazon Nokia Pepsi Fedex Microsoft Walmart Johnson & Johnson Singapore Airlines Target Wells Fargo American Express BMW McDonald’s Toyota H&M GE 3M Nike HP Oracle Procter & Gamble Samsung Technology Southwest Airlines AT&T Vodafone UPS Intel Nordstrom Cisco Mercedes Louis Vuitton Honda Verizon SAP Deutsche Telekom Gillette IBM Movistar VISA China Mobile Goldman Sachs J P Morgan Chase Berkshire Hathaway Marlboro
Sector Technology Media Technology Restaurants Technology Beverages Retail Technology Beverages Transportation Technology Retail FMCG Transportation Retail Financial services Financial services Automotive Restaurants Automotive Apparel Diversified Diversified Sportinggoods Technology Technology FMCG South Transportation Telecoms Telecoms Transportation Technology Apparel Technology Automotive Luxury Automotive Telecoms Technology Telecoms FMCG Technology Telecoms Financial services Telecoms Financial services Financial services Diversified Tobacco
Country USA USA USA USA Canada USA USA Finland USA USA USA USA USA Singapore USA USA USA Germany USA Japan Sweden USA USA USA USA USA USA Korea USA USA UK USA USA USA USA Germany France Japan USA Germany Germany USA USA Spain USA China USA USA USA USA
PRINT Index 585 294 244 238 135 133 125 124 122 117 107 106 105 104 98 94 92 92 90 85 84 84 84 82 80 80 79 78 78 77 76 76 76 73 70 70 69 64 62 58 55 53 52 50 50 38 33 32 22 17
Source: www.sociagility.com
brand’s inability to participate and not necessarily the ineffective usage of the different social networks. Of the 50 most valuable brands, 35 originate from the United States, visit www.dqindia.com
4 from Germany, and 2 from Japan. The remaining brands originate from Canada, China, Finland, France, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. n January 15, 2012 | 69
Incubator Model
Incubators in Focus Incubators can play a decisive role in guiding inexperienced but motivated Indian start-ups through the labyrinths of the market towards success
S
tart-ups require the right combination of idea, talent, and capital to succeed. Like a three-legged stool, each of these areas needs to be strong and carry its own weight in order to lay the foundation for a successful start-up. A start-up often has its genesis in a burst of inspiration in the mind of an entrepreneur. However very soon the entrepreneur realizes that going solo is hard and that he needs a partner. After a vexing period, he finally finds a partner. With 2 of the 3 legs shored up, the team then goes on the prowl for funding.
Sources of Funding
Funding has typically come from one of three sources: Personal funding from entrepreneurs or their close friends and family, high-net-worth angel investors, and venture capital (VC) or private equity (PE). Into this mix has entered a relatively new entrant—incubators. In the very early stages, when the idea is just taking shape, incuHigh Direct Operational High Direct bators can provide significant value. Operational Involvement Cash Some of it’s in the form of a direct Contribution stage-dependent Investment investment, but a lot of it is not monetary. (See graph) Incubator As a start-up grows and gains Benefit to Venture Private Start-up market traction, its needs also Capital Equity change. The internal team is now cohesive and functioning like a Moderate Direct Low Operational Low Direct Cash well-oiled machine. The need of the Cash Investment Contribution Investment hour is capital to scale a business model that is already proven: VC or PE is the best option here. Inception Mature The VC comes in various forms, Start-up Evolution but all of them have a significant capital infusion as part of the proposition. How much a VC is involved in operations of the company varies greatly from one firm to another. PE is primarily a financial value add only. PE investors are looking to enter a late-stage company, have shorter liquidity horizons and are not looking to be involved in day-to-day operations. In the initial stages entrepreneurs have a different need. In addition to the capital, the start-up needs to firm up the idea itself. The idea is often formed from a direct pain point experienced by the founders. It, however, needs to be tested against a wider audience to understand if it is a real unmet need or merely a solution in search of a problem.
Understanding Strengths and Gaps
Meanwhile, entrepreneurs also need to ascertain the key deficiencies in the team. This is often the hardest task. Entrepreneurs are genetically wired to be optimists: They see the glass as 20% full vs 80% empty. This has one dangerous side effect: They tend to believe 70 | January 15, 2012
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digital business they can do everything be it marketing, sales, product management, operations, or business development. Having a realistic understanding of the strengths and gaps in the team and then filling the gaps with the right talent is essential for making a rapid progress.
Y Combinator: Is India Ready for This Model?
Incubators can be invaluable in addressing these issues. It was Bill Gross at IdeaLab in Pasadena, who originally pioneered the concept in the early days of the dot-com boom. Some of the stalwarts of the first wave of web companies came from IdeaLab, including GoTo.com (which later became Overture and was acquired by Yahoo!), and was the innovator being the model for a sponsored search, ahead of Google. In Silicon Valley today, the most prominent incubator is Y Combinator. Y Combinator follows a unique model, where the start-ups are funded for around $20,000 (`10 lakh) and incubated for 3 months. A recent Y Combinator cohort had over 60 companies. This model, while very successful in the Silicon Valley (some of the Y Combinator companies such as Dropbox and Airbnb are valued at over a $1 bn), is not best suited for India. The primary reasons behind this is that the Indian entrepreneur ecosystem is relatively new compared to the Silicon Valley. If one puts the same filtering standard as Y Combinator, only a handful of companies would make the cut. Not because Indian entrepreneurs lack smartness, but because the entrepreneur or the team lacks the rounded skillset required for a start-up. A good founding team needs marketing, sales, product management, and all-round leadership capability in addition to solid technical skills (for technology oriented DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
In India, incubators need to play a larger role than their Silicon Valley counterparts. They need to provide crucial mentoring to the entrepreneurs in product definition, team building, and structuring the company start-ups). We need to agree that the Indian education system is too narrow in its focus, without opportunities to get sufficient real-world experience. While providing a good technical grounding, the system does not give enough opportunities to develop skills in the other areas. Meantime, the business opportunity in India has opened up dramatically. Increasing prosperity, greater broadband penetration, and a dazzling array of new technologies that are lowering the threshold for starting companies to unheard levels are creating a fertile start-up environment. Between the market opportunity and the motivated, but relatively inexperienced entrepreneurs is a chasm. Hence incubators in India have sprouted up to fill this void.
Incubators: A Larger Role in India
In India, incubators need to play a larger role than their Silicon Valley counterparts. They need to provide crucial mentoring to the entrepreneurs in product definition, team building, and in structuring the company. Incubators can help entrepreneurs in creating a prototype, releasing it to a limited circle of visit www.dqindia.com
customers, getting a feedback, rapidly iterating, and then firming up the concept. Doing this effectively requires an astute ability in the team to understand what feedback to take, what to ignore, and how to pivot the idea into something that could be a real business. Few start-ups continue with the idea with which they first started, and choosing the right alternative while intelligently pruning out the paths that lead nowhere is essential to success at this stage. In addition, incubators play a crucial role in assembling the right team. Attracting and hiring the right talent, while simultaneously running full tilt at creating the product is difficult. Due to their close involvement in the start-up, incubators can help identify the gaps and also play a substantial role in recruiting the right talent into the team. A common pitfall among the first-time entrepreneurs is not paying attention to the capital structure of the company. In their desire to get going quickly, they often cut corners and end up with a byzantine company structure and confusing equity distributions. Incubators assist in putting together a structure that makes it easier for an institutional investor to come in at a later stage. As the start-up ecosystem matures in India, the landscape could begin to look similar to the Silicon Valley. Until that happens, incubators will need to play a much more hands-on role in shaping and grooming the start-ups for success. n
SHRIPATI ACHARYA The author is the co-founder and managing partner of AngelPrime maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in January 15, 2012 | 71
Kaleidoscope
The Good and the Not So Good
SHOBHA SIVAKUMAR shobhas@cybermedia.co.in DRISHTI D MANOAH drishtim@cybermedia.co.in
Social Recruitment Gaining Popularity
In India, recruitment through social networking sites constitute about 2% of all hiring—the trend estimated to grow exponentially to over 20% in the near future. Looks like recruiters, HR consultancy firms, and various individual companies have finally realized the potential of this medium. Almost 87% of the Indian employees utilize social networks to check up on an organizations work culture, and 75% of the Indian employees depend on social media to stay updated on developments taking place in companies where they are scheduled to appear for an interview. The Jobvite survey revealed that LinkedIn is the most preferred avenue of social recruitment, with over 87% companies depending on it. Facebook comes a distant second with 55% and is closely followed by Twitter with 47%. This further highlights the importance of embracing social media as an indispensable tool on the part of every organization. Social recruitment, currently a trend, is slated to become the norm very soon.
