Office On Wheels: Indian Railways To Introduce Laptops, Printers & Internet On Premier Trains

Indian Railways is all set to provide the ‘office experience’ for its travelers as laptops, printers and Internet would now be offered during the journey. To start with, such services would be introduced on India’s premier trains: Rajdhani and Shatabdi Express. Based on the feedback and usability of the services, the same would be rolled out for other trains as well.

As per information coming in, Internet and Workstations powered with printers would be first implemented on long distance running Rajdhani Express from New Delhi to Southern India. As per the initial plan, a cabin would be carved in the pantry car of these trains, and Internet services would be offered on a per hour basis.

The fee structures haven’t been finalized yet as officials are conducting various feasibility studies to make the service affordable and within the reach of the common man.

A senior Railways Official said, “To begin with, work station will be made operational at the pantry car and depending upon the response we will work out a permanent place for it. Modalities are being worked out and the fee will be on hourly basis.”

What Is Office On Wheels Concept?

Last month Government had mentioned in the Rail Budget that a concept of‘Office of Wheel’ would be soon implemented and this is the first step in that direction. As per the plan mentioned during the budget, a separate coach would be added in the short-distance routes of premier trains wherein business travelers can pay a nominal fee and use work-stations, printers and Internet on the go.

As per the official, Indian Railways has decided to implement the Office on Wheels concept on the following routes on a test basis: Delhi-Chandigarh, Delhi-Kanpur and Chennai-Bangalore besides popular Shatabdi Express routes of short distances.

Office on Wheels would be a specially designed coach with comfortable seating arrangement, personalized catering service on the seats, having an office like environment.

Indian Railways Needs to Lure Business Travelers

Business travelers form a big chunk of regular consumers of Indian Railways, especially on trains like Shatabdi and Rajdhani, and they need to be attracted if Indian Railways want them to stay with trains. With the introduction of low cost airlines in India, business travelers have been opting for flight instead of trains as the difference in fares is becoming less day by day and there is a huge saving in travel time as well.

For example, for the Delhi-Chennai travel for September 18^th, IndiGo is offering a seat for only Rs 5323, whereas AC 2 berth will cost Rs 2970. The difference of fares becomes less relevant as flight takes only 3 hours whereas 36 hours are required to travel by train.

Similarly, for Mumbai-Kolkata travel, you can get a seat in SpiceJet only for Rs 4031 and it takes less than 3 hours with ‘On time Guarantee’ whereas train takes 18 hours and for AC II berth, you need shell out Rs 2820.

By providing value added services like internet, workstations and printer in the trains, Indian Railways is certainly trying to lure those business travelers who don’t wish to waste time.

For the others, who love the slow chugging of trains and the experience of witnessing India from a closer range can also use such service for entertainment purpose.

Too old To Do a Startup? Worry Not, There Is No Age Limit On Becoming An Entrepreneur

Starting a business has never come with a age limit but with a lot of “buts”, “I wish”s and “do you really think”s. Mid-life crisis brings with it a dozen problems and you sure don’t want another problem called “starting anew”. The excuses to put off the plan are more likely to occur than starting a flame of entrepreneurship. Also research findings show, once you hit 30, change is unwelcome. You’d rather drink the same old filter coffee than explore where you can find a Java chip Frappuccino!

Pushing aside all the “buts”, if you believe cruising out to find that exotic Frappuccino is any day better than sitting around for the ever known taste of filter coffee-then entrepreneurship is your cup of tea! Really, starting a new venture has never had an expiry date. Thinking you’re too old for it has! For it has to stop now!

It’s hard for you to believe, especially when 20 something’s like Mark Zuckerberg have now taken over the start-up empire, even 30 seems old. There are 2 major questions that may haunt you:
“Don’t you think I’m too old for it now?” and “What if I fail?”. Fair enough. These 2 questions have already been answered for us by all those entrepreneurs who we worship now.

“Don’t you think I’m too old for it now?” Entrepreneurship is about inventing an idea and sticking to it like gum. If you have a life changing idea that will help public at large, you’ve the keys to The hall of fame. As they say, age is just a number.

