Express Computer (Vol.28, No.8) August, 2017

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PRESENTS

THE INDIAN IT LEADERSHIP CONCLAVE

JUNE 8 - 10, 2017 I KOLKATA 15 TH Edition

7 | INTERVIEW

8 | FEATURE

9 | INTERVIEW

14 | INTERVIEW

Chuck Robbins, CEO, Cisco

Insiders: The enemy within

Bhaskar Ghosh, Group Chief Executive, Accenture Technology Services

Veetika Deoras, Chief Operating Officer,-Digital Vertical, Tata Capital

MICROSOFT’S EMERGING TECH PUSH HELPS IT ACCELERATE IN INDIA Microsoft India is taking a big bet on emerging technologies such as machine learning and AI to radically change the way the company’s products and solutions are implemented in India

Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India

HDFC BANK’S DIGITAL DRIVE IS HELPING IT CARVE NEW MARKETS Always a pioneer in taking new digital initiatives, the bank has used its digital mediums to outpace its competitors Munish Mittal, CIO, HDFC Bank

Find us on:

| Contact no: +91 9599110156 | Website: panasonic.net/psn/products/hdvc/index.html | E-mail: kaushal.singh@in.panasonic.com

EXPRESS COMPUTER | AUGUST, 2017

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EDIT EXPRESS COMPUTER Vol 28. No. 8. August, 2017 Chairman of the Board Viveck Goenka Sr Vice President - BPD Neil Viegas Editor Srikanth RP* Delhi Mohd Ujaley, Ankush Kumar, Mumbai Nivedan Prakash, Abhishek Raval Bangalore Rachna Jha

MORE INSIDE COVER STORY Srikanth RP, Editor srikanth.rp@expressindia.com

HDFC Bank: A template for digital success

DESIGN National Design Editor Bivash Barua Asst. Art Director Pravin Temble Senior Graphic Designer Rekha Bisht Layout Vinayak Mestry Photo Editor Sandeep Patil

6 | HDFC Bank’s digital drive is helping it carve new markets

INTERVIEW

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7 | Chuck Robbins, CEO, Cisco Sumit Dhar, Senior Director & Head of Information Security, EdgeVerve

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4 | Microsoft’s emerging tech push helps IT accelerate in India

8 | Vinod Pol, AVP and Lead, CIO – Enterprise IT Infrastructure Services, Mphasis Ratan Jyoti, CISO, Ujjivan Small Finance Bank

A

lready India's most valued bank, HDFC Bank has maintained an aura that is unmatched by its peers. While other banks have been in the limelight for their asset quality or their lack of growth in challenging market conditions, HDFC Bank has proved to be an all weather company - growing steadily in revenue, profits and market share, irrespective of the condition of the market.

One of the big reasons for the bank’s continued success is the bank's ability to scale using the foundation of information technology. This is a big differentiator, as it allows the bank to rollout products and services at a faster pace, but also at a lesser cost.

The bank now has more than 80% of its customer interactions occurring via digital channels.

HDFC Bank’s approach to automation has been to automate every process where technology can improve

Understanding customer behavior and using it to improve market leadership is a strategy that HDFC Bank has used perfectly

efficiency with minimal human intervention. One of the best examples of this approach can be seen in the personal loan segment. The bank uses an algorithm that allows it to process loans in just ten seconds.

Similarly, if a customer walks in an auto dealership, they can walk out with the vehicle the same day itself.

Analysts believe that the bank is slowly and steadily pushing the way that retail lending is being done in India, as the bank now has a faster capability to roll out

loans without taking the necessary risks.

Understanding customer behavior and using it to improve market leadership is a strategy that HDFC Bank has used perfectly. For example, a clever innovation called ‘Missed Call Mobile Recharge’ allows the bank to tap into an estimated 900 million prepaid mobile customers. HDFC Bank customers can recharge their mobile by just giving a missed call on a predefined number, without the need to visit a shop, log onto a website or open an app.

As new digital mediums have evolved, the bank is experimenting with new technologies to ensure safety of transactions. The bank in a pilot with NPCI, is experimenting with location-based tracking for matching a customer’s phone location with the location of the ATM where the customer’s debit card is used for a transaction. If the customer’s phone is found far away from the physical location of the ATM, then the system can reject the transaction, as the assumption is that a customer normally has his mobile phone with him or her.

The bank has also been smart enough to realize the immense benefits of partnering with startups. It’s a winwin for both the bank and the startup community. The bank gets access to some of the best disruptive technologies in the market and for the startups, they get access to commercialize and promote their innovations.

And every investment in technology is done from a point of view of scale. The bank now has more than 80% of its customer interactions occurring via digital channels. For example, from just 19% in 2007, the percentage of customer transactions via the Internet or the mobile medium has gone up to 80%. Analyst firms such as CLSA have recognized this digital momentum and believe that the company has significant growth prospects due to the higher growth in lending made over lending platforms. Similarly, Goldman Sachs has said that HDFC Bank’s market cap has the potential to touch $100 billion by 2020. Like its asset quality, the bank has once again set a benchmark with its digital play, which is proving to be a template for other competitors to emulate.

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9 | Bhaskar Ghosh, – Group Chief Executive, Technology Services, Accenture Arun Parameswaran, MD, VMware India 13 | VC Gopalratnam, SVP-IT and CIO – International, Cisco 14 | Mark Read, Category Management Lead, Data Centre Hybrid Cloud, EG, APJ, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Veetika Deoras, Chief Operating Officer-Digital Vertical , Tata Capital

EVENT

10 | Express Technology Senate Digital agenda: The way forward

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EXPRESS COMPUTER | AUGUST, 2017

4 | COVER STORY

MICROSOFT’S EMERGING TECH PUSH HELPS IT ACCELERATE IN INDIA Microsoft India is taking a big bet on emerging technologies such as machine learning and AI to radically change the way the company’s products and solutions are implemented in India Srikanth RP srikanth.rp@expressindia.com

F

rom using machine learning to analyze school drop-out rates in Andhra Pradesh to developing a localized Skype app for the Indian market with Aadhaar integration, to using Artificial Intelligence to identify eye disorders, Microsoft India is taking a series of calculated bets across India, as it tries to use innovation as a lever to drive its growth. For example, take a sector like education, where innovative usage of technology, can be used to create a big impact. The company is applying machine learning to analyze school dropout rates, predict them and take preventive action in Andhra Pradesh. This solution has been taken to 10,000 government schools across Andhra Pradesh and has produced 600,000 predictions. It offers a 360-degree view of students, by mapping close to 100 variables. The machine learning model is being scaled further from 10,000 schools to cover 60,000 schools across all grades and could touch up to six million students in the next year. To address the issue of

Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India

EXPRESS COMPUTER | AUGUST, 2017

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COVER STORY last mile connectivity, Microsoft has piloted last-mile access projects in Srikakulum in Andhra Pradesh, and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, using its cost-effective technology called TV White Space. It has also partnered with the Government of Maharashtra to create the first smart village in Harisal. Similarly, Andhra Pradesh’s CM, Chandrababu Naidu uses Kaizala, Microsoft’s chat-based productivity app, to interact directly with citizens. The app was successfully tested by the Government of Andhra Pradesh at a 12-day mega event involving 20 million people and the state now plans to replicate it across many departments to implement real-time governance across the state.

Given Microsoft’s portfolio of solutions, the opportunity is huge in every sector, and more so, as India Inc keeps on accelerating on the digital path. Explaining Microsoft’s ambitions and vision for India, Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India, says, “For us as an organization, our core priority lies in helping India transform and leap frog to the fourth industrial revolution by putting the power of technology in the hands of everyone. Our mission is to empower every individual and every organization in India to achieve more. With a mission as big, bold and ambitious as this, building the best-in-class productivity services and platforms for the mobile-first, cloud-first world is at the heart of our strategy.”

Betting big on India Given India’s digital ambitions coupled with an aggressive government, Microsoft believes that India is a huge market for its products and services. Research from Microsoft corroborates the firm’s bullishness on India.

According to a recent survey conducted by Microsoft, 92% business leaders in India believe that every organization needs to be a ‘digital organization’ to enable growth for their business. This is way ahead of the Asian average of 80%.

States Radha Rajappa, Services Head, Microsoft India, “The opportunity is in every vertical and in every business segment – from large enterprises, to small and midsized businesses, and the public sector and governments. We are completely committed to Digital India. We are proud of being able to make a difference to the daily lives of our citizens – through innovations like Hololens, and Skype Lite and Skype Translator, initiatives like Project Sangam, and through partnership with institutions like LV Prasad Eye Institute, and many others.”

Instead of just customizing products for India, Microsoft has tried to expand this market by creating apps or products specifically for India. For example, the company created Skype Lite, which was specifically designed to be used in low bandwidth networks.

This can prove to be advantageous in rural areas, where telecom network coverage is relatively low.

In another first, the app can be integrated with Aadhaar, which means that the caller’s details can be verified. Similarly, Project Sangam enables users to register on LinkedIn using Aadhaar, and enroll for skill development programmes. This initiative is significant, as LinkedIn typically has a white collar network, and it is trying to replicate the same at lower levels through this project. The project has been launched in

We continue to see significant uptake of cloud services among customers and partners Meetul Patel

Conversations as a platform (CaaP) is an area, which we envision will provide businesses unprecedented opportunity to reimagine how they engage and interact with customers

General Manager, Marketing & Operations Microsoft India

Peter Gartenberg

Andhra Pradesh, and is aimed at helping people in low and medium skilled sectors find work.

Ameyo, Shephertz are partner ISVs whose solutions are being used by Microsoft customers on the Azure platform.

CarIQ, a Pune-based hardware startup, is leveraging Microsoft cloud to enable deep analytics and scalability to process data and offer an exciting product to car owners.

The device collects data directly from the car, uses big data analytics to understand this data, and recommends action points that enable the car owner drive safer and maintain his car better.

Information and data on driving can help insurance companies offer better differentiated insurance to car owners States Peter Gartenberg, General Manager, Enterprise and Partner Group (EPG), Microsoft India, “Conversations as a platform (CaaP) is another area, which we envision will provide businesses the unprecedented opportunity to reimagine how they engage and interact with customers. In addition, CRM and ERP solutions are expected to further fuel the digital transformation of our customers.” For example, Max Healthcare has leveraged Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, to manage leads and contact center engagement, and enhance customer engagement. The solution has helped the firm achieve an increase in sales team productivity by 30%.

In the retail sector, Microsoft Dynamics is used by 55 retail and DMS customers serving 74 retail brands, empowering 14,000 outlets, enabling 25,000 users in India.

The cloud bet Microsoft sounded off its intent for India, when it became the first public cloud provider to offer commercial cloud services from local datacenters in India. Today, 53 of the 100 top BSE companies are using Azure across sectors like BFSI, healthcare, manufacturing e-commerce, and startups. The local datacenter has been a big differentiator for Microsoft, as 22 of India’s leading insurance companies are using Office 365 and Azure from the local datacenter.

The public cloud services market is a huge opportunity. Gartner predicts that the public cloud services market in India is projected to grow 38 percent in 2017 to total $1.81 billion. This augurs well for Microsoft, which is continuing to see major growth for its cloud based services and solutions. “We continue to see significant uptake of cloud services among customers and partners.

Just to give you a sense of the opportunity, there are 50 million+ small and medium-sized businesses in India,” says Meetul Patel, General Manager, Marketing & Operations, Microsoft India.

Microsoft is using the foundation of cloud to create more opportunities and expand its core market. For example, the company partnered with Tata Motors to create personalized driving experiences for Indian customers.

Tata Motors will leverage Microsoft’s connected vehicle technologies that bring together AI, advanced machine learning, and IoT capabilities on the Azure cloud, to create a highly personalized and safer driving experience across the digital life of a vehicle owner.

Similarly, Indian healthcare providers such as Fortis Healthcare, Apollo Hospitals, LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI), Narayana Health, Max Healthcare are using Microsoft Azure, Machine Learning, Data Analytics, CRM online and Office 365 to enhance their efficiency and improve patient care. Fortis Healthcare is using the cloud for accurate diagnosis and the best possible clinical care. The Azure platform ensures that customers have a consistent experience across all Fortis hospitals. More than 4,600 start ups in India are utilizing Microsoft’s Cloud infrastructure and services.

Other firms like e-Meditek, Zing HR, Altizon, CloudCherry, Resulticks,

General Manager, Enterprise business, Microsoft India

Cloud for better governance Understanding the critical role of the government, Microsoft has partnered with several state governments including those of Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu to help the states leverage cloud, machine learning and mobile based solutions to improve citizen services, education, healthcare, and agriculture, among others. “The Indian Government continues to reinforce its belief in the transformative power of technology to drive socio-economic change, with its progressive vision like Digital India. For us at Microsoft, this presents immense opportunities to support the government in achieving its goals of digital transformation and inclusion. We want to ensure that the cloud, especially the public cloud, serves the public. Therefore, we extended our cloud services through local data centres – this is

not only a big milestone for us at Microsoft, but also an important step forward in being a key partner to the country’s growth ambitions,” states Patel.

