Archive: December 8, 2022

IRCON secured Foreign Project in Sri Lanka

Hyderabad, 08^th December 2022 – Ircon International Limited (IRCON), a Miniratna (Category-I) Schedule -A, Public Sector Enterprises has secured an order on a competitive bidding basis valuing USD 14.89 Million in Sri Lanka.

IRCON has awarded the work for procurement of Design, Installation, Testing, Commissioning, and Certifying of the Signalling and Telecommunication system from Maho Junction (Including) to Anuradhapura (Excluding) by Sri Lanka Railways, Ministry of Transport, Sri Lanka, under Indian Line of Credit at a total price of USD 14.89 Million equivalent to approx. INR 122 Crore. IRCON has secured his work on a competitive bidding basis and the contract period will be 24 months from the date of signing of the Contract Agreement.

Meghalaya Records Strong Economic Growth in last financial year

Mumbai, 8th December 2022: The State of Meghalaya recorded a strong GSDP growth of 8.2% for the FY 2021-22. While the growth rate for Meghalaya’s GSDP during  2011-12 to 2017-18 was the slowest among all the States/UTs of India (33^rd rank), it grew at a faster rate during 2018-19 to 2020-21. From the slowest-growing State, it went on to become the 19th fastest-growing State/UT in India.

The strong growth of Meghalaya can be attributed to the increase in government expenditure. Since 2018, the State government expenditure has doubled from Rs. 9,858 Cr in 2017-18 to Rs. 18,881 in 2022-23. An exponential increase in expenditure by almost 50% and large-scale investments taking place have led the State to record an impressive growth and put the state on the national development pedestal.

The data also revealed a low GSDP which led to the state to rank the bottom on the national scale, especially during the period of FY 2013-18.

As per the RBI-released data on the GSDP of states, the compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) for Meghalaya’s GSDP during 2011-12 to 2017-18 was 2%, which was the lowest among all the States/UTs of India. However, the State grew at a faster rate during 2018-19 to 2020-21, with an impressive jump of 13 places nationally.

Recently, published data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has released GSDP for 33 states for the period of FY 2021-22 and FY 2020-21 at constant prices. RBI released GSDP data of all states for the financial year of 2020-21. As a practice, RBI also releases 10-year GSDP for all States/UTs from which CAGR can be calculated. Meghalaya’s growth has been slow during the period, however upon detailed analysis reveals that the slow growth rate can be attributed to the period of FY 2013-2015. The State has further recovered and witnessed strong economic growth during FY 2021-22.

Samaaro Raises Seed Funding Led by SucSEED With Participation From Silver Needle, the Chennai Angels & Others

Bangalore headquartered Samaaro, a B2B event-marketing SaaS platform has raised seed funding round, led by SucSEED Indovation Fund with participation from Silver Needle Ventures Fund, The Chennai Angels, Lead Angels and eminent angel investors.

The round also saw a follow-on participation from the existing angels of their last round.

With the vision to help brands across the globe drive higher ROI from Events, Samaaro aims to become an integral part of their marketing stack and maximize lead generation for them.

Samaaro provides a B2B platform that helps brands to host & participate in in-person, hybrid & virtual events while generating business opportunities for themselves.

As a B2B SaaS, Samaaro offers an intuitive marketing platform for businesses to create brand awareness, generate leads and drive sales when they host or participate in events. Designed for marketing events such as conferences, summits & exhibitions, the platform offers an end-to-end virtual, hybrid & IRL events solution that includes event registrations, conferencing & networking driven by marketing & CRM integrations.

Purnank Prakash, the Founder and CEO of Samaaro said, “Event sponsorships drive 80% of the total revenue of the events industry. More than 5 Million businesses participate as sponsors & exhibitors annually in events around the globe. However, generating qualified leads and accurately measuring their ROI remains one of the primary challenges for these event marketers. This is where Samaaro stands out from the competition and unlike traditional virtual or hybrid solutions out there, we focus on maximizing lead generation and thus optimizing the sales funnel for these businesses.”

He further added, “Having launched the operations in June 2020, Samaaro has been leveraged by more than a thousand global brands like Salesforce, Amazon, ASSOCHAM, Queen’s University, and Informa Markets. In the last 2 years, Samaaro has hosted 1 million attendees from 150 countries and grown its revenues by 300% YoY. With close to 60% of its revenue from international customers, Samaaro is truly a “building in India for the world” startup.”

