Infosys to Develop Quantum Computing Capabilities on AWS
Infosys (NSE, BSE, NYSE: INFY), a global leader in nextgeneration digital services and consulting, today announced a strategic collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to develop quantum computing capabilities and use cases. Infosys will use Amazon Braket to explore and build multiple use cases in quantum computing as part of Infosys Cobalt cloud offerings. Amazon Braket is a fully managed quantum computing service that helps scientists and developers get started with the technology and accelerate research and discovery.
Infosys will look to build, test, and evaluate quantum applications on circuit simulators and quantum hardware technologies using Amazon Braket. This will enable researchers and developers to experiment and study complex computational problems as quantum technologies continue to evolve. Enterprises will get access to use cases for rapid experimentation and can explore how quantum computing can potentially help them in the future in a variety of areas, assess new ideas and plan adoption strategies to drive innovation. The use of Amazon Braket by Infosys aims at getting businesses ready for a future where quantum computers will impact business.
The Infosys Center for Emerging Technology Solutions (iCETS), which focuses on the incubation of nextgeneration services and offerings, is using Amazon Braket to develop quantum computing use cases in vehicle route optimization, fraud detection, and more. Infosys is also exploring partnership opportunities with startups in the quantum computing space through the Infosys Innovation Network (IIN). This collaboration further bolsters Infosys Cobalt, a set of services, solutions, and platforms for enterprises to accelerate their cloud journey. It offers 14,000 cloud assets and over 200 industry cloud solution blueprints.
Ravi Kumar S, President, Infosys, said, “Infosys continues to be at the forefront of exploring and bringing new technologies to clients. Through our use of AWS in this space, we are bringing together the power of Amazon Braket and Infosys Cobalt to help enterprises build quantum computing capabilities and use cases to accelerate their cloud-powered transformation. We are exploring a variety of use cases from the logistics, finance, energy, and telecom sectors that can help clients evaluate future benefits and value that quantum computing could bring to their business. Enterprises can look forward to solving their various complex computational challenges with Infosys Cobalt and Amazon Braket.”
Matt Garman, Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Amazon Web Services, Inc, said, “Quantum Computing is an area of intense research, and a number of businesses around the world are asking about its timeline and the opportunities that it could open. At this stage, it’s important to be aware and evaluate the potential future impact of quantum computing. Infosys, a long-standing for AWS Premier Consulting Partner, has experience in incubating emerging technology solutions. We see this collaboration as an important step towards setting the right expectations when discussing business problems with customers where quantum computing could have a role.”
Mindtree Expands in Europe and Asia-Pacific with Executive Appointments to Accelerate Next Phase of Growth
Mindtree, a global technology services and digital transformation company, is expanding in Europe and Asia-Pacific. The company has made several key executive appointments to further accelerate growth in the two markets.
The company has appointed Klaus Seifert as Head of Strategy for Europe and Chief Business Officer for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (DACH). Munich-based Seifert brings more than two decades of experience in sales, business development, and P&L management across diverse industry sectors. He was formerly the head of Global Technology Services for DACH at IBM.
Erik Julius Larsen has joined the company as Chief Business Officer for Nordics and Benelux. Larsen’s experience of more than 25 years includes several executive positions in the IT industry across northern Europe. Prior to joining Mindtree, he worked at Cognizant as Country Manager and Head of Sales for Nordics.
Dominic Del Giudice has been appointed as Chief Business Officer for Asia-Pacific. Melbournebased Del Giudice joins Mindtree with more than two decades of management consulting, business and digital transformation, and enterprise and technology solutions experience with large multinational companies. He joins Mindtree from IBM, where he was Vice President and Senior Partner at IBM Global Business Services across Asia-Pacific and Australia/New Zealand.
“We are making sustained investments in Europe and Asia-Pacific as part of our 4X4X4 strategy aimed at strengthening our leadership capabilities and strategic partnerships in these markets to drive superior growth,” said Venu Lambu, Executive Director and President, Global Markets, Mindtree. “We are excited about the depth of industry and technology expertise that these leaders bring to our clients. With businesses in Europe and Asia-Pacific increasingly seeking strategic technology partnerships to maximize revenues and growth, strong leadership with a deep understanding of these markets is vital to our ability to help our clients unlock value from digital transformation.”
Ramkrishna Forgings Limited
Wins order worth INR 650 million in Mining & Earthmoving segment
Ramkrishna Forgings Limited, one of the leading suppliers of rolled, forged and machined products has won a non-auto segment order worth INR 650 million for supply of mining and earthmoving components from an Indian arm of Hitachi. This order will be supplied in FY22 and FY23.