A case in point is the partnership with ICRISAT. Microsoft has collaborated with ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics) and the Andhra Pradesh Government in creating a Sowing App and Personalized Village Advisory Dashboard to provide powerful cloud-based predictive analytics on soil and weather conditions. The app empowers farmers with crucial information and insights, helping the farmers to determine the most appropriate time to sow seeds. This, in turn, helps reduce crop failures and achieve optimal harvests. Today, over 200 farmers are already using it. This is a significant start for digital agriculture and can reap benefits in multiple ways as governments and stakeholders discover the potential for technology to unlock and offer multiple solutions for the farming community.

Ubiquitous computing Microsoft’s strategy in India is in line with the vision of its CEO, Satya Nadella, who wants Microsoft to be omnipresent in all forms of computing. This includes collaborating with rivals such as Apple to bring its Office suite to IPad or signing a partnership with Dropbox. In India, Microsoft realizes that the broader the markets it is present in – from the mobile to the cloud, the bigger will be the opportunities.

This strategy is summed up perfectly by Patel, when he says, “Microsoft’s mission – the cornerstone of the company’s business strategy and success, is what drives us to identify and eliminate the barriers that prevent people and organizations from being empowered. To that end, our three interconnected ambitions – reinvent productivity and business processes, build the intelligent cloud platform, and create more personal computing, utilize a unique set of assets that span productivity services, cloud platform, our device platform and our family of devices, which propels our strategy to gain momentum.”

In many of the customer examples, Microsoft is trying to create reference markets by giving startups or its customers the capability to create new sources of revenue, and thereby expanding its own market. For example, startup iBot is working with Luminous Power Technologies (Luminous), a leading home electrical player in India, to launch a next generation Connected Inverter. iBot has built a generic purpose IoT board that integrates into any consumer durable and makes it an intelligent IoT device. iBot’s customer, Eureka Forbes, is piloting this solution in their products as a way to take their customer centricity to the next level. It is a move that translates to quadrupling the lifetime value to the consumer on one side while bringing down the cost per liter of water for the end consumer, with proactive sales, predictive and preventive maintenance. Other providers such as Crompton Greaves are also considering it now. Microsoft’s strategy is more like a consulting capability at play, but in a factory model. In India, the opportunities are huge, as each customer can create more markets for Microsoft in specific categories.

Sector

Solution

Agriculture

Microsoft has collaborated with ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics) and the Andhra Pradesh Government in creating a Sowing App and Personalized Village Advisory Dashboard to provide powerful cloud-based predictive analytics on soil and weather conditions

Education

Microsoft partnered with the Andhra Pradesh Government to help them in analyze and predict school drop outs and take preventive action. The Andhra Pradesh government uses Azure Machine Learning to predict which students will struggle/drop out of school across its 10,000 schools. Officials have created more than 600,000 predictions using Azure Machine Learning, revolutionizing how Indian local governments increase student retention

Healthcare

Fortis Healthcare is using Microsoft Cloud for accurate diagnosis. Similarly, Microsoft has collaborated with the LV Prasad Eye Institute to launch Microsoft Intelligent Network for Eyecare (MINE), for training computers to recognize early signs of eye-related issues

INTERVIEW We want to build globally scalable companies from India

Bala Girisaballa, CEO in Residence, Microsoft Accelerator, shares how Microsoft’s Accelerator initiative is helping Indian startups scale Can you explain in brief about the Microsoft Acclerator initiative?

Microsoft Accelerator is a global program built to empower startups around the world on their journey to build great companies. We work with market-ready startups to provide the tools, resources, connections, knowledge and expertise they need to become successful companies. Our goal is to help startups mature into enterprise-ready companies by scaling every aspect of their business. We offer a 14week tailor-made program for market-ready startups that are looking to go beyond the development of their product by scaling their businesses. Through the program, we provide all the elements that come with building a strong company and scaling up every aspect of the business: from CEO coaching, team culture development and recruiting talent to creating distribution channels with global Fortune 500s, learning how to work with big corporates and developing new markets. We help startups build their companies for growth and go beyond a local mindset to become sustainable global entities.

Who have you collaborated with in the past and in what ways have you engaged with them?

Microsoft Accelerator has partnered with GenNext to build globally scalable companies from India and catalyze the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country. Microsoft supports GenNext in working with the entrepreneurs and helps provide them business and technology mentoring, GTM strategies, financial planning, etc.

Startups also get access to Microsoft business units for product feedback, marketing, and technical guidance. We also partnered with the Deshpande Foundation to launch Sandbox Startups, an incubator focused on nurturing startups in tier two and three cities of India.

The objective of this partnership has been to work in an inclusive manner to ensure that all relevant stakeholders, such as early stage entrepreneurs, academia, students, the venture capital community, mentors, advisors, high-net-worth individuals, and corporates, are active participants in the innovation ecosystem.

We have also partnered with Wipro Open Innovation and TCS CoInnovation Network to create an open innovation framework to mentor and engage with startups to bring their innovative solutions to market.

The partnership aimed to provide startups with the access to the depth of Microsoft, Wipro and TCS’ networks and relationships across customers, investors, academia and industry, creating a strong value proposition in the enterprise marketplace.

Similarly, we have also collaborated with banking giant Citi India, Patni Healthcare and Kyron under the CoInnovate initiative with the aim of speeding up the business for the startups by providing them the much-needed market and customer access and helping the corporate to set up their own accelerator or incubators.

Any startup success stories?

CloudCherry, a Chennai based customer experience management venture & is amongst the key ISV partners of Microsoft. In the span of four months under the program, Microsoft Accelerator offered them market access and enterprise leads and constant backup support to close the deals to scale their business. CloudCherry entered the programme with 10 enterprises and 30 small & medium businesses (SMBs) on board in India and by the time they graduated in December the same year, they had 20 customers in the US and another 100 leads in India. In September 2016, they raised $6mn to expand in US market, from Vertex Ventures, Cisco Investments and IDG Ventures.

The startup is already working with a few pilot clients in North America, aiming to work with the small and medium sized businesses in US, large enterprise market in India and Asia Pacific, and is in talks with reputed enterprises in Middle East around Dubai and Saudi Arabia. The company now covers 17 channels of communication with 100 customers.

Other success stories include companies like Zing HR, Yellow Messenger, FlamencoTech and Vymo. Microsoft gave Zing HR access to about 150 large enterprises and about 3,000 midsized enterprises, and strategically helped them in expanding their network and business through email marketing, strategic events, webinars and roundtable conferences with HR people and CIOs. ZingHR, today, is one of the most powerful human resource management system software. In the case of FlamencoTech, Microsoft’s mentorship was crucial in changing the product architecture, expanding their reach to sub systems and improving their marketing tactics which overall impacted the growth and success of the company.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | AUGUST, 2017

6 | COVER STORY

HDFC BANK’S DIGITAL DRIVE IS HELPING IT CARVE NEW MARKETS gone up to 80% (See Graph below) Says Munish Mittal, CIO, HDFC Bank, “We have always been a bank of scale, and this is the single most differentiating factor in my view.”

For example, almost 18 percent of RTGS of the country is processed by HDFC Bank. Even volumes registered via IMPS are bordering close to half a million a day.

Pre-empting the huge rise in ecommerce transactions many years ago, the bank has scaled its systems to match peak e-commerce sales.

“We have built our systems to scale 3x, to match big billion day sales. So, we continue to be true to our DNA of ramping scalability.” To ensure security, the bank made huge investments in OTP and two factor authentication.

The bank also invested in a brand new mainframe, and is probably the only bank which continues to run the card host platform on a mainframe.

Automate everywhere HDFC Bank’s approach to automation has been to automate every process where technology can improve efficiency with minimal human intervention. One of the best examples of this approach can be seen in the personal loan segment.

The bank uses an algorithm that allows it to process loans in just ten seconds. The response on the first day was so huge that the bank ended up disbursing personal loans of an average size of Rs 3 lakh a minute.

The reason why HDFC Bank can do it so effortlessly, is because unlike a traditional process where a bank’s staff researches and reviews a borrower’s credit history, HDFC Bank’s algorithm consistently scans the cash flow patterns of the borrower and matches it with the credit score of the borrower. Using analytics, the bank then automatically enable processing of personal loans. When a customer clicks an offer, the details are prepopulated by the bank in the application form, and the application holder gets a sanction within ten seconds of filling the form. Explains Mittal, “Digital not only provides speed but also customer convenience and operational efficiency.”

In line with this thinking, the bank has launched a slew of products such as PayZapp, SmartBUY or the Digital Loan Against Securities. HDFC Bank is the first bank in India to completely automate the entire process of creating an overdraft facility in a separate current account for loan against shares. The bank has collaborated with NSDL to create a seamless customer experience.

HDFC Bank Demat Customers can calculate their eligibility for overdraft limit against shares, and open a current account instantly.

The entire process can now be completed in under 3 minutes, instead of days. This offering empowers the customers to design their own loan against shares at their convenience and avail of the facility within minutes. Customers with shares in their portfolio can leverage it when there is an urgent

Munish Mittal, CIO, HDFC Bank

ALWAYS A PIONEER in taking new digital initiatives, the bank has used its digital mediums to outpace its competitors Srikanth RP srikanth.rp@expressindia.com

A

s a company, HDFC Bank has an asset quality that is unmatched by its peers.

Unlike some of its peers, it has no stress on its portfolio, has a huge distribution network that is spread across the length and

breadth of the country, and keeps on commanding healthy margins. No wonder, the bank’s share commands a premium, as it has consistently lived up to the expectations of its investors for a long time.

One of the major reasons for the bank’s continued success is the sustained investment in technology, which allows it to significantly

automate some of its major processes. And every investment in technology is done from a point of view of scale. The bank now has more than 80% of its customer interactions occurring via digital channels. For example, from just 19% in 2007, the percentage of customer transactions via the Internet or the mobile medium has

Multiple Delivery Channels

Phone Banking

19%

Internet & Mobile

Making security foolproof HDFC Bank was a pioneer in sending an SMS when a payment transaction happened. Today, as new digital mediums have evolved, the bank is experimenting with new technologies to ensure safety of transactions. For example, the bank in a pilot with NPCI, is experimenting with location-based tracking for matching a customer’s phone location with the location of the ATM where the customer’s debit card is used for a transaction. If the customer’s phone is found far away from the physical location of the ATM, then the system can reject the transaction, as the assumption is that a customer normally has his mobile phone with him or her. If a customer agrees, then the same technology can also be used for cross-selling opportunities (such as prompting a customer with an offer

Digital acceleration in 2017 2017

2007

10%

need for money. Similarly, PayZapp and SmartBuy offer the advantage of one-click payments wherein the customer only needs a single click to perform tasks such as recharging their mobiles, paying a friend or pay utility bills without having to share card details.

Understanding customer behavior and using it to improve market leadership is a strategy that HDFC Bank has used perfectly. For example, a clever innovation called ‘Missed Call Mobile Recharge’ allows the bank to tap into an estimated 900 million prepaid mobile customers. This is a simple but extremely effective way to recharge existing prepaid mobile connections. HDFC Bank customers can recharge their mobile by just giving a missed call on a predefined number, without the need to visit a shop, log onto a website or open an app. Further, customers can also add his family or friends to avail of the missed call mobile recharge service. To use this facility, there is no need for a data plan, which makes it useful for smaller towns and cities and in rural areas, where Internet connectivity is not reliable.

Similarly, if a customer walks in an auto dealership, they can walk out with the vehicle the same day itself. This can be done as the bank has the capability to disburse an auto loan within just 30 minutes using biometrics. A person has to just provide his Aadhaar card number and fingerprint. If a customer is found eligible, the loan is approved on the spot with minimal documentation.

Another product, PayZapp, has been created to solve the problem of high dropouts on mobile payments.

PayZapp is an online payment solution, which has a feature called SmartBuy. This is a virtual mega marketplace that has every type of product available, from those that fulfill daily requirements. This features deals and offers by prominent ecommerce Portals. The most significant advantage with PayZapp is that customers do not need to put in their debit card numbers or their security codes with every purchase. Payment can be authorized using a single PIN.

22%

49%

% Customer intiated transactions by channel

Branches

8%

ATM

ATM

80%

Internet & Mobile

2%

10%

Phone Banking

Branches

(Source : HDFC Bank Investor Presentation)

from a nearby restaurant based on the location).

To ensure proper due diligence, the bank has created a contact point verification app. Explains Mittal, “When our field officer visits a customer for contact point verification, we now geotag and geo code and update the required information then and there on the mobile app. For example, in the case of a personal or an auto loan where the relationship is new, we visit the customer’s location to establish that the customer lives at the point specified in his or her application.

To improve our efficiencies, we created a Contact Point Verification (CPV) app, This has helped improve our approval rates internally. So, when we say, we will grow a little better than the market, it is a culmination of all such efforts from a technology perspective.”

Innovating for Bharat It is said that India lives in its villages, and HDFC Bank has not lost sight of the immense potential of the growth in rural and semi-urban areas. The bank already has close to 55% of its branches in semi-urban and rural areas, and the bank extensively uses technology to deliver agricultural loans within three to four working days in certain geographies. The bank has deployed 300+ micro ATMs in rural areas and over 2000 devices in the rural branches for eKYC. Additionally, an eligible farmer can avail of an enhancement to a loan in a few seconds using ATMs or mobile phones.

Another big success story is the digitization of milk cooperatives.

