DataQuest Feb

CURBING INDIAS PROBLEM OF
ELECTRICITY THEFTS p. 17
BETTING BIG ON
HYBRID CLOUD p. 64
BANKING THE
UNBANKED p. 68
`60
www.dqindia.com
VOL XXXIII No 04 I FEBRUARY 28, 2015
THE BUSINESS OF INFOTECH
Banking
Goes
Social
Indian banks are actively leveraging social

ciiall
kee
platforms to build communities and take
banking to a different level >>20
Impact of mobility on
nancial services >>32
Boosting collaboration
with ESN >>36
PERSPECTIVE
HARNATH BABU
CIO, AVIVA LIFE INSURANCE
CASE STUDY
THOMSON THOMAS
CIO, HDFC LIFE
76 pages including cover
Special Subscription offer on page 60
We
Succeed
When Redundancy
Fails
FEBRUARY 28, 2015
20 I
TALKING POINT
IBMs Newest
Mainframe z13 to
Handle Trending
Workloads
40
Banking
Goes
Social
VISWANATH
RAMASWAMY
Country Leader,
Server Solutions
(POWER & Mainframe)
IBM India
IT-led big
data projects
always fail
44
STEPHEN BROBST
Chief Technology Ofcer,
Teradata Corporation
Advanced
Technologies to Fight
New Age Crimes
52
COVER STORY
RAVIKUMAR
SREEDHARAN
Vice President,
Application Development
and Maintenance
(ADM),UnisysIndia
SECTIONS
REGULAR
Indian banks
ks
s ar
are
re
actively leveraging
social platforms to
build communities
and...
REGULAR
INDUSTRY
06
Edit
ENTERPRISE
07
DQ Team
74
Last Matter
LEISURE
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
A CyberMedia Publication
CONTENTS
EVENT
47
SMI : The Convergence Makes the Difference
INDUSTRY
ENTERPRISE
08
Short Takes
68
Banking the Unbanked
17
How Smart Grids can Curb Indias

Perennial Problem of Electricity Thefts?
70
More Analytics, Better Decisions,

Less Intuition
26
How Social, Mobile, and Online Trends are

Reshaping the Indian Insurance Segment
32
The Impact of Enterprise Mobility on the

Financial Services Industry
36
HDFC Life Shows how Enterprise Social

Networks can Boost Collaboration
38
Banking on Data
55
Why SMBs are Taking to Cloud Computing
58
Why Your Antivirus is Not Enough Anymore
62
Designing with Big Data
64
Betting Big on Hybrid Cloud
A Cy
CyberMedia
C
ybe
yyb
berrM
rMe
Me
M
ed
dia
di
iia
a Publication
Publ
blilliicat
b
ic
ca
cat
atiio
at
ion
on
o
n
www.dqindia.com
www.d
www
w.dqin
dqind
dq
iin
ndia.com
m
February
Feb
F
ebrua
ru
ua
u
ary
ary
ry 28,
28, 2015
28
2015
20
015
EDIT
Srikanth RP
srikanthp@cybermedia.co.in
How Indian BFSI rms are leading

the next wave of digital innovation
s a country with the largest youth population, India is undoubtedly one of the biggest markets for
every rm. If you are a nancial services rm, you would want to inuence this segment by being
present in places where the youth is present, or be an integral part of their lives by embedding
yourself in the platforms that the youth uses. This includes platforms like Facebook, which is used
by a majority of young Indians.
Not surprisingly, Indian banking players are leading the charge of digital innovation by integrating social
mediums with their banking services. ICICI Bank, for example, recently launched a Twitter-based banking
service, which enables its customers to transfer money to anyone in the country who has a Twitter account.
Incidentally, ICICI Bank was also the rst to launch a Facebook application that allows customers to perform
banking transactions directly from the social network.
Kotak Mahindra Bank too has launched Ji Saver, a social banking account that can be managed using
Twitter and Facebook. Kotak was also the rst bank to launch KayPay, the worlds rst bank agnostic payment
product for Facebook users to send money to each other instantly.
Insurance players are also extensively using tablets to enable their surveyors to instantly capture images,
ll in the necessary information and immediately sync information to a central server to process a claim. ICICI
Lombard, has gone one step ahead, and has launched an app that empowers customers to intimate a claim
of their vehicle through their mobile phones. Customers can click pictures of the damaged parts and send it
to the rm and record and upload the incident description in his/her voice through the app.
This is an example of innovation as it ensures that customers collect necessary evidence in terms of images
and audio records and transmit it instantaneously to the claims ofce, thus ensuring faster claim process.
As nancial products and services are quickly getting commoditized, rms in the BFSI sector are in a hotly
contested race to win the mindshare of the customer. For example, understanding that working individuals
cannot be restricted to the xed working hours of a bank, ICICI has setup an automated electronic branches
that allow customers the exibility to transact at the time of their convenience for daily banking needs.
Indian banks like ING Vysya Bank are also experimenting with new technologies like gamication, wearable
technologies and iBeacons to enhance customer experience.
By capitalizing on two big emerging trends - mobility and social, Indian BFSI rms have smartly exploited
them to their advantage. As banks cannot be present at all physical locations, they are using the reach of
social platforms like Facebook and the ubiquitous mobile device to be always accessible to the customer.
A quote by late Management guru and respected thinker, CK Prahlad best embodies the line of thinking by
Indian rms, Strategy is about stretching limited resources to fulll ambitious aspirations.
By using technology to deliver personalized experiences, Indian BFSI rms have truly changed the
economics of branch banking. For example, who would have thought years back that a bank will come to
your home to open your account. Times are changing fast, and who knows, in a few years from now, a bank
may not even have a physical address.
Srikanth RP
Editor
6
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
EDITORIAL
EDITOR AND GROUP EDITOR: Ibrahim Ahmad

EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Srikanth RP
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Shrikanth G (Chennai),
SENIOR EDITORIAL CO-ORDINATOR: Manishika Miglani

ASST MANAGER DESIGN: Bhagbat Pattnayak, Harnek Singh, Pramod S Rawat
EDITORIAL ADVISOR: Prasanto Kumar Roy
SR ASST EDITOR: Onkar Sharma (Gurgaon), Smita Vasudevan (Bengaluru)
COVER DESIGN: Pramod S Rawat
ASST EDITOR: Charu Murgai, Ruchika Goel, Prerna Sharma, Jasmine Kohli
EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Ed Nair
BUSINESS
HEAD OF SALES & MARKETING
Satish Gupta (satishg@cybermedia.co.in)
AGM-Sales (Events):
Sudheer G (sudheerg@cybermedia.co.in)
Sales
NORTH
Arvind Razdan
Subhadeep Sen
SOUTH & WEST
Pradeep Kumar
EAST
Sandeep Roy Chowdhuri
INTERNATIONAL
Arvind Razdan
Marketing
Sidharth Malhotra, Kuldeep Khatana
Events & Communities
MANAGER: Debabrata T Joshi
ASST. MANAGER: Prerna Chauhan
Operations
GENERAL MANAGER: CP Kalra
MANAGER: Ashok K
Shared Services
SR VICE PRESIDENT: Rachna Garga
PRINT SERVICES: T Srirengan
CIRCULATION & SUBSCRIPTION:
C Ramachandran, Jagdeep Khanna
Raghavendra S, Raju Salve
SR MANAGER AUDIENCE SERVICE: Sarita Shridhar
MANAGER MIS & DATABASE: Ravi Kant Kumar
SR PRESS COORDINATOR: Harak Singh Ramola
OFFICES
GURGAON (Corporate Ofce)
Cyber House
B-35 Sector-32, Gurgaon,
Haryana 122 001
Tel: 0124 - 4822222, Fax: 0124 - 2380694
BENGALURU
205-207, Sree Complex (Opposite RBANMS Ground)
# 73, St Johns Road, Bangalore 560 042
Tel: +91 (80) 4341 2000, Fax: +91 (80) 2350 7971
CHENNAI
5-B, 6th Floor, Gemini Parsn Apartments
599 Mount Road, Chennai 600 006
Tel: 044 28221712, 28229116, 28220360, Fax: 044 28222092
KOLKATA
23/54, Gariahat Road, Ground Floor
Near South City College, Kolkata 700 029
Tel: 033 65250117/18, 65341101, 40011506
MUMBAI
103, Andheri Saurabh CHS,
Above Andhra Bank, Andheri Kurla Road,
Andheri (East), Mumbai 400093
PUNE
C/o MM Activ Sci-Tech Communications
Ashirwad, 1st Floor, 36/A/2, Pallod Farms,
Near Bank of Baroda, Baner Road, Pune - 411045
INTERNATIONAL
Cyber Media (Singapore) Pte Ltd
#14-03, High Street Centre, 1 North Bridge Road,
Singapore 179 094 Mobile: +91 9945723607,
Fax: 00 63369145, Email: roshans@cybermedia.co.in
CALIFORNIA
Huson International Media
President, 1999, South Bascom Avenue, Suit 1000,
Campbell, Ca95008, USA
Tel: +1-408-879 6666, Fax: +1-408-879 6669
Dataquest (not afliated with Dataquest Inc., a division of Gartner Group, USA), is printed and published by Pradeep Gupta, on behalf of
Cyber Media (India) Ltd, printed at M/s Karan Printers, F 29/2, Phase II, Okhla Industrial Area, New Delhi, published at D-74, Panchsheel Enclave
New Delhi 110017, India. Editor Ibrahim Ahmad. Distributors in India by IBH Books & Magazines Dist. Pvt. Ltd, Mumbai.
Subscription (Inland): `1500 (24 issues), `3000 (48 issues)
Subscription (Foreign): US $145 (SAARC Countries), US $75 (Rest of the world) By Airmail.
(For subscription queries contact : rsedqindia@cybermedia.co.in)
Dataquest does not claim any responsibility to return unsolicited articles or photographs unless accompanied by adequate returnpostage.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means without prior written permission from the publishers.
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015
INDUSTRY | SHORT TAKES
Compiled by Ruchika Goel

ruchikag@cybermedia.co.in
Marten Pieters to Step Down as Vodafone India CEO

Sunil Sood Appointed as Successor
he Board of Vodafone India announced that

Marten Pieters will be stepping down as Managing Director and Chief Executive of Vodafone
India with effect from April 1, 2015 and will be
succeeded by the Vodafone India Chief Operating Ofcer, Sunil Sood. After that Pieters will continue to
remain on the Board of Vodafone India in a non-executive
capacity.
Marten Pieters was appointed as Vodafone India Managing Director and Chief Executive in February 2009 after an international telecommunications career which included board-level roles with KPN, Celtel, and Millicom.
Under his leadership, Vodafone India doubled revenues,
added more than 100 mn customers, increased market
share and launched data services used by more than 57
mn customers. The longest-serving Chief Executive of an
Indian telecommunications company, he has led Vodafone Indias participation in all spectrum auctions since
2009. Pieters was appointed as the Chairman of the
Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) in 2014.
Pieters will be succeeded as Vodafone India Managing
Director and Chief Executive by Sunil Sood. Sood is currently the Vodafone India Chief Operating Ofcer. He is
responsible for day-to-day operations and P&L management together with new business development initiatives
including the launch and expansion of mobile commerce

activities. Sood joined Vodafone Indias predecessor
business, Hutch, in 2000 and has held roles leading the
companys operations in Gujarat, Kolkata and Chennai.
He had previously worked for Pepsi in a range of Indian
and international leadership roles.
PayPal Extends Start Tank

Incubation Challenge to Student Entrepreneurs
n an effort to promote a culture of entrepreneurship

among the student community, PayPal has opened
the doors of its Start Tank incubator for students aspiring to start their own enterprise. The incubation
center in Chennai, which hosts and grooms tech
startup companies, now encourages student entrepreneurs from across top universities to pitch their tech ideas
and turn them into reality.
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
For the rst time since its inception in 2013, PayPals

Start Tank rolled out its incubation challenge at the recently held Entrepreneurship Conclave and Startup Hive
at IIT-Madras and selected two teams from the competition. They will now have a direct entry into the nals of the
incubation challenge to be conducted later this year, and
upon selection, get incubated at Start Tank.
The winning idea of delivering logistics via drones was
pitched by a team of MTech students from IIT-M and the
runner-up idea pushing dynamic ads into mobile games
in place of the obtrusive banner ads came from a team
of dual degree students, also from IIT-M. Several promising concepts such as crowdfunding to support the underprivileged, 3D printing & distribution, green garbage
waste management, among many others, were also presented by students from several leading universities in the
country.
Spice Group Announces Investment of `500 crore

to Build Manufacturing Unit in UP
aking forward the Government of Indias

Make in India campaign, Spice Group,
a leading mobile Internet conglomerate announced an investment of `500
crore to set up a manufacturing unit
in Uttar Pradesh. At the occasion, the company
also signed a Memorandum of Understanding
with the Government of Uttar Pradesh for setting
up the manufacturing unit in the state. The manufacturing unit will bolster the companys strategy
to introduce affordable mobile Internet devices in India through domestic manufacturing, thus catering to a larger market
by offering best technology at most affordable prices.
Under the Memorandum of Understanding, the Government of UP will
support Spice Group in establishing the facility in the State of Uttar
Pradesh in a time bound manner and facilitate

the necessary infrastructure, ecosystem and
incentives under various schemes announced by the State and Central Government.
Commenting on the announcement, Dilip
Modi, Chairman, Spice Group said, We are
delighted to announce our investment plans
to set up a mobile manufacturing unit in Uttar Pradesh with the support of the Government
of Uttar Pradesh. With a local manufacturing plant,
Spice Group can achieve its vision to create affordable and high technology mobile products for a larger
audience. Uttar Pradesh has had a strong connection with our group, ever since we set up the countrys rst photocopier manufacturing plant in the
state. We would like to thank the Government of
Uttar Pradesh for once again extending their support in expanding our companys business plans.
VMware Strengthens its Leadership Team in India
Mware announced key changes to its leadership team in India with the appointment of Sundar Balasubramanian as the Senior Director for
General Business for VMware India. Balasubramanian will be responsible for partners and alliances, and will also lead the commercial sales business
for VMware in India.
Balasubramanian joins VMware from IBM where he last
served as the Country Manager, channels, SI & ISV, systems & technology group. A seasoned industry veteran
with over 21 years experience, Balasubramanian has in
the past held senior leadership roles with EMC and Microsoft.
VMware also announced the promotion of Balaji Rao to
Senior Director Enterprise and government sales to help
enterprise and government organizations transition to the
mobile cloud era. Having spent over 5 years with VMware,
Rao has played a crucial role in enabling enterprise customers to embark on their virtualization journey in India.
Sangeeta Gundala takes on a new role as the India
business leader for AirWatch (that VMware acquired in
January 2014) to help address the fast growing enterprise
mobility opportunity in India. Gundala till recently held the
position of Director, commercial sales at VMware India.
The past year was an important year for VMware in
|
India. It was a year of change and transformation for us

as we embarked on our next phase of growth, said Arun
Parameswaran, Managing Director, VMware India. These
appointments will help strengthen the VMware leadership
team in India as we look to aggressively capitalize on the
enormous opportunities that mobile-cloud era offers us in
the region, he added.
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015
Dell OEM Solutions Help Agmatel Reduce

Total Cost of Ownership for Kiosks by 30%
ell announced that it has successfully deployed Dell OEM solutions for Agmatel, one
of the leading provider of kiosks to the public sector in India. This implementation has
helped Agmatel reduce their total cost of ownership by 30% along with offering speedy delivery.
Like other authorities, India is rolling out self-service
kiosks at many sites, including government agencies,
to deliver a faster and more efcient service to citizens.
Looking at the growing demand for self-service kiosks,
Agmatel also decided to develop its own range of kiosk
solutions. For this the company ordered PCs from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in China and Taiwan
to power its kiosk terminals but problems started arising
when the PCs came unsupported, leaving Agmatel with
the substantial cost of servicing hardware warranties in
the eld. Also, because the PCs were manufactured outside of India, they had to undergo stringent testing by
ocials before they could enter the country.
Owing to Dells unremitting supply of technology to
public sector clients for many years, Agmatel decided
to switch to Dell OEM Solutions and Intel processors to
help solve its challenges. The organization selected Dell
OEM OptiPlex 7010 and 9020 PCs with Intel Core i3
dual-core processors to support its kiosk terminals. Also,
where kiosks were permanently connected to a network,

