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Gear up for ‘Extra Winnings’ starring Harbhajan Singh & Jatin Sapru in Zupee’s latest T20 season Campaign

Gurugram, 9th April 2024: As the cricket fever grips the nation, Zupee, one of India’s leading online skill-based gaming platforms, has launched its latest campaign, ‘Extra Winnings’ featuring the iconic duo Harbhajan Singh and Jatin Sapru in a battle of wits. The duo can be seen engaging in a series of brand films, highlighting the dynamic synergy between the world of Cricket and Ludo, two beloved games in India. The campaign playfully combines Zupee’s core proposition of skill-based gameplay with the thrill of the ongoing T20 season.

The films showcase Harbhajan and Jatin’s playful camaraderie as they engage in witty banter around Cricket and Ludo. The twist? The cricket experts challenge each other to Ludo battles during Cricket match breaks, demonstrating how you can make the most of those in-between match moments by winning on Zupee. Embodying the campaign’s central theme ‘Extra Winnings’, the videos emphasize the thrill of winning should never stop.

One of the standout videos, ‘Ludo Mein Lagao Sixer’, explores the seamless integration between cricket and Ludo, emphasizing skill, strategy, and the joy of hitting a ‘6’ in both games.

Zupee’s ‘Extra Winnings’ campaign will be showcased across major TV and digital media platforms including JioCinema, offering cricket enthusiasts and gamers alike the chance to immerse themselves in the entertaining and thrilling world of skill-based gaming during the T20 season.

5 GCC Companies to Work for in India

In the ever-evolving landscape of business, the term “GCC” has transcended from mere jargon to become a cynosure of India’s economic growth. With over 1600 operational Global Capability Centres (GCCs) and counting while employing more than 1.3 million people, India has become the GCC capital of the world. GCCs have a huge economic impact, contributing to billions in taxes, and are expected to generate half a million jobs in a couple of years. According to the Zinnov-Nasscom India’s GCC Trends report, about 83% of the new GCCs established in India in H1 CY2023 encompass all three functional areas – engineering research & development (ER&D), information technology (IT), and business process management (BPM). Here are 5 leading GCC’s in India that are also employee-friendly.

Allstate India

Allstate Corporation is one of the largest publicly held insurance providers in the United States. Allstate India Private Limited, also known as Allstate India, is a subsidiary of The Allstate Corporation. With offices in Bengaluru and Pune, the company offers expertise to the parent organization’s business areas, including technology and innovation; accounting and imaging services; policy administration; transformation solution design and support services; transformation of property liability service design; global operations and integration; and training and transition.

Allstate India has emerged as a preferred employer, recognized for its commitment to employee welfare and development. Recently, the company has also launched the ‘Nourish and Nurture Zone’ program to commemorate Women’s Day by providing essential support to working mothers. Their premier employee insurance program ‘AllFlex’ is one of its kind in the market with benefits extending from life and medical insurance to pet insurance and dental coverage. They also help their superheroes continuously flex the muscles of knowledge and skills, prepping them with secret weapons like learning tools, leadership development programs, free access to online academies, and more!

American Express

At American Express, the company knows that with the right backing, people and businesses have the power to progress in incredible ways. Whether they’re supporting their customers’ financial confidence to move ahead, taking commerce to new heights, or encouraging people to explore the world, our colleagues are constantly striving to uphold our powerful backing promise to our customers and each other every day. To support the workforce American Express provides Health benefits and a Smart Savings program to their employees in India.

Amex Flex also provides flexibility for colleagues to thrive personally and professionally while ensuring they preserve the important benefits of their unique in-person culture. Depending on the role and business needs, colleagues will either work onsite, in a hybrid model or fully virtual: A mix of in-office and virtual days, coming into the office 3 days per week. Work primarily from home and can come into an Amex office to work or travel to an offsite location from time to time as needed.

