The report claims that 22% of SMBs in general cited employees using non-company devices to access the company network as being the biggest cybersecurity challenge and 19% stated that risks from third-party service providers and suppliers is also a major concern. The report stated that smaller businesses also had smaller budgets for cybersecurity, as funding was most often cited as the key challenge they faced. On the other hand, mid- and large-sized SMBs were less likely to share this concern, with only 12% and 10% respectively highlighting this as the key challenge they experienced.

Despite this, the survey showed that 77% of SMBs in India had cybersecurity awareness programmes in place to educate employees, the highest among the Asia Pacific (APAC) nations surveyed, including Thailand at 71%, Singapore at 66%, Hong Kong at 56% and Japan at 24%. Indian SMBs were also most likely to have standard procedures in place for network security, with 81% of SMBs already having this in place.

This could suggest that while SMBs had cybersecurity measures in place, they may not be effective enough to protect the businesses from cyberattacks. Given that 83% of Indian SMBs indicated that their companies should be investing more in cybersecurity, the highest rate in the region, SMBs should allocate their funds wisely to secure the most critical areas.

When it comes to challenges or barriers to ensuring cybersecurity, 40% in Thailand believe that shortage of qualified security personnel seems to be a big challenge. On the other hand, 35% in India state that companies are more worried about emerging technologies which are acting as roadblocks.

“With cybercriminals and cyber threats becoming increasingly sophisticated, SMBs need to look into stronger cybersecurity tools and measures to protect their digital assets,” said Parvinder Walia, Sales and Marketing Director for Asia Pacific and Japan, ESET.

“Cybersecurity measures such as two-factor authentication can add an extra layer of security and provide businesses with a boost in protection, even if the first line of defence has been compromised.”

The survey polled 1,500 respondents with 300 respondents from small and medium businesses in each of the following markets: Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Thailand and Japan. The latest findings from ESET mirror the data on the overall perceptions and activities around cybersecurity for the region.

The study states that businesses in the region appear to be stepping up efforts in the fight against cybercrime, given that a majority of businesses, regardless of size or market region, reported utilizing cybersecurity solutions such as antivirus software and firewalls. It also suggests that Businesses, particularly the small- and medium-sized ones, must start looking at cybersecurity seriously.

Suggested solutions

Exploring more sophisticated cybersecurity solutions: The majority of SMBs in the region have basic cybersecurity solutions in place. 82% of businesses have antivirus software installed and 78% have firewalls to stop unauthorised access to their network. However, 54% of businesses are still experiencing a breach.

Imposing better security for personal devices: Other than Japan, the BYOD culture is accepted and sometimes even encouraged in most markets across the region. In fact, this is one of the main challenges that SMBs are facing. Unfortunately, only 59% have a cybersecurity awareness program to educate employees. This is a bigger challenge in smaller SMBs as only 35% have such programs.

SMBs need to set up communications policies in event of breach: It is important to look at how to prevent breaches from happening but it is equally important to deal with the aftermath of a breach. 34% of businesses in the region are still looking only at informing customers if they felt that the information was at risk. More alarming is that 19% wouldn’t even inform their customers unless asked.

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According to the company, the Survey “Turning AI into concrete value: the successful implementers’ toolkit”, studied nearly 1,000 organizations across 9 countries and 7 industrial sectors with revenues of more than $500 million that are implementing AI either as a pilot or at scale.

No immediate unemployment threat

The report states that 83% companies have created new jobs as a result of AI technology. Specifically, organizations are producing jobs at a senior level, with two in three jobs being created at the grade of a manager or above. Furthermore, among organizations that have implemented AI at scale, 63% state hat AI has not destroyed any jobs in their organization.

71% of the organizations have proactively initiated up-skilling/re-skilling of employees to take advantage of their AI investments. For those who have implemented AI at scale, 89% believe that AI will make complex jobs easier and 88% believe that intelligent machines will coexist with humans within their businesses.

