Tag: VP

Lucknow Lions celebrate their win with Bingo! Tedhe Medhe

Lucknow Lions celebrate their win with Bingo! Tedhe MedheNoida, 30 July 2024: Lucknow Lions emerged as the winners of the first season of Uttar Pradesh Kabaddi League (UPKL). Post-match, the team was seen rejoicing their win with Bingo! Tedhe Medhe, one of India’s leading snacking brands. This memorable moment celebrated the indomitable spirit, rich cultural heritage, and athleticism synonymous with Uttar Pradesh and Kabaddi.

Bingo! Tedhe Medhe was the ‘Official Title Sponsor’ of the Uttar Pradesh Kabaddi League for the 2024 season. Kabaddi is celebrated for its unity, strength, and tradition. Inspired by this love for the sport, Bingo! Tedhe Medhe proudly associated with the league, bringing excitement and joy to fans across the country.

Continuing its signature campaign, “Match Start Bingo! Start,” this partnership created thrilling moments for Kabaddi fans as they enjoyed the game with their favourite snacks. The collaboration reinforced Bingo!’s fun and imaginative connection to game time. Fans attending the matches experienced Bingo! Tedhe Medhe kiosks throughout the stadium, a player podcast titled “Bingo! Tedhi Medhi Baat,” and various branded elements that enhanced the overall atmosphere.

Speaking about the association, Mr. Suresh Chand, VP, Head of Marketing Snacks, Noodles and Pasta, Foods Division, ITC Ltd said, “We were thrilled to associate as title sponsor of Uttar Pradesh Kabaddi League. Kabbadi is one of India’s beloved sports and this partnership underscores our dedication to supporting sports in India and also reinforces our commitment to connect with our audience.”

A spokesperson from UPKL said, “We were delighted to have Bingo! Tedhe Medhe as the title sponsor of the Uttar Pradesh Kabaddi League 2024. We support the fighting spirit of UP and through this partnership our endeavour was to make every match moment memorable and exciting along with the joy of snacking on Bingo! Tedhe Medhe for the fans.”

The Uttar Pradesh Kabaddi League, in partnership with the Uttar Pradesh Kabaddi Association, is a pioneering sports initiative dedicated to revitalizing and celebrating Kabaddi’s esteemed legacy.

Retail’s Brightest Minds Convene at Retail Leadership Summit 2024 to Forge Future Pathways

Mar 4, 2024 by Mansi Praharaj 0 Comments #Abhishek Bansal, #Amazon (US and India), #Amazon (US and India) and Vivek Somareddy, #ANAROCK, #Anujj Puri, #APAC International Stores, #Ashwin Khasgiwala, #Avjit Mitra, #Avnish Anand - CaratLane; Avnish Kumar, #Being Human Clothing; Sanjay Vakharia, #bigbasket, #bigbasket; Johnson Verghese, #Bijou Kurien, #Celio Future Fashion; Gautam Saraogi, #CEO, #CEO & Co-Founder, #CEO of the Middle East Council of Shopping Centres (MECSC) and the International Council of Shopping Centres (ICSC), #Chairman, #Co-founder & CEO, #Croma, #Darpan Mehta, #David Macadam, #Dhiraj Agarwal, #Dhishoom Cinemas., #Director, #Emerging Markets, #Executive Director, #Forum Malls; Rajneesh Mahajan, #Fossil India; Nissan Joseph, #Founder & MD, #Go Fashion (India) Ltd (Go Colors);, #Hari Menon, #Infiniti Retail; Hari Menon, #Inorbit Mall; Sagar Daryani, #Inorbit Malls and Shibu Phillips, #International Council of Shopping Centres (ICSC), #Lalit Agarwal, #Lalit Agarwal - V-Mart Retail; Sagar Daryani, #Lulu group. While on the brands side were Manish Kapoor, #MD & CEO, #Metro Brands; Rajneesh Mahajan, #Middle East Council of Shopping Centres (MECSC), #Neeru's; Sanjay Vakharia, #Nexus Malls; Muhammed Ali, #Pacific Group; Dalip Sehgal, #Parul Gulati, #Pepe Jeans; Rajesh Jain, #Rajesh Jain, #Reliance Retail Limited, #Retailers Association of India (RAI), #Seller Experience and Global Trade, #Shopping Malls, #Sports & Leisure Apparel (Lacoste India), #Sports & Leisure Apparel Ltd; Sanjeev Rao, #Spykar Lifestyles;, #Spykar; P Jayakumar - Apollo Pharmacy; Rajiv Nair - Kaya Ltd; Samir Srivastav- Looks Salon; Satyen Momaya, #Trent, #Tushar Dhingra, #V-Mart Retail, #VP, #Wow! Momo Foods, #Wow! Momo Foods; Venkatesalu P

March 4, 2024, Mumbai: The Retail Leadership Summit 2024 (RLS 2024), organised by the Retailers Association of India (RAI), took place on February 28 and 29 at the Hotel Westin Powai Lake, Mumbai. This annual event brings together the brightest minds in retail to explore forward-thinking strategies within the industry.

Retail's Brightest Minds Convene at Retail Leadership Summit 2024 to Forge Future Pathways 2

Welcoming the audience at RLS 2024, Kumar Rajagopalan, Chief Executive Officer, Retailers Association of India (RAI), said, “In 2023, the retail industry witnessed a tale of two halves: robust growth initially, followed by a plateau. This reflects the criticality of aligning with market dynamics and consumer needs. We’re observing a transformative shift, with retailers blending digital and physical experiences to create seamless consumer journeys. The key to future success lies in harnessing the power of omnichannel strategies and understanding the evolving consumer preference for convenience and trust. As we move forward, embracing innovation and agile responses to market trends will be pivotal in shaping the retail landscape.

