Digital First Magazine – November – December 2020 – India Edition – 10 Most Inspiring CTOs in India

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INDIA EDITION

Digital, Technology and Business Insights

Ravi Mathur, FEATURING INSIDE

CTO, Sam ad h an I n s u r an ce

Anees K. M.,

Sachin Nigam,

CTO, iD Fresh Food (India) Pvt. Ltd.

CTO & Co-founder, Goavega Software

Chiraj Boonlia,

Shirish Surti,

G ro u p CTO , E m b a s s y G ro u p

CTO, Ch ai P oi n t

Praveen Dewan,

Subrahmanya S M,

CTO , E fko n I n di a

CTO, H y pe L u x u r y M obi li t y

A SHIJU RAWTHER C I O A N D C T O , C A R E R AT I N G S LT D .

NOV - DEC 2020

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www.digitalfirstmagazine.com

Nov - Dec 2020

Vol - 1 Issue - 3

Inspiring CTOs in India Special (India Edition) Editor in Chief

Dr. Manoj Varghese

Managing Editor Rose Mary

Consultant Editors

Dr. Johny Andrews Anjana K Shyam S

Navya Venkatesh Stanly Lui Emma James

Editorial Enquiry: admin@digitalfirstmagazine.com

Art and Design Ajay K Das

Sales & Marketing

Jyoti Kumari Nikhil V A

Arati Waghmare Hanna George

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Dubai Focus Innovation Technologies FZE P.O. Box 48299, Dubai Silicon Oasis Dubai, UAE Bangalore Connecta Innovation Pvt. Ltd. Carlton Towers, Old Airport Road, Bangalore - 560008 India Digital First Magazine is a digital magazine published by Connecta Innovation Private Limited. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed in the content are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Connecta Innovation Private Limited or any of its members or associates. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for the advertisements and all representation of warranties made in such advertisements are those of the advertisers and not of the publisher. Digital First trademark is owned by DFG Digital First Infotech Pvt Ltd. and Connecta Innovation Pvt Ltd. has permission to use Digital First brand name.

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MANAGING EDITOR’S NOTE

How Tech Ninjas Saved the Indian Market from Upending Itself

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his year was as unpredictable as it can get. From a deadly pandemic and murder hornets to witnessing the death of several celebrities and respected individuals, 2020 was definitely a mood of its own. While the world was grappling with sudden changes in lifestyles and working environments, technology continued to do what it does best. Evolve. Amid the chaos, humans learned to stay connected. We stretched technological barriers to make up for the mandatory 6 feet gap.

Working hours and styles changed. In the midst of frantic virtual boardroom meetings and new workplace ethics, technology experts truly shone. They knew what was to be done. They could decipher what the hour of the need was and comprehensively work towards it.

They proved that it was not simply they were the ‘Chief Technology Officer’. They took a step-by-step approach to digital transformation, having already visualized an

unpredictable future and lying the foundation stones. They now reviewed the current structure, tweaked it according to the company requirements, helped the marketing team to level up their game, and create a win-win situation for the company.

This issue of Digital First Magazine aims to showcase those alpha geeks who have managed to have their fingers in too many pies and still deftly balance the tray. Mr. A Shiju Rawther, featured in the cover, is a brainbox of ideas.

It truly was enlightening to listen him talk about his take on technological innovation. The issue also covers several other tech experts and industry masters who have shared their views on all things tech and digital.

We hope this issue finds you in good health and positivity.

Looking forward to good times, the Digital First Magazine team wishes you Season’s Greetings and a Happy New Year!

Rose Mary

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Digital CXO FirstOUTLOOK Magazine Higher Education Digest Nov - May Dec2020 2020 November

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S T N E T N O C

16 COVER STORY

A SHIJU RAWTHER C I O A N D C T O , C A R E R AT I N G S LT D .

SCALING NEW HEIGHTS THROUGH PERSISTENT LEARNING

Anees K. M. CTO, iD Fresh Food (India) Pvt. Ltd.

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THE WIZARD BLURRING THE LINES BETWEEN REAL ESTATE AND TECH

Chirag Boonlia Group CTO, Embassy Group

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THE SMART TECHIE WORKING TOWARDS A SMART INDIA

Praveen Dewan CTO, Efkon India

38 68 WORKING TOGETHER FOR A LUXURIOUS USER EXPERIENCE

44 A PROGRAMMER WITH A CODE TO SOLVE ONE OF THE BIGGEST PROBLEMS IN INDIA

Ravi Mathur CTO, Insurance Samadhan

56 REDEFINING TECHNOLOGY THROUGH INNOVATION

Sachin Nigam CTO and Co-Founder, Goavega Software

60 REVAMPING THE RETAIL TECH INDUSTRY WITH CONTINUOUS LEARNING AND TEAM BONDING

Shirish Surti CTO, Chai Point

Subrahmanya S M CTO, Hype - Luxury Mobility

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Social Media Listening: Why brands should use it before, during and after a crisis

DDoS Protection Like Airbags in Your Car

Remedying Employee Burnout in the Advertising Industry

Ranjit Nair CEO, Germin8

Nikhil Taneja Managing Director-India, SAARC & Middle East, Radware

IN MY VIEW

Top 5 tips For Indian Financial Advisors

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Agnelo Joseph Head - Learning Academy, Tattva

LEADER’S INSIGHTS

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Anurag Chaudhary Founder & CEO, The Integrity Webs

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EXPERT’S OPINION

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Myths and Facts of the Digital Marketing Industry

Changing Skillsets and The Evolution of Learning & Development

The importance of NextGeneration Plumbing Solutions in India

Jay Rathod Founder, Koffeetech Communications

Neeti Sharma Senior Vice President, Teamlease Services

Anup Kumar Tripathi General Manager, Sloan India Private Limited

MOST-INSPIRING

CTOs IN INDIA

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t is not an option anymore; either business go digital or perish. When even roadside vendors chose QR codes instead of cash payments, you can be sure that technology has permeated to the lowest of the strata. In this scenario, it is only prudent that business organizations invest in scaling up their digital transformation plans.

As companies accelerated digital transformation efforts and rushed to embrace new technologies like Cloud, automation, mobile payments, everythingas-a-service, AI and 5G, the security risk also rose as attackers increased their efforts to exploit any system weaknesses. IT departments all over the world soon got to work, adjusting their budgets and strategies.

With uncertainty weighing down, the role of a CTO, Chief Technology Officer, is pretty Ă la mode, as they are at the forefront, battling cyber security threats, lying down better silo ground rules for all core operations and basically connecting all departments through the invisible thread of technology. The role of a CTO is not fixed in stone, and hence they are ever changing. They are constantly learning, unlearning and revamping their existing plans.

We understood the importance of naming these technological prodigies, and hence came up with the issue, ‘10 Most-Inspiring CTOs in India’. The names mentioned in this issue have set milestones and made it impossible for us to not notice them. We hope that the technological acumen, leadership skills and visionary power of these tech brainiacs hold out to be beacons of change for their peers and successors in 2021.

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Name

Designation

Company

CTO

iD Fresh Food India

Group CTO

Embassy Group

Mukund Jha

CTO

Dunzo

Praveen K. Dewan

CTO

Efkon India

Rahul Chari

Founder & CTO

PhonePe

Ravi Mathur

CTO

Insurance Samadhan

Sachin Nigam

CTO and Co-Founder

Goavega Software

Shiju Rawther

CTO and CIO

Care Ratings

Shirish Surti

CTO

Chai Point

Subrahmanya S M

CTO

Hype Luxury Mobility

Anees KM

Chirag Boonlia

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COVER STORY First Magazine 16 Digital July -2020 Nov Dec 2020

A SHIJU RAWTHER

CIO AND CTO, CARE RATINGS LTD.

A chapter in acumen,

Dedication &

Leadership

By Rose Mary

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T It is very important to constantly update ourselves with the newest trends and platforms to keep up with innovation and competition

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o create anything of value, one must make sure that the foundation is solid and masterfully laid. However, equal importance must be given to the pillars that must be strong enough to hold up the structure. For A Shiju Rawther, the four pillars to a successful digital transformation strategy are Zero Tolerance, Customer Experience, Information Security, and Orchestration. While the zero-tolerance tower has focus areas of Engineering, Scalability and introducing new platforms, ensuring that the setup is built on robust foundations and can be scale as per business growth, the customer experience tower focuses on innovations and implementing future technologies to enhance the experience of internal and external customers by delivering the services through superior technology. Information security is the third pillar in the roadmap that focuses on the design, build and operation phase. This also includes that everything under technology comes under compliance, auditing, GRC team governance, and is always protected. The fourth pillar, Orchestration, aims to bring in more orientation, synergy and automation.

Currently the CIO and CTO of CARE Ratings Ltd., Shiju is responsible for spearheading the complete IT function, Technology strategies, enterprise-wide IT transformation and designing the digital roadmap for CARE Ratings and its subsidiary business functions.

“Role of cybersecurity for CARE Ratings is like a brake in a car. The security awareness levels are heightened considering the scenarios across the financial industry with the threat vectors that everyone is facing today.

The very basic thing for data protection is to follow the basic hygiene fundamentals i.e., basic hardening, patching, data classification and access control. The access to the data is strictly role based. Data access is allowed to the people who are authorized to access for official purposes. Apart from that, there are multiple technology solutions implemented and an in-house team that monitors 24x7 to detect anomalies quickly so that we can prevent external threats before it’s too late.

That’s how we keep our environment secure. This year we are working on many automation projects along with building Data Lake platform. We are working on the robotic process automation using cognitive services so that manual dependency reduces. Automation will also help us achieve cost reduction while providing better customer service,” he says.

Passionate about exploring and working on emerging and new technologies, Shiju takes great pleasure in learning technology trends that increase

Currently Reading Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography Written by Guillem Balague Guillem writes effortlessly about leadership, work ethics, and the implementation of a philosophy. Filled with heart-warming references, the book highlights the impact that good leadership can have on a team, a football club and indeed, a city.

My biggest takeaway from this book is the application of the ownership mentality wherein everybody is encouraged to think of the club as their own and be involved in their most optimum capacity. Excellent leadership brings out the best in everyone involved in the team and no one embodies that excellence better than Pep Guardiola.

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Awards & Accolades •

India’s

Best

CIOs

2016

by

CIO

Association of India with a joint initiative with Dell EMC •

Best CIO of the Year 2016 by Computer Society of India, Mumbai Chapter

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Top 100 CISO of India by CISO Platform

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Security Leader of the Year 2016 by Data Security Council of India

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work efficiencies and business progress, employee productivity and success. “I love seeing the big picture mapped out for technology needs. Whether its Cloud, mobility, analytics or the future needs of a department on cognitive-based solutions.

Efficiency is a key element for me, and I have a passion for finding new and more productive ways to reach goals. Mapping out the technological solutions for the future is an important way to ensure efficiency is reached in every process possible,” he says.