Leveraging AI for Customer Experience

The study found that tech-savvy businesses are using AI to increase sales, boost operations, facilitate customer engagement and generate business insights; it is working, as 75% firms are already seeing a 10% uplift in sales since starting to use the technology. The research states that customer experience is a big focus of AI adopters as 73% think AI can increase customer satisfaction scores and 65% believe it could reduce future customer churn.

Blocks

However, the research indicates that many organizations have yet to align their AI investments with business opportunities. In the hands of the technologists, businesses are prioritizing challenging AI projects and missing lower hanging fruit.

58% organizations are focused on “need to do” implementations, or those that are high complexity/high benefit projects like customer service issues, while only 46% are deploying “must do” AI implementations with low complexity/high benefit.

The report suggests that if firms tackled both problems simultaneously, they could see higher business benefits. For instance, those implementing a large number of “must do” use cases are able to reduce churn by up to 26% on average.

AI helping the old-school sectors

49% of telecommunications, 41% of retailers and 36% of banking institutions have seen the highest implementation of AI at scale, which means that established and highly-regulated sectors are leading on AI innovation. However, 26% automotive and 20% manufacturing consisting industries are those currently with the lowest levels of utilization among companies implementing AI.

58% of Indian companies are already using AI at scale, and 49% of Australian companies follow closely behind. When it comes to European countries, 31% of companies in Spain, 24% in the Netherlands, and 21% in France are further down the list of those using AI technologies, indicating firms in these markets are not yet ready to adopt the technology.

“AI has the capacity to revolutionize every business in every market sector; its potential is broad and unlimited. However, we are seeing a large contrast between those who are rolling out applied AI solutions at scale and reaping tangible business benefits, versus those who are simply trialing the technology,: said Ron Tolido, Chief Technology Officer, Insights & Data Practice, Capgemini.

“Organizations are focusing more of their efforts on the more complex AI projects and missing out on simpler projects that could drive quicker returns. Organizations, especially those not yet implementing AI at scale, should focus on those low-complexity, high benefit projects to quickly and better leverage the power of AI.”

What lies ahead?

The report suggests that organizations looking to harness the power of AI, will face a range of challenges, and will need to have a clear view of where AI can create the most enduring advantage for themselves and their customers. The report states that by managing the key technological and people challenges; pinpointing where AI can create the most significant, long term advantage; combining top-down vision with bottom-up execution and preparing the organization, firms can get started in implementing AI.

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Techseen: You say that telecom software professional service providers still need their classic systems to support their transformation. What are these classic systems? Why and how can they support digital transformation?

Kaftzan: Business Support Systems (BSS) have been supporting telecoms businesses for years. Systems such as billing, CRM and Ordering are still necessary for service providers but they have to evolve; from billing to real-time convergent charging and from CRM and Ordering to true omni-channel digital customer engagement systems. This evolution supports service provider transformation by enabling customers to add and adapt communications services from all areas of the telco landscape, on the fly and in real-time, and they allow customers to interact with their service provider on any channel through any mode of communication. This evolution of the BSS is critical to meet the needs of digital immediacy and empowerment that the digital customer demands.

Techseen: Does the utilization of classic systems reduce the cost of transformation for an enterprise? What are the transformation solutions that are being floated in the market currently that makes Amdocs stand out?

Kaftzan: The cost of a transformation will often be dependent on the starting point and end goal. Some service providers will look to improve one particular part of their business, say the retail store. Others will look to improve all of their customer engagement channels for an omno-channel, multi-modal experience and still others will go for a deep full business transformation that involves the transformation of all elements of the BSS, both back-end and customer facing. Amdocs customer who are using our systems which have been real-time and omni-convergent for years will find they are starting at a better point for transformation than others.

However we have made additional enhancements to our offering that lets the service provider succeed in their transformation strategy. This includes more openness and APIs in our backend systems, support for new business models and digital offerings like OTT and IoT, a digital platform for true multi-modal interaction, our aia intelligence platform which helps our customers bring intelligence to their processes and engagements and the flexibility and user controls that lets the digital customer take control of their experience.

