September Issue 2022

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PLUS www.smechannels.com India’s leading IT magazine for channel business VOLUME 13 | ISSUE 07 | PAGES 40 | SEPTEMBER 2022 | RS. 20/INTERVIEW / 28 TTBS Committed to Simplify and Accelerate Digital Adoption by SMBs COLLABORATION / 30 Going Uber Connected CLOUD COMPUTING / 24 Redefining networking and security for multicloud Nagarro Partners with Zendesk to Expand Customer Experience Capabilities /05

IT IS RELATIONSHIP OVER TECHNOLOGY EDITORIAL

India’s leading IT magazine for channel business

SECURITY / 36 Checkmating Payment Fraud

Dear Friends

Good to see the festive season approaching very fast and time for all to enhance relationship by exchanging pleasantries. It not only enhances the relationship between the client and the supplier but also the trust between the two parties. Now in the era of customization and specialization, the trust is the biggest thing. You do not know what is inside the product. Responding to the call is what is needed for the customers, which often time the supplier ignore once the signup happens under the pretext of SLA. So, what is person then. When technology is not a simple product with simple configuration, the scope of SLA also gets blurred at a certain point. What happens on the channel space and what needs to be taken care of is very simple. You need to have excellent relationships with your clients to take care of those lines which are blurred. Gone are the days that you sell something and forget for some months and years and comeback when you see there is time for renewal. Many times, there is ignorance from the partners about the relevance of the relationship as very difficult to manage. But my suggestion is that there has to concerted efforts from the partners to make it a habit to do some person bit towards it. Technology is ever evolving. To convince the management about adoption of technology is very diffi cult as they understand only business outcome and their reputation. It is the CIOs and IT leaders who push the technology to the management on a right perspective. So, taking the CIOs on confidence and showcasing solutions to them and showing the value proposition for the company is the need of the of hour. Unless you built trust there is less chance of buying the idea. Imagine AI is something which is very useful for the organizations in every step of their strategy – be it in customer acquisition, market ing, production, HR, etc. But problem is when you show use case to the CIOs, there are questions what is the ROI? Whether the use case environment is exactly that of their company and whether other technologies used are also deployed in their environment as well. So, there are a lot of question marks before the presentation happens to the management. If the CIOs and CISOs, and the partners have the mutual trust and respect, then it is easy for them to take it up to the management. Therefore, technology is secondary for any business use case and success. Reflect upon it.

MY EXPERIENCE

Vertiv Liebert SRC-G

Vertiv Liebert SRC-G for the edge of the network in India delivers high uptime and efficiency to small critical infrastructure, while using ‘zero’ indoor footprint. Liebert SRC-G is available now in India.

The wall-mounted Liebert SRC-G is available in capacities from 3 kW to 11 kW, occupying no ‘white space,’ and providing year-round cooling to IT equipment. The CE-certified Liebert SRC -G series can support sensible load operation year-round. It is equipped with energy-efficient technologies, including EC fans, R410A refrigerant, and rotary or scroll compressors. The Liebert SRC-G also features an advanced controller, including remote monitoring capabilities for added intelligence when managing edge IT locations. The Liebert SRC-G can sustain an outdoor temperature of up to 48 degrees Celsius, comes with a hydrophilic coated coil, and a highefficiency EC fan with high airflow of over 255 CMH/kW.

FEATURES: THE LIEBERT SRC-G CAN SUSTAIN AN OUTDOOR TEMPERATURE OF UP TO 48 DEGREES CELSIUS.

FINAL WORDING: WITH A SMALL FORM FACTOR, THIS SOLUTION IS IDEAL FOR THE ENVIRONMENT IN INDIA.

GUEST ARTICLE / 26 Cloud Blessings for Indian Agriculture. PARTNER CORNER / 14 Spotlighting Industry Best Practices.
Shutterstock appoints sejal amin as chief technology officer Pg: 12PLUS
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COLLABORATION ICEWARP / 30 “Going Uber Connected.” Trusted Advisor of Channel Business SEP contents VOLUME 13 ISSUE 07 2022 Editorial 03 Snippets ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 05 Product 37 more inside CLOUD COMPUTING VMWARE / 24 “Redefining networking and security for multicloud.” INTERVIEW TATA TELEBUSINESS / 28 “TTBS Committed to Simplify and Accelerate Digital Adoption by SMBs.” UPTRENDING BIG DATA ANALYTICS / 18 Big Data Analytics Solutions Providers are aiming at simplifying data analytics and easier deployment of analytics projects while protecting mission-critical data for businesses and public enterprises CoverStory SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 4

SNIPPETS

Nagarro Partners with Zendesk to Expand Customer Experience Capabilities

Nagarro has entered into a partner ship with Zendesk to provide joint solutions across customer sales, service and marketing for their clients. Zendesk’s customer engage ment software along with Nagarro’s expertise in CRM platforms, will help organizations keep customers at the core of their transformation journey.

Together, Zendesk and Nagarro will provide best-of-breed CRM solutions to help businesses harness digital transformation opportuni ties, especially in addressing ever-changing customer needs and expectations. Zendesk’s open and flexible platform enables seamless customer data integration, with a unified view on a single dashboard. It will improve agent productiv ity, create personalized customer interactions and automate proactive

services at scale.

This collaboration will blend Nagarro’s expertise in technology, innovation, and service excellence with Zendesk’s customer engagement platform in delivering a 360-degree customer experience, backed by intelligent CX analytics. Clients will benefit from Nagarro’s consulting, implementation, and delivery exper tise and Zendesk’s CRM product portfolio across industry sectors, primarily Retail and BFSI.

“Nagarro and Zendesk will leverage mutual opportunities and increase synergies while bringing out a comprehensive suite of CRM and CX solutions to a vast array of client base globally. This partnership supports our continuous endeavour of creating value to our client ecosystem through innovation and experience-led business outcomes.”

Dassault Systèmes Expands Pune Campus in a Boost to Its R&D Capacity

Dassault Systèmes has announced that it will be expanding its existing campus in Pune, with the addi tion of a third building - EARTH. Bernard Charlès, Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Das sault Systèmes, today unveiled the foundation stone for the EARTH tower on the Pune campus, which is expected to be completed in three years.

Dassault Systèmes leads

innovation across manufacturing, infrastructure and cities, and life sciences and healthcare with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and virtual twin technology. With the expansion of this office space, Das sault Systèmes is looking to attract top talent to strengthen its research and development efforts in India. By 2030, the Pune campus workplace capacity will be close to 9,000. Cur rently, the company has a sprawling

campus of 12 acres, in Hinjawadi, Pune with two buildings – SKY and WATER. It’s the second largest campus of Dassault Systèmes in the world; the largest one being in Paris. Dassault Systèmes Solutions Lab is a strategic R&D hub for Dassault Systèmes, as it contributes to the innovation driven by the company at a global level. The Services Deliv ery Center on this campus works on 3DEXPERIENCE platform

deployment for key customers globally. The company also set up a strategic MEDIDATA R&D team in India during the pandemic to bolster the company’s impact in the life sciences and health care sector in the country.

SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 5 SNIPPETS
for more log on to smechannels.com PRODUCT | CHANNEL | CONSULTING | SERVICES

GoTo Partner Network now includes GoTo Resolve for MSPs

GoTo has announced a new GoTo Resolve offering designed for Managed Service Providers (MSPs). The offering was designed specifically to address channel partners’ most pressing challenges, empowering organisa tions to streamline setup and day-to-day operations, grow their business, and securely serve small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

GoTo Resolve for MSPs allows Managed Service Providers to meet the evolving needs of today’s SMBs with frictionless, fast, and flexible support, without the hefty price tag. The solution provides MSP-specific account administration and reporting features, Professional Services Automation (PSA) integrations, and modern Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) capabilities, all with GoTo’s best-in-class remote support tools to easily support and troubleshoot clients’ IT assets. GoTo Resolve for MSPs is also backed up by a first-of-its-kind zero trust security architecture within an RMM solution, safeguarding MSPs and their customers from increasingly prevalent software supply chain attacks.

“We are excited to enable MSPs in the GoTo Resolve platform today not just as another vendor but a strategic business partner,” said Michael Day, Vice President of Global Partner Sales at GoTo. “We designed the specialized offering based on feedback from our MSP partners, providing them with all the tools they need to simplify workloads and streamline the support experience for customers.

Beehive Solutions sets up AI-pow ered shrink-wrapped HR platform for SMEs

Beehive has announced the set-up of its shrink-wrapped, all-in-one AI platform, designed for SMEs in India. The data-driven enterprise suite aims to support businesses around employee wellness, wellbeing & productivity features. It aims to simplify HR functions – recruiting and performance management – simpler & more efficient.

The HR platform is designed & engineered on what it takes for a small business to transition to the next level. Corporates have many more helping hands; likewise, they can hire and afford bigger platforms, but the SME industry they have limited finance & resources, and in turn, they remain untouched. Apart from that, problems at SMEs are completely different from Corporates. To solve their problems, one must adopt the lifestyle and beliefs of SMEs. The most difficult challenge for SMEs is retaining and developing talent. While they recognize the value of investing in talent and expertise, the lack of an HR department or robust HR policies puts them at a disadvantage.

Beehive platform is centric on small business needs, challenging the perception of human resource management with an employee-centric, modern cloud-based HR Software that increases employee productivity and allows the HR Team to help the organization reach its goals.

EXECUTIVE MOVEMENT

FRESHWORKS APPOINTS

DENNIS WOODSIDE AS PRESIDENT

LENTRA APPOINTS PATRA AS CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

HARIBANDHU
Big data market size revenue forecast worldwide from 2011 to 2027(in billion U.S. dollars) Source: Statista 2022 SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 6 SNIPPETS

Konica Minolta Expands Strategic Partnership with MOBOTIX

Konica Minolta India and MOBOTIX AG have joined hands to intensify their strategic partnership in the Indian market. With this partnership, the company aims to deliver AI-powered and IoT-enabled intelligent video security and analytics solutions that help government and enterprises to analyse processes, situations, and behaviour as well as act upon them The Konica Minolta India team structure is expanding and reorganising for deeper regional Sales, Service, Pre-sales, and Logistics to ensure the best support and services for business development and technical func tions via channel partners to end customers.

On the partnership, Katsuhisa Asari, Managing Director, Konica Minolta India said, “We are delighted to have MOBOTIX onboard for the Indian market. The relationship between Konica Minolta India and MOBOTIX plays an essential role in continuous progress and breakthroughs in the video surveillance segment. We aim to cover many existing and future applications with the combination of Konica Minolta’s core competencies of AI and Deep Learning and MOBOTIX’s high-end camera technology.”

Under this partnership, Konica Minolta India aims to cater to govern ment and enterprises that need intelligent security solutions to protect their assets, employees, and operations.

Druva Appoints Tom Brown as Chief Human Resources Officer

Druva Inc. has appointed of Tom Brown as Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO). Bringing more than 15 years of experience leading human resource organizations to Druva, Brown will focus on empower ing a global workforce while ensuring the organization is best positioned to support the rapidly expanding demand for SaaS-based data resiliency.

Brown joins Druva from Coupa, where he was the vice president of global human resources. Brown also previously had senior international human resources roles at Automation Anywhere, eBay, and Juniper Networks. Through his career he has focused on building high perform ing organizations by aligning the human resources function more closely with the business goals and ensuring close engagement with employees and leaders across the companies.

Jaspreet Singh, Founder and CEO, Druva, said, “Hiring, developing and retaining talent are key to our continued success and with Tom’s experience scaling and building high performance teams, I’m confident we will grow our team with the best the industry has to offer.”

“It’s clear Druva’s talented and passionate team have built an excep tional company that is defining the next generation of data protection in the cloud.

Rahi Embarks on Global Expansion Plans

Rahi, an Integrated IT Solutions Provider has embarked on a worldwide expansion plan to enter the next phase of growth. To align with their plans, they have launched a new website which offers visitors an intuitive and fully responsive user experience - establishing the brand’s business pillars, strengths, and global capabilities.

Key features include a library of newly revamped content that has been created in collabora tion with subject matter experts at Rahi, demonstrating the breadth and scope of the worldwide technical team. The easier-to-navigate website menu serves as a catalog directing a visitor to key business pillars and resource sections. Founded in 2012, with more than 1250 people onboard across 47 worldwide locations, the new website will better connect Rahi with its customers, partners, and global team.

On the changing dynamics at Rahi, CEO and Founder Tarun Raisoni said, “We are ready for exponential growth in the company as we plan to take technology leadership to the next level. The launch of our new website Rahi.io.

Freshworks Appoints Dennis Woodside as President for

Misconfigurations in SaaS apps are a common problem. To address this, Palo Alto Networks has announced new innovations in Prisma® SASE that enable customers to identify and remediate misconfigurations in SaaS apps using SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) capabilities.

With hybrid work well established as the norm for the post-pandemic workforce and vast amounts of sensitive data now stored in SaaS apps, the risk of SaaS misconfiguration poses a serious security threat to businesses. According to Statista, as of 2021 the average business now has over 110 SaaS applications (apps) that must be secured.

“SaaS apps have given organizations the freedom to have their workforce work from wherever they are most productive. The vast amounts of sensitive data being created, held, and shared via SaaS applications, however, expose a serious risk of data breach due to SaaS misconfiguration. Simply put, the world needs a SASE solution that can manage the configuration and security of SaaS applications,” said Anand Oswal, senior vice president, Network Security at Palo Alto Networks.

Freshworks Inc. has announced that its taking on board Dennis Woodside as its President, effective September 1, 2022. Reporting to Freshworks CEO and Founder Girish Mathrubootham in this newly created role, Woodside will be responsible for leading Freshworks’ global business operations and strategy.

Woodside most recently served as president of Impossible Foods where he oversaw operations, manufacturing, supply chain, sales, marketing, HR and other functions for more than three years. Previously, he was chief operating officer of Dropbox where he was responsible for all customer-facing functions and revenue generation for four years, helping the company reach $1 billion in annual revenue.

“I am excited to partner with Dennis and add his experience scaling global operations to our team. His skills will help evolve our business and allow me to focus on our company vision, culture and product innovation – areas that bring immense value to our employees and customers,” said Mathrubootham, CEO and chairman of the Freshworks board of directors. Woodside will also join the board of directors.

“I am honored to join this team and work with Girish to continue building what he’s started. I’m drawn to companies taking a fresh approach to big markets. From a decade driving category creation at Google, to the high growth era at Dropbox, and the scale at Impossible Foods.

Palo Alto Networks Strengthens Security
SaaS Applications SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 7 SNIPPETS

Infurnia Files for IPO. Issue Opens on September 6

Architecture and interior design software company, Infurnia, will launch their initial public offering (IPO) on 6th September. The issue will close on September 9. Infurnia is the largest listing on the BSE startup board. The startup filed its final IPO prospectus for raising INR 38.2 cr on August 30th.

The Bangalore based startup filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) for the IPO with the Security Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for raising INR 38.2 cr. The issue will include 3,62,90,000 equity shares of face value Rs. 1/- each for cash at a price of INR 10/-per equity share.

The IPO will not have an offer for sale (OFS) component. Nikhil Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO and Lovepreet Mann, Co-Founder and CMO, will hold the largest share in the startup at a combined share of 50.64%.

The startup aims to invest 29.02 cr in its wholly owned subsidiary while INR 8.68 cr will be used for general corporate purposes. According to the IPO prospectus, the listing will allow Infurnia to expand and diversify its cloud-based offerings.

Barracuda Names Chris Ross as Chief Revenue Officer

Barracuda has appointed security, storage and channel veteran Chris Ross as its Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). In his new role, Ross would be responsible for worldwide sales and partnerships. Ross joined Barracuda in 2015 as senior vice president of international sales and brings over 30 years of technology experience to the company.

As CRO, Ross will focus on accelerating the company’s current growth trajectory across its geographic sales regions.

“We are delighted that Chris has taken on this role at what is an exciting time for Barracuda,” said Hatem Naguib, CEO at Barracuda. “Since joining Barracuda, Chris has driven rapid expansion and acceleration of Barracuda’s international business. As CRO, he will help our worldwide sales team to harness best practice, power growth, drive efficiency and further deepen the alignment of sales with key supporting functions.”

“I am excited to be taking this next step in my journey at Barracuda,” said Chris Ross, CRO at Barracuda. “This is a pivotal time for the company, as we embark on the next stage of our accelerated growth journey and complete the acquisition with KKR.