He further says that it is very important to constantly update ourselves with the newest trends and platforms to keep up with innovation and competition. Staying prepared to take on new opportunities and

The very basic thing for data protection is to follow the basic hygiene fundamentals i.e., basic hardening, patching, data classification and access control

challenges will keep one having an upper hand, especially in terms of AI and ML, analytics and making use of predictive technology. Furthermore, Shiju points out that the key priorities for him in the year 2021 is to align IT with the business and enhance the customer experience.

His team and he is on the journey of Digital transformation by revamping existing technology footprints along with Cloud adoption, building new digital platforms, data lake & enhance analytical capabilities using cognitive solutions. With this journey, equal focus will be given on Compliance, Security & Governance to keep all the data sets of customer and employees safe.

Shiju holds having a mindset of ‘ownership’ crucial to his working style. This means that he regards his workplace and company as his own entrepreneurial venture, where he has devoted his time and resources.

This thinking brings forth a mentality that makes it easier to reach goals and set milestones, not only for oneself but also for the team. This feeling of working for his own company than for someone else is what makes him stay always on top of his game. Furthermore, he also believes in the delegation. Delegative leadership, wherein allocating work keeping in mind people’s strengths and abilities to scale up, giving people tasks and taking pride in how they tackle issues and find solutions is one of the strong points of a true leader. Shiju strongly believes and assimilates the kind of the leader who stands by the team and shields them in times of need and provides the right fodder for growth can bring out the best in people.

Voicing his thoughts on the pandemic and the working culture that the corporate sector adopted, he says that the pandemic has taught driven home the importance of technology. Making solutions and customer deliverables tech-dependent is the way forward. We can achieve a lot by connecting with our customers online and catering to their specific requests in line with their current needs.

The pandemic has also taught us the need to engage with employees and to keep them motivated on an ongoing basis and help them to deliver to their best.

Remote working has saved many hours of travel time for employees and in turn, increased productivity. Though it has adversely affected the work-life balance too as there is no cut off time for the work since the expectation is that you are always available.” Shiju explains.

As a parting note, he adds that with technology having a huge impact on our lives, it is important to have a good work-life balance and to know when to switch off and recharge the mind.

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LEADER’S INSIGHTS

Myths and Facts of the Digital Marketing Industry Jay Rathod, Founder, Koffeetech Communications

Jay Rathod is an ardent marketeer with the digital medium as his arsenal with a decade long corporate business management and entrepreneurship experience. Spearheading the operations of his passion project turned entrepreneurial venture - Koffeetech Communication, Jay doubles as a chief strategist, mentor, business development lead for the brand.

An avid digital marketer, he is the brains behind a plethora of successful resultsdriven digital campaigns. Hailing from a business lineage himself, Jay foresaw the disruption the digital marketing industry was set to create and decided to pursue a career in this booming industry turning a computer engineer to a self-taught marketing maven with no formal education in the subject.

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You cannot predict exactly which digital marketing tool will turn into success until and unless you experiment with it

he marketing industry has evolved by leaps and bounds in the last decade empowering companies and brands to upscale its promotion strategy creating well-rounded visibility. In the evolution of the industry, digital marketing has emerged as the most successful, targeted and result-driven tool. They say, ‘Consumer is King’, and today’s consumer has adopted the digital way which compelled the industry to change its approach from traditional to digital.

The digital marketing industry has swiftly grown and shifted from being a supplementary marketing tool to a primary tool in no time.

Digital Marketing in itself is a comprehensive term covering multiple aspects including content, social media, email marketing PPC, SEO and much more. There are some aspects of digital marketing moulded-in myths and misconceptions that the audience and businesses share, and which calls to be addressed.

Following are the points which attempt to debunk a few myths about the digital marketing industry in the hope of shedding light on the potential of digital marketing in your promotion bank!

Myth 1. Digital marketing can only accelerate large business models Fact 1. Digital marketing is an effective aid for businesses of any scale Having an online presence has become mandatory for all businesses in today’s techsavvy world. If you do not have a digital profile it is safe to say that your brand existence is compromised with negligible brand recall.

Having an online presence is the best way to communicate with your customers directly, engaging with them will in return boost your sales graph. This is one of the most common myths among the small businesses, but in fact, one can sell directly to their targeted customers even without having a physical presence.

Myth 2. Moving omnichannel is the key Fact 2. Focus on required channels at a time Though omnichannel marketing offers a competitive advantage, at the same time it is not as simple as standard marketing and is a

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Digital Marketing in itself is a comprehensive term covering multiple aspects like content, social media, email marketing PPC,SEO etc

complex marketing strategy. Omni expects all the channels to deliver uninterrupted customer experience. But on the other hand, emphasizing more on 1 or 2 channels at a time shall deliver promising results to the brand. Moving on these targeted channels can be leveraged to go cross channel in future activities.

Myth 3. Digital marketing is the shortcut to earn money Fact 3. Digital marketing is an acquired skill which needs to be horned over time Like every other job, digital marketing too demands time and learning before diving into the industry. The more you learn the basics and practice on-hand techniques, the more is the scope to find success in the market.

To earn money through digital marketing, you need to invest lots of effort in building and marketing your website, constantly engaging the audience by writing quality content. Practising these patterns will start to develop traffic which will lead to earning money based on a traffic basis.

Myth 4. Digital Marketing can result in overnight success Fact 4. Like all other tools, Digital Marketing also shows the result with time This is the most popular myth that the businesses and the clients believe in. Digital marketing techniques generally take time to be effective. For instance, once you post content on your website or page, Google takes

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time to index it and then it’s fully dependent on the SEO techniques you use to rank the content.

All the methods, right from posting to getting indexed by the search engine and getting shared on the social media platforms requires time. This is the reason why patience is the key in digital marketing, and you should be patient until the end results reach.

Myth 5. Digital PR doesn’t add value to the business Fact 5. Digital PR improves visibility for your brand Public Relations is a proven tool of marketing which has only enhanced a brands portfolio. With time, PR has evolved and chosen a new channel of promotion that is the mighty web! The essence, impact and the visibility of Digital PR as opposed to traditional PR has quadrupled with added benefits like backlinks, SEO advantages, wider reach to name a few. Avenues of PR have also increased with the scope of the digital space with blogs, podcasts, emails and more to reach existing and potential customers.

Digital Marketing is a boon for today’s interconnected world and has evolved with the rise of technology. You cannot predict exactly which tool will turn into success until and unless you experiment with it. Thus, digital marketing is effective and brings returns in the long run.

Only if you get rid of the myths of digital marketing, it rules to excel a business towards success.

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Anees K. M.

CTO, iD Fresh Food (India) Pvt. Ltd.

Scaling New Heights Through Persistent Learning

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he COVID-19 pandemic has created a unique crisis for businesses and business leaders as well. Redistributing disrupted supply chains, enabling a remote workforce, safeguarding essential employees, and breaking bad news to them, as well as maintaining their energy so that they can continue to inspire and motivate, the crisis is bringing out the best in the leaders.

Believing that a leader can’t have just one style of leadership with everyone they are working with, Anees K. M. , CTO, iD Fresh Food (India) Pvt. Ltd., treats every individual in his organization differently based on their capabilities and style of working, as he feels the best approach for any leader is to understand the individual and lead

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Though AI and ML will continue to lead the business segment it was being used in, the way they were using the technology is set out to change

them accordingly. A leader should also encourage its team to be up-to-date with the technology. He says, “People do magic with the right guidance and I have experienced this throughout my career. I believe that technology can be taught if we have the right people with a good attitude and logical skills”.

Having completed his Masters in Computer Application, Anees completed his MS Degree from BITSPilani and PMP while he was working. “I keep updating myself with knowledge and I keep joining courses so that my learning is systematic. I continue my learning journey and this time it’s an MBA from IIM-K. I am a strong believer that we should allocate at least 5% of our earnings for learning”. A double graduate, Anees completed his masters in 1999, during the recession, which was quite a setback for him. He reminisces, “It was challenging to

get an academic project in any company. I got an offer of employment even before the academic project, but the company couldn’t take me and others on-board due to recession”.

Deciding to do his project with no shortcuts, Anees went from company to company in its search. Even after having better academics and logical skills, he struggled to get a project of his choice. When he finally did get an option of his choice in a start-up, there were a lot more obstacles he had to power through. He recalls, “It was a time when the internet was a luxury and we had to wait for a term with the technical director to download any material from dialup internet, which was in speed of bytes per second. Systems-level programming was challenging in those times as we need to memorize the syntax as no search/IntelliSense was available. I used this opportunity,

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People do magic with the right guidance and I believe that technology can be taught if we have the right people with a good attitude and logical skills

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put extra effort, and learned the core of system programming. My voice communication project impressed the employer and they absorbed me.

The knowledge I gained in this start-up helped me throughout my career”.

During his time in the core software industry, Anees ensured that he was never in his comfort zone, by updating himself with the right mix of technology and management skills, build and lead a center of excellence team, changing the architectural/technology stack, and moving from conventional to agile development model with distributed teams across geographies.

“I also had to take multiple roles of product management, program management, coach and trainer, etc. alongside my regular work,” adds Anees.

Throughout his career, Anees ensured that he focused on the unknown and delegated the rest of the knowns to his team members accordingly.

He is actively involved in leadership meetings across functions and helps them in making their day-to-day functions easier and faster with his alternative technology solutions. Despite it being a major shift in his career, when Anees was offered the role of CTO fromiD Fresh Food (India) Pvt. Ltd., a very unique FMCG company, he joined them and took it as a challenge. He remarks, “It was an opening for me to associate closely and learn about each function and their activities. I even took up the additional responsibility of HR head role for about a year”.

Triumphing Despite all Odds With perks and perils, the initial phase of remote working was quite productive and people loved it as they didn’t have to travel. As time passed, the extended remote working norm started going down the spiral as everyone started to miss working from the office. Anees points out, “The impact of being together that is developed in teamwork is diminishing as people started to have to work as an individual contributor with lesser collaborated and low team spirit”.

Having seen the WFH set up in the previous organizations he worked in as a regular practice

with VPNs and other technologies placed for the very purpose, Anees adds, “As we had geographically distributed teams, we are used to having CD/CI, static code scan and automated Integration Testing. These help us to check productivity and quality of the code getting checked in by remote working employees”.

Anees ensured the servers aren’t vulnerable to data theft, data loss, and data manipulation, by ensuring penetration testing and secure code scan. With cyber-attacks being possible even in the most sophisticated cybersecurity in place, Anees points out, “We work with our partners for Mean Time To Recover (MTTR) with the restoration of most appropriate data based on the checkpoint”.

Currently working for a start-up in the manufacturing business of fresh food that is natural and made without any chemicals or preservatives, Anees helps in meeting consumer needs while minimizing wastage. He informs, “We have a technology in place that predicts the number of products- SKU wise to be placed at every single store every day based on past data.

This is a unique kind of technology which was custom made. Initially, the use of data was just being used for financial purposes. Now there is not just prediction of product placement, but also for raw material procurement and production”.

