ITPV Digital Edition Oct2018

Connecting with Solution Provider in

Emerging Market ¡ Northern ¡ Eastern

¡ Maharashtra ¡ Gujarat ¡ MP & Chattisgarh ¡ North East ¡ Southern ¡ UP & Uttarakhand ¡ Bihar & Jharkhand

OCTOBER 2018 1

227

OCTOBER 2018

OCTOBER 2018 3

Content 8

COVER STORY

EVENT 20,28

n Techplus Media’s ITPV Partner Leadership Awards, East, 2018 a Grand Success

n Techplus Media honours Most Impactful Technopreneursat itVARnews Business Leaders Awards

ITPV PROMOTION 31-33

n Acer steps into October with launch of

their first ever Self– Driving Concept car, also announced the refreshed series of its Predator Orion 9000 and 5000 gaming desktops

Is Blockchain Worth Every Penny?

We are the First to Introduce Blockchain Solution for Supply Chain Financing: Yes Bank

Blockchain Prepares a Perfect Setup for Technology Common Play: IBM

n Canon imagePROGRAF iPF671E Large

Format Printer that is easy to use while increasing productivity with fast print speeds and ink tank efficiencies

n iBall launches “Decibel” Alexa Built-in Headset

n Zebronics Unveils its New 2.2 Speaker Cosmos

INSIGHT 34-35,37-40

n M ust-Have Analytic Features n H ow to Choose the Right IoT platform n B usiness Intelligence Statistics Worth a Look

n I ndia, China Unites Sign First Security Treaty n H ow To Find an Effective Cyber Security Consulting Company

n How

Data Intelligence Can Help Your Business

14 Anup Purohit, Chief Information Officer, Yes Bank 427

OCTOBER 2018

16 Jitan Chandanani, Blockchain Leader, IBM India and South Asia

n H ow Safe are the New Digital Payments? n B enefits of Business Data Intelligence Solution

CHANNEL NEWS 41

Focus Softnet Unveils Focus 9 in India

OCTOBER 2018 5

COVER STORY

Is Blockchain Worth Every Penny?

Besides a slew of pilot projects by state governments, a lot of financial institutions and global conglomerate are testing usage of the blockchain. However, many of the experts caution that India needs to examine all aspects of the technology before it joins the bandwagon. Join us while we investigate if blockchain is really worth the attention it is drawing

By Amit Singh 627

OCTOBER 2018

COVER STORY adoption among several applications including banking and financial services, transportation, supply chain as well as verticals like government and PSUs in India.

While consumer awareness for this technology is at a nascent stage; however, with surging growth of blockchain integration in several verticals, majorly driven by government and enterprise segments, the market is projected to register considerable growth over the next 2-3 years.

“As per Gartner, blockchain will add value worth $176 billion by 2025, globally. In fact, blockchain is one of the core technologies which will be adopted to deliver some of the key outcomes of the Industry 4.0 revolution. Even if, India accounts for 15-20 percent of the global market, we will see a market worth $15-30 billion by 2025,” predicts Anil Awasthi, VP, and Global Head, Retail Banking, Virtusa Corporation.

Adds Jitan Chandanani, Blockchain Leader, IBM India and South Asia, “The opportunity for blockchain is gigantic as it impacts almost every sector of the economy enabling them to work much closer with each other. That’s

something which makes this technology quite exciting.”

He further adds that the blockchain ecosystem is evolving in India. Creating awareness on how this technology is simpler and easier to use with the existing cloud technology can go a long way in helping the country realize its potential.

Enterprises bracing for disruption Blockchain technology is generating significant interest across a wide range of industries in India. As the field of applications for blockchain grows, industry leaders are customizing and tailoring the technology to fit multiple use cases.

As per NASSCOM, blockchain technology has the potential to create a value of up to $5 billion in India over the next five years by increasing productivity and reducing costs.

“In fact, blockchain is likely to disrupt businesses by addressing the systemic flaws endemic to traditional processes.

These legacy processes will be taken away or adapted to better practices,” states Ravi Chamria, CEO, Sofocle Technologies.

Blockchain is likely to disrupt businesses by addressing the systemic flaws endemic to traditional processes. These legacy processes will be taken away or adapted to better practices.

Ravi Chamria

CEO, Sofocle Technologies

Blockchain is one of the core technologies of the Industry 4.0 revolution. Even if, India accounts for 15-20 percent of the global market, we will see a market worth $15-30 billion by 2025.

B

lockchain technology is gaining awareness owing to its decentralized control, transparent exchange, and immutable database. The blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that stores information across multiple systems securely to enable peer-to-peer transactions by creating a trustworthy source.

The technology is witnessing

Anil Awasthi

VP, and Global Head, Retail Banking, Virtusa Corporation

Supports Vaibhav Gawde, Head, Solution Consulting, Oracle India, “In the cloud economy, blockchain promises to transform the way we do business, making B2B transactions more secure, transparent, and efficient while creating new revenue streams for businesses and simplifying the lives of the end-users.”

In fact, current blockchain solutions over the cloud offer customers a pre-assembled platform for building and running smart contracts, and maintaining a tamper-proof distributed ledger. With this, customers can enjoy improved traceability, supply chain OCTOBER 2018 7

COVER STORY Officer, Accubits Technologies.

In the cloud economy, blockchain promises to transform the way we do business, making B2B transactions more secure, transparent and efficient while creating new revenue streams for businesses.

Vaibhav Gawde Head, Solution Consulting, Oracle India

transparency, compliance monitoring, and auditability.

“We are witnessing a rise in blockchain implementation in various processes over the last two years. With the advent of robust enterprisegrade blockchain solutions, we expected it to be adopted by many businesses in 2019. In fact, a job portal in India has seen a hike of 290 percent in the number of cryptography and blockchain-related jobs,” reveals Aharsh MS, Chief Marketing 827

OCTOBER 2018

Apart from the obvious use of blockchain in the financial services industry, non-financial players from retail, travel, healthcare, telecommunications, and public sector are exploring blockchain. For instance, in retail, the blockchain solution uses a chatbot to store warranty receipts on the ledger, thereby building a tracking history of ownership. In oil and gas, a blockchain-based tracking of oil through the entire supply chain leads to an indisputable view of all events through the lifecycle of the asset. Blockchain-based Patient Record Management systems enable companies to simplify claim processing, secure medical records, monitor the pharmaceuticals supply chain and collaborate with network stakeholders. In addition, blockchain-based land registration system reduces the risk of manual errors while creating more secure processes for transferring ownership of documents.

Probably, that’s why blockchain is being widely recognized as having the potential to transform several sectors of the economy.

Moreover, outsourcing and captive businesses are up for major disruption with blockchain.

seen a boom in the Internet connectivity as well as the spread of the smartphones.

In this scenario, blockchain prepares a perfect setup for technology common play,” reveals Chandanani of IBM.

BFSI getting miles ahead Banks and other financial institutions are increasingly investing in blockchain technology as it cuts down their costs and makes their operations faster and more transparent. In fact, BFSI organizations are contemplating the use of blockchain for payment remittances, trade finance, asset inventory audit, AML (anti-money laundering), smart contracts and land record validation.

The adoption started with ICICI Bank executing transactions in international trade finance and remittance using blockchain technology in partnership with Emirates NBD in October 2017. Yes Bank followed by implementing a multi-nodal blockchain transaction to fully digitize vendor financing for Bajaj Electricals in January 2018. Axis Bank became the third bank

“The technology will induce major disruption in the BPO and captive business units of MNCs operating out of India for cost benefits. As blockchain brings foundational changes in the business processes, backoffice and reconciliation work will be disrupted because data redundancy will not be there,” explains Yuvaraj Thanikachalam, Senior Vice President, KrypC Technologies.

Further, blockchain is expected to enable enterprises to tap tier-3 and -4 markets in India by building connectivity.

“As blockchains work over the cloud, they are independent of the underlying architecture. It can connect diverse platforms like SAP, Tally, Oracle, and a smartphone. India has

Aharsh MS

Chief Marketing Officer, Accubits Technologies

when it recently announced that the bank will be using blockchain for cross-border remittances.

In addition, India has witnessed several proofsof-concept to demonstrate blockchain applications in BFSI organizations. IDRBT, the technology arm of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), led two PoCs – domestic trade finance letter of credit and enhanced information for payments – by involving banks and technology firms like Infosys and IBM. General insurance companies have also worked on a pilot to track health insurance policies using blockchain.

“Attempts at creating blockchain consortiums within banks and other ecosystem players are also in progress, locally, and the space is ripe for moving from individual bank-led POCs into nationwide networks with wide participation from members and support/sponsorship from the regulator(s),” discloses Anup Purohit, Chief Information Officer, Yes Bank.

Yes Bank is also in talks with other corporate houses in the manufacturing and other sectors wherein our vendor financing solution will ease out their operations and provide

With the advent of robust enterprisegrade blockchain solutions, we expected widespread adoptions in 2019.

