The 20 pathbreaking brands to watch in 2018 by Insights Success Media

www.insightssuccess.in JANUARY 2018

The way of business solutions

Editorial

rand building is a time taking task as planning, strategizing, and money needs lot of patience; this is unwritten rule followed by some of the biggest brands in the world. Steve Jobs, Founder of the most well-known software and hardware company- Apple, the name was simply given as it sounded simple, spirited and fun. The rest is history! Recalling a brand as verb is absolutely an incredible compliment for any company, illustrating the unsaid real connection between a company and the consumers. In this contemporary world, businesses got diﬀerent strategies to attract customers and their branding style depends on diﬀerent ways- a nifty logo and a catchy name, considered symbol of cruciality which evoke passion among customers in the long run. Think of how instantly you recognize a Car when you take just a look at its symbol. As the face is to human, logo is to a company endure the importance. Because whenever you advertise your company, a logo or symbol, which simply a graphic design but a strong and crisp sign to remember a company, which leave longing desired impression on customer.

Brand which is Need and Deed to the Imperium of the Company

What next! Branding creates trust. Professionalism is part of every sphere if you want to own an organization or you be a part of an organization. So professional appearance form credibility and trust to every client and consumer. There is always an inclination towards buying or dealing a thing if it appears legitimate or polished. Branding supports advertising, as it is another component of your brand. Both the means picked and demographic targeted for advertisements builds a brand. Lesser an advertising focus, consequence is company becomes pigeon hole. So a balanced advertising is always needed that could have a definable impression of the company on the minds of customers. Branding builds obviously a financial value, the companies who trade on stock exchange publicly are valued much more. And much of its value comes with the brand of the company. More a company devotes its time to build a brand value, better the financial return from its clients. As Branding gets elaborated, its an aid to your referral business. How do you refer a friend about your new shoes if you don’t remember the brand! This gives the weightage to the word ‘brand’ as it goals for an indelible impression. In short, brand is a word which is advertising source, word of mouth referrals for a company and small or large, a company becomes moughal and widens its empire by building a strong brand. As the most profitable advertising source, word of mouth referrals are only possible in a situation where your company has delivered a memorable experience with your customer. The most profitable companies, small and large, have a single thing in common. They have established themselves as a leader in their particular industry by building a strong brand.

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Senior Editor Shraddha Deshpande Managing Editor Sachin Bhandare Co-Editors Abhinav Chandrayan Poulami Das Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Co-designer Poonam Mahajan Picture Editor Alex Noel Art Editor Aparna Vanzul Visualiser Sapana Shinde Business Development Manager Akansha Garewal Marketing Manager Dhruv Apte Business Development Executives Daneshwar, Rutuja, Priyanka Research Analyst David Circulation Manager Vivek Database Management Prashant Technology Consultant Swapnil Patil sales@insightssuccess.com

January, 2018 Corporate Ofď&#x20AC; ces: Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd. Off. No. 513 & 510, 5th Flr., Rainbow Plaza, Shivar Chowk, Pimple Saudagar, Pune, Maharashtra 411017 Phone - India: 020-69400110, 111, 112 Email: info@insightssuccess.in For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.in

Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.com

Copyright ÂŠ 2017 Insights Success, All rights reserved. The content and images used in this magazine should not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Insights Success. Reprint rights remain solely with Insights Success. Printed and Published by Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd.

Contents A

TECH INSIDER

The 4 Disruptive Trends to watch in India 2018

TECH INNOVTION

One of the Fastest Growing Technologies Internet of Things (IoT)

Effective Talent Management Building Tomorrow's Winning Organizations View points

FUTURE OF BUSINESS

Choice International Limited: One Stop Solution to All the Financial Needs

INTERVIEW WITH INSIGHTS SUCCESS

26 SareStates:

Making Real Estate Easy

The Global Specialist in Energy Management and Automation

Its About Real

Energy Tech

50 How Branding has Evolved with Time!

Various Factors that Affect Marketing

Market Trends

60 Signiď&#x20AC; cance of Building a Brand for an Organisation

Finance Factors

74 Top Valuable Brands in the Data Economy

Agarwal Estates:

Digital Indya:

Captivating the Trust and Luxury with the Transparent Real Estate Services

Making Business look Awesome

34 BlackPepper Technologies: Exemplifying its Best in Semiconductor Industry with Exceptional end to end system design

Arraystorm:

Droom:

Delivering Innovative, Exciting, and Practical Solutions

Transforming Automobile Industry with Innovative Solutions

36 CAGRfunds: A Full-Fledged Fintech Solution Provider

32 Aurelius Corporate Solutions: Providing Top-notch Consultative Learning and Training Solutions

48 EssaySunday: Connecting Professionals with their Future

Interactive Bees:

Shivam Medisoft:

A Classic Blend of Creativity and Revolutionary Ideas Coupled with Cutting Edge Technology

Most Trusted and Recognised Hospital Management Providers

64 Revuesoft Solutions: Providing Innovative and Customized Software SolutionsGlobally

76 Tarah Technologies:

Maple Consulting and Services:

Offers Best of Breed Solutions in Big Data, Business Analytics and Digital Technologies

Integrating People, HR Practices and Technology for Optimal Business Results

70 Rigil Biotech: Restoring Indian's Health with an Ideal SweetenerStevi0cal 'Naturally Sweet'

78 MariApps:

Zebronics:

A Forerunner in Marine Enterprise Solutions

Catering Most Sound and Preferred IT peripherals

Brandings’ Evolving Importance, Giving Customers Personalised Experience

eyond just a memorable logo, what a company chase for is good branding which is a plus point to increase the value of a company. How a simple company becomes a brand? When, in an integrated form, company’s customer service, advertising, reputation and logo start to work well and when one company no more needs to invest at advertising still first at the customer’s pick. In accordance with our selection tradition, the 20 Pathbreaking Brands to watch in 2018 are the firms which assures its customers and clients best-in-class services as their main focus is on delivering innovative and sustainable solutions which effectively meet the ultimate needs of clients in a cost-effective manner with personalized experience. On our Cover, from some of the best brands, Choice International Limited is picked, as it is a full service financial firm, founded with a vision to create new benchmarks in financial services industry. Choice offers Investment Banking, Broking & Distributuon and Management Consulting services to its clients. Choice International’s some of the unmatched services are “Broking and Distribution: One stop financial hub, for your investment needs, Management Consulting: Helping Companies to successfully navigate in turbulent Business Environement, Investment Banking: Assisting in Fund Raising, Valuations and Strategic Planning.” We are delighted to have some of the expertise sharing their valuable views: Naman Singhal, Co-founder at 3Dexter who is sharing some key points on Various Factors that Affect Marketing. Nikhil Jain who is Co-Founder at CredR, describes the Significance of Building a Brand for an Organisation. Ashish Tandon is the Managing Director of Egis in India unflods How Branding has Evolved with Time! Atul Gunjal, is Co-founder and CEO of IWORKTECH, expound Top Valuable Brands in the Data Economy. Asif Upadhye is the Chief Fun Officer of Never Grow Up explains the brand value with the article titled, Not Just Another Number Game, Please. Hope it is value adding experience to your read.

TODAY Never Miss an

Issue

Yes I would like to subscribe to Insights Success Magazine. Global Subscription 1 Year.......... (12 Issues) .... Rs. 2500

6 Months ..... (06 Issues) .... Rs. 1300

3 Months .... (03 Issues) ....

1 Month ...... (01 Issue) .....

Rs. 700

Rs. 250

Date :

Name : Address :

Telephone : Email :

City :

State :

Zip :

Country :

Cheque should be drawn in favour of : INSIGHTS SUCCESS MEDIA AND TECH PVT. LTD.

CORPORATE OFFICE Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd. Ofď&#x20AC; ce No. 513 & 510, 5th Floor, Rainbow Plaza, Shivar Chowk, Pimple Saudagar, Pune, Maharashtra 411017. Phone - India: 020-69400110 | USA: 302-319-9947 Email: info@insightssuccess.in

Management

Brief

Agarwal Estates agarwalestates.com

Manoj Agarwal Founder

Agarwal Estates, a one-stop, all solutions – real estate service provider, has expertise in varied aspects of real estate business such as, real estate investments, buying, selling, renting property, property and tenant management, home loans, home decors and interiors and more.

Arraystorm Lighting Pvt Ltd arraystorm.com

Pradyoth Raj Varma Founder & CEO Pradyoth Raj Varma Founder & CEO

Arraystorm is a company which focuses on the LED lighting business, and aims at delivering custom designed, high quality and high value products to people and places worldwide.

Aurelius Corporate Solutions Private Limited aurelius.in

Sumit Peer Founder & CEO

Aurelius Corporate Solutions has carved its place in the domain of consultative learning and training solutions for both corporate clients and end users.

BlackPepper Technologies Pvt. Ltd. blackpeppertech.com

Hari Krishnan Puravankara Founder & CEO

BlackPepper Technologies is a full ﬂedged silicon and system player providing diﬀerentiated product engineering capabilities for global semiconductor & system companies.

CAGRfunds cagrfunds.com

Vikash Agarwal Co-founder

CAGRfunds is a fintech company which offer services namely CAGR Basket, Goal base investing, Quick invest, Transact in just few clicks, Comprehensive report, End to end financial planning.

Choice International Limited

choiceindia.com

Kamal Poddar Managing Director

Choice International Limited is a full service financial firm, founded with a vision to create new benchmarks in financial services industry. Choice offers Investment Banking, Broking & Distributuon and Management Consulting services to its clients.

Digital Indya digitalindya.com

Sandeep Dabas Founder Director

Digital Indya is an independent, integrated digital agency.

Droom

droom.in

Sandeep Aggarwal Founder & CEO

Droom enables transactions between buyers and sellers by bringing transparency, building trust and mitigating information asymmetry.

EssaySunday Consulting essaysunday.com

Prashant Tibrewal Founder

EssaySunday is an online application consulting service experienced in helping students apply to post-graduate programs across the globe.

Inteliment Technologies India Pvt. Ltd. inteliment.com

Prashant Pansare Managing Director

Inteliment is recognized as a leading provider of Data Driven Analytical Solutions & Services in Visual & Predictive Analytics, Data Science, IoT, Mobility & Artiﬁcial Intelligence areas.

Company Name

Management

Brief

Interactive Bees interactivebees.com

Monica Gupta Director

Interactive Bees is a smart and interactive solution provider company in New Delhi, India which brings together a classic blend of creativity, revolutionary ideas coupled with cutting edge technology.

Leadle Consulting leadle.in

Harinie Sekaran CEO

Leadle Consulting is a data driven sales organization focused on achieving maximum selling potential.

Maple Consulting and Services maplecs.com

Anil Raikundlia Co-founder & Executive Director

Maple Consulting & Services provides cAmprehensive HR Solution capabilities for a wide range of industries and verticals.

MariApps Marine Solutions mariapps.com

Sankar Ragavan Founder & CEO

MariApps Marine Solutions is a Bernhard Schulte company, oﬀering state of the art marine enterprise solutions for Ship managers and Ship Owners and is a pioneer in oﬀering digital solutions to the marine industry.

Revuesoft Solutions India Pvt. Ltd. revuesoft.com

Krishnakanth V Chairman & Managing Director

Revuesoft Solutions (India) is a software and product development company providing innovative and customized software solutions and customer support to global clients in various domains.

Rigil Biotech Pvt. Ltd. steviocal.com

Shivendra Srivastava Managing Director

Rigil Biotech oﬀers, low calorie natural sweeteners for various applications.

Shivam Medisoft Services Jaikishan Ramakrishnan Pvt Ltd CEO shivammedisoft.com

Shivam Medisoft’s HMS (Hospital Management System) software application covers the entire operations of a Hospital/Clinic including Financial Accounting. This can be used by single hospital/clinic to multi-speciality hospital and also by multi-location hospitals.

Tarah Technologies tarah.ai

Neelima Vobugari CEO Srinivas Padmanabhuni CTO

Tarah Technologies is a Big Data and Machine Learning Consultancy ﬁrm focusing on Competency Development.

Value Prospect Consulting valueprospects.in

Abhishek Tyagi CEO

Value Prospect provides end to end services from Database Marketing, Demand Generation, and Digital Marketing.

Rajesh Doshi Director

Zebronics is a Multimedia Speaker, IT Peripherals, LED TV, Air Coolers & Surveillance Solutions brand with a mission to provide products which are Great on design, performance yet so easy on pocket, that every household in the country can aﬀord.

Zebronics zebronics.com

The Global Specialist in Energy Management and Automation

chneider Electric develops connected technologies and solutions to manage energy and process in ways that are safe, reliable, eﬃcient and sustainable. The Group invests in R&D in order to sustain innovation and diﬀerentiation, with a strong commitment to sustainable development.

In an exclusive chat with Mr. Anil Chaudhry, India’s current Country President and Managing Director of Schneider Electric India, we discuss about the current initiatives and the future endeavors at Schneider Electric India. This Interview is sure to give you a whole new perspective and insight into one of the most decorated Energy Providers in the world. Elaborate on Schneider Electric India Private Limited and the services provided by you. At Schneider Electric (SE) our goal is to ensure ‘Life Is On’ for everyone, everywhere, at every moment. We do so by delivering connected energy and efficiency solutions in more than 100 countries. In India, we offer our services and solutions through Schneider Electric India Pvt. Ltd. (SEI). We innovate to promote sustainable development. More than 20 million people have benefited from the Company’s Access-to-Energy offers via our diverse products and services in Energy and Automation. The Company’s mission is to serve customers by developing innovative products and solutions that help simplify the lives of users. We harness the power and promise of the Internet of Things (IoT) to reshape cities, improve industries, and enrich lives. Schneider Electric technologies transform the places where people live, work, and play. To Schneider Electric, ‘Life Is On’ when it is energised, efficient, and connected. By driving energy efficiency across the markets, SE helps in solving the energy paradox: curbing global energy demand while simultaneously closing the energy gap throughout rural communities. Brief us about the CEO/Founder of Schneider Electric India Private Limited. Schneider Electric, was founded in 1836 by Eugène Schneider. Schneider Electric’s present CEO and Chairman & CEO is Jean-Pascal Tricoire. Schneider Electric India does not have any founder since it is the Indian arm of Schneider Electric, France. Anil Chaudhry is Schneider Electric India’s current Country President and Managing Director. What benefits are your clients receiving from the company in the competitive world of Industry? As one of the leading global specialists in energy management and automation, we support our clients via a diverse range of products and services, promoting innovative solutions that help drive sustainable development in 20

January 2018

Interview with Insights Success

January 2018

Mr. Anil Chaudhry MD

eal Estate Industry is synonymous with distrust. Consumers do not trust it, and working professional do not see it as a good career choice.

criticism by peers for adhering to a transparent business model and sluggish growth for valuing ethics over business - made the initial journey bit diﬃcult.