Mayank Banka, the Founder & President of Samaaro said, “So far, we have been extremely focused on finding our PMF and spent conservatively on marketing. Healthcare and education are the top performing industries for us and we’ve seen strong organic traction, especially from North America.”

He further added, “Next, we intend to build a super suite of hybrid solutions focused on events driven by marketing such as summits, exhibitions, trade shows, and product launches. The funds raised will help us build a leadership team with experience in the North American market to further establish Samaaro as a leading brand in the event tech space.”

Speaking on the investment round, Vikrant Varshney Co-Founder & Managing Partner of SucSEED Indovation Fund, said, “The market size of the global meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE) industry is currently valued at over a trillion dollars and growing at a CAGR of about 13%. The rising popularity of online streaming to replace in-person presentations, the growing acceptance of remote working, and the current buzz of events in the metaverse are gaining a lot of attention. Samaaro has a very unique value proposition to deliver and its approach to leveraging tech and the present global opportunity will surely make it one of the tops in the industry. Samaaro has built a strong client base of 1000+ Brands on the platform including Salesforce, Huawei, L&T, Google, AWS, Hitachi and Qualcomm etc and we feel excited to back their growth story.”

F5 Recognized by Great Place To Work India among India’s Best Workplaces in IT & IT-BPM 2022!

Hyderabad, India, December 8, 2022 – F5 has been recognized by Great Place To Work® India among India’s Best Workplaces in IT & IT-BPM 2022 – TOP 25! F5 has, time and again, been recognized as the “Best Place to work” in India. Last year, the company was recognized as one of the Top 75 Best Workplaces in the Great Place to Work Certification.

As a global authority on workplace culture, Great Place To Work® has been studying employee experience and people practices across organizations for over three decades. Every year, more than 10,000 organizations from over 60 countries partner with Great Place To Work for assessment, benchmarking, and planning of actions to strengthen their workplace culture.

In its 8^th edition this year for India, based on a rigorous evaluation methodology, the Top 100 organizations among India’s Best Workplaces™ in IT & IT-BPM 2022 have been recognized. These organizations, among other practices, particularly excel both on people practices that they have crafted for their employees and proactively acting on the feedback to create a High Trust Culture.

The report and the complete list (in alphabetical order) of India’s Best Workplaces in IT & IT-BPM 2022 can be viewed here.

In our study, we have observed that the Best Workplaces have gone above and beyond to create and sustain aspirational organizations. Organizations that succeed in establishing high-trust, high-performance cultures and maximizing human potential by bridging experience gaps will be great places to work for all in the future.

“It is difficult to envisage any business that has not reaped the benefits of the digital revolution. Despite of uncertain global scenario, the IT industry has consistently augmented the growth of India’s knowledge economy. The industry has also been instrumental in strengthening India’s digital capabilities making huge strides in deep tech, AI, and AR offering, an entirely new gamut of opportunities in terms of job and value creation.

Technology companies have been regarded as leaders in forward-thinking and innovative workplace cultures. The Pandemic gained impetus along with the wave of startups has made it imperative for organizations to focus on their people, with technology becoming real-time and user experience becoming global. Despite witnessing phenomena like great resignation and quiet quitting, Best Workplaces are on their way to cracking the code as there has been a 2% improvement in the overall employee experience in the IT & IT-BPM sector since last year.

Congratulations to all our winners for this coveted recognition. I am confident that the industry and its leaders will continue to set global benchmarks in workplace culture.”- Yeshasvini Ramaswamy, Serial Entrepreneur & CEO, Great Place To Work India.

“We are elated to receive such an honor from Great Place To Work and to be recognized as one of the top 25 India’s Best Workplaces this year.  We believe that our culture and values are our top strengths, where employees’ integrity is valued, diversity is welcomed, and innovation, teamwork, and critical thinking are constantly encouraged,” said Rohit Arya, Vice President of Engineering and India Site Head, F5. “We have been very conscious of protecting the company’s work environment amidst its rapid growth over the few years, and this has been instrumental in opening doors to equal opportunities for all our employees.”

In India, the Institute partners with more than 1100+ organizations annually, across over 22 industries, to help them build High-Trust, High-Performance Culture designed to deliver sustained business results. Hundreds of leading CXOs from India Inc. are part of the great place community that is committed to the vision of making India a Great Place To Work For All.

HGS continues to expand its digital focus, announces acquisition

Mumbai, India, December 8, 2022: In line with its ongoing evolution into a digital-led, people-driven customer experience (CX) services provider, Hinduja Global Solutions Limited (HGS) (Listed on NSE & BSE, India), continues to make significant investments to expand its digital capabilities.