Taking an unprecedented change that is already starting to show up, the tech industry has been greatly influenced by the ‘new normal’. Though Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will continue to lead the business segment it was being used in, the way they were using the technology is set out to change. Technologies like AI-based NLP, Blockchain technologies and IoT has been quite prevailing and growing in the fresh food industry. Adapting to what a business needs rather than forcefully fitting the business to the technology, Anees’ interest in AI/ML tech space uncovered a lot of information that others did not know much about and helped business leaders to take the right decision at the right time.

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Chirag Boonlia Group CTO, Embassy Group

The Wizard Blurring the Lines Between Real Estate and Tech

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he Real Estate industry in India has still got a long way to go when it comes to leveraging technology. Till recently, the industry had embraced technology at a superficial level only. However, Chirag Boonlia, Group CTO, Embassy Group is hopeful that industry is genuinely poised to leverage the transformational impact of technology. This young techie is on a mission to accelerate the business transformation for his organization and the industry as a whole, by completely focusing on the digital transformation journey of the various catalysing groups across the various asset classes ranging from commercial business parks, residential, services, co-living, co-working, education, hotels and restaurants alongside an entire spectrum of IT for the group companies including ERP, CRM, Mobility, digital footprints, Infrastructure, Network & other peripheral systems. As exhaustive as that

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There is no such thing as Digital Transformation Strategy, it’s just a business strategy in this digital world

one-liner sounds, Chirag is gamechanger who has made changes happen. Paradoxically, it’s not the tech that excites him. Instead, it’s the transformation impact of the technology and his very belief that invariably the way things are evolving, we would end up having only two functions in any organization and that is innovation & marketing and tech would be the one which would give impetus to innovation.

Chirag’s professional journey has been a roller coaster, grounding him and shaping him to the well-informed and insightful professional he is now. “My career started with me taking some tough calls early in my career and walking the less trodden path by opting for a coding-based internship at a start-up as against interning with marquee brands while doing MBA to quitting a marquee Indian consulting MNC to joining an international product MNC. I believe that persistence, perseverance and determination to contribute beyond the four walls of KRA’s, catalysed with a little bit of luck, gave me the opportunity to transform businesses transcending across multiple domains,

technologies & organizations ranging from established to institutional backed start-ups. This is why I hold success to be a journey and not a destination. However, successful or not, I take pride in all my work, big or small, as I did carry them out with boundless passion and a firm belief to add value to whatever I do. Be it as small as ‘You are an inspiration like the way Sachin was to the team and the nation’ or as big as ‘CTO of the year’, each of these are special and treasurable moments for me,” says Chirag. He is someone who charts his course of action on the adage ‘The Most Important Shot in Golf is the Next One’; in this ever-changing and evolving world, its pertinent to learn, unlearn, and relearn to survive and thrive.

Chirag concentrates on building trust and relationship with his teammates and subordinates and then share his vision with them. He is the type of the leader who believes in empowering his team to run with the baton for the goals with his intermittent supervision and guidance. He also holds that although working from home, or anywhere for that matter, is possible and proven to succeed, it is not

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Currently Reading I have Elon Musk’s biography by my bedside for quite some time as I am re-reading it now. I have also been inspired by Straight from the Gut by Jack Welch.

sustainable. “I believe that we human beings are wired for social interaction and lack of it would lead to a detrimental impact on our entire ecosystem. Being in the IT industry, this isn’t a novel concept as such however transcendence of this beyond IT, of course, is a game-changer of sorts.”

Chirag is of the opinion that technology is no longer going to be relegated to the orthodox IT department. It has now seamlessly permeated into the boardroom and this is unprecedented. “IT department won’t be driving force for the change anymore instead it would be the business counterparts leading to a more significant jump in success to failure ratio of the transformation programs. There is no such thing as Digital Transformation Strategy, it’s just a business strategy in this digital world. I have been working tirelessly with my business counterparts at Embassy group across the asset classes ranging from commercial business parks, residential, services, co-living, coworking,

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restaurants etc in the real estate domain. Lots of gamechanging consumer experience applications are the focus for now for our residential, co-living & commercial business park extended customers & many of them would arguably be the first of sort in the industry,” opines Chirag.

Looking forward to 2021, Chirag is optimistic that although the pandemic has been a bane to the human population, events of this magnitude always manifest within itself lots of opportunities. “The entire world is undergoing a fair bit of disruption at the moment and what comes next is not necessarily clear however what’s apparent to me is that it’s creating an opportunity for people like us. A bit of re-alignment of my goal post and capitalizing on enormous opportunities underneath is the need of the hour keeping in mind the once in a century kind of an event we all are going through,” Chirag concludes.

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LEADER’S INSIGHTS

Changing Skillsets and The Evolution of Learning & Development Neeti has been heading the learning services at TeamLease, which includes Public–Private Partnerships with various State & Central Government in the areas of Employability across the country as well as managing a network of Learning Centers pan India. In addition to Teamlease, she is also a Member Secretary of the Skills Task Force under the Karnataka Knowledge Commission, Government of Karnataka and has been the pioneer of PPP Employment Exchanges in India as well as instrumental in starting India’s 1st Vocational Skills University – the Teamlease Skills University.

Neeti has over 27 years of diverse experience and her current focus is to set up a self-sustaining Employability and Employment models with various networks of centres that profile, assess, train and certify job seekers across all profiles and cities/towns linking various stakeholders like Government, Educational Institutes, NGOs and Training Centers to cater to the manpower requirements (entry and middle level) of the organized and unorganized corporate sectors.

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Neeti Sharma, Senior Vice President, Teamlease Services

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raditionally, companies in India have viewed their L&D teams as nothing more than a function that provides short term program – may / may not result in outcomes.

This mindset had translated into a minimum net spend on L&D over the past decade or so.

However, over the past few months, many companies have recognized the importance of not just having robust L&D teams, but also the opportunity cost of not having a high functioning digitized L&D team.

The “New Normal” now is about re-looking at organizational structure, focusing on efficiency, creating the right team & taking calls keeping long term health of the organization in mind

The Pandemic as a Catalyst for Digitization of L&D Taking into account the many technological & demographical changes over the last decade, L&D has had its work cut out supporting business with even tighter budgets. And while most organizations realized that digital transformation in learning is a critical factor for success, the last 6 months have pushed the digital adoption for learning ahead by more than two decades.

The Covid-19 pandemic has proved to be a catalyst for the digital learning revolution. And this transformation has a direct impact on L&D through the use of technology. The COVID-19 era has also contributed to reimagining the purpose and need for L&D in this new era. L&D professional say that they have never been this busy in the past.

In India, the pandemic has highlighted the lack of skill planning or upskilling which has led to the loss of millions of jobs. As of April 2020, the unemployment rate in India was an unprecedented 23.5 percent. Government initiatives such as the Aatmanirbhar Bharat have stressed the importance of being selfreliant and upskilling candidates and employees for the future.

Organizations also have had to adopt technology quickly and embrace the changes that were brought about by the conditions laid out by pandemic. The L&D function had to be

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quick, smart, practical and cost conscious. Learning has gone through a trend of sorts during this pandemic.

In the initial few weeks of COVID-19, the first task that the L&D teams faced was – How do we continue the engagement of employees?

All organizations are not at the same stage of maturity and that posted multiple challenges (some had less of them, while some had to make a lot of adjustments).

However, everyone was trying to solve the challenge of keeping employees engaged and “learning” became the most effective and sure way of achieving that.

From organizations providing e-learning licenses to Learning Management System (LMS) subscriptions to providing multiple learning opportunities by creating a MOOC (Massive open online courses) to conducting virtual learning sessions on video conferencing tools. This was the first wave of actions across most organizations and it did the job. If you see data on take-up and completion rates during this period, they have been like never before. This came as no surprise as this drive and rigor came from the entire leadership cadre in the organization and not just L&D team.

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One of the best things that could have happened was people took this opportunity and “real learning” happened and L&D teams started building a habit of learning for all employees.

The next phase of L&D evolution was focused on a phase that can be called as a “How to” phase This attracted a barrage of initiatives from the L&D teams as business leaders expected this from HR. Virtual meeting etiquette training to effective WFH hacks to being focused on stress management to manager training on empathy and emotional intelligence, remote work efficiency & even virtual R&R programs. All these formed a part of the second wave of activities.

While the world was moving into the “new normal” and the COVID-19 fear was reducing, it brought us to the current stage of consolidation – The “New Normal” now is about re-looking at organizational structure, focusing on efficiency, creating the right team & taking calls keeping long term health of the organization in mind. L&D teams have to take up a new challenge of helping the organization to achieve their goals, be resilient and productive now and for the near future. Cross skilling of people with overlapping

In India, the pandemic has highlighted the lack of skill planning or upskilling which has led to the loss of millions of jobs

roles, new skills to people moving across roles, new employee training to suit new expectations. It is now all about, one, keeping the pot boiling and, two, ensuring organizations become future-ready to operate with the restrictions.

Learning & Development Re-imagined Skilling for the Future: A significant change in mindset has taken place in organizations In India, and the focus has now shifted toward employability in the future.

Across several sectors, automation of jobs is becoming increasingly prevalent. In such a scenario, it is estimated that by 2030, approximately 9-13 percent of jobs will be lost to automation. Cross-skilling and up-skilling with the help of digitized learning is the only way to ensure that employees stay abreast of these changes. The need to introduce technology-oriented learning has never been greater.

The Millennial Fallacy: Over the next few years, the Baby Boomers and Gen X will be replaced by the millennials and Gen Z. The fallacy that millennials are “lazy” and “entitled” is often used to explain the dearth of employable candidates. However, if anything, the

digital transformation has highlighted that millennials are likely to adapt far quicker to changes in technology and learning.

Moreover, millennials and Gen Z workers are likely to be motivated by on-the-job training programs and upskilling courses rather than instant gratification. In the work-from-home era, the digitization of Learning & Development is being embraced by this section of the workforce and these dividends will be paid in the near future.

Another significant change in digitized learning and skilling is the interactive nature of training. Millennials and GenZ have grown up around the technology and adapting to an immersive, digital learning environment is not likely to be a challenge. Moreover, this has forced L&D teams to do away with traditional learning methods and upskill themselves in the process. Digitized courses also facilitate self-paced learning. This enables employees to focus on challenging aspects of the course while reducing time spent on aspects, they are familiar with. This creates greater efficiencies and minimizes time wastage.

There is no doubt that digital learning has made huge inroads into our learning systems. Building a right mix of microlearning, virtual sessions and simulations is a good way to leverage technology to give learners an “in-person” feel. Build-in polls and chats increase the engagement of learners during the sessions. Providing the right tools for remote learning, the right content and learner experience will be required to be made possible by the L&D teams of organizations.

The pandemic has created widespread disruption for organizations, employees, and prospective employees alike. However, L&D teams who have embraced digitization have benefited greatly and in turn, have also provided great long-term value for organizations and their workforce.

The disruption caused due to this pandemic has helped organizations discover themselves better.

