E-Magazine October 2018

Xiaomi starts local manufacturing of Mi LED TVs in India

Adobe, Microsoft and SAP announce Open Data Initiative

17th VARINDIA STAR NITE AWARDS Friday, 23rd November 2018, Hotel Taj Palace, New Delhi

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Fujitsu launches 360-degree blockchain use-case deep-dive service

SUSE unveils Enterprise Storage 5.5

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New-age CIOs re-defining the IT function 42pg

Sir Tim Berner unveils strategy for a new internet

S

ir Tim Berners-Lee, popularly known as TimBL, is an English engineer and computer scientist and is best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He is currently a professor of Computer Science at the University of Oxford and at Massachusetts Institute of Technolog y (MIT). He made a proposal for an information management system in March 1989 and implemented the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client and server via the internet in mid-November the same year.

Berners-Lee says that Facebook’s continuous failure to protect its users is something that drives him. “We have to do it now. It’s a historical moment,” he said.

"Now onwards, each user has total control over their own data."

A new breach accesses 50 million Facebook accounts

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ust six weeks ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, hackers have had access to above 50 million Facebook user profiles without the users' permission.

Hackers took advantage of a “vulnerability in Facebook’s code” that gave them access to special “digital keys” that keep people logged into their accounts without needing to re-enter their password.

Getting these digital keys meant the hackers could then use those keys to “take over people’s accounts,” the company wrote in a blog post.

“Since we’ve only just started our investigation, we are yet to determine whether these accounts were misused or any information accessed,” the company’s blog post reads.

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HELLO INDIA

India @ the helm of Fourth Industrial Revolution Technology is evolving faster than the society can handle. Digital technologies have transformed every industry. There is no public or private sector – it is impacting every segment. Everybody has to embrace digital as digital maturity level will distinguish men from boys. As we enter the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it is important for people to come together to ensure that such technologies are used to benefit the netizens of India.

The emerging technologies do not come without their risks. Some people now care more about their technology and social media profiles. One of the major concerns is privacy. Controversies against various social media sites including Facebook reveal that our data may not be so secure after all. Aside from that, developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics show that there is a potential that such technologies could displace millions of jobs. A new study forecasts that by 2030, as many as 800 million jobs could be lost worldwide to automation.

India has begun the process of transitioning to Industry 4.0. Aadhaar is the world's largest biometrics database, with more than 1.2 billion Indian residents enrolled. India also wants to become an AI hub with the government recently announcing its National Programme on AI to encourage the development of AI-related technology in the country. With this India has become the second largest market in the world and a growing economy that has led the WEF to open a Centre in Maharashtra.

India has taken the next step in shaping the future of emerging technology policy with the new Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. India has opened the World Economic Forum to work mostly on the policy frameworks and protocols for emerging technologies like blockchain, AI and Drones and drones are selected as first project areas.

With regards to AI, the focus will be on accelerating the adoption of artificial intelligence to tackle some of the country’s most pressing socioeconomic needs and the project blockchain and smart contracts can transform the ease of doing business in India. Drones have the potential to revolutionize the agriculture sector. With a strong belief that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will change how we produce, how we consume, how we communicate and even how we live.

IT is going to be the focus area for every enterprise. I am in a strong conviction on the technologies like open source, IoT, data lake technology that are some of the technologies that will completely disrupt the market.

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17th STAR NITE AWARDS 2018 Friday, 23rd November 2018, Hotel Taj Palace, New Delhi

ACCELERATING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION Star Nite Awards (SNA) is known as the (DNA of channel), an annual event, is India's premium event. It provides a meaningful and collaborative platform by bringing the key VARs from across the country for accelerating business outcomes in newer technologies where the technology gurus, corporate honchos, CMOs, system integrators and solution partners will attend to understand on how industry, technology, standards and regulatory experts are getting digitally ready for the next wave of digitization.

SNA offers a compelling combination of prescheduled one-on-one meetings, VAR Symposium, awards, technology showcases and various workshop sessions to deliver a comprehensive business development platform for both vendors and channel partners. About 400+ participants from System Integrators, Solution Partners, Distributors, ISPs/ISVs, VARs, industry associations and media are expected to attend the event.

AGENDA : • Exclusive session with VARs • VAR Symposium • Afternoon Session: IT Associations Annual Meet • Recognisation Of 100 Eminent VARS in India • Partners Forum • Evening Session: Keynote Address • Tech talk (5 minutes) | • 60 seconds pitch • Vendors award nite • CMO of the year award

KEY HIGHLIGHTS : • • • •

Industry presentations, Tech Talk and Industry analysis Channel Leadership Awards Ceremony Channel Leadership Survey (CLS) report to unveil Exclusive interaction session among VARs & Vendors

“Technology changes so quickly that it's hard to know what's in, what's out,what works,and what doesn't."

Tech Talk / 60 - Seconds Elevator Pitch CMO’s in the organisation design various B2B and marketing programs to make the customer experience simpler by aligning with the VARs and the partner eco-system. By further aligning with the company’s vision, a CMO inspires the team to raise their goals, and promotes an environment in which employees have a sense of responsibility for the whole organization. It is strongly believed that CMOs are the enablers in setting the goal for the organization. Reason being technology is not only reshaping the business ecosystem, but redening the very nature of business. Will cover the session in 10 different topics.

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For More Information Please visit: https://varindia.com/2018/sna/micro-site/index.html CORPORATE OFFICE:

Kalinga Digital Media Pvt. Ltd. VAR House, A-84A/3 - 6, Rose Apartment, Paryavaran Complex, IGNOU Road, New Delhi – 110030 Tel: 011-41656383,41655458, Fax: 011-46061809, Email: publisher@varindia.com, Mobile: +91 9818928406, 8108017479 Regional offices: Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai & Bhubaneswar

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CONTENTS

CIO SPECIAL | 42

Website: www.varindia.com

Publisher: Deepak Kumar Sahu Editor: S Mohini Ratna Executive Editor: Dr. Vijay Anand Copy Editor: C. M. Dutta Deputy Editor: Samrita Baruah Sub - Editor: Aparna Mullick Correspondent: Lopamudra Das Art Director: Rakesh Kumar Network Administrator: Ashok Kumar Singh Manager-IT: Subhash Mohanta Manager-SEO: Bidyadhar Behera BUSINESS: Commercial Manager: Amit Kumar Jha Sr. Marketing Manager: Ashok Ranjan Dash Circulation Executive: Manish Kumar CORPORATE OFFICE: VAR House, A-84A/3 Rose Apartment, Paryavaran complex, IGNOU Road, New Delhi - 110030 Tel: 011-41656383, 46061809 Email: edit@varindia.com Bangalore: Bureau office Marketing Manager: S. Kamala kar Correspondent: L. G. Swami D-103 G.F., Ashish JK Apartments Thubarahalli Extended Road Bangaluru- 560066 Tel: 080-49530399 | Mobile:09886280836 E-mail: kamlakar@varindia.com

ROUND ABOUT

EMERGING TECHNOLOGY - RPA

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Mumbai: Bureau office Regional Manager (West): Anil Kumar Sr. Correspondent: Mamta S. Anurag Residency, 203 - “B” Wing, Plot No-5, Sector-9, Kamothe, Navi Mumbai-410 209 Tel: 022-65561292, Mobile: 08108017479 E-mail: anil@varindia.com, mamta@varindia.com

CEO SPEAK

Chennai: Bureau office Branch Manager: K. Parthiban F1, Meadows Green Apartments, 64, Chetty Street 1st Cross, Mel Ayanambakkam, Chennai - 600 095 Cell No. : 98400 55626 E-mail: parthiban@varindia.com

Nobel Prize and Computing: Who will get first India or China?

CHANNEL GURU 10

Organizations look to Oracle Cloud for transforming into digital-first businesses

Hyderabad: Bureau office Branch Manager: Sunil Kumar Sahu 32-161/3, 202 Neha Paradise, Nr. Maissamma Temple, Venketeswara colony Ramakrishna Puram, Hyderabad - 500056 Telangana, Tel: 040-32989844/ Cell No. 08100298033 E-mail: sunil@varindia.com

CHANNEL CHIEF

Kolkata: Bureau office Marketing Officer: Sunil Kumar Correspondent: B Kiran Dutta 123 SDF Building, Block GP Sector V, Salt Lake City, Kolkata - 700091 Mobile: 08100298033, E-mail: sunil@varindia.com Mobile: 09903088480, E-mail: kiran@varindia.com

FACE TO FACE

Printed and Published by Deepak Kumar Sahu on behalf of M/s. Kalinga Digital Media Pvt. Ltd. and Printed at Pushpak Press Pvt. Ltd. Shed No. 203 - 204, DSIDC Complex, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-I, New Delhi-110020 and Published at A-84A/3 Rose Apartment, Paryavaran complex, IGNOU Road, New Delhi - 110030, Editor - S Mohini Ratna.

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COVER STORY 34

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25 40 51

Palo Alto focuses on prevention based architecture to solve customer’s security challenges

Channel consolidation and expansion will be key to Technobind “We ensure all your data, software and servers are protected” India serves as a major hub for Cyberbit to address global needs

TECH TREND 23

Lenovo, NetApp pit against Dell EMC, HPE to vie for the datacenter space

Partners aligning its solutions with customer needs to help them Digitally Transform

CHANNEL BUZZ 41

Tech Data emphasizes on Partner’s needs and goals

PRODUCT OF THE MONTH 41

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RPA for Modern Enterprises is a big business opportunity!

Optoma WU336 Projector – best suited for small to medium rooms

CIO SPECIAL 42

New-age CIOs re-defining the IT function

VAR ANALYSIS 47

Cyber Security & Cyber Insurance

VAR SECURITY 50

Sophos looks at synchronised security as the next evolution

VAR MOBILITY 52

“Zebra’s brand promise is to deliver a performance edge to the front line of business”

MOVERS & SHAKERS

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For sales enquiries, contact: North & East: Nitesh Patni – 9871124290. West: Rahul Seth – 9819020604. South: Kiran Bobby – 9880948355.

Seagate Authorised Distributors: Aditya Infotech Ltd. – 0120-4555666 • Fortune Marketing Pvt. Ltd. – 011-30890014 • Prama Hikvision (I) P. Ltd – 7045377558 Seagate Authorised Partners: Ahmedabad: Earth Syscom – 079-26857024/25, Intercare – 9725219615, Silverline Infocom – 9687000600 • Bangalore: Jain Infoways – 9916584175, Jainex Technologies – 9845048800, Mega Compu World – 9980073374. • Chennai: I Com Systems – 9840334725, UMS Infotech – 9841045025 • Coimbatore: Agni Electronics – 7402453377, Ozone Computer Services – 9842215245 • Jaipur: Advance Computers – 9351410366 • Kochi: Forerun Computers & Systems – 9544800281 • Kolkata: Suntronic Systems – 9831155830 • Mumbai: Chip Com Traders – 9820237468, MEK Peripherals: 9820688769, Om Shakti Computers – 9820747131, Solutions India – 9322100773 • New Delhi: AVS Informatics – 9810150943 / 9811794599, Bhagwati Computronics – 9810269505, KS Computech – 9910300130, 9891206312 • Pune: Arihant Computers – 9960155333, Dikibi – 9422324746, Poonam Electronics – 9822055900 • Rajkot: Intercare – 9725219615 • Secunderabad: Compage Computers – 9849006438, Shweta Computers & Peripherals – 9866776000, Vishal Peripherals: 9866157801

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000.800.440.1392 October 2018 7 more Call to know

ROUND ABOUT

Nobel Prize and Computing: Who will get first India or China?

I often wonder why there is no Nobel Prize for computer science, where innovations and disruptions are taking place at regular intervals, forcing range of technologies to move from one generation to the other at rapid speed and pace. I did take only a click to the Google to realize how ill-informed I am about the Nobel Prizes. My knowledge did not travel with time and got stuck somewhere.

Alfred Nobel’s last will, dating back to 1895 included only five prizes, to recognize the outstanding achievements in disciplines like chemistry, physics, literature, peace and physiology or medicine. Understandably, these were the core disciplines of his time, which bought about or had the potential to bring about transformation to confer greatest benefit on mankind. Theprizes in Chemistry, Literature, Peace and Medicine were first awarded in 1901. In 1968, Sweden's central bank SverigesRiksbank established the SverigesRiksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, which, although not being a Nobel Prize,] has become informally known as the "Nobel Prize in Economics.” The Nobel Prize is widely regarded as the most prestigious award available in the fields of literature, medicine, physics, chemistry, economics and activism for peace.

Sixty-threeyears after his demise, several prizes were instituted by various entities at different points of time. None of these are sponsored by the Nobel Foundation but has been referred as Nobel Prize of that particular subject. They gradually gained wider recognition and popularity. These include Wolf Prize in Agriculture (1978), Huxley Memorial Medal and Lecture (1900) for Anthropology, Pritzker Prize (1979) in Architecture and Turning Award (1966) for Computer Science. The list will expand as new horizons of innovations and thought leaders emerge.

Coming to Turning Award for computer science, this prize is given by Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) to an individual for the contributions of lasting and major technical importance to the computer field and is generally recognized as the highest award in computer science and the Nobel Prize of Computing. The award is named after Alan Turning, a British mathematician and reader in mathematics at the University of Manchester and is often credited as the key founder of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. Between 2007 and 2013, the award had an additional prize of US $250,000, with financial support provided

by Intel and Google. Since 2014, the award has been accompanied by a prize of US $1million, with financial support provided by Google.The first recipient- in 1966- was Alan

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Perils of Carnegie Mellon University. The recent recipients are John L Hennessy and David A Patterson for pioneering systematic, quantitative approach to the design and evaluation of computer architectures with enduring impact on microprocessor industry.

Another thought that haunts me is whether we have enough institutional mechanisms to recognize contributions in the IT, apart from the coveted Nobel prize. I do not think that we have many. My feeling is that we should have many more awards and other type of recognitions for promoting innovations in the IT space. Why not have an award for person/s who innovate a technology that can reduce the drudgery of masses.

A related field is stem cells and organ donations. We have been told that breakthrough innovations are taking place in medical space for treatment of chronic non-communicable disease like diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer etc. by using stem cell technology.

These expensive categories of treatments are still in the precinct of the developed world and that too within the reach of the rich and privileged.

Does it suggest that there is scope for introducing Nobel prizes for different categories of computer sciences, such as one connected with pure discoveries and innovations, such as artificial intelligence, algorithms and programs that can facilitate cutting edge concepts and technologies in medical science, engineering or any subject that unravels human mysteries such as astronomy, anthropology, geology etc.

Let us have a look at what China is up to in artificial intelligence to gauge that country’s

levity and commitment to be the first in the technology front. AI-optimized chips have become central to the future of the technology industry leading to re-imagining products of all hues and sizes. Undoubtedly, China leads the pack. Their Cambricon-1A chip, developed is widely debated among the scientific community. Everyone thought that was possible only in the West, particularly in the Silicon Valley. Chinaproved them wrong.

The country is investing massively in the entire field of AI, from chips to algorithms.

China's State Council unveiled an ambitious policy blueprint to become the world's primary AI innovation center by 2030. The Chinese government and industry have been launching AI initiatives jointly. It will build a $2.1 billion AI technology park in Beijing's western suburbs.

Can India close the gap in R&D in computer science vis-à-vis the US and China?

A pessimist would see going by the present level of investment that it is an impossible task.

But being an incorrigible optimist, I still bet on India, provided that it changes its science policy. Rhetoric would not take us anywhere or statements that can steal headlines, cannot push our development plans ahead. China has kept under wraps most of its research projects and I still believe that country has not made public even a fraction of the projects underway. India may have to follow an approach, wherein there should be heavy investments and concerted effort for creating the right eco system for R&D. Some of our universities and the specialized institutions, such as IIITs created exclusively for taking IT industry to higher levels of excellence, should be empowered to take research and not act as hubs for students to learn computer and later migrate to the US universities and other institutions across the world.

China's dominant search engine -Baidu, gathers and exploits much of these data. In Beijing, cars crowned with LIDAR sensors troll around on test runs for collecting mapping data that will feed Baidu's autonomous driving lab. In the main lobby of offices, staffers' faces are scanned to open the security gates. Of China's tech titans—Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent—Baidu was the first to pour resources into AI. It now employs more than 2000 AI researchers, including staff in California and Seattle, Washington.

Let me end with a personal note. Days are numbered when a Chinese name props up for awarding the Nobel Prize. It could be matter of time when they would join that select league. Could that be told about India or any other emerging economies? At least not in the near future! That is what I feel. I wish that I am wrong. n

CEO SPEAK

VMware to invest $2 billion in India

Optimistic on India's data localisation concern - Michael Dell

PAT GELSINGER

MICHAEL DELL

CEO VMware

CEO Dell Technologies

VMware, a leading innovator in enterprise software has announced its plan to invest $2 billion in India over the next five years as part of the company's overall global investment strategy.

This investment will enable the company to expand to new offices in Bengaluru and Pune as well as increase headcount and capital expenditure for R&D, and to support its growing sales operations in India, according to VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger.

"India is a key cornerstone of our overall global investment strategy, providing outstanding engineering talent for our global R&D operations that are helping to drive innovations across our entire product portfolio. VMware remains committed to providing innovative technologies that help drive our customers’ digital transformation," Pat said at an event held in New Delhi.

VMware is marking its 20th Anniversary. The company has been present in India from last 10 years. VMware's operations across R&D, sales and marketing as well as business support services have expanded in India, with more than 5,000 employees today supporting its business locally and globally. VMware's primary India sites include its facilities in Bengaluru, Pune and Chennai.

"I will be honoured to meet with Prime Minister Modi later today (Wednesday). We are grateful for the current environment in India where VMware can continue to grow, invest, and create jobs and opportunities for India's IT workers of today and tomorrow," Pat further said.

Furthermore, VMware in partnership with Women Who Code India has committed to train 15,000 women over the next two years in diverse technology areas, providing a platform for more women with previous experience in IT to up skill themselves in digital technologies. This new programme, called "VMware VMinclusion Taara: Women Return to Work" programme, is expected to launch on December 1st.

Several organisations like Bharti Airtel and Cognizant plan to support the programme and are open to a consideration process for relevant IT openings within their organisations for women certified in VMware solutions as a result of Project Taara.

India is a key cornerstone of our overall global investment strategy, providing outstanding engineering talent for our global R&D operations that are helping to drive innovations across our entire product portfolio. VMware remains committed to providing innovative technologies that help drive our customers’ digital transformation

Michael Dell, CEO - Dell Technologies said on his recent visit to India that he’s not surprised that India is insisting on data localisation issue, for giving security and privacy concerns to the netizens and expects other nations to take a similar approach.

The issue is “If you don't know where your data is or it’s into the wrong hands, it can be a very, very dangerous problem,” Michael Dell said this in an interview “I would not be surprised if pretty much every country in the world creates something like this.”

Dell said that he was impressed by India’s digitisation drive, which was unique in terms of scale. “These (initiatives) are a platform for tremendous amount of growth and innovation and no other country in the world is doing this in any way close to what India is doing.”

He further said that the economic opportunities that come from inclusive growth will be tremendous. “On top of this, a vibrant ecosystem of start-ups and individuals getting more opportunities will create a positive growth environment.”

Dell said the company’s India expansion exceeded those of many other territories. “The India business is growing at a faster clip than other major geographies,” he said. “But we can do more, we have this saying inside Dell which goes - PBNS, pleased but never satisfied.”

When questioned about Indian business growth, he said that it’s looking good. “We are witnessing a double-digit growth and are continuing to grow our share across businesses - it’s actually true all over the world. You know if you look at Dell Technologies, we are growing quite fast. We have roughly a $90-billion business, based on last quarter’s run rate we are growing at 16% year-on-year. Our datacenter business grew 24%, which is, you know, seven, eight, nine times faster than most of our competitors. We are gaining share in storage, servers and PCs. We are out-investing the competition in R&D and innovating as a result, and growing quite fast.”