VMware Redefines Networking and Security for Multi-Cloud with New Innovations

VMware Inc.has announced new innovations across its expanding networking and security portfolio that will help customers embrace the cloud operating model. These new innovations include:Project Northstar for multi-cloud networking, security and end-to-end visibility; Expansion of network detec tion and visibility to the Carbon Black Cloud endpoint protection platform, with early access available now; Project Trinidad that extends and advances VMware’s API security and analytics; and Project Watch, a new approach to multi-cloud networking and security that provides advanced app to app policy controls.

“Enterprises are facing an unprecedented level of threat and complexity as they operate in today’s multi-cloud world,” said Tom Gillis, senior vice president and general manager of VMware’s Networking and Advanced Security business group.

Lentra Ramps up C-Suite with CFO and CHRO Appointments

Lentra has appointed Haribandhu Patra as its Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Bhuvaneswar Naik as the Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO). The new appointments will enhance Lentra’s ability to rapidly scale-up opera tions and launch innovative technology platforms that empower banks and financial institutions to democratize credit in India.

Lentra’s innovative platform empowers banks and financial institutions in India to democratize credit. More than 50 banks and financial institutions have processed over 13 billion transactions on Lentra Lending Cloud.

The new appointments will help accelerate Lentra’s growth as it expands its footprint in India and across the world. Haribandhu Patra has more than two decades of experience in leading Finance teams at several global financial technology organizations. At Lentra, he will focus on enhancing shareholder value. Bhuvaneswar Naik has over 25 years of experience in managing Human Resource functions at leading global technology organi zations. He brings deep expertise in building dynamic workplace culture and global talent management programs.

Dell Technologies Partners VMware to Power Multicloud and Edge Solutions

Dell Technologies is introducing new infrastructure solutions, co-engi neered with VMware, that deliver greater automation and performance for organizations embracing multicloud and edge strategies.

“Customers tell us they want help simplifying their multicloud and edge strategies as they look to drive more efficiency and performance from their IT,” said Jeff Boudreau, president, Dell Technologies Infrastructure Solutions Group. “Dell Technologies and VMware have numerous joint engineering initiatives spanning core IT areas such as multicloud, edge and security to help our customers more easily manage and gain value from their data.”

Business data and applications continue to grow in multicloud environ ments comprised of edge locations, public clouds and on-premises IT. Many organizations have already adopted a multicloud approach, and the number of applications running at the edge will grow 800% by 2024.

SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 8 SNIPPETS

Temenos Partners BCT to Expand Market Reach across India, Sri lanka, Nepal and Bhutan

Temenos and Bahwan CyberTek (BCT) have signed an exclusive strategic agreement to scale Temenos’ operations in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan. As part of the agreement, BCT will market, imple ment, and support all Temenos products and solutions in these countries. The agreement is exclusive for seven years, and signals Temenos’ commitment to long-term growth in the region.

As an exclusive Sales and Delivery partner, BCT will enable Temenos to expand its market coverage and deepen local expertise through BCT’s network of 4,000 product engineering and digital services practitioners and consultants. Financial institutions in these geographies will benefit from Temenos’ world-class banking platform and BCT’s global professional services and regional expertise.

This agreement provides Temenos with enhanced visibility on profitability and cash flow and will help Temenos accelerate business growth and sharpen customer focus in these four countries.

With BCT’s strong regional knowledge, deep financial services industry expertise and comprehensive services capabilities, banks in India.

Happiest Minds Technologies achieves Select

Happiest Minds today said that it has achieved Select tier partner status from Snowflake, the Data Cloud company. As a Select partner, Happiest Minds can accelerate the digital transformation of its joint customers who can fully leverage the performance, flexibility, and near-infinite scalability of the Snowflake Data Cloud.

Happiest Minds and Snowflake are able to mobilize the world’s data with Snowflake’s Data Cloud by catering to the demand for simplified data administration through robust, cost-effective, and proven technology solutions. Happiest Minds is proud to strengthen its relationship with Snowflake and is excited to bring innovation and new capabilities to joint customers in their data journey.

The Snowflake Partner Network unlocks the potential of the Data Cloud with a broad array of tools and partners.

Redington to Offer Latest Apple Products in India

Redington will now offer the latest and recently launched products from Apple. The company will offer iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus with a sophisticated and durable design, impressive new camera upgrades, amazing battery life, and unique, new safety capabilities, available in five stunning finishes — midnight, starlight, blue, purple, and PRODUCT(RED), in 4000+ retail locations across India.

Redington will offer the most advanced pro lineup ever with iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, featuring the first 48MP camera on iPhone, Always-On display, Crash Detection, and an intuitive new way to receive notifications and activities with the Dynamic Island, available in four gorgeous new colors — space black, silver, gold, and deep purple, in 4000+ retail locations across India.

Redington has teamed up with HDFC Bank to offer Cashback on the full range of the new iPhone. For iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, customers can get a Cashback of INR 4,000 each and for iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus a Cashback of INR 5,000 each.

DIGEST

UST PARTNERS WITH GGI TO ACCELERATE INNOVATION IN THE GREEN TECHNOLOGY MARKETPLACE

UST, A LEADING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SOLUTIONS COMPANY, HAS ANNOUNCED A STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH GREEN GRID INC. (GGI) - A LEADING CLIMATE-FOCUSED TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT, INTEGRATION AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICES BUSINESS - TO PROVIDE DOMAIN EXPERTISE, SERVICES AND AI-ENABLED IT/OT SOLUTIONS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL AND GOVERNANCE (ESG) AS WELL AS CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT IN PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTORS.

THIS PARTNERSHIP OPENS UP NEW OP PORTUNITIES FOR BOTH COMPANIES TO ADVANCE SOLUTIONS FOR FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE. UST AND GGI WILL LEVERAGE THEIR EXPERTISE AND EXPERIENCE TO DEVELOP ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) AND ROBOTICDRIVEN PROCESS AUTOMATION FOR ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE THAT INCREASES SAFETY AND RELIABILITY WHILE IMPROVING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF HYDROGEN STORAGE AND DELIVERY AS WELL AS PHOTOVOLTAIC (PV) PANEL CLEANING SYSTEMS.

AIRTEL AND IBM TO WORK TOGETHER TO BRING SECURED EDGE CLOUD SERVICES TO INDIAN ENTERPRISES

IBM AND BHARTI AIRTEL, A PREMIER COM MUNICATIONS SOLUTIONS PROVIDER IN INDIA WITH MORE THAN 358 MILLION SUBSCRIB ERS, TODAY ANNOUNCED THEIR INTENT TO WORK TOGETHER TO DEPLOY AIRTEL’S EDGE COMPUTING PLATFORM IN INDIA, WHICH WILL INCLUDE 120 NETWORK DATA CENTERS ACROSS 20 CITIES. ONCE DEPLOYED, THE PLATFORM IS DESIGNED TO ENABLE LARGE ENTERPRISES ACROSS MULTIPLE INDUSTRIES INCLUDING MANUFACTURING AND AUTOMO TIVE TO ACCELERATE INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS THAT DELIVER NEW VALUE TO THEIR CLIENTS AND OPERATIONS -- SECURELY AT THE EDGE.

CRAVE INFOTECH’S SAP BUSI NESS TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM (BTP) ROUNDTABLE

Singapore-headquartered Everstone Capital, private equity arm of the Everstone Group, (Everstone) announces the acquisition of a controlling stake in Softgel Healthcare (SHPL), a specialized niche dosage form focused manufacturing player catering to the global nutraceutical, pharmaceutical and OTC segments. This partnership aims to transform SHPL into a scaled, diversified, and globally recognized contract research, development, and manufacturing organization in India with support of the strategic resources of Everstone.

Headquartered in Chennai, SHPL is part of the Madras Pharma Group, a leading pharmaceutical contract manufacturing organization in southern India, with 8 manufacturing facilities covering all dosage forms. SHPL specializes in research, development and manufacturing of soft gelatin capsules and probiotics. Its customers span across the Americas, Africa, Asia and India with over 80% of its sales being in exports.

CRAVE INFOTECH HAS LAUNCHED ITS SAP BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM (BTP) ROUNDTABLE. IT IS A SERIES OF 6 ROUND TABLES SPREAD OVER THE SECOND HALF OF 2022. THIS 3RD SESSION IS FOCUSED ON SAP BTP, SIDE-BY-SIDE EXTENSIONS, AND KEEPING THE CORE CLEAN. THIS ROUNDTABLE WOULD BE CONDUCTED VIRTUALLY AND IS SLATED FOR THE 21ST OF SEPTEMBER, 2022. IN AT TENDANCE WOULD BE DIGNITARIES FROM SAP AND INDUSTRY LEADERS LIKE DOMINO’S. THE ROUNDTABLE IS DESIGNED WITH THE INTENT TO PUSH THE ENVELOPE FOR A TRULY INTELLIGENT PLATFORM THROUGH SAP BTP BACKED BY REAL-LIFE INDUSTRY USE-CASES. HOW CAN AN ENTERPRISE BOOST OVERALL PROCESS AND OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCIES BY (APPROX.) 35% AND IMPROVE ON-FLOOR USER ADOPTION 3X TO 5X?.

Everstone acquires controlling stake in Softgel Healthcare
SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 9 SNIPPETS

DOLOXE Inc Announces Clinical Trial Planner Tool

Advanced software tools continue to play a major role in 4,500+ rare disease drugs innovation and development, helping overcome challenges such as limited availability of patients and high-risk costs. To ensure successful remedies, patient screening must get simpler, cost-efficient, and faster to recruit.

DOLOXE Inc’s Clinical Trial Planner tool has made all these possible. It incorporates unique drop-and-drag data field searches and accurate data insights, which can reduce trial protocol design and patient recruitment time by more than 30%. The engineer of this life-saving software is Business Intelligence and Analytics evangelist, Mr. Surendra Kumar Reddy Koduru. “To create successful drugs, we need a technological solution that solves real-life difficulties with ease,” says Surendra, who has been working in the industry for over 17 years.

After thorough research and neck-breaking work, Koduru, The Fellow Member of the British Computer Society (BCS) and The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), designed the Clinical Trial Planner software that could make the process of designing drugs for rare medicines faster and more costeffective, helping save thousands of lives across the globe.

5G Services Market to Grow USD 490 Billion by 2028

The Global 5G Services Market is Segmented by Type (EMBB (Enhance Mobile Broadband), URLLC (Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications), MMTC (Massive Machine Type Communications), by Application (Media & Entertain ment, Telecom, Manufacturing, TransportationRetail and Logistics, Healthcare, BFSI, Public Services): Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2022–2028.

It is published in Valuates Reports under the Internet & Telecom Category.

The global 5G Services market size is projected to reach USD 490 Billion by 2028, from USD 67 Billion in 2021, at a CAGR of 29.91% during 2022-2028.

The increasing demand for enhanced mobile broadband services due to emerging applica tions in several industry verticals will fuel the growth of the market. The rising investments by telecom companies in deploying eMbb tech nology for ensuring uninterrupted connectivity in densely populated or underserved areas will drive the growth of the market.

LODE Launches New Web3 LODEapp Wallet

LODE announces the release of its new Web3 LODEapp Wallet. LODE is a revolutionary digital monetary system backed by physical investment-grade silver and gold bullion. An industry pioneer, LODE has built the world’s first above ground mining machine that leverages the power of blockchain technology by tokenizing physical investment-grade silver and gold bullion into inflation resistant digital universal currency for the modern economy.

The new Web3 LODEapp Wallet delivers a redesigned user experience, faster and more efficient operation, and boasts impressive Web3 compatibility. The Web3 experience provides users with unmatched security, transparency and control over their data. With Avalanche support now live in the Web3 LODEapp Wallet, the application allows for easy liquidity and the transfer of users digital assets to the Trader Joe decentralized exchange, making it seamless for the purchase and sale of your favorite cryptos.

Supermicro Adds New 8U Universal GPU Server That Delivers Maximum Performance and Flexibility

TraceLink Inc., the leading digital network platform company, today announced the availability of Supply Chain Work Management for Direct Supply—the first solution to enable healthcare and life sciences companies to connect and collaborate with all suppliers, including contract manufac turers, in real-time and ensure complete upstream visibility. Supply Chain Work Management for Direct Supply is the fastest and easiest path to supply chain digital transformation for leaders in Supply Chain, External Manufacturing, Procurement, and more.

Powered by the Opus Platform, Supply Chain Work Management for Direct Supply enables full digitalization of the purchase order process by linking systems to share purchase order data in real-time, linking people to enable collaboration as needed, and digitalizing an unlimited number of supporting multienterprise planning and procurement processes. Purchase orders are shared through three modes of integration between ERP and the suppliers via the TraceLink Opus Digital Network Platform: “Integrating with suppliers’ systems to exchange B2B data in real-time to achieve effective supply chain visibility and execution has eluded supply chain leaders for more than 30 years,” said Shabbir Dahod, President and CEO of TraceLink.

Super Micro Computer, Inc. has announced its most advanced GPU server, incorporating eight NVIDIA® H100 Tensor Core GPUs. Due to its advanced airflow design, the new high-end GPU system will allow increased inlet temperatures, reducing a data center’s overall Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) while maintaining the absolute highest performance profile. In addition, Super micro is expanding its GPU server lineup with this new Universal GPU server, which is already the largest in the industry. Supermicro now offers three distinct Universal GPU systems: the 4U,5U, and new 8U 8GPU server. The Universal GPU platforms support both current and future Intel and AMD CPUs -- up to 400W, 350W, and higher.

“Supermicro is leading the industry with an extremely flexible and high-performance GPU server, which features the powerful NVIDIA A100 and H100 GPU,” said Charles Liang, president, and CEO, of Supermicro. “This new server will support the next generation of CPUs and GPUs and is designed with maximum cooling capacity using the same chassis.

TraceLink’s New Supply Chain Work Management for Direct Supply Integrates All Suppliers and CMOs with a Single Link SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 10 SNIPPETS

Global 5G Industrial IoT Market Forecasted To Gain USD 18.9 Billion by 2030

According to a recent market study published by Growth Market Reports, titled, “Global 5G Industrial IoT Market” by Components (Ser vices, Solutions, and Hardware), Applications (Emergency & Incident Management, & Business Communication, Automation Control and Management, Real-Time Workforce Tracking & Management, Logistics & Supply Chain Management, Asset Tracking & Management, Business Process Optimization, and Predictive Maintenance), Organization Size (Large Enterprises and SMEs), End-users (Discrete Industries and Process Industries), and Regions: Size, Share, Trends, and Opportunity Analysis, 2021-2030, the market was valued at USD 0.8 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow at a healthy growth rate of 28% by the end of 2030. The global 5G industrial IoT market growth is attributed to increasing demand for networks with high dependability and low latency in manufacturing industries.

The report covers comprehensive data on emerging trends, market drivers, growth opportunities, and restraints that can change the market dynamics of the industry. It provides an in-depth analysis of the market segments which include products, applications, and competitor analysis.

Cyient and Everest Unveil Report on “Decade Defining” Megatrends and Technology Led Disruption

Cyient, a leading consulting-led, industry-centric technology solutions company today, launched a research report in partnership with the Everest Group titled “Mirror into the Megatrends: Technology-Driven Disruptions that will Define the Decade.” The megatrends are global, technology-driven disruptions that will shape investments, opportunities, and lifestyles over the next decade.

With E R&D spending estimated to exceed US$ 1.7 Trillion by 2025, organizations worldwide are already leveraging their assets to prepare for the future. This research report highlights the Megatrends that will see definitive technology disruption by 2030 - Human Well Being, Smart Operations, Intelligent Transport, Sustainability, and Meta Mobility and Space, along with their impact on business across multiple industries. The report dives deep into these megatrends with over 25 case studies, participation from over 50 organizations across ten verticals, and shares viewpoints from industry leaders across these segments.

Wallace Dalrymple Named as First Chief Security Officer at ETS

ETS President and CEO Amit Sevak announced that Wallace Dalrymple will serve in the newly created role of Chief Security Officer. Dalrymple will be responsible for the security framework and ensuring strong and cohesive strategy and governance of the organization across the areas of information security, enterprise risk management and the Office of Test Integrity.

“Security is paramount to expanding our global impact while best serving new and existing customers with innovative technologies,” said Sevak. “I am confident that Wally will ensure protection that will maintain and bolster our integrity across the education and testing landscape, that is mission critical to our success.”