In fact, a job portal in India has seen a hike of 290 percent in the cryptography and blockchainrelated jobs.

COVER STORY real-time bill discounting solution, he adds.

Is it worth the attention?

B

lockchain was synonymous with cryptocurrency until boardrooms started adopting use cases in day-to-day enterprise functions, such as fraud control, patent tracking and invoice automation. While the government has banned cryptocurrencies, which is a spin-off of the technology, there are more reasons to be cautious.

Few of the experts warn that scaling up could be a serious problem for blockchain. For one, even mature applications like Bitcoins process merely 7-14 transactions per second.

Enterprise-grade applications, on the other hand, routinely handle hundreds, and often thousands, of transactions per second. Another issue is the fact that, by design, blockchains are ‘exponentially wasteful,’ and while storage and computation may be cheap, electricity is not. A report by Morgan Stanley states that Bitcoin is likely to use 125 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2018.

Further, as the size of blockchain increases and more transactions are cached, the performance will decrease, and transactions will become increasingly difficult to manage due to storage, bandwidth, and processing power requirements.

The absence of standards or interoperability between various blockchain platforms is another drawback highlighted by few of the experts.

However, while contradicting the apprehensions on the scalability of the blockchain, many of the experts point towards wrong analogy between Bitcoin and enterprise-grade blockchains.

“Bitcoin uses proof-of-work (POW) consensus mechanism which is an energy-intensive process.

Moreover, the transactions-persecond offered by Bitcoin POW is not sufficient to build enterprise-grade solutions,” counters Aharsh MS, Chief Marketing Officer, Accubits Technologies.

However, the scalability can be improved by using other consensus mechanisms such as proof-ofstake and proof-of-authority. New consensus mechanisms are being used for enterprise blockchains,

which offer scalability and are not power-intensive, he adds.

In addition, few experts highlight that scalability of blockchain is unmatched. “Bitcoin has about 3-5 million nodes, which is not matched by any centralized utility. So scalability is not an issue with blockchain.

Further, the first Bitcoin transaction happened in 2010 and till now the total size of the Bitcoin database is about 150 GB,” shares Jitan Chandanani, Blockchain Leader, IBM India and South Asia.

He further adds that unlike typical mail systems, blockchain puts the document at the shared database and sends a reference or hash of the document to every participant.

“Hence, blockchain helps in reducing the size of storage.”

Further, the enterprise blockchain is a non-mining network and the number of nodes may not go beyond 1000. Hence, it is not computeand power-intensive. Moreover, since many of the organizations are already on the cloud with over 99 percent uptime, power usage will be almost the same, states Yuvaraj Thanikachalam, Senior Vice President, KrypC Technologies.

He explains that interoperability issues between different blockchains arise as they are public, permissionless networks with specific objectives.

However, enterprise-blockchains are developed with data standardization to enable communication between different chains. “We have created a communication layer, CrypCore, to retrieve the data from one chain and standardize it in order to be understood by another chain. Hence, we don’t see any challenge in the enterprise blockchain adoption.”

Moreover, experts say that the blockchain market is undergoing an intense revolution. “Currently, Ripple executes almost 1500 transactions per second, which is quite impressive.

Hence, there is a revolution happening and things are changing.

While blockchain has been there for the last 8-9 years, most of the revolutions happened during the last 2 years,” shares Anil Awasthi, VP, and Global Head, Retail Banking, Virtusa Corporation.

As one can see, the momentum around blockchain is rising quickly in the banking sector. The reasons are obvious – a report from Santander Inno Ventures claims that banks can slash infrastructure costs by $1520 billion by 2022, by eliminating redundant activities.

Growing support from governments Apart from voting systems, blockchain technologies could be used to help reduce and eliminate bureaucratic red tape and corruption in government agencies. For example, welfare, disability, veterans, and unemployment benefits could be more

Blockchain will induce major disruption in the BPO and captive business units of MNCs. As it brings foundational changes in the business processes, back-office and reconciliation work will be disrupted with lack of data redundancy.

Yuvaraj Thanikachalam Senior Vice President, KrypC Technologies

easily verified and distributed, eliminating fraud and waste.

Industry experts say that blockchain has a large potential to transform the government and PSU sectors by changing the way public services are delivered. “Mere size of the government and PSU sector is so huge that even a small portion reflects the size of the opportunity. So far, governments have begun with land record regularization with blockchain, but the possibilities are limitless,” says Awasthi of Virtusa.

Interestingly, we are witnessing growing support from the central and state governments for blockchain.

Andhra Pradesh is the first state to introduce blockchain in land records and is also setting up a OCTOBER 2018 9

COVER STORY As blockchains work over the cloud, they are independent of the underlying architecture. It can connect diverse platforms like SAP, Tally, Oracle, and a smartphone. Hence, blockchain prepares a perfect setup for technology common play.

Jitan Chandanani

Blockchain Leader, IBM India, and South Asia

Blockchain Centre of Excellence.

Other states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, Telangana and West Bengal are following the lead.

In all, we have seven state governments trying blockchain.

In addition, we have regulatory authorities like TRAI which has mandated the use of DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) for DND; RBI has created a new frontier unit to figure out how blockchain will be beneficial, and the IRDA and FSSAI are evaluating blockchain. If the regulators accept the technology as a standard, it will become a stepping stone which will ease the adoption of the blockchain, shares Chandanani of IBM. In addition, the government of India has started establishing various projects in the administrative section to improve the safety and authenticity of records. NITI Aayog has tied up with Oracle, Apollo Hospitals and Strides Pharma Sciences for a pilot on supply chain management of drugs. “The central government is working on a blockchain solution to address the menace of fake medicines in India. In addition, the government is willing to 27 10

OCTOBER 2018

implement a system to attain safety in education, healthcare, agriculture and manufacturing sectors using blockchain technology,” adds Aharsh of Accubits.

A complete ecosystem is crucial Despite its potential, the

Anup Purohit

Chief Information Officer, Yes Bank

response of Indian organizations to adopt this technology has been far from enthusiastic.

The primary factors that are holding back the widespread deployment of this technology in India are lack of awareness, unavailability of adequate skilled persons and insufficient ecosystem.

Experts highlight that the challenges related to adoption and use case identification were the most difficult to surmount in the pre-POC stage of development, while lack of common standards and complexity of current IT landscape is a key deterrent for PoC development and subsequent full-fledged implementation. However, ensuring the right mix of business partners, platform and vendor are what make the difference between a successful PoC and a failure.

“A major challenge faced by blockchain is the derivation of right use case. Almost 80 percent of the successful blockchain production is the use case derivation and its rationalization. It is crucial to make sure we have the right use case, ecosystem participants and a symbiotic benefit to every

Attempts at creating blockchain consortiums within banks and other ecosystem players are in progress, locally, and space is ripe for moving from individual bank-led POCs into nationwide networks with wide participation from members.

participant. I believe that these exercises are generally not done in use cases which fail,” shares Chandanani of IBM. Further, with blockchain, sharing economy thinking is required as a single organization building a blockchain is not feasible unless all the stakeholders in the value chain share the resources and build an ecosystem to benefit all, highlights Thanikachalam of KrypC. As the blockchain concept requires a complete ecosystem to work, the evolution will take time, as organizations are currently involved in creating proof of concept projects. “We expect that the ecosystem and the regulatory framework shall evolve in due course. Once these challenges are sorted, we anticipate the faster adoption of the blockchain,” says Chamria of Sofocle.

Road ahead Blockchain might not be an instant solution to all of India’s issues, but, it can bring speed and efficiency to various sectors.

We must not look to blockchain technologies as a ‘magical cure’ or as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution to an industry’s woes. In fact, blockchain may not be a perfect technology for many processes.

The success of blockchain adoption will depend on the ability of the proponents / network to increase trust amongst themselves on the assets they transact on.

While these are certainly early days for blockchain, the enthusiastic embracement of this technology, by a number of huge corporations, points out to a momentum that is driven by user organizations.

When seen in the context of a larger vision of Digital India and the existing Government’s inherent push for digitization, the blockchain momentum in India may continue to pick pace rapidly.

We are the First to Introduce Blockchain Solution for Supply Chain Financing: Yes Bank Anup Purohit, Chief Information Officer, Yes Bank, in a quick chat with Amit Singh revealed the company’s aggressive initiatives on blockchain and the benefits it is witnessing with the technology implementation for supply chain financing

Anup Purohit

Chief Information Officer, Yes Bank

27 12

OCTOBER 2018

 How

is blockchain transforming the banking segment in India?

We strongly believe that blockchain will make a significant impact in the global banking space by ensuring the financial transactions are more robust, secure, seamlessly connected and provide enhanced customer experience.

While systems, processes, and protocols are becoming more and more sophisticated, financial institutions still continue to face challenges with the cost efficiency of transactions and in securing their systems real-time to combat evolving threats.

On the other hand, blockchain consortiums are enabling banks to process payments/trade transactions more quickly and accurately while reducing transaction processing costs and the requirement for exceptions.

