The way of business solutions ` Workodynamics
www.insightssuccess.com MARCH 2017
What makes a company the best place to work for?
The
25
Tech Facts
Best Companies
Accessible Accessible Techonology: Techonology: RedeďŹ ning RedeďŹ ning The The Workplace Workplace
ASIA
to Work for in
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw CMD
Biocon:
A Credibly Capable Organization
Editorial
I
n this modern era companies tend to have a wide array of work environments, ranging from awesome to awful. The type of work environment employees usually work in, directly impacts both their personal and professional life. Employees’ perspective of joining a particular company is not same any longer. While looking for a company to work for, it’s not all about the salary and vacation time anymore. People want to know about the work culture, the opportunities for upward mobility, and the training made available to them. Now, people really want to know which companies are the best places to work and what criteria makes them great.
Making a Company the Best Company to Work for
There are numerous ways or practices where managers and leaders create an environment of trust. Great workplaces achieve organizational goals by speaking, listening and inspiring. They make their employees give their personal best by caring and sharing for each other’s work as well as thanking for their efforts. And they work together more than as a team, rather as a family by collaborating their work ethics and celebrating joys. A strong, supportive culture and personal growth are always on high priority while looking for the best company to work for. Talking about culture, superficial work cultures are on a rise, but an office having a billiards or a foosball table is not all about providing a good work culture. A truly strong culture is more than these materialistic things, it’s all about offering mutual support, promoting trust, rewarding employees for their painstaking efforts, and making employees believe that the work they do is really meaningful. Employees’ professional growth is also a priority, and always will be! As of now, the companies are in a race to be the best company to work for; so instead of growing employees’ skills to match the companies needs, great companies are looking forward for ways to grow the company based on employees’ passions. They tend to continually ask their employees what they are interested in doing and how they would like to see their career unfold. Company’s metrics, facts and figures don’t make them the best company. Its when employees say “I love my job” and “My work-life balance is great,” it’s then, when the companies become “the best company to work for.”
Sagar Bhattacharjee
Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Senior Editor Ariana Lawrence Managing Editor Sagar Bhattacharjee Co-Editors Sachin Bhandare Poonam Yadav David Smith Visualiser David King Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Co-designer Alex Noel Picture Editor Harmeet Singh Art Editor Poonam Mahajan Business Development Manager Mathew Smith Nick Adams Marketing Manager Chris Business Development Executive Sherin, Joseph, Josh John, Mary Research Analyst Jennifer Circulation Manager Robert Database Management Steve Technology Consultant Vishal More sales@insightssuccess.com
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Contents COVER STORY
10 Biocon: A Credibly Capable Organization
Article
26
What makes a company the best place to work for?
36
Accessible technology: Redeď€ ning the workplace
42
Quality Team Not Quantitative Team
CXO Standpoint
40
28
Digital Marketing: The Omnipotent Platform for All
Technology Innovation: An indispensable factor in business
22
BERYL8: Embracing the Belief of Possibility
24
CircuitSutra: Blending ESL with Current Methodologies
32
GreenSync: Unlock the Value of Shifting Energy Usage
34
MariApps: Providing Integrated Marine Solutions
46
Noodle.ai: Pioneering Enterprise Artiď€ cial Intelligence
48
QROi: Your Leading Telecom Service Provider
50
Welcome Real Time: The Change Starts Here
Organizational Training: Making Companies Best from the Rest
I
n this ever changing industry scenario, the biggest challenge faced by the employers is to attract and retain the best talent. With rapid digitization and the advent of modern technologies like artificial intelligence and virtual reality, organizational training has become an inevitable part of the same. One of the main goals of an organizational training program is to empower employees to increase their job performance, which in turn drive results that support business objectives. Today, there is a dire need to train more employees, more often due to rapidly changing systems and policies. So, companies are to balance between employee retaining policy and revenue generation aspects, to be the best from the rest.
Blending practical learning in the training process helps organizations in implementing programs to boost employee performance and infuse some excitement in them. To outshine from others, companies have already started focusing on creating innovative training plans and provide interactive scenarios, simulations, gaming, and exercises that enhance the whole training experience, thus leveraging employee satisfaction level. This is the reason, we have come up with an issue of “The 25 Best Companies to Work for in Asia.” In this issue, we have come up with such companies who are ahead of the tough competition, in terms of technological advancement, workplace environment, offering the best products and services or be an innovation aspect. All of these companies are surpassing others and providing the best employee friendly working environment. Cover story of this issue, Biocon Ltd. is Asia’s premier biopharmaceutical company. Biocon is committed to ensure a global right to healthcare by addressing the worldwide need for safe, effective and affordable biotherapeutics. They have harnessed the power of biotechnology through affordable innovation to enhance access to new and differentiated therapies for diseases that are chronic, where medical needs are largely unmet. We have included articles “What makes a company the best place to work at” and “Accessible Technology: Redefining the Workplace,” scripted by our editors in the amazing folios of this magazine. We also have, “Digital Marketing: The Omnipotent Platform for All” and “Technology Innovation: An Indispensable Factor in Business” derived from the thoughts of Marco Widjojo and Donovan Chan respectively. So, do flip the pages of our magazine to unveil the reason how companies make themselves the best company to work for.
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw Chairperson & Managing Director
Cover Story
BIOCON: O
n July 15, 2016, Biocon Ltd. announced the launch of a high quality, yet affordable biosimilar version of Sanofi’s blockbuster Lantus drug for patients of diabetes in Japan.
Lantus, or Insulin Glargine, is a biologic. In contrast to conventional drugs that are synthesized from chemicals, a biologic is manufactured in a living system such as a microorganism or plant or animal cells. Most biologics are large, complex molecules and are produced using recombinant DNA technology. Biologics are one of the most significant developments of modern science as they potentially offer the most effective means to treat a variety of medical conditions that presently have no other treatments available. Biologic therapies such as insulin, erythropoietin and growth hormones have played an invaluable role in treating serious illnesses such as diabetes, anemia and renal diseases. More complex biologics like monoclonal antibodies (MAbs), cytokines and therapeutic vaccines, are now transforming the standard of treatment for cancer, autoimmune disorders and other chronic diseases. It is expected that by 2020 new biologic treatment options will be available for conditions like severe asthma, chronic eczema, atopic dermatitis, and familial hypercholesterolemia across developed markets. It has been seen that 10 of the top 15 drugs globally were Biologics in 2016. A biosimilar is the biopharmaceutical equivalent of a generic drug and is designed to have active properties similar to one that has previously been licensed. The approval for Insulin Glargine in Japan marked the foray of Biocon’s first biosimilar product into the developed markets. It was a significant milestone for Biocon, Asia’s premier biopharmaceutical company, which has been a forerunner in bringing the benefit of high quality, yet affordable, novel biologics and biosimilars to patients in India and other emerging markets. The Japan launch of Insulin Glargine was also a significant achievement as it shattered the myth that Indian biopharmaceutical companies did not have the capabilities and quality strengths needed to take ‘Made in India’ biologics to highly regulated, developed markets. The launch of Insulin Glargine in Japan, which has high entry barriers in terms of product quality and regulatory compliances, marked a huge credibility milestone for Biocon and endorsed the quality of its products, its expertise in developing complex biologics and its robust GMP compliant eco-system.
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Committed to reduce therapy costs of chronic diseases
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A Credibly Capable Organization
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw: Game changer Biocon’s feat did not come as a surprise for those who have followed the career of the company’s founder chairperson, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw. The only Indian on Forbes’ latest list of “World’s Self-Made Women Billionaires,” Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is a pioneer of the biotechnology industry in India who has made India proud by building a globally recognized biopharmaceutical enterprise that is committed to innovation and affordability in delivering best-in-class therapeutics to patients across the globe. Under Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw’s stewardship, Biocon pursued a risk-ridden, innovation-led business such as biotechnology when the prevailing business ethos of the Indian pharma industry favored low-risk ventures based on generics and services.
“Committed to leverage affordable Innovation for developing complex biotherapeutics that can benefit a billion patients” – Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, CMD Biocon
Biocon is today India’s largest publicly listed biopharmaceutical company. The company has the largest scientific talent pool in India, and is engaged in path-breaking research to develop novel and differentiated biopharmaceuticals aimed at reducing the cost of treatment for cancer, diabetes and autoimmune disorders for patients worldwide. For her multifaceted contributions to biotechnology, innovation, entrepreneurship, research, and philanthropy, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has been honored with many national and international awards. She has recently been appointed “Knight of the National Order of the French Legion of Honor” by the government of France for her outstanding contribution to the world of biosciences. She has several other global recognitions to her credit such as the “Othmer Gold Medal” awarded by the Chemical Heritage Foundation, USA, and the “Global Economy Prize for Business” given by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Germany.
But more importantly, Ms. Mazumdar-Shaw is the proud recipient of two of India's highest civilian honors – the Padma Bhushan (2005) and the Padma Shri which she received as early as in 1989. Named among TIME magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, she is recognized as a global thought leader. Since 2010, she has been on Forbes' list of 100 most powerful women in the world. She has also featured in ‘The Worldview 100 List’ of the most influential visionaries by Scientific American magazine and has been named among the ‘100 Leading Global Thinkers’ by Foreign Policy magazine in 2014. She was ranked second among the 100 Most Influential People in the field of medicine in the ‘Global Medicine Maker Power List 2015’ published by a top UK-based medical publication. Her commitment to affordable healthcare extends beyond business. Her philanthropic initiatives are directed at making a difference to the lives of the marginalized communities.