The bank has digitized payments at over 1,200 milk cooperatives across the nation. The move is part of the bank's Milk to Money (M2M) program, benefitting 3.2 lakh dairy farmers in 16 states. The programme aims to bring dairy farmers into the organized banking system by digitizing the supply chain, with specific and customized products targeted at satisfying their banking and financial needs. The M2M ATMs at large collection centers are equipped with cash dispensers, while smaller collection points have business correspondents who operate micro ATMs allowing dairy farmers to withdraw cash from their accounts.

A credit history is also generated which helps farmers take out loans or avail other banking products.

HDFC Bank’s success with digital is due to its willingness to keep on adding self service channels. For example, the bank was one of the first banks in the world whose mobile application was available on the Apple Watch. It was one of four lenders in the world to have such an app. It was also the first bank in India to introduce a humanoid robot.

The bank plans to install close to 20 humanoids at its branches in the next two years to help in addressing customer queries.

Today, the bank is looking at digitizing every process. It has also been smart enough to tieup with startups through focused initiatives.

The bank has launched a Digital Innovation Summit and invited Fintech startups to showcase their technology solutions. It’s a win-win for both the bank and the startup community. The bank gets access to some of the best disruptive technologies in the market and for the startups, they get access to commercialise and promote their innovations. A case in point is Net Vigil Software, one of the shortlisted Fintech startups selected by the bank last year. This startup provides a ‘safetopay’ payment option which facilitates an offline payment mechanism. In rural India, where network connectivity is relatively poor, this innovation can greatly benefit rural consumers.

HDFC Bank has been extremely successful because the bank has been looking to play its digital game on a better and bigger scale, and with an execution that is backed with a digital culture with the active support of a CEO. The bank has always looked at learning from global digital leaders, which is now evident in its growth.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | AUGUST, 2017

|7

INTERVIEW

We have made the network smart and more open for innovation IT WOULD NOT, be an exaggeration to say that hardware networking giant Cisco built the fundamental technology that has driven the rise and growth of the Internet. Recently, Cisco took another major initiative called ‘Intuitive Network’ that will scale, re-provision, and bring security at different levels aimed to make the network more agile, secure and open for innovation. Cisco CEO, Chuck Robbins spoke to Mohd Ujaley to share his views on ‘Network Intuitive’, its relevance, impact on business and how Indian enterprises and the government can leverage the new network.

With ‘Network Intuitive’, you are making the network more agile, secure and open for innovation. Is there any benefit to SMBs which forms one of the largest business groups in most of the emerging markets?

The new technology that we have brought gives an opportunity to SMBs to leverage sophisticated technology with ease. The ‘Intuitive Network’ will help them cut their resources and give them ability to work just like a large enterprise. The whole premise of a new network is to create automation, bring analytics, make the network more intelligent, secure, simpler and faster to deploy.

So, I believe it will be great for small businesses.

SMBs are price sensitive. How are the new products priced?

The way we think about the value of this is related to total cost of ownership over the life of the equipment for the solution. So, think about the five year window, for the

dollar they spend on the network – they are going to spend $3 per year or $15 in operation in today’s world.

All of them are now reduced significantly with this technology. If you look at the SMB point of view, from the total cost of ownership, the proposition is very favorable now from an economic perspective. Over the last decade, as we watched new innovative technologies, almost without exception, mid-sized companies have been the early adopters of innovative technologies.

We saw voice, we saw Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS), we saw next generation intercoms – most of these technologies have been adopted by small and mid-size firms.

We believe that they will also be an early adopter of this new technology.

Some of the analysts believe that the pay-as-you-go model will have some impact on your account initially. This is similar to what has been observed in the case of Adobe, when they adopted the

The whole premise of the ‘Intuitive Network’ is to create automation, bring analytics, make the network more intelligent, secure, simpler, and faster to deploy. I believe it will be great for small and medium businesses. pay-as-you-go model. Have you worked around the strategy to combat that challenge?

We are well aware of it but If you

look at the portion of this, we are including the subscription on the top – the advance portion of it: around the automation platform, around the

encrypted traffic analytics. We believe those will bring enough values to the customer to embrace them regardless of any consideration.

What kind of impact do you see ‘network intuitive’ having on the Smart Cities project in India and globally?

As far India is concerned, we are involved in Smart Cities and Digital India projects. We have got a complete digital strategy placed in India and Smart Cities are a huge part of it. What we have launched today, is fundamental to what the world wants to do with Smart Cities over a period. It is all about creating personal adaptive and intuitive networks. Secondly, we need to have the ability to be able to reprovision city infrastructure which could be traffic infrastructure, modifying street lights to optimize them, optimize the social infrastructure and deeply embedding security in it. That same thing could be applied to parking, garbage collection, water management etc. Actually this architecture is the foundation of the Smart City.

Security is all about mindset DESPITE THE BEST defense and the best infrastructure, organizations do get hacked. However, the success of a security program should not be defined singularly by the ability to prevent security breaches but by the organization’s ability to rapidly bounce back, states Sumit Dhar, Senior Director & Head of Information Security, EdgeVerve (a subsidiary of Infosys), in an interview with EC What are the typical security risks organizations face today?

There is no dearth of security risks in today’s digital economy. If you look at the attacks today, they are just getting bigger, more complex and amazingly sophisticated.

Additionally, as it became evident with Stuxnet, nation-states are now involved. That said, in my opinion, the top security risks that organizations currently face are: ● Ransomware: There is a reason why ransomware is a such a dire threat. Once a victim is infected, it is usually game over for them.

Additionally, with other breaches, malicious actors need to find middlemen to purchase the data (for example credit card details).

However, with Ransomware they completely cut out the middlemen and pocket 100% of the proceeds.

Therefore, Ransomware will remain a key threat for organizations in 2017.

Data Breaches: Information security is asymmetric. Defenders need to ensure every server, every network component, every application is hardened. Attackers, on the other hand, need to find just one weakness in the organization’s defenses. As a result, we will continue to see data breaches.

●

Mobile Malware: If one looks at the payouts offered by companies like Zerodium (a company acquiring premium zero-day vulnerabilities with functional exploits from security researchers and companies), the highest payouts are for mobile operating systems (iOS and Android).

This clearly indicates the importance attackers are placing on mobile platforms. If whitehat hackers like Zerodium are focusing so much on mobile platforms, it would not be surprising to see a similar focus in the blackhat and underground community. Given the pervasiveness of mobiles, it is but obvious that we will see an exponential increase in attacks targeting mobile platforms.

●

Given the risk exposure, what should organizations do?

Three words: Defense in Depth.

Unfortunately, there is no single silver bullet that can solve an organization’s security related problems. Therefore,

CISOs globally are focusing on defense in depth and adding multiple layers of protection to defend their organization. Personally, I believe, here are some of the layers that are required in any organization’s security posture: ● Layer 1: A strong culture of cybersecurity This requires top management commitment to security and security related training/awareness for all employees. ● Layer 2: A proper Information Security Management System.

Such a system would typically consist of relevant policies, procedures, guidelines etc. Many organizations may use ISO 27001 as a framework for developing their ISMS. ● Layer 3: Robust Technical Controls This includes perimeter security infrastructure (Firewalls, Intrusion Detection / Prevention Systems, AntiMalware, Web Application Firewalls, Security Information Event Management etc.), OS / DB / Application hardening and usage of proper security protocols (e.g. SSH over Telnet, sftp over ftp).

Layer 4: Assurance As a part of assurance, it is imperative that organizations conduct periodic vulnerability assessments, penetration tests, and security audits. ● Layer 5: Governance Governance would include security related metrics, benchmarking and reporting the security posture to the organization’s board. ●

So will following defense in depth ensure 100% security?

Before I answer, let me use this example: Is there any swimming pool that is 100% safe? The answer to that is clearly no. You can drown in the shallow end as well as in the deep end. However, the probability of drowning in the shallow end is much lower than the probability of drowning in the deep end.

Security is similar. No one can claim to be 100% secure. However, by following defense in depth and other good practices,

organizations can significantly reduce the probability of a security breach.

In addition to focusing on preventing security breaches, what should organizations do?

Well, at some point CISOs realize that in spite of their best efforts security incidents can occur. In today’s world, the success of a security program should not be defined singularly by the ability to prevent security breaches but by the organization’s ability to rapidly bounce back. The focus then should be on being able to detect accurately and respond promptly.

A number of the leading organizations today are using advanced analytics to detect security threats. They are

based on user behavior rather than simple signatures.

Lastly, once a breach has been identified, time is of essence.

Organization’s incident response should be fast, focused and prompt.

Advance preparation and planning is critical when it comes to a successful incident response.

Thus, in my opinion, the need of the hour today is a well-integrated incident prevention, detection, and response program.

correlating events across a variety of network devices and servers to identify potential breaches. In addition, increasingly detection is

What are your thoughts on the skill shortage in Information Security?

It is true there is a dearth of technically competent and skilled Information Security professionals in the country. That said, I am also very

impressed by the quality of the current crop of young security professionals. Especially those involved in web application security.

The various bug bounty programs have resulted in great interest towards application security and I today see amazing work being done by youngsters who are still in college or have just a couple of years of work experience. Overall, this is good for the industry and dare I say the country too.

The need of the hour is for companies, academia, and senior Infosec leaders to come together to guide and mentor the younger generation. Without that, we will continue to see challenges with getting the right people for Information Security.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | AUGUST, 2017

8 | INFORMATION SECURITY INTERVIEW

FEATURE

Insiders: The enemy within AUTHORIZED USERS or employees pose one of the greatest security risks to an organization, as they have the access to sensitive company data

Rachana Jha

partner around the globe.

rachana.jha@expressindia.com

S

ecurity breaches are a real concern for any organization.

Though any sort of malicious breach can cause harm to organizations, the immensity of the impact of the insider threat is much more than the impact of external attacks. The reason why insider attacks are more dangerous is that it is committed by people who know the organization well. They are privileged users, aware of sensitive secrets of organization and have access to it. In the past, we have also heard of insider bank frauds at some leading banks which have alerted organizations about the inside risk within their organizations. This can also hamper the corporate security of an organization that comes from within the organization. In some cases, though these attacks are unintentional, in many cases, attacks are committed due to greed or antipathy towards the organization. According to a study done by Forcepoint (a company specializing in computer security software), only 43 percent of organizations feel that they can monitor privileged user activity well, while 63 percent do not have enough information in this context. Any security breaches in the organization not only result in its organizational loss but also damage its image as a secure global

Insider thefts put organization at risk Detection of risk, responding to insider attacks and prevention is a very challenging task for the Information Security team. Though insider attacks can be caught, they are more hard to detect than an external threat.

The Information Security team of any organization has the responsibility to deal with risks like IT sabotage, theft of intellectual property (IP) and fraud.

The organizations these days customize solutions to curb the risk of theft.

Madhavan Satagopan, CTO, Altimetrik, says, “Altimetrik has an ISMS which is quite comprehensive in all aspects of awareness. Our ISMS policy is backed up with mandatory training for all employees, Active Directory-based authentication and authorization for all access requests backed up by a DLP which monitors all such access and notifies managers and other nominated leaders of any confidential information sent outside of Altimetrik domain. All laptops and desktops are secured with restricted and monitored access (or disablement) of USB ports and writable media with restricted Local admin rights. In addition, we have network segregation to protect highly sensitive information, HIPS (Host Intrusion Prevention System) installed in developer environments

who are working on PCI and healthcare projects backed up log audits and analytics. Physical security in terms of access and authentication is also enforced. Firewall protection is enabled to guard against all unauthorized access”.

As access to information is not confined to a company’s boundaries, the challenges for the organization increase manifold. Says Subramanyam Puterevu, CIO, Mindtree, “Accessibility of information is a huge challenge for an organization to deal with.

Now, we are introducing more processes and systems to detect and

With the incidents of insider thefts on the rise, organizations give a lot of emphasis on security awareness and risk assessment control theft. At an industry level, we need solutions to detect malicious and unintended attempts of employees.”

Technologies to monitor attacks With the incidents of the insider thefts on the rise, organizations give a lot of emphasis on security awareness and risk assessment. “The insiders have more access to information as they are the trusted employees. The security awareness programs, access recertification processes of a privileged user and technologies like DLP curtails the risk to a certain extent for protecting the data of the organization”, says Satyanandan Atyam, CISO, Bharti Axa General Insurance. Auditing and reviewing process are some of the important techniques for identifying and learning about insider theft incidents.

As most organizations buy different solutions for fulfilling different tasks (intrusion detection, firewalls, anti-virus solutions), the risk increases. Point solutions cannot identify a stealth attack, if it originates from another attack vector. This can be addressed using analytics. “The industry is moving towards predictive analytics, and this is especially important with regards to privileged users,” says Harshil Doshi, Strategic Security Solutions Consulting, India, Forcepoint LLC. Forcepoint has a solution that combines visibility and analytics to baseline normal behavior and quickly identifies and record high risk behavior.

The firm’s solution can identify high risk users and enable data protection controls to be put in place.

This is complemented by a DLP solution that identifies high risk data behaviors identifying users that need to be investigation further.

Preventing unintentional threats One another important aspect of the insider threat is the theft which is unintentionally done.

According to a DSCI NASSCOM report, almost 67% service provider organizations have experienced insider incidents due to unintentional exposure of private and sensitive information. And, 75 percent of client organizations have also supported the fact that unintentional exposure of private and sensitive data is a security threat. For the thefts unknowingly done, the companies have to be even more careful as the data can be leaked without their concern and they cannot realize it immediately.