Attempts at creating blockchain consortiums within banks and other ecosystem players are in progress locally and space is ripe for moving from individual bank-led POCs into nationwide networks with wide participation from members and support/ sponsorship from the regulator(s).

Wit h blockchain and specifically its underlying ledger technology, it’s not a matter of ‘if,’ it is about ‘when.’  Please

reveal your initiatives around blockchain inside your organization.

Yes Bank is the first bank in India to introduce a multinode blockchain solution for supply chain financing. We were among a handful of banks around the world who were experimenting with this technology and recently also became one among very few companies around the world

to commercialize a blockchain solution for financing.

It’s a quantum leap in customer service in the form of quicker TATs, secure & transparent transaction and immutable record creation, allowing the industry to test newer use cases and implement them for the betterment of processes and enhance overall customer experience.

We are also in talks with other corporate houses in

blockchain.

We are also planning to be a part of industry consortiums (we are already a part of BankChain, now in the midst of initiatives to form other credible consortiums of scale in the country) and explore new use cases on blockchain for KYC, trade finance etc.

Differentiation will also be created through the plug and play of various digital solutions through a range of APIs

the blockchain solution implementation?

Our blockchain implementation is a continuation of our philosophy to offer revolutionary banking technology to our clients. With the pilot transaction along with Bajaj Electricals, carried out in 2017, we were able to commercially launch blockchain for supply-chain financing and execute live transactions in the month of March 2018.

Below are the various benefits accrued by the client, their vendors and Yes Bank.

We are confident of building many more use cases on blockchain through the standalone or consortiumled model, which will differentiate us from competitor banks that are still in the nascent stage of adopting blockchain the manufacturing and other sectors wherein this Vendor Financing solution will ease out their operations and provide real-time bill discounting solution. Considering that our infrastructure is already in place and the comfort of already having a solution live on blockchain gives us the confidence to build a lot more use cases on the technology either through the standalone or consortium-led model which will differentiate us from competitor banks that are still in the nascent stage of adopting

available within the bank which is built on IBM’s platform similar to the blockchain.

In the remittance space as well, we are on course to commercialize remittance flows in specific corridors through public networks that use ILP (inter ledger protocol) and have the potential to also use DLT (distributed ledger technology) in future.  What

are the benefits you are witnessing with

• T he entire process cycle

for bill discounting has the potential to reduce the turnaround time from four days (owing to manual intervention and transit) to near real-time

• T ransparency to all parties

through blockchain’s shared & immutable public ledger

• C ompletely digitized process eliminating paper trail & manual intervention

• The entire transaction

history of a vendor is recorded and is immutable through blockchain with end-to-end audit trail available

• T he transaction status

along with details are seamlessly transmitted to Bajaj Electricals’ Enterprise Resource Planning via API

• U se of a permissioned

blockchain with the flexibility to add other participants later

• U se of a superior crypto key

to offering state-of-the-art security for both documents and transactions on the blockchain.

OCTOBER 2018 13

Blockchain Prepares a Perfect Setup for Technology Common Play: IBM While clearing the apprehensions on blockchain’s scalability and interoperability, Jitan Chandanani, Blockchain Leader, IBM India and South Asia, spoke to Amit Singh on how the technology is likely to transform businesses in India

Jitan Chandanani

Blockchain Leader, IBM India and South Asia

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OCTOBER 2018

 How

do you think blockchain will affect businesses in India?

The approach with blockchain is little different as it connects various ecosystems and businesses where, for instance, a bank can work with other financial institutions and the industry to offer new products. This will create a completely new revenue stream.

For instance, if an organization implements a new procurement solution, it doesn’t benefit its suppliers, banks or the logistics partners, but only the organization itself.

However, blockchain enables building solutions for the benefit of all the stakeholders in an ecosystem. Hence the potential for growth is across the board.

The opportunity for blockchain is gigantic as it impacts almost every sector of the economy enabling these sectors to work much closer with each other. That’s something which makes this technology quite exciting.  What

are the factors driving growth in the blockchain market in India?

The biggest factor which would drive the blockchain market in India is the public sector and government. The kind of interest shown by the regulatory authorities and public sector undertakings is quite impressive. We have seven state governments trying blockchain including Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Maharashtra, and West Bengal.

In addition, we have regulatory authorities like TRAI, which has mandated the use of DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) for DND; RBI has created a new frontier unit to figure out how blockchain will benefit the banking segment; IRDA and FSSAI are evaluating blockchain.

If the regulators accept the technology as a standard, it will be a stepping stone and will ease the adoption of the blockchain.

In addition, there are large tier-3 and -4 markets in India which are still untapped.

Blockchains are enabling to tap these markets by building connectivity. As blockchains work over the cloud, they are independent of the underlying architecture. It can connect diverse platforms like SAP, Tally, Oracle, and a smartphone. India has seen a boom in the Internet connectivity as well as the spread of the smartphones. In this scenario, blockchain prepares

is a viable and scalable solution?

For the real-time settlement use case like equities, blockchain is not a right technology. In fact, business case validation is crucial before opting for blockchain to replace a process. Blockchain makes sense only in the case where business case allows the latency from blockchain as the permissible business acceptable latency.

On the scalability front, Bitcoin, for instance, has about

Regulatory interest and large untapped markets will make India as the front-runner in the Asian subcontinent for blockchain.

In fact, the diversity of the use cases in India has no match in other territories a perfect setup for technology common play.

We believe that the regulatory interest and sprawling untapped markets will make India as the front-runner in the Asian subcontinent for blockchain. In fact, the diversity of the use cases that India offers has no match in other territories. In other territories, most of the use cases are on financial services and specific capital markets, however, in India, we are seeing use cases across banking, telecom, and insurance.  Many

experts warn that scaling up could be a serious problem for Blockchain. How do you think that Blockchain

3-5 million nodes, which is not matched by any centralized utility with so many nodes. So scalability is not an issue with blockchain.

Further, the first Bitcoin transaction happened in 2010 and till now the total size of the Bitcoin database is about 150 GB. Moreover, unlike a typical mail system, blockchain puts the document at the shared database and sends a reference or hash of the document to every participant.

Hence, blockchain helps in reducing the size of storage.

Most importantly, unlike Bitcoin which is a public blockchain and where everyone gets a copy, in the enterprise blockchain, only concerned persons receive a copy.

Hence, I can’t agree with the apprehensions around size and scalability of the blockchain.  However,

we still see that blockchains don’t talk to each other. Don’t you think it will create a major problem in communications between various blockchains?

That is something where we as IT companies have to come and make the technology work.

The current stage of blockchain can be compared with dial-up Internet era. As more adoptions happen and more problems are getting solved, we are evolving the technology.

In fact, we are collaborating with other IT organizations to establish and evolve a common standard. There is a lot of efforts going on in the back-end.

Currently, we do have solutions to establish connections between different blockchains but it hasn’t reached the level of interoperability.  Do

you see any convergence happening between AI and blockchain?

A lot is happening on this front. AI requires a lot of data to be fed and a lot of training of the system. Also, if we are not sure about the data authenticity, we would not like to feed that into the AI system as it would result in wrong outputs.

On the other hand, blockchains are enabling transactions to be done in a way where validation and ratification take place and only the right transactions get finalized. Hence, we can trust the information provided by the blockchain.

We are seeing many use cases where AI systems are being implemented over the blockchain. Also, IoT technology is being integrated with blockchain to make the inputs provided by the IoT devices more trustworthy. As blockchain evolves we will see a large integration of blockchain with AI and IoT.

OCTOBER 2018 15

event

Techplus media’s ITPV Partner Leadership Awards, East, 2018 a Grand Success The Techplus media’s ITPV Partner Leadership Awards, East, 2018 concluded in Kolkata on Friday, September 28th.

In association with Digisol, Canon India, Supertron Electronics and Ruckus, the event saw participation from more than 178 delegates, becoming a grand success from every perspective.

27 16

OCTOBER 2018

T

he Techplus media’s ITPV Partner Leadership Awards,East, 2018 concluded in Kolkata on Friday, September 28th. In association with Digisol, Canon India, Supertron Electronics and Ruckus, the event saw participation from more than 178 delegates, becoming a grand success from every perspective.

The objective of the event was to honor outstanding work by the Channel Partner Leaders in the east zone. Through this gathering Techplus media provided a platform to bring together stakeholders from Eastern technology community to focus on the digital wave

in Eastern region, the role of channel partners as change agents in digital transformation and how they will provide the framework to improve partner ecosystem.

The awards for 43 selected brands were designed to applaud the growing IT Regional Industry in India for technology infrastructure development across various verticals in the state.

Partners from various regions in the state filed their nominations in different categories and the winners were announced during the glittering award ceremony.

With expert presentations

by Mr. Kalyan Chakravarthy of Ruckus and Mr. V.K. Bhandari

EVENT

of Supertron Electronics, the gathering of channel partners had unique learning experiences and opportunities to collaborate.

