.@titanwatches partners with @amazon to enter into #US market

Under the partnership, Amazon through its Global Selling Program will enable Titan to take its vast range of watches to global customers on Amazon.com in the US and eventually across other Amazon marketplaces. Through this collaboration, Titan watches will now become easily available to millions of overseas Amazon customers.
 

.@titanwatches partners with @amazon to enter into #US market pic.twitter.com/jwulQ5eWxg

— Press Release Watch (@PrReleaseWatch) August 9, 2017

Sharing his views on the partnership, S Ravikant, CEO, Watches and Accessories, Titan Company Limited said, “Somewhere in the world a Titan watch is being purchased every three seconds. While this is a reflection of Titan’s popularity, it is also propelling us to expand our boundaries. Titan has over 200 million customers and 7000 retail stores spread over 30+ different countries. But with global demand heading north, Titan is westward bound; our entry into the US via Amazon’s Global Selling Program allows us access directly to the American market. We are very pleased to partner with Amazon and we are certain that we will be able to offer value for money to our mainstream online global consumers seamlessly through this partnership.”

“We are thrilled to have Titan, one of India’s most recognized and loved lifestyle brand, onboard and are excited to help fuel the brand’s growth by offering unprecedented reach to global consumers. Through this program, we will offer Titan an end-to-end solution and help the brand cater to the growing appetite for quality Indian products amongst global consumers. Since its inception in 2015, our Global Selling Program has grown multifold and has been constantly taking ‘Made in India’ products global. We are delighted that the program is enabling emerging companies as well as iconic Indian brands such as Titan to leverage the opportunity to access a large base of hundreds of millions of Amazon customers.” said  Gopal Pillai, Director & GM, Seller Services, Amazon India.

@tata_comm to sell 74% of data centre biz for $635m to ST Telemedia

Tata Communications has signed a definitive agreement with ST Telemedia, a unit of Singapore state investment firm Temasek, to sell 74% of its data centre business in India for $467 million and an equal stake in its Singapore data centre business for $168 million, thus taking the full value of the deal to $635 million.

Acquisition of 74% of Tata Communications’ data centre business in India and Singapore will bolster ST Telemedia’s global data centre position as a leading player in Asia.

Tata Communications retains a significant stake, while sharpening focus on global advanced network services and managed solutions.

New joint venture partnership will now allow us to hone our strategic focus said Vinod Kumar, Managing Director and CEO, Tata Communications

In 2014, the Indian data centre business of Tata Communications Limited was transferred to its wholly-owned subsidiary Tata Communications Data Centers Private Ltd (TCDC) through a High Court approved process. Today, TCDC owns and operates a total of fourteen data centres, including facilities in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Pune.

After #Snapdeal and #Bluestone #Ratan Tata invests in #Urban Ladder

Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons has made a personal investment in online furniture company Urban Ladder, just months after investing in e-commerce firm Snapdeal.He had earlier invested in online jewelery retailer Bluestone as well.

After #Snapdeal and #Bluestone #Ratan Tata invests in #Urban Ladder pic.twitter.com/ey2rJcJzTa
— Press Release Watch (@PrReleaseWatch) November 14, 2014

This fresh investment comes four months after the company raised Series B funding .In July this year, Urban Ladder raised $21 million in Series B funding from Kalaari Capital, SAIF Partners and Steadview Capital. The company had raised Series A funding in November 2013.
Urban Ladder was launched in July 2012 by co-founders Ashish Goel and Rajiv Srivatsa. It offers over 1000 products across 25 categories in furniture such as wardrobes, beds, sofas, dining tables and coffee tables.
 The home décor and furniture space in not new to Ratan Tata. He is a design enthusiast and holds a degree in Architecture from Cornell University. “Mr. Tata understands the furniture space very well, specially our focus on product design since he has a lot of knowledge of the subject. His inputs and guidance will be very valuable for us” said Ashish Goel, CEO & Co-founder, Urban Ladder.
The company aims to be the biggest furniture seller in India in the next 18 months.

