C-suite movements

Key recent C-suite movements to watch

by | Dec 11, 2020 | C-Track

Here is a quick update on the key recent C-suite movements in the areas of information security and information technology in India.
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Here is a quick update on some key recent C-suite movements in the information technology and information security technology areas in India.

11 December 2020 Update

Jagdip Kumar roped in by Lohia Group as CIO

Jagdip Kumar, General Manager, IT, left Cosmo Films to join Lohia Group as CIO. In this new position, Kumar will lead the digital transformation efforts of the Lohia Group.

Lohia Group is a diversified manufacturing company that produces various products such as flexible packaging, threads, plastic components for automobiles and machines.

Kumar has over 19 years of experience and has earlier worked with AMW, VE Commercial Vehicles, and Welspun.

Puneesh Lamba joins Shahi Exports as Group CIO

Puneesh Lamba, Group CIO of CK Birla Group, has moved to Shahi Exports as their Group Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Lamba will directly report to the Board of Directors of Shahi Exports.

Shahi Export is India’s biggest apparel manufacturer and exporter and has several manufacturing units across nine Indian states and over 100,000 workforce. In the new role at Shahi Exports, Lamba will spearhead its digital transformation and cloud-based tech-innovation initiatives.

Lamba is a seasoned IT professional with a strong experience of over 27 years. He has previously associated with firms such as BILT, Punj Loyd, GE Capital in leadership roles.

Kapil Madan is Spark Minda Group’s new CISO

Spark Minda Group has appointed Kapil Madaan as its new Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). The company has a strong presence in the global automotive sector, catering to a passenger vehicle, commercial vehicle, two-wheelers, and off-road vehicle manufacturing.

Madan has previously worked with Max Healthcare as a cybersecurity leader.

Rohit Kilam moves to CMS Info Systems as CTO

Rohit Kilam has joined CMS Info Systems Ltd as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). CMS Info Systems is India’s top Cash Management and Payment Solutions company. In his new role, Rohit will lead to several process transformations and tech-innovations at CMS Info-Systems.

Rohit has earlier worked in a gamut of challenging assignments in Digital Transformations, IT Strategy, IT Performance Management, Building Digital products, Operating Models, M&A IT Integration, Outsourcing Governance, Tech Product development, and ERP implementations.

He has earlier worked with companies such as Adani Enterprises, Masan Group, and IBM in leadership roles

20 September 2020 Update

Shuvankar Pramanick, CIO, Columbia Asia Hospitals

Shuvankar Pramanick has been appointed as the new CIO of Columbia Asia Hospitals Pvt. Ltd, a group of multi-specialty hospitals that operates in cities like Bangalore, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Mysore, Kolkata, Patiala, and Pune.

Bringing 20+ years of experience, Pramanick will focus on building new tech innovations in the healthcare sector while leading the IT team of the group. Pramanick has previously held senior IT leadership positions Paras Healthcare, Fortis Healthcare, and Asian Institute of Medical Sciences.

Marc Concannon, CTO, Cubic Telecom 

Marc Concannon has joined as CTO of Software IoT (Internet of Things) and connectivity management company, Cubic Telecom. In this new role, he will focus on Cubic’s software product roadmap and growth strategy. With over 20 years of experience, Concannon has previously served as the CTO at ClavisInsight, LogEntries, and Edge by Ascential.

Kamal Hathi, CTO, DocuSign

DocuSign has roped in former Microsoft veteran Kamal Hathi as their new CTO. With over 25 years of experience leading technology and product teams at startups and global multinationals alike, Hathi will oversee the development and execution of DocuSign’s technology roadmap, and support product expansion.

San Francisco based DocuSign help organizations manage and automate electronic agreements.

 

24 July 2020 Update

Munish Mittal, Group HeadIT & CIO leaves HDFC Bank

Munish Mittal, Group Head-Information Technology & Chief Information Officer at HDFC Bank has exited HDFC Bank. He had joined the private lender in 1996 as IT Manager. During his 24 years tenure at HDFC, he spearheaded various roles, including managing the IT strategy of the bank and its associated companies, HDFC Securities, and HDB Financial Services. Mittal has not disclosed his future plans yet.