Dalrymple, at the helm of security, will help to strengthen ETS’s role as an industry leader in test security, one of the most critical pillars of the organization’s end-to-end testing process that ensures scores across all assessments are valid and reliable.

Developers to begin creating on PraSaga blockchain, SagaChain

PraSaga, a Swiss Foundation, has announced the release of its application framework as available-source code to its community of developers. This framework demonstrates the power and scope of PraSaga’s recently approved patent operating system, SagaOS, by providing developers with the opportunity to experience practical usage of PraSaga’s coding language, SagaPython. This takes the foundation another step closer in delivering a limitless global blockchain infrastructure that will benefit users across the globe.

The release of PraSaga’s SagaOS application framework code is another move towards a fully decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) with open-source code. Using the available-source code, developers will be able to create applications, projects, and platforms for SagaOS.

Until now, the blockchain has been difficult to access, and use-cases have been limited. This release opens the floor for developers to start experimenting and creating for industries as diverse as supply chain, human resources and tourism and real-world real estate. The possibilities are truly endless.

The opportunity to begin creating and submitting products is open to anyone interested.

Talview Introduces Interview Insights at HR Technology Conference & Exposition 2022

Talview, the global leader for hiring and proctoring solutions, announces Talview Interview Insights, a solution engineered to solve the biggest blind spot in the hiring pro cess – the job interview, at the HR Technol ogy Conference and Exposition in Las Vegas.

Talview Interview Insights uses advanced AI capabilities to coach interviewers to become world-class interviewers, one interview at a time. The award-winning Solution brings specific, explainable, and actionable insights into interviewing for organizations to make interventions that enable them to meet their key talent goals.

To date, many organizations define candidate measurement and experience protocols in hiring but struggle to implement and monitor these protocols on the ground. Most interviewers receive little to no training, and there is no mechanism to review their techniques or performance as an interviewer.

After an extensive review of customer interviews and feedback, Talview distilled the issue down to a key requirement.

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Rockwell Automation Recognised by Frost & Sullivan for Improving Operational Efficiencies and ESG Performance

Recently, Frost & Sullivan reviewed the global oil and gas automation industry and, based on its findings, recognizes Rockwell Automation and Sensia with the 2022 Global Oil and Gas Automation Enabling Technology Leadership Award. Sensia, a joint venture of Rockwell Automation and Schlumberger, provides technologically advanced solutions focused on digital, measure ment, and automation within the oil and gas industry, including production, transportation and storage, and processing. Production solutions provide intelligent automation that enhances asset productivity and operational efficiency in onshore and offshore platforms and vessels. Processing solutions help customers increase their operational effectiveness and optimize their processes while maintaining operational safety. In addition, these solutions are applicable to liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants, gas processing facilities, and oil refineries.

Sensia’s innovative portfolio includes a new offering that combines real-time control and edge-computing capabilities in a single device, enabling the company to solve problems, maximize previous investments, and offer a unified platform.

SafeTree brings product innovation to the Insurance Sector

India has low insurance penetration levels and faces huge insurance protection gap across all segments. Recently, IRDAI Indian regulator has taken various measures to increase penetration of insurance within the country.

Product innovation is also a new avenue for the insurers in order to bridge the penetration gap within the country. An effective product innovation is tied to a deep understanding of customers’ emotional and practical needs and wants, paired with the ability to quickly get those products to customers. Traditionally insurers have focussed on analysis of risks instead of customer needs and preferences and have not considered product development as a core competency.

SafeTree, a Gurgaon based insurtech, works closely with insurance companies to develop products which are as per the customer requirements. “Our approach focuses on discovering customer needs first, then responding with propositions,” said Vikas Anand, CEO of SafeTree, “Our teams are divided as per industry so that we can understand the problems and dynamics of each industry and accord ingly develop suitable products for each requirement.”

iMocha to showcase skills intelligence platform at HR Technology Conference, Las Vegas

iMocha will be participating in the HR Technology Conference & Exposition, Las Vegas, happen ing from September 13-16, 2022. iMocha will be showcasing its Skills Intelligence and Assessment platform at the show booth number 4934.

iMocha to showcase its skills intelligence platform and patented tools at the HR Technology Conference, Las Vegas

During the exposition, iMocha will exhibit its new patented technology, AI-LogicBox, an effec tive coding simulator and a pseudo-coding platform along with host of other unique skill assess ment technologies (including Live Coding Interviews, AI-EnglishPro, AI-Enabled Proctoring).

More than 300+ global organizations, including 8 of Fortune 500 and other larger enterprises, trust iMocha’s platform to hire new employees, identify skill gap, measure the effectiveness of learning programs, and build organizational skill meter to build future-ready tech teams.

Say It Loud Media pioneers Location Intel ligence AI for OOH services

Say It Loud Media opened its doors 17 months ago and has uniquely transformed the way that locations are identified for delivering best ROI to clients.

The ground-breaking ‘Location Intelligence’ concept is being deployed for the first time by an OOH agency to identify ‘Affluence’. It came about as a result of a forward-thinking planning strategy aimed at putting a context to the addresses of audiences.

Shutterstock, Inc. (NYSE: SSTK) (the “Company”), a leading global creative platform for transformative brands and media companies, today announced that Sejal Amin is joining the Company’s leadership team and Executive Committee as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), effective September 12, 2022.

With more than 20 years of global leadership, product and technology experience, Sejal will deliver a technology vision and strategy that transforms Shutterstock’s technology platform to deliver a new and unparalleled experience to customers and contributors.

“I am thrilled to welcome Sejal to Shutterstock, as we continue our digital transformation to a full-service creative platform that democratizes creativity, pushes creative boundaries, and provides unparalleled experiences for our customers and contributors around the world,” said Paul Hennessy, Chief Executive Officer at Shutterstock. “Sejal is a well-respected and revered leader with a proven track record of growth and innovation, and I am confident that she will be successful in leading Shutterstock’s technology platform into its next disruptive phase.”

“Just measuring Reach of a plan is not enough, one has to be able to identify the parameters impacting business outcomes. Clients have begun to see the tremendous value that we are offering as Business partners. 2000+ datapoints for ML and AI optimised results ensure that there is no room for any human assumptions in identifying the right locations,” says Naresh Bhandari, the Founder and CEO of Say It Loud Media.

A combination of markets opening up, a great team and the ability to provide location intelligence is making the agency grow at a scorching pace. “We are witnessing exponential growth this year and hope to close this financial year with some very impressive numbers,” continues Naresh Bhandari.

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Misconfigurations in SaaS apps are a common problem that most busi nesses struggle to cope with. To effectively address this pain point, Palo Alto Networks recently made solid moves.

The company announced new innovations in Prisma SASE that enable customers to identify and remediate misconfigurations in SaaS apps using SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) capabilities.

Risks Posed by SaaS Misconfiguration With hybrid work well established as the norm for

STRENGTHENING SECURITY APPARATUS FOR SAAS APPLICATIONS

the post-pandemic workforce and vast amounts of sensitive data now stored in SaaS apps, the risk of SaaS misconfiguration poses a serious security threat to businesses. According to Statista, as of 2021 the average business now has over 110 SaaS applications (apps) that must be secured.

“SaaS apps have given organizations the free dom to have their workforce work from wherever they are most productive. The vast amounts of sensitive data being created, held, and shared via SaaS applications, however, expose a serious risk of data breach due to SaaS misconfiguration. Simply put, the world needs a SASE solution that can manage the configuration and security of SaaS applications,” said Anand Oswal, senior vice presi dent, Network Security at Palo Alto Networks.

“With today’s Prisma SASE updates, we are significantly strengthening the security posture of SaaS apps through the Palo Alto Networks NextGen CASB, which allows customers to easily view and configure security settings for multiple SaaS apps in a single place,” adds Oswal.

ML-powered Advanced URL Filtering and Advanced Threat Prevention

In addition to SSPM, the company announced new ZTNA 2.0 security inspection capabilities, including ML-powered Advanced URL Filtering and Advanced Threat Prevention as well as the industry’s first natively integrated artificial intel ligence for IT operations (AIOps) solution for SASE, simplifying networking and security opera tions for customers.

New Hardware Appliances Driving Added Benefits

In addition to these software enhancements, Palo Alto Networks is introducing new hardware appli ances — ION 1200-S and ION 3200 — to help organizations modernize their small to midsize branches. These new appliances include a fully

integrated switch and Power over Ethernet (PoE) ports to connect and power endpoints within the local area network. Additionally, integrated WAN capabilities like 5G and LTE on the ION 1200-S and fiber ports on the ION 3200 allow custom ers to improve WAN availability, performance and speed. ION 1200-S and ION 3200 can help significantly reduce operational complexity by eliminating multiple point products while provid ing power redundancy with a built-in dual power supply that ensures network uptime and consis tent connectivity.

“As one of the largest cinema chains and theme park operators in Australia, we started our jour ney with Palo Alto Networks by deploying Prisma SD-WAN to improve the reliability and through put of our WAN connections,” said Michael Fagan, chief transformation officer, Village Roadshow.

“Since then, we have added Prisma Access to complete our SASE architecture and secure both our remote locations and our hybrid employees. We are pleased to see the introduction of 5G and PoE switching into the Prisma SD-WAN appli ances to help us further consolidate our branch infrastructure, and simplify our operations with AIOps for SASE. Our team loves the fact that they no longer need to remember usernames, pins, passcodes, tokens and have different multi-factor authentication apps. Performance and uptime has improved to allow our staff to continue working without disruption to services, thereby reducing the amount of calls through to our service desk team,” Michael further adds.

“Protecting sensitive data, especially data in SaaS applications, is paramount for us. As we continued to utilise more cloud services we knew we needed to implement a SASE framework and provide Zero Trust Network Access to protect our users and applications,” said Simon Hibbert, gen eral manager of IT, Chemist Warehouse Group.

“WE ARE SIGNIFICANTLY STRENGTHENING THE SECURITY POSTURE OF SAAS APPS THROUGH THE PALO ALTO NETWORKS NEXT-GEN CASB, WHICH ALLOWS CUSTOMERS TO EASILY VIEW AND CONFIGURE SECURITY SETTINGS FOR MULTIPLE SAAS APPS IN A SINGLE PLACE.”
Palo Alto’s Prisma SASE updates will boost up security posture of SaaS apps, allowing customers to easily view and configure security settings for multiple SaaS apps in a single place
ANAND OSWAL SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, NETWORK SECURITY, PALO ALTO NETWORKS
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SPOTLIGHTING INDUSTRY BEST PRACTICES

Taking their annual Aruba Atmosphere Conference – SEATH and India –back to Bangkok, Thailand, Aruva, a Hewlett Packard company, has put the spotlight on industry best practices yet again. Through the conference, Aruva has gathered a select lot of business-driven companies from the region to dive into the best industry practices, drive insightful technology discussion and hone new skills around the latest updates that will help continuously modernize their networks.

Three Key Tech Principles

Centered around three key technology princi ples– agility, automation and security – key execu tives and industry experts shed light on Aruba’s always-on innovations. Static networks no longer meet growing business demands or support changing security requirements. As enterprises embark on digital transformation initiatives and adapt to hybrid work environments, it is highly encouraged that they adopt a modern network architecture. This creates a seamless and secure connection for companies of all sizes to facilitate their core business functions from anywhere.

The three key technology principles of agility, automation and security constitute the crux of the changing requirements. Agility enables organisa tions to increase the ease in adopting networkas-a-service (NaaS), to drive future-ready unified, cloud-native, standards-based architecture and optimise budget and staffing resources.

Similarly, Automation helps them achieve simplified workflows and AI-powered automa tion to reduce time and resources required to plan, deploy, and manage networks that support remote, branch, campus, and cloud connectivity.

And last but not the least, Security reminds them of the Importance of the increased threat detection and protection by tapping zero trust and SASE frameworks, utilizing built-in identitybased access control and Dynamic Segmentation.

Adopting a Cloud-Native Approach

A leading player in the space of secure, intelligent edge-to-cloud networking solutions that use AI to automate the network, while harnessing data to drive powerful business outcomes, this Hewlett Packard Enterprise company has been a trailblazer. With Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform) and as-a-service options, Aruba takes a cloudnative approach to helping customers meet their connectivity, security, and financial requirements across campus, branch, data center, and remote worker environments, covering all aspects of wired, wireless LAN, and wide area networking (WAN).

As-a-service Solutions Come of Age

As-a-service solutions are going through a global boom coupled with the proliferation of hybrid work environments, and HPE GreenLake for Aruba is transforming the way enterprises work. From enabling enterprises to swiftly deploy critical use cases such as – hybrid work, connected retail and hybrid learning to ensuring the network is always ready to support an enterprise’s needs –HPE GreenLake keeps up pace with the speed of business.

“With the new normal being defined by hybrid cloud strategies, emerging IoT environments and remote work, achieving connectivity is key in today’s disconnected world, said Steve Wood, Vice President, APJ at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enter prise company. “We know that making connec tions anywhere, anytime has become imperative now more than ever, and with a focus on network modernisation - enterprises that prioritise digital transformation and acceleration will be able to address the tough challenges that come with net work orchestration, management and security to eventually drive business growth.”

Securing Access Service Edge (SASE)

In addition, to deliver the highest quality of expe

Aruba’s annual Atmosphere 2022 SEATH and India conducted in Bangkok deep-dived into industry best practices, drive insightful technology discussions and hone new skills around latest tech updates
“WITH A FOCUS ON NETWORK AMODER NIZATION, ENTER PRISES THAT PRIORITIZE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND ACCELERATION WILL BE ABLE TO ADDRESS THE TOUGH CHALLENGES THAT COME WITH NETWORK ORCHESTRATION, MANAGEMENT AND SECURITY TO EVENTUALLY DRIVE BUSINESS GROWTH.”
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rience for customers, employees and IT teams, the transformation of WAN and security architectures with a unified Software-Defined Wide Area Net work (SD-WAN) fabric, one that enables organi zations to architect a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is crucial.

Recognised SD-WAN and Security Capabilities

Recently, the Aruba EdgeConnect Enterprise SD-WAN platform also received the ICSA Labs Secure SD-WAN Certification – the first in the SD-WAN market to attain the certification. The certification underscores Aruba’s SD-WAN and security capabilities as top in the industry, offering customers flexibility and confidence in achieving key network and security transformation.

Bringing Enterprise Networking to the Home

Aruba’s comprehensive portfolio of solutions brings enterprise networking to the home with network edge continuing to evolve to meet con sumers demands being – always-on connectivity and security. For instance, with EdgeConnect Microbranch, IT departments can ensure each employee’s experience is consistent no matter where they are located by delivering the full range of on-campus connectivity services

to remote workers, accelerating troubleshooting, and maintaining corporate protections by seam lessly extending on-campus Zero Trust and Secure Access Services Edge (SASE) security frameworks to the home office/small office.

Self-locating Wireless Infrastructure Expanding it further, Aruba rolled out the first self-locating wireless infrastructure and the Open Locate initiative to standardize methods for shar ing location information. With Aruba’s self-locat ing APs, enterprises and service providers will be able to deliver location-aware applications more quickly, accurately, and at scale across the entire wireless LAN footprint, eliminating the need for costly and error-prone manual surveys.

Customer Recognition

“We had to drive a high-level digital transforma tion initiative in Asia Pacific and aimed to build a zero trust network to maximize cloud utilization and strengthen IT infrastructure and security. Our network required a modern, agile network archi tecture, and our legacy MPLS network was not viable to spearhead change,” said Irwan Yulianto, GM of IT at Panasonic. “Our deployment of the Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN solution has become a key enabler of our digital journey, build ing the foundation of our zero trust network and

empowering us to ensure always-on performance from the edge to the cloud. We now have com plete, single-pane, network visibility for ease of management and we are certainly on our way to realizing the full promise of the cloud.”

As a leading managed service provider in Thailand, our customers cover all industries including core infrastructure providers. It is instrumental that we are able to empower our geographically distributed customers with a highperforming solution,” said Sunti Medhavikul, Managing Director at UIH. “Automation sits at the heart of our tech partnership consideration as we manage our customers’ complex network require ments. Deploying the cloud-native Aruba Central management platform was key in our customers’ digital projects as it could effectively scale very large and distributed networks. With our technol ogy partnership with Aruba, we have the ability today to modernize our customers’ networks with strict adherence to service level agreements and grow with them.”