She has established the 1,400-bed Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Center at NH City in Bangalore to deliver affordable worldclass cancer care services to patients irrespective of socio-economic status.
“Committed to innovation, world- class quality standards and global manufacturing scale to develop biopharmaceuticals that can address healthcare challenges and provide global access”
She has also set up the Mazumdar Shaw Center for Translational Research, a nonprofit research institute dedicated to developing scientific breakthroughs for treating a wide range of human diseases. Kiran commitment to philanthropy is reflected in her signing the “Giving Pledge” – a global initiative created by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates that encourages billionaires to give the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes. She is the Second Indian to join the Giving Pledge group. Her philanthropic efforts have led her to be featured in the Forbes’ List of 'Heroes of Philanthropy’. She was also given the ‘Wockhardt Foundation Philanthropist Popular Award’ on National Philanthropy Day in 2016. An Employer of Choice With an inspirational leader as Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw at the helm, it’s not surprising that Biocon is today wellrecognized as India’s most preferred biotech employer and is highly regarded by the scientific community in the US and Europe. The company’s ability to attract the best talent, nurture and build an engaged workforce and harness a performancedriven culture have been instrumental in building this image. The current age profile in Biocon consists of 57% individuals younger than 30 years of age and 40% individuals in the age group of 31-45. With a young workforce at its disposal, Biocon looks to break new grounds in research and innovation. Of the 8000 employees at Biocon, over 4000 are scientists and more than 30% of these are women, which speaks for the gender diversity and merit based work philosophy at Biocon. Biocon prides itself on creating an ecosystem that encourages a collegial atmosphere conducive to free flow of ideas and collaborative research. It has a strong pool of employees who have finished their PhDs from prestigious American and
European institutions and decided to join Biocon to contribute their expertise in developing a world class scientific organization. In 2016, Biocon was ranked among the world’s Top 10 BEST Employers in Biotechnology by the prestigious USbased magazine Science. The company was the only one from Asia to feature on this prestigious list. According to the comprehensive 2016 Web-based survey of nearly 6,000 respondents, Biocon’s ranking is based on key attributes such as ‘innovative leader in the industry’, ‘is socially responsible’, and ‘has a clear vision.’ Biocon has consistently been a part of this elite group for the past several years. Investing in Cutting-Edge R&D Biocon’s reputation as ‘innovative leader in the industry’ is fueled by prudent investments in R&D in line with its core philosophy of making high quality affordable medicines. It is recognized as one of the highest R&D spenders in the country with an average of 12-15% of its revenues compared to the national industry average of 5-8%. In quest of their objective of enhancing global healthcare through innovative and affordable Biopharmaceuticals, Biocon’s Research and Development function has built world-class competence and capability on the back of robust infrastructure and a talent pool that has extensive global product development experience. Biocon has filed for more than 1200 patent applications globally out of which nearly 1000 patents have been granted. It has nearly 450 trademark registrations to its name. Biocon's core strategy on R&D is based on integrated discovery, stage gated approach to development, core disease area expertise (autoimmune and inflammation, oncology and diabetes), and a first-rate scientific advisory board. Biocon is today well positioned to achieve its long cherished objective of providing affordable access to transformative, lifesaving biopharmaceuticals for patients across the globe. Biocon: Talking the Road Less Travelled However, the journey to becoming India’s largest Biotech company and one of the leading Asian biopharmaceutical companies has been an arduous one. Biocon faced severe infrastructural and technological hurdles in its journey, but surmounted it with determination and an innovative spirit. Biocon started off in 1978 as an enzyme maker seeking to disrupt industrial processes by manufacturing environmentfriendly enzymes to replace polluting chemical technologies. Enzyme manufacturing for industrial application involved sophisticated fermentation process which demanded an uninterrupted power supply and precision process control. At that time, power supply was erratic at best, there was little access to superior quality water and importing high-end research equipment was difficult due to procedural hurdles. To tide over some of
these challenges, Biocon indigenously developed an innovative fermentation technology, which offered considerable savings in terms of equipment, floor space, energy and manpower. This patented technology was a commercial and technological breakthrough that could produce superior enzymes with higher productivity. It gave Biocon's products an edge over enzymes produced by western biotechnology companies. In time, the company leveraged this patented technology to emerge as India's largest enzyme manufacturer and exporter. Though Biocon had achieved remarkable success in enzymes, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw had a much larger goal ahead for the organization. She wanted to leverage Biocon's expertise in fermentation technology to develop biopharmaceuticals that would provide an affordable solution to the huge challenge of chronic diseases faced by in India and the developing world, which had little access to expensive therapies. Biocon first leveraged its proprietary technology to develop cholesterol reducing drugs called Statins. In 2001, Biocon became the first Indian company to be approved by the US FDA for the manufacture of cholesterol-lowering molecule Lovastatin. Since then the company has emerged as the world's largest statins manufacturer, with its drug substance being used to produce ‘one in every three’ statin pills globally. It then leveraged its genetically engineered technology based on a yeast—Pichia pastoris—to develop Recombinant Human Insulin and Biocon launched INSUGEN® as India’s first indigenously developed rhInsulin in 2004, at a fraction of the price of imported insulins marketed by MNCs. For Biocon, 2004 was also significant because it was the year it decided to approach the capital markets. Biocon was the first Biotechnology company in India to go public and its IPO was oversubscribed 32 times, which created a milestone on day 1 as its stock closed with a market value of over a billion dollars. The market gave Biocon a premium valuation because they were spearheading a new technology sector – “Biotechnology.” As a pioneering innovation-led biopharma enterprise, Biocon was among the first in India to invest in developing recombinant DNA and bio-processing technologies that could deliver innovative and affordable biologics. Today, Biocon is the largest biotechnology company listed on India’s stock exchanges! In 2007, Biocon sold its enzymes business to Novozymes for USD 115 million to focus on biopharmaceuticals. In 2009, Biocon introduced BASALOG® its version of Insulin Glargine, a long-acting insulin analog, in the Indian market. Biocon thus helped India reduce its dependence on
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expensive imported insulins by introducing affordable versions of high quality, ‘Made in India’ insulins. Since then Biocon has built global scale for insulins and is today among the Top 3 biosimilar players in both Human Insulin and Insulin Glargine globally. Thanks to the pioneering efforts of Biocon, prices of insulin in India are among the lowest in the world.
The company’s ability to attract the best talent, nurture and build an engaged workforce and harness a performance-driven culture have been instrumental in Biocon being recognised among the top 10 global biotech employers
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-Amitava Saha, Sr. Vice President & Head, Human Resources.
As the largest Asian insulins player and the fourth largest producer of insulins in the world, Biocon’s aim over the next 10 years is to provide their insulin products to ‘one in five’ diabetes patients in need of insulin-based therapy anywhere in the world. The launch of India’s first indigenously produced novel antibody BIOMAb EGFR® in 2006 earned Biocon recognition as a leading Indian Oncology Company. This reputation was further strengthened through CANMAb™, which is the first biosimilar Trastuzumab to be approved anywhere in the world. Biocon is now poised to take this key cancer drug to developed markets such as EU and US. The 2013 launch of ALZUMAb™ also brought Biocon global attention as the first and only company globally to clinically validate CD6 as a target for autoimmune diseases. Having developed and launched five biosimilars and two novel biologics for the benefit of patients in India, Biocon is now leveraging that experience to take a robust portfolio of biosimilars to a global patient population. The company possess one of the largest global biosimilars portfolios, spanning human insulin, insulin analogs, recombinant proteins and antibodies. Biocon is also harnessing its capabilities in novel biologics
research to advance an exciting Oral Insulin and the world's only clinically validated anti-CD6 targeting molecule through the clinics. The company is exploring the breakthrough potential of immuno-oncology to develop patient-friendly therapies against malignant tumors. Its novel programs span a wide range of platforms and products from conventional peptides & antibodies to novel fusion antibodies and small interfering RNA (siRNA) based therapeutics. Biocon has harnessed the potential of Biotechnology to increase affordable access to highly complex biopharmaceuticals like Insulins and Antibodies for the benefit of patients in India first and subsequently the world over. Biocon today has grown to be a company with over 8,000 employees that generated revenues of Rs. 35,699 million as of financial year ended March 31, 2016. Going Beyond Business Biocon believes its mission of ensuring access to affordable healthcare goes beyond developing new medicines to taking the ‘Right to Healthcare’ to less advantaged, rural communities in India. Executing their corporate-social responsibility through the Biocon Foundation, they have adopted an integrated outreach strategy that focuses on social change and empowerment of rural communities through public health, sanitation and education programs. Biocon Foundation is leveraging the power of technology in enabling the transformation of the public healthcare scenario in India, particularly in rural and remote areas. The foundation has implemented its e-healthcare
telemedicine initiative through its unique eLAJ clinics, equipped with multi parameter monitors (MPM) to deliver evidence based healthcare for the benefit of communities with poor access to quality healthcare in Karnataka and Rajasthan. eLAJ clinics are staffed with doctors, technicians and pharmacists who are trained to handle sophisticated diagnostic equipment and clinic management software which also creates electronic medical records of the patients. This eLAj model can be leveraged for long-term health tracking which can facilitate effective preventive and primary healthcare interventions. Awards and Accolades in 2016 Featured in Asia IP Elite 2016 List, the only pharma Company from India. Awarded “Best Biotech Patents Award” by Indian Drugs Manufacturers Association. “ABIDE,” Biocon’s Novel Diabetes Education Initiative for Medical Practitioners, awarded by RSSDI. Won Frost & Sullivan India Best Practices Award 2016 for “Biotechnology Company of the Year”. Won CII Excellence Award for best EHS practices in Pharma. Mission: “To be an integrated Biotech enterprise of global distinction.” Vision: “To enhance global healthcare through innovative and affordable Biopharmaceuticals for patients, partners and healthcare systems across the globe.”