SAP Labs India

SAP Labs India (SLI) is the fastest-growing subsidiary of SAP, a multinational company that provides customers with world-class business solutions. SAP Labs India drives SAP’s product strategy, is responsible for SAP core solutions, and provides product localization and India-specific solutions. What is unique to SAP Labs India is that it represents the entire breadth of the SAP product portfolio and contributes to SAP flagship products like the Business Technology Platform, SAP S/4 HANA, Financial Management, Supply Chain Management, CRM and Customer Experience, Spend Management, RISE with SAP, Sustainability and Business Networks.

No matter what phase of life you are in, SAP Labs India provides their employees with the best benefits to help them to nurture their careers. Whether the employee is straight out of college or a working parent, they have something for everyone. From FromFlexBen empowers them to choose their own benefits, to Entrepreneurship Sabbatical leave which enables them startup dreams. From SAPlings, their world-class child care center to our Back to Work program, they give everyone the equal opportunity to grow and succeed.

Intuit Technology

Home to over 20 percent of Intuit’s technology talent, Intuit India is the company’s second-largest engineering center of Product & Platform Excellence. Evolving from DOS to the cloud and now building AI-first experiences keeping a day-one mindset, our engineers solve customers’ most challenging financial problems.

Combining knowledge engineering, natural language processing, and data-driven models, the India site specializes in AI infrastructure, DevOps/AIOps, and Intuit Data Exchange, significantly contributing to our core products – QuickBooks, CreditKarma, TurboTax, and MailChimp.

Intuit offers benefits that enable their workforce to do the best work of their life by providing them multiple benefits including health benefits like offering best-in-class medical, dental, and vision benefits, some of their offices are also equipped with state-of-the-art fitness centers and healthy food options. Their Well-Being for Life program reimburses employees for expenses related to physical, emotional, and mental health.

Honeywell India

Honeywell’s global businesses have a strong legacy in India, built over the last eight decades. Honeywell’s commitment in India is evident in three state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities and four global centers of excellence for technology development and innovation. We employ close to 13,000 people across 20 locations. Honeywell India provides multiple benefits to their workforce like vacation time for employees to use on whatever means the most to them. In addition to vacation time, they receive time off in the form of paid holidays. Additionally, Honeywell’s Learning Management System (LMS) offers training courses to help employees with technical skills, process improvements, personal effectiveness, leadership skills and more. They also have a Women’s Council to foster a workplace that champions Inclusion and Diversity via local events and presentations in the community.

Ahmedabad’s Ramada by Wyndham Hotel ends revenue loss and manual management woes with STAAH

Ahmedabad: 9th April 2024 – STAAH, the leading New Zealand-based hospitality solutions provider, has saved Ramada by Wyndham – Ahmedabad, several manual hours per week being wasted on inventory and rate management. These led to unintentional errors in bookings by staff, revenue loss due to delayed rate updates, over-bookings, manually standardizing rates as a group, and incorrect and less than optimal availability or rates — all resulting in high costs for the Ramada by Wyndham group.

Ramada by Wyndham is ideally located in Ahmedabad’s corporate hub within proximity to the mall and shopping centers and is patronized by both business and leisure travelers.

“We moved to the STAAH suite primarily to save manual hours that went into updating our processes, but what won the team’s appreciation was its yield-optimization features. Every button and feature in STAAH’s hassle-free technology designed by hoteliers for hoteliers, makes sense. Its mobile app means inventory and rate management can be done on the go. Combined with great customer service and support, it has been an ideal solution for Ramada by Wyndham – Ahmedabad. The change for us has been tremendous,” said Atul Budhraja, Vice President, Ramada by Wyndham

STAAH’s distribution suite boosted the hotel staff an helped the property bounce back. Advanced tools like the STAAH Swiftbook allowed the hotel to drive commission-free direct bookings via their own website, while the STAAH Max Channel Manager helped in managing inventories across booking channels; ReviewMinder — a reputation management tool, empowers the hotel to drive more business, cut down costs and maximize their revenue.

STAAH’s yield-optimization features are driven by dynamic pricing, effortlessly guiding the team to make the best decisions driven by market conditions and demand. The team can now effortlessly close out fully booked dates, adjust down rates to fill capacity in just a few clicks, and accurately report and gather rich insights that help make decisions to optimize revenue.

