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TRAVEL REVOLUTION
INSPIRED BY TECHNOLOGY ast year, Uber, the taxi service app, eclipsed global giants like Hertz, Fiat, when it raised funds at a valuation of around $18 billion. As the company continued to draw business away from traditional car rental agencies, it went on to raise the next round of funding at a valuation of $41 billion. Uber has now inched close to Facebook in the list of most valuable venture- backed companies. The travel industry has always been and continues to be an early adopter of Information Technology. Like Uber, many travel technology start-ups are commanding impressive valuations. In 2013, Priceline acquired the meta-search provider, Kayak, for $1.8 billion. In 2014, SAP picked up the business travel and expense management solution provider, Concur, for $ 8.3 billion. In the hospitality and accommodation space, Airbnb enjoys richer valuation than the hotel giant Marriott International Inc, which manages more than 4,000 hotels and last year had $13.8 billion in revenue. Recently Airbnb raised $1.5 billion from investors, on a valuation of $25.5 billion. Airbnb does not own properties, yet it offers more rooms than many of the largest hotel groups in the world. Uber does not own cabs, yet it is the world’s most valued taxi service provider. These companies are thriving because they have created an easy to use online marketplace where millions of transactions can be conducted securely and efficiently. The success of Uber, Airbnb and other start-ups has resulted in expansion of the supply side, which in turn is leading to transformation in the consumer travel behaviour and is fuelling demand for similar services in different sectors of the travel industry. Travel tech is at a pivotal point in its development, and the future looks bright. As the uptake of smartphones grows, the major travel technology battles are now happening in the handheld devices segment, which offers new avenues for adopting technologies such as automation, artificial intelligence, big data, and analytics, for delivering distinctive, personalised experience to the modern traveller. In this issue of the magazine we have interviewed the Minister of Tourism in the Centre and in Odhisa to get a view of the unique role that the government is playing in creating a positive environment for tourism in the country. We are also carrying feature stories that reflect the voice of the travel technology industry. Plus, we have the in-depth coverage of the Technology Senate event which was recently organised in Jaipur.
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TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY BATTLES ARE NOW HAPPENING IN THE HANDHELD DEVICES SEGMENT, WHICH OFFERS NEWAVENUES FOR ADOPTING TECHNOLOGIES FOR DELIVERING DISTINCTIVE, PERSONALISED EXPERIENCE
anoop.verma@expressindia.com
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OCTOBER, 2015
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contents
8 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR SUSTAINABLE TOURISM “WiFi facility has been started at the Taj Mahal. The Ministry of Tourism has identified 23 tourist places in 16 states for implementation of the WiFi programme through BSNL and RailTel,” says Dr Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Tourism, Culture (Independent Charge), and Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Government of India
interviews 26 12
DESTINATION ODISHA! “Odisha Tourism Policy 2013 and Industrial Policy 2015 provide incentives to investors. We are also making use of the online medium to promote tourism in the state,” says Ashok Chandra Panda, Minister of Tourism & Culture, Odisha
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RAJESH AGGARWAL
Financial Inclusion Through Information Technology 28
RAHULKANODIA
Data to Information; Information to Insight; Insight to intelligence OCTOBER, 2015
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feature 14
MOBILITYTAKES OFF IN THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY DAY 1
DAY 2
Welcome Address
Celebrating Success!
The Responsible Executive: CIOs in the Digital
Digital Transformation and Risks Associated
Transformation Age
with IoT
Getting Ready in Digital Era
Reduce Spends with Greater Visibility into
Power Panel: Driving Digital Transformation in the
Travel and Expense
Enterprise - Evolving the IT department
Ready Business for Enterprise
Simplifying the Big Data Conundrum
Build your own Public Cloud
Life Uninterrupted from Amaron Quanta
Power Panel: The Cloud as a Building Block of the
Enlightened Cloud – Made in India
Digital Transformation
Power panel: Reinvention of the customer
Essentials for Enterprise Integration
experience
and more...
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HOSPITALITY IN THE DIGITAL ERA 22
Digital Disruption - Art or Science? Power Discussion: BSA | The Software Alliance
DAY 3
Power Discussion: Vodafone India
Candid Conversation
Candid Chat: On 4G Initiatives and Role of CIO
Transformational Leadership: CIO as a Business
and more...
Enabler
gadget
ADVICE TO CIOS: 21 A VIEW FROM A MARKETER
TRAVEL COMPANIONS
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TRAVEL,TOURISM, TECHNOLOGY Column
Case study in the news 56
» Ola to invest Rs 5,000 crore in cab leasing business » Helpchat opens its API for businesses
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» Get income tax refunds in 7-10 days
» Practo acquires Insta Health for $12mn
» Pensioners to get digital life certificates
» Mahindra forays into e-commerce
» and more...
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URBAN LADDER: MOBILE CONTACT CENTRE OCTOBER, 2015
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MUMBAI Shankar Adaviyar The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division 2nd Floor, Express Tower, Nariman Point Mumbai- 400 021 Board line: 022- 67440000 Ext. 527 Mobile: +91 9323998881 Email Id: shankar.adaviyar@expressindia.com Vol 26. No. 10. October, 2015 Chairman of the Board Viveck Goenka Sr Vice President - BPD Neil Viegas Editor Anoop Verma* Chief of Product Dr. Raghu Pillai Delhi Mohd Ujaley, Ankush Kumar, Rashi Varshney Mumbai Jasmine Desai, Abhishek Raval DESIGN National Art Director Bivash Barua Deputy Art Director Surajit Patro Chief Designer Pravin Temble Senior Graphic Designer Rushikesh Konka Layout Vinayak Mestry, Rajesh Jadhav Photo Editor Sandeep Patil MARKETING Regional Heads Harit Mohanty - West and East Prabhas Jha - North Dr. Raghu Pillai - South Marketing Team Shankar Adaviyar Navneet Negi Ajanta Sengupta Amit Tiwari Mathen Mathew
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OCTOBER, 2015
INTERVIEW DR MAHESH SHARMA MINISTER OF STATE FOR TOURISM
Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Tourism, Culture (Independent Charge), and Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Government of India
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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR SUSTAINABLE TOURISM “WiFi facility has been started at the Taj Mahal. The Ministry of Tourism has identified 23 tourist places in 16 states for implementation of the WiFi programme through BSNL and RailTel,” says Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Tourism, Culture (Independent Charge), and Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Government of India. In conversation with Ankush Kumar
The potential for tourism in India is enormous, but we are unable to attract sufficient numbers of global tourists. In your view what are the reasons for our lack of progress in tourism sector? India has everything to be a tourist powerhouse, we have all the right ingredients—rich culture, vibrant forests and mountains, rivers, long coastline, many historic monuments and a great amount of diversity. The problem lies in our lack of world-class infrastructure. Access and connectivity to different parts of the country is also an issue. There is no doubt that we need to urgently improve the amenities that are available at various tourist locations. We need to ensure better Internet connectivity. There has to be better security for the tourists. We are working hard to improve the infrastructure and other facilities to ensure that there is healthy growth in the tourism business. What kind of infrastructure development are you planning to make India attractive for global tourists? Tourism is a state subject. Much of the infrastructure will have to be developed by the states. At the central level we are EXPRESS COMPUTER
having a holistic approach to ensure that there is development of quality tourism infrastructure all over the country. More than fifty percent of the Ministry’s expenditure on plan schemes is incurred for development of quality tourism infrastructure at various tourist destinations and circuits in the states and Union Territories. The Ministry of Tourism has launched two new schemes— National Mission on Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive (Prasad)” and “Swadesh Darshan”. Both schemes are being implemented in mission mode. One of the key objectives of
We are working to bring further improvement in the e-visa and the visa-on-arrival facility for travellers from certain countries
these schemes is to develop world-class infrastructure in major tourists centres. Under Prasad scheme, initially, twelve cities namely Amritsar, Ajmer, Amaravati, Dwaraka, Gaya, Kanchipuram, Kedarnath, Kamakhya, Mathura, Puri, Varanasi and Vellankani have been identified for development. Under Swadesh Darshan scheme, the tourist destinations will be developed with the aim of enhancing and harnessing the potential of tourist circuits and encourage investments from the private sector. Many of our tourist centres lack connectivity.Are steps being taken to ensure that there is adequate WiFi and telephone coverage of these areas? As you might be knowing, WiFi facility has been started at the Taj Mahal. The Ministry of Tourism has identified 23 tourist places in 16 states for implementation of the WiFi programme through BSNL and RailTel. In addition, the Archaeological Survey of India has identified 25 centrally protected monuments, where we are going to provide the WiFi facility. The WiFi will be free for the first 30 minutes of usage and thereafter charges will have to be paid as OCTOBER, 2015
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INTERVIEW
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DR MAHESH SHARMA MINISTER OF STATE FOR TOURISM
per the usage. Security of the tourists is a major area of concern—to address this concern we have started the 1363 helpline. Earlier this helpline was in only two languages, but now we are proposing that it should be in 12 major languages so that people who speak Russian or Japanese can also take advantage of the system for gaining information in their own language.
The Ministry of Tourism has launched two new schemes— “National Mission on Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive (Prasad)”and “Swadesh Darshan”
There has been a significant growth in the tourist figures in India during the last few years.To what do you attribute this growth? When people gain faith in a country, they are more comfortable travelling there. I believe that during the last one year, there has been a massive improvement in India’s image abroad. The entire global perception of the country has changed. The Prime Minister himself is acting as the country’s global ambassador for tourism. In his speeches at Madison Square Garden, BRICS Summit, Nepal, Tokyo, Sydney and other places, he has never failed to mention tourism as the key driver for socio-economic progress. We are also further improving the e-visa and the visa-on-arrival facility for travellers from certain countries.
924.6%
In the past two decades we have seen rapid growth in the use of IT for bringing efficiency to different sectors of the economy. How is IT being deployed by the Ministry of Tourism for creation of more benefits for the tourists? Technology is a powerful lever of growth. We are working on a programme to have major centres of tourism covered by highspeed WiFi. We are also encouraging the development of systems like interactive maps, systems for online bookings, and epayment and e-booking facilities for tourists. The travel services in the key tourist spots in the country are already fully computerised. People can book their railway or flight tickets, hotel rooms, cabs, and much else through the Internet. They can have all kinds of important information available to them through the Internet. They can manage different aspects of their journey through technology that allows self-service.
◗ COUNTRIES AVAILING e-TOURIST VISA FACILITY DURING JULY 2015
ankush.kumar@expressindia.com
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TOURISTS IN INDIA GROWTH
During January-July, 2015 a total of 1,47,690 tourist arrived on e-Tourist Visa as compared to 14,415 during January-July, 2014 registering a growth of 924.6% .
74 COUNTRIES
21,476
2462
e-Tourist Visa during July, 2015 ( Registering a growth of 772.3% )
e-Tourist Visa during July, 2014
This high growth may be attributed to introduction of e-Tourist Visa for 74 countries as against coverage of earlier TVoA scheme for 12 countries.
Others 18.61% Russian Fed 2.29%
USA 33.67%
Japan 2.38%
Australia 7.74%
Mexico 2.80%
France 7.13%
Republic of Korea 5.57% Canada 6.30%
Germany 6.80% UAE 6.71%
THE PERCENTAGE SHARES OF DIFFERENT PORTS IN TOURIST ARRIVALS NEW DELHI
MUMBAI
42.98% 20.72%
BENGALURU
CHENNAI
HYDERABAD
KOCHI
10.36%
10.32%
5.30%
5.15%
Kolkata (2.53%),Trivandrum (1.99%) and Goa (0.65%).