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Management
Brief
Ansys ansys.com
James E Cashman III CEO
ANSYS is an American Computer-aided engineering software developer, who publishes engineering analysis software across a range of disciplines including finite element analysis, structural analysis, computational fluid dynamics, explicit and implicit methods, and heat transfer.
Ascend Corporation ascendcorp.com
Punnamas Vichitkulwongsa CEO
Company Name
Bery18 bery18.com
Biocon biocon.com
BrandLoom Consulting brandloom.com
C.N.W. Corporation cnwcorp.co.th
CHASSasia chassasia.com
Circuitsutra Technologies Pvt Ltd circuitsutra.com
Crevavi Technologies Pvt Ltd crevavi.com
Ascend HR Corp is the leader in recruitment process enhancement, providing full-service recruitment in the US
Beryl 8 is a management and technology consulting, services and outsourcing company, which provides various services such Dr. Nithinart Sinthudeacha as business consulting services, CRM implementation, cloud Mr. Apisek Tewinpagti services, multi-vendor systems integrations, custom app Co-founders development, and support services.
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw Chairperson & MD
Avinash chandra CEO
James R. Wolfe Board chairman & CEO
Yun Ta Ming CEO
Biocon Ltd. is Asia’s premier Biopharmaceutical company, committed to ensure a global right to healthcare by addressing the worldwide need for safe, effective and affordable Biotherapeutics. BrandLoom Consulting is a young Go-To-Market Branding & Digital Marketing Agency based in India, providing Digital Brand Commerce services to Startups, Brands, Retailers, Institutions and Individuals in the areas of Branding, Digital Marketing, eCommerce, Social Media Marketing, Web Technology and Mobile Technology. C.N.W. Corporation is the leading IT software company in the field of point-of-sale and e-commerce systems with data analytics, and business intelligence services. CHASSasia is a valued leader in information technology solutions and infrastructure, focused on offering innovative and comprehensive range of solutions while providing exemplary services, to empower business agility by providing IT services that help customers manage the complexity of enterprise applications.
Umesh Sisodia President & CEO
CircuitSutra is an Electronics System Level (ESL) design IP and services company which specializes in SystemC modeling of Electronics Systems and Semiconductor SoC.
Sachin Shivapur CEO & Co-founder
Crevavi works on comprehensive portfolio of products and services including Robotics, Embedded hardware, firmware, Board Support Packages and Embedded application development.
Company Name
eBHARAT DEA Technologies
ebharat.co.in
G-Asiapacific g-asiapac.com
Green Sync Pty. Ltd. greensync.com.au
Ground Labs Pte Ltd groundlabs.com
Hong Kong Business Aviation Centre Ltd hkbac.com
I Conz iwv.com.sg
MariApps Marine Solutions mariapps.com
Mitigate Compliance & Risk Management Ltd mitigatecrm.com
Management Shankar Jagdale Director Sandeep Patil Board member
Mark Goh CEO
Dr Phil Blythe Founder & CEO
Stephen Cavey Director
Raymond Kwok chairman & MD
Brief eBHARAT DEA Technologies hold expertise in Design and CAE analysis, along with mechanical engineering services, they also provide products for agriculture and manufacturing industries.
G-Asiapacific is a fully integrated cloud advisory and brokerage company in Asia Pacific, offering professional cloud computing services using the best-in-class IT solutions.
GreenSync integrates the new energy economy of renewable resources, battery storage and internet enabled devices into electricity markets around the world. It is a high growth Australian technology company that specializes in distributed energy for the global electricity market.
Ground Labs is a security software company dedicated to making sensitive data discovery products that help organizations prevent sensitive data loss.
Hong Kong Business Aviation Centre [HKBAC] is Asia's premier executive aviation support facility for business aircrafts, it is also the most convenient arrival and departure point for destinations in Mainland China, other parts of Asia and beyond.
Albert Wong CEO
ICONZ-Webvisions’ (iWV) is a managed services provider, with solutions such as Backup, Disaster Recovery, Security and Monitoring, to help its clients safeguard their data.
Sankar Ragavan CEO
MariApps is a Singapore based company offering state of the art, maritime ERP solutions for the marine industry.
Idan Levy Financial Regulation Consulatant & Founder
MitigtateCRM is a consulting firm that employs high level Compliance & Risk Management experts with broad experience in managing practical compliance work and building compliance plans.
Company Name
Noodle.ai noodle.ai
Management Stephen Pratt CEO Raj Joshi President & COO
Brief Noodle.ai provides business solutions in Enterprise Artificial Intelligence, with a unique collaboration among business executives, process experts, and artificial intelligence technologies.
Helge Raitanen Founder & Chairperson
QROi is a leading technology solution provider company in the Asia Pacific region, providing a full range of end to end technical and project management services.
Silverband silverband.com.au
Lachlan Witham MD
Silverband is an Australia independent software vendor specializing in the development, hosting and support of education management software for Australian higher education and vocational education institutions.
Smark Global smarkglobal.com.hk
Tse Sui Luen Chairman & CEO
Smark Global is a pioneer offering system developments, web design, e-commerce support, online marketing, event management and public relations services.
Southern Cross Austereo southerncrossaustereo.com.au
Grant Blackley CEO & MD
Southern Cross Austereo based at Australia, is a company dedicated to delivering Firsts in Entertainment Media Solutions.
Syscon Solutions sysconcronus.com
S Vijay Venkatesh Co-Founder & MD
Syscon with its Syscon Cronus blue-chip provides the most comprehensive low cost Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, focused for Manufacturing and Large Trading Enterprises.
Welcome Real Time welcome-rt.com
Thierry Reginato General Manager
World Phone is one of the pioneers in providing VoIP based value added services to all mobile and landline telecom service providers across India.
Zenlayer zenlayer.com
Joe Zhu Founder & CEO
Zenlayer, the company revolutionizing the data storage sector by providing Data Center as a service, Network as a service and Application as a service amenities.
QROi qroi.net
BERYL8:
Embracing the Belief of Possibility
O
rganising the right technology team is a prerequisite for the deployment of success. However, ensuring that you have the right team members in the bus, sitting on the right seats, can be a challenging exercise in businesses with scarce resources and limited internal experiences. To solve this dilemma Beryl8 comes into the picture. Beryl8 was established in 2009 with a mission to help and enable clients to create competitive advantages and perform outstandingly through the digital innovation in order to create sustainable value for their customers and shareholders. They also believe in forming close ties between their team members and build constructive relationships with their clients by discovering the strength of collaboration with the possible resources. Catering the Industry Needs with Innovation Beryl 8 is a state-of-the-art management and technology consulting, services and outsourcing company based in Thailand, which renders customer centric consulting services through their expertise in consulting and technology. They work with the leading enterprises to provide an objective and independent perspective to help their clients to move up to the next level through their technology and strategic investments. Beryl8’s offering includes business consulting services, Salesforce.com CRM implementation, cloud services, multi-vendor systems integrations, custom app development and support services. Their mantra for success is to measure their own success through client’s success. Their clientele base covers various industries, and each client has different business need, so their versatile team of consultants always gets to work on different challenging projects. Their strength is to provide unique methodologies to encourage their clients to be innovative in defining their business opportunity and potential.
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Visionary Behind the Evolution Dr. Nithinart Sinthudeacha and Mr. Apisek Tewinpagti, Co-founders of Beryl8 Plus Company Limited have a rich experience in consulting industry. They founded Beryl8 with a vision to leverage cloud computing by bringing digital transformation globally. Redefining the Work Culture The team at Beryl8 believes that the people and their teamwork are their keys to success. Their consultants are professionally trained, and also their culture is another important factor that helps them leverage the quality of services they provide. They work with the formula of “one team and one goal,” and render services with empathy, integrity, trust, and respect. Beryl8 is more than a workplace, they are a family, they value diversity and are always open to adopt new ideas. At Beryl8, everyone is allowed to think innovatively and make it happen. Dr. Nithinart Sinthudeacha Explains about their Services Cloud & CRM Strategy: Translate business needs and customer insight into strategic initiatives and solutions to engage customers smarter, and stay ahead of the game. Salesforce Implementation: Implement with our proven methodology. Over 100+ successful sales, service, and marketing cloud engagements for 20,000+ users across major industries. Google Cloud Platform Implementation: Carry out through our unique methodology to implement Big Data solutions and Machine Learning services to enable clients to focus on what’s next for their business rather than managing infrastructure.
| March 2017
Integration: Combine expertise with leading player like Mulesoft to ensure data integrity across the enterprise by connecting existing legacy systems, ERPs, and databases to each other, as well as to any newly implemented IT infrastructure, seamlessly.
