Category: Technology

AWS-vs-AZURE

What To Choose AWS Or Azure For IaaS In 2021?

January 13, 2021

Before we understand these two cloud infrastructure providers, let us first know a little about these giants. AWS: Amazon Web Services is a subsidiary of Amazon providing cloud computing platforms and infrastructure to companies, governments, and personal users based on various plans like pay as you go, etc. It was founded in 2006. Azure: Microsoft owned cloud infrastructure and managed services for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services through Microsoft-managed data centers. It’s users also vary from companies, governments to personal users, and come with various payment schemes. It was released on 1st February 2010. Now let’s go ahead and see what AWS and AZURE have to offer: Processing Power- AWS: If you are looking for something on the more customized approach of power like the size of the RAM, Power of the processor, or the number of VMs, then AWS is the option to go for. Also, if one is opting for different regions or zones from where the server runs, AWS gives that option. Azure: The User needs to configure the amount of processing cores and Memory size based on which a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) would be created, up and running. Storage- AWS: It comes with a short-term storage facility that gets destroyed once a process or instance is terminated. It also comes with block storage similar to Hard Drive, which is detachable with any instances. It has facilities like Data Archiving and supports relational databases and Unstructured Databases and Bigdata. Azure: It offers a temporary storage facility via D drive and detachable storage through Page Blobs. It has support for both Structured and Unstructured Databases through Azure Table and HDInsight. It also offers site recovery, Import-Export, and Azure Backup for additional archiving and recovery options. Security and Compliance- AWS: Both government bodies and private entities have partnerships with AWS. It strictly follows compliance like ITAR, DISA, HIPAA, CJIS, FIPS, and more. They also have access restrictions so that only legitimate and authorized users can have access to sensitive data. Azure: Their security complaints are within the 50 most sought after, which includes: ITAR, DISA, HIPAA, CJIS, FIPS. Their security is also robust, and not anyone can trespass it at ease. Costing- AWS: They have a pay as you go model, where they charge per hour basis. Instances are purchasable on the following models: On-demand: Pay per use model with no fixed charges. Reserved: Reserve for 1 or 3 years but pay as you use. Spot: Bid for extra space as demand. Azure: Microsoft has flexibility between the pay-as-you-go model to pay-per-minute, which is more cost-effective. It has an option between prepaid or monthly charges. Hybrid Capability- AWS: A 100 TB hard drive for shifting workloads between cloud and client data centers. Snowball Edge added a much needed Hybrid capability with VMware to burst users into its cloud environment. Azure: A full circle of Hybrid cloud services like Azure StorSimple, Hybrid SQL Server, and Azure Stack to bring their own on-premises data centers using the same pay-as-you-go pricing model for its public mode. Network and Content Delivery- AWS uses a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) that allows users to create isolated private networks. It takes advantage of the API gateways for cross-premises connectivity. Load Balancing techniques are used for smooth operation during high usage time. VPC comes with various options that give you the flexibility to create subnets, private IP ranges, route tables, and network gateways. Azure makes use of the virtual networks that grant users the ability to create isolated networks, as well as subnets, private IP ranges, route tables, and network gateways. If someone needs cross-network connectivity, one can go for the VPN gateway. Load Balancing is handled using a load balancing application gateway. Concluding the battle between AWS & AZURE Although both offer top-notch services, and it is very hard to declare one the winner. But considering all the features and services offered by both Azure would be the option for the following reasons: Value Added Offers better Remote based services. Segments and Targets Feature catering more towards the SME and Agencies. End- End Delivery services all in one platform. Higher Return with Lesser Investment. At INT. where we are the Gold Partner for Azure services, we have seen the growing computational power of this platform.

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Software Solutions Reshaping The Digital Landscape Of Pharma