States Jagdeep Singh, CISO, Rakuten, India, “Awareness sessions and taking mock drills with relevant case studies are very important to make employees aware and test the awareness level of the

organization.

Gamification, role plays, and context based training sessions come in handy to ensure that the training is relevant to the specific needs of the employees.

The technologies which can detect and report ‘policy non-compliance’ also come handy to report the potential misuse of data and provide warnings to employees on a case to case basis.”

Tracking forensic evidence is important Despite seeking preventive measures sometimes, organizations have to suffer from malicious breaches. In such cases, the companies must have different solutions in place to monitor forensic evidence so that it does not repeat again in future. It is also a very important factor as the forensic evidence can be used in the court against the perpetrator.

This is an important aspect, and is typically done by a team under the CRO (Chief Risk Officer) office. This is done by collecting log information to understand complications and impact on business and company reputation. Also, the SOC (Security Operating Centre) are in place which constantly monitors any network infiltration attempts, insider breaches and malware infections.

Well-defined security incident management processes are available and periodic awareness communication is sent to all the employees. The application and system logs are sent to a central logging server for alerting and reporting. Based on the predefined criteria, alerts are sent to respective teams for investigation. For further investigation and analysis, the compromised system is preserved and the OS level image is taken. Apart from these factors, storing digital evidence and footprints, including the access logs and other available information for as long as possible, helps in historical analysis.

INTERVIEW

In cybersecurity, no solution is a long term solution CYBERSECURITY HAS always been a moving goalpost. Hence, enterprise security needs to be adaptive and dynamic, states Ratan Jyoti, CISO, Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, in an interview with EC’s Rachana Jha

What kind of security risks does your organization face? Have you encountered any threats in recent times?

We have not faced any security risks recently. The banking system, in general, is facing many security challenges. New technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) or IIoT are giving cybercriminals ample opportunities and platforms to launch more

sophisticated attacks on banks. Banks and financial sector firms intertwine services from multiple vendors and other third parties and these pose significant cyber risks.

International cyberattacks are another area of concern. The emergence of mobile banking is bringing new threats. With BYOD and mobile devices, the opportunity for infected devices to connect to a network has dramatically increased.

Today, enterprises are moving away from prevention-only approaches to focus more on detection and responses? What are your views on this trend?

Prevention is still mandatory. However, banks are moving away from prevention-only

approaches to focus more on detection and response.

With new age technologies and data analytics, it has become possible to detect threats early. Integration of all security systems and threat intelligence and their working in unison to stop an attack has increased the response capabilities of banks.

How can enterprises benefit by taking this approach? Is this a longterm solution to tackle modern day threats?

The detection and response approach supplements and expands upon traditional Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) which now can better correlate events, detect anomalies and analyze logs, network packets, and network flows. In cybersecurity, no

solution is a long term solution and we need to be very dynamic and adaptive.

It is being noticed that skill shortages are further driving spending on security services. Are you seeking help from external partners?

Cybersecurity skill sets are not adequately available and, therefore, are a challenge for banks.

This forces banks to use services of vendors, partners, and third parties. On one hand, we should work with partners and at the same time, we should put our efforts to build our own team to have a balance.

As enterprises shift towards balancing prevention with newer detection and response approaches, CISOs are

changing how they measure the success of their security strategy.

Please comment.

Prevention alone is less effective unless it is tied to a detection and response strategy. And due to this shift, the new generation security systems are built with more intelligence.

CISOs should use intelligence and statistics to measure the success of their security strategy.

Incident management systems have become intelligence driven and by using these systems, CISOs can measure ROI on their security infrastructure by developing effective security matrices. The disruption in cyber technologies will make CISOs change their security strategy to fight newer threats.

We put constant efforts to improve our internal ISMS policies AS A LEADING IT services firm, Mphasis has taken a holistic view of its enterprise security policy, and has taken proactive and constant efforts to improve its internal ISMS policies and procedures followed at the user and system level. In an interaction with EC, Vinod Pol, AVP and Lead, CIO – Enterprise IT Infrastructure Services, Mphasis shares his perspective on how his organization is handling insider threats Insiders have more access to information and their activities can go undetected longer than external threats.

What kind of processes do you have in place to prevent unauthorized use of information?

Information breach is equally possible form insider (trusted) and external (untrusted) parties, in fact insiders are more prone for information leakage and center of attraction…as a human element.

Confidential Information breach can happen as intentional or unintentional base on behavior of employee while handling information activities. Insider activities within an organization needs constant monitoring and actions when information is on move or stored within organizational infrastructure.

We take multiple stages, as process to prevent unauthorized use of information which can put our organization in risk with respect to liability and reputation. a. Effective Information Security management services (ISMS) We have established a measurement process to be able to measure and assess how effective the controls are at protecting our information assets. An example might be to measure how good the controls are that have been implemented to avoid insider threats, such as the effectiveness of the access control methods that are being used, separation of duties, monitoring the misuse of system resources, hardening of systems, controlled access, intricate passwords. We put constant efforts to improve our internal ISMS policies and procedures followed at user and system level validating them and measuring effectiveness. b. Incident response and handling (SOC): Allowing an insider threat to exploit an organizational vulnerability results in an information security incident. we follow comprehensive incident handling management process aligned with ISO/IEC 27001 standards.

This process involves: ● Identification, detection and reporting incidents. ● Analysis and evaluation of incident. ● Responding to the incident. ● Recovery and cleanup of the incident. ● Learning from the incident. c. Monitor and review Within organization we monitor user, administrator level activities, system audit trails collecting centrally and triggering suspicious

detection as an incident. d. Information security audits Regular internal and third party audits are integral part of organizational process to assess maturity of information security policies and improve them better. e. Employee awareness Human element is weakest chain into security practice, no matter you put all possible technology to detect and prevent. Information security awareness is must and essential part of while security model. We set certain mandatory trainings for people to learn and follow business specific activities to keep information integrity so it cannot be misused targeting them. We attract people to learn security measures, keep information physically secure and communicate only what is needed to authorized persons only. f. Access control and information handling Identity specific access to information is provided to people to perform their duties. Rights on information is managed so that data cannot be leaked in read and write format. It is physically secured and segregated, backed up for critical data.

What kind of technologies/solutions do you use to prevent theft or leakage of information from insiders?

In our organization we have deployed form user desk till the system where data is stored, every hop best possible security measures to monitor, prevent and act. Security technology technologies which we used and prevent data leak are consistently deployed: a. Role based physical separation, and logical separation with VLANs and VRF at network level b. Data storage encryption, external storage access removal, limited desktop access based on role c. Systems protected with regular patch management, antivirus, HIPS, Data leak prevention (DLF) agents as end point security

d. Data encryption in motion and access through proxies and CITRIX kind of environments e. Centralize SIEM solution to collect system logs and monitor them to react through SOC f. DLP at proxy and e-mail level along with e-mail policies while sending information out g. SOX and PCI level controls at network level with firewall DMZ deployments h. Regular VAPT on internal infrastructure and asses report to mitigate them.

There is a possibility of employees mistakenly sharing or leaking information. How do you ensure that unintended leakage of information does not happen in your organization?

We have deployed primarily Data leak prevention (DLP) at endpoint, web proxy, network and e-mail gateway level which are exits to move data put from organization. Various techniques under DLP, matching data, figure printing helps us to define our policy while handling data from user till network level. It provides visibility and policy based blockage for employee to share data mistakenly. User awareness programs and certain HR actions are defined on repetitive incidents to control and manage.

In case a breach happens, how prepared is your organization to deal with such a situation? What kind of processes do you have in place to look for forensic evidence, to ensure that the evidence stands in court against the perpetrator?

We are well prepared to deal with incidents which are identified as security data breach. There is dedicated team under CRO office who does security forensic by collecting log information to understand complication and impact on business and company reputation. Typically following process is defined and followed to reduce impact, ● Make an initial assessment ● Communicate the incident ● Contain the damage and minimize the risk ● Identify the type and severity of the compromise ● Protect evidence ● Notify external agencies if appropriate ● Recover systems ● Compile and organize incident documentation ● Assess incident damage and cost ● Take internal legal opinion to initiate appropriate actions against the perpetrator following state, country information security laws ● Review the response and update policies.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | AUGUST, 2017

|9

INTERVIEW

Data is the foundation of AI THE GLOBAL, The global economy is entering an exciting and unprecedented time in technology, with business models continuing to be disrupted by the advent of emerging technologies. In an interview with Express Computer, Bhaskar Ghosh, Group Chief Executive – Accenture Technology Services, shares his perspective with Srikanth RP, on how technology can be used as a catalyst to create a future that fits our needs With new emerging technologies coming into play, how should enterprises deal with the pace of disruption and business challenges?

Enterprises with a leadership perspective will recognize that technology has undergone a transformation from playing a supporting role to one that is driving business growth and strategy. Technology is disrupting many industries by reinventing business models, processes and customer engagement and shaking up traditional norms that have defined industries for years. Retail, travel, entertainment and banking are prime examples here.

Today, a software strategy is in many ways a business strategy.

New technology waves are forming, led by Artificial Intelligence, automation, Internet of Things, big data, and connected ecosystems.

Enterprises must a vision to Advancements in have rotate to this new the AI domain are world of technology to get simplifying ahead in their interfaces and business and industry. adding

tremendous intelligence, giving rise to new opportunities and driving unforeseen outcomes for enterprises and people

Key to this is to adopt a software applications strategy that is centered around three tenets: ◗ Liquid, where applications are platform-based and adopt reusable components for rapid assembly for modification, and are based on new engineering innovations like DevOps, ◗ Intelligent, where applications leverage the latest advances in cognitive computing and machine learning to manage the growing complexity and velocity of change, and, ◗ Connected, where applications become the interface to a larger business ecosystem of partners, suppliers, and customers, and to the larger world of Internet of Things.

How do you see the impact of automation and artificial intelligence on the IT services industry?

Intelligent Automation is delivering real benefits today, including better quality and consistency of services, faster,

more informed business decisions and lower costs for services.

Advancements in the AI domain are simplifying interfaces and adding tremendous intelligence, giving rise to new opportunities and driving unforeseen outcomes for enterprises and people.

While digital was a key reason for technology transforming to a proactive business function, the effect of both automation and AI is far more. Service, speed and experience become more critical and the focus for the technology function is beyond productivity and cost reduction; it is more about how technology can enable enterprises to operate and grow. Enterprises and business leaders are not fully aware about where they can apply AI or how to automate to achieve the best results, they rely on advice from strategic IT services advisors.

Enterprises today are dealing with a multi-dimensional technology world having a plethora of tools and offerings. They are uncertain about the best choice to make and turn to IT Services experts to deal with this complexity. At Accenture, we apply our capability in identifying the “right fit” solutions for our clients and incorporate them in our automation platform, myWizard.

We are making it far easier for clients to understand the ecosystem explosion and take quick decisions by taking to them a synthesized world of solutions that is in their interest.

Automation and AI are also transforming the workforce significantly and enterprises are unsure of how to manage technology investments and blend technology with people. In conclusion, a successful automation and AI strategy should include the following key aspects: 1. Strategy: First of all, it’s critical to establish an automation strategy so that the focus is not about the selection of the right tool, but about the selection of right goals for automation.

2. Scope: Enterprises need to think about the scope of automation and AI. Technology and business leaders have to decide whether the scope of applying AI is to make internal operations more efficient or to create greater impact in the business.

3. Change Management: Implementation of automation is just like change management, and the two change agents here are culture and capability. Focusing on building the right culture and capability is paramount, else enterprises will fail in their strategy.

4. Workforce Transformation: Automation and AI require that companies transform the relationship between humans and machines. It also calls for the development of new roles and skills, with the right mix of technical knowledge and business acumen.

5. Data: Data is the foundation of AI, so before enterprises embark on an AI strategy they should have a strong data strategy in place to make AI meaningful.

6. Ecosystem Innovation: To be effective, automation and AI technologies can’t be applied in isolation. The best solutions are technology-rich, integrating multiple technologies, rather than leveraging just one tool or capability. So having the right partner to offer this expertise and implement the technology strategy is critical.

How has Accenture aligned itself to this new world where automation is the norm (Some details on internal platforms being created, the type of people being recruited would help) Continuous innovation is a mindset at Accenture. We strive to continually disrupt ourselves so that we and our clients don’t miss important shifts occurring in the ecosystem. A proof of this is how we have rotated our business to the new – in the first two quarters of our FY17, we have generated more than 45 percent of revenues from “the New”, which comprises of digital, cloud and security services.

We introduced our intelligent automation platform Accenture myWizard to clients in early 2016, and have since deployed the platform across more than 2,000 client engagements globally. We have made significant investments in automation platforms over the past two years, including our primary investment in Accenture myWizard as well as our OmniChannel and Touchless Testing Platforms and the Accenture Robotics Solution (RPA 2.0). These investments help clients leverage the latest innovative automation and AI tools, use data extensively, scale automation in their enterprise, govern automation investments and measure outcomes.