Agmatel chose Dell Wyse thin clients.
Using Dells solution, Agmatel was able to offer speedy
delivery which further reduced their total cost of ownership of kiosk solution by 30%. Moreover, Dell also provided them immense support across India so that if they
need to resolve a technical issue, Dell will send an engineer with a replacement part immediately without having
Agmatel incur any cost in spares or sending out their own
engineers.
Panasonic Joins Hands with Reliance Communications to

Introduce Cloud-Based Video Surveillance
anasonic India, in association with Reliance

Communications (RCOM), launched Cloud
Video
Intelli-Surveillancean
end-to-end
video surveillance solution with advanced
analytics for the enterprise segment. Combining Panasonics global domain expertise in surveillance
cameras and video analytics with Reliances countrywide
network and datacenter infrastructure, cloud video intellisurveillance is designed as an integrated solution to bring
advanced surveillance within easy reach to enterprises
across the country. RCOMs enterprise business arm will
take this solution to the market, leveraging its deep relationship with over 39,000 businesses across the country.
Providing physical security to humans and assets, especially in the context of prevailing social environment, is
a signicant challenge for enterprises, particularly those
with distributed operations. It is prompting organizations,
authorities, and individuals to devise effective response
12
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
mechanisms today. Keeping these concerns in view, Panasonic, along with Reliance Communications, is amongst
the pioneers to provide 24*7 access to video footage on
any connected device: PC, Mac, Mobile phone and Tablet, while being on the move. The solution will nd its use
in almost all verticals, particularly hospitality, education,
retail, healthcare, and BFSI (Banking, Financial Services
& Insurance) sectors.
Cloud video intelli-surveillance is packed with a host of
offerings, such as easy scheduling, managing IP cameras
fully in the cloud and advanced cloud video analytics like
Human Detection, Tripwire and many more. This solution
also offers various advantages such as alerts, API usage,
user management and HD-like image quality. With apps
available for iOS & android devices, one can easily access their cameras on-the-go. This allows for seamless
checking of live streams and footage or receiving push
notications during the course of an event.
Escorts Slashes Financial Reporting Time

by 50% with Oracle
scorts announced that they have implemented

Oracle E-Business Suite. The company consolidated four ERP systems onto Oracle E-Business Suite to make business processes more
efcient and to increase revenue opportunities.
By implementing a standardized ERP platform,
Escorts has accelerated its supply chain process
and improved decision-making with enhanced data
transparency across its four lines of business.
The company slashed nancial reporting time by
50% and automated supply chain operations to enable
faster responses to rapidly changing market demands.

Furthermore, Escorts has signicantly improved its
inventory and warehouse management, which has
increased revenue opportunities and enhanced customer
satisfaction.
Prior to this implementation, each of Escorts four
lines of business used separate Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) platforms, which resulted in disparate
operating and control processes and created difculties
for management to gain enterprise-wide visibility for
taking informed business decisions. It was a cumbersome
and time-consuming process to analyze the companys
protability drivers.
With disparate legacy ERP systems, Escorts could
not close books and generate nancial reports until the
tenth day of the following month, as all four divisions had
different chart-of-account masters and business-specic
methods for handling nancial data.
Through the implementation of Oracle Financials,
Escorts implemented a group wide, shared-services
business model to centrally manage all nancial activities,
including accounting (recievable, payable, general ledger),
taxes, and xed assets. Escorts can now complete their
nancial reporting on the fth day rather than the tenth
day of the next month by using the integrated workow
and automated data consolidation.
Dr Anirban Basu Elected President of

Computer Society of India
r Anirban Basu has been elected as the President of Computer Society of India (CSI) for the
period 2016-2017. He will serve as the Vice
President of CSI from April 2015 to 2016 before assuming the ofce of the President.
Formed in 1965, CSI is the largest and oldest body of
IT professionals and has been instrumental in guiding the
Indian IT industry down the right path since its formative
years. Today, CSI has 73 chapters all over India, over 500
student branches, and more than 100,000 members including Indias most famous IT industry leaders, brilliant
scientists, and dedicated academicians.
Dr Basu is a dynamic executive based in Bengaluru with
more than 35 years experience in academia, advanced
research & development, commercial software industry,
consultancy and corporate training.
|
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015
13
Mark Ablett Joins Hitachi Data Systems
itachi Data Systems announced the appointment of Mark Ablett as Senior Vice President
and General Manager, Asia Pacic. He will be
responsible for providing strategic direction
and leading the company in its drive to capitalize on the fast growing opportunities in the Asia Pacic
region, boosting revenue growth and expanding the business.
Ablett brings over 20 years of regional sales and leadership experience
in the information technology industry
to HDS. He is a proven business leader
with a wealth of enterprise sales and
leadership expertise. Before joining
HDS, Ablett was Vice President of Australasia at Juniper Networks responsible for revenue growth and protability
across the region.
Mark joins us at an exciting time of
growth and transformation at HDS as
we continue to expand the breadth of
solutions we offer to our customers and
partners in the region, said Michael
Cremen, Executive Vice President, Global Sales, Hitachi

Data Systems. His expansive industry knowledge and
rich experience in the Asia Pacic market will enhance
the impact of our teams and expand the value we provide
to customers. Under Marks leadership, the opportunities
for HDS are tremendous.
Hitachi Data Systems is synonymous with providing
the worlds best-in-class information
technologies, services and solutions
to a variety of customers across the industry sectors, said Ablett. The Asia
Pacic market is growing fast and companies are keen to capitalize on opportunities, leveraging valuable information
and insights powered by technology.
I am excited to lead the HDS team to
deliver highly innovative solutions to our
customers, strengthen our partnerships
with leading technology providers and
cement our thought-leadership position
in the industry. I look forward to driving
the Asia Pacic business to even greater heights in the years to come.
Twitter Appoints Taranjeet Singh as

Business Head for India
witter has appointed Taranjeet Singh as Head of

Sales for its India operations and will be based
in its Gurgaon ofce. Singhs main responsibilities will be to increase the commercial opportunities for Twitter in India
and to work closely with brands and
agencies to maximize the value of
real-time marketing on the worlds
largest platform for live, public conversations.
Commenting on the appointment,
Parminder Singh, Twitters Managing Director for Southeast Asia, India
and Middle East and North Africa
said, India is a very important market for usweve seen strong usage of our platform across the board
last year and now is a great time to
increase our local sales presence
by bringing in Singh as our Country
Business Head. Weve seen growing momentum from brands and
14
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
agencies to use Twitter to connect with their audiences in

real-time for major events as well as everyday moments
in India. Taranjeet will lead our partnership with brands for
maximize their creativity and deepening their customer
engagement on our platform to take
our sales business to the next level in
ndia.
Singh has more than 19 years of sales
nd business development experience
nd a comprehensive understanding of
e media industry. In his last assignment
the Sales Director, South Asia for BBC
dvertising, he was responsible for revenue and business strategy for BBC
World News and the website www.
bbc.com. Prior to joining the BBC,
Taranjeet held various positions at
Outlook Publishing, including heading advertising sales and business
development in Northern India.
Internet Grows to 284 mn

Domain Names in the Third Quarter of 2014
eriSign, a global leader in domain names

and Internet security, announced 4
mn domain names were added to
the Internet in the third quarter of
2014, bringing the total number of
registered domain names to 284 mn worldwide
across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of Sept.
30, 2014, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief.
The increase of 4 mn domain names globally
equates to a growth rate of 1.6% over the second quarter of 2014. Worldwide registrations have grown by 18.1
mn, or 6.8%, YoY.
The .com and .net TLDs experienced aggregate growth

in the third quarter of 2014, reaching a combined
total of 130.0 mn domain names in the adjusted
zone for .com and .net. This represents a
3.3% increase year over year. As of Sept.
30, 2014, the base of registered names in
.com equaled 114.9 mn names, while
.net equaled 15.1 mn names.
New .com and .net registrations
totaled 8.7 mn during the third
quarter of 2014. In the third quarter
of 2013, new .com and .net registrations totaled 8.3 mn.
IESA Signs MoU with Government of UP to

Promote ESDM Industry Ecosystem
ESA announced a Memorandum of Understanding

(MoU) with the Government of Uttar Pradesh for
promoting ESDM industry ecosystem in the state.
Under the MoU, IESA will assist the Uttar Pradesh
Government in:
Fostering the Start-up Ecosystem and Indigenous
Product Development: Setting up ESDM incubation
centers in the state at mutually identied locations
Development of Strategic Roadmap: Development
of strategic roadmap for ESDM industry in the state
Cluster Development: Preparation of detailed
project reports for the browneld/greeneld EMC at
identied locations
Investment Promotion: Setting up international
desks for the state in mutually identied foreign
locations
Talent/Skill Development: IESA has
already provided immense support to various
state governments like Government of
Maharashtra and Odisha by proposing
strategic roadmaps and attaining faster
approval of EMC Applications, thereby
catalyzing the economic growth of the
states.
The Government of Uttar Pradesh has i d e n t i f i e d
ESDM as a focus to ensure economic growth, enhance
employment opportunities, promote indigenous product
development and safeguard investors business intention
in the state. Along with IESA, we are condent to create
16
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
a favourable ecosystem for electronics manufacturing in

the state and build Uttar Pradesh for a brighter tomorrow, said Shri Jiwesh Nandan, IAS, Principal Secretary,
Department of IT and Electronics, Government of Uttar
Pradesh.
INDUSTRY | ANALYSIS
Srikanth RP
How Smart Grids can Curb Indias

Perennial Problem of Electricity Thefts?
Power threats are making India lose $16.2 bn per year. In such a scenario,
there has been a strong push for the deployment of smart meter and smart
grid technologies
ndia has always been a power decit country, and

has consistently suffered grid failures and power
blackouts. The wakeup call came in July 2012,
when the country faced the largest power outage
affecting 22 states and 620 mn people. The outage
was a wakeup call to modernize the power infrastructure
in the country. According to industry estimates, nearly
|
30% of the power generated in India is wasted in transmission and distribution primarily because of leakages
and theft.
A new study published by the Northeast Group,
estimates that theft costs the Indian power sector
$16.2 bn per year. Indias energy demand is rising
very fast. In order to meet this rising demand, there
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 17
INDUSTRY | ANALYSIS
by the major players on smart metering and distribution

automation.
We believe smart metering is a critical step required
to address this problem. Smart two-way communicating
metersalso referred to in the industry as advanced
metering infrastructure or AMIcan help India to begin
to alleviate the electricity theft problem. These meters can
pinpoint where theft may be occurring and have tamper
alerts so utilities know when there are issues, says Gardner.
Gardner believes that in the near term, the environment
may be more challenging, as Indias power sector is
fragmented and complicated. Each state has its own
regulatory commission, and industry structure and
regulations can vary widely from state to state as
utilities are in dynamic states of reform, unbundling, and
privatization. Hence, understanding the unique dynamics
of each state is important.
While each state is different, Gardner believes that the
CAN TECHNOLOGY COME TO THE RESCUE?
largest opportunities for smart grid
The
Indian
government
infrastructure lies in Maharashtra,
believes it can and has already
Karnataka, Delhi, Gujarat, West
committed billions of dollars
Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala,
in funding for smart grid
due to the best combination of
infrastructure and cumulative
positive regulatory frameworks,
spending is forecasted at $21.6
GOVERNMENTS
market size and potential benets
bn over the period 2015-2025
from smart grids.
according to Northeast Group.
COMMITMENT TO
That said, with a willing
In line with this objective, there
ADDRESS INDIAS POWER
government, there is no doubt
has been a strong push for the
that the medium-to-long term
deployment of smart meters
SECTOR CHALLENGES
smart grid opportunities in
and smart grid technologies.
ENSURES STRONG SMART
India are enormous. Overall,
The Ministry of Power has
India is one of the most unique
already approved pilots for
GRID MARKET GROWTH
smart grid markets in the world,
smart grids in the country and
THROUGHOUT THE
combining among the worlds
private players like Tata Power,
largest market potential and high
Reliance
Infrastructure
are
COMING DECADE
distribution and GDP growth
already running smart meter and
rates with complicated regulatory
smart grid led projects.
structures and low per-capita
In November 2014, Prime
Minister Modi announced $4 bn in funding for smart income and consumption. Challenges are certain to
metering programs. Additionally, over $8 bn is available persist, but the governments commitment to addressing
for loss reduction programs and dozens of projects are Indias signicant power sector challenges by investing in
now underway across 29 states. The government is also smart grid infrastructure ensures strong smart grid market
helping to drive the efforts by developing 14 smart grid growth throughout the coming decade, opines Gardner.
With the central government showing intent with
pilot projects across the country through the India Smart
billions of dollars in promised funding for smart grid
Grid Task Force.
With Indias electricity demand growth set to exceed infrastructure, India represents the largest long-term
7% per year over the next decade, there is a lot of focus smart grid opportunity in the world.
needs to be sufcient reliable power infrastructure in
place. Unfortunately, the high rate of electricity theft
creates a situation where the utilities are not nancially
sustainable. The utilities fail to collect revenue and as
a result, they do not have the necessary funding to
invest in their grids, states Ben Gardner, President of
Northeast Group.
Gardner says that nationally, total transmission and
distribution losses approach 23% and some states
losses exceed 50%, which makes most Indian utilities
nancially unsustainable. The rm estimates that India
loses more money to theft than any other country in
the world. The state of Maharashtra, which includes
Mumbai, the nancial capital of India, alone loses $2.8
bn per year, more than all but eight countries in the
world.
18
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
INDUSTRY | COVER STORY
Srikanth RP
How Emerging Technologies are

Transforming the Banking Sector
From leveraging social networks for forging bonds with youngsters, using
tablets to open new accounts quickly and experimenting with wearables,
Indian banks are wooing customers with a slew of innovative offerings
powered by technology
hen a close friend met up with an accident, a thought quickly raced through
the mind of Avinash Joshi, a 16-yearold college going happy-go-lucky kid.
As he waited anxiously outside the
operating room, his rst thought was of raising money
quickly for taking care of the hospital expenses. With20
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
out wasting any time, he coolly took out his smartphone

from his pocket, and quickly reached out to his Facebook friends to help in pooling money. Within a time
period of just one hour, Avinash had enough money in
his account to help in paying the initial expenses. It is
important to note here that none of Avinashs friends had
Avinashs account number or bank branch or an IFSC
codethey were just friends with Avinash on his Facebook friend list.
Till a few years back, this scenario would have been
impossible to comprehend or even think. Today, this is a
realitythanks to initiatives by private banks like ICICI
Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank. Indian banks today
have realized the immense potential of social media
platforms like Facebook. Facebook has more than 112
mn users in India, the largest after the US. And what
better way to engage with end customers than be at a
place where customers are already present. Facebook
gives banks one more channel to engage in real
conversations with fans and prospective customers.
SOCIALIZING BANKING
Recognizing this trend, Indias largest private sector

bank, ICICI Bank, was the rst to launch a Facebook
application that allowed its customers to view their
savings account details and statement on Facebook,
and also order a cheque book and upgrade their
debit cards, while being on the social media platform.
The bank has followed this up by launching a slew of
other applications. A year later, it created Pocketsa
Facebook application that allows one to make a payment
to friend, recharge prepaid mobile or book movie tickets.
The best part is that one does not need to know the
bank account details of their friends to make a transfer.
One can also carry out non-nancial transactions such
as accessing a mini statement of savings bank account

or order a cheque book.
More recently, in January 2015, the bank launched
icicibankpay, an initiative that enables ICICI Bank
customers to transfer money to anyone in the country
who has a Twitter account, check account balance,
view last three transactions, and recharge prepaid
mobile.
With the growing prominence of social media in everyday life, we believe our customers would be delighted to
have yet another avenue which allows them to bank while
they are on social media. Now, icicibankpay will help our
customers to execute banking transactions while they are
socializing on Twitter, says Rajiv Sabharwal, Executive
Director, ICICI Bank.
Any ICICI Bank savings account customer, who has a
mobile number registered with the bank and has a Twitter
account, can access the facilities of icicibankpay. The
customer can send money to anyone in India even if the
recipient does not have an ICICI Bank savings account.
Similarly, Kotak Mahindra Bank has launched KayPay,
the worlds rst bank agnostic payment product for
Facebook users to send money to each other instantly.
Using this facility, millions of bank account holders can
now transfer money to each other at any hour of the day
or night, without needing net banking, or knowing various
bank account related details of the payee. KayPay enables
over 250 mn Indian bank account holders transfer funds
With the growing prominence of

social media in everyday life, we
believe our customers would be
delighted to have yet another avenue
which allows them to bank while they
are on social media
Rajiv Sabharwal
Executive Director, ICICI Bank
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 21
Interesting Technology Initiatives Undertaken By Major Indian Banks