What really matters how old your thinking is.

Col Harland Sanders was 65 when he started KFC. Ray Kroc was 52 when he founded Mc Donald’s and 60 before he actually started making money. Ray Kroc did blue collar jobs until he founded Mc Donald’s. Arianna Huffington gave her “not more than 40” peer publishers a run for their money by starting Huffington Post at 54.

Achievements don’t come with deadlines and life hacking ideas don’t stop till you’re dead. J K Rowling, a single mom, living on welfare, on a train to Manchester dreamt about a little wizard and a school called Hogwarts – made a fortune selling Harry Potter. She was rejected by the biggest publishing houses in London. They laughed at her foolishness in writing about this fantasy boy with a scar excelling in witchcraft. Daniel Radcliff and Emma Watson solely live on the movie’s success. Who’s laughing now?

So there’s never a bad time to start a good thing. All you need is the belief to keep you in the race and the persistency to endure big setbacks for a lifetime of achievement.

“What if I fail?”

When you toss a coin, there are 50:50 chances of getting heads or tails. The same way when you decide on something new – you have equal chances of it clicking and flopping. But our brain is trained in such a way that negative thoughts reach your mind faster than it’s positive counterparts.

“Provide for future unexpected losses and ignore future unexpected gains” is one core principle of accountancy, isn’t it! So that’s how it’s been for a long time. But there are a pack of new age entrepreneurs who defy these age old standards.

The praises of creating Facebook have drowned the losses Mark suffered in his maiden ventures like Coursematch and Facemash which bombed. Chad Hurley started Youtube, a famous venture which did not stop him from exploring his other options. He later started Zeen and MlxBit which were failures.

Richard Branson is a perfect example of “fearless”. In the dozen enterprises he started, he’s succeeded only countable times. Between Virgin Galactic, Virgin Airways and Virgin Records- there’s a spectrum of different industries he entered only to deplete his income by funding his loss making ventures!

Someone rightly said, “Do not let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game”

Entrepreneurship is a chance to create something of value from nothing. An idea and a fearless heart is a terrific combination for success. Money isn’t even a factor to drop a revolutionizing thought, because if your idea is “out-of-the box” and you are willing to forgo many luxuries – someone will somehow fund you.

Even a research conducted by Vivek Wadhwa, an academic and tech entrepreneur, and the Kauffman Foundation, the average age of successful start-up founders in Silicon Valley was 40. And high-growth start-ups are almost twice as likely to be launched by people over 55 as by people 20 to 34. [Source]

Quality is long remembered after the price is forgotten!

[source: Shutterstock]

Indian Smartphone Market: IDC Says Samsung Still On Top With 17% Market Share

[ Title Updated with Correct Figure]

Few days back, Counterpoint research had created lot of furore after declaring that Micromax had beaten Samsung when it came to overall smartphone market share. Many analyst had discounted that report given stating Counterpoint was new agency and did not have any previous track record.

Looks like Analysts were right – leading research agency IDC have released their quarterly numbers which shows that Samsung is still firmly on the top of the heap. Infact, the difference between both the vendors is not that close. Samsung has 17 percent market share compared to Micromax’s 14 percent. Even at current growth, Micromax may take atleast couple of quarters to come close to Samsung.

While it is true that Micromax is growing much faster than Samsung, they still have lot of catching up to do.

According to IDC, overall India mobile phone market stood at 63.21 million units in Q2 2014, a 5% increase over Q1 2014. Smartphone market grew much faster at 11% in 2Q2014, compared to 1Q2014.

With tremendous influx of ultra-cheap smartphones (we now have smartphones that cost less than 3k), most consumers are moving towards smartphones rather than feature phones. The above graph clearly shows the shift – In second quarter last year smartphones accounted for 16 percent of all the mobile phones. The percentage is now nearly doubled to 29 percent.

According to IDC report, vendors shipped a total of 18.42 million Smartphonesin Q2 2014 compared to 10.02 million in the same period of 2013. The sub-$200 category of the smartphone market is increasing in terms of new shipment share as the contribution from this category stood at 81% in Q2 2014.