Setting the tone for the summit, Bijou Kurien, Chairman, Retailers Association of India (RAI), expressed,  “The retail industry in India is poised for significant growth in the year ahead. Driven by an 8%+ growth in GDP in Q3 FY’24 and based on steady investment by the Government and Private sector, consumption is bound to grow. The combination of online commerce coupled with offline expansion, driven by a more technology savvy consumer with greater aspirations would herald significant changes in retail structure, and channel strategy. Retailers and brands are gearing up for aggressive growth, particularly eyeing tier 2 cities for deeper market penetration. This strategic focus not only indicates a broadening of access for consumers but also signifies a shift towards tapping into the burgeoning demand in emerging urban centres. This optimistic outlook underscores the sector’s resilience and its pivotal role in the broader economic landscape of India.”

Highlights of RLS 2024 included presentations and knowledge reports by RAI-Boston Consulting Group report titled ‘Unlocking the $2Tn retail opportunity by 2030: An activist agenda’, RAI-Deloitte report titled ‘Future of Retail: Profitable Growth through Technology and AI’, RAI-KPMG report titled ‘Achieving seamless commerce in India’ and PWC report titled ‘How India shops online: Consumer preferences in the metropolises and tier-1, 2, 3, 4 cities’. Furthermore, Best Retail Workplaces 2024 report by RAI – Great Place To Work was unveiled and the respective teams were felicitated.

The Summit saw the participation retail leaders, as well as top names in the retail service provider space. Retail stalwarts speaking at the summit included Hari Menon, CEO & Co-Founder, bigbasket, Lalit Agarwal – V-Mart Retail; Sagar Daryani, Co-Founder & CEO, Wow! Momo Foods, Avnish Anand – CaratLane; Avnish Kumar, Director, Neeru’s; Sanjay Vakharia, CEO, Spykar; P Jayakumar – Apollo Pharmacy; Rajiv Nair – Kaya Ltd; Samir Srivastav- Looks Salon; Satyen Momaya, CEO, Celio Future Fashion; Gautam Saraogi, CEO, Go Fashion (India) Ltd (Go Colors); among many others.

Speaking during the panel discussion on RLS 2024, Lalit Agarwal, Founder & MD, V-Mart Retail, discussed creating experiences in retail that resonate deeply with customers, especially budget-conscious customers, to make them feel smart and stylish within their means. He emphasised on emotional connection through personalised service and storytelling, making customers feel valued and understood. Lalit Agarwal advocates for building strong brand connections that extend beyond the store, through all interactions, including advertisements. This approach aims to turn customers into authentic influencers, leveraging word-of-mouth for brand promotion. The key is continuous engagement and storytelling, which ensures customer loyalty and organic growth.

Noting the importance of strategy differences across retail categories, Rajesh Jain, MD & CEO, Sports & Leisure Apparel (Lacoste India), highlighted the approach in the premium fashion segment, emphasising a uniform customer experience across online and offline channels without price differentiation except during season-end sales. He said that this strategy aims to cultivate customer habits and preferences for purchasing channels, whether for convenience online or the experience in-store. By maintaining consistent pricing and service, customers understand the brand’s value proposition, reducing their expectation for discounts and fostering brand loyalty.

Furthermore, Darpan Mehta, Director Tax, APAC International Stores, Amazon (US and India) and Vivek Somareddy, VP, Emerging Markets, Seller Experience and Global Trade, Amazon (US and India) made a presentation on “Unlocking Mechanisms and Working Capital for Business Expansion”.

Additionally, the second day of RLS 2024 featured a keynote speech by David Macadam, CEO of the Middle East Council of Shopping Centres (MECSC) and the International Council of Shopping Centres (ICSC). This was succeeded by a dynamic panel discussion titled ‘Mahasangram: Retail and Retail Real Estate,’ bringing together prominent figures from both retail real estate and retail industries for an engaging exchange of ideas.

Mall Developers participating in the discussion were Abhishek Bansal, Executive Director, Pacific Group; Dalip Sehgal, CEO, Nexus Malls; Muhammed Ali, CEO, Forum Malls; Rajneesh Mahajan, CEO, Inorbit Malls and Shibu Phillips, Director, Shopping Malls, Lulu group. While on the brands side were Manish Kapoor, MD & CEO, Pepe Jeans; Rajesh Jain, MD & CEO, Sports & Leisure Apparel Ltd; Sanjeev Rao, CEO, Being Human Clothing; Sanjay Vakharia, CEO, Spykar Lifestyles; and Tushar Dhingra, Co-founder & CEO, Dhishoom Cinemas.

In his keynote address at the summit before the Mahasangram Session, David Macadam, CEO, Middle East Council of Shopping Centres (MECSC), International Council of Shopping Centres (ICSC), shared insights on the evolution of experiential retail and e-commerce. He discussed the challenges and opportunities within the retail industry, emphasizing the importance of adapting to consumer demands for experiential and sustainable shopping experiences. Macadam highlighted the significant role of AI and technology in retail, the impact of mixed-use developments, and strategies for business development. He advocated for embracing change, prioritizing customer experience, and leveraging strategic partnerships to navigate the retail landscape successfully.

