Interview

Exclusive Interview with Mandar Satpute, CEO , 24x7 learning

In this issue, we are extremely happy to publish interview of Mr. Mandar Satpute, CEO at 24X7 Learning, a company involved in delivering comprehensive learning experience across the globe. Mr.Satpute, an alumnus of IIM- C has been instrumental in development in some of the core areas like Banking Operations, Risk management, Business Process management etc. Mr.Satpute has been involved in spearheading a cross section of business in India for some of the renowned organizations like Tata Consultancy Service, Citibank, Asian paints etc.

Origiin: It is a great pleasure for us to interact with you and publish your thoughts in this interview.

Mandar Satpute: Thank you for this opportunity to share my perspective and thoughts on learning and development.

Origiin:You have nearly 17 years of rich experience across banking, IT and FMCG industries. Your latest association happens to be in the area of learning, reaching across the world by creating suitable courses for talent enhancement needs.How do you feel to be involved in such diversified areas?

MandarSatpute: Firstly, it’san honor and a privilege to be part of the talent enhancement industry. Secondly, in previous organizations that I worked for being a part of such diverse roles was challenging and exciting.I was involved in different roles and departments, across banking, IT, ITES, and FMCG. Now, at 24×7 Learning I am involved with helping of learning and developing organizations of various verticals to help their talent enhancement efforts of their employees.

Being closely associated with these industries has given me a deep understanding of the importance of learning and development within organizations – no matter which industry or vertical. The perspective gained from my wide experience provides me with a great platform to contribute to talent enhancement in organizations.

Origiin:The Company of yours, 24X7 Learning offers a vast learning platform for organizations including Manufacturing, Retail, Pharma to IT. How does innovation plays role in devising learning platform for strategic visions of the different clients?

MandarSatpute: 24×7 Learning is an online learning solutions company that provides learning solutions for large, mid-sized and small businesses of all industries across the globe. But we have to keep in mind that every industry is different. Every organization has a different vision. Every organization faces different challenges. The training challenges faced by one industry are not the same as the training challenges faced by another. Take the Finance industry for example, the biggest challenge faced by this industry is making sure that its employees are up-to-date with the various schemes and policies keep changing ever so often. The biggest challenge for Oil & Natural Gas industry would be compliance with safety regulations. For the Retail industry it could be customer satisfaction. The biggest training challenge faced by the Pharma industry could be training a mobile workforce. Then again, within each industry, each organization may have its own training challenges. While one organization has a lack of training funds, another may suffer from a lack of space to train its employees.

Innovation is the key. At 24×7 Learning, we create innovative solutions with the help of technology. We build our products to be versatile and adaptable. E.g. “LearnTrak” LMS provides ability for an organization to deliver learning on any mobile device, any browser, where there is no or weak internet connectivity, learning that transcends geographical boundaries and languages, just-in-time learning, learning that can take place anytime and anywhere. It has features to provide personalized training, social learning and knowledge collaboration, instant access to knowledge and assessments that are created as per the requirements of the client. Besides these, for managers and administrators we make tracking of the learning of employees easy. We provide analytics and reports to enable decision making. If required we can customize the product to meet a particular organization’s needs.

In our Custom content development we work with the client to understand the objective of a course, the profile of the learner and the purpose the organization for taking up the project. Based on this, the creative team comes up with an approach that will best suit their needs. It’s only then is the course taken up for development.

To say the same things in short, staying connected with the client and its industry is a key input which drives our innovation.  We keep review our position constantly and change or adapt the product to meeting ever changing needs.

Origiin:The product like Learn Track LMS of your company seems to be a breakthrough in e- learning industry. Tell us how the idea was conceived and put into execution.