[Source: Press Information Bureau]
OCTOBER, 2015
GADGET Travel Companions
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Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi+3G version Amazon | Price: 13,999
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iPhone 6S Apple | Price: TBD
Nikon 1 AW1 Nikon | Price: 39,950
Energy Boost Panasonic Eluga Icon
Fitbit Charge HR
Panasonic | Price: 12,399
Fitbit | Price: 12,990
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Toreto Price: 2,999
OCTOBER, 2015
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INTERVIEW ASHOK CHANDRA PANDA MINISTER, ODISHA
DESTINATION ODISHA! “Odisha Tourism Policy 2013 and Industrial Policy 2015 provide many incentives to investors in the tourism sector. We are also making use of the online medium to promote tourism in the state,� says Ashok Chandra Panda, Minister of Tourism & Culture, Odisha. In conversation with Mohd Ujaley What initiatives are you taking to promote tourism in Odhisa? We are taking many initiatives to promote tourism. The Tourism Policy 2013 and the new Industrial Policy 2015 are the major initiatives in this direction. With these two policies the state government has tried to ensure that more benefits come to the sector. Odisha offers excellent opportunities for tourism. This state is home to several ancient monuments, places of religious importance and beaches. We have developed a good infrastructure for catering to the needs of the tourists. We are taking initiatives to encourage the private sector to develop the infrastructure for hospitality. We are looking at the development of several luxury and budget accommodation centres, including hotels. Some of these can also be developed through the Public Private Participation (PPP) mode. The goal of
the government is to create an environment for sustainable development of tourism. Are you taking any initiatives to promote Odhisa as a tourist destination on a global level? We are doing that. Odisha Tourism has been participating in a number of tourist road-shows, events, fairs and festivals within and outside the country for promotion of tourism. We are also creating awareness about the tourist potential of the state through advertisements in leading print and electronic media, websites, social media, and other such mediums. What steps are you taking to ensure that there is better safety and security for the tourists? I completely agree that safety and security is of paramount importance. We are committed to doing our utmost to ensure the security and safety of everyone in the state, including the tourists. Tourist Police Patrolling facility has been introduced in PuriChandrabhaga and Puri-Satapada zones. A Tourist Police Cell at Puri has been established and tourist police cells at Konark, Dhauli. Lingaraj Temple, Nandankanan, Satapada, Chandipur, Gopalpur, etc., are proposed to come up. In addition to these, we have also created a Tourist Emergency Fund to provide financial assistance to the tourists during disaster situation. Today most tourists go online to find information regarding places to visit, hotels, restaurants, modes of travel, etc. What steps are being taken to ensure that
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1,08,62,048 Total inflow of tourist in Odisha
71,426
TOURISM BUDGET
1,55,707 sq.kms (4.74% of India’s land mass)
IN 2015 ` 13624.45 LAKHS
International tourist inflow in Odisha (in 2014-15)
AREA
IN 2014
ODISHAIS DIVIDED INTO 5 MAJOR AREAS ■
The Coastal Plains
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The River Valleys
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The Rolling Uplands
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The Plateaus
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The Hills & Mountains
THE COASTALPLAINS ` 15070.95 LAKHS ODISHA TOURISM IS PROVIDING 2% OF ITS BUDGET FOR IT AND IT ENABLED SERVICES
such information from Odhisa is available online? The state has a very good online presence. The websites of Odisha Tourism— www.odishatourism.gov.in / www.panthanivas.com / www.visitodisha.orq—have been redesigned to offer useful information to the people who may be interested in coming here as tourists. Information regarding places of tourist interest, accommodation, transport facility, online booking of hotels, tour packages, and much else, is available on our various websites. Tourists can also use the toll free number- 1800-208-1414 for getting information. We are also very active in the social media—Facebook and Twitter. You can look for latest updates regarding tourism from our social media accounts. What steps are you taking to improve the digital literacy of the people who manage the tourism sector? EXPRESS COMPUTER
Northern Coast comprising the Subarnarekha and Budhabalanga plains
■
Middle Coast comprising deltas of the Salandi, Baitarani, Brahmani and Mahanadi
■
■
Southern Coast comprising the Rusikulya plains.
Over 480 kms of coastline dotted with some virgin beaches like Chandipur, Konark, Puri, Gopalpur, etc.
■
The websites of Odisha Tourism have been redesigned to offer useful information.We are also providing 2% of our budget for the ITand ITenabled services Today digital medium has become the most important tool for exchanging information. Digital literacy is important for every government department. It is of vital importance for the tourism sector, because in this case you have to communicate with tourists who are coming from outside. Under the Digital India programme we already have a government of India programme for
providing computer training to people. Currently we are providing 2% of our budget for the IT and IT enabled services as per the guidelines of the Government of Odhisa. Going forward I believe that e-governance is going to change into m-governance. This will allow us to leverage the power of the mobile handset to provide new kinds of services to the tourists. We have also developed systems for providing guide training. Is there any budget related constraint being faced in the development of tourism? There is no budget constraint for development of tourism in Odisha. Last year tourism budget was Rs. 15070.95 lakhs and for this year it is Rs. 13624.45 lakhs. The budget for tourism development can also be increased in the supplementary budget. mohd.ujaley@expressindia.com
OCTOBER, 2015
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FEATURE
TRAVEL & MOBILITY
»
With growing number of smartphone users, the Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) are seeing a massive growth in their business. The ‘always-with-the-traveller’ mobile devices are becoming the tool for the OTAs to provide personalised and superior travel experience to their customers BY ABHISHEK RAVAL 14
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T
he new telecom subscription data from TRAI shows that till June 30, 2015, there were 980.81 million mobile subscriptions in the country. The TRAI report also shows that out of 108.85 million broadband subscribers in the country, 92.70 are using their mobile devices to access the Internet. With majority of the subscribers preferring mobile devices to access the Internet, it is clear that the mobile is the future of the online travel industry. Many of the OTAs are focusing only on the mobile space—they may even move completely out of the desktop zone. Sandeep Menon, Director - Marketing, Google India, says, “What we are seeing in India today is that a large number of purchase related decisions are being taken on the mobile. This trend is bound to have a significant impact on the tourism sector. Our data shows that more than fifty percent of all vacations are being planned on the mobile. We are working with the Online Travel Agents (OTAs) on how to make the mobile search experience as smooth as that on the desktop.” The TripAdvisor Travel Trends Forecast 2015 reveals that the shift towards mobile channel is a global phenomenon—this shift represents a tremendous opportunity for entities in the travel business to improve the quality of travel experience that is being offered to the customer. Recently, the popular Indian travel portal Yatra conducted a survey, which shows that 21% Indians are using mobile apps to make travel bookings. Cleartrip's mobile insight for Q4'14 notes that over 53% of the site's total traffic is sourced from the mobile channel. According to MakeMyTrip, 53% of the total hotel bookings in June this year were conducted through the mobile.
Our data shows that more than fiftypercent of all vacations are being planned on the mobile Sandeep Menon Director - Marketing,Google India
Mobile will continue to remain an important point of connection between the OTAs and the users Himanshu Verma CTO,Yatra.com
Mobility to improve CEM In a world where the mobile is the permanent companion of the travellers, the OTAs must leverage the mobile technology and make efforts to use mobility for providing extra value to the customers. It is only by doing this that they can improve their score over other OTAs in the area of Customer Experience Management (CEM). EXPRESS COMPUTER
Cleartrip is the first to have it's app on the Apple smart watch Ramesh Krishnamoorthy Sr.VP,Technology,Cleartrip
“Mobile will continue to remain an important point of connection between the OTAs and the user. Earlier there was no permanent bridge between them. Today the mobile is making that possible. It follows the traveller,” says Himanshu Verma, CTO, Yatra.com. “Mobile enables the OTAs to personalise the service to the customer. There are two more technologies to enable personalisation—Big Data and Machine Learning. The more data we churn, the more we will be able to make sense out of it. This will result in many more innovations, which in turn will lead to more personalised services.” He emphasises that there is need to understand the data via machine learning and improve the services that are being provided to the customers. Big Data and Machine Learning will ramp up personalisation to a new level. “Today it is possible for the customer to use a website or mobile app to avail services, which are customised to the same level as the services that are provided by a travel agent,” he asserts.
Travel Planning on the Mobile As solutions become more and more mobile friendly, it is convenient for the traveller to use the mobile device for managing every aspect of the journey. A range of mobile apps are available to provide relevant information to the traveller. “The use of mobile and geolocation based services for planning the travel as well as the local experiences makes it easy for the traveller to aspire for and probably get several unique experiences and aspects inserted in his tour-plan,” says Bernaad Chetty, Assistant Vice President, Sonata Software. MakeMyTrip provides services on online as well as the mobile platforms.“We use a variety of engagement models to enhance our customers’ on-trip experience. We send out relevant notifications on our mobile apps and these cover the common usecases of pre-trip and post-trip updates. For an “in-destination” experience, we recently acquired a startup in Bangalore called MyGola. They offer a great experience for users who are in a OCTOBER, 2015
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TRAVEL & MOBILITY
» www.expresscomputeronline.com
We send relevant notifications on our mobile apps—these notifications cover the common usecases of pre-trip and post-trip updates Sanjay Mohan CTO,MakeMyTrip
It is vital to have well-tested, robust and certified e-Commerce platform to succeed at flash sales Bernaad Chetty Assistant Vice President,Sonata Software 16
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particular destination and want to derive the maximum value and maximum fun from those destinations, covering a swath of local attractions and local events,” says Sanjay Mohan, CTO, MakeMyTrip. Cleartrip has launched the feature called 'Activities' in its mobile OS platform. “The feature allows travellers to book an option from a slew of activities that travellers can engage in over the weekend. Even while traveling, irrespective of the modalities of the travel booking, the traveller can book these activities at the destination. Cleartrip has partnered with the activity and event organisers,” says Ramesh Krishnamoorthy, Sr. Vice President, Technology, Cleartrip. The OTA provider claims to be the first in the travel space to have its app run on the Apple's smartwatch.
Flash Sales in Travel As in case of any other business, the travel sector has its own seasons. There are specific destination related seasons— there are the best times of the year for visiting any particular destination. To take care of the extra demand during flash sales periods, the OTAs have to be extra prepared. In India, travel flash sale is quite popular in airlines industry. Different airlines give hefty discount to consumers for certain destinations, during certain seasons. This leads to rise in the passenger traffic. “The travel industry is a layered industry. To manage flash sales, we have re-architected our IT system so that sudden spikes can be managed smoothly, without impacting the airlines' Global Distribution System (GDS),” says Himanshu Verma of yatra.com. He is of the view that it is important for the OTAs to also think about the GDS system. This was not the case before the flash sales phenomenon took off. “Flash sale offers are short-duration focused-selling techniques—they invariably lead to very high traffic on the website or mobile site for short periods of time. It is vital to have well-tested, robust and certified e-Commerce platform to succeed at flash sales. We also need a strong Product Information Management (PIM), proven integrations to vendor inventories and a fast secured
payment gateway,” says Chetty. Adequate provisioning and management of infrastructure is also a key need. From an infrastructure perspective, MakeMyTrip is provisioning surplus capacity to handle these spikes. The software systems have been architected in such a way that the front-end load gets distributed amongst the backend servers. “We employ a judicious mix of hardware and software technologies to allow us to handle such spikes in traffic,” says Sanjay Mohan of MakeMyTrip.
Acquisitions and Wearables The OTAs are also building their technology muscle inorganically, by acquiring start-ups, which solve specific problems in the travel industry. These start-ups can also serve as boosters for the OTAs to scale up and provide personalised trip experience. “The travel and leisure segment is abuzz with ideas. Several startups are getting funded,” says Sanjay Mohan of MakeMyTrip. The company has acquired a host of startups like MyGola and invested in Inspirock and Simplotel. Yatra.com and Cleartrip.com are also looking for opportunities to build capacity by either acquiring or partnering with the startup community. Sonata has invested in startups like Rezopia and Halosys. While mobile devices are becoming the default platform for travel related activities, the 'wearable' segment is also developing at a fast pace. “Wearable devices are predominantly being used in the healthcare sector to track various health parameters. I see a fair potential for wearables to be used in the travel segment; a good amount of information can be pushed to these wearables and to the customer. The information can also be pulled back from these devices. This information exchange can be useful in the management of various security related concerns,” says Himanshu Verma of Yatra.com. “We are now trying to ensure our presence in a very wide range of wearable devices. This is because we strive to stay always connected with our customers,” says Sanjay Mohan of MakeMyTrip. abhishek.raval@expressindia.com
OCTOBER, 2015
FEATURE
HOSPITALITY & TECHNOLOGY
»
HOSPITALITY IN THE DIGITAL ERA
“Smart hotels need to strategically leverage technology to offer excellent experience to the guests and ensure consistent healthy growth in their room occupancies and overall business,” says Harish Chandra, GM – IT, (CIO), Sarovar Hotels Pvt. Ltd.