The India business is growing at a faster clip than other major geographies. But we can do more, we have this saying inside Dell which goes - PBNS, pleased but never satisfied. We are witnessing a double-digit growth and are continuing to grow our share across businesses - it’s actually true all over the world. You know if you look at Dell Technologies, we are growing quite fast. We have roughly a $90-billion business

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Organizations look to Oracle Cloud for transforming into digital-first businesses Oracle’s Cloud offerings deliver the broadest selection of enterprise-grade cloud computing solutions, including SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS and is thus witnessing an increased demand from customers who have entrusted their mission-critical businesses to the Oracle Cloud as it comes embedded with emerging technologies like AI, Chatbots and IoT.Ritesh Sayal, Head - Alliances & Channels, Oracle India in a chat with VARINDIA shares how cloud continues to be a big priority for Oracle and a cloud-based strategy is earning Oracle several customers that are looking for hyper-growth India has emerged as the fastest growing economy in the world, with the country’s GDP estimated to have increased 6.6 per cent in 2017-18, which is further expected to grow 7.3 per cent in 2018-19. There is a massive transformation happening in the industry - the digital revenue has grown from 14% to 20% and is further expected to cross 25% by 2020 where software and hardware from different vendors and standards will coexist.

With more and more Indian companies looking to transform into digital-first businesses, the move to cloud is becoming increasingly appealing. With Internet being the biggest gamechanger, organizations are in the middle of a generational shift with computing heavily moving from traditional software deployment models to the cloud. Indian companies are more bullish on cloud than some of their peers in other APAC markets.

“AI/ML, Blockchain and Chatbot adoption continues to be on the rise. From Oracle’s perspective, we believe that the future of IT is autonomous cloud. We are advancing the capabilities of our customers to be ready for the autonomous era, with advanced security as a

their size, are moving to Oracle cloud for hypergrowth.”

prerequisite,” says Ritesh Sayal, Head - Alliances & Channels, Oracle India.

He further adds, “We are witnessing increased demand for our modern and secure enterprise-grade cloud offerings in India.

Companies across industries, irrespective of

A big focus on Cloud Cloud continues to be the key priority for Oracle. “Oracle cloud is the only, true enterprisegrade cloud in the market today. Oracle is the industry’s only seamlessly integrated cloud that’s complete (end-to-end), open (based on open standards), modern (all software rewritten for the cloud economy) and fully secure (multi-tier security),” says Ritesh.

Ritesh further says that Oracle can support a customer’s journey to the cloud from any starting point (Applications, Platform, Infrastructure, on-premise setup), unlike other IaaS only or SaaS only cloud providers. Oracle Cloud powers thousands of customers in 175 countries, processes 61 billion transactions per day and manages 1075+ petabytes of data.

More and more Indian businesses are moving to Oracle cloud for hyper-growth. Through its innovative and customized offerings, Oracle has addedseveral cloud customers in the recent past.These include companies of all sizes, across industries. n

Oracle Cloud offerings The two key growth segments for Oracle cloud in India are Oracle Autonomous Cloud and Oracle ERP Cloud – • Oracle Autonomous Cloud:There’s a lot of interest in the market for Oracle’s new, game changing autonomous cloud platform services.

Based on machine learning, Oracle Autonomous Cloud represents a new category of software automation, with its self-driving, selfsecuring and self-repairing attributes. The Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse Cloud uses applied machine learning to self-tune and automatically optimizes performance while the database is running. It is built on the next generation Oracle Autonomous Database technology using artificial intelligence to deliver unprecedented reliability, performance and highly elastic data management to enable data warehouse deployment in seconds.

• Oracle ERP Cloud: Designed from the ground-up with a modern architecture and technology, Oracle ERP Cloud is natively connected with all Oracle enterprise cloud applications and scales inherently to support added users, transactions and sites as business grows by size and into new markets. Oracle ERP Cloud is tomorrow’s robust enterprise applications suite available today for every industry. Even simpler: Oracle ERP Cloud is “tomorrow’s ERP, today”.

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CHANNEL CHIEF

Palo Alto focuses on prevention based architecture to solve customer’s security challenges

In a chat with VARINDIA, Harpreet Bhatia, Director – Channel & Strategic Alliances India & SAARC, Palo Alto Networks discusses about the company’s approach towards its customers and the challenges its customers are facing presently With a focus on prevention based architecture and solve customer’s challenges, Palo Alto empowers its customers in an integrated and automated manner. As digitalization is gradually sweeping over the entire country the customers are evolving and they are steadily moving into the cloud. At the same time cyber criminals are using the similar tools to strike an attack and to prevent it the security tools has to be automated, integrated and scalable to respond to adversary.

“Palo Alto Networks as an organization is focused on prevention based architecture to solve our customers’ toughest security challenges and we do this in an integrated and automated manner across all the three variants of an Enterprise, which means network, endpoint and cloud. Due to the rapid digitalization our customers are going through an evolution and they are rapidly moving on to the cloud. They are rapidly automating and using the power of analytics to enhance their business and stay one step ahead in the competition. Our adversary, the bad guys on the other hand are also using the power of cloud and lot of automation to mount new to newer attacks. And so the security apparatus has to change which means our response as security organization has to be highly automated, integrated and scalable to respond to adversary.

That’s what Palo Alto Networks doing. We are a company that does not only sell products but also solves our customers’ toughest business challenges,” explains Harpreet Bhatia, Director – Channel & Strategic Alliances India & SAARC, Palo Alto Networks.

Further he adds, “Palo Alto Networks as an organization is on a mission, and that mission is to protect our way of life in this digital age by preventing successful cyber attacks. This mission is very bold statement because, what we are trying to do is, protect our way of life against our highly automated adversary by deploying a preventive based mechanism in an automated and integrated fashion to fight this adversary.”

Challenges Discussing about the challenges that a customer faces, Harpreet elaborates, “Some of the challenges are - first, the challenge of visibility.

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What is happening on the network endpoint? What threats are traversing on the cloud should be known to our customers. We are providing them complete visibility across their entire enterprise architect. Second, we prevent known threats. Though most of the other organizations do that, ours is extremely integrated on to what carries the threat. For example, the threat factor today is applications. So our known threats are actually built on layer seven, which identifies them.

The third challenge is how to prevent unknown threats. So we have built an APT engine in our platform which allows us to deploy preventive mechanism within five minutes or convert unknown threat to known threat within five minutes of being identified. Last but not the least, we gave single pen of view across the network, endpoint and cloud for ease of manageability to our customers. And all these data of our customers is actually fed upon into our Threat Intelligence Cloud which is completely built on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to push back preventive solutions into the network and endpoint cloud site. This Threat Intelligence Cloud is possibly one of the biggest repositories of threat intelligence data, also carries threat intelligence from 54000+ customers globally. The threat intelligence which we have observed all across is shared amongst all our customers and preventive mechanism is also deployed all amongst our customers.

So if threat is observed in the U.S then at the same time the preventive mechanism will be deployed across our customers in India also, which means, threat intelligence sharing on such a big platform is seamlessly possible. That’s why we are saying this is an integrated and automated approach.”

The company is also making innovations in security by making the threat intelligence data accessible to third parties to develop new solutions.

“Not only this, Palo Alto Networks is evolving into making security innovations, which are going to come in the future, become extremely accessible to our customers. We have opened threat intelligence data to third parties and other innovative companies who are developing certain innovative solutions on security. We have opened our APIs to these organizations to come and develop solutions which can be deployed across our network endpoint and end cloud platforms. The advantage will be to our customers who can now consume security innovations at a very first pace. Already, 50+ organisations have signed up into this, there are 30+ products in bita testing on the way. So in all our approach is completely towards prevention architecture and in a fully integrated and automated fashion,” describes Harpreet. n

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HOT BYTES

Xiaomi starts local manufacturing of Mi LED TVs in India

Xiaomi has announced local manufacturing of Mi LED TVs. Taking another step towards its commitment to Make in India, Xiaomi has partnered with Dixon Technologies to locally manufacture its range of Mi LED TVs in India.

The new Mi LED TV manufacturing plant, built in partnership with Dixon Technologies is located in a campus in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh with a total campus area spanning across 32 acres. The factory with Dixon Technologies now employs more than 850 people. The factory will result in a production capacity of 100,000 Mi LED TVs per month by Q1 2019, during operational hours which if laid down covers more than 11 football fields of surface area.

The new Mi LED TV manufacturing plant will start local assembly with Mi LED Smart TV 4A 80cm (32”) and Mi LED Smart TV 4A 180cm (43”) for now.

Infosys partners with Google Cloud to develop Data Native Intelligent Enterprise

Infosys has entered into a new partnership with Google Cloud to develop cloud transformation and migration services. Through this partnership that enhances Infosys’ existing capabilities, the company will offer solutions and services on Google Cloud Platform (GCP), creating a scalable, on-demand cloud model that will enable enterprises to easily transition and adopt a cloud-first strategy.

As part of this partnership, Infosys has built artificial intelligence and machine learning-driven industry-specific solutions on GCP that are foundational to digitizing the data supply chain, such as Analytics Workbench, which augments data platforms to deliver end-to-end selfservice capabilities, Information Grid, which provides a data pipeline for seamless movement of data to Google Cloud (GCP), and Customer Genome, a holistic offering that helps enterprises build a self-service driven and entity-centric foundation for explorative, predictive and prescriptive analytics.

Adobe, Microsoft and SAP announce Open Data Initiative

The CEOs of Adobe, Microsoft and SAP have introduced the Open Data Initiative at the Microsoft Ignite conference. Together, the three longstanding partners are reimagining customer experience management (CXM) by empowering companies to derive more value from their data and deliver world-class customer experiences in real time.

Based on these principles, the core focus of the Open Data

Prama Hikvision India plans to invest Rs.500 crore in Andhra Pradesh

Prama Hikvision has announced its plans to invest Rs.500 crore in a manufacturing facility for electronic security and surveillance products in Andhra Pradesh. The company has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the State Government of Andhra Pradesh.

The MoU was signed between the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, and Ashish P. Dhakan, MD & CEO, Prama Hikvision India.

“We have signed a MoU with the Andhra Pradesh Government to set up a manufacturing facility in Andhra Pradesh with an investment of Rs.500 crore. We are grateful to the Andhra Pradesh Government and Mr N. Chandra Babu Naidu for extending their support. With this new manufacturing facility, we will be able to expand our manufacturing capacity in India,” said Ashish P. Dhakan, MD & CEO, Prama Hikvision India.

The company is looking to treble its capacity to make cameras by expanding its manufacturing footprint in India to meet a steady increase in demand for cameras and digital video recorders.

Palo Alto Networks inks technology partnership with Alibaba Cloud

Palo Alto Networks and Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, have announced their technology partnership at the Computing Conference 2018 hosted by Alibaba Group in Hangzhou, China.

Alibaba Cloud provides a comprehensive suite of global cloud computing services to power its international customers’ online businesses and Alibaba Group’s own e-commerce ecosystem. The collaboration between the two parties will allow organizations to protect their businesscritical applications and data with Palo Alto Networks world-class security, as they migrate to Alibaba Cloud.

Alibaba Cloud’s international operations are registered and headquartered in Singapore, and the company has international teams stationed.

Apple and Salesforce forges a strategic partnership for mobile platform

Initiative is to eliminate data silos and enable a single view of the customer, helping companies to better govern their data and support privacy and security initiatives. With the ability to better connect data across an organization, companies can more easily use AI and advanced analytics for real-time insights, “hydrate” business applications with critical data to make them more effective and deliver a new category of AI-powered services for customers.

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Apple and Salesforce have entered into a strategic partnership that brings together the number-one customer relationship management platform and iOS, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, enabling powerful new mobile apps for business. The companies will also provide tools and resources for millions of Salesforce developers to build their own native apps with a new Salesforce Mobile SDK for iOS, and a new iOS App Development course on Trailhead, Salesforce's free, webbased learning platform.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, says, “We are excited to work with Salesforce and that their industry-leading CRM will embrace native iOS and deliver exclusive new features on iPhone and iPad. With the powerful combination of iPhone, iPad and iOS – the best hardware and software for business – together with native Salesforce apps and the new Salesforce SDK, we can deliver great customer experiences for businesses around the world.”

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October 2018

15

HOT BYTES

NICE installs RPA for SBI Card

NICE has implemented NICE Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution for SBI Card to support its growth journey by streamlining operations and enhancing customer’s experience. NICE RPA is implemented to increase automation in the Indian card issuer's operations and back-end processes to manage repetitive, error-prone tasks, thus freeing up employees to engage in value-added services.

NICE was selected for its unique ability to combine desktop (attended) and robotic (unattended) automations in real time. The RPA solution deployed by NICE allows SBI Card to optimize the collaboration between human employees and robots, contributing towards an authentic digital transformation that also improves efficiency, accuracy and scalability.

Initial results are indicating an increase in employee’s productivity and customer’s satisfaction, in the processes where RPA has been deployed.

With an in-depth and native understanding of navigating the complexities of the desktop environment, NICE RPA provides a robust solution for organizations with complex environments.

Atos completes acquisition of US-based Syntel

Atos has completed the acquisition of Syntel Inc., a leading global provider of integrated information technology and knowledge process services headquartered in Michigan. Syntel offers its customers high value-added digital services in several specific verticals such as Banking and Financial Services, Healthcare, Retail and Insurance.

NSE to trial E-voting using Blockchain Commenting on the finalization of the deal, Atos Chairman & CEO Thierry Breton said, “Today marks a new major step in the development of the Group, as we welcome more than 23,000 Syntel employees to Atos. With this transaction, we take a new dimension to accelerate the digital transformation of our customers worldwide, while strongly reinforcing our Business & Platform Solutions activities with new clients in North America and a delivery platform from India with a consistent and competitive size to support our customers in their digitalization journeys.”

The transaction is expected to be EPS accretive immediately with double-digit accretion as early as 2019, excluding the impact of PPA and transaction and implementation costs.

National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) has announced that it is conducting tests to use blockchain for E-Voting for listed companies on Elemential Labs platform.

The pilot, which has been conducted, would involve setting up a blockchain to connect the regulator with the company and the RTA during the voting process. The voting rights will be tokenized, thus making them easy to transfer and proxy. The test will be evaluated on the auditability of the actions on the chain as well as the ease of conducting the process using blockchain.

Sankarson Banerjee, CTO – Projects, NSE, says, “The immutable nature of blockchain will ensure that every action taken by a network participant is transparent to the regulator. Additionally, the smart contract framework enables synchronization of the vote count process between the company and the regulator in real time. These features will take us closer to an environment of improved corporate governance and compliance.”

InnowaveIT sets up Tier II datacenter in Mumbai

Innowave IT infrastructure has announced the setting up of a TierII data center in Mumbai for Maharashtra’s slum rehabilitation authority (SRA). The data center will focus on high availability services with N+1 standard facility which will be deployed by taking all major critical issues of SRA in to consideration. SRA overlooks large amount of data relating to GIS Mapping of survey, building, land plans, Legal data, Challans and had planned to align it needs in a single location with upmost security and backup solutions to protect it from any disaster. SRA data center has the disaster recovery site configured to prepare for any data loss due to any natural or man-made disaster.

According to Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), Mumbai has 3,293 slum pockets spread over 9,008 acres with over 13 lakh slum dwellers across Mumbai and Thane, eligible for the Housing for All Scheme. SRA has been focusing on digital transformation for transparency has since digitally mapped 1.17 crore documents relating to slum dwellers.

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Airtel bolsters its AI portfolio

Bharti Airtel has announced an acquihire deal with AuthMe ID Services, a Bengaluru-based start-up focused on Artificial Intelligencebased solutions, to add to its initiatives to serve customers with innovative digital products.

As part of the deal, the core team of AuthMe will join Airtel and be a part of Airtel X Labs in Bengaluru. Airtel has set up Airtel X Labs with the aim of driving cutting-edge innovation in the areas of AI, IoT, AR and VR .

Harmeen Mehta, Global CIO, Bharti Airtel, said, “We are thrilled to bring on board a bunch of highly talented people who share our passion for building exciting digital solutions that benefit our customers. We are rapidly scaling up Airtel X Labs, and these new solutions will accelerate our journey towards rolling out intuitive digital products, particularly in vernacular languages, for our 430 million-plus customers.”

F-Secure inks agreement with Zyxel for secure Wi-Fi connected homes

F-Secure and Zyxel are teaming up to bring fast, secure Wi-Fi to homes all over the world. The two companies have signed an agreement to offer service providers a range of home cybersecurity gateways that provide the fast Wi-Fi connectivity demanded by today’s consumers while delivering comprehensive protection for PCs, smart TVs, mobile phones and tablets, and all the other internet-enabled devices finding their way into people’s homes.

Kristian Järnefelt, F-Secure’s Executive Vice-President of Consumer Security, says, “We are delighted to work with Zyxel to help bring residential gateways with world-class security to the market. We have experience working with over 200 operator partners to bring security to people while they’re at home and on the move. And with routers quickly becoming another door to people’s homes, both F-Secure and Zyxel are committed to providing the market with secure routers that can prevent these home gateways from becoming doors for cybercriminals and other online threats.”

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October 2018

17

ON THE RAMP

Salesforce launches Einstein Voice – the conversational CRM

Salesforce has announced Einstein Voice, a new platform service that brings the power of voice to millions of Salesforce users. With Einstein Voice, any user will be able to talk to Salesforce, opening up new possibilities for employees to work smarter and connect with their customers in engaging new ways.

Einstein, the Salesforce AI platform, already delivers more than three billion predictions every day, helping customers make smarter, more impactful decisions by acting as a smart CRM assistant across sales, service, marketing, commerce and more. Now, the company is bringing the same voice technology that fuels convenient, efficient experiences in consumer lives to Salesforce with Einstein Voice. By arming users with the ability to talk to Salesforce on any device, Einstein Voice Assistant and Einstein Voice Bots will empower everyone to be more productive and work smarter – from anywhere.

Einstein Voice Bots will enable companies to create custom voiceenabled interactions for their own customers and employees.

Riverbed launches Microsoft product integrations to drive business results

Riverbed has introduced a series of powerful Microsoft product integrations, enabling mutual customers to leverage their Riverbed and Microsoft investments together to drive business results and maximize digital performance. With this announcement, Riverbed demonstrates its continued and ongoing commitment to deliver customers with the agility, flexibility, and application performance required to compete in today’s cloud and digital environment.

Through Riverbed’s SD-WAN solution SteelConnect, customers will now be able to automate local branch path steering for Microsoft Office 365 via conventional Internet broadband. By using the SteelConnect Manager policy engine and intuitive graphical interface, users can extend software-defined policies for steering traffic for selected applications or digital services, users or entire locations. SteelConnect Manager can also be used to connect to Microsoft Azure Virtual WAN, a global network backbone for managed site-to-site and branch-to-Azure connectivity.

This solution is already having an impact with early adopter customers and partners.

Fujitsu launches 360-degree blockchain use-case deep-dive service

Fujitsu has announced a powerful new service to help customers accelerate the enterprise development of blockchain solutions, ensuring they meet strategic objectives from business, technology and legal perspectives.

The new Fujitsu 360-Degree Blockchain Use-Case Deep-Dive service tests critical viability, focusing on existing use-cases and identifies the application components needed to build a production-ready blockchain application. It also identifies and provides routes to minimize risk exposure from any flaws and pitfalls in the use-case.

The new Fujitsu 360-Degree Blockchain Use-Case Deep-Dive service addresses the weak point in the development of blockchain for enterprise, providing independent analysis and advice from blockchain experts. Customers gain access to unbiased, third-party expertise for examination of potential blockchain use-cases, including the overall architecture, business and legal context, for identification of potential risks, and even for checking blockchain code. Co-creating with Fujitsu also provides opportunities to restart stalled blockchain projects, through the introduction of new code.

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Xerox launches B1022/B1025 Monochrome Multifunction printers

Xerox has launched the Xerox B1022/B1025 Multifunction Printers (MFPs) to meet the growing demand. The affordable, black-and-white, all-in-one devices combine the functions of a duplex copier, printer, colour scanner and fax. The B1022/ B1025 allows users to produce output on paper sizes up to Tabloid/A3 quickly and costeffectively.

Raj Kumar Rishi, Managing Director, Xerox India, says, “We continue to drive a strong innovation pipeline, increase our coverage footprint and launch the latest products to cater to the needs of the Indian market. These new MFPs bring together renowned Xerox reliability, mobility and security features in cost-effective devices, making the workplace more productive. The result has been a significant increase in the market share across the key segments in our portfolio.”