Groupon—Sailing Through Difficult Waters
Groupon’s journey in India has been marked with some rough patches. Just last year, it acquired Sosasta.com and re-branded it to Groupon India, but faced a lot of hurdles within 6 months of the acquisition. The company had to admit to a data breach which resulted in sensitive data of the Groupon users being posted openly on the internet. To add to their woes, a rift took place between their global management and the India team with respect to decisions and policies. Groupon seems to be sailing through some difficult waters and sailors too are leaving the ship. Ananya and Udayan Bubna who started Sosasta.com and were CEO and COO, respectively of its re-branded avatar have quit to start another e-commerce venture. Its chief of operations, Margo Georgladis, also moved on to Google. Meanwhile, Rocket Internet, a key promoter behind Groupon International, plans to invest in a new ecommerce website soon. Acquisitions can be very strange indeed!
Cloud Service Online
It’s important to have documents and data readily accessible to facilitate important events such as university admissions, property buying or selling, loan applications, legal contract work, insurance claims processes, manage medical records, to name a few. However considerable time and effort is expended in searching, re-producing, authenticating, validating, and archiving of such documents. While many corporations are going the way of the cloud, a good example has been that of Oystor (www.oystor.com) being used as a billing system. Instead of mailing or emailing invoices, some law firms, accounting firms, design studios, and IT companies simply upload invoices and other supporting documents onto Oystor and share it with their clients, logistics providers, accountants, and employees. Being stored safely, like pearls within Oystor! 72 | January 15, 2012
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digital business Very Recent Acquisitions Company Name
Acquired
Acquired Company Type
Flipkart
Mime360
Digital distribution of media
IMImobile
Skinkers
UK based digital agency
Katango
Organizes people’s social contacts
Whisper Systems
Mobile security start-up
Flipkart
Chakpak.com
Bollywood content firm
Gowalla
Geo-social app
Skype—Time for Self-scrutiny
Since its $8.5 bn acquisition by Microsoft in 2010, Skype is all set to be integrated into the next iteration of the Windows Operating System (Windows 8). Undoubtedly, Skype has been one of the most used internet services to get in touch with family and friends. But this could soon change if it turns a deaf ear to the warnings. According to research conducted by scientists at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, a Skype user’s Internet Protocol (IP) address can still be vulnerable to theft even if the person does not accept an incoming call on the service. Your location apart, adept hackers can easily access your download history and your activities online. This has potential to wreak havoc in aspects like politics, business, and even terrorism prevention. Time for self-scrutiny!
Shop the Walmart Way
A perfect example of mix and usage of online social media for e-commerce in retail, the player being none other than Walmart. You can find ‘Shopycat the Social Gift Finder’ at http://www.facebook.com/Shopycat. Anand Rajaraman announced the launch of Shopycat, an app for Facebook, for making gifting to loved ones a leisurely and fun task. He is incidentally the co-founder along with Venky Harinarayanan of Kosmix, a social media utility, which was acquired by Walmart for its own e-commerce purposes and where he continues to be involved with the product in capacity as SVP, Walmart Global e-commerce/Kosmix. Anand says in his blogpost of November 30—“Today at @WalmartLabs, we’re launching Shopycat, a Facebook app, that makes gift-giving less stressful and more fun. There are 2 steps to finding the perfect gift. The first step is knowing the tastes and interests of the recipient. Shopycat infers the interests of each of your friends by analyzing their Facebook activity through likes, shares, and posts using our social genome technology. For example, Shopycat notices that my friend Joe keeps posting about the Red Sox, and infers that he is a Red Sox— and therefore a baseball fan. Shopycat analyzes likes and shares to infer tastes as varied as Harry Potter, running, Angry Birds, sushi, yoga, and parenting to recommend gifts. The second step is to search across a large universe of products to find the one ‘wow’ gift that doesn’t break the bank. Shopycat matches users’ interests to a giant catalog that includes products from Walmart.com, Walmart, and sites including Barnes and Noble, RedEnvelope, ThinkGeek, and Hot Topic. For users who are not very active on Facebook, Shopycat will recommend appropriate gift cards from Walmart, iTunes, Starbucks, and Zynga. And for last minute shoppers, the app also shows the location of the nearest Walmart store to pick up your gifts.” A simple yet innovative strategy—one can now look forward to easy gifting and receiving, right from casual to last-minute shopping at Walmart. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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January 15, 2012 | 73
Security Solutions
Enter, Virtual Patching Customizing virtual patching tools to address privacy of data, security breaches, etc, in this era of colossal amounts of data, is the apt solution
A
few years ago, OS and Application patch was barely a blip on the radar screens of most security and IT personnel. ‘Install and forget’ was a fairly common practice; once deployed, many systems were infrequently or never updated. Obviously, for a number of reasons, this approach is no longer an option. The rise of widespread worms and malicious code targeting known vulnerabilities on unpatched systems, and the resultant downtime and expense they bring, is probably the biggest reason so many organizations are focusing on patch management. Along with these threats, increasing concern around governance and regulatory compliance has pushed enterprises to gain better control and oversight of their information assets. Patch deployment for vulnerability remediation can be a painful exercise for the IT departments. If it were easy, patch release and deployment would be predictable 76 | January 15, 2012
events and vulnerabilities would be addressed within acceptable timeframes. Instead, emergency patches persist, IT staffs scramble to deploy them, and security officers brace themselves for the worst case—a data breach or unplanned system downtime.
Why Patch Management?
The primary goal of software patching is to keep operating systems and applications working smoothly and securely. The mere availability of a patch doesn’t give IT a green light to deploy it across all business systems, especially critical servers. Even the very predictable ‘Microsoft Patch Tuesday’ releases are scrutinized every month by the IT organizations to ensure that the risks are actually addressed without breaking the existing applications. Typically, patch deployment follows a structured process that includes obtaining the patch from the Application vendor and check the visit www.dqindia.com
integrity, deploy in test environment, notify stakeholders to deploy the patch to all affected systems, and rechecking operational efficiency of the patched systems. The complexity and the time taken to deploy the patch on the critical server systems are significant burdens on the IT operations and consign them to a state of reactivity and continuous catch-up. Against this background, it is hardly surprising that the IT departments spend 33% of their time on patch management, but only 27% rate their patch management process as being effective. More than 86% of enterprises reveal that they have experienced security breaches due to malware, over a two-third have experienced attacks on web applications, and almost one-third have had OS vulnerabilities attacked. In 2009, over 5,700 critical software flaw vulnerabilities were reported in operating systems, databases, servers, and other applications, ac
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
cording to the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Patching these vulnerabilities can be disruptive and time-consuming, requiring systems to be rebooted and potentially impacting service-level agreements. Even when a patch is available, it can take weeks or even months before the patch can be fully deployed because of internal testing requirements. The challenge is not getting easier over time, with the National Vulnerability Database reporting an annual average of close to 6,000 software vulnerabilities between 2006 and 2009. Buying time to manage the window between when vulnerability is discovered and a patch can be deployed is a critical element in maintaining an adequate security posture.