Mandar Satpute: In the last few years we have seen a transformation in the Learning field. Computer and mobile ownership with internet accessibility is growing exponentially, access to newer technologies is providing us a platform to transcend traditional barriers, and so workforce is increasingly dispersed geographically. Today, training is made simple, precise and very muchsuccessful with eLearning. There is a need for a robust and dynamic scalable training solution that can scale up to the ever increasing demands of organizations.We are in the midst of a global shift. Embracing the new paradigm of eLearning is going to take us to the future faster. These were some of the drivers which we at 24×7 Learning looked at and were inspired to create an anytime, anywhere learning solution, which is  easy to use and easy to deploy – LearnTrak LMS.

Once the idea was conceived the organization focused relentlessly on the execution. The development team faced many challenges on the way.  Thanks to the efforts put out by them and the guidance received from seniors for whom you are seeing the product in its present shape and form.

Origiin: By looking at the present trend, enrolment for online study has grown by over 40 to 50 percent in recent years, whereby people choose to upgrade qualifications or commence a carrier by online learning. What is your say on this?

Mandar Satpute: This is just the beginning and we will see exponential growth in the coming years. The online learning industry is set to go through a big boom.

Firstly, today’s workforce is a mobile workforce. Nobody is sitting at a desk anymore; employees are on the go and don’t have the time to undergo traditional training. Organizations find it impossible to conduct classroom training sessions because their employees are out. The solution to this is online learning.

Secondly, due to the competitive pressure on organizations productivity cannot suffer during training – the solution is again online learning.

Thirdly, for immediate answers and for knowledge at your fingertips – which is important for industries like Insurance, Pharma and Health – the solution is again online learning.

There are those who want to upgrade their skills or educational qualifications without letting go of their present job – its online learning once again.

Additionally with higher incomes people want to pursue different interests or even get proficient say in a hobby – with limited time availability the solution to all of these is on line learning. L&D departments need an easy solution to all their training woes – An LMS which supports them in meeting the challenges faced by them is required.

Origiin: What are your vision and growth strategies for 24 X 7 Learning in the coming years?

Mandar Satpute: Until today we have provided a successful learning solution to our clients. We have not just kept up with training challenges and training needs, we have also kept ourselves one step ahead of the game by preempting and perceiving what organizations will soon need. Learn Trak LMS is an extremely successful product and our aim for the future is to build on that success.

We are expanding globally as well and want to establish ourselves as ‘the company’ for meeting requirements of a corporate learner. My vision is to keep 24×7 Learning at the cutting edge of online learning innovation to best serve our customers.

Origiin: Thank you so much Sir for your valuable inputs.

Innovative product

LearnTrak LMS – A Comprehensive Learning Management System

Learn Trak Learning Management System (LMS), a product from 24×7 learning, is a breakthrough in learning industry, which gives a platform for employees in any organisations by giving access to training for 24×7, so that they can learn at their own convenience.

Today’s organizations lack skilled workers & workforce training challenges hinder employee learning, employee engagement, and up skilling of employees. These challenges include geographically dispersed workforces, inconsistent training across locations and the inability to determine how successful in-house organizational training really is. When a workforce is dispersed across locations and countries, training is haphazard, inconsistent and very expensive. Time and budget constraints lead to shoddy training which in turn leads to disinterest. There is no sure method to know what employees really need to increase their productivity, and this leads to poor productivity and decreased efficiency.

To counter this drawback, 24×7 learning, a leading online learning solutions company headquartered in India,introduces LearnTrak LMS, which is an online learning platform that has been designed to provide a one-stop solution for all learning needs – for both administrators as well as employees. Employees such as sales reps and banking staff, who are deployed in remote locations, can make use of the offline course player to access training even when there is no internet connectivity.With its HTML5 user interface, learners can access training on any mobile device – be it a smartphone, tablet, netbook or laptop – giving learners the freedom to choose the device they learn on, and the browser. Its online library provides learners with unlimited access to a large online database of organization-specific knowledge, be it for Pharmaceutical, Finance, Automobile or any other industry. LearnTrak LMS also supports multiple languages, giving learners the freedom to learn in the language of their choice. This works well for organizations that have employees who belong to diverse cultures. The Virtual classroom feature allows trainers to conduct training sessions virtually, thereby enabling them to reach out to employees wherever they are.It can be used totrain new hires and even upskill the existing employeesand through its surveys, feedbacks and polls features, the administrators can get an accurate idea of what their employees want. So, this particular product, LearnTrak LMS, which is easy to install and deploy and which allows employees to take full control of their career is surely an innovative product for better future.