When it came to large screen phones (phablets) the market grew at 5.4 percent quarter on quarter in terms of volume.

Smartphone Vendor Market Share

While in terms of overall mobile market share, the difference between Samsung and Micromax is 3 percentage points, when it comes to smartphones, Samsung is far ahead of Micromax. Former has 29% market share compared to latters 18%.

It is true that Micromax is growing faster, and for Samsung to be in the position it is, they need to make sure that they address the low-end of the market aggressively. At one point Samsung brand was synonym with Smartphones, but given the rise of Chinese brands like Xiaomi and Indian brands like Micromax, Karbonn and others, they have now lost their momentum.

They surely need to come up with some blockbuster smartphones to regain that momentum back!

Govt Approves Rs 1L Crore For Digital India Project; E-Governance To Get Major Push

Indian Government has approved Digital India project, and allocated a budget of Rs 1 Lakh crore to implement it. PM Narendra Modi will spearhead the project, which is expected to be implemented before 2019.

Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “Today the Cabinet has approved the Digital India initiative of PM Narendra Modi. The PM had promised to bring everyone under the umbrella of ‘Digital India’. India’s talent plus information technology are India’s tomorrow,”

What Will Happen Now?

Under Digital India project, a specially empowered ‘Digital India Advisory Group’ would be formed, which will be headed by the Minister of IT and Communications, along with an ‘Apex Committee’ headed by a Cabinet Secretary and ‘Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) or Committee’ on Non Plan Expenditure (CNE).

These committees and government bodies will work on implementing the National E-governance policies and plans.

The nine most important growth areas where this new project of Digital India will work are:

1. Broadband highways to connect all villages and cities of India
2. Everywhere mobile connectivity; wherein mobile coverage will be provided to every nook and corner of India
3. Public Internet Access Program wherein internet accessibility to the web will be provided at subsidized rates (example public WiFis)
4. eGovernance in every government department, wherein 100% paper-less environment will be encouraged
5. e-Kranti, wherein government services would be electronically delivered
6. Information for All policy (which includes provisioning of Right to Information using the Internet as a medium)
7. Electronics manufacturing
8. IT for Jobs
9. Early harvest program

Action Plans for Digital India

Digital India project’s main aim is to “transform India into digital empowered society and knowledge economy”. All central government ministries and departments have been instructed to come up with unique and innovative plans and services which can be delivered directly to the public, using the digital medium. For example provision to provide health and medical details of all citizens online, education initiatives and plans and judiciary decisions.

National Informatics Center will provide the IT infrastructure to roll out digital initiatives, besides a special Chief Information Officer (CIO) will be appointed in atleast 10 major ministries to facilitate conceptualization, implementation and measurement of all Digital India plans.

Insiders are also stating that the government is keen to forge Public-Private partnership to spread the growth and usage of Digital medium everywhere possible.

This is certainly one of those ‘big news’ for the country as this project is expected to create thousands of new jobs and enterprises for implementing the Digital India plans. We will update you as more details are updated by the government regarding this new initiative.

[Image: Shutterstock]

5 Entrepreneurial Insights Shared By Robin Williams Unknowingly

August 12th  was a sad day for every movie lover across the world: Robin Williams, the enchanting comedian-actor died at the age of 63. The whole movie fraternity and creative world was in shock: How can a person who made the whole world laugh can die so suddenly?

The details are yet to be released, but it seems that he was suffering from depression since last few years, and he had even been admitted to be treated from alcoholism.

Such was the stature of the person that even US President Barack Obama had to issue a statement, “He arrived in our lives as an alien — but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit. He made us laugh. He made us cry,”

Robin Williams was not an entrepreneur, he was an artist, an entertainer and a solid actor. Critics acclaimed him to be a genius, and the best part about being a genius is that they can touch lives. During his shows and movies and interviews, he knowingly or unknowingly infused tons of inspiration and motivation which can be so aptly used by every entrepreneur to create a legacy and a great story.