Patch deployment follows a structured process. Obtain the patch from the Application vendor and check the integrity, deploy in test environment, notify stakeholders to deploy the patch to all affected systems, and recheck operational efficiency of the patched systems
The Associated Challenges
Clearly no software application will be supported in perpetuity; every IT manager has at some time received an End of Life (EOL) announcement, which specifies a date after which a particular program will be out-of-support (OOS) and no further patches will be issued except by special (and costly) individual agreements. Yet even with an organized end-of-life process, many organizations appear to be caught off-guard or unprepared for the inevitability of OOS software. And, those who do research the options find that those options often bring their own share of challenges. Patch management is both a solution and a source of frustration, so why do IT security policies continue to mandate timely and accurate patching of vulnerable systems? The answer is that, short of rewriting the original source code, patches are the most targeted way in which to remediate software vulnerabilities in specific operating systems and applications. In addition to OOS software, a number of other critical IT areas like enterprise applications, DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
legacy web applications, and nontypical systems are also vulnerable to the ‘ignorance is bliss’ school of security management. In addition, the broad interconnectedness of today’s systems has expanded the perimeter of the corporate network well beyond the physical boundaries of the enterprise. Users’ personal smartphones and USB drives are frequently plugged into corporate endpoints, social networking applications are downloaded without the knowledge of the IT department, remote users may only occasionally connect to the corporate network and receive patches—and all have the potential to create a direct connection between the network or data center and whatever might be lurking on the internet. So, human behavior remains a top cause of security breaches in business today.
A New Approach: Virtual Patching
The dual challenge of vulnerability risks and patch management is clearly not being adequately met visit www.dqindia.com
by traditional solutions. Multiple gaps exist that need to be filled by a solution that does not require the isolation of critical systems, entails white-listing applications on critical systems, calls for the removal of unused user accounts and unnecessary services, further reduces security and operability by blocking ports, and involves IT in attempting to block social networking and smartphones. There are lots of tools available in the market, which produce reams and reams of data. But, one needs a different tool that actually helps us to focus on the right issues. The answer to the unwinnable challenge of patching unpatchable systems is a virtual patching tool that is non-disruptive ‘vulnerability shield’ and protects systems during the risk window. It should be capable enough to shield vulnerabilities in critical systems until a patch is available and deployed or in place of a future patch that may never materialize. If a hacker locates vulnerability, he may try to exploit it. That’s why it is a great idea to have a tool that also has Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDS/IPS) mechanism. This will help in shielding against known vulnerabilities like those disclosed on Microsoft Patch Tuesday from being exploited. In addition, it should also be capable of checking for updates to IDS/IPS rules. The tools also should have a web application protection rules to defend against SQL injections attacks, cross-site scripting attacks, and other web application vulnerabilities, shielding these vulnerabilities until code fixes are completed. n
AMIT NATH
The author is country manager, Trend Micro India & Saarc maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in January 15, 2012 | 77
C-Change 2012
More than just a Think-tank
Congregation
Gear up for a brain-storming session with achievers, guiding us on the tumultuous waves of changes, like Noah’s Ark pulling us through their visionary ideas
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s we don’t know about tsunamis, earthquakes, falling asteroids, extra-terrestrials’ vacation plans, fire, or hurricanes, similarly we don’t know about the next year or the next century. Therefore we leave that job to mystics and astrosapiens. However the world we inhabit is almost on the verge of a sharp edge. The world of technology and IT, as much as we love the status quo, will cease to be the way it is.
Big Wave of Change
And like dinosaurs, we can see the meteors before they arrive: You can see them, I can see them, and he can see them. We all have been going through this hunch that gradually is being validated by many reports and forecasts. It’s more than a sixth sense moment now. What has been started by the internet, cloud, or tablets is albeit, just a starting. It’s not just about those legacy systems, black racks, aging systems, outof-fashion portables, depleted machines, and drying-up codes. It’s not about hardware, software, or bloatwares. It’s about the way IT has been thought of, whipped up, scooped out, spooned, and sipped in. 78 | January 15, 2012
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The family tree of IT and business has been uprooted and redesigned. The good and scary part is: We are living through this big wave of change as it happens.
Endless Questions
Many things that we live with would either make their way to junkyards or graveyards or museums. The big question is which ones, when, and where? The big question is not about why but how, and not about answers but questions. What questions should we be asking at a cusp like this? Is your neighbor asking the same questions? Are we dealing with outdated questions while someone else has already leaped forward to bigger ones? We don’t know the answers to be frank.
C-Change 2012
But we know some questions and we know a place that will celebrate them—C-Change 2012. From February 23rd to 25th 2012, at Kollam (Kerala), will help you find just the very questions that will be the ‘sesame’ voice for the future. For many, the name ‘C-Change’ needs no introduction at all. This year too CIOL and Dataquest present the Ninth Business Technology Forum, C-Change 2012. Yet again, this annual forum creates a platform that brings together the top 100 CIOs and business leaders for a peer-to-peer interaction, learning, and knowledge sharing about technology from business perspective. It has traveled from Egypt to Nepal to Goa and is going to Kerala’s backwaters this time to touch some front-burner issues. Transformation, business alignment, cross-functional integration, strategic value creation, impactful evolution, and change management are not the X-factors or the rainbows to chase anymore. They are hygiene factors for any organization today. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Many things that we live with would either make their way to junkyards or graveyards or museums. The big question is which ones, when, and where?
CIOs deal with these new-generation imperatives and take on the challenge of navigating fast-changing technology DNA and new intersection points for IT. A CIO’s tech vision has to be a business vision in this new universe. So CIOs have to think better, sharper, and swifter for steering business progress on the new tech road path. C-Change 2012 is themed around this very orbit to bring and share some of the finest experience from the achievers, outliers, experts, specialists, and the mavericks.
List of Maverick Achievers
Last year C-Change saw stellar influencers like Subroto Bagchi, Devdutt Pattnaik, Rajeev Ratna Shah, and Dr Ashok Jhunjhunwala. Like always, the event would be about game-changers, and the list of maverick achievers who would be revealing their magic mantras as speakers this time, is proof enough that the event is about radical thinking. The speakers include R Ray Wang, an international analyst, who not only blogs at Forbes CIO Central and for Harvard Business Review but has also been recognized by the Institute of Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR) as the Analyst of the Year. And, in 2009 he was recognized as one of the most important analysts for enterprise, SMB, and Software. visit www.dqindia.com
His blog ‘A Software Insider’s Point of View’ was listed in the top 20 of Jonny Bentwood’s Technobabble 2.0 Top Industry Analyst Blogs. Leaders from the metaphysical realms like Sadguru—Isha Foundation, will take CIOs through the universe of Inner Engineering. Renovation heroes like Dilip Chhabria, better known as DC, will share some fascinating secrets from the world of cars and design. The event is not just about great cocktails but great toastmasters too like Sumitra Manmohan, who has been working on bringing changes in individuals and the society using her toastmaster craft.
