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|In: Business|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Since the turn of the century have seen unprecedented change to the way organizations and their customers do their business. And the old saying ‘evolve or die’ has never been so apt. Companies of all shapes and sizes now face the mission critical and constant of adapting new technology to improve their efficiency and productivity. Below are some of the more important trends we think you need to embrace in order to future-proof your business, and stay ahead of the field as this chaotic century continues apace!

Image Source* – Medium

This article is contributed by Murali Urs, Country Manager of Barracuda Networks Our/We in the article refers to Barracuda Networks

Social Media

The rise of social media and its impact on how businesses interact with their customers has been one of the most seismic shifts in recent years. The numbers say it all; while a Times Square signage advertising can expect nearly 1.5 million impressions each day, Facebook had 1.71 billion monthly active users!

Increasingly, people expect to be able to interact with your business publicly, in real-time. Social media represents an amazing opportunity to reach more people, promote your business, deliver outstanding customer service, and resolve consumer grievances to minimize churn.

Our top tips for dealing with the social craze are:

1. Ensure you have a well-branded presence on Facebook and Twitter.

2.Create a social media calendar so you can plan your content output and campaigns in advance

3. Monitor the channels regularly and make sure you respond to all comments and messages- good and bad!

Responsive Design

Another earth-shattering development over recent years has been the staggering growth of mobile devices. Whereas back in Y2K you’d be most likely to use your phone purely for calling and texting (with the occasional game of Snake thrown in…) we now use mobile devices everywhere, and for pretty much everything. Invariably, customers now expect a truly consistent experience, whichever device they use to reach your business.

That’s why it’s absolutely vital to ensure that you’re using responsive design on your website. Responsive Design just means that your website recognizes which device a viewer is using and displays an optimized version for that device.

Go Paperless

Going paperless is not only an amazing thing to do for the environment, it can make a difference to your bottom line. The average employee prints an astonishing 10,000 sheets of paper every year which is an unnecessary expense you could surely do without!

Going paperless is also a great way to streamline your processes and manage projects more efficiently. Cutting down on the amount of paper in your business ensures important decisions and processes are no longer informed by flimsy scraps of paper and manual spreadsheets- while providing the peace of mind that your important documents are securely backed up and protected.

File Storage

The days of huge filing cabinets jamming up your office space are surely a thing of the past! There are too many advantages to mention when it comes to cloud storage. It’s inexpensive, saving you the expense of costly backups, and, since your data is encrypted, it’s infinitely more secure. It is also easy for the relevant people to gain access, great for collaboration and of course-saves your physical space.

With such a wide range of affordable options available, it seems crazy that businesses continue to run the risk of losing precious documents as a result of fire or flood.

Security

A lot of things have changed over the years, but unfortunately cyber threats have been one, unwelcome constant. Security techniques have certainly evolved, but then, so have the risks. It’s absolutely vital that you take precautions to keep your business safe.

According to a report by PWC, in 2015, there were 38 percent more security incidents detected than in 2014, causing catastrophic financial damage. In 2015, companies saw an average of 160 successful cyber attacks per week, more than three times the 2010 average of 50 per week, according to a report by the Heritage Foundation.

There are a number of things to consider to ensure you are protected, from firewalls, to anti-virus scans, and encryption of your sensitive data. Success often boils down to planning; how are you meeting the threats that are ‘out there’ and do you have a contingency plan to put into action if the worst happens-an early response can hugely mitigate the impact of an attack!

eSignatures

As technology has soared over recent years, many processes have been simplified and streamlined. But, bizarrely, the act of getting a document signed up is as sluggish and inefficient as ever, with businesses still relying on archaic methods to get the job done.

Using eSignatures, you can forget about the printing, signing, scanning, mailing and above all -Waiting, associated with the old-fashioned techniques. eSignatures are legally binding, just like real signatures, and they allow your staff, clients and partners to sign documents digitally (across multiple devices) and have them back to you in a matter of minutes.