Name of Bank
Technology Initiatives
ICICI Bank
Pocketsa Facebook application that allows one to make a payment to friend, recharge prepaid
mobile or book movie tickets
icicibankpay, an initiative that enables ICICI Bank customers to transfer money to anyone in the
country who has a Twitter account
Tab Bankingan initiative that allows customers to open a ICICI bank account from the comfort
of their home as relationship managers use a tablet for capturing KYC requirements
Electronic Branchesan initiative that allows customers the exibility to transact at the time of
their convenience for daily banking needs with the help of various automated devices and kiosks
Cardless Cash Withdrawala service that allows customers to transfer money from their
account to anyone in India with a mobile number, and without a debit card
NFC-enabled debit and credit cardsan initiative that enables customers to make electronic
payments by just waving the cards near the merchant terminal instead of swiping them
Kotak Mahindra Bank
KayPay, the worlds rst bank agnostic payment product for Facebook users to send money to
each other instantly
Ji, an integrated social banking account wherein customers can receive account updates on
Twitter
Mail Moneya product that allows customers to mail money by just knowing the email ID and
the mobile number of the beneciary
IndusInd Bank
Video Branchan offering that enables customers to do a video conference with bank staff
ING Vysya Bank
WearablesThe bank is experimenting with wearables such as smart watches to enable

customers to easily access their accounts. The bank is also looking at emerging technologies
such as Beacons to improve customer experience
The Non Resident Indian (NRI)

customers in particular have found
the video branch to be a very
convenient means of reaching out
to the bank from their country of
residence
Paul Abraham
Chief Operating Ofcer, IndusInd Bank
22
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
As most people already spend

time on Facebook, they can
make small payments within
Facebook without the need of
logging into net banking
Deepak Sharma
Executive VP and Head of Digital Initiatives, Kotak Mahindra
to each other instantly by just choosing recipients from

their Facebook friends list.
Explaining the idea behind launching this service,
Deepak Sharma, Executive VP and Head of Digital
Initiatives says, We wanted to create a platform that
would reduce the ow of cash between people
especially for smaller transactions, as many of us nd
it a cumbersome task to pay in cash. We believed if we
could create a product which is frictionless and easy to
use, then we would make life simpler for Indians. As most
people already spend time on Facebook, they can make
small payments within Facebook without the need of
logging into net banking.
The product has been a huge success, as Kotak has
done three essential things right. It has made transactions
real time. Secondly, transactions are possible from any
bank to any bank, and thirdly, users do not need to
know the bank account details of the person they are
transferring money to.
Kotak Mahindra Bank has also launched Ji, an
integrated social banking account wherein customers
can receive account updates on Twitter. Designed to t
into the social networking ecosystem, Jis loyalty point
programme encourages high level of interactivity among
account holders. Customers can earn transactional
loyalty points for specic banking activities, and social
loyalty points for inviting and adding friends to the Ji
network, liking/commenting on Facebook, etc. Further,
|
each referral can also earn them social loyalty points.

These points can be redeemed for offers and can also be
transferred to friends who are part of their Ji network.
Kotak Mahindra Bank recognizes that if this trend catches
on, banking can also become a viral activity with peers
recommending the bank.
BANKING COMES TO YOUR HOME
The availability of mobile phones with good connectivity

options have created attractive opportunities for banking
players to provide quick access to many people due
to ease of usage and low cost of delivery. To enable
greater customer convenience, ICICI has launched
Tab Banking that allows customers to open a ICICI
bank account from the comfort of their home. Through
Tab Banking, the bank aims to bring about signicant
changes in the customers rst engagement with it; that
of opening an account with it. With this initiative, the
banks relationship managers have been equipped with
high end tablets, 3G network capabilities, and a 5 MP
camera.
All KYC (Know your Customer) documents and
photographs are now being captured through the tablets
camera and uploaded along with customer details,
making the entire account opening process hassle-free
for the customer.
Today, a customers new bank account is fully ready
for transacting within a few hours. Moreover, they can
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 23
Using smart watches, customers can

simply speak to the watch to fetch
their account balance status and we
are currently testing the service with
a closed group of users.
Ashwin Khorana
CTO, ING Vysya Bank
view/verify account opening details being entered into

the system thereby giving them more condence, says
Sabharwal of ICICI Bank. At present, this novel way of
applying for a bank account is available across 30 cities
with more than 10,000 tablets in circulation. In addition to
opening current and savings bank accounts, ICICI Bank
has started using tablets to offer mortgages across 11
cities such as Mumbai, Pune and Surat, where customers
can apply and get loans sanctioned on the same day. The
impact of the tablet can be seen from the fact that in the
rst eight months, the bank succeeded in opening half a
million accounts.
Another digital innovation can be seen from IndusInd
Bank, which has launched an offering called Video
Branch. This offering enables the customers to do a
video conference with the bank staff. They can schedule a
video call with the branch managers/relationship mangers
or connect to the central Video Branch instantly. This is a
unique initiative in the industry as it allows customers to
interact with the video branch at their own convenience
either from their desktop/laptop computers or Apple and
Android smartphones. The customers get the assurance
of faster and satisfactory resolution of queries by bank
personnel including the service assurance of 30 minutes
for select nancial transactions.
Speaking about the acceptance in the Indian market,
Paul Abraham, Chief Operating Ofcer, IndusInd Bank
says, Due to its simplicity to operate and personal
touch, we have seen usage by customers of all ages. In
24
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
fact, older customers including senior citizens who nd

it difcult to travel to branches have been extensively
using the Video Branch to get their banking services. The
Non Resident Indian (NRI) customers in particular have
found the Video Branch to be a very convenient means of
reaching out to the bank from their country of residence.
Besides Video Branch, the bank has launched a number
of unique initiatives such as My Account My Number
and online account opening.
IndusInd Bank has also launched a digital branch
at cyber city metro station, Gurgaon which is a unique
combination of bringing human elements with digital
elements working together. This branch has been setup
in a digital theme design with architecture and real estate
reecting this theme. Starting with the signage on the
outside of branch to entry into branch, consumers are
greeted with digital signage integrated with streaming
contents over network.
One more unique initiative that shows how banks are
making that extra effort to please the customer can be
seen from ICICI Banks Electronic Branches initiative.
Understanding that working individuals cannot be
restricted to the xed working hours of a bank, ICICI
has setup automated electronic branches that allow
customers the exibility to transact at the time of their
convenience for daily banking needs. Customers can
transact on their own, at a time of their convenience, with
the help of various automated devices and kiosks. The
electronic branch offers the facilities of a cheque deposit
Cardless Cash Withdrawal, a service that allows its

customers to transfer money from their account to anyone
in India with a mobile number. The recipient can withdraw
money round the clock without using a debit card from
over 10,000 ATMs of ICICI Bank across the country. He
can do this even without having a bank account of any
bank.
EXPERIMENTING WITH EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
Similarly, Kotak Mahindra Bank has a highly
In a ercely contested market, banks are thinking more like
product creators. ING Vysya Bank, for instance, is looking successful product called Mail Money, which allows
at wearable technologies to take customer experience to customers to mail money by just knowing the email ID
a different level. The bank has used smart watches which and the mobile number of the beneciary. Beneciaries
has the Android Wear platform (a version of Googles can choose to deposit the money in the accounts of
Android operating system designed for smartwatches their choice.
NFC is another exciting emerging technology that has
and other wearables).
Using smart watches, customers can simply speak attracted the interest of some Indian banks. In January
to the watch to fetch their account balance status. We 2015, ICICI Bank announced the launch of the countrys
rst contactless debit and credit
are currently testing the service
cards, enabling its customers
with a closed group of users,
to make electronic payments
states Ashwin Khorana, CTO,
by just waving the cards near
ING Vysya Bank. As the watch
the merchant terminal in lieu of
is connected to a smartphone
dipping or swiping them. These
by Bluetooth, it is necessary for
cards are based on the Near
the smartphone to be in close
IN A FIERCELY
Field Communication (NFC)
vicinity to the phone.
CONTESTED MARKET,
technology, which provides
ING Vysya Bank is also excustomers
the
improved
perimenting with Beacons.
BANKS ARE THINKING
convenience of speed as these
As Beacons use Bluetooth
cards require signicantly less
Low Energy or BLE, they can
MORE LIKE PRODUCT
time than traditional cards
be used to deliver proximityCREATORS
to complete a transaction
based, context-aware mesalong with enhanced security
sages. We are exploring opas they remain in control of
tions wherein Beacons can be
the
customer.
Contactless
used to identify a high-value
customer when he walks into a branch, states Khorana. payments are expected to be a milestone in the Indian
Beacons could also be potentially used at ATMs wherein industry as they are designed to replace the use of cash
a customer only needs to enter his PIN into the ATM, as in busy retail environments where speed and convenience
he is already recognized by the mobile device he carries. are important, such as supermarkets and quick-service
ING Vysya Bank has also used gamication techniques restaurants.
These are exciting times for the Indian banks and
to design its mobile app. For example, the balance of the
user is shown in the form of a speedometer which allows customers too. For instance, who would have thought
users to quickly see if he is in a green zonesufcient that one day, your bank will come to your home to open
your account. Who would have thought that you could
balance or in a red zone (low balance).
Recognizing the fact that a large segment of Indias transfer money with your social connections by just
population does not have access to banking services, using your social credentials. By developing a slew of
banking majors have started taking efforts to make sure innovative applications, Indian banks have truly shown the
that people who do not have access to a banking account way for other industries on how they can take customer
can still receive money. A case in point is ICICI Banks satisfaction to a different level.
machine, an interactive kiosk through which Internet
banking services can be accessed easily by just swiping
a debit card, a cash deposit machine with instant credit
facility and 24-hour video conferencing with ICICI Banks
customer care personnel.
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 25
Srikanth RP
How Social, Mobile, and Online Trends are

Reshaping the Indian Insurance Segment
Indian insurance rms are aggressively adopting a number of
technology initiatives to transform insurance into a pull product from
a push product. Dataquests Srikanth RP spoke to industry leaders
from different organizations to get their perspective on the impact of
technology on the Indian insurance sector
wo big trends are underway in the Indian Insurance sector. The rst one is obviousthe growing usage of tablets by a majority of players in this
sector. This is corroborated by industry statistics
by rms like Gartner. The research rm recently
issued a report which stated that Indian insurance companies are on pace to spend `4.2 bn on mobile devices in 2015,
with spending on tablets to increase by 64% over 2014.
The second big trend is digitization. A 2014 report by the
Boston Consulting Group and Google India predicts that
the Indian insurance sector is set for digital disruption, with
online insurance sales set to grow 20 times by 2020. The
report estimates that three in every four insurance policies
sold by 2020 would be inuenced by digital channels
during either the pre-purchase stage, purchase or renewal
stages. This report, titled Digital Insurance-20X By 2020,