'We wanted to make a meaningful difference to the quality of education' Nirav Khambhati, CEO, Tata ClassEdge

Tata ClassEdge, which was recently spun off as a separate entity from Tata Interactive Systems, has launched two new products. Nirav Khambhati, CEO, Tata ClassEdge, talks about these new developments in an interview with Nithin Rao. Excerpts:

Why was Tata ClassEdge spun off as a separate entity from Tata Interactive?
Tata Interactive Systems launched ClassEdge as a product in 2011 to improve the quality of teaching in Indian schools and essentially to improve learning outcomes. About three months back a decision was taken to look at this particular business through a different lens. We wanted to make a meaningful difference to the quality of education in India and not be bound by financial aspects such as revenues; we wanted to measure ourselves in terms of how many lives we have changed. The whole perspective changed and profit was no longer the primary motive.

Could you elaborate on Tata ClassEdge implementation in schools?
For a school, it becomes a transformational journey. Some of the teachers may not be tech-savvy, may not use PCs very often. What we have made sure, from the teacher’s perspective, is that product utilisation should be as easy as possible so that the learning curve is as short as possible.
All our resources are not only mapped to CBSE, ICSE and 26 state board curricula, but also to the textbooks used by the schools. Our repository has content meant specifically for struggling users, as well as gifted users. Learning can happen at the pace which is most comfortable for a student. Teachers using our repository and software can create their own lessons. We don’t force a particular method of teaching; we give the resources that enable teachers to customise the lesson.
A teacher can use those resources in whatever manner she finds most appropriate and suitable to her teaching style. The system is flexible enough to accommodate this. The teacher can add her own material if she comes across open resources on the internet. This can be integrated with the system, which then becomes a dynamic platform for the school to create an evolving knowledge repository.

A unique thing we do is that we connect with each school over the cloud. The advantage is that there is almost near real-time update of the content repository. It also allows us to monitor the utilisation of our system in each classroom. We can proactively provide inputs to the school on how they can improve the system on an ongoing basis.

Can you tell us about the two new products – PlanEdge and TestEdge - that have been launched by Tata ClassEdge?

Teachers using the ClassEdge repository and software can create their own lessons We looked at issues that consume a teacher’s time, and realised that they are overloaded with administrative duties. PlanEdge is a tool which allows automation of administrative tasks such as generation of timetables and management of resources such as classrooms. The tool acts as a small enterprise resource planning software, which takes into account the resources available, maps it across the schools’ academic calendar and produces a timetable. It also allows planning of academic activities for the year.
As for TestEdge, we provide a rich and comprehensive repository of questions that helps the teacher set up test papers. These questions have been graded according to Bloom’s taxonomy (American educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom created this system more than 50 years ago), in terms of how much time a student would typically take to complete that question paper. This permits for generation of standardised test papers and allows the students to feel that there is some amount of consistency in the kind of question papers they can expect.

After #Azim Premji, #Ratan Tata invests in #Snapdeal

Ratan Tata, Tata Sons Chairman Emeritus, has invested in online marketplace Snapdeal.com. "Mr Tata has made a personal investment in the company," Snapdeal cofounder and CEO Kunal Bahl said. The investment amount, however, was not disclosed.

Snapdeal, which has raised about USD 400 million since its inception, has invested about USD 100 million in logistics and operations to expand its presence in the USD 3 billion Indian eCommerce market.

The New Delhi-based e-commerce company had raised USD 100 million (about Rs 600 crore) in May from Temasek, BlackRock Inc, Myriad, Premji Invest and Tybourne, while in February, it had received funding worth USD 133.7 million (about Rs 830 crore) from its existing investor, eBay and others.