A Shiju Rawther roped in by Poonawalla Finance for CIO role

A Shiju Rawther has been appointed as the CIO of Poonawalla Finance. In his new role, Rawther will lead IT functions and strategies, and be responsible for designing the digital roadmap of the organization. He will also spearhead the company’s analytics function. Rawther has moved from IIFL Finance where he was the Executive Vice President–Technology. He has over two decades of experience in driving digital transformation, innovation, and analytics in various multinationals.

Dr. Jai Menon joins the Advisory board of IndiQus Technologies

Dr. Jai Menon, the former Group CTO of HT Media, has joined the advisory board of IndiQus Technologies, a leading telecom cloud monetization platform provider. Dr. Menon is a global technology leader with over three decades of global experience across the US, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. He is largely known for his various technology leadership roles at Bharti Airtel. In his new role at IndiQus, Dr. Menon will play an active strategic role in IndiQus’s product evolution and the company’s expansion plans.

Gaurav Kataria joins Sai Life Science as Chief Digital and Information Officer (CDIO)

Gaurav Kataria has joined Sai Life Sciences as Chief Digital and Information Officer (CDIO). He was previously working as Vice President of Digital Strategy and Solutions (Aerospace & Defense) at Cyient. In his new role, Kataria will be driving the digital and IT strategy for Sai Life Sciences, a full-service Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO). Sai Life Science works with innovator pharma and biotech companies globally to accelerate the discovery, development, and manufacture of complex small molecules.

Amit Waghmare takes up CIO role at DB Corp

Amit Waghmare has joined DB Corp as the Chief Information Officer (CIO). Amit has moved on from Page Industries where he was heading IT for more than two years. DB Corp, formerly known as Dainik Bhaskar, is a leading media organization headquartered in Bhopal. Waghmare has over 17 years of work experience in the IT sector with a demonstrated history of working in the Media, Power, Textile, Pharma, Real Estate, Luggage, Apparel, and fashion industry.

09 June 2020 Update

Unique Kumar joins CK Birla Group as Group CISO
Unique Kumar has been appointed as Group CISO of CK Birla Group, a diversified $2.4 billion conglomerate with over 25,000 employees and 41 manufacturing facilities.

Kumar joins the CK Birla group from Max Healthcare, where he was heading Digital Innovation and Cybersecurity. He has also held leadership positions with Aviva Life Insurance, Aptara, and Idea Cellular.

Manish Shetty moves to Diageo India as CIO
Manish Shetty is Diageo India’s new CIO. Shetty was earlier working as Director–IT at Tata Consumer Products. Prior to that, he was CIO at Sanofi and before that Director–IT at Tata Global Beverages. Shetty has also held leadership and managerial positions at companies like Birlasoft, Radian, KPMG US, American Express, and Larsen & Toubro Information Technology.

Diageo plc is a British multinational alcoholic beverages company, with its headquarters in London, England and offices in six continents.

Sun Life names Laura Money as new global EVP and CIO
Sun Life Financial Inc has announced the appointment of Laura Money as Executive Vice-President and Chief Information Officer effective 29 June 2020. Laura will report to Kevin Strain, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice-President, Sun Life. She succeeds Mark Saunders, EVP, and Chief Information Officer, who announced his plans to retire at the end of April next year.

Sun Life is a leading international financial services organization providing insurance, wealth, and asset management solutions to individual and corporate clients. Sun Life has operations in a number of markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Bermuda.

31 May 2020 Update

Jayanta Bhowmik joins Kesoram Industries as group CIO
Kesoram Industries is a part of the BK Birla Group Of Companies. The company is engaged in the manufacturing of cement, tyres, tubes, rayon, paper, heavy chemicals, and spun pipes. Bhowmik has moved from Usha Martin, where he served as a Senior Vice President of IT and Group CIO. In his earlier stints, he had held senior leadership positions at Appejay Surrendra Group, Tega Industries, HCL Technologies, and ABP.

Ranjit Satyanath, Head of Technology Operations at Croma, quits
Satyanath had joined Chroma in August 2014, and successfully led the IT strategy and digital initiatives at Croma, one of India’s largest consumer electronics and appliances retailer.

Manish Mimani quits Aviva Life Insurance to become an entrepreneur 
Manish Mimani, CIO for Aviva Life Insurance, has moved on to pursue an entrepreneurship path. Mimani has launched a new cybersecurity firm, Protectt.ai Labs, with an aim to build next-generation mobile security and real-time fraud management solutions.