Learning and development teams have been the biggest beneficiaries of this process.

Upskilling and reskilling are the need of the hour.

Not only do they skill workforce for current & future job roles, but it also helps in the overall development and retention of employees. Learning to learn and continuous learning will be the way of life and L&D professionals’ ultimate goal.

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Praveen Dewan CTO, Efkon India

A Smart Techie Working Towards a Smarter India

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oday Digital Transformation is a buzzword creating ripples in the industry.

In fact, it is a ‘do or die’ scenario, with everyone flurrying to ‘do’. This is where Praveen Dewan brings about a carefully formulated plan of action. Currently the CTO of Efkon India, Praveen explains that digital transformation takes place at two levels in his organization. One for their clients where they bring automation to all their manual processes and the second at the organization level where they constantly evolve their way of working to become more effective and efficient. Elaborating on the first level, he says, “When we deploy our Red-Light Violation Detection (RLVD) software at a junction in a city, the traffic policeman can generate a challan of offending vehicles sitting in the control room and does not need to bear the heat of the sun, standing at the junction for the whole day. If someone jumps a red light, he just

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Using technology to make the lives of common man safer in the cities is something that excites me, and this is something we are actively working on at Efkon

works on the alerts generated by our software, looks at the captured images and videos of the violation, clicks a button in case it is a valid violation, and our software does the rest. There are many such use cases where the digital transformation at a city level have eased the lives of the end users of these technologies and the citizens of the city alike.”

Proving the Naysayer Wrong—In Style!

Back when technology was still taking baby steps in India, and a degree in technology was viewed with much scepticism, Praveen did his Computer Science Engineering from DIT (now NSIT). He started his professional journey with Network Limited, an HCL group company dealing in electronic typewriters. He was a part of their R&D division, responsible for writing software in assembly language for the company manufactured typewriters.

He then moved to ITIL, where he developed a terminal emulator product for the US market, again written in assembly language. He migrated it for the Windows

platform in the early days of Windows 286 and Windows 386. The product was a huge success in the US market, which led the company to develop more products. He then moved on to work with other players in the market space.

After years of collaborating with some of the giants in the corporate and technology industry, starting up some of his own ventures, and lots and lots of learning, Praveen today serves as the CTO for Efkon India where he is actively helping build automation in the Smart Cities and Smart Highway space.

Praveen says, “Efkon is a global leader in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Headquartered in Austria, we have served customers for more than 25 years. I am heading the technology team at Efkon where we are developing a suite of products to help our clients in traffic management and city surveillance. Most of our products are based on deep learning technologies where we do analytics on live videos coming in from cameras deployed across the city to make the Indian roads safer. Our products are being used in various cities and highways across India as a

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part of the Smart City projects under various state governments. I am responsible for the delivery of these products to our end users ensuring best quality and accuracy of the analytics performed on these camera feeds. I lead a strong team of engineers involved in the design and development of all these fantastic products.” He also remarks as most of the Efkon’s projects are installed in smart city space dealing with confidential citizen data, he gives due importance to cybersecurity. Praveen and his team ensure that all the data stored with the company is safe from cyber-attacks and is not accessible to unauthorized users. Similarly, the flow of data from various devices installed in the field to a central server is encrypted and protected from phishing attacks.

A True Techie Praveen observes that the technology space by its very nature is very dynamic and ever-changing.

However, the one thing that has remained a constant source of inspiration for him is the amalgamation of hardware and software and controlling various hardware devices through the software. Today, as the world is on the cusp of a rampant IoT revolution, where data is flowing from a plethora of sources, analysing that data from a central point is one of the aspects that keeps him excited. Especially in his current role, where he is dealing with a lot of hardware and software, this deluge of data and the blurring lines between ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’ is exciting. Praveen states, “What motivates me is the evolution of AI and its use in improving the daily lives of humans.

The various ways you can use this technology to make the lives for common man safer in the cities is something that we are actively working on at Efkon. Most of our products are aimed towards this objective and when we deploy these products in a smart city project and see the impact these have created in the daily lives of human beings it makes me happy.”

With the current pandemic pushing the corporate sector to rethink of their existing working and technology strategy, Praveen says that remote working is a need of the hour and one has to adapt to this new way of working.

He clarifies that although he did not have an extensive experience of remote work previously, he and his team was quick to adapt to this new

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way of working, utilizing technologies for online meetings and sharing work, allowing them to make full use of this opportunity and ensure that they were able to deliver at the same level if not better as before.

Walk The Talk Following a participative leadership style, Praveen is the kind of person who you would find working alongside his teammates in all circumstances. While taking decisions he would consult his teams and would prefer to take a collective decision which is right and acceptable to all. He also firmly believes that a leader has to walk the talk and should be able to work with the teams rather than just pass orders to accomplish the goals of your organization. He says, “I always ensure that I have a strong buy-in from the people who are responsible to deliver the final product.

A lot of times it happens that the deadlines are tight and the teams are overstretched. On these moments if the team have signed up to your vision, they will do everything possible to ensure they meet the timelines. In turn, I also ensure that my asks from my teams are not unreasonable.

Since I come from a development background myself, I can apprehend what is possible and what is not, so I make commitments accordingly to ensure we as a team do not fail in the end.”

Interested to read about the latest technological developments and on ways that can improve workmanship to achieve better productivity, Praveen recently read “The Phoenix Project” and “The Unicorn Project” by Gene Kim, which gives a very good perspective on the best practices of rapid development using Scrum, DevOps and Lean methodologies. It was an eye-opener for Praveen to learn how Lean methodologies invented for the car manufacturing industry in Japan can be relevant in the IT industry as well.

Looking forward to 2021, Praveen declares that his top priority is to augment his teams at Efkon India and further strengthen the delivery capabilities. “When we do a smart city project, we end up integrating a lot of third-party applications from different vendors. We are looking to bring in new innovations such that we can offer seamless integration for our end users and implement our solutions with a faster turnaround time,” he concludes.

!ncredible

No matter where you decide to go in India, you’ll find something incredible. And right next to that, you’ll find us. Safe and sanitised stays, waiting to host you.

So pack up your bags, dust those boots, come to an OYO near you.

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Ravi Mathur CTO, Insurance Samadhan

A Programmer with a Code to Solve One of the Biggest Problems in India

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ounded in 2018, Insurance Samadhan is a new enterprise with a vision to meet the unmet needs of mistreated Insurance Policy Holders. As the name suggests, the company finds solutions to any insurance-related issue that include lapsed insurance policy, assistance in case-settlement, claim recovery in case of insurance fraud, assistance to NRI’s in servicing their policies, and much more. Insurance Samadhan has built India’s first technical Insurance Redressal platform to help policyholders who are misguided by their insurance providers. Leading its technology team is Ravi Mathur, a product minded software engineer who loves to talk about life and numbers.

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Always a confident professional who loves to read and experiment with technical stuff, Ravi Mathur has also tried his luck in entrepreneurship

“We are building India’s first tech platform for resolution of Insurance complaints. We work in both B2B and B2C channels. We represent the customer if his/her insurance claim is rejected or he has been mis-sold or duped,” says Mathur. In a mere two years since its inception, Insurance Samadhan has solved more than 14000 cases, and they have grown three times during COVID. “We are solving one of the biggest problems India is facing,” states Mathur.

It is a proven fact that technology can change people lives.

That very fact makes Mathur passionate about technology. He shares, “The quality and the ease of life has grossly increased in the last few years with an increase in technology adoption.

We operate from New Delhi with a small team of 25 people, but we have solved cases of misselling and fraud from every corner of the country.” The reach which technology provides

is fascinating. New technologies like AI and ML, which has made things possible which were once considered difficult.

Mathur adds, “It is important to have a great alignment with all other departmental colleagues to build a great tech support platform. That is what I promote in my team.”

Getting Better at Every Step An engineering graduate and an MBA holder, Mathur started his career in 2011 and became a full-time employee within his industrial training period. He has been part of startups like IIMJOBS and Cars24, which have played a defining role in where he is today. “In my last organisation, I was leading a team of more than 40 people. We were doing projects with Election Commission of India, Power Corporation of India, FICCI as our clients,” says Mathur.

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Ravi Mathur

Ravi Mathur believes that every CTO must be in touch with the latest technologies going around if they want to be at the top of their game

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Always a confident professional who loves to read and experiment with technical stuff, Mathur has also tried his luck in entrepreneurship. In fact, the experience of failing miserably at his EdTech startup has shaped his thought process and made him wiser. “I am an eternal seeker and all the learning I am putting in use in my current role.

I am far from a finished product, but yes, I am getting better,” pinpoints Mathur.

Being a part of a company that is on the growth stage, Mathur’s leadership style is transformational at present. He would say that it will change to democratic as they scale. “The philosophy has always been simple – it is all about people. The way you handle your team will define how far you go as an organisation,” opines Mathur. Trust and clear communication are two of the mantras that Mathur adheres to when leading his team. He adds, “I have learnt to be a situational leader over a period. We are living in a different world, and it is changing. For me, basics are the most important, and the rest is acting according to the situation.”

Being a CTO in the Tough Times COVID-19 was one situation where Mathur had to act effectively, as it has put technology at the forefront of people’s lives. Latest technologies like Blockchain, Augment Reality, Virtual Reality, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), IoT and Artificial Intelligence have allowed the organisations to make the user experience hyperpersonalised. “Customer engagement is increasing as data analytics is playing a key role in making decisions by the organisations. Companies that can adapt and upgrade themselves and emerge stronger, will be the one to benefit from these disruptions,” explains Mathur.

One of the irreversible changes of the pandemic that requires a CTO’s attention is remote working. “I don’t see organisations going back to working from the office as they used to do before. With organisations going remote, it has opened a new set of opportunities both for employees and employers,” says Mathur, who is no longer constrained to hire from specific geography. “Now, a candidate is not applying for only jobs in a particular area. I have hired the majority during COVID, and we have not met physically till date. I would now assess a zoom

call option with an early morning Mumbai flight,” adds Mathur.

With remote working comes the importance of Cybersecurity, which was and will remain the most important thing as a CTO for Mathur. He shares, “As an organisation, we are responsible for the safety of the information of the user on our platform. We, at Insurance Samadhan, are constantly upgrading our security parameters, and it is an integral part of our technical operations.”

Insurance Samadhan is dealing with a very fragmented market, which has been handled by legacy systems. “We have automated more than 80 per cent of our product life cycle, which is an achievement and have massively impacted our turnaround time for service offering,” claims Mathur. From the first day, the company has been on a cloud-based platform. “We are in the process of launching our AI-powered chatbots for better engagement with our customers,” adds Mathur.

The Priorities Mathur believes that every CTO must be in touch with the latest technologies going around if they want to be at the top of their game. He was one of the speakers at the National Insurance Tech Connect. He has also represented Insurance Samadhan as a guest on a webinar. The topic was, Adapt to New Ways of Working Post Pandemic.