asserts that not only will insurance sales from online
channels grow 20x from today by 2020, but overall Internet
inuenced sales would be a `300-400k crore opportunity.
The researchers estimate that digital adoption could result
in potential savings of 15-20% of total costs in the case of
life insurance and 20-30% in the case of non-lifewhich
could lead to better protability for Indian insurance rms.
While online is still a small portion of insurance activity in
India, it is growing fast as many consumers use the Internet
actively to research about a product.
To better understand the impact of these trends in
the Indian Insurance industry, Dataquest spoke to key
industry players from different organizations. Here is their
perspective in the rst-person account:
Girish Nayak
Giris
Chief-S
Chief-Service,
Operations and Technology,
ICICI L
Lombard
At ICICI Lombard, we have used the mobile platform to improve and simplify the process of insurance claim. Traditionally, for
claiming motor insurance, customers had to follow a lengthy and cumbersome process of taking their damaged vehicle to the
garage, calling the toll-free number of the insurance company, and sharing the policy details. Then, they had to arrange the forms
and documents required to support the claim. To shorten the otherwise lengthy procedure, we launched an in-house developed
mobile claims app called Insure for the customers and transformed the way in which claims were traditionally intimated.
The customer now needs to simply download the app on his/her mobile phone or tablet device, take a picture of the damaged
vehicle, communicate his version of the accident/damage through a voice recording facility within the app and send the claim
intimation from the app itself.
The app also allows customers to locate the nearest network garage, hospital or ICICI Lombard branch through special geotagging software embedded in the app itself.
For on-eld claim surveyors, we have developed an app called FastTrack. Using the FastTrack app, on-eld surveyors can take
images, ll in the necessary data and immediately sync information to central server to process a claim. This has signicantly
reduced the time taken for processing a claim. The quality of data led too has improved signicantly as underwriters have better
and quick access to photographs and data captured by the tablet. Today, 80% of our surveys are done using tablets.
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 27
Rishi Piparaiya
Director-Marketing & Direct Sales,
Aviva Life Insurance
The insurance industry has gone through a major transformation with the entry of private players in 2001. In the preprivatization era, there were two primary sales channelsthe companys own sales force and agency (third party). Today,
selling is done through a wide range of channels including online, bancassurance, corporate agents, call centers, brokers,
direct, and agency.
To complement these channels, the number of branches and ofces of insurance companies have also multiplied. There were
only 2,200 life insurance branches in 2001. Today, between 23 life insurance companies in India, there are over 12,000 branches
spread across the nation.
However, the biggest transformation for insurers has been the shift of focus towards the online distribution channel. Studies
indicate that by 2020, 75% of the sales would be driven by digital channels. Online insurance sales market in India would be
around `3,500 to `6,000 crore for life insurance and `11,000 to `15,000 crore for non-life insurance. This is largely because of
the rising number of Internet users in the country and the convenience that the online platform gives to the customer. Also, since
online as a medium has a lower distribution cost, the products it offers are cheaper than the ofine products, ensuring better
returns. There are currently around 15 insurance companies in India offering online term plans. But with the potential it holds,
more new players are likely to enter the online market.
At Aviva India, we started out on a transformational journey three years ago, to become a leading digital insurer. Betting big on
digital technologies and process automation, we have invested heavily in strengthening our core policy administration platform,
building up a data integration layer and service oriented architecture, analytics and mobility.
We have launched a few new initiatives such as:
n A responsive design device agnostic self-service portal for customers, enabling them to access their portfolio anytime
anywhere resulting in an increased usage of portal by more than 60% in comparison to the earlier version.
n We also rolled out a tablet-enabled sales process, aiming to help the frontline sales persons to sell better. This solution
helps the agent to manage the leads better, conduct needs analysis and recommend products to customers. Generating benet
illustrations in front of the customer, lling up forms, collecting documents are some of the salient features of the product.
We further plan to invest on mobility projects and will be developing intuitive mobility applications for customers and revamp
all digital assets for making them device agnostic. This will help enhance customer convenience, accessibility and simplicity. We
are also planning to spend on enhancing our BPM capability to infuse agility into our processes and will re-engineer our internal
processes to ensure that they are aligned with our digital agenda.
Social media today is one of the most effective mediums to communicate with customers. It allows one to have conversations
with customers unlike any other medium. Its fast, focused, and engaging. At Aviva, we give paramount importance to social
media. We have over 5 lakh engagements on our Facebook page. We are also only the second life insurance company in India to
have a veried Twitter account and have one of the highest engagement scores on the micro-blogging site.
Our key focus has been to engage with young parents, to make them understand the importance of sound nancial planning
in order to protect their childs future, and social media has been integral in achieving this. Towards this, we have created a
community of young parents on social media and reach out to them with parenting tips, contests, etc. Aviva is one of the leaders
in terms of engagement on social media among life insurance companies in India. We have been in the top three in engagement
28
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
rates across platforms consistently and have one of the highest Klout scores in the category. Along with engagement, we are also
using social media to increase product awareness by targeting Facebook users with our online plans.
India currently has around 243 mn active Internet users and is likely to surpass the US in the next two years. This growing
number, along with other factors, has massively impacted the insurance industry with the online distribution channel, becoming one
of the top revenue contributors. At Aviva, we have constantly focused on the online channel, recognizing the massive potential it
holds. In three years, our online channels contribution to business has increased from 8% to 25%. The online portfolio also has the
highest persistency rate of more than 90%.
Avivas success on the digital platform is largely due to our initiatives in process, technology and innovation. We have constantly
strived to improve the online buying journey of the customer, making it simple, fast and convenient. Customers can buy Avivas
policies with minimal documentationthe form lling is online and documents like address and identity proofs can be sent through
an e-mail or WhatsApp. Along with our helpline, we also have an online chat application through which our representatives can
guide the customer at each step. We also have a dedicated team for servicing the needs of the online customers.
Satishwar Balakrishnan
Head-IT, IndiaFirst Life Insurance
Our marketing strategy involves using technology innovatively to clearly communicate our brand values, which revolves around the
core principles of honesty and transparency. We believe that life insurance today is not fully understood, and hence, there is a need to
simplify communications through easy to understand products and policies. There is a critical need to demystify the way insurance
is sold in the country today. For example, when you buy a shampoo, the manufacturers do not focus on telling you its chemical
composition. Insurance too needs a simplied marketing strategy to clearly communicate the value. Customers must understand what
they are buying and what they are getting.
Social media is an extraordinary platform and can be extremely useful to companies to engage themselves with the customer
and to listen to what they have to say. It is not enough to merely share what we have to say. Today, its all about conversations
communicating, engaging, collaborating and exchanging views, experiences, and best practices.
The fundamental assumption about the insurance industry is that no one buys insurance. Technology can dismantle this
assumption, and let the customer take the initiative. Technology can also signicantly cut down the largest component of price,
which is the cost of distribution. Push can then be transformed into pull.
Keeping in line with time and technological advancements, we came up with MagicBoard, a tablet-based initiative to provide
a convenient and easily accessible solution to our customers as well as our sales team. While on one hand, this tablet-based
application reduces the salespersons efforts of dealing with numerous papers; on the other hand, it also helps in keeping track of
the customers data.
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 29
MagicBoard not only automates and simplies the sales processes at the customer end, but in a single platform, it connects
the customer with the distributor, employees and the insurance organization in a 360 degree integration where every stakeholder
has a single page view in his handheld tablet PC for real-time information, intelligence and intervention. The user interface has
been developed keeping simplication and ease of use in mind. Unnecessary steps/process have been eliminated to provide an
intuitive and seamless experience for the end user. A sales person can now complete a sale on the spot (with or without access
to Internet) within 30 minutes.
MagicBoard also allows the sales person to cater to customer requests, complaints and claims instantly through live video
calls, instant access to key personnel in the corporate ofce etc. It integrates the customer, distributor, employee and insurance
company into one single platform of information, interaction, and fulllment for both sales and service.
Technology-based solutions are fast becoming or should we say have already become the epicenter of decision making for both
consumers and organizations. While easy access to information and the extent of digital disruption means freedom and transparency
for consumers, for the insurance sector, like others, it also means having a better understanding of consumer purchase behaviour and
spending habits, access to inuencer networks and more importantly a more focused and cost effective way of doing business.
It is but a known fact that a non-smoker enjoys a lesser premium rate on a life insurance policy as compared to a smoker and hence,
to that extent, wed say that this is already happening. Consumer data points, may it be eating habits, genetic history or even shopping
history are but ways to understand them better and form a trend so that informed decisions for the future can be made. The only point
of caution here is the angle of privacy, which needs to be well managed if one is to truly benet. This is because these data points are
sensitive in nature and the relationship of trust that a brand shares with its customers is also dependent on how well this gets managed.
Gunjan Ghai
SVP & National Head Branding,
Marketing & Product Development,
SBI General Insurance Company
I call insurance as the dark horse of eCommerce. While reports abound about how e-tailing is growing, few know that insurance is
already ahead in terms of penetration of digital in the business mix. However, a more fundamental change that is likely to pick-up
in insurance is the digitization of business processes. General insurance companies are moving towards making claims, servicing,
underwriting and operations digitized in a big way. For example, radio tagging cattle for tracking the cattle as an insured asset is
something that has become part of the business. Telematics to measure correlations between driving behavior and a likelihood of
claims is something that some of the general insurance companies are experimenting with.
Health data on mobile devices is also a future opportunity for health insurance companies to tap into. Hence, focusing on
eCommerce would limit the view on how far digitization is fundamentally changing the general insurance industry. By itself,
eCommerce has rapidly changed the business for simple, easy to buy products like travel insurance. For motor insurance and
health insurance, the need for manual intervention to take the customer from interest to purchase still exists. This might be due
30
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
to the relative complexity and ticket sizes of these products. This is likely to reach an inection point only if the industry moves
towards differential pricing on digital vs ofine in a signicant way.
For motor insurance, usage based pricing is something of interest to insurance companies. Worldwide though, telematics
experience has been a mixed bag. While the Pay As You Go (PAYG) model should have taken off, the reliability of the model, in
terms of tamperproof devices, the cost of the device, provider switching, etc., have been stumbling blocks to the model being
successful. For India, if car manufacturers are able to deploy these devices across the range of cars and the device is provider
neutral, there may be some merit in low car usage customers choosing to save premium. Further, the regulators view on this
would also determine the application and controls required for telematics.
For health insurance, pricing based on genetic history is unlikely to kick in anytime soon as such a rating factor borders on
discrimination against certain groups. Medical history based pricing or lifestyle based pricing would depend on the availability
of credible and reliable data. While consumer electronics is moving in the direction of capturing health information on the y, its
reliability and correlations with health outcomes is yet to be established.
Subrat Mohanty
Head of Marketing and IB Sales,
Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance
The digital quantum leap and ensuing technologies have led to a pronounced transformation of expectations and experiencescustomers
await rapid, individualized, premium-value services and information. From a paper-dominated world we are shifting towards a digital world
in which new means of communication and information-sharing make it possible to work independently of time and place.
As one of the leading private life insurers, we have been continuously focusing on the use of technology to improve the customer
experience and reduce time for servicing the existing customers and new business/renewal transactions. Intended to provide a
secure and location-independent insurance tool to its eld-force, we leveraged technology and developed INSTABInstant Insurance
Solutions on Tablet. INSTAB is an Android application equipped for new business acquisition, renewals collection, and policy service
requests. This point-of-sale tool addresses every insurance requirement from sourcing to servicing. As the premium collection,
payment and servicing acknowledgment is done within a few minutes, it has helped us in reducing the turnaround time and enhancing
customer satisfaction.
We have also recently introduced an Android-based app for the customers as a self-servicing platform to avail our services without
visiting the branch. Customers can add policies, save transaction receipts, update their prole, and track, manage and raise service
requests through this application.
We are also witnessing a substantial increase in our social media presence. We recently conducted an online campaign called
ULIPedia on Facebook and Twitter. The campaign was aimed at imparting upfront knowledge and clarications on unit-linked insurance
policies as an insurance product category. A one-day contest was also organized on these two social networking platforms. Through
this campaign, a total of 10.8 lakh people were reached and the corporate website pages saw a substantial growth in trafc.
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 31
Harnath Babu
maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
The Impact of Enterprise Mobility on

Smartphones are here to stay, and the challenge for companies is to determine
competitive advantage
the Financial Services Industry

how to use mobility to capture growth and uncover new forms of
obility has made a signicant jump in the

last decade transforming from simple
handhelds to complex next-generation
smartphones and this has led to the
proliferation of mobile devices across
consumers. The higher adoption of mobility has resulted in
businesses competing with one another to discover further
means to exploit these technologies for better customer
service and growth. With technology always at hand,
customers expect faster responses and personal attention
from every organization they transact with. Mobile means
no more waiting in line and being connected means the way
businesses communicate with their customers.
Like
other
industries,
nancial
services
companies too rst leveraged on mobility as
communication
and
connectivity
enabler.
As
the technology became more ubiquitous, the
utility value of mobile devices increased multi-fold. Many
early adopters started utilizing these devices in their eld
operations. As an example, an insurance company started
sending text messages to customers informing them on
status of their policies or reminding on premium due date.
With changes in technology, it advanced to collecting renewal
premiums and issuing premium receipts to customers using
a connected Bluetooth mobile printer on the move. This was
further extended by P&C carriers to enhance auto claims
processing using basic smartphones, which could transmit
pictures and reports from surveyors back to the company
in real-time for quicker turnaround of claims settlement,
resulting in higher customer satisfaction.
ADVANCEMENT OF NETWORKING AND SMARTPHONE
TECHNOLOGIES
Financial services companies have evolved along with

advancements in web and mobility technologies and it
did not really take them long to leap forward from brick
and mortar setup to virtual. With the advancement
of networking and smartphone technologies, they
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 33
quickly fostered themselves to provide mobility

applications for customers to download on their mobile
phones and transact with the company in real-time.
There have been interesting applications of mobility
and social in the nancial services sector, which are
emerging at a rapid pace and have been seeing traction
amongst customers and companies. Many companies are
leveraging mobility and social to launch new product ideas,
such as mobile live chat options to elicit user opinions and
provide basic services to drive customer satisfaction.
With
lowered
switching
barriers,
customer
service
becomes
an
important
aspect
for
retaining customer loyalty. For a bank, it would be
benecial to provide mobile-based personalized services
like opening of account, fund transfers, payment of bills,
etc, as todays customer is ready to pay premium for
services which are available round the clock, anywhere and
anytime. For instance, an insurance company can provide
mobile applications to customers for completing selfservicing options such as requesting for a change in policy
terms, payment of premium or purchasing a policy itself.
The stickiness created by a mobile application can be
further exploited to do cross and up-sell of various other
products being offered by the company. Todays customer
is a muti-channel user and providing a consistent
and unied experience across all channels is no more
theoretical. Branch innovation is yet another imperative
that companies need to consider while targeting the
customer of today and future. As an example, an HNI
34
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
customer walking in to a bank branch can be given

personalized experience using a tablet-based application
by a customer service executive instead of making him
wait with others in the queue. This will not only enable the
bank to provide customer delight, but also an opportunity
to offer more customized products and better customer
retention.
FACING THE CHALLENGES
Banks and insurance companies are also rapidly arming

their sales force with tablet/mobile-based solutions that
provide real-time access to carrier systems. These enable
agents a convenient way to showcase their offerings to
prospects and to readily adapt as per unique client needs.
The agent can convert a prospect to a customer as quickly
as in few minutes by collecting information in real time and
getting it processed at the backend or through automated
underwriting solutions. Sales team managers can use
mobile-based performance dashboards to monitor leads
and conversions to optimize sales performance and make
commission payments to agents.
Smartphones are here to stay, and the challenge for
companies is to determine how to use mobility to capture
growth and uncover new forms of competitive advantage.
In a mobile world, things dont stand still for long.
The author is CIO, Aviva Life Insurance

Srikanth RP
HDFC Life Shows

how Enterprise Social
Networks can Boost
Collaboration
My Life, an internal social
network built by HDFC Life,
has helped in creating a
collaborative community culture
s a young company with a passionate

workforce and a large geographical
footprint, HDFC Life wanted a platform
through which each employee could
connect with the other anywhere within the
organization. In addition, the organization also wanted
to provide its employees a base to interact with their
colleagues and management besides sharing innovative
36
Februa
Feb
February
ruary
rua
ryy 28
28,, 20
2015
15
www
www.dqindia.com
.dq
dq
qind
india
ia.com
ia.
com
ideas, which could allow the organization to graduate to

the next level.
Inspired by social networking platforms, HDFC Life
decided to deploy a social networking application
internally to facilitate a smarter way of working together.
Before building the platform, the organization started
identifying various existing cases that could be executed
at HDFC Life. After a detailed study, the company nalized
A CyberMedia
Cybe
Cybe
y rMe
rMedia
dia Publication
Publi
Pu
blicat
bli
cation
cat
ion
Due to thorough research and action

planning, we were able to achieve
huge participation in just 5-6 months.
Such results are generally achieved
by other organizations after 2-3 years
Thomson Thomas
CIO, HDFC Life
strategic objectives of the platform, thereby setting up

a measurement framework and ensuring data security
controls to prevent untoward incidents.
The next task was to encourage employees to start
using the social network called My Life. Extensive
communication to employees was done through teasers
e-mails and SMSes. Employees were sent a link of the
mobile app through an SMS to encourage them to install
it. To accelerate the employee on-boarding process on this
platform, various training sessions with the departments
including HODs and their direct reporting managers were
held. Simultaneously, education mailers were sent to
employees about how to use various features of My Life.
This created the required impact in just 5 months time, as
around 7,000 employees logged in and started using the
network for discussions, idea sharing and for connecting
with colleagues and seniors across locations.
In order to increase participation and derive business
benets from MyLife, a mix of engagement and business
focused activities were conducted regularly. For example,
the rm conducted a Best Community Contest in the initial
weeks to get people to begin new communities. Quizzes
were conducted regularly to drive competitive spirit. To get
eld level inputs into issues faced by the organization, the
team conducted a best idea contest. Additionally, live chat
sessions with the CEOs, HODs and subject matter experts
were conducted weekly on this platform.
THE IMPACT
Today, there are more than 400 communities related to

departmental initiatives, innovation, and common interest
areas. These communities, in turn, have helped in creating
|
a knowledge bank of all discussions and documents.