The event also saw unique use cases shared with the community by Osama Raushan and Anil Shaw of TenPi Technologies, who were also adjudged the Best Tech Startup

– Eastern India.”One of a kind event which acted as a bridge to connect Industry veterans.

Pretty insightful yet not boring!

The best part is ITPV Partner Leadership Awards by Techplus media group gave emerging start-ups an opportunity to connect with industry and showcase their solutions,”said Osama Raushan of TenPi.

Mr. Parikshit Bhaduri of Green Field Soft, a start-up company offering software products and services to support sustainability, also showcased an interesting implementation. Speaking on his experience of the event, Mr Bhaduri said, “I had the privilege of attending the ITPV Partner Leadership awards event

and I was thoroughly impressed by the thought-provoking presentations. The wellorganized platform to bring the tech community together will go a long way in fostering partnership in the sector.”

Anuj Singhal, Managing Director, Techplus Media shared insights in his key note on the core of channel business. He

OCTOBER 2018 17

event WINNER LIST

27 18

OCTOBER 2018

Best Managed IT Services Company

Prime Infoserv LLP

Best partner for Infrastructure Solution

WizerTech Informatics Pvt. Ltd.

Best Information Security Audit Partner 2018

iSolution Software Systems Pvt Ltd

Best Cloud Hosting Service Provider

Diadem Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Best Consulting Partner for Infrastructure Solution

Diamond Infotech Pvt. Ltd.

Best Partner in AI Solutions

Skybits Technologies Pvt Ltd.

Best Enterprise Mobility Partner

Indus Net Technologies Pvt Ltd

Best Partner for Digital Solution -2018

Sun Dew Solutions Pvt Ltd

Best Partner for Infrastructure Services

Techniche consulting services Pvt. Ltd.

Emerging RD – Networking

Shree Samarth Techno traders

Best System Integrator – East

Future Netwings Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Best SI – Northeast

BMG Informatics Pvt Ltd

Best SI – Odissa

Esquare System & Technologies (P) Ltd

Best SVAAS partner( SOFTWARE & VIDEO AS A SERVICE )

RankTech Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Best Partner for Security Solution

Macaws Infotech

Best ISV – Somnetics (BPM)

Som Imaging Informatics Pvt. Ltd.

Best ISV – Retail Solution

RanceLab Computer Pvt. Ltd.

Best ISV -Financial Management ( Bravo )

EDP Soft

Best Solution provider in BFSI

Vara United Pvt. Ltd.

Emerging E-learning Solutions Provider

Ensonic Computech Pvt Ltd

Emerging Partner – Network Solutions

Netcom Solutions

Most Innovative Partner in Digital Solution

TCG Digital Solutions Pvt Ltd

Critical Infrastructure Management Plan

Green Field Software Pvt. Ltd.

Best Sub distributor (East)

Savera Digital India Pvt. Ltd.

Best Sub-distributor Northeast

Datamation Services

Best Network OEM for Commercials Segment

Ruckus Networks

Best Software Retailer 2018 (EAST)

Microtech Software Pvt. Ltd.

Best Regional distributor -2018

Technocrat Infotech Pvt. Ltd.

Best Print & Imaging Partner

Planet Computers

Make in India Award for Excellence –Networking

Digisol Systems Ltd.

Make in India Award for Excellence -2018

Zebronics

Make in India Award for Excellence -2018

Jupiter International Ltd.

Young Business Leader 2018

Ms. Aditi Jhawar

Best Tech Startup – Eastern India

TenPi Technologies

Best Print and Imaging Vendor 2018

Canon India Pvt Ltd

Best Association in Eastern India

COMPASS

Best ND for Upcountry Reach

Supertron Electronics Pvt. Ltd.

Best ND Partner Development

Redington India

Best ND Partner’s Choice

Ingram Micro

ITPV Women Enterpreneur 2018 (East)

Ms. Nandini Sharma

Most Impactful Leader 2018

Mr. VK Bhandari

Lifetime Achievement

Mr. K.L Lalani

event

said, “Channel partners need to stick to the core DNA of system integration. Partners need to provide full stack solution that consists of multiple products & services and which is not

merely a portfolio of products, but also integrated with each other at the data layer so that the customer experience is preserved across the different products and services. Most

importantly, they are rarely all owned by a single company.”

Go with a consultative approach and provide customers with an efficient heterogeneous solution, he added further.

Speaking about the event, Vishwaroop Ganju, Channel Sales Manager – Enterprise & Telecom (North, East & SAARC), Ruckus Networks, said,” Ruckus is obliged to have been a

OCTOBER 2018 19

event part of this event and will look forward for the same collaboration in future as well. We met with new and existing partners under one roof which was a plus for us.”

The event saw awardees in 43 categories being felicitated or their good work. Some noteworthy names were Ms. Nandini Sharma, Comnet Resources Pvt Ltd., for the ITPV Women Entrepreneur 2018 (East).

Mr. Mr. VK Bhandariof Supertron Electronics Pvt. Ltd. won the award for the Most Impactful Leader 2018, while the Lifetime Achievement award was given away to Mr. K.L Lalani of Lalani Infotech.

A big congrats to all the below 43 awardees and wishing them the best in taking their business to more bigger heights.

Kalpana Singhal, CEO & Editor-in- Chief, Techplus Media, in her welcome speech addressed the gathering on the changing landscape of Disruptive Technologies, its impact and limitations posed to innovations along with insights on how tech disruptors will outpace the competition. She said, “As the technology industry continues to drive massive economic value companies are making big investments in AI, IoT, Robotics, Blockchain and other technologies that have great influence on the way business and consumers engage with the world.

Managing these disruptive technologies and new business models proactively and strategically requires vision and courage. Those who do not go down the path of transforming into digital-first enterprises will be obsolete.”

The event concluded with a gala dinner and networking by the delegates present.

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OCTOBER 2018 21

event

Techplus Media honours Most Impactful Technopreneurs at itVARnews Business Leaders Awards

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Techplus media recently honoured South India’s top 30 Most Impactful Technopreneurs “at itVARnews Business Leaders Awards at Chennai on September 14, 2018, in association withNetmagic, a NTT Communications Company.

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n a glittering ceremony attended by the who’s who of the ITES industry, Techplus Media itVARnews showered accolades over nearly 35 extremely deserving candidates.

There were more than 100 nominations that were judged by a Jury of power packed technologists. The event was launched by Mr N. K. Mehta, Chairman of ISODA and Mr Shantaram Shinde, Business and Emerging Technologies Leader at Netmagic Solutions.

Among the awardees were leaders in the partners’ community form the Southern region. Some of the known names were Mr L Ashok, CEO, Futurenet Technologies, Mr Yogesh Chordia, of Technosphere solutions, Mr Elangovan, Director, Savic Technologies, to name a few.

“The itVARnews Business Leaders awards is an endeavour to recognise ground breaking work in the partners’ community,” said Anuj Singhal, CEO of Techplus Media, speaking on the occasion,” we have a fourteen yearlong presence in this space, and deep insights about the challenges, achievements and innovations that this sector provides. So we thought it was important to recognise the effort and the growth that the channels segment is seeing.”

The Most Impactful Tech Partners “at itVARnews Business Leaders Awardswas a gathering of aspiring as well as inspiring channel partners. Said Mr Shantaram Shinde,Business and Emerging Technologies Leader at Netmagic Solutions.

EVENT

”The theme of the event kept attendees engaged is most important thing, else mostly it is death by ppts. Moreover, there were so many new partners and we would really look forward to work with them.”

During the event, there was an exciting discussion on the challenges faced by the partner community and how they should be resolved, that saw very active participation from all the attendees. Mr N K Mehta, Chairman of ISODA spoke about the function in glowing terms,” It always feels good when a partner is recognized for his works, and am thankful for the awards. One take away was the workshop was really very very useful. If time would have permitted, we would have come with a larger number of suggestions. We need more time to discuss these topics and I will request Techplus itVARnews next time to do this on a larger scale with a lot of time in hand. I will also like to thank Techplus - itVARnews for inviting me as ISODA chairman to give away this ward.”

Mr Siddharth Subramani, MD, Spectrum7 Technologies PvtLtd said,” I am really excited to be a part of this event and collaborate with so many partners, it’s been a lot of good learning, and I look forward to doing such events in the future as well.”

Added Muneer Ahmad, Owner, Digital track solutions,” I must thank TechPlus Media for this event. It was a really good workshop, and more than discussions, we also had good fun with the partner OCTOBER 2018 23

EVENT WINNER LIST Hiren Shah

Director

Dynamic Computer Services

L ashok

CEO

Futurenet Technologies India Pvt. Ltd..

D Suresh Swamy

CEO

Power Centre Pvt Ltd

Yogesh Chordia

Director

Technosphere Solutions

Sidharth Subramani

MD

Spectrum7 Technologies Private Limited

Muneer Ahamed

Director

Digital Track Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Ramesh

Director

Safezone Secure Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

N K Mehta

CEO

Secure Network Solutions India Private Limited

S.Sivakumar

Director

Usam Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Pradeep Daga

Director

Suntronix

Jagannathan Narayanan

CEO

Fourth Dimension Technologies P. Ltd.

