by admin | May 25, 2021 | Banking, Branding, Business, Economy, Finance, Markets, Medium Enterprise, News, Technology
By Krishna SinhaChaudhury,
New Delhi : Cloud major Oracle, which is seeing high demand in the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), telecom and manufacturing sectors in India, has witnessed double-digit growth in the country for the past three years, a top company executive has said.
Start-ups and small and medium businesses (SMBs) are fast adopting Oracle’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in the country.
“We are seeing double-digit growth (on an average) in the country. In fact, that’s both in our NetSuite business as well as our enterprise business.
“The India Cloud business is really booming. Overall, the double-digit growth has been there for the last three years in the country, which has been the best-performing region in the Asia-Pacific for us,” Shaakun Khanna, India SaaS GTM Lead, Oracle, told IANS in an interview.
The company competes with major Cloud players like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure and provides services such as SaaS, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Data-as-a-Service (DaaS).
According to Oracle, as a corporation, the firm is on track to become the top SaaS company in the world.
The company offers innovative and proven Cloud suite of SaaS applications that enable customers to transform their business with the latest intelligent technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).
“From a perspective of completeness of our enterprise applications, there’s no one who can compare with us. So, that’s pretty much our objective and vision in India as well,” Khanna added.
According to the company, going “autonomous” gave it an edge over rivals in the country.
Larry Ellison, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Oracle, in October unveiled the second generation Oracle Cloud with autonomous capabilities, improved security and upgrades for enterprises at the company’s annual user conference “Oracle Open World 2018” in San Francisco.
According to Khanna, autonomous is probably the biggest thing because, with autonomous, the ability to engage technologies like AI, ML, UI-UX, is there.
“I think the other advantage is our diversity, because if you look at it, we are the only company of our stature in the world that has everything — it’s not just the applications that are ours, the hardware, the infrastructure, the database, everything is Oracle,” Khanna noted.
The Oracle Autonomous Database now has the capability to automatically scan for security threats and apply security updates while running to help prevent cyberattacks and data theft.
“If you look at the way Oracle built its first set of Cloud infrastructure is very similar to how Google built it, how Amazon built it, how Microsoft built it, almost everyone built it and we are doing exactly the same.
“Larry and the other founders who started Oracle — they were working for a CIA project and then they came out and started Oracle. So we understand security from our DNA,” said Mitesh Agarwal, Vice President, Key Accounts, Oracle India.
“Almost all of our competitors have never managed to move an enterprise workload to the Cloud — not a single one of them. They all have peripheral applications that have moved to the Cloud. That’s still only about 5-6 per cent of the workloads in the world,” Agarwal informed.
(Krishna SinhaChaudhury can be contacted at krishna.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Economy, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Markets, News, SMEs, Startup Basics, Startup Financing, Technology
By Nishant Arora,
New Delhi : A decade ago, Artificial Intelligence (AI) was unknown to many of us mortals. Lately, however, AI and related buzzwords like Machine Learning (ML) or Big Data Analytics are more visible — staring at us from clumsy signage boards hanging at the entrance of private IT training institutes.
The bare fact is that this new category of intelligence is undoubtedly diversifying human thinking rather than replacing it as some of us fear. The technology, especially the conversational one, has shown tremendous potential — the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector being the early adopter.
Sensing the immense opportunity ahead, nearly 200 AI start-ups in India are today innovating and creating AI-based solutions for various industries.
Chatbots are slowly becoming the default customer support solution for most services and Mumbai-based Haptik is one such AI-based platform — building applications for consumers, publishers and enterprises.
Having grown 10 times in revenue in just one year, its partners and clients include Coca-Cola, HDFC Life, Samsung, Edelweiss Tokio, Goibibo, Amazon Pay, ClubMahindra, ICICI Bank and Tata Docomo, among others.
According to Kartik Poddar, Business Head, Haptik, they are amazed as well as encouraged by industry’s response and awareness regarding AI technologies in the country.
“The days of concept-selling are over and organisations are deploying AI tech for real use-cases within their businesses, with substantial knowledge regarding its general capabilities and purpose-oriented utility,” Poddar told IANS.
More than 50 per cent of Indian retail companies will be operating on AI by 2020, said PeopleStrong, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) HR technology and solutions company.
According to an Accenture analysis, AI has the potential to add $957 billion to India’s economy in 2035.
“We are just scratching the surface of the possibilities and applications of AI in business. There is huge demand and a lot of open source tools are available for start-ups to use and build interesting applications on,” informed Poddar.
For Arun Gupta, Chief Executive Officer at MoMagic Technologies — an AI and Big Data-driven mobile tech firm — India is currently witnessing an all-time high and growing online user base, especially the millennials.
The abundance of data and increased need of its error-free analysis has forced companies to turn towards technologies like AI, resulting in more and more start-ups diving into AI-driven business offerings.
According to Gupta, the digital wave is bringing in a behavioural change and technologies like AI and ML play a key role in analysing that change via the data captured
“In a country like India, with its huge population and vastly diverse demographic spread and customers available on multiple connected devices, AI today presents a big opportunity for businesses across sectors,” Gupta told IANS.
The cost of building AI-powered experiences has been reduced with disruptive technologies being democratised.
Poddar said that companies are mandated to work with innovative start-ups to develop and implement AI-driven solutions to meet specific business challenges.
“We have seen some really interesting AI applications in retail, e-commerce, healthcare, travel and banking, etc. Even the government sector has warmed up to incorporating AI-driven solutions in various public sector initiatives,” the Haptik executive told IANS.
Pune-headquartered digital entertainment firm JetSynthesys is not only developing in-house technology for AI in gaming but also scouting opportunities for new AI start-ups which can address various problems in India.