Communities educate employees in tax planning,
selling better, clearing CFA exams and sharing regional
practices with everyone across the country. A recognition
community has been created and all achievement stories,
felicitation pictures, etc, are shared here. All teams today
are using MyLife to share important how to documents
for everyday tasks like using e-learning platform,
lead management system, claim reimbursement, etc.
Additionally, live chats to connect with all India employees
are regularly conducted.
MyLife has been a fascinating journey as social platforms
fundamentally question the culture of an organization.
Collaboration platforms are being used imaginatively over
the world, and we believe that mastering this new way
to work will be key to success in the future, says Uzma
Jamal Rushdi, VP-Strategy, HDFC Life.
Due to the nature of social networking websites, there is
a real danger of frivolous activities overcoming professional
activities. HDFC Life has managed to avoid this issue through
planning and execution. It is now seen as a place which
helps HDFC Life become better at what we do in an engaging
manner, and also helps connect with like-minded hobbyists
without a frivolous connotation, states Thomson.
Going forward, the team plans to make the platform
more user-friendly and introduce gamication to drive
participation and engagement. The team intends to
continue with the departmental ownership concept every
month with different HODs to drive participation from each
department. HDFC Life also plans to focus on migrating
business processes which will help in making the portal
an integral part of an employees life.
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 37
Durjoy Patranabish
Banking on Data
With the advent of machine learning tools such as Python and techniques
such as natural language processing, support vector machines learning
algorithm are on the path of revolutionizing the way the industry works
38
3
8
F
Feb
February
ebru
e
uary
ry 28,
28
8, 20
2015
015
www
www.dqindia.com
ww.dqind
ww.dq
.dq
dqind
india
ia.
a.com
a
com
A CyberMedia
Cyybe
be
errM
Me
M
edi
dia
ia Publication
Pu
ubli
blication
bl
cat
ation
on
he banking and nancial industry is

considered as one of the early adopters of
analytics. The technological advancements
have transformed the way the BFSI industry
works. Now with the unprecedented rise of
data, the BFSI is on the threshold of reinventing itself.
Additionally, factors such as rise in operational costs,
cutting-edge competition, and incremental risk are driving
banks and other nancial institutes to constantly innovate
and differentiate.
Banking has always been considered as a data heavy
industry, thus analytics has the ability to redene the
playing eld. Today, most of the major banks have started
embracing advanced analytics and making data the center
of its decisions. There has been a paradigm shift towards
analytics-based decision making. Analytics tools can help
business across different horizontals of the organization
ranging from marketing, risk to HR management. A datadriven and evidence-based business model allows banks
to understand its customers, markets, competitors and
empower its workforce.
Today, there is no dearth of tools which can help
companies achieve analytics excellence. In fact, these
tools are not new to banks. What has changed is the
scope of their applications which have been driven by
deviations in the regulatory and economic landscape.
THE CHALLENGES
The challenge is to choose the right one for your

organization. This should start from understanding the
key problems companies want to addressthe key is
asking the right, well dened questions. It is only when
companies have clarity on the end objective they can pick
out the most apt one from the array of tools available. If
we look at the analytics maturity curve, different stages
of data management and analytics require different tools.
Many times companies ignore the importance of having a
robust data management system. This lays the foundation
of the analytics. The data management can be divided into
three major criteriasdatabase management system, data
modeling, and ETL. Each step requires specialized tools, for
instance SQL Server, TERADATA, Oracle, Informatica. Post
this stage, theres tremendous value that can be gleaned
from this wealth of data. From this stage organizations can
focus on building high end, dynamic reports by working
with tools such as Microstrategy, Cognos, Tableau,
and sportre. Each of these tools come with their own
|
strengths and weaknesses and depending on the existing

infrastructure, feature, budget, data size, etc.
Tools such as SAS, R, SPSS are able to help organizations
understand few of the key business questions. Open source
tools such as R and WPS enable companies to experiment
with different techniques without making huge investments.
The market is fast evolving and companies are taking that
extra mile to understand their customer base. This is equally
important for the nancial industry as well. Today, we have
most advanced and sophisticated tools and algorithms
which help us analyze not just structured data but also
unstructured data. With the advent of machine learning tools
such as Python and techniques such as natural language
processing, support vector machines learning algorithm are
on the path of revolutionizing the way the industry works.
These tools in combination with intelligent modeling
techniques can really help the BFSI industry scale new
heights. Companies are using it across function such as
risk, marketing, CRM to:
Focus on customer-centric approach ensuring it
becomes an integral part of the companies culture
Take swifter and efcient decision-making
Monitor compliance effectively
Take more data driven decisions thus increasing the
operational efciency which in turn contributes to the
overall revenue enhancement
Compute various scorecards such as collection,
application to better risk management
Identify key products and customers
Allow senior management to obtain competitive
insights thus building their overall strategy
WALK WITH CARE
However, the BFSI industry is advised to walk with

caution. While using various big data tools and techniques
can reap huge benets, one should never lose sight of
the importance of data security. Companies should not
shy away from making signicant investments in building
a vigorous data governance model and data encryption
tools. They might seem an insignicant part but they are
imperative for the overall success of the endeavor. There
are already multiple use cases in the nancial industry
which stress on the importance of companies using the
right tools and techniques to leverage the power of data.
The author is SVP & Business Leader, Analytics,
Blueocean Market Intelligence
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 39
INDUSTRY | TALKING POINT
40
4
0
Feb
February
ebr
bru
ruary
rua
r 28
28,, 20
2015
015
Ed Nair
ednair@cybermedia.co.in
@ y
ww
www
www.dqindia.com
ww.dqiind
i dia.
ia com
m
A CyberMedia
Cyyb
berrMe
be
Med
Me
dia
ia Publication
ia
Pu
P
ub
ub
blilliic
ic
cat
ca
a ion
Even as IBM ghts it out in the systems business, it has not lost its mojo in designing big
computing gear. Viswanath Ramaswamy, Country Leader, Server Solutions (POWER &
Mainframe) IBM India, in an exclusive interview with Dataquest, explains that IBM z13,
the newest mainframe would be used to handle trending workloads. Excerpts
IBMS NEWEST
MAINFRAME Z13 TO
HANDLE TRENDING
WORKLOADS
VISWANATH RAMASWAMY
Country Leader, Server Solutions
(POWER & Mainframe) IBM India
ainframes continue to be an IBM thing

and the z13 is the newest in that line.
What does IBM intend the machine to
handle?
The product z13 is a culmination of 5 years
of investment and R&D of IBM that tops $1 bn. The z13
is designed primarily to cater to the trending workloads
which are primarily around the mobile, analytics and cloud.
|
A CyberM
CyberMedia
Media Publication
Publica
ation
From a product standpoint it is the fastest processor, has got 300% more memory and about 100% more
bandwidth. From transactional response point, especially when you see from analytics and mobile interventions,
the response time is in milliseconds. Those are the type
of capabilities which really bring up z13 as a platform.
To add to that, IBM also has announced the support for
KVM.
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 41
You said z13 is targetted at handling trending workloads which stands for mobile, cloud, and analytics.
What is the performance like?
z13 systems present almost 60% faster throughput
compared to x-86 systems, almost 35-40% faster response time, and lower cost per transaction. For mobile
and analytics workload, it reduces the cost per transaction by 10-15%, and is able to process almost 30,000
transactions per second and close to 2.5 bn transactions per day.
The z13 all comes in the size of a refrigerator which
can run close to about 8,000 virtual servers which is more
than about 50 odd virtual servers per core.
Today, clients are using farms of commodity systems
regarding mobile transactionsit bloats up into 5 additional transactions. Every mobile transaction that we
transact has a ripple effectit goes to the bank, it goes
to the portal, from portal it goes to the bankcredit card
authentication, intra-bank and so on and so forth. This
phenomenon is called the star burst effect. Today, all
these mobile transactions are run through disparate systems. When you add analytics, it is not really real time;
there is bound to be latency.
Thats where z13 comes into play where workload,
which is the mobile transaction and the analytics workload, is handled in real-time within the z systems itself.
What about other things like energy economics and
security?
Yes, it means a lot for clients and customers when it
comes to cooling, cost, storage. It also lowers the software cost of the machine itself. From software perspective and hardware perspective, it increases the speed of
the data encryption. It has got new cryptographic security which protects privacy of data from mobile devices to
data centers.
What space would z13 occupy in the crowded systems marketplace?
We are looking at this in terms of workloads.
If you take the commodity systems, there is a point or a
threshold till which you can have an x volume of systems
at a particular data center, beyond which youre all the
licensing, cooling, space, and so on and so forth, does
not become commercially viable.
42
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
If you look at engineered systems, most in the market

today are more or less catering to the traditional workloads, like database applications up to a certain point,
beyond which you cannot scale up. The z13 system kicks
in when you dont have to buy the entire machine right
now but you have the capacity to tweak around on various workloads, on opensource or on the ZOS. What really
happens is that it has the best of both worlds. So you
have the most secure, reliable and robust databases running on it. You can run your Oracle on it or you can run
your DB2 on it and the rest of the partition of the virtual
machines would be running all the workloads that had
been running traditionally on commodity systems. So it is
the convergence of having both the engineered and commodity systems running in one single machine.
How does z13 fare in the cloud infrastructure
scenario?
The z13 is ideal for private or hybrid cloud architecture,
legendary for its ability to scale and reliably and securely
handle multiple workloads. In a scale-out model, it is capable of running up to 8,000 virtual serversmore than
50 virtual servers per core, helping to lower software, energy and facilities costs.
The z13 lowers the cost of running cloud. For compared
environments, it is estimated that a z Systems cloud on
a z13 will have a 32% lower total cost of ownership over
three years than an x86 cloud and a 60% lower total cost
of ownership over three years than a public cloud. Additionally, the z13 is based on open standards, fully supporting Linux and OpenStack.
Will your channel partners remain the same for selling
z13?
From channel perspective, the partner ecosystem remains
the same. With z systems, it is more application driven and
workload driven system. We would see a lot of ISDs who
are primarily catering into the mobile and analytics space
would be the inuencers, if I may use that word, to kind
of inuence the infrastructure requirements of their clients.
It would be all these and application and independent software vendorswho are primarily into mobile and analytics
who would really do that. From a partner ecosystem there
would be new set of inuencers in the ecosystem for getting the right infrastructure for their clients.
Onkar Sharma
onkars@cybermedia.co.in
IT-LED
BIG DATA
PROJECTS
ALWAYS FAIL
Big data is not what most CIOs assume tells Stephen Brobst, CTO, Teradata Corporation who was in
India recently. Brobst throws light on the different aspects of big data and how it can be used in different
environments. Excerpts
n Teradatas India presence...

We have multiple development labs in India. The largest one is in Hyderabad.
That is a hard core R&D lab, the core of the engine. We started our operations in India about 15 years ago. That time, it was more testing than high
intellectual stuff. But now we are doing core development at our Indian
R&D environment. We cannot quote the exact number of employees but it is in large
hundreds. We also got development going on in Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, and Bengaluru. But Hyderabad is the most important one.
What are the focus areas in R&D? Is it offshore?
What I was talking about was hard core R&D. We are doing product development
in that group. In core areas of the engine, ie, the optimizer and the le system, we
have implemented some of the advanced features like temporal data management that was done mainly in the Indian part of our organization.
44
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
STEPHEN BROBST
Chief Technology Ofcer,
Teradata Corporation
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 45
Since Teradata is into big data and analytics, what

sort of challenges you see in this space? How is your
development team working around solving these
problems?
You call it a challenge I call it an opportunity. The industry moves very quickly. If you stand still for any amount
of time, you will be passed by. We have to be much
better than our competition otherwise people wont buy
our products. And yet we dominate in the big data and
data warehousing space. And the reason we dominate
is because we are always developing next-generation
while the other guys are still thinking of the previous
generation. We do a lot of work with universities. We
have very smart customers and we listen to them. We
are working very closely with our customers and they
help us understand not just what they want now but
where are they going in the future. Our job is to get
there before them. Right now the area where we are
having a lot of success is the big data space.
Has the big data landscape changed?
Big data is more non-traditional data. True uses of big
data were basically dominated by the dot coms mainly
in Silicon Valley. There is a lot of confusion over what
is big data. And the ones that were doing it well were
almost always dotcoms. They were eBay, Facebook,
LinkedIn, Netix, Google and these kinds of players.
The volume is not really the important part. Thats
where people get confused. In India, if volume was the
issue they have been doing big data for 20 years. Just
because the size of the marketplace is big, everything
is high volume data. Big data is not about high volume.
The Indian marketplace is particularly confused at this
point about that.
How relevant is big data for BFSI, healthcare, or retail?
Lets talk about things that we can do today. If we look
at the traditional analytics, most companies whether
you are a bank or a telecommunications company or
retailer they analyze transactions at the lowest level
of detail. And transactions at the Indian marketplace
with a billion people are high volume. Its not big data
but high volume data. Big data means that I am less
interested in the bigness of the data and I am more
interested in the diversity of the data. So I dont want
the transactions but I want the interactions. If you are a
bank you see that I make a deposit online. But do you
know all the clicks and all the searches that led up to
that purchase? Thats the interaction. Thats the order
of magnitude of bigger data probably 200 times of big46
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
ger data than the transaction. So yes it is high volume

but thats not the interesting thing. The interesting thing
is now the customer behavior not just the transaction.
The web log data is not as structured as a transaction
that you get in a banking system or a retail system or
so on. There are new kinds of data type such as JSON
for example. In Silicon Valley anyone who uses XML is
a dinosaur. JSON (Javascript Object Notation) is a selfdescribing data type that allows you to do late binding. It is very exible and it has roughly the same type
of functionality. JSON is being used to capture sensor
data, log data and social interaction data. If we talk
about interactions, then there is clickstream data. I can
talk about tweeting about my experience on your retail site. Or Facebook blogging about my experience in
your bank, the voice call interaction with a call center.
Most banks record those calls and they do no analytical value from them. There is a ton of content in that
interaction. So now the technologies exist to be able
to capture the voice and do voice to text translation
fact to mention sentimental scoring on the text they
capture. This is big data. Now we are getting into very
different kinds of data. It is not some record oriented
thing you put in an excel spreadsheet. It is a voice le,
text le, web log data or social media interaction, very
different kinds of data.
How can businesses adopt big data and make it work
for their business? How can they get true insights in
their business, can they use it to prevent some disaster or moving forward with new business goals?
I think there are a couple of critical success factors.
One of them especially in this marketplace is that you
need to think big, but start small. Dont try to solve all
the problems at once. Take A problem, particularly in
this scale of the marketplace you cant do it all at once.
So pick a problem that has high volume, high priority
of business and then focus on that problem, create a
value and then focus on a self-sustaining model. This is
particularly true with big data. IT led big data projects
almost always fail. It is very important that you have
these kinds of initiatives that you have business stakeholder as a part of that team, so that there is a collaboration that takes place between business and IT. IT
by themselves will not be successful and business by
themselves will not be successful, so you really need
to get that joint team in place. So the thing is to look at
what is your business goal, what are you trying to do.
Big data is not always the answer, but sometimes it is
the answer.
INDUSTRY | EVENT REPORT
Smita Vasudevan
smitav@cybermedia.co.in
SMI : The Convergence

Makes the Difference
Alone it is strong, together it is disruptive. That is the power of convergence
of Social, Mobile and IoT (SMI)
ith the enormous growth opportunities

and transformational capabilities that
IoT brings to organizations today,
it would be apt to say that it is one
technology that is turning dreams into
reality. A plethora of connected devices, exchanging
and generating information that can be converted into
actionable data for proactive decision making, improved
product functionality, enhanced customer experience and

probably much more. This would really have been a dream
for many till some years back until connected devices
made their way into the enterprise. With the convergence
of Social, Mobile and IoT (SMI), the opportunities and
possibilities for realizing business gains are extending
beyond imagination.
Globally, transformations driven by IoT technologies are
Panel discussion moderated by Ibrahim Ahmad, Editor-in-Chief, Dataquest & Voice&Data

|
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 47
Sai Pratyush, Head, Enterprise Mobility, Tata Teleservices, during

his session on Do Big Symposium
One of the speakers during his presentation
being witnessed and new success stories are being talked

about. Still, IT industry experts indicate that it is just the
tip of the iceberg and the technology is yet to unleash its
true potential. Even in India, organizations are gradually
waking up to the realities of IoT and making their moves
in that direction. While it is still in its initial stages, Internetof-things is all set to transform and disrupt the enterprise
landscape and organizations need to chart their way ahead
in terms of preparing themselves to the new business
realities and aligning their models around IoT.
There is still a lot of hype, confusion and uncertainty
that surrounds the trend. The Do Big Symposium by
Tata Docomo in Bengaluru, on the theme Harnessing
the Power of Social, Mobile and IoT (SMI) for Business
Transformation attempted to cut through the hype
and look into the realities of dealing with IoT and its
complexities. The keynote session by Ganesh Krishnan,
Founder, Growthstory.in threw light on the technology
disruptions and new growth avenues that connected
devices have brought in convergence with the growing
adoption of mobility and social. Krishnan emphasized that
there is a lot more to be seen as IoT is still nascent and yet
to go mainstream. The real excitement and opportunity
for enterprises is that it has just started. IoT is still very
new, he said. He also shared his thoughts on how the
technology landscape has evolved to become a core part
of the enterprise today and cited examples from his early