Here is a collection of 5 Entrepreneurial Insights, which were shared by Robin Williams:

(Dialogue from his movie : Dead Poets Society)

Entrepreneurial Insight: Most would-be-entrepreneurs delay the launch of their venture, fearing the outcome. What if their friends and family make fun of them, what if they fail, what if it becomes a huge success. The core message within these lines beautifully explains the need for action, which is so very important for the entrepreneur. One of his best performances ever!

(one of his most popular quotes from World’s Greatest Dad)

Entrepreneurial Insight: When success strikes the entrepreneur, he can feel that the circle of advisors and ‘well-wishers’ have suddenly increased. Everyone is offering his or her own viewpoint with an intension to mark their presence before the entrepreneur. Often he believes everything which is being shared with him, and sometimes this can be a costly mistake.

Human being is a social animal, and the fear of being ‘lonely’ sometimes overpower his logical thinking, and he accepts those into their lives who have no role to play in their professional lives. More than anyone else, the entrepreneur should choose his circle of influencers very wisely. Instead of choosing wrong people and repent later, its better to cruise alone.

(quote from his movie ‘Good Morning, Vietnam’)

Entrepreneurial Insight: Creativity is the most under-used tool by the businessmen; and the number 1 reason is that people assume that creativity is only applicable for artists. Creativity, when combined with business acumen can become so powerful that it can solve any problem, without any hassle. Besides several definitions of creativity, one of them of them is being surprising, unexpected, and totally insane.

Have you observed how every child is creative when he is provided with crayons and colors to play with? Then something happens in-between and that madness, surprises and creativity vanishes. This quote is so relevant and so useful for the entrepreneur that I can’t stress it enough. This quote perfectly complements Steve Jobs, when he said “Stay Hungry Stay Foolish”.

(popular quote from one of his interviews)

Entrepreneurial Insight: There are no overnight success stories; you need to slog for it. Overnight success stories are promoted by those who sell lotteries, and the entrepreneur never buys any lottery. He creates his own destiny and makes a dent in the universe by using his strengths and his ideas. And failure is one very important factor to achieve the success.

Unless you don’t know what the ways an idea can fail; how can you actually work your way up? In this quote, Robin Williams has shared one of the most crucial insights any entrepreneur can get: Fail, fail more. It’s the failure which becomes the ultimate stepping stone of success.

(Another famous quote from the movie Dead Poets Society)

Entrepreneurial Insight: The biggest sin which any entrepreneur can commit is self-doubt. Even if a fraction of doubt gets inside the mind of the entrepreneur regarding his idea or a big decision, it can play havoc with the future course of action. Doubt makes the man weak, and cripples his decision making ability. Via this awesome quote, Robin Williams has actually stated that one should always ‘believe’ and ‘trust’ his own instincts, when no one other does.

Yes, ideas and words can change the world.

R.I.P Robin Williams, and thank you for all the laughs and the inspiration. We will always be indebted to you. You were a noble soul..

Gmail’s Spam Filter Will Now Weed Out Identical Letter Exploits

Earlier last week, Gmail had announced support for multi-lingual email where even email addresses in non-english language could send and receive emails.  So, now non-Latin characters are also supported in Gmail.

However, this change has inadvertently opened a new gateway for spammers, where they can use identical looking letters from non-english languages and include parts of it in english text and fool users. The reason why they need to use these letters – Gmail would generally mark such mails as spam if used in plain english language. Gmail’s spam filters do a great job of identifying spam mails based on words. So, any email that has lets say a word “bank” or any other high-risk words will be scrutinized closely.

But what spammers do is, replace certain identical letters from non-english language in normal english text to fool the spam filters. I am sure once in a while you may have come across such mails that has certain letters looking slightly skewed – more often than not, these are spam.

Here are some examples of similar looking letters that are used by spammers in their emails to fool spam filters.

However, going forward Gmail will be blocking all such similar looking letters. Gmail wants to stay one step ahead of spammers and they have identified suspicious combinations of letters that could be misleading, and Gmail will now begin rejecting email with such combinations. To achieve this, Gmail is an open standard—the Unicode Consortium’s “Highly Restricted” designation—which strikes a healthy balance between legitimate uses of these new domains and those likely to be abused.