Interesting Patent

Title of the invention: Aquarium watch

Publication number:       US 6416217 B1

Publication type:           Grant

Application number:       US 09/761,366

Publication date:           9 Jul 2002

Filing date:                   16 Jan 2001

Inventors:                    Harold von Braunhut

ABSTRACT: A timepiece has a removable attachable aquarium adapted to support aquatic life. Living aquatic pets are introduced into the aquarium prior to attaching the aquarium to the timepiece. A wearer of such timepiece is then able to contemporaneously tell time and enjoy watching the living aquatic pets. A kit is also provided with a timepiece, an aquarium and aquatic life adapted to be supported in said aquarium.

Column

Use patents to reduce R&D efforts

By Bindu Sharma, Patent Attorney, Origiin IP Solutions LLP

Patent is techno-legal document submitted by the inventor to respective patent offices, in order to claim legal rights over the invention, in order to prevent third parties from using it without the consent of the inventor. Disclosing the best mode of working of the invention is one of the important requirements to get a patent, which means that an invention submitted to the patent office in the form of a patent must disclose the invention to the extent that a person with ordinary skill in the art understands it well. Additionally, the description of the invention, supported with drawings and examples further helps in understanding the working of the invention. Since the grant of a patent undergoes various steps, including the examination of the patent application by expert examiners, the subject matter claimed in a patent must not only be novel and inventive but also must meet the statutory standards.

However, it is important to note that in addition to the disclosure of invention, the inventor claims the invention to acquire legal rights over it. Violation of such legal rights may have serious implications. Hence, though the invention is disclosed to the public, it is not available for free.

As we know that patents are wealth of knowledge for various reasons. Let’s further understand how this wealth can be effectively and hygienically used to reduce R&D efforts.Suppose you are doing research on the product that is meant for water purification that converts any kind of water into potable and drinking water. Before starting the process of R&D and designing your product, you have two options. The first option is to have discussion with your team of engineers and design the product. With this, you can finalise the product, which might be replication of something that has already been claimed or you might land up infringing the existing patents. Further investing time in R&D may also lead to similar situation. Hence, the output may not be as fruitful as it could be.

However, the second option is to outline the features that you want to have in the product and list all the patents that relate to such features. Go through such patents thoroughly and shortlist the ones that seem to be relevant. By doing this, you will get to know about:

1. The technologies already patented by others so that you don’t waste your time in re-inventing the wheel. This way you can start your research from the next level altogether. State-of-the-art is a gold mine and before inventing further, it makes lots of sense to mine it. However, if there are no patents filed or granted in the given area of technology, you have more reasons to smile and be confident that this space is available for further research.

2. The top companies working in this area and their core expertise. You might get opportunity to collaborate on R&D or further build business relationship with such companies.

3. The patents that you would like to use or even implement on your current products or processes. However, you may have to further do due diligence to ensure that you are not infringing any third party’s rights. If such patents are filed in the jurisdictions or countries where you have or plan to have business, you can always look for in-licensing such patents.

Since this whole exercise gives you enough exposure to the patents filed or granted in the area of technology of your interest, you get better clarity on the steps to be taken for further development of the product, direction in which R& D efforts has to be planned and of course, patentability assessment of your new ideas. This not only saves R&D effort and time but also helps you to come up with more innovative products having more sustainability in the market.

Note: The information provided in the article is generic and is only for general understanding of the subject. For specific matters, please take advice from the expert as certain steps provided are very sensitive and shall be performed only by the experts.