Brain-storming Sessions
The Triumphs and Tensions of Technology; The Board Meeting: Corporate Law, Policy Issues, Taking Decisions, and Talking Beyond Technology; Leading Billion Dreams: How a CIO can take advantage of the opportunity by forging effective alliances to transform tech ecosystem of the world; The CIO’s Role in Strategy Direction; The Good and Bad Economics of Technology: How a CFO Looks at Tech Investment; The Consensus Rating: The Art of Decision-making: Is It a Fair Process or the Right Process? All these are mere glimpses of conversations and thought-stirrings that will happen at C-Change 2012. It will be more than a think-tank congregation. It would be a submarine that will silently tread the waters of the future through the periscope of wisdom shared, wisdom questioned, and wisdom re-engineered. With ‘Lead, Align, and Transform’ as its guiding theme, CChange 2012 will be about Advantage CIO in every sense. Meanwhile, the world will go on, but if you have been looking for Noah, you might find him here. n Pratima Harigunani
maildq@cybermedia.co.in January 15, 2012 | 79
Cloud Computing
APAC
Going Beyond Revenue
Investment by the government, a favorable regulatory environment, and an effective broadband/IT infrastructure are critical for cloud development. Weakness in any of these factors will materially curtail development
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hich is the hottest cloud-computing market in APAC? Where is the most revenue being generated? These are 2 questions that run high on the minds of many CIOs, CFOs, CTOs, and cloud vendors. The implication is that the answer to the second question will satisfy the first. While at first glance, the assumption seems harmless and acceptable, this type of ‘revenue first’ analysis largely ignores the critical activity within each country and can be detrimental for anyone making decisions on the APAC countries that will ultimately turn cloud as a winner or loser. In early 2011, Cisco set out to examine the cloud market in the region and enlisted The 451 Group, an independent research firm, to assist in identifying the key traits/factors for cloud-computing success, quantifying them, and establishing a framework to rank countries across APAC on the basis of their relative standing on these fronts. The study analyzed 784 unique events and data points over 6 consecutive quarters in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, and Japan. The results were very revealing and led to 2 key questions that must be asked by cloud policy and business visionaries before they decide where their ‘cloud role models’ are.
Are the Cloud Foundations in Place?
To get a local perspective, we must do the following tasks: n Extent of Investment: First quantify the extent to which the national or local governments invest in the cloud. In Japan, cloud computing is viewed by the government as a means to enhance the country’s competitiveness at the global level. As part of the Digital Japan Creation Project, Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) declared its bold move into the cloud arena. The telecom regulator has set its sights on building a massive cloud infrastructure, dubbed the ‘Kasumigaseki Cloud’, to support all of the government’s IT systems. The infrastructure project is one of the action points set forth by MIC to stimulate growth of the ICT industry in Japan, with the government-led cloud to be deployed in phases until 2015. n Examine the State of the Regulatory Environment: We need to examine the state of the regulatory environment and whether that is being helped or hindered. Australia’s regulatory environment became restricted in early FY11 as 82 | January 15, 2012
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DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
a result of outsourcing guidelines issued by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), the regulator that oversees local banks, credit unions, insurance companies, and most members of the superannuation industry. Since early FY10, Hong Kong’s formation of an association to explore regulatory issues and plans announced for regulatory activity have helped drive its cloud adoption. In contrast, in India the regulatory environment often lags behind the other markets. In Indonesia, the country’s reaction to RIM’s data privacy issues and harsh commentary from the country’s information minister has hindered the regulatory environment. n Broadband Infrastructure: Hong Kong also shines in broadband infrastructure. Its ICT industry is well developed, mobile market is highly mature, and broadband adoption is growing fast. Besides being a financial hub, it has a modern infrastructure and an excellent connectivity. Similarly, availability and the overall status of the telco/IT infrastructure, makes Japan a clear leader in terms of broadband adoption, in the markets researched. n Data Centers: Last but not the least, the foundation for cloud growth in APAC also depends on the extent to which cloud ‘factories’—data centers—are being built. The research revealed that Hong Kong did not perform highly in availability of tier-3+ data centers and Australia was perceived to have a middle position in the region for the same. However data center activity in India is moving at a breakneck speed although activity centers on the lower end of the data center spectrum as supply catches up with demand. With an influx of lower tier data centers, India runs the risk of needing to convert/consolidate a large portion of its data centers if cloud demand accelerates as expected. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
There is a wide gap between Asia’s developed and developing nations. On a broader regional basis, it confirms the thesis that these countries are still in the ‘foundation’ phase; and it is too early to use revenue as a realistic, standalone measure of the level of cloud activity to highlight the ‘best practice’ According to a separate global study released November 2011— ’Cisco Global Cloud Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2010–2015’, an annual global cloud IP traffic is predicted to reach 1.6 ZB by the end of 2015 (133 EB per month) and global cloud IP traffic will grow at a CAGR of 66% between 2010 and 2015. Therefore investment by the government, a favorable regulatory environment, and an effective broadband/IT infrastructure are critical for cloud development. Weakness in any of these factors will materially curtail development.
pool of vendors to support its move to cloud computing. Cisco identified 59 total cloud partnerships in Japan since Q1FY10, with relationships forecast between firms across the IT spectrum, targeting every level of the cloud stack. In contrast, Indonesia’s relatively small economy and relatively closed business environment means the vendor pool for cloud products and adoption is materially smaller than other countries in the analysis. Multinationals and other vendors looking to partner, invest, and expand will likely be drawn to more business-friendly destinations. Connected to this is the level of VC funding and M&A activity in each market; Japan, Hong Kong, and Australia are rising significantly and indicating a cloud leadership position. In India, deals in the SaaS market have dominated M&A activity. As indicated above, there is a wide gap between Asia’s developed and developing nations. On a broader regional basis, it confirms the thesis that these countries are still in the ‘foundation’ phase; and it is too early to use revenue as a realistic, stand-alone measure of the level of cloud activity to highlight the ‘best practice’. The next 2 years are critical as far as government regulation, investment, and support are concerned to help these markets grow. A great deal of development is required across the region to create viable, sustainable cloud markets. Looking ‘beyond revenue’ is the way forward. n
Is the Cloud Supply Chain Building Up?
The level of cloud vendor activity in each market must be examined as a leadership indicator alongside the level of partnership activity. Given Japan’s recent status as APAC’s second largest economy (only surpassed by China), the country has a broad and diverse visit www.dqindia.com
RAJESH REGE The author is senior VP, data center and cloud business, Cisco India & Saarc maildq@cybermedia.co.in January 15, 2012 | 83
Data Management
Extracting Intelligence Transition from the traditional to Big Data calls upon the leaders to create a comprehensive strategy to analyze different types of data
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oday, organizations are increasingly facing a big challenge: Exploding volumes of traditional data and the emerging class of data called big data, which is diverse and complex. While generation of the data is relatively simple, the real challenge for CIOs is to get real business value from the data. Simultaneously, the data complexity and analytics have evolved over time, requiring that CIOs develop a strategy for assimilation and analysis. From enterprise resource planning (ERP) in the 1970s to the current Big Data phenomena, the evolution of data and analytics has been significant.
Generating Intelligence: Structured Ways
In this section, different methods have been discussed, which are as follows: n Enterprise Resource Planning and Transaction Data: The first real structured way of generating intelligence about organizational activities came about by implementation of ERP systems. They integrate internal and external management information, including finance, accounting, manufacturing, sales, and service. The internal processes and various software capabilities created a structured way to improve efficiency and increase productivity. The data from ERP systems is very structured and manageable in size. Online transaction systems like ATMs, point of sale receipts, and airline ticketing come from the same era and are also highly 84 | January 15, 2012
structured and manageable in size. Each individual system provides the basic capability to do single subject operational reporting. n Customer Relationship Management: Customer relationship management (CRM) is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients, and sales prospects. It involved using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes. The overall goal is to find, attract, win, and retain new clients. The CRM came of age in the 1990s, when businesses needed a way to drive increased profitability. The data generated from CRM systems was also structured and relational in nature. The data was manageable, with databases growing to 50 TB in size.
Website Traffic
The collection and analysis of data from website has grown exponentially. Analysis of website data is not just a tool for measuring website traffic, it can be used as a tool for business research and market research helping companies measure the results of traditional print advertising campaigns. Visitors to a website communicate their buying goals and preferences with each click, generating substantially more data per day than a single transaction. The data from websites is manageable for most businesses, with databases growing to 50 TB in size.
dia, web interactions, e-commerce, sensors, machines, and intelligent mobile devices. The challenge for businesses is to leverage, not discard, the emerging big data. In this emerging market, big data is generally defined as being massive in volume with a mix of structured and unstructured data involving complex interrelationships that do not lend themselves to analysis with older techniques. For these reasons, capturing, storing, managing, and analyzing are sometimes extremely difficult. The volumes of big data may be petabyte in size for some businesses.