Techseen: In the telecom industry, isn’t convergent billing already happening? Especially in enterprises where there is a need of transparency? How does it connect with digital transformation?

Kaftzan: The telecom industry has been moving towards convergent billing for many years now. The challenge is that as the industry moves towards that goal, the definitions of what convergent means in the context of charging and billing continues to evolve as the demands of the digital economy evolve. It began as a means to unify systems for prepaid and postpaid. It then evolved to mean convergence of lines of business into multi-play. Now it is evolving further and extending into new digital services such as OTT and IoT and a truly real-time experience for all customers over every touch point. A charging and billing system of the digital era cannot be said to be truly convergent if it cannot handle all of these new services on a unified system.

Ironically, many service providers’ BSS systems lag behind in the enterprise space as these customers relied on more customized products and offerings as well as more direct sales and account management.

That, coupled with the relatively low number of enterprise customers as opposed to consumer lead BSS for enterprise to continue to be very customized if not manual systems that could not keep up with the development of the consumer side of the house. Now, with service providers putting more focus on enterprise customers as their core consumer service becomes commoditized, they are seeing a need to provide the same digital and convergent experience to their enterprise customers. Amdocs has put a great deal of effort in helping service providers succeed in this area, in terms of modernizing the product offering capabilities, the Configure Price Quote process as well as ordering of complex enterprise products.

Techseen: Amdocs states that there is a reduction in the cost of ownership when service providers take up convergent billing. How?

Kaftzan: This is achieved through a number of factors. Firstly there is the potential for consolidation of systems, from disparate systems for prepaid, postpaid, wireless, wireline, TV, broadband and other digital services into a single unified system. Furthermore, modern digital monetization systems are run on newer technology that helps service providers keep costs down while increasing scale.

Amdocs Digital Monetization runs NO-SQL databases as opposed to traditional relational databases, which scale better at cost and reduce costly database license fees. A number of functions are run on open source technologies that further reduce capital expenditure. And of course operating on a cloud-enabled architecture reduces dependencies on physical machines and is in turn much more efficient.

Techseen: You also claim that your convergent charging and billing solution delivers real-time charging and scalability in a single carrier-grade system. What is currently lacking in the industry that it needs your solution?

Kaftzan: The key requirement for the industry is to be able to manage all of your revenue and customer processes on a unified system, rather than spate systems for each new service. Service providers are in a hurry to launch new products like IoT and OTT offerings that their current legacy systems cannot handle. That is the key challenge. And many service providers, in their rush to market, are tempted to simply add another system to handle the new services and worry about the convergence of the system into the overall customer experience later.

This solution quickly leads to duplication of processes, and is liable to cause missed revenue opportunities and a poor customer experience. Of course the best would be a convergent system that can already handle these new services, and enable service providers to launch and scale up a new line of business quickly and efficiently.

This is the advantage that Amdocs customers have; a single, real-time system that can handle all of the new services that the telecom industry needs and wants to deploy quickly, and is ready for rapid the rapid growth and high demands of digital consumption.

Techseen: Why do you think carriers are becoming more open to alternate delivery models? What are the challenges they are facing?

Kaftzan: Service providers are dealing with a digital economy that has severely diminished the growth in their core businesses. That has forced them to be more efficient. The digital economy is also filled with new players that are software based and agile in their development of products, and are free to reap the benefits of the major investments that telecoms make in networks and infrastructure. It is this need for efficiency and agility that service providers are looking for, and new delivery models -such as cloud and managed services – for their core systems serve both of those purposes.

Techseen: What are the challenges that Amdocs has faced to convince telecom enterprises to accede to your solution? Is there a gap in awareness/ education or as you state in your white paper, there a need of digital transformation first?

Kaftzan: Amdocs is in the enviable position of being a trusted advisor for the leading service providers in the world. And our customers are constantly challenging us to help them transform from communications service providers to digital service providers. They rely on us for best practices because after all of these years we are recognized as experts in telco BSS. Our Global customer base also gives us a perspective on the possibilities that our customers, who are experts in their local markets, appreciate and we bring that to bear in all of our engagements. But our customers are not waiting for us to tell them where to go.