Innovative Product

Anywhere Fridge

Imagine a world where refrigeration is no longer limited to a power outlet and it wouldn’t matter whether you want anything warm, cool or even frozen on the go.Spencer Trotter, the founder and CEO, is proud to introduce the world’s first truly portable Fridge-Freezer-Warmer that is collapsible, solar powered, and can run all day while charging a lithium battery to run all night.

Often at the outdoor stalls, the quality of products gets hampered when sold out of the cooler as the temperature inside the cooler drifted towards the equilibrium of the outside air.As a teen Spencer Trotter sold product out of a cooler. He noticed that after opening and closing the cooler’s lid that the internal temperature of the cooler became unpredictable, which would compromise his merchandise. This stuck with him and came out with a solution in the form of “Anywhere Fridge”, a portable, collapsible refrigerator that uses solar power to maintain consistent temperature.

Anywhere Fridge operates between 8 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit. It uses 220V AC or 12/25 V DC voltage and 60 Watt / 1 Amp power. Lithium ion battery stores energy gathered by the solar panels during the day and keeps items cold overnight.The “Anywhere Fridge” is made of 4 collapsible metal walls. It breaks down flat for storage and then pops up with an extendable handle for schlepping along on road trips, tailgates, and rustic(ish) tent getaways, or just setting up by the pool for easy refreshment access during the summer. So, this innovative product not only replaces the traditional cooler but also stands alone on its versatility.

Guest Post

Death of a Ringtone: How Nokia’s smartphone software strategy failed and ultimately killed the brand

In this Christmas special edition we are happy to bring you the guest post by the title “Death of a Ring tone”. The article is authored by Donal O’Connell, Bruce Godfrey and Nick Filler. It is published by Waves Associates Ltd, which provides a Software Evaluation and Valuation service to a range of clients, including start-ups, VC fund managers and other investors, receivers liquidating a company’s assets, companies purchasing, outsourcing or developing software and those involved in mergers and acquisitions.For more information about Waves Associates and the services offered, visit: www.wavesassociates.com

Background

Much has been written about the ups and downs of the cellular / mobile phone industry over the past 25 years, and particularly the smartphone industry in more recent times. There seems to be a rule in this particular sector that the leading companies eventually lose their positions – often quickly and brutally. Mobile phone champion Nokia, one of Europe’s biggest technology success stories, was no exception, losing its market share in the space of just a few years.

In 1999, one in every three phones sold in the world was a Nokia handset and the Nokia brand was the 5th most recognisable brand in the world. Not so long ago, the thirteen note ringtone of a Nokia handset was the de facto soundtrack of the mobile revolution. By 2007, Nokia had achieved a market dominating position with more than 40% of mobile phone sales worldwide. But consumers’ preferences were already shifting toward touch screen smart phones and mobile applications. With the introduction of Apple’s iPhone in the middle of that year, Nokia’s smart phone market share shrank rapidly and revenue plummeted.

On 25th April 2014, Microsoft Corp. announced it had completed its acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services business for US$7.2 Billion, and just recently announced plans to stop using the Nokia brand on its handsets altogether. Nokia as a brand has all but disappeared.

The demise of Nokia has mystified and fascinated many, given the tremendous success it enjoyed during the late 1990s and early 2000s, its roots in Finland, and its historical ability to re-invent itself.

So where did it all go wrong for Nokia? In practice, Nokia died from a thousand cuts rather than any one specific mistake, but the software cut was the deepest.

Mobile Phones become Smart phones

The convergence of digital technologies, the emergence of the mobile Internet and advances in technology integration enabled the smartphone era. The biggest issue Nokia faced was that they were a hardware company and not expert in software and software management. Any company switching from hardware to software or vice versa faces major challenges and Nokia was no exception.

Throughout much of Nokia there was a lack of understanding of the significance of software, how to manage it and what appropriate business models to adopt. The company was much more at ease with mobile communications technology and hardware such as electronics and mechanics, but faced major difficulties understanding, appreciating and managing software.