August 20, 2020

Coming into the Covid-19 crisis, virtual healthcare has become a survival imperative. But, the concept has been in the scene for quite some time. The demand for innovation encouraging improvement in health outcomes, affordability, quality, and access had already started gaining momentum over the years. The pandemic has just accelerated it.  Moving forward, Healthcare is going to be more accessible and affordable, promising better patient outcomes, reports  McKinsey. Source: Deloitte Electronic Prescribing E-prescriptions are making things seamlessly accessible to the patients without involving the hassles of handwritten notes. It enables medical practitioners to create accurate and understandable prescriptions, considerably improving the quality of patient care. E-prescriptions allow both doctors and patients to keep track of their medication history, thus making things easier for both the parties.  E-prescribing platforms like  MediTab comes integrated with multiple features, from practice management, telemedicine to medical billing” that makes healthcare more accessible to the patients from all levels. Telemedicine Telemedicine has already gained momentum by the time World faces the Covid-19 crisis. However, in the wake of the pandemic, the adoption has been quite high across all levels.  The recent trend already indicates towards the massive growth of the global telemedicine market in the coming years. Source: Statista In fact,  telemedicine becomes the safety valve for edgy healthcare set up, when the pandemic restricts in-person visit to the physician. Providing utmost convenience, telemedicine software allows healthcare professionals to carry out appointments with patients online, either via a web browser or a mobile app. Popular Telemedicine apps like Amwell comes with a secure, intuitive,  and integrated platform, where patients can avail the benefits of health insurance plans, EHR, telemedicine carts, alongside discussion Appointment Scheduling Booking software helps clinics, hospitals, as well as individual healthcare practitioners by streamlining the hassles of patient management. Appointment Scheduling platforms like  Simplybook.me come with a patient panel, where one can schedule appointments via an app or website 24/7. On the other hand, hospitals,  and clinics can also manage their appointments online without worrying about double bookings and no shows. Typically, scheduling software comes integrated with features like email notification system and automatic reminders for doctors and patients about upcoming appointments. According to a report published in the  Daily Chronicle, scheduling software is going to witness staggering popularity in the new wave of healthcare innovation. Medical Billing Medical billing software is an integral part of the digital transformation in  Healthcare. The market of medical billing software is expected to rise at a significant rate by next 2024. It seamlessly keeps a  track of patient invoices, payments, and other financial operations that have so far been painstaking and manual. Top-notch billing software like Epic Care comes integrated with features like EHR, appointment scheduling, and more.  Field Force Management Pharma sales are one of the important segments of the industry and with the recent digital wave, the scenario has changed completely. With a field force management tool in place, managing your field force is easier than ever. You can control multiple medical representatives and sales-people by connecting them with relevant leads, thus allowing them to close more leads without any hassles. It’s more of a customer collaboration tool that allows stakeholders to access information, make queries, track progress, manage purchases, and approve tasks.   The Takeaway “Mobile communications, the cloud, advanced analytics, and the IoT have already brought in disruptive innovation in Pharma. They transform the healthcare industry in the ways they have already transformed the media, retail, and banking industries so far”, says Amit Singha, Leading Pharma Practice at INT. Over the past few years, INT. is taking a proactive role in the digital disruption in the Pharma industry, by partnering with the industry players and curating scalable digital solutions for them.

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API Driven Digital Transformation Can Be A Great Answer For The World Post COVID

May 6, 2020

The Covid-19 epidemic has forced the business and the political world leaders to conclude the same thing – digital transformation is the need of the hour. In a matter of just a few months, Covid-19 has caused a paradigm shift in the way we interact with our outside world. Containment measures, quarantines, lockdowns and travel bans have forced people all over the world to resort to social media, e-learning and online shopping. Simultaneously, as a response to strenuous social distancing measures, educational institutions and companies are adopting digital technology at break-neck speeds. According to a study by Deloitte and Institute of International Finance, insurers and banks have been able to withstand the onslaught of Covid-19 thanks to their investments in digital technology in the past decade. Employees can now work from any location, thanks to cloud computing. Data centres can now be linked across multiple sites. This has enabled financial institutions to reduce risks more efficiently. No longer do organisations have to depend upon any single venue for all their resources, lest it becomes a hotspot for coronavirus. Emerging technologies which were gradually finding their pace., have suddenly out to compete with the existing robust technologies. In a recent interview, Satya Nadella , CEO of Microsoft highlighted how he just saw two years’ worth of digital transformation in just two months. The evolution of businesses now lies in building long-term, cloud-based, digital infrastructures that drive future-of-work, future-of-experiences, data management and connected innovations. APIs can be a great way to answer this evolution. Building An API First Economy Is Imperative Today, companies are building their technology in a way so that they are good for repeat use. Corporate history is witness to the fact that modularity and interoperability have led to competitive advantage, time and again. In the world of IT, application programming interfaces or APIs are key to supporting design modularity and interoperability. As architectural techniques go, APIs are as old as computer science itself. They facilitate the way solutions and systems execute transactions, invoke business logic and exchange information. Today, APIs play a critical role in system modernisation, innovation and architecture. According to Deloitte, the number of public APIs that were available in early 2017 was more than 18,000. To be sure, private APIs across conglomerates are expected to be in the millions today. As of today, the customer, a human being is craving for a connection and comfort right now. The most important question that any company can ask itself is how to add value to his or her life in a relevant, human and meaningful way without doing much to their existing systems. For instance, the global epicentre of the coronavirus, China, had shut down all retail businesses. People were unable to partake in one of the most communal comforts across Chinese restaurants, hot pot dining. So that people do not miss out on one of their most enjoyable local cuisines, restaurant chains began to deliver the ingredients to the individual residences of the customers. Even when the restaurants were shut, the patrons could still enjoy their favourite meal all because they could collaborate in a single platform quickly. Onboarding your employees and customers is a must have now. It is easily referred to as Digital onboarding, a series of activities which companies use for getting new employees/customers and making them familiar with the policies/products of the organisation via digital platforms. According to the Inside Magazine Issue 16 Deloitte research, around 38 percent of all customers drop out of the onboarding process. This is due to the tediousness surrounding paperwork &multiple touchpoints. A number of organizations are using it aggressively for their new recruits. With the platform’s capability to be accessed from anywhere, new recruits can begin the digital onboarding even before they join the physical premises. Since all the forms, modules and forms are generated from a single database, there will not be any lack of consistency with the onboarding process across locations. The electronic interface ensures that management has a firm grasp on the status and progress of the onboarding process for each new recruit. Any new employee can complete the onboarding process from a location of their choice. Employees can complete the onboarding at a speed of their choice. Nothing ever gets missed because the online platform ensures complete compliance. In the movie Apollo 13, Gene Kranz, played by Ed Harris, overhears a director comment that the Apollo 13 debacle is the worst disaster that NASA has ever experienced. He replies that, with due respect to the director, he believed that it was going to be their finest hour. The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked untold havoc on the global business and economy. Yet, companies all over the world are rediscovering themselves through digital transformation. Thanks to innovations such as API & digital onboarding, organisations are successfully turning the tide in their fight against the Coronavirus.

