ORBCOMM Moves India Operations to New Technology Center of Excellence in Hyderabad, India

Source: ORBCOMM.com/news

Serves as Company’s hub for software application development and customer care supporting its comprehensive IoT solution portfolio

Rochelle Park, NJ, and Hyderabad, India, March 22, 2017 - ORBCOMM Inc. (Nasdaq: ORBC), a leading global provider of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, announced today that it has moved its India operations to a new technology center of excellence for software application development and Tier One customer care in Hyderabad, India. ORBCOMM will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony performed by Mr. K.T. Ramarao, Cabinet Minister for IT of the state of Telangana, Mr. Jayesh Ranjan, IT Secretary of the state of Telangana, and Mr. Craig Malone, ORBCOMM’s Executive Vice President of Product Development, to mark the official opening of its new office today at 10:45 am IST.

ORBCOMM’s Hyderabad office is the company’s largest software development site and houses web and mobile application developers and customer service representatives, who are part of the company’s global team of technical experts focused on the delivery of its IoT products, services and solutions. In addition to supporting ORBCOMM’s continued technological innovation, the office will supplement the company’s North America-based customer care team, which provides 24x7 customer service throughout the full solution delivery lifecycle for over 1.72 million end-user IoT devices on its global satellite and cellular networks.

“We opened our new state-of-the-art facility in Hyderabad, India to accommodate the continued growth and expansion of ORBCOMM’s business in the global industrial IoT market,” said Craig Malone, ORBCOMM’s Executive Vice President of Product Development. “This office will serve as ORBCOMM’s center of excellence for software development and customer care to support our broad portfolio of IoT solutions and deliver the highest level of service to our global customers. We also look forward to collaborating with local technology partners and integrators to deliver ORBCOMM’s advanced technology solutions to government and commercial customers throughout India.”

For more information about ORBCOMM’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, please contact Latha Sirigiri, ORBCOMM’s Director of Human Resources, for the Hyderabad, India, office, at +91 (40) 40021258 or sirigiri.latha@orbcomm.com.

Hyderabad emerges as the city with the best quality of living

Source: Times of India  Dt: 15.3.2017

Hyderabad has been ranked as the top Indian city in the quality of living ranking, for the third year in a row, as per Mercer's Quality of Living rankings 2017. For the second year in a row, according to the study, New Delhi continues to be ranked lowest, with scores remaining constant.
 

Both Hyderabad and Pune cities rank higher for quality of living than the country's more traditional business centres, Mumbai and New Delhi ranked at 154 and 161, respectively, as per the report.
 

Globally, Vienna occupies first place for overall quality of living for the 8th year running, with the rest of the top-ten list mostly filled by European cities -- Zurich (2), Munich (4), Dusseldorf (6), Frankfurt (7), Geneva (8), Copenhagen (9), and Basel (10).

The only non-European cities in the top ten are Auckland (3) and Vancouver (5). The highest ranking cities in Asia and Latin America are Singapore (25) and Montevideo (79), respectively.

"The survey highlights that Indian cities that have been part of the survey haven't made much progress on the quality of living scale since last year ", noted Ruchika Pal, Principal and India Practice Leader, Global Mobility. The report said the only exception is Chennai, whose score has marginall y improved mainly on account of public transport, including buses and a recently expanded two-line metro system, and improved availability of expat housing.

Interestingly, Hyderabad has slipped five ranks from 139 last year to 144, on account of decreased power supply and water availability. On the positive side, the city continues to score high, in comparison with other surveyed Indian cities, on account of lower crime rate.

On the other hand, while New Delhi scores well on account of its airport facility, availability of international schools and low probability of natural disasters, the positives are outweighed by a variety of negatives including a 'notorious' crime rate, air pollution and water availability.

"Delhi continues to be challenged with increasing air pollution, contributed by growing traffic and industrialization in the city. Delhi's air is the worst among world megacities, even the World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed recently. Unfortunately, there has been no improvement in air quality" said Pal.

Hyderabad International Airport Is World No.1 In Service Quality!

Source: Business Standard, Dt: 7.3.2017

Unless you’re one of the few people who’re afraid of flying and row your own raft from place to place, your first impression of a new country must be its airport. You notice the building, its architecture, the amenities and the service. Basically, your first impression of a country comes from its airport. So having an impressive airport is paramount.

In India, we adore our metropolitan city airports in Mumbai and Delhi. However, Hyderabad isn’t the first city to come to mind for having an impressive airport.

Well, most recently, Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport bagged the award for best airport service quality in the world. 

The airport was selected based on a survey of 5-15 million travellers.

“WHILE THE RECOGNITION HAS DEFINITELY MADE ALL OF US PROUD, BUT WE HAVE STILL MILES TO GO.”

I think that’s the right attitude to have. Enjoy the achievement but remember it’s not the end of the road.