It is a always a tug-of-war between spammers and email providers, where former keep finding ways to efficiently beat the filters and latter wants to ensure that they are secure gate-keepers. Gmail has shown till now that they are doing a good job of it, and with this new inclusion, they are getting even better!

Use This Mobile App To Bring A Social Change In India: Stop Child Trafficking Now!

This is one of my most feared moments: You stop at a traffic light with 120 seconds still to go green, and your eyes get locked with the eyes of the homeless child, begging on the road. He comes to you, and asks for some money, and you feel helpless and without any answer.

Yes, giving them money can’t solve the problem; but helping them can. But how can you help them and bring a social change?

Shashank Singh and Amol Gupta have used technology to bring a social revolution in India as they have launched their Android mobile application:‘Helping Faceless’, using which you can help such children and stop child trafficking.

The idea is pretty simple: Whenever you see homeless children begging on the roads, click a picture of that child, and upload it to their servers. Using an algorithm, the application will scan a huge database of such missing children and if any match is found, the information will be instantly shared with nearest NGOs.

One of the co-founders of this application has been a victim of kidnapping when he was a child, and due to the help of a stranger, he was saved in the nick of time. This personal experience inspired them to develop and launch this app which can infact bring in a change.

As per various researches and case studies, it has been found that majority of these children who are begging on roads are part of a greater child-trafficking mafia, wherein they kidnap young children from villages and towns and force them to beg in big cities.

Yes, there exists several rules and regulations under the Indian constitution to tackle such cases, such as: The Child Labour (Prohibition and Prevention) Act, 1986 (amended in 2006), Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1986, Sections 361, 363-A, 367, 369 of the Indian Penal Code (deal with kidnapping of minors) etc but they are hardly effective.

The founders of application have started uploading pictures of children roaming on the roads and sleeping on pavements in Mumbai, and their last 8 months of efforts have helped them to create more awareness about their application. They have already started talks with Kolkata police and NGOs in Maharashtra and West Bengal to help them locate such children, and save them from trafficking.

Here is an interview of the founders of ‘Helping Faceless’ where you can get more insights and ideas behind this whole social campaign.

You can download the application for Android smartphones here.

Do share your suggestions and insights to tackle the menace of child trafficking in India, and how can technology be used to eradicate this problem.

Privacy Invasion? Phone Number Now Mandatory To Open New Gmail and Yahoo Mail Accounts

Both Gmail and Yahoo Mail have silently made phone numbers as a mandatory requirement to create new email accounts on their platform. While Google asks for either a telephone number or mobile number, Yahoo specifically asks for mobile number to able to verify the email accounts. Earlier both of these email providers had phone number as optional field.

When a Google official was contacted by leading news daily to verify this requirement, he said that it’s optional to provide phone numbers. As per theofficial instructions on the Gmail support section: “Note for Google Apps users: In an effort to protect our users and combat abuse of our systems, we sometimes ask admins to verify their identity via SMS or a phone call before they’re able to complete some actions in the Control Panel”

However, if any new user tries to create a new gmail account without providing any phone number, his account would not be fully active. Although there has been no official announcement regarding this mandatory rule of providing phone number, it is clear to the end user that this requirement is a enforced way to extract their private information.

Atleast Yahoo has been clearly forthright in this matter, as a spokesperson for Yahoo recently said, “At Yahoo, we are committed to the security of our users. We ask our users to provide their mobile number at registration as a secondary means of authentication, in addition to their password. We would only use the number if we see any unusual activity on the account.

On one hand such a step is certainly a positive one to tackle the menace of spamming and illegal activities, but on the other hand it can lead to some serious charges of invasion in privacy.

Now, no longer a person can remain anonymous even in case he wishes to use email service provided by Google and Yahoo. In fact, there is no government notification or order regarding this requirement of giving out phone numbers to create email id.

Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) has opposed this move and said that the email service providers have no right to demand phone numbers of end-users in-order to use their email platform.