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It’s A Voice-Led Future: What FinTech Marketers Need To Know

October 23, 2019

Business Insider says 75% of iPhone users have used Siri and 63% Android users are well acquainted with a voice assistant (like Bixby for Samsung) on their smartphones. If we go deep and look at the US as a market we find that 18 million consumers have gone ahead and tried to do critical actions like banking transactions, all by voice. These developments do establish the fact that voice-based assistants are not just for carrying out to mundane tasks like booking a calendar or reminders or carrying on Google searches. Last year, when Google during its event showed its possibility of voice assistants we all loved it and felt the ease which these developments can offer. The future is already here but are we marketers even ready? Voice payments adoption in the USA Source: Business Insider – The Voice Payments Report 2017 The growing voice-first landscape  A number of any FinTech leaders from banks and other financial institutions have already started to vouch for a virtual voice for their next customer experience shift. “This technology will make it easier for people to bank with us and could bring particular benefits to those who have a disability, as voice banking eliminates the need for customers to use a screen or keyboard” – Kristen Bennie, NatWest’s head of Open Experiences  Another interesting angle to the developments is the simultaneous growth of industry disruptors who are developing their own solutions to leverage voice payment technology. Here are some instances referred from intellias: KAI, a conversational AI platform from Kasisto, is used by JP Morgan, Mastercard, Wells Fargo, and others. Cognitive Banking Brain fromPersonetics serves over 50 million bank customers in the USA and across Europe and Asia. In 2017, the Royal Bank of Canada, Barclays, and Santander introduced voice recognition payments via Siri. Ally Bank has been interacting with its customers via Ally Assist SM since 2015, continually improving it to recognize speech better and provide accurate answers.  Why banks must invest in voice? The answer is simple! It is the most sought out and natural means of communication which can lead to personalized interactions resulting in business growth. Another important part is that voice makes banking more inclusive especially for the visually impaired, offering them a sense of independence in day to day banking. In order to become truly customer-centric, banks need to stay abreast of this cutting edge innovation and define their conversational strategies now. ”Truly listening is hearing the needs of the customer, understanding those needs of the customer, understanding those needs and making sure the company recognizes the opportunities they present.” – Frank Eliason, Global Director of Client Experience Team at Citi What’s more is those voice interactions can provide valuable insights into customer needs and behaviours, allowing banks and FinTech companies to offer personalized services with a unique brand touch. Today, voice payments are limited to minor eCommerce transactions, but machine learning algorithms for voice technology are improving daily. Soon, customers will feel comfortable enough to make more expensive and complicated purchases by voice. The potential that voice banking posses Voice banking is taking the financial industry by storm and FinTechs are competing to offer more advanced, robust, and secure solutions. Progress in this area is predicted to move in several directions in the next couple of years: Improved security Security is a concern when it comes to voice payments. Keeping information private while going through authentication procedures is a challenge for voice banking. But combining various biometric markers such as fingerprints, irises, and voice might be a solution. Source: The Future of Mobile Biometrics A study conducted by Visa in 2017 claims that more consumers are expressing confidence in using biometrics as a secure form of authentication: 84% in 2017 compared to 59% the year before.  Nuance Communications, a provider of voice recognition technology, states that even professional imitators can’t fool their system. Integration of visual interfaces CES 2018 saw Google showcasing dozens of devices powered by its Google Assistant, ranging from speakers with touch displays to smartwatches. This allows users to start interacting with the virtual assistant by voice and continue their communication on-screen. The tech giant also introduced the voice-controlled Google Assistant in all cars that have Android Auto. Contextual understanding and customized voice detection Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and voice recognition techniques saw major advancements because of which conversations with virtual assistants will moderately become less “mechanical” and closer to natural human communication. The next stages of voice technology development include understanding the context of questions, recognizing accents, and differentiating between voices.  Introducing the digital concierge experience With digital voice assistants becoming more cosmopolitan with time, they’ll go further than simply letting people make payments using voice technology. You’ll also be able to communicate with financial institutions, handling more complicated tasks like issuing invoices, paying taxes, getting loans, and renewing insurance. All these actions will be voice-enabled from your smartphone, smartwatch, connected car, and home system – anywhere and anytime. “Gen-IV is where we’re likely heading – chatbots powered by state-of-the-art voice recognition technology so that the assistant can recognize me beyond doubt based on my speech mannerism and voice patterns, and conduct all types of transactions.”                                                                     Dhananjaya Tambe, CIO, State Bank of India