Support: Access Beryl8 experts for continued guidance and post go-live administrative support to sustain longterm success. Salesforce Training Center: Enable client’s team with system specific, as well as standard Salesforce Certification trainings, to enhance their technical skill and system know-how. Change Management: Support implementation success beyond technology delivery by enabling organization to embrace change, adopt new practice and enhance mindset. Leaving No Stones Unturned With the advent of Cloud computing, Digital transformation, and IoT, Beryl8 is on a mission to transform the way of adopting new
technologies. They are all set to hit the Asian region, especially Thailand, and reach more and more clients and help them in adopting new technologies to uplift their organisations in the global market. Taking it as a challenge, the team is always ready to find innovative ways to stay up-to-date and ahead of the market. Understanding the Client’s Needs Understanding clients’ businesses need, and serving them with passion is the team Beryl8’s forte. They always strive to deliver exceptional services at par with the client’s expectations. By leveraging their industry knowledge, service-offering expertise and technology capabilities, they tend to identify new technology trends and develop
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Custom Mobile App Development: Meet the specific demands of business via mobile apps or custom online interfaces to match the way clients do their business and equip them with new strategic capabilities.
ss. r succe u o o t is key think, e e r u w t l y u a w Our c by the nd take care d e n fi e gs, a It is d people do thin of our
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solutions accordingly, to help their clients enter new markets, increase revenues, improve operational performance, and deliver products and services efficiently as well as effectively.
Mr. Apisek Tewinpagti & Dr. Nithinart Sinthudeacha Sankar Ragavan Co-founders CEO
Future Prospects At Beryl8, Dr. Nithinart Sinthudeacha and Mr. Apisek Tewinpagti always look forward to investing in their people for uplifting their moral, cultural and personal growth. They believe in building strong relationships and ensuring that customers get first-class consultation and implementation experience.
Beryl8MariApps Plus Company Limited March 2017 |
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CircuitSutra:
Blending ESL with Current Methodologies
A
dvanced tools and methodologies have become absolutely essential to achieve the necessary productivity, quality, cost and performance expected in a design process because of the complexities of the current systems. One of the important tenets in ESL Design is the necessity of early design analysis. As per Gartner Dataquest’s definition, Electronic System Level (ESL) encompasses the concurrent design of hardware and software parts of an electronic product. However, the important term in ESL is ‘system’. All designers probably have their own description of what a system is, depending on the subcategory of the product they’re working on, and at which design stage. The trouble for them is finding the right ESL design tool adapted to their needs and their vision of what their system is. The industry needs to move to system design: EDA, IP suppliers and the customers. ESL can vastly improve time to market and lower SoC implementation risks if the design ecosystem fully embraces the technology. Circuitsutra is a prominent name in providing Electronic System Level IP and Services. CircuitSutra offers SoC modeling services to top Semiconductor & System companies in IoT, Automotive, Mobile, Storage, Networking domains etc. They work in close collaboration with their partners in the industry to define modeling standards and disseminate the best practices to their customers. Intellect behind the Innovation Energetic self-starter with absolute dedication, President and CEO, Umesh Sisodia founded CircuitSutra in November 2005 with an objective to build a company in India that would be a leader in its technological space and have a transformational impact on the semiconductor industry across the globe. Umesh honed his technical and managerial skills by working at various levels in the Semiconductor industry for over a decade, before taking the entrepreneurial plunge. Headquartered in Noida (India),
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CircuitSutra has development centers in Noida and Bangalore. All of Umesh’s and his team’s efforts put into CircuitSutra are well rewarded and the company continues to thrive for more. CircuitSutra has been awarded the ISBA Entrepreneurship Award in 2008. Recently CircuitSutra was felicitated by Accellera in Design and Verification Conference 2016 for popularizing the adoption of Accellera Standards in the Indian Semiconductor Ecosystem. CircuitSutra has also participated in various Industry Conferences like NASCUG, ESCUG, DVCon Europe, EDSFair Japan, IP-ESC France etc. Best-in-Class Services CircuitSutra is an Electronics System Level (ESL) design IP and services company which specializes in SystemC modeling of Electronics Systems and Semiconductor SoCs. Its core competencies include Virtual Prototyping, Architecture and Performance Modeling, and SoC & System level Verification. CircuitSutra helps their customers in reducing the time to market by using modern simulation techniques based on C, C++, SystemC, etc. Their strong portfolio of modeling IP and methodology enables them to quickly get started on the customer’s project, and ramp up the new team members on the required modeling concepts. They have developed a training methodology that facilitates easy migration from adjacent domains to ESL domain; thus expanding the talent pool in this field. CircuitSutra’s mission is to accelerate the adoption of ESL methodologies in the Industry. With a deep knowledge of various standards being formulated in SoC modeling domain, they develop standards based SystemC models that can integrate with any ESL tools. Flourishing From Bud to Blossom CircuitSutra has maintained a laser like focus in excelling in the ESL field. This has helped them to overcome | March 2017
CircuitSutra has worked with largescale and small-scale businesses over the years, participated in standards bodies and conferences, worked across multiple use cases and also evolved a
standard platform and a tool independent methodology (CST Modeling Library) to cater to multifarious needs of their customers. Moreover they have established partnerships with industry leaders like Synopsys and ARM to better support their mutual customers. Today CircuitSutra is a leading player in the SoC modeling domain. Opportunities and Challenges in Today’s fast-paced Industrial Regime It has become imperative for organizations to shift from a traditional product salescentric business model to a service-oriented business model in order to keep up with the changing trends. Embedded technology
solution providers have to provide high quality, high performance products with long life cycles which are required by embedded and applied computing markets. Virtual Prototyping plays an important role in embedded technology as it helps to dry-run and test the product before committing to a particular design. CircuitSutra has designed its modeling methodology which is a combination of reusable modeling infrastructure, modeling services and training. Envisioning Advancements with Advantageous client-centered Models CircuitSutra provides cutting edge expertise in the modeling domain and the re-usable modeling infrastructure to its customers. CircuitSutra has gained
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uncertainties that occurred over the last decade and establish a strong foundation to stand on. When CircuitSutra was conceived in 2005, SystemC was an emerging technology. They have seen SystemC’s evolution from research phase to pilot projects to mainstream adoption, and have actively contributed in its journey.
ate the r e l e c c a ion is to s s i m r u logies o O d o h t e of ESL m n o i t p o ad dustry in the In
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broad and deep experience in working across multiple ESL use cases, tools and industries. This enables them to assemble a project team very quickly, take responsibilities to ramp up on required modeling concepts, without impacting cost and schedule for its customers.
Umesh Sankar Sisodia Ragavan President and CEO CEO
CircuitSutra MariApps Technologies March 2017 |
They are also on the top of new technologies that are emerging in the field like UVM-SystemC, SystemC AMS, etc. so that they are able to ride the technology wave and enable their customers to leverage the best in class solutions.
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Workodynamics `
H
ere are four words we don’t hear very often: “I love my job.”
An extensive research in the area have now found that the most engaged employees — those who are fully invested in their jobs and dedicated to their firms — are significantly more productive, enhance customer satisfaction and outperform those who are less engaged. It’s important for employees to participate in their task enthusiastically, for the sake of their growth along with the company. But it turns out that only 20% of employees around the world are fully engaged at work. It’s a cut off that serves no one well. So what could be the solution? Where is the win-win for employees and employers? The solution is that employers must shift their focus from trying to get more out of people, to investing more in them by supporting their core needs — emotional, physical, mental and spiritual — so they're freed, fueled and inspired to bring the best at work and prove themselves every day. Our primary need is to make enough money to live a decent lifestyle, but even at that, we cannot live by bread alone. Take a moment here and think about what makes you feel most excited to get to work in the morning, and makes you most loyal to your employer.
corporations do not meet that standard for many of their jobs, simply because of an unfair environment where a CEO is paid millions of dollars a year while an employee gets a modest sum for full time work that in some cases falls below the poverty line. · Treat employees like grown-ups. Share statistics with employees, listen to their ideas (or better yet, actively seek out and act upon their ideas). · Every employee who contributes his/her work must have a stake in the company’s success. It can be in the form of profit sharing, or stock options or bonuses tied to performance. If the company performs well in the market, all employees should share in the success, in meaningful ways. · Design office’s working environments that are comfortable, safe and appealing to work in. Some offices include a range of lateral spaces that allow for privacy, collaboration, or simply to hang out. · Provide high quality, healthy food, at the lowest possible prices in canteens, cafeterias and also vending machines at workplaces. · Create sitting rooms for employees to rest and renew during the course of the working day and encourage them to take regular breaks.
The kind of company I have in mind would nurture the employee friendly environment if they could:
· Offer a well-equipped gym and other facilities where employees can work-out and stay fit. Do not see fun, humor and relaxation as the enemies of hard work; instead perceive them as its allies.
· Commit to paying every member a living wage. And that largely depends on the standard of living. Many
· Describe clear and specific expectations for what victory
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| March 2017
Workodynamics `
looks like in any given job. Then, try to give your employees as much liberation as possible to choose when they work, where they do their work, and how best to conclude it. · Organize two-way performance reviews, so that employees not only receive regular feedback about how they’re doing, in means that support their growth, but are also given the opportunity to provide feedback to their supervisors, anonymously if they would, to avoid recrimination. · Advice leaders and managers to be responsible for treating all employees with respect and care and encourage them to regularly identify those they supervise for the progressive contributions they make. · Make policies that encourage employees to allot a considerable amount of time, to focus without disruption on their most important urgencies, including long-term projects with planned and creative thinking. Preferably, give them time to pursue projects they’re particularly passionate about and which have the potential to add value to the company.
skills, as well as softer skills that serve them well as individuals, and as executives and leaders. Actively encourage volunteerism among the employees. · Stand for something beyond just increasing profits. Provide services or create products or serve causes that openly add value in the society, so that employees could derive a sense of meaning from their work, and would feel good about companies they work for. Life, as the famous philosopher Hobbes so succinctly pointed out, can be solitary, brutish, nasty and short. If we spend about one-third of our lives working, don’t you want it to be less miserable? It’s not that easy as it is said to be. But some companies are admirably close, and others are to be applauded for their valued efforts. The one that comes closest is Google. I’m convinced it’s one of their key to success.