Retail's Brightest Minds Convene at Retail Leadership Summit 2024 to Forge Future Pathways 3

Day 2 of RLS 2024 also had a dedicated D2C segment that saw participation of leaders of top D2C brands namely, Dhiraj Agarwal, Founder, Campus Sutra; Sneh Jain, Managing Director, The Baker’s Dozen; Harsh Lal, Co-Founder, The Souled Store. A scintillating Fireside chat with Parul Gulati, Actor & Founder of Nish Hair (featured on Shark Tank India). This segment explored the unconventional strategies that has enable these brands to achieve immense success in a short frame of time.

Parallelly to RLS 2024 was an extensive session of ‘Retail Store Design’ that saw participation of top retailers and brands deliberating on topics such as ‘Future of Retail Design: Exploring Emerging Trends and Technologies’, ‘Balancing Design and Functionality in Retail Spaces’, a captivating Fireside Chat and  a Masterclass on ‘The art of curating memorable and meaning customer journey’.

The advisory board of RLS 2024 includes Anujj Puri, ANAROCK, Ashwin Khasgiwala, Reliance Retail Limited; Avjit Mitra, Croma, Infiniti Retail; Hari Menon, bigbasket; Johnson Verghese, Fossil India; Nissan Joseph, Metro Brands; Rajneesh Mahajan, Inorbit Mall; Sagar Daryani, Wow! Momo Foods; Venkatesalu P, Trent.

The first day of RLS 2024 came to a close with the grand felicitation of the crème de la crème of the retail industry with India’s Retail Champions Award 2024 and the Retail Start-up Awards 2024, both evaluated by eminent personalities from the industry as the Jury.

Winners of India’s Retail Champions Awards 2024 were:

 

Categories Name of the Company Name of the Brand
Apparel & Lifestyle The Souled Store The Souled Store
Apparel & Lifestyle Raymond Lifestyle Ethnix
Apparel & Lifestyle Spykar Lifestyle Pvt Ltd Spykar
Apparel & Lifestyle Brand Concepts Ltd BAGLINE, House of Luxury Bags
Beauty Himalaya Wellness Company Himalaya Wellness
Wellness Wellness Forever Wellness Forever
Wellness Apollo Pharmacy Limited Apollo Pharmacy
Consumer Durables & IT (CDIT) Vijay Sales (India) Private Limited Vijay Sales
Consumer Durables & IT (CDIT) Infiniti Retail Ltd Croma
D2C Cleardekho Eyewear Pvt Ltd ClearDekho
Department store Shoppers Stop Limited Shoppers Stop
Food & General Retail (Large format over 5,000 sq. ft) LULU Group International LULU HYPER MARKET
Food & General Retail (Small format below 5,000 sq. ft) Reliance Retail Limited Reliance Fresh Signature
Footwear Metro brands Ltd Footwear
Footwear Liberty shoes Ltd. Footwear
Home Decor / Home Improvement Godrej & Boyce Mfg Co Ltd Godrej Interio
Jewellery Reliance Jewels (Reliance Retail) Reliance Jewels
Restaurant & QSR Apsara Ice Creams LLP Apsara Ice Creams
Restaurant & QSR Dindigul Thalappakatti Dindigul Thalappakatti
Speciality Retail Ample Technologies Private Limited Monobrand Stoes of Apple, ASICS, UA and Bose. Apple Store brand name “Imagine”
Success Story of 2024 Trent Zudio

Amazon India announces increase in storage capacity of its fulfilment network by close to 40%

National: Amazon India today announced its plans to expand its fulfilment network in India, with close to 40% increase in its storage capacity over last year. With this expansion, Amazon.in will have more than 43 million cubic feet of storage capacity, across 15 States, supporting around 8.5 lakh sellers across India. The expansion is in line with Amazon India’s continued efforts to heavily invest in the country and create tens of thousands of direct and indirect work opportunities. Amazon India’s overall fulfilment network will be spread across a floor area of more than 10 million square feet, more than the land size of 125 football fields, housing millions of products from a notebook to a dish washer.

With this expansion, Amazon India has more than 60 fulfilment centers and more than 25 specialized sites dedicated to Amazon Fresh selection for daily essentials and grocery, across India. The launch of 11 new fulfilment centres and expansion of 9 existing ones across States such as Maharashtra, Bihar, Gujarat,Assam, Rajasthan,Punjab, Delhi, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, is designed to deliver a smarter, faster, and more consistent experience for its customers and sellers across the country. Some of these new fulfilment centres will be operational ahead of Prime Day 2021 and all new fulfillment centers will be operational before the festive season, enabling customers to have what they need delivered at their door step.

Buildings across Amazon India’s fulfillment network are designed with state-of-the art technology and efficient building systems that minimize energy usage. The buildings have on-site and off-site solar panels, which produce solar power. Most buildings are also designed to be net water zero with multiple initiatives such as rainwater collection tanks, recharge wells to replenish water into aquifers, sewage treatment plants, and ultra-low water efficient fixtures. Fulfilment centres are also being designed to make these work places accessible to people with disabilities as Amazon India continues to hire a diverse workforce and make the work place more inclusive.

Akhil Saxena, VP, Customer Fulfilment Operations, APAC, MENA & LATAM, Amazon, said“The rapid expansion of our fulfilment network accelerates on our commitment to serve and empower small and medium businesses in India and customers. With the increased storage capacity of 43 million cubic feet, we will continue to seamlessly cater to the growing demand of our customers, while offering a better experience with wider selection and faster delivery. This expansion will also provide a fillip to the ancillary businesses who support us including those involved in packaging, logistics, and transportation, amongst others, while creating meaningful work opportunities across the country.”

Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aayog, said: “E-commerce has played a crucial role throughout the pandemic by supporting people, small businesses, and creating thousands of local job opportunities. I am happy to see the focussed investments by Amazon across Indian states in building and scaling the state-of-the art infrastructure. This will play a critical role in supporting MSMEs jump-start from the economic disruptions of COVID-19 pandemic and accelerate their journey towards being digital entrepreneurs. The future is digital & our MSMEs must become drivers of this growth. My best wishes to all the Indian MSMEs & Amazon for being committed to the agenda of building a dynamic, vibrant and resilient Digital India.”

Amazon has created one of the most advanced fulfilment networks and sellers in India have been benefitting from Amazon’s expertise in fulfilment, reliable nationwide delivery, and customer service. When using Fulfilment By Amazon (FBA), sellers across India send their products to Amazon’s FCs and once an order is placed, Amazon picks, packs and ships the order to the customer, provides customer service and manages returns on behalf of the sellers.

Amazon India places tremendous value and focus on the well-being and safety of its people across its fulfilment network as everyone faces the challenges associated with COVID-19. Recently, Amazon India announced the completion of more than 130,000 vaccinations for its associates, employees, and their dependents through vaccination events hosted in partnership with leading healthcare providers across several cities.

All customers on www.amazon.in and the Amazon mobile shopping app have an easy and convenient access to over 200 million+ products across hundreds of categories. They benefit from a safe and secure ordering experience, convenient electronic payments, Cash on Delivery, Amazon’s 24×7 customer service support, and a globally recognized and comprehensive 100% purchase protection provided by Amazon’s A-to-Z Guarantee. They can also enjoy Amazon.in’s guaranteed next-day, two-day delivery and standard delivery on products fulfilled by Amazon.

AWS Announces AWS BugBust…

Bengaluru, India – Today, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company, announced the AWS BugBust Challenge, the world’s first global competition for developers to collectively eliminate one million software bugs. With just a few clicks, developers from around the world can join the challenge by creating an AWS BugBust event for their organization in the Amazon CodeGuru console—and compete for prizes and prestige by identifying and fixing bugs in their applications. By fixing bugs and achieving cost savings for their organizations, developers climb the AWS BugBust leaderboard to receive achievement badges, exclusive prizes, and a chance for an expense-paid trip to attend AWS re:Invent 2021 in Las Vegas. To get started with the AWS BugBust Challenge, visit: aws.amazon.com/bugbust.

One of the most important steps in software development is code reviews, which help ensure the correctness of code and the use of coding best practices. As code bases become larger and new features are added to applications at a greater velocity, the volume and complexity of code reviews increases. This is why developers are constantly looking for better and less tedious ways to perform code reviews to make their applications more secure, reliable, and efficient. Some organizations hold bug bash events where teams collaborate to find and fix bugs, but these events require developers to spend most of the time manually inspecting large codebases, which limits the ability for teams to work together, share best practices, and eliminate large numbers of bugs.

AWS BugBust is the first global bug-busting challenge for developers to collectively eliminate 1 million software bugs and $100 million in technical debt for their organizations using Amazon CodeGuru. Amazon CodeGuru is a developer tool that uses machine learning to identify bugs and find the most expensive lines of code in applications. Amazon CodeGuru helps developers automate code reviews and application profiling with its two components, Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer (which uses machine learning to flag common issues in code and provide specific recommendations on remediation) and Amazon CodeGuru Profiler (which uses machine learning to identify the most expensive lines of code in applications). By participating in the AWS BugBust Challenge, customers can easily organize AWS BugBust events in the Amazon CodeGuru console, where they can select their applications to profile and analyze, and then invite their teams to participate in the event. Each time developers fix a bug and save money, they will score points to climb their organization’s private BugBust leaderboard and see how they rank among their teammates. During the event, each participant’s total number of bugs fixed and cost savings will be added to the global AWS BugBust leaderboard, making participants eligible for profile badges, exclusive prizes, and a chance for an expense-paid trip to attend AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas.

“Hundreds of thousands of AWS customers are building and deploying new features to applications each day at high velocity and managing complex code at high volumes. It’s difficult to get time from skilled developers to quickly perform effective code reviews since they’re busy building, innovating, and pushing out deployments,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, VP, Amazon Machine Learning, AWS. “Today, we are excited to announce an entirely new approach to help developers improve code quality, eliminate bugs, and boost application performance, while saving millions of dollars in application resource costs. With the AWS BugBust Challenge, developers can use Amazon CodeGuru to spend less time finding common coding mistakes and more time having fun and competing to improve their applications and save their companies a lot of money.”

The AWS BugBust capability is available today in US East (N. Virginia) with availability in additional regions where Amazon CodeGuru is offered coming soon.

NextRoll helps marketplaces and marketing platforms grow revenue by empowering them to build and enhance their marketing solutions. “AWS BugBust has been such a fun way for our dev teams to systematically improve our code quality,” said Valentino Volonghi, CTO at NextRoll, Inc. “With AWS BugBust, not only are we able to increase the number of critical issues found before the application reaches customers, but we have reduced the code review time and helped our developers build new coding skills. And the best part is that they’re having fun doing it.”