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How Super Apps Can Be Your Next Big Move

September 19, 2019

“There’s no Skype, no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, we use WeChat. OK tell me your WeChat number!” – Higher Brothers, WeChat In early 2015, a Chinese documentary titled Under the Dome roped in 200 million views in a span of 3 days. The striking point over here is the fact that the 103-minute documentary didn’t release in a single theatre. More than 40% of viewers saw the movie on…wait for it…WeChat. With over a billion monthly active users, WeChat is a phenomenon that hasn’t been replicated anywhere else so far in the world. However, a couple of unicorns are planning to give them a run Alipay, a Chinese payment platform and Go-Jek, a transportation app from Indonesia. Super App is a new challenge on the block for global acceptance. It is neither really an app nor an Operating System for smartphones. It is a Super App. From a slide of “Rise of the Super App: Mobile-First Product Ideas from China” What exactly makes for a Super App? “A Super App is many apps within an umbrella app. It’s an OS that unbundles the tyranny of apps. It’s the portal to the Internet for a mobile-first generation.” – GoJek In 2010, Mike Lazaridis, the Founder of Blackberry, shared his amazement with  the possibilities which a ‘Super App’ constitutes, “…representing a new class of mobile applications that make you wonder how you ever lived without them.” More often if not always, it is likely to be operated at the intersection of logistics/hyper-local delivery, commerce, payments and social. To start the journey of becoming a Super App, a minimum of two of these functions are necessary. However, evolving into a conglomerate of apps will be the best way to become a Super App. The idea is to scale fast once you have a user’s buy-in and add multiple services to gain loyalty. Once you have direct offerings, the next logical step is to open the app up to third-party companies to build on a loyal user base. Now, you don’t build separate apps. Instead, you can host your offerings on a single Super App. Gradually the Super App becomes the OS. Screenshot of Alipay iOS app Right at the screen above, you will see some of the most required services like city service, pay utilities, buy movie tickets, book a room via Airbnb.  Among them, you can see other kinds of services like Fund Transfer and Third-party Services that can look irrelevant for many users. These are all in ONE APP! Screenshot of GO-JEP App! But why a Super App?  Remember India’s ‘Good Morning’ message phenomenon? Every day, India’s mobile users send a ‘good morning’ image to their friends and family. According to a WSJ report, “These images have an overabundance of sun-dappled flowers, adorable toddlers, birds and sunsets sent along with a cheery message.” As a result, one in three smartphone users ran out of space daily, according to a Western Digital report. A report by Statista shows that there are roughly around four million apps available between just the Google Play store and the Apple App Store, and the glut is painful for countries with limited smartphone memory and a saturated market. A Super App corrects this imbalance. It sits on top of a mobile OS by shrinking the time taken to complete a specific task and in turn, increase productivity. For the next billion users, it also adds UX elements that make it easier for users to get accustomed to mobile phone usage. Do you think it’s easy? Well, no, ask Facebook. For about two years, Facebook’s Messenger tried to build the WeChat of the West without much success. It remains to be seen if they can do it in the current climate. In case, you are struggling to identify if Super App is what you need? Then ask us today, say us a “Hi” today at info@indusnet.co.in  

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How Disruptive FinTechs are Solving MSME Credit Crunch? –An Indian Perspective