Mr. Jagannathan

MD

Futurecalls Technology Private Limited

Mr. Elangovan

Director

SAVIC Technologies Pvt Ltd

Mr. Antony

Director

Oasys Cybernetics Pvt. Ltd.

Balakrishnan Pasupathy

MD & CEO

DCDR Infra Private Limited

Mr. Vishnuvardhan

Director

Ace Tech Tools Private Limited

Balaji CD

Director

ROX TECHNOLOGY AND SOLUTION PVT LTD

Mr. Mohan

Director

Green Network Communication

KRISHNAKUMAR

CEO

Phalgune Infotech

ANANDAN Mr. N Gowrishankar

Director

Web Networks

Murugappan

MD

Computer Waves

C Ramesh Kumar

Director

Networks

G Balaji

Director

Solaris Computers Pvt. Ltd.

Shyam Kumar

Business Head

Cetas Information Tech

Rakesh Chawla

Director

Century Computers

Janardhan

Director

Vishal Computers

Bhakthavatsalam V Raghavan

Director

Raksha Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Mr. Arokia Peter

CEO

Carmel Infotech Solutions

Chetna Soni

MD

Auro Enterprises

S Kumar

Director

Skylark Information Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

S.Umashankar

MD

Sniper Systems and Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

community, we discussed a lot of issues. The topics were on day to day businesses, and there was a lot of learning in this.”

Appreciating the recognition smaller channel partners get on a regional event like this, L Ashok, ofFuturenet technologies said,” The biggest takeaway for me was, it was a good collaborative forum for me to network with a lot of these people. I look forward to many such events.”

“The biggest takeaway for me from this event is that- the way forward for any business is, collaboration is the way to grow 27 24

OCTOBER 2018

and this was the perfect forum for such collaboration,” said Shyam Kumar, Business Head, Cetas Information Tech,” We intend to grow through various such partners that we have met here today.”

itpv PROMOTION

Acer steps into October with launch of their first ever Self– Driving Concept car, also announced the refreshed series of its Predator Orion 9000 and 5000 gaming desktops

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cer unveiled its first ever, self-driving concept car at the Taiwan Automotive Technology Innovation Summit 2018, in collaboration with Yulon Group, one of Taiwan’s top automakers and its subsidiaries automotive electronics provider HAITEC and car brand Luxgen. Integrating Acer’s autonomous driving system with the Luxgen S3 electric vehicle platform, the two companies demonstrated their level 4 -ready self-driving concept car, showcasing their shared vision of AI (artificial intelligence) and autonomous driving technology.

The level 4-ready selfdriving concept car is based on the Luxgen S3 electric vehicle platform, with Acer’s autonomous driving system encompassing sensing, decisionmaking and control. Acer’s self-driving system leverages AI and sensor fusion algorithms fed with data from real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning,

With up to 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K processors and planned support for the new Intel Core X-series processors, the Predator Orion 9000 is the ultimate gaming PC. It features up to the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti GPUs, and supports over 8K UHD graphics.

A black and silver chassis gives it a spacecraft-like casing that glows with customizable ARGB (Addressable RGB) lighting bars and RGB LED fans. The prominent side window showcases the impressive interior with a design that keeps electromagnetic interference (EMI) levels in check despite the size of the opening.

Acer’s IceTunnel 2.0 expels heat through an advanced airflow management solution that separates the system into several thermal zones, each with an individual airflow tunnel. cameras, Lidars, MMW radars, IMU (inertial measurement unit) and ultrasonic sensors. It also uses deep learning technology to conduct object recognition, and then implements dynamic vehicle control to realize autonomous driving.

Acer’s self-driving system makes dynamic vehicle control decisions through AI models based on key data including image recognition, 3D Lidar obstacle detection, highprecision maps and real-time positioning to help the car steer, brake, cruise, maneuver, or park. It also has a cloud management system for car sharing services so that a control center can dispatch vehicles when users make transportation requests through their mobile device.

The cloud management system can manage scheduling, monitoring, notification, and reporting, and allows safety monitoring and human intervention.

Refreshed Series of Predator Orion 9000 and 5000 gaming desktops

• Predator Orion 5000 Series: Serious Gaming Performance

Acer also announced refreshes of its Predator Orion 9000 and 5000 gaming desktops, all featuring new 9th Gen Intel® Core™ desktop processors, giving gamers a leap in performance for smooth, seamless gameplay — even while streaming and recording.

• P redator Orion 9000 Series: The Ultimate Gaming Machine

The Predator Orion 5000 gaming desktop features up to 9th Gen Intel® Core™ i9-9900K processors and up to the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 GPUs. Just like the Predator Orion 9000, the Orion 5000’s chassis has the signature transparent side panel to show off its powerful internals and includes the IceTunnel 2.0 airflow management design to keep the system cool.

OCTOBER 2018 25

itpv PROMOTION

Canon imagePROGRAF iPF671E Large Format Printer that is easy to use while increasing productivity with fast print speeds and ink tank efficiencies event that a nozzle clog occurs, the iPF671E automatically compensates for this blockage by taking advantage of another available nozzle, due to the over 15,000 nozzles in the print head. Offering the ability to load larger rolls of diameters up to 5.9-inches compared to that typically offered by the competition, the imagePROGRAF iPF671E is able to help printers get more value out of their operation.

Engineered for speed and advanced image production, this printer boasts Canon’s print

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here is a new 5-color, 610 mm ( 24-inch ) large format Canon printer on the market called the iPF671E. This printer is an economical model that supports a variety of applications such as technical documents, drawings, presentations, posters and enlargements. In addition to the reliability, durability, and ease of use that Canon imagePROGRAF line of products are known for , this particular model is ideal for those looking for an extremely affordable printer as well. An added bonus to purchasing a 671E is its small footprint.

This small printer can fit on a desktop or the optional stand can be purchased to fit into a shared network environment for multiple users to print to.

Designed to compete in the low-cost, low-volume 24 inch market, Canon’s imagePROGRAF iPF671E offers speeds approximately 20 percent faster than that of the competition.* The imagePROGRAF iPF671E printer comes equipped with a total of 540 ml of ink differentiating it from competitors that offer less than 100 ml of ink to start with for similar devices. With 27 26

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an increased amount of ink, Canon has helped provide the tools necessary for those businesses entering the largeformat market to get their operation up and running. The new iPF671E employs a 5-color dye and pigment ink system with C, M, Y, BK, and MBK. The imagePROGRAF iPF670E offers a competitive advantage of utilizing two types of black ink: MBK for a dense black tone on plain paper and BK for glossy media to enable high image quality for poster printing.

Additionally, these new devices offer large 90 ml ink tanks for all colors, more than double that of the competition. The increased capacity of these color tanks will allow printers to stay on track and replace their tanks less frequently.

The imagePROGRAF iPF671E provides users with the high standards of reliability and efficiency that customers can expect from Canon devices.

The printer’s hot-swap ink tanks and non-firing nozzle detection and compensation features allow users to swap ink tanks in the middle of a print job without having to worry about ruining the print. In the

fine lines that are accurate to ±0.10% and as thin as 0.02mm.

Available free for download for the imagePROGRAF iPF671E is the following software, not offered by competing devices: Accounting Manager –Keeps track of your ink & media costs.

PosterArtist Lite – Bring your graphic design needs in house to create posters with ease.

Print Plug-in for Microsoft Office – Allows users to integrate directly with core Microsoft applications for streamlined workflow.

Below are some of the highlights of the iPF671E: • L ow acquisition cost • 5 40 ml of ink shipped standard with the printer • A black ink for photo printing and a matte black ink for line drawings • H igher Printhead life than competitive devices • C onsistently accurate Hi quality 2400 x 1200 dpi output with fine lines that are accurate to ±0.10% and as thin as 0.02mm.

• D rag and drop hot folder capability via Canon’s-Direct Print and Share software for simple to use large format printing • P osterArtist Lite includes everything you need to create professional-posters, signs, and banners in just 4 easy steps • A ccounting Manager keeps track of printing costs head technology that lays down ink with exceptional speed and accuracy. The Canon print head incorporates a nozzle orifice shape to help minimize mist spray, producing clean lines and text. The high-precision, highdensity print head, with a total of 15,360 nozzles, lays down 4 picoliter-size ink droplets that produce sharp detail and excellent image quality. The result is consistently accurate 2400 x 1200 dpi output with

Direct Print & Share – Through this feature, the end user can drag and drop files to hot folders to easily print large format files For more information on Canon’s large format devices and solutions, please visit www.canon.co.in *When printing a CAD drawing in Fast mode on A1-sized plain paper, the imagePROGRAF iPF671E completes a print in approximately 56 seconds, compared to 70 seconds for competing device.

itpv PROMOTION

iBall launches “Decibel” Alexa Built-in Headset • O ne of the first Indian brands to launch Alexa

built-in headset in India • S oft cushioned ear-cups with high quality sound • 6 hours of music at full volume – amazing battery life!