14 May 2020 Update

Anis Pankhania joins Capgemini as Senior Director – Security Operations and Compliance.
Pankhania is based in Pune and joins Capgemini from Vodafone Idea, where he was heading Security Compliance and Data Privacy. In his new role, Pankhania will lead a team of specialized IT security and risk professionals. Pankhania has earlier worked in senior IT security roles in companies such as Aircel, IBM, and Airtel.

Mihir Joshi joins HDFC Pension Management and HDFC International Life and Re as CISO
In his new role, Joshi will be managing the operations and administration of various IT security devices, solutions, technologies, and processes deployed to enhance the security posture for HDFC Life, HDFC Pension, and HDFC LifeRe. Immediately prior to this, he was with Ares Management Corporation where he set up the Cybersecurity practice from scratch.

BNP Paribas appoints Mannan Godil as Director & India Head, Information Security & Business Continuity Management
Mannan Godil has joined BNP Paribas as Director & India Head, Information Security & Business Continuity Management. He has been roped in from Edelweiss Financial Services where he was working as Senior Vice President, Head – Information Security / CISO. Previously, he had also served in companies, such as eClerx Services, Zener Electronics, Stream Tracmail, and S.S. Nirban Enterprises.

Rajesh Hemrajani is the new CISO at Paytm Payments Bank
Rajesh Hemrajani has been appointed as CISO at Paytm Payments Bank. Prior to this, he was CISO at IDFC First Bank. Previously, he has held several leadership and roles at companies like RBS, Nomura Securities, Emirates Airlines, and Dubal.

Manish Bhatia joins Lendingkart as President – Technology, Analytics & Capabilities
Manish Bhatia has been roped in by Lendingkart as President – Technology, Analytics & Capabilities. In his previous role, he was the CTO at Amazon Pay India. He was also the Co-founder and CTO at Buymaxo, and previously served in organizations like Education Finance Partners, FedEx Office, and JP Morgan Chase.

If you think we’ve missed out featuring any other key recent C-suite movements/appointments in the above list, please feel free to drop a line to us at betterworld@bmnxt.com

MORE FROM BETTER WORLD

Bharti Airtel gears up for digital transformation opportunities

Bharti Airtel gears up for digital transformation opportunities

Indian Telecom major Bharti Airtel has rolled out a new enterprise cloud communication platform, Airtel IQ, to help businesses scale their digital transformation efforts.

Airtel IQ has been launched by the company to leverage the cloud opportunity driven by the sudden upsurge in India’s work-from-home environment. Bharti Airtel currently serves over 2500 large businesses and over 500,000 small and medium enterprises across India through its Airtel Business division. The telco says that Airtel IQ can help organizations integrate their communication across business practices — marketing, sales, customer service, and operations.

The Airtel IQ solution has been fully developed by Airtel’s in-house engineering teams and natively integrated into the Telco-grade infrastructure. According to Airtel, it has already signed up companies such as Swiggy, Justdial, Urban Company, Havells, Dr. Lal Path Labs, and Rapido as customers for Airtel IQ during the beta phase itself.

In the post-COVID-19 environment, enterprises are putting greater stress on business model improvisation and infrastructure modernization. And as such, Indian telecom providers like Airtel see a huge opportunity to diversify its offerings along with the connectivity solutions for a better growth. (See: Airtel launches Work@Home for business continuity)

Airtel’s internal estimates project the Indian cloud market size at around US $ 1 billion and growing at 20% y-o-y. With this new Airtel IQ solution, the company aims to capture a sizable share in this opportunity. 

Tapping enterprise opportunity for growth revival

The ongoing crisis has resulted in colossal growth of remote working and dispersed workforce ecosystem. This unexpected change has ensued in a swift acceleration in the digital transformation plans of several organizations. Enterprises are rapidly shifting gears to advance their digital transformation efforts and fortify virtual presence for business resiliency. (See: AI-driven analytics is CIOs’ mantra in the new normal)

Bharti Airtel, who has been facing tough competition from Jio in the race to become the country’s leading mobile operator, has unique strengths and setting to address the growing demand for digital transformation solutions. Its newly appointed Enterprise Business CEO, Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, a former Dell executive, has earmarked firm growth plans for the company’s B2B division growth.