August 23, 2019

Snapshot of the current Indian MSME sector  8 million enterprises Employs approx. 124 million people 14 % are women-led enterprises 59.48% of total establishments were found in rural areas Accounts for 31% of India’s GDP Accounts for 45% of exports Biggest Challenge: Lack of adequate and timely access to finance Source: MSME Annual Report Source: MSME Annual report Traditional Financial institutions remain wary from providing loans because Small ticket size Higher cost of servicing the sector Limited ability of MSMEs to provide collateral The overall demand for both debt and equity finance by MSMEs is estimated to be INR 87.7 trillion (USD 1.4 trillion), which comprises INR 69.3 trillion (USD 1.1 trillion) of debt demand and INR 18.4 trillion (USD 283 billion) of equity demand. This need for technology disruption in formal debt financing has been underscored by a credit gap – estimated at USD230 billion in 2017 – coupled with demand and supply-side issues in financing for MSMEs. Source: Estimation-of-Debt-Requireme-nt-of-MSMEs-in_India report The Role of Technology in Driving Digital Finance According to PWC, MSME banking is likely to be the fourth-largest sector to be “disrupted” by Fintech in the next five years after consumer banking, payments, and investment/ wealth management. Fintech companies are offering solutions that can substantially improve efficiencies at every step of the lending process. Fintech models can provide end-to-end solutions for the lending value chain or “full stack lending models” such as peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, marketplace lending, crowdfunding, invoice based financing and so forth. Currently, a number of Fintech companies are providing for small-ticket loans focused on MSMEs that have limited credit history and need formal funding. Vistaar Finance – a Bangalore based company has created online sector-specific credit rating templates for the MSM businesses it serves. With a loan portfolio of INR 1,270 Crores, it has digital branch option for those businesses who wish to transact online and have access to technology to do so. Vistaar Finance has developed a template to list all categories of products as well as the margins a store makes on each product even with such basic information. Its credit managers evaluate customers based on this information. Vistaar has also tied up with Indian e-commerce platform in the B2B segment, mjunction in order to serve its small purchasers on the e-auction platform. The partnership is designed to augment the services of mjunction to its customers and also provide a healthy mix of portfolio for Vistaar in the MSME segment. Another Pune-based Kudos Finance that provides microfinance services to small businesses carried applicant sourcing, credit assessment and disbursal offline since customers do not have access to smart phones and need in-person communication channels with lenders, the company uses stores its credit data and documents, making communication within the NBFC more efficient, ensuring disbursal within 5-7 days. Before approving loans Kudos perform proprietary method of assessment by following robust underwriting process and also performs last mile customer verification to avoid frauds. Kudos has been continuously working on adopting technology to automate processes and has implemented systems to improve customer on boarding experience, decision making quality and reduce turn-around time of a transaction. Kudos Finance & Investments is actively using 28 technologies for its website. These include Viewport Meta, IPhone / Mobile Compatible, and SPF. NeoGrowth is a good example of a pioneer lender leveraging deep data insight and analytics to drive customer sourcing, underwriting, and monitoring, supported through a best-in-class tech stack. NeoGrowth serves MSME retailers, applying smart analytics on their bank account and financial data, along with insights from the retailer point-of-sale (credit card) system to predict customer patterns and behavior. The company also offers flexible and innovative repayment options to customers which are linked to their actual business revenues and performance. NeoGrowth assesses a borrower basis the digital spends happening on POS machines at his outlet. The proprietary technology platform of NeoGrowth, helps in analytical underwriting around the digital spends data and other alternate data. With its tech enabled underwriting it provides tailor made loans to various merchants as per their industry segments ranging from food& beverage, apparel, Salon, petrol pumps, automobile dealers etc. NeoGrowth’s card statement based scoring algorithms provide a better assessment of credit – worthiness of small businesses as compared to traditional balance sheet based lending. How are incumbents using Fintech solutions for digital lending? The advent of digital lending has addressed some of the major customer on-boarding hurdles faced by loan seekers in India. Kotak Mahindra Bank which launched its flagship Fintech product Kotak 811 to offer instant credit card issuance states that there was an 85% customer opt-in for the free credit score assessment. In addition to retail credit offerings to individuals, lending startups can play a vital role in formalising credit delivery to MSME, where 40% of the borrowing is still being carried out through informal channels and cash transactions. Bengaluru-based Shubh Loans has started the process to apply for an NBFC licence. The platform, founded by former banker Monish Anand and Goldman Sachs executive Rahul Sekar, is targeting the financially underserved segment. Shubh Loans has reached a monthly disbursal rate of INR 15 crore and is doing around 5,000 loans per month. Another tech startup Moneytap had begun by offering a credit line to consumers in partnership with private sector lender RBL Bank. The Moneytap app was launched in 2015 with RBL Bank, that lets lenders procure a sum between INR 3,000 to INR 5 lakh at a lower interest rate than incumbents. Once the amount has been payed-off, the app let its lender apply for more sum. Way Forward The future of Financial Services industry is bound to be customer-centric, technologically up-to-date( driven by the world of digital) and supportive of internal and external innovation efforts. According to PWC, more than 90 percent of MSME digital borrowers in the next five years will be first-timers. Consequently, there will be more drop-offs as MSMEs become frustrated or confused by the journey and abandon their efforts. Roughly 30 percent of MSME borrowers expressed increased

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Digital Success Summit 2019: What to Expect

