Category business

Mumbai, March 1st, 2023: The final countdown begins and it’s time for you to start building your cart! Zivame, India’s No 1 D2C intimate wear brand announced the arrival of “The Grand Lingerie Festival” (GLF)- India’s biggest intimate wear sale. The sale is scheduled to start from Wednesday, March 1st, 8PM. Endorsed by the cheerful Kriti Sanon, this edition of The Grand Lingerie Festival offers consumer’s 50000+ styles across 100+ brands!

One of India’s most popular shopping events, Zivame’s Grand Lingerie Festival offers intimate wear for women for all her different occasions, moods and outfits. Along with Kriti Sanon, the event is being endorsed by popular TV faces across geographies from Krsyal D’Souza, Shanvi Srivastava, Malvika Menon, Aanchal Mujhal among others.

The brand has also roped in top influencers to create buzz around the event and encourage consumers to refresh their wardrobe for the upcoming ssummer season. The event will be promoted across multiple channels, including a large scale TV campaign, radio campaign, magazine ads across top metros and investments across digital channels.

Speaking about GLF, Khatija Lokhandwala, Head- Marketing, Zivame, said, “The Grand Lingerie Festival is a magnificent affair that celebrates intimate wear and gives consumers an opportunity to indulge in all that their hearts desire. Our campaign for the event aims to showcase the anticipation and excitement of shopping at the biggest intimate wear sale of the year and we hope that consumers will enjoy shopping their hearts out on account of the huge range of styles, attractive discounts, and fun games and contests”

Paytm UPI LITE enables users with quick and seamless transactions at a lightning fast speed on Paytm Super App. Users can carry out multiple transactions of smaller values of up to Rs 200 at one point. It allows users to add a maximum of Rs 2,000 twice a day, resulting in a total daily usage of up to Rs 4,000, at a single tap.

Paytm UPI LITE offers faster real-time transactions as no 4-6 digit PIN is required to make any payment. Owing to the ease, convenience, superior user experience, security and interoperability, Paytm UPI is the most preferred choice of users. Paytm UPI LITE is an ‘on-device wallet’ which enables real-time small value payments which reduces the load on the core banking system.

Currently, customers of UPI can only set up UPI LITE accounts. Also, users need to ensure that their bank supports UPI LITE features. Users can transfer UPI balance back to the same bank account anytime, without incurring any charges. It also declutters bank statements, with only one entry for all UPI LITE payments.

Paytm UPI LITE aims to make smaller value transactions hassle-free, quick and seamless. It also improves the success rate for UPI transactions while reducing the infrastructure load on the remitter bank’s systems. The process is so simple that users will be able to make smaller value transactions while paying for the groceries or topping up the phone balance with one-click single-factor authentication.

Making the entire experience quick and seamless, the company enables the users to conduct multiple transactions in a day up to Rs 4,000 in a single click without worrying about cap on the number of bank transactions. Paytm is the fastest in the industry with one of the lowest transaction failure rates in carrying out UPI transactions.

India, March 1, 2023: Wise, the global technology company building the best way to move and manage money is today rolling out a new look and feel. This comes as the company announced that it has reached 16 million customers served worldwide, and revealed plans for further global expansion.

The complete visual makeover features a fresh green palette and a bold new font, and draws from global currencies, languages, alphabets and places around the world.

Designed to make the Wise customer experience consistent regardless of the place or language they sign up in, the look also underscores Wise’s mission to build money without borders and its ambition to create a fast, convenient, cost-effective and transparent global alternative to the traditional correspondent system.

With around 6 million active customers moving over £25 billion each quarter, the company welcomes around 100,000 new customers every week.