So many of us talk about the exemplary quality of airports abroad. We’re impressed with the scale of Heathrow in London, the efficiency of Schoenfeld in Berlin, or the shopping opportunities of the International Airport in Dubai. However, we fail to realise we’ve got many such impressive airports back home.

The win for Hyderabad is further testament to the fact that when it comes to international airports, India has arrived.

Telangana logs in Google to reboot digital plan

Source: Times of  India, Dt: 4.3.17.

HYDERABAD: In a major boost to Telangana's digitisation efforts, the state on Friday inked an MoU with Google India after a meeting between IT minister KT Rama Rao and company representatives.

Google India will provide Google Cloud credits and access to all cloud platform to start-ups in T-hub as well as provide technical mentors to Making government sites mobile-friendly, helping local businesses get online, android courses for students to skill them in app development and, as part of Google Cultural Institute project, creating a digital repository of architectural and cultural heritage of the state is part of the plan.

The state also intends to train rural women through the 'Internet Saathi' programme. It will train women from Self-Help Groups and women's federations overseen by Tata Trusts. These master trainers (Saathis) will then train other women.

Thanking the state government for its support, Google India director (public policy) Chetan Krishnaswamy said: "We are delighted to support the government in its vision of a digitally empowered state. We look forward to working with the state government to create an enabling environment and ecosystem to help the people."

Praising Google, KTR said: "Google is a valuable partner. Our mission is to digitise Telangana and a partnership with Google will go a long way in ensuring our plans are achieved."

ZF opens first technology centre in Hyderabad

Source: Telangana Today, Dt: 4.3.17.

Telangana Industries and IT Minister K T Rama Rao who inaugurated the centre, said, ZF can support the Government in making Hyderabad a mobility engineering cluster.

Hyderabad: Germany-based ZF Friedrichshafen AG, a driveline and chassis technology provider, which also offers active and passive safety technology opened its first technology centre in India in Hyderabad. The ZF India Technology Center (ITC) will strengthen ZF’s presence in the country with expected investment of €15 million (Rs 105 crore) over the next five years. 

The company which announced its plans to set up this centre in September last year established it in just 6-7 months. This centre will employ 2,500 professionals by 2020. 

The ITC will be involved in high-end innovations, which will focus on bringing advanced technology to India as well as localising strategic business activities including research, design and development for global markets. It will also leverage academic research communities and talent pool for global development projects. 

Integrated approach
ZF CEO Stefan Sommer told Telangana Today, “We will continue to invest in India in increasing business and production. We will try to localise more and ramp up operations. Safety regulations will increase in India and we will talk to our clients in providing the technology and systems. Other centres in India are production centres. We plan to begin exports from India. The Hyderabad centre will take care of the software development.”
He informed, “We will be launching more products with high degree of Indian content going forward. We will increase production capacities in Pune as more demand picks up. Hyderabad centre will play a key role in integrating with ZF’s other centres. We have also tied up technology partners such as TCS and Tech Mahindra besides several others.”
“All over the world, there is a change in mobility, automation and interest in cars. With growing global warming, automotive transmissions and emissions have become critical. There is a growing important of zero emissions and zero accidents and ZF is striving to create technologies that ensure them,” Stefan said.
The new centre will be involved in electronics, embedded software and mechanical engineering. It will support ZF’s global development teams while enabling the company to accelerate local product development supporting ZF automotive and non-automotive operations and customers in India.
Mamatha Chamarthi, chief digital officer of ZF, added, “The India Technology Center will be rapidly integrated into the engineering ecosystem of ZF and become a pillar of innovation for the company. As demand for software engineering grows, ZF will exponentially increase capacity to help meet customers’ growth aspirations in both the global and local market.”

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Investing in Telangana
K T Rama Rao, Minister for IT, MA & UD, Industries & Commerce, Government of Telangana said, “We look at this investment by ZF as an ecosystem builder for Hyderabad and are extremely happy to see Telangana as ZF’s choice for their first ever India Technology Center. We will continue to strive making our State a business and investor friendly place helping corporates like ZF to expand their footprints in this region.”
ZF and its partners have been operating for more than five decades in the Indian market, with corporate headquarters at ZF Business Park, Pune. Today, ZF is present in 21 locations serving the automotive and non-automotive segments in the region, including two wholly owned subsidiaries of ZF and six joint ventures of ZF and ZF TRW.
In India, the Group has a strong local mechanical engineering team that supports product development and application engineering for both the automotive and non-automotive customers. The consolidated resource strength for the group, including the joint ventures is about 14,000 employees.

Innovation and CSR
ZF has rolled out an innovation challenge and as a result of which it is encouraging engineering students to drive innovation in the automotive space in a wide ranging spectrum from creating autonomous driving vehicles, smart sensors and IoT-based drive monitoring.
On the CSR front, ZF is tying up with Akshay Patra foundation, a non-profit organisation providing mid-day meals to children, by sponsoring a van to transport food to schools in remote locations in Hyderabad. By this activity nearly 5,000 students from government schools will be benefiting, reducing starvation of underserved children.