They are leaders in the telecommunications market and have a vision for what they want to achieve. It is a true partnership that comes from the vision and imperative of the service provider and the global industry leadership of Amdocs that closes any gaps and enables us to drive the optimal digital transformation for each customer.

Furthermore, we realize that each communication service provider is different and has unique needs. Therefore, we need to adjust and accommodate different needs of our customers. For example, even the definition and focus of DSP- digital service provider, varies from one service provider to another. Some service providers or DSPs may focus on consumer experiences and channels, while others might focus on digital services and ecosystem. It means we need to provide different types of solutions, technologies, and services to each of the service providers.

Techseen: One of your biggest communications client is AT&T and recently after its ECOMP has merged with ONAP, reports state that Amdocs’ involvement has bolstered a lot. Which is the next use case for ONAP according to Amdocs?

Kaftzan: To test and verify new virtual services on the ONAP open source platform quickly and efficiently, Amdocs believes the critical next-step for service providers is easy deployment of ONAP through a cloud-based hosting environment that simplifies distribution of open source code. Open source brings unparalleled agility to the market, making it vital that open source contributions are packaged into a mature capability set to fast-track service innovation and extract full value from virtualized networks.

Techseen: What is the next big thing in the telecommunications industry according to Amdocs? Where do you see Amdocs playing a major role in future tech?

Kaftzan: It is difficult to predict the future, but looking ahead to the next couple years, it seems clear that the launch of 5G and the integration of Artificial Intelligence will have a major impact on the telecommunications industry in the near future. 5G is just a year or 2 away and it has the potential to change our lives and how we interact with the world of technology around us. With 5G providing connectivity to billions of devices we will learn what truly ubiquitous connectivity is about.

The telecommunications industry is at the center of that game changing technology and it must do whatever it can to leverage its place in the value chain to maximize opportunities in the digital economy. Amdocs customers are at the forefront of 5G development and as such we must be ready to help them succeed in doing just that.

All of this connectivity creates a need to move past automation to intelligence. Intelligent operations, as well as intelligent interactions with customers. Service providers will need to leverage intelligence in this hyper-connected world in order to not only serve their customers, but delight their customers.

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The report presented two different types of hypothetical cyber-attack scenarios; a cloud service provider attack and a mass vulnerability attack. Both were constructed to quantify the wide variety of damages that can occur and increase the understanding of cyber-risk liability and aggregation for insurers and risk managers. As mentioned above, every calamity whether, physical or digital has a loss attached to it. When it comes to the digital realm, is monetary loss more important or the loss of data?

This brings us to the question; has the world and businesses become more wary of cybersecurity and vulnerability after the recent WanaCrypto and Petya cyber attacks, which left large companies and individuals losing a lot of money and data?

Matthew Johnston, Area Vice President, ASEAN & Korea, Commvault says that security has been a topic of growing importance for businesses, but implementing security measures isn’t necessarily the biggest issue around the WannaCry and Petya attacks. Increasingly, the discussions are turning toward what businesses should do once they are breached, not if, and at the heart of that conversation is data.

It seems data has become the lifeblood of businesses, inevitability now that we live in a digital world, and as their most important asset, they cannot afford to lose it. Businesses that know their data understand that these recent attacks underscore the importance of protecting it. They have not only put in place essential security measures, but also looked in detail at what data assets are at risk, who needs to be notified, and what, if any, remediation plan needs to be followed.

“Recent regulatory measures reflect the maturity of the data conversation now occurring worldwide. Singapore’s proposed Cybersecurity Bill, China’s Cybersecurity Law and European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), have an immense focus on the regulation of data and the need to manage and protect it,” adds Johnston.

“As a result of these conversations and regulations, board-level executives have taken heed. They in turn have created a trickle-down effect in terms of decision-making and enforcement of policies within the organisation. Functions within an organisation that may have previously seen data management as an ‘IT matter’ are now taking a closer look at it as a key business issue.”