“Discussing current trends with your peers who are at a similar position in different organisations helps a lot. However, the most important is customer interactions. If you understand and fulfil what a customer wants, you will be at the top of your game,” opines Mathur.

Despite being in a position where he could oversee everything, Mathur still tries to code as much as possible. Mathur shares, “Unlike a hardcore CTO, I binge into every other department to understand in deep since we are a tech platform, and our approach is to solve challenges via technology.” Apparently, 2021 is again going to by busy year for Mathur. His team is now engaged in building an App that will be launched in April 2021. “Apart from that, we have tied up with a company in Mauritius, which is already using our product. We are in talks with two more countries where we would be launching our product. These are my top priorities in 2021,” concludes Mathur.

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EXPERT’S

OPINION

Social Media Listening: Why brands should use it before, during and after a crisis Ranjit has a PhD in Computer Science with a specialization in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Southern California. Post his doctorate, he worked as Senior Research Scientist with Honeywell Labs in Minneapolis, where he continued his work in developing algorithms for planning and decision making in the face of imprecise and incomplete information. He returned to India at the end of 2006 to be a tech entrepreneur and to fulfil a desire to see India become known as not just as an exporter of IT services but also for world-class software products and innovation. Thus, he founded Germin8 along with his father, Raj Nair. Germin8 is a digital intelligence company focused on using data analytics and AI to help companies become more customer centric. Ranjit also serves on the India Advisory Board of the University of Southern California and also serves as visiting faculty at several institutes like MICA and NMIMS.

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Ranjit Nair, CEO, Germin8Â

I

t could be a side effect of a lot of us living online, but brand crises appear to be arriving at a faster clip than ever before. Although some brands have a tough time coming up for air, others, seemingly poised for an accident, shoot in the nick of time and continue moving along as if nothing happened. What differentiates these brands is frequently their prep before a crisis strikes and their social networking savviness. This is the reason why social network monitoring may be one of the best tools.

Social media network might help alert you of the fact that a crisis is brewing before it spirals out of control

Crisis The term strikes fear into the hearts of communicators everywhere. Brands that range from Carnival Cruise Lines to Starbucks to Facebook were hit by crises thus far from 2018.

The fact is that any brand can find itself in crisis – at any time.

As opposed to fear crisis, organizations must prepare emergency plans before they want them so they are ready when they find themselves in the thick of a PR disaster. Social media listening and monitoring play a role in any emergency communications plan. While social media channels could fuel the spread of information, it also gives a fantastic means to reach out to fans and followers that can provide support in times of catastrophe. It also serves as the ideal channel to monitor for opinion and observe for signs of risk.

Ronn Torossian, Founder and CEO of 5WPR says that Experts usually concentrate more on the speaking aspect of social media management. However, many brands do not realize it’s important to concentrate on listening and monitoring on your social networking accounts.

Let us look at just how social networking monitoring may be used through every period of a crisis.

Pre Crisis Your brand is sailing along, hassle-free, when, suddenly, you notice signs of problems.

Customers are suddenly complaining on social media channels. There is a trickle, and then a steady stream, of critique coming your way.

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Although complaints can spread like wildfire on social networks, it can be utilized to work in your favour and help you recover faster from the crisis

Social media network might help alert you of the fact that a crisis is brewing before it spirals out of control. Once you’re conscious that calamity is afoot, you can evaluate the seriousness and take suitable action.

Consistently monitor all social channels as to whenever criticisms and crises emerge, you’re well prepared to respond instantly to this particular person, or individuals.

Usually, a one-to-one strategy with the complainant is a much better option to prevent the issue from getting out of hands. This way, your organization may remain in control of the story and may ensure the issue stays small.

Note that before the first hint of a crisis, using social media to build your reputation as well as your community is critical on the health of your brand. Social media listening tools enable you to constantly monitor the social network for mentions of your brand so you may always know where it stands.

During a crisis The crisis has begun in earnest. Your team is in full crisis mode. One-way social media can be essential in those times is in reaching out to your followers and also to influencers who will provide support and helps you turn the wave of sentiment back in your favour. When you have built strong relationships with Influencers and brand loyalists, they might speak on your behalf – often without you having to ask. This is why it is so important to build that community before you require it.

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If you’ve followers and fans, they’ll speak up on your behalf, says Martin Waxman, President, Martin Waxman Communications.

If a brand tries to go on the defensive, it can occasionally have the opposite effect, however, if the brand community defends it, it is much more plausible. You should use a media intelligence tool for social media monitoring to see who’s coming to your defence and also evaluate the sentiment.

Post crisis Now the crisis has died down. You are attempting to reconstruct your status in the minds and hearts of your customers. Use social websites to keep track of how things are going during this process. By leveraging a tool to monitor sentiment, you can see where you are making strides, and in which you could have more work to do.

It might take some time, but as you move forward, social websites may help you know where you stand as you get back on track. Make sure to use media monitoring and social listening. Although complaints can spread like wildfire on social networks, it can be utilized to work in your favour and help you recover faster from the crisis. A successful monitoring tool can show you where your brand stands. Leverage it to know your status in any respect times, be it before, during or following a crisis.

As the old saying goes, ‘better prepared than sorry’.

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Higher Education Digest July 2020

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IN MY

VIEW

Top 5 tips For Indian Financial Advisors With close to 25 plus years of experience, shaped by actively formulating HR practices and driving training and development experiences for teams across reputed corporate, Agnelo leverages his immense wealth of experience, knowledge, and skill in driving change management initiatives at an organizational level using learning and engagement as tools of change. He is an alumnus of IIM A He has been a catalyst in grooming and developing future talent and leaders and creating a muchneeded cross mobility strength for talent migration for leading corporate sectors. He has been instrumental in building strong global best practices having taken some of his organizations in the Best Employer club at AON & GPTW institute. His white paper, “How learning culture can bring change in an organization� was chosen at IIM – Kozhikode as part of a learning case study for students.

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Agnelo Joseph, Head - Learning Academy, Tattva

M

It is not about the turbulence; it is about how you pilot through the turbulence. Believe in your ability and role you are playing in shaping the wealth opportunity for your clients or customers

utual Fund Distributors are facing a lot of new challenges in the way they manage the workflow; communicate with clients to generally run their practices amid the Covid-19 pandemic today.

“Mutual Fund planners/distributors remain resilient against a shifting regulatory landscape, disruptions from major players entering and leaving the wealth management space, and the recent pandemic-induced market volatility,” Investment Trends research director Recep Peker said.

If the above is true, then we need to understand what is it that will make you more resilient not from the process alone but more mentally & attitudinally. Let’s look at some of the TOP TIPs which you can reflect upon & implement, in these pandemic times to keep your customers engaged with you in spite of the challenge.

1.Turbulent times – How do you grapple with the uncertainty & ambiguous environment, when there is an overall sentiment of insecurity and yet continue to create wealth opportunity for your clients & self: One of the core element, when faced with a crisis they say, is “to stay calm and watch the world go by” as with that you get a sense of purpose for the next action. If you jump in the chaos you are only being part of turbulence. When there is a storm expected, you are told to stay indoors in a protective environment. Can you go out and be part of the storm?? Obviously NO, so turbulent times call for common sense working.

Virtual presence (social distance) gets to your client/customers to understand the situation, explain the pros & con and comfort the client as panic will be at both ends. As a financial advisor/distributor, your own understanding of the situation will be vital and if you have prepared your client for the long term than short term gain, the trust of your investors will help you stay focused. So, it needs to start at the beginning of your relationship-building in for such upheaval times.

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Beginning relations Set up clear expectations, explain what it means to be an investor

During the Pandemic/crisis situation Understand the need & suggest product mix as per short term challenge.

It ideally should not be long term. Panic behaviour is common

Long term v/short term gain

It has to be situational ensuring the continuity

Time horizon clarity, clarity how money grows and not just NAV’s

Look to reduce or minimize liability & debts as clients may force income or revenue block or less income challenge. In such case maybe you may want to look at some of the following: Stop SIP Redemption of Debt or Equity products Relook at re-investing from non-performing funds

Return expectations, it is not about % age of

Handholding during these times:

Return but value over a period of time

Don’t lose sight of the customer Guide & Counsel Explain merits and demerits

Client Retention focus means you are the advisor so give that trust.

Client Focus in short term or long term remains the same if you want to continue

2.Build & Sustain your relationship: One of the many challenges this pandemic has brought is client/customer engagement in person is distanced now. So then how do you keep your relationship intact and forge the bond with customers as done in normal times: • Speak more often to your client, know about what their situation is and look out for any stress or concern, don’t wait for them to call you.

• Engage & Keep updating on what is happening and share highs, not lows which is not relevant

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• Share content of relevance on positive trend well validated 3.Portfolio mix – Investment would be hard to come by as there is a conservative approach or withdrawal symptoms are high, what should be your investment advice be then: • There are two ways of doing it I feel which you can explore and think thru. Just as we cannot join higher education in life without going through basic education similarly. I am sure you will agree with me is at the beginning of your relationship,

how you educate your client will matter a lot and have you buffered in such pandemic situations in your education: Portfolios mix in such a situation is about your knowledge & experience and for that, you need to keep sharpening your skills. Customers, as I said, have only limited knowledge, the question is can you expand it and don’t allow the situation to get better of that.

4.Battling work stress: The art of managing self is your emotional balance. Accept the fact there is a situation and think of yourself as someone

When faced with a crisis, they say, “stay calm and watch the world go by” as with that you get a sense of purpose for the next action.

your customer will look up to. If you believe in that, half the battle is won, and rest is about your engagement ability.

• Collaborate with your peers. Keep sharing & learning, it helps in freeing your mind & thoughts of any clutter.

• Engage with your clients or professionals seeking advice, perspective and for any change.

Fund houses or professional have access to vital research & strategies, they can guide you better.

Pandemic is global so all are going through it, you being worried will not help but connecting with others & staying positive will show you a better way to manage.

5.Business continuity – Customers or clients are in a panic state, but you need to be focused about continuity. You panicking will be the last nail in the coffin, the customer will move on. So, here’s something you can do reorient your business: • Collaborate to co-create, share services, or reduce inventory or to forge joint alliances etc.

Yesterday’s competitor can be today’s adversary, you never know.

• Continuous dialogue with all your stakeholders be it customers, clients, fund houses etc.., being alert is important actions come out of it automatically.

• Technology savvy grasp strongly, the future is digital which pandemic has thought. Physical Infrastructure need has come down drastically, so get on to the technology bus.

• Business acumen as it is your intellect that will require sharpening. So, learning new skills for business will help you sail better.

• Compliance management, COVID-19 or no COVID-19 you need to ensure compliance is management is continued.

• Emotional wellbeing, sleep well and laugh a lot with your loved ones. Pandemic is global it is going to be here for some time. Health is wealth; remember “Rome was not built in a day”.