The Real Challenge
The challenge for today’s CIOs is that they must have a comprehensive strategy to gain a business insight from all types of data to create a sustainable competitive advantage. They must understand how to create a 360-degree view of the business and customer by applying the right analytics to the right data. Once they understand the needs of their business users, they can deploy the most agile database on which to run the analytics and determine how best to extract the intelligence. n
DINESH JAIN
The author is country manager, Teradata Corporation India maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
Explosion of Big Data
Big data is generated by social mevisit www.dqindia.com
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Spotlight
Will WildFire Be the Future Face of Firewalls? The latest security product is expected to replace the traditional firewalls, and claims a 60% market share by 2014
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arly this month, US based Palo Alto Networks introduced its next generation firewall—WildFire. This latest security product is built with an integrated approach to address the full malware lifecycle from preventing infections, identifying unknown, or targeted malware as well as pinpointing and disrupting any active infections. According to Nir Zuk, Palo Alto Network’s founder and CTO, the network security market is estimated around $8-10 bn globally. Traditionally, the market of network security is largely dominated around the web, email, and internet security. “But blocking web applications is not enough for security today be86 | January 15, 2012
cause you can get threats from other web applications such as WebEx, Instant Messenger (IM), Skype, Microsoft SharePoint, Facebook, and others,” said Zuk. “Our next generation firewall (WildFire) takes the network security to a new level and expands to the internet, web mail, instant messengers, and web applications,” he added. Quoting Gartner predictions, Zuk pointed out that WildFire is replacing the traditional firewalls and claimed, “Palo Alto’s firewall will have 60% market share by 2014.” Interestingly, Palo Alto Networks is relatively a new player in the network security market however within 6 years in the industry, the company has generated over $200 mn visit www.dqindia.com
revenues with 5,000 plus customers globally. “Competitors offer security only for the internet, emails, or web by blocking web applications, but we have found ways to secure web applications rather than block them,” Zuk commented on how WildFire’s technology is more advanced than the other vendors’ firewalls. “We are the first firewall vendor to bring out the targeted attack solutions, while the industry is good at wild attacks,” he claimed. Zuk further argued that VPN was developed some 15 years ago— when there was no Wi-Fi connectivity, but today there is Wi-Fi. “Palo Alto Network’s VPN security creates a virtual private cloud and protects data via our firewalls, which provides security not only at network level but also protects against the data center leakage, exploits, and targeted attacks,” he added. The former CheckPoint engineer, at the age of 16 started writing viruses however he soon realized his future was in developing security software and technology. And that’s how Zuk started Palo Alto Networks with the help of 25 people and raised $9.4 mn. “Problem is that the world doesn’t have enough researchers and security analysts which can detect and monitor targeted attacks,” observed Zuk. n PANKAJ MARU
pankajm@cybermedia.co.in (The author was hosted by NetEvents APAC and Analyst Press Summit in Phuket, Thailand)
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
news
‘HP covers the depth and breadth of server systems’ You have recently been transferred to the Industry Standard Servers (ISS) division from the software division. Now, what is your agenda ahead? HP follows a rotational policy, where once in every 2-3 years business heads are moved into different divisions for learning and understanding different processes. Prior to HP Software, I was associated with Enterprise Unit sales, which then used to function as a unified division offering all the distinct product lines in one package like BCS, ISS, storage, and many more. And around the 90s, this was a major part of our business. From then, our portfolio expanded, but the core remains the same, so change in the group wasn’t a major movement for me. My agenda would be to continue the momentum and maintain HP’s leadership in the ISS space. You will see a lot of action happening around the project Moonshot, our latest offering. HP had announced other launches in the 88 | January 15, 2012
—K Vikram, director, ISS, HP
recent past? How do they fit in the overall strategy? Project Moonshot is helping customers double or triple their data center capacity with HP data center smart grid innovations. We also introduced the energyefficient data center as HP EcoPOD. POD is the market for quick availability in data center, while Moonshot will find itself fit in a high-demand scenario, dealing with big data like in social media, e-commerce, banking, and other markets. Today, from entry-level ProLiant servers to Moonshot, we cover the depth and breadth of the server line. Moonshot claims to be next-generation
line servers, which are greener and provide more capacity. What makes it possible? Basically, project Moonshot is a multi-year, multi-phase program with 3 major components like HP Redstone Server development platform, discovery lab, and pathfinder program. It is the next step towards our strategy of offering converged infrastructure. We have followed the federated networking and management system strategy that helps in decreasing solution complexity and cost by reducing the number of management endpoints, network cards, cables, and switches. How would you be spearheading the entire project Moonshot? This is something that HP is globally working on. Around the first half of 2012, the Redstone Server development platform will be available in limited volumes to select customers to test and run their applications. It is initially incorporating Calxeda EnergyCore ARM
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Cortex processors; the Redstone Server is designed for testing and proofing of concept. The server platforms incorporating Intel ATOM based processors and others are planned. While it would be very early to talk about the locations of the Discovery lab, these labs would be at various locations, including APAC. Again, the first lab will be opened in Houston in early 2012 followed by Europe and Asia. There, the labs would co-host the clients with HP engineers with remote or on-site access. And lastly, the HP Pathfinder Program is a part of our existing HP AllianceONE program dedicated to client discovery efforts across the data centers. It also encourages development of elements of the Moonshot program within open industry standards. While our initial technology partners are AMD, ARM Holdings, Calxeda, Canonical, and Red Hat, we would have more name as the program grows. AKANKSHA PRASAD
akankshap@cybermedia.co.in
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
‘Today’s market has potential for every one’ What is QFabric technology? QFabric is the world’s first true data center fabric and the architectural foundation of data centers for the next decade that delivers a quantum leap improvement in data center performance and business agility from the enterprise to the large-scale cloud service providers. It is unrivaled in its ability to fully solve the complexity and cost issues being faced by the IT managers dealing with exponential data center growth. The QFX3500 10 gigabit Ethernet access switch, a critical component of the QFabric architecture, delivers a radically
Will QFabric help Juniper compete with Cisco? Of course, not only Cisco there are also several other competing architectures out there: Cisco is only one of them. The QFabric architecture is so far ahead that everybody is scrambling for it. And, definitely it positions us far ahead of competition. —Ravi Chauhan, managing director, Juniper Networks India and Saarc
simplified network management experience for the customers; it is the only network product that addresses low latency, virtualized, and converged environments. It also fulfills low-TCO IT requirements.
Is HP 3Com a competitor to you? No, not really. As of now, it hasn’t shaped up as such in the market place. We do work together and we are still working together, and the way I see it’s that the market place is continual; we play on one side of it on the high-end functionality. I believe that there is a bit of an overlapping and by and large we complement You have partnered with each other. HP in India has HP, so has HP not been the whole portfolio to play leveraging 3Com? with; and they are picking HP has its own portfolio up relevant solutions from and we have our own. Today the market depending on these portfolios complement customer requirements on each other. They are usually what works and what’s best on the low-end and we are and then taking it to the on the high-end. Normally, customer. I would say this the best of the breed is a very effective strategy. are taken from both the RUKHSAR SALEEM portfolios for a project. rukhsars@cybermedia.co.in
People Terry Myerson Will Head Microsoft’s Phone Division
Microsoft has announced the appointment of Terry Myerson as the new head of the Microsoft’s Windows Phone division. Terry succeeds Andy Lees, who was taking care of this division since 2009, and has now taken charge of phone and PC business. Terry now will look after Windows Phone development, marketing, and other business functions.