As an AWS Advanced Consulting, QuickSight, and Well-Architected Partner, Belle Fleur has a proven track record of helping clients deliver high-quality, valuable software in an efficient, fast, and reliable manner with astounding results. “All of our customers want to build secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient infrastructure for their applications and workloads under the AWS Well-Architected Framework, and gamifiying DevOps with AWS BugBust to make it easier is sheer genius!” said Tia Dubuisson, President at Belle Fleur Technologies. “Customers that want to score high in the operational excellence pillar can now take advantage of a joint AWS BugBust with Belle Fleur and use machine learning to inspect their code with Amazon CodeGuru and leave expensive and labor-intensive manual inspections behind. We are proud to be a launch partner to deliver Amazon CodeGuru to our customers from start-ups to enterprises so they can automate and drive DevOps excellence. Now they can use machine learning powered insights with AWS BugBust to quickly find and fix bugs in a fun and engaging format and make their applications more reliable and secure while saving money. By using the most up-to-date technology and automating operations, our customers are able to reinvest time savings to advance other modernization projects and recruit and retain new talent as they grow and scale their solutions on AWS.”

Founded in 1959, Miami Dade College is a public college in Miami, Florida with eight campuses and twenty-one outreach centers throughout Miami-Dade County. “The AWS BugBust Challenge will be a fun and educative addition to our curriculum to help our students become more confident in their ability to use the Python programming language and take their IT careers to the next level,” said Antonio Delgado, Dean of Engineering, Technology and Design at Miami Dade College. “We plan to use AWS BugBust every semester as a platform for our students to showcase and enhance their coding skills, all while being part of an exciting bug-bashing event.”

Games For Love is a 501(c)(3) public charity dedicated to easing suffering, saving lives, and creating sustainable futures for children. “While code review is part of our development process, flaws sometimes pass through the inspection and verification phase before production,” said Nathan Blair, Founder and CEO at Games For Love. “AWS BugBust has revolutionized our code review process and empowered developers to get code quality right, in a uniform manner, and enable them to celebrate their bug-bashing achievements. Moreover, our developers can use the machine learning-powered recommendations with Amazon CodeGuru to also improve their coding skills.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Paves Way For Mass Deployment of Open RAN in 5G Networks with Industry-First Open RAN Solution Stack

New Delhi – Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)  announced the HPE Open RAN Solution Stack to enable the commercial deployment of Open RAN at scale in global 5G networks. The HPE Open RAN Solution Stack includes HPE’s orchestration and automation software, RAN specific infrastructure blueprints and telco optimized infrastructure. HPE service management and orchestration software supports telco networks from the core to the edge, reducing risk and allowing operators to seize the benefits of 5G. The HPE Open RAN Solution Stack also features the new HPE ProLiant DL110 Gen10 Plus server – the industry’s first Open RAN (radio access network) workload optimized server.

The HPE Open RAN Solution Stack has been developed by HPE’s newly formed Communications Technology Group (CTG), which offers one of the broadest telco portfolios in the market, and has been created to help telcos and enterprises take advantage of the huge 5G market opportunity with a family of open, interoperable solution stacks. The HPE Open RAN Solution Stack follows in the footsteps of the HPE 5G Core Stack that was unveiled in March last year. The solutions are linked with a common orchestration platform which supports telcos deploying resources and applications from the telco core to the edge. Both solutions are underpinned by an ecosystem of partners, with industry leaders already working to test and optimize their Open RAN software with the HPE Open RAN Solution Stack.

Global communications networks are undergoing a major transformation. 5G has been developed with open standards, allowing network operators to move away from proprietary single vendor systems on which previous generation networks were built. 5G standards give network operators the ability to mix and match best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple vendors into both the RAN and the core. These open technologies are being pursued vigorously by global telcos, industry bodies, and governments as they promise to create greater competition, lower costs, and boost innovation.

Open, cloud-native 5G networks are built on industry standard IT hardware running virtualized networks and technology advancements are now enabling the benefits of this disaggregation to also be applied to 5G RAN. HPE is contributing to the O-RAN Alliance and the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) who are driving this major industry shift. With the introduction of the HPE Open RAN Solution Stack, telcos can prepare for the commercial adoption of Open RAN at scale. HPE has more than 30 years of experience designing, building and tuning telco-grade infrastructure and software, and is bringing its unique telco expertise to bear with this pre-integrated, hardened RAN infrastructure platform.

“By driving innovation from edge to cloud through secure, open solution stacks, HPE aims to become the transformation catalyst for the 5G economy,” said Phil Mottram, SVP and GM, Communications Technology Group, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. “We have collaborated with customers and partners to build the HPE Open RAN Solution Stack from the ground up to meet the unique demands of Open RAN deployments. The HPE ProLiant DL110 Gen10 Plus server is the industry’s first Open RAN workload optimized server, allowing telcos to deliver efficiencies, reduce operational complexity, simplify the infrastructure, and futureproof the radio access network.”

Accelerating the commercial deployment of Open RAN

The HPE Open RAN Solution Stack allows telcos to allocate resources where needed, delivering increased network agility, efficiency and flexibility. Designed from the ground up to support RAN workloads, the HPE Open RAN Solution Stack enables customers to futureproof their RAN and protect their investment by gaining the ability to support new multivendor technologies in a low risk environment.