Sponsored by global technology leaders and innovators AMD Pensando, Check Point, Nets kope, Zebra, BT, Ekahau,TechData, VSTECS and Westcon, the Atmosphere 2022 SEATH & India is held from 20th September till 21st September in Bangkok, Thailand.

ORGANISED IN BANGKOK, THAILAND, THE CONFERENCE IS AIMED AT DEEP-DIVING INTO THE BEST INDUSTRY PRACTICES, DRIVE INSIGHTFUL TECHNOLOGY DISCUSSION AND HONE NEW SKILLS AROUND THE LATEST UPDATES THAT WILL HELP CONTINUOUSLY MODERNIZE BUSINESS NETWORKS.
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HOW DIGITALIZATION IS REDEFINING PRODUCT PROCUREMENT

PROFILE

Karan Gupta is the Senior VicePresident, Moglix- Online. He brings 22 years of global leadership experience as an entrepreneur and as a professional for Global Consumer firms. Earlier, Karan had served as Head of Amazon UK’s FMCG marketplace and moved on to be the Global Business Development Director for WeWork US with a special focus on India.

He is an alumnus of London Business School (MBA) and the University of Michigan.

He has a number of media recognitions and awards for his work and had also been a national level gymnast.

A silent revolution is underfoot in India, appar ent in India's expanding scope of Digitalization of MSMEs. Be it a mom-and-pop store, a hole-in-thewall shop, or a mid-sized firm that runs factories and employs hundreds of workers, more and more business entities are starting to realize that running an agile business without embracing the new digital paradigm is impossible.

The statistics on Digitalization speak for them selves. A report by global consultancy firm McKin sey states that the contribution to the GDP of core digital sectors can double to a whopping $355-$435 billion by 2025. The Digitalization endeavor under way in the country in varied sectors like agriculture, education, labor, logistics, energy, financial services, and many more are likely to create economic value of anywhere between $10 to $150 billion by 2025. Additionally, 60 to 65 million new jobs will be cre ated, giving India's consumption levels and standard of living a big push.

This change must be welcomed. The old norms and patterns of business are paving the way for the new. A host of activities ranging from payments, logistics, supply chain management, pipeline plan ning, and raw material procurement are undergoing a massive transformation. It should come as no sur prise that in a survey of CPOs by a consultancy firm, it was revealed that, on average, the CPOs expected a 40% rise in terms of yearly savings, a full 30-50% cutback in time spent on transactional sourcing and a 50% reduction in value leakage.

The buck now rests with the entrepreneur. Effi cient firm economics, a dramatic decline in raw material sourcing costs, and better top and bottom line are up for grabs, provided an earnest effort is made to incorporate these dimensions of Digitaliza tion within the firm's work protocols.

Arriving at the Next Technological Benchmark

There are hurdles aplenty in the way of any firm seeking to re-imagine and redesign its workflow patterns. For any small, possibly family-run busi

ness looking to leapfrog from pen and paper to excel sheets as a template to manage primary purchases and inventory is laudable. However, a larger firm should not be afraid to dream bigger. Digitization for a firm should include, within its scope, numer ous operations like the purchase of goods and services, vendor shortlisting, purchase agreements, inventory management, monitoring of cash cycles, etc. The transformation should essentially deliver a much-needed stimulus for superior manage rial decision-making by leveraging real-time data access. The data troves that emerge as a by-product of an operational revamping can deliver genuinely actionable insights that can yield enormous time and cost savings. What's more, these insights often stem from operations that are either opaque or taken for granted by the managerial leadership.

The old matrix of a manual-operations-driven world is crumbling away in the face of a smart world propelled by technology that is more harmonious, intuitive, and productive. In the near future, smaller digitized operations, instead of being triggered by human intervention, will be supervised by an AI. This means that human intelligence can be utilized for more subjective tasks leaving the everyday, rou tine jobs to the AI.

More often than not, the data furnished from such digitization of operations is so rich that one can zero in and drill down to the unit-level cost of goods. Depending on the kind of final product one wishes to fashion, high data richness helps fine-tune operations, reduce inefficiencies, cull out leakages and eliminate redundant manual processes that inflate budgets. The switch in factory floor operations in the aftermath of such premium digi talization is generational. To top it off, the change is immediately apparent, as it is exponential rather than incremental. When factory floor operations evolve, positive fallouts of the shift start reflecting in the top and bottom lines of a firm.

We have a stellar track record of streamlining company operations so that the C-Suite leaders can start operating from the same page. At Moglix, we

KARAN GUPTA Senior Vice-President, SME Online Moglix
Efficient firm economics, a dramatic decline in raw material sourcing costs, and better top and bottom line are up for grabs, provided these dimensions of Digitalization are incorporated within the firm's work protocols
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have collaborated with 1000+ enterprises with operations spread across 3,000+ locations as pro curement enabled. Pulling off such a feat is easier said than done, given that the roadmap envisaged by each C-suite executive is wildly divergent from the other, even though every one of them wishes to reach the common goal of elevated savings, sig nificant cost-cutting, and a healthier bottom line.

Benefits of Digital Procurement:

So, why should one transition to a digital procure ment model? Notwithstanding the numerous benefits that one's firm stands to gain, digital pro curement can ease an entrepreneur's life in more ways than one. Heightened transparency, greater accountability, and real-time operations manage ment are possible only when a firm decides to raise the bar on its logistical blueprint.

▪ Boosted optimization on a larger scale Pain points continue to plague the product pipe lines. The truth is that run-down supply chains hamper the operations of far too many firms in India. So many firms are known to swing wildly between the two opposing paradigms of holding excess inventory on the one hand and running into an operation stalling deficit on the other. Besides, other niggling problems like poor deliv ery performance, limited capability to adapt to more oversized orders, lost opportunities due to depleted raw material stock and delayed deliveries often pull down a company's performance. Imple menting a rigorous and detailed digital procure ment can root out such drawdowns.

▪ Supplier consolidation

Here's a case study that will help the reader better understand the change that can be unleashed in a post-digitized workflow. Moglix was tasked with transforming the existing supplier base into a cement industry market leader with a rich legacy of over 80 years. The catch was that the cement major's procurement operations spanned over 55+ manufacturing plants, and their supplier base was distributed across the length and breadth of the country. This led to an unwieldy situation where price inconsistencies across plants, servicelevel agreement breaches, and a noticeable rise in impromptu spending. Without a centralized intelligence overlooking such widespread and multi-branched decision-making, the cement major was bleeding valuable cash over ill-timed purchase decisions, not to mention the poor qual ity of data garnered by the company as a conse quence of the plants operating in silos rather than synchronously.

Moglix set about correcting this matrix by consolidating the supplier base. A seamless cat

alogue-based marketplace interface was created for 5,000+ SKUs. Consolidating the supplier base also contributed to better controls on the overall OPEX spending across plants and the formula tion of standardized pricing norms, dramatically reducing OPEX costs. Moglix's Digitalization efforts also engendered a new harmonization in the work dynamic within the organization, and departments were able to operate symbiotically rather than at crossheads with each other. Besides reducing the procurement transaction time to 3 to 5 minutes, Moglix helped the company earn 5-7% direct cost savings and helped it create a unified ERP, which replaced multiple legacy ERPs operat ing in dissonance with each other.

▪ Eliminate arbitrary decisions

Digitalization transforms supply chain opera tions by cracking down on maverick purchases. Maverick purchases happen outside the circle of a contractually agreed price due to quality or timing issues. These purchases ratchet raw material costs and inject unpredictability into the larger picture, symbolizing errant procurement behaviour. Digi tal procurement effectively alerts the procurement officer before things devolve to a position where stocks are at a critical level. Additionally, digital procurement can help fend off situations by fore seeing and preparing for emergency scenarios.

▪ Purchases as a strategic gambit

Traditionally, the purchasing department has been viewed as a cost centre, a rather limited and stifling perspective. This view deprives the vertical of the right to re-invent and innovate, perhaps even reimagine itself as a sizable piece in the larger jigsaw puzzle of a company's future trajectory. It is only when the procurement pipeline has been digitized that the field opens up for incisive experiments, given that decisions are made in a data-rich envi ronment rather than an instinct-driven one. With Digitalization, senior managerial leadership can behold how minor alterations and substitutions on the factory floor can yield massive savings.

▪ Staying a step ahead of the competition

As the market landscape continues to veer towards Digitalization, the evolution of procurement pipe lines engenders shorter working capital cycles, higher volumes, and more substantial profit mar gins for suppliers. No entrepreneur worth their salt can pass off the opportunity of digitizing his firm's procurement processes considering that the cost of doing so is to help the competitor gain market share. A supplier will naturally value a digi tally efficient firm over a manually inefficient one.

lization will usher in diametrical changes to the job satisfaction of your firm's chief procurement officer. A customizable dashboard will aid the pro curement team in real-time monitoring inventory levels and raw material stocks while ensuring that the pipeline runs smoothly and that price fluctua tions and other emergency scenarios do not dis rupt factory floor operations.

▪ Smarter decision making

With Digitalization, decision-making is powered by data-driven actionable insights. Leakages can be clamped brutally and efficiently whilst elimi nating time accretive production practices. This can help the company stay in fighting shape as far as procurement and production are concerned.

▪ Stronger supply chains in the making

A digitized procurement process consolidates suppliers by weeding out those who repeatedly, perhaps deliberately, deliver sub-par products at inflated prices. This narrows the list of suppliers to responsible players keen on supplying quality raw materials at economical rates within pre-defined time restrictions. It also helps the firm zero in on reliable suppliers who could receive favourable credit terms to help them expand operations that eventually serve the firm.

Risks inherent in the Digitalization of the Pro curement process:

One must bear in mind that digitizing procure ment operations is no panacea. While there are obvious benefits to the trade-off, one must intro spect to ensure that their procurement pipeline is afflicted with problems within Digitalization. If a product pipeline suffers from fundamental com plications, Digitalization might not be the best prescription for the firm.

Micro-management

With Digitalization, the likelihood of an entrepre neur giving in to the temptation of micro-manag ing rises multifold. With troves of data at disposal, one can end up mining that data and, in turn, resort to micro-managing, which can raise issues of ethos and human resources in the long run.

▪ Non-digital Suppliers

With Digitalization, suppliers who have not evolved with the times and have either advertently or inadvertently opted to refrain from the digital revolution will be left behind in the lurch. These suppliers will be boxed into a corner and have to opt-in for the digital ecosystem or continue func tioning in their set-in-stone ways before becom ing extinct.

Boost employee satisfaction

This might be a middling point in the larger scheme of things, but it must be made. Digita

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GUEST ARTICLE SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 17

UPTRENDING BIG DATA ANALYTICS

The pandemic-driven digital revo lution across industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, whole sale and retail, etc. has resulted in enhanced big data implementation. Industrial internet of things (IIoT), and artificial intelligence (AI) too have propelled comput erization in the production industry. Big data technology is increasingly being employed across

portfolio management, asset administration and analytical maintenance, network manufacturing, real-time alerts, and many more to magnify busi ness growth.

Riding on the uptick in market demand, the global big data analytics market size is surging ahead and is expected to breach a USD 549.73 billion mark by 2028. From an overall market size of USD 206.95 billion in 2020, it has reached USD

231.43 billion in 2021. Continuing its growth streak, the market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 13.2% during the 2021-2028 period, according to “Big Data Analytics Market Forecast, 20212028” report from Fortune Business Insights.

The Big Data Analytics market in India is cur rently valued at $2 Billion. This is expected to grow at a CAGR of 26 percent reaching approxi mately $16 Billion by 2025, making India’s share approximately 32 percent in the overall global market. The nearly eight fold leap of the Indian Big Data market is a lucrative opportunity waiting to be tapped.

This cover story attempts to unravel the busi ness strategies of top Big Data Analytics Solutions Providers to leverage this highly promising tech nology; innovations in this emerging technology sector, opportunities created by the Analytics market for channel growth; top forecasts for the

Big Data Analytics Solutions Providers are aiming at simplifying data analytics and easier deployment of analytics projects while protecting mission-critical data for businesses and public enterprises
manash@accentinfomedia.com
SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 18 COVER STORY

Big Data Analytics industry; the major growth drivers and road bumps; and the vision and plans of analytics solutions providers for the channel community.

Innovative Solutions Galore

Data Analytics has been a dynamic sector for more than two decades and is still witnessing continuous changes. Analysts anticipated that the speed of the change would slow down, but these changes are accelerating in a pattern. Solution providers are flooding the market with powerful technology solutions.

Dell Technologies, a frontline solutions pro vider boasts of a robust portfolio catering to the needs of the industry. Its solutions span edge, core, and multi-cloud which makes critical data avail able for the entire business through infrastructure that is not confined to a single hub or cloud. “Our

solutions are aimed at simplifying data analytics and easier deployment of analytics projects while protecting mission-critical data for businesses and public enterprises. By eliminating complexi ties from data management infrastructure, Dell Technologies can turn insights into tangible revenue-generating assets for businesses. We also resolve cyber security issues through superior risk reduction for workloads for improved data mobility across environments which is critical for deriving insights from data,” says Manish Gupta, Vice President and General Manager, Infrastruc ture Solutions Group, Dell Technologies, India.

Some of Dell’s leading solutions include: Dell Data Lakehouse, VMware Tanzu Greenplum, and the Dell Technologies Validated Design for Realtime Data Streaming.

Dell Data Lakehouse is a self-service analyt ics solution for on-premise/co-location for data lakehouses, supporting business intelligence and ML for all types of data. With the Dell Vali dated Design for Analytics — Data Lakehouse, businesses can capture and use all types of data — structured, unstructured and semi structured — in an open data lake with the data quality, per formance, security and governance you expect from a data warehouse along with self service, on demand flexibility.

The VMware Tanzu Greenplum provided by Dell is an industry-leading solution which allows businesses to build and deploy an all in one solution for data analytics at scale.VMware Tanzu Greenplum with Dell EMC PowerScale and Dell EMC PowerScale Isilon storage pro vides a scale out solution for analytics that is space efficient, performant, and easy to scale. This combination has proven to be flexible and addresses several industry standard use cases — such as landing zones for data ingestion, data lake storage, data science, data warehouses and data marts — in a single design that’s easy to deploy and support. And there is also Dell Technologies Validated Design for Real-time Data Streaming. With optimized real-time data processing infra structure, businesses can ensure modular inte gration from edge ingestion to analytical results. Businesses need real time data insights from the core to the edge to be responsive, predictive and competitive. The Dell Technologies Validated Design for Real Time Data Streaming helps reduce the time, effort and resources spent on architecting real time data pipelines and stream ing applications.

What’s Trending Now Data Analytics has been a dynamic sector for more than two decades and is still witnessing continuous changes. Analysts anticipated that the

speed of the change would slow down. However, on the contrary, these changes are accelerating in a pattern.

“Earlier, the industry addressed challenges pertaining to Data such as types, size, format, etc. followed by the intervention of Technology such as Big Data, Cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain etc. While technology continues to be a powerful enabler, the next focus is expected to be on the Users of Analytics and Artificial Intel ligence (AI) solutions,” predicts Rupesh Khare, Global Head - Advanced Analytics and Artificial Intelligence at ABB, India

The Users are setting the norms and the direc tion for analytics. This is a propelling force for a clear shift towards analytics-based products. The trend is to transfer more degree of freedom in the hands of the users of analytics-based products. These products are aimed to provide self-servic ing analytics, more user autonomy and real time analytics through maximum automation. Given that the static dashboards and visualization tools limit the depth of insights, the next generation products will aim for interactive interfaces and more independence leading to an improved user experience.

“BY ELIMINATING COMPLEXITIES FROM DATA MANAGEMENT INFRASTRUCTURE, WE TURN INSIGHTS INTO TANGIBLE REVENUEGENERATING ASSETS FOR BUSINESSES.”
MANISH GUPTA, VICE PRESI DENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTIONS GROUP, DELL TECHNOLOGIES, INDIA
19SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022
COVER STORY

“Data-as-a-service (DaaS) will become a more widespread solution for data integration, quality management, storage, and its usage in analytics. This makes an obvious choice when organizations are evaluating cloud-based infrastructure to drive efficiency,” adds Rupesh.

In the data driven era, one must be able to gen erate value from all the data capital, from the intel ligent edge to core data centers to multiple clouds. But the distributed nature of data can make that complex and costly — setting up barriers to insight and innovation. Traditional data management systems, like data warehouses, have been used for decades to store structured data and make it avail able for analytics. However, data warehouses aren’t set up to handle the increasing variety of data — text, images, video, Internet of Things (IoT) — nor can they support artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms that require direct access to data.