Airtel has been making rapid strides in its enterprise business growth, which is currently growing at a rate of 9.2% year-on-year.

For the last 24 months, besides enterprise connectivity, the company is making robust efforts to develop cybersecurity competencies, machine to machine (m2M), data centers and cloud, and unified communications.

The public, private, and hybrid cloud offerings are a growing focus area for Airtel’s enterprise arm. Also, it is offering security as a service.

Airtel’s digital transformation efforts don’t just restrict to the cloud. It even plans to have a more substantial presence in the cybersecurity solutions market, which has been growing due to the rapid digitization and increased mature online attacks.

Early this year, it is setting up a suite of cybersecurity solutions for enterprise customers to protect data and data from online attacks. It has invested about ₹100 crores in building an Airtel security intelligence center in Delhi NCR that boasts access to advanced technology and artificial intelligence tools.

Partner-led approach to ensure digital transformation readiness

One of the biggest realizations that Indian companies have lately identified is that to endure the most challenging battles, they need to partner with several partners to diversify well and succeed. Airtel, too, has been pursuing this strategy. (See: Tech Cos take M&A route for digital transformation supremacy)

Airtel already owns a cloud platform and recently entered into a strategic union with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to launch more enterprise customers’ cloud services. Another noteworthy alliance that it announced recently was with Radware, a cybersecurity and application delivery solutions. Under the partnership, Airtel will offer Radware’s cloud security services to enterprise customers. Airtel has also collaborated with Cisco, a networking giant, to offer monitoring, analysis, and investigation of malicious code services to its customers.(See:
Airtel beefs up cybersecurity portfolio, eyes new business)

According to the consultancy firm Deloitte, India’s IoT market size has been projected to reach about $9 billion by 2020. This is a massive opportunity for India’s leading connectivity provider Airtel, who is also prepping up for the forthcoming 5G ecosystem.

Bharti Airtel has been extensively developing consortium and partnerships in the internet of things (IoT) and surveillance space to build future-ready applications. It is developing a narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) network in India and has already identified the sites for the same.

 

Jio eyes more digital edge with JioPages web browser

Jio eyes more digital edge with JioPages web browser

In a strategic move to expand its digital presence, Jio Platforms, the telecoms and digital arm of the Indian multinational Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has revamped its Jio web browser and given it a new identity called JioPages. The company says that the newly incarnated JioPages web browser has been designed and developed entirely in India.

Jio’s ‘Made In India’ JioPages web browser has been part of Jio’s aggressive push to transform itself into a digital services behemoth by tapping into India’s growing internet marketplace.

JioPages be downloaded from the Google play store and equipped with features such as eight Indian language support, customized news content creation, faster media streaming, incognito browsing, encrypted connection, among others.

Jio’s new web browser also supports India’s regional language content and provide access to display information cards. A user can find immediate info on topics such as stock market trends, commodity prices, and cricket score through these cards.

The Blink browser engine has powered JioPages web browser. This Blink technology was developed as part of the Chromium project in 2013, supported by Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Opera Software, Adobe Systems, Intel, IBM, Samsung, among other tech giants. 

JioPages could change the Indian digital dynamics

Jio’s new web browser JioPages, can be a game-changing move for the company. One needs to be cognizant that the company had earlier launched its browser in 2019 with limited success. Many users had complained about its tedious interface and the browser’s letdown to support various internet sites effortlessly.

However, with a massive surge of investments from Facebook, Google, Qualcomm, and Intel, the Jio Platforms is in a better shape to fortify its digital offerings.

On its face, the JioPages web – browser appears fast, well designed, and capable of delivering a secure web browsing experience. The new network-browser will enable Jio Platforms to offer easy access to its dozen mobile applications spanning different e-service categories such as Jio Mart.

With 5G technology set to make its foray soon, JioPages, depending upon its success, can shake-up the digital apps market. Jio might collaborate with many Indian digital companies to give them a quick launchpad through integrated links and preferential custom widgets.

A tectonic shift in Jio’s strategy

Jio, which started as India’s only telecom operator, swiftly changed gears in recent times with an eagle’s eye on becoming India’s exclusive digital powerhouse.

Today, when most of the companies struggle to exist amidst the pandemic, Jio Platforms’ enterprise value has been approximated to be over US $70 billion, crossing the 400-million subscriber milestone.