Snapdeal was valued at $1 billion (about Rs 6,000 crore) after its last funding round in May earlier this year, has raised some $320 million (Rs 1,943 crore) across several rounds, and counts investors, such as, eBay, BlackRock Financial Management, sovereign wealth fund Temasek and PremjiInvest - the personal investment vehicle of Wipro chairman Azim Premji

#Tata Communications to delist from #NYSE

Tata Communications Limited announces its intention to terminate the registration of its American Depositary Shares (“ADSs”), as evidenced by American Depositary Receipts (“ADRs”), under Section 12(g) of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the“Act”) and to terminate its reporting obligations with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) under Section15(d) of the Act. For this purpose, the Company intends to file with the SEC a Form 15F today, June 26, 2014. This is further to the Company’s announcement on June 7, 2013 confirming the delisting of its ADSs from the New York Stock Exchange effective from the close of business on June 7, 2013. The Company expects that this termination of registration will become effective 90 days after its filing with the SEC. As a result of this filing, the Company’s reporting obligations with the SEC,including its obligation to file annual reports on Form 20-F and reports on Form 6-K, will be suspended immediately

New Unified Communications platform launched by #Tata Communications

Tata Communications today launched its latest version of jamvee™ - a next generation Unified Communications platform. Built on Tata Communications’ global tier 1 network, jamvee™ brings together any client software and device on a single platform - providing an agnostic, secure, Unified Communications service. This enables easier intra and inter-company collaboration as employees, suppliers and customers can now get together via any combination of audio, video or messaging and share content in groups - across any device or through a browser.

In today’s global work environment, there is as much need to communicate and collaborate outside the organisation as there is inside. To do this you need to integrate business collaboration tools with corporate and end-user devices. However, lack of interoperability, particularly when it comes to video, desktop sharing and collaboration tools, has acted as a barrier to true collaboration. The jamvee™ Unified Communications platform has been designed with interoperability at its core. Using open APIs such as WebRTC, jamvee™ allows users to use the same enterprise grade clients they use internally to communicate with external parties. As it is delivered and hosted by Tata Communications, it provides the security, quality and reach that only a global tier 1 network can offer.

"Interoperability is key to this, and jamvee™ takes this to the next level. By providing an open and fully customisable foundation for future Unified Communications to be added, companies can realise the full growth potential of Unified Communications quicker and easier than ever – Unified Communications on your terms,"said,John Hayduk, President and CTO, Tata Communications

Jamvee™ significantly enhances existing Unified Communications investments. In addition to traditional video conferencing or Telepresence, participants joining virtual meetings from their enterprise soft clients can leverage jamvee’s™ full audio, video, chat and content sharing capabilities, enabling creativity, better cross-enterprise team collaboration, and better productivity. Or simply join through your browser, with a quick plug-in solution for non-WebRTC native browsers. Its open customisable platform encourages creative third party development on jamvee™, as well as allowing companies the options to pick and choose additional Unified Communications tools that work best for them commercially.

#Tata Asset Management names Farokh Subedar as its new chairman

Mr Farokh Subedar has been appointed as Chairman of Tata Asset Management Ltd (TAML) with effect from 11th June 2014.
Mr Farrokh Kavarana, who was Chairman, TAML, for over 12 years, retired having attained the retirement age of 70 years.
In addition to his current executive responsibility as Chief Operating Officer of Tata Sons, Mr Subedar is the Vice Chairman of Tata Investment Corporation and a Director on the boards of several Tata companies, including Tata Capital, Tata Capital Financial Services and Tata AIG General Insurance Company in the financial services sector.

Vodacom to buy Tata Communication's Neotel for around $676 million or Rs 3,959 crore

British telecom major Vodafone's South African subsidiary Vodacom has reached an agreement to buy Neotel, controlled by Tata Communications, for 7 billion rand (around USD 676 million or Rs 3,959 crore)

The shareholders of Neotel and Vodacom SA have announced today that they have favourably concluded an agreement on the commercial structure and terms to proceed for Vodacom to acquire 100 per cent of the shares of Neotel valued at an enterprise value of ZAR 7.0 billion. This follows the announcement late last year that the parties were entering into exclusive talks for a due diligence.