ISPAI President Rajesh Chharia said recently, “This is an attack on user’s privacy. This should not happen. If they (Gmail and Yahoo) are doing such a thing, then this must be recognized by Indian government on how they are collecting phone numbers,”

As of end of 2012, there were total 425 million users of Gmail all over the world, out of which its maximum reach was within India as 62% of Indians who use email has opted for Gmail. Comparatively, Yahoo Mail has 281 million users all over the world, out of which around 10 million are from India.

With this enforced rule and arm-twisting methodology to extract emails from internet-savvy Indians, both of these email providers have chosen a very dangerous path, which can lead to large scale dissatisfaction and uproar.

What do you think of this decision to make phone numbers mandatory to use email? Will it help to stop spam or it’s a clear invasion of your privacy? Do share your views by commenting right here!

Xiaomi Apologizes For Unauthorized Data Access, Makes Cloud Messaging Optional

While Xiaomi MI phones have been selling like hotcakes in India, the company has been having rough time over past couple of weeks due to reports that Xiaomi phones are secretly sending personal data to Chinese Government. Xiaomi had issued a clarification over the reports that user privacy is extremely important to them and their phones in no way send any personal data to Chinese Government.

However, a recent report by security services provider F-Secure pointed out that Xiaomi’s Flagship phones appear to share a range of information with a server in China — including the device’s IMEI number, customer’s phone number, phone contacts and text messages received. They even shared a screenshot of the same in their post.

While the first report did not come out to be true, the F-Secure update clearly pointed to unauthorized user data access.

Xiaomi’s Global VP, Hugo Barra has now apologized, which points to the fact that their cloud messaging service was indeed sending data to their servers in China.In a Google+ update, Hugo Barra has mentioned,

These concerns refer to the MIUI Cloud Messaging service described above.  As we believe it is our top priority to protect user data and privacy, we have decided to make MIUI Cloud Messaging an opt-in service and no longer automatically activate users.  We have scheduled an OTA system update for today (Aug 10th) to implement this change.  After the upgrade, new users or users who factory reset their devices can enable the service by visiting “Settings > Mi Cloud > Cloud Messaging” from their home screen or “Settings > Cloud Messaging” inside the Messaging app — these are also the places where users can turn off Cloud Messaging.

We apologize for any concern caused to our users and Mi fans. We would also like to thank the media and users who have been sending us feedback and suggestions, allowing us to improve and provide better Internet services.

It is commendable that Xiaomi was swift in taking action and release an update to make cloud messaging optional. Hugo Barra also explained they need details like phone number, IMSI and IMEI to provide users with free text messaging capability.  MIUI Cloud Messaging uses SIM and device identifiers for routing messages between two users, in the same way as some of the most popular messaging services.

Even though Xiaomi had a valid explanation for it, the fact remains that Xiaomi phones were sending personal data without users’ permission. This also points to the fact that if you are using any free text messaging apps, same personal details are shared with the service provider.

One thing is clear – Mobile users need to be very careful while installing any apps on their phones. They need to make sure that they are ok with the permissions they are providing to the mobile app. There is a reason why “Mobile App permissions” are the biggest reason for Malware on Android phones.

Govt Joins Forces With Tata, Flipkart, Raymond & GIPCL To Encourage Entrepreneurship

In a unique public-private partnership platform ever developed in the country, Government of India has joined forced with Tata Group, Flipkart, Raymond and Gujarat Industrial Power Company Ltd (GIPCL) to empower youth and encourage entrepreneurship.

Labour Ministry had invited proposals from corporate India to develop a strategy to train our youths with better skills and expertise which actually meets the industry standard. As a result of this, Labour Ministry has signed 4 ‘flexible’ MoUs with these four companies. The announcement was made at an event organized by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Labour Secretary Gauri Kumar said during the event, “The challenge before India is how to forge a winning partnership. How do we come together for mutual benefits.”

In a combined statement issued by Labour Ministry and CII, it was shared that government is looking for corporate and established businesses to volunteer and develop a ‘last-mile employability module’ which empowers the youth of our nation to be ready for the industry.

As per the initial draft of the MoUs, Tata Group, Flipkart, Raymonds and GIPCLwill develop and brainstorm courses for the Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) which are spread all over the country. Each of these companies has been assigned specific responsibilities.