Amidst the global downturn and massive increase in internet consumption due to the pandemic-enforced work-from-home environment, the recent investments have given Jio a strategic leapfrog. (See: The Jio ecosystem has begun to unfold, and Jio driving digital shifts in the economy)

Moreover, the growing outburst against China-based companies and the local government’s increased push toward self-reliant India is expected to give a great head-start to several of Jio’s upcoming initiatives. (See: Paytm Mini App Store: A threat to Google’s dominance?)

The Mukesh Ambani-owned company is preparing extensively to leverage forthcoming 5G technology for innovations across all verticals.

Jio Platform is working with several global tech players to develop exciting future internet of things (IoT) based solutions such as connected cars, drones, and smart-homes.

AI-driven analytics is CIOs’ mantra in the new normal

AI-driven analytics is CIOs’ mantra in the new normal

Early this year, many enterprises witnessed an unprecedented disruption to their business operations because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Suresh A Shan

“By leveraging insights from business intelligence tools, we are able to forecast business demand, investment opportunities, client requirements, and even keep a tab on the stress levels of the distributed workforce.”

Dr. Suresh A Shan, Head, Innovation, and Future Technologies BITS, MMFSL

Sunit Vakharia, U GRO Capital

“Through AI-driven models, we assess our customers’ business requirements and offer the best product for their long-term growth. We have incorporated machine learning and analytics capabilities in our assessment solutions to drive exceptional customer experience.”

Sunit Vakharia, Chief Technology Officer, U GRO Capital

Greesh Jairath, ITC Infotech

“Organizations have witnessed the tremendous value of data and analytics during the ongoing crisis and leveraged them to generate more profound business and operational insights for better and faster decision-making.”

Greesh Jairath, Global IT Head, ITC Infotech

It was soon evident that embracing digital technologies and using AI-driven analytics was the only way to remain buoyant and navigate the disruptions. Several companies worldwide have already transitioned to the work-from-home concept and have adapted to the modern distributed work ecosystem (See: How is digital transformation shaping the new future?).

For CIOs, realigning priorities and accelerating enterprise innovations continue to be a roller-coaster experience amidst these unprecedented times. More and more enterprises are now leaning on data science and analytics to optimize business performance and drive growth.

With virtual communication taking the center stage, there is a growing emphasis on implementing AI-based workforce analytics and business intelligence solutions to fast-track digital transformation and generate deeper operational insights to respond faster and steer the volatile economic landscape.

Need for enterprises to deploy data-driven culture

In a chaos like like, businesses continuously need to embed intelligence in their culture and rethink their business models to compete well while keeping their stakeholders happy and shine.

“Data and business analytics experience a transformational value not merely during the pandemic, but also post the crisis. The analysis it provides can help businesses induce a culture of innovation and developing service offerings quickly. For systems that are affected by the COVID-19 crisis, analytics led insights are becoming a phenomenal game-changer. By leveraging insights from intelligence tools, we can forecast business demand, investment opportunities, and even monitor the stress levels of our distributed workforce,” says Dr. Suresh A Shan, Head, Innovation, and Future Technologies Business Information Technology Solutions (BITS), Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Limited (MMFSL).

Across all sectors, retail, banking, e-commerce, and IT/ICT companies are the most aggressive to deploy AI-driven analytics solutions for real-time problem-solving. Retailers get concrete insights to produce their specific supply chain pipelines to fill the consumer need.  For e-commerce companies, armed with powerful data and insights, business analytics solutions can help examine the product pricing of different competitions and target segments that need to be focused on specific products.

“At U GRO Capital, we’ve utilized the current situation as an opportunity to scale our business digitally. U GRO Capital provides loans to small and medium-sized companies. We extensively focus on technology and analytics as enablers to onboard our customers and disburse money as and when required by them. Through AI-driven models, we assess our customers’ business requirements and offer the best product for their long-term growth. We have incorporated machine learning and analytics capabilities in our assessment solutions to drive exceptional customer experience,” says Sunit Vakharia, Chief Technology Officer, U GRO Capital (See: Sunit Vakharia, Chief Technology Officer, U GRO Capital).

Such a massive shift will also intensify the demand for data science and analytics specialists, who can comprehend complex values’ quality insights and drive resiliency and transformation-led investments.