The structure of the deal and its commercial terms remain subject to regulatory and competition authority approvals and the parties will be immediately commencing the necessary processes in that regard.

Vinod Kumar, MD and CEO, Tata Communications says, “Tata Communications is pleased with the outcome of this deal. It is in line with our financial objectives while paving the way for Neotel to improve its value proposition in the South African market.”

Sunil Joshi, MD & CEO of Neotel says, “We are encouraged at the progress made to date and will focus now on ensuring compliance with the regulatory approvals processes and the engagement with the competition authorities. Neotel continues to grow in the South African market and with this, when approved, will enable a greater choice of products and services for our customers and increased competition, while Neotel continues to deliver improved services and grows its customer base.”

Kennedy Memani, Nexus Connexion says, "This transaction will impact the landscape of the Telecommunications industry in South Africa. We believe it will enhance the customer experience and benefit the South African public."

Ratan Tata praises Modi's strong leadership

Mr. Modi's landslide victory echoes the people's mandate for strong leadership and clear policies for growth and prosperity for India.
— Ratan N. Tata (@RNTata2000) May 19, 2014

#Tata-Singapore Airlines gets DGCA permits

Start-up carrier Tata-SIA Airlines plans to launch its flights from September one this year with Delhi as its hub and proposes to operate to 87 cities in the first year.

Tata SIA Airlines Ltd, a 51:49 joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines has received its Air Operators Permit from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). Within two weeks of applying for the permit, the regulator has called for public comments and objections on the proposed carrier’s application and has made public the proposed route plan and operations plan for the airline.

Under the Letter of Intent submitted to the DGCA, the airline will operate full-service flights from its New Delhi hub to Mumbai, Goa, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Jammu, Srinagar, Patna and Chandigarh with 87 weekly frequencies in its first year of operations.

In the second year of operations, the airline intends to operate 168 weekly flight with route additions to Chennai, Lucknow, Pune, Varanasi, Jaipur, Guwahati and Kolkata. In the third year, the airline has proposed 252 weekly flights including destinations like Amritsar, Bagdogra and Indore, while the fourth year will see services being raised to 301 flights per week.

The airline will dry lease A320-200 for a period of six years and A320-200 neo aircraft for 12 years from Dublin-based Wilmington Trust SP Services Limited. All airports on Tata SIA Airlines Limited’s planned route network have runways and handling equipment to cater to either of the aircraft.

Land Rover announces global partnership with Virgin Galactic

.@LandRover announces partnership with @virgingalactic & reveals Discovery Vision Concept http://t.co/4o2ZS4R0wB pic.twitter.com/gQcvi5L1Yj
— Tata Group (@TataCompanies) April 15, 2014

Land Rover, the British brand synonymous with adventure, has revealed a long-term global partnership with Richard Branson’s pioneering commercial spaceline, Virgin Galactic.

Demonstrating their shared vision of pioneering spirit, technological innovation and sense of adventure, the ground breaking partnership was announced against the backdrop of SpaceShipTwo, the world’s first commercial passenger carrying spacecraft, together with Land Rover’s new Discovery Vision Concept vehicle. The announcement illustrates the commitment that both brands share to iconic design and engineering excellence and a desire to push the boundaries of travel for the next generation.

The partnership will see Land Rover vehicles become part of daily life for the Virgin Galactic team and for all ‘future astronauts’, the space experience will now begin with Land Rover as they arrive in New Mexico for training, and continue to the moment they drive from the space terminal building to the waiting spaceship. Land Rover will base a fleet of vehicles at the Virgin Galactic test centre in the Mojave Desert, California and at its astounding operational New Mexico base, Spaceport America.