Get with the times!

|In: Business|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

National Instruments [NI] India has launched the NI India Business Incubator Program and announced the expansion of their R&D Center in India. Both these initiatives aim to support the government’s Make in India program and enable Indian engineers to become global knowledge partners in driving innovation and development across industries and domains.

The expansion of the India R&D Center ensures that NI has access to the top talent instrumental in building a platform that meets the needs of all engineers and scientists today. NI works with leading universities to hire the best and brightest talent within the region and provides world-class, formal and on-the-job training to create a long-term and sustained career progression.

Scott Rust, senior vice president of Global R&D at NI said

We strongly believe we can help the Indian startup ecosystem overcome technological hurdles and succeed faster. Our platform provides the fastest way for engineers and scientist to access new technology and accelerate productivity, innovation and discovery. By providing access to NI’s platform and technologies, we are investing in future innovators and contributing towards sustainable development in all markets that we serve.

Through NI India’s Business Incubator Program, NI will provide increased access to NI technology, technical training and support to shared local communities like domestic Small and Medium-sized Enterprises [SMEs], academic incubation centers and startups.

Jayaram Pillai, Managing Director, NI India added

For Make in India to succeed and sustain, manufacturing in India should bring more benefits to the table than just cost of labor. Companies can differentiate themselves by adopting smart technologies to reduce defects and improve quality. NI’s technology provides a flexible and powerful platform to build these intelligent systems that power the factory of the future. Startups are an integral part of building the future and we believe that the NI India Business Incubator Program will contribute to the Make in India initiative.

To extend its reach and maximize the impact of the Business Incubator Program, NI is partnering with mission-aligned local organizations, as well as experienced technology and business consultants, to provide world-class support and assistance to the applicants. It is also aligned with the flagship initiative of the Government of India, Start-up India, which strives to build a solid eco-system to support innovation, promote domestic startups and generate viable economic growth by generating large-scale employment opportunities.

These forward-looking actions of the Indian Government and the abundance of engineering talent will significantly contribute to Bangalore’s transformation into the home of some of the best technology companies in India and abroad.

For more information on the NI India Business Incubator Program, please visit NI India Business Incubator details page.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

If you follow popular shows on the NDTV network such as The Big Fight, Power Lunch, Prime Time and Chakhle India Kachcha Raasta, there is good news for you! YuppTV, the world’s largest Over-The-Top [OTT] provider for Indian content, has announced its partnership with the NDTV Group. Under the move, YuppTV subscribers will be able to view the four channels – NDTV India [Hindi], NDTV 24×7 [English] and NDTV Profit/Prime [Business] and NDTV Good Times anytime, anywhere.

The four channels of NDTV can be accessed by users on YuppTV from outside India and YuppTV India from India, or by downloading the YuppTV app on their smart phones, smart TVs, smart Blu-ray players, streaming media players, tablets and gaming consoles. The move took the number of channels on YuppTV’s platform to 16, adding to its current repository of 200+ Indian TV Channels in 13 languages including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, Oriya, Gujarati, Sinhala, Urdu and Bangla.

Speaking on the announcement, Uday Reddy, Founder & CEO, YuppTV, commented

We are the largest OTT provider for Indian content in the world, while the NDTV group is the preferred news channel for Indian expats worldwide. The association will allow us to add NDTV’s popular news and lifestyle programmes to our offerings and will improve the selection choices for our users. We are confident of satisfying all India-centric news-related requirements of our subscribers with this partnership.

Rahul Sood, Head, Network Distribution & Affiliate Sales, NDTV, added

We are pleased to partner with YuppTV, a leading digital content destination for Indian expats and this association will serve to add even more options for the YuppTV users and allow its users with anytime, anywhere access to our channels.