A
t Sarovar Hotels Pvt. Ltd., Harish Chandra is responsible for formulating and implementing ICT strategy, technology solutions, information management initiatives and policies to support the company’s business requirements. During his career span of more than two decades, he has worked in multiple industries, including the hospitality, aviation, IT and telecom. In the hospitality sector, he holds the experience of working for both Indian as well as international brands. So what enables Harish to lead the information technology solutions at Sarovar Hotels and other establishment where he has worked in the past: “To succeed in the field of ICT, what you need more than anything else is the ability to generate focused discussions on
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formulating and implementing IT strategy.” Along with being an Information Technology wizard, Harish is also an enthusiastic writer, speaker and online community moderator. His articles, touching upon the areas of Hospitality IT & Telecom from business point of view have been published in several prominent magazines.
Keep it Sweet & Simple Harish is full of ideas about how Information Technology can be used to provide better services to the guests at the hotels. He says that when a hotel guest arrives at his room, he needs a “KISS” (Keep it Sweet & Simple). “The KISS that I am talking about can easily be achieved by ensuring that right kind of electronic and technology systems are available in
the guest’s room,” quips Harish. He informs that most hotel guests today are in the age of 35 to 45 and they usually carry many WiFi enabled devices with them. “Naturally such guests would like to use these gadgets with the same ease with which they use it at their home,” he says. “The guests expect safe and speedy browsing from their hotel room. They always wish to be connected with their business associates and family members through Skype, WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook and other available online social media platforms.” He is of the view that today WiFi in the guest rooms and in the public areas is a must for any hotel to remain in business. It also makes sense to have hub within the high end category of hotel premises to enable guests to recharge devices and to connect to HD OCTOBER, 2015
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Many hospitality chains are already harnessing the power of social media for its ability to increase customer engagement,enhance customer satisfaction and improve retention rates about the calorie value, preparation method and serving time. This is extremely successful in specialty restaurants which have very dim light theme.
Social Media Presence
screens for personalised music and video. “Most of our Hotels have their own Wired and Wi-Fi Internet set-up as this helps in saving OPEX in long run. Third party wireless system integrator do Internet infra set-up on ‘Revenue share’ or ‘Fixed fee’ model with approx. minimum three years of commitment. We discourage having wired internet ports in all guest room floors and limit it only to one guest floor as usage of wired internet has gone down considerably and most of the guest prefers to use WiFi. This also helps hotels to save on OPEX.” “Need of the hour is to have good wireless infrastructure in the hotels supported by adequate internet bandwidth for reliable and secure internet experience by our guests. This should be completed by all the hotels by the end of 2015,” says Harish. EXPRESS COMPUTER
He feels that good Internet connectivity is now more important for the guests than telephone connection in the room. “Due to the cheap cost of cellular calls, the guests rarely use in-room fixed handset for local, STD or ISD calls. It is used mostly for calling guest service touch points like room service, housekeeping or concierge related needs.” He informs that the telephone revenues in hotels are dropping significantly due to cheaper mobile calls. In fact, now many hotel chains have started keeping only one bedside handset—they are removing the desk side and the bathroom phones. On the F&B side, the hotels have begun to use iPad, tablet or any other smart devices. Digital menu helps in overcoming international language barrier. The guests can study the menu on the iPad in the language of their choice, they can learn
Harish is enthusiastic about the role that social media can play in the hospitality sector. He has created an information sharing group on LinkedIn: “Hospitality CIO-CTO (India & Abroad)”. This group has the membership mix of more than 600 CIOs, Hotel IT Managers, Hospitality IT & Telecom associates, etc. He is also founding member of LinkedIn and WhatsApp group: “Global Hospitality CIO’s, CTO’s & Digital e-Marketing professionals”. “I have created this group called, Global Hospitality CIO’s, CTO’s & Digital e-Marketing professionals, to serve as a digital platform for the Hospitality CIO/CTO/Corp IT community professionals to share knowledge on all various technology related issues,” says Harish. “This group has more than 115 top corporate ICT professionals from across the globe.” Today social media is playing an important role in the selection of hotels. In fact, many hospitality chains are already harnessing the power of social media for its ability to increase customer engagement, enhance customer satisfaction and improve retention rates. OCTOBER, 2015
19
FEATURE
HOSPITALITY & TECHNOLOGY
» www.expresscomputeronline.com
“The online communities are effective tools for building relationships with customers,” says Harish. He says that the good presence on social media is a must for hospitality companies to stay ahead of the competition. “Often customers make bookings after reading social media reviews of various hotels,” he adds. “The management of the hotel perishable room inventory and selling it at reasonable price via hotel brand website has become challenging today when many of today’s customers prefer to make their bookings through and other popular online travel agents (OTA’s). Technology today has empowered traveler to compares hotel online prices as well as aspects of the hotel experience of any particular hotels using travel metasearch engines like Tirvago. These online engines compares prices for over most of hotels from more than 200 booking sites, such as Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com, and Priceline.com, MakeMyTrip, TravelGuru, Agoda and others online travel portals. Users can search by location as well as the dates and type of room. The site shows all available offers that can be booked on linked external booking sites. The information compared is based on a variety of sources, including partner websites, user-submitted reviews, and hoteliers themselves. This helps traveler to take decision on hotel booking” says Harish.
Information Technology takes off What challenges did Harish Chandra and his IT team faces during the implementation of the guest WiFi project at Sarovar Hotels? He says that there were many challenges in implementing this project. As the number of wireless devices that many guests carry is fairly large, there is the much pressure on the WiFi system and at times the connectivity gets slow. “When we started this guest WiFi project, we had a clear idea that we wanted to ensure that the guests at all Sarovar Hotels, located in different parts of India and Africa, should have a consistent high quality of web browsing experience.” The challenge, Harish explains, lay in not only standardising the guest WiFi infrastructure across all the 70 existing hotels across India and Africa, but also in convincing the hotel owners to invest for 20
EXPRESS COMPUTER
Full Name
:
Harish Chandra
Current Designation
:
GM - Information Technology
Current Role
:
Head of IT, Sarovar Hotels
Favourite Quote
:
Smooth seas never make skilful sailors
Favourite Book
:
My Journey by A.P.J Abdul Kalam
Favourite Destination
:
Vienna,Austria
Favourite Gadget for Work
:
Blackberry Passport
Favourite Gadget for Personal Use
:
iPad
the revamp of their legacy WiFi systems. Initially many hotels had either inadequate bandwidth or old 802.11bg wireless access point’s (AP’s) deployment. These AP’S were installed outside the hotel building and cheaper brand like DLink, TP-Link, Linksys, Brovis, Radmax etc., were used which don’t suite purpose of an hotel enterprise business. Their wireless setup was supporting laptop user and not a smart phone carrying guest as wireless signal receptivity in smart phone is poor due to sleek size and so is small wireless inbuilt antenna. “To meet some of these challenges, we created the Sarovar Internet Policy,” says Harish. He informs that this particular policy, which has been created after doing extensive study of wireless installations in all the hotels, is meant to improve the guest wireless infrastructure and bandwidth. He says that this policy document has also helped by creating a standard document mentioning approved WiFi access points (AP’s) i.e. ‘Ruckus’ HP (Fka Aruba), Symbol (Fka Motorola) wireless etc) and others with wireless controller, etc., for the upcoming Hotels.
This in turn ensures that a robust wireless system is in place and the wireless infrastructure is failure proof. Management of cost while implementing the new wireless solutions was a major challenge, but Harish Chandra and his team managed to keep the budget under control. “As we were getting these systems deployed in 70 hotels, we could get heavily discounted corporate level rate agreements signed with various wireless system integrators.” In order to address the security related considerations, Harish informs that the deployment consisted of controller based Wireless system from approved OEMs like Ruckus, HP/Alcatel-Aruba, Symbol (Fka Motorola), Altai, Compex and few other wireless solutions. Harish is eager to see how Digital, SMAC (Social Media, Analytics and Cloud) and ‘IOT’ (Internet of things) based solution are going to enhance guest experience in hospitality industry. He is of opinion that these technologies will increase operational efficiencies; reduce cost and profitability of hospitality industry. OCTOBER, 2015
COLUMN
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ROMI MAHAJAN
ADVICE TO CIOs: AVIEWFROM AMARKETER C
IOs are an enigmatic group. Though conferred with a “C”-level title, they are rarely given the accord that other C-levels are. There are clearly exceptions (The CIOs of Fedex and General Motors being two widely recognised ones) but by and large, they are relegated to the “backroom.” This might not seem strange prima facie but when one considers the degree to which all companies refer to information technologies as their future and all hew to the notion that “innovation” should be a mantra—and further than innovation is a matter of the right application of technology—then the lack of respect for the CIO appears terribly ironic. Why this irony? Why such a divergence between the rhetoric and the reality when it comes to CIOs? This oversight is a function of both prevailing perceptions of IT and IT leadership but also of the fundamental lack of communication and marketing emanating from the IT department. Let’s start with the external reasons, namely the perceptions of IT amongst non-IT people. For most in other parts of the organisation, IT is a black box, an ununderstood place where geeks reside; IT is seen as “a culture apart,” a hermetically sealed department within the organisation. “IT folks are not like us” is the articulation of this perceived “distance” between IT and the rest of the organisation. Furthermore, IT is often typecast as a governance organisation and few indeed recognise the enabling role IT plays in running the business. My own creed – marketing professionals—carries the same perceptions and rarely recognises the degree to which marketing roles would be rendered useless if it weren’t for the enabling power IT provides us. This miasma effects not only the IT Professional but IT Leadership as well. The issue of governance versus EXPRESS COMPUTER
enablement is a deep one. For years in many organisations, IT was seen as the place you go to be told “no.” The fundamental bent of humans is to remember the times they were denied something vocally and to forget the times they were given bountiful gifts though silently. The fact that knowledge workers have more access to tools and procedures that give them productivity and reduce the “busy work” than ever before is lost on most because great IT is often “silent” IT. So when for reasons of policy, compliance, security or cost people are told “no” they immediately cast IT as big brother. No doubt there are still IT departments that act that way but they are few and far between. How indeed does the CIO work to change this perceptual barrier? Doing so is important not simply for aggrandisement and fairness but in order to improve the working relationship between IT and the rest of the organisation. To a hammer everything looks like a nail and perhaps to a marketer many problems are seen as ones of marketing and communication; that said, I believe
Technology and innovation have become watchwords in business all across the globe. As such,the role of the CIO is of elevated importance and is key to the sustainability and dynamism in any organisation
that CIOs and their organisations need to adopt some elemental rules of my profession: ● Tell Your Story- IT has a profound narrative of creativity, proficiency, and enablement but CIOs rarely tell these stories. As the cliché goes, however, if you don’t tell your own story someone else will create their version and spout it; in large organisations especially, people need to understand the degree to which IT has become singular with the business and the biggest champion of this story-telling must be the CIO. ● Never “Justify” Only Discuss- The CIO is too often called upon to “justify” expenses, new investments, and requisitions for resources. The language of justification is the “guilty before being proved innocent” problem that plagues IT. CIOs must not accept the logic of justification and must simply discuss their needs as would anyone else in the organisation. ● Cross Pollinate – CIOs must inspire their teams to cross-pollinate. One simple way of doing it is to ensure that IT folks attend team meetings of other parts of the organisations and that IT invites people from other divisions to sit in on theirs. The empathy and commoncause this builds will tear down the barriers that exist today. Technology and innovation have become watchwords in business all across the globe. As such, the role of the CIO is of elevated importance and is key to the sustainability and dynamism in any organisation. That the CIO is not accorded the necessary place in the pantheon of executives however is a sign that companies have no aligned their rhetoric to their reality. This must change soon and the CIO and his team must be the focus of and beneficiary of these necessary changes. Romi Mahajan is an author, marketer, investor & board member for multiple start-ups.