· Offer employees opportunities and incentives to learn, develop and grow, both in forming new job-specific hard March 2017 |
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CXO Standpoint
TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION: An indispensable factor in business
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e used to say that the storytelling business is all about the people. Talents from different fields – writing, producing, editing, the list goes on – come together to craft amazing video content that go on to inform, inspire and entertain people through their television sets. These days, technological innovation plays a huge role in not only democratizing the filmmaking process; making it more affordable to tell stories at a professional quality. It is also transforming what kind of stories we tell, where people can get it and how they consume it. And it’s not just about the television anymore, it’s the second screen, wait no, it’s also the virtual screen. Technology is reshaping the very face and fate of the content business and those who can grasp its true potential early and make the brave leap forward, could reap the rewards. The factors are simply too compelling to ignore. In the following paragraphs, I hope to give you a snapshot of how embracing the convergence of storytelling and technology, changed our business dramatically. Jocelyn and I set up Beach House Pictures 12 years ago to create content that we are passionate about. Sure, it was also important that there was a gap in the Asian marketplace for great international quality programs, and that Singapore supported the media in a myriad of ways, but from the very beginning, it has always been about the storytelling. We learned quickly that running the company is like running a marathon. You keep one eye on the future,
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Jocelyn Li le Managing Director
while you build on what you’ve got. So, while we were a two-man team moving our own furniture, we kept investing in diversification and scaling up. We learnt to remain steadfast to our vision (great stories, globally), but to stay flexible to adapt. Good thing too, because in the last 12 years, technology threw us curveball after curveball. Within the first two years, a co-production for Discovery Channel called Man Made Marvels challenged us to upgrade from Standard Definition (SD) program deliveries to High Definition (HD) deliveries, to keep up with international benchmarks. For a small outfit with limited resources, it was a tough learning curve. You can either turn it into an opportunity to grow. Or fail and be viewed as inadequate to compete with the rest of the world. The choice was simple. That transition paved the way for our next technological leap – 3D filmmaking. Not too long ago, the world was going ga-ga over Avatar and the latest 3D TV sets. Manufacturers saw an opportunity to make a lot of money, but making the content that would keep people glued to the device was no easy task. The main problem was making it fast enough, good enough, affordable enough, and at volume. We couldn’t compete with the larger companies throwing millions at mega-productions, but we could develop cost effective methods of filming 3D that achieved a documentary aesthetic (most 3D footage were slaves to a tripod, we made ours handheld) and passed QC at the highest levels. More importantly, they had to be good stories. We made over 15 hours of content in just two years, which was a great measure of success. However, 3D TV eventually faded away due to a lack of demand, with another video format rising through the ranks – | March 2017
CXO Standpoint
Donovan Chan Crea ve Director Beach House Pictures
About the Author: Donovan is a founding partner of Beach House Pictures and spearheads strategy and content development. He also executive produces, writes and directs many of the company’s international productions, and is overseeing BHP’s expansion into online content with the integration of new technologies. One of Asia’s most experienced factual filmmakers, Donovan has worked on award winning shows including Lonely Planet Six Degrees for TLC (Best Entertainment & Best Editing – Asian TV Awards) and Megastructures: Singapore’s Vegas for Nat Geo International (Silver World Medal – New York Festivals).
March 2017 |
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CXO Standpoint
Ultra-High Definition (UHD), commonly known as 4K. Within a space of a few years, we had to innovate again to stay ahead of the curve. By this point, we had grown as a company from a two to twenty-man team. We had a growing business to feed, yet we could not ignore the opportunities of UHD. A lot of effort and time was put into multi-tasking in both growth areas. Culminating in successful early UHD deliveries to Nat Geo Wild (Otter Town) and Channel News Asia (Aerial India). With Otter Town getting the nod as finalists at the 2017 New York Festivals for Best Nature & Wildlife and Best Sound Design. As UHD looks set for explosive growth, another exciting new area of story-tech convergence came to our attention. And the timing was too good to ignore. By this time, we were a 70-man company with more resources to invest in the potential new revenue stream - Virtual Reality. We believe that the ‘experiential’ content have come and gone and that VR (especially 360 video) need to be enhanced by great storytelling and directed towards definitive user groups, like education. BHP soon became the first company that the Ministry of Education allowed to pilot VR in Singapore schools and, in addition to the MOE we also worked with Samsung for hardware. This single experience has led to even more opportunities, which could fundamentally change our business yet again. You could say that the moral of the story, is to well, stick to telling a great story, your story, while embracing change. Less simply put, never ignore how seemingly divergent ideas could converge to transform your business. We live in a rapidly evolving status quo. And while it can be very scary, it is also full of hope.
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| March 2017
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GreenSync: Unlock the Value of Shifting Energy Usage
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ith the depleting levels of fossil fuels and increasing levels of pollution, the requirement of alternate energy resources is on the rise. But implementing such resources like installing solar panels and managing the grid is another cumbersome task, as a solution to this GreenSync has come up with an innovative idea of generating and storing renewable energy as well as maintaining the grid.
Revolutionizing the way of Generation, Distribution and Consumption of Energy GreenSync’s proprietary software aims at optimizing the use of energy resources to ensure electricity is used efficiently when it is most needed. The team at GreenSync are specialists at managing energy demand across a range of resources — renewable energy, stored, and traditional energy from the grid. They are a key player in the creation of a decentralized energy system that involves the gradual integration of more renewable resources into grids. GreenSync has recently launched a revolutionary new concept, “the Decentralized Energy Exchange (deX),” which aims to facilitate a more reliable, affordable and cleaner energy grid by establishing a marketplace to exchange energy services through an open access digital platform. It aims at enabling multi-party transactions and facilitate more localized energy generation and consumption. The Trailblazer of GreenSync Phil Blythe, Founder & CEO of GreenSync, always had an interest in both technology and energy. At university, he was an active contributor to discussions about the future of technology, and gained his background in machine learning and artificial intelligence during research posts at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin and the University of Sydney.
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Having also worked in the smart building space, Phil saw the opportunity to establish a company focused on building new technology that would transform the way energy is being managed and stored. GreenSync’s inception was due to Phil’s far sighted vision, as he always believed the energy system needed to be changed and technology would play the key driver in doing this. “We’re re-imagining the energy grid and focused on effecting changes that crack open the traditional energy architecture to integrate new technologies and new ways of managing energy.”adds Phil. Rendering Distinct and Diversified Services Providing innovative and distinct services is GreenSync’s forte. No other company is really doing what GreenSync does. There are other providers who do parts of what they do, but they are really operating across a breadth in a way that no other company does. GreenSync’s software is “technology agnostic” which allows them to work across the entire energy spectrum — from transmission and distribution companies to large industrial and commercial facilities, as well as residential and remote sites. Leaving No Stones Unturned In terms of ongoing challenges, regulations that don’t keep pace with change and the complexities of local energy markets are some of the challenges that they’ve had to overcome. But, time and funding came to their rescue, and these key ingredients made life easier for their team. Considering their recent Series B funding, they have shot far and wide, to acquire cornerstone investors with experience in their domain. At GreenSync, they believe “both government and private investors have their strengths: investment from cabinet funds brings a high level of local credibility, while funding
| March 2017
Tackling Technology Advancements with Ease Advancements in technology have allowed GreenSync to look into an existing model and its problems and provide smarter solutions. Their advanced software technology allows them to forecast energy needs in real-time and deliver what the client needs — more energy, less energy, redirected energy, or assistance with a complex glitch etc.
“Technology advancements mean that we can take what we have now with a sophisticated energy grid system and evolve it, rather than razing everything and building something new from scratch. Our launch of deX is a key example of an opportunity where technology has the power to create a new digital energy economy that will inevitably change how people interact with energy.” “As with all technology, there is a period of hesitancy in adopting something new. However, our proven track record with a large number of utility providers and businesses,
combined with the pace of change that is occurring organically in the energy market has shifted the focus of some stakeholders that had from tinkering with old technology to embracing something entirely new.” Future Perspectives Looking forward at the energy industry transformation, the move to renewables and the increased opportunity for de-centralised energy as a global phenomenon, GreenSync has undergone a Series B funding round, in which they have secured AU$11.5 million. GreenSync is also looking forward to expand their offerings to international shores. Their immediate focus is on Asia
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from a renowned venture capital firm can offer immediate international traction. We’ve been lucky enough to strike a balance with homegrown government and offshore private investment.”
g n i p a sh e r e r We a id r g e th
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Pacific, and their new Singapore HQ is ready to serve as a base for South East Asian projects, which they already have underway. This region, which is characterized by remote islands with less sophisticated energy profiles, and large countries like China with booming populations and advanced infrastructure, are ripe for GreenSync’s technology to have a material impact. In the next 12 months they are also planning to roll out pilot projects in Europe and the US.