The company today announced two M&A developments to support its transformation journey as HGS 2.0.

1. HGS has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a 100% stake in TekLink International, Inc., for a consideration of US$ 58.8 million, subject to earnouts and other customary and agreed adjustments. The transaction with the analytics service provider is expected to close in the next two months.

2. HGS has signed a non-binding Letter of Intent (LoI) to acquire uKnowva, a digital Human Resources Management System (HRMS) product business, from Convergence IT Services Ltd, subject to necessary diligence and approvals. uKnowva is a Cloud-based SaaS platform that is easy to use, cost effective and leverages intelligent software to deliver human capital management, automation, and collaboration for midsize and growing companies.

“HGS has been investing significantly in developing technology-led capabilities to reimagine the CX journey for our clients in an increasingly digital first world. TekLink and uKnowva with their transformative solutions in the analytics & financial planning and HR technology segments, respectively, are a good strategic fit for us. The synergies will help us strengthen our existing digital portfolio substantially, expand in new rapidly growing segments, co-create solutions, and cross-sell to clients,” said Partha DeSarkar, Group CEO, HGS. “We continue to build an end-to-end ecosystem of innovative solutions that support every touchpoint in the consumer journey.”

TekLink International Inc., is a full-service financial planning and analytics service provider, including design, implementation, and application management services. TekLink has built technical and functional expertise across multiple industries, including consumer products, retail, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing & distribution, utilities, and high tech. The company supports over 60 clients, including one of the world’s leading food manufacturers, an American multinational confectionery, a global beverages giant, etc. TekLink is headquartered in Warrenville, IL, US, with presence in Europe and delivery centers in Hyderabad and Indore in India. The company has strong credentials in the industry, with established partnerships with Microsoft, SAP, Anaplan, etc. TekLink has recently been named a 2022 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Customers’ Choice for Data & Analytics Service Providers.

The acquisition will strengthen HGS’ digital solutions business by adding enhanced expertise in building data platforms, analytics, and financial planning. It will also add complementary digital workforce bench strength, with 275 seasoned technology and implementation professionals joining HGS as part of the transaction. HGS’ digital business currently employs over 750 core technology and digital marketing experts, primarily across the US and India, who are transforming customer experiences (CX) for leading brands.

“We are excited to become part of the HGS family to complement their already established digital customer engagement, digital experience, intelligent automation, and cloud & security portfolio with our world-class data platform and analytics solutions and services,” said Pankaj Gupta, Founder and CEO, TekLink. “Together, our mutual clients will benefit from best-in-class, end-to-end digital transformation.”

uKnowva business has 75+ employees in India supporting over 300,000 users across 80+ clients. The acquisition of uKnowva, when approved and completed, will create technology synergies with HGS’ existing HRO/ Payroll and F&A business, that supports several hundred clients with mainly HR operations related activities in India and the Middle East today. uKnowva was recently recognized as the ‘Entrepreneurial Company of the Year in AI for HR Tech’ by Frost and Sullivan.

Buyback Update: HGS’ audited financial statements for the six-month period ended September 30, 2022 are under preparation currently. Subject to the completion of the audit, the Board is expected to meet in the week of December 19, 2022 to finalize the terms of the proposed Buyback.

MSys Technologies Wins Multiple Honors at the Storage Digitalization and Cloud (SDC) Awards 2022

New Delhi, December 8th, 2022 – MSys Technologies, a leading end-to-end Product Engineering Services firm, has been felicitated with multiple awards at Storage Digitalization and Cloud (SDC) Awards 2022 at the Royal Garden Hotel, London.

MSys was crowned with the ‘Open Source/DevOps Innovation of the Year award. The achievement is a testament to MSys Technologies’ innovative and state-of-the-art DevOps center of excellence that provides flexible, scalable, secured, and governed CI/CD for rapid, reusable, and predictable releases.

The company also bagged the Runner-up Award in the ‘Hyper-convergence Innovation of the Year.’ This recognition reflects MSys Technologies’ center of hyperconvergence’s excellence in orchestrating centralized management, scalable architecture, and cloudlike simplicity that supports multiple application workloads with security and resilience across environments.

The SDC Awards acknowledged MSys Technologies’ ability in delivering cutting-edge and unsurpassed digital transformation to ISVs and global enterprises. The services offered by the company, which place a strong emphasis on giving customers the best experiences and maximizing their return on IT investments, played a significant role in helping the company win these awards.