About YuppTV

YuppTV is one of the world’s leading Over-the-top [OTT] content providers for South Asian Content. YuppTV was founded in 2006, with headquarters in Atlanta, GA and has branch offices in the USA and India. YuppTV started with two channels and has grown to deliver more than 200+ TV Channels today.  YuppTV is accessible on more than 25 internet enabled – Connected TVs, Internet STBs, Smart Blu-ray players, PCs, Smart Phones and Tablets.

For more information, please visit YuppTV

|In: Business|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

Akosha, the messaging platform for all consumer-to-business interactions & Aircel, one of India’s leading innovative telecom players, have together created new milestones in the realm of customer satisfaction in the country.

With the launch of the Aircel Mobile Sewa Kendra, a mobile app-based platform that has been deployed across 2,000 retailers in rural areas and through the use of smart application of Akosha OneDirect suite to manage online interactions, Aircel has been able to significantly enhance customer experience and satisfaction across geographies in a span of just eight months.

Akosha_Aircel

To achieve this, Aircel divided its subscriber base into three tiers, forming a pyramid. The upper two tiers represented premium customers, who have started to embrace social media to resolve issues while the third tier, one of the fastest growing segments, comprised customers from rural areas.

The two-fold challenge accepted by Aircel was first, to  ensure that the prime customer segment received superior customer service across all channels including social media and second, to deliver a stellar customer service experience to the rural and semi-urban subscriber base, despite logistical barriers such as lack of on-ground customer support in most of these places.

Akosha and Aircel formed a Joint Action Team to address these issues. To cater to the premium customer segment, Akosha provided the requisite infrastructure to Aircel in the form of Akosha OneDirect suite so that the organisation could listen to all its customers, through social media platforms, 24×7 and empower itself with actionable customer data to achieve the desired customer-centricity.

It is a unique software tool that has been designed keeping in mind the specific challenges that Indian brands face in delivering the best possible customer experience. This technology connects every online interaction the customer has with a brand. OneDirect is the only platform that includes all of the capabilities to manage a holistic social media strategy; along with built-in integrations with traditional CRMs to leverage the power of social media.

On the other hand, to cater to the needs of the semi-urban and rural subscriber base, the Joint Action Team roped in neighbourhood corner shops and empowered the local retailers to help customers with their queries by simply using a smartphone. This led to the development of‘Mobile Sewa Kendra’ -a mobile-based customer service app that became a game changer in this domain.

While catering to this e-rural segment, it was important to deploy a platform that would be user-friendly, available in local languages, and also which worked efficiently on a 2G connection. The app structure was therefore designed such that a query, request or a complaint could be addressed in just three simple steps. This air-tight query, and request and complaint capturing mechanism left no scope for a complaint to be lost in the loop. The deployment of this platform was met with a tremendous response and high levels of acceptance. As a result, retailers have wholeheartedly embraced this app to provide valuable feedback, leading Aircel to consolidate its market leadership position in terms of customer satisfaction.

Speaking on the initiative, Vishrut Chalsani, VP, Enterprise Solutions & Co-founder, Akosha said

The rural subscribers of Aircel sought more personalized attention while the more net savvy customers from urban geographies demanded a quick and responsive social media management. Through an intelligent API integration of Akosha OneDirect with the Aircel internal CRM, we were able to achieve both goals. With the Mobile Sewa Kendra, Aircel and Akosha have been able to tremendously improve customer experience across segments such that our combined success has become a veritable case study for superb CRM, specific to the Indian context.

Alok Kumar, Chief Service Delivery Officer, Aircel said

A highly effective customer-centric organization has to be tuned to serve its market in the best possible way. An ‘internet savvy’ customer needs a responsive social media management, while a customer in semi urban/rural area needs a personalized ‘high touch’ handling at the front end. We are glad to have got Akosha as our ‘Customer Experience’ partner, who have brought in their technology offerings, combined with a young, energetic and enthusiastic team, who were willing to learn and innovate with us, to deploy creative solutions for serving both these segments.