Is Cyber Insurance a need?

The study shows that organisations are responding to this risk awareness through their purchase of cyber liability insurance protection. In turn, the insurance industry is looking to develop solutions to protect those insurance risks at a time when there is limited publicly available information on the potential range and scale of cyber events.

Both the scenarios mentioned above also show that there is an insurance gap of between $4 billion and $45 billion in terms of the cloud services scenario, meaning that between 13% and 17% of the losses are covered, respectively. The underinsurance gap is between $9 billion and $26 billion for the mass vulnerability scenario, meaning that just 7% of economic losses are covered.

Taking this point into consideration, do businesses really need cyber insurance if they already have a robust cyber security practice in place, which again brings up the dilemma of money vs data? Kane Lightowler, Managing Director, Asia Pacific and Japan, Carbon Black states that Cyber insurance should, in no way, be the primary mechanism used to protect a business financially.

“A vehicle owner will not drive haphazardly simply because he has vehicle insurance. Similarly, businesses should ‘drive safely’ by making sure they can detect, prevent and respond to advanced cyberattacks. Once a robust cybersecurity plan is established, businesses can opt to augment their risk by purchasing cyber insurance. However, cyber insurance cannot replace cybersecurity.”

According to the report, a single cyber event has the potential to increase industry loss ratios by 19% and 250% for large and extreme loss events, respectively. This illustrates the catastrophe potential of the cyber-risk class.

However, money and time are not the only things that are of importance. Johnston of Commvault says that the availability of cyber insurance may offer some financial relief, the fact is that data loss has far deeper-reaching consequences than monetary compensation will ever be able to solve.

“A company’s reputation, for example, is exponentially damage the longer an incident remains unresolved, regardless of how much money a business has or is compensated. This underscores the importance of having a comprehensive data management and recovery strategy as this is the only means to minimize inevitable damage that cannot be covered through insurance.”

Frameworks, regulations and compliance; boon or bane?

In India, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology has a National Cyber Security Policy, which aims at protecting the public and private space from cyber attacks. Other countries too have their own cyber security policies as Johnston mentioned. But the question is, with such a framework in place, why is there still a need of private cybersecurity and cyber insurance practitioners?

Lightowler of CarbonBlack thinks that cybersecurity frameworks are only as strong as their adoption rates, businesses need to put in the work and the time to map their security programs to the established requirements. This doesn’t always happen universally. As a result, and because compromise can still occur, cyber insurance is an option that some businesses consider, though businesses should look carefully at what various plans cost and what elements they cover. Generally speaking, he says, most insurance plans only cover forensics costs, breach notification costs, and credit monitoring.

Data breaches involving sensitive information of individuals and companies are increasingly driving the introduction of legal obligations to notify the affected individuals. The report states that Governmental regulatory bodies across many jurisdictions can bring actions against organisations for failure to comply with laws and regulations regarding information security and privacy. This coverage will continue to be increasingly important as more countries adopt data-breach regulations.

Increases in zero day vulnerability disclosures and the resulting mass data thefts may leave the public weary of engagement with increasingly digital platforms. These circumstances increase the likelihood of movement towards a more nationalistic view, resulting in increased borders and regulations of cyber space. Some people believe that a series of large hacks could remove trust in the economy, causing governments to impose new regulations and institutions to slow down the pace of technology innovation.

Talking about the regulations and compliance policies imposed by governments, do these complex laws act as a barrier for companies to accede to cyber insurance and threat aversion tactics? Looking at it from a positive angle, Johnston suggests that companies shouldn’t see regulation and privacy laws as barriers to their business, but as validation of the need to properly understand and know their data.

“Companies face a large set of complex regulations, but many businesses are still in the process discovering the value of data. Regardless of the intent or effectiveness of existing regulatory policies, we find it is within our domain to help companies first understand and know their data.”

He states that only when companies have enough of an understanding of the issues around their data they will be able to have an informed debate on whether the current regulatory environment is appropriate, and what changes, if any, are required.