Sanjay Sehgal, Founder, Chairman, and CEO at MSys Technologies, shares, “We are truly humbled and honored to win the SDC Awards, demonstrating our excellence in product engineering services for digital and business transformation.  We are highly committed to providing value to our customers through end-to-end software development services for rapid product development, sustenance, and application modernization. We have operational GDCs spanning the US to Australia to promote innovation and provide product engineering services for faster time-to-market.”

Sunny Raskar, VP & Global Head, of Sales, and Marketing at MSys Technologies added, “We are grateful to all our customers and business partners who helped us accomplish this recognition. This acknowledgment drives us further to help our customers across different sectors with the best ROI possible by enabling them hit the target with our product engineering services.”

Archies Re-launches Its Most Popular Fragrant Range‘parfum’ for Men & Women

New Delhi, December 08, 2022: Archies, the forerunners in the social expression industry today relaunched its most popular fragrant range ‘parfum’ for both men & women. Archies Parfum is a premium and luxurious range of perfumes and deodorant curated in Turkey– all are packed with the goodness of essential oils to enhance a customer’s personality and complement their on-the- go lifestyle.

The Parfum range comprises ofZeroone, Dream Boy, Boyz Parfum, catering to the male segment along with Zeroone, Dream Gals, Girlz Parfum for the female segment. The deodorant range comprises of Zeroone Original, Dream Boys, BoyzDeo catering to the male segment along with ZerooneOrginal, Dream Girls, Gals Parfum for the female segment.
UXR Original Parfum, Ghost Original Parfumand ZerooneOriginal Black Diamond range of exotic Perfumes and deodorants have been launched for the unisex range. The re-launched range of perfumes will be available in an all-new packaging of 100 ml at INR 599 only, at the Archies online website (https://archiesonline.com/).

VarunMoolchandani, Executive Director, Archies on re-launching the parfum range commented,“We are thrilled to re-introduce our most fragrant range Parfum and Deodorants for the consumers today. As a gifting brand, we love to introduce diversified products for the end users. There has also been a major shift in usage of gifting products from special occasion to everyday use. Therefore, we decided to focus on Perfumes and deodorants in our cosmetic range. We are also adding multiple new things to our online & retail stores so that we continue to retain the excitement for our customers.”

Along with independent perfumes and deodorants, Archies has also launched a gifting range for the customers that comprises of both perfumes and deodorants together priced at INR 849. The products can be purchased at the Archies online website (https://archiesonline.com/) and their retail stores

American Standard KASTELLO

The American Standard KASTELLO Collection is a perfect example of the charm of traditional beauty and modern form. It combines technology and sustainable characteristics into a wide range of products that are made to last, staying true to the idea of a timeless design.

The KASTELLO faucet by American Standard has ergonomic lines that curve gracefully to complete the overall design. Performance and style come first. Our faucets seamlessly combine beauty and practicality by incorporating technical and environmentally friendly aspects into a design. The ComfortMove function of the faucet uses a ceramic cartridge to manage the water flow smoothly and consistently while accurately regulating consumption. With the aid of EcoStart, the single-lever faucet brings the idea of environmental friendliness to life. It saves 30% of energy by discharging cold water first to stop the boiler from heating up. Durashine offers a durable coating of shine that signifies excellence in design while enhancing the delight of aesthetics.

The American Standard KASTELLO basins have a more upscale appearance thanks to the Line characteristic element, which emphasises practicality, increases comfort, and emphasizes design. Like nothing else on the market, the American Standard KASTELLO toilet blends toughness and beauty. It truly is a hand-made device. Customers will surely feel the utmost comfort and security using KASTELLO because it delivers the best hygienic features currently available.

Key Features of the American Standard KASTELLO Toilet

Aqua Ceramic- An award-winning super-hydrophilic technology that prevents dirt and dark ring stains from sticking to ceramic surfaces.

Siphonmax with Power Rim- For optimal hygiene, Siphonmax flushing technology effectively removes heavy and light wastes. This exceptional system creates a whirlpool around the bowl by delivering twin torrents of water from two openings. A jet of water is released from below at the same time, resulting in a second push action.

Comfort Clean- Effectively kills E. coli bacteria according to tests done with IMSL.

Double Vortex- Maximum flushing performance, minimum water usage.

Dual Flush- A choice between a half flush and a full flush for liquids or solids while still providing superior flushing performance.

Water-saving- For both ecological and economical sense.

With this new offering from American Standard KASTELLO Collection, your bathroom receives better hygiene as well as better comfort, a distinctive design, durability, and an exquisite visual appeal.