The key to deploying Open RAN at scale is the ability to manage and orchestrate workloads across thousands of edge sites. HPE’s tried and tested management and orchestration software is ready for deployment in live Open RAN instances. It brings key innovations, including intent-based orchestration and AI/ML based automation solutions. This allows telcos to manage thousands of virtual machines (VMs), and hundreds of different virtual network functions (VNFs) and containerized network functions (CNFs) across the entire network.

Another crucial element is access to low risk, pre-validated telco-optimized technology blueprints. The small number of open RAN deployments currently live are built on bespoke configurations that are not designed to be replicated across thousands of sites. Telco Infrastructure Blueprints from HPE solve this challenge, reducing the risk, complexity and speed of deployment, whilst allowing for software from a variety of vendors. HPE is collaborating with Intel to develop a verified reference configuration built to help customers simplify the path to virtualized RAN (vRAN), establishing a foundation of hardened hardware, firmware and software that reduces time to market and operational complexities for both telcos and technology partners.

HPE CTG is committed to creating a vibrant ecosystem of partners to reduce the risk of deploying open, multivendor 5G networks. The HPE 5G Core Stack has already gained support from many industry leaders and with the launch of the HPE Open RAN Solution Stack, HPE is encouraging telcos, systems integrators, network equipment providers, and software vendors to come together to test, validate and pre-integrate their Open RAN technologies in order to deliver open, best of breed solutions.

The HPE Open RAN Solution Stack is launched with the brand new HPE ProLiant DL110 Gen10 Plus server that is highly optimized for the vRAN workloads that telcos demand:

· Open, standards-based architecture — Supporting multi-vendor software-based RAN solutions

· Powerful compute capabilities — Backed by upcoming 3rd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors delivering the performance and low power consumption required for RAN sites

· Carrier-grade ruggedized NEBS Level 3 and GR 3108-compliant platform — Designed for the far edge

· Reduced overall power consumption and footprint — Supporting the functionality of baseband unit, fronthaul gateway and cell site router in a highly optimized single short-depth 1U/1P server

· Accelerator options — Driving the performance-sensitive, packet-processing vRAN workload

· Consistency from core to edge — Delivering the trusted HPE ProLiant security and manageability experience, including silicon root of trust

The HPE ProLiant DL110 Gen10 Plus server is the latest addition to HPE’s comprehensive hardware portfolio for communications service providers, which also includes HPE Edgeline Converged Edge Systems. The Edgeline EL8000 family of rugged multi-blade servers offer a large-accelerator capability and can also accommodate a variety of 5G vRAN scenarios, as well as non-RAN workload such as multi-access edge compute (MEC). The HPE ProLiant DL360 is also a good option for centralized RAN deployment.

5G Core trials by Orange and HPE

Now generally available worldwide, the HPE 5G Core Stack is an open, cloud-native, containerized 5G core network software stack that unlocks the full potential of 5G. It offers slicing and end-to-end automation, enabling telcos to deliver differentiated quality services across their existing and future networks.

Orange, one of the world’s largest mobile network operators, is on a journey to transform to an open, multivendor cloud approach for 5G. The company is conducting multiple trials to ensure it is ready for this significant transformation. A demo with HPE and Casa Systems at their Lab in France was successfully realized last year.

“In 2020 together with HPE, we achieved the first call on a multivendor 5G standalone network chain. Now we are going further and are testing the concept of a 100% software-based, data and AI-driven, fully automated 5G Core,” said Emmanuel Bidet, VP, Convergent Networks Control, Orange Group. “HPE is an important partner with a long history in core networks and OSS systems, a good understanding of our multivendor needs, and experience of horizontal and vertical integration from application to infrastructure. HPE brings a set of cloud native, standards-compliant network functions, and the automation of slice management that can be replicated for end to end integration in each country. The first results are really encouraging and Orange appreciate the strong involvement from HPE teams.”

With the HPE 5G Core Stack, telcos can bring in network functions as needed, enabling them to respond to market developments, avoid vendor lock-in and futureproof the network for forthcoming milestones in 5G standards. It can be deployed, tested and commissioned in less than an hour – more than 10x faster than a traditional core solution. It is simple to operate and offers unlimited scalability thanks to its true cloud-native design.

In line with the founding principle of HPE CTG, the HPE 5G Core Stack combines the best of HPE’s software and hardware expertise with this solution available today as a pre-integrated software and hardware platform via HPE GreenLake. By deploying the HPE 5G Core Stack on a pay-as-you-use basis with HPE Greenlake, telcos can deploy a 5G core network with reduced risk and little upfront investment by aligning costs to the number of subscribers.

HPE – a trusted and proven partner to telcos

HPE CTG continues a legacy of more than 30 years of experience in the telecoms industry, with more than 300 telco customers in 160 countries and 850 million mobile devices worldwide connected to HPE software. HPE CTG plays an important role in advancing HPE’s edge-to-cloud platform as-a-service strategy and uniquely brings together both enterprise and telco solutions that can bridge from the enterprise edge, across the telco network into multiple clouds. The CTG portfolio includes: open, cloud-native, flexible solutions; pre-integrated stacks and blueprints; automation and operations software; secure, resilient carrier-grade IT infrastructure; and enterprise connectivity with edge networking solutions from Aruba.

Availability

The HPE ProLiant DL110 Gen10 Plus server will be available worldwide in Q2 2021.

 

Gyan Dairy is eyeing aggressive expansion and growth through its product portfolio

With a mission to deliver the purest and freshest dairy products to its consumers, Gyan Dairy, the Lucknow based dairy brand is bullish over expanding its markets and entering new regions.