“STAAH is proud to partner with Ramada by Wyndham – Ahmedabad and help them overcome manual management challenges, drive revenue growth, and enhance guest experiences through our innovative hospi-tech solutions,” said Shoaib Ali, National Sales Head India

Simplifying Cybersecurity: Seqrite Unveils Refreshed Brand Identity

Pune, 9th April 2024: Seqrite, the enterprise arm of global cybersecurity solutions provider Quick Heal Technologies Ltd, announces the refreshed and upgraded brand identity, reflecting its dedication to simplifying cybersecurity for businesses worldwide.

India’s only full-stack CSMA aligned solutions provider, Seqrite has long been committed to making cybersecurity more accessible and seamless. With this commitment at the forefront, the refreshed brand identity marks a significant milestone in Seqrite’s journey, showcasing its continued pursuit of excellence. The brand refresh highlights the company’s robust capabilities and promises a seamless and meaningful experience for all stakeholders.

The new facelifted logo symbolizes Seqrite’s evolution as a forward-thinking cybersecurity partner, blending innovation with reliability. The parallel lines represent the company’s focus on research and development (R&D) and its dedication to customer-centric solutions. The combination of black and red embodies professionalism and the brand’s heroic personality.

Seqrite has also launched a favicon, a unique icon used to represent the brand. Seqrite’s favicon’s parallel lines, derived from the Seqrite logo, serve as a visual representation of the brand identity. The shield symbolizes the unwavering commitment to cybersecurity, while the “S” pattern reflects the brand’s dedication to simplifying the complexities of cybersecurity and guiding the clients through them with ease. As part of the rebranding, Seqrite has also simplified its product names, moving away from the ‘Hawkk’ nomenclature to a more universally recognized and simplified naming convention. This strategic shift aligns Seqrite’s branding with industry norms and customer preferences, enhancing clarity and consistency in its product lineup.

Despite the visual updates and product name changes, Seqrite’s core values and purpose remain unchanged. Customers can continue to depend on Seqrite’s products for comprehensive protection and reliability, driven by state-of-the-art threat intelligence from India’s largest Malware Analysis Lab, “Seqrite Labs,” along with playbooks supported by world-class service and assistance from top-tier security experts.

Vishal Salvi, Chief Executive Officer of Seqrite, commented, “Our brand refresh signifies more than just a cosmetic change – it embodies our growth over the years and our unwavering commitment to offering simplistic solutions to counter complex cybersecurity challenges. We invite businesses to explore how ‘Brand Seqrite’ can empower them to stay ahead in an ever-evolving digital landscape.”

Seqrite delivers comprehensive cybersecurity solutions and services through its patented, AI/ML-powered tech stack, protecting businesses against the latest threats across devices, applications, networks, cloud, data, and identity. Today, 30,000+ enterprises in more than 76 countries trust Seqrite with their

Coforge has been honored with the ServiceNow 2024 Emerging Industry Partner of the Year – Worldwide award

Greater Noida, India, 9th April 2024 Coforge Limited (NSE: COFORGE), a global digital services and solutions provider, has been honored with the coveted ServiceNow 2024 Emerging Industry Partner of the Year – Worldwide award. The ServiceNow Global Partnerships & Channels organization recognizes the dedication and investment of ServiceNow partners in expanding the ecosystem and contributing to ServiceNow’s growth trajectory by driving transformational value for customers. This recognition underscores Coforge’s exceptional growth trajectory and its pivotal role in delivering transformative value to clients across the globe.

ServiceNow’s recognition is a resounding endorsement of Coforge’s unwavering commitment to leveraging domain expertise and robust capabilities to craft industry-specific solutions in Banking & Financial Services, Insurance, Travel, Tourism & Hospitality and Utilities, that cater to the unique business needs of its clients. As an Elite partner to ServiceNow, Coforge stands out for its proven expertise in providing a comprehensive array of workflow solutions, ranging from IT and employee experience transformation to modern, digital customer experiences.