Accenture draws upon the widest range of ecosystem alliances in our industry, collaborating with market-leading and emerging technology providers to magnify our capabilities, deliver the best of the ecosystem, and help clients mitigate project risk and speed procurement and vendor

evaluation. To drive innovation in application services delivery, we are actively engaged with key intelligent automation solution providers, open source projects and academic institutions including Google, IBM Technologies, Microsoft, RedHat, SOASTA, Splunk, and Tricentis among others. Accenture has extensive external partnerships with the leading RPA software companies including Automation Anywhere, BluePrism, Fusion, Pega Robotics (OpenSpan) and UiPath, as well as strong partnerships with AI companies like IBM Watson and IPSoft. We provide input on product roadmaps, conduct pilots and collaborate on client engagements and service delivery initiatives. We are also currently engaged in several research projects at MIT focused on data and AI. Importantly, Accenture invests significantly in training and reskilling our workforce in NEW IT. For example, in just over the last year, more than 70,000 of our technology specialists have completed an extensive NEW IT training program, including AI, machine learning and analytics driven automation. We have more than 35,000 intelligent automationskilled professionals across Accenture globally. Within Accenture Technology Services, our diverse group of automation specialists strives to improve client service delivery.

Can you give us specific examples (example, testing) where automation has made a big impact?

The Accenture Touchless Testing Platform is the latest example of how Accenture is using AI and analytics driven automation to disrupt every aspect of the application lifecycle, and make IT an agent for speed, change and customer experience. With this unique platform we are enabling a shift from traditional testing approaches and helping testers operate smarter and more

efficiently. For example, the data visualization capabilities and realtime guided interventions offered by the platform help testers make better use of data volumes generated in a test cycle and thereby prioritize work based on failure and usage patterns.

We have successfully piloted the platform with 10 clients around the world. One insurance company that piloted the platform discovered they could accelerate their pace of delivery by improving their test suite. Using the platform’s cognitive engine, Accenture identified up to 22 percent test cases as duplicates or similar that could be eliminated. By applying such insights into defect detection and analysis, test execution and retesting, the company can significantly improve the speed and quality of the software development and accelerate overall cycle time.

In another example, a leading communications company sought to accelerate testing automation, improve time to market and deliver high quality customer experiences.

Accenture implemented an end-toend intelligent automation framework and its proprietary Accenture Intelligent Tools for Test Operations, underpinned by an outcome-driven model, to drive intelligence and automation into the testing lifecycle. As a result, the client is now equipped to handle increased volumes and complexity with greater agility, better testing strategies, lower delivery effort and improved productivity. It has been able to increase automation by approximately 80 percent, achieve cost savings of more than 50 percent and reduce cycle time by approximately 50 percent while tripling the number of test devices covered. More importantly, as the client’s technology landscape gets more and more complex, they are able to stay ahead of the curve with automation.

How has this focus on automation helped Accenture?

Can you give us some measurable statistics (For example, productivity improvement of 30-40% due to automation?)

Accenture’s view on Intelligent Automation is that it has to be innovative, driver great value to clients, and enable humans reach their exponential potential. The Accenture myWizard automation platform is designed around this and delivers game-changing improvements in application quality, productivity, speed to market and cost optimization.

While our platform can help people become more productive in

task-related work, our focus is more towards enabling our people to deliver on client business goalsin complex areas of technology projects such as System Integration, creating SAP blueprints, SAP implementations, or system and architecture design for new technologies, to name a few. These kinds of jobs are essentially non-repeatable and require greater judgment and complex thinking, and automation can help increase productivity in the range of 10 – 20 percent in such cases. Virtual Agents from Accenture myWizard collaborate with their human co-workers to manage projects, apply analytics, make better judgment-based decisions and monitor all aspects of application development and management.

For example, the Architect agent assistant recommends the right architecture for specific technology landscapes, and the Scrum master agent monitors numerous aspects of Agile development projects and alerts the project manager of any potential issues and providing possible solutions.

How do you see the opportunities for your firm in emerging areas such as Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain?

While the promise of Artificial Intelligence is becoming clearer for enterprises, they are dealing with a lot of complexity in terms of the technology landscape, applying AI to drive business strategy, organizational culture and workforce transformation. This is a significant opportunity for Accenture to work closely with clients and guide them on where they can apply AI, drive growth and manage change.

Blockchain has the potential to release efficiency in networked business of today and also enable new products and services.

Blockchain is an important area for Accenture. We are one of the founding members of Linux Foundation Hyperledger project, Ethereum Enterprise Alliance and we have close alliances with top platform providers.

We are already engaged in multiple projects with various clients on Blockchain. Starting with strategy and business case definition, workshops, platform evaluation and support, pilots to production, we are engaged across various use cases. These include capital markets infrastructure, cross border payments, re-insurance, supply chain, trade finance, energy utilities, government and public sector services.

Cross Cloud, SDN and Security to be the dominant themes THE NOTION, of a digital workspace where any application, sitting on any infrastructure can be delivered with full scale of enterprise security to any device leading to enhanced experience and simplicity is gaining traction. The initiative of Cross Cloud Services and network virtualization like NSX is an attempt by US-based virtual infrastructure firm VMware to convert this notion into reality. In an exclusive conversation with Mohd Ujaley, Arun Parameswaran, Managing Director, VMware India shares the future roadmap and how he plans to increase the number of customers and wallet share in India What are your plans for 2017?

Our strategy continues to be very similar to 2016. The vision we set forward from a software defined data center perspective in private cloud will continue to have huge focus in 2017. We are seeing customer adoption across all segments, all sizes and all verticals. Given our dominance in private cloud infrastructure, we will continue to see strong growth in this segment.

In addition, there is a lot of interests in securing and managing mobile devices for the larger context of mobility of an organisation. Also, the notion of a digital workspace where any application, sitting on any infrastructure can be delivered with full scale of enterprise security to any device leading to enhance customer experience and simplicity for organisations are gaining traction.

So, as we stepped into the end of 2017 or early 2018, our recent partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and IBM for Cross Cloud Services will start playing defining role by enabling interoperability, flexibility and simplicity. I, personally believe, we will start seeing lot of momentum around Cross Cloud Services by early next year.

During the VMworld 2016, VMware announced the partnership with IBM for Cross Cloud Services and later on with AWS. How much progress have you made since then?

We are on the track. There are a lot of joint engineering work being done with IBM and AWS. Sometimes later half of this year, it will available in developed markets for customers

followed by emerging markets. We don’t have dates for any of the markets right now but hopefully by VMworld 2017 (Aug-Sept), we will be in a better position to give some specific timelines.

Have you been able to figure out how many common customers do you have, who are using either IBM or AWS, as they could be your potential early adopters of Cross Cloud Services?

I think, it’s too early. We will have more clarity as we approach to VMword 2017. There are lots of customers who are common to both of us and that is the reason, we are so excited about this whole opportunity.

Has the Dell EMC umbrella helped you in any way?

You know the integration has just

there will be areas of synergy like mid market where we will benefit from their reach and their customer’s intimacy. They will benefit from the intimacy and the reach that we have in the enterprise space with respect to the relevance of our offerings. So, I think there is going to be a complimentary, I would say set of market segments, both will benefit from each other. But we are all going to pursue independent strategies to drive our respective strategies. So, I don’t think you are going to see us do anything that limits our ability to grow our respective businesses.

finished. Our financial year start from 4th February, so this financial year is the first year and it has just started. So, it’s less than a month into it. We have said consistently that

Have you acquired any new customers in India and how you plan to increase the number of customers and wallet share?

Our challenge is reference-ability that we have to go through all the

approval cycles and everything. So, I am not able to tell you the numbers and the names but you know for us like any company, the growth is going to come from two things – how do we acquire new customers and how do we continue to grow our wallet share with our existing customers? One of the things that we did last year is that we put an effort into going to Tier II, Tier III cities. And, that has given us reasonably good results and growth.

Traditionally, we have been very strong in the enterprise but with the SME market we typically tapered out so we would try to make sure that as we continue to increase our wallet share at the top of the pyramid, we should cover the large base of SME by focusing more on our ecosystem, channel partners and programs. Lot of acquisition related work is happening in that space.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | AUGUST, 2017

10 | EVENT PRESENTS

THE INDIAN IT LEADERSHIP CONCLAVE

JUNE 8 - 10, 2017 I KOLKATA 15 TH Edition

EXPRESS TECHNOLOGY SENATE

Digital agenda: The way forward THE 15th EDITION of The Express Technology Senate continued with its tradition of being India’s premier CIO forum, with several thought leaders sharing their excellent insights

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he integration of digital technology into all business operations has resulted in fundamental changes to how businesses create and deliver value.

For CIOs, given the pivotal role they play in driving Digital Transformation, the task can be both complex and formidable. There is the

How West Bengal is building a robust IT ecosystem

Amit Mitra, Minister for Finance & Excise, Commerce & Industries, West Bengal

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est Bengal (WB) is positioning itself to be a ‘State of Silicon’ by launching electronic clusters, building IT education institutions and encouraging a startup culture.

When the All India Trinamool Congress attained office, with Mamata Banerjee as the Chief Minister (CM), her plan was to replicate success in improving the efficiencies in the railways using IT, in West Bengal. “She called me and

said, you remember what we did in the railways, when I was the railway minister. She introduced e-tendering to make the tendering and procurement process transparent,” recollected Amit Mitra, Minister for Finance & Excise, Commerce & Industries Government of West Bengal.

Banerjee wanted Amit Mitra to apply a similar way of thinking, and use IT to transform the state.

Under an encouraging leadership, the state, is taking a series of initiatives to build a comprehensive IT ecosystem.

In an effort to improve its internal efficiencies, the state

has used technology to improve the way the government interacts with businesses.

WB has also formed a separate department for egovernance. Initially, the IT department was responsible for e-governance.

Proactiveness has been shown in ensuring the IT infrastructure is not confined to urban areas. To encourage growth opportunities in Tier II and Tier III cities, the government has will construct IT parks across the state, even in remote districts.

The WB Government along with NASSCOM has launched a startup warehouse in a 10,000 sq ft plot acquired by the state.

The plot is full and occupied.

There are about five startups, who have got VC and angel funding.

The state didn’t have an IIIT, when TMC came to office.

The land was allocated and a fast track route was taken to make sure the land acquisition doesn’t go through the bureaucratic hurdles.

Strength of West Bengal in IT and new initiatives

Dr. Krishna Gupta, Principal Secretary, Department of IT & Electronics, West Bengal

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r Gupta gave a snapshot of the preparedness and capabilities built in the state to make it one of the top IT hubs in India. There are 550 IT & ITeS companies operating in the state, employing over 135,000 IT professionals. The state plans to raise its share in the country’s IT exports to 25 percent by 2030.

There are 16 IT parks with world class facilities envisaged to generate 20000+ employment opportunities. A total of $30.02

million has been allocated for the development of IT and electronics department.

He also briefed on the policy initiatives being undertaken. The ICT policy is in the process of being revamped; a new ESDM policy and a startup action plan is under the approval stage.

Hardware parks will facilitate the creation of an integrated ecosystem for hardware manufacturing. The two hardware parks are in the areas - Kalyani and Sonarpur, traditionally enriched with human resources, infrastructure facility, proximity with city and academic institutions.

shedding of outdated processes, the adoption of agile new technologies, the cultural aspect of helping people bridge the digital divide, and the creation of better, more memorable customer experiences.

Insurance and banking firms are conducting pilots on blockchain.

While many companies in the

manufacturing and retail sector are pursuing emerging technologies such as 3D printing and virtual reality; while others are embracing new technologies like virtual reality, robotics and IoT to take customer service to the next level.

The importance of a digital strategy is undeniable… with almost

Shaping the digital future for West Bengal

[L-R] Amit Agarwal, Managing Partner, Stanton Chase India; Sunil Mahale, MD, Nutanix India; Rajarshi Bhattacharya, Country Head, SUSE; Amit Mitra, Minister for Finance & Excise,Commerce & Industries, West Bengal; Anil Chandaliya, Chief Innovation Officer, ESDS;Jayantha Prabhu, Group CIO, Essar and Head, AGC Networks; Dr. Krishna Gupta, Principal Secretary, IT & Electronics, West Bengal

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he discussion suggested key components for WB to unravel an ecosystem for a vibrant IT enabled state.

Some of the components, are already present as was mentioned by Amit Mitra, Minister for Finance & Excise,Commerce & Industries, West Bengal, “The current Tata Sons Chairman told me that the attrition rate in the IT sector in Bengaluru is 35 percent, but it’s only 4

percent in Kolkata. It’s because of the vibrant city of Kolkata,” said Mitra responding to the suggestion raised by Amit Agarwal, Managing Partner, Stanton Chase India that West Bengal needs to create an ecosystem to improve the quality of life.

The state is also setting up many critical IT infrastructure institutions. “WB will soon have a National Institute of Data Science, a dedicated

General Insurance and new digital channels

K Sanath Kumar, CMD, National Insurance Company Ltd (NIC)

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every Indian firm hedging its bets with a comprehensive digital strategy as its future depends on it. The theme of Digital Transformation, was explored and debated through case studies, technology presentations and panel discussions, in this year’s Technology Senate, held in Kolkata.

IC will have to face many challenges, in terms of the business, IT and in the wake of the changing technology paradigm and the customer psyche. However IT can bring about the desired results.

NIC will have to use mobility friendly solutions to empower the channels who sell the policies. Also for employees, agents and other field

force. “IoT has a lot of potential in the insurance space,” said K Sanath Kumar, CMD, NIC. Using telematics, IoT, motor vehicle premium can be fixed based on the data relayed by the Fitbit wearables. The data can also be used for pricing health insurance.