“Analytics led solutions have been a critical enabler of redefining and realigning business processes.  Organizations have witnessed the tremendous value of data and analytics during the ongoing crisis and leveraged them to generate more profound business and operational insights for better and faster decision-making. In the future, successful deployment of analytics led solutions will also pave the way for futuristic technologies such as robotic process automation (RPA) and drone delivery systems,” says Greesh Jairath, Global IT Head, ITC Infotech.

Tech-majors gearing up for the analytics market

During the pandemic, analytics has been one of the few areas which recorded a higher growth rate. AI-driven analytics and insights have been used consistently by organizations to provide deep visibility around existing resource capacity, monitor any insufficiency, and help businesses regularly conduct impact and risk analysis. (See: CIOs to focus on network transformation for business continuity)

From effectively implementing processes such as employee onboarding and offboarding remotely, building market-relevant solutions, and fitting network efficiency in diverse locations, analytics-based solutions can provide greater visibility to the decision-makers.

Technology biggies are looking to leverage the rising enterprise interest in analytics and business intelligence solutions by launching new products or expanding their capabilities to identify fresh opportunities. Some of the top players dominating the analytics market include SAP, Oracle, Accenture, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Infosys, and TCS (See: Accenture fortifies AI know-how with Byte Prophecy buy).

Recently, Tata Consultancy Services launched the TCS Workforce Analytics, an AI-focused engagement intelligence solution for companies looking at enhancing their employees’ productivity and workforce experience.  Another Indian IT Services giant, Infosys, has acquired US-based data analytics company Blue Acorn for $125 million to beef up its analytics portfolio.

IBM as well introduced a new risk-based service designed to help enterprises identify new risk-based exposure from areas such as cloud, M&A, and remote work. Other players are also strengthening their capabilities to meet the growing demand for analytics led services.

Micromax’s comeback efforts are too little, too late

Micromax’s comeback efforts are too little, too late

One of the most celebrated smartphone manufacturers in the Indian telecom market’s history, Micromax, has announced its plans to make a comeback with a new range of “In” (India) series smartphones.

Micromax said that it has been preparing extensively for the new range launch, focusing on the budget and mid-range section. However, a first glance at the announcement has made it clear that India’s homegrown smartphone maker hasn’t learned anything from its slip-ups in the past.

In a two-minute emotional advertising promo unveiled on Twitter recently, Micromax’s co-founder Rahul Sharma exhibits emotions full of bizarre and formula-based clichés, largely revolved around Micromax’s humble beginnings and anti-China sentiments. Sharma further attempts to cash in the sentiments stirred by increasing sanctions of China-based companies and the Indian government’s ‘Self-reliant-India’ campaign. The announcement seems to be woven with typecasts to connect with the aspiring and young middle class.

The most disappointing aspect was that the company did not share any new corporate vision or active strategy that would help Micromax smartphones deliver the punch in a new incarnation.

“I wasn’t conquered then, but I was rather satisfied with everything that I had accomplished. But what happened at the border (India-China) wasn’t right. And when our Prime Minister gave the clarion call for an Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-reliant India), we gave much thought to it. Hence, Micromax India is coming back with a new smartphone called ‘In,’ said Micromax co-founder Rahul Sharma in a Twitter video.

Several media outlets have reported that the Micromax plans for a comeback by beefing up its manufacturing capability and planning to invest around Rs. 500 crores for expansion, which is not a very substantial amount given the Indian market dynamics.

Why Micromax failed its winning ground?

Incorporated in the year 2000, Micromax started selling mobile phones in 2008. Since its inception, the company has focused on affordably delivering feature-rich phones to Indian buyers.

In its first run, Micromax created a strong impact because Indian mobile consumers were relatively new to mobile phones’ high-end features. Most of the global players were selling smartphones at an exorbitant price for the Indian middle class. By outsourcing the entire production process to China, Micromax had managed to launch several exciting devices at a price-point that was unheard of in India. 

Looking back in history, Micromax’s marketing strategy and an extensive focus on budget buyers helped it become one of India’s most significant domestic handset companies by 2010. Its feature phones and Canvas series had become a household name during that era.

In 2014, Micromax even outclassed global smartphone leader Samsung in India’s total smartphone shipments, becoming one of the world’s top 10 smartphone vendors.

Micromax also roped in leading Hollywood celebrity Hugh Jackman as its brand ambassador, becoming the first Indian smartphone company to get an international celebrity on-board for domestic brand promotions.