“Traditional DataLake solves some of these challenges by enabling enterprises to capture dif ferent types of data – structured, unstructured and semi-structured in more flexible and cost effective way. Today many organizations use a data lake in tandem with a data warehouse — storing data in the lake and then copying it to the warehouse to make it more accessible. However, this adds to the complexity and cost of the analytics landscape,” says Manish.

“To compete in the digital era, organizations need new solutions that evolve data management from siloed, rigid, costly and slow to unified sys tems that enable analytics and AI with speed, scal ability and confidence. That’s the key trend to look out for where a single unified lakehouse which supports BI, analytics, real-time data applications, data science and ML in one platform.

It provides rapid, direct access to trusted data for data scientists, business analysts and other key stake holders driving business value. Dell Tech

nologies has a validated desing for such a platform to enable organisations to set up such a platform with confidence,” predicts Manish.

There’s no denying the fact that Big Data and Analytics is being leveraged by many organiza tions due to its ability to not only improve data security and customer experience but also opti mize processes amongst other things.

As for trends in the data analytics market, there are a few which are likely to dominate the analytics industry, according to Prashant Gupta, Head of solutions Southeast Asia & India, Verizon Business:

Scalable and Intelligent: This is the ability to work on smaller data sets which makes it more scalable and efficient.

Data Fabric: This refers to a framework that standardizes data management practices and abilities across various hybrid multi-cloud environments

Edge computing: Small sets of data processing at the edge allows for faster and efficient results. This is a major trend of the year and is only going to grow. In fact, Verizon also provides 5G edge solutions that help in business transformation.

Xops: By leveraging AI and Big data, it has become an essential part of Digital transformation.

Prashant believes another development that will become a trend is engineered decision intel ligence since it will drive business actions much faster as they make better decisions.

Major Drivers of Growth

So, what designs this major growth story? What are the major drivers of growth in the Big Data Analytics market? Well, the uptrend in Big Data Analytics is manifested by the social, technologi cal, and operational drivers. Digitization and the use of social media are impacting all the VsVolume, Variety, Velocity, Veracity and Value of data, says Rupesh. “The business sees an opportu

nity in using this new oil to their advantages. The meaningful insights from the social media data can be useful in many business decisions includ ing knowing the customers’ profiles, purchasing preferences, new customer acquisition.”

Today, technology has been evolving to complement collecting and processing the mas sive quantities of variety of data. Technological advancement has been reducing the storage and processing costs significantly. Open-source Big Data platforms have further made it affordable for the organizations to start the Big Data Projects.

“The advent of Internet of Things (IoT) which enables physical objects to connect and exchange data also propels the growth in Big Data Analyt ics market. These technological drivers are get ting good operational support as well. Advanced Data Science and Cloud Computing knowledge are supplementing Big Data Analytics on skills required to execute the project,” adds Rupesh.

With the increasing advancement of technol ogy, there is an exponential rise in the volume of data which calls for better management and stor age infrastructure systems. “The variety of content involved in the collected data also enables com panies to explore a vast range of opportunities to create value based on the data quality. Further to that the speed of data processing and analysis is also key,” says Prashant.

“All these features validate the need for better security, personalized consumer experience along with risk mitigation while streamlining processes and making informed data-driven decisions. Such enhancement of the business’ ability to be more competent and better players in today’s highly competitive world, has and will only continue to lead to the increasing demand for Big Data Ana lytics.” he further adds.

Manish Gupta, Vice President and General Manager, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies, India, stresses upon the genera tion of data at every level of the business; rise of competition in businesses; increasing awareness of businesses around data management; and improvements and upgrades in Analytics tech nologies as the major drivers of growth in this segment.

Generation of data at every level of the busi ness: Digitalisation of organizational processes and remote work have led to a data boom at the workplace. To effectively manage data and derive insights to transform business strategies has become a need of the hour. With infrastructure which can collect, manage, protect and analyze data at advantageous speeds through simpler operations, has invariably affected the need for Big Data analytics across the globe.

Rise of competition in businesses: As busi

“DATA-AS-A-SERVICE (DAAS) WILL BECOME A MORE WIDESPREAD SOLUTION FOR DATA INTEGRATION, QUALITY MANAGEMENT, STORAGE, AND ITS USAGE IN ANALYTICS.”
RUPESH KHARE, GLOBAL HEADADVANCED ANALYTICS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AT ABB, INDIA
SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 20 COVER STORY

nesses prioritize ‘act-first’ strategies across their verticals to gain an edge over competition, deriv ing insights from mission-critical data has become a key to prosper in the digital era. This is where Big Data will be helping organizations to meet data needs and imbibe useful insights in the era of digital transformation.

Increasing awareness of businesses around data management: Data analytics is going to help a business optimize and automate critical pro cesses at the workfront. Businesses have started educating themselves on data science skills and engage with IT leaders like Dell Technologies to rectify shortcomings in their digital approach. The network created between different organizations is also allowing them to learn from each other’s mistakes and successes in real-time, as the adop tion and maturity of data analysis increases every day.

Improvements and upgrades in Analytics technologies: Due to exponential growth of data volumes and analytical complexity, in-database analytics tools are gaining increasing adoption. In the absence of the need to pre-process data before storage, and the ease with which scalability can be achieved, businesses are now looking for cost effi cient analytics which provide protection against cybersecurity incidents.

Upskilling the Partners

So, how do the solutions providers ensure partner profitability in this emerging technology vertical? How do they ensure that their partners are prop erly trained for this?

“At Dell Technologies, our endeavor has always been to provide unwavering success to our part ners. This is one of the core reasons we continually work towards enhancing our Partner Programs every year,” says Manish.

“As part of this year’s program, whether a part ner is a Solution Provider, Cloud Service Provider, an OEM partner or any combination of these tracks, they have a more streamlined experience as our partner in 2022. We offer an incentive struc ture with regional rebates that is consistent across tracks. We have enhanced a multitude of other parameters including our tech refresh processes, license resell and rebate processes, among others to help our channel partners grow and gain access to one of the industry’s most comprehensive port folios.” Manish adds.

“From internet to mobile to security to collabo ration - our customizable solutions are built to better businesses. Verizon believes in co-creation, and we work with our partners throughout the solution lifecycle. Bringing the right partner in early can also add the expertise one needs through all stages of the process—helping them choose the best technologies, follow best practices, and assess costs, risks and quality-of-service issues for the solutions under consideration. With consistent support, global security services, extensive train ing, visibility and several other Verizon incentives, the aim is to help businesses solve challenges and serve their customers better, hence upskilling.”says Prashant. “Further, a managed services partner plays a major role in developing the architecture for and implementing the partners’ next gen infrastructure, bringing expertise and experience to the incredible transformation ahead. “

Industries Seeing Maximum Application

So, which industries vertical is currently witness ing the largest application of these solutions? And which other areas will be targeted by vendors to expand their business?

Well, with the exponential rise in cyber-attacks across various sectors including healthcare, BFSI,

amongst others and enterprises (with the inte gration of hybrid working models and BYOD systems) cyber security is certainly witnessing a higher demand. “Organizations are also begin ning to incorporate private 5g networks within their organization of more security and efficiency,” says Prashant.

“However, the demand for big data & analyt ics crosses all sectors and businesses. Currently, we are seeing investments in sectors such as Information Technologies, Manufacturing and natural resources, Finance and Insurance, Retail, Science and research, Defense and Space, Market Research, Education, Energy and Utilities, Healthcare, Telecommunications, Professional scientific and technical services, Travel, Sports, Politics, E-comm, Media Communications and Entertainment, Transportation and Automotive,” he predicts.

Ensuring Partner Profitability

Analytics assists partners in their effective and

“BIG DATA AND ANALYTICS ALONG WITH 5G SOLUTIONS AND AI-BASED MACHINE VISION WILL OPTIMIZE ASSEMBLY LINES, REDUCE DOWNTIME, AND HELP BUSINESSES IMPROVE THEIR PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE.”
PRASHANT GUPTA, HEAD OF SOLU TIONS SOUTHEAST ASIA & INDIA, VERIZON BUSINESS
“LIFE IN EVERY BUSINESS IS IT’S BECOMING AN IMPORTANT THING BECAUSE PEOPLE WANT TO BE VERY SHARP, VERY CLEAR IN WHAT THEY WANT TO DO AND IN THIS PROCESS LOT MANY THINGS ARE HAPPENING ON THE ANALYTICS SIDE.”
AMIT LUTHRA MD – INDIA, LENOVO ISG
21SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022
COVER STORY

efficient data driven decision making. This process of analytics critically depends on the accuracy of identifying factors contributing to the profit ability. However, quite often it is observed that an analytics solution addressing these factors fails to increase the profitability. And hence, it becomes very imperative to identify the main reasons behind this failure, and list of these reasons could be long.

“A successful analytics solution must be simple, interpretable and easy to implement. A simple solution helps partners to understand it better while they lose interest in complicated ones. Another critical success factor in increasing the profitability is an ability to convert the analysis to insight using domain knowledge. An easy inter pretation of the solution carries higher chances of the acceptance. Finally, the most practical aspect is the implementation to improve the profitability. An easy to implement solution will have more chances in ensuring profitability,” says Rupesh.

Verizon’s partner network is all about empow ering them with trusted and innovative solutions

built for growth. “With simple accelerated pro cesses, assistance, and technical support to help our partners expand their own offerings. Further, our partners get to experience the transformative power of the technology solutions our portfolio presents. Our extensive training curriculum is shaped to help them move the needle,“ says Prashant.

“In the context of big data and analytics Veri zon’s collaborations with channel partners like Cloudera (leader in enterprise analytics data management) and Atos (large scale cloud and AI powered data analytics) have been quite successful in businesses operating more efficiently,” he adds.

Response from Partner Community

Typically, the response from the partners depends on the industry they operate in, readiness to accept a niche technology, their future vision and the data culture of the organization. “Different industries have different response time. Normally, industries such as Banking, Financial Services, Insurance, E-commerce, Retail are quick in their response

while other capital-intensive industry are relative slow in responding. Taking the analytics route is a big strategic decision and it requires change man agement in existing decision-making process and flexibility in adapting new ways of Data Driven Decisions. This change must be in line with the overall future roadmap of the organization and analytics should add synergy in attaining the busi ness objectives. Quite often organizations take ‘impulsive’ decision to embrace analytics with out doing enough analysis on their readiness in introducing a novel approach, impact on business goals, required infrastructure and skill sets. Such initiatives with little homework may lead to a mis adventure. A practical strategy to adopt analytics is to conduct a few Proof of Concepts and analyze their outcomes before implementing them widely in the organization,” says Rupesh.

“Organizational data culture accelerates the outcome of analytics, amplify its power, and steer the business away from failure probabilities. Building a Data Culture in an organization is a key step in driving the data and analytics strategy effectively. However, this invites high commit ment from the top leadership of the company. This commitment must be manifested by more than occasional high-level pronouncements; there must be an ongoing, informed conversation with top decision makers and those who lead data initiatives throughout the organization,” he adds.

“Verizon has made significant investment in Big Data and AI. Our partner ecosystem is able to leverage these investments and gain visibility for their businesses, which has helped them strengthen their solution portfolio and provide intelligent data points for effective business trans formation, says Prashant.

The Future Winks through Big Data

What’s the future of Big Data Analytics in India? What would be next big moves in the field of Big Data Analytics? Let’s see what the leaders have to say:

“The reality of the matter is that Big Data Analytics is the future of India and it is only going to grow, as more and more organizations are incorporating such solutions to optimize the workings of their businesses. As data continues to expand, and the volume of unstructured and semi-structured data increases, the room to scale for service providers will also increase. Whether it is data mining, business analytics, predictive modeling, data analytics offers businesses a com petitive advantage to make improved data-driven decisions, which is critical in today’s day and age,” concludes Prashant.

“DATA AND ANALYTICS LEADERS MUST PROACTIVELY EXAMINE HOW TO LEVERAGE THESE TRENDS INTO MISSIONCRITICAL INVESTMENTS THAT ACCELERATE THEIR CAPABILITIES TO ANTICIPATE, SHIFT AND RESPOND.”
“INDIA IS RIPE WITH OPPORTUNITIES FOR DIGITISATION. WE ARE HEAVILY INVESTED IN INDIA, AND WE ARE BUILDING SOLUTIONS AND RUNNING PROJECTS OUT OF INDIA FOR GLOBAL MARKETS.”
RITA SALLAM, DISTINGUISHED VP ANALYST, GARTNER
AALOK KUMAR, CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT & CEO, NEC CORPORATION INDIA
SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 22 COVER STORY

PROFILE

AWS APPS USED TO BUILD PHISHING PAGES: AVANAN’S TIPS ON HOW TO DEFEND YOURSELF

AWS is one of the most popular cloud storage and hosting solutions. From major companies hosting their work on the service, to individuals using it to create and host webpages, it is a force. If you’re using a site on the Internet, there’s a good chance that AWS is involved in some fashion.

One way that folks use AWS is to build and host web pages. The service allows you to host a Word press site or something fully created with custom code. With a little bit of coding knowledge, you can create a free website that’s hosted on AWS.

Hackers, who know a little about coding, are taking advantage of this by building phishing pages on AWS. Sending a link to this page via email is a way to bypass scanners and get users to hand over credentials. This is something to be concerned about given that according to Check Point’s Threat Intelligence Report for India, over 70% of the mali cious files in India were delivered via email in the last 30 days.

In this attack brief via our team from Avanan, a Check Point Company, we will highlight how threat actors are creating phishing pages on AWS using the site’s legitimacy to steal credentials.

Attack

In this attack, hackers are creating phishing websites using AWS Apps.

• Vector: Email

• Type: Credential Harvesting

• Techniques: Static Expressway

• Target: Any end-user

Email Example #1

Email Example #2

When looking at the email under the hood, a few things stand out. One, there’s a fake nickname with the sender address, however, you can see that the domain is a legitimate AWS domain. The text is not related to the attack. The email in question is in Spanish, but here’s a rough translation of part of it:

Hello Oscar, Finally, we did not manage to talk yesterday, but I take the opportunity to write you this e-mail with the details of the quote that we require. The date for submitting the quote would be Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 11:59 p.m.

As I told you on WhatsApp, we must quote the start-up of an earthquake monitoring system in the dam and the dam of the Tominé reservoir. The system must have wireless monitoring at all times and must be viewable on a platform.

This, obviously, has nothing to do with a pass word reset.

The user is presented with what looks like a standard password expiration email.

Finally, when clicking on the link, the user is redi rected to a log-in page. The domain of the victim’s company is there; so is the email pre-populated and the company logo. All the user has to do is fill in their password and their credentials are stolen.

To access more info login to: https://www.smechannels.com

MANISH ALSHI Head, Channels & Emerging Technology, Check Point Software Technologies India & SAARC Manish Alshi heads Channels & Emerging Technology division of Check Point Software Technologies, India & SAARC. A highly experienced leader & Management Professional with 22 years of rich experience in the IT industry spanning across alliances/ channels, sales & leadership roles, Manish has been instrumental in driving the channel activities at Check Point. As an enabler of cybersecurity, he is committed to making cybersecurity education and knowledge accessible to everyone.
Through Avanan, Check Point highlights how threat actors are creating phishing pages on AWS using the site’s legitimacy to steal credentials
GUEST ARTICLE SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 23

REDEFINING NETWORKING AND SECURITY FOR MULTI-CLOUD

Through a cloud-smart approach, VMware empowers enterprises to resolve unprecedented level of threat as they navigate today’s multi-cloud world

As the Pandemic triggered big scale cloud migra tion became a reality, it has brought along with it unprecedented security challenges for the cloud industry. In light of this, companies like VMware are doing doing everything at their disposal to provide secure and reliable solutions to the market. The company very recently announced new innovations across its expanding networking and security portfolio that will help customers embrace the cloud operating model.

Innovations Span Diverse Areas

The new innovations from VMware span diverse areas. They include Project Northstar for multicloud networking, security and end-to-end visibility; expansion of network detection and visibility to the Carbon Black Cloud endpoint protection platform, with early access available now; Project Trinidad that extends and advances VMware’s API security and analytics; and Project Watch, a new approach to multi-cloud network

ing and security that provides advanced app to app policy controls.