The exciting announcement was revealed in dramatic fashion on board USS Intrepid, a former aircraft carrier and now a museum dedicated to the exploration of sea, air and space and anchored on the Hudson River. Land Rover’s first act as exclusive partner was to bring a unique full-size replica of SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise to New York, where it joined the remarkable British Airways Concorde and its namesake Space Shuttle Enterprise upon the Intrepid. Like the Space Shuttle, SpaceShipTwo is the first of a revolutionary fleet of reusable human spacecraft. Having the vehicles in one place for the first time provided a powerful symbol of human ingenuity and the adventurous spirit of exploration and discovery.

Revealed alongside SpaceShipTwo was Land Rover’s Discovery Vision Concept, a vision of Land Rover’s future family of Discovery vehicles. The concept car previews dynamic new design language and an array of world first technologies. Building on Land Rover’s renowned all-terrain capability, the Discovery Vision Concept represents the ultimate SUV of the future.

The vehicle uses augmented reality technology to display a ‘see-through’ view of the terrain ahead, making the front of the car ‘virtually’ invisible from inside the cabin. Gesture Control allows you to open the doors, operate the indicators or turn on the headlamps simply by moving your hand, while Laser Referencing projects visible markings, symbols and imagery onto the ground to aid low speed or tricky manoeuvres.

More than 200 VIP guests witnessed the two game-changing vehicles, which were revealed against a stunning Manhattan background and an awe-inspiring projection mapping sequence.

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic said: “We couldn’t be more delighted to have Land Rover join us on our incredible journey. It is hard to think of a brand which is more synonymous with exploration and adventure. The safety and engineering excellence of Land Rover’s vehicles, which have been the stuff of legend for more than 65 years, are attributes which also lie at the heart of Virgin Galactic. We look forward to crossing the final frontier together and to a long and fruitful partnership.”

Phil Popham, group marketing director of Jaguar Land Rover said: “This is a marriage of two of Britain’s most iconic brands which celebrate shared values, a pioneering spirit and a true sense of adventure.  Not only do we both share the same long-term vision to enable mankind to explore, but we also want to develop this partnership to inspire others. From our tens of thousands of employees and customers to schools and colleges, motivating more young people to pursue careers in engineering, science, technology and math - and explore new ways of travelling for future generations.Land Rover’s heart beats ‘above and beyond’ – we are pioneers on land and Virgin Galactic is the pioneer of space. It’s a very special match of brands with a shared vision.”

Both brands run significant and highly regarded community relations and STEM education programmes, which encourage young people to aspire to a future in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and together see the huge potential to develop this partnership to inspire others and motivate more young people to pursue careers in these vitally important fields.

Courtesy of Land Rover, SpaceShipTwo, will remain on display at Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum for the public to view between from April15–22, 2014.  It will sit alongside other game changing artefacts including the first ever space shuttle Enterprise, the prototype NASA orbiter that paved the way for the space shuttle programme and the record-breaking and revolutionary supersonic passenger airliner, the Concorde.

The Discovery Vision Concept will be on display at the New York Auto Show, which opens on Wednesday March 16, 2014.

Tata Interactive Systems is named among 'Top 20 Training Outsourcing Companies'

Tata Interactive Systems (TIS), a global provider of learning solutions, has for the fifth consecutive year, been named in the ‘Top 20 Training Outsourcing Companies’ list by TrainingIndustry.com. This initiative is part of TrainingIndustry.com’s mission to continually monitor the global training marketplace for the best providers of training services and technologies.

"We are delighted to be recognized among the top 20 training outsourcing companies for the fifth year in a row," says Kshitij Nerurkar, Chief Operating Officer, TIS. "Designed to meet the needs of every sector, globally, Tata Interactive Systems’ solutions enable organizations to achieve their key initiatives with engaging learning solutions. These key initiatives are often multi-faceted and include examples like enterprise-wide process transformation, global leadership intervention for future managers or, driving a new customer philosophy in sales and marketing. At times, we also help organizations optimize their L&D resources. Also, while most of the outsourced learning solutions are meant to deliver flexibility and cost savings, they miss the mark on effectiveness… and this is where we come in,” cites Kshitij.
He further adds, “Stemming from 25 years of history in training design, we systematically devise learning frameworks to advise L&D functions and help them measure the success of these initiatives. We also provide content solutions using a combination of product formats like MOOCs-based intervention for leadership training or a tablet-based serious game for sales readiness or a competitive multi-player simulation for risk assessment.”