OCTOBER, 2015
21
FEATURE
TECHNOLOGY & TOURISM
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Travel Tourism TECHNOLOGY
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OCTOBER, 2015
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These are exciting times for travellers—while the pace of evolution is head-spinning, it also heralds several new opportunities BY ANKUSH KUMAR
I
nnovation and technological change are the key trends driving the tourism industry all over the world. In India the tourism activity is increasingly being shaped by online and mobile based systems, which enable the customer to quickly conduct price comparison and make bookings. The online facility for railway ticket bookings from IRCTC has changed the face of railway ticketing in India. On 2 April, 2015, IRCTC sold nearly 1100000 tickets in a single day.
Managing the Change Manish Amin, Co-founder and CIO, Yatra.com is of the view that the increase in smartphone adoption poses as a key opportunity for the travel and tourism industry. “The user is now on the move and hence it is important for the information to be available at all times. It is crystal clear that the OTAs have been able to reach their end consumer with personalised products and offerings because of the smartphone penetration,” says Manish. “Mobile innovation is an important aspect. Enterprises are continuously looking at innovative ways of engaging with people through their personal devices,” he adds. Amin says that, at Yatra, they have built their internal systems for holiday bookings in such a way that it is possible for a customer to book and confirm holiday packages in real time. Holiday booking has a lot of components (flights, hotels etc) and the system checks everything in real time before confirming the booking. The customers can also tailor their packages to fit their personalised requirements. “Keeping the trend of online payments EXPRESS COMPUTER
in mind, we also offer eCash where people can easily get refunds and park their money to be used in the future. With Yatra’s eCash option, people not only enjoy hassle free refunds, they also benefit by earning on every booking,” says Amin.
Buses Going Online redBus, India’s leading bus ticketing platform, enables customers to choose from 1800 operators in 60-70 cities in India. This company has developed the process in which the bus operators and the customers can communicate with each other through an online platform and make transactions. “There is high degree of comfort level in the usage of online platforms. People find it easier to buy tickets from us. The tracking option for buses across routes has given a boost to the services. One can actually get an idea about the number of buses running in a particular route,” says Anoop Menon CTO, redBus. He says that the company was now making further innovations to improve its services. A Big Data system is being created to rapidly turn raw data regarding bus movements and customer trends into vital knowledge and information. Anoop Menon is of the view that technology innovations are must in the travel industry. He informs that before redBus came into being, the bus industry was fragmented, and any strategical approach for the operations were not being taken. At times, the passengers could not be sure where they had to go to board the bus. “With new technology, the background check of every bus company has become mandatory. The entire background of the bus company is done by us.”
With Yatra’s eCash option people enjoy hassle free refunds and theyhave the additional benefit of earning on every booking Manish Amin Co-founder and CIO,Yatra.com
With new technology,it is now much easier for us to conduct background check of everybus that we are offering to our customers Anoop Menon CTO,redBus OCTOBER, 2015
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FEATURE
TECHNOLOGY & TOURISM
» www.expresscomputeronline.com
IRCTC
Tickets Booked (in lakhs)
2000
719.60
2009-10
2010-11
20011-12
“We have created a special software for issuing bus tickets. We offer to our customers facilities like the ability to choose the seats, and other things,” says Anoop Menon.
Room Bookings Made Easy
Senior Marketing Manager,Hotels.com
The advances in connectivity and processing power have made a big impact on the way the hotel bookings are done. AxisRooms has developed a tech distribution product, which enables a hotelier to distribute inventory through a single dashboard to every contracted buyer partner such as Online Travel Companies, Offline Travel Companies, Corporates, SMEs, etc. The company has raised one million USD from Seedfund and expects to raise another six-seven million this year. It aims to distribute 200,000 room nights/ day in 2020 in 15000 hotels. Ravi Taneja, COO/Co-Founder, AxisRooms, says, “We, at AxisRooms, follow a transaction fee model which is based on what we charge to the hotelier. In future, we intend to charge the buyer, after we have enough value proposition for them as well. We are a pure technology platform and in my view innovation is at the core of what we do. We enable hotels and the buyers of hotel rooms to come together on a single platform and conduct their business efficiency and transparently.” Many customers are now going online or using their mobile device to book hotel rooms. Hotels.com, the provider of hotel accommodation worldwide, offers booking services through its own
Ravi Taneja COO/Co-Founder,AxisRooms EXPRESS COMPUTER
2012-13
2013-14
969.11
Amit Agarwal
We enable hotels and the buyers of hotel rooms to come together on a single platform and conduct their business efficiently and transparently
24
0
1579.82
1161.77
1000
As hotel guests prefer to stayconnected during their stay,the hotels are taking proactive steps to deployhigh-speed WiFi
1406.88
network of localised websites and telephone call centers. The company has a significant foothold in the Indian market. Hotels.com has built its business by ensuring that in the hotels whose rooms they are selling to the end customers, are in a position to provide all the facilities, including free WiFI, to the guests. From their hotel rooms most people like to remain connected with the social and professional spheres of their life— they expect internet package to be a part of their entire experience. Amit Agarwal, Senior Marketing Manager, Hotels.com informs that the travellers are very demanding as far as Internet connectivity is concerned. If the connectivity is not proper, it is possible that the guest may change the hotel. “Hotels have always been at the forefront when it comes to deploying technologies like Wi-Fi. This is primarily because, hotels themselves are using Internet to manage all their internal needs,” says Amit Agarwal. The travel companies have no choice but to understand and implement new technologies as they become available. The customers are going to gravitate towards companies that use technology to provide faster, cheaper and secure systems for researching and booking. As tourism is an area where the customers tend to spend lot of time in planning a journey, the online portals have to be in a position to provide the right kind of inspiration to the traveller. ankush.kumar@expressindia.com
OCTOBER, 2015
INTERVIEW RAJESH AGGARWAL MINISTRY OF FINANCE
FINANCIAL INCLUSION THROUGH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY “The Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana has brought significant improvements in the way bank accounts are opened in the country,” says Rajesh Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance, Government of India.
What is your view of financial inclusion in India? Our Prime Minister has said that financial untouchability is as bad as social untouchability. Non inclusion in the financial sector means that people are unable to open a bank account; they don’t have the facility of life or health insurance; they cannot access loan in times of need. Unfortunately, in our country, a large section of the population has hardly any access to the financial sector. Before the Aadhaar number system or the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana came into being, a simple task like opening a bank account was difficult for people existing in the marginalised sections of our society. So much paperwork would be involved in opening of bank accounts that most poor folks could not cope. The Pradhan Mantri JanDhan Yojana has brought significant improvements in the way bank accounts are opened in the country. Probably for the first time in our history, the bankers went to the rural people, instead of the rural people approaching the banks, and requested them to begin using various financial services. This scheme uses latest communications and IT systems to ensure that the banks are able to provide efficient services to the people at lowest possible cost. The installation of new ATMs in the rural areas is being envisaged in the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana.What kind of progress is being made in this area? Government of India. If the branch is 20 kms away, the villager will not be able to 26
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use the banking services, so we certainly require more ATMs. We are closely monitoring the the Bank Mitra programme, in which employees associated with any particular bank carry micro-ATMs with them. These micro-ATMs are interoperable and provide the convenience of doorstep banking to the people in rural areas. They help in easy deposits, withdrawals and
remittances. We are also providing people in rural areas with ATM cum debit RuPay cards. It is often the case that poor people are unable to remember their pin numbers, so we are trying to get all our ATM machines Aadhaar enabled. This will ensure that the poor people can use these machines through two different options as per their convenience: Fingerprint+Aadhar or Card+Pin. OCTOBER, 2015
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Branch Networkof Scheduled Commercial Banks for the last 4 years (I) Population Group wise number of branches of Schedule Commercial Banks (SCBs): As on March 31
Rural
Semi Urban
Urban
Metropolitan
17606
16238
Total
2011
33927
23079
90850
2012
36540
25816
18855
17246
98457
2013
39794
28511
19900
18062
106267
2014
45152
31433
21428
19187
117200
December, 31, 2014
47278
32756
22373
19887
122294
(ii) Bank Group and Population Group wise Number of Function Branches as on December 31, 2014: Bank Group
Rural
Semi Urban
Urban
Metropolitan
Total
SBI & its Associates
7903
6510
4216
3536
22165
Nationalised Banks
20666
15981
12296
11111
60054
Other Public Sector Banks Private Sector Banks Foreign Banks
338
470
455
361
1624
4082
6155
4320
4429
18986
8
12
57
245
322
Regional Rural Banks
14281
3628
1029
205
19143
Grand Total
47278
32756
22373
19887
122294
Your Department has started the Atal Pension Yojana and other Social Security Schemes for helping the poor. Please tell us about these initiatives. This is primarily a government backed pension scheme targeting the unorganised sector. Originally it was mentioned in the 2015 budget speech of the Finance Minister in February 2015. It was formally launched by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on 9 May in Kolkata. As of May 2015, only 11% of India’s population has access to any kind of pension scheme—the Atal Pension Yojana aims to increase the number. Under this scheme the subscribers will get minimum monthly pension ranging between Rs. 1000 to Rs. 5000 per month. Government will contribute a part of the pension amount on behalf of the early bird subscribers. The scheme is linked to back accounts opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana scheme and the contributions will be deducted automatically. Another scheme that we have launched is the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, under which a EXPRESS COMPUTER
Making access points available is an important part of the financial inclusion programme of the Government of India payment of Rs. 200,000 is made to the nominee in case of death. The annual premium for this scheme is just Rs. 330. Then there is the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana, which is available to people between 18 and 70 years of age with bank accounts. It has an annual premium of Rs. 12 only. In case of accidental death or full disability, the payment to the nominee will be Rs. 200,000 and in case of partial disability Rs. 100,000. This scheme has been a runaway success, with more than 7 crore policies issued till date.