Asian companies lagging behind

The report also states that compared to US, Asian countries are under-insured and economically vulnerable against cyber-attacks. Reiterating this, an article in BT quoted Kent Chaplin, CEO, Lloyd’s APAC, saying that Asia is still slow to take up cyber insurance compared to US, even though there is a greater awareness and demand. But why is it lagging behind? Based on Lightowler’s experience, businesses in Asia are only now coming around to accepting that cybersecurity is a critical business element.

“In that regard, I’d say Asia is bit behind their peers in Europe and in the U.S. The good news is that awareness of cybersecurity risk has never been more prevalent. Before considering cyber insurance, businesses should make sure they are equipped to detect, prevent and respond to threats, he adds.”

Johnston has a different view, as he leans more towards the importance of data, he says when businesses, regardless of the country understand and manage their most valuable asset – data – only then they are in a position to best handle and limit their risk. That still applies if their data is stored on-premises, or in a completely different country in the cloud. For that reason, overall data risk is difficult to quantify based purely on where a business is located.

The way forward

Some may point towards the presence of relevant legislation to give some indication of which regions in the world are taking a more mature approach to data management. The European Union has its General Data Protection Regulation, China recently introduced its own cybersecurity laws, Australia is known for its cybersecurity and privacy stances in particular, and Singapore has its own cybersecurity bill.

However, these only paint part of the picture. In many cases, data sovereignty issues limit the effectiveness of these legislative instruments, or worse, businesses have to deal with increased complexity when data falls under the purview of multiple regulations and jurisdictions. The effectiveness of passed legislation also still remains to be seen, with the vagueness of China’s laws an increasing concern for businesses.

Businesses should not consider their data more or less at-risk due to their physical location. Business has moved into the digital world, which knows no geographical boundaries. The best means a business has in protecting its data, is to first understand it, regardless of where it is stored.

In conclusion, Lightowler suggests that education in cyber security is all about understanding risk. Risk cannot be reduced to zero, only managed within appropriate boundaries. Security technology is used to reduce risk. Asian companies should look very carefully at what cyber insurance plans cover and how much the plans cost before moving forward.

Having said that, there is no clear difference between money and data. Many companies and individuals believe that the product of the time and money invested in the digital realm is data. However, in the wake of constant cyber-attacks happening globally, crippling industries and systems, ransomware is also a big concern, which has costed people thousands of dollars. And as per the report it can go up to millions if both data value and monetary value is combined. Hence, it is imperative for governments and private agencies to work in tandem for averting and responding to a large scale cyber-threat. Just like they do for hurricanes.

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The report ‘Asia’s AI agenda’, surveyed senior executives to make a holistic view of AI’s trajectory and how it is manifesting in Singapore, China, Australia and India. The review re-examined the technology, venture capital, government and enterprise strategy trends that are converging on this region to drive innovation and adoption of AI, and how specific Asian markets are taking advantage of these trends.

The report revealed that advances in automation technology are quickly changing the way Asia’s companies manage and develop their human talent, forcing them to examine the nature of jobs in the region. Having said that, the survey cites that AI, when deployed correctly, will not eliminate jobs so much as deconstruct them and reorganize them around groups of competencies, enabling both humans and machines to work in more productive ways.

Interestingly the HR executives surveyed felt that adoption of AI and robotics will result in significant job losses in Asia over the next five years. Unsurprisingly, nearly all these respondents felt this would soon have a major impact on their roles and functions. Specifically, they expected to move into broader, and more strategic, productivity management roles. They said they believe that their roles will encompass the management of both human and artificial talent in the next five years.

The report cites that in each of Asia’s economies, AI and automation are already changing the ways firms manage and develop human talent. While Australia is fostering AI development in healthcare, financial services, and in a green-economy focus on energy and utilities, the skills and talent pools created by India’s IT ecosystem are seen as an asset that could make it a globally competitive producer of AI software and applications.