Phil Blythe Founder & CEO GreenSync March 2017 |
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MariApps:
Providing Integrated Marine Solutions
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he sea is vast and wild, but if we can tame some of its uncertainties, then there would be incredible outcomes. Though the internet’s potential to reap the benefits of dry land and air has been done successfully, the sea is yet to be tapped. To mine out maximum benefits with full potential from the sea, MariApps has remarkably converted the maritime challenges into opportunities by offering state of the art maritime applications for the shipping industry. Initiation of Journey Formed in 2014, MariApps has been working on web based solutions, with an aim to offer out-of-the-box solutions for the shipping industry. Applications developed by MariApps are solely dedicated towards providing the key knowledge and expertise of shipping management to the ship owners and managers. To help their clients outshine from today’s competitive and demanding environment, they have come out with a unique solution, and have rolled out their flagship product PAL. The product PAL is a fully web based Enterprise Resource Planning software, built with the latest Microsoft technology, with an aim to enable the ship managers to access the cumulative data and reports within the same platform. Thus, helping the companies to achieve better performance and profitability. Visionary Behind the Evolution Sankar Ragavan, CEO of MariApps, is a versatile person of amicable nature. Having more than 20 years of expertise in IT industry, Sankar has worked with various MNCs across the globe. While serving as the IT Director of Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, Sankar got his insights on the complexes and challenges faced by the marine industry. As of 2014, 90 percent of the ERP market share was held by a few large vendors, but Sankar broke this monopoly by introducing MariApps and bringing out marine ERP PAL e3, to integrate all the shipping functions into a unified system. Tools to Change the Face of Maritime Industry PAL e3 - PAL e3 is a fully web based marine application,
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which targets shipping verticals like ship owning and ship management. Being a Microsoft gold partner, MariApps has earned the highest standards of technology and innovation with their product PAL e3, which works on a centralized platform using technologies like; ASP .net MVC, SQL server and HTML 5. Uniqueness of PAL e3 is it’s dashboard approach, which provides a consolidated view of information and reports anywhere anytime. Mobile Apps- MariApps helps their customers to make a quick entry into the mobile first and the cloud first world. Their mobile applications are highly customizable and easy to use and are readily available on iOS and Android devices with Firebase tools for tracking analytics and reporting. Revolutionary Mobile Applications from MariApps Vessel Tracker- Vessel Tracker is an application that is intended to provide real time updates on Vessel position, details on the port calls, crew list and present sea conditions via smartphones. It is also capable of plotting vessel map and providing detailed information about the main engine maker and gross tonnage. Inspection Reporting Tool- It is a tool of a unique kind, built to enable vessel audits and inspections with voice recording, photo evidences and scores. It is an application that works independently on a standalone module for smooth transfer of data and reports. Seafarer Portal- A complete information portal for the seafarers which provides an effective line of communication to the seafarer for all their needs. It gives detailed information on schedule trainings, processed salary, open positions available with the fleet, seafarer documents and also alerts on expiring data. Being a Microsoft Gold Certified Development Partner, MariApps has worked immensely on some of the best Project Management Standards (PMI) for execution of projects. It also has a partnership with Microsoft Innovation Center and an ISAE 3042 certification by Deloitte for | March 2017
The Game Changer of Shipping Industry PAL e3, the flagship product of MariApps is currently running on more than 700 ships covering almost
all the modules of ship management segments like Crewing, Payroll, PMS, Purchase, Accounts, Catering, Voyage, Dry Dock, QDMS and Insurance. With PAL e3 ship managers and owners are able to achieve a single version of truth, by having all their data in one. MariApps is the first company to provide mobile apps in the shipping world. The apps offered by MariApps are a one stop solution for the seafarers and stakeholders to communicate with the vessel, review their documents, train employees, track vessels and know the status of survey reports. MariApps is also on the way to develop applications for the new building services, offshore support and related industries.
Projectile Vision for Future Success MariApps has committed itself to evolving technologies for the interest of its own needs as well for its clients. With automations in data processing and incorporating systems like Big data and Data analytics, MariApps envisions to integrate distributed and unorganized data in the shipping sector that can help an organization improve their profitability, optimize efficacy and make logical decisions based on business patterns and processes. Their ERP PAL e3 streamlines workflows through integrated modules and optimizes use of personnel time. The product undergoes strict internal scrutiny for security risks, so that its vulnerabilities and issues are identified and addressed. They are also focused to invest in the training, research
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enterprise standard development and operating framework readiness to deliver systems. MariApps follows both SDLC and Agile methodologies and has a dedicated PMO to manage projects. MariApps has a 24*7 support team to handle customer support requests globally.
uality Q g n i r Delive tions u l o S e Marin
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and innovation activities in order to stay ahead, and to meet the requirements of their clients. Considering the employees as a valuable asset, MariApps provides a world class environment to its employees operating from various locations across the globe. They also ensure that its employees get regular training in the latest technologies in order to stay updated and to deliver top notch software products.
Sankar Ragavan CEO
MariApps March 2017 |
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Tech Facts
A c c e s s i b l e Te c h n o l o g y : Redening T h e Wo r k p l a c e
E
very organization has its unique requirements, for developing a good accessible technology plan. As experts say, it requires a few major steps which has to be followed such as defining the accessible technology strategy, identifying requirements, designing, developing, buying technology, implementing and training, maintaining technology and continue learning. Effective strategy and requirements will minimize costs and increase efficiency. And this will be a good start for ensuring compatibility with available technology, and addressing accurately your unique business needs.
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Employees and customers need to be able to customize the things by changing font size, color, type of text on screen, adjustment in text and background colors. They can make adjustments in sound options with an ability to get audio information visually such as closed captioning / audio descriptions for multi-media as well as aurally, adjustment in timings, eliminating or modifying the rate of flashing or blinking, alternatives availability for the touch screen applications, customize toolbars with easily accessible buttons, sharing of computer while training sessions, adjusting keyboard settings to compensate for impairments like hand tremors. For those who use select fingers, one hand, or no hands there is a need of an operating system
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Tech Facts
with the keyboard instead of using a mouse. They can improve the visibility of the cursor and addition of assistive technology products for particular disabilities. Also, they can use an alternative kind of mouse because of mobility impairments. Arranging Business Processes & Procedures, and Technology The technology needs to offer ways for employees such as easy access to websites, use of email and instant messaging to collaborate and communicate. Also, it is required to use a word processing system to collaborate, share documents, manage large amount of data, and for sorting and managing files and folders. Need of The Latest Technology to Align with the Organization’s Overall Technology Plan Employees need to be able to determine the accessibility settings and features with the use of an existing operating system, and with the same settings for multiple use. Again with regards to the access needs of employees it should prioritize. For example, if employees are finding issues with an existing product then replace the existing technology with a new one. This change will help you to determine how best to carry out your strategy which gives a positive impact on employees. Technology Assessment Strategy Preparing for an accessible technology plan, it is a requirement of the existence of the current technology, where you can easily find out the required changes in current one. What are the basic things you need to do? First, evaluate the current hardware, software and in-house applications and systems. Also, it requires to improve options that fulfill business needs while keeping in mind whether it lies within the budget, and provides more access to the number of employees and clients. There are some good alternatives to avoid the further cost upgradation. In case of Server Operating Systems, which is particularly for administrators. We can use custom in-house applications for less number of employees or the needed
March 2017 |
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Tech Facts
one. Assessing this kind of situation will help you to find out the risk if that software is not upgraded.
Increased use of accessible technology proves that it fulfills the requirements of all users.
Here is an another way, first frame the questions which will help you to analyze the risk of your organization’s technology assessment. Then try to answer all the questions to determine the extent of the of impact on your employees and clients that is that software is still inaccessible? Furthermore, you can compare the extent of the bad impact and possible repercussions from the same impact to determine the risk incurred by not replacing or updating the inaccessible software. That risk can further be compared with the software accessible making cost. This will help you to determine the comparison of which software is in high priority for replacing or updating and which is at the low priority based on low risks and high costs of replacement.
Growing number of businesses and organizations from government agencies and universities to utilities, and financial organizations are searching for the ways to engage customers, recruitment, employee empowerment, keeping hold on their valuable employees at the same time they are looking for their organizational improved efficiency and increased productivity.
By evaluating operating system for employees desktops, servers, office productivity software and industry specific applications, you can determine whether your used technology is accessible or not. Legacy And Proprietary We need to check whether your Legacy and Proprietary systems are accessible or not? In case of ordering and billing systems software used for shipping packages, and for legacy system mainframe business applications are used such as a legacy sales application.
In today’s digitized world, technology is the core element in all these initiatives. And to fulfill these goals, organizations need to make such technology, which will be advantageous to the biggest possible number of users without concerning the age or ability. Accessible Technology is the way which makes it easy for any person to see, hear, and use a computer. It allows people with an array of abilities such as for persons with disabilities, age-related impairments, or limited period issues. Additionally, for novice computer or web users it requires to adjust technology as per their individual visual, capability, hearing, understanding, language requirements and preferences or to adjust their personal technology experience.
From the last three decades, innovations like personal computers, the Internet, mobile devices, and cloud computing have revolutionized the way how people work, communicate, and get information. These advancements, in turn, have desperately changed the way we do business.
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CXO Standpoint
DIGITAL MARKETING: D
igital marketing revolutions are real and are creating disruptions for marketing operations. Marketers are now seeking different engagement models with the support of technology and transforming how they interact with their customers through digital.