July 18, 2019

A stimulating conference program focused on digital innovation and transformation. Over the years Indus Net has partnered in digital systems with a number of established players. We regularly innovate in Cloud/Data center, AI, Cyber Security, IoT & Mobile Technologies providing organization with the opportunity to keep in pace with global trends. Our Digital Success Summit V2.0 on 8-9 August 2019 with the theme, ‘Growing Digitally, Growing Profitably’ will encompass 7 deep dive workshops on Day 1 and back to back sessions by speakers from around the country on Day 2. Attend Day 1 to gain actionable insights on How to leverage businesses through powerful storytelling with Indranil Chakraborty The need and know hows for digital innovation with Abhishek Rungta How you can leverage content marketing to build your consumer base with Shubho Sengupta Learn the sorceries of social selling with Kiruba Shankar Get your digital marketing right with Aji Issac Mathew How can you use a combination of storytelling, imagery, and testimonials to boost business with Soumitra Paul Learn the best branding practices for your brand sustenance with Laeeq Ali Attend Day 2 to learn from discussions with the likes of Amit Ranjan is Co-Founder of SlideShare, which got acquired by LinkedIn. Since then he has worked with Government of India to build the DigiLocker project, which is used by more than 10 million citizens. Amit has always been passionate about building outstanding products that sell themselves. Learn from him about building virality into the product or service design. A star teen entrepreneur, Atreyam (Leo) Sharma who has been addressing leading technology events globally since 2014, including TEDx talks in India and Luxembourg.He started coding at the age of 11 and the following year, Co-Founded Workshop4Me. Vikas Malpani, a serial entrepreneur who also co-founded, India’s leading property listing platform-CommonFloor.Com. He is ranked as Business World’s India’s Hottest Young Entrepreneur & has won MIT TR35 Young Innovator Award for his growth advices. And hear many others speak on how to make your product or service viral, sales team management hacks, how to build and manage a remote team, consumer marketing on a shoestring budget and about personal branding Why Should You Attend? We are flying in a delegation of 500+ representing 100+ business covering the country, providing your organization with the opportunity to reach an audience including Enterprise CEOs, CIOs, CISOs, MIS / IT Directors PLUS Cloud Operators, Telcos, SPs, etc. Our Summit provide a highly efficient, cost-effective and proven formula for tech industry CEOs and senior execs, to learn through networking in a single location, in just 48 hours.

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When Technology Met Traditional Banking

April 3, 2019

Digitization has transformed and challenged every traditional business. Therefore, New Age Banking is nothing but digitization of traditional banking procedures. That means, now you can skip those long queues and can be click dependent! During the course of digitization in India, team Indus Net Technologies have played a predominant role in digitizing products and services for several financial organizations, allowing them to be accessible 24X7 for client servicing and acquiring new businesses. Today, we have a wide plethora of digital products and services and this article takes you through the process of digitization in banking. Online Lending Traditional lending always drove off customers, owing to the cumbersome procedures. However, financial institutions identify lending to be an effective revenue channel for which, banks are also putting effort to minimize the time and effort for a customer to avail loan or cards. Therefore, online lending eases customers to avail of the lending services in no time. Following points brush through the Unique Selling Points (USP) which are used by banks for lending Pre-approved personal loans Paperless transaction Seamless and short online journey Instant disbursal The digital lending process thus simplified the complications of lending and removes the human resources thereby helping banks to maximize their profit. Use case: IndusInd Bank provides pre-approved loans to their customers from their portal where ETB users can log in and get lending’s instantly if eligible. They also have a portal for providing Loan Against Securities and services to provide Consumer Durable Loans. FOREX Foreign currency exchange is something that was served by only aggregators and offline shops till recent times. Digitization of foreign currency exchange is one of the hottest trends sweeping the industry. “Multi-currency Travel Card” is another product in their bouquet. Today, the complete act of end-to-end foreign currency exchange has become hassle-free. And that’s what technology is meant to be! Following USPs are used by banks for foreign currency exchange Hassle-free onboarding Paperless transaction Complete online journey Airport/Kiosk based delivery With respect to the product “Multi-Currency Travel Card” banks today, eased the seamless card buying and reloading process, allowing the customer to opt for the product over cash. Security is another aspect that allows the customer to choose “Multi-currency Travel Card” as their travel buddy. Following USPs are used by banks for channelling customers for “Multi-Currency Travel Card”. Hassle-free reloading Encashment of leftover currency Currency conversion Door Step delivery Airport/Kiosk based delivery & reload Use case: IndusInd Bank has facilitated a dedicated portal for providing existing and new customers with foreign currency exchange, purchase and reloading Multi-Currency Travel Card. The best part about digitization is the end-to-end delivery of the service. That means not just the product became handy, but also the delivery process! Banking Services Banking services is a mandate for the bank customer to visit a branch of a bank. Owing to ease off the ‘request service’ procedure and providing a response to the request, banks are attaining the requests via their service request digital platforms. Different digital platforms are created by banks via web and mobile platforms which allows customers to login with their information and place their service request. The information in turn is processed digitally by the banks and is implemented as per request. USP’s for digital service request processing are Hassle-free requesting placement Less cost of the request processing Customer satisfaction WHAT’S IN STORE FOR TRADITIONAL BANKING’S FATE? Looking forward, digitization is gradually changing the course of human interaction with the bank with respect to our requirements. Though the expectation from a bank remains the same the interaction procedure and channels would completely transform. That way, our future is pretty clear when technology will replace traditional bank visits for whatsoever purpose.   Following transformation in traditional banking could be predicted  Increase in customer on-boarding via the mobile medium Digitization of the products and processes Targeting Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) level customers Less investment in process and more investment in digitization