Agarwal Estates want to “Redeﬁne” the “Trust” in real estate services market in India by investing in professional process management including world class documentation practices, standardisation, checklist and processes which are unheard in the industry. Manoj Agarwal, Managing Director of Agarwal Estates, with his rich experience in PMP, ITIL and Six sigma have helped tremendously in ushering the changes; and incorporated his learnings and experiences in buiding a robust system that can function seamlessly.

But Agarwal Estates persisted; and their eﬀorts and steadfast focus on ethics helped them build a steady and loyal clientele. They managed to grow in all verticals: Home Loan (crores saved), Interiors (over 100 homes done), Managing 230+ properties and Real Estate Investments. Agarwal Estates was provided an unheard rating of 4.8 from their customers in Facebook, awarded the Best Performer by Alchemy and rated as “25 Most Promising Real Estate Consultants 2015” and in 2016 by Consultant Review, India’s leading Consulting magazine. They are CRISIL veriﬁed and listed among the “10 Most Valuable Real Estate Solutions Provider Companies” by leading magazines like Consultant Review and Insights Success.

The company further wants to be transparent and share all the information with their custonmers to empower them with enough information to make informed decisions. A Journey from Criticism to Appreciation

Manoj Bringing the Change in Real Estate Industry

People usually do not trust the real estate industry due to lack of transparency and rampant corruption, and this initially acted as a hurdle for Agarwal Estates. In addition, constant

Prior to becoming the Managing Director and Promoter of the company, Manoj Agarwal worked with top IT MNCs across the world. Throughout his extensive career,

Manoj’s focus was on implementing processes, service delivery and standardisation of methodologies in IT services globally. Agarwal Estates has introduced the hitherto rare and unheard end-to-end solutions for the real estates services customers - a definite first for the real estate industry. They also applied the benchmarks of IT recruitment in choosing a team for Agarwal Estates. The core team comprises of domain specialists with widespread crossdomain exposure and expertise. The workforce is skilled, talented and experienced. Agarwal Estates spent almost zero budget on advertising, but word of mouth and support of existing customers pushed them forward. Transparency is the Core Value of Agarwal Estates Agarwal Estates’ core value is Transparency, and the organization is totally transparent in their dealings. It provides world class services to the customers just like the major organizations do and invests in professional process management. Agarwal Estates offer one stop, all solutions for real estate services. Over the years, Agarwal Estates has

January 2018

Manoj Agarwal

“

Our aim is to revolutionize the experience of the real estate service market in India and it has already begun; we have a track record of delivering high-quality services – transparently and on time

Managing Director

delivered quality services in the areas of real estate investment, property and tenant management, home loans, home interiors, amongst others. The KEY is to Empower the Customers Being a transparent organization, Agarwal Estates empower their customers through their Customer Awareness Program. The company staunchly believe in the concept of KEY, which denotes ‘Knowledge Empowers You.’ They endeavour to make this a DNA of the company, and provide their customers with all the relevant information to assist them in choosing properties, saving time and money.

Sharing the Experience Manoj has Gained Manoj’s advice to young entrepreneurs is to “never give up your dreams, and dream big. Every risk you take will turn into an opportunity, and every failure will lay the foundation for a roaring success. Your eﬀorts, passion and belief will help you tread ahead even in the darkest of the time. Never ever do anything unethical and compromise on your values.” “And always remember there will be thousands to discourage you and paint a picture of dismal future, but there will be few who will always encourage and support you – so keep your well-wishers near,” he adds.

Manoj has utilized his extensive experience in process implementation, service delivery and standard methodologies to suit the requirements of real estate services market in India. The company has simpliﬁed the complex process, and made it seamless and easy for their customers. This has helped them in delivering high quality services - on time - and also enabled them to successfully launch the concept of ‘All we need is your autograph.’

January 2018

he success of every organization depends on how innovatively it is using futuristic technology to bring value to the customers. Using creative ideas and advanced business solutions is a key factor towards its growth and prosperity. One such organization is ‘Arraystorm’ which focuses on the LED lighting business, and aims at delivering custom designed, high quality and high value products to people and places worldwide. The name ‘Arraystorm’ comes from the term Array (LEDs are made out of Arrays of Diodes). The company wanted a name which relates to the work it does. Secondly, it had a clear vision that it would like to storm the LED world with its Innovative Intelligent solutions. The company’s byline– ‘Sense the Future’ comes from its vision of using the most innovative and Futuristic technology today to bring value to its customers. The company started in 2013 with the focus on futuristic trends. It aimed at high quality and futuristic product designs. It also looked at adding intelligence and invested in RND and software platforms to manage lighting and get into IoT connected lighting

space indigenously. Arraystorm offers a complete range of LED lightings for commercial indoor spaces, retail spaces, and industrial spaces combined with connected IoT Lights using complete wireless lighting control systems and sensors. It is in the B2B segment of the business and handles green field and brown field projects for lights. Dedication towards Customer Experience The greatest strength of Arraystorm has been its commitment to giving

customers the best Lighting Experience and bringing out innovative IoT Lighting products and cloud platform. It delivers the best lighting output which gives the guaranteed required light and also is soft to their eyes. Its future plans also are driven by these two pillars. It is currently the No. 1 IoT Lighting Company in India and wants to expand its presence globally. Arraystorm has many brand promises which distinguish it from others. All its products have 5 years warranty. Its products have original designs which

are not available anywhere in the world. It also offers lighting intelligence which is completely wireless and easy to install. The company makes everything in India with pride. An Arduous Journey to Success In this world of cutthroat competition, a new unknown brand like Arraystorm had a lot of pressure to compete. Its clear vision and passion to give the best to customers and educating the customer were very painful and difficult. Initially, it lost for not compromising its values. However, its firm commitment to its passion paid off and it is proud to have many repeat customers of very large brands over 3 years’ time. Insightful Leadership Pradyoth Raj Varma, the Founder, and CEO of Arraystorm, leads the company to the heights of success. He has vast experience in the field of LED lighting. He has provided his services to many companies like Wipro Lighting and Videocon. He has undertaken various Six Sigma Projects and has vast knowledge and efficiency in areas like logistics, supply chain, and CRM. His grasp of logistics, supply chain management, and CRM is unequalled. Pradyoth is a B. Tech from

January 2018

“

Our mission is to conquer the grey, and completely change the public perception of light Pradyoth Raj Varma Founder and CEO

NIT and completed his ‘Management Development Program’ from IIM Ahmedabad. Constant Efficiency Improvement The company aims to improve efficiency by very good detailed planning, discipline of implementation of the strategy and taking up tasks which are in line with its vision. It conducts personnel planning with a tool called Evernote and prioritizes tasks on a daily basis. Also, every team member does a weekly plan. Every department does their planning in different ways suitable to their operations, like, Product design and RND follow MPP (Microsoft project Planning) tool, Factory and Operations use a tool called KissFlow, and Sales uses a tool called Pipedrive. It aims at creating a culture to plan. Weekly reviews are conducted on Monday to ensure that the task gets done. This is done one on one with functional

January 2018

heads. Secondly, another weekly review is conducted where the complete leadership teams meet together and have a joint common goal to achieve as a team and not individual functional goals. This has helped tremendously to give a cross functional push to achieve goals eﬃciently. It decides what it wants to do and what it doesn’t to keep its focus on Strategy clear and its Vision in Site. Faith is Critical for Success Pradyoth advises budding entrepreneurs that strong belief in oneself is very critical to achieving success. He suggests them to build a great team and sacriﬁce their interests for the team. Only a good team can build businesses. Entrepreneurs should ask their team what needs to be done. They should always think what is good for their customer. They should build relationships with customer, vendor, partners, and employees. They will help and grow businesses. They should have great respect for everyone, big or small.

SARESTATES: Making Real Estate Easy S

areStates Realty Advisors, an organization which is driven by extensively experienced professionals who are extremely passionate about Real Estate and have a very strong belief in their customer centric approach. At SareStates, they encourage and practice their core values which are to implement all of their eﬀorts and expertise in providing personalized guidance to their customers, to understand, anticipate, and satisfy their needs and expectations in a timely, cost-eﬀective and value-added manner both as a company and as individuals. In an exclusive chat with Mr Sanjit Sharma, AVP of SareStates, we discuss about the current initiatives and the future endeavors at SareStates. This Interview is sure to give you a whole new perspective and insight into one of the most decorated Real Estate Industry in the world. ·

Brief us something about SareStates and the services provided by you.

An organization which is driven by comprehensively proﬁcient experts

who are exceptionally passionate about Real Estate and have a very strong belief in the customer centric approach is SareStates Realty Advisors Pvt. Ltd. (formerly known as Way2Wealth Realty Advisors Pvt. Ltd was a part of Café Coffee Day Group). The company was instigated by Mr. Amit Choudhury, who has been cultivating the brand since 2012. With his impeccable experience in Indian Real Estate and Financial Services sector, Amit decided to coup Way2Wealth Realty because he believes that India real estate region is completely fluctuating from unorganized to organized market. Amit along with his pro passionate team of experts and proactive market leaders are confidently heading towards driving SareStates to the Epitome of Success. From Individuals to Corporates, Investors to Expats, SareStates is expertly specialized in all kinds of real estate requirements pertaining to housing, local market know-how combined with robust processes, a sturdy in-house research team, independent experienced Indian leadership team and healthy

relationships with clients and developers alike are the mainstays of the enterprise services. The variety of services includes: Residential and Commercial Property Advisory, Mortgage Advisory and Debt Restructuring, Real Estate Valuation and Research, Property Management. ·

Brief us about the AVP of SareStates.

Sanjit Sharma, AVP – Real Estate of SareStates Realty Advisors is a neoteric, thinker &architect by his virtue and is also one of the most admired individuals in the arena of a multidisciplinary advisory. He is well known for his inﬂuential role in the meadows of Real Estate – Sales & marketing Services with over 16 years of his vast experience in Real Estate vertical. He meticulously believes in the maxim stated by Louis Glikman as, “The Best Investment On earth Is Earth” which drives him day and night to work continuously towards upliftment and betterment of Real Estate and in the process achieving greater heights. Sanjit Sharma is an

January 2018

Interview with Insights Success

Sanjit Sharma AVP of SareStates January 2018

Achievement-oriented professional with 16 years of experience in Sales & Marketing, Customer Support, and Channel Management who has proved his metal across the globe and has participated in Real Estate Betterment and development through his cross cultural experience in promoting Indian Real Estate across Dubai, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Australia & others. ·

What beneﬁts your clients are getting from your company in the competitive world of Industry?

SareStates strongly claims about its services that, “We stand responsible for all our transactions and stay dedicated towards all our clients and partners. Our approach speaks louder than our words; we bridge the gap between our clients and our partners by creating clear, transparent and value deals.” “We at SareStates, work day and night towards our common goal and objective which is to become the most proﬁtable leader in the commercial, retail and residential real estate. Our vision is to serve our clients and fulﬁll their needs by consistently producing

and managing developments of lasting value to the community. We recognize the need to be ﬂexible, entrepreneurial, and aggressive, both as individuals and as an organization. We believe in teamwork, innovation, professionalism, and long-term decision-making. We endeavor to preserve and enhance our reputation for integrity through all our actions” and that's how SareStates strongly perceive its goals.

which they have been viewing for Trust, Belief &Ownership of its Investors. According to Us, “challenges are just ladders that help you successfully achieve your dreams. Live and Overcome Them To Succeed!”

SareStates always had a very focused and unbiased approach which gyrates around its core values of riving the Indian Real Estate towards being the most esteemed sector built on pillars of honesty, trust, transparency, quality, affordability and customer gratification. A numerous regulatory and ndustry specific expansions which drove us to establish the venture, few of among them is the introduction of RERA – The Game Changer to their vast Indian Real Estate Market, which will not only create transparency but also protect the interest of all the equity holders in the entire supply chain like developer, buyer and intermediary. SareStates strongly claims about its services that, “We stand responsible for all our transactions and stay dedicated

What kind of industrial as well as regulatory level challenges do you face today?

SareStates assists and guides its clients to form a robust real estate portfolio by assuring that the client makes the best returns on their investment. They oﬀer clients a dedicated consultation packaged with study and analytics done by its unbiased team of extremely experienced, proactive and mastered real estate brains. With a new set of regulators coming in, everyone faces challenges of adaptability, but for SareStates, they have been following the same right from the inception and have been very successful in winning the awards

What kind of ‘out-of-the-box’ strategies SareState is providing for diﬀering from the competitors?

January 2018

towards all our clients and partners. Our approach speaks louder than our words; we bridge the gap between our clients and our partners by creating clear, transparent and value deals.” SareStates stands dedicated & stays accountable by consistently managing developments of lasting value to the community. Whenever SareStates engages with its clients they put their all great professional excellence and standards for achieving goals of the project they handle. They endeavor to go beyond the potentials of its customers by anticipating, understanding and responding applicable to their requirements. SareStates stands by example and stays accountable for each and every business done through them by any individual. It provides a 360-degree solution to all its clients which make sure that the client doesn’t have to pursue assistance from a number of advisors. ·

How do you see the current state of industries?

The budding future of real estate lies at the decussating of coped logistics and platform technologies that power data science, artiﬁcial intelligence and mobile technology. Real estate truly began its revolution when technology companies focused on cracking information to empower consumers to create more conversant purchase decisions. Currently, we are getting the ﬁrst glimpses into Real Estate’s future. The next level is about transformative corporate models that

January 2018

absolutely redefine real estate acquisition and management from the ground up. Driven by technological furtherance in logistics technology, artificial intelligence, and data science, it’s now possible to scale boots-on-the-ground actions with robust back-office systems in real estate and purvey a completely new customer experience to buy or rent real estate. ·

Where is your company going? What excites you more about the future?