“I congratulate Coforge on their incredible job in expanding the ServiceNow ecosystem, putting customers first, and showing the world what’s possible. Their work, innovation, and dedication have inspired us over the last year, and I know they will continue breaking down barriers into the next” said Erica Volini, Senior Vice President, Global Partnerships at ServiceNow.

“At Coforge, we take immense pride in receiving the ServiceNow 2024 Emerging Industry Partner of the Year – Worldwide award. This award underscores our commitment to excellence and our ability to co-create cutting-edge solutions that accelerate our clients’ digital evolution on the ServiceNow platform” said Sudhir Singh, CEO & Executive Director at Coforge.

The award highlights Coforge’s strategic positioning as a preferred partner for domain-led offerings and transformation on the ServiceNow platform. With a robust Center of Excellence (CoE) dedicated to ServiceNow, Coforge has demonstrated a proven track record of successful implementations and management for its clients. The company has a team of 250+ ServiceNow consultants with extensive experience in executing diverse implementations across Fortune 500 customers.

The company’s deep technical expertise, combined with deep domain understanding, positions Coforge as the ideal collaborator for organizations seeking best-in-class solutions to propel their digital initiatives forward. As Coforge continues to lead the way in innovative and transformative solutions, the ServiceNow 2024 Emerging Industry Partner of the Year – Worldwide award stands as a testament to the company’s unwavering commitment to excellence, client success, and technological innovation.

STG Strengthens Quor’s CTRM Capabilities through Acquisition of Eka Software

India, 9th April 2024: STG, a US-based private equity firm focused on software and software-enabled tech services companies, announces the strategic acquisition of Eka Software Solutions (“Eka”), a global provider of commodity management solutions with a specialty in the soft ags and energies markets. For nearly two decades, Eka has been providing commodities trade and risk management (“CTRM”) and supply chain solutions, consistently delivering innovation to its customers while building a robust and modern vertical SaaS platform.

STG will merge Eka with the Quor Group (“Quor”), an existing STG portfolio company that specializes in CTRM offerings within the metals ecosystem. The combination of Eka and Quor is a material step forward for the CTRM industry, providing a broad software suite that addresses a spectrum of customer needs across asset classes globally.

Eka, leveraging its innovative approach and cutting-edge technology, joins Quor to provide the combined entity’s customers with a broad ability to navigate the complexities of the commodity markets, including increasing end market volatility and customers’ desire to hedge their corresponding risk profile. Together, Quor and Eka are poised to address customers’ greatest needs, accelerate innovation, and set new benchmarks within the industry.

“We have been extremely impressed by the breadth and depth of the products that make up the Eka platform. Their CTRM / ETRM and supply chain products have consistently delivered for their impressive customer base” said William Chisholm, Managing Partner of STG. “We are committed to supporting Quor and Eka through further investments in innovation with the ultimate goal of continuing to provide exceptional value to their clients,” added Ishan Manaktala, Operating Partner at STG.

Manav Garg, founder and CEO of Eka, will continue to play a pivotal role in guiding the vision and strategic direction of the combined company as a Board Advisor. His industry insight and leadership will be invaluable as Quor embarks on its next phase of growth. Manav comments, “The merger could not happen at a more opportune time – we have seen increased volatility across asset classes, greater desire of customers to hedge their risk, and substantial supply chain disruption; all of which leaves the market yearning for solutions from Eka and Quor.”

Steve Hughes, CEO of Quor, commented on the strategic synergies, stating, “I believe joining forces with Eka is a game-changer for us and our customers. I am keen to partner with Manav and his decades of knowledge to drive the CTRM industry forward into a new era of growth and success.”

Jefferies LLC acted as financial advisor and DLA acted as legal advisor to STG. Tree Line Capital Partners provided debt financing to support the acquisition.