McAfee Appoints New CTO
McAfee has announced the appointment of Stuart McClure as the worldwide chief technology officer. Prior to this new role, McClure was working as the senior vice president of McAfee. Being an expert in hacking, he has also authored a book named ‘Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets and Solutions’. McClure has replaced George Kurtz, who has left McAfee to start his own venture. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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January 15, 2012 | 89
news
‘The new age data centers are efficiency- and TCO-driven’ How is the overall data center market in India performing? Please share some figures. The Indian data center market is growing in a sustained manner. According to an IDC report, the India data center services market will touch nearly `10,000 crore by the end of 2011, a CAGR of 22.7% over the 2-year period 200911. This definitely goes on to prove that the market still showcases an immense opportunity for growth. Please share the key trends and changes the data center solutions have undergone over the past couple of years? The new age data centers
—Darshan Watve, country sales manager, data business, Avaya India and South Asia
are efficiency- and TCO-driven, with a focus on business utility, location, virtualization, and data recovery. This change in the data center paradigm had been triggered by several factors like natural calamities, recession, terror attacks, compliance, regulatory developments, and the
obvious requirement of increased efficiencies. Also, with pressure on capital/funds, CIOs are expected to ‘do more with less’, hence there is a need for cloud computing, data center consolidation, system and network virtualization, and higher energy efficiencies. What is your company’s partner-led strategy in targeting the data center market? Avaya has integrated almost 95% Nortel partners, after the Nortel acquisition. Avaya has a superior product line, especially with Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture (VENA), which gives
us an edge over others. Avaya truly believes and demonstrates that ‘a good network is one which you never have to think about’. We work with industry leading players like Vmware, QLogic, Coraid, and F5 to cover the whole stack of DC networking solutions. Avaya works with some of the largest SIs in India to take these solutions to the market largely in industry verticals like telecom, government/ defense, banking, IT-ITeS, manufacturing, and very large enterprises. For SMB, Avaya has a large base of partners who take our solutions to the market. ONKAR SHARMA
onkars@cybermedia.co.in
People Sunil Dutt Joins RIM as MD
RIM has appointed Sunil Dutt as its new managing director for the India region. Prior to joining RIM, Dutt was working as president, personal systems group at HP India and at various senior positions in Samsung, Nokia, and Whirlpool. He brings quality experience of telecom and expertise in the mobile technology.
Ambarish Deshpande Joins Blue Coat Systems India as MD Blue Coat Systems Inc, a web security company, has appointed Ambarish Deshpande as its managing director of India. Deshpande will look after sales, alliance strategies, and business development in the Indian market. He will work under Steve Rowland, vice president of sales for Blue Coat in Asia Pacific. Prior to this, he has served McAfee as director, alliance, channels, and mid-market South Asia.
Amit Chatterjee Comes Back to HP
Amit Chatterjee has once again joined HP Software and Solutions as its country director, in effect from November 30, 2011. Prior to this, Chatterjee served CA (India) as the managing director, India and Saarc. Before working for CA, he has also played various roles in HP India and HP Asia. 90 | January 15, 2012
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DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
‘CIOs should focus on a preventative approach’ What kind of caution points do you think CIOs should focus on? A minimum level of security measures should be enforced that includes password protection and round-the-clock wiping of corporate data from the devices in the network. Application whitelisting should be practiced in order to safeguard the network and confidential company data. Regularly, all the softwares in the network should be updated and tested. A good strategy is necessary to develop a list of approved devices and software in the network. CIOs should focus on a more proactive and preventative approach to protect their applications and the sensitive information that they contain. They should
—Govind Ramamurthy, MD and CEO, eScan
ensure that their network is locked down in a secure hardened state to prevent vulnerabilities from creeping in and being exploited. Instead of location-centric, data protection should be data-centric. How is consumerization of IT creating hazards in enterprises? No matter how beneficial the IT consumerization
is, it has its own limits. If we analyze the current scenario of enterprises wherein consumerization is taking over, the lack of a strategic approach is resulting into security risks, financial exposure, and a management nightmare for IT. With more consumer technologies flooding in the enterprise network, security managers need to be more prepared to manage and face the security risks. Traditional security models lack maturity to manage the risks of consumerization. As far as social media is concerned, what kind of security lapse can be observed? With the increase in the usage of social networking sites,
security lapses on such networks can lead to wide-range of consequences. While its users are widely connected globally, these interactive sites give opportunity to connect to a wider networking base. Hence passing on of user names, email addresses, and other sitespecific identity-related information is prevalent among websites and social networks, unless the appropriate security measures are followed. One of the commonly occurred flaws is when a visitor clicks on a link to go to another site, the ID information of the user is included in the ‘referrer’ details that are sent to the third parties. ONKAR SHARMA
onkars@cybermedia.co.in
People Ravinder Jain Bags New Role at Aircel
Aircel has announced that Ravinder Jain has been promoted as chief business officer of its enterprise division. Prior to this, Jain was working in capacity of a chief information officer of the organization. He has also worked at Vodafone Essar and Hutchinson Essar in senior managerial positions.
Brocade Appoints Doug Ingraham
Brocade has appointed Doug Ingraham as the vice president of Alliances. In this new role, Ingraham is expected to look after the Brocade strategic technology, OEM alliances business units, and strategic program council. Prior to this role, he was the vice president of product management for Brocade data center products, where under his leadership Brocade introduced VDX® family of products, the Ethernet fabric switching solutions for virtualized and cloudoptimized data centers. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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January 15, 2012 | 91
news
‘Education is our stronghold’ You have been in the industry for 25 years and especially with Microsoft for a long stint, before you joined NComputing. What has been your major learning from MS that you tried bringing to this firm? With Microsoft and Sun Microsystem (earlier), what I learnt was that it takes a long time to bring a truly innovative technology in the industry and to have your customer understand the value of that technology. So with NComputing 2 big challenges were there: Getting the technology to a level of simplicity and performance scalability to help the customers and educating the customers about the benefits gained even with virtualization. We heavily looked at partners like Microsoft, Citrix, and Vmware for taking it ahead. If we consider the volumes, according to reports, NComputing has the leadership position in the APAC region for enterprise client device. With just 4 years of operations in India, you have crossed half the mile already. Please comment. We achieved leadership position against bigger firms like HP and it is 92 | January 15, 2012
reduce energy up to 90%, and improving configurations and management of VDI environments.