The affordable B1022/B1025 feature space-saving footprint, allin-one high-speed print and scan – and the mobile print capabilities, the machines are perfect fit for today’s business landscape.

Verizon adds managed security services to its cloud solution portfolio

Verizon Digital Media Services has announced the addition of a round-the-clock managed cloud security offering as part of its global Cloud Security Solution. The managed cloud security component provides access to expert security professionals who monitor and proactively take corrective action against the latest security threats, no matter what time of the day. The addition of this offering complements features previously available within Verizon Digital Media Services’ leading Cloud Security Solution, including a dual web application firewall (WAF), distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection, bot management, and real-time analytics and reporting.

Frank Orozco, Chief Technology Officer, Verizon Digital Media Services, says, “Any security threat or vulnerability is a distraction of resources and valuable time for a business. By leveraging our managed cloud security feature, our customers can now lean on our dedicated security teams to monitor and protect their web and mobile applications, so they can concentrate on growing their business.”

HPE announces hybrid cloud data protection for HPE Nimble Storage and HPE 3PAR

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has announced the new hybrid cloud data protection and copy data management solutions for its storage portfolio. These new capabilities increase the simplicity, performance and agility of data life cycle management for private and public clouds, reducing unplanned downtime and data.

As the engine of digital transformation, data is an organization’s most valuable currency. The ability to gain actionable insights and unlock the economic value of data is critical for driving business outcomes. However, managing and protecting that data is increasingly challenging. Exploding data growth, demanding service level agreement (SLA) requirements, and an evolving threat landscape are putting pressure on IT to embrace an intelligent storage approach to protecting applications across their private and public cloud estate.

“Businesses need a built-for-cloud approach to data protection and copy data management on premises and in the cloud for simple and efficient data mobility,” said Vikram K, Senior Director, Hybrid IT, HPE India.

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October 2018

19

ON THE RAMP

Barracuda announces Total Email Protection Bundle with a single SKU

Barracuda Networks has announced a new email protection bundle, including the full stack of Barracuda’s email security protection. With strong demand from Barracuda partners and customers, the new Barracuda Total Email Protection bundle is offered with a single SKU for less administration, lower deal friction, and a faster sales cycle. Barracuda Total Email Protection bundle offers customers a defence against socially engineered business email attacks, fraud, and account takeover, and includes Barracuda Essentials, Barracuda Sentinel, and Barracuda PhishLine.

Ezra Hookano, Vice-President of Channels, Barracuda, says, “Email security was once viewed as a way to stop spam from bogging down workflows – now it is viewed as mission- critical and requires a multi-layered security approach to successfully protect targeted employees, applications, and data. With this announcement we are fulfilling a strong demand from our partner community to offer a single SKU for the full stack of our email protection solutions, offering an easier way for customers to buy all the email protection they need, the simplest way possible.”

Dell EMC launches PowerVault ME4 Storage Arrays

Dell EMC has introduced the Dell EMC PowerVault ME4 Series, the next-generation family of its entry-level data storage arrays designed for small- and medium-sized businesses. The PowerVault ME4 Series can help organizations modernize IT and boost application performance, packing all-inclusive enterprise features into a product that is simple, fast and affordable.

Niladri Saha, GM – Modern Infrastructure, Dell EMC, says, “The new PowerVault ME4 Series family delivers significant increases over previous Dell EMC entry systems in capacity, performance, simplicity and features.

Earlier this year, we made a commitment to simplify and streamline our storage portfolio to make it easier for customers to do business with us, the new PowerVault ME4 Series is a key part of that strategy at the entry level, designed for customers looking for an affordable, yet fully featured storage array that’s optimized for SAN and DAS virtualized workloads.”

Epson launches SC-T5130 and SC-T3130N

Epson has announced the launch of the new high-speed T-series large-format printers available as desktop or floor-standing models, marking Epson’s entry into the lowto-mid range CAD plotter market.

The entry-models SC-T5130 and SC-T3130N print A1 in 31 and 34 seconds, respectively, and can fit in well in a small office environment.

Leveraging Epson’s PrecisionCore MicroTFP print head technology and enhanced Nozzle Verification Technology to automatically detect and adjust nozzle condition, the new printers offer breakthrough print speeds producing accurate A1/D-size prints in 34 seconds, precise detail and commercial-grade reliability. Featuring integrated wireless and Wi-Fi Direct connectivity, architects and designers can seamlessly print from tablets and smartphones or use the new 4.3” LCD colour touchscreen with simple and intuitive menu control and navigation.

From printing of blueprints, line drawings to signage or classroom posters, the SureColour T-series offers reliable printing performance professionals across a wide range of sectors, including architecture, engineering, CAD, GIS, education, corporate and small offices.

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Cisco announces START products for SMBs in Tamil Nadu

Cisco has deepened its commitment to Tamil Nadu with the launch of Cisco START – a product portfolio specifically designed to help small and medium businesses (SMBs) build their digital foundation and become globally competitive. This initiative is aligned with Cisco’s commitment to accelerate Tamil Nadu’s digital transformation and showcase how digitization can fuel economic growth, world-class innovation, sustainable competitiveness, and prosperity.

A digitized state aims to drive GDP growth, create jobs and foster innovation, enhance research and education, stimulate entrepreneurship, accelerate business innovation, develop economic cluster initiatives, and support infrastructure. Towards that, Cisco is the leading technology partner helping states across India become digital hubs of innovation by building sophisticated and forward-thinking IT network ecosystems that allow for greater connectivity, productivity, and security.

SUSE unveils Enterprise Storage 5.5

SUSE has announced the availability of SUSE Enterprise Storage 5.5, the intelligent software-defined storage solution, powered by Ceph technology. It enables IT organizations to transform enterprise storage infrastructure and reduce costs while providing unlimited scalability.

Gerald Pfeifer, SUSE Vice-President of Products and Technology Programs, says, "Organizations today face increasing pressure to become more agile and economically efficient in order to grow, compete and survive. They must leverage digital assets and information to fuel their progress. SUSE Enterprise Storage enables that as an affordable, easy-to-manage enterprise storage solution that harnesses open-source innovation without expensive proprietary hardware."

SUSE Enterprise Storage 5.5, based on the Ceph Luminous release, delivers a highly scalable and resilient storage environment with a single, unified software-defined storage cluster that provides object, block and file storage. It is ideal for bulk storage, compliance, archive, data protection, disaster recovery; large data file applications, big data applications, HPC storage, cloud storage and virtual machine storage.

Arcserve to safeguard complex IT infrastructure

Arcserve, LLC has unveiled Arcserve Business Continuity Cloud, a fully-integrated, cloud-born solution to prevent the impacts of unplanned downtime by immediately restoring access to critical data, systems and applications across complex, multi-generational IT infrastructures ranging from non-x86 and x86, to software-as-a-service (SaaS) and infrastructureas-a-service (IaaS). With this solution, Arcserve solves the challenges of protecting modern IT caused by the time, skill, expense and multiple tools needed to protect new workloads.

Oussama El-Hilali, Vice-President of Products, Arcserve, says, “Based on our observations and underscored by this research, it’s evident that organizations cannot effectively protect modern IT infrastructures with today’s incomplete tools that create more complexity, drive up the total cost of ownership, and ultimately increase the risk of data loss and downtime through gaps in protection."

8

17th STAR NITE AWARDS 2018 Friday, 23rd November 2018, Hotel Taj Palace, New Delhi

ACCELERATING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION STAR NITE AWARDS (SNA) offers a compelling combination of prescheduled one-on-one meetings, VAR Symposium, awards, technology showcases and various workshop sessions to deliver a comprehensive business development platform for both vendors and channel partners. About 400+ participants from System Integrators, Solution Partners, Distributors, ISPs/ISVs, VARs, industry associations and media are expected to attend the event.

Recognizing Excellence in Indian ICT Industry

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STAR NITE AWARDS

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Channel Favourite Company End-To-End Technology Solution Company Networking Solution Company Video Conferencing Solution Company Best Innovator in Cloud Technology Best Data Center in India Best Storage Solution Company Voting lines open till October 31st 2018

Check out the winners of the 17th edition of Star Nite Awards 2018!!!

Previous Year Pictures (2017)

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October 2018

21

VOICE-N-DATA

NETGEAR launches GS108LP PoE Switch

NETGEAR has introduced GS108LP Gigabit Ethernet switch, housing 8 Gigabit copper ports in a desktop metal case which is also wallmountable.

Marthesh Nagendra, Country Manager – India & SAARC, NETGEAR, says, “GS108LP is a true Gigabit PoE Switch which offers

flexible mounting option. All 8 port PoE+ with Compact form factor and noiseless with a total power budget of 60W, ideally suitable for powering cameras, VoIP Phones and Access Points, etc. This new product is a result of one such outreach program to bring out multiple options of PoE Switches to Surveillance partners.”

GS108LP ports switch is available at a price of Rs.6, 800/-.

DIGISOL releases 300Mbps Ceiling Mount Access Point

DIGISOL Systems has announced the release of its new Wireless AP router, DG-WM2003SIE that enables communication between wireless and wired notebooks/desktop computers in the network. It complies with IEEE 802.11n standard and is backward compatible with IEEE 802.11b/g standard.

The DG-WM2003SIE wireless AP router can provide wireless data transmission rate up to 300Mbps which enhances the sharing of files, photo, audio, video and gaming experience over wireless network, the device can also be used as router when configured in gateway mode. DGWM2003SIE supports PoE, which helps in easy installation by eliminating the need of a dedicated power source The DG-WM2003SIE is a high-speed wireless AP preferred in various WLAN access environments such as hotels, offices and students' dormitories.

The feature-rich DIGISOL DG-WM2003SIE is available at a price of Rs.3, 999/- and comes with limited lifetime warranty.

GoI partners with Huawei for 5G trials in India

With the Indian Cabinet having approved a new telecom policy, the “National Digital Communications Policy, 2018”, the Government of India, on 27th September, shared the 5G trials partnership letter with Huawei. In addition, Huawei has also received the approval for its 5G demo spectrum from DoT. In recent years, “Digital India” and national 5G planning have accelerated. The Indian Government is open, has collaborative approach and welcomes Huawei to join the ICT development of the country.

Jay Chen, CEO of Huawei India, comments, “We appreciate the Indian Government's decision to partner Huawei for the 5G trials and appreciate all the support and cooperation offered by the Government towards Huawei’s business operations in India. Huawei’s leading technology and world-class solutions customized for Indian specific needs are recognized by the Indian Government and industry. Huawei is committed to ‘Digital India’ and will actively cooperate with the 5G planning and preparation of the Indian government and industry.”

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D-Link launches DAP-1610, AC1200 Wi-Fi Range Extender D-Link has launched the DAP-1610 AC1200 Wi-Fi Range Extender, which is a plug-in repeater that extends an existing wireless network and supports Wireless AC speeds of up to 1,200 Mbps.

Its Dual-band technology helps reduce interference from nearby wireless transmitters and also provides backward compatibility with older wireless devices in network, allowing to enjoy a blazing-fast, reliable wireless connection. Alternatively, the built-in Ethernet port and home’s existing wired Ethernet cabling can be used to extend wireless coverage without worrying about signal strength.

Setting up the AC1200 Wi-Fi Range Extender is simple. Use the supported QRS Mobile app to set up DAP-1610 without needing a computer. Alternatively, one may use the one-touch configuration by pushing the WPS push-button on the DAP-1610 and on the router or AP to extend network, and it will automatically configure itself.

DAP-1610 is a compact device that is ideal for use at home or a small office, as it does not take up much space and is ready to use by simply plugging it in.

Juniper Networks helps Epsilon to expand its global network

Juniper Networks has announced that Epsilon, a global communications service provider, has deployed Juniper’s Metro Fabric solutions to support its global network upgrades to power future IoT applications and robust enterprise services.

“We are delighted to have been selected to power Epsilon’s worldwide network expansion. In an era of explosive big data analytics, IoT and cloud growth, customers increasingly demand not just world-class performance, but also seamless networking scalability for future expansion. We are committed to helping Epsilon engineer network simplicity across all fronts and to continue powering their tremendous growth momentum for years to come,” says Ang Thiam Guan, Vice-President & General Manager, ASEAN, Juniper Networks As part of its rapid worldwide expansion, fuelled by the explosion in growth of big data, IoT and cloud demands on a global scale, Epsilon required a network that would scale seamlessly for Infiny by Epsilon – its on-demand, self-service Software-Defined Networking (SDN) platform.

Array’s AVX Series becomes foundation for WAF-as-a-Service

Array Networks has announced that its groundbreaking AVX Series Network Functions Platforms have been selected by one of the telecommunications service providers to serve as the basis for a new Web Application Firewall managed service. This global, tier-1 service provider operates multiple International Data Centers (IDCs) and hosts thousands of websites for multiple organizations across a broad range of industries, including government, finance, manufacturing, online gaming, and e-commerce.

Array's VP of Sales & Marketing Paul Andersen says, "Service providers of all sizes are struggling with the need to differentiate service offerings in order to stand out in a highly competitive market, while at the same time holding the line on costs and maintaining SLAs. The AVX Series provides the best of both worlds – the agility and low cost of virtual appliances coupled with the guaranteed performance of dedicated appliances."

TECH TREND

Lenovo, NetApp pit against Dell EMC, HPE to vie for the datacenter space Taking an apparent aim at Dell EMC and HPE, Lenovo and NetApp have forged a storage alliance at the recently concluded Lenovo Transform event. The partnership also includes a joint venture in China, and a new series of all-flash and hybrid flash products that put them both in a much stronger position in the datacenter space.

The storage offerings include two families, each subdivided into all-flash and hybrid -flash products, jointly developed by Lenovo and NetApp and available now worldwide.

Several of the products support NVMe (nonvolatile memory express), the extremely fast communications protocol and controller able to move data to and from SSDs via the PCIe-bus standard. NVMe SSDs are designed to provide two orders of magnitude speed improvement over prior SSDs. The companies stated that they would work closely together not only on the sales side but also in product development globally.

On the other hand, the joint venture in China was formed to deliver storage products and data management solutions localized for China's unique requirements and distinct cloud ecosystem.

Lenovo understands that while it has a line-up of SAN (storage-attached network), DAS (direct-attached storage) and tape storage products, it still cannot rival Dell EMC and HPE as a complete, one-stop-shop hardware and storage provider. By teaming up with NetApp, Lenovo wishes to create an even playing field with the competitors. NetApp, on its part gets access to Lenovo manufacturing, global channels and a huge customer base.

Lenovo finds themselves in the same position as Dell and HP had been a long time ago. Over time, both Dell and HP grew their portfolios via a series of acquisitions, which include Dell's acquisition of EMC and HPE's Nimble Storage buy. With NetApp on its side, Lenovo can go pitching into enterprises for storage along with their broad portfolio of servers. This will also go a long way in helping the company gain some leverage in the enterprise.

Lenovo at present is tied for the third spot with IBM in server sales, behind leader Dell EMC and HPE. According to Kirk Skaugen, president of Lenovo's datacenter group, Lenovo will now be able to address 90 percent of the total storage market from the present 15 percent.

Both Lenovo and NetApp have had a good

year. Lenovo's 2018 milestones include 20 million servers shipped, helping to account for 48.6 percent year-over-year growth in global server shipments, said Skaugen.

While NetApp is the number-two player overall in external storage behind Dell EMC, it's the leader in all-flash storage, the fast-growing part of the storage market. In the second quarter this year, the all flash array market jumped 41.7 percent year over year, to $2.0 billion, while hybrid flash array rose 20.8 percent to $2.6 billion, according to IDC. "This partnership brings together two companies with tremendous momentum," said Brad Anderson, general manager of NetApp's cloud infrastructure business unit. "The momentum in flash storage will only increase as prices come down." n

Lenovo eyeing strong growth in India After Lenovo and NetApp announced a global partnership to bring innovative technology and a simplified experience to help customers modernize IT and accelerate their digital transformation, Lenovo India is eyeing for a strong growth in datacenter business opportunity in India. As innovation leaders in high-performance computing and flash storage solutions, Lenovo and NetApp are uniquely positioned to bring leading technology and scale to enable customers worldwide to modernize their IT architectures from the edge to the core network to the cloud.

Lenovo plans to collaborate with the start-ups and government partners to host applications of companies in manufacturing, financial services and the healthcare sector.

Vivek Sharma, MD-Data Center Group (DCG) at Lenovo India said that the company sees $5-6 billion overall revenue coming from India in the next three years. The forthcoming Lenovo Transform 2.0, on October 26th in Mumbai will showcase how Lenovo is leading Intelligent Transformation to drive customers' business. The event will bring together customers, partners and tech industry experts from around the world for a high-energy collaborative experience.

India is among the 10 countries Lenovo has identified from a datacenter expansion perspective and the emerging market has a huge growth opportunity. Going ahead with a three-year-plan, Lenovo expects revenues to double and be among the top three players in the industry, as opined by Sharma.

Lenovo’s strategy will be to help smaller players leverage AI with its end-to-end solutions. Lenovo DCG ensures that partners and customers are updated with the latest in the industry.

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CHANNEL BUZZ

Matrix holds its Solution Conference – Insight in Indonesia

Matrix has concluded its maiden solution conference, Insight, held in Indonesia on 13th September, 2018.

Matrix has been successfully conducting its solution conference – Insight across various geographical locations. Their aim is to endorse solutions in different markets and instill how they can efficiently meet the ever increasing communication and security challenges that the organizations of today are facing.

Matrix has exhibited their recently-launched Security solutions along with the Telecom communications. Their Unified Communications, Media Gateways and IP Phones were well received at the event. The entrepreneurs attending the conference were also interested in their multi-collaboration solution along with the Business IP-PBX. The attendees showed great interest in their security solutions – Visitor and Cafeteria Management solutions. The displayed Multispectral Fingerprint device along with other Time-Attendance and Access Control solutions were also well received at the event.

Entrepreneurs looking for video surveillance solutions appeared positively inclined towards their launched Extreme series of the NVRx and the Professional series Cameras equipped with Sony Exmor technology.

Rashi Peripherals and Asus organize five-city event for channel partners

Kaspersky Lab conducts partner meet in Chennai Kaspersky Lab has successfully concluded a partner meet with its national B2B distributor eCAPS Computers. The meet was held in Chennai. A total of 34 partner companies, and over 50 participants came together for the event that saw the top management from both the companies engage on future growth plans.

Kaspersky Lab led the discussions focused on product overviews and channel strategies to pave the growth for Kaspersky’s India market.

The evening opened with a welcome note by K. Gunasegharan, Director, eCAPS Computers, where he acknowledged the presence and work of all the team members from both, Kaspersky Lab and eCAPS Computers that has given the companies a very impressive performance over the past few quarters. This was followed by an incisive session on product overview and channel strategies, helmed by Ebenezer Stephen, Territory Manager – South India and Sri Lanka, Kaspersky Lab. Anand Shringi, Channel Head – South Asia, Kaspersky Lab, said, “Kaspersky Lab believes that regular dialogue with all partners is the cornerstone of a transparent, successful organization. We’ve built our network in India piece by piece through partner meets, with great support from all team members. The focus of this partner meet with our B2B distributor was to discuss our new products, share updates on our current portfolio and discuss channel strategies. We have bullish growth plans and hence it is essential that we be on the same page for its execution.”

The evening was concluded with a networking cocktail and dinner, where the discussions continued. The partner meet is one of the numerous that Kaspersky Lab hosts every month, and is crucial to its solid networking and consistent dominance in every market it is present in.

TAIT organizes Knowledge Series event for FAIITA members

The Trade Association for Information Technology (TAIT) has organized their recent Knowledge Series event in Mumbai on a grand scale, hosting over 25 delegates from FAIITA-affiliated IT associations from across the country.

Rashi Peripherals and Asus have concluded the Asus NB Passion event. The five-city event was aimed at educating channel partners on Asus Notebook business.

During the event, partners were given in-depth training on latest product offerings. The representatives from Asus and Rashi Peripherals offered them an expert guidance on the right market pitch for earning better RoI. There were also dedicated zones for product display and live demo which enabled partners to touch feel and explore the technology.

The event organized in five cities, namely Nasik, Pune, Gurgaon, Siliguri and Nagpur received an overwhelming response from partners.

Apart from product training and business sessions, partner thoroughly enjoyed the quiz competitions and won exciting prizes.