In the later years of this decade, the company, however, started losing market share because of its inability to compete with China-based handset manufacturers such as Vivo, Xiaomi, and Oppo. Also, Samsung beefed up its device portfolio and started catering to the budget market with aggressive sub 10k smartphone launches.

Another factor that made a steep dent in Micromax’s share was its poor distribution and service center network. It did not pay enough attention to develop its channel partners and distributors across the country. Micromax’s brand value suffered a massive blow as many of its devices were labeled as substandard by consumers, with limited after-sales support.

Many of Micromax loyal consumers started complaining about the marathon time company’s service centers would take to repair smartphones and the absence of replacement parts of Micromax devices.

The final nail in the coffin was the launch of 4G technology in India. Micromax failed to predict the transition and could not launch 4G based smartphones range promptly.

Slowly, the brand that showed much potential and once flaunted as India’s answer to global biggies such as Nokia and Samsung faded away from smartphone buyers’ memory.

Micromax comeback, a difficult road ahead

Despite growing sentiments against China-based products and services, it won’t be an easy task for Micromax to make a comeback with its launch of new “In” (India) series smartphones. Micromax needs to realize that the times have changed, and it can not survive or make any progress by solely focusing on old marketing gimmicks.

Today, the company has less than 1 percent market share in the Indian smartphone market and way behind the established players such as Samsung. Global players such as Blackberry, Apple, and Nokia are also firming up their plans for expansion in India. (See: Will Apple bite India’s manufacturing bait?)

In such a scenario, Micromax needs to make substantial efforts to improve its brand image and invest aggressively to strengthen its offline network.

Given the experience, Micromax can still give a tough fight in the lower end smartphone segment. However, to compete in the mid to higher range market, Micromax should be ready for deep-dive boardroom discussions and significant investments. It cannot stay afloat in the world’s most competitive telecom market by just making a patriotic marketing appeal. The company had also launched thirteen smartphones in 2019, most of which miserably failed and could not endure the competition.

With 5G technology launch at the threshold, Micromax would need to focus extensively on improving its research and development efforts and bring budget-friendly 5G devices into the Indian telecom ecosystem. It can also look at partnership models with Jio or other carriers to launch affordable mobile devices for the first time smartphone users.

The yesteryear’s most beloved smartphone brand will need a massive overhaul and performance packed strategy to prove its mettle and recreate the magic. At this moment, it lacks the necessary ammunition in the arsenal to beat the odds.  

 

Vishant Vora quits as CTO of Vodafone Idea

Vishant Vora, the Chief Technology Officer of Vodafone Idea (VI), has resigned from his position. According to media reports, his last day at the office will be 31 October 2020.

Vishant took over this role on 31 August 2018 and played a crucial role in leading networks, IT operations, and the overall technology strategy of VI. Vishant has been associated with the Vodafone group since December 2019 and has led several transformational initiatives across three continents – USA, Europe, and Asia.

Under Vishant’s leadership, Vodafone Idea recently completed the first phase of the deployment of Nokia’s Dynamic Spectrum Refarming (DSR) in India. He also led VI’s deployment of 12,000 multiple-input and multiple outputs (ma-MiMos) that helped VI to manage the data surge on its network during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The development has come just after the formal completion of Vodafone-Idea’s network integration. Vodafone Idea had recently unveiled a new brand identity ‘Vi’ as part of its consolidation efforts to integrate the two brands: Vodafone and Idea formally.

Vodafone’s Indian arm and Idea Cellular had amalgamated their operations in August 2018 to survive in the highly competitive Indian telecommunication market.

Industry onlookers believe that Vishant’s exit can hurt VI’s efforts to make a comeback in the Indian market and its 5G rollout plans since it would be difficult to substitute the technical-knowledge of Vishant.

Vodafone and Idea together had over 400 million customers when their merger was announced. The combined subscriber base of VIL had shrunk to around 300 million by April 2020.

Top enterprise cybersecurity trends of 2020

Top enterprise cybersecurity trends of 2020

The world and enterprises panicked due to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic’s surge at the beginning of 2020. The ambiguity around the crisis and the sudden rush for setting-up work-from-home for all employees magnified the concerns related to cybersecurity and impacted the most elementary IT business operations.