Aircel today manages its entire Online Reputation Management [ORM] operation from a single dashboard, where team members can easily respond to tickets and resolve them, without having to go back and forth over elaborate, complex protocols. In addition, Aircel’s Mobile Sewa Kendra won the Voice&Data- Telecom Leadership Award 2015 for Innovation in Customer Service.

About Akosha

Akosha is a horizontal platform for all consumers to business interactions. Customers can connect with any businesses using an Akosha mobile app, dedicated customer care helpline and website.

Akosha has received over 40,00,000 consumer queries across sectors, including telecom, consumer appliances, ecommerce, mobile, banking and insurance in 2014. The company has 350+ employees and 3 offices in India.

On the B2B side, Akosha OneDirect is a social CRM platform that helps brands in managing their customer experience across all online channels. In May 2015, Akosha secured $16 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital.

|In: Business|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

Street signs have sure become an agent of being aware of what is new and rising in your everyday life. Name a day when you are out driving and you do not devote a single second to seeing the huge street sign boards around,  even if you intend not to, your body is like auto ingrained to impart attention to just about everything around you, and street signs, if designed well get more than a fair share of attention.

Be it business, consumer durable, campaign or real estate – any department that comes up with a street sign that screams of a change is sure remembered till long after. Remember now – have you never noticed the change of banner around the corner of the street? If you have not, you sure are lying or just don’t remember the time when you did notice.

Anyhow, what this observation means for a company is that people will notice the street sign you use. What else? If it is a great street sign, which colourful and well designed, or at least unusual, your street sign will help create and almost eye popping attention of consumers driving a huge lot of them to you for your product or your services.

MarketingSign

You must thus use a good street sign design agency or service. One that has devoted designers to meet the need of your design, making it creative yet subtle but unique enough to stand out and grab the attention. It should not just stand out but be able to endure weather changes and be a clear depiction of your business, something that is very unique to your business and no one else.

Certain tips you may want to consider to ensure that your business has only the best street sign for it, nothing less are:

  1. The street sign should not have too many words one ought to read. The message should be short, simple and sweet. One that reaches out to your target audience. Remember that while driving by a customer cannot read paragraphs of information, maybe only a few words and they drive further. The few words you have must be simple for your reader to understand and clear for your customer to figure out even if he is at an angle that does not accommodate the view of the sign very well. So let your words be powerful, engaging and memorable. Less here is more.
  2. Keep making an additional effort to keep your sign engaging people. Adding holly and lights during Christmas, or plain changing the colour scheme often may do the trick. You may as well plan on a series of signs which you change every alternate month as a continuation of the old. This keeps your customer involved and wait for more too. So those little changes do not go unnoticed.
  3. There is no alternative to being creative. The customer has access to millions of signs. You do not want yours to be one of them. Be sure to make your sign creative and make it stand out. A little humour or sarcasm can take you a long way too. Lights and imagery are another way to garner attention.
  4. The sign should be unique to your business, nothing which associates it with other enterprises as such. It should form a personal connect with your customer.
  5. Decide whether the sign is timeless and permanent or is there for a short period. Is it an advertorial of sorts? Does it need to be transported or would it be reused. All these decisions will help determine the flexibility of your design better too.
  6. This said, customize your design well and make sure that the position of your signs is not too concealed. Let it be where there is not too much already. The process is easy and be sure that it is effective too. So get your street signs designed today! Tomorrow may be too late.

In case you are interested in getting Street Signs developed for your business, you can contact signs in Edmonton

Image Credit – todaysinnovativewoman

|In: Events|Last Updated:

Innovative Search & Discovery Platform Xploree, powered by KeyPoint Technologies has been declared amongst the top 50 technology product finalist award winners at InTech50 2015 event held on 15th and 16th April at Bangalore.

KPT

Xploree was shortlisted as one of the finalists in a rigorously contested award process that received nominations from 228 companies. Winners of InTech50 receive advice, on-going mentoring, product marketing support and funding to scale their offering to global markets.