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The event started on an exciting note as several IT retailers and traders from across the country came together on a common platform to meet, interact and connect. Krupashankar Chube, President, TAIT, opened the session with a welcome note and a round of introduction of the esteemed delegates from various member associations, the keynote speaker for the evening, Dr Radhakrishnan Pillai, as well as the sponsor for the evening, Sukhpreet Singh Sahni, Regional Sales Manager – Retail, Dell International Services India. Post the introductions, Krupashankar Chaube also briefly introduced the theme of the evening, “Business Beyond Boundaries”, emphasizing the significance of collaboration and growth among the Indian IT community.

Thanking the FAIITA board for enabling the national convergence of IT associations and members on the TAIT platform, Krupashankar Chaube then invited Champakraj Gurjar, President, FAIITA to address the audience. He shared his views with the IT community in India and the role of FAIITA to work closely with all member associations.

FACE TO FACE

Channel consolidation and expansion will be key to Technobind Technobind’s focus on the ‘Usecase’ approach has been received well by its channel, which is also an indication that its strategy is going in the right direction. Harikrishna Prabhu, Director – Channels, TechnoBind Solutions tells VARINDIA of the strategic plans it has charted out for its channel ecosystem and the opportunities it sees in the technology distribution space in the country -

Where does channel stand in We will also have a focused approach towards the large GSI channel as well.

Technobind’s scheme of things?

Technobind’s entire business is built around the channel. We are in the avatar of a Specialist Distributor closely working with the channel partners across the region. So our entire GTM revolves around the channel. It is a crowded market out there today. So our approach with the channel is to help them stand out in this crowded market place. We do it by helping them build a technology play which is more customer focused in terms of their business problems. Our use-case based approach has been well received by the channel which is big endorsement of the fact that our strategy and approach is in the right direction.

What are the strategic plans you have in 2018 to build on your Channel eco-system?

In 2018 our plans are two pronged Consolidate our channel depth in the Tier-1 cities and Expand the channel breadth into the Tier-2 cities. As our product portfolio expands, the vendor is banking on our support in building breadth and getting into new markets. For eg – East was one market we started focusing on at the beginning and we have had very good successes in both Kolkata and Dhaka (Bangladesh) and now into the upcountry North East as well. We also got our first HC in Dhaka – a technical consultant. At the same time we are also building depth in the Tier-1 markets by having a focused play with the Top 10 partners in every city. There is a comprehensive partner program rolled out for these aligned partners helping us take the engagement to the next level.

What big opportunities you see in the country today?

The new direction of the IT deployment has thrown up a lot of challenges for the customers. And for us at Technobind we look at these challenges as opportunities as customers are struggling to keep up with the demands that these new initiatives are putting up for them. A classic example is that of the Aadhar implementation. The UIDAI mandate was to have the users of Aadhar to have a secure environment and an Aadhar Vault and we along with our partners have helped most of these organisations build the solution stack with our vendor partners’ technology stack. GDPR is yet another global challenge being thrown up - we have just started our campaign to target this usecase and we have also had our first few wins.

It is a great period for us in the next 18 to 24 months. With Technobind’s focus on Use-case approach to selling we are identifying each of these challenges and building up a technology stack that we are taking into the market with our reseller partners.

• Data Management – Quest Software, Microfocus, Carbonite and Tableau • Data Security – Safenet-Gemalto, Checkpoint, Seclore Our services are primarily around complementing the efforts of our partners in helping the customers adopt these technologies.

Our partners have a good services offering and our aim is to simply give them the support required for them to deliver on the required.

How is Technobind innovating, incentivizing and differentiating itself in terms of its offerings and market strategies?

The only way we will stand out is by differentiating ourselves in everything we do, be it the technologies we sell or the GTM strategies or our Partners programs.

Nobody has such a needle like focus on technologies around DATA. Because of this we have not only built up expertise but more importantly we have been able to build a STACK, a technology stack which is helping our partners go into their customers with solutions which solve specific business problems of theirs.

Which are the brands you are Our focus on “USE-CASE” base approach associated with? or the SWIM LANE approach has brought in We have classified our brands into four cateogries • Data Storage – Tintri, Infortrend, QSAN • Data Protection – Commvault, Druva, Tandberg

huge efficiencies in ours as well as our partners customer acquisition strategy. The use case has helped bring in clarity and focus in our sales motion on the field and this I believe is a huge differentiator and the main reason why partners love us. n

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EMERGING START-UPS IN INDIA Venture capital investments have picked up pace in India. As per KPMG, the start-up ecosystem saw over $2.5 billion investment in the third quarter of 2018, which was almost double from over $1 billion invested in the second quarter. Despite the increase, this is half of the $5 billion invested in the third quarter of 2017. Start-up comes with disruptive innovations, which develops confidence to take risks and explore by advocating and later on rewarding opportunity.

The report says that India saw a quarter on quarter increase in VC investment buoyed by $1 billion raised by hotel booking company Oyo Rooms to finance its expansion into China. Oyo became India's second most valuable technology start-up after Paytm and leapt into unicorn status with a $5 billion valuation. India also saw several $100 million plus megadeals this quarter, including $225 million by Udaan, $120 million by Curefit and $100 million by BookMyShow," the report said.

It has also seen that online marketplaces continue to gain a lot of traction in India during the quarter, with the second-hand car company Cars24 raising $50 million. India is witnessing a rapid rise in the B2B tech startup landscape, focused on verticals like healthtech, fintech, and ecommerce/aggregators.

According to a report, the investment in startups across segments such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Fintech, Logistics and Software as a Service (SaaS) touched $6.1 billion, with investment in 575 firms since 2016. Till now fintech topped the chart in terms of funding with $4.4 billion, followed by logistics at $838 million. There are certain interesting start-ups present in Delhi/NCR, Mumbai, Bangaluru and Chennai, of which we present you the leading 5 start-ups from each of these cities -

COMPANY

PROMOTER

SOLUTION OFFERINGS

BANGALORE

Altigreen Propulsion Labs

Amitabh Saran (Founder & CEO), Shalendra Gupta (Co-Founder & CFO), Lasse Moklegaard (CTO and Co-Founder) & John Bangura (Co-founder & VP Engineering)

Electric Motors & Generators, Battery Management Systems, Power Electronics, Advanced Telematics, Engineering Design & Software Algorithms

InstaSafe Technologies

Sandip Kumar Panda, CEO

InstaSafe Secure Access, InstaSafe Cloud Access

ShieldSquare

Pavan Kumar Thatha, CEO & Co-Founder

Squadcast

Amiya Adwitiya, Co-founder & CEO

Quantta

Ritesh Bawri ( Founder), Malvika Bawri (Co-Founder) and Vinay Bari (Co-Founder)

Bot Mitigation for Web, Bot Mitigation for API, Bot Mitigation for Mobile, Bot Intellignce Feed

Escalation Policies, On-Call Schedules, Squad Management, Mobile Incident Management, API

Quantta Connect, Quantta Convert, Quantta Communicate, Quantta Custom

DELHI

Pavan Kushwaha, Founder & CEO

Managed Security, Compliance Security, ThreatCop

Bizom

Lalit Bhise, Chief Executive Officer

Order Management, Distributor Management, Van Sales Automation, Field Force Tracking, Claims Management System, Retail Execution & Merchandising, Task/Lead Management, Service Rep Management, Attendance & Leave Management, Business Intelligence and Analytics, Asset Management System

HeyMojo

Jagdish Repaswal, Founder and CEO

Build chatbots, Dash buttons and website widgets for direct bookings, online ordering and guest experience management

Kratikal Tech. Pvt. Ltd

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PROMOTER

SOLUTION OFFERINGS

Notify Visitors

Siddharth Gupta Co-Founder & CEO

Customer Engagement Software, Conversion Rate Optimisation Software, Analytics

Lucideus Technologies

Saket Modi, Co-Founder & CEO

ITS Maturity Assessment, Governance Policy Formation, Security Technology Trainings, Application Security , IT Infra Security, Emergency Response, Cyber Forensics, Fraud Investigation

COMPANY

MUMBAI

Sequretek

Anand Naik, Co-Founder & CEO

Manage Detection & Response(MDR), Security Strategy & Roadmap, Secure Infrastructure Services, Vulnerability & Threat Management, Malware Analysis, Governance Risk & Compliance, Endpoint Security Solutions

Smokescreen Technologies

Sahir Hidayatullah, CEO

Targted Threats, Lateral Movement, Detection, Web-Appliction Attacks, Malware-Less Attacks, Social Engineering, Threat Intelligence, Ransomware

Droni Tech

Onkar Bhosle, Co-founder / Product Head

Drone Management Software, I based Agriculture Drone, AI Based Medical Drone, AI Based Disaster Box drone and Fixed Wing Aerial Day, Night Surveliance UAV

Dr Vikas Karade (CEO & Founder) & Amit Maurya (CTO & Founder)

Developed a web-based software Tabplan3D for surgeons to simulate bone surgeries in 3D and to get 3D printable surgical-tool design; automatically, within minutes and specific to patient

Subhadeep Bhattacharyya, Co-Founder and CEO

Iterative Turing Optimization, Omnichannel and Voice-Capable, Performance-based to solve toughest challenges, Personalized re-engagement, Multi-lingual and behavior-first

AlgoSurg Products Pvt Ltd

Jubi AI

CHENNAI

Inthree Access

Ramachandran Ramanathan, Co-Founder & CEO

E-Commerce products

TicketNew

Ramkumar Nammalvar, Founder & CEO

online-ticketing website

Tradly

JK Baseer, Co-Founder & Product Manager

Online platform for buying and selling second hand products

Mad Street Den

Ashwini Asokan, CEO & founder

Vue.ai, data classification/ catalog data management, AI and Image Recognition platform for apparel retailers

Planys Technologies

Prabhu Rajagopal, Co Founder & Strategist

under-water inspection and survey solutions using custom-built submersible drones

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EMERGING TECHNOLOGY - RPA

RPA for Modern Enterprises is a big business opportunity!

RPA or Robotic Process Automation involves the computerization of tasks, which is making a disruptive change across industries globally. These tasks are often data-heavy and include, but aren’t limited to, data entry, transactions, and compliance. An estimate says that the RPA industry is estimated to be worth $3.1 billion by 2019 and $4.9 billion by 2020.

The RPA market is estimated to reach $7.8 billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 58% from 2017-2024.

RPA involves organizations deploying robots, bots powered by AI and machine learning capabilities to handle tasks which are regular and repetitive like queries, transactions, calculations and records maintenance. RPA technology works with a software robot or bot which is programmed to operate like a human worker and can log into applications to manage data, calculations, complete tasks and log out. Business enterprises have to value the potential ROI which can be generated through RPA implementation before taking the robotic plunge.

Companies today are striving to improve the experience of their customers in order to boost customer retention, irrespective of the technological approach involved. Robotic process automation is an excellent tool for more efficient customer relationships, freeing up employees from repetitive and tedious tasks.

RPA is yet another outcome of advanced technology. It is mainly used to automate business processes based on logic and controlled inputs. An RPA tool war, based on both price and product features will intensify and lead to the elimination of some less inefficient players. Private equity and venture capital backed RPA software organizations will be the first to crack.

Very soon Microsoft, Google, IBM, Amazon, Alibaba and maybe even Tesla will launch preconfigured automation specific APIs through their cloud platforms, eliminating the hype around the cognitive capabilities and claims of some existing RPA software organisations. The above twenty companies into RPA automation is driving efficiency at enterprises as CIOs turn to RPA to tackle repetitive business tasks.

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ANALYTICS INSIGHT Headquarters : Hyderabad Established in : 2016 Analytics Insight is a media, branding and technology platform with a unique focus on insights, trends, and opinion from the world of data-driven technologies. We feature analysis on big data, business analytics, business intelligence, data management, IoT, cloud computing, and more.

ANTWORKS Headquarters : Pune Established in : 2015 AntWorks RPA platform understands every data type, and digitizes every bit of information for a diverse range of industries. AntWorks creates human-like bots in a code-free environment, to create, test and deploy bots to automate processes. AntWorks’ unique features include Code Free Bot Configuration, Accelerated Bot creation, Integrated Business rules, End to end automation, Digital workforce control center, multilevel access control and Dynamic wait sense.

AUTOMATION ANYWHERE Headquarters: San Jose, California Established in: 2003 Automation Anywhere is the global leader in RPA technology having offices in the US, Japan, Australia, London, Mumbai, Baroda and Bangalore, the latter being the world’s largest provider of RPA software. It employs both, software bots and human efforts to get a lot of the repetitive work done across industries. Automation Anywhere delivers products and services in over 90 countries with 125+ global collaborations. Automation Anywhere is geared to aid high-end technologies such as RPA, cognitive and embedded analytics and is geared to serve AI-enabled solutions provider of automation requirements in industries such as finance, insurance, healthcare, manufacturing, technology, telecom, and logistics.

AUTOLOGYX Headquarters: United Kingdom Established in: 2011 Autologyx provides “Automation as a Service” with a view to enabling clients to automate their business processes easily. Whether it is about performing repetitive tasks or sorting advanced processes that require expertise, Autologyx has its cloud platform for process automation ready.

The company has recently bagged a major player, global law firm Eversheds Sutherland Ignite. T-Mobile, Boeing, Luxottica, and Adecco are some of the esteemed clients. The law firm is harnessing Autologyx’s robotic process automation platform to produce 3,000 leases that entailed going through numerable mails. The intelligent automation technology has a wide range of business applications.

AUTOMATIONEDGE Headquarters: Pune Established in: 2017 Automation Edge offers intelligent automation solutions integrating essential technologies such as AI, machine learning, ready bots and chatbots. The US-headquartered company has offices in Dubai, Germany and Pune and offers automation solutions to financial services, aviation, and transportation sectors. Automation Edge offers robotic process automation, IR process automation, RPA in cloud, ready BOT store and F3 RPA Bot. AutomationEdge – Intelligent RPA ensures that all operations across front office, middle office, back office and IT operations are done at faster speed and at reduced cost which can help increase top line and bottom line of the company significantly.

BLUE PRISM Headquarters: United Kingdom Established in: 2001 Blue Prism’s RPA software enables businesses to respond to changes quickly and cost-effectively by automating manual, rule-based, administrative tasks and processes. Blue Prism also creates virtual workforce comprising the operational teams or certified partners that use their robotic automation technology to enable processes. IT-governed frameworks and complex arrangements are harnessed to manage automation.

Organizations such as The Co-operative Banking Group, Shop Direct, RWE npower, Fidelity Investments, the NHS, and O2 employ Blue Prism’s technology to respond promptly to business changes through agile back office and administrative operations.

CONTEXTOR Headquarters: France Established in: 2000 Contextor streamlines business processes, and automates repetitive tasks across industries. Its product offerings include Contextor Interactive Assistant, Contextor standalone BOT, and Contextor Studio. Contextor offers differentiated solutions in the RPA market including an enterprise tool that supports an industrial approach to process automation.

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EMERGING TECHNOLOGY - RPA CINNAMON Headquarters: Japan Established in: 2016 Erstwhile Spicy Cinnamon and a photo-sharing app, the company decided to turn to robotic process automation and renamed itself, Cinnamon. It was reported that the start-up was successful in raising large funds from several renowned angel investors.

Cinnamon provides Deep Learning backed AI products. Cinnamon aims to extend human potential for more productive and creative work by utilizing the power of Artificial Intelligence.Cinnamon’s main offering is a smart scanner called the Flax Scanner, which can mine information from documents like emails and agreements. It has the ability to decipher the data and digitize it. It can then fill up a database or other systems automatically with significant accuracy.

DAYTHREE BUSINESS SERVICES Headquarters: Malaysia Established in: Information not available Daythree transforms repetitive service processes, day-to-day manual work, and rule-based tasks into automated digital work with the help of software robots. The robots help in redesigning business processes to keep them simple and sound.

The company claims that it delivers benefits quickly where ROIs between 300–700% are common.

Daythree is a leading business service provider with young and dynamic team combining knowledge and experience to improve operational outcomes for its customers. Designing from concept to process, and later to operations, it develops best practices to manage expectations of service level standards of the business and industry.They also offer IT and Knowledge Process services to help customers stay head and shoulders above their competition.

EDGEVERVE Headquarters: Bengaluru Established in: 2014 EdgeVerve Systems is a subsidiary of Infosys,a free version of its flagship AssistEdge automation platform. The AssistEdge Community Edition is designed for Robotic Process Automation (RPA) enthusiasts such as students, independent developers, Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and enterprise users to self-learn automation and join the rising Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution.

As RPA is moving from hype to reality, enterprises across industries are looking to deploy automation ‘at-scale’ to reap its benefits. This needs end-to-end change management programs and the availability of the right skills and platforms for individuals to understand how to automate repetitive and rule-based human processes. Built-in personal assistant ‘AssistEdge EVA Bot’ which executes, monitors and troubleshoots the digital workforce, it is easy integration with Alexa, Google Home Mini, Microsoft Bot Framework, IFTTT and cognitive APIs from Google or Microsoft.

INTELLICOG TECHNOLOGIES Headquarters: New Delhi Established in: 2016 IntelliCog is an end-to-end consulting and outsourcing firm that uses RPA and AI to provide solutions. Their offerings include RPA consulting and integration capabilities with the help of their proprietary frameworks. Alliance Behavioral Healthcare has awarded IntelliCog a contract to deliver a Business Intelligence & Reporting solution in support of behavioral healthcare services.They are still a budding company that’s working towards ensuring zero-downtime and business continuity by deploying their knowledge, know-how, experience, and methodologies related to RPA and AI.

KOFAX Headquarters: California Established in: 1985 Kofax was established with the aim to automate and transform manual processes across front and back operations, thereby resulting in improved customer engagement, reduced operating costs, meeting compliance requirements, and accelerating business growth.

Kofax offers an array of software and solutions related to robotic process automation, business process management, multichannel capture and other important features that can be used on the cloud and on-premise. Kofax has over 20,000 customers across industries such as finance, insurance, healthcare, supply chain, government, BPOs, among others. Its products are available in over 70 countries.

KRYON SYSTEMS Headquarters: New York Established in: 2009 Kryon Systems boasts of four offerings namely process discovery, unattended automation, attended automation, and hybrid automation, all of which are related to RPA. The level of automation, obviously, varies in each offering with unattended automation requiring the least human input.

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NICE SOLUTIONS Headquarters: Israel Established in: 1986 NICE’s solutions for analytics, workforce optimization and case management integrate RPA by implementing NICE Robotic Automation. NICE helps organizations to map employee activities and processes, identifying where automation is the key to immediate and long-term optimization to free employees from routine, mundane tasks. The company has onboarded eight new technology partners since the launch of its open RPA platform in September and grown its network of global strategic partnerships to more than 40 leading organizations, spanning consulting, implementation, and training partners. In-house cognitive automation innovations are in development and will be augmented by integrating with some of NICE’s strongest solutions such as text and speech analytics, workforce optimization and case management.

Over 25,000 organizations in more than 150 countries, including over 85 of the Fortune 100 companies, are using NICE solutions.

PEGASYSTEMS Headquarters: Massachusetts Established in: 1983 Pegasystems is a cloud-based unified platform that promises “321% ROI in less than 12 months. 75% cost savings.

75% productivity improvements.” It is powered by RPA and AI. They produce software bots that automate menial jobs that go on forever and call them “productivity bots.” These bots help simplify and enhance employee experiences and focus on increasing the business’s ROI. Pegasystems is the leader in software for customer engagement and operational excellence. Pega’s adaptive, cloudarchitected software empowers people to rapidly deploy and easily change applications to meet strategic business needs.

Their solutions also help businesses deal with unforeseen industry changes, new applications, process re-engineering, and collaboration. Further, they automatically find processes to optimize and mitigate problems even before they arise.

RAPIDRPA Headquarters: New York Established in: 2016 Echelon | RPA delivers smart robotic process automation solutions that dramatically enhance employee performance and business outcomes across a comprehensive range of use cases and applications.The combination of AI, cognitive computing, big data and the best of Lean Six Sigma practices delivers unique and powerful capabilities to automate a range of mission-critical business processes, empowering the next-generation workforce to focus on more core activities that deliver greater value. The company claims that it is different from other solution providers as it makes use of intuitive user experiences to improve productivity instantly. Their cloud-based solutions involve the use of robots that work with multiple vendors and offer quick, easy and low-cost delivery. It promises 500% ROI on productivity from Day 1 of its use.

