Day: November 6, 2019

Milestone Systems has appointed Ritesh Deokar as the Country Manager of India. The appointment is a strategically important move for the company, adding valuable experience and expertise which complement Milestone Systems’ ambitious expansion plans in the region. I am very excited to come to a leading global company like Milestone Systems, at a time when there is so much happening in the video management and surveillance industry in India. There is enormous potential for Milestone Systems’ open platform VMS solution and my extensive contacts across the IT and security markets here will certainly give us some great scope to forge new alliances, build new solutions and really take the company forward across the region. – Ritesh Deokar Country Manager for India, Milestone System Ritesh joins the company from a senior management position at Larsen & Toubro Infotech (LTI), where he was responsible for global alliances. Prior to that, he was employed as national alliance manager at Wipro Limited, and has extensive experience working within the ICT sector in India. His diverse background in both technology and security will be of significance to Milestone Systems’ growth in the region. Jordan Cullis, Director for APAC at Milestone Systems said, “The fact that Ritesh brings a converged security and technology skill set to the company fits perfectly with our needs. Video management has evolved far past the point where it exists purely as a standalone technology, and to fully harness the power of an open VMS platform like Milestone Systems, our leaders need to understand and work with the myriad of technologies that integrate with our solutions.” Ritesh received his MBA from Nagpur University, and is fluent in four languages – Hindi, English, Kannada and Marathi. He will be based in Bengaluru. Milestone Systems has committed to an ambitious growth strategy in the region, backed by a global plan to increase their innovation capacity by 45 percent.  

Banking and securities sector in India continues to increase its investments in digital business. Its spending on IT in India will total $11 billion in 2020, an increase of 9.1% from 2019, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. Banking and securities organizations are investing in emerging digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain, not only to create new product offerings but also to respond to evolving customer demands. “As an example, the transition to a cashless society aided by newer digital payment channels is creating opportunities for new digital technology investments in the sector,” said Ali Merji, Senior Research Director at Gartner. Respondents to the 2019 global Gartner CIO Survey identified AI and machine learning as the number one game changing technology at 27% followed by data analytics, including predictive analytics at 20%. “CIOs in this sector continue to adopt digital technologies that will improve existing products and services. Technologies such as biometric authentication, machine learning, chatbots are increasingly preferred by CIOs to deliver an enhanced user experience and enable digitalization of the sector,” added Mr. Merji. Biometrics and automation boost IT spending According to Gartner’s ‘Hype Cycle for Digital Banking Transformation 2019,’ biometric technology will impact up to 20% of banking organizations in the next two to five years. “In India, biometric technology adoption saw a boost after the introduction of Aadhaar, a unique 12-digit identification number that links citizens’ bank accounts to their biometric data and mobile numbers,” continued Mr. Merji. Biometric authentication such as touch ID is a common way of using passwordless authentication and is widely deployed in mobile banking. “Biometrics eliminates the hassle of remembering passwords and makes the banking experience more secure and seamless. This is one of the key factors that influenced 83% of surveyed global CIOs in the banking and securities sector to indicate that they will continue investing in biometrics with either the same level of investment or by going beyond the current level in the next two years,” said Mr. Merji, “Seven in 10 Indian financial services firms are actively experimenting with biometrics or have already deployed it in their organization in some capacity.” According to the 2019 Gartner CIO survey, technology leaders in banking place a higher priority on legacy modernization than they in other industries. While user-facing digitalization efforts are critical to delivering a complete digital experience to customers, digitalization of internal processes is necessary to support this initiative. Of the total technology investments being made in the Indian banking sector, 23% are for digitalization of internal services. This investment is expected to grow by 9% over the next two years. “One of the critical challenges that troubles Indian banking and securities CIOs is connecting legacy digital systems to modern IT setups without interrupting the flow of data,” concluded Mr. Merji, “In a bank, customer data moves across multiple departments for even the simplest of processes such as opening a new bank account. Automation of these back-office processes can reduce the response time, ensure data continuity and secure data transfers, and at the same time deliver an enhanced user experience.” Additional advice on how to drive business performance will be presented during Gartner IT Symposium/ Xpo 2019, the world’s most important gathering of CIOs and other IT executives. IT executives rely on Gartner IT Symposium/ Xpo to gain insight into how their organizations can use IT to overcome business challenges and improve operational efficiency.  

Prama Hikvision participated in the recently held Retail Technology Conclave (ReTechCon) 2019 in Mumbai to showcase its artificial intelligence solution for retail application based on advance video analytics. They also took part in the conference called ‘Future Focus: Rethinking Retail with RPA, AI & ML’ held during the conclave. The theme for the two-day conclave hosted by the Retailers Association of India (RAI) was ‘Technology-driven leadership – the algorithm of Success.’ “Hikvision’s AI based smart retail solution equipped with deep learning algorithms were showcased at ReTechCon 2019. Many Retailers were keen to know how Prama Hikvision’s research and development effort is helping the retail business operation through retail AI based solutions. We got a good response from the retailers community to do proof of concept (PoC) for Hikvision AI product range. There is a lot of interest in deep learning technology and business intelligence functions for retail support including people-counting, heat mapping, queue detection and face recognition,” said Ashish Dhakan, MD & CEO, Prama Hikvision India Pvt. Ltd. K. Dakhara, Vertical Head – Retail, Logistics, Warehouse, Gems & Jewellery, Prama Hikvision India Pvt. Ltd., gave insights about futuristic solution on retail technology based on robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI), deep leaning and machine leaning algorithm during a panel discussion on ‘Future Focus: Rethinking Retail with RPA, AI & ML.’ He further explained how RPA, AI & ML technologies are an extension of existing technology and leverage to retailers for coping up on cut throat competition where margins are going to be thinner and customer expectation increasing day by day. With the example of Hikvision’s robotic automation and AI based solution, he explained how technology can increase the operational efficiency and be useful to provide personalized service to customers. He said, “Current trends and technology-driven leadership can become algorithm of success in retail business.” The latest products and AI based solutions showcased included facial recognition, gender analysis, footfall count, heat map analysis, SKU analysis, queue management, VIP greetings on digital signage, CCTV integration with POS, packet tracking, invoice reading, integrated solution for CCTV, intrusion and fire, loss prevention solution, access control, time & attendance, Hikvision’s consumer product range, amazon alexa integrated ipc range and central monitoring, and command and control system. The event was the preferred platform for the release of several products and a report by RAI and ValueFirst titled ‘Technology driven leadership in Retail,’ that helps in understanding the state of retail and supply chain in the Indian marketing context. For Prama Hikvision, Retail Technology Conclave 2019 proved to be a suitable platform for showcasing the cutting-edge retail artificial intelligence solutions.