The power of BOTS, Artificial Intelligence can be used as a digital counsellor and also for customer service.

NIC grew by 37 percent last year driven by a series of insurance schemes launched by the central government. “At NIC, the thrust was to keep the lights on, however now, it has shifted to cyber security,” said Kumar. The need is to keep a separate eKYC database. The challenge is to keep the data on cloud because of regulatory concerns.

Nevertheless, cloud remains to be a solid option.

The challenge will be to connect the branches in the rural and urban areas. On top of that, personal interfaces have to be provided to the various channels through which policies are sold. The channels include: agents, aggregators, Common Service Centres, PoS, motor vehicle dealers, etc. There are challenges on the customer side too.

Today’s customer is a global citizen.

The need is to have a uniform solution to take care of the needs of the concerns of the rural and the urban customer.

CERT-In for the state and a cyber security centre of excellence,” said Dr. Krishna Gupta, Principal Secretary, IT & Electronics, WB. He also invited suggestions from the private sector on what more can the state do to attract investments from the private sector.

Steps also need to be taken to promote entrepreneurship.

“The government should have the required ecosystem to

promote entrepreneurship. We can have incubation centres with the state. The students should be encouraged to innovate and ESDS will educate the state’s youth in technologies like cloud, IoT, etc,” suggested Anil Chandaliya, Chief Innovation Officer, ESDS. Sunil Mahale, MD, Nutanix India urged for a more comprehensive base for the state to rapidly move towards creating an IT ecosystem. “I suggest to bring the Venture Capitalists, academia and the government on a common platform and discuss ideas,” he said. Mitra replied that WB has been doing that in a small way. The state has provided land to IIT Kharagpur to launch an incubation park, backed by VCs. According to Rajarshi Bhattacharya, Country Head, SUSE, it’s important to identify the missing piece in the scheme of things to make WB a state of the silicon. He suggested having a guiding body for startups to develop futuristic products in the space of IoT, cyber security etc.

Enabling seamless and secure enterprise mobility

Sunil Pandita, General Manager, Enterprise Business, Samsung India

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unil Pandita highlighted how Samsung is helping enterprises across all the vertical industries to adopt enterprise mobility and driving the era of digital disruption. He stated that any digital strategy is incomplete without enterprise mobility and Samsung has the pedigree of leading in the mobility business.

He also gave a brief on Samsung Knox, a defense-grade security and management platform in Samsung’s mobile devices. With Samsung Knox built into the smartphone, enterprises can improve mobile security with: device integrity to ensure devices

have not been compromised at any point from manufacturer to user; trusted boot process to guarantee that the precise, full set of allowed software is loaded and run; corporate data security to keep strict separation and isolation of personal and corporate applications and data; and enterprise-ready features, such as SSL VPN support, On-Device Encryption, and Single Sign-On, to meet mobile security compliance requirements.

Padita further mentioned about Samsung Pay, which has been recently launched in India following its global success. As it works on NFC and MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission) technology, this payment mode not only eliminates the need for carrying a physical card but is also safe and secure.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | AUGUST, 2017

|11

EVENT Potential of APIs

Rajendra Mhalsekar, Head- Corporate Banking Technology, Yes Bank

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PI has been an important component in the digital transformation journey of Yes Bank.

Rajendra Mhalsekar, Head- Corporate Banking

Technology, Yes Bank explained how API works at Yes Bank over a secure platform. He also briefly touched upon the potential of the Blockchain technology.

More than 200 corporate customers of Yes Bank, at the rate of 15 seconds per transaction

does 40 lac transactions per month worth 3000 crore over the secure API platform. In terms of the number of transactions, the API channel has beaten the branch and net banking channels. The bank has identified the key customer services that can be offered over the API channel.

The distributed ledger technology, also known as Blockchain can also revolutionise how banking happens. It provides consensus, provenance, immutability and finality by maintaining a transaction ledger copy with each of the stakeholders, with a common database. The copy of the database resides with each of the stakeholder, which takes away the need for any kind of reconciliation between the auditors, banks and others relevant parties.

Mitigating cyber security for legacy IT environments

Rushi Chitre, Senior Manager, Technical Support and Pre Sales, eScan Enterprise Security

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hile highlighting the different products and solutions that eScan offers to the enterprises,

Rushi Chitre touched upon the recent ransomware attack, WannaCry, that shook the world. Taking cue from this kind of global menace, the company has come up with vulnerability assessment and penetration testing

for corporates.

In order to tackle such type of ransomware attacks in the future, eScan has introduced anti-ransomware technology, called PBAE (Proactive Behavioral Analysis Engine), which will not only do ransomware behavioral analysis but also do reserve list, behavioral, resource, signature, and file checks.

Looking at the modern day threats, the company is also offering Data Leakage Prevention (DLP) via device control, Security Information and Events Management (SIEM), Asset Management, and Identity Protection to all its enterprise customers.

doing digital to being digital. They need to learn how to make the digital channel work, softer skills, and tricks for maximizing the business.”

Looking at the demand for CDOs, Agarwal suggested that it is a fantastic opportunity for CIOs to get into the shoes of CDOs, as there is no ready talent available in the market. They should no longer be seen as a ‘side hero’ or remain

on the peripherals. They need to align with CEOs now, as there are a lot of opportunities for CDOs to excel in any company.

There is a real possibility of a CDO becoming CEO of any company in the future.

He asserted, “The next 4-5 years will see many enterprises having CDOs. Hence, CIOs must grab this opportunity and move up the value chain.

Otherwise, the CIO's role would just be confined to vendor management.”

The future role of the CIO Amit Agarwal, Managing Partner, Stanton Chase India

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n the current changing demographic of digitization, the role of CIOs is also undergoing a transformation. While conducting a workshop on the future role of the CIO, Amit Agarwal stated that today corporates are looking for or rather hiring Chief Digital Officers (CDOs), who most of the time don’t

come from the IT background but from marketing or finance. In this changing scenario, time is ripe for CIOs to latch on to this opportunity.

He said, “IT is today the business and not just the enabler. CIOs have always managed technology for an organization but not run the business. Now, in the era of digital transformation, it is time for them to move from

How hackathons can be used to create disruptive innovations

Sudin Baraokar, Head- Innovation, State Bank of India

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tate Bank of India is building a 15000 square feet innovation centre. Sudin Baraokar, HeadInnovation, State Bank of India is an important member of the team working on this innovation centre. He spoke about the how the bank is driving the API channel for the different partners the bank works with.

He said, “We have service virtualised all APIs. The objective is to build sandbox based virtual APIs and thus also build APIs on the fly and create them departmentwise. This will benefit the

startups and developers.”

It will help the bank to rollout a seamless partner ecosystem to build innovative services for the bank’s customers.

It has also enabled the bank to organise Hackathons at will. The bank recently organised a hackathon viz., CODE for Bank. Because of a strong API structure, the bank was able to organise the hackathon in flat 4 days, from design to deployment. More than 3000 participants took part in the hackathon.

The overall vision is to create a perpetual sandbox cloud environment which is available to the startups.

They can access APIs for development of products, services for the bank.

Preparing the IT function for the GST era

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ifferent aspects related to GST were discussed. Which are the areas where the tax reform will have the most impact; who should own the GST project; the security aspect; coordination with different partners for the required preparedness; how to select the vendor for the GST suvidha provider were some of the issues elaborated upon.

Vipul Anand, Group CIO, Jindal Steel and Power spoke at length about the impact, the indirect tax reform would have on business, tax and IT. The supply chain function will be deeply affected and the storage depots will have to be

repositioned accordingly. The working capital and cash flows will also be impacted. The company has done a impact study and on the basis, a point by point gap study has been documented.

Enterprises should fix the ownership of the GST transition project. “GST is a business project and not an IT project. It’s more of a BPR,” stated Jayantha Prabhu, Group CIO, and Head- AGC Networks, Essar. The Essar group has created a control room in Mumbai to anchor the project. A schedule is prepared for every group company. It’s also important to select the vendor who serves both

Digital signature mandates for GSTN

as an ASP and GSP. Thus there is no need to deal with two vendors.

The GST readiness is not as per the expectations. This is due to the lack of the availability of software platforms with invoice templates that fits the GST format. “ESDS provides cloud solutions to ASPs and GSPs to take the data load from the GST. The company provides readymade templates to enterprises to partner with their ERP and be ready to file GST from day one,” mentioned Anil Chandaliya, Chief Innovation Officer, ESDS. With a lot of speculation about the GST rollout date, it should not

To be or not to be “The Digital Evolution…”

Prasun Srivastava, Solution Expert, Identity & Data Protection, India, Enterprise & Cybersecurity, Gemalto

Mehul Doshi, Head - Products & Solutions, Fujitsu India

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he session covered the product offerings of Fujitsu in each of the technology areas, which are trending or about to trend in the enterprise space today. Be it in memory computing, AI, Big Data analytics, IoT, etc.

In memory computing space, the Fujitsu Server PRIMEQUEST 3800, with 28 TB memory can be used in fraud prevention systems, cancer research and anti terror system. In memory is just not limited to the ERP landscape.

The integrated systems from Fujitsu (Fujitsu PRIMEFLEX) comes with a single rack having server+storage+hypervisor+ middleware all rolled into one. This enables quicker provisioning of applications without having to go through lengthy test cycles. Also this way, any problems can be resolved directly inside the stack. A single point resolution.

Fujitsu also offers PRIMEFLEX for big data analytics. It is a ready to deploy hadoop platform. For this product, Some of the customers include Datameer, Hortonworks, Cloudera and MAPR.

rasun Srivastava focused on how the country will be moving from paperbased to paperless transactions in the GST era and the way it will help create clear audibility to the points it touches - be it vendors or the government.

In the GST era, digital signatures will be used for three goals: Integrity - for assuring that the document hasn’t been changed somewhere in the workflow; Authenticity - for assuring that the author of the document is who we think it is and not somebody else; and Nonrepudiation - for assuring that the author can’t deny his authorship.

Furthermore, he highlighted how technology is being used to create clear audit trail post GST implementation.

Earlier it used to be client-side signing but it is now becoming server-side signing. In the GST regime, there will be a provision for storing unique license key for GSP, generating sub licence keys, digitally signing the high volume of JSON transactions sent from GSPGST Server to GST Server, and obtaining the Class 2 or Class 3 DSC from CA as FIPS 140-2 Level 2 is mandated device for storage of digital signatures.

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be delayed by the enterprises.

“What can go wrong scenarios should be put in place and when ERP data gets directly uploaded on the GSTN, how will security be handled is an important issue,” said K K Chaudhary, Group Head IT and IS, LANCO Group. Accountability has to be properly fixed.

Marico is a manufacturing company and thus, “our complications are both on the buy and sell side,” said Girish Rao, CIO, Marico. The company is educating the farmers about GST. The door of opportunities will open up, in terms of which categories to focus on, after the tax brackets are released.

How AI can transform manufacturing

[L-R] Girish Rao, CIO, Marico;K K Chaudhary, Group Head IT and IS, LANCO Group; T G Dhandapani, Advisor, Sundaram Clayton Ltd; Vipul Anand, Group CIO Jindal Steel and Power; Jayantha Prabhu, Group CIO, and Head- AGC Networks, Essar; Anil Chandaliya, Chief Innovation Officer, ESDS

World of win-win with ESDS

Bishwanath Ghosh, CIO, Enterprise, Manufacturing Systems and Corporate Functions, Mahindra & Mahindra

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rtificial Intelligence is a technology approach to enable machines to do, what we formerly thought only humans could do,” stated Bishwanath Ghosh. He also pointed out that the world is gradually heading towards ‘Intelligence of Things’ and AI is not just about replacing human resource or making decisions based on business strategies. It is all about improving efficiencies and accuracies, dealing with large data with multiple attributes, analyzing at granular levels and orchestrating, and refreshing algorithms frequently to improvise.

With regards to manufacturing, Ghosh mentioned that AI is all about bringing intelligence of brain in the heart of the business. And manufacturing has to exist in the ‘Connected World’ mindset, where there will be AI managed plants with extensive usage of machine learning. The objective of AI in manufacturing has to be safety, accuracy, consistency, adaptiveness, and optimization.

“In the manufacturing world, AI can be used for operating stamping machines and welding systems as well as for managing assembly operations. For AI to succeed in the manufacturing sector, intelligent adoption will be the key,” stated Ghosh.

Agility for the digital world

Ekhlaque Bari, Executive VP, IT, Max Life Insurance

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Sameer Redij, Chief Revenue Officer, ESDS Software Solutions

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he presentation discussed some of the major achievements of ESDS and also shared prominent customer acquisitions.

ESDS is the only patented cloud platform in India having acquired patents from USA and UK. It is also the first STQC audited cloud service provider in India.

The company has been certified by SAP for being the infrastructure partner for SAP Hana.

Following are some of the marquee clients of ESDS. Symphony Air Coolers was the first SAP Hana installation on cloud for ESDS. They have bought over 800 SAP Hana licenses. BPCL hosts their PoS, transport services operation on cloud.

The drivers’ expenses on toll, food are processed on cloud. No need to carry cash.

Reliance Capital uses ESDS’ DC DCIM tool.