Before coming to the Ministry of Finance, you served as the IT Secretary in Maharashtra.As IT Secretary, what steps did you take to promote financial inclusion in the country? I was very focussed on BPR (Business Process Reengineering) and simplification of procedures before initiating e-governance projects across various departments and organisations. Unless there is e-governance, you can’t create viable systems for financial inclusion in a country that is as large and populous as India. I tried to develop systems to ensure that the Bank Mitras (CSC VLEs and others) were able to work properly in the field. I was enthusiastic about the Aadhaar project from the very beginning, and we did lot of work in getting the Aadhaar seeded into different government databases, initialing eKYC based bank account opening and so on. In fact, now I am happy to see Aadhaar enabled bank accounts being used for transferring subsidy and benefits in case of LPG Cylinders, MNREGA, and other government schemes. OCTOBER, 2015
27
INTERVIEW RAHUL KANODIA DATAMATICS
DATA TO INFORMATION; INFORMATION TO INSIGHT; INSIGHT TO INTELLIGENCE “Every business is a digital business and the prerequisite for effective digital business lies in the organisation’s ability to manage Big Data in unprecedented volume, velocity and variety of information flows,” says Rahul Kanodia, Vice Chairman & CEO, Datamatics Global Services Ltd. What is the core value proposition that Datamatics is offering to help its clients in their ‘Data to Intelligence’journey? The word “Datamatics” comes from ‘data’ and ‘automatic’. The genesis of Datamatics was around automatic processing of data through smart systems; and Datamatics has always focused on smart technologies that manage data automatically, i.e., with minimal human interaction. Today data is at the core of every business. It has become more pervasive and more important than it has ever been. The variety of sources through which data or information is generated, the volume of data being generated and, the speed or velocity with which it is being generated is mind boggling. This has given rise to Big Data Analytics. This discipline essentially focuses on managing high volumes, disparate variety, and unstructured data 28
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OCTOBER, 2015
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and analysing them to extract intelligence and insights which are crucial to give a company a competitive advantage. Datamatics focuses on managing enterprise data life cycle from its inception (womb) to its end (tomb). We have been helping our global clients in realising business value from various datasets. As an IT & BPO organisation, we help our customers convert ‘Data to Information’, ‘Information to Insight’ and ‘Insight to Intelligence’. Our clients have benefited by gaining end-to-end operational visibility across business processes, thereby enabling better business decisions. So the core value proposition of the organisation is in ensuring enterprise productivity and leveraging enterprise data to deliver a competitive advantage by walking its clients through their ‘Data to Intelligence’ journey. Datamatics recently acquired 1KEYsuite of BI solutions from MAIA Intelligence. How do you see this adding value to your clients? 1Key is a very easy to use and light weight Data Visualization and BI Solution. Since acquisition, we have significantly enhanced 1Key in terms of features and performance—now we are launching an upgraded version called nSights. ‘nSights’ stands for innumerable insights that we provide to our customers. Over the years, we have been consistently proving our ability to help our clients in their ‘Data to Intelligence’ journey. In this journey, BI & Analytics are important elements, and Datamatics has been providing solutions based on Cognos, QlikView and Tableau. The addition of nSights suite of products to the other BI solutions that we support has fortified our position in the BI & Analytics space. Our current and enhanced suit of products enables us to generate greater strategic value for our clients. In what ways do you think Digital Transformation is impacting the organisations? Digital revolution is reshaping the way business is done. It is creating new EXPRESS COMPUTER
Datamatics focuses on managing enterprise data life cycle from its inception (womb) to its end (tomb) business opportunities. Organisations can take advantage of the digital revolution to gain a competitive edge, but for this they must begin by redefining of the role of IT. To continue to grow in the digital world, enterprises need to reconsider the use of technology in every aspect of business. Datamatics has the expertise for helping its clients create and execute their digital strategy by leveraging combination of traditional and new age technologies. These include information management, portal solutions, social networks, mobility, BI & Analytics, cloud and BPM. Our team of experts can help enterprises not only survive, but also thrive in this digital world and generate future revenue and future value. What is your view on using Big Data Analytics? Today every business is a digital business. The prerequisite for effective digital business lies in the organisation’s ability to manage Big Data in unprecedented volume, velocity and variety of information flows. However, dealing with the sheer complexity of this data in order to derive any meaningful insights to help make business decisions quicker and with higher quality requires adoption of higher levels of analytic capabilities. These capabilities ensure that organisations are able to sift through the unsurmountable data and derive business insights. Even though the enterprises realise that an investment in big data analytics can add significant value to their business, they continue to have wide gaps between their consideration, deployment
and real added value. Companies like Datamatics can help organisations formulate their digital strategy, which leverages big data analytics. The movement towards Big Data is important to ensure that the organisation’s data is adequately capitalised to improve decision making, respond to changes in customer demand and seize new business opportunities. It is important that no matter how small a step towards reaping the benefits of Big Data might be; it must still be taken in order to capitalise on an organisation’s data to improve decision making, respond to changes in customer demand and seize upon new business opportunities. Today many companies are struggling to leverage Big Data Analytics. The truth is that it remains a crucial component which, if leveraged well, can give a significant competitive edge to any company. There is crying need in the industry for smart solutions in this space. What kind of growth are you expecting from your operations in India? India is part of our geographical growth strategy. We firmly believe that India, as a market, will continue to grow for IT & BPO companies. Especially with the deluge of information and digital transformation changing the way business is done, there is a huge need for adoption of new age technologies. Seen from this angle, the Indian market is not that different from the rest of the world. Our clients in India can gain from our experience and expertise of having worked with global leaders across industry sectors. We see India as an important IP market for processing high volumes of enterprise information. Banks, financial institutions, and insurance companies, tend to be the ideal customers, because they are very information driven organisations. Our approach in India has been on the back of smart platforms, which provide us with a significant advantage over the competition. We have been gaining market share very rapidly. OCTOBER, 2015
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13th Express Technology Senate
INSIDE INDIA’S BEST CIO CONFERENCE
From panel discussions to technology presentations and from expo to awards, the 13th Express Technology Senate had it all.The event, presented by Vodafone, attracted over 100 dynamic CIOs, technology analysts, and representatives of leading technology companies
EVENT
DAY - 1
EXPRESS TECHNOLOGY SENATE 2015
» www.expresscomputeronline.com
EXPRESS TECHNOLOGY SENATE EXPRESS TECHNOLOGY SENATE 2015 Welcome Address The Responsible Executive: CIOs in the Digital Transformation Age Getting Ready in Digital Era Power Panel: Driving Digital Transformation in the Enterprise Evolving the ITdepartment Simplifying the Big Data Conundrum Life Uninterrupted from Amaron Quanta Enlightened Cloud – Made in India Power panel: Reinvention of the Customer Experience Digital Disruption - Art or Science? Power Discussion BSA| The Software Alliance Candid Conversation Amaron Quanta - Express Uptime Champion Award 2015 34
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ndia’s premier event for all who thrive on the business of enterprise IT attracted more than 100 IT heads, several technology specialists, keynote speakers and a new wave of exhibitors. A series of presentations and panel discussions on new emerging technologies energised the event, which had the theme of “Digital Transformation— Leveraging Emerging Technologies” OCTOBER, 2015
EVENT
DAY - 1
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EXPRESS TECHNOLOGY SENATE 2015
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Welcome Address Dr. Raghu Pillai, Chief of Product - Express Computer & Asst. Vice President, The Indian Express Group
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n his welcome address, Dr Raghu Pillai spoke about the 13 year journey of Express Technology Senate, which is a nationally renowned platform for bestowing honour on the CIOs and other IT professions who have done commendable work for improving business efficiency through IT implementations. He said that at every Express Technology Senate, CIOs from all parts of the country have been coming to share knowledge and experience on new technologies. In the middle of his welcome speech, he played a stirring video, which dazzled the audience with visuals of the key highlights from Technology Senate events organised in the past.
Dr Raghu Pillai
The Responsible Executive: CIOs in the Digital Transformation Age Romi Mahajan - Author, Marketer, Investor and Board Member of Multiple Start-ups
Romi Mahajan EXPRESS COMPUTER
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n the digital age, the CIO emerges as the key executive upon whose shoulders innovation, dynamism, revenue growth, and success sits. With the increasing importance of technology in running modern organisations, technology and business have become a singularity; as such the CIO is now the convergence point for many strands that run corporations. As such, the CIO must assert his/her place proactively and must be elevated in de facto and de jure status in the organisation. Companies that understand this, and act on this understanding, will do well. Others will fall by the wayside. The keynote was a clarion call to the CIOs to stop running “quiet” IT and to assume their rightful place at the board level. OCTOBER, 2015
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Getting Ready in Digital Era Govindaraj Avasarala, Head- Enterprise Mobility Products, Vodafone India
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Govindaraj Avasarala
vasarala pointed out that new innovations in technology are having a seminal impact on the industry. Even the traditional segments of industry, such as publishing and navigation, are being transformed through digital interventions. The impact of the digital innovations on business is such that the newer companies are having an advantage, because they can deploy the best possible technology and are not encumbered with legacy infrastructure. He said, “Those who are
involved in traditional transportation industry are still wondering how they could miss out on a business idea like Uber.” He pointed out that consumers are becoming more demanding, they often change companies because they want better services. “If Uber can provide better services, they will go with Uber,” he said. He informed that today in India 60% of the e-commerce traffic is being driven on the mobile. “The popularity of the mobile medium,” he said, “is a transformation within the digital.”
Power Panel: Driving Digital Transformation in the Enterprise - Evolving the IT department
(L-R) Harnath Babu, CIO, Aviva Life Insurance Company India Ltd; Suneel Aradhye, Group CIO, RPG Enterprises; Sunil Chandiramani, CEO, Nyka Advisory Services; Vinay Nigudkar, Head Technology Projects, Reliance Capital Ltd.; Satish Mittal, Sr. Vice President and CTO, Vodafone Business Services
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unil Chandiramani, the moderator of this panel discussion, began by asking the panelists to provide an overview of the digital success that they had achieved in their respective organisations. Harnath Babu of Aviva Life Insurance expressed the view that digital success should be seen as something more than an 36
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evolutionary process. “Going digital has always been seen as something that is beneficial to the business. At Aviva, we have now started video streaming for motor vehicles to have a visual proof of where a vehicle has been hit. We are working to develop a device that can be inserted in a car to read the driving patterns of the driver.”
Suneel Aradhye of RPG Enterprises said that his entire organisation is getting ready for accepting IT innovations. “We are using digital technologies to improve business outcomes,” he said. He also dwelled on the way companies like Flipkart and Ola have started dominating the marketplace by using cutting edge digital technology to directly reach out to the customers .” Vinay Nigudkar of Reliance Capital Ltd., was of the view that implementation of digital technologies is also linked to the risk appetite of the management. According to him there will always be a risk associated with any new technology. “Going digital may mean many things to many people,” he said. The revolution that mobility is bringing to the digital age was the focal point for Satish Mittal of Vodafone Business Services. “We have digitised the process of money transfers in dairy business, so that the money gets directly transferred to the milkman instantly,” he said. OCTOBER, 2015
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Simplifying the Big Data Conundrum Sanjeet Banerji, Sr. VP, Technology & Innovation, Datamatics Global Services Ltd.
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anerji began the session by stating that speed, agility and innovation are the key imperatives of the digital business. He provided an overview of the scenario that will soon develop in which IoT will be used to manage a range of services. Robotics will be an inextricable part of the business environment. “Early adopters like Intel, GE Aviation, have benefited from the adoption of such technologies,” said Banerji. On the subject of Big Data, he said that data exploration tools must be deployed to discover insights from enterprise data. He also touched upon
the subject of data security and mentioned that it is important for the organisations to be compliant. He was of the view that, in the journey from Data-to-Intelligence, organisations often face challenges in making business sense out of their huge repositories of data. Datamatics has the expertise to guide its enterprise customers on how to reap benefits of Big Data, what technology or approach would be best suited, or how to capitalize on Big Data analytics for improved decision making and enhanced customer satisfaction.
Sanjeet Banerji
Life Uninterrupted from Amaron Quanta Kuldeepak Sharma, General Manager - Channel Business, Amara Raja Batteries Ltd.
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Kuldeepak Sharma EXPRESS COMPUTER
harma began the session by reminding the audience that power backup is extremely critical for any modern business to function. “The entire IT infrastructure will be useless if power is not available to run the systems,” he said. Loss of power even for small periods of time can lead to the loss of reputation for the organisation. Coming to the subject of batteries, he informed the audience that while buying a battery they have to seek information on many different factors like reliability of the battery, its quality of power, the speed with which it can be charged, the after-sales support, etc.
“The Amaron Quanta batteries are made from heavy-duty, corrosion-resistant alloy. They are compact, lightweight, factory-charged, expulsion-resistant and environment friendly,” he said. He also stated that organisations should buy battery looking at the power that it delivers and not merely on the Amp-Hours. He informed the audience about the world class integrated facility where the Amaron Quanta batteries are being produced. “There is automation at every possible process and in all critical areas at the facility,” he said. OCTOBER, 2015
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Enlightened Cloud – Made in India Piyush Somani, MD and CEO, ESDS Software Solutions
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Piyush Somani
iyush Somani began by giving a brief introduction of ESDS. He said that the company has succeeded in building lifetime relationships with its customers due to its excellent technical support and its expertise in Managed Data Center Services and Cloud Solutions, Virtualization and Disaster Recovery Hosting. “We have fully conceptualised and developed some of the most innovative enterprise products and solutions, which include our patent filed Auto-Scalable eNlight Cloud Hosting
Platform, eMagic -Datacenter Management Suite and MTvScan - Web Vulnerability Scanner,” said Somani. He informed that currently ESDS is running more than two million websites from its data centres. He dwelled on the massive changes that are being brought by the rising popularity of cloud computing and Internet of Things. “Both of these technologies are here to stay,” he said. “India can surpass Japan in cloud adoption during the next seven years.”