Winners of prestigious InTech50 receive advice, on-going mentoring, product marketing support and funding to scale their offering to global markets. The winners are chosen by an Advisory Board comprising global and Indian CIOs of marquee companies, product company heads, venture capitalists and analysts after a rigorous evaluation process.

KeyPoint Technologies presented an accelerated five minute pitch of its innovative search & discovery platform Xploree to renowned CIOs from leading global multinational companies. Xploree is industry’s first, revolutionary search and discovery platform that connects mobile application users to the most relevant brands and services during conversations.

The innovative, user-initiated and multi-lingual platform can predict a mobile device user’s needs and guide them through their journey across applications through relevant content, deals and services. The application is available to Indian users and will eventually roll out in other global markets.

Speaking at the occassion, Sumit Goswami, CEO of KeyPoint Technologies mentioned

InTech50 is a showcase of some of the most promising and innovative technology and software products created by new and emerging companies. Being adjudged a Top 50 finalist by an eminent panel of CIOs and leaders is a validation of Xploree’s disruptive innovation in connecting mobile device users to relevant brands and services in the precise moment of need.

Xploree’s ability to pre-target users with relevant services in the mobile moment enriches consumer conversations and engagement with brands thus strengthening purchase intent. Our results have shown that Xploree can hike consumer engagement rate with brands by over 10 times industry average.

Key Features of Xploree

Hyper-Contextual – Location, environment, user intent, past actions and more – relevant information, always in context.

Immediacy – Information, services and product purchases in your mobile moment and time of need in real-time.

Simplicity – Mobile search made simple with one tap – easy to find what exactly you want.

To view Xploree in action, please visit http://bit.ly/1LQKJqo

For Xploree updates please visit http://www.xploree.com/

|In: Accelerator|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

Citrix announced the successful culmination of its Innovators Program, where nine graduating teams completed its Startup Accelerator’s intensive three-month business model validation program guided by Citrix executives and industry experts. The program ended with a Demo Day, where each of the startup teams presented to a panel of industry veterans and potential investors.

The first group included five internal teams & four external companies. Citrix awarded a $10,000USD fellowship seed funding to the four external companies.

citrix-logo

Launched in August last year, the Innovators Program attracted hundreds of company entries of which nine teams were chosen by an Executive Council, to become part of the Innovators Program. Designed with the objective of blending leading-edge leadership, team building, design thinking and lean startup approaches, teams were trained to validate their business models around customers’ needs. Additionally, participants also received mentoring & guidance from seasoned business executives, industry leaders & venture capital investors.

Commenting on the program’s culmination, John McIntyre, Managing Director, Citrix Startup Accelerator said

The core focus of the Startup accelerator program is to enable entrepreneurs create the next wave of disruptive technologies and great new products that will pave the way for the future of the workspace. India is a gold mine of talented startups, and these nine teams are a testament to this very fact.

We are excited for what these teams will achieve & eagerly awaiting the next cohort of the Innovator’s program, what we plan to launch later in 2015.

Rakesh Singh, Vice President and General Manager, Citrix India added

We extend our warmest congratulations to the path-breaking and first ever graduating batch of the Innovators Program. Our aim had been to handpick startups that showcased innovation and potential, and subsequently help them to accelerate their growth manifold through a series of workshops and mentoring. I can safely say that each of the nine teams graduating from the first edition of the Innovator’s Program in India are better prepared to bring great products to the market, and have attracted tremendous investor interest, making us extremely proud of the outcome.

Graduating Batch of the Citrix Startup Accelerator Innovators Program

  1. Maxerience
  2. Karmasnap
  3. Parablu
  4. Instasafe
  5. Sharecard
  6. Oppcee
  7. Buzzybee
  8. Zipzapdata
  9. 140 Bytes

|In: Accelerator|Last Updated:

Nasscom_10000Startups

With more than 3,000 tech start-ups, India is the fourth largest base for young businesses in the world and it is expected that by 2020 the base will increase to 11,500 tech start-ups. This along with other interesting findings were revealed in ‘Tech Start-up in India: A Bright Future’ a study report by National Association of Software and Services Companies [NASSCOM] and Zinnov.