Focus and direction of eﬀorts towards clients by understanding, anticipating, and satisfying all their needs and expectations in a timely, cost-eﬀective and value-added manner is the main approach of the company and they are consciously doing it. SareStates encourages and rewards entrepreneurial behavior, leading by example, prudent risk-taking; and seek to evolve an atmosphere of esteem and empowerment for all its employees. Development is incomplete without training, by knowing this SareStates encourage and support all its employees to realize their full professional potential by providing training and educational programs to nurture technical, project management, interpersonal, communication, and leadership skills. Also, they seek and share all information necessary and relevant to justify their jobs at the best of their ability. SareStates recognizes the modern state of Real Estate is in the retrieval way and is experiencing an

evolution period from unorganized and ungoverned to an extremely organized, governed and controlled sector. The current state will support and transform the same with burdens of transparency pouring in. But at the same time, the need of the hour will be to educate the masses, real estate consultants, developers and government officers on RERA to avoid and erase confusions, misconceptions about RERA. “The faster we do the better will be for our industry,” and like that SareStates works. The company is functioning towards a goal which is to benefit the community through its ethical and dedicated approach. They are forming momentum by increasing its real estate portfolio, by engaging and associating with more and more ethical and trustworthy developers. Apart from that, SareStates is going to unveil its exclusive mortgage aggregator website www.sareloans.com, which will make loan process smarter, better and faster. For future, SareStates is enhancing its clients and investor roots by bringing smiles which give them happiness and peace of mind. They proudly see the vision of getting into the league of the elite and the largest Real Estate broking and consulting firms.

t’s hard to imagine going hours without using any sort of common technology in the course of our daily lives, but that’s exactly what happens in many learning sectors. While education technology has grown as a field over the past few years, many organizations struggle with adopting new technology. Seeing this, Aurelius Corporate Solutions came with its main line of business being a Knowledge Solutions Integrator (KSI) offering Consultative Learning Solutions across 40+ domains ranging from IT and Non IT across 30 Countries. These are customized endto-end in nature and are tailored made, to fit exactly into the client’s requirements. Aurelius was incorporated in the year 2009 with its Registered Office in New Delhi. The company has its Head Office in Noida and Branch Office in Bangalore and Pune. Today, Aurelius is engaged with 500+ top of the line corporate nationally and internationally and adding more customers, 40 plus domains, newer technologies as the need for customized end to end CLS is immense. Aurelius’s New, Agile and Hybrid Approach towards Learning What makes Aurelius stand out is their approach to the market which is brand new, vibrant agile and new age hybrid, this creates enormous challenges for them and also generates tons of learning and experience archives for the company which is IPR in a way.

Inﬂuential Leader of Aurelius Sumit Peer is Founder & CEO of Aurelius Corporate Solutions. Sumit brings over 19 years of experience and holds an expertise in high end technology sales. With over 10 years plus of international work experience in US, Singapore and Europe, he holds a post-graduation in sales, marketing & advertising management and general management from the University of Cornell USA (Ivy League).

Key Values that Helped Overcome the Challenges Aurelius believes in developing its linkages with its customers, based on shared trust and confidence, backed by highest standards of service to ensure delivery of effective and specially designed solutions in a time-bound and effective manner. They believe in the dictum that “Together We Can and We Will” and this continues to be the beacon light.

Sumit has sheer domain expertise and impeccable record in system sales of Satellite/Telecom products and Infrastructure projects, experience of P&L handing ranges to multi million dollars and team size of hundreds across nationalities and cultures, which includes travel to 60 plus countries for business multiple times. This has and will further help Aurelius to be competent enough in today’s world.

Innovation by Aurelius, Highly Acclaimed and Accepted by the Industry To showcase one such innovation, Aurelius helped TCS with HighJump Warehouse Advantage (HJWA). Though TCS has a large market share in the domain of supply chain management and warehouse management, TCS was facing fierce competition in this segment. Thus, TCS decided to endorse HJWA system which was a highly effective management system but to implement the system effectively, TCS required skilled professionals.

Aurelius Compete with OEMs According to Aurelius, they are not a typical traditional training company rather a new age Knowledge Solutions Integrator where they solve business needs and ﬁll the gap in the marketplace. Their approach to a learning solution is entirely diﬀerent from that of a typical trainings company hence Aurelius doesn’t really compete with them. 90 percent of the times, Aurelius ends up competing with the OEMs only. Though that does not limit the company as OEMs have their own focus areas and preferences business wise; learning solutions is not what they want to do principally.

Aurelius conducted an entire training program which was customized up-to level 3 and above, with the aim of providing a combination of theory and hands-on-expertise to make the team in TCS industry ready and eﬃcient. The training was delivered in real-time with classroom sessions including practical hands-on lab classes and extensive query and doubt clearing sessions. Post the training session, the team in TCS was empowered to eﬀectively January 2018

“

We are a one stop shop for all technologies related learning needs and skills across the globe, domains, demographics irrespective of mode and medium of delivery. Sumit Peer Founder & CEO implement High Jump Warehouse for globalized and diversified manufacturing and supply chain elements. TCS has retained its position in the market of supply chain and warehouse management with increased efficiency and effectiveness. Solving Every Business Needs of Client Aurelius’ business model is extremely transparent, their learning solutions have a direct return on investment and a great ‘Internal rate of return’ on every penny spent for customers. Clients are benefited as Aurelius helps in solving business needs around technology and its implementation, irrespective of the domains or types of businesses. The company has worked with multiple customers in the learning industry and developed acceptability within many segments. Emerged Success with Ideal KSI ACS is a first of its kind KSI knowledge solutions integrator, to derive maximum mileage and IRR within minimum set of things. There is a huge challenge and struggle as the technology market is governed and controlled by OEM’s who by design are not learning companies, their job is to sell their bundled hardware and

January 2018

software and move the technology life cycles faster. There were no structured approach present to solve that problem, and hence, the need of the hour was a hybrid between a traditional training company and an IT Company /integrator which will address this need globally for all business irrespective of their size and budget to spend. This can be G2000, SME, INSTITUTIONS or corporate and professionals as well. With great research, the company found it was an enormous market but needed different approach so Aurelius fulfilled this gap and flagged the success. Enlightening Budding Entrepreneur We all have dreams and ambitions and capability as well the only challenge is to have that will. If you have a dream no amount of possession and emotion will help it, what will help is Pure Action. This is a simple three set process, get that will; choose the right time; and get started. Future Vision Aurelius wants to implement their knowledge solutions integration globally; create huge value by solving problems of all kinds of technological complexities and the overall humanity across demographics, cultures and geographies.

lack Pepper is a spice, whose value was seen around the world for a very long time as a precious spice. It is aggressive but very balanced and contained, like us, we would like to call it balanced aggression. In olden days connoisseurs across the globe travelled to India in search of this spice and to have a trade relationship with the provinces with Black Pepper, similarly we want to be the Technology Black Pepper which will be the sought after centre of innovation, stated Harikrishnan Puravankara, Founder & CEO, BlackPepper Technologies Story Behind the Name of Company “BlackPepper logo is an upward pointing hexagon, inspired by the unique benzene ring structure. The six carbon atoms and their interconnecting bonds are replaced by people with arms extended to each other, representing the strength of partnership and the creation of powerful ecosystems.” Basavaraj, EVP Strategy & Marketing continued, “The logo is drawn using the three primary colors – red, green and blue – to symbolize the inﬁnitely varied canvases that can be painted when the customer, BlackPepper and the spirit of innovation work in harmony.” Also you can notice that the world picture in the middle reﬂects India in the 34

centre spot. BlackPepper Technologies will continue to drive innovation and design that would transform the end user experience. BlackPepper has been building technology assets that will enable end to end silicon design, this is being possible from its in-house patentable process “EYWA”, an unique technology framework that allows optimization of human and compute resources enabling complex designs to predictably converge to closure. The company’s objective is to transform the end user experience from its design capacities. The eventual aspiration is to see the logo in the hardware designed by BlackPepper with inscription “Designed by BlackPepper”, concluded Basavaraj with a strong sense of pride. Unconventional Journey of BlackPepper As a core strategy, BlackPepper took unconventional decisions to ensure that they do not comprise on their company’s purpose. For example, they limited the equity dilution in the early stage so that it does not hamper the decisions or directions for the company. If they had diluted the equity early, the investors could have pushed hard on exit or directional changes. This decision was hard to implement, whether in terms of raising capital from banks, balancing aggressive growth, acquisitions for inorganic

growth, but still the company took calculative steps and reached at the current stage. It was certainly a big surprise, but not so for the management, since it was clearly aligned and planned. The strategy for the company is to build a billion dollar valuation company that will be listed on the Indian stock exchange by 2021. The brand will continue to build value for their customers and indirectly the end users, which will be transformational. An Erudite Leader who Discerns the Value of its Team The company is driven by every single Pepperite (everyone at the company is called such), even though the initial vision came from Harikrishnan Puravankara, Founder & CEO, Black Pepper Technologies Private Limited, Bangalore, India, but realization of the dream was made possible by each one of them. Infact the company celebrated 5th anniversary (of business operation) recently and the Pepperites part of the initial journey who are still the core team were around to celebrate the success. For BlackPepper, every Pepperite comes ﬁrst, and for every Pepperite, the customer comes ﬁrst. The company believe in the philosophy of collective entrepreneurship and encourage every single Pepperite to think freely, innovate tirelessly, question fearlessly and be deeply involved in every facet of the January 2018

“

Expand your Mind, Innovate the Future, Explore the Impossible Hari Krishnan Puravankara Founder & CEO

BlackPepper success story. Hari is a passionate entrepreneur with very strong technology and business acumen. He did his engineering degree from Cochin University, while in college he won national award under the best engineering project category as well as a “Best Designer” award at an All-India IEEE design contest. He started his career with Wipro Technologies and later moved to Magma Design Automation driving their Asia Paciﬁc business roadmap. Hari founded Black Pepper Technologies in 2010 with a vision to build end to end silicon and system design house. He was solely instrumental in growing the organization with limited angel capital and currently the company is operational in India, Singapore and USA. The company plans to be listed by 2021 with a billion dollar valuation. Hari has been honored with “The 30 Young and Dynamic Entrepreneurs in 2017” by InsightSuccess Magazine. He also has won an award from ELCINA, India for “Entrepreneurial Excellence Award 2017.” He has worked

January 2018

with government teams to build the ESDM polices and anchored various initiatives for building the semiconductor ecosystem in India. Pepperites are BlackPepper’s Greatest Strength Pepperites are the the biggest strength of BlackPepper and they play siginicant role in growing it organically day by day. Each Pepperite own a certain percentage equity in the company shouldering huge responsibility to carry forward the belief system and vision of the company. A ﬁrst time, BlackPepper oﬀered undiluted percentage equity ownership in the company for all its employees recently. Vision of BlackPepper To create an organisation that is fundamentally rooted in hardware and recognized as the gold standard in product realization. To democratize innovation by harnessing ideas from the unlikeliest of sources and transforming them into commercially viable products.

intech is empowering new competitors and start-ups to move into parts of the banking business, CAGRfunds is also one such fintech company engaged in wealth management. They help their clients manage their money in an efficient manner and create wealth in the long run. Their online platform makes the investing process easy, simple and literally a 15 seconds process. Thus, they seek to offer “unmatched convenience” to their clients. With their digital platform clients experience investing comfortable. The delight in their offerings comes from the customized attention they pay to each and every client that they cater to. They also recommend their clients where to invest and ensure that whenever they want, they have a face and a voice to talk to. Journey of CAGRfunds Every new company goes through different phases marked by some very successful and some not so successful times. Wealth management as an industry has recently become very dynamic and thus has attracted a lot of players leading to intensive competition in the space. Add to that, the huge number of individuals operating as financial planners and banks are 36

offering wealth management services. Since, managing your own money is a knowledge driven and hence difficult subject for most people, the industry got plagued with considerable amount of misselling. In a situation where the industry is intensely competitive yet awareness is low albeit increasing, there is a significant amount of value addition possible. And this is what drives CAGRfunds as a team. The company is extremely passionate about helping people inculcate the habit of saving, create wealth and understand the nuances of different investment products. Instead of just focusing on getting clients, they spend a considerable amount of time on each client to make them understand each product so that they feel confident and aware about the investing calls that they are taking. Moreover, CAGRfunds believes their success lies when a client feel that they are in safe hands. An Online Mutual Fund Investing Platform Embedded with Technology CAGRfunds is one of the few companies in India that provide an online mutual fund investing platform which has a complete proprietary technology. They have developed the entire technology in house which offers them a lot of flexibility in terms of customization and create unique proposition for their clients which

helps clients to invest conveniently. Unlike a lot of other companies, this company is not tied up with third party vendors like BSE or NSE. An Inspiring Leader As a Co-founder of the company, Vikash Agarwal always try to ensure that the culture of efficiency, responsibility and accountability flows from each one in the team. With pleasure, he shares that we have a team of professionals who together have ensured that delegated tasks are completed to perfection. Moreover, we also inculcate the culture of every job being important, irrespective of how small or operational it might be. Technology Act as Strength at CAGRfunds CAGR being a brand always keeps technology as the core for company’s growth which became their strength. They realize that that investing is a lot about connecting with the client. The company has tried to leverage technology but always there is a financial advisor who is available for their clients in case they need any help. This approach is quite unique when it comes to a lot of DIY (Do It Yourself) kind of investment platforms. They have observed many clients make mistakes because of incorrect or lack of proper advice. For that purpose, they offer more of a “Always There For January 2018

“

Vikash Agarwal

We are a Fintech company who help you manage your nances and grow your wealth while you slip into a sweet slumber! Your dreams deserve more than you think – we help you achieve all that you ever desired for!

Co-founder

You” kind of a platform. They anticipate that their client relationship and the foundation of trust is what has helped them grow so far and will take them to great heights in future. Priority is Always Given to Clients at CAGRfunds CAGRfunds’ model is centered around establishing trust with their clients, that is what distinguishes them from other players in the industry. The fact that there is always a real person to talk to gives a very personal touch to the investing experience. At the same time availability of a seamless digital platform adds to the convenience of investing. Therefore, in some ways though they are traditional, they believe that this is what their strength is. And their tagline says – Let us Grow Together. CAGR Creation Purpose: Solving the Saving and Investment Problem

present generation faces. When founder of the company observed that his near and dear ones who lack the acumen to manage their money eﬃciently, he tried to help them by creating a knowledge blog on their website which helps their clients and the broader audience to understand and realize the importance of ﬁnancial planning. The company emphasize a lot on continuous learning for their customers and employees. Tip for Budding Entrepreneurs Vikash’s advice to the budding entrepreneurs is to keep things simple and follow their passion. If anyone works hard and has an attitude of continuous learning he will have the odds in his favour. Also, a sense of competing with one’s ownself results in some real improvement as a performer.