Conclusion: Sensex fell from a high of 41323 on 19th Feb 2020 to low of 25981 on 23rd Mar 2020. In a matter of just one month, it fell by 37% due to COVID-19 related panic & worldwide uncertainty. From there, yesterday i.e., 24.11.2020 made a new all-time high of 44523 recovering by 71% from 23rd march low due to things going back to normal quickly post lock-down & huge liquidity. Now with the market reaching a new high, more no. of new investors has started investing in MF. So, as I said earlier, maybe the investors were well guided or coached by their MFD’s and therefore you are seeing the upsurge.

It is not about the turbulence; it is about how you pilot through the turbulence.

Believe in your ability and role you are playing in shaping the wealth opportunity for your clients or customers.

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Sachin Nigam

CTO and Co-Founder, Goavega Software

Redefining Technology Through Innovation

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he COVID – 19 pandemic has caused drastic changes in many industries, especially the Information Technology (IT) industry. The negative impacts during this situation are more compared to positive effects. The significant weaknesses the IT industry is facing now is due to the fall in the economy, as a lot of companies are forced to ask their employees to work from home (remotely) keeping in account the public health concerns. The spread of this deadly virus has caused a lot of tech conferences to get canceled, which could have been a great partnership opportunity for many companies to expand their horizons. A few of the meetings were shifted to teleconferences, but this won’t have the same reach, and the conference attendees will not be able to have the networking opportunity as they would be attending the actual conference. “With

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Every teammate has an important role to play, so no feedback/ opinion is trivial, and everyone should have a chance to share their thoughts and ideas

COVID-19 and remote working being the new normal, cybersecurity and e-collaboration are going to be popular.

I see traction in the fields of Augmented Reality in learning space, and higher adoptions of low-code/no-code platforms by businesses,” opines Sachin Nigam, CTO, Goavega Software.

Having completed his graduation in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Lucknow, Sachin started his career in the early 2000s in a startup focused on offshore product engineering and moved to the United States for few years and worked at Keane Inc (before boredom struck) and he decided to come to India for good.

Having worked exclusively with IT services organizations, Sachin founded Goavega as he feels the entire IT services can be looked at differently – from being resource-centric to being value-centric. The fact that the company has been an exclusive technology team for their client and works on bleeding-edge and cutting-edge technology confirms their value approach.

Providing Top-notch IT Solutions As the Co-founder and CTO, Sachin is responsible for defining the technology road map, mapping business needs to technology and driving digital transformation strategy for their customers. He adds, “I am also responsible for the growth of our organization and making sure that we are working towards our mission and vision statement”.

With more and more businesses being operated online due to the pandemic, a strong cybersecurity policy is an absolute must. Having a well-defined cybersecurity policy (and enforcing it) can go a long way in protecting not only the corporate and financial data of the company but also ensure the safety of end consumers, partners, and vendors.

Awarded ‘CTO of the Year’ at the Leadership Summit and Awards in 2019, Sachin focuses on achieving what he wants by breaking his goals into smaller measurable tasks as it helps in tracking progress granularly. “I also rely a lot on my intuition and when things are not that great, I tell myself – ‘intuition whispers true: we are not

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dust, we are magic!’,” quips Sachin. Believing in ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’, Sachin takes teamwork quite seriously. Everyone within a team, irrespective of their seniority or years of experience, has an important role to play, so no feedback/opinion is trivial, and everyone should have a chance to share their thoughts and ideas. “A leader also must “walk the talk” to gain the respect of his team—a go-getter any day over a thought leader,” he adds.

Adapting to the ‘New Normal’ Believing that humans are always meant to be social and working in silos was never our forte, Sachin feels face to face interaction is what adds the human touch, otherwise it is easy to confuse a person with a bot on a phone call without any emotions being at play. He adds, “The other thing with in-person teams is that it works well for the junior members in the team—working alone for someone just starting their career can be a little

Goavega’s clients are based out of different timezones, which makes it easier for them to include remote technology as a part of their daily work lives

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overwhelming and takes out the mentor/mentee aspect of working within a team”. Looking at the bright side, having a clear work/off-work schedule and being in touch with your team over e-collaboration tools would help in making one feel less disconcerting as remote working is the new normal and would continue to be so pretty well into the future. Goavega’s clients are based out of different timezones, which makes it easier for them to include remote technology as a part of their daily work lives.

Passionate about the open-source community in the technology space, Sachin reminisces, “I still remember back in 2010 when I was evaluating enterprise search tools for one of our customers how an open-source product (Lucene) beat the million-dollar commercial products (Search Appliance) hands down on almost all fronts. The other instance being how Firefox radically changed the way internet/browsers used to be for good,”. He is also a regular contributor in this field.

Moving to multi-Cloud computing this year, Goavega was always a “Cloud-first” organization and now they have distributed their IT workload across AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Looking forward, Sachin has prioritized to continue adding value to their customers through technology innovation. “I see low-code/nocode platforms as market disruptors in the near future so we will be investing in R&D on that field. 5G is another game changer and will have a meaningful impact in the field of IoT, Autonomous Vehicles, and the gaming industry”, concludes Sachin.

Want to find Investor for your Startup?

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Shirish Surti CTO, Chai Point

Revamping the Retail Tech Industry with Continuous Learning and Team Bonding

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he COVID19 outbreak has caused widespread concern and economic hardship for consumers, businesses, and communities across the globe. The disruption has caused an acceleration of remote working, and a rapid focus on evaluating and de-risking the end-to-end value chain. “The impact of COVID19 has made companies realize a bulk of their day to day activities is achievable in WFH itself. This has reduced the rental costs for many companies and it is foreseeable that they will continue this trend and hire teams across the globe. Geographies and nationalities will no longer be the constraint in the Tech Industry,” points out Shirish Surti, CTO, Chai Point.

Currently leading the technology team at Chai Point, one of the largest hot beverages, tea, and coffee chains in India, Shirish’s role is to ensure all the technology needs of Chai Point as a retail

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As a techie, Shirish is most passionate about the ‘connectivity’ that has been established between a software engineer and the end customer

brand are fulfilled. Bridging the gap between the board and the team members at Chai Point, he defines the technology road map and ensures steady execution. “As the business has scaled so has the technology team. We hire a lot of good talent, many amongst them are Freshers. Ensuring they undergo good training and are up to mark for handson contribution is important. It is important to set the right culture when you are working with people from different generations and backgrounds,” adds Shirish.

A huge success for the company, Chai Point has been able to release some high impact products during the lockdown while remotely working like Whatsapp ordering and Touchless Vending Dispense project, that their customers have adopted these products enthusiastically.

Shirish believes that the shift to remote working has been a success because his team members had formed a close bond before WFH began. Currently, as a team, Shirish has ensured every alternate Friday is utilized to connect casually and talk about non-work topics in a group. “We also have a Team Whatsapp group dedicated only for

forwards. It is not as good as hanging out with your team over a cup of Chai, but it’s the closest approximation in the digital world. People who share jokes and laugh together form a bond,” quips Shirish.

Right from Point of Sales (PoS) system at the store, where sales data is captured to the Supply chain systems at the warehouse, where the raw materials are dispatched, Shirish has played a huge role in digitizing the end-toend lifecycle of a retail chain at Chai Point. “We have IoT-enabled tea and coffee vending machines that allow us to capture usage data. We also recently launched a new channel of business that allows customers to order using Whatsapp. We also launched a QR code scan-based capability in all our vending machines to support touchless operations,” adds Shirish.

Humble Beginnings Growing up in a small 9x10 sq ft room in a chawl in Mumbai with his family, Shirish learned how to work hard and not take anything for granted from the beginning. His interest

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Ensuring the safety of our employees was the challenge in 2020 and it will be so in the first half of 2021

in gadgets made him join engineering after completing his schooling. Completing his Bachelor’s in Engineering from Sardar Patel Institute of Technology, Shirish was placed in Datamatics Pvt. Ltd., a service provider in the IT space. “While working at Datamatics I realized the knowledge that we learn in college is not enough to be a successful engineer in the IT industry. Hence I took every opportunity to read books on technology that I used at work. During the first 2 years of my job I completed 4 certifications in Java/JEE to acquire good knowledge of the Java/JEE technology, which I was working on in my project”, adds Shirish.

Having this constant urge to do research and pursue higher education, Shirish enrolled himself at IIT Guwahati for the 2 years MTech Programme in Computer Science, as they have the second year dedicated completely to research and also offer stipends. He reminisces, “All my professors were exceptional, they have in-depth knowledge in their area of Teaching. I was able to invent an algorithm and publish a paper on ‘Pseudo stabilizing causal ordering’ at a conference in Caen – France”.

Post IIT, Shirish soon realized he would enjoy working for startups as their team sizes are small and the responsibilities are more and started working with HomeShop18, who were looking to build an e-commerce

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business in Bangalore during the e-commerce boom in around 2011. Later on, in 2013, he joined another startup, Freecharge, that operated from a 3 BHK Flat in Indiranagar, Bangalore. He recalls, “Freecharge was an exceptional experience, it was a product which our customers loved. My team was responsible for the Growth technology part at Freecharge that included adding technology features in the Freecharge platform to attract new customers and retain existing customers. The scale of Transactions at Freecharge was very high. A downtime of a few minutes would impact a huge number of customers”. Once Freecharge was acquired by Snapdeal, Shirish joined Chai Point as Head of Engineering.

Lead by Example Making it a point to connect with people, Shirish feels getting to know his team members in a non-work environment helps relieve stress, understand each other better, and establish a good rapport. As a leader, Shirish prefers to lead by example, as he feels to earn respect from good engineers, one has to be a good engineer first. He opines, “When some engineer gets stuck on a technical problem I take the lead and show them how it is solved. When they observe that a problem is solved by choosing the right direction and the right set of knowledge, they realize where they have to improve”.

Life was very different before Playstore was launched.

In today’s world, anyone can develop an app and if it is good it will see good adoption organically all thanks to distribution mechanisms like the play store. People talk about apps more often also thanks to the social messaging revolution. Being an early adopter of IoT in Vending Machines at Chai Point, Shirish feels the impact of IoT is going to be huge in the next decade. “We could not imagine

a few years back that Vending machines themselves would alert us over the internet about what is wrong in them. All Chai Point vending machines send machine error codes using IoT, thereby triggering a ticketing flow on the repair and maintenance team. It enables us to understand the root cause of the problem even before the customers learn about the problem”, adds Shirish.

As the technology landscape keeps revamping, Shirish feels leaders in the tech industry need to invest a lot of time periodically in learning about new technologies and people skills. He points out, “You ask any leader and they will tell you that working with Baby Boomers, Millennials and Generation Z is very different. This is primarily because of their varying levels of technology exposure. Such factors amplify in a group of engineers”.

Ensuring the safety of our employees was the challenge in 2020 and it will be so in the first half of 2021. Like 2020, the year 2021 is going to be challenging as it will see a lot of change in people’s day to day lives. People and businesses would be looking to get back to their daily rhythm post-Covid.

WFH either done by the entire team or not done at all by the bulk of the team is easy to implement.