Wise continues to take on the world

First launched in 2011, Wise continues to invest in expanding its unique international account offer and underlying infrastructure:

• Wise Account: The world’s first international account for people, the account enables customers to send, spend, receive and hold money in 50+ currencies. Wise most recently introduced “Interest” in Assets in the UK, and “Balance Cashback” in Europe to the account 一 features to allow customers to earn a return on the money they hold in Wise, without compromising on their ability to instantly access their money when they need. Today, Wise also announced the launch of Assets in Singapore, and the feature will become available to customers in Europe next.
• In India and Israel, Wise has secured licences to launch more services including the multi-currency account and card soon.
• In addition, Wise is enabling customers to send funds to 11 more mobile wallets in Asia, including Touch n Go in Malaysia, GrabPay in the Philippines and ShopeePay in Indonesia.
• Wise Business: The one account for international businesses, Wise Business offers everything the personal account has along with business specific tools like multi-user access, approval workflows, integrations into accounting software like Xero and expense cards for employees. Wise Business is used by over 300,000 businesses each quarter. In the US, Wise has begun rolling out cards to LLCs and sole proprietors.
• Wise Platform: More than 60 banks and large businesses including GooglePay, Deel and Monzo offer their own customers faster, cheaper and more efficient international payments, powered by Wise, through Wise Platform partnerships. Wise Platform today also went live with Bank Mandiri, Indonesia’s largest bank by assets and global employment platform multiplier. Wise Platform also grew existing partnerships by building a new withdrawal service for Tiger Brokers’ investors to withdraw from their trading account quickly at the mid-market exchange rate.

Kristo Käärmann, co-founder and CEO of Wise commented:

“Our new look is inspired by the millions of people and businesses worldwide that use Wise today. It draws from where they come from, but also represents the excitement of the world open for them to conquer.

“Over the past year we’ve introduced new features to make Wise more useful to our customers, and made payments faster. We now deliver over half our payments to their recipient in less than 20 seconds. We also helped our customers save on fees 一 £1.5 billion compared to banks in 2022 alone.

“But there’s a long way to go. People and businesses are still being duped by hidden fees, and losing over £180 billion each year to their banks. This is money they could have otherwise used to pay bills, expand their businesses or even save for a rainy day. We don’t accept it and we’re committed to solving this for everyone, everywhere.”

The new look is rolling out across Wise’s website and mobile apps, and across the company’s digital channels such as social media over the day from 7am GMT/123 pm IST.

Bangalore, 1 March 2023: Asia’s largest Integrated Learning Skilling & Workforce development company upGrad today announced Dan Rosensweig, a longtime Silicon Valley Executive joining its Board of Directors. He comes on board as an Independent Non-Executive Director and joins the current senior representatives from Singapore-based investor Temasek and International Finance Corporation (IFC).

As President and CEO of Chegg (NYSE: CHGG) since 2010, Dan Rosensweig has transformed the company into the leading, student-first connected learning platform. Dan also serves on the Board of Adobe and is a senior advisor to TPG Growth Ventures & Kleiner Perkins.

“I am excited to be joining upGrad’s Board of Directors as there has never been a better time to provide accessible and flexible higher education and skills training to learners around the world. By working in partnership with key universities and major technology enterprises, particularly in India, upGrad can help transform the workplace of tomorrow,” said Dan Rosensweig, President, and CEO of Chegg.

Adding to the development, Ronnie Screwvala, Co-founder & Chairperson of upGrad commented, “The US and India along with Asia are the two largest markets for Skilling & Learning Development and Dan brings with him a powerful global overview of this sector which in turn, shall continue to cement our corporate governance as we march ahead in our mission of disrupting the future of jobs and careers of tomorrow.”

1st, March 2023, Mumbai: EaseMyAI raised Rs 1.8 Cr in a Seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures (IPV). Started with an aim to develop innovative products with AI adoption, EaseMyAI emphasizes on creating simple, user-friendly products with drag & drop options to empower businesses to customize their solutions. This approach can help make AI more accessible to businesses of all sizes and sectors.

EaseMyAI has developed a product specializing in the automation of operations and processes, which is scalable and easy to deploy. The Company has filed a patent for an AI-based operating system. This will help businesses streamline their operations and improve their efficiency through automation, reducing costs, increasing productivity, and enhancing the quality of their services.

Madhukar Bhardwaj, VP, BD & Investments Inflection Point Ventures, says, “Majority of the companies, be it small or large, use CCTV or physical staff to do manual monitoring of safety, compliance and operations which is prone to error, cost ineffective and not scalable. EaseMyAI is tapping into this segment and is at the forefront of tech adoption using its computer vision and AI solutions across sectors thus accelerating rapid AI adoption. Their solutions and the platform is highly scalable and empowers companies with much smaller operations or even large ones with legacy systems to be next-gen tech ready thereby helping them grow faster.”