SANBOT Headquarters: China Established in: 2012 Sanbot Innovation breaks through the traditional boundaries and is constantly developing new pioneering solutions.

QIHAN Technology’s cloud-enabled intelligent service robots enable customizable applications across industries like healthcare, education, hospitality, security, and retail. Sanbot Innovation is ready to set out with over 200 patents in technology including Machine Vision Recognition, Multi-axis Automatic Control, Big Data Analysis, and Cloud service to make numerous artificial intelligence solutions.These robots are powered by IBM Watson’s AI and feature Android SDK for open customization to improve customer experience and business growth.

SOFTOMOTIVE Headquarters: United Kingdom Established in: 2005 Sofotmotive’s RPA solutions help reduce business costs by 90% for regulated industries. Softomotive does this by providing a potent automation platform that empowers businesses to develop, manage and track their digital performers.

They support all compliance regulation processes such as PCI-DSS, GLBA, FISMA, Joint Commission and HIPAA. Softmotive enterprise automation “Processrobot” focuses to eliminate costs, enhance productivity, and accelerate business performance. Softmotive’s RPA solutions are applied to Finance & Accounting, Insurance, Telecommunications, Health Care, Call Centres and Banking verticals. Softomotive offices are located in UK (London), USA (NYC), Greece and India.

UIPATH Headquarters: New York Established in: 2012 UiPath claims that its robots are about four times faster than other robots due to their ability to process screen changes in less than 100 milliseconds. It is on its way to becoming a leader in enabling back-office automation. UiPath hasits global presence andis a leading player in the segment of RPA.

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COVER STORY

Partners aligning its solutions with customer needs to help them Digitally Transform Digital transformation is the key to a successful business and has become an imperative these days. It is generating opportunities everyday and to stay ahead of the competition and survive, every industry needs to adopt technological advances.

As per a research report by Microsoft and IDC, digital transformation will add $154 billion to India's GDP by 2021. It will also increase the growth rate by 1% annually. Traditional business models are transforming rapidly and heading towards digital transformation as they are fast adopting latest technologies like AI, cognitive services, robotics, mixed reality etc which are in turn disrupting the way of business.

In the journey of digital transformation of a company, Solution Partners play an integral part in helping them to bridge the gap between traditional way of business to digitally equipped business. Previously, the focus of the Partners were to sell hardware but gradually the needs of the companies have changed and now they look for customized solutions and value added services to keep pace in this digital era. So to better understand how the solution partners have helped their customers to achieve digital transformation we are putting forward their experience below --

Partner perspective on Digital Transformation “Digital Transformation is our key offering currently. For every customer, IT is a major enabler in the business strategy. By default, every customer now expects minor to major transformation in its IT operations. We are a comprehensive service provider, with innovative service management platform, AI capabilities and strong systems integration

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expertise. Thus, we have successfully delivered path breaking transformation projects, both for corporate as well as government sector. Being a global player, we claim ourselves as “Global Transformation Architect”,” says Paresh Shah, CEO, Allied Digital Services.

“Collaborating with the client to secure his digital assets using new age tools and technologies like DLP, CASB, Decoy , AntiAPTS have given confidence to clients to accelerate their digital environments in

production.

As a partner we operate four key pillars Design, Consult, Implement and Manage. With a sound and skilled workforce consisting of SME’s, Certified Resources with Experience and Knowledge on skills such as Machine Learning, each of the practices and pillars ensure we deliver the right strategy to the client to execute their Digital transformation more effectively,” explains Nityanand Shetty, Managing Director, Essen Vision Software.

“We have taken monumental steps to accelerate our customers’ digital transformation.

Firstly we have re-aligned our own offerings and become a cloud focussed solution provider. Our new company – Xpresscloud has invested in people, trainings and certifications to ensure that we meet the new gen demands of the customers. We offer Microsoft, Google and other cloud solutions to our customers currently.

We have taken a long term vision to build our cloud expertise. We have re-trained our existing teams, invested in certifications and taken many other steps to overcome the challenge in being a cloud focussed solution provider,” highlights Chetan Shah, Managing Director, Xpress Computers.

“Business models and delivery systems are increasingly becoming digital and keeping up with this transformation in the ecosystem is not an easy task for any organization. At Embee, our team of experts stays on top of technology curve to help customer organizations drive systemic change and embrace new technologies in their journey towards building a future-ready enterprise. Being one of the earliest solution provider to drive adoption of cloud, we rank among top 5 in terms of cloud consumption.

We have enabled cloud transformation journey for 325+ organizations in India and going strong in enabling modern workplace solutions for organizations across BFSI, eCommerce, Education, Healthcare, IT/ITES, Logistics, Manufacturing, Media and other industries,” elaborates Sudhir Kothari, CEO and Managing Director Embee Software.

“IT Security is mainly based on digital transformations.

Digital transformation sounds technical – robotics processing automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI), cloud adoption, social media, analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), cyber security, mobility, etc. – it is tempting to engage as though the digital strategy merely requires a series of technology implementations. In reality, digital transformations are a journey.

More accurately, they are a series of journeys.

We provide our customer Cyber security solution, AI/BI /Cloud Security, mail security, Sandboxing Mobility, SIEM Solution to protect their Network from external and internal threats. So we are at an evolving stage as they are moving from on premise to cloud/ manual to automated and convocational to AI/BI,” says Manasi Saha, CEO, Macaws Infotech.

She further adds, “Challenges are always there in IT Security arena but to move on with implementing new technology we always face some obstructions particularly in case of Patch updates and product upgrade, enforcement of polices and mail migrations in customer premises, we also face the following challenges like budget, fear of change and losing control and legacy systems and processes.”

“Digital transformation should be looked into as a 360° transformation of an organization.

It is not just a tool to solve communication needs or to meet hardware needs. A digitally strong organization saves a lot in terms of manpower, stationery, process and data management and analysis. In fact, most of today’s leading global organizations have achieved that feat because of their strength in IT. Comprompt keeps on communicating with its customers important updates in IT to make them aware of what’s coming in future. We also help our existing customers to upgrade to the latest technology as and when an opportunity comes. One of the most important services we provide to our customers is of ensuring support on demand.

Be it about restoring data or its migration, we make sure that our customers enjoy the quickest turnaround time,” feels Manish B. Sanghrajka, Director, Comprompt Solutions.

“Growth in Cyber Security / Network Security is approximately 20 % year on year for the last 5 years. Initially, Delhivery, one of the largest logistic company, located all over India was running on open source and proprietary solution, took the demo of most of the competition in the market and finally we could closed the deal with very challenging support commitment. During these 2 years, customer tested the boxes thoroughly and gained the confidence on partner and the product. At first

Paresh Shah CEO, Allied Digital Services

Nityanand Shetty Managing Director, Essen Vision Software

Chetan Shah

Sudhir Kothari

Manasi Saha

CEO, Xpress Computers

CEO & Managing Director, Embee Software

CEO, Macaws Infotech

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COVER STORY go, customer placed order for approximately 30-40 locations and after rigorous testing, decided to go for next 50 locations with the same brand and the partner and as on today running approx. 100 locations successfully,” explains D K Bajaj, Director, D M Systems.

“Today’s need of digitisation is most important subject as managing data is a most critical task for any of the organisation. We at Deltakraft always look forward and help to educate our customer the importance of managing the data digitally. Transformation of the data with different policies with regards to digitisation, backups and security, we play an important role by providing appropriate solutions with different brands available in the market,” states Dnyanesh Kulkarni, Director, Deltakraft Solutions.

Adding to it he says, “Quality and cost optimisation is a key, hence understanding the objective and exact need of a customer while proposing any solution is very important.”

“We have travelled along with our customers over 15+ years. The Proximity we have developed and the Trust that we have built with our customers has helped us understand the Customer’s Business Challenges and successfully address the same from time-totime. With a wide range of Solution offerings from IT / Network / Security Infrastructure to Cloud, we have effectively addressed these challenges.

As a trusted advisor, we ensure that our customer is taken care at every stage of the transaction and we go the extra-mile to ensure customer delight,” views R Madhusudhanan, Director - Cisco Practice BU, DigitalTrack Solutions.

“Since our entire business focus is to make our Clients do their business effectively using CRM for Sales and Service, we obviously take great effort and care.

We designed unique Training programs along with our Mobile first philosophy for helping our Customers to adapt to CRM faster

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and grow faster,” explains Limesh Parekh, CEO, Enjay IT Solutions.

“We strongly believe that future of any business is in making informed decision making and accessibility to information which is why businesses all size needs to invest in digital transformation.

We empower customers to collect data using IoT devices to track their operations in real time, gather sales data, manage assets, digitize process of setup, implementation, health-checks to enhance business productivity, make right decisions, invest in correct priorities and improve profitability,” highlights Kshitij M Kotak, CEO, Fortune Grecells.

“Many customers have started digital transformation.

But key is application availability for their needs. Our customer's have started digital transformation like IoT or Industrial automation etc. but many of the required software application availability is a challenge. For example, if a sewage water treatment company wants to monitor its equipment installed for certain values. We need to help them with custom application development or think of work around.

D K Bajaj Director, D M Systems

Any digital transformation requires strategy, cost of ownership, and return on investment.

Every organization is looking for Digital Transformation but viability is a big challenge.

So we pick and choose customer who are ready for Digital Transformation,” describes L Ashok, Founder & CEO, Futurenet Technologies.

He also says, “We sit with customer to understand the Digital Transformation impact on business. This will enable both us and customer to invest time and efforts in the projects.”

“Digital Transformation is a continuous journey and we have started this early and are reaping fruits though currently with only few organisations but it is catching up shortly as the customer is today looking at partners who can take care of the technology requirements and take their organisation’s systems to the next

Manish B. Sanghrajka Director, Comprompt Solutions

Dnyanesh Kulkarni

R Madhusudhanan

Limesh Parekh

Director, Deltakraft Solutions.

Director - Cisco Practice BU, DigitalTrack Solutions

CEO, Enjay IT Solutions

October 2018

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level.

and service.

We have the Right Product Portfolio and a very strong Design teams that understands the digital needs of the organisation and then drafts a solution for them which will take care of their present as well as future needs. Besides we from the top have the right focus on this with our tag line itself on this - “Trusted Partner for your Digital Workplace Solutions",” explains Soami Bhatia, Director, Gurusons Communications.

For example, we recently empowered the Dealer Management System of ‘Mahindra & Mahindra’ with Digital Signing solution for their dealers. Our cutting-edge digital signing solution helped their dealers to migrate from the manual process of invoice signing and sending through couriers/snail-mail to the super-fast digital mechanism of signing and uploading. Moreover, the new process of document signing is GST compliant as well. Besides adhering to document signing compliance, this solution has helped Mahindra & Mahindra to further augment data integrity,” believes Prashant Jain, CEO, JNR Management Resources.

“Digital Transformation progress is a fundamentally needed change in any organization ensuring business acceleration, and we understand the requirement for this transformation. We tend to keep delivering the best possible solutions we can offer to our customers with right products, at right price and with right process. Our focus is majorly upon the speedy, responsiveness, durability and flexibility of our solution than on the output, which helps generate innovations in our methods and modes on every stage furthermore passing the same to the client end. It is harder in today’s competitive and market condition to unlock top-line sales growth, yet we credit our success mostly to our efforts to provide seamless and better than before experiences making our clients come back for more,” says Moin Shaikh, Director, Innovative Telecom & Softwares.

“An IT challenge is a business imperative, it needs well-upgradation, interconnection and a business enabler transformation. Therefore we have always believed in developing solutions that can compete and grow and so is the reason for having a strategic business relationships with our alliances with selected best technologies to better serve our customer needs. And we are grateful how they complement our strategic IT solutions and executions solving major IT challenges,” he adds.

“Owing to innumerable innovations in the technology ecosystem, JNR Management has been helping customers drive their business to new heights. At, JNR we believe in making the process simple, swift, accurate and streamlined for our clients through quality driven products

“We have always been new age IT company with clear focus on providing transformational experiences to our customer by providing them solutions which enable them to be more agile, more productive and focus on what they are best at i.e their business. A lot of our customers have benefited with our consultative approach in which we have successfully helped in their digital transformation journey by developing a deep level of expertise in key areas which help them solve their business problems. We have partnered with a lot of technologies vendors who are global leaders in their domain and coupled that with our professional services to deliver predictable and measurable outcomes by harnessing the power it IT,” says Krishnakant Mathuria, Director, Know All Edge Networks.

Kshitij M Kotak CEO, Fortune Grecells

“We are quite successful in moving some 100+ customers from traditional approach to business and technology to digital and cloud platform. Most customers are reaping the benefits in terms of their competitiveness; growth and profitability.

As we are committed to our customer’s success; we ensure our employees are always technology ready and stay updated with current market trends. Our employees constantly go thru the frequent training and certifications to meet the challenges,” explains Amarnath Shetty, Managing Director, LDS Infotech.

L Ashok Founder & CEO, Futurenet Technologies.

Krishnakant Mathuria

Amarnath Shetty

Soami Bhatia

Director, Know All Edge Networks

Managing Director, LDS Infotech

Director, Gurusons Communications

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COVER STORY “The success in accelerating customer's digital transformation is not really much as the decisions are taken by top management and generally study has been done by top four consultants. Hence, either they take the contract and do it or outsource to the national SIs or OEMS. We are trying to get aligned either to customer or this to the top four consultants and getting the sub contract from them or convince the CXOs to get these digitization contracts,” opines Jiten Mehta, Director, Magnamious Systems.

“As we are growing and innovating continuously in serving our customers, transforming their IT operation and organisation at large is one of the key focus of Pentagon System & Services. Our approach and strategy is very much successful in helping customers in their digitalization journey. We are able to help them transform in various divisions and are continuing to do so.

Right approach and engaging with right stake holders is the key. We have right resources and are partnered with many technology providers.

With proper solution and successful POC, we understand the customer need and deliver the best services.” says Sairaman Mudaliar, Director & Co-Founder, Pentagon System & Services.

“Trusted IT partner since 1998, Progressive Infotech provides comprehensive suite of transformation and support services. The offerings span across cloud, digital and DevOps, delivered through a matured and scalable service delivery model. With over 20 years of experience in IT services, 200+ consultants and with over 200 enterprise customers, Progressive Infotech has the right experience and expertise to help organization navigate the digital journey.

Progressive is today India’s most credentialed Managed Services Provider (MSP) for both AWS and Azure and Gartner lists Progressive Infotech as a notable vendor in 'Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud Infrastructure Managed Service Providers, Worldwide 2018- Asia/Pacific Context. Cloud

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has been the game-changer in bringing in the Digital Transformation in organization and it’s perhaps one of the key enabler of digital transformation. It accelerates go-lives and user adoption, speeds global deployments, and helps organizations adapt quickly to new business needs. Progressive’s Digital offering can be bucketed under Enterprise Intelligence (Analytics, AI/ML & IoT), Digital Business (Enterprise Content Management, Digital Workplace and Mobility) and DevOps. Since its inception in 1998, Progressive Infotech is constantly reinventing itself to remain relevant to the dynamic business environment and bringing value to client engagements,” comments Prateek Garg, Founder and CEO, Progressive Infotech.

“Questa is been in IT industry for close to 16 years, we have been working and helping our clients in their transformation journey, whether it’s about adopting new technology suggesting new system, collaboration, project or process managements, working for DR or BCP, we have equipped us with right solutions and trained professionals who can help clients right from planning till execution or implementation with trainings.

Sairaman Mudaliar Director & Co-Founder Pentagon System & Services

The major challenge in any project or new technology is the change management at client end. It’s the resistance from client staff members who resist the change, we manage this with providing training and hand holding after project implementation which gives confidence to team and help us in smooth migration,” states Manish Tandon, Managing Director, Questa Software Systems.

“We are certainly highly successful in accelerating our customer’s digital transformation. Our company’s growth is 200% every year, which shows that we are at a prime stage to move the legacy using business models of the company to the digital era.

Prateek Garg Founder and CEO, Progressive Infotech

We have a technical service teams that are certified and trained by Google. With our technical expertise and if required with some help from Google we overcome all the

Jiten Mehta

Moin Shaikh

Prashant Jain

Director, Magnamious Systems

Director, Innovative Telecom & Softwares

CEO, JNR Management Resources

October 2018

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challenges,” says Punit Thakkar, Director & CEO, Shivaami Cloud Services.

“Digital Transformation is use of technology for improving efficiency or performance of an organization, be it a corporate or government.

Today Digital transformation is not a choice but an imperative. Businesses have adopted transformation initiatives and are at varying stages.

We as a partner are well placed in this space.

We started as Cloud and Mobility company and our natural addition was virtualization, BI/Analytics and Cloud Native business applications development. In last more than 4 years, we have lot of mind share and awareness from all stake holders in the organisation be it Digital, IT, finance, marketing.

Few Challenges: a) High Cost: We understand budgets and give solutions with low upfront cost i.e. Cloud is helping companies start small and grow with time in roll out of Digital Transformation (DT) journey. b) Lack of awareness of complete DT cycle: We share overall roadmap of DT journey to make well informed decision for long term benefits. c) Involvement of all stakeholders is required: We try to involve business unit heads along with CIO/IT to ensure success and timely completion.

Challenges vary with customers as businesses are unique and needs are very specific. We need to understand customer’s business and design a solution specific to that need. While we bring vast experience in deploying technology and understanding about deployment strategies, designing the right solution is both a science and an art. As a solution provider we must select the right feature of a particular solution to address the particular need of customer. Transformation journey of our customers have been rapid and result-oriented as goals are linked to business outcomes,” explains Sanjay Agarwal, Managing Partner, Umbrella Infocare.

“We engage with various customers spread

across different industry verticals to understand and plan their digital transformation journey.

We have customers who are in the planning phase of this transformation and some who have begun the journey already towards this transformation. We have a set of consultants who understand the overall IT landscape and align our client’s business goals to execute their digital transformation plan.

Technology transformation comes with its set of challenges at an operational level, however we focus to pre-empt some of these challenges as part of the planning phase of the digital transformation. Our industry experience and agile approach helps us to address challenges that we might come across during a customer’s digital transformation journey,” says Vibhore Shrivastava, Managing Director, VIBS Infosol.

“In my experience success of digital transformation depends on the following key aspects: 1. Identifying the correct digital automation/ transformation areas/use-cases 2. Managing changes 3. Managing exceptions 4.

Automating/digitalising processes which are well-defined and mature (poorly designed processes are likely to fail). Further for dynamically changing/growing businesses impact of digital transformation processes needs to be properly planned.

5. Managing human employee resistance 6. Skilling/learning & unlearning should be designed/planned for In my view, greater success can be achieved if the customer is properly advised early on in the digital transformation process on above aspects.

Our experience shows proper project evaluation, planning, execution and monitoring is key to any successful digital transformation cases.

Most of our customers who have gone through successful digital transformation journey have well defined transformation goals, carry out well documented proof of concept studies to validate use cases and follow up with proper action plans,” views Vimesh Avlani, Managing Director, Graftronics. n

Vibhore Shrivastava Managing Director, VIBS Infosol

Vimesh Avlani Managing Director, Graftronics

Manish Tandon

Punit Thakkar

Sanjay Agarwal

Managing Director, Questa Software Systems

Director & CEO, Shivaami Cloud Services

Managing Partner, Umbrella Infocare

www.varindia.com October 2018

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FACE TO FACE

“We ensure all your data, software and servers are protected”

In a chat with VARINDIA, Purshottam Purswani, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) – Atos India discusses about the product portfolio, cyber security protocols, channel structure, and acquisition for multiple years. Atos manages the IT for the Olympics and by default, security comes into the picture. One can imagine the number of malicious attacks that would be launched and the kind of damage that would be inflicted by a successful malware attack.

From a vertical perspective we deal with the public sector including the military and government departments. And at Atos we also have BDS – Bit, Data and Security where we are working with a lot of manufacturing companies.

Typically, manufacturing companies are full of patents and designs that should not be leaked.

That is a market with which we are increasingly engaged. For this market we have our HPC (High Performance Computers) deployed.