Commenting on the order win Mr. Naresh Jalan, Managing Director, Ramkrishna Forgings Limited said: “With this order win we are moving closer to our target of strengthening our non-auto business further. Mining and earthmoving sector is an important part of this diversification strategy. This order win is a testimony of our product quality and technology prowess as the equipments operates in tough environment and the components should be able to perform flawlessly under these conditions continuously. Looking at the current buoyancy in the sector, we expect not only to bag further repeat orders but also the order size to increase in the coming years.”
TCS Positioned as a Leader in Digital Services for Higher Education by Avasant
: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS), a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, has been recognized as a Leader in the Avasant RadarView™ for Higher Education Digital Services1 .
According to the report, TCS specializes in transforming student and faculty experiences,through adaptive learning, education models, digitized assessment criteria, and hyper-personalized content, and modernizing campuses, through process automation, bots-led assistance, and cloud-based learning. It goes on to say that TCS has co-developed solutions and/or planned a joint GTM strategy with leading technology providers, to provide customized solutions across the educational service line.
“TCS is helping educational institutions adopt next-gen technologies and drive digital transformation to reimagine business models, enhance the overall learning experience, vastly improve student outcomes, and make education more inclusive and affordable,” said Ankur Mathur, Head, Education Business, TCS. “We believe this Leadership recognition by Avasant, is a reflection of our customer focus, vision, investments in innovation, strong execution capabilities and strategic partnerships established to accelerate digital transformation in the education sector.”
TCS’ Education Business Unit helps customers across the globe make a positive impact in the lives of learners through innovative use of technology. To align with emerging industry dynamics, TCS has developed a comprehensive portfolio of intellectual property using its digital capabilities.
TCS iON™ uses uniquely built phygital platforms that overlay digital technologies over physical assets. Its interventions reimagine and transform all the key processesin the education domain, and have seen great market success. The TCS iON platform also offers a wide range of multi-modal learning courses imparting a varied range of skills and proficiencies.
TCS iON’s Digital Assessment product that enables universities and exam boards to conduct secure and fair examinations at scale, has enabled digital assessments for around 250 million students. TCS’ automation-based AI solution for end-to-end student outreach helps customers increase enrollments and drive growth.
To promote digital adoption in the higher education vertical, TCS is investing heavily in research and innovation through its Co-Innovation Network (COIN™). It brings together a network of experts from the start-up, research, academics, and corporate worlds to collaborate and innovate. TCS is connected with more than 170 educational institutes across the globe and has multiple ongoing projects, innovation labs and has delivered numerous internships in the field of research and innovation. In addition, it has built a robust partner ecosystem to implement end-to-end digital solutions for clients.
“TCS' dedicated Education Business Unit has been transforming student and faculty experiences. TCS is modernizing campuses through its differentiated product portfolio of IP assets and digital offerings (such as TCS iON and student enrollment solutions), continued investments in cutting-edge technologies through industry-specific Pace Port labs, and support from its Tata ecosystem. Additionally, by leveraging its strategic alliances with leading technology, solutions, and integration platform providers, it has codeveloped solutions (such as Oracle Student Cloud) for the educational service line,” said Pooja Chopra, Research Leader, Education Space, Avasant. “Development and implementation of industry-specific, customized digital solutions through an innovation-led approach, in conjunction with a strong partner ecosystem, has placed TCS as the leader in Avasant’s Higher Education Digital Services 2021-2022 RadarView.”
Leaders in Cloud Adoption Approach Cloud Differently and Achieve 10x Greater ROI, Says Research by Wipro FullStride Cloud Services
Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company, today released a report indicating that leaders in cloud adoption approach their cloud journey differently than beginners, enabling them to achieve a 10x greater annualized return on investment. Wipro’s report, “Making Business Thrive: A Cloud Leader Roadmap for Achieving 10x ROI,” outlines these best practices for enterprises beginning their cloud journey or seeking to accelerate their results. The report also identifies dozens of key cloudadoption metrics for multiple industries and countries.