Not long time ago, digital marketing used to have digital presence for their brands such as brand website, social media, paid media and email marketing. Over the years, this has evolved since requirement changes, target audience are Results becoming more mature, and change in technology innovation trends. Digital Marketing is now being expected to drive acquisitions, understanding user behaviours, giving information at the right time, right place and right moments. Instead of digital marketing being a support channel, it has become the primary channel to deliver relevant information, getting leads Fine Tune and most importantly sales.
Strategy This situation creates opportunities where corporations view their partners that can provide not only creative agencies but company which has capability across everything from Data, User Experience (UX) and technology implementation capabilities.
Reporting
Stratgizing
By 2017, Gartner, the technology research company, estimates CMO will likely to control corporations IT spending from data, analytics and front/back-end IT spend. Marketers are now more involved in digital technology than ever before.
Research & Analysis
One of the key feature that marketers need to understand would be data analytics which is the key to successful digital marketing implementation. By correctly implementing data analytics, marketers
ReImpliementation ROI Analysis Implementation Finalizing KPI
Understanding Requirement
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CXO Standpoint can view website data and more importantly audience data comprehensively such as their demography, geography, psychographic and behaviour. This enables marketers to deďŹ ne persona segmentations of their customers through digital and choreograph each persona with digital journey which creates unique digital experience for each persona. This is called Personalization. Unique digital experience is a great methodology for customer since each information that customer will receive will be relevant based on their interests and behaviour. However, this is a nightmare for marketers to manage multiple user journey for each persona. Having to review persona user journey and optimize them one by one. A solution called marketing automation was established. This helps marketers automate tedious tasks by managing multiple persona user journey. It helps to react, adapt and track each individual persona user journey and automate the optimization process through A/B testing as well as multivariate testing. The above solution is currently being implemented in most digital-minded organizations and has become a trend in the digital market and subsequently creating demands for new agencies that helps with the marketing in digital solution. These days marketers need more than just creative digital agencies to signiďŹ cantly enhance their digital capability and to be ahead of their competitors. In summary, the market view on digital is currently shifting as digital marketing is becoming the primary channel for most marketers which drives data and results. This makes digital marketing, the omnipotent platform for all. SALT Description: Provides end-to-end transformation for marketing operations in a digital world, through Data, User Experience (UX), and Technology solutions such as marketing automation strategies and implementation which are essential in any corporations to be ahead from their competitors.
March 2017 |
Marco Widjojo CEO
About the Author: Marco Widjojo is the co-founder and CEO of SALT. With more than 15 years of experience in digital marketing technology, Marco started SALT in 2013 to bring Data, User Experience (UX) and Technology solutions to digital transformed organizations. He sometimes lectures in Indonesian university to bring his digital technology knowledge to students. He graduated from University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and took MBA from Australia Graduate School of Management (AGSM).
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Quality/Quantity
uality Team Not
uantitative Team
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owadays! Everyone wants to succeed in their businesses, want to deliver their best quality products, and excellent services, for delighting their clients. For that, a company’s teams are their backbone for it. Businesses need strong teams that work smartly, with excellence. Without the talented team, you’re just the walking dead without motor skills to go where you want to go. The crucial role of a team was highlighted by a recent study from Rotman School of Management. It exhibits that the success of a new venture often depends on the expertise of the founder to attract a great team around him or her. The researchers used census data to analyze employers in the legal services sector to try and spot any patterns which were spinning out new ventures. The sector was chosen because there are no non-compete rules to prevent employees packing their bags and starting their own venture. “A founder’s individual characteristics are important but what’s more important are that person’s ability to bring a bigger and more experienced team with them,” the researchers say. “And the bigger that team the more likely the firm will succeed.” What is a Team? A team is any group of people who work together to achieve something to gain a shared outcome. It may be a sales team, or a call center team, or a rugby team, or the executive team of a multinational corporation. The same simple rules for success apply to all of them. It starts with the team leader. Every team needs a leader, a captain, a chief, and the success of that team is almost entirely dependent on what the team leader does - and doesn't do. Great team ensures great teamwork, achieved by consistent application of some age-old basics:
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Quality/Quantity
T EAM
Clear Accountabilities: Does everyone know exactly what they are accountable for? Even with detailed job descriptions, people often don’t know what they are supposed to do. The team leader needs to make the team is crystal about its RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consult, and Inform- a simple, powerful tool you can easily google). Simple Measures: Are there the few clear steps towards each, and for the team as a whole? People love to know when they are doing a good job. They want to know what they must deliver and whether they are getting it right.
Robust Disciplines: Good teams have solid routines that create a regular cadence-daily, weekly or monthly usually in the form of group meetings. Plan-Do-Review - the drumbeat of performance. Coaching for performance and growth: Team members thrive on good, objecting feedback. They will be more committed if they feel their performance is fairly assessed if their real work is acknowledged and justly rewarded. A sense that one is being encouraged to grow and advance is profoundly motivating.
done- accounting skills or merchandising skills or front desk customers service skills. And also management skillsin particular for the team leaders- to keep the team engaged, focused and productive from Monday to Friday.
Maintaining a quality reputation amongst your target audience is imperative to being successful in business. What your customers think of you will ultimately shape, whether or not they're willing to do business with you. Reputation management is also an ongoing practice that requires an array of techniques. However, at the top of the list is quality customer service. The quality of services you provide to your customers will ultimately shape their opinion of you. Since your staff is involved in providing day to day services, it will be important to have a competent team that is aware of how to handle the customer’s needs accordingly.
The bottom line is that the right people do all the things that are necessary to get the business to grow: they get the product right; they get the service right; the culture is healthy; they get a motivated team behind them. Everything else falls in line. If you don’t have this right, the opposite happens. It’s a painful and expensive mess.
Skills: Team members need technical skills to get the job
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Noodle.ai: Pioneering Enterprise Artificial Intelligence
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rtificial Intelligence (AI) has become a dominant enterprise technology as businesses strive to stay ahead of the pack in this competitive world. Companies face many challenges and hurdles managing the successful deployment of AI in their enterprise, but Noodle.ai is on a mission to bring the power and promise of Artificial Intelligence to the executive team of global 2000 companies. They believe that it takes a careful blend of human expertise and a breakthrough AI platform to run the most important core operations of tomorrow’s enterprise. At Noodle.ai, they believe AI will become the single biggest differentiator for the global 2000 by 2020. They are also the most significant AI start-up providing AI-as-a-Service for the Enterprise.
Raj Joshi, President & COO of Noodle.ai, has previously founded two high-growth companies. With Stephen as the co-founder, he successfully co-founded Infosys Consulting, and took it to new heights. Marching Ahead of the Competition Noodle.ai employees form innovative clusters of wellbalanced teams. As seasoned business people, data scientists, and technologists they are focused on building a collaborative culture that is uniquely capable of building AI business platforms for their clients. They strongly believe that Enterprise clients need AI solutions that deliver tremendous business value and not just trendy AI technology.
Revolutionizing Enterprise Artificial Intelligence Making a Difference with The BEAST Noodle.ai is an international and multidisciplinary team of data scientists, business process experts, technologists, and designers. People are already witnessing the dawn of AI in consumer products like self-driving cars, smart phones and in online retail, but there is also a similarly powerful transformation happening in core business operations—this is Enterprise Artificial Intelligence. The Founders of Noodle.ai Stephen Pratt, CEO of Noodle.ai, is a visionary leader with proven experience identifying growth-oriented areas for the Enterprise market. Stephen fundamentally believes that tomorrow’s executives will make better leaders with enabling AI solutions. The combination of human intelligence and artificial intelligence will be the winning team.
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AI supercomputers are serious business so the Noodle.ai team built The BEAST to support their clients. It’s a super computing AI platform that makes laptop data science feel like the computational equivalent of a slide rule. As early partners in NVIDIA’s Inception program, they are developing their core solutions in demand forecasting & pricing, inventory & logistics, customer engagement, and industrial operations, to take the full advantage of NVIDIA’s DGX-1. This is the same hardware which was recently used to build a supercomputer that ranks 1st in the world for its efficiency, and 28th for its speed. The Noodle.ai platform is delivered as a subscription – AIas-a-Service. This makes it easy for clients to get started, and also ensures that the focus is on delivering ongoing value. The subscription service covers all the costs for customizing and deploying a client’s production AI model,
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Benefitting Clients with Unmatched Solutions Noodle.ai has successfully created a very low risk way of experimenting with Enterprise AI. They offer services in a “snackable” way–AI-as-aService–so there’s no huge upfront investment in a platform or expensive one-time fees. Clients enjoy access to their top data scientists and super computing platform while they configure their core solutions to deploy
the client’s unique production AI engine. They are determined to deliver quantifiable bottom-line business results and expect their clients to enjoy 10x returns, minimally, on Noodle.ai engagements.
focused their early efforts in four areas that have a significant impact on every company’s bottom line, and are wellsuited for AI solutions: Demand Prediction & Pricing, Customer Engagement, Industrial Operations and Inventory & Logistics.