But a partial team WFH requires a lot of effort. In a partial WFH, people working remotely can easily miss out on critical decision-making points. Hoping to have a fruitful 2021, Shirish remarks, “We are all set to bring on board the early adopters and ensure their satisfaction with the products by launching its new Saas products at a bigger scale in 2021”.

As a techie, Shirish is most passionate about the ‘connectivity’ that has been established between a software engineer and the end customer. Like Smartphones connected people, IoT is connecting all devices small and big to Cloud. The cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP have become mature and are adding new features every month, this helps to process the huge amount of data which is flowing from various channels like IoT. “I feel IoT combined with Edge Computing will drive a lot of Retail, Agriculture, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and other industrial automation in the next decade.

Once you have a good amount of data you can use Machine Learning to create good models for decision making”, concludes Shirish.

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EXPERT’S

OPINION

DDoS Protection Like Airbags in Your Car With a highly successful and rewarding career of 25 years 9 months in the IT industry, Nikhil has special experience of creating the complete business infrastructure required to promote technology, that is creating customer mindset, Si partner/channel mindset, creating the organization/teams for the same. He has worked in Wipro, Digital equipment corporation- Compaq, and Cabletron Systems and joined Radware in 2002. Radware (NASDAQ: RDWR) is a global leader of application delivery and application security solutions for virtual, cloud and software defined data centers. Radware’s solutions empower more than 10,000 enterprise and carrier customers worldwide to adapt to market challenges quickly, maintain business continuity and achieve maximum productivity while keeping costs down.

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Nikhil Taneja, Managing Director-India, SAARC & Middle East, Radware

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n India, over 415 deaths occur every day due to road accidents either due to drivers’ negligence or due to not taking enough safety measures like use of helmets or airbags. If we have never been involved in a car accident, that does not mean we will never need airbags.

In our business environment, customers who have not been attacked in a long time start to wonder whether they still needed DDoS protection at all.

But just as we would never take out the airbags out of a car because we have never been involved in a serious accident, so we shouldn’t cut back on cyber defence just because we hadn’t had a major attack in a while.

Ultimately, most organizations’ revenue depends on customers being able to reach their services

The Probability is Low, but the Risks are Severe According to Radware’s 2019-2020 Global Application and Network Security Report, 33% of organizations reported being attacked by DDoS in the prior year.

While this is certainly a threatening figure, looked at the other way around, it means that two-thirds of organizations did not experience a DDoS attack in the last 12 months.

Stretch the statistic back, and it means that in the past two years, about 45% of organizations did not experience an attack, 30% did not experience an attack in the past three years, and 20% have not seen an attack in the past four years.

And stretch it back even further – it means that about one in eight organizations has not been attacked in the past five years.

This has led many organizations – quite sensibly – to wonder why they still need to go through the hassle and expense of deploying dedicated DDoS protections.

The problem, however, is that like car accidents, DDoS attacks may occur infrequently, but once they happen – the damages are severe.

Revenue Depends on Availability Ultimately, most organizations’ revenue depends on customers being able to reach their services.

According to a study by Gartner, the average cost of IT network downtime is $5,600 per minute, or almost $300,000 on average. Although these figures may vary by the size of the organization, number of affected assets and the severity of the outage, it demonstrates the very real damages that can occur as a result of outages.

As customers increasingly consume services online, this means that an organization’s website and network are missioncritical assets, and any downtime will lead to significant losses.

Damages as a result of a DDoS attack can be direct or indirect: Direct loss of revenue – if your website or application is generating revenue directly on a regular basis, then any loss of availability will cause direct, immediate losses in revenue. For

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As customers increasingly consume services online, this means that an organization’s website and network are mission-critical assets, and any downtime will lead to significant losses

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example, if your website generates $1m a day, then every hour of downtime, on average, will cause over $40,000 in damages.

Loss in productivity – for organizations that rely on online services, such as email, scheduling, storage, CRM or databases, any loss of availability to any of these services will directly result in loss of productivity and lost workdays.

SLA obligations – for applications and services that are bound by service commitments, any downtime can lead to breach of SLA, resulting in refunding customers for lost services, granting service credits, and even potentially facing lawsuits.

Damage to brand – in a world that is becoming ever-more connected, being available is increasingly tied to a company’s brand and identity. Any loss of availability as a result of a cyberattack, therefore, can directly impact a company’s brand and reputation. In fact, Radware’s 2018 Application Security Report showed that 43% of companies had experienced reputation loss as a result of a cyber-attack.

Loss of customers – one of the biggest potential damages of a successful DDoS attack is loss of customers. This can be either direct loss (i.e., of customer who choose to abandon you as a result of a cyber-attack) or indirect (i.e., of potential customers who are unable to reach you and lost business opportunities).

Either way, this is a key source of damage.

Would You Take the Airbags Out of Your Car? Like many hazards in life, protection against DDoS involves balancing risk vs. probability. Most of us have never been involved in a serious car accident, or have our house burn down.

Yet we still install airbags in our cars and purchase insurance for our homes.

This is because while such events occur infrequently, the damages from them are so catastrophic and far-reaching that we are willing to bear the ‘peacetime’ costs of purchasing them, so that we have them available in times of need.

The same logic applies to DDoS protection. While some organizations face constant attack, others are targeted infrequently. This does not mean, however, that the threat does not exist. And when such an attack occurs, the risks and costs of being unprotected – or having inadequate protections in place – far outweigh the costs of maintaining DDoS protection even at times we might think we do not need it.

Going back to the example we started with, even though most adults have never been involved in a serious car accident, studies have shown that car safety is the #1 consideration in purchasing a new car. This is because in the unlikely event of a serious crash, the driver’s life will depend on it.

Likewise, service availability is the lifeline on which many organizations depend to serve customers and generate revenue.

What’s your #1 consideration in making a security purchasing decision?

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Subrahmanya S M CTO, Hype - Luxury Mobility

Working Together for a Luxurious User Experience

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ounded by Raghav Belavadi and cofounded by Vijaya Belavadi, Hype Luxury Mobility is a technology company building mobile platform for premium customers that seek to ride luxury cars, yachts and jets which has made Hype an icon of the elite class club across the country. Starting from Bangalore in 2017, Hype has managed to spread its wings to over 19 major cities in India for one reason – they could provide people with hassle-free bookings of their choice of cars, yachts, or jets without making compromises on quality and delivery. The chief who involves

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Subrahmanya loves to be a part of the emerging startup world where he can endeavour solve bigger problems with a small team

envisioning the Hype’s technology blueprint for the business applications, innovation and solution architecting is its CTO, Subrahmanya S M. “At Hype, we made sure that Design, Development and Distribution should follow the modern architecture, platforms, guidelines in each process with rapid application development without compromising on quality, performance, more importantly, UI, UX of the App,” shares Subrahmanya.

A graduate in Computer Science Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University, Subrahmanya understands the importance of selecting cutting-edge technology that solves the majority of the problems with rapid application development. Moreover, he loves to be a part of the emerging startup world where he can endeavour solve bigger problems with a small team. Subrahmanya

says, “We will get all hats to wear, that is the greatness of the startup ecosystem. Here, we will be getting the realworld experience of how to build a startup while working closely with the founder who is striving perfection at every step,” Subrahmanya is a hands-on architect and prefers to dig deeper to troubleshoot. This sets the precedence to the team that vision and execution are the two sides of the same coin.

“With my past mobile application development experience, I found out that the main reason for the failure of application development in many of the cases is the decision-making while choosing the right framework, poor backend APIs with no automation, less teamwork and lack of vision to understand the importance of adoption of trending newer technologies,” opines Subrahmanya.

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Under the leadership of Raghav Belavadi and Subrahmanya, Hype has built a seamless online booking system and offers customizable plans according to the needs and demands of their customers

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Taking failure as a steppingstone always helps. As a CTO at Hype Luxury Mobility working under the guidance of Raghav Belavadi, Subrahmanya has more freedom of choice for adopting the latest technologies and responsibility.

Under the leadership of Raghav Belavadi and Subrahmanya, Hype has built a seamless online booking system and offers customizable plans according to the needs and demands of their customers. “Niche market segment can be defined by its own unique needs, preferences, or identity that makes it different from the market at large. Other than the technology, we are using and making sure digital marketing, SEO other strategies work together,” says Subrahmanya.

Sometimes, user feedback also becomes a gamechanger for Hype. Subrahmanya adds, “We do iteration on at each stage and change the process if something is going wrong. It is more a hybrid of agile and classic process management to get the best of both the worlds.”

Updating to Be the Best Technology keeps changing every day.

Subrahmanya is passionate about helping his team to adopt newer technologies to solve more significant problems more efficiently. For instance, he is a strong advocate of serverless technologies and Cross-platform Application frameworks that can offer a tremendous native mobile App user experience. However, Subrahmanya will not go behind a newer technology because it is trending in the industry. He explains, “Artificial intelligence, blockchain, IoT and Automation are the most trending lately. But we are also trying to adopt only and whenever whatever is needed and simply not for the fact that it is trending. At the end of the day, the customer is the king of the market, and we need to offer the best of all the mobile app user experience.”

At Hype, UI/UX is the most critical component, as they begin their vision from the user and work backwards to build the right technology platforms or solutions. “We heavily invest in time and efforts to understand the user experience and user behaviour for our product. It is a great responsibility as the entire industry looks up to us as the best user experience platform,”

pinpoints Subrahmanya. Being one of the biggest luxury industry platforms in India, so the customer data and privacy is even more critical for Hype.

That makes cybersecurity an important and a high priority task for Subrahmanya and his team. We cannot afford to avoid cybersecurity flaws 100 per cent. However, we can make it most difficult for hacking. If we select cutting edge technology while architecting, it has its own built-in solutions to face all cybersecurity issues and allows us to add all layers of security to safeguard the user Information,” explains Subrahmanya.

Adopting the latest technologies and best practices in the industry have their perks. For instance, Hype Luxury Mobility team has been practising remote work culture even before COVID-19 hit the world. Subrahmanya shares, “I always wanted to live in my Native town/ village with my family, and I see most of my team members share the same synergy. Key to successful execution is communication.” With more people work remotely, Subrahmanya regularly does team building meetings to make sure that his colleagues mingle with each other very well.

He adds, “I not only think but also believe that remote working is a far better solution to worklife balance and better productivity.”

Today, Subrahmanya is leading the complete digital transformation of Hype Luxury Mobility.

“In our product’s user journey, there are a few places where we are still using pen and paper, but, we are planning to make it completely technologydriven. Apart from that, we work smartly with past learnings from product development failures which feed into our next-gen vision for technology innovation,” says Subrahmanya. Hype Luxury Mobility is also planning to release their apps in as many cities and countries as possible with a far more improved user experience. Besides, the company is going to invest more in training and development to share the new knowledge that they have learned from the product development life cycle. “As I work closely with our founder Raghav Belavadi, I have learned many things by wearing many hats in the Hype. Today, it is one of the most successful startups, because of our vision on the backbones of technology and user experience,” concludes Subrahmanya.