At an auto ancillary company, ESDS was able to implement SAP Hana is just four days.

hile talking about how to crash application development timelines from 6 months to 6 days, Ekhlaque Bari pointed out that in today’s scenario, business and IT are at loggerheads in enterprises. And there is a need to develop application and automate at a very fast pace. The main bone of contention in the era of Artificial Intelligence and Bots is either ‘disrupt or get disrupted’.

He suggested 7 tips for ‘Speed and Innovation on Demand’, which includes belief, two speed IT (can all development be done in 6 days?); build minimum viable product and fail fast (how to handle the scope monster?); do it with Agile and DevOps (development of MVP will take time); leverage the power of Service / API and Service Oriented Architecture (complicated business functionality cannot be built in Agile and DevOps); ready to use development platform (for workflows and UI); and lastly, crowdsource (run hackathons).

By taking the first six approach, enterprises can reduce time from 6 months to 6 weeks. And by running hackathons, the 6 weeks times can be further reduced to 6 days. He also cited an example of his own organization, wherein they took only 5 days to develop a bot.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | AUGUST, 2017

12 | EVENT Outperform the future Nitin Bhosle, GM, Magic Software Enterprises

connectors was challenging. Magic Software gave a PoC for Magic xpi in 2 days. CEAT agreed to implement it. Xpi enabled rapid integration of applications. This was required because the business would come up with demands and the requirement to deliver was close to real-time.

Another product from Magic Software is, the ‘Magic xpa’ application platform. It is a rapid application development and deployment platform that enables application deployment across platforms, be it Windows, Solaris, etc.

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agic xpi is a codeless integration solution, which has capabilities like an API manager that exposes API within minutes. The connectors in the SDK allows to connect new applications. Magic Software has made available connectors for GST. Any change done at the backend can be updated in the connector itself. The company has also designed readymade connectors for major

Next Generation HD visual communication for enterprise

vendors to transfer data from ERP to GSP API. Karvy, ClearTax, SuperTax and NSDL are some of the company’s customers.

CEAT has designed multiple applications and were about to have them on major customer facing platforms. But the need for

Kaushal Singh, Head Sales, HDVC, Panasonic

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he presentation revolved around Panasonic’s suite of products in the B2B space - for display security and IT/communications. The company’s product portfolio

covers all the office scenarios conference room, shared space, desk, entrance and the server and monitor room.

The visual communication devices connects with multiple locations, right from 1+3, 1+5 and it can go upto 1+9. The cameras available are suited for small and big rooms. 3x zoom camera and 6x zoom camera for small and big rooms respectively. So, what is Panasonic’s USP? The company has built capabilities to integrate discrete solutions from different vendors.

Legacy products can also be tied in and used along with other products. The video equipments

are fully interoperable with legacy video conference units.

The company gives dual monitors for content and display.

A unique feature of the product suite is Built-in MCU (Multipoint Control Unit) for 10 sites connection without the need for the buyer to deploy an expensive MCU server. It minimises the initial heavy investment. MCU facilitates the connection of several endpoints to one single console. Another USP of the VC product is the Intranet/Internet dual network - by which, there are two network cards for public and private IP - made available to have video communication with an outside company.

How IT has enabled efficient energy accounting at MSEDCL

ONE SBI, how India’s largest bank created a banking powerhouse

Sanjeev Kumar, CMD, MSEDCL

Sunil Tandon, CGM (ESS), State Bank of India

load forecasting and realtime monitoring of load flow; develop a separate app called “Location Capture” for surveying its assets that will be used by meter surveyors; develop an Employee Self Service App; introduce new functionalities such as Bill Calculator, Locate nearest MSEDCL Office, etc. through Consumer App; look at showing Feeder Indices and other performance parameters through app; doing the reporting and spot assessment of theft cases through app; validation / confirmation of mobile numbers; and introduce centralized billing and collection system.

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s the largest power distribution company in India, MSEDCL, has been in the forefront of leveraging technology to not only improve its operational efficiencies but also provide better services to the consumers. Amongst other initiatives, the most significant has been the usage of mobile governance for improving governance and consumer services in the organization.

Sanjeev Kumar stated, “MSEDCL decided to leverage its IT strength to improve consumer services and internal administration

including billing, collection, etc. Besides, we developed Mobile App for active consumer interaction and did registration of mobile number for passive interaction. Today, the company has an app for both consumers as well as employees. For employees, there is an Employee Mitra app, an app for meter reading, and one for new connection.”

Going forward, MSEDCL will use mobile app data for

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he merger of the SBI with 6 other associate banks was a massive exercise. The fact that from a growth perspective, after the merger, the bank surpassed the growth of 3 years in just 6 weeks speaks loads about the scale it gives to the bank. The migration was done in-house and no consultants were hired.

There were three imperatives to take care of in the merger. Business, operations and technology.

The numbers were staggering.

Over 15 lac overlapping business attributes were resolved; it involved moving 78

ESDS power discussion

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nil Chandaliya - Chief Innovation Officer ESDS, discussed ESDS’ product roadmap for the FY 2017-18 with the panelists. The presentation also covered a brief overview of the various offerings from ESDS Software Solutions.

ESDS eNlight cloud helps to overcome cloud related challenges, for example, it’s difficult to size SAP, so

eNlight cloud right sizes the cloud automatically. The system is intelligent enough to predict the sizing. The cloud’s automatic horizontal and vertical scalability was also elaborated upon. eNlight 360 is the on premise cloud model for enterprises who are unable to adopt cloud due to compliance and security reasons.

eMagic offering has workflow management functionalities. Certain workflows/permissions are created and a virtual machine only gets created when the permissions are given.

The security product MTvScan scans web applications for trojans, malwares, etc. The product currently scans over 2 mn

Dear future, I am ready V S Parthasarathy, Group CIO and CFO, Mahindra & Mahindra

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sing the different avatars of Vishnu, and given the context of the role they played, VS Parthasarathy directed the CIOs to take cues, learnings and accordingly adapt their role and fit it according to the changing times.

CIOs need to change, the way they look at their roles, given the force of digital technology is swiftly transforming the environment they operate in. If he remains oblivious to the changing times, then he will perish. The digital is redistributing the powers within the company’s functions. Thus he will have to gather steam and build expertise for himself.

As an adaptation to one of the Vishnu’s avatar, Parthasarathy said, “It’s important to create new business models. CIO should be the business accelerator.

In the role as an accelerator, he should take the poison and transform it to amrut and redistribute the amrut

crore images. More than 20,000 had to be studied and aligned.

On the IT front, over 5000 records were migrated with zero downtime. Configuration changes were deployed to more than 7000 branches.

Performance assurance was delivered on a robust CBS foundation benchmarked for 200+ crore customers. A simulated environment was created for quality assurance over which 35,000 test cases were executed.

The operations function in the process of the merger conducted more than 250+ huddle meetings with 65+ preparatory runs over 8 months. 300+ tape restorations were done across 100+ DBs.

to the colleagues.” He was referring to the amrut manthan. According to him, the CIO should be the prime mover, the digital protector.

He should move from Information Technology to Digital Technology. “Don't start as web based but be palm based,” he added.

From the example of Vamana, Parthasarathy said, “Vamana is like a startup. Become small in order to start. Like how Parshuram destroyed the race of a particular sect, businesses should also destroy traditional and create new models. Build to change and adapt. Be the culture warrior. Be like Gautam Buddha. Bring the outside world in. Learn, listen and discern. Lastly, learn from the nine avatars and become your own Kalki and create your own future.”

websites. Many PSU banks are already using the product.

ESDS has set up an IoT platform, which is an IoT collector. It basically processes data from IoT devices. What’s the need to have an IoT platform ?

Because enterprises do not have software capabilities to aggregate data from multiple IoT devices. ESDS can aggregate the data and process it basis the requirements of the enterprise.

Role of WEBEL in setting up an ecosystem for IT

Insuring IT risks

Kaushik Halder MD, WEBEL

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he ecosystem includes designing a skill development programme; building IT parks; EMCs and Hardware Parks and setting up incubation centers where shared services like accounting, payroll etc. support functions can be shared across small and medium businesses, said Kaushik Halder, MD, WEBEL.

K B Vijay Srinivas, GM, National Insurance Company

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or any enterprise, there are multiple assets - both physical and human to be insured. The session discussed the entire spectrum of elements to be insured in the areas physical and employee related; IT and physical infrastructure, buildings, vehicles and

equipments, etc.

The personnel related liabilities include medical, accidents, data leak because of employees. Organisational insurance covers liability from directors, officer liability policy, etc. The hardware insurance includes hardware breakdown, theft, etc.

The software insurance covers WannaCry kind of incidents, data leakage, which can expose organisations to large claims and criminal action.

The losses can be of different types: First party loss and third party loss. The first party losses are suffered by an organisation due to cyber attack which results into business interruption, data restoration costs, reputation costs, etc. Third party losses occur due to the liability to third parties due to infringement of right to privacy, failure to prevent transmission of loss to a third party, etc.

Panel discussion: Security in the digital era

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s digitalisation becomes mainstream, it is also bringing along many challenges on securing the data stored on digital platforms. Automation can prove critical for security. There should hardly be any scope for human intervention.

Moreover, a basic security hygiene should be followed for robust security posture.

Security is not taken as

seriously in organisations, to the extent that it should be.

“Configurations are set to follow the hygiene but then a continuous update is not done,” said Nabankur Sen, CISO, Bandhan Bank.

Post demonetisation, the use of digital channels increased but many of the new users of the channels were not aware about the security practices to be followed while transacting

on digital mediums.

“Customers didn't know about digital hygiene.

They will have to be educated,” observed K Suryanarayanan, CISO, Central Bank of India.

“The WannaCry threat could have been avoided by keeping tight security basics in place. Any organisation doing regular patching and antivirus could have easily saved themselves from WannaCry,” noted Maya

Nair from a leading telecom company.

For a power company, Operational Technology (OT) is as important as Information Technology.

“While IT is catching up with security, the OT world also needs to catch up,” said Sanjay Prasad, CIO, Tata Power. He further added that companies should do exception reporting and it has to be done in-house.

Software defined infrastructure

Joel Sequeira, Technology Specialist, SUSE India

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oel Sequeira spoke about the key elements of a successful softwaredefined infrastructure, which includes automation, management, self-service, modular, orchestration, and self-healing. He further highlighted the extensive features of SUSE software-defined infrastructure, wherein the company has undertaken an open and flexible infrastructure approach as well as the comprehensive portfolio of products and services that it offers to the enterprises.

He also mentioned about SUSE OpenStack Cloud, which is the foundation for software-defined data centers; SUSE Enterprise Storage, an enterprise class storage using commodity servers and disk drives; and software-defined storage use cases.

Additionally, Sequeira highlighted the 3 ‘Cs’ of the IT transformation challenge i.e. Cost, Complexity, and Compliance.

He said, “Transform your approach to infrastructure to enable the business to capitalize on new innovations of data.”

Furthermore, he gave an overview of SUSE Manager, which is an open source infrastructure management solution that empowers IT to optimize operations while reducing costs, reduce complexity and regain control of IT assets, ensure compliance with internal security policies and external regulations, and manage multiple enterprise Linux distributions with a single tool.

Typical IT challenges faced by PSUs

P C Mishra, General Manager, Systems, Coal India

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[L-R] Maya Nair; Sanjay Prasad, CIO,Tata Power; Nabankur Sen, CISO, Bandhan Bank; K Suryanarayanan, CISO, Central Bank of India; Uday Deshpande, CISO,Tata Motors

alking about the IT challenges faced by the public sector enterprises in the country, P C Mishra highlighted that today ownership does not lie with business departments. He further elucidated that while information model & software development and network management capabilities are low in any government organisation, facilitating IT intervention is high.

Even there is a reluctance of existing employees to acquire new skills and learn new technologies.

Besides, the business department believes that the ownership does not lie with them and lastly, ERP is not an end, it is a means to achieve the effective business process.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | AUGUST, 2017

| 13

INTERVIEW

Connectivity, security, data are pillars of digital transformation DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, is not something which affects one part of the organisation. It affects the organization from top to bottom. The approach that the private sector is taking and the one public sector is taking are quite different. While government organizations are focusing on delivering citizen services in the most effective way possible, the private firms are looking to automate their process. VC Gopalratnam, SVP-IT and CIO – International, Cisco, in an exclusive conversation with Mohd Ujaley, shares his views on digital transformation and how both government and private companies can move towards digital The word digital transformation has become a buzz word. Both government agencies and enterprises are trying to become digital. What is your view? Are they on right track?

If you think about digital transformation. It is not something which affects one part of the organisation. It affects the organisation from top to bottom.

Clearly the approach taken by the private and the public sector is quite different. The public sector, government, smart cities and smart enterprises, are delivering citizen services in the most effective way.

By effective, we mean, the most economical, flexible, secure and the most affordable. Citizen services is what the public sector is focused on in driving digital transformation.

Citizen services can be in any industry vertical, like education, healthcare, security, transportation and that is how the public sector is driving digital transformation. If you switch to the private sector, digital transformation is all about the delivery of better service to three types of stakeholders – the customer, the ecosystem that you are part of (including partners) and employees. All the services cater to these set of stakeholders are

The world is moving towards autonomic systems. This includes the ability to self diagnose, self heal and self operate and you have intelligence built in order to make that happen and it becomes self learning

automation, collaboration, networking services etc. to give better experience.