“Enterprises are facing an unprecedented level of threat and complexity as they operate in today’s multi-cloud world,” said Tom Gillis, senior vice president and general manager of VMware’s Networking and Advanced Security business group. “VMware is radically transforming how our customers consume networking and security – allowing them to realize the agility and effi ciencies of the cloud operating model through a cloud-smart approach. With a privileged position in the infrastructure and a scale out distributed software architecture, we’re able to leverage the intrinsic attributes of our platforms and deliver these unique solutions in a consumption-oriented manner.”

Simplifying Networking and Security for Multi-Cloud

In Project Northstar, VMware announces a major advancement of its NSX platform. Announced in technology preview today, Project Northstar will transform how enterprises consume network ing and security in a multi-cloud world. Project Northstar will deliver multi-cloud networking, security, workload mobility and end-to-end threat detection and response with a centralized cloud-

TOM GILLIS
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER - NET WORKING AND ADVANCED SECURITY BUSINESS GROUP, VMWARE
“VMWARE IS RADICALLY TRANSFORMING HOW OUR CUSTOMERS CONSUME NETWORKING AND SECURITY –ALLOWING THEM TO REALIZE THE AGILITY AND EFFICIENCIES OF THE CLOUD OPERATING MODEL THROUGH A CLOUDSMART APPROACH.”
CLOUD COMPUTING SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 24

console for consistent and simplified softwareas-a-service (SaaS) consumption. This family of services includes network & security policy management, network detection and response (NDR), network visibility and analytics (NSX Intelligence), advanced load balancing (ALB), and workload mobility (HCX) for private cloud envi ronments and VMware Cloud deployments.

“As an innovator in software-defined network ing, VMware offers a full-stack of networking and security services in an integrated solution that benefits thousands of enterprise customers today,” said Umesh Mahajan, senior vice president and general manager for VMware’s Networking and Security business unit. “Customers are seek ing a uniform policy model across multi-cloud deployments, along with consistent network con nectivity, security, and load balancing services. With Project Northstar we continue to shape how enterprises consume networking and security in a multi-cloud world.”

Today, with the latest update to VMware NSX 4.0 and VMware vSphere 8, NSX networking and security functions can now be implemented on Data Processing Units (DPUs, also known as SmartNICs) connected to the host hypervisor. Offloading NSX services to the DPU can acceler ate networking and security functions without impacting the host CPUs, addressing the needs of modern applications and other network-intensive and latency-sensitive applications.

Strengthening Lateral Security

The growth in laterally moving threats requires security teams to pay closer attention to east-west network traffic. Examining traffic through net work taps is no longer sufficient. Modern distrib uted cloud architectures can further exacerbate blind spots. VMware’s architecture allows custom ers see processes running in an endpoint, packets crossing the network, access points, and the inner workings of both traditional and modern apps to identify and stop threats others can’t. As part of today’s announcements, VMware is strengthening its lateral security capabilities by embedding net work detection and visibility into Carbon Black Cloud’s endpoint protection platform, which is now available to select customers in early access. This extended detection and response (XDR) telemetry adds network detection and visibility to endpoints with no changes to infrastructure or endpoints, providing customers with extended visibility into their environment across endpoints and networks leaving attackers nowhere to hide. Limited visibility into the east-west traffic

between microservices also puts modern applica tions at greater risk. Project Trinidad, which is in tech preview, extends VMware’s API security and analytics by deploying sensors on Kubernetes clusters and uses machine learning with business logic inference to detect anomalous behavior in east-west traffic between microservices.

Findings from VMware’s recent Global Incident Response Threat Report reveal that ransomware actors continue to evolve their cyber extortion strategies. Ransomware will continue to be a business reality, and VMware uniquely makes recovery from an attack faster, more predictable, and less prone to error with VMware Ransomware Recovery for VMware Cloud DR, a new offering unveiled at VMware Explore. This new, purposebuilt ransomware recovery-as-a-service solution enables safe recovery that prevents re-infection of IT and line-of-business production workloads through its innovative use of an on-demand iso lated recovery environment on VMware Cloud on AWS. Guided recovery workflows allow custom ers to quickly identify recovery point candidates, validate restore points using embedded behavioral analysis, and recover data with minimal loss.

Expanding Security for the Data Center and Cloud Edge

Last year, VMware announced the industry-first elastic application security edge (EASE) which enables the networking and security infrastruc ture at the data center or cloud edge to flex and adjust as app needs change. To help customers preserve their investments in expensive hardware appliances that are incapable of adapting to chang ing app environments, VMware is introducing:

• VMware NSX Gateway Firewall: VMware’s next-generation firewall now offers a new stateful active-active edge scale-out capability that signifi cantly increases network throughput for stateful services. VMware now offers advanced threat prevention capabilities with IDPS, malware analy sis, sandboxing, URL filtering, TLS proxy, stateful firewall, and stateful Network Address Translation (NAT) that extend centralized security controls to physical and virtual workloads at the data center and cloud edge.

• VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer:

With a goal to deliver multi-layer application secu rity at the edge, closer to applications and users for better efficiency and performance, VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer (ALB) is adding new bot management capabilities, while enhancing the security capabilities of its web application firewall, malware detection, security analytics, and DDoS

protection. These enhancements at the edge help customers maintain a consistent security posture with operational simplicity, extending protection from traditional to cloud-native containers-based applications deployed across multi-cloud environ ments. VMware NSX ALB’s ability to enforce API security policies in line with application delivery traffic helps customers in protecting their northsouth APIs.

• Project Watch: At VMware Explore 2022, VMware is unveiling Project Watch, a new approach to multi-cloud networking and security that will provide advanced app to app policy con trols to help with continuous risk and compliance assessment. In technology preview, Project Watch will help network security and compliance teams to continuously observe, assess, and dynamically mitigate risk and compliance problems in com posite multi-cloud applications.

Securing the Edge for the Distributed Workforce

In the past two years, enterprise customers have fundamentally changed how they build and deploy networks and access to support distributed workers. The market for secure access service edge (SASE) solutions is expected to nearly triple by 2026 with security being a key driver of growth as enterprises strategically invest for the new age of distributed applications and hybrid work, accord ing to the Dell’Oro Group. A leader in SD-WAN, VMware is now offering additional deployment flexibility to customers who want a multi-phase journey from their current network and endpoint management solutions to a next-generation SASE offering by adding new web proxy-based connec tivity to VMware Cloud Web Security.

VMware Cross-Cloud services Helps Customers Navigate the Multi-Cloud Era

At VMware Explore 2022, VMware is unveil ing new and enhanced offerings for VMware Cross-Cloud services to help customers navigate the multi-cloud era with freedom, flexibility and security. VMware Cross-Cloud services is a portfolio of cloud services that deliver a unified and simplified way to build, operate, access, and better secure any application on any cloud from any device. VMware Cross-Cloud service pillars include App Platform, Cloud Management, Cloud & Edge Infrastructure, Security & Networking, and Anywhere Workspace.

CLOUD COMPUTING SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 25

CLOUD BLESSINGS FOR INDIAN AGRICULTURE

PROFILE

A born leader and a gifted strategist, Piyush Somani defines what ESDS stands for today through his exceptional ability to build and grow a business and nurture-long term relationships. As a dynamic thought leader, Piyush has deep focus on innovating technologies like cloud hosting platform, datacenter management system, core banking solutions and Pay-Per-Consume billing system to provide great experience and satisfaction to customers. He nourishes a vision of revolutionizing India’s agricultural sector with advanced cloud solutions.

In the last two financial years, the statistics of the Indian economy have highlighted the importance of the Indian Agriculture sector. When everything else was in the doldrums, the agriculture sector reg istered a growth of 3.5 percent in 2020-21, support ing the Indian economy (Nabard). However, even if the picture looks good on the statistical front, there are specific facts that primarily we still, as an agrobased economy, must focus on. India's agriculture industry has recently been affected by land loss and biodiversity loss worldwide. In addition to what has already been stated, unfavorable weather patterns brought on by climatic changes and an increase in the world's population competing for limited resources are a clear image of the future. Informa tion and communication technology (ICT), which promotes smart agriculture, must be introduced to comprehend the trend of issues facing the agricul tural sector. Giving the farmers knowledge about the characteristics of their farmland, their local climate, better access to natural resources, improved agricultural technologies, efficient production tech niques, markets, banking, financial services, etc., aid in their empowerment. The key disadvantage is the high investment cost for ICT infrastructure upkeep. We must obtain, process, and store data to learn about the nature of farmland, its nutrient con tent, appropriate crops, etc. Finding a dependable, quicker, more efficient, and less expensive ICT tool for this industry is, therefore, a top priority for infor mation technicians. The best feasible solution to this is Cloud Computing. Users can access services like real-time computing, data access, and storage for end users without being aware of the physical location or system configuration that provides those services.

The way to implement

By 2050, India must boost its food output by up 40% of India to feed the expanding population. If we discuss its nutrient composition, handling that becomes even more challenging. In the opinion of agricultural researchers, data-driven agriculture is

an appropriate option in that case. It is the capac ity to map every farm on Earth and connect a large amount of data. Farming land, crops, climatic circumstances, financial resources, irrigation facili ties, and other information and services that can help farmers increase crop production are needed. What, for instance, is the soil moisture content of my farm 5 inches below the surface? What is the overall moisture content of my farm's soil? Which crop would work best with it? Etc. Therefore, gather ing data is essential to achieving our farming goals. However, researchers claim that farmers, especially small-holder farmers, are discouraged from utilizing data-driven agriculture because of the high cost of data collecting. There is no way for them to test their soil, learn about resource availability, understand market demand, or discover other ways to boost production, etc. Cloud computing is the workable solution to these issues. Agricultural field images and observations from individuals involved on the ground precisely supplying massive data along with their GPS coordinates are all made possible by realtime Software as a Service (SaaS) applications for using cloud computing. These applications include sensors and monitoring tools that collect soil data, agricultural field images, and observations. As an illustration, sensors can now locate even a bale of hay in a field and determine how much moisture it contains.

Cloud computing can be employed in conjunc tion with AI and IoT to make farming even smarter. For example, there are worries about the sustain ability of agriculture, especially projected water scarcity by 2030. Japan has created a digital farming technique to address this problem. Thanks to their knowledge and experience, seasoned farmers know how to use water and fertilizers more effectively. Even unskilled growers may use these strategies thanks to IoT and AI technology to collect and analyze data from their farming practices, repost it into the cloud, and make it available to all farmers. Even in places with little access to water, it increased agricultural productivity.

Cloud Computing can be the panacea to India’s farming woes – be it offering access services like real-time computing, data access, and storage for end users without being aware of the physical location or system configuration that provides those services
GUEST ARTICLE SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 26

We still doubt the practical benefit of Cloud Computing to small-scale or even marginal farm ers in India. However, It has already been put into practice, albeit on a modest scale, and its goals have been met. Africa is a region with challenging growing conditions for farmers. The most crucial requirement for irrigation is water. Imagine a state like Tanzania where there is a water shortage and farmers are forced to irrigate their crops with the limited water available. They are forced to perform irrigation because agriculture is their primary source of revenue. It was even more challenging because they could not afford to install borewells

in their agricultural areas. However, unexpectedly, a little digital device that measures the moisture in the soil caused them to use the water in the proper amount and location rather than spreading water throughout the field, which resulted in a signifi cant amount of water being saved. They came to see the advantages of integrating technology into conventional farming. A small team of workers examined most farmers in Tanzania who had their farms. The findings were uploaded to the cloud so that each farmer could access the data via mobile devices and learn things like their farmland's moisture and nutritional content.

Leading Indian agriculture toward digital farm ing will require cloud, IoT, and AI. The general economic growth of the country will undoubtedly benefit from this. Above all, cloud computing is no longer a relatively new idea, and most emerg ing countries are not eager to accept and apply it. Therefore, it requires widespread promotion and awareness among the key players in order to realise its full potential and provide a solid knowl edge foundation for the country. This will result in a well-connected in turn.

GUEST ARTICLE SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 27

SMBs are realigning their operations to become more flexible and adaptable to the dynamic busi ness environment. Being digitally agile to support frictionless communication and collaboration needs is no longer a choice but a necessity for companies to grow and sustain their businesses.

Tata Tele Business Services (TTBS), India’s leading digital services provider, is at the forefront of digi talisation of enterprises with its comprehensive portfolio of connectivity and cloud solutions to make them resilient and future ready. In an exclu sive chat with us, Vishal Bhat, Vice-President, Tata Teleservices, talks in detail about TTBS initiatives to support SMBs in their digital transformation journeys.

How is TTBS helping SMBs in their digital journeys? what are your growth plans?

Tata Tele Business Services (TTBS) has always been at the forefront of providing enterprise grade solutions to SMBs helping them build operational efficiencies and become digitally agile. SMBs, irrespective of whether they are in metros or otherwise, need to be nimble in adopting digital technologies to stay relevant and future ready. With our connectivity, security, cloud and col laboration offerings, we have been enabling SMBs to simplify and accelerate their digital transforma tion journeys. These solutions are an amalgama tion of unique features that appropriately address the security aspects arising out of a hybrid work ing environment and enable enterprises to seam lessly run their operations while serving their customers with utmost efficiency.

We are bundling services that offer higher value to SMBs and a great price performance. Like instead of simple connectivity, we are providing value added connectivity with our Smart Internet solution that bundles Internet Leased Line – ILL with built-in cloud security backed by round the clock managed services. These offer additional savings to SMBs as they do not have to invest in IT infrastructure and management costs.

Our growth plans are centred around stream lining our portfolio of services especially in the areas of SaaS, IaaS, and Cloud. We are continually strengthening our digital connectivity highways on which companies, big and small, run their businesses. We are also enhancing digital capabili ties across the value chain, from demand genera tion to service assurance and operations to better our customers’ experience.

What are your major Product/ Services offerings?

TTBS has strengthened its product portfolio basis industry use case scenario and offer smart solu

TTBS COMMITTED

TO SIMPLIFY AND ACCELERATE DIGITAL ADOPTION BY SMBs

Always at the forefront of providing enterprise-grade solutions to SMBs, TTBS helps them build operational efficiencies and become digitally agile

tions to mitigate Industry challenges. These solu tions are meticulously designed to cater industry wise segment requirements ensuring uniformity, security, and simplicity.

TTBS is committed to democratize cuttingedge technology and empower the businesses with innovative and affordable bespoke solutions that significantly boost their competitiveness and help them Do Big.

TTBS has strengthened its portfolio of enter prise grade solutions such as:

a) Smartflo: an advanced cloud communica tion suite that enhances customer experience by streamlining call flows and tracking performance with detailed reports and advanced analytics.

b) SD-WAN iFLX: an advanced networking solution with intelligent and flexible networking capabilities helps businesses accelerate their digi tal transformation.

c) Smart Internet: Industry’s first smart inter net leased- single suite combining high speed internet with cloud-based security and greater control at an optimized cost.

d) SmartOffice: It is literally an office in a box, which integrates voice, data, storage and applica tions in one device and saves a customer the time, effort and complexity of working with multiple service providers in setting up an office. It is as appealing to a start-up as it is to an established organization wishing to open a branch office.

e) Ultra-Lola3.0: This is a technologically superior point-to point offering, with latency in microseconds, which enables brokerage/BFSI companies that must stay securely linked to pro cess market data in real-time.

f) Cyber Security Portfolio: Cyber- attacks like phishing, ransomware are becoming more pervasive and sophisticated. We have introduced a

Cloud Content Security Platform (CCSP), to offer email security, web security, next generation fire wall, endpoint security and multi-factor authen tication (MFA) to address the growing need of security solutions.

g) Collaboration Solutions: to address the continuous shift in modern workplace, where employees expect more openness, collaboration and flexibility in how they stay connected, we launched a host of plug and play collaboration solutions, such as web conferencing solutions, hosted interactive voice response (‘HIVR’), and international bridging services (‘IBS’).

How is Smartflo helping enter prises in their cloud communication requirements?

Cloud platforms can help deploy new digital cus tomer experiences in days rather than months and can support analytics that would be uneconomical or simply impossible with traditional technology platforms. Cloud will continue to be the backbone for all the transformational technologies. Modern businesses aiming to be digital-first organizations, require cloud solutions that help in Enterprise applications such as CRM, analytics, retail, voice and data etc.