Wipro FullStride Cloud Services developed the report based on a survey of 1,300 global C-level executives and key decision-makers from 11 industries and six countries (see “Methodology” below). Wipro considered leaders to be the top 19% of respondents based on cloud maturity, while beginners represented the lowest 32%; this was not based on revenue. This broad scope makes the report the first of its kind to analyze cloud maturity among businesses, identify business transformation opportunities and define a seven-step roadmap for cloud leadership
“Cloud is no longer just for cost savings or building agility. Our new report demonstrates that cloud drives high-impact transformation and benefits at every level of the business, including the bottom line,” said Rajan Kohli, President and Managing Partner, Integrated Digital, Engineering and Application Services, Wipro Limited. “As enterprise leaders look to grow their business and respond to shifting markets, cloud capabilities – fueled by a well-orchestrated partner ecosystem – are an ideal choice to accelerate growth. Wipro stands ready to partner with clients to help them take a full stride toward cloud leadership and leverage hyperscalers and other partners for maximizing impact to their businesses.”
Cloud Adoption Drives Profitability
According to Wipro’s research, the primary benefit of cloud adoption has shifted from increasing
efficiency to driving profitability and revenue. This trend that will continue as the cloud becomes
more intelligent, hyperconnected and pervasive. Participants said their use of the cloud provides
a range of financial, operational and strategic benefits, most of which will increase substantially
during the next two years. Wipro FullStride Cloud Services found that within two years, survey
respondents expect that cloud will help:
Increase revenue for 59% of firms
Improve profitability for 54%
Decrease costs for 49%
Board of ZEEL gives in-principle approval for the merger between ZEEL & Sony Pictures Networks India
The Board of Directors of ZEE Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) present and voting in its board meeting held on 21st September 2 021, unanimously provided an in-principle approval for the merger between Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI) & ZEEL.
The Board has evaluated not only on financial parameters, but also on the strategic value which the partner brings to the table. The Board concluded that the merger will be in the best interest of all the shareholders & stakeholders. The merger is in line with ZEEL's strategy of achieving higher growth and profitability as a leading Media & Entertainment Company across South Asia. The Board has authorized the management of ZEEL to activate the required due diligence process.
The shareholders of SPNI, will hold a majority stake in the merged entity. The shareholders of SPNI will also infuse growth capital into SPNI as part of the merger such that SPNI has approximately USD1.575 billion at closing, for use in pursuing other growth opportunities.
Basis the existing estimated equity values of ZEEL and SPNI, the indicative merger ratio would have been 61.25% in favour ofZEEL. However, with the proposed infusion of growth capital into SPNI, the resultant merger ratio is expected to result in 47.07% of the merged entity to be held by ZEEL shareholders and the balance 52.93% of the merged entity to be held by SPNI shareholders.
ZEEL & SPNI have entered into a non-binding term sheet to combine both companies' linear networks, digital assets, production operations and program libraries. The term sheet provides an exclusive period of 90 days during which ZEEL and SPNI will conduct mutual diligence and finalize definitive agreement(s). The merged entity will be a publicly listed company in India.
As part of the transaction, Mr. Punit Goenka will continue to be the Managing Director and CEO of the merged entity. Further, certain non-compete arrangements will be agreed upon between the promoters of ZEEL and the promoters of SPNI. According to the term sheet, the promoter family is free to increase its shareholding from the current - 4% to up to 20%, in a manner that is in accordance with applicable law. Majority of the Board of Directors of the merged entity will be nominated by Sony Group.
It is anticipated that the final transaction would be subject to completion of customary due diligence and execution of definitive agreements and required corporate, regulatory and thirdparty approvals, including the votes of ZEEL's shareholders.
ZEEL's strong expertise in content creation and its deep consumer connect established over the last 3 decades, coupled with SPNI's success across entertainment genres (including gaming and sports) will add significant value to the merged entity and its management team, thereby increasing shareholder value multifold.
Speaking on the development, Mr. R. Gopalan, Chairman, ZEE Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. said, "The Board of Directors at ZEEL have conducted a strategic review of the merger proposal between SPNI and ZEEL. As a Board that encompasses a blend of highly accomplished professionals having rich expertise across varied sectors, we always keep in mind the best interests of all the shareholders and ZEEL. We have unanimously provided an in-principle approval to the proposal and have advised the management to initiate the due diligence process.
ZEEL continues to chart a strong growth trajectory and the Boardfirmly believes that this merger will further benefit ZEEL. The value of the merged entity and the immense synergies drawn between both the conglomerates will not only boost business growth but will also enable shareholders to benefit from its future successes. As per legal and regula tory guidelines, at the required stage, the proposal will be presented to the esteemed shareholders of ZEEL for their approval.
Under the guidance of the Board, the management of ZEEL, ably led by Mr. Punit Goenka, continues to steadily work towards achieving higher profitability in line with its set goals for the future. With this corporate development, the merged entity will result into an accelerated growth and a significant opportunity to create tremendous value for all its stakeholders.