• C onnects to both Android and iOS smartphones

iBall, a brand known for its innovative and latest technology devices, stands true to its testimony and adds yet another freshness to its emergent portfolio of headsets with the launch of ‘iBall Decibel Headset’ that has Alexa built-in.

The iBall Decibel is also gorgeous in looks, high in quality of sound and immensely versatile offering FM Radio, AUX, MicroSD. iBall is one of the first Indian brands to launch Alexa-enabled headsets in India.

Simply tap the MFB button to access hands-free voice control with Alexa on the Smart Headphone and get started by saying “Play songs from ….(movie)” or “Turn up the volume”. From playing your favourite music to asking about cricket scores to weather details, news and more, the iBall Decibel Smart Headset enabled with Alexa is a convenient

way of adding voice-control to your world.

Alexa is now portable and you can take her everywhere you go. Download the “Hubble Connect for Verve Life” App on both Android™ and iOS™ devices to unlock more features and access future updates. The multifunction button on the Headset also continues to allow access to your phone’s default services for Calls and Music as a regular Bluetooth® headset. Designed with premium material, iBall Decibel headset is comfortable for all-day wear. The overear headphone features the acoustic headphone structure that delivers powerful low notes and eliminates the need for artificial bass boosting. Listen and groove to music in any genre sounds as it should: natural, lifelike, as recorded. Featuring dedicated 40 mm driver unit, this Bluetooth® headphone delivers a wider frequency range with a balanced, powerful lows and extended highs. Speaking on the newest launch, Mr. Sandeep Parasrampuria (CEO and Director, iBall) says, “We are thrilled to be among the first Indian brands to bring the Alexa voice assistant in our Audio Category. Voice-based response is on the rise and is bound to become a way of life in a short time. With the launch of our Alexa

built-in iBall Decibel headset, we are bringing a unique experience to our Indian consumers.” “Alexa should go everywhere you want to go, and the iBall Decibel Headset makes that even easier,” said Manohar Hotchandani, Country Manager for Alexa Voice Service (AVS), Amazon India. “We’re excited that these headphones will bring great-sounding music, durability, portability, and voice-control with Alexa to even more customers, inside and outside of their homes.” iBall Decibel is packed with a smart in-line control with integrated high-quality microphone that allows users to have clear conversations.

The Headphone brings high quality audio performance at any volume, and actively works up to 6 hours of wireless listening at full volume. It also comes with built-in FM Radio and multiple playback options that include Bluetooth®, AUX and MicroSD Slot for direct music playback.

The iBall Decibel comes in 3 stunning color combinations of Oxford Blue + White Cushion + Silver grill, Oxford Blue + Black Cushion + Silver grill and Charcoal Black + Black Cushion + Bronze Gold grill and will be available within few weeks with leading retail stores across India at a MRP of just `1,799.

Zebronics Unveils its New 2.2 Speaker Cosmos

Z

ebronics India Pvt. Ltd., India’s leading brand of IT peripherals, sound systems, mobile/ lifestyle accessories and surveillance products has launched its 2.2 speaker ‘Cosmos’

Giving your home an ultimate audio lift, comes our 2.2 speaker aiming at giving you the kick of the bass to get your party started. The charm of LED lights, powerful audio yet designed functionally for a

compact space.

Put your favorite songs on a loop or kick back for a refreshing experience with the LED lights to create the perfect soothing ambiance.

Get the ultimate bass with dual subwoofers that give you the much needed thump. The speaker comes with a modern design and has LED lights across the speaker cones giving it a rather contemporary look.

The speaker has an overall compact feeling to it and it comes with various controls for volume enhancement and one can totally adjust the bass, treble factor which is essential in the overall listening experience.

Get the best of multiconnectivity options with Cosmos. Play your music wirelessly or enjoy your playlist via a Micro SD card.or an AUX cable. The option of an inbuilt FM radio is definitely fitting for the overall listening experience.

Speaking on the launch of the product Mr. Pradeep Doshi, Director – Zebronics India says “ Our speaker range is renowned for producing high fidelity sound. With the launch of our 2.2 speaker Cosmos we’re aiming for that ultimate bass with dual subwoofer in a modern design” This product is available across all leading retail stores across India.

OCTOBER 2018 27

INSIGHt

Must-Have Analytic Features

How to Choose the Right IoT platform

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85 percent of analytics projects fail due to a convergence of both technology-related and business process problems. However, the technology side does have considerable influence over businessrelated issues like user adoption. These are the top must-have features for an analytics platform:

Customizable Interface and UX

Lack of customization and a static user experience (UX) that belies the fact that users are working with third-party software is one of the traditional drawbacks of buying data and analytic applications instead of building your own.

Developers get the best of both worlds while using a sophisticated data and analytics platform.

Integration With Many Data Sources A sophisticated analytics tool is only as powerful as the data that fuels them. When looking at data and analytics platforms, data connection and integration can be one of the biggest pain points (or differentiators). For instance, some platforms may require you to build additional data layers to bridge the gap between their technology and yours.

Hence either look for a platform that will easily integrate with a range of different data sources or find a vendor who is willing to work with you to ensure seamless integration with your proprietary data sources.

Write-Back Functionality

Platforms that offer only the ability to read from a database typically lead to messy data and leads to ease of maintenance. Look for a solution that also allows users to write back to the database for truly seamless analytics. This reduces problems like duplicate entries or out-of-date information and since other tools can leverage analytic outputs, it also enables your analytics to become more sophisticated. Time savings is another key advantage of write-back functionality. People across your organization will spend far less time cleaning up data because users don’t have to go back to the database to update entries manually.

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n IoT device helps you to transfer information with other IoT devices or applications using internet transfer protocols. The gap between device and data network is filled by an IoT platform which connects the data network with the device and provides valuable insights using backend application. While making the decision of whether to build own IoT platform or buy an existing platform, the following aspects should be considered:

Time or Money

Most IoT platforms provide only teaser rates which are prices for their base model and can go a lot higher.

If you choose to build own platform, it can easily take years to mirror the basic functionalities of an existing IoT platform.

Development Skills and Team

Advanced cloud computing, protocols such as MQTT, and building agents onto hardware devices are some of the things that the team needs to understand for building an IoT platform. Unsurprisingly, all these skills are quite rare and expensive.

IoT Solution needs and complexity While an IoT solution with an existing platform is already complex task, building an IoT platform will further add complexity fto the team.

Not just the hardware needs to be integrated, there are plenty of external interfaces and additional modules such as specific analytics.

Business Intelligence Statistics Worth a Look

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ou must have seen the amount of paperwork and data created by your company if you work in a professional office, or own your own business. While you may already know that your business needs to consider business intelligence, here are three Business Intelligence statistics you should know about as well.

Spending on Business Intelligence services will increase

As per a leading, global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney, global spending on Big Data hardware, software, and services will increase at a CAGR of 30% through 2018, putting it at a total market size of $114 billion dollars.

Cloud-based Business Intelligence is growing too

Cloud-based business intelligence will grow quicker than we imagined. The predictions say that cloud-based Business Intelligence will grow from $.75B in 2013 to $2.94B in 2018, reaching a CAGR of 31%. Cloud-based BI is the road to the future.

The server market for HPDA will grow rapidly

International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts the server market for HPDA, or high-performance data analysis will grow at a 23.5% compound annual growth rate reaching $2.7B by 2018.

You need to consider if the servers your business is currently using will be enough for your future needs knowing that the demand for servers that can handle highperformance data analysis will be high.

INSIGHt

C

How To Find an Effective Cyber Security Consulting Company

ybercrime is increasing at an alarming rate with the increase in digitization of our lives and our businesses.

According to Juniper Research, the cost of data breaches is headed to become a $2 trillion industry worldwide by 2019. In light of the rising cyber threats, security is no longer an option but a necessity irrespective of the size of an organization.

Start looking for a reliable cyber security solution now if your business lacks a robust protection. Here’s how to find and choose a trusted and reliable cyber security consulting service:

Know What You Need

You should identify your enterprise’s cybersecurity needs before searching for a security service. Solutions like firewalls, data loss prevention, intrusion detection systems, antiransomware solution, network security, system security, and cloud security are something that most of the enterprises need.

What can help you identify your security needs and the existing loopholes is a cybersecurity audit or assessment. There are a number of cybersecurity firms that offer cheap or free security assessment services.

Shortlist the Best Services and Look at Their Reputation and Experience

Once you have identified your security needs, the next step involves shortlisting 2 or 3 cybersecurity consulting companies. Their reputation and experience in your niche or industry and the technologies, techniques, and approaches they use to implement their services is also an important consideration.

Read online reviews of their past work, look at their websites and read the testimonials left by their

clients, or contact them directly and ask for information about their experience and services. You should ideally go for the one that has experience in your industry and has established a good name.

Evaluate Their Team

Competent, experienced and dedicated professionals are one of the traits of a reliable cybersecurity firm. They would not be able to secure your business without skilled people.