Tata Sons have been appointed as ‘knowledge partners’ for the Labour Ministry, wherein they will share their best knowledge and experience to promote employability and entrepreneurship among Indian youth

Flipkart will focus on the development and enrichment of artisans who take courses at ITI. Their program has been named as “Flipkart Karigaar Ke Dwaar”, wherein they will share real-time market data and analysis to make our artisans self-sufficient and capable to market their products. This can certainly prove to be a huge help for artisans and small/micro entrepreneurs who are economically backwards. This MoU was signed between deputy director general DGET RL Singh and Joy Bandekar, president at Flipkart.

Raymond will focus on textile and exports niche, as they will design special programs and packages to spread knowledge of ‘customized garment manufacturing’ for budding entrepreneurs in India.

GIPCL, which is a public limited company under Govt. of Gujarat has gone one step further and adapted two ITI which are based in tribal regions in Gujarat. As per the initial draft, they will teach two specific courses over there: Instrument Mechanic (Power Plant) and Electrician (Power Plant).

Such public-private partnership to nurture and develop skills among the youth is certainly a big leap for the nation.We hope that more such programs are developed and more corporate volunteer to share their expertise so that India certainly becomes the ‘talent hub’ of the world!

3 Creative Strategies To Solve Any Business Problem

“Curiosity about life, in all its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.” – Leo Burnett

Creativity is surely a messy thing; it has no rules, no regulations, no beginning and no end. Once a creative person has completed his creation, just ask him how he did it and you will get an idea. Steve Jobs once said that creative people are always guilty when asked how they did it, reason being it seems so obvious to them. They have an idea, and they just implement it.

The most interesting thing is, the creative person is never sure whether he has really completed it or not.

If creativity has any practical implementation, then it is surely business operation. In today’s hyper-active markets and the spread of social media where your competitors are just one click away, you have to be creative in order to survive. Creativity helps to prevent stagnation among the business processes, and helps the company to see things in a new angle.

In case you are facing a tough business problem, and there is no way out, remember this: There is no business puzzle which cannot be solved by creativity. In fact, thinking out of the box, and coming in with creative solutions in place of your regular tactics can prove to be a major boost for your overall business. As we have observed it first hand, common business issues such as staff management, sales and marketing, customer retention, customer service, delivery, billing etc can all be resolved using little bits of creativity here and there.

The most important thing is to believe that your idea is a best seller, and keep on experimenting.

Creativity Is Thinking & Acting Upon It

In very simple terms, creativity means to create something new and innovative. Creativity involves two parts: imagining and producing. In case you just imagine ideas, and not actually produce something in reality, then at best you are a dreamer, not a creator. Acting upon the idea and bringing something in reality which others can see, read, touch or feel is very important.

Two other popular views on creativity:

“Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Creativity requires passion and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness: ecstasy.” – Rollo May, The Courage to Create

“A product is creative when it is (a) novel and (b) appropriate. A novel product is original not predictable. The bigger the concept, and the more the product stimulates further work and ideas, the more the product is creative.” —Sternberg & Lubart, Defying the Crowd

3 Creative Strategies For Your Workplace

On the backdrop of these definitions of creativity, let us explore ways to introduce creativity in your workplace, right this moment:

Role Playing To Get Maximum Perspective

You can ask your team members to forget their current designations, and simple role play. It can give your employees a new perspective to virtually everything. For example, the sales manager can become a Writer for a change, and the Writer can become the marketing manager and so on. With role reversed, everyone can behave differently, act differently, and bring upon ideas which were previously impossible to even imagine.

Role playing is an important part of the ‘business simulation’ process and has been included in curriculum of several business schools as well.

Brainstorming To Get Variety of Ideas:

Brainstorming involves collectively thinking and working upon several ideas to solve a problem. Typically, a brainstorming session goes like this: A problem which has arisen suddenly needs a solution, which is not visible to the manager. He will call all his team members in a room, and present the problem. Then, he will ask all of them to share whatever ideas which come to their minds. Everyone is supposed to write down the idea or share it with the manager who will write it down. There is no rule or terms for sharing ideas; you keep on writing whatever solution comes to your mind.