CAGRfunds is created on the principle of solving the saving and investment problem that a large part of the

January 2018

Its About Real

Various

Factors that Affect

Marketing M

arketing is a weapon that if used eﬀectively can take your company to places you never imagined.But at the same time if not aligned well, it can become a total mess and waste for the company. It becomes a very crucial step for marketing managers to construct and develop their marketing mix after analysing the market and reading their competitors. Ÿ

Demographics: We need to understand what our market consists of and how do they react to different advertisements when brought to them.Not all the people are same and not all of them have the same choices.Your strategy might work in the up country but might totally torpedo itself in the south.So figuring out the mentality, dislikes/likes becomes the first step especially when you are working PAN India.Companies in their home ground generally perform well. The real test starts when you step out of it. For instance,an advertisement in one nation meant “Fly in leather” whereas once translated meant: Fly naked in Spanish.Vocabulary changes with nations so should your taglines.

The Product and Its Market: Marketing strategies are driven not just by their customers but also by the product being promoted. For example, handing marketing in the education sector where schools and colleges are your major stakeholders is not easy. Marketing is limited here when compared to FMCG products in which everything and anything can be used as a marketing tool. In such a closed industry TV commercials, radio ads and outdoor campaigns don’t work as eﬀectively in the education industry as probably email marketing or exhibitions/conferences do. It becomes important for the manager to understand the daily behaviour of the concerned target followed by situating the right promotional activity where possible.

·Budgeting and Freedom: It’s easier said than done. It only takes about an hour with your team to sit, brainstorm and get out of the room with 10 diﬀerent mind boggling marketing ideas only to face the harsh reality of” shortage of funds”.Same goes with creativity and freedom. Your company might not necessarily be as open mouthed as Zomato, sometimes killing the creativity. A marketing manager needs to analyse the kind of budget and freedom he has in order to curate his strategy and further implement it.With limited budget you might restricted to only a certain

January 2018

number of ideas, not necessarily meaning poor marketing. Latest trend suggest the uprising of Guerilla marketing. Guerilla marketing is a technique where ample results are generated using the most economical ways. Very popular example of it being Flash Mobs. In the past 2 years, ﬂash mobs have proved their existence and have been used by every other companies fetching them decent results.

Ÿ Channels and Content: Channels are basically medium or mode of marketing/promotion being used by a company. Channels vary from on ground campaigns to leveraging social media each having it’s distinct pro and con. If you are targeting millennials, probably giving advertisement in a newspaper is not such a great idea considering an average person spends almost 150 minutes on the social Media per day. Basically these channels need to be chosen according to the age group, paying capacity and interests etc. of your market. Second thing that has gained importance in the last 2 years is content. Now a days where our newspapers, magazines and televisions are filled with ads, there is need to stand out and not blend in. And the most effective way of doing so is to present strong content in the craziest way possible. Ÿ Last but Not the Least: Vision: Where do you want to see your company after 5 years. Vision differs from one marketing manager to another considering his/her long term goals in alignment with the company objectives. One might looks at achieving faster sales and quick results for his company, at the same time other might look at the bigger picture and create a brand for itself. Both are correct on their part. So the vision becomes pivotal while creating your sales/marketing strategy for the upcoming year.

Naman Singhal Co-founder

About Author Naman Singhal, Co-founder at 3Dexter has an experience of more than 5 years in the eld of education. Initial 2 years were spent for an NGO, teaching the under privileged kids and understanding the ground realities. And last 3 years have been spent revolutionizing the education sector with modern teaching methods as an eminent member at 3Dexter. He has a special inclination towards nance and investment related knowledge with respect to startups.

January 2018

Tech Insider

OneFastest o f t h e

GROWING Technologies

Internet of Things

he new agenda for the futuristic age will be, “Anything can be connected, and everything will be connected.” But what is the need of so many connected devices interacting with each other? IoT holds an immense potential value to progress. There are many examples of how things would look like with IoT. Say for example you are on your way to a meeting; your car would already know that there’s a meeting scheduled and could have access to your calendar and will automatically suggest the best route to take. If there’s a heavy traffic on your way, your car might be able to send a text to the other party notifying them that you will be late. Think about how your smart alarm clock would wake you up at 6 a.m. and then notify your coffee maker to start brewing coffee for you! What if your smart equipment in the office knew automatically re-orders more supplies when it senses that it’s running low? What if the wearable device could tell you where you were most active and productive and shared that information with other devices?

A lot of people might see IoT as the future of technology and consumer products, but just because many are predicting it, doesn’t make it inevitable. Notable hurdles have appeared that may end up hindering the growth of the IoT. While these obstacles can be overcome, companies should make note of them to be prepared for what might be a hard-to-navigate future. The Availability and Access to the Internet The Internet of Things principle sounds quite good, since it gives consumers an absolute convenience and access to the latest technology, but IoT has one requirement that can’t be ignored, i.e. the Internet. The IoT won’t be able to function without an actual Internet connection. Worldwide Internet connection with great speed is the need of an hour for the IoT to become a fully functioning reality. There are still many places in the world without an Internet connection. Many companies, including Google, are trying to rectify this issue, but we're still years away from any solution. Privacy and Security of Sensitive Data In the wake of ascertaining major security breaches, privacy and security are clearly on the minds of all individuals, be it a business provider or the consumer. For now, the IoT only seems to be raising those concerns exponentially. We can deduce to what extent IoT has the potential to breach our personal privacy and sensitive data, when everything from a toaster to a shirt is connected to the web. Companies need to demonstrate on how they can protect customer’s information if the customer intents to trust wearing shoes that keeps track of where they go and how many steps they take.

There’s a colossal excitement for the Internet of Things (IoT). The basic idea behind the IoT is to connect ordinary objects to the internet with the help of tiny sensors, allowing the networking between businesses, consumers, and also other devices. There’s quite a certain potential for innovation, and startups and major corporations are already Uncontrollable Surge of Data investing in some of their intriguing ideas ranging from It’s estimated that by the end of this decade, around 26 internet-connected refrigerators to app-controlled light billion objects and items will be the part of Internet of ﬁxtures to smart clothing. Things. With such enormous increase in Internet-connected 42

January 2018

T Io stuﬀs, this would generate an uncontrollable surge of new data. Considering the era’s status quo, many companies aren’t well prepared to handle the volume of data that needs to be collected for the IoT to function well. Businesses need to prepare their organizations to keep up with these new demands. New hardware is required to handle bigger workload and more processing power is needed. Industries can use in-house storage options or cloud storage to improve on storage capabilities. Businesses would also need more eﬀective data mining strategies and analytical equipment to scrutinize data in real time.

survey carried out on over 2,000 consumers, 87% of them said they had never heard of the Internet of Things.

Signiﬁcant Expenses and Investments It’s one thing to embed a sensor in a product; it’s another thing to implant them on items and structures that are widely isolated all over the world. Many companies, though optimistic about the potential of the IoT, are yet to be won over by the fact that IoT is an investment worth making on such a large scale.

While it doesn’t necessarily signify that a consumer would not use an item connected to the IoT, the survey results show a lack of understanding and awareness about what can be gained from the knowledge of IoT. If this lack of awareness about the IoT leads to lack of interest from the consumers, a major motivating force for pervasive adoption will be missing.

Technology has progressed quite a bit towards lessening the expenses of the IoT, predominantly by creating cheaper sensors. But more advancement is needed before organizations embrace their usage in everything. Until then, the full implementation of the Internet of Things is likely to be delayed.

These are some of the hurdles which represent signiﬁcant challenges businesses will have to struggle with over the next few years, but many people outlooks it as a challenge worth facing. The number of developers precisely dedicated to the IoT is expected to increase to a massive ﬁgure of 4.5 million by the year 2020, i.e. a big jump from the 300,000 developers currently doing so. With more thoughtfulness towards the Internet of Things, solutions will likely come, and with them we would welcome new innovations and creative applications.

Consumer Awareness While businesses may talk enthusiastically about the IoT, consumers are largely unmindful about it. In the latest January 2018

igital marketing is one platform that transpires across all geophysical barriers. It is the most preferred platform for the most eminent inﬂuentials as well as for the startups in the industry. In India, 2013 to 2018 is considered as the golden period of the internet sector. With the support of various favorable government initiatives, India has observed a secular growth in the adoption of E-Commerce, Internet Advertising, Social Media, Search, Online Content and other services related to digital marketing. With increase in penetration of internet among the common masses, there has been a considerable change in their lifestyle. Digital marketing is clearly the future of marketing. With the mission to tap into this growing trend, Digital Indya, an Online Marketing agency and an authorized partner to Google, is currently looking to grow aggressively across the globe. Being one of the trusted partners to Google in Gurgaon, India, Digital Indya has cut quite a niche for itself by specializing in Google virtual services. It has gained considerable recognition for making their clients visible and favorable amongst their (client’s) customers through eﬀective Google business view. 44

Providing Solutions for every Aspirations Digital Indya is aware that almost every business currently depends on Digital Marketing for customer reach. Competent with an exclusive partnership with Google, Digital Indya oﬀers a barrage of services that include website developments, new Google map listings, Google street view, 3D virtual walk-through, Video marketing, Search Engine Optimization, online reputation management, website design and development, Pay Per Click (PPC) advertisement, copywriting and content marketing, social media marketing, application development and many more. 360º Virtual Tours – The Smartest Introduction of a Business Digital Indya has the power to enable its clients with a virtual tour of its premise through the Google Maps Business View. It oﬀers its clients an exclusive access to this premium feature that allows Google Map users to explore the Business premises. This feature is not only appealing, but also increases one’s online presence considerably. Digital Indya has successfully implemented this feature for many of its clients in just a few weeks. Commanding the Digital World Digital Indya has consistently proven

its expertise through its large set of Digital Marketing services. It has a dedicated team that handles the Search Engine Optimization. This team of experts pulls out its entire artillery when it comes to targeting images, videos, news or industry-speciﬁc vertical searches. The service also includes the PPC (Pay Per Click) feature that allows payment only when a visitor has been redirected to the website after clicking on the ad. It includes Search Marketing, Display Marketing, Remarketing, Mobile Advertising, Lead Based Marketing, Aﬃliate Marketing, and Email Marketing. All this is well complemented by their talented writers who assist in SEO copy writing and content marketing. The Digital World cannot be mastered without a command over the social media and Digital Indya has garnered a lot of applause for its many social media initiatives. It has understood the norms of a social media campaign and hence, it even provides its clients with its own in-house professional photographers who give the entire campaign the much needed premium feel. Digital Indya gives its clients a premium and an engaging digital space through its masterly crafted websites. It designs responsive websites that are suitable for screens of all shapes and sizes. Digital Indya has also gained its

January 2018

“

Delivering online solutions for every aspirations with the right innovations Sandeep Dabas Founder and Director

ground in application development by developing mobile apps and mobile field software. A client could literally ask for any sort of customizations and Digital Indya makes sure that its clients benefit from this personalized website. Managed by a Meticulate and an Agile Visionary Sandeep Dabas who is the Founder and Director of Digital Indya, is a businessman for 15 years. He was into IT hardware and software business, now since 2012 he is into digital marketing. He took lots of strains in compiling his current band of experts. Sandeep is a staunch patriot, which is evident from the name that he chose for his company. He is adamant to prove that India is the next big thing in the Internet sector. He keenly follows every kind of innovation that is emerging around the world and makes sure that his team is well versed with the latest trends of the industry. He has kept his team close to him throughout its journey and made sure that each of his clients have reaped the benefits of their competences. Sandeep believes that more than luck, it was his passion and his team’s sheer dedication that led to the success of

January 2018

Digital Indya. His strong will-power has clearly influenced his team members and eventually inspires any client to approach Digital Indya. Being a strong supporter of the Digital India initiative of the Indian Government, Sandeep invests extra efforts in popularizing the benefits of a digital world. Delivering before deadline and servicing for a lifetime Digital Indya has collaborated with many prestigious establishments and has garnered a lot of rave reviews. Their virtual tour services are quite popular in the industry and they are highly recommended for the same. Apart from this, Sandeep and his team have tasted massive success through a mobile app that was developed for the healthcare industry. This app is designed to connect with the right doctor at the right time. They are currently working in the education sector to better aid the students for their future. Digital Indya is one of the trusted partners of Google because of the trust garnered from the clients. Hence, this doesn’t come as a surprise that their clientele includes DC Design, Fabindia, The Umrao and many others.

utomobile industry offers a rich and varied examination of automobiles, automotive culture and design, that shape the industry to inform consumers who are passionate about cars and bikes. When it comes to purchasing a vehicle, there are a number of factors which can influence the decision-making process. Before making the final decision one always considers factors like price, mileage, performance and review of the vehicle. Droom, India’s largest and pioneering online automobile transactional marketplace, started its journey by providing a platform for used vehicles and, to fixes this gaps between the unorganized and non-transparent industry. The buying and selling experience of used automobiles in India was unorganized, largely due to information asymmetry and a lack of transparency. The innovative company, Droom, was conceptualized to address this fragmented nature of the Indian pre-owned automobile industry by leveraging technology to solve the challenges that exist. It is a digital platform for automobiles which is utilizing technology to address buyer/seller pain points and enable end-to-end transactions through its platform. Droom provides a holistic platform to buy and sell anything on wheels (from bicycles to planes). 46

Droom is the only auto portal in the world to own the entire ecosystem for automobile with marketplace, pricing, inspection, history and fintech tools. Droom is a Singapore holding company, with its subsidiary in India and United States Person Behind the concept Droom is India’s first and only online marketplace for buying and selling new and used automobiles. With over 65% of the automobile transactions market share online, Droom is the leading auto portal in India. Sandeep Aggarwal is the Founder and CEO of Droom. It is because of him, Droom has grown to be India’s largest online automobile portal and third largest e-commerce brand in the country. Sandeep is a serial entrepreneur, angle investor, Internet visionary and philanthropist. Sandeep is passionate about ‘Digitizing India and devotes some of his time in mentoring startups, especially on entrepreneurship traits and skills. Having a Unique Value Proposition Droom believes that defining the fair price of any used vehicle is a huge challenge, with every buyer/seller using his/ her own discretion to assess the price of the vehicle. The combination of AI with automotive

technology has surely been consummated to provide elegant services. Every stakeholder in the automotive industry is looking for a way to capitalize on recent advances in AI technology. Artificial Intelligence is used in thousands of companies around the world and Droom has also made its presence felt. It has launched Orange Book Value popularly known as OBV, is the first algorithmic pricing engine to calculate the fair market value of any used vehicle. OBV makes right valuation of a pre-owned vehicle and has became a de-facto industry standard for evaluating the fair value of used vehicles. Technology-Proven Strategies Droom has utilized advanced technology, artificial intelligence and data science to create a range of ecosystem tools for used automobiles, including OBV (pricing engine), Eco (121 points vehicle inspection), History (200 million vehicle history records), Discovery (dozens of pre-buying tools) and Credit (India’s first and only marketplace for used vehicles loans). Several factors such as vehicle report, warranty and seller’s credentials play a critical role in the final purchase decision, especially when purchasing pre-owned automobiles. Based on Droom’s proprietary technologies and January 2018