—Will Poole, co-chairman, NComputing
a credit, but we and everybody else have a long way to go. Desktop virtualization is still a very small percentage of the overall market, especially the enterprise market. Gartner predicts a 50 mn seats market by 2014 and we are one of the companies that would benefit from that trend, but we all are far behind it in number. What go-to-market strategy have you adopted to leverage on that growth opportunity? Investing in innovative technology and partners are 2 majors areas that we are looking at. We have recently launched our new solution: Vspace server 6.5 that now supports up to 100 user sessions per operating system. This helps reducing the number of physical host servers by 75%,
NComputing partnered with Wipro on the ESIC implementation. What are the other verticals that you see reciprocating more positively? ESIC was one of the largest deployments in the recent past with around 31,000 seats across 2,200 locations. Traditionally, NComputing has been a strong player in the education space, representing between 2/3rd and 3 quarters volume in a year. But are now getting stronger in SMB and the enterprise. India is the second largest market for us, after the US and Indonesia (most probably) at the third position. We are achieving around 150% y-o-y growth in virtual desktop solutions. NComputing has an install base of around 500,000 units, roughly a majority of this spread across education. Our partners recently won the bids for Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Bihar state education ministries. Till date, we have around 10% of
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the businesses coming from the enterprise side with ESIC, Mahindra, etc. But we are seeing a pickup in the adoption of desktop virtualization in the enterprises. Our solutions find traction in branch offices, public access units, factories, education, call centers/ BPO, and retail. Lastly, the new solutions boast 90% energy saving, 75% in the hardware side. Looking at the innovation quotient, where do you have the next level of innovation. Are we going to see a new technology play in the next-generation devices? Well, there is innovation under covers that may not be that apparent. There are number of things that we are doing and have improvements in the performance of the devices and bringing in more efficiency towards energy. We will continue to move forward in the enterprise management space, as we see increase in the seats deployments from 5,10, 25 to 1,000; we have to work with multiple vendors of not only the large enterprises but also small and medium businesses. AKANKSHA PRASAD
akankshap@cybermedia.co.in
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
‘Governments need to include cyber security in the national security policy’ Why is it that most governments are reacting to the current threats? I wouldn’t necessarily agree that governments have a reactive mode. The issue of cyber security has existed for a long time, but in the different forms of interactions and communications that have taken place. History and technology have evolved and the what we are seeing now is the ability to communicate is widely spreading to the masses. The security problem in communication has been amplified and the nature of threats has changed. It’s no longer hacking for notoriety, it’s much more profit-driven. Today, cyber criminals’ activities can be divided into 3 major
—Ilias Chantzos, senior director, government affairs, EMEA and APJ, Symantec
areas: Government related, politically motivated; public— well-meaning insider, accidents, malicious insider; profit-motivated attacks. How well prepared is the Indian government against these cyber attacks? In India, particularly, we
have been working with the Indian government in drafting a cyber security policy committee by participating in the working groups. First of all, the attacker will dictate the rules. I don’t get to know when the attack happens: Where, how, and by whom. The Indian government is certainly trying to understand the threat landscape of India. I think this is absolutely critical. Last year, we had detected total number of 286 mn new variant malware. What is your take on the global security scenario and information management? Historically we have
seen cybercrime attacks for money, now we see attacks are also motivated by political approaches, intelligence, and industrial espionage, eg, the Stuxnet and Duqu attack. All this indicates that we are now getting into a new era whereby we will see attacks that are money-motivated and at the same time we see more political-driven activity. We are at an inflection point. There are constant changes in the technology as well as in the threat landscape. The level of target and sophistication is such that the government needs to inculcate cyber security component in the national security policy. STUTI DAS
stutid@cybermedia.co.in
People eRevMax Appoints New Vice President-HR
eRevMax International, a software services provider, has announced the appointment of Anupama Dasgupta as the vice president-HR, to look after the Indian and international expansion plan. Dasgupta is expected to further develop the recruitment, HR, and training strategy. Before joining eRevMax, Anupama was at SkyTECH Solutions, arm of New York based private equity firm, The Chatterjee Group (TCG).
John Thode Joins McAfee
McAfee has appointed John Thode as the executive vice president and general manager. Thode will take care of strategy, development, and execution and bookings model for McAfee’s consumer, mobile, and small business unit. Prior to joining McAfee, Thode was serving Dell as the general manager of the consumer products group. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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January 15, 2012 | 93
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People Sreeni Tripuraneni Bags ‘Leaders of Tomorrow Awards 2011’ ET NOW-IndiaMART Leaders of Tomorrow Awards 2011 has acknowledged Dr Sreeni Tripuraneni, chairman and CEO, 4G Identity Solutions with the ‘Leader of Tomorrow’ award. Tripuraneni bagged the award in IT/ITES-BPO/VAS category at the felicitation ceremony in Mumbai from NR Narayana Murthy, chairman emeritus, Infosys Technologies, the chief guest at the ceremony.
CEAMA Acknowledges JS Shin with ‘Man of Electronics Award 2011’ Consumer Electronics and Appliance Manufacturers Association (CEAMA) of India has conferred ‘Man of Electronics Award 2011’ to JS Shin, president and chief executive officer, Samsung South West Asia at the CEAMA’s 32nd annual function. Shin received the award from Rajeev Shukla, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs at the award ceremony organized in New Delhi.
Industry HomeShop18 bags ‘E-retailer of the Year’ Award
Zebronics Launches Smart Speakers
HomeShop 18 has been conferred with the ‘E-retailer of the Year’ award by Star Retailer at Franchise India 2011. This award is supported by the Indian Franchise Association (IFA), and so it recognized HomeShop18’s arduous task of upgradation and developing credibility for the e-commerce market in India. Sundeep Malhotra, founder and CEO, HomeShop18 said that they are now targeting to develop themselves as one of the best online shopping destination with the help of various product portfolio expansions, while receiving the award.
TCS Announces Nagpur Development Center
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), has made an announcement about its expansion of operations in Maharashtra state with the establishment of a new software development campus in Nagpur in the presence of Prithviraj Chavan, Chief Minister of Maharashtra. This development center will come up on a 54-acre property in the Mihan SEZ on the outskirts of the city with an investment of `600 crore in its first phase. 94 | January 15, 2012
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Top Notch Infotronix, a supplier of computer accessories, has launched a 2.1 multimedia speaker set, the ZEB-SW3500RUCF with digital display under the brand ‘ZEBRONICS’. This smart speaker set has a bass reflex subwoofer with a functional remote control. It is compatible with iPod and PC through a stereo line cable and 3.5 mm stereo adaptor.
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Industry Kingston Claims to Have Launched World’s Smallest USB
Kingston has launched DataTraveler Micro, which it claims to be one of the world’s smallest USB flash drives. This USB has been designed in an ultra-small form for the devices like tablet PCs, slim notebooks, netbooks, and car audio systems while on the move. This light weight and compact USB is available in 8 GB and 16 GB capacity.
Kontron Launches PC MICROSPACE® MPC-p2
BT has made an announcement about the formation of BT Advise, which will help BT Global Services and managed services to come under one team and one name. BT Advise will come into immediate effect through hiring programs integrated with new customer contracts of the private and public organizations. Luis Alvarez, president, BT Global Services and Ray Stanton, vice president, BT Advise in BT Global Services will lead BT Advise.
Kontron has announced the launch of an embedded Box-PC MICROSPACE® MPC-p2, a compact system for graphic-intensive applications. This fanless Kontron compact system is based on the accelerated processing units of the AMD embedded g-series, which along with a 64-bit CPU also integrate a programmable graphics unit. It also supports 3D graphics libraries like OpenGL 3.2 and DirectX® 11 and provides hardware acceleration for flash based applications.
Tata Communications Lends Support to iAccelerator
Cisco Launches CloudVerse
Komli Claims to Have Launched India’s First RTB
Komli Media, the media technology provider, has launched ATOM, which the company claims to be the India’s first Real Time Bidding (RTB) enabled performance ad platform. RTB based ATOM is a disruptive technology, which enables media buyers to evaluate, bid on, and purchase online ad inventory on an impression by impression basis, providing accurate audience at scale. ATOM will provide access to 10 bn ad impressions/month.
BT Announces the Formation of BT Advise
Tata Communications has made an announcement to lend its support for iAccelerator, which is a start-up incubation program for the Indian technology entrepreneurs for guidance, infrastructure, and investment to initiate their ventures. iAccelerator is nourishing under the Center for Innovation, Incubation, and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM Ahmedabad. From 2009, 17 successful start-ups in the internet/mobile domain have started under this program.
Canon India Moves to New Premises
Canon India made an announcement that it has shifted to Cyber Terraces in Gurgaon, which is its new corporate headquarter. This new facility has been inaugurated by Kensaku Konishi, president and CEO, Canon India. This 100,000 sq ft office will seat its workforce of over 811 people. Canon’s software arm, previously located in Noida, has also moved into this facility. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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Cisco has announced the introduction of Cisco CloudVerse, which is an end-to-end framework to build, manage, and connect public, private, and hybrid clouds. This solution combines—unified data center, cloud intelligent network, and cloud applications and services— to enable organizations to reap full benefits of clouds: Improved agility, better economics, enhanced security, and experience. January 15, 2012 | 95
news
Industry UBI and Tata AIG Introduce ‘Protection Campaign’
United Bank of India (UBI) has announced the launch of ‘Protection Campaign’ in partnership with the Tata AIG Life Insurance, which is also UBI’s life insurance business partner. This announcement was done on the occasion of UBI’s 62nd foundation day. UBI has introduced this campaign for the duration from December 18, 2011 to March 31, 2012, during which multiple educative series/events and special awareness campaigns regarding importance of life insurance are planned for the bank branches.