Through the Trailblazer’s Point of View
Future Perspectives
Stephen and Raj strongly believe that Artificial Intelligence technologies will be the most significant competitive differentiator in business over the next 3 to 5 years, touching nearly every vertical and function within the enterprise. At Noodle.ai they are tracking over 2,000 global startups in the AI space. They have
With the increase in demand for predictive services, they are ready to ramp up quickly to meet the challenge. They recently celebrated their one year Pi Day anniversary and are pleased to have achieved all of their first year headcount and revenue goals. They expect to finish this year with over 100 employees and a handsome portfolio of engagements. They are already
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from configuration, training, testing, and tuning to ongoing re-training and upgrades as Noodle.ai increases the predictive capability of their underlying core solutions.
ess the n r a h lp you e ise AI h r s p u r e t t e n L of E power
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pioneering the way companies will conduct business in the future, and are doing so with a team that is passionate about AI and focused on using AI for good.
Raj Joshi, President & COO Noodle.ai
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Stephen Pratt, CEO Noodle.ai
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QROi: Your Leading Telecom Service Provider
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he boom in the usage of smartphones and data intensive devices has amicably boosted up the number of mobile subscriptions, and networks have become the highways of data traffic to carry lower latency content with lightening fast speed. But there are numerous risks related to the technology transformation in a live network. To evade these risks, QROi has come up with unique solutions of providing technical consultancy services for mobile operators and vendors primarily in Asia but at the same time expanding to Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. Pioneering the Modern Mobile Communication Network Industry Founded in 2011, and supported by a core group of leading industry experts with experience dating back to the beginning of modern mobile communication networks, QROi has also established itself as one of the leading telecom service and technology solution providers in South East Asia. With more than 160 extraordinarily talented professionals in their team, they provide a full range of end-to-end services and technology solutions to telecom operators and all major telecom vendors. The Company’s Brainchild Having worked for more than 22 years in the telecom industry, both on the operator and vendor side, Helge Raitanen, Founder and Chairman of QROi decided to set up his own company to capitalize his management team and their network experience gained by working on various projects with different operators and vendors. Since 1989, Mr. Helge Raitanen has been providing his valuable contributions for the managerial and executive level positions with some of the globally renowned Telecom Operators and Vendors. Prior to setting up QROi, he has worked for some of the famous telecom network providing
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companies like: Turkcell, Telsim, Nokia Networks and TeliaSonera Eurasia, where he was the Group CTO, responsible for handling operations in seven countries – Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Nepal. Success is a Journey not a Destination Helge Raitanen and his team have extensive experience working in and with Telecom operators and vendors, especially in emerging markets. Starting from day one they had the understanding about their target customers, their needs, expectations and how to address them in a fast and robust way. This enabled them to make a quick access to business and become a big player in the industry in the tenure of six months after the company’s establishment following a sustainable growth in their business. With every step of success arises great challenges and responsibilities. Putting some light on differentiating the challenges and opportunities, Helge says; “Challenges are arising because operators are struggling to maintain Quality of Service while deploying an increasing number of technologies on multiple frequency bands and vendors are lacking capacity and capability to deliver the existing as well as new technologies in time and with quality.” “Opportunities are paving the path as QROi foresees great opportunities to be an end-to-end service and technology solution company to support operators and vendors at the time when they are extensively outsourcing the network’s development and operations.” Tailor-made Services and Solutions for Businesses QROi’s Services & Technology Solutions are divided into three areas: Technology Solutions, Business Solutions, and Deployment Solutions, together these make up what they
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Team Work is the Dream Work QROi’s Management Team consists of three former CTOs from the Asian Market and two experienced Network Architects with over 20 years of experience in the network industry. QROi has excellent access to world class experts through its wide and trustable network in the industry. With dedication and hardwork QROi has been able to ramp up any form of qualified service organization for customers in just a few months. They distinguish competition by offering tailor-made services & solutions, which are measured by the customer’s satisfaction quotient (KPIs, SLA
etc.) Typically their competitors are selling heads/consultants with no commitment to their deliverables and performance. QROi through its long term partners has acquired all the specialized tools for each service function. QROi is also cost competitive because they have low overheads and they only charge for actual deliverables. Recently QROi has successfully participated in the Mobile World Congress 2017 (for the second successive year) with its partners at QROi’s booth. While there they addressed the current and future hot topics in the industry: 5G, IoT and FTTX,
but their sole focus was on Bandwidth and Internet of Things. On the Way to be the Mogul in the Future QROi foresees its strength in concentrating on the emerging markets where they have extensive experience from the past 20 years. Their focus area is mainly in Asia but they have frequent requests to support different operators and vendors from Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. QROi has an ambition to become the trusted, end-to-end Service & Technology Solution provider company for mobile operators and vendors in their targeted market. In future QROi intends to have an operator as a customer which concentrates only on strategy, marketing and sales – QROi
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call is Network Modernization.
, ology n h c e te T s lgama a lution m o a S s s We ine es d Bus n a alleng t h n c e ’ s m r y to Deplo Opera ciency s ffi s e e r r i he to add rove t p m i to
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have eminent future plans to design, implement, operate and maintain the whole network on behalf of the customers. QROi’s stateof-the-art services and solutions makes them completely vendor and technology independent as they are unique with their services and technology solution offerings.
Helge Raitanen Founder & Chairman QROi
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Welcome Real Time: The Change Starts Here
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n the banking and payment industry, a big challenge is to help financial organisations run real-time loyalty and marketing programmes. To achieve this goal, Welcome Real Time came up with an innovative idea of providing tailor-made payment based solutions. Providing Loyalty Solutions Dedicated to the Client’s needs Welcome Real Time has developed and implemented its unique and award winning solutions for the banking and payment industry across five continents, for over 23 clients, resulting in more than 36 million customer accounts and over 1 million merchants. Their proven experience in developing customer engagement has helped their clients maximise both the number of active customers and the level of commitment, resulting in increased loyalty as well as revenues. Welcome Real Time is an expert in delivering payment based loyalty solutions enabling real-time earn & burn at the point of sale. Welcome Real Time solutions help their clients to build powerful insights into their own customers’ behavior. Financial organizations are then able to conduct more successful campaigns. The Torch Bearer of Welcome Real Time Thierry Reginato has more than 25 years of experience in software solutions and services dedicated to the financial industry. He started his career as a consultant working with Gemalto and MasterCard where he developed a solid expertise in electronic payment solutions. Passionate about technology & innovation, more particularly software and their application in the everyday life, he joined Welcome Real Time where he held several positions. Appointed as Product Manager and then Head of Professional Services, he led the Welcome Real Time loyalty software implementation for most of the international clients with teams deployed in France, Singapore and Brazil. Member
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of the Executive Committee and leading the Business and Operations activities, he contributed to major strategic changes of the company. He was appointed as a General Manager in May 2015. Welcome Real Time brand now ranks high in the market of loyalty solutions for financial services, thanks to the expertise of the teams and to its award-winning technology. An agile company When you’re covering a lot of countries, there is always a risk to consider each market as a part of a whole and to “harmonize” the way of doing. Thanks to the teams’ deep knowledge and clear vision of the payment specificities, the team player mentality, Welcome Real Time could easily gather resources and enthusiasm to interact successfully with clients’ particular business models and to build up strong and reliable relationships. XLS: The Revolutionary Product Welcome Real Time’s vision of creating an out-of-the-box solution, has given birth to an award winning solution i.e XLS (eXtended Loyalty System), a versatile and futureproof platform that enables financial organizations to deliver real-time rewards to their customers. XLS belongs to the market of Payment-Integrated Value-Added Services (PIVAS) categorized by Gartner. Basically, XLS relies on three key differentiators to set it apart from competitors: XLS enables loyalty to be fully integrated with payment. The payment card or payment method becomes the customer identifier which provides customers with a seamless experience as payment and loyalty happens in one single gesture. XLS enables customers to earn and redeem rewards in realtime, at the moment of payment,building loyalty towards
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XLS integrates with front-end portals or apps and back-end legacy systems through a suite of APIs, allowing a faster go-tomarket. Putting Loyalty as the Heart of every Payment Option Welcome Real Time puts loyalty at the heart of every payment interaction. Today, the opportunities of adding loyalty to payment are everywhere. But for every payment method that wants to differentiate itself
from others, it has to bring real-time earn and burn of rewards into reality. Several challenges also evolve with the growing technology, particularly the challenge linked to tokenization or the use of a token instead of a card number. For Welcome Real Time, this challenge boils down to ensuring that any payment method or token can be linked back to a stable and consistent customer identifier. This is a prerequisite to reward customers based on their
number of visits or cumulative spend at a merchant site during a certain period. Future Perspectives At Welcome Real Time, they believe mPOS devices are poised to earn a significant market share of the point of sale terminals. Being loyal to its motto, and to put loyalty at the heart of every payment interaction, Welcome Real Time has extended its XLS loyalty solution to new channels such as the mobile POS devices. XLS / mPOS allows real-time earn and burn of rewards on this new generation of payment terminals and makes it easy for mPOS providers to roll out loyalty features on their devices. Banks are increasing the customers’ engagement in their loyalty programme and merchants deploying mPOS devices has resulted in the ultimate increase of
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the merchant and the bank which runs the loyalty programme.
y loyalt l u f r we ide po v ou run o y r p p l e e h W at and ons th i t u yalty l o o l s e s -tim e real amme r v i g t o c r e eff ting p marke
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traffic, average purchase amount, and revenues. Since 5th April, 2016, Welcome Real Time has partnered with AEVI (Wincor Nixdorf spin off) to merge payment and loyalty into their newly launched Albert mPOS devices and market place. Welcome Real Time continues to monitor the changes of both the payment and loyalty industries while remaining a key partner for financial institutions willing to be ahead of the competition. Thierry Reginato General Manager Welcome Real Time
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