We take care that critical data such as Product Life Management software (where designs are stored), etc, are not leaked. And, we are also involved in Managed Services. It is about managing your end devices such as your servers, your laptops, your desktops, your smartphones, etc.

What is the product portfolio of Atos in India like?

From a cyber-security perspective, we have a wide portfolio. For example, the IoT devices for which we ensure that whether your data is at rest or on move, it is secure. For that, we have two modes – one is the software mode and the other is security for channel movements which is taken care of through the hardware security module (which is called the SSN). The hardware security module is installed in the IoT devices so that whether your data is at rest or it is in traffic, it is protected. Once the data moves to the cloud, we have our own security modules.

From a data center perspective, we are presently operating 14 SOCs – Security Operation Centers which operate 24*7 worldwide providing cyber-security service for national and global clients across all the sectors. We ensure that all your data, software and servers are protected.

When it comes to networks, we ensure that we have security modules that provide you with protection. On the data center side, we have controls in place for security, for servers and for end user devices we have agents installed that will prevent intrusion by malware.

Today, Big Data analytics is everywhere and we use SIEM – Security Incident Event Management. When the data flows to the data centre or to the cloud, the SIEM runs the algorithm that prevents malware infiltration.

If it is not a critical operation, we operate on the normal servers. If the data bank is huge or involves a considerable amount of compliance, then we ensure that data which is transferred onto the server or stored in the cloud is protected all the time.

For end user customers and for employees, we have a solution called ‘mobile home’ and ‘mobile inscription’ services. For example, for end customers we have customized Andriod phones. We ensure protection of your data and data flow. We also look at user and user activity ensuring that the data which the user shares is not leaked, and that the user device is protected from all kinds of malicious activities. We have an Identity and Access Management solution. This solution safeguards the identity information and it has an automation which determines which user is authorized to access which kind of systems, which kind of applications and what kind of data within the system.

The third thing that comes into the picture is applications. Whether on the IoT, the smartphones or the laptops, applications play with a huge amount of data. When the application is storing the critical data, we have a solution that categorizes data into zones that can be accessed by employees or external partners or that can be allowed to be viewed

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by the public. These zones we refer to as ARZ (Application Resource Zones). The fourth area is the IT infrastructure where the focus is on the security logs which capture data coming from workstations, from laptops, from smartphones, from WIFI’s, or access control which is a physical access control. These all pass through the SIEM which ensures that the cyber-security protocols prescribed by the National CyberSecurity Centre has prescribed. This in a nutshell is what we do from a cyber-security perspective.

What is your cybersecurity strategy?

We have a 360-degree view of cyber-security.

For example, we have a Red Team – a term borrowed from the military. The organization is subjected to a real-life attack and tests its ability to survive a serious compromise to its cyber agents. For each customer we do an assessment in terms of what is their reach, the end devices, the direction of the data flow, whether the enterprise is using a public cloud provider, etc.

That is where SIEM comes into the picture because it studies the data logs. The SIEM is a tool that collates and analyses the logs data coming from a multitude of sources to manage the security thrust.

How do you integrate cybersecurity offerings for a particular vertical?

When it comes to verticals, Atos provides the cyber-security services for the Olympic Games which is a key focus area. We have associated with the Olympic Games for many years and the contract has again been extended

What is your Channel structure?

We are into government departments, BFSI, manufacturing and telecom. Atos offers services like systems integration and managed services.

We reach customers through our systems integrators and managed services divisions. We also have a Big Data and Security Division which has its own server. For operations on the highend servers we work with our partners and we define the roles and responsibilities in terms of who does what.

Could you brief about your recent acquisition of Syntel?

Syntel is predominantly a systems integration company where cyber security is one of the portfolios. The portfolio has become richer and the reach of Atos has expanded and can offer more services to our customers.

In global terms how big a company is Atos?

Before Syntel we were around 95,000 people worldwide. With the Syntel acquisition, we are more than 100,000 people now. The business profile of the company is typically Artificial Intelligence (AI), cyber-security, conversion, data center application and transformation, enterprise servers, HPC, quantum computer, systems integration and managed services.

In India we are engaged in a lot of system integration projects for IOC and HPCL, managed services for automotive companies like Bajaj, and BDS services for a PSU (a defence department). Atos business in India is Fmore than USD 100 million. n

CHANNEL BUZZ

Tech Data emphasizes on Partner’s needs and goals From the smart phone in a user’s hand to complex solutions powering a global enterprise, Tech Data connects the world with the power of technology.The end-to-end portfolio of products, services and solutions, highly specialized skills and expertise in nextgeneration technologies enable channel partners to bring to market the products and solutions the world needs to connect, grow and advance.

As the world’s leading end-to-end technology distributor, Tech Data put singular focus on its partners’ needs and goals with the objectivity of a true strategic partner. With reach, capabilities and resources that span the technology continuum, the company is a vital link in the IT channel, delivering the insights and optimized solutions its channel partners depend on to compete in the market today, tomorrow and into the future.

• • • • • • • • •

Focus of the Company The company is focused on executing four growth strategies that will ensure Tech Data remains a vital link in the IT ecosystem well into the future: 1.

Investing in next-generation technologies and delivery models 2. Strengtheningthe portfolio 3. Transformingthe company digitally 4. Optimizingthe global footprint These growth strategies are enhanced by its solutions specialist approach which enables the partners to capitalize on the high growth, next-generation technologies that are redefining the future. Partners can engage to its dedicated solutions specialists and leverage their in-depth expertize to develop complete data center, cloud, analytics, artificial intelligence, security and the Internet of Things solutions.

TECH DATA QUICK FACTS

44 years in IT distribution $36.8 billion in sales for fiscal 2018 Publicly Traded (NasdaqGS: TECD) Ranked No. 83 on the FORTUNE 500 125,000+ IT reseller customers 150,000+ IT products sold 100+ countries served 14,000+ employees worldwide Named One of FORTUNE's "World's Most Admired Companies"

Milestones achieved (2017-18):

In the year 2017-18, Tech Data has achieved many milestones and accolades, to name a few: 4 Launched StreamOne Cloud Marketplace in India 4 Microsoft Global Partner of the Year 2018 4 HPE Global Distributor of the year 2018 4 Oracle India Excellence Award Value Added Distributor of the Year (Software) 2018 4 Cloudera Newcomer of the Year 2017 – India 4 Citrix Distributor of the Year 2017 India

PRODUCT OF THE MONTH

Optoma WU336 Projector – best suited for small to medium rooms

Optoma WU336 gives bright images and high dynamic contrast. This projector is best suitable for small to medium rooms like classrooms, meeting rooms and training labs. Its 3,400 lumens and 20,000 to 1 contrast ratio produces incredibly sharp and vivid images, even with moderate room light. Its support for sRGB and REC.709 colour profiles ensures accurate colour reproduction with any source like PC, Mac or video devices. A 1.3x zoom delivers robust installation options, while wall colour adjustment optimizes brightness for projection onto varying colour surfaces.

With its superior widescreen performance, the 15,000hour lamp life gives you minimal maintenance over the years and it is very versatile with its input options of 2 HDMI, VGA and composite connectors. The top things we look for in a projector are contrast, brightness and sharpness of the picture. This model excels in each of these areas. The 3400 lumen bulb projects an incredibly bright picture that is easily visible in either closed rooms or even direct sunlight.

There's no need to even dim the lights to get a brilliant picture from this projector. The contrast obviously varies due to what you are projecting on to and the available lighting conditions. The powerful internal speaker, driven by 10 watts of power can fill a room with loud and crisp audio.

The WU336 features VGA, RCA composite video, and two HDMI inputs for connecting different types of devices. One HDMI input is MHLcompatible for wired mirroring of your compatible smart device. The projector includes a carrying case and an IR remote control for added convenience.

www.varindia.com October 2018

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CIO SPECIAL

New-age CIOs re-defining the IT function In the era of big data, apps and cloud computing, the role of today's CIO is to enable the business, innovate and focus on new technology strategies to help better engage customers and drive revenue. The shifting business landscape is increasing competition, and bringing constant changes in the needs of the employee -

In the fast-moving world, the rise of mobility, cloud and big data has changed the technology landscape. Today's business needs to innovate technologically, even if it's just to stay in pace. Today IT is not only the support or service function but it is a part of business growth. IT has to take care of users’ pain area and by using IT tools, businesses are enabling or facilitatingits users to perform task batter and secure manner.

open source software. We may go to cloud in year 2020 with SAP S-4 HANA,and are in the process to get artificial intelligence technology to be used.

Sanjay Singh Gahlod (General Manager), System & IT Department, Oriental Rubber says that IT plays a crucial role in its organization, and the good thing is that even the management is now open to discuss about new technology.

“We are already in a discussion about IoT usage in our organization, but now we are focusing about our machine data to analyse to take corrective action. We are open for automation so that we can reduce production time cycle.

We are open for cloud computing but not for

“Upcoming and new Technologies are being discussed with respect to its ROI, Business and Customer impact. The Board is willing to invest in the technology if any of the business parameters like Revenue, Improved customer satisfaction & brand Image, Outreach in the market is improved. Board members are more tech savvy now and their technology awareness is very high. This actually in turn helps IT in putting good projects in front of them.

Sometimes, proposals are coming directly from

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October 2018

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Since Information technology revolution, IT has always been part of Board meetings and discussions. But in recent years IT has taken the front seat and has emerged as the driving force for organization's growth.

CEO & Board members. This is in complete contrast to few years back when IT projects were not given any attention and diligence,” asserts Sanjay Chowdhry, Chief Information Officer - Hamdard Laboratories India.

He further adds, “IT is now no longer considered as only technology support function.

Management demands IT to think strategically and contribute towards the business growth.

There is a complete paradigm shift towards IT function as the board sees it as an opportunity to stay ahead of their competitors. Moreover, IT has become a hybrid function. Re-inventing IT function is the need of the hour.”

Across industries, irrespective of nature of business, IT was always very much integral part of business.However the industry started identifying the importance of IT post Digitalisation era. Reliance Entertainment started its business keeping its vision of Digital

Sanjay Singh Gahlod (General Manager), System & IT Department, Oriental Rubber

Sanjay Chowdhry Chief Information Officer Hamdard Laboratories India

Sayed Peerzade Group Chief Information Officer Reliance Big Entertainment

businesses. However its consolidation of Digital businesses Mandate brought IT in to the board room and it took a lead role in making the business viable to operate.

the market for AI and it is growing rapidly.”

In today’s Digital Transformation age, various technological advancements have given machines a greater ability to understand information, to learn, to reason, and act upon it.

For instance, cognitive computing and artificial intelligence can help Agriculture market by finding the quality of grains and seeds, banking and insurance companies to identify risks and frauds and so on.

with increased business complexity and rapid technological advancements, the role of Information Technology function has rapidly changed as well to keep pace with the business,” explains Umesh Bhapkar, Director IT – Synechron.“IT at Synechron has rapidly evolved from mere support function in the past to a much more agile, customer centric and innovative function. IT played a vital role in Synechron’s recent acquisitions in Europe to integrate the business processes, be it our ERP System, EAG Apps, Infrastructure Integration and communication and collaboration tools such as Skype & Yammer enabling Synechron entities to work together as one team and one company.”

“For us the IT is not a support function, but weintegrated it closely so that all new businesses can be enabled by IT. New IT function looks more like business desk and that’s what the trend is turning in to be. More and more adaptation of digital technologies, and advancement of technologies is further adding more responsibilities to IT to drive those businesses. CIOs have to take lead and come with ideas to drive the businesses and be part of businesses,” says Sayed Peerzade, Group Chief Information Officer - Reliance Big Entertainment.

Says Sanjeev Jain, Chief Information Officer - IntegreonManaged Solutions India, “IT plays a very critical role today for the business. Buzzword like Digitisation, RPA Machine Learning and Automation is a wakeup call for the board and senior management.

The Board plays very crucial role along with IT to ensure that we are on top of the latest technology and tools available in the market.

One has to take hybrid approach when it comes to implementing several technologies. Cloud computing and AI continue to be top priority for every organisation. Demand is very high in

Sanjeev Jain Chief Information Officer Integreon Managed Solutions India

“Our board agenda mainly focuses on IT Risks. As an SI company IT risks ought to be a critical concern for us - the risk associated with higher levels of IT-related fraud & error and IT disaster recovery & business continuity.

For every service we offer to the client we assure the project designed should be Business centric rather than IT Centric.

The future of IT will function with machines more than human intelligence; IT which will be investing more on cognitive computing and artificial intelligence. Security will be the biggest challenge to IT in the future; the risk isn’t the machines, it’s the people involved at every level, inside and out,” says Mahanthi Parthu, Founding Director & CIO - Parsupp IT Services.

According to Umesh, the new IT function is very agile, has its customers at the center of IT Strategy and is much more innovative than ever before. “The business is relying on IT function to be able to develop – or partner appropriately to deliver – an infrastructure that enables them to leverage the capabilities of technologies such as cloud computing, virtualisation and artificial intelligence, all of which have quickly become essential part of our business success,” he says.

“As businesses are fast changing to meet the rising customer expectations, combined

Boards are increasingly nervous when it comes to corporate dependence on information technology, where the need to automate compliance with government regulations have

Mahanthi Parthu Founding Director & CIO Parsupp IT Services

Umesh Bhapkar Director IT Synechron

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CIO SPECIAL

Vivek Dharia CIO KNP Securities

Surhit Bhattacharyya Head-IT McLeod Russel India (MRIL)

Rahil Sayed Director-IT Techyard Technologies

heightened board sensitivity to IT risk. Board members frequently lack the fundamental knowledge required to ask intelligent questions about IT risk and expenses. This leaves the CIOs, who manage critical corporate information assets, pretty much on their own.

able to bring down human interventions which further reduced costs,” he says.

transformed into an embedded and integrated business technology structure,” says Rahil Sayed, Director-IT - Techyard Technologies.

“In practice, this means that leaders need to create collocated, cross-functional teams for agile development and effective collaboration of business and technology resources. These teams can develop, test, learn, and iterate far faster than teams that use the old practices. We expect that most companies will choose to transform the IT department under the direction of the CIO with the help of the CDO. We also expect that the most effective CDOs will be temporary, completing their digital programs in three to five years and then transitioning to other responsibilities within their companies.”

“Organizations must be innovative and leverage the latest technologies simply to stay in business & as just another route to increase their revenue. It is very important to understand that to undergo digital transformation, companies may need to completely re-engineer their current processes to make use of technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data analytics, artificial intelligence, and others,” says Vivek Dharia (CIO) - KNP Securities.

According to Surhit Bhattacharyya, Head-IT - McLeod Russel India (MRIL), to get visibility across the operations and to bring in better control Management depends on the depth of the IT services.

“As we matured our processes (ERP, Add on Modules and BI and Analytics) the Management is increasingly convinced about the power of IT to bring down costs on one hand and engaging with customers on the other. It was also noticed that with the right amount of internal controls facilitated by the IT processes, our company was

Chandrasekar R CTOIO Matrimony.com

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Surhit further explains, “McLeod Russel is a plantation company in the organised sector where labour related costs make up around 65% of total costs. The laws governing the sector have put the organized tea sector at considerable disadvantage to the unorganised sector.MRIL realised that micro understandings of the leakages in various operations are key to control costs. We have introduced AI driven tools to understand exceptions and automated immediate action on the results. We have not yet deployed Cognitive computing but limited to use of AI only.”

Techyard Technologies has started taking initiative on board oversight by creating board-level IT committees similar to audit, compensation and governance committees.

The Board also discusses of how these committees can assist the CEO, and CIOs, senior management and the BoD in driving technology decisions, keeping IT under control and developing competitive advantage. Its Governance process assures IT is Integral to the strategic planning process and not disconnected or independent.

“Today’s

silo-like

IT

function

Arindam Singha Roy CIO East India Udyog

has

Agrees Chandrasekar R, CTOIO Matrimony.com, “In an age where innovative technology is driving change, developing a strong technology roadmap for enhancing customer experience and delivering business goals is the agenda. To help navigate the future, we constantly look at technology to transform and take us to the next level. Especially in view of our global expansion of our matchmaking services and expansion of marriage services within India.Among other things, we are looking at leveraging Artificial Intelligence to deliver customised user experience and improve our operational efficiency.”

D V Seshu Kumar Asst. Vice President – IT Head, Orient Cement

Badar Afaq Head Information Technology Antara Senior Living

“There is a sea change in approach towards Information Technology adoption,” says D V Seshu Kumar, Asst. Vice President – IT Head, Orient Cement. “Earlier it was like a silo kind of approach but since the last few years entire scenario got changed and dependency increased on Technology for decision making and forecasting. Earlier unused data now become as very useful for deep dive analysis.

When traditionally approached scenario looks as optimum utilisation of Operational capabilities but deep dive analysis gives a scope for further improvement in capabilities by adopting new dimensions. Because of these scenarios of innovative approach of IT made permanent board agenda.”

The new IT function, according to Seshu Kumar is going to bring a radical change in the organizations’ approach. It has now bought businesses to a point where they might have some of the talents replaced by the machines.

“Be it in the field of Artificial intelligence (AI), BIG DATA, internet, UI technologies, DATA mining, Block chain, the scope has increased incredibly. The wants are never ending. Before Machine learning was limited only to certain fields, now it has found its applications in almost every app, device, upcoming industries possible,” contends Seshu Kumar.

Harnath Babu CIO KPMG, India

Arvind Kumar Director - IT & Digital Innovation Elior India Catering LLP

Ashok Cherian Chief Information Officer Emami Agrotech

Over the past two decades, technology has evolved at an accelerated pace thereby transformingsocieties, cultures and economies.

The emergence of Social Media, Big Data Analytics, ArtificialIntelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain and the Internet of Things, have managed to deeplytransform the lives of people in various sectors including manufacturing. “Almost 25% of businesses currently implement or plan on using artificial intelligence. Stand-outs arein the health, financial services and automotive sectors. Where there is data there is potential tobenefit from AI. Today’s AI systems start from zero and feed on a regular diet of big data. This is augmented intelligence in action, which eventually provides executives with sophisticated models as basis for their decision-making.If cognitive computing & AI work in proper sync with one another within a single system,operating from the same sets of data and the same real time variables from the world around it,” says Arindam Singha Roy, CIO - East India Udyog.

essential role in driving technological innovation within the organisation. IT function is not only for the support, but now IT is part of the key business functions and creating value to the business.”

“Board has constructive role in IT Governance & Strategy of the organisation with IT alignment to the Business,” says Badar Afaq, Head Information Technology Antara Senior Living. “Board members have more focus on IT security & Risk management.

They would like to implement cutting-edge technology with defined ROI.IT is playing an

Avinash Velhal IT & Process Atos Global IT Solutions and Services

Arvind Kumar, Director - IT & Digital Innovation - Elior India Catering LLP says that digitalization and cloud computing are major agenda for the company as they are in the preliminary phase to provide digital experience to their customer on best in class technologies with in-house development platform. “Once we are mature enough after a year or so, we will work with AI / ML, Big data analytics or block chain technology to explore more of our potentials,” he says. “Now a days IT is not just an IT to provide infrastructure/App platform/network connectivity for organizational users, but it become business enabler by providing various ways/methods to improve business excellence (Sales & Operations), retain customers and provide new dimension to business to do business differently.”

Observes Ashok Cherian, Chief Information Officer - Emami Agrotech, “Having spent over 25 years in IT, I have been an avid observer of what lies in the role of a CIO. I must say there is no better time to be a CIO than now. Gone are those days when

Kumar Prasoon CIO Al Safeer

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CIO SPECIAL

Upkar Singh Director – IT Fidelity Information Services India

Parna Ghosh Vice President & Group CIO Minda Industries

technology and engineering was the key area. It’s all about business now a days. One may say “so what?” What I really want to touch here is the unique combination of business focus and the emergence of cutting edge solution areas which can rock the business. Never had we had such maturity and acceptability on options like AL, ML, Cloud, Blockchain, Big data, IoT, Social which are all changing the business in a big way.

Digital Transformation is no longer a dream but a bare necessity if you need to survive. Does all these revolutionize the CIO role? Absolutely yes!!”

environment,one shoe fits all approach does not work. Clearly a plethora of skill sets and tools are required to be governed through specialist, start-ups, partners, in-house domain experts and legacy solution with IT at the core orchestrating the show.