Power Panel: Reinvention of the Customer Experience
(L to R) Goutam Datta, Vice President-Technology, ICICI Lombard GIC Ltd.; Manish Godha, CEO, Founder, Advaiya Solutions; Parna Ghosh, Head ICT - India, Far East & Japan, CNH Industrial Group; Romi Mahajan - Author, Marketer, Investor and Board Member of Multiple Start-ups
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he customer experience panel emphasised the emerging importance of creating a dedicated team and program to manage the customer experience and customer loyalty. Using digital techniques combined with a clear intent and process, companies no longer can afford to assume that customers will flock to them and stick with them.
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Elements that are relevant to this are: 1. Providing a unified experience across touch points; 2. Customer listening and feedback management; 3. A clear process and culture in the company to address customer needs and provide customers with the optimal experience. Romi Mahajan asked the fellow panelists about the attention that is being paid to consumer experience. Manish
Godha of Advaiya said, “Companies will always interact with the customers, but what is important is how does the customer engage with the company? It should be possible for the customer to conduct an interaction at every touch point.” He emphasised that a seamless organisation can provide better customer experience. Parna Ghosh of CNH Industrial Group agreed that the customer experience is fundamentally tied with technology. He informed that his company had two layers of customers—dealers and end customers. The customer engagement system that fits the dealers may not fit the end customers. Goutam Datta of ICICI Lombard said that they had developed multiple channels to reach out to the customers. He was of the view that technology can be a key enabler in reaching out to the customer. “ICICI Lombard is doing a large amount of business on the digital platform,” he said. When asked by the moderator to rate their organisations on customer experience, all the panelists rated their organisations above average. OCTOBER, 2015
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Digital Disruption - Art or Science? Akhilesh Tuteja, Partner and Head of Technology, KPMG India
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Akhilesh Tuteja
khilesh Tuteja had many interesting things to say to people who tend to assume that they are not fully prepared for the digital disruption. He used the famous laws of physics and mathematics to explain his views. He informed that while vast majority of CIOs believed that IT delivered superior experience, only about 20% of the users agreed with this view. “The BI implementations do not fail due to data quality issues, they fail because the dashboard design is not attractive enough,” he said. He gave the example of many design companies like Designit, Seren, Fjord and Cadient, which have been acquired by consulting firms like KPMG,
McKinsey, Wipro, EY, Accenture, Cognizant, etc. Some of the other theories which he talked about were Heisenberg uncertainty principle, Law of gravity, Entropy, Energy Equivalence. He spoke about the ‘Golden Ratio’, which approximately equals 1.68 and is being used in the design of the logos of popular brands like Apple, Pepsi and many others. Apple is one of those very few brands that do not have the company name in their logo. Yet the Apple logo is one of the most recognized corporate symbols in the world. He was of the view that most appealing, perfectly balanced, and visually compelling creations follow the mathematical rule of the Golden Ratio.
Power Discussion: BSA| The Software Alliance
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n this power discussion, the representatives from BSA informed the delegates about the role that the organisation is playing to advance
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the goals of the software industry and its hardware partners. BSA works closely with the central and the various state governments in the country, and is
currently having a conversation at many levels with the governments in Karnataka and Maharashtra. SAM (Software Asset Management) is not easy to undertake, especially when the organisations are lacking adequate tools. In this context, there was discussion of BSA’s Verafirm certification, which enables companies to implement and maintain effective SAM processes. This will lead to software compliance, licence optimisation and, improved IT and business efficiencies. The power panel ended with a case study presentation by Julian Peter Coelho, Director – IT and Head of Compliance – Software, Virtusa. Julian said, “Verafirm Certification has reduced our software costs; we now have a better visibility into our Compliance framework and an enhanced control environment to manage IT in the organisation.” OCTOBER, 2015
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Power Discussion: Vodafone India
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he representatives from Vodafone presented the case that smartphones and tablets can be important tools for mobilising the workforce and improving productivity. They presented the view that mobile applications, technologies and services can help people spend less time on administration – and more time doing the job they signed up for. An efficient mobile technology will ensure that the employees have more information on their fingertips. As the smartphones are now available with much larger screens, it is easier for the workers in the field to access information. On the issue of data sovereignty, Vodafone representatives said that they were planning to have more data centres in India soon. The issues related to connectivity, cloud, M2M, were also raised during the discussion.
Candid Chat On 4G Initiatives and Role of CIO
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uring the course of the candid conversation with Anant Goenka, Jyotindra Thacker informed that the lack of 4G devices at affordable price points was the main reason behind the delay in the launch of Reliance Jio’s services. He also said that he believed that technology is best handled in-house rather than outsourcing it to vendors. When Anant Goenka asked Thacker to give the CIOs in the audience his advice on what they must do to ensure faster technology implementations in their organisation, Thacker said, “The CIOs have to keep the management out of all the technology decisions. If you want to execute a technology project on time, take complete charge of the project and implement it on your own.” OCTOBER, 2015
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AWARD CEREMONYAND CULTURAL PROGRAMME This segment of the Express Technology Senate was a celebration of talent, success and achievement. The feeling of anticipation and collective excitement was further emphasised by the exciting traditional Rajasthani song and dance programme by talented local artists
Anant Goenka of The Indian Express Group presenting ‘The Technology Senator Award' to Jyotindra Thacker of Reliance Jio
AMARON QUANTA – EXPRESS UPTIME CHAMPION AWARD 2015
Kuldeepak Sharma, General Manager - Channel Business, Amara Raja Batteries Ltd., presented the Amaron Quanta – Express Uptime Champion Award 2015 EXPRESS COMPUTER
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Amaron Quanta – Express Uptime Champion Award 2015 presented by Kuldeepak Sharma of Amara Raja Batteries Ltd. BFSI
Goutam Datta, VP-Technology, ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co Ltd.
Manufacturing
Hemant Kulkarni, Deputy GM - Corporate IT, Kirloskar Electronic Company Ltd.
Media & Entertainment
Sayed Peerzade, VP - Technology, Reliance Entertainment - Digital.
Travel and Hospitality
Vipil Gupta, GM- IS - Indian Hotels Company Ltd.
Retail
Subramanian Chittur, Head - IT, Metro Cash and Carry India Pvt Ltd.
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CELEBRATING SUCCESS!
EXPRESS TECHNOLOGY SENATE 2015 Celebrating Success Digital Transformation and Risks Associated with IoT Reduce Spends with Greater Visibility into Travel and Expense Ready Business for Enterprise Build Your Own Public Cloud Power Panel: The Cloud as a Building Block of the Digital Transformation Essentials for Enterprise Integration ITDeployment in the Defence Forces Protecting Your NetworkAgainst Today’s Targeted Attacks Security in Digital Enterprise – Inspiring Digital Innovation in the Organisation Power Discussion: Fortinet Power Discussion: ESDS Fortinet - Express Security Strategist Awards 2015 Datamatics: Express Intelligent Enterprise Awards 2015 44
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L to R: Piyush Somani of ESDS; Anant Goenka of The Indian Express Group
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he second day of the Express Technology Senate began on a high note with Piyush Somani, the founder and CEO of ESDS announcing the filing of a patent in the US for ESDS’ proprietary cloud storage technology. OCTOBER, 2015
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Digital Transformation and Risks Associated with IoT Subramanian N, Technical Director, Risk Consulting, KPMG India
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ubramanian N spoke about IoT’s potential for transforming industries and the way we live and work. He gave different examples of IoT. “Even kiosks in villages are RFID enabled,” he said. “We have apps that give the heart rate, number of steps walked, etc. IoT is being deployed in a big way for waste management.” He informed that IoT is driven by sensors, connectivity, people and processes. “The challenges lie in the areas of the identification of the technology that is future ready, establishing a single standard, improving the security
infrastructure, ensuring adequate availability of power, managing the technical complications.” He highlighted various security and privacy related risks that can be there in an IoT environment. When a range of devices and systems are interconnected, personal and sensitive information can be compromised. “As the technology tends to keep moving, we must keep improving the systems for safeguarding privacy,” he said. He also said that as IoT is being developed in separate disjointed packets, it lacks a common framework. This is an issue that must be addressed.
Subramanian N
Reduce spends with Greater Visibility into Travel and Expense Krishna Shroff, Director- Large Markets, Concur Technologies India Pvt. Ltd.
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Krishna Shroff EXPRESS COMPUTER
rishna Shroff began the session by quoting from a survey, which showed that travel and expense (T&E) is the second most controllable expenditure in an enterprise. Presently the organisations face issues in T&E that are related to the lack of visibility on how the expenses are being managed. There is lack of control over the spends, and there are several compliance related issues. Once there is better visibility of the requirements, there will be the scope for conducting better negotiations with the vendors with the objective of reducing the cost. “Concur provides full visibility into spend and the ability to ensure policy and regulatory compliance. Plus, it is all paperless—so you can ditch the spreadsheets, and pitch
the pesky receipts,” said Krishan Shroff. With right technology it should be effortless for any organisation to achieve this objective. Shroff provided the details of the solution that Concur has developed for enabling organisations to achieve better visibility in the management of their T&E expenses. “Concur is a cloud-based service. On the web, on a smartphone or on a tablet, we provide a complete suite of tools for you and your employees. Get the most out of business travel and get back all the time used to do expenses,” he said. He emphasised that Concur is not just a solution for expense reporting and reimbursement, it is also the best travel booking tool for business trips. “Our online travel booking tool takes the stress out of business travel management,” he said. OCTOBER, 2015
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Ready Business for Enterprise Suphal Mehrotra, Sr. VP - National Corporate, Vodafone Business Services
M Suphal Mehrotra
ehrotra began the session by shedding light on the key trends that are hitting the market: connectedness of things; borderless business; any device, anytime anywhere; unpredictable change; m-commerce, multi-channel, everything as a service. He shared customer case-studies relating to these trends. On the trend of BYOD, he said, “At Vodafone there was a time when BlackBerry devices were being given to employees. Then the concept of Choose Your Own Device (CYOD) was brought it in. Now we have moved to BYOD.” He presented a range of interesting
ideas on how IoT (Internet of Things) is being deployed for greater efficiency and productivity. He informed the audience that many of the sheep and cows in New Zealand were embedded with Vodafone SIMs. This technology enabled the farmers to efficiently track and manage their livestock. Another interesting example that he gave was that of a private bank in India that has now started using devices with 3G connectivity for providing better services to its customers. On the subject of mcommerce he gave the example of Africa, where Vodafone has 50% share in the banking related services.