To evaluate their team, check the profiles of the team on the company’s website and do some online research on each team member by looking at their credentials and finding where have they worked in the past. Besides their education, also be sure to look at the team’s size and the training and certifications of the team members. You’re good to go to the next step if their security experts have certifications like CISSP, CISA, and CISM.

Reporting and Performance Evaluation

A good cyber security company should be able to provide you with monthly analytics and important reports.

You should know what they are doing and how they’re doing it as well as should be able to furnish you the reports and other details as per the provisions of the contract.

Do not forget to discuss with them the metrics you’ll use to evaluate their performance.

Slice and Dice Their Services

Many companies might make tall claims about their cybersecurity services but lack the skills and technologies necessary to implement the services in reality. You should first revisit your needs and analyze them against the company’s solutions. A company offering a wide range

of services should ideally have a large workforce or should have sharp skills in their niche if it specializes in a particular area.

Security governance, network security, security compliance, security operations, system security, cloud security, data security etc. are some of the critical cybersecurity services your need may include. You should also ask them for details of their services and solutions, including pricing details, insurance coverage, and flexibility of the contract.

Scalability of the Solution

Be sure that the solutions offered are scalable before choosing your cybersecurity service. Without creating much disruption or business downtime, the cybersecurity model should ideally evolve with your business. Additionally, the contract should have room for necessary changes whenever necessary.

OCTOBER 2018 29

INSIGHt

How Data Intelligence Can Help Your Business and avoid problems in a very fragile market, an easy-to-read dashboard that is reviewed weekly will help you go places.

Personalize your sales strategy and anticipate objections

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usiness data intelligence solutions can take your business to new heights.

Here are some ways it can enhance your organization and help decision makers make more informed, effective choices.

Determine the ROI of your marketing strategy

Business intelligence is crucial in helping small businesses figure out if the marketing strategy they’ve invested in is producing ROI in a market saturated with apps, social media platforms, analytics tools, and pay-per-click campaigns.

Data intelligence can translate into analytics reports where businesses can base decisions on data, solid research, and facts.

Reports can tell you a much bigger story than you could imagine.

Derive knowledge from a sea of data

Ninety percent of the data that exists today the world over was created in the last two years alone and the rate of data creation is only going 27 30

OCTOBER 2018

to accelerate going forward.

The explosion of social media channels and the burgeoning number of users disseminating data at breakneck speeds are the prime reasons behind it. As a result, businesses are finding it difficult to decipher meaningful insights out of it all and this is exactly where data intelligence can chip in. It can help enterprises gain a head start to better understand customer needs and market dynamics by deriving knowledge from all the business processes. Delivering on customer promises, improving performance, and building longterm customer relationships are some of the benefits of BI.

Understand what drives revenue for your business

While business data intelligence can be a very broad term,it is exciting to know exactly what is going to drive revenue for your business, who your end user is, how they consume their information, and what influences their decisions. There are thousands of outlets pushing information in today’s marketplace, and

not everyone can consume everything. Business intelligence is knowing where and how your ideal customer consumes their information, what is going to drive them to purchase and subscribe and executing a plan to take advantage of that knowledge.

Avoid bottlenecks and problems in a fragile market

Data intelligence provides insights into the true health of an organization that is not readily available from a profit and loss statement and hence is critical to both executives and owners equally. There are a plethora of BI applications available on the market today that integrate with your accounting software, andthe key is to understand which is best for your type of business as each has its own pros/cons and features. BI includes forecasting to avoid bottlenecks and provide perfect timing for decision making such as purchasing or new hires and is not only about tracking KPIs (key performance indicators) once a month or quarter. To be more informed

Business data intelligence is also about understanding about the other business you are trying to work within any capacity.

The sales teams generally research this information to be prepared for objections specific to a company’s situation. There are many other things to look for in a company to evaluate its health outside of in-depth business intelligence. If the company is publicly traded, this research will be easier. It’s a very good idea to do business research to personalize a sales strategyif you’re part of a sales team. This way, not only will you be more prepared for their objections, but you will appear more genuine in understanding the obstacles this company will have to overcome to move forward with the sale. To see if a company is a good candidate for a sale, your sales team should have a long checklist of things to look for. The more things on the checklist that match-up, the more ammunition you have from your business intelligence you can use to help them understand how great of a candidate they are.”

Get a single, consolidated view of your customers

Regardless of platform business intelligence is having access to all your business data in a singular, unified dashboard and aggregated into a single holistic view of the customer and their interactions with your business. In the day and age where customers are interacting with a business across a multitude of platforms and channels, including their

INSIGHt

How Safe are the New Digital Payments?

website, social channels, live chat tools, email, apart from purchasing products both offline and online, this is extremely important. It would be difficult to know how to best address them, or meet their needs without a single consolidated view of the customer. Owing to this platform fragmentation, data intelligence is a must.

Track your inventory and capitalize on trends

Data intelligence or analytics has become critical in retail owing to the fast pace at which consumers expect orders to be delivered to their doorsteps. Retailers and brands need to know where their inventory is located and how well it’s selling. Analytics helps in providing the required insight to buyers and executives so they can capitalize on buying trends.

Build your brand in a competitive, complex retail environment

Good business intelligence is the data that enables marketers to plan and react faster, and more efficiently in the context of consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketing, and throughout the decision-making process. It helps professionals to find creative ways of growing the business through initiatives like cross-promotion strategies with complementing product categories.

Discover the big-picture “why” and what motivates consumer behaviour

The numbers that drive data intelligence as it stands today don’t tell a complete story because the way the executive suite sees the business is not exactly how customers see the business.

Additionally, social media snippets aren’t enough to fill the gap. They must first understand why a phenomenon is happening rather than go with a gut feeling to truly understand and satisfy customers’ needs and correct problems. Adding qualitative analytics to their dashboard alongside the quantitative data can give them that big picture because it’s adding the ‘why’ to the ‘what.’ Looking at the numbers while formulating the data intelligence strategy will only tell what the customers are doing, not what motivates them to do those things

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he basic relations between banks and their customers has changed, owing to changing expectations and behaviours. 2017 and 2018 saw a major shift in terms of how payments are being made and how different entities other than the traditional financial institutions are coming in to increase financial inclusion in India.

The government is also pushing usersto adopt digital channels of payments by bringing policies that support both, the customer and the merchant, during a transaction. But we often ask questions like – Is it safe to use these new instruments to make payments? Is the information that flows during a financial transaction safe?

With the introduction of new age technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and advanced learning algorithms being part of the new financial crime management solutions, security over time has evolved and become better. A lot of discovery is going into identifying new loopholes that have the potential to be exploited, and steps are being taken to make it safer.

The digital payments space will be

able to provide robust, convenient and seamless services to people by improving both technology and financial literacy.

The improvement in the authorization process is one aspect to consider,looking at how technology is improving for people to do safer digital transactions.

The inclusion of biometric authentication during transactions is a step ahead in increasing the trust of consumers.

Vigilance and detection of fraud at early stagesis alsoa very important parameter in increasing safety in digital payments space. Hence integration of better and more sophisticated fraud management and mitigation are very important so that the responses for any kind of threat detected are already present in the system. Financial institutions are using such software to prevent fraud and infiltration from the outside environment into their system.

With an effort to increase awareness about how to protect yourselves from frauds by following certain protocols of keeping your passwords, card details and other documents which have sensitive information safe, the future will lead to continuous improvement in the bankcustomer relationship.

OCTOBER 2018 31

INSIGHt

Benefits of Business Data Intelligence Solution customers get their products when they need them. This leads to the elimination of wasted inventory expenses and more improvement in the business.

Identifies potential opportunities

Business intelligence can enhance the profits by helping the companies identify potential clients. Companies can be more proactive in working when they can asses their own capabilities and strengths to compare them with potential high-level clients.

Reduced labour costs

You are able to reduce employee training and development costs by automating data collection and report generation. Business Intelligence can also reduce costs by allowing you to understand how well you’re performing with a certain number of employees and how many you need to reach your goals.

Greater competitive advantage

A

lot of companies are now finding the benefits and advantages of incorporating a business data intelligence system into their program, thanks to the advancement in technology.

Business data intelligence consists of software and other tools that take complex business data and condense it into highlevel reports. These reports can be used for varied purposes, from increasing employee productivity to eliminating waste in the business place, and much more.

Eliminates waste

Anything that is not adding value to a company can be defined as waste. Business data intelligence systems can pinpoint areas of waste that 27 32

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might have gone previously unnoticed in most companies, as more unnoticed waste means less productivity.

productive on the road while also saving you the time and effort of searching through endless amounts of files.

Eliminates guesswork

Improved sales information

Running your business shouldn’t be shooting an arrow in the dark. Business data intelligence solutions can help you make informed decisions rather than “going with your gut.” Detailed and up-to-date data, and not guessing can help your company succeed in knowing the best strategy.

Immediate access to key metrics reports

You can get quick and easy access to metrics reports for your company, whether you are in the office or on the go,.