Royal Orchid Hotels Ltd unveils a stunning luxury hillside retreat in Kasauli

9th April 2024: Affirming its commitment to contributing to the hill state’s development and boosting the GDP of Himachal Pradesh, Royal Orchid Hotels Ltd. (ROHL) announced the opening of its 8th hotel in the state, Velmore by Royal Orchid in the hill town of Kasauli. The timely opening of the new hotel, coinciding with the onset of the Indian summer, will attract families and tourists alike, looking to escape the heat of North India.

Kasauli, a town that gave birth to writers like Ruskin Bond has long attracted the creative kind from across India with its serenity and picturesque setting amidst the Himalayan pine forests. With the addition of Velmore by Royal Orchid, anyone can now write their own story and enjoy the hills in the lap of luxury.

Chander K Baljiee, Chairman & Managing Director, said, “With the opening of Velmore by Royal Orchid, we are excited to launch our 8th property in my ancestral state of Himachal Pradesh. The enchanting allure of Kasauli is unmatched, whether it’s a serene retreat or a memorable event”.

Velmore by Royal Orchid is located conveniently near the Dharampur Railway Station and is a mere 70 km from Chandigarh Airport. The hill station has many attractions near the hotel such as Mall Road, Sunset Point, and Christ Church.

“We are delighted to announce the opening of Velmore in Kasauli. With this opening we are well on our way to launch 35 new hotels this year for our company. This opening underscores our commitment to India, by ensuring that our guests experience innovative and unique hospitality experiences across the length and breath of our country”, commented, Arjun Baljee President.

Velmore by Royal Orchid is designed with families and groups in mind. The hotel has 38 mindfully designed rooms, each offering breathtaking views of the forests. The hotel offers various room categories including a large 3-bedroom cottage to accommodate families. For leisure and recreation, the property offers a slew of experiences like trekking and nature walks. In-house amenities like a swimming pool, jacuzzi and a fully- equipped gaming zone are open to guests. Royal Orchid Hotels is reimagining the wellness experience and a new spa is in the offing shortly.

“With the unveiling of our latest gem in Kasauli, we believe in continuous progress and enhancing guest experiences. With each new property, we are not just expanding our portfolio; we are adding to the efforts of making Royal Orchid Hotels the ultimate destination for every traveler”, said, Philip Logan, Chief Operating Officer

Cloudflare Enters Observability Market – Accelerated by Acquisition

India, 9th April 2024 – Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE: NET), the leading connectivity cloud company, today announced an entrance into the observability market with the acquisition of Baselime, the cloud-native observability platform. By integrating Baselime’s technology with Cloudflare’s developer platform, Cloudflare will be uniquely positioned to bring deep knowledge of serverless platforms and developer experience together to solve the challenges of observability for serverless apps.

Today, entire applications are built on serverless architectures, from computing to databases, storage, queues, and more. Still, observability is often regarded as one of the weaknesses of serverless architectures — trading off visibility into the application’s behavior for a scalable infrastructure that doesn’t need to be managed. Building and debugging production applications requires the ability to understand trends and patterns, identify performance bottlenecks, and isolate errors to ensure ongoing reliability, scalability, and security. Having access to this level of visibility, preferably all within one platform, is a critical factor developers consider when choosing a platform on which to build.

“Two million developers building on Cloudflare trust us to help scale their apps globally, but can still struggle to understand the behavior of their cloud applications,” said Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO, of Cloudflare. “We believe that to be the leading developer platform, having the best observability tools built in is going to be table-stakes. Baseline has raised the standard for serverless observability and we can further unlock those insights for every developer building on our platform.”

With this acquisition, Cloudflare enters into the observability market to further enable developers to deploy services in production — allowing teams to identify when a release has gone wrong and needs to be rolled back, investigate bugs and regressions, optimize performance, and more. Developers will also benefit from the ability to optimize the cost of their serverless applications, by understanding the rate of requests made and analyzing sources of latency.