Over the past few years, lot of technology intervention has gone into modernizing digital infrastructure but one of the most critical components – networking – is still legacy based.

Virtualisation and SDN have not been able to make substantial progress. Why is there a delay?

I don’t think there is necessarily a delay. If you look at what has happened to data centres over the years, everybody had a lot of data centres in the past and then the world moved to a place where optimization and rationalization, consolidation and centralization of data centres was happening. But then the world recognized that by having everything centralized, you lose your ability to deliver services to customers who were asking for data centre type of services at the edge of the network close to where consumption was happening which is actually leading to more and more decentralization again of data centres and networks.

The reason why it takes time is because you have to do in at a scale in a secure way. You also have to abstract the complexity of what you are doing from the end user. In order to do that, it takes time and one organization cannot do this and that’s why you need to work with an ecosystem.

What new innovations do you foresee in networking?

The world is moving towards

autonomic systems. This includes the ability to self diagnose, self heal and self operate and you have intelligence built in order to make that happen and it becomes self learning. That’s the way the world is moving. To me that is the next evolution of machine learning and deep learning that will lead to autonomic learning and tomorrow’s network will also focus on all these.

What would be the three key technologies that government and enterprises need to focus on?

As far as the government is concerned, the first one is connectivity and making sure it is pervasive and reliable as without connectivity nothing else will work.

The first job of any government plan should be to ensure that they drive connectivity in every corner of the country. Once you have the connectivity in place, then through a common network, you can deliver all kinds of services. The second part that they need to focus on is security, as people will not consume services that they believe are insecure.

The third capability that the government should focus on is how to protect data and make the right data available to the right people at the right time so that they can consume it better. All these three needs to be monitored and managed at such at a large scale.

The first three that was mentioned before are applicable to all the enterprises as well. However, there are few other things that will enable all of this.

First one is around AI and deep learning as you mentioned. The second one is around automation of infrastructure and automation of application, workflow. The third one is of collaboration that includes voice, data, video, messaging etc.

The government is generating huge amount of personal data but unfortunately we don’t have privacy laws in place.

So, would you as a CIO vouch for strengthening the privacy law in the country?

You need security to not only address the data but also the data that moves.

Data will move from one cloud to another cloud, from one system to another system and from one country to another. Especially with new data sovereignty rules coming in, we need to have capabilities to hold data in one country. Our privacy laws really need to be stepped up significantly.

Over the past couple of years there have been innovations in GTM strategies and in partnerships, but we still see Cisco as a hardware giant. Is this perception changing?

What you are talking about is completely universal. You no longer compete with companies you would have competed 10 years ago. The whole notion of competition has changed as everyone is doing everything. For Cisco, while we were a hardware company, we do more software than other companies around the world.

We are actually more of software than hardware. We are now in the middle of a transition from being called a

hardware company to more of a solutions company where we are bundling hardware, software services together as a solution, that you as a customer can consume in a flexible way. So that is the shift that is happening.

We are making the shift ourselves. We are designing digital products i.e. our products that we traditionally have to be successful in digital paradigm. That is how you fight competition i.e. how do you deliver this capability to customer and give them what they want in a flexible way.

How long will this process take?

This will take 18 – 24 months.

This is a significant shift as we have to change our GTM strategy. By doing that we have to change our backend. In addition, all the

BUSINESS AVENUES

business processes have to be reengineered and such a process takes time.

If you think about digital transformation, Cisco is in the middle of a huge digital transformation. The five focus areas for us are simplification, automation, security, analytics and continuous innovation and this is the foundation on which digital transformation is happening.

We are aware that world is changing and the competitive landscape is changing. We are completely reengineering the model and GTM. We know this is a transition but we are getting positive feedback from analysts and customers that we are making the right investments. Our relevance has never been higher than right now.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | AUGUST, 2017

14 | INTERVIEW

“We want HPE Synergy to work as an automated system” HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE, is betting big on HPE Synergy. Given the growing market acceptance and success with early beta customers, the company has already started making various enhancements to the product to create an even better and seamless composable infrastructure. In a candid chat with Nivedan Prakash, Mark Read, Category Management Lead, Data Centre Hybrid Cloud, EG, APJ, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, shares his insights on the adoption trends of HPE Synergy, benefits attached to it, and how customers across industry verticals can leverage this technology These are exciting times for HPE globally. Can you tell us more on what is happening at the company?

Yes, these are exciting times for us due to the recent acquisitions of SGI, SimpliVity, and Nimble and the spin-off of the software and enterprise services business. From HPE’s perspective, there is a real HPE Synergy is a energy and composable excitement with these infrastructure acquisitions, as which offers you we help these companies build flexible pools of on top of their compute network own R&D capabilities. and storage where As a company, you are able to mix we are focusing and match those on Hybrid IT and Intelligent Edge from an and leveraging infrastructure our experience in services to standpoint to deliver the actually make related solutions. Our sense for a focus has been particular work more agile, flow accustomed to the needs of our customers and giving flexibility to change direction more quickly if they need to. HPE has got the same sort of flexibility that the customers want. Besides, the conflict that we had before has moved away and it is the flexible needs and wants of customers that we are actually helping with.

Talking about HPE Synergy, how has been its uptake globally, across Asia-Pacific, and in India?

HPE Synergy has witnessed a

good market uptake across the globe and this has helped us to focus on the next steps. As HPE Synergy is a composable infrastructure, it offers you flexible pools of compute network and storage where you are able to mix and match those from an infrastructure standpoint to actually make sense for a particular work flow. When you are finished with it, it goes back into the pool and you can regroup it.

It is this flexibility that gives customers the first user advantage by enabling them to get a product or service to the market faster than anyone else.

For instance, an aircraft engine manufacturer installs sensors in their jet engines. And if four such engines are installed in an aircraft, which makes a transAtlantic flight, each engine generates 5TB of data per flight, which is 20TB data in all. Now, to analyze this data for the predictive maintenance of these engines and also collect and analyze metrics from other parts of the aircraft, you need the IT infrastructure that offers flexibility so that you can ensure the components are in perfect working condition.

Another example is that of fitness bands, which tell you how many steps you have walked and how many more you need to achieve your target. All this has to be analyzed and then put together in a package and sent back out so that you get the information.

Auto manufacturer, Ashok Leyland, has already adopted HPE Synergy. Do you see any similar pilot projects being executed across different industry verticals in the country?

HPE Synergy adoption across

various verticals like telecom, manufacturing, automobile, healthcare, and financial services has been growing for both traditional and new integration.

Components of HPE Synergy like predictive analytics along with IoT is benefiting tons of companies across the world by allowing them to do multiple things all at the same time and in turn provide better results.

For instance, mining companies are using sensors on their massive dump trucks and lots of them are under control.

This enables them to work out the fuel consumption and maintenance of those trucks using the data collected from these sensors.

systems, while others will see the benefits of Synergy and gradually move towards it.

Do you directly reach out to customers or rope in some of your specialized partners and SIs to reach out to customers?

To turn around the ecosystem around HPE Synergy, it just doesn’t need to be from the software perspective but also needs to be from the SIs perspective. Most SIs we talk to use HPE Synergy themselves. In such a scenario, we are dealing with partners who are also our customers. Furthermore, these SIs share the value they see from HPE Synergy with their customers, which in turn becomes a very powerful message.

HPE is working on the mission of making Hybrid IT simpler and bringing down the data center cost through Synergy.

How are you planning to create further awareness among the enterprise customers?

Since the launch of HPE Synergy last year in London, there has been an interest and built up demand in the market and we have had around 100 beta customers worldwide to try out the technology. For those still hesitant to try out this new technology, HPE talks to such customers to understand their perception. Also, we educate and make them understand how it works and what benefits it brings to the table. Giving the people the flexibility and openness to do as they desire with the technology is helping HPE to bring on board more organizations to adopt it.

What are some of the key initiatives being taken to sustain the momentum of being future ready with HPE Synergy? Are there any specific areas where HPE plans to focus on?

We are continuously educating and re-educating partners as well as customers as many things keep coming out with the disruption in technology. With regards to HPE Synergy, the next step is to get this composable infrastructure work as a fully automated system, where the solution will have the ability to look at itself, the workloads, and do a similar sort of thing that is being achieved with network virtualization.

We want to help customers identify the technology that works best for them. While customers can leverage our consulting services, we also organize workshops for them to understand their workloads, where the business is going, what they want to achieve, and see how the technology that HPE offers actually fits into the whole game plan.

Does Synergy have a role to play in Internet-based businesses such as Fintech and e-commerce?

For businesses such as Fintech

and e-commerce, which are born in the cloud, they have got the necessary flexibility because their service providers have the same technology underneath. HPE Synergy is actually good for use cases where you need that flexibility to grow and shrink on the basis of the demand. If you look at the service providers, they struggle with flexibility in their compute, network and storage.

While they manage it, they need to use different element managers to achieve it as they don’t have their infrastructure as pools of resources which can give them the added flexibility.

It’s been over a year since the launch of HPE Synergy. What sort of road map have you created for it in Asia-Pacific region including India?

The road map ahead for the Asia-Pacific as well as for India is getting market acceptance for HPE Synergy and we are making various enhancements to the product to create an even better and seamless composable infrastructure. HPE Synergy is the natural progression for customers on blade systems. We have customers who are using blade systems right now. Some of them will continue on these blade

Chatbot has richly benefitted Tata Capital WHILE THE chatbot has delivered huge benefits, the company is also exploring voice bots, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and facial recognition in a deeper manner. EC’s Abhishek Raval speaks to Veetika Deoras, Chief Operating Officer-Digital Vertical & VP-Brand Marketing, Tata Capital, to know more about the digital initiatives of the company How has the chatbot been performing after it was launched in October 2016?

We carried out a PoC before launching the chatbot on our website, which was highly successful. and there were a few definite benefits realised as well.

The advantages that the chatbot brings to a company like ours is two-fold. To begin with, the chatbot is an ondemand, 24x7 tool to resolve customer queries. The second advantage is a In the last 12 complete elimination of months, 40-50 the challenge of percent of the attrition. applications have Attrition not only at the call-center come through the level but also at online channel the company level is an issue, with every employee lost corresponding to a loss of knowledge too. This is not the case with chatbots. It’s based on machine learning, which doesn’t require training and retraining either. On the contrary, the more queries the chatbot handles, the more intelligent it becomes. The accuracy and quality of the response is also improved.

There are a few criteria that we measure: the absolute number of queries that the chatbot has been able to handle; the average response time and the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT). We are now trying to see how can we use voice bots. But it’s a tedious area considering the multiplicity of languages in India. Even more so, considering that there are dialects and accents within languages. We are doing some exploratory work in that direction but it’s at a nascent stage.

What’s the size of the digital team of Tata Capital and the next set of products that Tata Capital would like to pursue further and is experimenting with?

We are currently exploring Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and facial recognition. .

The size of our current Digital team is around 12-15 employees.

This team not only works on digital products and services but also in the areas of digital marketing, sales, operations, underwriting, IT etc. For Tata Capital, the view of digital is pervasive, cutting across functions and units. We have launched many digital products, most notably an ‘Online Car Loan Store’ and the ‘myLoan’ mobile application for Personal Loans.

What percentage of business have you done digitally, overall in these categories put together?

Some products with an offline asset attached to them are secured, while others are completely unsecured loans.

From a customer’s perspective and the digital journey, these products vary both in terms of digital maturity and of the natural proclivity of the product to become fully digital. These are the two parameters we keep in mind while conceptualizing a digital strategy. For e.g. The intention behind the Tata Capital online car store is to create a one stop shop for automobiles by streamlining the process – from choosing a car to applying for a loan, which is where we have an active role to play. Otherwise the online car space, is an extremely nascent market. There are just a few traditional financial solution providers actively looking at this space. For us the online car store is an innovative and experimentative platform. On the other hand, the online home loans product has many offline manifestations with the asset lying in the offline space. The customer’s journey is a mix of offline and online. On the contrary, the personal loan space is a more mature product in the digital space, because most of the steps

linked to the overall digital strategy of the company. In the personal loan category, we report the entire digital journey - how many customers came online, how many of them were onboarded digitally and what the final disbursal was. In the case of home loans, we look at what percentage of sourcing is happening online. Even in the case of aggregators, who are category builders of some sort, their numbers in the home loans and the Used Car Loan (UCL) space would be far more nascent than the numbers in the personal loan space because that is the state of the market today.

can happen online. Therefore, the personal loan category is high potential product both from a digital proclivity and maturity aspect. Consequently, the loan application and approval process vary from product to product.

However, a good number to look at would be, the growing number of people who are applying online for some of these products. In the last 12 months, 40-50 percent of the applications have come through

the online channel. These are potential customers, who have gone beyond just searching but also applying online. In the personal loans category, digital is contributing about 8-10 percent of the business.

In the future, how do you plan to report the numbers on the business happening through the digital channel?

Every report in our context is

What is the digital strategy that you have built for Tata Capital and how far have you reached?

We are targeting 3-4 key areas as part of our digital strategy. The first is in terms of enhancing customer experience. The second is to enhance customer and employee efficiency. The third is to come up with new business models, which may not even have an offline avatar and the fourth is the focus on data analytics. Any of the initiatives that we take should be built around these objectives.

The chatbot and the ‘Apply online’ bots are examples of how we have enhanced customer and employee efficiency.

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