This allows you to be more

Business intelligence systems allow you to identify up-to-date reports on market trends, product development, customer preferences etc. and with the information at the fingertips, your sales team can work more efficiently and more productively, consequently improving your bottom line.

Better inventory management

Business data intelligence software helps you to order the right level of inventory at any given time and ensure that

You can gain insight into markets, competitors, and your own performance by implementing a business intelligence system can allow you to. The said information can be key in getting ahead of competitors on customer preferences and market trends.

Quick and easy consolidation of data

You can consolidate data from multiple different sources just as easy as if they were on the same server with an automated data collection system. If you spend more time improving the company and can decrease the time you would usually spend consolidating data and, you’ll find a greater impact on your bottom line and eventually see a more successful company.

CHANNEL NEWS

Focus Softnet Unveils Focus 9 in India Built to modernize and accelerate business operations, Focus 9 is an intelligent application with simplified IT infrastructure that gives companies the tools to automate their critical processes. while also dramatically improving user interface experience.

The revolutionary new system architecture of Focus 9 equips organizations with the power of the ERP, enabling scalability, mobility and governance while offering advanced security, facilitating real-time insights with advanced data-processing capabilities and providing faster access to business process information anytime and anywhere.

F

ocus Softnet, the leading software development and enterprise applications provider, today announced the global launch of its nextgeneration ERP solution – Focus 9, powered by Pronghorn server – the company’s feature-rich proprietary design built with inmemory computing capabilities for lightning speed transactions, in India. Built to modernize and accelerate business operations, Focus 9 supports organizations to transform business values with advanced analytics and real-time insights.

Focus 9 is built on the next-generation in-memory computing technology and other upgraded features to amplify speed and efficiency of operations, forming a strong connection between the enterprise and its workforce, business networks, and departments. The ERP’s modular structure lets organizations chart out their ERP rollout strategy and real-time system design gives them up-to-the-

minute accurate information for effective and powerful decision making.

“We are excited to announce the launch of Focus 9, our breakthrough ERP solution in India. Powered by Pronghorn server – our featurerich proprietary design, which is equipped with a hybrid in-memory computing engine, Focus 9 will offer businesses swift, intelligent and secure transactions. It will be available to our customers as on-premise, SaaS-on-premise and SaaS-oncloud versions,” says Ali Hyder, Group CEO of Focus Softnet.

Focus 9 integrates data from divergent resources.

The converged infrastructure solution coherently combines the structured and unstructured business data to dynamically generate meticulous analysis reports entailed to promulgate critical insights for informed decision making. The progressed framework enhances ERP workload performance and simplifies business operations

“Organizations need to have information about where the data is coming from, where it is going, and who is using it. The absence of an apt data governance tool revokes discovery, tracking, and organization of data assets.

Focus 9 addresses key industry challenges with its hybrid database feature that provides a reliable system to store massive data and run queries from the information contained at blazing fast data processing speeds,” adds Hyder.

Focus 9 also provides easy and efficient integration across modules and vertical specific systems in virtually any business environment, be it trading, manufacturing, services, real estate, healthcare or academia.

With a single sign-on and single menu integration with Centra CRM, the application equips organizations with Campaign Management, Lead Qualification, Sales Planning and Forecasting taking the whole sales cycle workflow to cash realization and cashflow forecast.

Industry-ready templates makes deployment for verticals such as automobile, real estate, facilities management and

other service related industries faster, reduces IT costs for customization, follows industry standards and improves the solution’s usability and performance.

Since the inception of its first product (version), Focus Softnet has laid special emphasis on continuous R&D, taking into consideration customer feedback before developing new products. In this light, Focus 9 is built to be flexible and being a thin client application, it offers organizations the advantage of lower hardware costs as no investment is needed on powerful servers. It comes pre-equipped with Single Sign-On (SSO) data-security mechanism, providing convenient single login for all business applications. Another great benefit of the system is that it is fully mobile and can be accessed on any device at anytime from anywhere. This device independence offers great flexibility which is vital for organizations functioning in multiple locations.

“No matter how disciplined your organization or how robust our system, hierarchical approvals and crisis escalations are essential for effective business performance. With all the complexities of business surrounding you, and systems that you need to adhere to, the least we can do is provide an easy to use, intuitive system which is a breeze to operate.

Thus, we have equipped Focus 9 with the hybrid database feature that provides a unified platform to store enormous capabilities of high-performance data, while being flexible, robust and persistent in nature,” concludes Hyder.

OCTOBER 2018 33

Channel

Point Blockchain. The future is here

B

eing future ready is one of the top objectivesof enterprise today. Adopting, even embracing newtechnologies is the only way for growth. We have been speaking of AI, Automation, ML, IoT but those are today’s technologies. Now we need to be prepared for the tomorrows’ tech- Industrie 4.0, and one of the strongest players in the 4.0 era will be the Blok chain- a technology that is rapidly changing the enterprisescenario globally. India is also becoming a major player in the field, and we are looking at a market worth USD 15-30 billion over the next 5-7 years, experts say.

The advantages it gets to industry is increasing productivity and decreasing costs! In fact, NASSCOM says, it can create a value of up to $5 billion in India by 2024!

One industry that is already showing benefits is the banking and financial institutions industry (BFSI). In addition to costs savings, Blockchain can help to make transactions faster and more transparent, two of the biggest requirements for the money focused industry. It can help fight the high risk of added costs if processes and compliances are not in place and delivering in the most efficient possible manner.

Streamlining international transactions, digitization of payments and remittances are now possible with much greater security, efficiency and speed, using Blockchain technologies.

In wake of Digital India push from the government of India, this could be the best time for the new technology to enter the industry. This could be the one new transformation India Inc has been looking forward to! No wonder then, that the center and state governments are supporting its adoption. Reports say Andhra Pradesh applies block chain to its land records, and other states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, Telangana and West Bengal are not far behind!!

But, when something is too good to be true, it probably is!!

Blockchain, being the new kid on n the block, has no common standards and it may be too early to vouch for its security and efficacy. However, the biggest block for adoption of Blockchain is the fact that the thought of a sharing economy needs to re-enforce all units as one – a single organization. Hence its feasibility comes from the situation where all the stakeholders in the value chain share the resources and build an ecosystem to benefit all To enable Blockchain make the drastic changes in the industry and grow, we needto create a supportive and efficient eco system. Today, the ecosystem and the regulatory framework that can drive the efficacies that Blockchain enables, is in the POC stage for most organizations. Once that is sorted, adoption is expected to increase. It may introduce the much needed efficiency, speed and process excellence to Indian enterprise.

We look at what the industry feels, where the roadblocks are and what can be done to remove them, in our cover story for the month,” Is Blockchain Worth Every Penny?”

KALPANA SINGHAL, Editor (E-mail: kalpana@techplusmedia.co.in) 27 34

OCTOBER 2018

EDITOR: KALPANA SINGHAL CONSULTING EDITOR: Kanika Goswami ASSISTANT EDITOR: Amit Singh SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Ekta Srivastava CORRESPONDENT: Rashmi Sharma MARKETING: VICE PRESIDENT: Anjali Sethi BDM HEAD: Sandhya Patade MANAGER AD-SALES: SUPRIYA SAHOO INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION: Poorva Shrivastava SALES: Pratap Jana | Awadh Kishore PRODUCTION HEAD: Aji Kumar WEBSITE: Sheetal Varshney/Ramesh Kr PROMOTION: Amit Pandey / Vimla Rani CIRCULATION: Pratap FINANCE: Inder Pal HEAD OFFICE: 370A, Sant Nagar, East of Kailash, New Delhi Tel: 41690720, 41625763, 41325819, 26237405 Email - kalpana@techplusmedia.co.in MARKETING OFFICE: 10 UF, West Wing, Raheja Tower, MG Road, Shanthala Nagar, Ashok Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka-560001 Delhi: 9711841991 | Mumbai: 9711849468 Kolkata: 9331072026 | Guwahati: 9864084436 Bangalore: 9711841993 OWNED, PRINTED & PUBLISHED BY ANUJ SINGHAL Printed at Modest Graphics Pvt. Ltd., C 52-53, DDA Shed, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase - I, New Delhi-20, Place of Publication: 370A, 2nd Floor, Sant Nagar, East of Kailash, New Delhi-110065, Editor- Anuj Singhal ITPV does not claim any responsibility to return adequate postage. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the editor. Back Page AD will carry RNI Number & Imprint Line Note: While every possible care is taken prior to accepting advertising material, it is not possible to verify its contents. ITPV will not be held responsible for such contents, or for any loss or damages incurred as a result of transactions advertising/advertorial in this publication. We recommend that the readers make necessary inquiries and verification before remitting money or entering into any agreement with advertisers, or otherwise acting on advertisement in any manner whatsoever.

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OCTOBER 2018 OWNED, PRINTED & PUBLISHED BY ANUJ SINGHAL, Place of Publication: 370A, 2nd Floor, Sant Nagar, East of Kailash, New Delhi-110065, EDITOR: Anuj Singhal