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Building An Offshore Agile Marketing Team

February 6, 2019

According to McKinsey, “Agile, in the marketing context, means using data and analytics to continuously source promising opportunities or solutions to problems in real-time, deploying tests quickly, evaluating the results, and rapidly iterating.” An Agile marketing strategy particularly helps to manage offshore marketing teams. It allows quick and efficient coordination with teams to complete several disparate marketing processes simultaneously. The best part of offshore agile teams is clear communication. You can assign roles and targets to your offshore teams and monitor them on an ongoing basis via Scrum meetings. In this article, we will discuss how you can build your own offshore Agile team for marketing right from the scratch. Points to keep in mind before building an offshore Agile team for marketing Start with identifying agencies which specialize in multiple disciplines. An agency that only specializes in digital marketing may not be able to help you with certain technical aspects of your marketing campaigns.  According to Gartner, your team should comprise a group of multidisciplinary generalists.  The team should be able to connect with several pain points that your customers may face. Based on that, they should intuitively use their skill sets to build, execute and monitor marketing campaigns autonomously. Only those agencies that specialize in multiple skills such as digital marketing, design, development and consulting will be able to achieve such a feat. Look for an agency that can work autonomously and lead itself. Gartner specifies this to be the second most important quality while identifying a team. It also adds that you should choose a team which proves its strength in data analytics too. Identification of roles and responsibilities Well, you can divide your marketing teams into five groups, like: Content team: This team works with everything related to the content of your campaigns. This includes text, audio, video, and images. You will need a great copywriter, a blogging team, and a social media team. Sales team: They are responsible for everything related to lead acquisition and making sales. This team may also have marketing professionals involved or if you want to create a separate marketing team to develop campaigns, you can do that too. Monetization team: This team is responsible for converting leads into customers by taking on multiple roles. This could be client-servicing, customer service, or plain old sales. Data and analytics team: You should prioritize hiring people who are good at data and analytics. Agile marketing depends on data and you will need people with a strong IT background to work with analytical tools that can derive market insights. Strategy team: The strategy builders should be multi-disciplinarian in their approach and should combine insight with creativity to come up with marketing and sales campaigns. Hence, they should also be experts in Agile management and should be able to conduct daily and weekly Scrum meetings. How many people should be in each team?  Well, there is no specific answer to this question. Because It depends on the size of your own company and also your marketing goals.  Agile marketing revolves around the idea of scalability. It makes sense to keep the team(s) as small as possible.  There are cases where just a single team manages all the functions we described above. Sometimes, just 2 to 3 members can form your offshore Agile marketing team, and their roles may overlap. In other cases, you can have multiple teams with as many as 10 to 15 members in each team. And respective ScrumMasters will lead these teams.  Organize your offshore Agile marketing team and assign leadership roles To build your high-performing offshore Agile marketing team, start small and identify your marketing approach. The crux of agile methodology is scalability.  A good vendor will only assign those members who will work on your project. This can be as few as just two individual members, one of whom could be the ScrumMaster.  As your marketing requirements grow, you can add new members to your team. Because the prospects of dividing your team into multiple ones increase with each additional member. At this juncture, you can refer to our guidelines regarding a full-fledged marketing team. Agile leadership varies across organizations and there can be different kinds of leaders. Some of the leadership roles that companies often hire externally include Editorial Director – Leads the video, blog, image, social media and community management roles Director of Acquisition – Leads the data analytics, sales, and marketing teams Director of Monetization – Leads other roles such as monetizing campaigns, measuring Agile success, and achieving targets. The one who leads the team should have a decent intellectual capacity. And he or she should be able to arrive at solutions in a creative manner. These are the primary qualities you need to look for in an agile marketing team leader: Entrepreneurial spirit Multidisciplinary skills Creativity Individuality Leadership skills If the marketing leader has all these qualities, he or she can play the role of the Scrum Master as well.  Managing your offshore Agile marketing team Once you have a team(s) in place, it’s time to manage the offshore Agile team as your own. Agile marketing works similar to Agile development. And the basics of Agile marketing is tracking and measuring success via regular Scrum meetings.  Daily standup meetings, also known as Scrum meetings, should not last for more than 15 minutes. You can hold these meetings through video conferencing tools or even on JIRA. You can conduct weekly review meetings. Eventually, it will help you to ensure that your marketing strategy is aligned with your offshore Agile marketing team’s progress. Assign KPIs for each role and for each team. Measure these KPIs regularly and track job responsibilities and accountabilities. We would suggest assigning the role of ScrumMaster to someone from the offshore Agile team. This way, the ScrumMaster can conduct a daily 15-minute standup at the offshore location.  On the other hand, your internal representatives can conduct the weekly reviews. This is an easier way to manage and monitor campaigns while keeping team dynamics