years in the industry when it used to be a daunting task to
even establish a case for technology adoption.
Also, enhanced Internet connectivity and bandwidth
has enabled enterprises to embrace new technologies.
When asked about his take on how organizations can
differentiate between the bubbles and long standing
technology game changers, Krishnan pointed out, The
straight answer is you really cant differentiate. It is
not something that can be predicted. You know only
when you try. The good thing is that the cost of trying
new technologies has come down, he said. Being a
serial entrepreneur, he also pointed out some examples
from his own entrepreneurial ventures like Bigbasket.
com that was started in 2011 and now boasts of over
1.5 lakh customers and reportedly gets an average of
5,000 orders a day. It is technologies like mobility and
social that has powered many such small businesses to
become familiar names in their own space.
Although, mobility in itself is a big disruptive force and
is seeing accelerated growth, its convergence with IoT is
what is expected to take it to another level. For instance,
businesses can predict consumer behavior, identify
stock shortages and plan distribution way ahead on the
basis of information derived out of connected devices.
And these are only some of the use cases of SMI.
48
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
Ibrahim Ahmad, Group Editor, CyberMedia Group, in conversation with keynote speaker, Ganesh Krishnan, Founder, Growthstory.in
THE STRUGGLE
Despite the acceptance and acknowledgment for SMI potential, enterprises are still struggling to implement it successfully and perceive it as a core part of their business strategy.
Also, nding the right solution partner is essential in striking
gold with SMI. In this context, the panel discussion tried to
explore the how to aspect of SMI adoption. The speakers Amitava Ghosh, Chief Technology Ofcer, TaxiForSure
and Bhupendra Khanal, CEO and Co-founder, Simplify360
shared their views stating specic instances on how a mix
of mobility, social, and IoT is constantly transforming their respective industries. For TaxiForSure the basic idea was using the Internet to connect the supply with the demand, said
Ghosh. Additionally, social media along with mobility has extended the possibilities for analytics and real-time decision
making. The power of prediction and real-time intelligence
is the power of social media, added Khanal.
Currently, industries like automotive, manufacturing,
and utility are at the forefront of IoT transformation. But as
the potential is fully unleashed and new opportunities are
explored within other areas, more and more successful
transformational stories will come to the fore. We are a
couple of years away till it becomes common. IoT has got
a lot of promise, said Krishnan.
|
Internet-of-things is capable of bringing in disruptive

changes to the way organizations function and the way
they deal with employees and customers. Business
models are being realigned to IoT technologies to
discover new revenue streams and realize cost savings
and improved customer experience. Enterprises will not
be able to survive unless they use and adopt technology
even for non-technology areas, emphasized Krishnan.
As connected devices expand, the data that is being
generated out of these devices is going to be of mammoth
size. SMI hence will open up huge opportunities but at the
same time pose bigger challenges for enterprises to make
sense of this exploding data, stitch it all together and
create a roadmap backed by real-time insights. Also, the
security risk, which remains one of the main deterrents to
the adoption of new technologies, will have to be taken
into consideration. Yet, it is possible to withstand and
overcome these challenges, if organizations plan their
way ahead and develop a clear SMI strategy along with
the right solution partner.
It is interesting and also essential to note that the
technologiessocial, mobile, and IoT are strong forces
in their own right but together they are disruptive. Thats
what makes the real difference, the convergence.
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 49
12th Edition
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
CONCLAVE FOR CIOs
March 20, 21 & 22, 2015
Two nights & two days
Hotel Le Meridien, Cochin
International Speakers
100+ CIO/TDMs of top enterprises
For more information, visit: http://c-change.in
Knowledge Partners
C-CHANGE 2015 IS HERE!!

,PSUHVVWKHFRXQWU\VWRS&,2Vand7'0Vwith\RXUWHFKQRORJ\RIIHULQJV
*HWSOHQW\ofQHWZRUNLQJRSSRUWXQLW\withWKHELJ,7VSHQGHUVof,QGLD
7DONtoWHFKQRORJ\OHDGHUVof,QGLDQHQWHUSULVHVtoDUFKLWHFWWKHLUHQWHUSULVHV
,7URDGPDS
+HOS&,2VSUHSDUHIRUWKHGLJLWDOIXWXUHwithWKHULJKWNQRZOHGJHWRROVandVROXWLRQV
DRIVING DIGITAL INNOVATION

7KHQHZGLJLWDOHFRQRP\UHTXLUHVaFKDQJHinWUDGLWLRQDOEXVLQHVVPRGHOVXVHGE\
RUJDQL]DWLRQVtodoEXVLQHVVDOOWKLVZKLOH8QIRUWXQDWHO\PRVWRUJDQL]DWLRQVDUH
VWLOOnotJHDUHGXSIRUWKHUHTXLUHGFKDQJHVandDUHVWUXJJOLQJtoHPEUDFHGLJLWDO
WUDQVIRUPDWLRQ
7KHQHHGtoFKDQJHLVYHU\PXFKXQGHUVWRRGE\PRVWRUJDQL]DWLRQVbutwhatVKRXOG
EHWKHFRUUHFWSDWKLVVRPHWKLQJthatVWLOOUHTXLUHVFODULW\
Can CIOs play the crucial role of a change agent

to help their organizations transform digitally?
&,2VDUHDIWHUDOOWKHEHVWVXLWHGtoOHDGWKLVWUDQVIRUPDWLRQJLYHQWKHLUWHFKQLFDO
VNLOOVandSUR[LPLW\toHYHU\EXVLQHVVunitofWKHLUUHVSHFWLYHFRPSDQLHV
$W&&KDQJHRXULQWHQWLVtoKHOS&,2VXQGHUVWDQGhowWKH\VKRXOGLQQRYDWH
toGULYHWKHLURUJDQL]DWLRQVWRZDUGGLJLWDOWUDQVIRUPDWLRQ
For further enquiries, please contact:

Harminder Singh
Mobile: 9810140205
Email: harminders@cybermedia.co.in
Smita Vasudevan
smitav@cybermedia.co.in
ADVANCED
TECHNOLOGIES
TO FIGHT
NEW AGE CRIMES
RAVIKUMAR SREEDHARAN
Vice President, Application Development and
Maintenance (ADM),UnisysIndia
52
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
Its a time when electronic and cyber crimes are burgeoning, and law enforcement agencies
have some new challenges to face. In this digital era where traditional mechanisms often
stand irrelevant, technology has a bigger role to play in handling complex crimes. In an
interaction with Dataquest, Ravikumar Sreedharan, Vice President, Application Development
and Maintenance (ADM),UnisysIndia, talks about the increasingly complex needs of law
enforcement agencies and how a framework system like U-LEAF (Unisys Law Enforcement
Applications Framework) can deliver the right mechanism to ght new age crimes. Excerpts
ow is the threat landscape for law en- straints around budgets about resourcing, etc, and that
forcement agencies changing in the new is something which we wanted to address. For instance,
what we heard is that the police forces of England and
technology era?
Cyber attacks are a painful reality for organi- Wales, are anticipating a loss of close to 34,000 ofcers in
zations today. And businesses and govern- 2015. Likewise, Canada is cutting their public safety servments are not sitting still. They are weaving security to ices by almost 9%. So thats the kind of pressure governall aspects of their operations. In the last 5-10 years, the ments are under in the area of public safety.
These were couple of important things which we kept
consumerization of IT and the concept of social computing have led to a state where enterprises have become in mind while building our security portfolio. Within the
security portfolio at Unisys we
borderless. So we have to rehave got three kinds of security
secure the new wave of mobile
solutions. One is people identity
devices, users and applications
solutions which are essentially
resulting from this consumerizasolutions built around identifytion trend. In earlier times, we
ing, verifying, and proling citiused to have physical security
GOVERNMENT
zens be it travellers, passengers,
and now we have physical plus
ORGANIZATIONS AND
or employees in a company
cyber security. So thats the refor both physical environment
al-time visibility which we have
LAW ENFORCEMENT
as well as digital environment.
to provide, across all aspects.
AGENCIES WORLDWIDE
Then, we have something called
Cyber Security. Those soluWhat was the approach and
ARE UNDER A LOT OF
tions are around building infraobjective in building a framePRESSURE TO DO MORE
structure that kind of gives you
work system for the law envisibility across all aspects of
forcement agencies? How
WITH LESS
IT operations, which would indifferent and unique were the
clude your servers, networks,
challenges?
endpoints. Thats the concept of
There were few challenges we
cyber security. The third area is
were trying to address. In todays world, crimes have really become very complicat- industry focused security solutions. For example, banking
ed. Traditional crimes have given way to what we call as industry requires a special kind of security solution. The
the new-age crimes. It could be cyber crimes, it could be other important industry we serve is law enforcement. We
Internet-enabled terrorism, etc. The rigour of investigation have got a domain called justice and public safety and a
and the threat landscape are actually very different. That portfolio built around it. It focuses on collaboration across
is one challenge. Other thing is government agencies and the terminal industry networks and responding faster to
law enforcement agencies worldwide are under a lot of emergencies. U-LEAF is actually part of the justice and
pressure to do more with less. There are severe con- public safety domain.
|
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 53
What are the challenges specically for Indian law enforcement agencies?
If you look at the recent trends even in Indiathe kind of
incidents that are taking place and the response being
generated from the community, there is a lot of awareness among citizens now and the expectations from law
enforcement agencies to solve crimes quicker is also very
high. The way in which most of these agencies are set
up, is such that they are all operating in silos. Thats the
way they have been set up traditionally. The challenge is
to provide an interoperability or visibility across disparate agencies. So thats the other challenge the industry
has been facing. A very important thing we have seen in
the last few years is that the volume and complexity of
data that is relevant to any investigations is growing exponentially. The kind of data includes SMSes, webchats,
biometric information, Twitter and Facebook updates,
number of photographs being uploaded, all that is constantly growing. Also, around 80% of this is unstructured
data. So there has to be a mechanism to make meaningful information out of all this data.
There is need for a better approach to be taken by the
law enforcement agencies. They need to harness the ability to combine a range of investigative tools, as its not
just about one tool. They have to really use a range of investigative tools not only to analyze complex information
but also to nd ways of preventing crimes. Every time a
crime happens, the question being asked is why you did
not proactively address that.
How does U-LEAF work towards resolving these challenges? Can you site some examples?
When we found a solution, we talked about the real needs
of the industry. We said U-LEAF as a framework should
have few important characteristics. One is that, we should
be able to provide visibility into disparate investigations,
we should be able to foster increased collaboration between your command centers, analysts, ofcers and people who investigate crime on the ground. Thats one important feature we built. The other thing we talked about
is there has to be accurate information on the go. So we
need to incorporate a mobile feature by which accurate
information can be provided to frontline ofcers in the
most convenient manner. We built something called social media analytics. If we look at some of the recent crim54
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
inal incidents in India, the question is whether we have

been able to identify hidden trends and recurring patterns
of behaviour. We knew that in some cases, criminals were
actively engaged on social media forums. The question is
if we had all this data we would be able to identify hidden
trends and proactively address crimes and issues that
sometimes human minds may not be able to decipher, so
we need tools to do that. These are some of the important
features incorporated in U-LEAF.
What has been the response in the Indian market?
We have not yet sold U-LEAF in India. But we have been
actively engaged with some of the police forces to help
them come with the right solution.
The advantage is that we have been able to leverage
our vast experience in public safety domain. We have got
45 years of experience in public safety. We have got police ofcers joining our company as the solution guys. So
80% of our team is actually ex police ofcers.
If we go back and take a look at some of the recent cases of criminal attacks, how could a system like U-LEAF
or anything similar could have helped law enforcement
agencies in handling such cases?
If you are able to identify hidden trends or recurring patterns of behaviour by an individual, that will be of great
help to the police forces. There is no platform for police
forces to talk across investigative agencies, at the same
time there is also need to protect sensitive data. There is
also at times fear in the police forces to share sensitive
information, because they are worried that sensitive information might be leaked. So how do you make sure that
you do the right thing? For that you need a platform, the
right tools and the right intelligence.
There is an element of application shelf life, so if we
look at all the systems being used in our country, I think
they have achieved their shelf life. Every application of
this kind has a shelf life of about 10 yearsbeyond that
they need to be modernized. Thats something police
forces need to focus on and thats where companies like
us can really help. If we look at Western countries, they
constantly modernize their systems and add features.
We are relatively slow in adopting new technologies. The
good thing is that there is a lot of positive feedback to
solutions which companies like us provide. So I think we
are moving in the right direction but the pace is quite slow.
INDUSTRY | IN FOCUS
Manish Godha
Why SMBs are Taking to

Cloud Computing
Cloud is a great news for SMBs as it allows them to focus on what technology
can deliver, rather than delivering technology
loud is good! Shared computing services

whether applications or platformsavailable over Internet have granted small and
medium-sized businesses an unprecedented access to technology sophistication.
The potential inherent in information technology
has been immense and the possible impacts are only
getting more pronounced. Technology not only bolsters
efciencies, but also inuences fundamental changes in
|
the business models themselves. But, getting technology

to work for a particular business has traditionally been
arduous, requiring signicant expense, effort, and skills.
As such, access to enterprise-class has been limited to
large businesses which can afford to invest for required
application sophistication, reliable deployment, and
operational support.
Cloud changes this in a fundamental way. It allows the
businesses to access the benets of technology without
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 55
INDUSTRY | IN FOCUS
(less reliance on corporate networks) are driving cloud

application providers to be more available and accessible.
Thus, cloud applications are much more likely to be
available (or at least compatible) for a variety of devices
operating systems, browsers, or form-factors.
Scalability: It is one of the more fundamental promises
of cloud. Vast computing resources shared across a variety
WHAT TECHNOLOGY CAN OFFER
Choice: The sheer ease with which businesses can of users enable scalabilityavailability of computing
explore, assess, and select various options on cloud is capacity (be it computing power, storage, number of
breathtaking. Be it messaging, collaboration, accounting, users, etc) on demand. From a business perspective,
CRM, or any other applicationbusinesses have usage based pricing allows valuable exibility. Thus
enormous choice. Compared to the traditional on- making an IT environment available which is dynamic
premises technologies, cloud has the ability to offer and uid, with the ability to add new businesses, spin up
this at a much lesser cost and commitment. A vibrant new services and respond to the ever changing customer
needs is easily possible without much pain, effort, and
community of users can also be quite helpful.
Cost: Cost savings could be a big advantage to SMBs investment of time and costs.
Performance and Support: Most cloud service proas they adopt cloud. These savings accrue primarily
because cloud services are charged based on usage. viders design their offerings and are set-up to certain
Thus, the costs of idle resources or over-capacity are standards for reliability, availability and performance. In
saved. Further, as cloud involves mostly opex rather contrast, IT infrastructure and set-up at many SMBs has
grown organically and thus end
than capex, it can be much
up being difcult to manage with
more cash-ow friendly for an
clear performance expectations.
SMB. On-demand nature of
Most cloud providers offer servcloud services means that the
ice level agreements (SLAs)
business would not need to
which can include parameters
carry the costs of computing
SMBs CAN ILL-AFFORD
such as application performresources that are not in need.
LARGE DEPLOYMENT OR
ance, availability, datacenter upSpeed: SMBs can ill-afford
time, host failure and migration,
large deployment or upgrade
UPGRADE PROJECTS, AND
etc. Further, support is typically
projects, and cloud dramatiCLOUD DRAMATICALLY
available 24x7 to assist with iscally reduces the time taken to
sues, and other such events.
provision, setting up services
REDUCES THE TIME TAKEN
Standardization and Inteand making applications availTO PROVISION, SETTING
gration: Increasingly, cloud
able. Moreover, cloud absolves
services are adopting common
businesses of intensive efforts
UP SERVICES AND
standardsbe it for data reprequired to upgrade to the newMAKING APPLICATIONS
resentation, application interer versions. System patches
faces or for underlying aspects
and upgrades, typically, happen
AVAILABLE
of identication and authenticain the background with user imtion. This has led to possibilities
pact reduced to the minimum.
Access: SMBs also need 24/7 access to their for SMBs wherein they can leverage a diverse selection
applications and data regardless of location or device. of technologies to suit their needs best, and still enjoy
Increasingly, businesses rely on their mobile devices a level of integration, single sign-on, etc. Of course, it is
(phones or tablets) while on the move, or even at the considerably easy to enable integrated experience if the
workplace. While cloud applications, by denition, cloud applications belong to one platform or family, still
are available anywhere and at all the times, growing there is a growing number of integrating services and opconsumerization and democratization of Internet access tions that may be used.
worrying about (most of) the underpinningsbuilding,
deploying, operating, maintaining, and investing. Thus,
the businesses can focus on what technology can deliver,
rather than delivering technology. This is a great news for
small and medium businesses.
56
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
INDUSTRY | IN FOCUS
much better addressed when specialized cloud service