With this acquisition, Baseline will be integrated into Cloudflare’s developer platform, helping developers push the boundaries of modern observability to:

● Analyze their observability data across thousands of possible fields and values, to surface all errors, requests, or performance issues for specific users or across their entire applications.
● Enable and adopt OpenTelemetry-based tools and standards to facilitate integration with a diverse set of application frameworks and cloud providers. These tools and standards enable developers to easily and consistently instrument their applications for rich observability data, making it easier to quickly troubleshoot issues, whether they impact a single user, a subset of users or the entire application.
● Extract insights from their observability data thanks to a suite of developer experience improvements, including real-time error tracking based on logs and traces, actionable alerts, trace diagrams and timelines, an approachable query engine, and an AI debugging assistant.

“Cloudflare is building the next frontier of cloud computing with their connectivity cloud. Our core mission has always been to simplify and innovate observability for the future of the cloud, and Cloudflare’s ecosystem offers the ideal ground to further this cause,” said Boris Tane, founder and CEO, Baselime. “With Cloudflare, we’re positioned to deeply integrate into a platform that two million developers trust, enabling them to build, ship, and troubleshoot applications fast. I am incredibly excited about the potential of what we can build together and the impact it will have on developers around the world.”

To learn more, please check out the resources below:

● Blog: Cloudflare acquires Baseline to expand serverless application observability capabilities
● Two million developers are now building on Cloudflare’s developer platform
● cloudflare.com/developer-platform/

Coca-Cola India & Anju Bobby Sports Foundation Empower Women Athletes

Bengaluru, 9th April 2024: In line with its commitment to sports, Coca-Cola India through its Foundation, is supporting the country’s athletes with essential amenities and training equipment as part of its three-year partnership with the Anju Bobby Sports Foundation. Spearheaded by Olympic champion Anju Bobby George, the Foundation has been nurturing the next generation of women athletes including the very known long jumper- Shaili Singh. This partnership aligns with Coca-Cola India’s #SheTheDifference campaign, an initiative to celebrate, uplift, and support women throughout the value chain. As part of this partnership, Coca-Cola India is committed to empowering women athletes to bring about positive change in the sports and gender equality landscape.

Coca-Cola India, through its Foundation, has made significant strides in bolstering the representation of Indian women athletes in the Olympics. The company has transformed four shipping containers into a physiotherapy room, storage facility, pantry, and restroom. The company also facilitated top-tier gym equipment and supported the establishment of a spacious practice ground equipped with rainwater collection tanks for sustainable water usage. In addition to infrastructure development, Coca-Cola has helped with the academy’s lease rent for three years, ensuring a stable operational foundation.

In a nation where many female athletes emerge from small towns and villages, facing limited access to training facilities, coaching, and financial support, this collaboration aims to level the playing field. A PWC report highlights the remarkable shift in the gender balance at the Tokyo Olympics, with 44% of Indian participants being women.

Commenting on the partnership, Rajesh Ayapilla, Director-CSR and Sustainability for Coca-Cola India and Southwest Asia (INSWA), said, “At Coca-Cola India, we believe in the power of sports to inspire, empower, and unite communities. Our longstanding partnership with the Anju Bobby Sports Foundation reflects our commitment to fostering the next generation of Indian women athletes. With sports being an integral part of both organizations’ DNA, through such initiatives, we are dedicated to creating a supportive environment where athletes can thrive. We are proud to sponsor talented individuals like Shaili Singh, reaffirming our commitment to empowering women in sports and contributing to their success on the global stage”.

“I feel honored to be associated with such a brand like Coca-Cola India. They were the first ones to support our cause and their contribution has been instrumental in creating a world-class training facility in India at the Anju Bobby High Performance Center, Bangalore. Today, we have some top-quality track and field equipment, and some of the quality gym equipment, and our athletes here are focused on making the most of these facilities to help India win its Olympic medal. Personally, as well, I feel if I could win India’s first world championship medal, it’s my duty to share my knowledge and experience with these young women, thereby contributing to India’s success”, said Anju Bobby George, Founder, of Anju Bobby Sports Foundation.

The social impact of this initiative extends beyond individual achievements in the field. By empowering women athletes, the Foundation along with Coca-Cola India is nurturing future leaders who will contribute back to the sports community as coaches, trainers, therapists, and administrators.