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How To Hold A Sprint Meeting With Your Remote Team

January 29, 2019

While close to 71% of businesses choose Agile approaches to manage projects internally, the same methodology can be used to manage external teams as well. To begin with, it is important to choose a remote team that already has an agile framework in place. To educate them on Sprint meetings and how they are done would defeat the purpose of outsourcing work to an external agency. Assuming you are already working with an agile vendor, it only makes sense to manage your remote teams via Sprint meetings. In this article, let us take a look at how you can hold Sprint meetings with your remote team to enhance productivity. What is a Sprint meeting? A Sprint meeting is a quick and collaborative congregation of team members and is a crucial part of Scrum. Part of the Agile framework, Scrum helps you manage knowledge-based work efficiently. It gives you the power to track progress, address vulnerabilities, reduce workload and enhance productivity, all at once. The gist of Scrum philosophy is that quality trounces quantity and that employees are more productive when they work less. While Scrum-based strategies (and Sprint meetings) are often used in-house, Scrum-inspired management techniques help you remotely manage your offshore teams as well. Scrum is renowned for time-boxed iterations called Sprints Sprints consist of time-managed meetings spread across a month, fortnight or a week Progress is tracked daily via 15-minute stand-up meetings known as daily Scrums. Now, let us take a look at how you can start holding Sprint meetings with your offshore team in order to manage them better. Start with the Sprint planning meeting Make an agreement with your vendor to confine all work cycles to iterations or Sprints of 2 weeks. A month-long is a little too much and just a week would probably not give enough time for your team to complete tasks. Define the goal of each Sprint and work towards developing features of an application or tool that are most essential. As with all Sprint meetings, get your offshore team members to speak more than you will. Purists would advise that a manager should never speak and only the team member should. However, in the case of an offshore situation, this is not possible as you probably will conduct these meetings via video or web conferencing tools. Before you begin to hold your daily Scrum meetings, it is important to start with the Sprint Planning Meeting. Make a hierarchy of features and tasks that need to be prioritized for the product iteration. Product and Sprint backlogs can be managed effectively at the review stage. Here are a few things to consider before you begin your daily Sprint meetings with your offshore team: Define who the ScrumMaster is. The ScrumMaster facilitates the meeting and it is usually advisable to assign this role to someone who can regularly coordinate with an offshore team. Identify the purpose of each meeting and list everyone who will attend these congregations. Plan the Sprints well in advance and set KPIs to measure attainable and relevant goals. Ensure that all the participants have access to good project management tools such as Trello or Nozbe. It is also important to use Slack or another instant messenger which can be used across devices. Decide where the meetings will take place and ensure that your conferencing hardware and software tools are up to date before initiating meetings. Add items to a backlog and make sure that they can be completed within two weeks. While management expert Bob Sutton (Twitter) explains that “4 is the optimal size for a combat team as evidenced by U.S. Navy Seals”, products analytics company Amplitude suggests a growth team should have 5-10 members. If your offshore team has more members, break them up into smaller teams. Hold daily Scrum meetings The most crucial aspect of Scrum meetings is the daily 15-minute meeting with all team members involved. As offshore teams are located far away and you cannot be physically present to oversee project completion, daily Scrum meetings are a non-intrusive and effective way to quantify and measure your progress. Make a small and limited list of questions to ask your offshore team and ensure that the questions track the progress made the previous day, what needs to be done on that particular day, and what obstacles are preventing your offshore team from completing the tasks in hand. Aaron Bjork (Twitter), a group program manager at Microsoft’s Visual Studio Online often asks his team members“What does leadership make you do that is slowing you down”, in order to rectify managerial mistakes. Traditionally, all the team members stand up during the meeting and list what they accomplished during the previous day, what they plan to carry out on the day of the meeting, and the hurdles they currently face. As the meeting will most likely take place over a video or web conferencing tool, nobody has to stand up. Instead, work with the development team and your product manager to assign a random numerical order to each member so that they type/talk only when their turn arrives. Daily Scrum meetings help you to closely work with your offshore team and break barriers often associated with outsourced projects. A well-planned Scrum meeting will ensure that your offshore team communicates with you effectively on a daily basis. Here are a few things you need to do in order to make your daily meetings a success: Maintain a Sprint task list to keep track of completed and pending work Create a Sprint burndown chart to track the progress of your project List all possible obstacles and impediments that stop your offshore team from excelling. Fix those issues on priority Make sure the daily meetings take place at the same time on the same web conferencing or instant messaging tool. Allow everyone to speak without fear and identify vendor managers who seem to act like gatekeepers when you interact with offshore team members. Address this issue, if required. Richard Hackman (Harvard University), an

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