“

Drooming the vehicles with insurmountable level of passion and energy Sandeep Aggarwal Founder & CEO

algorithms, Droom’s Full Circle Trust Score considered as a critical trust factors such as auto inspection, warranty, and verified seller, attractiveness of pricing for buyer and level of disclosures by the seller. This allows buyers to develop more objective assessment and confidence around the vehicles they are considering for purchase. Ensuring the Future with Trust and Transparency Droom gained a 65% market share in online automobile industry transactions. With the spirit of inventing one of its kind technologies and making the experience of buying and selling automobiles online better and smoother, it aims to be the undisputed leader in the online automobile industry in near future. It provides other automobile services such as warranty, RSA, insurance and auto loan. Droom, is enabling customers to buy and sell new and old automobiles, and recetly entered in the category of providing electric vehicles keeping in mind the environmental benefits and it has also tied up with the big players in the industry such as Mahindra, Hero and many others. January 2018

The company claims to have a GMV of $650 Mn and has its presence in more than 500 cities across the country. It helps automobile dealers to increase their consumer base and provides them with vehicle checks using its advanced data science algorithms. It charges an annual subscription to dealers and is also looking to earn revenue by introducing automobile credit, which will be provided to the consumer. The company is currently planning for expansion in Southeast Asia and is also looking to get registered on NASDAQ by 2019.

ith the increasing demand for international Master’s degrees, Admissions Consultants have begun to play a crucial role in helping candidates achieve their dreams, more so, while applying to the top global universities like Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge etc. EssaySunday Consulting is one of the leading Admission Consulting companies focused on admissions to Masters programs in Management and Business in the top universities in India and abroad. It is the only admission consulting company in India, with former admissions officials from the Indian School of Business (ISB), and a pool of alumni from some of the top global programs with the organization as consultants. EssaySunday provides end-to-end consulting for top management programs in India and abroad. The company provides a wide range of services including: Profile Building; University Shortlisting; Application Assistance; Interview Training; and Scholarship Assistance. Application Assistance remains its flagship offering since it is the most challenging and important part of applying to top programs. While its division ISBmantra focuses on applications to ISB, EssaySunday Consulting attends to candidates applying to any of the top 50 Business

Masters programs globally. Application Assistance remains its flagship offering since it is the most challenging and important part of applying to top programs. While its division ISBmantra focuses on applications to ISB, EssaySunday Consulting attends to applying to applicants in any of the top Business Masters programs globally. Dedication and Excellence: The Hallmarks of EssaySunday The EssaySunday brand stands for commitment and quality, and the organization aims to remain a one-stop source for all authentic information and advice for top global universities. The company started 7 years ago, and had to compete with some of the biggest names in the industry. With diligent attention to the minutest of details, and extremely high level of commitment, it challenged itself and came up with a “100% Money Back – No Questions Asked” policy. It has worked with some very good clients and has got success with some of the top global programs like Wharton, Kellogg and Oxford in its very first year. It still follows the 100% Money Back policy even after achieving higher numbers than most of its competition. For EssaySunday, every project is its biggest project. It has a very refined set

of clients who are high-achievers, with an average of 4-5 years of full time experience (total range from 2 to 20 years) and are looking for a top business master’s program among one of the top 50 universities globally. With success in placing students in almost all top programs, it enjoys a good brand reputation. Some of its most challenging assignments have been while working with candidates with non-traditional profiles looking for an MBA, e.g. a national level swimmer, a fashion model, an army officer having served for 20 years in the army, etc. A Passionate Leader Prashant Tibrewal, the Founder of EssaySunday, leads the organization to the road of success. He sticks to the adage “Customer is the king”, and believes that if the customer is not happy, one has no reason to be in business. He has put in diligent effort to put together a pool of Consultants that are experienced and committed to the success of the candidates. With the consistent success the company has achieved at the Ivy League universities, Prashant takes pride in the fact that about 70% of his candidates have been referred to the company by its past clients. Growth Driven and Result Oriented Growth is what drives the company. Be it presenting additional value to the

January 2018

Prashant Tibrewal

“

The EssaySunday brand stands for commitment and quality, and the organization aims to remain a one-stop source for all authentic information and advice for top global universities

Founder

customers every year, or diversifying into related areas on the value chain, or just building internal resources for its own betterment, it puts in signiﬁcant investment of time and money to remain progressive. It has helped the company to remain aheadof its competition in delivering its current set of services, and has helped it to come up with an innovative range of ancillary services that may soon become its largest oﬀerings.

a wide range of universities and brings rich insights about the admission process to achieve a remarkably high success rate. About 10% of the current class at ISB has taken assistance from ISBmantra. The company has helped students make it to the top MBA programs like Kellogg, Wharton and INSEAD.

The company’s marketing eﬀorts are directed towards building strong trust and credibility through diﬀerent message boards and discussion forums online. Genuine and insightful guidance through the forums is its biggest marketing and tool to build trust. It has also regularly organized information webinars in collaboration with representatives from top universities like Oxford, Wharton etc.

Prashant advises the budding entrepreneurs to pursue the 3Ps of success – Passion, People and Perfection. “Do things that you are ‘Passionate’ about – something that you don’t get bored of even after doing it 1000 times; something that you are excited to wake up to”, suggests Prashant. He further adds that ‘People’ are the most important ingredient to success. One should build a team that shares the founder’s passion, and invest well on the growth of its people, along with the growth of the organization. And ﬁnally, he recommends deﬁning one’s short term goals centered on Perfection Points instead of Monetary Milestones. He says that if one pursues perfection in their products and services, money will follow.

Prashant is a member of the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC), which is an invite-only group of admissions consultants from across the world. He is well-networked with admissions oﬃcers from

January 2018

Seek the 3Ps of Success

Energy Tech

Mr. Ashish Tandon Managing Director

January 2018

About Author Mr. Ashish Tandon is the Managing Director of Egis in India. Under his leadership, the Company has successfully strengthened its position across all infrastructure sectors to emerge as an integrated infrastructure company. Today Egis India is a debt-free company with sufcient revenue and is generating enough liquidity to fund its future growth plans. Mr. Tandon is instrumental in making Egis India the cornerstone of the Egis Group. Under his leadership, Egis in India is playing a crucial role in expanding the reach of Egis group in Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh & has been made one of the three 'Pole Countries' for the Egis Group. A meritorious engineer from AMU of the 1981 batch, Mr. Tandon started his career with then English Electric, which later became GEC Alsthom, then Alstom and thereafter Areva T&D. He rose to become the Country Sales Director for T&D. He joined Reliance Infrastructure as the EPC head and then BGR Energy as President (Sales and Marketing). At BGR, he was instrumental in procuring the bulk order for 660 MW TG & Boilers from NTPC. Over the years, in the industry and amongst his peers, he has developed the reputation of being the spectacular turnaround man. Mr. Tandon is a sportsperson and has been a part of competitive Cricket and Hockey. Today he is an avid regular golfer. His motto in life is – nothing is impossible and strongly feels that whatever one envisages, one should carry out with honesty and should excel in it.

randing has always been around from time immemorial. If we go back to the times of Mahabharata, the conch shells used by each warrior and the flags on their chariots represented their own brand. Pitamah Bhishma wore white that made him stand apart in a battle field. The sound of the Gaandiv announced the arrival of Arjun. The Ashwamedh Yagna is another example of branding to establish the supremacy of a kingdom in ancient times. It was always branding that helped you identify the good from the bad, the team, the tribe, the community that you chose to belong to identified itself with its individual branding communicated to sounds, colours, customs, beliefs and values.

January 2018

The basics of branding have not changed in the last few thousand years only the methods of achieving the goals have changed. You will agree that corporations have made branding commercial. For practical purposes, let us look at branding pre-social media and post social media so that we stay relevant to the topic of branding in context of commercial enterprises. In the pre social media era, branding was usually a monologue. It was expensive. One relied on mass media like television commercials, radio spots, print ads to depend on branding. Editorial coverage added to the possibilities but it was not easy to get

regular editorial coverage. It was therefore diﬃcult for new companies with low budget to invest in branding. And it was an undue advantage for bigger corporations who had heavy purses to brand themselves and grow. The emergence of digital and social media has been a great equalizer in the world of branding. It has not only made globalization of brands easy & possible but has also has given every brand the equal opportunity to market itself. Another transition and a big change that happened with the advent of social media is the emergence of branding as a dialogue. Today, thanks to social media, brands can reach out to the target audience across the world at minimal cost.

How can companies engage themselves with their target groups in this new era by combining the best of the old world and new world? 1.Encouraging direct real-time connection between companies and stakeholders: Thanks to the new media, it is easier than ever to reach out to your audience directly and have a real time interaction. The companies could develop forums where the senior management can interact with the stakeholders at a regular basis. This can help answer a lot of queries first hand. The companies can brand themselves as real and humane by sharing their views & vision and at the same time get a real time view of the pulse of the audience. This can help in creating an image of your company as straight forward, honest, responsive and humane. It will help you retain customers and attract more in the future. 2.Leverage the network of your stakeholders: Word of Mouth (WoM) is a powerful tool. In fact, in today’s world, it is the most powerful. More and more customers are relying on other users for their experiences before they try out something new. It is therefore an opportunity to encourage your followers to spread the word. Reposting their posts and thanking them for their support can sometimes be easily one of the most effective tools to encourage regular followers of your brand. It can help you create visibility but more importantly, these followers will support and fight for you in occasions of crises. And thereby protect your brand. 3.Engage employees: Employees are your biggest brand ambassadors. The image that they portray to the outside world can make or break your reputation and the brand. The social media can be effectively used to engage the employees by highlighting their achievements and making them feel valued. We must remember that the more we are able to promote our employees, it indirectly promotes our brands. 4.Be a good corporate citizen: In today’s world, just making a better product is only half the task. It is also important to show the world how you are making the product. What is your contribution to your communities? How are you impacting your surroundings? Are you taking a stance on the happenings in your markets? It is easy to take a stance in today's world and using the various forums on social media, one can easily show the good work they are doing for the community and the country. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a huge opportunity to showcase your involvement towards making this world a better place. Everything comes at a price. The ease and accessibility has given rise to the problems I would like to refer to them as the 3LoCs – Lack of Control, Lack of Concentration and Lack of Correctness. What I mean is that the risks in branding have gone up in recent times. Since anyone from anywhere in the world can use the social media to write about you or your brand and more often than not you are in a position to control it, it is highly advised to be proactive and vigilant about your reputation. You must take appropriate measures to mitigate any risk that you foresee or perceive. Conclusion: Change is always for the better. The changing landscape for branding is a huge opportunity for businesses to harness and use to their benefit. The possibilities are bigger, the opportunities are larger and therefore it is a wonderful chance for all of us to build global businesses. Let’s benefit from it.

January 2018

Tech Insider TECH INNOVTION

The 4 Disruptive Trends to watch in India 2018

ndia is a dynamic ecosystem, where every organ of the society is doing one thing or the other to grow the nationhood. The Government is taking bold steps to change how things are done to better the life of the citizens. The masses are taking up the task to contribute their values either as an already established business or even as a start-up. This makes the nationhood a fertile land for investment. The below-highlighted are the key areas through which the Government of India has devoted speciďŹ cally to help her citizens grow in industry values and morals.

Digital India â&#x20AC;&#x201C; A highly interconnected Ecosystem equals seamless growth The leadership of India and her people are always seeking for ways to uplift their society by improving their knowledge of economy strategies. To achieve this and make it a reality, the Government found it necessary to improve their digital platforms and to enable the people to access resources even from their doorsteps. The term: E-Governance initiatives are taking a better shape as the leading body believes in continuous growth through

the accessibility of the Government provisions. The Government of India intends to make her services available to the citizens electronically by providing an improved online infrastructure and ensuring that the Internet connectivity attains a greater height. The Government in a shorter note wants an India that is digitally empowered and technically motivated to help the system grow across all industries. The more digital India is becoming, the more economically independent her people will be. A highly connected

January 2018

Tech Insider

ecosystem can be highly innovative and India will set the example right for the world to see in 2018. Make in India – Make it in India to make it better If every organ of the nation grows economically her people and even the government will be motivated to try new things. To ensure that every part and people of India are growing uniformly, especially across the global industry and also to attract foreign investments, the Government of India took the initiative to motivate her people to develop their products from scratch within the nation. This development is believed to gear the growth of India's nationhood and to improve her economy to a high percentage and especially in 2018. Smart Cities – The Friendly Society for Sustainable Growth Continuous growth is a factor that dignifies innovation. The strategic step to redevelop India, with components such as retrofitting, Greenfield development and large area January 2018

beautiﬁcation will make the Indian cities the envy of their neighbors. Smart Cities Mission is going to make India a very citizen friendly and sustainable place to live. When an environment is pollution-free, oxygen abundant and feasible with transportation amenities, the nationhood will be proud. This will boost the health-state of the citizens with emotional balance and in turn give people reason to work for better development of their home-land. With such spirit in the people, there is no limit to their abilities and the growth of the nation with fewer burdens on the Government. Startup India – Working Towards Innovation and Development If you have something new to oﬀer to the industry, the Indian Government is ready to help you. Startup India has been in the market since 2015, as announced by the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi during his 15 August 2015 address from the Red Fort, in New Delhi.

A Government whose plan of action is to help and motivate her citizens to be creative is capable of growing the next world best economy. Since the inception of this initiative, it is obvious that the industry is experiencing a tremendous growth. The most interesting thing about this development is that, it is not going to leave the system anytime soon; rather the Government and her citizens are bringing more creativity to the industry. The benefits of this initiative are going to not just innovate highly in 2018, but it wills revolute how the people offshore see the big picture of India now and in the near future. The growth of Startup India in 2018 is based on these three principles: Simplification, Handholding and Funding Support, which has the potential to change India far into the future. The Indian Government and her people are working towards development geared by commendable innovation. It is worth the watch after in 2018.

“

e are the Ying to your brand's Yang. We are the Watson to your brand’s Holmes. We go beyond getting the job done; we unearth new possibilities for every brand.”