Gyan Dairy has witnessed a sharp increase in the revenue from GHEE alone by 30% over the last year and is eyeing entering into eastern region. The brand is one of the most preferred and rapidly expanding fresh milk and dairy product brand in UP for 13 years that resonates with freshness and purity.

With their revenue-generating product, GHEE, the brand has given the product extensive retail push backed with wider visibility. The product is now available at new channels of modern trade and e-commerce (Flipkart,Amazon, bigbasket, easy day). Additionally, the brand is entering new markets with their product GHEE in Bihar, Jharkhand, parts of North East &West Bengal.

The strategy is to strengthen their presence and footprint grow gradually into new markets.

Commenting on the extension plan, Mr. Venkataramani Santhanam, VP, Sales & Marketing, Gyan Dairy, said, “Our expansion plan is very robust and we are aggressively moving eastwards, strategically entering Bihar, W. Bengal and North Eastern markets with our Desi Ghee and Cow Ghee. Our production plant at Gudamba, Lucknow is state of art production unit, having installed capacity 1000 tons per month. Our endeavor is to give the consumers a chance to try a wide range of quality ghee and our other dairy products”.

Gyan Desi Ghee is available in 3 types of packs- tetra, jar and tin while Gyan cow ghee is available in tetra packs of ½ and 1 ltr. All Gyan products are prepared and packaged in accordance with the highest standards of health and hygiene to ensure its freshness and most importantly, the safety of consumers.

The brand has witnessed a subsequent growth since its inception and has made a name for itself for fresh and pure dairy products. The seamless supply of fresh milk, product innovations and consumer centric services have all added up to the growing success of the brand. The products range boasts several USPs which altogether give it a distinct competitive edge over its counterparts. Ethically sourced from the farmers, Gyan Dairy products reaches from farm to table using advanced technology and it remains untouched by human hands even when it passes through multilevel quality checks. Such purity and freshness make the product range most favoured and a household name in UP.

Amazon India’s second edition of the ‘Smbhav’ summit on April 15-18, 2021…

Bangalore: Amazon India today announced that it will host the second edition of ‘Amazon Smbhav’ from April 15-18th, 2021. Smbhav 2021 will bring together important industry and thought leaders for invigorating discussions on way ahead towards creating an AatmaNirbharBharat by unlocking possibilities for businesses and entrepreneurs through partnership with Amazon. Amazon Smbhav will be a four-day virtual summit hosted around the theme of ‘Unlocking Infinite Possibilities for India’ across sectors like manufacturing, retail, logistics, IT/ITeS, content creators, start-ups, brands and entrepreneurs across India. Over 30,000 participants are expected to participate at Amazon Smbhav, learning about best practices and industry trends from over 70 speakers.

‘Smbhav’ Amazon’s annual flagship summit is a virtual mega summit to share how Amazon and its partners leverage digital technologies to innovate for Indian customers, entrepreneurs and small businesses. At Smbhav 2020, Amazon pledged to invest an additional $1 billion to digitise 10 million MSMEs, generate $10 billion in cumulated exports from India and create an additional 1 million jobs in India by 2025.

“Smbhav 2021 is a step to showcase Amazon’s commitment to being a strong partner in making the 21st century the Indian century. As we continue to work with a gamut of Indian businesses and entrepreneurs, we are committed to bringing to them tools, technology and innovation that empower the Indian economy, help create jobs at scale and unleash entrepreneurial agility in companies of all kinds and sizes. Smbhav 2021 will therefore be a unique platform offering opportunities to unlock these possibilities towards an AatmaNirbharBharat”, says Manish Tiwary, VP, Amazon India on the event.

The thought leaders will virtually connect with the Smbhav 2021 audience for keynote addresses, panel discussions, and workshops. The summit will primarily focus on four key pillars – Innovation, Skilling & Job Creation, Digitization, Exports & Startup Enablement. The summit will bring together diverse perspectives from eminent business leaders, policymakers, solution providers and Amazon leadership on areas that are most relevant for India’s growth.

A key highlight of the summit will be the annual “Amazon Smbhav Awards” that recognize businesses, innovators and individuals who have made significant progress in their respective areas and have contributed towards building an AatmaNirbharBharat. Amazon will also host the ‘Amazon Smbhav Startup Pitch Competition’ that will offer rewards like cash prize, AWS credits, VC mentorship opportunities among many more to the winners. In addition, Amazon will host an ‘Amazon Smbhav Hackathon’ that will provide an opportunity to individuals and startups to present breakthrough ideas that have the potential to solve real-world problems in the areas of business innovation, sustainability & healthcare.

Barracuda Networks Threat Predictions 2021 reveal that there will be an increase in denial of service (DDOS) attacks, ransomware, business email compromise and malware-based attacks

India:  Barracuda Networks, a trusted partner and a leading provider of cloud-enabled security solutions, revealed predictions that will shape the future of enterprise security in the coming year. It indicated that the threats of today will continue to target the weakest link in the chain, which normally is the human element. Year 2021 will witness many of the key trends in 2020 to continue.

  • Distributed enterprises and remote workers

Considering that in a span of a few weeks, companies went from 10% of workers being remote to over 90% of workers moving to remote, by 2021 we will see many of them slowly bringing back some key workers to their facilities and adopting measures that will give their employees flexibility if they can maintain productivity. While many companies had some experience of setting up temporary and limited remote access for contractors and vendors, every company will need to make sure they have clear processes and controls for managing a large percentage of their employees remotely for extended periods. Every company will need to have policies and procedures for managing remote access.