“Adoption of AI is definitely on the rise so there is space for the right start-up. Also, start-ups in India need to benchmark against global activity in this space which has also heated up significantly in the past two years,” noted Rajan Navani, MD and CEO, JetSynthesys.
According to him, manufacturing, media and entertainment, logistics, urbanisation and smart cities — along with education and healthcare — will benefit significantly from adoption of AI in the country.
A new Tata Communications study says AI is now being viewed as a new category of intelligence that can complement existing categories of emotional, social, spatial and creative intelligence.
“What is transformational about multiplicity is that it can enhance cognitive diversity, combining categories of intelligence in new ways to benefit all workers and businesses,” said study co-author Vinod Kumar, CEO and Managing Director at Tata Communications.
The seeds of AI are being sown in India and start-ups await big financing deals and dollars from venture capitalists which helped neighbouring China harbour one of the biggest clusters of AI start-ups in the world, after the US.
“Big industry players that have the financial strength and business experience to invest in AI research and development typically lead the strategic charge on global competitiveness for their country,” the Accenture analysis noted.
Will they take cognizance of the thriving Indian start-up scene in AI which has the potential to “innovate” for the world?
(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in )
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Banking, Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Corporate finance, Corporate Governance, Economy, Finance, Investing, Markets, News
By Krishna SinhaChaudhury,
Mumbai : When it comes to digital transformation, sectors like the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), and telecom, will become the growth engines for India and IBM is ready to meet the technology requirements, a top company executive has said.
“The biggest growth for us is going to come from the financial services. We are going to consolidate telco and look at new revenue streams because telco is an industry that is turning on its head. There’s going to be a lot of conversations around integrated telcos which is getting into network domains,” Lula Mohanty, Managing Partner, IBM Global Business Services, told IANS in an interview.
IBM organised a two-day “The THINK Forum” here on February 12-13 attended by senior IBM and key business leaders from across the country who discussed the future of business and technologies that will shape the economy and society.
“The third vertical which we are very interested in is what’s going on in the domain of the retail industry in terms of Internet of Things (IoT) platforms as a service on products,” she noted.
When it comes to skilling and preparing a workforce for New-Age technologies like Artificial Intellignece (AI), robotics, Big Data and IoT, IBM is working with some of the state governments via skill development centres.
“We are also in talks with NITI Aayog and other learning and development organisations to understand what is the platform that we can put in place to skill more people,” Mohanty told IANS.
IBM recently announced a collaboration with the Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC) to spur emerging technology skills in the domestic telecom industry.
IBM’s student developers’ programme (career education) that infuses software capabilities that are industry-specific and market-relevant has helped more than 24,000 students and faculty members develop industry-relevant software capabilities.
Present in India since 1951, IBM India has expanded its operations with regional headquarters in Bengaluru and offices across 20 cities.
With the aim to help Indian enterprises deliver next-generation consumer experiences, global consulting agency Bluewolf, an IBM company, also announced a new practice in the country with “Salesforce”, a global leader in the customer relationship management (CRM) solutions.
The dedicated practice will leverage Bluewolf’s expertise and delivery capabilities in Augmented Reality (AR) and innovation strategy — combined with IBM’s leadership in cognitive and design-thinking with “Watson” — to help clients connect customer experience to value.
IBM currently manages 100-200 customers for the Salesforce practice in the country and expects the number to grow significantly in the coming years as enterprises and government agencies begin riding on digital transformation initiatives.
“India is one of the highest-growth markets for Salesforce,” said Sunil Jose, Senior Vice President and Country Leader, Salesforce India.
“We will continue to double our investments in the country. We welcomed our 1,000th employee in India in November last year. We will hire 1,000 more employees in Hyderabad alone by 2020,” Jose told IANS.
“We already have a strong base in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi. India is the market that is continuously growing for us,” Jose added.
Highlighting the strategy for the country, he said: “To drive business value, success and growth for its customers, Salesforce will focus on customer-centric digital transformation.”
The customer relationship management (CRM) solutions provider also has a “Centre of Excellence” in Hyderabad, which is its first major centre in India.
(Krishna SinhaChaudhury can be contacted at Krishna.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Corporate finance, Markets, Technology
New Delhi : Cloud computing and using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to process vast amounts of disparate data were most picked up in 2017 that brought success for the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector in India, Microsoft said on Tuesday.
“The year 2017 witnessed a revolution in the BFSI sector as far as technology integration is concerned. A digital culture shift, designing a modern workplace that harnesses digital intelligence and enabling mobility are key aspects of it,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The rise of self-service technology for partners and consumers drastically reduced the servicing cost for enterprises and improved customer satisfaction.
On these lines, Microsoft launched Kaizala, a mobile app and service for Android, iOS and Windows phones, designed for large group communication and work management.
The app coordinates work with the entire value chain, including field employees, vendors, partners and customers on-the-go.
In 2017, Cloud offered enterprises its unique advantages on three levels — making banks agile by rapidly upgrading to Cloud-based technology, focusing on user adoption by identifying use cases based on work profiles and transforming business by process alignment with the new tools — all of which together ultimately enhanced, both branch and customer experience.
AI transformed both front and back office operations with its self-improving programmes.
Managing data has a lot to do with security and banking and finance institutions are sitting on a dearth of confidential information that requires technology intervention.
Stable and high performing ‘BankingEasy’ applications, enabled small to mid-size banks to offer services and digital experiences such as centralised clearing, multi-channel banking, relationship banking, real time dynamic reporting, among others.
Mobility and automation innovation in technology enabled banks in their turnaround time and to minimise errors. This will be a big boon for the banking and financial institutions in the coming year, Microsoft said.
—IANS