EaseMyAI provides this Robotic Process Automation (RPA) using computer vision and AI to automate repetitive tasks and reduce dependency on manpower. In Robotic process automation, AI has the decision-making power, making the platform effectively manage operations and compliance.

Gagan Randhawa, CEO, EaseMyAI, says, “Our vision is to create a family of tools so that enterprise customers can quickly & easily go for process automation. We are working on a smart centralized platform that helps customers to automate and monitor all processes online. If you want to get something done, first do it on your own and create an example for the team. IPV is more like a partner in growth where they not only helped us with funding but helped us in planning market strategy and connecting to potential business owners and made our journey relatively easier.”

Al in the computer vision market is estimated to grow from $15.9 billion to $51.3 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 26.3%. The growing need for quality inspection and automation, increasing demand for computer vision systems in non-traditional and emerging applications, and rising need for ASICs are the key factors driving the growth of the market.

EaseMyAI has catered to over 30 clients with some marquee names like Hitachi, Ericsson, Mundra Port, ICICI Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, and Treasure Inc. (a Japanese entity). Raising funds for growth, they are planning to further expand catering clients in Sri Lanka, UAE, Japan, and Singapore directly and the rest of the world through partners.

KOLKATA, March 1: The key to the success of businesses in Bengal lies in cultivating a never-say-die attitude and depending on the entrepreneur’s grit and determination to overcome obstacles even as the administration endeavours to hand-hold investors to the best of its ability, entrepreneurs, young and old, established and fledgling, agreed in a panel discussion titled BRANDS OF BENGAL, organised by TV9 Bangla on February 25, 2023.

The exercise was a part of TV9 Bangla’s endeavour to facilitate and stimulate brainstorming on issues that confront the state. In the past, TV9 Bangla has held a unique telethon on Bangaliana, or what constitutes Bengaliness and a trade fair to create a platform to bring together marketers and consumers across diverse product categories.

As many as 20 entrepreneurs from the state were felicitated for their business journeys and contribution to society.

Sujit Bose, minister in charge of department of fire and emergency services, who attended the event, congratulated TV9 Bangla for arranging discussions on topics that could inspire a few minds to embark on the path of entrepreneurship eschewing traditional job-seeking tendency. On this occasion, he also unveiled the Coffee Table Book on “Brands of Bengal” by TV9 Bangla.

Divided into four panels, the participants enthusiastically and animatedly discussed topics that were inextricably linked with the investment climate of the state. These were “Banglai byabshar sahajpath (Ease of Doing Business in Bengal)”, “Banglai Start-up: somosshya o sombhabona (Start-ups in Bengal: Problems and Prospects)”, “Banglar Shilpa: Kaal, Aaj, Kaal (Business of Bengal: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow)” and “Banglar shilpe medhar akal? (Bengal’s Industry Heading For Talent Drought?)”.

“On the parameter of ease of doing business, I feel Bengal has everything, but it lacks in the essential skill of projecting itself. Promoting the product and the brand in the market is the need of the hour. Bengal is rich in intellect, has a pool of talent in academics, culture and sports. Perhaps we are too harsh in criticising ourselves,” said Shankha Ghosh, Group CEO, Techno India Group.

“A good number of start-ups have started operating in Bengal in the past few years. More than 3,000 start-ups were registered to take the state to the fifth position in India. In the year 2020, during Covid, more than 30,000 companies were registered. Had there been lack of confidence among the local youths, so many initiatives wouldn’t have been launched,” argued Abhinav Gupta, Founder & MD, KGA Home Appliances.

Arun Kumar Dasgupta, principal, Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan mentioned how they regularly inspire their students to come up with business ideas and how several of them have already been accepted for seed funding.

Manoj Khosla, Founder & MD, Khosla Electronics said, “The government should come forward for facilitating entrepreneurs so that manufacturing can flourish. The ecosystem, thus, will generate business and increasing ease of business will help the investor take it forward. Bengal was initially an agrarian state, but now with IT, software, and designers coming on board, the mentality is changing. The society has to build skilled workers to help industry.”

“Small and ancillary industries should support each other to help scale up. The workers would also benefit from such an ecosystem. Bengal has cheap labour and raw material is easily available. Ease of business is growing in the state providing a fillip to expansion of business,” said Pradip Kumar Shaw, MD, Lancet Pharmaceuticals.