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LEADER’S INSIGHTS

The importance of NextGeneration Plumbing Solutions in India

Anup Kumar Tripathi, General Manager, Sloan India Private Limited

A seasoned professional with a career spanning over two decades in the building materials industry, Anup joined Sloan India in 2016 as the Country Head and has spearheaded the sales and marketing functions of the company. In his new role as the General Manager, he will head India’s business operations and work to strengthen Sloan’s brand while growing business across the country. Prior to joining Sloan India, Anup was associated with some of the premium faucet brands in India such as Tropical Industries International, Hindware, and Jaquar and Co.

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ike most technologies, plumbing technology also keeps evolving constantly.

But the coronavirus pandemic has imparted a greater momentum in the adoption of innovative plumbing technology. This is particularly driven by the fear of contracting the virus when visiting public washrooms and outdoor facilities. Since COVID-19 has a higher transmission rate, these apprehensions are understandable.

Be it public or private washrooms, however, next-generation plumbing solutions are high on efficiency and low on maintenance. As a result, there are multiple savings in water and other resources. Besides, there are financial savings due to low upkeep and maintenance costs.

Contactless bathroom fixtures and fittings play an essential role in maintaining higher standards of hygiene.

During COVID-19, this could be crucial in ascertaining there is minimal disease transmission

Smart Fixtures A proper comprehension of smart plumbing systems can help in installing the right fixtures in homes and offices. Consider one of the central elements in plumbing – pipes. Unlike the conventional ones, smart pipes can help users in monitoring water pressure constantly.

In case of any leakage or other damage, users will be alerted about the problem. This includes information about where the problem is located.

In the case of these issues, smart pipes can help via easy maintenance and speedy repairs.

Hands-free taps and other fixtures are other essential elements in plumbing. Besides, sensor-based faucets can be most useful as water wastage remains minimal, ensuring lower chances of infections and the spread of germs. Simultaneously, such faucets are easy to use and most convenient. Smart faucets ensure automatic water savings since they turn off when movement ceases. Infections are also avoided because users need not touch the taps with unwashed hands.

Another important element is water heater tanks. Most tanks currently used in homes are not so efficient. In comparison, a tank-less water heating system heats the water almost instantly. As a result, such units can curb carbon footprints of residential and commercial premises where they are installed. These can ensure robust savings on electricity bills.

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Contactless bathroom fixtures and fittings play an essential role in maintaining higher standards of hygiene.

During COVID-19, this could be crucial in ascertaining there is minimal disease transmission. Smart fixtures offer other benefits too. For example, a common complaint relates to consumables such as toilet rolls and liquid toilet soap running out without timely replenishment. This is especially true in the case of public washrooms.

Besides the ensuing embarrassment to users, it can create unhygienic conditions that could cause greater disease transmission. But bespoke smart solutions ascertain such eventualities do not occur. This is because sensors embedded in the smart fixtures alert the cleaning crews as and when supplies are low and refills are required.

Washbasins are yet another vulnerable area. In the case of conventional washbasins, users first wash their hands. They then move away to where the tissue paper is kept. Considering this scenario, witnessing wet hands dripping water across the floor is a common sight in many washrooms. Apart from the possibility of greater breeding and transmission of bacteria and viruses, wet floors could also be a health hazard. Children, elders and even adults could slip, leading to fractures or other unpleasant consequences.

All-round Benefits As the COVID-19 pandemic has shown, when it comes to avoiding infections, both individual and institutional precautions and hygiene practices must be adhered to for ensuring the safety of users in public washrooms. Aware that the shortcomings in people’s hygiene practices have been contributing to the surge in COVID-19 infections, earlier this year the WHO released specific guidelines on safe handwashing practices to prevent disease transmission.

All such issues can, however, be well managed by using antimicrobial, touch-free fittings and all-in-one washbasins. The latter is an excellent innovation that helps maintain highly-hygienic conditions in public and private washrooms. In this case, the faucet, soap holder, hand dryer and sink basin are designed for working within the single unit that operates as a touch-free system. As all four elements work in tandem at arms-length, greater safety and personal hygiene are maintained at all times.

Thanks to this wonderful and aesthetically-pleasing design, users can undertake all steps – soaping, rinsing and drying of hands – without moving a foot elsewhere as is required when the hand dryer operates as a distinct unit. Consequently, the chances of any water dripping on washroom floors due to dripping hands are virtually nil.

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The other advantage of high-speed dryers is these dry hands completely in barely 14 seconds while conventional hand dryers take twice or thrice the time. The swift and efficient drying of hands limits the possibility of any user spreading or contracting infections inside public washrooms.

Best of all, these smart hand dryers come with HEPA filters that can eliminate 99.97% of bacteria and viruses from the ambient air. This is a significant feature since wet palms can spread almost a thousand times the bacteria than dry hands. These touch-free fixtures and plumbing systems

Sensor-based faucets ensures minimal water wastage and lower chances of infections and spread of germs

also limit upkeep and overall operating costs even while controlling the wastage of soap, water and electricity.

For instance, a high-speed dryer in commercial washrooms can save a tidy amount annually compared to the manual system of using paper towels and napkins.

Additionally, touchless faucets can save considerable money in water bills too, as mentioned earlier.

Smart plumbing systems also include low-flow faucets.

Such touch-free systems help in improving water efficiency in public and private washrooms. Waterless urinals are another resource-and-money saver. Undoubtedly, in the era of COVID-19, smart plumbing systems are saving money, materials and resources as well as safeguarding human health and well-being.

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EXPERT’S

OPINION

Remedying Employee Burnout in the Advertising Industry Anurag Chaudhary, who initially started his career to become a CA, ended up being an entrepreneur of his firm ‘The Integrity Webs’ that provides Digital Solutions for Businesses. Back in 2015, when Digital India was initiated, there was a spike in the Digital Marketing Industry as well since many brands used the online platform to promote their businesses. Anurag foresaw that this industry will have a bright future in the coming years. Thus, in 2017, he incorporated The Integrity Webs with just four employees serving his clients for Digital Marketing and Website Development. Today within three years, there are more than 25 employees associated with them, who have served more than 30 clients from India and the US. He has also expanded his services that include SEO, SEM/PPC, CRO, Content Marketing, Website Design/Development, Graphic designing, Public Relations, and other Branding Services.

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Anurag Chaudhary, Founder & CEO, The Integrity Webs

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Employers need to prioritize building resilience through holistic wellbeing and delivering incentives that genuinely help workers navigate their lives and solve the ever-evolving root causes of burnout

he lifestyle in 2020, as a year, has been constantly defined as ‘the new normal’ but struggle for employees, whether they are working from home or returning to offices has been majorly impacted by the pandemic. To add to it, the stress of layoffs is an everyday hustle for them.

The Advertising Industry has always been about excelling in this ‘Art of Hustle’. Agency employees are regularly asked to ensure that they have a “side hustle” on their resumes, which they can point to as proof that they can go beyond and beyond. In 2020, Ad agencies have referred to “hustle” as one of the qualities they are looking for, especially in more junior staff.

Advertising agencies in general are unique because they operate in a time-based manner.

You’re valued at agencies by how many hours you’re billing, and you’re working more hours than you do. So you’ve got to show it off and make sure people know that you’re working hard and working constantly.

Anyone who has worked on their part in an essential client project knows, a lot of personal involvement is made in what goes on to get input and sign up. And if the feedback isn’t what you expected, it can feel like a knife in your heart.

It’s a difficult lesson to learn, particularly when you’re just starting (though it’s probably never going to be easier).

In a creative field, we always assume that we can do a better job than the last person managed to do, so we end up in circumstances that work tirelessly to justify ourselves, in a process that decreases the value that we deliver or undermines the previous efforts of our peers.

Mastering this ‘Art of Hustle’ is a constant pressure for employees in the advertising industry. This paves the way for employee burnout because of work-life stress, which is referred to as ‘Hustle’ in the advertising industry. Feelings of energy loss or weariness increased mental distance from one’s work or feelings of negativity or cynicism related to one’s employment, and diminished professional

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effectiveness are all signs of employee burnout.

To add to, its effect on one’s personal life and relationships.

Confirming what most of us already know, the burnout of employees is a real thing. Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognized burnout as an official medical diagnosis and identified signs of burnout among employees.

According to the WHO: “Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

Sheltering in one place throughout the day has also disrupted people’s daily lives, causing inherently stressful changes, particularly when combined with uncertainty about one’s health, job security, and economy. Add to that the emotional burden of social distance, which holds people away from recreational activities that they rely on to communicate with people.

How do we find a remedy to this?

Employers have the ability and the duty to understand that their conventional approaches to helping workers handle stress have been far from effective — as shown by the pre-pandemic incidence of stress and burn-out — and that sticking to the same unsuccessful approaches in today’s more dynamic world would be completely short-lived. It is no longer enough to subsidize gym memberships or host a monthly lunch-andlearn session and say that you are helping workers achieve a work-life balance.

We need to emphasize the development of communities that see and acknowledge the challenges of our workers and that appreciate and support mental health. Employers need to prioritize building resilience through holistic wellbeing and delivering incentives that genuinely help workers navigate their lives and solve the everevolving root causes of burnout. Employees need to be empowered with tools that allow them to personalize self-care to accomplish whatever their well-being means.

The truth is, we’re not going to return to the recognizable patterns any time soon. Our habits will likely change again. The reality is that we don’t know, what is required to be ready for the uncertain future state as well as this “new standard,” thus making a difference for workers today. From my point of view, leaders must:

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● Listen and understand. Understand the opportunities and challenges behind the realities of today’s workforce and, more importantly, how they affect the workforce. ● Create actionable strategies. Assemble the right people to decide what you should do in an operational, cultural, and profitable way to make a positive difference in employees’ everyday lives. ● Follow-through. Let workers know that you are mindful of their needs and committed to helping them and protecting their health and well-being.

Implement improvements and create a consistent feedback loop with the workforce. Measure the performance and hold it up.

The outbreak of the Covid-19 did not only ignite a flame. It lit a flame that indicated the need for employees to obtain new forms of social and cultural support within the workplace.

It’s never been more important to meet the employees where they are — whether this means having more flexibility in working hours, restoring the workforce’s well-being program, de-stigmatizing on-demand digital benefits, increasing your diversity and inclusion policies, avoiding back-to-back meetings, understanding child care stresses, and asking employees to take regular breaks or train managers to have tough discussions.

Truth is that this is technically easy to chart, but the practicalities are always motivated by the quest of top and bottom lines.

However, we’ve got to start somewhere.

Businesses must build an atmosphere in which workers know that they can say ‘no’ to long hours, take their annual leave and also ensure that there are outlets in which they can ascend without fear of repercussions.

Open dialogues with clients and industry bodies on the identification and management of these issues also need to be identified. This is a systemic problem that cannot be addressed in a short time and without the attention of all the parties concerned.

The fast-paced advertising industry can never come to a still but the employers should prove that they care. This can help put the employee in a better place to get in contact with people. In this process, they can prevent the employees from burning out and, most importantly, make their lives easier.

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