He further explains, “As CIOs and IT guys, we also have the responsibility to challenge the solution providers to adopt open standards and talk more realistic. We should also raise the voice against unreasonable licensing and other governance issues. Partnerships can never be one sided and today I feel this area is pretty much neglected and needs to be focused much more.”

Harnath Babu, CIO, KPMG in India too observes that in this fast-moving world, the need of the hour is to understand how technology is evolving and adapt to the trends. This is why it is of utmost importance for boards to understand the game-changing innovations and incorporate them.

“Businesses are increasingly going digital nowadays with the rise of technology trends such as mobility, cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence, as well as constant changes in consumer needs. As a result, technologyenabled innovation has become a focal point of the board agenda. Boards are now starting to take a strategic perspective on how technology is shaping their industries as well as the implications on their companies. This, in turn, is leading to forward-looking conversations, helping drive technology innovation as well as increasing investments in IT.I believe, we need to adapt to the market trends and customer demands, and ensure successful application of technology across all business functions, in addition to IT,” he says.

Different business problems need a different approach and tool set. In today’s complex

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“No more thereisan IT and business function to be separated. Today the distinction is very difficult to demarcate a separate IT function. Governance of various specialists and the technologies will remain along with portion legacy systems but 2025 no more It departments,” says Avinash Velhal, IT & Process - Atos Global IT Solutions and Services.

Says Kumar Prasoon, CIO - Al Safeer, “When technology was first making inroads into business, the IT leader’s traditional job was “keeper of the infrastructure.” Over time, as technology advanced into almost every aspect of the enterprise and became indispensable to the functioning of the organization, it carved a path for the IT to the boardroom of any organization. Al Safeer is no different where expectations from the IT department have seen a sea change in the digital era.

“Technology is transforming the way we work at an ever-increasing pace. We work whenever and wherever, and data is as plentiful as air and as valuable as currency,” says Upkar Singh, Director – IT, Fidelity Information Services India.“In today's competitive world, the traditional business managers has less options to take their organizations to consistent growth path with traditional approaches. IT with emerging disruptive technologies offers the great advantages to today's organization to meet the business needs in this global market where quick deliveries with high qualities and less cost is expected. Now, IT Managers are playing the role of Business manager with their inherent capabilities of technology experience and getting involved in understanding the business needs for better business decisions. Thus, Board members are working with IT on evaluating and using right disruptive technologies to experience digital transformation for achieving their specific business agendas like Strategic Value, Revenue, Customer Satisfaction, Cost,

Jagdeep Singh Cyber Security Evangelist & Researcher

Employee Productivity and Risk.”

IT started from EDP to system builder, provider to business enabler, to digital disruptor and new revenue channel drivers. From digitization to digitalisation is a big journey.

But the change and scale up is going very fast. “Earlier one change used to take months, quarters and years. But now things are changing in lightning speed & with the advent with startup ecosystem, technology availability and change is the occurrence of hour. IT department and CIO jobs are getting disrupted in a positive way through reskilling existing staff, collaborate with start-ups and understanding and also embracing the change fast. IT becomes more a new revenue driver and model is evolving over time. Every initiative is taken positively & lot of POCs are taking place in every area of digital. The way is only change and Digital,” says Parna Ghosh, Vice President & Group CIO - Minda Industries.

Says Jagdeep Singh, Cyber Security Evangelist & Researcher, “IT function now is at the forefront of changing business needs, and adapts to unique requirements of the business quickly. IT function in most organizations is already quite sophisticated in many ways it operates. For instance, working with a DevOps and/or DevSecOps approach.

Nowadays services are independent of hardware with containerized infrastructure. Services are designed to handle huge volume of requests, and the underlying infrastructure including compute up scales up in real time.”

IT is the core business driver of many organizations. There is hardly any industry which is untouched by IT. The whole focus is how IT can be used to drive efficiency, value and transparency in any ecosystem. Organizations initially start to look at IT for automation, however they soon realize the capabilities which emerging technologies such as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence bring to the table. This has transformational impact in changing the ways business is done. Additionally, Boards and Leadership is also concerned on ways to use IT safely, in the wake of data breaches from which even the most renowned companies in the world are not untouched. n

VAR ANALYSIS

Cyber Security & Cyber Insurance

Cybersecurity spending is driven by cybercrime.

Worldwide information security (a subset of the broader cybersecurity market) spending will grow 7 percent to reach $86.4 billion (USD) in 2017 and will climb to $93 billion in 2018. That forecast doesn’t cover various cybersecurity categories including IoT (Internet of Things), ICS (Industrial Control Systems) and IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) security, automotive cybersecurity, and others as per Gartner. Digital India drive has further pushed the demand for cybersecurity talents and the leaders are reporting directly to their company boards.

The exponential rise in sophisticated cyber-attacks has driven the demand for cyber security solutions in every enterprise. Security is a complex issue, and it demands a strong understanding of the ever-changing threat landscape. Implementing properly deployed security tools necessitates well-developed security policies and properly deployed tools.

Data is the new oil and with so much data being generated every second, hackers are constantly devising ways to acquire it. This evolution of cyber threats calls for evolution in cybersecurity.

Cybercrime costs include damage and destruction of data, stolen money, lost productivity, theft of intellectual property, theft of personal and financial data, embezzlement, fraud, post-attack disruption to the normal course of business, forensic investigation, restoration and deletion of hacked data and systems, and reputational harm. cybersecurity market is much bigger than just the anti-virus and malware defense apps that are purchased or come pre-installed. Cybersecurity Ventures predicted that cybercrime will cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021. Cybercrime is creating unprecedented damage to both private and public enterprises, and driving up IT security

spending.

In India, adoption of advanced business digital technologies can lead to increase in revenues by up to 27%, increase in employment by up to 84% and enhance access to international markets by up to 65% for small and medium business (SMBs). The fact of life is people doing online transactions must be aware of the risks.

There are issues like who is the regulator of digital marketplace and the challenge is on how do we handle the consumer grievances?

Hacking and cyberattacks are compelling firms to hire talent at a premium India Inc. facing a scarcity of cybersecurity professionals, especially at the leadership level, with the compensation packages for top roles at upwards of Rs 2 crore, and in some instances, close to Rs 4 crore, inclusive of variables.

SIXTEEN PERCENT OF GOVERNMENT CIOS SAID THEY PLAN TO INCREASE SPENDING ON BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE (BI) AND ANALYTICS (16 PERCENT) AND DATA MANAGEMENT (SIX PERCENT) IN 2018. DEMAND FOR CYBERSECURITY PROFESSIONALS IS DRIVEN MOSTLY BY CONSULTING FIRMS, BANKS, GOVERNMENT,

RETAIL, BFSI COMPANIES AND IT COMPANIES. TO ENSURE A SUPPLY POOL OF CYBERSECURITY SPECIALISTS.

It has increased salaries offered for such roles by 25-35% over the past year.

Cybersecurity spending is driven by cybercrime. The unprecedented cybercriminal activity we are witnessing is generating so much cyber spending, it’s become nearly impossible for analysts to accurately track. The global cyber security market is expected to reach approximately 190 billion USD by 2015 from 85 billion USD and will be driven primarily by increasing digitisation wave and smartphone penetration. A survey says that, enterprise and the government constitute a major share of the market.

The Global supply of security products can be broadly categorized into six key segments-identity and access management(IDAM),endpoint security, web security, messaging security, security and vulnerability management(SVM) and network security. Type of security vulnerabilities differ by the layer in the Open Systems Interconnection model and hence requires appropriate control

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VAR ANALYSIS measures that form the besis of different Cyber security products.

There are some corporations who have come forward with increased cybersecurity budgets.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. doubled its annual cybersecurity budget from $250 million to $500 million. Bank of America has gone on the record stating it has an unlimited budget when it comes to combating cybercrime. Whereas, Microsoft Corp. will continue to invest over $1 billion annually on cybersecurity research and development in the coming years, according to a senior executive at the tech giant.

End-to-end encryption and balanced security

Keeping data secure while in transit, as well as when stored is crucial as part of a holistic security strategy. Securing the links between interconnected data centers is an important part of a comprehensive approach to data sovereignty.

A newer approach is to deploy encryption at the optical infrastructure layer, which will encrypt traffic without adding complex routing or security protocols. As more customers move into the cloud, encrypting data in-flight at the optical layer is becoming a popular solution for interconnecting networks.

Globalization of the internet and the ability to move data across borders is also transforming the nature of international trade means Businesses can use the internet (particularly digital platforms) to export. There is a need for enforcing the data Sovereignty laws, since many country has come-up with their own cybersecurity laws for protecting their country and boundary by introducing on how the data protection measures, and sensitive data — for instance, information on Chinese citizens or relating to national security — must be stored on domestic servers on data localization and data transfer regulations “unnecessarily onerous,” with a potential impact on cross-border trade worth billions of dollars.

Take the case of e-commerce interaction involves the purchase, payment and possible delivery online requires data such as the name, address and financial details of the customer.

The fact is Data flows enable the delivery of digital services. Such digital services can improve the efficiency and competitiveness of businesses and their capacity to compete in domestic and international markets, they claims but the fact is unknown and many countries are worried on why our countries data to to another country?

The general lack of cybersecurity safeguards in fintech companies has raised serious concerns around data protection and compliance, especially with the implementation of EU’s GDPR in May 2018. In European union (EU), the law applies to any company that deals with private data on EU citizens, even if that company is located outside of the EU and the law comes with some stiff penalties for those who fail to comply. It carries fines of up to €20 million or 4% of annual revenue for the most egregious offenses, whichever is larger. With this we can expect a great hopes that GDPR will serve as a model for ensuring that citizens have dignity and autonomy in the digital economy. I wish we had the forethought to stand up for the

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citizen’s rights in 1998 (the start of Google), but I’ll settle for 2018.

TO REMAIN COMPETITIVE IN THE NEW DIGITAL ERA, BANKS AND FINTECH COMPANIES TO FIND A WAY FORWARD THAT ALLOWS FOR TECHNICAL INNOVATION AND PERFORMANCE WITHOUT COMPROMISING SECURITY BY FOCUSING ON THE FOLLOWING KEY SECURITY AREAS. SINCE, THE FINTECH INDUSTRY IN ASIA PACIFIC IS EXPECTED TO REACH US$72 BILLION BY 2020, AT A COMPOUNDED ANNUAL GROWTH RATE (CAGR) OF 72.5 PERCENT.

The year 2018 India too is in the process of coming up with strong data protection law. Now, the most prominent provisions are contained in the Information Technology Act 2000, as amended by the Information Technology Amendment Act 2008. In particular, Section 43A addresses “reasonable security practices and procedures” and is complemented by the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules 2011.

How the cross-border data transfer requirements in place?

Some limited rules are in place for the transfer of sensitive data offshore. Transfer to another country can only occur where it is clear that sensitive data will be adequately protected (Information Technology [Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information] Rules 2011).

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued the Guidelines for Government Departments on Contractual Terms Related to Cloud Services in March 2017, to provide strategic direction for adoption of cloud services by the government. These guidelines state that all services including data will be guaranteed to reside in India.

Under Section 43-A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, a body corporate is required to pay damages by way of compensation to the affected person if it is negligent in handling sensitive data and causes any wrongful loss to that person as a result of such failure or negligence.

Section 72-A of the IT Act mandates punishment for disclosure of “personal information” in breach of lawful contract or without the information provider’s consent.

The Information Technology Amendment Act 2008 includes Section 43A on “Compensation for failure to protect data,” which states: Where a body corporate, possessing, dealing or handling any sensitive personal data or information in a computer resource which it owns, controls or operates, is negligent in mplementing and maintaining reasonable security practices and procedures and thereby causes wrongful loss or wrongful gain to any person, such body corporate shall be liable to pay damages by way of compensation to the person so affected.

Furthermore, the Government of India has established the MeghRaj Policy to direct the procurement of cloud services from private service providers for establishing a “GI Cloud”

for Government departments. As per mandatory guidelines under the Policy, service providers must meet specified security requirements relating to the hardware, networks, and software supporting the infrastructure and present Virtual Machines to a Government department.

They also must comply with any requirements specified by the CERT- IN. In October 2016, 12 cloud service providers were provisionally empanelled for two years.

Under the threat of high-profile cyberattacks and data breaches, executives and corporate Boards are starting to ask more informed questions about their organizations’ risk exposure. It is the high time for considering for the cybersecurity insurance and the time may come where the use of smart machines and robotics in the enterprise has given rise to a new role in the C-suite in recent times – Chief Robotics Officer.

Cyber security domain, spanning products and services is a nascent Industry in India and with it’s current global footprint, can emerge as a key growth opportunity in the decade ahead.

Automated Threat Intelligence An integrated defense needs to be enabled with automated threat intelligence to become a holistic system. As banks and fintech firms enter into partnerships, it will be impossible for IT teams to manually gather and assess all of this threat intelligence in a timely manner. Machine learning will be integral to this process. Cybercriminals are already leveraging automation to make attacks more effective and persistent. Likewise, machine learning and automation integrated into network security tools enable the detection and prevention of attacks in real-time, allowing organization to keep pace with cybercriminals.

Suggestions:

The increasing frequency of cyberattacks in recent times call for a quicker response time to detect, manage and tackle them. In data protection there has to be a balance between the rights of an individual to selfdetermination but at the same time we have to foster the innovation ecosystem; there has to be a process that incentivizes positively. We need positive incentives for the data controllers and processors to comply with that and then there has to be a remedial process in terms of grievance addressable etc. if there is any breach.

So that’s the broad framework on which it has to be made.

Privacy is a need by an individual. While signing up for a free account or Android we go through the terms and conditions and we press accept button. It’s a legal document. The document also says that the company owns all your data. We ourselves because of less knowledge or to get something for free or some other reason end up sharing our information. So just because they are asking to use your data and you cannot say no and have to press yes, you are being held hostage.

The data should be in India and it should be governed under the Indian Government Policies and then only the quick response can happen.

If we are going to follow some international

Cyber risk is a serious business issue that requires a solution that addresses both the technical and business challenges. This is why insurance and technology leaders are joining together to guide organizations in becoming more secure norms then it will never have that efficiency in the system and the fact is that almost all the websites are 90% hackable and none of them are 100% secured. Even iCloud that claims to be a fully secured website has been hacked. So having a secured website is a myth.

The increased interconnected world is characterised by the proliferation of digital identies, and the adoption of digital technologies and process. The technology changed everyone’s life and revolutioned the way business and governments run their adoptions and continuous evolution have brought a multitude of vulnerabilities to the fore and increased the potential impact of a cyber-attack exponentially.

Lastly, the internet continues larger social opportunities with widely interconnect, at the same time creates new business even at smaller level. Greater connectivity provides more potential attack vectors. Neither the government nor the private sector can deal with the scope and scale of cyber threats alone. It is possible with the help of collaboration. Some government actions might prove to be positive.

Data sovereignty presents technical as well as the legal challenges when moving on-premises systems and information stores to the cloud. A million dollar question comes, where your data will reside, what’s in the fine print, and whether your cloud services providers are transparent.

As the attackers vary in target, motive, levels of organization, and technical capabilities, requiring public and private organizations to adopt ever-increasing measures to prevent cyberattacks. People become victims of cybercrimes and scams because of less awareness about the cyber security impacting in their day-to-day lives. Most people are grossly negligent and they end up losing money on the internet because they end up sharing details

like passwords and pin codes with people they should not be sharing with. Said cyber expert, Pavan Duggal, an advocate in the Supreme Court.

World becomes increasingly digital, insurers have an opportunity to address the real risks that cyber poses. Secondly, as cyber risks grow, insurance firms tap business opportunity. undergoing several waves of development to expand from digital assets to encompass physical assets, as well as other asset classes such as reputation, intellectual property and business interruption. Insurance companies are offering policies to cover risks such as identity theft and cyber-stalking.

The global cyber insurance market is expanding quickly, with annual growth of around 20-25 percent. It is predicted to rise from US$2.5 billion in 2015 to US$7.5 billion by 2020, reaching US$20 billion in premiums by 2025. This growth is driven by both regulatory changes (especially in Europe, where new EU rules are expected to follow the US example of imposing heavy fines on companies that suffer data breaches. Hopefully, GDPR that want to make sure organizations effectively tackle them.

According to KPMG International’s estimates, the cyber insurance market is expected to grow to $7.5 billion, from $2.5 billion in 2015.

Various insurance companies and Banks have come out with cyber Insurance policies and Fraud budget. HDFC Ergo General Insurance Co. Ltd, for example, has a policy for cyber security of commercial entities. Recently, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance came out with a policy for individuals.

First to get into digital, then maintain the technology infrastructure and secure those digital infrastructure and to make them resilience getting insured.The cybercrime policy covers

risks related to identity theft, social media, cyber stalking, information technology (IT) theft loss, malware, phishing, email spoofing, media liability, cyber extortion, and privacy and data breach by a third party. The sum assured ranges usually between Rs1 lakh and Rs1 crore and this costs between Rs600 and Rs9,000 in premium.

Apart from financial losses arising out of data theft, such policies also cover costs incurred in payments to consultants for investigating the extent of loss, court expenses and legal fees.

Lastly, with the proliferation and vast expansion of Information Technology and related services, there is a rise in instances of cybercrimes including financial frauds, using bank cards and e-wallets in the country like elsewhere in the world and increasingly large number of Indians are falling victim to such frauds and ransomware is becoming today’s most prominent malware threat. Worldwide losses from cyberattacks will hit $2.1 trillion in coming years. Insurers are sensing an opportunity. n

CYBER SECURITY Economic impact through cyber crime

Rs34,110 cr.

Cyber crime cost per year to India

Rs. 4,210

Average cost of data breach hurting per employee in India.

53,000 Cyber security incidents observed in 2017 in India as per CERT-In.

50bn

Global number of connected devices by year 2020 (Cisco)

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Sophos looks at synchronised security as the next evolution The transformational journey for Sophos has been quite phenomenal. Ever since the acquisition of Cyberoam by Sophos, the company has seen an incredible growth.

“At Cyberoam we only used to sell Firewall, UTM, but today we have got a product range which is end-to end. So in terms of product portfolio, we have multiplied,” says Sunil Sharma, Managing Director Sales - Sophos India & SAARC. Today while approaching a customer, Sophos takes an integrated and synchronised security approach.Starting from endpoint (antivirus, anti-malware)to encryption, we cover up the entire stack right from desktop to servers.

“On the network security side, apart from UTM, we have email gateway, web gateway, and access points; we are also looking at integrating with IoT which is the future. The best part is we have been talking about synchronised security which no vendor is doing.

Vendors today are offering solutions on network side and endpoint side separately; we are the only company that started telling in 201516 that customers need an integrated approach in security and that the network side of the products need to talk to the endpoint side of the products. Most of our offerings are on the cloud, and so you get frequent updates of what is happening in other parts of the world.

That is the best thing which we could offer to our customers. With this approach, whatever products we are bringing in, either the ones developed internally or the ones acquired from outside, are integrated into the synchronised security environment as part of the portfolio. If a CIO has a solution that works in isolation, then he won’t be said to be having a good security posture. One should look at security from a more holistic manner, understand what you have and where you are moving tomorrow,” explains Sunil.

Security should be a comprehensive portfolio with a layered approach. According to Sunil, if there is an attack from the endpoint side, then the UTM at the network side should spring into action. “So as a company, if you look at our journey, from what we were and what we are today in terms of the variety of solutions that we are able to offer to our existing customers of Cyberoam and the new customers of Sophos, I think it is phenomenal,” says Sunil.

Security concerns for a CIO… Today the most important thing that CIOs and IT Heads have understood is that if they are not able to educate their users. Education plays a big part in not becoming a victim of any of malicious threats or phishing attacks. Today organizations, in spite of them spending a lot of money in making the users aware, the right awareness drive is not there.

“We have acquired a company that is in the area of machine learning. We implemented their capability in all our products. Today we are talking about deep learning, and have tried to make it a part of all our products. By putting these technologies in our products we try to ensure that we are far ahead of the cyber criminals,” Sunil says.

He further explains, “We started this company in 1985 and

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Sunil Sharma, Managing Director Sales - Sophos India & SAARC explains how security delivery will transform and why an integrated approach to security is the need of the hour are carrying 33 years of data. Deep learning is able to identify the malicious data within fractions of second. In this way, we are giving a robust security to our customers. Intercept X for instance is a deep learning product. So we are moving ahead with our products with this technology embedded in it.”