Dr Sujoy Ranjan Deb, director, Kolkata Heart Lung Centre & Research Institute remarked, “There is a demand for trained doctors, nurses and paramedical staff. Bengal was number one in the past, but recently a lot of people have migrated to the Southern states for treatment and medical facilities. Trained workforce can bring back the health business in our state. The post-Covid era provides us opportunity to set up heart, lungs, kidney centres and wellness clinics for which there is demand in Bengal.”

Echoing Dr Deb, the honorary secretary of Saroj Gupta, Cancer Centre and Research Institute Anjan Gupta agreed that meeting the demand of skilled employees and super-specialty medical practitioners has become a need of the hour to prevent movement of people to other states for treatment.

“To push the young generation towards business as a career goal, the family has to play a vital role,” asserted Rana Deb, founder and chairman, Modern Institute of Engineering & Technology. “The government should assist with cooperation, promotion and encouragement so that more startups can blossom in the state,” he added.

Himadri Shekhar Patra, MD, Baffeto, who launched a food delivery app a year and half ago in the state vouched that with a little grit and clarity of vision, one can even rise from a humble background to successfully nurture a business. He gave his own example to highlight that he would shortly employ about 2,000 youths to spread his business in a few districts of Bengal.

“TV9 Bangla Brands of Bengal rides the authenticity, accountability and trust that TV9 Bangla enjoys. We are honouring those who have achieved and are striving for excellence in their respective fields,” said Amritanshu Bhattacharya, managing editor, TV9 Bangla.

The institutions/entrepreneurs whose contribution to society were recognised includes the awardees and categories in the following:

Modern Institute of Engineering Technology (MIET) – Brand Excellence in Education (Engineering)

Lancet Pharmaceuticals- Brand Excellence in Pharmaceuticals

Baffeto – Brand Excellence in Food Delivery App

Dr Prakash Mallick – Brand Excellence in Homeopathy

SRMB – Brand Excellence in Infrastructure

JBG Hexa – Brand Excellence in Real Estate Ancillary

Khosla Electronics – Brand Excellence in Multi-Brand Electronics Retail Chain

KGA Home Appliances – Brand Excellence in Home Appliances and Televisions

Panjabi Museum and Sareer Hut – Brand Excellence in Ethnic Wear

Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan – Brand Excellence in Education

JIS Group – Brand Excellence in Education Conglomerate

Adi Mohini Mohan Kanjilal – Brand Excellence in Sarees and Contemporary Fashion

Sister Nivedita University (SNU) – Brand Excellence in Private University

Indian Institute of Hotel Management (IIHM) – Brand Excellence in Hospitality Management

Dr Sohini Sastri – Brand Excellence in Life Coaching and Motivation

Saburi Plywoods – Brand Excellence in Product Innovation

Kolkata Heart Lung Centre & Research Institute (KHLC) – Brand Excellence in Hospital (Cardiac and Pulmonology)

Saroj Gupta Cancer Centre and Research Institute – Brand Excellence in Cancer Treatment in Eastern India

Sasta Arogya – Brand Excellence in Pharmacy

Rumpa Jewellery – Brand Excellence in Gold Plated Jewellery

Watch TV9 Bangla Brands of Bengal on 5th March from 4 pm onwards.

New Delhi, 1 March 2023: In its endeavour of driving change and making a positive impact in the local communities, McDonald’s India – North and East is planning to hire 50% of its workforce by 2025 i.e 1500 people through non-government organizations. For this, McDonald’s India – North and East has launched the community campaign ‘McDonald’s For Youth’ – that aims to meaningfully contribute towards India’s growth story by providing gainful employment prospects to the local communities, especially the less-privileged. So far, the brand has hired more than 500 young people over the last year, partnering with several reputed not-for-profit organizations such as Magic Bus, Tech Mahindra foundation, Quess Corp Foundation, and Tarraqi, amongst others.

For most people hired through the ‘McDonald’s For Youth’ initiative, it being their first job, is an important milestone in their walk of life. Besides being their first source of income, these young minds benefit from the McDonald’s global training curriculum through which they acquire right skills and knowledge desired to succeed in their career path. This includes skills such as food safety and hygiene practices, safe food handling, customer service, communication, teamwork etc. McDonald’s has a proud legacy of shaping hospitality professionals by imbibing the right attitude, empathy, and passion in people with its robust training programs.