Build your own Public Cloud Akash Saraf, CEO, Converged Data Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
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n this interesting presentation, Akash Saraf challenged the audience by declaring that we have converged all the functions of the data centre into a box. “We operate a very large public cloud. Many companies use our cloud, but they term it as their own cloud,” he said. “Converged Datatech offers Converged Infrastructure solutions with a 24x7 NOC support . The company already has an installed base of 1000+ installations in India and abroad in various verticals.” He informed that his company is the only industry leader in Converged Infrastructure to provide SSD-based caching starting at 800 GB, with over 20,000 IOPS at almost ¼ the price of competition. He provided an overview
of the technologies and systems that the company uses to help the CIOs and IT Heads reduce costs, increase manpower efficiency and reduce IT sprawl by creating their own private cloud, maximising storage, simplifying hyper-virtualization and accessing their Infrastructure as a Service. “As the entire thing is hosted in your data centre or server room, the data stays in your supervision rather than any third party provider,” said Akash Saraf. “As there is a single vendor providing support to your hardware and software issues, it saves the headache of managing multiple vendors for troubleshooting an issue.” OCTOBER, 2015
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Power Panel: The Cloud as a Building Block of the Digital Transformation
L to R: Bhushan Akerkar, CIO, Hindalco Industries Ltd.; Ravikiran Mankikar, Chief General Manager, Shyamrao Vitthal Co-operative Bank; Anjani Kumar, CIO, Safexpress Pvt Ltd.; Kunal Pande, Partner, KPMG India; Satish Pendse, President, Highbar Technologies Ltd.; Piyush Somani, MD and CEO, ESDS Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
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his panel discussion focussed on the way in which businesses were moving The discussion began with the moderator, Kunal Pande, enquiring about the digital disruption being caused by the cloud. “How do the CIOs look at the cloud? Why do they want to adopt the could!” he asked. Anjani Kumar of Safexpress explained that there was a time when logistics used to live in its own comfort zone. But with the expansion of e-commerce industry, the logistics industry is now being forced to adopt cutting edge technology. “We have now introduced the online and mobile based tracking system of the consignments,” he said. He informed that social media was also being adopted by the industry. “Analytics,” he informed, “is still on the fence, but IoT is a reality.” He also said that as Safexpress is providing services in 650 cities in India, connectivity is their biggest concern. According to Satish Pendse of EXPRESS COMPUTER
Highbar Technologies due to security related concerns, companies were earlier refraining from putting their systems and data on the cloud, but now those concerns have faded away. “In the next five years, cloud will become a necessity for every business,” he said. “Even today 90% of the CIOs would like to move to the cloud due to cost related factors.” Being a heavily regulated sector, the BFSI space is comparatively insulated from digital disruption—this was the view of Ravikiran Mankikar of SVC Bank. However, he accepted that cloud can be a major enabler for improving the integration between various portals. He also informed that about 40% of the customers in the co-operative banking space were senior citizens, who are mostly averse to the usage of technology. But the bank customers of the younger generation prefer digital means for taking care of their banking needs. Bhushan Akerkar of Hindalco Industries Ltd. was of the view that most
of the plants in the metals and the mining industry are not very savvy from the IT perspective. “The industry is going digital, but in a rather slow way,” he informed. He also said that most of the mines and plants are located in very remote areas where connectivity is an issue, so public cloud is not a viable option. “Therefore what we have currently is a private cloud,” he said. The much-needed vendor perspective was provided by Piyush Somani of ESDS. He said, “The new organisations don’t face any challenge in adopting cloud. This is because they don’t have any legacy infrastructure. But the older companies, with lot of legacy infrastructure in place, find it difficult to go into the cloud.” He went on to say that now the change is happening in the mindset of the older companies. They have now started recognising the benefits of the cloud. “Many banks have hosted their core banking system on the cloud,” he said. OCTOBER, 2015
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Essentials for Enterprise Integration Nitin Bhosle, General Manager, Magic Software Enterprises
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Nitin Bhosle
hosle gave an overview of the software solutions from Magic that are being used by many customers of all sizes to develop, deploy and integrate onpremise, mobile and cloud-based business applications quickly and cost effectively to improve operational efficiency and innovation, allowing customers to dramatically improve their business performance and return on investment. He spoke about the benefits that can come from Magic xpi, which is an integration platform for connecting IT systems, enabling the IT teams in organisations to orchestrate data flows
that support their business goals. To the IT managers in the audience, he said, “Designing the business processes that supports these goals is your business. Our business is to make it fast and easy.” This system offers unlimited ways of increasing the competitiveness of the business. According to Bhosle, Magic xpi can empower employees with 360 degree view of the customers by connecting CRM, ERP, shipping, customer support, social media and more. It enhances operational efficiency, compliance and improves data quality for better decision making.
ITDeployment in the Defence Forces Lt Gen Arun Kumar Sahni, Commander, South Western Command
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he highlight of the second day of the event was the speech by Lt Gen Arun Kumar Sahni. He gave a detailed view of the ways by which new information technology systems are getting implemented by the Indian Army. “The world of technology is changing so fast that it is difficult for large organisations to keep their IT systems constantly up to date,” he said. Keeping pace with the new Information Technology innovations was a major challenge that the defence forces faced. Lt Gen Sahni said that the scarcity of manpower skilled in IT is the biggest challenge that the armed forces face. “The defence forces are generally deployed in some of the toughest terrains in the country. How do we
ensure that we have trained professionals manning the IT systems in highest mountains? How do we ensure that the necessary IT hardware is available in the remote areas where the military is deployed? How do we manage the issues related to connectivity?” He presented an overview of the initiatives that are being taken to tackle the challenges that the armed forces face in their IT deployments and in managing their cyber security related concerns. He also expressed the view that joint research and development with leading IT companies should be encouraged to enable the development of systems that are most suitable for fulfilling the needs of the defence forces. OCTOBER, 2015
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Protecting Your Network Against Today’s Targeted Attacks Navin Mehra , Regional Business Head, West, Central & East India, Bangladesh & Bhutan, Fortinet
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he Advanced Persistent Threats and other Advanced Targeted Attacks can only be tackled by having a comprehensive approach to security—this was the view of Navin Mehra. “Cyber criminals are constantly innovating to develop new ways of breaching into the organisations,” he said. “As the attacks become more advanced, so must the security solutions being deployed by the organisations.” He provided the details of Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), which relies on multiple
types of security technologies, products, and research - each performing a different role, but still working seamlessly together - to combat these attacks from network core through the end user device. He spoke at length about various cutting-edge solutions that Fortinet had developed to help organisations thwart the advanced attacks. “The Fortinet Advanced Threat Protection Framework consists of three integrated elements, working hand-in-hand: Prevent, Detect and Mitigate,” he said.
Securityin Digital Enterprise – Inspiring Digital Innovation in the Organisation
L to R: Navin Mehra, Regional Business Head, West, Central & East India, Bangladesh & Bhutan, Fortinet; Samir Dhaga, Vice President (IT) and CIO, Videocon D2H; Vishal Salvi, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt. Ltd.; Manish Pal, Dy. Vice President, Information Security Group, HDFC Bank; Prashant Maldikar, Head Security and IT, IndusInd Bank
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ow is digital transformation creating a challenge for you?” asked Vishal Salvi, the moderator of the session. The panelist agreed that security related challenges were a key issue. Navin Mehra of Fortinet said, “When you play with data, security EXPRESS COMPUTER
will have a role to play.” He was of the view that today solutions for digitisation are easily available and many tend to access the data on their smartphones. “What we find is that 80% of the smartphones do not have anti-virus software,” he informed. “We are talking about NxtGen firewall.” Samir Dhagra of Videocon D2H said
that the digital systems are all about putting the customer at the centre. “For us, the new currency in the market is data and information that we can put to use for ensuring that the customer stays on with us,” he said. Manish Pal of HDFC Bank said that the information security team at the bank works closely with rest of the teams. He also informed that the banks were following RBI norms for everything, including security. He informed that the bank had set up stringent security standards for cloud and mobile app. Prashant Maldikar of IndusInd Bank was of the view that digital innovation is crucial in helping organisations move forward and ensure that the customers have access to better services. However, the security concerns have to be properly addressed in any digital deployment. “The extra step to ensure that the controls are in place and the applications are properly updated is a must,” he said. “The basic architecture for security must be in place.” OCTOBER, 2015
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Power Discussion: Fortinet
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avin Mehra of Fortinet began the discussion by putting the question: “How do the CIOs decide on the ROI of network security investments?” He also asked the guests, if they felt the advanced targeted
attacks were a reality or a hype. A guest informed that at his organisation the MPLS link had failed due to botnet attacks. “We had to isolate the network to find the PCs that were affected by the attack,” he informed.
The discussion turned to FortiGate solution, which is designed to fit the unique network security requirements of the organisation. “Whether you need to deploy a High Performance Data Center Firewall, an Enterprise Next Generation Firewall or a smaller UTM device for your Distributed Enterprise site or Small Business, there is a FortiGate physical or virtual appliance to fit your unique Network Security requirements,” said Navin Mehra. The guests mentioned that creating awareness about the security related issues at a board level is a major challenge. Any request from the IT team for extra budget to improve security is not taken well by the management. There was a time when cyber security in an enterprise was thought to be nothing more than an anti-virus.
Power Discussion: ESDS Software Solution
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iyush Somani of ESDS, informed the guests on how the next generation cloud technology could be used for enabling
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scalability, dependability and security. He provided an overview of the enterprise products and solutions, which have been conceptualised and developed by ESDS.
He spoke about the Auto-Scalable eNlight Cloud Hosting Platform, eMagic Datacenter Management Suite and MTvScan - Web Vulnerability Scanner. He also informed the guests that recently ESDS had filed a patent in USA for the Auto-Scalable eNlight Cloud Hosting Platform. One of the guests at the discussion raised the issue of the security related concerns that many people expect to be there in the cloud. But Piyush Somani was of the view that the cloud is the safest place to store and manage the data. It is also efficient and cost effective. “We are very happy to tell you that the eNlight has exceeded the expectations of many of our clients when it comes to seamless scalability and uptime,” he said. He assured the guests that as an organisation, ESDS is committed to helping the enterprises realise the true potential of the cloud. OCTOBER, 2015
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AWARD CEREMONY & CULTURAL PROGRAMME The winners of ‘Fortinet - Express Security Strategist Awards 2015’ and the ‘Datamatics - Express Intelligent Enterprise Awards 2015’ took the centre-stage in this segment of the Express Technology Senate. The performance of the troupe of traditional singers from Rajasthan only added to the excitement of the evening
Navin Mehra, Regional Business Head, West, Central & East India, Bangladesh & Bhutan, Fortinet, presented the Fortinet - Express Security Strategist Awards 2015
Fortinet Express Security Strategist Awards 2015 Manufacturing
SS Sharma, Head -IT, J K Tyres & Industries Ltd.
Telecom IT & ITES
Ashish Chandra Mishra, CISO, Tesco HSC
BFSI
Rajesh Thapar, President & CIO-Risk Management, Yes Bank
Healthcare/Biotech/Medical/Pharma
G Radhakrishna Pillai, CIO, SRL Ltd.
Retail
Rakesh Kalra, Associate Vice President – IT, SSIPL Retail Ltd.
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EVENT
DAY - 2
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EXPRESS TECHNOLOGY SENATE 2015
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Dilip Sahu, Sr Vice President – India Sales, Datamatics Global Services Ltd., presented the Datamatics - Express Intelligent Enterprise Awards 2015
Datamatics - Express Intelligent Enterprise Awards 2015 BFSI
Ashraf Ali, Associate Vice President – IT ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Pvt Ltd.
Manufacturing
Hemal Savla, Associate Vice President - IT, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd.
Telecom/ IT / ITES
Dhiren Savla, CIO, VFS Global Services Pvt. Ltd.
Logistics/Transportation/ Anjani Kumar, CIO, Safexpress Pvt. Ltd. Distribution
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Healthcare/Biotech/ Medical
Rajesh Batra, Vice President - IT, Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital
Retail
Rakesh Kalra, Associate Vice President-IT, SSIPL Retail Ltd.
OCTOBER, 2015
EVENT
DAY - 3
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EXPRESS TECHNOLOGY SENATE 2015
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Candid Conversation
L to R: Satish Pendse, President, Highbar Technologies Ltd.; Dr. Raghu Pillai, Chief of Product Express Computer & Asst. Vice President, The Indian Express Group
I
n this candid conversation, Satish Pendse provided tips on how the CIOs can move up the value chain or laterally within the organisation. When Dr. Pillai asked, how a CIO can transition to being a CEO, Pendse said, “The transition from CIO to CEO is difficult, but opportunities always exist. Lot of drive is needed from the CIO. He must understand that the life of a CEO is much more difficult than that of CIO. A CEO’s role is very uncertain role and the chances of success are minimal. The transition from CIO to CEO would essentially depend on the CIO’s willingness to take that risks and get out of the comfort zone.” Pendse also pointed out that the CIOs are generally very risk averse, they want to ensure that their infrastructure runs 99.99999% of the time. Dr. Pillai said Pendse about his view on how the role of the CIO was changing with the evolution of technology. “The traditional role of the CIO is changing because technologies like clouds are taking away lot of shine from the in-house technologies,” said Pendse.