TTBS Smartflo is an award- winning, futuristic cloud communication suite that offers sophisti cated convergence of digital connectivity, business intelligence and productivity. It enables businesses to strengthen engagement with customers through seamless communication, anytime and anywhere. The setup is quick with no capex investment and comes with an uptime guarantee of 99.5% backed by TTBS 24X7 managed service capabilities and trust, ensuring uninterrupted business continuity. Smartflo solution is being adopted by multitude of

INTERVIEW SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 28

businesses across industry verticals like BFSI, IT/ ITES, Manufacturing, Education, Fintech, Logis tics and E-commerce and helping them boost their customer experience.

How do you see the unified com munication space shaping up?

How is TTBS partnership with Zoom unfolding?

The fundamental idea behind TTBS partner ship with Zoom is to offer an intuitive, scalable, and secure unified communications solutions to enterprises and individuals alike. This partnership will enable businesses to have access to compre hensive conference services such as Zoom Meet ings, Zoom Webinars and Zoom Rooms on our state-of the-art, high-capacity digital connectivity network.

Businesses can use our bespoke Zoom custom ization that integrates with their existing solutions, helps keep tabs on all client-facing conversations and bolsters security. The platform provides a host of unique features like Live Video, streaming of Video Webinars for up to 50,000 viewers, include one click access, video, voice, content sharing, recording, virtual backgrounds, company brand ing, multi-layer security, and meeting participa tion of up to 1000 people on video from locations across the globe, making communication more interactive and engaging.

How is Smart Internet going to help Enterprises?

Protection, control and manageability are the fundamental components required in a smart network. Smart Internet has been developed with an endeavour to minimize cyber-attacks encoun tered by businesses especially SMBs and provide them with seamless connectivity entrusted with advanced security at an affordable price. With Smart Internet, businesses can now easily access bandwidth-heavy applications on our highlysecured and high-performance network with real time usage control and manageability to enhance their productivity.

What are the channel partner initiatives by TTBS ? How do you help them tap more into the market opportunities?

Our Partner network has been an important pillar that has contributed immensely to our business growth. We have, perhaps the largest network which is available at hand to meet the require ments of our customers in over 60 cities across the country. We have the right mix of partners who addresses various industrial segments. We have pure telecom partners, system integrators, data security experts, software selling partners and even non-ICT partners who have better reach across industry segments.

We have also introduced ‘Customer Experience Platform (CEP)’ an industry’s first initiative. CEP is one of our flagship solutions which is driving digital transformation for diversified enterprises. CEP enables the channel partners and TTBS team to easily communicate about specific product related details to the customers. Customers will be provided secured log-in credentials to experi ence the product virtually and feel how it can be beneficial to their business with product demo videos and related industry specific case-studies.

This is a user -friendly, collaborative solution built for ‘faster, simpler, and closer’ approach for TTBS customers and partners. Customer Experience Portal reaffirms our customer-first ideology as it truly redefines customer experience through a highly engaging integrated online platform to bring the product experience closer to the cus tomers, based on their availability and comfort anytime anywhere.

We continue to enhance our partner network in every part of the addressable market. We are con tinually empowering and upskilling our partners under our ‘Certified Solution Partner’ program which is at par with industry certification to enhance their capability as an ICT solution pro vider. Our learning and development platforms help our partners to validate abilities and gain valuable certificates. This is significant because it provides them with opportunities to learn new skills and earn credentials, especially as they reskill and upskill more frequently to address the customers’ demands in the competitive market.

VISHAL BHAT VICE PRESIDENT TATA TELESERVICES
“THE FUNDAMENTAL IDEA BEHIND TTBS PARTNERSHIP WITH ZOOM IS TO OFFER AN INTUITIVE, SCALABLE, AND SECURE UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS SOLUTION TO ENTERPRISES AND INDIVIDUALS ALIKE.”
INTERVIEW SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 29

GOING UBER CONNECTED

The demand for enterprise collabora tion solutions witnessed a fever ish surge during the COVID-19 pandemic. The utilization of enter prise collaboration solutions was pushed up due to the rising requirements for communication among employees in various organizations. As per an estimate by Reportlinker, the Global Enterprise Collaboration Market size is expected to reach $101. 7 billion by 2028, rising at a market growth of 12. 1% CAGR.

Here, in a Special Interaction with the PragaueHeadquartered Enterprise Email Solutions provider IceWarp, SME Channels brings you a snapshot of the inner workings of the Enterprise collaboration landscape. For the benefit of the channel community, Pramod Sharda, CEO, Ice Warp India & Middle East, reveals his organiza tion’s strategy to address growing demand for Collaboration solutions from customers, his pre dictions for the Enterprise collaboration Solutions industry in 2022 and his vision and plans for the channel community. Edited excerpts…

Your home page features a shout out – “The only office rule is there is no office.” How do your product offerings support this in view of the prevalent work from home culture?

IceWarp is a global company, with business pres ence in almost 50 countries and 50, 000 customers worldwide. We receive a lot of feedbacks from our customers on how they are working, and how they intend to work in the future. This tagline or the big shout-out on our website came up actually from what our customers’ feedback and what they told us. They told us that once they are on the IceWarp platform they can work from anywhere, they can collaborate with their colleagues or customers or vendors from anywhere and have all the tools at their disposal which empowers them to be any where and be able to work and perform their jobs very well.

So, talking from that perspective, this was something that was coined by our customers.

They told us and we believed that, and it makes sense, because IceWarp today has evolved as a global brand and organization, and is able to pro vide a complete suit of products, a complete plat form to any customer requiring a strong platform for communication, collaboration, for connecting with each other, or to work jointly and cohesively from anywhere from any place in the world.

We have a fantastic platform which offers you the power to have a single interface. Within a single interface, you can have your entire dash board at one place, enabling you to have your emails at one place. You can see who’s online, and decide to start your call with a person. It can be a one-to-one call or a video call or just the audio call or just a chat or a quick message you can leave by or a voicemail to somebody to come back to you. Also, at the same time while you’re working on your emails, you can also initiate a call to so that you can collaborate with your colleagues on a document.

So, if you’re working on a project and you have a presentation, you can come on line. Both you and your colleagues who are working on the same presentation can give feedback to each other on the on the video call; at the same time be able to collaborate on the PPT, as if you were together at the same place, at the same time. So, for all your office work, you can have one colleague or more colleagues to come live on the call, work on the presentation or a document or excel file and share an update at the same time. Thus, it helps you to effectively collaborate over there.

Besides this, you can also collaborate by invit ing group meetings, group calls. You can have review calls or team meetings on our VC plat form. The platform offers very high definition audio or video. The quality of videos is very good, making people feel very near to each other. That’s a big advantage offered by our platform. It can also help you to invite people who are not part of your company. They could be your customers or a part ner. You can invite them for a call or a VC. There’s no limit of time. There’s no limit on data. There’s no restraint there. You can have a meeting for one

hour, 2 hour, or 3 hours as per your requirement, and record the meetings.

Keep the meeting as well for you completely, which can be accessible to you. Our team chat also allows you to come together, share your documents, and keep as one repository. You can initiate conversations like you do in a WhatsApp Group. People can put their reports, smileys, and their remarks and comments too. They can open up a query and people so it feels that you are con nected. So, it makes them feel that they’re together.

Plus, we have all the apps on the mobile too. If you are having some work and need to move out of your house, you can still access the whole thing on your mobile phone, giving you lot of flexibility. So, it offers a complete and comprehensive plat form. You can use IceWarp as a platform together with other external parties to work on the same platform, collaborate, and be available to each other quickly through just one chat, one message and one call, or one video call. And do your work as if you are doing the same in your office.

So, that’s the reason why we have that big line on our website.

How do you ensure the security of your users and the security that is attached to the products that you deliver?

The pandemic brought in a big change in mind set. And this brought in a mindset that employees can work from anywhere. They have to be enabled and empowered to work from anywhere and when that happened, there was a scrambling to figure out where and what needs to be protected from the point of view of the company’s interest. There were many solutions available and many technologies had to be adopted overnight to ensure that, despite the earlier perimeter of the office gone, the people who were connected to the company’s network and the company’s data are secure enough to ensure that there’s no data leak and there is no misuse of data.

And one of that happens to be the e-mail and it is the most vulnerable thing, the most valuable thing available right now to break into a com pany’s network or system.

We provide our customers the well secured application in a platform which secures them to evade any kind of future attacks or security threats which they might face tomorrow. There are mul tiple things we have right now. Many organiza tions today have adopted federation of Google or Azure. They have this Google cloud or they have the Windows Azure. And so SAML authen tication is key part of ensuring security. SAML authentication, which has become a key part of our offering, makes the security layer very strin gent. Because, now, the CIOs or the customers

IceWarp offers a robust platform for communication, collaboration, to work jointly and cohesively from anywhere from any place in the world
SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 30 COLLABORATION

do not have to invest something more. They just enable our IceWarp application on the Federation or Google Cloud or Azure and it’s one application among many which is all to be secured from the predictions that are adopted right now. So, that’s the biggest thing we have that’s much easier deploy.

Apart from that, for the people who do not have SAML authentication, we also have a 2 sector factor authentication. You can use IceWarp mobile app to have a two factor password, plus, we have app using which you can generate new codes, you can put it inside. We allow that inside.

Besides this, we also enable our customers by giving them a complete private cloud. So, if you have a private cloud cluster, you are having com plete zero trust and a VPN gateway enabled by Ice Warp. So, all the customers who are having high level of security, for example, the ones from BFSI, today are enabled on a zero trust platform on a VPN platform. So, whether they have a laptop or an iPad or mobile phone, whenever they connect, they are ensured of a secure zone access only from anywhere from devices which are authorized from the applications that authorize. Then, we also have a strong Mobile Device Management Application, which is part of the IceWarp family where the data on the mobile also secure. So, you are having your own private container to work on the mobile, and your data is secure in the container. You can’t take

a print screen, you can’t have the attachments used by WhatsApp or something else. So, even the data on the mobile is quite highly secured over there, and all levels of security is maintained. When it comes to the e-mail transactional, the gateway level -- when the e-mail is traveling inbound to your domain and going outside, we have powered our cloud services by having the Cisco Ironport Email Security Services in the e-mail gateways, which is, by and large, the world’s largest engine today to control the attacks worldwide. Nearly 60% of all e-mail traffic travels through Cisco net work at present.

Dallas is the biggest AI tool, which has been built over the years, today is being used by gov ernment organizations worldwide insisting on very stringent security measures. We have that empowered on our cloud for customers to ensure even the gateway level security is taken care of. So, the threat which comes in the sandbox, it gets into sandbox when it’s verified and after verification, it is released.

Are you planning any major investments in terms of channel expansion or in terms of increasing your overall headcounts in India?

We have been constantly growing for the last seven years. But over the last three years during the pan

demic, we grew manifold. The head count too is increasing. We plan to double our head count in the coming year because the growth is good and the market response is very good.

We’re expanding our business presence in India. We need to reach every nook and corner of this big country sooner. So, we need more people on freedom St. Two areas that are going to see significant expansion. First, our Support Services Department. It’s getting bigger and bigger because being OEM ourselves, we need to ensure that the turn-around time of tickets is high and faster and much support is extended to our customers.

Second, we are investing money in manpower to reach the partners. We are having people on board to expand the partner family.

We are strong and best in India. We are going to be strongly invested in India. Between North and South is a region, which is like a Greenfield for us when we want to invest. We are planning our own office in Delhi very soon. We would open our own office there in the NCR region.

Plus, infrastructure would see a big investment. We need to keep on upgrading, keep on invest ing to ensure that the new technologies are there. When it comes to the services we offer, the uptime guarantees us to be stronger.

So, we’re investing in every area, manpower, infrastructure, offices and partners too.

Click the link to read more: https://www.smechannels.com

PRAMOD SHARDA, CEO, ICEWARP INDIA & MIDDLE EAST
“YOU CAN USE ICEWARP AS A PLATFORM TO COLLABORATE, AND BE AVAILABLE TO PEOPLE THROUGH JUST A CHAT, A MESSAGE, A CALL, OR A VIDEO CALL. AND DO YOUR WORK AS IF YOU ARE DOING THE SAME IN YOUR OFFICE.”
SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 31 COLLABORATION
PARTNER SUMMIT & AWARDS 2022 12th NOVEMBER GOA INDIA2022 25th - 26th HONOURING 100 TOP CHANNEL PARTNERS IN INDIA 2 DAY EVENT NETWORK WITH MOVERS AND SHAKERS OF IT CHANNEL ECOSYSTEM PARTICIPATE AND GROW YOUR CHANNEL BUSINESS MOST PREMIUM CHANNEL EVENT

PROFILE

Highly motivated business leader with a high level of drive and determination, and proven ability to deliver vision and strategic direction Anthony has significant ‘C’level engagement spanning a 20 year sales career in the IT, Data Communications, and Telecom industry. He has a proven track record of negotiating high value contracts at Board Level and seasoned leadership capability managing teams across many of the world’s major business regions and cities.

C SPIRE TACKLES DIGITAL DIVIDE WITH INDUSTRY COLLABORATION

As the COVID-19 pandemic made all too clear, extending internet access to underserved areas isn’t just a matter of market growth. With many consum ers increasingly reliant on high-speed internet for access to medical care, education, and employment, closing the digital divide has become essential to ensure that people everywhere can participate fully in modern life. To this end, government agencies in the U.S. and overseas have launched numer ous initiatives to subsidize and accelerate the rural broadband buildout, from the $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) to the $14.2 billion Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). Programs like these can help ease concerns about ROI for investments in wireline, fixed wireless, and satellite-based internet access infrastructure—but they may not be enough to ensure the long-term sustainability of rural broadband services.

Internet service providers seeking to develop the rural broadband market face considerable chal lenges, from the economics of low customer density to permitting challenges for right-of-way access. To recoup investments in fiber optic internet, fixed wireless, fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), and other infrastructure, these companies need to ensure that their costs for deployment, operations, and mainte nance won’t outstrip their potential revenue.

In a recent report sponsored by A10 Networks, RCR Wireless News explored the experiences of C Spire, a regional network operator in the U.S., in working to close the digital divide. By working with both customers and industry peers in a collab orative approach to rural broadband expansion, the company offers an example of the innovative busi ness models making high speed internet services available more widely than ever before.

Crowdsourcing Paves the Way for Fiber Optic Internet Adoption

Established in 1988, C Spire provides broadband service to customers in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama. Since 2013, the company has provided fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) to a growing subscriber base across roughly 20 markets encompassing more

than 30,000 single family residences—with a billiondollar investment fueling further expansion.

Prior to entering the market for suburban and rural broadband services, C Spire typically focused on providing high-speed internet service to hospi tals, schools, businesses, and large industries where a single fiber optic internet connection can capture significant revenue. The high cost of last-mile fiber-to-the-home infrastructure, combined with the more modest subscription fee for an individual household, reshaped these economics.

In order to ensure sufficient subscriber demand to justify the cost of its fiber optic internet deploy ment in a given neighborhood or community, C Spire developed an innovative crowdsourcing model. Instead of the traditional approach of build ing out infrastructure, then hoping enough custom ers signed up to pay for it, the company solicited customer interest up-front—before its buildout began. This way, C Spire could be confident that homeowner and renter demand would be sufficient to build a profitable business.

Fostering Industry Collaboration Through the Rural Broadband Consortium

The economics of closing the digital divide are made even more challenging by the go-it-alone business model typical of the industry. With this approach, a single internet service provider designs, builds, operates, and maintains the network. While the operator also receives all the resulting internet access revenue, the profitability of the investment is often eroded by its inefficiency. In reality, given the multiple technologies that can be involved in rural broadband connectivity, including fixed wireless, fiber optic internet, 5G, and satellite, it would be rare for a single regional internet service provider to field deep expertise and resources across the full spectrum.

To access more info login to: https://www.smechannels.com

Created by C Spire, the Rural Broadband Consortium brought together top companies including Nokia, Microsoft, and Facebook to explore new cooperative models for cost-effective rural broadband deployment
GUEST ARTICLE SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 33

EMERGING STRONG IN CHANNEL BUSINESS

Dell Technologies’ has upped its ante on the India market. In the recently conducted Channel Roundtable, the company provided a performance update around its global business as well as APJ and India businesses. It highlighted Dell’s channel momentum in Q2, key insights into the evolving partner landscape, and outlined priorities for FY23 and beyond and highlighted some key areas for channel partners to grow.

Our editor Sanjay Mohapatra had caught up with the Dell team at the side lines of the round

table. Here is a small recap of the interaction.