A CIO indeed has a very tough job, because technology keeps on changing and they need to keep pace with the dynamic cyber world.

Although Ransomware has always been there, people did not have any idea that WannaCry kind of an attack can happen. A survey that Sophos recently launched pointed out to the fact that ransomware has attacked a customer not just once but twice, but in spite of that 8085% customers still believe that anti-virus will do the job of securing their sensitive data and information. Fundamentally threats have come to a level where individuals are getting impacted.

“But the good thing is that as we move forward, lot of companies are understanding the importance of securing their organization. We as a security company ask our customers to be secured all the time,” sums up Sunil. n

FACE TO FACE

India serves as a major hub for Cyberbit to address global needs With cyber-attacks becoming more complex and frequent, there is a growing need for tools and resources to defend against such attacks. Cyberbit provides a complete, integrated cyber-security portfolio capable of managing and simulating the entire incident response lifecycle, from detection to response, while protecting an organization’s entire it spectrum. Adi Dar, CEO – Cyberbit shares more of this aspect with VARINDIA The security operation is tasked with defending a converged, IT& OT and IoT attack surface, often managing thousands of incidents a day.

Attacks on critical infrastructure are now a reality. Moreover, recruiting, training and retaining cyber security experts has become more challenging than ever. To keep up in this new reality, information security organizations require solutions that reduce complexity, consolidate technologies and empower the security operation to do more with less.

Cyberbit as a leading cyber security simulation and IT/OT detection and response platforms company helps security organizations address this challenging landscape with its first integrated detection, response, and training portfolio for the converged attack surface. Cyberbit’s products provide threat detection, incident response automation and orchestration, as well as training and simulation for IT, OT and IoT environments.

Cyberbit’s products are rapidly adopted by enterprises, critical infrastructure organizations, academic institutions and MSSPs around the world, aiming to simplify their security operation, increase its effectiveness, consolidate technologies and ramp up incident response team skills.

Cyberbit provides solutions for both the IT and OT space.

“There are many companies that come into the cyber security domain, but very few succeed in surviving. We want to join this very prestigious club of Israeli companies and also build our presence globally. So our focus is not only on Israel and USA,” says Adi Dar, CEO - Cyberbit.

Cyberbit has its presence in 4 major hubs – USA, Germany, Singapore and India. Its major focus is on enterprise and less on SMBs as most of its solutions are high-end.

India opportunities for Cyberbit…

Talking about the India market, Cyberbit sees great opportunities here.

“We see India as a major hub that serves the entire APAC area. That is the reason why we have opened an office here and we are already growing

in double digits. India is such a market where we can find excellent and unique talent. It is a market where we can work with global firms and design products that meet the needs of the Indian customers as well as become a hub for the global customers. So the opportunities are huge for us,” says Adi. The company has recruited a technical team that can serve its customers 24x7. Currently it has 10 employees in India.

Tech Data has recently signed a distribution agreement with Cyberbit.

Under the agreement Tech Data will now distribute Cyberbit’s entire portfolio to its valued partners in India, including ICS/SCADA Security, Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) and the Cyber Range training and simulation platform. n

PRODUCT PORTFOLIO OF CYBERBIT • SOC 3D is the first Security Orchestration and Automation platform combining automation, orchestration, and big-data powered investigation into a single and powerful incident response platform. By integrating all SOC feeds into a single pane of glass, automating incident response playbooks, and providing rich investigation dashboards, SOC 3D triples SOC efficiency, slashes time-to-respond by up to 90%, and reduces analyst escalations by 50%.

• Cyberbit SCADAShield is a leading OT detection platform, chosen by critical infrastructure organizations to protect ICS/SCADA networks including electric grids, manufacturing lines, airport and transportation companies, water utilities, power plants, oil & gas systems, smart buildings and datacenters.SCADAShield provides unprecedented OT asset discovery and visibility, detects known OT threats and vulnerabilities as well as unknown, “zero day”, OT threats and anomalies, enforces operational policies and detects configuration risks, by using 7-layer Granular Deep Packet Inspection (GDPI) of OT protocols.

• Cyberbit Range is the world’s leading cyber training and simulation platform, implementing disciplines developed for flight simulation, to provide a simulator for training incident response teams. Cyberbit Range replicates the organization’s network and its SOC environment and provides advanced training tools enabling organizations to establish and manage hyper-realistic cyber training centers.Cyberbit Range is proven to boost information security team performance, accelerate on boarding, and test people and processes in a controlled environment. The Platform is used by enterprises for training security staff in-house, as well as by higher education organizations to drive innovative cyber security programs, and by MSSPs to launch and manage cyber training facilities.

• Cyberbit Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) detects advanced, unknown and evasive threats and ransomware that bypass AV and next generation AV. It is the only endpoint detection and response product using pure behavioural analysis without relying on indicators of compromise (IOCs), external sources or connectivity. This makes Cyberbit EDR the only suitable EDR platform for organizations aiming to maintain an airgapped environment, such as government organizations, financial organizations and other sensitive entities.

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“Zebra’s brand promise is to deliver a performance edge to the front line of business” In a chat with VARINDIA, Deep Agarwal, Regional Sales Director – India, Zebra Technologies talks about the brand positioning, its present focus and the trends The brand positioning of Zebra Technologies aims to transform the business from Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) to providing enterprise asset intelligence. This will encourage company’s growth in long run.

“Our strategic brand positioning addresses the transformation of Zebra’s business from Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) to our vision of providing enterprise asset intelligence that will fuel the company’s long-term growth. The opportunity is to create a position for the brand in the hearts and minds of all our stakeholders that would capture the essence of the Zebra brand and clarify its promise to the market.

We created a positioning framework using inputs from internal and external research that articulated the brand’s relevance, targets and promise.

This enabled us to focus on the benefits — emotional and functional — of the value Zebra promises to deliver,” explains Deep Agarwal, Regional Sales Director – India, Zebra Technologies.

He further adds, “Zebra’s brand promise is to deliver a performance edge to the front line of business. At the heart of the positioning is the brand essence: “Empowering Your Performance Edge”. You can think of the brand essence as what Zebra is ultimately all about. The simplicity of the brand essence gives us the clarity needed to deliver the brand through everything we do — internally and externally.

Present focus of the company

The adoption of technology by customers has created an on-demand economy which has triggered the need for instant service delivery. And, to meet the demands, innovation began at the enterprise side where employees can take real-time decision and can also interact with the people they serve.

“Ever increasing customer adoption of technology has created the current on-demand economy in which instantaneous service delivery is becoming expected. In India for instance, the on demand economy has completely changed the game for delivery and logistics industry. We are talking express delivery options – especially when it comes to food or grocery. The on-demand food delivery industry is set to earn a revenue of US$3,080m in 2018. In fact, as per a KPMG report, the entire ecommerce related logistics segment will grow at CAGR of 48% and stand at US$ 2.2 billion by 2020.

Early attempts to address these needs sparked innovation which began at the core of the enterprise. Innovation is now exploding at “the edge” where employees make real-time decisions and interact directly with the people they serve. Zebra Technologies has long been a pioneer at the edge of the enterprise. We brought the barcode into the mainstream. Today, our portfolio of intelligent edge solutions and devices is designed to deliver a performance edge wherever the front line may be. The reason for this brand repositioning is to emphasize Zebra’s differentiator for our customers and partners globally: we empower those on the front line to maximize performance,” says Deep.

Trends

The trend that boosted the brand repositioning of Zebra Technologies was because of on-demand economy which was triggered by customer expectations. Continuing on this, Deep elaborates, “The trend that was

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Deep Agarwal Regional Sales Director – India, Zebra Technologies

MOVING AHEAD...

Zebra is delivering enhanced business outcomes to our customers by creating a performance edge at the front line by focusing on five areas: • Purpose-driven design in our product offerings - Zebra designs with front line users, workplaces, and workflows in mind, building in ease of use, reliability, and ruggedness.

• Data-powered environments - Zebra enables customers to create smart environments on the edge, better reflecting reality than traditional systems of record.

• Collaborative mobile workflows - Zebra enables those on the front line to optimize in-motion operations through connected and collaborative workflows.

• Real time guidance - Zebra links teams, assets and systems in real time to deliver best-action guidance for business-critical decisions.

• Solution Ecosystem - With our global partner ecosystem, Zebra innovates and delivers industry-tailored solutions for the enterprise edge.” the biggest catalyst for our repositioning was how customer expectations are fuelled by our increasingly on-demand economy. Customers’ desire for faster, more compelling experiences means that digital innovation within enterprises and on the edge of business is no longer an option. It’s an imperative. Our brand perceptions needed to be shifted to help our customers and partners stay relevant as digital innovation continues to transform the edge of the enterprise.” n Aparna Mullick aparna@varindia.com

VAR MOBILITY

Motorola releases “motorola one power” with Android One Motorola has brought its Android One device in India, motorola one power.

This smartphone offers users the smart, secure, and simply amazing Android

One software experience. It delivers powerful features like smart camera, an octacore processor, unlimited photo storage from Google Photos and a guarantee to deliver two years of the latest Android software updates as well as monthly security patches, all for Rs.15, 999.

This device has been designed keeping the current desires and needs of consumers in mind. To provide a consistent user experience and improved security, the motorola one power comes with Android One which has security built into its every layer.

Motorola one power will also help in keeping up with the latest versions of Android and help protect against online threats with monthly security updates.

The phone boasts an immersive 15.7cm (6.2-inch) Max Vision HD+ screen in 19:9 aspect ratio along with a storage capacity of 64 GB expandable up to 256 GB via a dedicated micro SD card slot to store all your photos, songs and movies.

With 4 GB of memory and blazing fast Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 Octa-core processor, motorola one power responds to touch in an instant and gives a seamless experience.

Optiemus Infracom launches BlackBerry KEY2 LE Optiemus Infracom has announced the launch of the BlackBerry KEY2 LE in India. The device will be exclusively available on Amazon, starting 12th October, 2018, at a price of Rs.29, 990. For the first time, the smartphone will be available in a space blue colour variant.

The device is designed for physical keyboard enthusiasts and offers the iconic BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard experience at an accessible price. Built for productivity, the new BlackBerry KEY2 LE is amongst the most secure smartphones in the world and runs the latest Android 8.1 Oreo OS. Powered by a 1.8GHz octa-core processor, the smartphone packs 64 GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 256 GB via a microSD card.

BlackBerry KEY2 LE is

equipped with a powerful 3,000mAh battery that gives over 22 hours of mixed usage.

BlackBerry KEY2 LE offers a wide array of in-built features likes panoramic selfie mode, selfie enhancements, and real-time Bokeh mode.

Samsung HMD Global launches Nokia 7.1 HMD Global has viewing experience on a strengthens its launched Nokia 7.1, the smartphone. The Nokia first smartphone to come 7.1 even offers real-time position in mid- with PureDisplay screen SDR to HDR conversion, which will take meaning you can experience range segment technology, viewing experience to the HDR quality entertainment,

Samsung has launched Galaxy A7, with a stunning design, powerful Rear Triple Camera, striking new colours and superior performance.

Galaxy A7 has been developed based on the consumer insight that nearly half of the Indian millennials use their smartphone cameras daily and their rear camera twice as much as the front camera. In the new triple camera set-up, there is an additional 8MP 120° Ultra-Wide Lens, which has the same viewing angle as the human eye. This allows users to capture unrestricted wide-angle photos exactly like what one can see.

The 24MP primary and selfie cameras also feature a new technology – Pixel Binning that allows the device to intelligently detect low-light conditions and combine four pixels into one “Super Pixel” for crisp and clear shots in the dark. The 24MP primary camera coupled with 5MP depth lens powers Live Focus feature that controls the depth of field by allowing users to adjust the effect both during and after clicking photos.

Galaxy A7 is also power-packed with exciting intelligent features. Its camera gets a scene optimizer that automatically detects any of 19 different scenarios such as food, flower, or sunset, etc and optimises each shot for the best picture composition.

Consumers can enhance their instant messaging experience by creating customized avatars using the “AR Emoji” feature by taking a picture of themselves with the selfie camera or a friend with the rear camera. They can choose from a set of GIF images for a more fun and emotive experience.

next level due to its high contrast ratio, greater clarity and enhanced colours across all of user’s content.

The Nokia 7.1’s stunning HDR display lies within a masterfully c r a f t e d , gorgeous design and offers an advanced imaging experience powered by a dual rear depth sensing camera with two-phase detection and ZEISS Optics to ensure you never miss a moment.

Juho Sarvikas, Chief Product Officer, HMD Global, says, “Almost twothirds of videos around the world are viewed on mobile which is why we’ve introduced our PureDisplay screen technology, to give everyone a premium

even when your content is not. We believe the best camera is the one you carry

with you, so we’ve designed a new imaging experience powered by ZEISS Optics, featuring rapid auto focus, thanks to the two-phase detection technology to capture your own incredible HDR photography."

The Nokia 7.1 is the first smartphone to come with PureDisplay screen technology for stunning HDR cinematic quality entertainment inside and out.

Google brings its AI-powered Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL smartphones Google has announced two new additions to the #MadebyGoogle family – Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL. Both the phones are powered

by AI for more helpful, thoughtful and personal

Alongside Pixel 3, the company also introduced Pixel Stand, a new, Qicompliant wireless charger (sold separately at Rs.6, 900). While charging in the Pixel Stand, the phone

experiences.

The smartphones are available in two sizes –5.5inch Pixel 3 and 6.3-inch Pixel 3 XL – and three colours: Just Black, Clearly White, and Not Pink. They are crafted using Pixel’s iconic two-tone design, which is refined by a softtouch glass back that feels great in the hand.

turns into a smart speaker and smart display powered by the Google Assistant, a photo frame, a control panel for smart home, and much more. If set an alarm, the screen will gently brighten over 15 minutes before alarm goes off, mimicking the sunrise and helping to wake up naturally.

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Movers & Shakers

Sunil Mahale quits Nutanix, joins ThoughtSpot

Sankarson Banerjee joins RBL

Sunil Mahale, who served as the vice president and Managing Director at Nutanix is quitting the company. Nutanix too has confirmed his departure.

Sunil Mahale is said to be joining an enterprise analytics start-up, ThoughtSpot that is into Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning and will be leading an APJ role. He had joined Nutanix in 2015 as its Indian Chief and will leave at the end of October.

At Nutanix, Sunil was responsible for building and managing the company’s India business. He was successful in assembling a team in this journey of bringing the biggest disruption seen in the datacenter space in the last decade.

Sankarson Banerjee has quit NSE as a chief technology officer and has joined Ratnakar Bank as its CIO. Banerjee has brought various transformations at NSE. He has initiated NSE’s move to a new clearing and settlement system, a new index system, a new SAAS broker front office and a new surveillance system. He also led the innovation agenda, making NSE a leader in experimenting with Artificial Intelligence and blockchain in the Indian capital markets. After a three year stint at National Stock Exchange as CTO- Projects, Sankarson Banerjee has joined RBL as the CIO. As the CIO, Banerjee will be reporting to Gurumurthy R, Head- Risk and Governance, RBL Bank.

Thomas Kurian quits Oracle

OPPO appoints Tasleem Arif as VP and Head R&D

Thomas Kurian, President of Oracle Product Development has stepped down from his current position. Kurian joined Oracle in 1996 and was responsible for leading its transition to a cloud technology company and reporting directly to Oracle executive chairman of the board and chief technology officer Larry Ellison. He has spearheaded a team of 35,000 across 32 countries and developed products that generated USD 35 billion in annual revenues, including USD 5.5 billion cloud revenue for Oracle.

There is no report on what will be the next move of Kurian. However, Kurian said while leaving Oracle that he would like "to pursue other opportunities". According to Bloomberg, Kurian's departure was preceded by disagreements with Ellison over the company's cloud strategy.

Ajit Mohan to head Facebook India

OPPO is soon going to launch an R&D Centre in Hyderabad. The R&D Centre will be brand’s first in India and reiterates its commitment to the Indian market. With the Make-for- India initiative being a priority for OPPO, the R&D Centre in Hyderabad will be focused towards gaining deeper insights about Indian consumers and market thereby building India centric innovations and customized product offerings.

OPPO has on boarded an R&D Head – Tasleem Arif. As the VicePresident and Head R&D, OPPO India, Tasleem will be leading the team to build R&D teams for OPPO which will focus on software localization for Indian consumers as well as device quality.

F-Secure appoints new Country Manager for India & SAARC

Ajit Mohan will join Facebook to head the India operations. Ajit, the current CEO of Star-India owned video streaming platform Hotstar will be taking charge as Facebook India's Vice President (VP) and Managing Director (MD) in early 2019. Earlier t h e position was taken care of by Umang Bedi who left Facebook in October 2017.

Ajit will be responsible for Facebook's India operational strategy and will be driving the company's continued investments in the country.

“I look forward to championing India in Facebook and working with stakeholders across the spectrum to help build deep and meaningful communities across the country,” said Mohan in a public statement.

F-Secure has announced the appointment of Rahul Kumar as the Country Manager for India & SAARC. Kumar is an industry veteran with over a decade of experience i n driving teams across large and diverse sales organizations. In his 11 years of rich and dynamic experience in sales and marketing, he has worked closely with companies such as Dassault Systems, Sutherland Global Services, WNS Global Services, and more. In his most recent role, he was the Country Manager and Director of data security provider WinMagic, where he spearheaded the sales, pre-sales, marketing, and post-sales support for WinMagic in India.

Cloudera names its new Country Head

D-Link appoints Abhishek Kumar as GM

Cloudera has appointed Vinod Ganesan as Country Manager for India.

He will drive Cloudera’s growth in the region, expand its customer base and help organizations enhance the measurable benefits of big data through machine learning and analytics.

With over 20 years of experience, Vinod brings with him a strong track record of creating and leading high-performing teams to spur business growth, develop C-level strategies, establish strong partner ecosystem and drive employee engagement. Prior to joining Cloudera, Vinod was Head of BFSI vertical at Hitachi Data Systems. He has also worked with other leading technology companies such as Sun Microsystems, Veritas Technologies, Compaq HP, and Ontrack Solution.

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D-Link is committed to expand its market share across all business segments.

Underlining its focus on SMB segment that continues to be a key contributor to its overall revenue, D-Link has announced the appointment of a new business head for SMB – Abhishek Kumar. This new move is significant to D-Link, as it will ensure sustainable growth while the company further strengthens its leadership position in the SMB segment.

Abhishek Kumar is a seasoned sales professional with rich industry experience of 11+ years. He is currently positioned as General Manager for SMB and Business wireless, and will be based out of D-Link corporate office in Mumbai.

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121 Chirag.Narula@techdata.com

1 Based on an October 2017 IDC whitepaper sponsored by Dell EMC, "The Business Value of Modernizing Infrastructure with Hyper-Converged Systems," wherein IDC interviewed organizations in the U.S., Germany and Australia. Average ROI assumes a discounted investment of $1.09 million over 5 years and will vary.

2 Based on an October 2017 IDC whitepaper sponsored by Dell EMC, "The Business Value of Modernizing Infrastructure with Hyper-Converged Systems," wherein IDC interviewed organizations in the U.S., Germany and Australia. 5-year cost of operations assumes IT infrastructure-related costs, IT staff time costs and user productivity costs. Results are a comparison to legacy environments or alternative solutions. Actual cost of operations will vary.

3 Based on an October 2017 IDC whitepaper sponsored by Dell EMC, "The Business Value of Modernizing Infrastructure with Hyper-Converged Systems," wherein IDC interviewed organizations in the U.S., Germany and Australia, that have deployed an average of two Dell EMC scale-out machines with ten servers and running over 60 business applications on this infrastructure.

'Source: Based on IDC Worldwide Converged Systems Tracker, Q4 2017 *Important Dell Details. Dell's terms and conditions: All sales subject to Dell's terms and conditions, see Dell.co.in/tnc. Goods by delivery only. Mistakes: While all efforts are made to check pricing and other errors, inadvertent errors do occur from time to time and Dell reserves the right to decline orders arising from such errors. More Information: Go to Dell.co.in/details. Copyright © 2018 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell Technologies, Dell, EMC, Dell EMC and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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56 pages including cover