A popular and established agency with a difference that actually walks their talk, Interactive Bees is a group of innovative professionals that specialize in providing digital interactive solutions in the form of website development, online advertising campaigns or offline solutions in the form of presentations, desktop applications and BTL activity. While other agencies strive for complete brand communication solutions, Interactive Bees (IBEES) is already implementing it. The passionate professionals at IBEES try to do something groundbreaking every day. But they do make sure that it is not old, boring, or clichéd. They understand that the market evolves with every passing second, and being an ad agency they not only need to just keep up with it but also need to be two steps ahead. And at IBEES, it is not a difficult task. They just do it in a simple yet significant manner. The expert bees of the company smoothly and logically bring together a range of inventive services, and deliver solutions that complement the client’s needs and uncomplicate brand success.

Bringing Out the Best from Passion “Passion is not just another word in our dictionary; it’s the nectar of our hive, it’s the fuel of the Interactive Bees journey, and it’s the reserve of energy that lets us take brands to the next level.”

The Zealous Leader At IBEES, they believe that passion is what brings out the best in all the variables that sum up success. Think of it as the driving force behind all the smart work, with luck acting as the smooth road. Of course, it is bound to encounter obstacles in the way, but they treat them as stepping stones to grander results. Bit by bit, day by day, IBEES has strongly travelled this road for 9 years and the reason for their success is their never give up attitude, enthusiasm, passion and zeal that keeps them going on. Creating Benchmarks in Projects “Ordinary is around the next corner; it’s the extraordinary that gives you the thrill of doing something amazing and makes you look forward to coming to oﬃce every day.” The greatest project for IBEES is always the one that challenges them

the most, that allows to test their limits, and that gives wings to their creativity. They believe that problems do come in the way, but no problem is easy or diﬃcult and it’s all about how it is done. And at IBEES, they do it by keeping it simple. For the art of a communication agency lies in simplifying, be it web or mobile apps, online or oﬄine marketing. There’s an Italian word that comes to mind Sprezzatura. It’s the art of doing something so good, that it looks easy! That’s what we strive for with all our problems.

Monica Gupta is the Director and the fearless leader of Interactive Bees Pvt Ltd. She has over 20 years of experience in the advertisement industry. “Everyday I wake up with a single-minded desire to ‘not do the usual.’ Sure, my experience over the years is critical. I’ve worked with numerous reputed brands in various managerial & leadership positions. It’s given me a strong understanding of what the market needs, and the need of the hour is about staying ahead. This same understanding is what led me to create my own pathway and form Interactive Bees,” asserts Monica. Monica ensures efficiency in work by letting it reflect all those things she stands for; To be unique, to stay ahead of time, to unshackle creativity, and to make the culture of work fun again. When you do all of this and stay true to yourself, that’s when efficiency and success also come knocking on the January 2018

“

Monica Gupta

Think Interactive Bees, and think innovation. Think out-of-the box. Think holistic. And above all, think absolute brand success

Director

door by themselves. Our Passion is Our Strength “With passion in our fuel-tank, we’re bound to traverse the changing times, its ups & downs, and still get to enjoy the entire journey!” Passion is the greatest strength of Interactive Bees. They all come together seamlessly with the same passion to make big things happen on a daily basis. It helps them amplify all the individual qualities and skills that everyone brings to the table, tap into their young & vibrant temperament that churns out innovative ideas all the time, and still to be agile enough to swiftly incorporate client suggestions. It ensures that while they stay innovative, they also are ﬂexible enough to take all kinds of constructive inputs coming from all around. Creating Wonders in Brand Strategy “Ensuring innovation & creativity isn’t a novelty experience; it's in everything we do.” Unlike other brands that focus on standing apart from the competition, the goal of IBEES is to stand above. And this January 2018

single word shows their intent to make a mark in the industry, and work along on the existing success. The benchmark of the company is that they always deliver on their projects in a timely manner. No compromises on that! When we don’t settle for anything less than the best, why should our clients? According to IBEES, their brand strategy isn’t a magic mantra that holds all the tricks to market success. It isn’t something you can tailor-make to ﬁt every consumer’s needs. Strategy is rather, more of a process; a cycle that does that lets the consumer take the centre-stage. They believe that it follows a simple ﬂow, and then no doubt, the ideas will work wonders ! Advice to the Budding Entrepreneurs “We are currently living in an era where everybody wants to be in the driver’s seat. And it’s a good thing! However, being in the driver’s seat is one thing, and making it your own is another. For that, one needs the 3Ps - perseverance, persistence, and patience. It’s only when you have all three, that you can weather the environment and make the most of your skill-set. You’re here to not just to survive the market, but to make it your own. And for that, you need to make sure you leverage all your resources, and create a unique proposition that lets customers stick with you.” 57

January 2018

Market Trends

Signiﬁcance of Building a Brand for an Organisation

t’s no hidden fact that consumers these days are spoilt for choice. In every aspect of their lives, their universe is filled with diverse products vying for their attention and loyalty. And mind you, each product is better than the previous. Brand building is an investment that yields long term results. For a business such as CredR’s, a used bike purchase is not a recurring one and the consideration set in the minds of the consumer is also quite diverse. To overcome barriers such as competition, price sensitivity, deferred decisions, recall, etc. brand building plays a vital role. We've employed, from time to time, different ways to build the brand and engage with our consumers over and beyond just trying to sell to them. Our initiative ‘Off Ok Please’, was aimed at auto commuters, urging them to stop idling at signals, is a very successful example of this philosophy. The campaign received widespread coverage on social media, media portals, news dailies and TV. Another such branding initiative was our biggest collaborative campaign till date called ‘Move Your Life’. For the first time over 10 Indian startups joined hands with CredR to cater to the needs of those who move cities for academic or professional reasons. As an industry, the used two-wheeler market is plagued with a bad reputation and so many consumer conceptions. Addressing the gaps in this market, through our content and commerce approach also increases our relevance in the minds of our consumer. We cover the whole gamut of information 60

that there is to know about twowheelers - care, upkeep, launch, lifestyle, travel, etc. This content consumption paves the way for commerce by incepting a favourable image of the brand in the minds of our consumers - the ultimate experts in two-wheelers. That is the power of branding, where you create a pull instead of pushing for mindspace. Going forward also, we are committed towards investing duly in building the brand. How has Branding Evolved with Time? The evolution of branding is very similar to human evolution. Just like human evolution harps on the 'survival of the fittest', branding follows suit. At the onset of traditional branding, the number of brands were limited, media channels were few and for the consumer there existed an element of novelty. Grabbing attention was easy. Brands could remain arrogant and still get consumed. There was room for everyone. However, this scenario has seen a 180 degree shift. With the advent of technology, explosion in media channels, and the sudden cropping up of so many brands, the story is now very different. The lines that defined social stratification and affordability are now blurring very fast. Brands cannot afford arrogance any more. They need to engage with consumers more consistently and meaningfully, just in order to stay relevant. Where in the older format, brands were creating their own stories, today it is

the consumer that builds the journey and the story of a brand. What are the Various Factors that Affect Marketing? The list of factors that affect marketing are quite diverse per se. If we talk specifically of CredR, the few aspects that affect our marketing strategy is conditions such as automobile sales seasonality - a surge of sales in the primary markets also sees a surge in the resale market. Also, our consumer data from the last 36 months shows that there is an organic surge around that time that cities see an academic or corporate influx - specifically the months between June to August, each year, when colleges and new recruitment cycles start. Our marketing activities and spends are focussed a lot around the peak sales seasons for our business. In these periods, we invest heavily on sales promotions and performance marketing. In the months in which our sales are more conservative, we split our efforts between marketing and branding initiatives. With interesting formats such as influencer marketing, viral videos, user generated content and mall activations, we cover the whole spectrum of outreach to stay in our customers’ mindspace and consideration sets even when a used bike purchase is not predominant in their list of purchase priorities. Marketing Musts as You Grow From Startup to Becoming a Global Empire For any new brand, the challenges are very diverse as opposed to a brand January 2018

which is present globally and has built a legacy over time. A global and mature brand has a loyal consumer base, a well known promise that consumers know of and owes a more stringent conformity to its quality standards. Any non-compliance would result in a loss of its brand equity. A global brand would definitely market itself more from a brand and promise standpoint as opposed to focussing on customer acquisition and awareness. A new brand on the other hand, is looking to be recognised and adopted at the onset. Most startups would channelise their energies and resources at creating awareness, generating strong leads, pushing for customer acquisition through lucrative sales promotion offers, etc. With the current possibilities available in marketing through technology and smartphones, a new wave of innovative marketing tools have come to the fore. So while a conservative approach stands a brand in safe stead, innovation creates buzz, virality and conversations around a brand. Importance of Technology in Modern Marketing Technology in marketing is like a double-edged sword. While technology has its share of pros, it also has its share of pitfalls. The upside is obviously the ability to ‘target’ accurately on any given day and at any given time, who you’d like to speak to. The sheer focus and precision with which the same brand can communicate in different styles and different languages to different sub cultures with their target audience, at the same, is a definite benefit. Apart from that the detailed level of trackability and measurability that technology provides allows us to assess the effectiveness of our communication and marketing initiatives. Today, consumers’ attention is the scarcest resource in this new world order. Without gatekeepers, anyone can create and broadcast media. As a result, consumers are overmessaged and exhausted. Unlike traditional advertising where a large capital is required by brands to market themselves, technology allows anyone with an idea or business proposition to market themselves using digital platforms and social media. Audiences are savvy and can easily differentiate between paid and unpaid communication. Automatically, they tend to blindside paid communication and engage only with those brands that create engaging and relevant conversations with the audience. This new dynamic between companies and consumers is very different from the traditional model. Where companies used to control their brand narrative through media channels, the power is now largely in the hands of the consumer. January 2018

Nikhil Jain Co-Founder

About Author Nikhil Jain is Co-Founder at CredR. He is fond of travelling and reading books on digital brand building. He is a driven problem solver who believes that the perfect blend of technological advancement & economies of scale are sine qua non to providing tailored solutions to real world problems. His latest preneur was building Coursewave.org with his colleagues, Sumit Chhazed and Nittin Mittal. Nikhil graduated with a dual degree in Engineering Physics (Bachelors’) and NanoScience (Masters’) from IIT Bombay in 2012. He also worked as the Dramatics Secretary. During college days, he also managed the Techfest, Asia’s Largest Science & Technology festival. 61

ariApps Marine Solutions is a technology company, part of Bernhard Schulte, offering state-of-the art marine enterprise solutions for ship managers and ship owners and is a pioneer in offering digital solutions to the marine industry. The company brings organization’s key knowledge and expertise to help businesses excel in today’s competitive and demanding environment. MariApps is focused on offering the best solutions, supported by latest technology platforms to its customers, at the most competitive pricing. Providing Quality Service and Employee Satisfaction MariApps’ flagship product PAL is a complete marine ERP suite which is fully web-based, cloud supported and mobile compliant, targeting ship managers and ship owners. MariApps’ PAL provides an end-to-end digital ship owning and ship management solution to the maritime industry. It covers all functionalities of ship management and operations including Crewing, Accounts, Purchase, Planned Maintenance, Payroll, Voyage, Insurance, Dry Dock to New Building (to name a few) in a single, fully integrated solution. It continues its journey collaborating with more than 15 top companies around the world 62

and aims to reach for more soon. Its vision is to deliver quality and affordable end-to-end marine solutions and turn MariApps into a multi-billion dollar enterprise. It follows an employee first customer first policy. The MariApps team has the right ‘can do attitude’ and brings in a variety of skilled resources, including business analysts, project managers, marine engineers, nautical officers, technology consultants and strong technical leaders that are part of a 250+ team in India, Singapore, Cyprus and Hamburg to develop, implement, and support its software. It builds high performing teams, by providing a fun, challenging work place that caters to innovation & work-life balance. A Passionate Leader Spearheading MariApps The person responsible for leading MariApps to the path of success is Mr. Sankar Ragavan, the Founder and CEO of MariApps. He is a versatile person of amiable nature. With more than two decades of rich work experience in IT domain, Sankar has served as Corporate Director of IT for BSM and as a Director for Jumeirah International. He has worked for various MNCs across the globe. Sankar is well versed with the industry and its characteristics. He aims to discover and implement the next

disruptive digital technologies like more efficient data analytics, ERP, greater autonomy and robotics, and new methods of information sharing. Distinguished Services and Customer Satisfaction MariApps is one of the very first mobile-first and cloud-first companies to introduce mobile apps for the shipping world. Its huge expert pool of mobile developers build marine applications that runs on all mobile platforms like Android, Windows and iOS, equipping customers with the power to take decisions anywhere anytime. It provides continuous version upgrades to customers. Data and reports are made available to the customers to view anywhere anytime with 24*7 support service provided globally. MariApps team delivers customized solutions suitable for the clients according to their needs and requirements. It works closely with the client and their teams to engage Microsoft in setting up PAL infrastructure in cloud. MariApps PAL has customizable dashboards, well-integrated ship owning and ship management modules with LiveFleet and mobile apps. Clients now get the information that they need, anytime, with a focus on the data that is relevant to them. MariApps January 2018

“

We at MariApps aim to be the best at what we do Sankar Ragavan Founder & CEO

deliver tailored information even when the ship owner or manager is travelling, they get to know key data for faster decision making processes as PAL is fully mobile compliant. Major Accomplishments MariApps proceeds triumphantly on its journey to success overcoming many challenges and achieving landmarks on the way. The company considers entering into an MOU with CMA CGM, as one of its greatest achievements. CMA CGM is one of the world’s largest shipping companies which operates a ﬂeet of 532 ships in 170 shipping routes worldwide. MariApps and CMA worked together towards a successful completion of the gap analysis project by making available the people and resources as needed. The project turned out to be a success with CMA deciding to sign contract for further implementation and installed the software in large number of vessels. CMA ships have now become key customers of the company. Critical success factors of the project were strong coordination between

January 2018

project teams of MariApps and CMA CGM. MariApps has been recognized by Insights Success magazine as one of the top 25 companies to work for in Asia (2016) with the article titled ‘Providing Integrated Marine Solutions.’ It has also been highlighted in CEO magazine as Company of the month (2016)/ Rising leader in the world of ERP for marine. Team Mariapps focuses on innovation, changing technology and where it takes the company. Also, Sankar believes in motivating the team and participating in all the endeavors to keep them motivated.