providers bring togetherscale, skills, and investments.
Moreover, reputable cloud application providers have, in
general, invested signicantly in compliance to security
standards, operational best practices, infrastructure
redundancies, and people preparedness.
Technology Innovation: Much of the new technology
development is happening in the realm of cloud.
Technology companies like Microsoft have adopted cloud
as primary focus, whereas offerings from companies like
Google or Amazon have been, almost, entirely cloud
based. Many innovative startups which are enabling new
use cases and applications are building those for cloud.
Be it newer ways of connecting to customers, or more
efcient collaboration with an organizationsome of
the most innovative tools are available as cloud only. No
business, regardless of its size, can afford not to consider
these technologies.
CONCLUSION
Skills Needed: Managing IT, even in an SMB, is

very effort intensive. As the number of applications,
users and complexity grows, a diverse and relative
large set of professionals (whether outsourced or as
full-time employees) may be needed. This can include
administrators, database experts, network administrators,
application developers, hardware technicians, support
personnel, etc, apart from technology managers and
architects. This could be daunting for most SMBs. The
portfolio of technology skills needed with cloud adoption,
changes for the better. Cloud enables a business to focus
on the purpose and direction of ITwhereas much of
the operational, maintenance and support aspects are
responsibilities of the cloud service providers.
Security: Contrary to the popular perception, cloud
applications can be much more secure, especially for
small and medium businesses. It is a fact that ensuring
security is hard. The applications and infrastructure
need to be continuously monitored, maintained and
patched; in general remain ahead of looming cyber
threats. This requires enormous expertise and expense,
which a small or medium sized business might not want
to organize. Similarly, more basic threats to application
and information availability like power or network
outages, simple human errors, hardware failures, etc, are
|
While there are many compelling reasons for cloud adoption

by SMBs (and also by larger enterprises to a signicant
extent), it is important to understand that there are still
important caveats. While cloud-rst approach makes
eminent sense, businesses must consider relevant aspects
to decide if a non-cloud option might be appropriate. For
example, not all cloud applications have achieved functional
parity with their on-premises equivalents. This is especially
true with applications involving high levels of customization
and integration, like business process automation
involving legacy applications. Other considerations could
include regulations (location or ownership restrictions on
data), bandwidth and quality of connectivity, application
performance needs, etc.
It is also important to appreciate that cloud adoption
can take many forms. While, at times a cloud application
might not t the needs, cloud hosting with dedicated
deployment may still be the right choice. Variants of cloud
servicesinfrastructure, platform or applicationcan
bestow a valuable choice, so as choice of going hybrid.
This highlights the fact that cloud does not preclude the
need for IT and architectural expertise. As such, with right
expertise and adoption assistance, SMBs have indeed
quite a lot to gain from cloud.
The author is Founder and CEO at
Advaiya Solutions
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 57
INDUSTRY | IN FOCUS
Scott Robertson
Why Your Antivirus is Not

Enough Anymore
Enterprises must look for providers that offer advanced capabilities for
proactively detecting and blocking APTs even before they can cause any
damage
or years, youve probably been told that

you need antivirus
to protect your
computer. However, with newer and more malicious security threats emerging every day, you may need to
rethink your approach to manage
such threats. The new breed of
malware is more advanced and resistant to the conventional defenses
nses
and attackers have gotten smarter
arter
over time. Therefore, your antivirus
virus
software alone may not be enough
ough
to combat such malware. Security
curity
controls need to evolve just as targeted
argeted
threats have.
Malware authors have started using evasive techniques to ensure that their
eir programs
dont get easily detected. More importantly,
mportantly,
they often leverage zero day vulnerabilitiesaws for which no patch is available
yet and no signature has been written.
Modern malware is often persistent
sistent
and designed to stick around in
n the
network for as long as possible. These
new strains of advanced malware
e are
often referred to as Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs).
IS ANTI-VIRUS LOSING ITS VALUE?
Recent incidents have shown how attackers have found

their ways to sidestep traditional antivirus technologies to
carry out security breaches and steal data. The security
breaches suffered by the New York Times and the US re58
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
tailer Target demonstrate the enormous impact such security breaches can have. Soon after the attack, Target
suffered a 50% loss in sales, the stock price plummeted
and many of the shoppers vowed never shop at the store
again.
The next generation malware is stealthy and persistent,
INDUSTRY | IN FOCUS
and has the capability to conceal itself within the enterprise network trafc. It uses techniques such as encrypted communication channels, kernel-level rootkits, and
sophisticated evasion capabilities to get past a networks
defenses. This is almost like an arms race. Whenever defenders introduce new detection techniques, attackers
look for new ways to bypass them.
The traditional antivirus approach, which is used to prevent, detect, and remove or disarm malicious computer
programs and malware threats can only protect against
the bad software that we already know exists. Engineers
and code writers are deployed by security companies to
regularly analyze infected les and release patches or updates to deal with new threats as they emerge. But essentially, antivirus is a reactive technology, ie, it only alerts
you of something that is already on your computer, once
it is discovered. This approach may work well against
known viruses, but may not be reliable for dealing with
newly-released viruses.
DEALING WITH ADVANCED THREATS
Organizations that are serious about protecting data, intellectual property and reputation must look for multi-layered security solutions with advanced capabilities to deal
with advanced persistent threats (APTs) that are emerging
on the security landscape. Any company that relies only
on antivirus to secure its end points could be exposing
itself to huge risk.
|
An effective security strategy must include indepth defense and detection capability, an APT incident response
plan and recovery strategy. Security solutions have to be
more proactive in detecting any suspect piece of code
that enters the network and provide the IT team with
clear, actionable information. Effective tools have to be
deployed to monitor and analyze all les and spot any
evasion techniques used by malware. You need to adopt
a comprehensive approach such as UTM (Unied Threat
Management) with capability to get the deepest level of
visibility into malware behavior.
While antivirus and intrusion prevention are still a necessary part of any companys defence, they need to be
supplemented with new advanced detection capabilities
including:
Sandbox in the cloud with full system emulation
with the ability to analyze multiple le types
The ability to go beyond the sandbox to detect different forms of advanced evasions
Visibility so that your network operations staff and IT
team get clear alerts of all detected malware and explanations of why each le is considered malicious
Not just detection, but the ability to proactively take
action and block bad les
The author is Vice President, Asia Pacic,

WatchGuard Technologies
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 59
INDUSTRY | IN FOCUS
Rajiv Bajaj
Designing with Big Data

Finding an insight amongst all the data points is akin to searching a
needle in the haystack. Designers and builders must understand what
things mean and how to use all that data
uman insights and creativity have always

been the source of all design innovations.
Designing and making originates from what
people want, imagine, desire or simply what
needs to improve. Humankinds collective
knowledgelearning lessons from mistakes, gathering
inputs, innovating, educating, documentinghas driven
and inuenced every great accomplishment, whether the
awe-inspiring skyscrapers, a life-changing product, or a
world-dening story.
With the advent of human aspirations, design is
undergoing a massive data and technology shift. Big data
is an unrivaled accumulation of human insights and so
much moreconsisting of sheer volume, variety, and
velocity of collection. The collective insights and data for
62
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
designing and creating are not just emanating from our

brains the way its always been but its the entire world
and all of our things, from smartphones to trafc sensors
on roads that are feeding data into the designs.
Can big data really be harnessed for better design and
making things? Will this huge amount of data enable a
product or building to improve and update itself without
designers starting from scratch? The short answer: Yes. Its
coming in the era of connection and the future of design.
COLLECTING DATA IS EASY. MAKING SENSE OF IT IS
AN ANOTHER STORY
If we think big data is big now, then the future will be even
bigger. A deluge of data is coming from sources like the
Internet of Things and the growing network of connected
INDUSTRY | IN FOCUS
sensors. Those sensors are for a myriad of uses, such as

temperature, lighting, and movement, just to name a few.
They have become incredibly inexpensive, and storing
the resulting data in the cloud is also cheapso big data
becomes massively accessible too.
Even so, our technology today is barely keeping pace
with all the data that is being stored. Finding an insight
amongst all the data points is akin to searching a needle
in the haystack. Designers and builders must understand
what things mean and how to use all that data. They
must analyze and create things in the context of the data
and environment that, in turn, will create even further
insights and data. That is what the Era of Connection is all
about. This is not just about the design of independent,
isolated items anymore. Everything isand will have to
beconnected and understood in context. Consider big
data meeting killer digital models, and we will be able
to foresee the future. The way things are produced
intellectually and physicallyis changing.
Crowdsourcing and vast global, open collaboration is
reaching new heights. Attitudes toward IP are shifting
too. With Elon Musk as a prime example, inventors and
designers are opening access to patents and IP sharing,
helping to drive even further innovation where everyone
shares their insights and competes on ideas. Innite
computing and increasing amounts of computational
access from the cloud, social, and mobile technologies
provides growing access and empowerment. For
physical production, the possibilities are endless as the
democratization of manufacturing processes is already in
full swing. 3D-printing, robotic, and composite materials
(just to name a few) are gaining incredible momentum,
from prototyping to part development to full-blown
production. Theres a more exible global supply chain
and easier access through distributed digital networks.
More of the capital that fuels innovationmoney and
ideasis available than ever before through crowdfunding and big data. Investment can happen on a
grassroots levelnot just waiting for a VC, company, or
government decision.
The Era of Connection means designing for an
ever-increasing web between people, technology, and
the world around them. People are connecting to each
other through crowdsourcing/funding, social networks,
mobile, and more. Theyre connecting to their technology,
technology is connecting to technology, and technology
is sensing the surrounding world and feeding it back to
|
people. Increasing access to unfathomable amounts of

big data and the computing power to use it will deliver
even more pertinent information to our connections.
THE FUTURE OF BIG DATAAND WHAT WE CAN DO
WITH IT
Firstly, industries and organizations will all know about

how things like buildings, highways, products, or games
actually work in reality and in real-time (as opposed to
how they thought they might). At the same time, sensor
systems can be aggregated to each other, connecting
information and operation. Collecting actual information
about performance creates baselines and understanding
for subsequent designs or immediate updates.
The new Tesla Model S embodies the beginning of this
idea. It includes sensors and a sonar system to recognize
surroundings, along with incredible automation such
as changing lanes if the driver turns on the signal and
a space is free. Aside from the gee-whiz factor, Tesla
is on the bleeding-edge of the self-improving product.
Gone are the days of waiting for years to improve the
driving experience and buying a whole new model.
Tesla keeps its cars Internet-connected, so software
updates can download automatically. In turn, the autos
feed data, including the sensor information, back to the
company. The new model will also return more of the
sensor data to deliver upcoming features to its Autopilot
system, furthering the potential of autonomous driving.
So designing the sensor system and its feedback loop
will be as important as the design of the physical object
itself. Devices, machines, objects, everything is going to
be listening to and talking with each other, without any
help or guidance from humans.
Take the new GE wind turbine as another great example
of a product continually improving without starting
from scratch. It collects wind data, which is fed into a
computer where an algorithm determines what it needs to
do in order to improve performance. Thats not too new a
concept, but heres where it gets interesting. The turbine
also communicates it to all the other turbines to improve
performance across the eet.
As the performance-based big data begins to
accumulate (and be stored, indexed, and accessible),
design assertions can be connected to a promise of
performance.
The author is Head, Manufacturing, Autodesk India
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 63
INDUSTRY | IN FOCUS
Ed Nair
Betting Big on Hybrid Cloud

EMC is pitching the hybrid cloud high as the means to redene IT
infrastructure for SMAC while its Pivotal platform helps do the same for big
data and agile applications
he thrust of the annual EMC Forum at New

Delhi was clearly on hybrid cloud. EMC engineers provided a live demo of hybrid cloud
which they claimed to have set up in nearly
the record time of 30 hours. The demo attracted attention and was the center stage of the show. The
demo was close on the heels of the company announcing the availability of the EMC enterprise hybrid cloud
solution, delivering hardware, software and services from
EMC and VMware. The hybrid cloud solution enables ITas-a-Service (ITaaS) in as few as 28 days, the company
claims. The key benet offered is that organizations no
longer will have to make tradeoffs between the speed and
64
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
agility of public cloud services and the control and security of private cloud infrastructure.
EMC played out its serious foray into the cloud market
by announcing collaboration with cloud service providers
Netmagic, Tata Communications and Sungard as part of
a larger effort to target the cloud market opportunity in
India, which is estimated to be $1 bn by 2015, according
to Greyhound Research. EMC is working with each cloud
service provider to offer customers a consolidated, customer-focused approach to designing, architecting, and
running a hybrid cloud to deliver the speed and agility of
public cloud services, with the control and security of private cloud infrastructures. The collaboration will focus on
INDUSTRY | IN FOCUS
Cloud has a particular strategic

importance in the Indian market.
Our strategic alliance with service
providers will enable us to transform
IT today and into the future
Rajesh Janey
President, India and Saarc EMC
customers in the manufacturing, healthcare, retail, BFSI,

and IT/ITeS sectors.
At the event, Rajesh Janey, President, India and Saarc
EMC said, Cloud has a particular strategic importance
in the Indian market. Our strategic alliance with service providers will enable us to transform IT today and
into the future. Our combined hybrid cloud proposition
enables our customers to adopt a true IT-as-a-Service
model and change the way they run IT. With the huge
market opportunity in front of us and 76% of our customers looking to implement hybrid cloud solutions, we
are looking at a bullish roadmap to be one of the top 3
players in India in hybrid cloud segment by 2017.
More than 40,000 EMC engineering hours were invested to
deliver hardware, software, and services solution designed
to accelerate time-to-value and enable the deployment of
an enterprise hybrid cloud in as few as 28 days. The solution
offers public cloud interoperability with VMware vCloud Air,
Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and other
EMC-powered cloud service providers. David Webster,
President, Asia Pacic and Japan, EMC said, EMC has
been at the forefront of translating vision into reality for
our customers. Todays announcement is a step toward
ensuring our customers are able to leverage the power of
cloud to meet their specic business requirements.
Our objective is to make it simpler for IT organizations
to deploy well-run hybrid clouds in a matter of days, and
providing the same or even better agility and efciency
benets to public clouds.
|
IDC qualies EMCs move into the hybrid cloud as

a differentiator. The IDC report (IDC MarketScape:
Worldwide Cloud Professional Services 2014 Vendor
Analysis) states, EMCs federation of businesses
(including EMC Information Infrastructure, VMware,
Pivotal and RSA) is a differentiator. By engaging with
EMCs services team, customers have easy access to a
pool of knowledge and expertise across the federation,
across multiple disciplines that are required to enable
a software-dened enterprise. For example, EMCs new
hybrid cloud solution provides customers an option
to buy a Hybrid Cloud (versus build one); it includes
converged storage infrastructure (with EMC and
VMware components), EMCs data protection suite, and
a management and orchestration layer in conjunction
with VMwareall of which can be implemented and
optimized by EMC Global Services.
The company has been on a spree of acquisitions to
boost up its cloud portfolio. It acquired Cloudscaling,
Maginatics and Spanning to accelerate OpenStack-powered hybrid clouds, extend data protection to the cloud
and assure availability and data protection for born in the
cloud applications.
SMACREDEFINING IT
At the EMC Forum 2014, the company revealed the ndings of its annual survey on enterprise IT trends. The key
points that emerged from the survey are:
People want to interact online, anytime and from anywww.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 65
INDUSTRY | IN FOCUS
where leading to rise of mega trends of cloud, mobile,