The selection of this year's "Top 20" list was based on the following criteria: industry visibility, innovation and impact, capability to deliver multiple types of training services, company size and growth potential, strength of clients and geographic reach.

“The Top 20 Training Outsourcing companies leverage their broad expertise to provide quality training BPO services for their clients,” said Doug Harward, Chief Executive Officer, Training Industry, Inc. “We continue to see deals touching all process capability areas, with average deal size remaining low.”
“This year’s Top 20 Companies offer an extensive range of training services and partnerships to support deals covering all regions globally,” said Ken Taylor, Chief Operating Officer, Training Industry, Inc. “The companies showed continued growth in keys areas like program delivery and custom content development.”

Philip Auld appointed chief executive officer of Trent

Tata group firm Trent Ltd has has reappointed Philip Auld as chief executive officer (CEO) and manager of the company for a period of three years with effect from May 1, 2014.
Established in 1998, Trent runs lifestyle chain Westside, hypermarket chain Star Bazaar and Landmark, a books and music chain.
Mr Auld has several years of international retail experience to his credit.Auld was appointed as the CEO in April 2011.

Tata Group sponsors Harvard India Conference on Feb 15-16

This February, students from Harvard University and a host of global luminaries gather to embrace this inflection point and the undeniable potential it holds within it. What should we be striving towards doing forward? What will be our biggest hurdles, and what are the paradoxes we must reconcile to beat them? The India Conference at Harvard, India Turning the Page: Prospects and Paradoxes, brings together business leaders, entertainment professionals, government officials, philanthropists, and many others to engage with their strands of the colorful and critical Indian narrative across different fields. We seek to go above and beyond, as we explore complexity, controversy, vision and reality as they’ve never been confronted before.

Tata Business Support Services inaugurates its 8th rural and 19th centre in India

Tata Business Support Services (TBSS) inaugurated its 8th rural and 19th centre in India, in Ambara, 30km from Chhindwara. The centre commenced operations from the temporary site, which would be used for training subsequently. The Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Kamal Nath, inaugurated the centre in the presence of Madhu Kannan, GEC member, Tata Sons, and Sarajit Jha, COO and interim MD, TBSS. Standard Chartered is the first client for the centre and has committed to increase its support for the centre going forward.

TBSS has already received possession of the land in Ambara from the MP Government, where it would build in two phases, what would be one of the world’s largest rural business process management (BPM) centre. TBSS is one of the largest rural BPMs in the world with over 2,000 people in seven centres across India. TBSS’s strategy has been to select high SC/ST concentration areas and open rural centres in these areas, in order to ensure maximum absorption of SC/ST candidates. TBSS has a stated vision of becoming 80 percent SWAM — single, women, adivasi and minorities — organisation by 2017; it is currently at 46 percent, making it one of the most significant impact sourcing companies in the world. The Chhindwara centre will propel TBSS towards meeting its objectives.

TBSS will make a green BPM centre incorporating best practices in sustainability of balancing the three Es of economic development, social equity and sustainable environment. The TBSS motto of convenience, safety and hygiene will be upheld. TBSS will also be partnering with like-minded companies to deliver their business from rural areas on the platform of better customer experience and commercial terms. TBSS has proven to many clients that though there are initial hiccups of starting in rural areas, over a long term the motivation, lower attrition and higher engagement of the workers in rural areas, provide a stable, reliable, sustainable and delightful customer experience.

TBSS dedicates this centre to the people of Ambara, and looks forward to the continued support of the establishment to build the community in Ambara and neighbouring areas.