Building a Software Organisation

At the time the smartphone market development started, Nokia’s senior and middle management was populated by people with mobile phone business and mobile hardware backgrounds. Most were very experienced and capable people, but lacked experience of software and Internet based business models or of leading large software development organisations.

The company could have aggressively hired Silicon Valley or software industry experts in the early 2000s to prepare for smartphone and online service development. This may have injected some much needed software and Internet business understanding and strategy. Instead, Nokia chose to look internally for its software strategists and leaders.

At that time, software development process and discipline was lacking in many key teams – with the possible exception of cellular software – and this was impacting product quality and slowing progress in developing a smart phone platform.

“It’s only software” was a common refrain in Nokia, trivialising the problems associated with managing the increasingly complex software technology and architecture. Senior management could easily understand the process and status of mechanical tooling or printed circuit board design, but the same did not apply when it came to software – there was clearly a disconnect between software engineering and management.

Selecting a Software Platform

Tough decisions about which software platforms to support, and which ones to ‘kill’, were made slowly. Nokia tried to support multiple software platforms, variants and releases (Series 30, 40, 60, 90, Maemo, MeeGo) which meant ineffective and inefficient use of valuable resources, as well as fomenting internal rivalries.

Supporting multiple platforms put tremendous pressures on other parts of the company as well, not just the software community. Product Management, Services, Software Procurement, After-Sales Service … all these functions were stretched by the diversity of software options in Nokia’s products.

One could even argue that in Symbian, Nokia made the wrong choice of platform for smartphone development as it was optimised neither for real-time nor touch, requiring a huge effort to correct and leaving Nokia far behind the competition. Symbian, was clunky, complex and not consumer or developer friendly.

By the late 2010’s, with Android joining Apple in the market, the two main smartphone software platforms were Unix/Linux based, although they used different application programming languages. Fuelled by the explosive growth of applications in both Android and Apple ecosystems, development tools quickly emerged that enabled application developers to port their software from one platform to the other. Symbian was not in that club, but perhaps MeeGo could have been?

The MeeGo joint development with Intel promised a new platform which could gain wider developer acceptance and enable Nokia to refresh its smartphone UI, but after only one product launch, MeeGo was dropped in 2011 when the deal with Microsoft was announced.

In the end, for a variety of reasons, Nokia chose Windows Phone. After two years of making Windows Phone products, Nokia had 90% of market share for the platform, but only 10% for the overall smartphone market (by volume, Android now has 75% and Apple 15%). Since then, market share has dropped.

Connecting to Users

Despite all of the resources allocated to customer research, market analysis, business intelligence and consumers, Nokia was late to spotthe key trends in the developing smartphone market, most notably, touch UI and mobile applications.

Even if they were aware of such trends, the company failed to energise itself in those directions until competitors had led the way. Some key figures within Nokia even thought that touch was a novelty feature not to be taken seriously.

The lack of a coherent strategy for software and services,coupled with an overloaded requirements management system not fully integrated with holistic product management, caused a disconnection between consumer needs and delivery teams. Nokia became a follower, not a leader.

Creating an Ecosystem

Nokia struggled to create a viable Symbian ecosystem and monetise it in the way that Apple had done with the iPhone and iTunes. Most available Symbian applications were operator or business oriented, rather than consumer focused. Later releases of Symbian were not backwards compatible with earlier versions, so existing applications required extra effort from developers to port them to the new release. This caused a fragmented ecosystem that was confusing for developers and users alike. With over 1.2 million applications in both Google’s Play store and Apple’s iStore today vs. 300,000 in Microsoft’s Windows Phone store, the gap continues to widen.

Symbian application development support tools were poor and often delivered late, giving developers little time to finalise their applications before the new release was in the market. The acquisition of Trolltech and the introduction of Qt on the Symbian platform didn’t drive application development as hoped. For these reasons, the developer community did not thrive and grow, leaving the door open for Apple and Google.