Significant AI research and investment in China give it a real possibility of securing a leading role in defining AI globally and Singapore is keen to future-proof its economy through AI, leading to a focus on applications poised to redefine the city-state’s role as one of the world’s most important finance centers.

Respondents felt technological advancements in AI and robotics will have very positive effects on most industrial sectors in Asia. While much of Asia lacks the depth of technical skills and R&D facilities needed to keep pace with AI development, there are significant pockets of the ‘natural resources’ Asian economies need to promote and develop their own machine-learning capabilities.

Despite this, the report’s survey found that only a small percentage of global firms are currently investing in AI development in Asian markets specifically. Where 18% have invested in automation or robotics, only 13% have invested in AI. 43% respondents state that they do not plan to invest in automation or robotics in Asia and 50% claim that they are considering investment in AI in Asia.

The report states that China, India and other large Asian economies generate a copious amount of data, which is critical to pushing AI’s capabilities forward. Australia and Singapore, despite their small sizes, each punch well above their weight in the development of ‘indigenous’ AI R&D resources, and have clear visions for how machine learning can complement and enhance the competitiveness of their established leading industries.

The report claims that at a time when Asia as a regional economy is poised not only to benefit greatly from advancements in AI but also to define them, India faces a specific conundrum. The country’s IT businesses have been at the front line of the world’s war on inefficiency for so long that they are entrenched in traditional technology development processes, from which they are struggling to untangle themselves.

The survey suggests that freeing up talent to develop more cutting-edge applications relevant to AI will require extreme openness on the part of business leaders. These leaders will have to actively collaborate in data analytics projects, share best practices and insights, and champion the integration of automation and machine-learning-based process improvements into their firms’ broader talent management programs.

Ironically, given a common presumption that AI will be responsible for disintermediation of jobs at all levels, it is Asia’s massive human capital dividend—the billions of constantly Internet-connected workers and consumers –that will propel AI development in the region farther and faster.

AI may start to dis-intermediate roles and responsibilities across Asia’s economies, but it will enhance and redefine far more capabilities, and increase the productivity of all firms and workers.

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The study states that India, being the second largest smartphone market in terms of users (340 million est.), is soon going to become the biggest market driver for smartphone sales in the next few years (projected at 445 million by 2020). However, currently the country has limited capabilities across the value chain activities. There is high dependency on imports for components, which has led to a sub-par localization and manufacturing ecosystem.

Having said that, the report claims that in FY 15-16 India manufactured mobile phones worth INR 54,000 crore ($8.4 billion approx.) which was an increase of 186% as compared to the previous year. Out of this, smartphones constituted over 90% of the total domestic manufacturing value worth INR 49,000 crore ($7.6 billion approx.), amounting to 110 million units produced domestically.

But despite recent growth in domestic manufacturing of mobiles phones and encouraging policy initiatives, the study states that much of the country’s mobile phone production is limited to assembling and packaging semi knocked down units, which has resulted in a local value addition of only 6.1% for smartphones in 2016.

According to the report, after the ‘Make in India’ campaign was launched, the domestic manufacturing of mobile phones has been driven by excise duty differential on fully imported phone and some components such as batteries, chargers and accessories. However, local value addition is still limited to final assembly with major components being imported. The lack of robust manufacturing ecosystem is resulting in low local value addition.

A smartphone consists of various electronics and non-electronics components. The key components in the bill of materials of a smartphone are the main electronics assemblies comprising of main board and sensor flex that contributes around 58% of the total bill of materials cost. Other components like battery, display and camera further add 30% to the total bill. Most of these high value components are imported and have zero contribution to the local manufacturing value addition.

But there is a positive side to it, according to the report the size of the domestic mobile manufacturing industry in FY 2019-20 is expected to be INR 135,000 ($21 billion approx.) crore as compared to INR 94,000 ($14 billion approx.) in FY 2016-17. For smartphones, the market size of domestic manufacturing in FY 2019-20 will be INR 120,200 crore ($18.8 billion approx.)