stablished in 2012, Hyderabad, Revuesoft Solutions is a prominent software and product development company in India. The company oﬀers Enterprise Business Automation software product and Enterprise University/Educational Institution automation software. Revuesoft Solutions Provides Mobile Application Services to the niche area of Banking Industry. Today, the company name, their products, and their solutions are highly appreciated by their clients; it helps them to signify their organization as a pioneering software solution provider in the current market. Revuesoft delivers innovative and customized software solutions and customer support to global clients in various domains. The company is working on an innovative business model with a positive methodology which aids them to deliver advanced solutions in diﬀerent areas. Their state-of-the-art approach helps them to meet their domestic and international client’s requirements according to the latest market trends. The organization gives importance to their customer requirements so that they prefer to work closely with them and educates them to implement the required business process. Their process is the only tool and solution for improving productivity and quality and 64

implementing the process-centric framework in all the areas like Business, Development, Testing, and Delivery. Ingenious Thinker of the Organization Krishnakanth V is the Chairman and Managing Directorof Revuesoft Solutions. He completed his graduation in the field of Management and also has a degree of MPhil. He has more than 18 years of vast Industry experience in Project Management, Development and Consulting Services in multiple industry verticals. He implemented great projects at different industry verticals successfully. With his rich experience, he is now implementing niche area of the mobile app for banking and financial industry. “We are implementing our Brand New product for banking industry which gives the brand to our company and increase market value,” says Krishnakanth. Optimistic Attitude is the Greatest Strength of Revuesoft Solutions Krishnakanth believes that their positive attitude towards their goal and devotion helps them to be a leading software development solutions provider in the arena of tech-revolution. Support of their excellent team members in all areas and all stages give strength to the management to reach targeted objectives of the company. Over the five years, Revuesoft has evolved into one of the leading firms

with an uncompromising inventor of the solution. Besides engendering the advanced services, the goal for Revuesoft Solutions has been to push the limits of plausibility and to think the impossible. Krishnakanth acclaims, “My brand promises to our customers is always best product delivery and customer services in 24 hours. Our brand itself shows our commitment towards customer satisfaction, which helps us to grab the client attention and trust.” “NPA Tracker” the Most Treasured Mobile App Revuesoft Solutions introduced the innovation in the field of Mobile App called “NPA Tracker”, which provides a cutting-edge solution in the segment of financial institutions, will bring change in the banking history for its NPA Recovery. NPA Mobile Tracker App is an application which is used to track loans and advances released by the bank through its branches across the country. After launching the App the organization examined the application. The App will be developed for Android, IOS and Windows-based mobiles which are used by the bank staff. The App will be linked to a present banking system. The App will be installed on the main server of the bank; staff can download with a secured username and password. It will have GPS tracking facility, reports facility, and a status monitoring facility. January 2018

“

Our Mobile "APP NPA Tracker" for Banking and Financial Institutions will bring change in the banking history for its NPA recovery Krishnakanth V Chairman & Managing Director

NPA status can be updated through App, which will be automatically available to the bank management to know about the NPA customer status as on date. This App will help the management and the staff of the banks to manage their NPA’s and tracks the customers online and at the premises of the customers. If any customer is ready to pay small installment amounts, staff can collect the amount and immediately update through the App. Unique Strategies make them Innovative Krishnakanth highlights their business strategies which help them to maintain a vast difference from their competitors. He added, “Change social conversations into reality and attract customers, we will win over Millennia’s by creating mobile-friendly content that fits their needs and preferences, Leverage both offline and online customer engagement, the key is to understand your brand’s emotional connection with consumers and act upon it. Besides, we will be available for our customers always and anytime.”

the clientele have availed the services of Revuesoft Solutions on a long-term basis through multiple projects. Being a good listener and understanding both the project and the ﬁnancial implications of the client, at the initial level, has enabled Revuesoft Solutions to be in sync with the client and their requirements. Also, appreciating the client’s vision and transforming it into reality is their forte. This instills a certain level of conﬁdence and almost always results in a long-term relationship. Golden words of Krishnakanth towards the Entrepreneurs “I want to give honest suggestion towards startup companies and enterprises never leave your dream in middle, start chasing it. Think before you talk, think before you act and think before you start. You should be aware about your qualities because your will is your strength and it will help you to establish your dream organization.”

Maintaining Long-term Relationships with Client In the long duration of ﬁve years of practice, a majority of January 2018

FUTURE OF BUSINESS

Effective Talent Management Building Tomorrow’s Winning Organizations

mployees are the most important factor for driving success to the organization, they may vary from their role, from mid level to C level; each one has his own talent in his respective ﬁeld.

Here we are giving you some best practices which will be diﬀer you from your competitors and make your company’s productive growth. Aligning Organizational Goalswith Clear Expectations

Leaders are actively demanding the people most affected by the change in its implementation. This will help ensure employees at all levels of the organization embrace the proposed changes. Always a company’s largest expense has been its labor costs, but human capital is also a crucial part in maintaining a competitive advantage. Statistical research shows that when companies invest in talent management, they consistently outperform their competitors. Most leading organizations ranked best in both efficiency and effectiveness by intensive emphasis on talent management, and having a deep understanding of what skills requiredto develop or acquired in order to attain the success for their business. These businesses primarily focus on talent processes such as planning, development, management, engagement, and retention in such a way that they operate at 23 percent lower cost per employee than typical companies, and function with 32 percent less staff. Most of the global leaders use analytics to obtain high ranking business insights from the employee data. What would be the perfect solution over this? Yes, the best HR software can give this type of comprehensive picture. For best ranking companies, effective talent management is not an additional feature; it is a basic element that is an essential need for the company’s continual growth.

If there is no clear understanding of work expectations, employees will get confused. Each individual of the team should know about his exact work what he is responsible for, the goals he is working towards, and how his success will be contributed against expected goals. They also need context in order to recognize where they well suited into the company and how they help to its overall success. Don’t waste time and start understanding your workforce and agree with the company’s basic business goals. The company’s mission helps to create context for projects and work activities at the department level, which gives your employees a better context for their contributions. Do not Forget, business priorities can change rapidly. Always review goals frequently to make sure they reﬂect the company’s current priorities. Need of Consistent Support and Improvement Cycle For reviewing past achievements, current challenges, set goals, and skill development you can go for regular performance appraisals. It is also helpful for the communication over skillsets, career aspirations, and development plans that address performance gaps. Also, keep in mind once the annual performance appraisal is delivered, it doesn’t mean the feedback has ended. To increase performance, managers must provide mentoring, coaching, and support on an ongoing project.

January 2018

Employees require regular and quality feedback with particular guidelines on how they can improve. According to the talent management survey report, 64 percent of organizationsconsider their managers to be fair or poor at providing regular, timely, and in-the-moment feedback regarding performance. Managers are failing to take fast action on their corrections. Developing Leaders’Skills Once performance gaps are recognized, employees come to know exactly which skills they need to enhance in order to progress in their respective area. To help them take action and improve their performance, a firm commitment to developing new capabilities in existing staff is required. Although, developing skill for workforce planning and succession management is a real challenge for businesses. As per research, only 4% of organizations can quantify required headcount in “what if” business planning scenarios, Less than 1% of organizations have internal candidates ready to fill key positions as they become vacant, and 48% of all organizations do not yet have a plan for developing their leaders. To fight with this, organizations should examine implementing a learning management system. These programs offer interactive, on-demand content to help you prepare employees and develop a talent pool of high-potential workers that can fill available roles as they emerge. Organizations that give learning based on performance reviews, 37% improved engagement and have 62% more positions with identified and willing successors. Enhance Talent Management with Analytics Measuring the improving talent management with analytics is the most important factor to consider. Top- Notch organizations are gaining higher levels of self-service and process automation by investing 8% more on technology than typical companies. Also, analyze HR data to identify supply and demand trends, assess risks, and uncover opportunities. In addition, they are more likely to depend on common platforms and toolsets for progression and workforce planning. Companies are grasping HR technology to allow consistent, company-wide talent management. $5 billion market size for corporate talent management softwareincludes web-based tools for collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Ranging from performance and learning management to employee engagement, these platforms enable employees and managers to locate content, share information, view goals, and develop skills, all while giving valuable data to support continual improvement on the entire talent management lifecycle. Finally, the conclusion is your workforce that is thegreatest asset which will drive the success of the organization and will keep you ahead from your competitors. Give priority to your workforce and make the effective talent management. Investing in your workforce, you are investing in the success of your organization.

January 2018

ay back in 2003, browsing through shelves of a supermarket in Tokyo, Shivendra Srivastava MD of Rigil Biotech found Stevia based sweeteners reigning the customer space. That a leaf could be so sweet and with so much more additional health benefits seemed like a blessing for the world’s second largest, and soon-to-be diabetic population. Whereas Indian were only exposed to some artificial sweeteners, the proposition of acceptance of Stevia in India seemed to be a very natural market evolution that is customers moving to more healthy offerings for sugar substitutes. Rigil Biotech took shape in 2004 to develop and integrate the total supply chain for promoting the business domain for Stevia Products. The activities related to promoting Stevia based Natural Sweetener had to be undertaken in different phases, which would essentially be determined by the evolving market scenario for products in India. The first phase involved manufacturing of Stevia based natural sweeteners in India and initiate R&D activities for enhancing the product attributes and development of new product variants. The objectives lead to development and premier launch product 70

Stevi0cal ‘Naturally Sweet.’ Offerings at Rigil Biotech Rigil Biotech offers, low calorie natural sweeteners for various applications such as: Table Top Sweetener: Retail & Institution: Hotels, Railways, Airlines, Restaurant Chains, Hospitals. Food Additive: Industries such as Food Processing, Pharmaceutical & FMCG (tooth paste, mouth wash, Low Calorie Drinks, etc). Replacement for sugar in all Food & Beverages industry applications: The strategic is focus on Product Development & Formulation for developing industry specific product solutions. Spearhead of Rigil Biotech Shivendra Srivastava is Managing Director of Rigil Biotech. He has a Master’s Degree in Physics with specialization in Electronics. He did his MBA in International Marketing. He started his career in the field of International Business Development, and Sales & Marketing with special projects on developing New Markets, Product Development, and start-up Operations. His entrepreneurial journey was not an accident, it was a conscious call to do something innovative, and contribute his bit to the society. There have been no drastic turning points on this journey; everything has been gradual and achieved through sheer hard work,

learning and improving and with having lots of patience and always being self-motivated towards the goal. According to Shivendra, you got to stick to the basics to handle any competition, deliver the best quality product and services to the customer everytime. Yes business moves fast, so you’ve got to have the ability to see changes coming in your industry. Make it a point to keep up to date on new products, market forces and advances in technology that could be poised to disrupt your ﬁeld. Favorite Aspect of being an Entrepreneur Resilient enough to weather the ups and downs of the business and being focussed to get closer to the ultimate goal. Hard work and not taking no for an answer is something that Shivendra rely on heavily. Entrepreneurship to me is the single biggest contribution that I make to my society by creating and enhancing job opportunities for my people. The excitement of realising your dreams and satisfaction of meeting people’s aspiration, says Shivendra. Liberty makes Employees Self-suﬃcient Creative thinking can happen anywhere, and the best way to capture and nurture it is to listen to what people are saying. Let them own their jobs, and give them a free hand to do January 2018

“

We work with our clients to create strong foundations and keep them strong Shivendra Srivastava Managing Director

things in a better manner. And some ideas work, some don’t, but even for the ones that don’t, there is a lesson to take heed from.

possible without understanding what their customers cared about. Failures are bound to be there, you have to learn from them, shrug it oﬀ and move on.

Falling down is inevitable, but getting up is optional. And your choice. Not taking a risk is the biggest risk to your business, so it’s part of the game if you want to grow you have to take risks and be a disruptor , there have been many failures like when Rigil had introduced our product Stevi0cal, a natural sweetener with an idea that since the product has so many inherent beneﬁts vis a vis sugar and other artiﬁcial sweeteners, it was bound to get readily accepted by the customers, but on the contrary they had very negative feedbacks with regard to the taste of the product , it being having heavy after taste and bitterness due to the intense sweetneness of stevia , some customers said that they would not use it unless and until medically prescribed, this was something which they did not expect at all. They wanted to build an OTC brand and here the company had faltered on basic brand structure but this helped us to go back to the drawing board with lot of clarity.

Expansion of Rigil · To be market leaders in offering great tasting, low calorie natural sweeteners, and sugar free food products embracing innovation and having strategic focus on Product Development & Formulation · Dedicated R&D for expanding the Stevi0cal product range to cater to wide range of application needs and lifestyles. Gathering end-user feedback, and tying it with their R&D efforts has to create a connect with customers in a space which otherwise did not have much brand differentiation and brand loyalty. Focus on Vision and Roadmap Most entrepreneurs start small, but having a vision in place is a must. One must never let the day -today operational hassles, take over a long term growth map. Keep some time out for your strategic thinking daily. During this time, shut off the routine and focus on the larger picture, the trends and opportunities and even threats around you.

This gave them major learning, The company had developed the best product that could not have been January 2018

he IT system has revolutionised the ﬁeld of medicine. In this fast-paced world of medicine, it is a daunting task to manage a multi-speciality hospital. A Hospital Management System (HMS) is software application that facilitates managing the functioning of the hospital or any medical setup. It integrates all the relevant information regarding patients, doctors, staﬀ, hospital administrative details etc. in the software. One such HMS is NeoSoft which is one-stop solution for hospitals that covers the entire range of hospital operations right from Doctor Appointment, Patient Admission till discharge including seamless integration to Financial Accounting including Mobile Apps for Doctors, Patients and Hospital Owners/Directors. It also has features to have near paperless hospital management and processes.

Shivam consists of a team of experienced and dedicated professionals that each carries extensive experience in their own field. Their passion to implement highly successful strategies, provide affordable health care solutions, and introduce innovative technologies inspired them to create Shivam whose sole aim is to transform and benefit hospitals across emerging markets in India. Shivam Medisoft Services is a single product company with its core competence being only in the business of software for hospitals and clinics like – Solution for multi-center operations, Cloud Ready Solution, Advanced customizable EMR Solutions, Easiest HMS to use and implement. Person who Pro-longed the Success of Shivam Medisoft

A Full-ﬂedged HMS Organization Launched in 2002, Shivam Medisoft Services is fast emerging as one of the most trusted and recognizable Hospital Management Systems and EMR solution providers in the healthcare sector. Shivam’s innovative solution enables hospitals to automate their key processes – clinical, ﬁnancial and operational management processes.