Symbian also did not attract many licensees, the key ones who actually brought Symbian-based smartphones to market were Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Sharp and Sony-Ericsson – but in all cases the sales volumes were low and Symbian was eventually dropped. Nokia was left standing alone.

Nokia’s naivety in the software business also affected its software procurement function. Software procurement was split between different parts of the organisation with unclear responsibility and accountability. For example, there were two procurement functions responsible for software: direct and indirect. In the early days the responsibilities were clear, but as software technology developed to be functioning both online and on the device the waters were muddied.

Like so many corporate behemoths before them, the Finnish phone giant grew dangerously intoxicated on its success during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Having ridden so high for so long, it is perhaps no surprise that a degree of complacency and arrogance crept in. This led to Nokia believing that it had little to gain by adopting software from outside.

Building a Service Offering

Nokia’s online service strategy faired equally badly. Software services were run by a separate business unit within Nokia with a lack of coordination to smartphone software, creating a fragmented, uncompetitive and non-viable ecosystem.

Nokia tried to compete in maps and navigation, music, online apps store, photo library, games, messaging, mobile wallet and several other online services through both acquisitions and internal developments.

The responsibility for procurement of consumer services was split between product management, developer support, marketing and the sourcing function. Once again the need to manage the needs of these different entities caused an increased delay in decision making and thus allowed faster moving competitors to close the gap.

Nokia’s software mode of operation and organisational structure also posed problems as there were many very large software teams distributed across the organisation often disconnected from the customer and end-user due to a software ‘factory’ mode of operation.

The Ovi sub-brand was created in 2007 for Nokia’s services, but failed to create a coherent offering and by 2011 was just a media and apps store. Nokia was aiming for global domination, but in the end, only maps and navigation remained viable.

Where did it all go wrong?

Nokia entered the new millennium as a mobile communications giant and pretty much created the smartphone category for the mass market. In 2005, Nokia had over 50% market shares in smartphones and from 2005-2011 tried to develop an ecosystem and services that could rival Apple and Google, but it failed to …

•   Appreciate the importance of software to the smartphone business

•   Understand the key technology changes and consumer trends

•   Select a software platform that would support services and applications reliably and attract other                   smartphone licensees

•   Develop viable business models that included online services and mobile applications

•   Build a software development process that was integrated with holistic product management

•   Foster a developer community and apps ecosystem

•   Seek out the best expertise or partners to help expand into the software business

All of the issues listed above relate to software in one way or the other, and it is for this reason that the software cut was the deepest. Nokia failed to properly understand, manage and develop their software business. Software killed Nokia.

Innovative Product

CardFi – world’s first iBeacon Business Card

In this edition of newsletter, we bring you one of the most innovative products in the world, called as CardFi- the business card of the 20th Century! CardFi replaces all the hassles of paper business cards as it is going to revolutionize the way by which the businesses associate network with each other.

CardFi is an iBeacon integrated device. iBeacon is the name for Apple’s technology standard, which allows Mobile Apps (running on both iOS and Android devices) to listen for signals from beacons in the physical world and react accordingly; on its demand, one can activate if he or she wants to exchange business card. For networking purposes, in an exhibition or seminar the user can leave it ON all the time. The CardFi device is much more than a ground-breaking device & mobile App, it is an iBeacon integrated business card and cloud contact manager.

How it works?

As the user turns ON the CardFi(Device or App), everyone in his proximity will receive a notification with his details, once they add and he confirms,  exchange of business cards happens.

CardFi will even save in his “Cloud”, the location, time and the people, with whom he had made the interaction. It is not only easy to follow and manage, but one can also immediately add notes and reminders for each contact that has been added. CardFi can be synced with all other contact services like Google, Linkedin, Outlook and many more.Every CardFi user will receive a unique cloud ID. It instantly provides business information, name, location, contacts, etc. The CardFi device is lightweight and has a long lasting battery. So, with such innovative features, it’s a definite call to ditch the age old paper business card and to embrace this little smart card!