One of the critical concerns that most IT leaders confronted was to develop a robust business continuity plan in remote work environments and augment their IT frameworks to manage growing cybersecurity threats. 

Based on our interactions with top cybersecurity leaders, we’ve identified some of the top cybersecurity trends of 2020. Let’s look at them and understand how they will evolve in 2021.

Businesses are adapting to the new normal

The majority of the enterprises are fast-tracking their digital transformation goals and modernizing their IT infrastructure to ensure their distributed organizational resources get secure access to the network (See: Combating cyber threats in the new normal).

The initial focus of organizations was to enable work-from-home in the quickest manner possible. As the businesses are getting settled in the new normal, enterprises are now focusing on protecting their people, devices, and data from cybersecurity threats.

Across organizations, there has been a greater emphasis on real-time security assessment across various endpoints, irrespective of employees’ location or network.

Zero Trust model gaining acceptance

Enterprises have been making efforts to deploy solutions that can immediately detect and halt anomalies and suspicious behaviors. One such approach that is now gaining mainstream acceptance is Zero Trust. It has become a key cybersecurity trend in 2020.

With the Zero Trust model, organizations can evaluate a remote-users’ behavior and bring up a timely alert to prevent any unscrupulous activity. Many tech-leaders believe that this methodology can circumvent over 90% of modern-day cyberattacks attempts.

Backed by real-time intelligence, the Zero Trust methodology verifies a user’s credentials through secure VPNs and monitors suspicious activity. It works on the concept of ‘never trust; constantly verify.’

The Zero Trust approach is different from the trust-based perimeter defense approach. In Zero Trust, users and their job requirements get adequately demarcated. It provides employees with adequate network permissions to access applications and tools relevant to perform their job virtually while withholding the rest of the corporate data visibility (See: Covid-19: Reimagining work with a zero-trust lens).

Focus on Dark Web monitoring for business 

Another cybersecurity trend in 2020 is the Dark Web monitoring for business. The Dark Web is that segment of the Internet that cannot be accessed via conventional search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Over the past twelve months, it has swiftly turned into a booming black market place where cybercriminals collaborate and deliberate nefarious ways to launch sophisticated cyber-attacks on various systems. It is a treasure trove for unscrupulous types who can find several tools and resources to execute their unlawful web activities.

Throughout the year 2020, several cyber breach incidents were reported globally where many companies’ data were stolen and put up for sale on the Dark Web.  Early this year, a global cyber risk intelligence firm Cyble, noted that the cybercriminals exposed personal details of around three crore Indian job seekers in one of the hacking forums.

These rising cases compelled many global organizations to set-up their intelligence units under their cybersecurity practices wing to monitor Dark Web. The trend is likely to pick-up further in 2021. CISOs are expected to keep a firm eye on the Dark Web to monitor various malicious and unethical activities to alert their security teams well in advance.

Emphasis on automation to control AI-based threats

While artificial intelligence (AI) is a great technology that can be leveraged to develop many modern-day IT security tools and resources, it is equally valid that cybercriminals can exploit the engineering for launching too sophisticated malware. During the year, many businesses saw the possibility of cybercriminals bypassing AI-driven security solutions by masking their activities and posing as real users.

In 2021, with 5G technology expected to be launched and IoT-based solutions to get mainstream, CISOs would be profoundly concentrating on protecting their AI-enabled digital systems and new process automation techniques to control AI-based threats.

Attention on closing the cybersecurity skills gap

The shortage of skilled security practitioners has become a growing pain for organizations across all sectors and getting wider.

According to a recent survey conducted by Cybrary, a cybersecurity and IT workforce development platform, growing skill gaps among IT and security professionals is seen as a significant factor that is negatively impacting the security team’s effectiveness. About 65% of surveyed IT Managers mentioned that skill gaps hurt efficiency. 

The study also indicates that organizations lack the vision or enthusiasm to conduct training and skill-development programs in the cyber-security space.

Similar sentiments were echoed by a DSCI-PwC study, according to which the cases of cyberattacks on Indian organizations increased by 117 percent in 2019 compared to 2018. However, due to inadequate funding and paucity of skillful professionals, cyber-security professionals’ job roles remained unfilled.

In 2021, many CISOs are expected to focus on this area and develop requisite solutions to address the cybersecurity skills-gap challenge.

 

 

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