Talking about the initiative, Rajeev Ranjan, Managing Director, McDonald’s India – North and East, said, “‘McDonalds for Youth’ is a campaign through which we aim to offer gainful employment for the youth, especially youth from the under-privileged communities who have limited education and employment opportunities. We aim to hire 50% of our entry level workforce under this initiative, invest in their overall growth and development through our world class high-quality training and learning programs. This initiative is much more than filling open positions – it is about being a part of the local communities, and is an attempt to make them a part of us. We invite more organizations to join us in our endeavour to dismantle the barriers to equal opportunities, dismantle barriers to economic growth and empower the youth to excel in their work and life.”

McDonald’s India- North and East aims to create a ripple effect by leading positive change extending far beyond the walls of the restaurants and serving brighter futures. This visionary effort endeavours to address one of the most pressing issues facing our world today: providing equal opportunities and a better future for all. By collaborating with NGOs and leading the way in creating opportunities for underprivileged individuals, McDonald’s India -North and East hopes to be a catalyst for change while helping to shape a brighter future for India.

Visakhapatnam 1st March 2023: The Novotel Visakhapatnam Varun Beach and The Bheemili Resort managed by Accor hotel recently appointed Sai Kumar P as their Talent & Culture Manager. Sai Kumar brings with him a wealth of experience and knowledge, having worked in the hospitality industry for over 6 years. Sai Kumar will be responsible for overseeing the overall functions of human resources at the Novotel Visakhapatnam, Varun Beach, and The Bheemili Resort. He will work closely with the cluster general manager and the team to ensure that the hotel attracts and retains the best talent, creates a positive and engaging workplace culture, and provides exceptional guest experiences.

Throughout his career, Sai Kumar has demonstrated a passion for the core business, an ability to understand business goals and recommend new processes to drive achievement, and superb communication skills, including effective listening and writing. He has a powerful mindset and purposeful heart, and has received numerous awards and honors for his exceptional work, including the IHC Best Hospitality Professional Award and the Going Above & Beyond – Resilient Talent & Culture Manager Award given by Accor in the year 2022.

On this appointment, Ravi Rai, Cluster General Manager of Novotel Visakhapatnam Varun Beach, Novotel Vijayawada, and The Bheemili Resort managed by Accor, commented, “We are pleased to have Sai Kumar as our new Talent & Culture Manager, and I am glad that with his extensive experience in the industry will make him an exceptional addition to our leadership team. I have no doubt that he will bring fresh perspectives and innovative ideas to our organization and help us continue to attract and retain top talent.”

Sai Kumar is a talented HR professional with a Master of Business Administration (MBA) focused in Human Resource Management & Sales and Marketing from Visvesvaraya Technological University. He is a passionate and motivated leader who connects and collaborates easily with people, and has consistently exhibited high levels of discretion, integrity, and confidentiality in every path of his career.

Mumbai, 1st March 2023: With the significant uptick in demand for skilled professionals in the country, Scaler, one of India’s fastest-growing tech upskilling startups, recently launched ‘Scaler Topics’, a gamified free learn-to-code platform that can provide quality technical content for anyone interested in software-related subjects. Since its pilot launch five months ago, Scaler Topics currently witnesses a monthly average of 20 lakh users interacting with video courses from Scaler’s top instructors from top tech companies like Google, Facebook, etc., and reading articles written by tech veterans. The platform continues to show over 50% month-over-month growth.

The ‘Scaler Topics’ platform provides streamlined technical content across all fields related to tech, data science, and machine learning for individuals passionate about learning and building a career in many in-demand domains with assisted videos from mentors, even with no prior knowledge in their chosen field. In addition to the video courses, the platform provides a wide range of free material to software enthusiasts through interactive challenges, events, contests, and detailed article threads by industry experts. With gamification inherently built into the user experience, Scaler intends to provide an interactive platform of convenience for learners. Industry veterans with an in-depth understanding of the skills required for budding software professionals conduct regular masterclass sessions on various topics, including C++, Java, SQL, Data Science, Machine Learning and Python. The platform garners over 90 million monthly search impressions, seeing over 100,000 daily users. It hosts over 4500 articles created by industry experts, 25+ video courses from top Scaler Instructors who have been industry veterans, and 3000+ interactive challenges to learn and compete. Over 150,000 users have signed up for free courses on the Scaler Topics platform.