Sanjay Mohapatra- SME Channels:

Your competitions have already into similar offer ings. So, don’t you think the more delay you make, you are going to lose the market? Or are you wait ing for the right time or perfect product fit for a certain market?

Anil Sethi - Dell Technologies: No, we are not delaying that. In fact, we already have launched it. More offerings under that are

also coming up. We already have Flex on demand, which we called FoD. Flex on demand on storage services is already there for both storage and serv ers. It is there in the market for the last six months or more, rather, one year. That has also picked up very well. Other offerings are also coming up soon in the coming quarter. But there are some govern ment formalities to be completed and there are some other things which are holding us back. Otherwise, production, as well as other things, is ready. So, the issue has been different. It’s more about working with the government agencies and there are some regulations that you have to go through which is taking time. Otherwise, we are completely ready. As TB mentioned, it is launched in ANZ, Korea, Singapore, as well as USA and India and many other countries. So it’s already there. We just need to complete some formalities.

Sanjay Mohapatra- SME Channels: Supply chain disruption has caused lot of prob

Highlighting Dell’s channel momentum, Dell Technologies’ Channel Roundtable offered key insights into the evolving partner landscape and outlined priorities for FY23 and beyond
“WE REALLY BELIEVE THAT SCALE DOES MATTER. IF YOU HAVE THE BIGGEST SCALE, YOU WILL HAVE MORE NEGOTIATION POWER.”
SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 34 PARTNER CORNER

lems. India too is facing lot of challenges, quarters of delays happening on the product procure ment and product rephrase. But as the Chinese market opens up and the tension starts to ease out between China and Taiwan, how are you manag ing your supply chain?

Anil Sethi - Dell Technologies:

On the client business, our supply is coming back to the pre-COVID days. Our supply is back to normal. We absolutely see no challenge there. On servers also there was something and we are pretty good on that. We just got a week delay and we are up with that. When it comes to storage, there’s no problem at all. I think on networking and other things, there are some delays but overall for us, we don’t see this as a challenge.

Tian Beng Ng - Dell Technologies:

On the supply chain, I had mentioned in my presentation too. We really believe that scale does matter. If you have the biggest scale, you will have more negotiation power. At over $100 billion, we are far larger than many other vendors there. So you can rest assured. I’m sure you hear the same from the partners that last year, when PC was in a big shortage, we were relatively better than many

of our competitors in providing supply. This year, the situation has changed a bit, because PCs has nearly come back to normal for nearly all OEM vendors. But now, the challenge is more on the server and storage front. In this space too, we are confident that we will do better than our competi tors in terms of lead time and being more predict able. All this because we have a very large scale. We are also known for our supply chain and how we manage it. We are very confident on that.

Sanjay Mohapatra- SME Channels:

How is the market impacted by the geopolitical situation? There is not much improvement, be it the European war, or the standoff between China and Taiwan.

Tian Beng Ng - Dell Technologies:

With the war happening in Europe, there’s lot of geopolitical tension. Thankfully, Dell usually does better in these kind of uncertain times, because we are very nimble, we can react quickly or do a scale for companies. But we are able to move fast even without big scale. If you look back, whenever there was a global crisis, for example, the last financial crisis, Dell has done well. If you look at the last previous quarters, we have done very well, even

during COVID. We’re very optimistic and confi dent due to those advantages. In my slides, I had summarized all the seven advantages. That’s why we are really confident with our scale, our sales teams, with our channel ecosystem, with our endto-end portfolio that we have. So, all these factors combined together makes us very confident..

ANIL SETHI VICE PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER – CHANNELS INDIA DELL TECHNOLOGIES
“ON THE CLIENT BUSINESS, OUR SUPPLY IS COMING BACK TO THE PRECOVID DAYS. OUR SUPPLY IS BACK TO NORMAL. WE ABSOLUTELY SEE NO CHALLENGE THERE.”
SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 35 PARTNER CORNER

Payment fraud occurs when someone steals a person's payment informa tion and uses it for unauthorized transactions or purchases. The actual cardholder or owner notices their account being used for transactions or purchases they did not authorize only after his account is compromised.

Over time, Payment fraud has become a multi-

CHECKMATING PAYMENT FRAUD

billion dollar industry impacting merchants, card holders, and financial institutions. Detecting fraud after illicit transactions have already taken place is too late, as banks and merchants will have suffered financial and reputational losses. With Recorded Future Payment Fraud Intelligence, financial institutions can prevent fraudulent transactions from occurring, providing direct and measurable savings.

An Antidote to Financial Fraud Industry players such as Recorded Future Pay ment Fraud Intelligence help financial institutions take a proactive approach by scanning merchants for live e-skimmer infections, identifying compro mised common points of purchase and matching stolen payment card information with internal records.

Expanding Intelligence Cloud

Recorded Future recently announced the expan sion of its Intelligence Cloud with Payment Fraud Intelligence, a single source of truth for identify ing, mitigating, and preventing payment fraud. Payment Fraud Intelligence enables those focused on payment fraud, including financial institutions, card issuers, and e-commerce providers to disrupt the entire payment fraud lifecycle by helping to detect e-skimmer infrastructure and compro mised cards associated with malicious activity.

Eying at a $400 bn Global Loss

Payment fraud has impacted merchants, card holders, and financial institutions very badly. It’s expected to result in over $400 billion in losses globally over the next decade. Historically, the industry has taken a reactive approach, wait ing until fraudulent purchases take place, then attempting to limit losses, resulting in further rep utational damages and financial losses. Recorded Future has unparalleled visibility into the complete payment fraud infrastructure, enabling clients to disrupt criminal activity by proactively detecting payment data being sold on the dark web, finding

e-commerce sites infected with e-skimmers, and mapping thousands of the tester merchants used to validate cards before they're used fraudulently.

Checkmating Payment Fraud

Recorded Future's Payment Fraud Intelligence enables payment fraud teams to proactively pin point compromised common points of purchase (CPPs) and enhance risk-exposure models and lower fraud potential. It also helps to improve average fraud rate metrics across an entire card portfolio; and detect attacker infrastructure being used to skim payment card data.

With Recorded Future Payment Fraud Intel ligence, the Card Fraud Prevention team at Swed bank is automatically alerted when its cards have been compromised and posted for sale on the dark web, enabling them to preemptively block and replace cards before fraud can occur.

"Recorded Future integrates with fraud detec tion systems to improve efficacy of detection algorithms and proactively scans the dark web to find compromised cards and reveal attacker infrastructure to identify active infections and full exposure periods. Now, financial institutions can develop and implement effective mitigation strategies to counter the effect of payment card compromises and subsequent fraud attacks before attacks can occur," Andrei Barysevich, Vice Presi dent, Fraud Solutions, Recorded Future.

As the world's largest intelligence provider, Recorded Future's Intelligence Cloud provides complete coverage across adversaries, infrastruc ture, and targets. By combining persistent and pervasive automated data collection and analytics with human analysis, Recorded Future provides real-time visibility into the digital landscape and empowers clients to take proactive action to dis rupt adversaries and keep their people, systems, and infrastructure safe.

Headquartered in Boston with offices and employees around the world, Recorded Future works with over 1,500 businesses and government organizations across more than 64 countries.

“WE HELP TO IMPROVE EFFICACY OF DETECTION ALGORITHMS AND PROACTIVELY, SCAN THE DARK WEB TO FIND COMPROMISED CARDS AND REVEAL ATTACKER INFRASTRUCTURE TO IDENTIFY ACTIVE INFECTIONS AND FULL EXPOSURE PERIODS.”
By combining persistent and pervasive automated data collection and analytics with human analysis, Recorded Future provides real-time visibility into the digital landscape to ensure people, systems, and infrastructure safe
ANDREI BARYSEVICH VICE PRESIDENT, FRAUD SOLUTIONS, RECORDED FUTURE
SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 36 SECURITY

ZEBRONICS TOWER SPEAKER WITH DOLBY AUDIO – ZEB OCTAVE

ZEBRONICS’ ZEB-OCTAVE IS A BOMBASTIC 340W, truly audiophile grade Tower Speaker with Dolby Audio.

After the success the Soundbar range, Zebron ics yet again raises the bar in the Home Audio segment by being the first Indian brand to amal gamate Dolby’s technology in the Tower Speaker category..

The 340-WattRMS output sound monster really offers an immersive experience for entertain ment: be it a weekend plan of binging movies / TV series, a Gaming night with pals, or listening to your favorite tracks.

Designed for superior audio experience, ZebOctave gives you accentuated performances of sound quality. It features touch controls and an LED display on the front and it’s perfectly packed within a beautiful black & gold enclosure that just magnifies its opulent design.

Modern yet simplistic, Zeb-Octave gives you a holistic sound experience as it is not just about the premium looks, but the deliverance of amaz ing audio quality with the Dolby experience

LAPCARE LBS-004 BLUETOOTH SPEAKER

and along with the Virtual 3D mode, it just adds cherry on the cake. With its dedicated tweeters, double-mid range drivers and powerful subwoofers, it gives a surreal sound indulgence. What’s more? You can connect the 2 wireless mics that come along with Zeb-Octave to sing away with the Karaoke feature to make some fun. The speakers are controlled by the remote control consisting of 4 equalizer modes..

The tower speaker with Dolby audio that has impeccable design and features to give you the best listening experience. Wth this Zebronics has become the first Indian brand to come up with a tower speaker with Dolby Audio and has brought a premium audio experience to the masses.

LAPCARE’S LBS-004 BLUETOOTH SPEAKER OFFERS PRISTINE SOUND QUALITY AND A ONE-OF-A-KIND EXPERI ENCE. THE BLUETOOTH SPEAKER IS LOADED WITH UNIQUE ATTRIBUTES THAT ALLOW THEM TO PROVIDE THE MOST REMARKABLE PERFORMANCE POSSIBLE. IT IS EASILY SUPPORTED WITH A MAX U DISK AND TF CARD. IT IS A BUDGET-FRIENDLY PORTABLE BLUETOOTH SPEAKER THAT HAS A VERY MODERN & SLEEK DESIGN AS WELL AS DELIVERS A PRE-EMINENT PERFOR MANCE. IT’S LIGHTWEIGHT, MEASURING 0.381 KG MAKES IT QUITE PORTABLE AND CAN BE EASILY CARRIED AROUND ANYWHERE. THE DEVICE CONTAINS 2 DRIVERS EACH WITH A SIZE OF 45 MM THAT SUPPORTS WATTAGE OF 5W. THE LBS-004 PACKS UNIQUE FEA TURES. THE BLUETOOTH SPEAKER HAS AN INPUT OF DC-5V, ITS FREQUENCY RESPONSE IS 80HZ-18.5 KHZ, ITS BLUE TOOTH TRANSMISSION RANGE OF ≥10 M, AND IT COMES WITH A BOX SIZE OF 183X60X60MM. THE BATTERY LIFE OF THIS DEVICE TOO IS IMPRESSIVE WITH THE MAIN VOLUME ADJUSTING HIGH CAPACITY LITHIUM BATTERY. WHEN IT COMES TO PERFORMANCE, THE OUTPUT POWER IS (10W) PMPO.

KEY SPECS:

• Active Stereo Speaker type

• Digital: CLASS D Amplifier type

• Bluetooth type is 5.0

• Bluetooth transmission range of ≥10 m

• The Net Weight of the product is 0.381 Kg

• Dimensions measuring 183x60x60mm

• Frequency response [HZ - KHZ] of 80Hz-18.5KHz

• S/N Ratio of ≥70dB

• The lithium battery of 1800 mAh with 3.7 V

AVAILABILITY:

Currently listed at Rs. 24,999/-, the ZebOctave can be directly purchased from the Zebronics website and Flipkart.

The product is available at the price of MRP of Rs. 3579 at all leading retail outlets.

REVIEW
37 PRODUCT SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022

OPTOMA WUXA LASER ZU920TST

Optoma ZU920T series is a 4K and HDR compatible ultra-bright fixed lens laser projector. Equipped with an inbuilt dust-resistant IP5X certified optical engine for 24/7 operation capabilities, offering true maintenance-free projec tion for up to 30,000 hours of powerful performance in Eco mode. It is engi neered with cutting-edge technology and offers an impressive 0.65:1 short throw ratio alternative which makes it a perfect fit for a variety of end-user scenarios and professional environments, such as short throw digital signage, edge blending, projection mapping, simulation, and immersive installations. With features like 9,800 lumens and a 3,000,000:1 contrast ratio, these pro jectors are capable of delivering content of high brightness, perfect colour precision.

Awarded “Best of Show” at InfoComm 2022, the ZU920TST offers an impressive 0.65:1 short-throw ratio alternative designed to allow the pro jector to be used in a wide range of installation scenarios and professional environments. These include short-throw digital signage, edge-blending, projection mapping, simulation, and immersive installations.

Although the projector is designed primarily for the professional market, the ZU920TST is 4K compatible. In addition, it offers HDR compatibility. Its High Dynamic Range (HDR) allows for more contrast between light and dark areas of a displayed image. Capable of receiving and displaying HDR meta data, Optoma HDR compatible projectors produce far more detail and texture.

n The ZU920TST can display 9,800 lumens and a 3,000,000:1 con trast ratio, producing lifelike visuals with rich detail and bright colors.

ASUS’s Zenbook 17 Fold OLED (UX9702) is the world’s first 17.3-inch foldable OLED laptop. The device achieves the ideal balance between mobility and productivity and features a modern minimalist design. It elegantly incorporates two screen sizes and multiple usage modes into one highly portable device.

This Intel Evo-certified foldable laptop offers users two sizes of OLED display in one device: a large 4:3 17.3-inch 2.5K touchscreen that folds in the middle to create two seamless 3:2 12.5-inch 1920 by 1280 displays.

When folded fully closed along the precision-engineered 180° hinge, it’s an ultra-compact and portable 12.5-inch. Multiple versatile usage modes — Desktop, Laptop (with Bluetooth keyboard), Laptop (with virtual key board), Tablet, Reader and Extended — are enabled by the folding design in conjunction with the full-size ASUS ErgoSense Bluetooth keyboard and touchpad, and each screen can additionally be split into multiple windows and the contents arranged, using the intelligent window-man agement feature in the ASUS ScreenXpert 3 and exclusive Mode Switcher apps. Despite the large screen size, the device weighs 1.5 kg without the keyboard, or 1.8 kg with it.

It comes with a powerful quad-speaker Harman Kardon-certified Dolby Atmos sound system and includes several smart AI-powered features, including user-presence detection using an HD IR camera; an integrated color sensor for automatic adjustment of screen brightness and color temperature; and a 5 MP AI webcam with ASUS 3D Noise Reduc tion (3DNR) technology for clearer video calls.

Users can choose from a 3:2 aspect ratio device for web browsing and productivity tasks; and a 16:10 for video and audio editing.

HP SPECTRE 16 LAPTOP

The HP Spectre 16 is a new generation AI-pow ered Spectre laptop. The device has a premium look and design and offers 3:2 Windows convert ible with a 91 per cent screen-to-body ratio and adaptive intelligence.

The HP Spectre x360 16-inch laptop is engi neered on the Intel Evo platform and is powered by the latest 12th Gen Intel Core processors and up to Intel Arc graphics. The laptop comes with 4K OLED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate. With the touch display, users can leverage multigestures like pinch-to-zoom, double tap, and press and hold.

The HP Spectre 16 comes with AI-powered intelligent features such as Auto-frame, Noise reduction, dynamic voice leveling, health and well-being features, AI-based privacy alert and sound enhancement.

The device comes with up to 16 hours of bat tery with fast charge of 50 per cent in 30 minutes. It has also got in-bag detection leveraging Intel Dynamic Tuning Technology to adjust the PC’s power to avoid overheating or battery drain when put in a bag.

For connectivity, the devices will have Intel Wi-Fi 6e and Thunderbolt 4 port. The device has a Network Booster for network bandwidth optimi sation to reduce screen freezes and dropped calls.

n Pricing and availability: The product will be available in colour combinations such as ‘Nightfall Black’ and ‘Nocturne Blue’ colours. The HP Spectre 16 x360 f-1003tu with Intel Evo Core i7 will be available at ₹1,39,999 or can be split into 18 month no cost EMI. Two years of additional onsite warranty worth ₹14999 will be free with the new HP device.

HP ASUS ZENBOOK 17 FOLD OLED LAPTOP ASUS
OPTOMA
SME CHANNELS SEPTEMBER 2022 38 PRODUCTPRODUCT

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