Transformational Leadership: CIO as a Business Enabler Mukund Prasad, Senior Certified Group Power Coach, Certified Trainer of Marshall Goldsmith’s MGSCC & Master Practitioner of NLP (Ex-Director & Group CIO, Welspun Group)
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Mukund Prasad EXPRESS COMPUTER
ukund Prasad gave an interesting presentation on new dimensions of leadership development. He emphasised that in today’s turbulent world the CIOs need to learn to manage themselves better. “Our reactions towards situations can send out the wrong signal and cause harm to us,” he said. “To bring positive thinking in our
minds we need to develop better strategies for managing our mind and body.” He emphasised that with effective coaching the right kind of leadership skills that can lead to success in profession and personal spheres can be developed. He gave the example of Prakash Padukone, the ace badminton player, who went to Indonesia to hone his skills and became a world champion. OCTOBER, 2015
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NEWS ENTERPRISE IT
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Ola to invest Rs 5,000 crore in cab leasing business TAXI AGGREGATOR APP Ola will invest Rs 5,000 crore in the coming year to expand its newly formed cab leasing business. Under the programme, drivers can lease a car for a minimal initial deposit of Rs 35,000 and monthly lease payments (of about Rs 15,000) with an option to own the vehicle after a period of three years. Over 1,000 vehicles in Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and three other cities are already on road as part of the pilot. Ola is in advance talks with car manufacturers and financial institutions to enable this model for over a 100,000 driver partners by the end of 2016.
By December 2015, at least 10,000 cars are expected to be on-road under the leasing model, Ola said. “We believe that this first-of-its-kind leasing programme brings a unique benefit to driver partners to turn entrepreneurs,” Ola co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said.
Helpchat opens its API for businesses HELPCHAT, A PERSONAL assistant messenger app, has announced that it was opening up its platform for API integrations (technical integrations) to businesses. With this integration, businesses would be able to integrate directly into the Helpchat app and acquire and serve new users for their businesses. Over the next few weeks, Helpchat will include transactional functionality from companies including Ola, OLX,
Freshmenu, CommonFloor, RoadRunnr, Limetray, Mast Kalandar, RedBus, MyWash to integrate APIs into its personal assistant app. There are currently 25+ businesses in the integration waiting list. Post integration, users would be able to call a cab, order laundry, or food directly within the Helpchat app and the fulfillment of the order would be done by the partners.
Practo acquires Insta Health for $12mn PRACTO, A HEALTHCARE platform has announced the acquisition of Insta Health Solutions – a provider of end to end cloud based hospital information management solution (HIMS). Insta will operate as a separate division and will continue to be led by Ramesh Emani, Founder & CEO, Insta Health, said company. The acquisition will provide an option to hospitals using Insta’s product to integrate with Practo’s platform. Insta is 56
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used by both standalone and chain of clinics, hospitals and diagnostic labs. The acquisition will help accelerate Practo’s Partner Program that is designed to enable HIMS providers around the world to integrate with Practo’s platform to provide consumers a seamless healthcare experience no matter which hospital they visit. Insta was one of the first few partners to come onboard on this program.
Mahindra forays into e-commerce THE MAHINDRA GROUP has announced its debut into the e-commerce space with the launch of M2ALL.com, an e-marketplace for Mahindra products and services. The online marketplace has begun taking bookings for the new compact SUV — Mahindra TUV300. M2ALL will enable all the Mahindra businesses to sell products at the marketplace, and going forward, also offer other manufacturers and sellers of complementary products a platform, he added. Currently, five of Mahindra Group’s 31 brands will have virtual stores at the marketplace, and all the brands will be available within the next two years, “as and when their technical back-end is sound”, Vijay Mahajan, head of E Market Place, Corporate IT, said. E Market Place is a 100 per cent subsidiary set up by Mahindra in June this year to look after the e-commerce business, Parthasarathy said. “We want to bring the brick-andclick together. E-commerce is not being seen as a separate channel, but as one of the other channels along with dealers and distributors, to work as a complementary network,” he added. He further said the market place has 10 employees and is in the process of expanding its team. M2ALL also offers the group companies and external sellers e-commerce technology, including online catalogue management services, integration with payment gateways, back-end integration, and support services such as digital marketing, data analytics, logistics and call centre services, the company said. OCTOBER, 2015
BUSINESS AVENUES
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OCTOBER, 2015
CASE STUDY
URBAN LADDER
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SERVICING CUSTOMERS
MOBILE CONTACT CENTRE The online furniture retailer Urban Ladder has implemented cloud based telephony system, which not only offers the advantages of lower TCO and scalability, it also improves the quality of phone interaction between the employees and the customers BY ABHISHEK RAVAL 60
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“O
ur story to the investors has been fairly consistent. The story of Urban Ladder is a very consumer and product focused story. The story is not that of merely building a business for investors, rather it is a long term story,” says Ashish Goel, Co-founder & CEO, Urban Ladder. The company, which enjoys the distinction of having Ratan Tata on its list of investors, is working with the aim of putting the customers at the centre. Urban Ladder has been developed as a very customer centric organisation. Nandini Vishwanath, Head, Customer Service, Urban Ladder, who has been with the company since it’s inception, says, “When we started off, we were filled with the clear vision that our organisation would provide very distinctive kind of services to the customers.”
Customers on Cloud Nine On the day when the company began its operations in 2012, Urban Ladder decided to host its contact centre on cloud. The contact centre is the hub of customer service, especially in case of any online furniture retailer, which does not have the option of letting its customers pay a physical visit to its stores to get a feel of the furniture that is for sale. The management at Urban Ladder did not want to restrict customer service to only the customer service team. They wished to see employees across the hierarchies taking calls from the customers—in this the cloud deployment could be particularly helpful. Such a system is capable of ensuring that all the employees in the company have an insight into what the customers are looking for. A typical call centre requires lot of backend hardware infrastructure, which must be installed inside the company’s premises. OCTOBER, 2015
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With cloud deployment the need for hardware infrastructure gets minimised. A major factor that led Urban Ladder to go for mobile telephony is the fact that today there is rapid proliferation of mobile phones. When the employees can take calls on their mobile phones, it will naturally lead to greater efficiency in the organisation. It does not matter what number the customer is dialling—a toll free number, landline number or mobile number—the call will hit the available mobile number registered on the cloud telephony system. The system is similar to how the work gets done in a call centre environment. The entire PBX system can be hosted on the cloud. “The disadvantage with a PBX or an EPABX system with a server and a PRI card combination is the requirement of a UPS, power 24*7 - in addition to many ancillary requirements like wiring, etc. There are no such issues with cloud, because the user company does not have to install any hardware in house,” says Shivakumar Ganesan, CEO and Co-founder, Exotel. The entire system is hosted by the service provider.
Cloud on the Go The efficiency of the cloud deployment at Urban Ladder can be gauged from the fact that the company has changed offices without having to move any of its phone system related hardware since it began operations in 2012. Ganesan is of the view that the PBX hardware is nothing more than a dumb box, which resides under the operator’s desk without any user interface (UI) or any report taking capabilities. If the call comes at the reception and if there is nobody to answer, the missed call related information may not even get stored. “However, once you put this system on the cloud, we have APIs and we also have tools or UI, through which people can configure whatever they wish the system to do. With UI based, simple to use cloud telephony, the operations manager can add, remove, manage an agent and can do many other functions without any dependency on the vendor’s engineer,” says Ganesan. EXPRESS COMPUTER
Employees from the company’s ‘Products & Categories’ team regularly call customers on their experience of the products bought from Urban ladder. “We don’t want them to be dependent on the sales team for transaction related information. There is a lot of information transparency that we aspire for at Urban Ladder. Exotel provides that flexibility. It’s a plug and play product. Anybody can log in to the Exotel account,” says Nandini.
Integration with CRM To a large extent, the cloud telephony system at Urban ladder has been integrated with the CRM. “Exotel provides APIs to integrate cloud telephony system with other solutions. Urban Ladder integrated three portals using our APIs,” says Ganesan. This tying up had three specific benefits. The first benefit: It made the call recording available in the CSR’s order page in the CRM page so that the operations or the support person can listen to a particular call. Secondly, during a live call, Exotel allows the CRM to pop up the name of the customer or the caller ID, for the CSR to address the customer by name. Hence, quick access to the customer data is made possible. Thirdly, there is this missed call management from inside the CRM itself. A support manager looks at all the missed calls or attended calls and Urban Ladder has been able to top up a quality audit feedback process on the log that Exotel is able to provide. All of this was possible after the cloud telephony’s integration with the Urban Ladder’s CRM system.
Future plans Urban Ladder plans to have a separate mobile app from exotel . The company is looking to integrate calls of the delivery and the operatios person into the system so everything could be tracked centrally. For e.g. There is no way to check a delivery person's claim that the customer did not pick up the call. A call made using a mobile app will equip Urban ladder to maintain a call history.
Exotel is a plug and play product. Anybody can log into the account Nandini Vishwanath Head,Customer Service, Urban Ladder
With UI based, simple to use cloud telephony,the operations manager can add,remove, manage an agent and can perform manyother functions without anydependency on the vendor's engineer Shivakumar Ganesan
abhishek.raval@expressindia.com
CEO and Co-founder,Exotel OCTOBER, 2015
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Get income tax refunds in 7-10 days IN WHAT COULD be a good news for lakhs of taxpayers, the Income Tax Department will now process and send refunds in a short time of 7-10 days as its latest technology upgrade of electronic and Aadhaar-based ITR verification has begun on a successful note. The department’s latest initiative to verify an Income Tax Return (ITR) by Aadhaar or other bank database has received positive response from ITR filers because of which the taxman, for Assessment Year 2015-16, was able to process and send refunds to bank
accounts of eligible taxpayers in less than 15 days time. According to latest statistics, the department received 2.06 crore returns on
its e-filing portal as on September 7, 2015 (last date for ITR filing), which is an increase of 26.12 per cent over the last year when 1.63 crore returns were filed online. The department’s Central Processing Centre (CPC) as on September 7 processed 45.18 lakh returns and issued refunds to 22.14 lakh tax payers relating to assessment year 2015-16, it added. During this period, the department electronically verified over 32.95 lakh e-returns. The data added that peak filing rate touched 3,475 returns per minute this time as compared to 2,901 returns per minute last year.
Pensioners to get digital life certificates UNION MINISTER JITENDRA SINGH said that a new portal to facilitate lakhs of pensioners in getting digital life certificates and other beneficiary features will soon be made functional. There are about 56 lakh pensioners. The Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, said the portal will have a feature for a pensioner to upload his biometric details like fingerprints, from his home or anywhere through internet to enable him in
generating a digital life certificate. A pension disbursing bank can access the portal to get digital life certificate, the Minister said. He said that it will have an option for the pensioner to link his Aadhaar number with the life certificate. “Though it will be an option. Pensioners can also give hard copy of life certificate to the pension disbursing banks in case they do not want to take the option of digital life certificate,” Singh said.
A pensioner has to visit bank annually for submission of life certificates to ensure continuation of his pension. “This too is one of the revolutionary steps of the present government which will undo the practice of producing a life certificate which an elderly pensioner was required to produce from time to time. The new provision will not only make the process easier but will also be a befitting tribute to the dignity of the elder citizens of this country,” he said.
BookLPG connection online with mylpg.in
Portal to boost ease of doing business
THE GOVERNMENT HAS launched a initiative called ‘Sahaj’ to enable customers to register for new LPG connections online, as well as make on line payments for the same through the portal mylpg.in. The service is as of now available in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Patna and Pune. It will be launched pan-India within the next
A SINGLE-WINDOW PORTAL was launched by Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das for ease of doing business in the state. The portal will allow seamless integration with portals of various government departments by eliminating the need to sign in multiple times, as well as creating separate login credentials for different departments. The feature is currently available for using services of five departments and later on more department would be added.
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few days. “The vision of Digital India is to transform the country into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy and ensure that government services are available to citizens electronically. I compliment the PSU OMCs for aligning their business processes with the Digital India Vision.” said Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of state for Petroleum and Natural Gas.
OCTOBER, 2015
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