Lenovo Rolls Out ‘Do Network’
Lenovo has launched ‘Do Network’ in India, which is an online platform developed to motivate people to take action and convert their ideas into substantial results. This network is promoted by Lenovo’s global campaign ‘For Those Who Do’. The place for this ‘Do Network’ is online space where people can share, discuss ideas, and can form project teams to nurture ideas into doable plans. There will be a series of 4 90-day contest cycles, with separate themes and challenges introduced for each cycle. Project teams are expected to work on 1 of the 4 challenges: Portable education, traffic jam, products progress, and wildcard challenge. Four mentors, namely Rajiv Makhni, managing editor, NDTV, New Delhi, India for technology; Rajan Anandan, managing director, Google India; Mahesh Murthy, managing partner, Seedfund; and Kishore AK, CEO and co-founder, Althea system to guide and select top 10 finalist for $2,000 each and the grand prize winner in every country will get a $25,000 grant for continuing the project.
IFC Names Delhi as the Most Competitive City in India
Institute for Competitiveness (IFC) has declared New Delhi as the most competitive city in India for the second year in a row and pushed Mumbai, its closest competitor, to #2 position in the competitiveness report. While Gurgaon has bagged 6th slot, whereas Chennai slipped down by #3 positions and now ranks at #7, but Jaipur continues to be at #10. This competitiveness report claims to be the indicator how private sector chooses the cities for investment and also how governance is integral in analyzing the level of competitiveness diversity spread across these cities. These variations hint of the governing bodies issues, which demand an urgent attention.
NEC Introduces ‘Safer Cities’ Concept
NEC Corporation, the IT security solutions company, introduced and displayed its portfolio of public safety and security solutions for ‘safer cities’ at IFSEC organized from December 8-10, 2011, at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi. The solution targets governments and businesses to protect lives and property in the cities. 96 | January 15, 2012
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HP Aids in Cloud Navigation
HP has made an announcement about a series of educational customer roundtable sessions. These sessions are specially designed to help chief financial officers (CFOs) of the companies. This series has been launched keeping in view the results of a joint research study report of CFO research services and HP financial services, which indicates that CFOs understands business benefit of the cloud, but stay unclear of converting this potential into practical results.
Ozonetel Launches First of its Kind Cloud Telephony Solution ‘CPBX’ Ozonetel Systems, the cloud telephony technology provider, has announced the launch of ‘CPBX’ at the Nasscom’s product conclave in Bengaluru. The company also claims it to be the India’s first of its kind cloud telephony solution developed for the SMB segment. CPBX service will be available across the country through channel network strategy. This service is expected to bridge business communication gap.
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Deals & Partnerships CanvasM and Polaris Wireless Enter into Partnership
CanvasM Technologies, which is a Tech Mahindra’s VAS subsidiary has announced that it has entered into a partnership with Polaris Wireless. This association will be instrumental in introducing first high-accuracy, network based wireless location solution for the Indian market. This solution will help the mobile operators to identify the location of emergency calls from a mobile phone and to introduce value added services and location based services in India.
IndiaMart and Jade Magnet Online Join Hands
IndiaMART.com, an online B2B portal, and Jade Magnet Online, a crowd sourcing portal, has announced that they have entered into an alliance to improvise the marketing strategies of SMEs and provide help in design solutions economically. As per this partnership, IndiaMART.com, through the medium of My.IndiaMART.com channel, will offer its customers with Jade Magnet’s professional assistance in designing logos, websites, powerpoints, print ads, and brochures.
M&A IBM Plans $440 mn Takeover of DemandTec
International Business Machines has announced its plans to acquire DemandTec, which is an analytics software provider. This acquisition is expected to cost IBM approximately $440 mn in cash. Through this deal, DemandTec is expected to provide its smarter commerce initiative, which aids retailers in analysis and prediction of consumer behavior. The takeover is dependent on the DemandTec’s shareholder approval and may get closed in the first quarter of 2012. In case, if the deal is not closed then DemandTec will pay IBM a termination fee of $14.0 mn.
NSN Plans to Sell Off its Broadband Access Unit to Adtran Nokia Siemens Networks has announced its agreement to sell off its fixedline broadband access business unit to Adtran, a US based firm. This selling off decision is a key part of Nokia Siemens Network’s resurrection plans, which also included cutting down 17,000 jobs and selling off few more units. The price of this deal has not been disclosed and it is expected to close till April 2012 and 400 NSN heads will move to Adtran.
CMS Info Systems Takes Over Securitrans India
CMS Info Systems, IT business services provider for the cash management, has acquired Securitrans India (SIPL), an arm of the APS Group. SIPL has its headquarter in Delhi. It is a cash management service provider and offers ATM management, end-to-end currency chest operations, and inter-branch currency transit for most of the commercial banks. With nation wide presence, SIPL has 120 branch offices, service delivery in 900 locations, and headcount of 7,000. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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January 15, 2012 | 97
Afterthought
Shyamanuja Das The author is Editor of Dataquest shyamanujad@cybermedia.co.in
S
Goodbye 2011, Welcome 2012
o, we are at the end of another year. It was marked by some defining trends that have far-reaching consequences. Some of them are events whose fallouts would be huge. Some happened over a period and cannot exactly be attributed to one single event. Some are global phenomenon that affect us. Some are local to India. Here is a quick list. n Rise of Tablets: Apple launched iPad2; Samsung joined the bandwagon. And suddenly everyone was realizing they need a tablet. CIOs were seen formulating plans to meet the rising demand from the top bosses as well as from the newer generation to accommodate tablets in their IT access strategy. Suddenly, some realized this can be a good tool for students, if the cost is brought down—IT minister Kapil Sibal was one of them. And India saw the launch of Aakash amidst a lot of publicity. At the end of the year, the growing consensus is that they are not going to replace laptops, but will grow as a separate category by themselves. n Anna and the Power of Social Media: In early 2011, supporters of anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare used social media to build a huge campaign online. India Against Corruption has a fan following of more than 5 lakh people. While campaigns such as those against the ragging of Aman Kachroo, Pink Chaddi, and Meter Jam have sensitized people about the power of social media, the Anna movement proved that decisively. n Rise of Online Retail in India: While it started in 2010, it was in the year 2011 that India became comfortable with buying stuff other than tickets and holiday packages online. Like all micro-innovations, Indian online retailers had to put in place a reliable cash-on-delivery mechanism before it really took off. But even credit card payment took off significantly. VC 98 | January 15, 2012
money flowed in and the segment is on a high at the time of writing. Dataquest was the first to announce the trend in January 2011. n The Ugly Face of Censorship: While it did not happen and is not likely to happen anytime, a statement by Kapil Sibal, the IT minister asking social media sites to censor user content met with wide and loud protest from all communities. As of now, it is a non-issue. n Death of Steve Jobs: Death of Apple founder Steve Jobs was not just a sad event, it is likely to affect the way consumer technology moves in the future. While people have started questioning Apple’s future, many question the future of innovation itself. Two other deaths—those of Dennis Ritchie, creator of C, and John McCarthy, the man who coined the term Artificial Intelligence—also happened in 2011. While their contribution is great, they were out of active work lives. n Nokia Loses the Top Spot in Smartphones: Nokia, after occupying the top slot ever since the word smartphone was coined, gave in to Samsung. One product that did the wonder for Samsung was the Galaxy Smartphone SII. n Thailand Floods Exposes Vulnerability— Opportunity for India: If falling rupee was not enough, the floods in Thailand sent the prices of hard disks shooting up. While we are still suffering the fallout of that, it is also an opportunity for India to position itself as a ‘derisking’ manufacturing destination. We enter the next year with a lot of caution, but there is no need to panic. A sincere appeal: Please do not back out on your IT plans, only based on hearsay. The 2009 slowdown has shown that those businesses that drastically cut IT investments were not been able to grow after the markets bounced back. Please do not make that mistake. Be cautious, if you have to be. But do not be pessimistic.
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