Brainstorming a problem is the best example of thinking outside the box: yes, 80% of the ideas wont be practical enough to be implemented, but there would be rest 20% out of which some will exist to perfectly resolve the issue. Although some psychologists claim that brainstorming is overrated, and it doesn’t work; meanwhile there are others who say that brainstorming always work. We need to understand the psychology behind brainstorming, and we will have to tweak it to work.

Po: Lateral Thinking

In case you feel that brainstorming has gone out of fashion from the creativity world, checkout ‘Po’ , which is a shorthand for Provocation Technique. The term Po was coined by Edward de Bono to denote lateral thinking process. Under this method, which is a primitive form of brainstorming, where an idea is thought to be too radical or unrealistic to be ever implemented.

Then why do we do it?

We use this technique to break the mental shackles which sometimes bind us. Imagine there is a sales meeting which is going to happen in the next 10 minutes, and being the sales manager, you don’t have any idea what to propose. The clock is ticking without any stop, and you can experience sweat being formed on your forehead.

Using Po technique, you can instantly break the deadlock and induce surprisingly new ideas which earlier would have been impossible. In other words, we ‘provoke’ our mind to think forward and think innovatively.

To solve the problem of the sales manager, here are some ideas generated by Po technique:

Problem:Sales are dropping, we need new ideas asap!

Solution:

• Change the color of the packaging
• Change the name of the brand
• Open a new museum and dedicate your product to it
• Hire 50 people who will shout your product’s name on the road
• Sponsor Indian cricket team
• Sell the product to adults, and gift it to youngsters
• Hire Angelina Jolie

Yes, some of these ideas are absurd and totally crazy, but your mind is now more active, and full of even better ideas!

Do you have any creative ideas which can help any business? Have you ever induced any creative idea in your business?

Do share your views by commenting right here!

Microsoft May Soon Set Up Cloud Data Center In India, Will Be First MNC To Do So!

Microsoft is said to be considering setting up a cloud computing data centre in India. If it does so, it will be Microsoft’s first data centre established within India. Not only that, it would make the Redmond company the very first Multi-national company to have set up a cloud data centre in India.

At present, many companies in India are employing Microsoft’s cloud computing services. However, all those data centers are located abroad. Also, their functionality is limited by the fact that the RBI guidelines prohibit storing of customer data outside of India’s borders. This is the sole reason for limiting the adoption of cloud based services by several companies in India, mainly those companies which offer financial services.

Microsoft’s cloud computing segment only makes up a meager 5% of their total business, but is the fastest growing segment of the company. The special interest in India is backed up by stats, which say that India is one of the fastest growing markets for cloud computing based solutions, if not the fastest growing market.

If you want some numbers, the cloud market in India is growing between double and triple digits every few months. Gartner reports that the Indian cloud services market will expand from Rs. 2,550 crore in 2013 to an impressive Rs. 7,800 crore in 2017, which would make this country the fastest growing market for cloud adoption from across the globe.

Even if Microsoft becomes the first MNC to setup a data centre in India, global competitors such as Amazon and Google are sure to follow and give them a tough fight. At present, all three MNCs – Microsoft, Google and Amazon – have cloud data centres in Asia at only one place, Singapore. Globally, Microsoft has 13 data centres, Google has 12, and Amazon has just 8.

The cloud computing services market in India is about to kick-off big time. Going by the numbers provided by Gartner, we are looking at a 300% growth in the market over a span of 4 years.

Why No MNC has setup Data Centers in India to Date?

It is interesting to note that even though internet users are growing at fast clip in India, none of the biggies have setup their data centers in India as yet.

A comment on one of the Techcrunch articles recently caught our eye, which precisely gives you the reason why India does still does not have major data centers. Read the comment by Chun Yang shown below.

Of course, we would like India’s own children to produce data centres that provide world-class services. But, if RBI were to relax their guidelines, Microsoft, and later perhaps Google and Amazon could a big amount of investment, and as a result, create a large number of jobs in the country. But all this is possible only if our Government supports them by creating good infrastructure!