Jaikishan Ramakrishnan is CEO at Shivam Medisoft. He has over three decades of experience in Operations, Project Coordination, Project Management, ERP Implementations, HR Management including Sales during his career since 1981. He has worked earlier in Dunlop India Ltd, KCCPL, Tyche Peripherals Ltd, Vishwa Infrastructure & Services Pvt Ltd, and Srikari Impetus Solutions Pvt

Ltd and also in Saudi Arabia. Diﬃculties faced at Biggest Project Developing a 100% Paperless HMS application for a reputed hospital in 2017. Convincing the stakeholders on the beneﬁts of Paperless including getting the buy-in from the various user department turnout to be a mammoth task. Implementing HMS Projects in Possible Shortest Time Shivam Medisoft has the envious advantage of implementing HMS projects in the shortest time vis-à-vis many other players in the market. This has been made possible with the inhouse developed Framework that enables Shivam Implementation Team to customize the application at Client’s place in the shortest time. Thus, the company has done away with the SDLC approach and successfully adopted TDD approach. Services that Distinguish Shivam Medisoft from Others Scalability in the shortest period because of the Framework, Paperless HMS application option available to hospitals on mobile as well as tablets, Enviable Customer Support Team post implementation, Pan India Clientele

January 2018

“

We take care of you while you are busy taking care of your patient Jaikishan Ramakrishnan CEO

are the services that distinguishes Shivam Medisoft from others. Apart from all above mentioned services, the company’s Mobile App with customized dashboard is incredible – they have developed exclusive mobile application for the HMS/HIS which gives their client liberty to access their hospital real time data anytime from anywhere, even on the move through their mobile. Their Mobile App is readily available in Android Play Store and app store for Apple iPhones etc.

country makes Shivam Medisoft one of the leading players in the HMS/HIS industry across the nation. They also have clientele outside India. Their motto has always been “Technology Simpliﬁed.” Tip for New Entrants in Business Believe in yourself. There is always further scope to satisfy clients through useful features.

Satisfying Customer’s Customer The company was established in the year 2002 with the vision of “Empowering IT in Health Care” along with core value of “Satisfying customer’s customer.” Since inception, they have continuously surprised the clientele and competition with envious features in HMS application. Over a decade of singular focus and acquired depth of domain knowledge from serving 600+ hospitals of the

January 2018

Top Valuable Brands in the Data Economy

hese titans- Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft looks unstoppable. These are five most valuable firms which are listed on stock exchange. According to the Economist, they collectively earned $25 bn in net profit in the first quarter of 2017. The Giants deal in data, the oil of the digital era. In the US, Amazon captures 50% of online transactions. Google and Facebook almost garner all the online advertisement spending. Today few of us want to live without Google’s search engine, or Facebook’s newsfeed or Amazon’s delivery. The most intriguing part is that they are not overcharging customers but mostly offering services at little or zero cost, but by handing over more personal data such age, age, sex and income. The data gives enormous power to these companies. The personal data sharing is a cause of concern to many. Smartphone and Internet helps these companies to get data about its consumers ubiquitously. Artificial Intelligence (AI) combined with the machine learning helps these companies to predict their customer’s behavior. These companies need abundant data. By collecting more data, these firms have more scope to improve their products. Today, clever combination of data, AI, and machine learning helps Tesla to have more net worth than GM. Cleaver and Intriguing Strategies These companies always look out for new wells of 74

Atul Gunjal Co-founder & CEO

information, so that they can go on getting continuous data to mine and go on building cleaver predictive analysis for customers. While looking out for new wells, these companies applied cleaver strategies to get more customers in their stable and their data, which further allows them to do more clever business. Where can one ﬁnd better example than acquisition of WhatsApp at $22bn by Facebook in 2014? This take over has underlying smart move of eliminating potential rivals and provide barrier to new entrant. Similar strategy might be applied by Microsoft while acquiring LinkedIn in 2016. However, some of the strategies are still not clear to me, namely Waze by Alphabet. It is in the mapping and navigation

January 2018

Finance Factors

About Author:

business, and Google already has Good Map in it’s stable. Company to Watch Even though these giants go on hogging the limelight, there are some who deserves attention and one of these companies if Priceline, a world’s largest online travel company. This company has done an impressive comeback after suffering a near-death situation at the dot-com bust. Today in its stable various online sites for booking hotels, cars, flights, and restaurants mapping across the globe and includes Booiking.com, Kayak, Agonda, and OpenTable. I sometimes wonder that if this company would have been in the Silicon Valley then instead of New York, then it would have been rever by geeks and technology investors. This company have shrewd deal-making allow to aggregate its Dutch acquisition hotel inventory with another UK’s acquisition. Today it has world’s most massive supply of hotel accommodation. In addition to the hotel accommodation, it supports “alternative accommodation” like rentals of apartments, villas and home like other beckons like Airbnb, HomeAway. Though the company is not at the cutting edge of the technology cleaver use of it. Summary The valuation and lifespan of the company increase when it’s products has features like ubiquitous, continuous data logging, data mining and analyzing. (Reference: the figures referred in the article are from The Economist).

January 2018

Atul Gunjal, is Co-founder and CEO of IWORKTECH. It is Alpharetta, GA based company. It has development centre in Pune, India. IWORKTECH develops solutions and products in the areas like Utility, Healthcare and Education. It has wide experience in providing Enterprise Wide solution. Atul earned his Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical from the University of Pune, India. He direct IWORKTECH’s overall vision and business strategy, including expansion into new markets, high-level technology direction and operations. His previous experience helps him to convert ideas into tangible products. He got rich experience in building successful software and service organizations.

ith the digital disruption happening today, there is a heightened awareness of the business possibilities via adoption of digital technologies, primarily AI and machine learning (ML). To add on to it, the disruptive nature of AI and its subfields like Machine Learning (ML) is forcing businesses to adopt a strategic view for AI. While facing this disruption, enterprises are also facing the challenge of availability of the right talent. It is this twin challenge of needs of enterprises and talent in AI, which Tarah Technologies addresses. Tarah Technologies (Tarah.AI) which is a boutique consulting and competency development company focusing on enterprises take on the challenge of adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) for competitive advantage. Tarah’s decades of experience in AI among the founders, including patents, research publications, and marquee consulting experience, is coming of use to help Tarah Technologies tackle the client needs. They offer focused consulting services in AI for enterprises helping them chart a path of AI. Additionally, they also offer competency development services across a range of AI technologies (Machine Learning, Deep learning included) for corporate and business 76

professionals. They have tailored offerings for entry level, mid level, and CXO level trainings. Passion for AI has Led the Journey of Tarah with Fluidity Tarah is a strong believer in power of AI. The founders, have been in the field of AI for over 30 years, observed the field evolve in technology dimension. They say “It is a great relief to see AI come in age of business circles.” This strong passion for AI helps Tarah conceive disruptive solutions for their customers.

e-commerce to Pharma to retail to healthcare to telecom. Among all these one that stands out is an ongoing project for an e-commerce company, they are helping on diverse dimensions of adoption of AI. The project is direction of using both unsupervised and supervised learning models for helping the business of this e-commerce company. They have charted out several areas and are providing a set of use cases in each of these areas to help it adopt AI. Representative use cases are: Upselling recommendations via unsupervised market basket analysis, Demnand forecasting SKU wise using Time Series models and Latest deep learning models like LSTM & so on.

With the company’s passion and strong conviction in AI, they are able to handle the challenge of convincing business value of AI to their customers, which is the typical FUD factor with any new technology. Their passion has let them innovate on diﬀerent aspects of the AI and machine learning technologies, including bringing latest ﬁndings in research community to the world of business. Journey of Tarah to train and educate more and more people on AI got a pace via Quora answers on AI, Youtube series of informative lectures on AI, Speaking at Meetups and Conferences on AI, and Blogs on AI (Learnwithneelima.com).

In terms of challenge, the biggest challenge is the availability of clean data to run AI / ML programs on. The company has been struggling with the raw data cleaning, as making it ready for ML is a huge task. To enable all of this, Tarah has built a pipeline of data processing ﬁlters which help in their reuse across customers. A key realization for Tarah is that AI programs are best with clean data, and so AI projects have 50 percent eﬀort in preparing the data.

Challenges Faced and Determinably Overcomed It Tarah has been consulting for customers across a variety of customers across domains ranging from

A Duo who is Widely Known as “AI Couple” Neelima Vobugari, and her better half, Dr Srinivas Padmanabhuni are the founders of Tarah Technologies. Their January 2018

“

We are the marquee brand for AI which combines consulting and competency development to give the best within the arena Neelima Vobugari

Dr. Srinivas Padmanabhuni

CEO

Founder

insight to bring AI to the masses, made them entitled “AI Couple”, which is remarkable and hence became a unique selling proposition for Tarah.AI.

His expertise has been in identifying the business technology connect, a rare skill in today’s world. He has been an invited speaker to more than 200 events across eight countries. He has seven granted patents, more than 100 refereed technical publications.

Neelima is a seasoned entrepreneur with decades of experience in IT industry in marquee companies like IBM and startups. About six years back, she strived to take a plunge into the world of entrepreneurship, via a focus on CRM consulting. Over the past few years, via continued re-skilling, and absorbing the right talent the company is refocused on AI and Machine Learning. Neelima being an avid speaker gets invited at several marquee AI/analytics events for addressing about Data Science Congress, Karnataka CMs special task force for budget recommendations etc.

Strong Foundation is the Stepping Stone of Tarah A strong foundation in learning is Tarah’s secret sauce. With the pace of advancement of technologies in AI, their focus is on constant re-skilling, learning, which enable the company to tackle the twin dimensions of project complexity and technology changes. It is this same spirit they imbibe in their employees who are constantly needing to learn on every project.

Dr Srinivas Padmanabhuni, is a Ph.D in AI from University of Alberta, Canada, a strong research university with focus on CS and AI in particular. Dr Srinivas brings with him decades of innovation and research experience via his extended experience as an innovator. Researcher and technical architect in startups and marquee IT companies.

Reinvent Yourself to be Stable in the New Business Persistence, Perseverance is the key. This is to face the diverse diﬃcult situations you may cme across in the path. A constant reinvention of yourself is also key to enable a malleability to handle changing trends on technology, business and other dimensions.

January 2018

omputer peripherals’ range in this contemporary world is pretty wider. It has got the potential to swap the scenario 360°, make or break your computing experience. Here is a company Zebronics, founded in 1997, can push you to the former end of this experience, rather than the latter. The company was based on the ideology ‘Always Ahead’ making technology access available to a diverse audience. The company is known as the brand of the masses because of value for money factor that comes along with well designed product built to last and without any compromise on the quality. Journey from Small Brand to the Ultimate Choice of Customers Success doesn’t happen overnight. But when you are very passionate about what you do, you would always ﬁnd a reason to never give up on yourself ―Famous quote by Edmond Mbiaka. Concording to the quote, when Zebronics commenced its way two decades ago, it was just a small-scale company oﬀering peripherals in counter competition to the big MNCs. It took a while to learn the ins and outs of industry but when they learnt it they just beat the game by being the only brand in Indian market which sustained to the IT Peripherals 78

when most of the other brands deterred. Zebronics truly believe that it’s not just passion, but sheer hard work and risk taking which makes the ultimate climb to the top. And currently they’re the biggest IT peripheral brand which has the largest range of products to offer. Tale of Zebronics’ Earning Fame with Its Speakers Rajesh Doshi is the Director of Zebronics. He says, “With a pretty challenging journey so far, identifying the reason that influence the customers buying decision in terms of speakers, the company having what it takes, is now recognized as one of the best speaker brands in the country. Their peripherals segment is channel driven while the speakers segment is entirely consumer driven so it took a lot of tweaks to harmonise this segment and make the brand popular among the consumers. It has taken enormous effort to understand a diverse audience requirement in terms of speakers. Like in some regions 5.1 is preferred, while in some parts of India 2.1 /4.1 are more popular. While some prefer high bass the other prefer crisp vocals. To understand the requirement of a diverse audience in Indian market was challenging but the company progressed and is still learning especially in terms of requirement with sound. Zebronics learned that people love their music loud, every festival, occasion or event is a grandeur of a celebration with loud decibels hence

their speakers are crafted to give out the best output, this is why they came up with the Sound Monster campaign. Zebronics’ sound monsters, and the way speakers are ennobled, produce high fidelity sound that is filling all across the room, lifting the spirits of the listener, whose experience is taken to a whole new level. The Idea behind the campaign was that they associate monsters with roaring sound and overwhelming power. This campaign in various forms also made their speakers very popular among the consumers. Industrious Efforts of Rajesh Rajesh, a hard core believer of the quote, “A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.” For him, work efficiency could be accelerated only when someone is receptive to the new proposals. After then showing the guts to take the risk with calculations and lastly the ‘Always Ahead’ ideology which is to think a step ahead of the game. The strong foothold lies in Zebronics’ team. Their teams’ efficiency and unflinching hard work has repeatedly been a cornerstone for their continued success. Their acknowledgement as ‘Brand of the year - speaker’ and retaining 'Best peripheral brand’ wouldn’t have been possible without the continuous support of its team members ready to take charge. They’ve won 70 awards overall, owing it especially to theirr loyal customers who have put their faith and January 2018

“

Rajesh Doshi

At Zebronics, we are committed and working hard to deliver the innovative solutions our customer’s need, building the framework for sustainable growth, going forward and staying “Always Ahead”

Director

trust in their brand and products. Vision is to have Diverse Range of Products Zebronics has 31 oﬃces across India and 50000+ of loyal direct and indirect channel partners, resellers making sure that Zebronics products are available in every nook and corner of the country. Their vision is to have a diverse range of products which has suitable premium products for enthusiasts as well value for money products for price conscious consumer without any compromise in quality. From evolving as a mass brand Zebronics has been undergoing tremendous transformations in terms of serving a diverse audience from catering products that have a mass appeal to successfully setting their foot into new segments. They’ve slowly progressed into launching a premium range of products that cater to a niche class along with surveillance and multi-utility mobile accessories that has been very well accepted. Mantra of Excellence, Quality & Reliability Makes Zebronics Unique Adhering to the Excellence, Quality & Reliability (EQR) mantra with strict procedures and standards has helped January 2018

Zebronics emerge as the most trusted brand in IT Peripherals, Multimedia Speakers, Mobile Accessories and Surveillance. Zebronics’ reach is all over the country, making sure products are available everywhere for the consumer. Apart from this they also make sure that they get the best after sales experience with 128+ service centers across the country and always strive to improve more. Ideology of Zebronics: “Always Ahead” Zebronics’ ideology to stay ‘Always Ahead’ has helped them in becoming a successful brand with diversiﬁed products for the Indian market. They carefully looked into products, which were generally perceived as expensive products like home theatre systems, DJ and tower speakers etc. and worked at making them aﬀordable to the masses without any compromise on the quality of the product. They’ve been a mass brand that has slowly worked its way into also catering to a niche class with premium products. Golden Words By Rajesh for Budding Entrepreneurs Rajeshs’ advice to the budding entrepreneurs would be to toil on, as good things take time and to never give up on their dream.