Abhimanyu Saxena, Co-founder, InterviewBit & Scaler, said, There is a daunting challenge to democratise tech education in the country. Over 2 million jobs in AI, cybersecurity and blockchains are expected to remain unfilled in 2023. Due to the inaccessibility of quality content, particularly coding skills in demand in the tech industry, it is essential to provide a comprehensive learning platform that is understandable even for a Class 10 student from any part of the country. It was our thought process behind developing Scaler Topics. Offering well-researched live sessions, ideated and conducted by industry experts having worked at top tech companies for free, is the first step in this direction. With this program, we want to broaden our horizon by making quality technical content available to any tech aspirants in any part of the country to receive the required support during their learning journey. Scaler Topics allows us to demonstrate key pillars of Scaler’s teaching philosophy: Structured curriculum, from people who have been there done that, high quality, comprehensiveness.”

Scaler had also recently launched a mobile app on Google Play Store called ‘Learn Programming-Scaler’, a one-stop solution for a tech professional’s learning and upskilling needs, allowing learners to experience Scaler’s quality teaching, watch courses, read articles from the comfort of their mobile device as well. Scaler Topics content and other genres, including access to various upcoming regional events, provide an immersive learning experience by allowing users to learn on the go in their preferred medium. The company has also introduced Scaler coins, which can be earned by reading articles, solving coding challenges and multiple choice questions on topics that interest them. These coins can be redeemed for Scaler merchandise like t-shirts, mugs, diaries, top tech books, and scholarships for its Scaler Academy and Scaler Data Science & Machine Learning (DSML) courses.

Scaler has witnessed significant growth and progress in the last year, with the startup continuing to maintain a consistent month-over-month growth of 15 per cent. The edtech player achieved a $710 million valuation with a $55 million Series B funding, which helped Scaler focus on multiple key business areas. During the year, the startup forayed into the US market, launched first-of-its-kind co-living campuses, strengthened its leadership team, and launched a master’s program.

Bengaluru, 1st March 2023 Sattva Group, one of India’s leading Property Development, Management, and Consulting organizations, today announced the launch of its much-awaited residential project, Sattva Bliss. Strategically located close to Budigere Cross, just off Old Madras Road in the bustling city of Bengaluru, the beautiful homes offer dwellers a blissful experience. As Bengaluru is poised for further growth, which this part of the city has already started experiencing, Budigere Cross has all the prerequisites to become a much sought after residential and commercial destination in the near future.

The project consisting of 1, 2, and 3 BHK apartments will be set on 3.3 acres of land, built on three magnificent towers, offering breathtaking views of the greenery and much more. Additionally, the community has beautiful landscaping, top-notch amenities, and great connectivity. It aims to become the setting for your ideal life, with a calm atmosphere. Sattva Bliss provides everything a family needs to maintain their upscale lifestyle, while remaining in harmony with nature, in order to meet the rise in demand among nature lovers and desire for a low-density lifestyle.

Commenting on the announcement, Ms. Karishmah Siingh, VP – Sales, CRM & Marketing, Sattva Group said, “We want Sattva Bliss to be the ideal option for aspirational property buyers and investors, while also satisfying the demand of active homeseekers. We firmly believe that the location is one of the prominent USPs of the project for it has the potential to become a hub for all-round development, resulting in a high ROI, should one invest in residential assets and earn through rentals.”

These well-packaged units come with unmatched quality and a sustainable outlook, to ensure that the project meets customers’ evolving needs and our collective responsibility towards nature. With meticulous planning and well-thought-out infrastructure, Sattva Bliss offers unique green features including jogging tracks, outdoor gym and a kid’s play area. Making it all the more lucrative are multiple rejuvenation amenities such as Half Basketball Court, Cricket Practice Pitch, Skating Rink, Multipurpose Court, Swimming Pool etc. These amenities aim to provide an indulgent and carefree lifestyle for the residents and at the same time provide families with the ideal mix of living in nature with urban amenities.