  • Accelerated migration to cloud adoption

Meanwhile, there will be an accelerated adoption of cloud services. First, new applications are being delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS) instead of on-premises implementation. Second, and more importantly, existing on-premises applications are also migrating faster to the cloud. 2020 was that inflection point for many with the cloud. COVID-19 forced many companies to significantly accelerate their migration to cloud services to address shutdowns and remote workers. IT executives will need to understand whether and how the assets and services delivered in the public cloud are adhering to compliance regimes as more and more capabilities are now delivered as cloud services. In addition, as more and more companies are exposed to threats that impact the privacy of their customers or enterprises, the risk of breaches will require IT security executives to be able to effectively communicate and execute plans that encourage and require other teams to enforce compliance.

  • Shortage of key resources to help mitigate growing security issues that will take advantages of the new reality

There will be a continued shortage of cybersecurity talent to help mitigate security issues, despite the recession and COVID-19 job losses. Attacks will also increase to take advantage of the new reality like distracted workers, global pandemic, cost pressures from the recession, remote access, accelerated adoption of cloud services. Each of these alone would be cause for concern for cybersecurity professionals. All these macro trends happening simultaneously demands the highest level of vigilance against those who would take advantage of these situations.

However, security executives will need to achieve the same level of security or more with tighter budgets due to the economic recession. There will be a growing need for security executives to get fully comfortable with novel cloud-centric security architecture. Additionally, 5G adoption will start to get more tangible in many regions of the world. IT security executives will need to come up with a more holistic understanding of risk and adequate protection measures as it pertains to the entire corporate network, including OT and industrial IoT environments

  • Zero Trust Network Access solutions are the way forward for enterprises to keep risks at bay

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed work habits, which means corporate endpoints will be predominately used outside the perimeter of the corporate network in work-from-home environments. This will require organizations to review their current endpoint security and compliance enforcement approaches. As more consumers and businesses are becoming aware of the data breaches, there will be increasing discussion about the role of trust in security. While the concepts like Zero Trust and micro-segmentation are emerging as ideal ways to decrease attack surfaces, these solutions will be part of a broader approach that will leverage social graphs and machine learning to identify issues and enforce trust relationships.

Speaking on these security predictions, Hatem Naguib, COO, Barracuda Networks said, “In 2021, we foresee the threat landscape to become more challenging and COVID-19 will continue to impact security in many ways. Every industry needs to make sure it is prepared to deal with security issues. IT security executives should make sure these plans include security compliance checks that are straightforward and quick to implement without having a long-term impact on productivity. In addition, thorough and comprehensive backup and recovery solutions will be critical. Any business that has customers, employees, and transactions is a target. Healthcare, infrastructure (utilities), and government are more vulnerable than normal as they have stretched resources and will continue to be target-rich environments for those who would use simple methods like spear phishing, malware, and ransomware to create the most damage.”

Emerging security technologies in 2021

There is no reason to believe the threats of today will not be the threats of tomorrow. There will just be more of them, and they will be more effective and continue to see a proliferation of distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, ransomware, business email compromise, and malware-based attacks. These attacks will be more successful as companies deal with a series of events that have changed the attack surface.

Considering the enterprise security trends, it is clear that there will be a sharp increase in the demand for cybersecurity talent next year. Solutions that move security closer to the edge (people, places, and things) will become much more popular in 2021.

  • Classic gateway-based solutions will be augmented by CESS solutions

In email protection, classic gateway-based solutions will be augmented by Cloud Email Supplemental Security (CESS) solutions that leverage API access and social graphs/artificial intelligence/machine learning to mitigate messaging-based attacks. More such solutions will be used to address the threats on collaboration-based tools such as Zoom, Slack, and Teams. These platforms have become very popular tools for collaboration and are susceptible to the same type of attacks that we see with email.

  • SD-WAN solutions have become more prevalent

Secure Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) solutions have become more prevalent. As public cloud adoption increases, many companies have started to leverage Azure, Google, and Amazon backbones as a delivery vehicle for their own WAN. This makes sense as more applications and services are delivered on these cloud services and their points of presence continue to expand worldwide.

  • Zero Trust is the new standard in secure remote access

With remote workers and cloud-delivered services becoming a de facto part of every business, solutions that manage access at the highest level of granularity with the least level of complexity to setup and manage, will become more popular in 2021. Trust-based solutions that implement Zero Trust and other trust-based solutions will be effective mechanisms to manage privileged access to services. Traditionally, customers used complicated solutions like NAC or VPN. In 2021, we will see great adoption of lightweight solutions that quickly and effectively manage access at the device and individual level.

To this, Klaus Gheri, VP, Network Security, Barracuda Networks added, “Cybercrime will go where money can be made. By 2021, the market will start adjusting to the major and lasting shift that COVID-19 has caused in corporate work environments. Security products and architectures will be under increasing pressure to be flexible to deploy and operate, minimally invasive to the users, and as effective as possible without conflicting with the privacy legislation in various regions of the world.”

In addition, the physical world is expected to respond to concerns about privacy and security with increased local legislation to ensure companies are implementing and maintaining the highest level of protocols to protect themselves. There will be a continued sharp increase in the demand for cybersecurity talent into 2021 as every company will have to implement measures and augment their resources to manage and monitor solutions for addressing the COVID-19 mayhem.