social, and big data
95% believe CXOs see IT as strategic business driver, more than ever before
Respondents in India are deploying cloud, mobile,
social and big data technologies to enhance customer
experience (51%), automate processes (41%), and to improve capabilities for sales and marketing (38%)
Despite this, only 70% of respondents believe IT has
the skills to achieve business priorities
In the future, IT will continue to play a key role in
growing the business85% say that they will become inhouse providers of on-demand services
Summarizing the ndings of the survey, Janey, said,
SMAC challenges enterprises to take advantage of the
positive disruptions of the digital ecosystems. These
technologies are quickly changing the way companies
relate to their customers, interact with employees, and
bring products and services to market as is highlighted by
the survey. It is clear, that in order to redene their business, IT departments will need to continuously develop
skillsets that will help them keep up with innovation.
Enterprises are clearly in the midst of effecting a large
scale transformation of IT infrastructure. Dmitri Chen,
COO and VP Specialty Sales, APJ at EMC says that the
usual path that CIOs take is this: a) virtualize everything
b) optimize your private cloud c) Identify and shift safe
applications to the public cloud d) check back and reoptimize private cloud and e) deploy hybrid cloud. The
process looks very simple, but it requires the CIO to make
many decisions and answer many questions. Some of the
key considerations during this transformation is to know
how to provide data protection and availability regardless
of where the data resides, what is the approach to data
security and compliance strategy, and many such critical
areas. The process is not a series of steps as it seems, it
is a transformation of the IT infrastructure to respond to
modern business needs, Dmitri says. He adds that companies like EMC are the best equipped to handle this.
PIVOTAL POWER
As a company, Pivotal is an interesting play that future

powers the entire EMC Federation. EMC denes Pivotal
as the company at the intersection of big data, PaaS,
and agile development. It starts with Pivotal CF, a turnkey
66
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
platform-as-a-service, powered by Cloud Foundry, solution for agile development teams to rapidly update and
scale applications on a private cloud that can be instantly
expanded and upgraded with no downtime, allowing enterprises to innovate with disruptive speed.
Says Arun Ramachandran, Country Manager, Pivotal India, The top management of every industry is
now waking up to the fact that organizations need to
be data driven and to be fast at that. These are cases
where Pivotal solutions t in nicely. The technology
helps to create multiple layers of data consumption and
then multiple application delivery routes on top of that.
Arun says that apps, data, and analytics form a trio,
but people have a siloed mentality which often leads to
loss of value. For example, you deliver fantastic analysis but if it doesnt get used, it is loss of value. CIOs are
often faced with questionshow do I consume analytics data, how can I develop applications with agility,
what assets do I need, and such. This is where Pivotal
comes in, says Arun.
Citing examples of Pivotal customers in India, Arun referred to the case of the largest exchange in the country
beset with problems related to huge data volumes, like
800 mn messages per day, which is as much data volume
as a telecom service provider. Pivotal managed to transit
them from traditional vendors on to the Pivotal platform,
which essentially meant moving nearly 80TB of data in
record ve months.
Pivotal had earlier announced the release of major capabilities in Pivotal GemFire 8. Pivotals Big Data Suite
includes this new release of Pivotal GemFire, a distributed in-memory data management solution for enterprises creating high-scale custom applications. Pivotal
claims that GemFire advances its mission to make it
easy for modern software developers to integrate data
to create new classes of enterprise applications. Indian
Railways is one of the reference customers for Pivotal
GemFire. Suneeti Goel, Chief Project Engineer, Center
for Railway Information Systems, vetoed, CRIS uses
Pivotal GemFire to support high concurrent transactions for reservations and ticket purchases in the newly
launched Indian Railways next-generation e-ticketing
system. The scalability and resilience features in GemFire have helped us increase the capacity and availability of our service.
ENTERPRISE | REAL CASE
Jasmine Kohli
jasminek@cybermedia.co.in
Banking the Unbanked

Adarsh Credit Co-Operative Society is leveraging mobility solutions to
empower the low-income population in the far-ung rural areas of the country
ndian banking sector today is grappling with the issue of nancial inclusion. The grave situation of
rural banking can be gauged from a report by National Sample Survey Organization, which states that
51.4% of the 89.3 mn farmer households in the country have no access to credit. As per census gures, just
145 mn of Indias 247 mn households have access to a
bank account.
While only a few rural residents have access to bank
accounts, there are about 930.2 mn mobile subscribers
in the country. This is the key reason why Indias leading multi-state co-operative society, Adarsh Credit Cooperative Society, turned to the mobile platform to fulll
its vision of delivering banking services at the doorstep of
low-income groups in rural areas.
The task of nancial inclusion is gigantic. To achieve
this, we need to think beyond traditional ways and delivery channels. As a mobile handset is the lifeline of every
Indian, we have decided to use the medium to reach a
common man without a bank account. With the implementation of the mobile banking service, we have been
able to efciently and transparently execute doorstep
banking, says Himanshu Shah, CTO, Adarsh Credit Cooperative Society.

REACHING OUT
In order to provide doorstep banking to population in Indian villages, Adarsh gave phablets installed with SAP
Sybase 365 to its more than 100,000 nancial advisors
that go door-to-door in some of the remotest villages of
India. The app is used for direct collection from customers and the transaction happens in real-time. As soon as
the transaction happens, the customer gets an update
about the balance. The mobile app is secure, scalable,
and easily integrates with banks other core-banking systems. The app has the capability to work in both: Online
and ofine mode, enabling advisors to work seamlessly in
areas with low connectivity.
Earlier, for depositing money, customers had to travel
to brick and mortar branches of banks, stand in queues,
ll the pay-in slips, wait for the token and then deposit
money. Today, the bank visits the customers and collects
the money; within no time, the money gets reected in the
customers account. The app has led to higher visibility of
Through our branches and over

100,000 nancial advisors, we have
reached 1 mn customers. The app
has resulted in 20% increase in the
productivity of advisors and has
reduced our operational cost
Himanshu Shah
CTO, Adarsh Credit Co-operative Society
68
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
ENTERPRISE | REAL CASE
HOW THE APP WORKS
The landing page of the mobile app lists

several options from which an advisor can
choose an action he needs to perform
In the DDS (daily deposit scheme)

collection page, the advisor needs to enter
the branch code, pop code, and the amount
collected. As soon as the transaction happens,
the customer gets an update about the balance
In case of RD (recurring deposit)

collection, the advisor needs to enter the
branch code, product type, customer
account, certicate number and amount
collected. This amount gets reected in the
customers account in real-time
In the feedback page of the app,

customers can share their opinion and
experience regarding the service
the cash ow, asserts Shah.

Adarsh completed the project implementation in three
months in various phases. We started with region wise
implementation and then the project was rolled out panIndia, says Shah.
To ensure secure transactions, the app has a robust
security mechanism with a two-level authentication process. In case there is no data connection, an SMS is sent
in an encrypted form.
Today, through its branches and over 100,000 financial advisors, Adarsh has reached 1 mn customers.
|
5 The app also allows customers to share

complaints, if any
Thanks to the app, on an average Adarshs advisors

are able to meet 250 people daily for financial transactions. The app has thus resulted in 20% increase in
the productivity of advisors and has reduced operational cost.
Adarshs initiative is denitely a step in the right direction to extend nancial inclusion to remote rural areas of
the country and is in alignment with RBIs goal of creating
a cashless society. It is also a perfect example of how
mobility can be leveraged to deliver banking services to
the bottom of the pyramid.
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015 | 69
ENTERPRISE | DIG DATA
Charu Murgai
charum@cybermedia.co.in
More Analytics,
Better Decisions,
Less Intuition
Your decisions change the course of your business. And decision making
as usual may not be right for the task. You need more data to understand
what was previously unknown. Sophisticated analytical tools are available to
you to see a wider range of possibilities and evaluate them quickly. A report
by PwC gives insights on how many of the technology executives are fully
prepared to make big decisions
Is the senior management ready to make the important decisions?
Few see their senior management as fully prepared to make the

most important decision they need to make in the next 12 months
15%
59%
Somewhat
Fully prepared
Fully
preparedSomewhat
prepared
prepared
70
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
24%
2%
Moving
from unprepared
Unprepared
Moving
from unprepared
Unprepa
to prepared
to prepared
The bigger the stakes, the bigger the difference that sophisticated analytical capabilities
can make. Below are the top goals for the technology executives for the next 12 months
Top goals for big decisions, next 12 months

Grow an existing business
52%
Enter a new industry or start a new business
36%
Shrink an existing business
33%
Corporate restructuring
31%
Collaborate with competitors
29%
Change to an existing business model
29%
A major investment in the business
26%
$
Brand positioning
26%
No time for indecisiveness
Among technology executives, next 12 months
JAN
MAR
MAY
JUL
SEP
NOV
FEB
APR
JUN
AUG
OCT
DEC
new
opportunity
53% expect to make

a big decision at least
once per month
28% say their most important

decision will be based on a
new opportunity they simply
cant ignore
20% estimate the value of their most important big

GHFLVLRQDV86ELOOLRQRUPRUHLQIXWXUHSURWDELOLW\
3-6
months
20%
>US$1bn
51% plan to revisit their most important

big decision within 3-6 months to adjust
for new information
13%
17%
43%
$250m
$1bn
$50m
$250m
<$50m
www.dqindia.com
6%
too
GLIFXOW
to value
February 28, 2015
71
Both Analytics and Intuition Matter
Which did you rely on

most for the last big
decision you made?
43%
29%
28%
My own
experience
and intuition
Relevant
experience
of others
Data and
analytics
inputs
What Prevents Deciders from Making Greater Use of Data and Data Analysis
data
skills
26%
Senior management
lacks the necessary
skills or expertise
26%
There is a limited direct
EHQHWWRP\NLQGRIUROH
Seeing limits: Technology executives still have a

OHDUQLQJFXUYHRQKRZWRPDNHJUHDWHUXVHRIGDWDDQG
analytics when making big decisions.
72
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
?
?
39%
29%
,WpVGLIFXOWWRDVVHVV
ZKLFKGDWDLVWUXO\XVHIXO
The quality, accuracy or

FRPSOHWHQHVVRIWKHGDWD
isnt high enough
Why it matters: 7RRPXFKLQIRUPDWLRQFDQKXUWGHFLVLRQ

PDNLQJLILWGLVWUDFWV\RXWDNHVWRRORQJRULVQRWQHHGHG
Think instead: Technology companies will innovate here.
:HH[SHFWWKH\ZLOOXVHDYDULHW\RIPHDQVWRLPSURYH
ZKDWGDWDLVFROOHFWHGVWRUHGDQGDQDO\VHGIRUEXVLQHVV
intelligence.
Where Change in Decision Making is Starting to Happen
?!
Weve changed the way we approach big decision

making as a result of big data or analytics
63%
21%
17%
Yes
No, but plan

to do so
No, or
dont
know
Top three changes, last 24 months
Used new, richer

sets of data
Employed a dedicated
data insights team to
inform strategic
decisions
Relied on enhanced data

analytics such as
simulation, optimisation, or
predictive analytics
Source: PwCs Global Data & Analytics Survey 2014
www.dqindia.com
February 28, 2015
73
LAST MATTER
Ed Nair
Every Company Is A...
t a recent meeting with a senior executive at a global IT services company, I asked about
the biggest dynamic of change affecting both his customers and his own company. His
reply sounded like a cliche he admitted, but he said that there was no better way to put it.
He said, Every company is a tech company.
The statement is a very telling one that accurately reects the reality, even if metaphorically for many
companies. I got curious about the origins of the statement and its variations. Heres what I gathered:
Every business is a digital business- Accenture
Every company is a tech company- Jon Brune, OReilly
Every company is a software company- David Kirkpatrick, Techonomy
Every company is a technology company- Mark Raskino and Peter Sondergaard, Gartner
Theres no such thing as a tech company anymore- David Yanofsky, Quartz
The key thrust of all these statements is the role and impact of technology on business. That
technology is no longer just the enabler of business; it is the driver of business. The statement
embodies most of the trends we see in technologySMAC, IoT, digital transformation,
consumerization, service-oriented IT, and such and how it applies to business.
The immediate and obvious manifestation of this paradigm is evident in eCommerce companies,
digital companies, and new business models like Uber. The implications are readily understood.
The difculty comes in when you have to apply it to existing industries to transform them.
For both CIOs and tech vendors, this paradigm is a double-edged sword. The challenge is to come
out of the connes of the world of technology and step up to solving real business problems using
technology and inventing completely new business models for the future. The opportunity is to raise
the prole of the behind-the-walls IT organization and seize larger territory in the corporate landscape.
For technology vendors, the challenge is to acquire the capability to understand and solve
business problems using technology and the opportunity is to craft and deliver totally new value
propositions to customers.
But wasnt all this already known? Yes. Yet, the statement is a powerful reminder of the predominant
role of technology in business and the change in mindset that is required. For the CIO, this means much
more than being an advocate of technology for the rest of the enterprise. The options are manythe
CIO could choose to be the customer experience champion, the CIO could be the business strategist
and business architect, the CIO could be handling technology related M&A, and the CIO could get in
and transform the entire business function or two and get out to do something else. Act now!
Ed Nair
Editor-at-large
74
February 28, 2015
www.dqindia.com
To
u
ch En
ed
a bl
A n g arJS
ul
Lig
htw eig h
Beta
J av
a s c ri p t
A new generation of
True JavaScript controls
Fle
xible A P
Download free Beta version from

http://wijmo.com/5/
Sales: 120-2470111
www.componentone.com
sales.india@componentone.com

DataQuest Feb

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

DataQuest Feb

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

CURBING INDIAS PROBLEM OF

VOL XXXIII No 04 I FEBRUARY 28, 2015

THE BUSINESS OF INFOTECH

Indian banks are actively leveraging social

76 pages including cover

Special Subscription offer on page 60

FEBRUARY 28, 2015

February 28, 2015

SMI : The Convergence Makes the Difference

Banking the Unbanked

How Smart Grids can Curb Indias

More Analytics, Better Decisions,

How Social, Mobile, and Online Trends are

The Impact of Enterprise Mobility on the

HDFC Life Shows how Enterprise Social

Why SMBs are Taking to Cloud Computing

Why Your Antivirus is Not Enough Anymore

Designing with Big Data

Betting Big on Hybrid Cloud

How Indian BFSI rms are leading

February 28, 2015

EDITOR AND GROUP EDITOR: Ibrahim Ahmad

SENIOR EDITORIAL CO-ORDINATOR: Manishika Miglani

SR ASST EDITOR: Onkar Sharma (Gurgaon), Smita Vasudevan (Bengaluru)

COVER DESIGN: Pramod S Rawat

February 28, 2015

INDUSTRY | SHORT TAKES

Compiled by Ruchika Goel

Marten Pieters to Step Down as Vodafone India CEO

he Board of Vodafone India announced that

including the launch and expansion of mobile commerce

PayPal Extends Start Tank

n an effort to promote a culture of entrepreneurship

February 28, 2015

For the rst time since its inception in 2013, PayPals

INDUSTRY | SHORT TAKES

Spice Group Announces Investment of `500 crore

aking forward the Government of Indias

Pradesh in a time bound manner and facilitate

VMware Strengthens its Leadership Team in India

India. It was a year of change and transformation for us

February 28, 2015

INDUSTRY | SHORT TAKES

Dell OEM Solutions Help Agmatel Reduce

where kiosks were permanently connected to a network,

Panasonic Joins Hands with Reliance Communications to

anasonic India, in association with Reliance

February 28, 2015

INDUSTRY | SHORT TAKES

Escorts Slashes Financial Reporting Time

scorts announced that they have implemented

faster responses to rapidly changing market demands.

Dr Anirban Basu Elected President of

February 28, 2015

INDUSTRY | SHORT TAKES

Mark Ablett Joins Hitachi Data Systems

Cremen, Executive Vice President, Global Sales, Hitachi

Twitter Appoints Taranjeet Singh as

witter has appointed Taranjeet Singh as Head of

February 28, 2015

agencies to use Twitter to connect with their audiences in

INDUSTRY | SHORT TAKES

Internet Grows to 284 mn

eriSign, a global leader in domain names