The report suggests that the Indian start-ups with their unique solutions are witnessing increased traction in global whitespace opportunities such as Internet of Things, Augmented Reality, Smart hardware, Business Intelligence & many more.

With technology spreading its wings into different domains, “Domain+Tech’ solutions are taking over other trends”. The emerging niche technology solutions are primarily focused on Ad-tech, Edu-tech, Health-tech, Agri-tech & many more. Geographically, Bangalore & National Capital Region [NCR] tops the chart for being home to maximum number of young businesses.

The findings also highlight that many trends are maturing in the ecosystem, especially funding aspect. Multiple and easily accessible platform like VC/PE, angel investors, incubators, financial institutes and even banks, are the driving force for the same.

Commenting on the new evolution of the ecosystem, Mr. Rajat Tandon, Senior Director, NASSCOM 10,000 Startups, added [Note : We in the article refers to NASSCOM 10,000 Startups]

These latest findings clearly indicate the beginning of the golden era for young tech-based businesses where opportunities for growth are much larger than the challenges in the ecosystem. We are proud to be once again at the cutting edge in helping to support a growing niche within this field and we are excited to ink new partnerships as we close the year to accelerate our efforts in that direction.

NASSCOM’s 10,000 Start-ups program has successfully paved way for 3 inevitable trends that are shaping the Indian economy with the potential to shake things up: Digitalization, Faster innovation cycles &the rise of young, ambitious talent. Start-ups are both a consequence and an accelerating catalyst of these trends. It’s exciting to be here, but we have much to do. This ecosystem is growing in scale and strength and as we move forward, we are focused towards domain specific strategic partnerships to drive it to the next level of maturity in FY 2015.

  1. The Program is partnering with AstroLabs Dubai, to navigate Indian Tech Startups to the MENA region. This association will give a tangible edge to support tech entrepreneurs emerging from the 10,000 Start-ups program, both with the physical space and with formal training programs.
  2. The Program’s partnership with ValPro, an investment banking & financial advisory services to leverage a web based platform “Enablers” which facilitates start-ups & SME’s to connect with HNI’s, Angels and VC’s for fund raising. It is a tool that makes entrepreneurs investor-ready and handhold them through various stages of fund raising.
  3. The Program inked another association with CampusEAI Consortium, a leader in the world of higher education information technology services. CampusEAI EduTech Venture Fund invests in early stage enterprise software, Internet and Mobile companies that target the education market or companies created from intellectual property technology transfer from colleges and universities.
  4. To support early-stage companies in Healthcare and Life-sciences domain, we partnered with Escape Velocity Accelerator to review applications for selecting entrepreneurs into its incubation program.

Speaking about the partnership, Anjli Jain, CEO of CampusEAI and Managing Director of CampusEAI’s EduTech Venture Fund stated

Our partnership with NASSCOM’s 10,000 Start-ups program gives us an opportunity to expand our portfolio and existing investments in India-based start-ups and provide early-stage entrepreneurs with the mentorship, guidance and funds they require to be successful. We look forward to working with NASSCOM and accelerating the mission of the 10,000 Start-ups initiative.

Speaking about the partnership, Mr. Muhammed Mekki, Founding Partner, AstroLabs stated:

We look forward to welcoming members of 10,000 Startups at AstroLabs Dubai, enabling their expansion into the growing Middle Eastern market and providing direct access to a region that has the highest smartphone penetration in the world.

Interesting info-graphic giving an in-depth view about the “Startup Landscape in India”

[Note : Click on the image to Enlarge]

Indian Startup Ecosystem - Click on the image to enlarge

*10,000 Start-ups is a NASSCOM initiative supported by Google for Entrepreneurs, Microsoft Ventures, Verisign, & Intel