The IAMAI study states that this can be achieved because the components such as battery, chargers, earphones, packaging have high possibility of local sourcing and assembly. These components constitute almost 17% of the total bill of materials value. There is a strong possibility of achieving the local value addition of more than 60% by 2019. Camera is expected to achieve almost 50% of local value sourcing and assembly contribution by 2019.

At the same time, more than 40% of local value sourcing and assembly contribution is expected for display. Camera and display covers more than 25% of the total bill of materials value. The main electronic components, which account for more than 57% of the total bill of materials value, are expected to contribute marginally to the local value addition with contribution of 6.2% by 2019.

What is stopping component manufacturers to set up business in the country? Is it compliance, taxation or regulations? According to Pankaj Mohindroo, Founder and National President, Indian Cellular Association, it is mostly the procedures that are acting as a roadblock. “There is no single window to address issues which are very serious on ease of doing business. These need to be addressed if India needs to become a world leader in manufacturing.”

“Manufacturing is on the ground, feet on the street kind of operation, it is not like software. You have to account for many inspectors as its physical goods moving. Hence, the reality of ease of doing business should be addressed. We have too many departments. The US has 18 departments, we have 130 departments, which does not make sense. But still, we are somehow getting business in spite of all our weaknesses.”

The report claims that both Indian and foreign players want to tap the opportunity of domestic manufacturing of mobile phones in India. Despite the initial enthusiasm along with policy level initiatives, the industry still faces challenges such as global competition, nascent state of domestic capabilities and weak infrastructure.

The study suggests that the need of the hour is a strong domestic mobile manufacturing hub in India, as it promises great benefits for the socio-economic well being of the nation in the digitalized era.

The report has identified challenges that are being faced by the domestic manufacturing industry; emerging manufacturing eco-system only limited to last mile assembly activities; low scale of operations; there is not enough relevant skilled workforce; high overall cost of finance as the cost of borrowed capital is 12%-14% as compared to global average of 5%-8%; need of clarity on the duty differentials under the GST regime; infrastructure such as roads, power logistics is a concern; ease of doing business is low as there are scores of compliance and regulations that act as a detrimental impact on the business sentiment.

However, the study also lists down recommendations and a roadmap for development of a robust domestic mobile phone manufacturing in India, which it states can be be established in three phases:

• Current Scenario: The current stage refers to the nascent stage of domestic mobile phone manufacturing in India, predominantly focused on last-mile assembly of SKD units with low level of localization for some of the components
• Short-Term Goals: The short-term approach should be to fully meet the domestic demand by local manufacturing of mobile phones with various levels of localization for components. This can be achieved by incentivizing mobile phone manufacturers along with favorable policy directions for manufacturers to adopt localization for the Indian market
• Long-Term Goals: The long term approach would be to develop India as a
  mobile phone export hub to meet global demands. This will require focus on R&D, development of component ecosystem, infrastructure development, and policies to drive global majors in the mobile phone manufacturing industry to set-up full-scale manufacturing units in India

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The idea behind Kaizala

The Kaizala app was first showcased at Microsoft’s Future Decoded event about about five months back. Microsoft wanted to highlight how its hybrid cloud was being adopted by the public sector at a large scale. It was being used by the Andhra Pradesh Government as a mobile productivity chat app, that helped in bringing all the departments of the state government under one umbrella so that different departments could communicate, coordinate, manage and monitor all its activities and assignments.

The application was in a beta stage creating data assets but could be downloaded as a preview from the Microsoft store. At that time the company claimed that the app was created due to an insight about how digital transformation was being used to benefit various walks of life.

Who is using it?

Since then the app has been used by the Andhra Government, the Uttar Pradesh Government for its elections, the Niti Ayog, as well as YES Bank, Apollo Telemedicine, Republic TV, United Phosphorous and Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan. Microsoft India claims that the app has over 100,000 active users and 70,000 users are from the Andhra State Government, who use the app for day-to-day work.

What does it do?

Having said that, what does Kaizala actually do? Powered by the Microsoft Azure platform, the app helps organizations connect with large number of people inside and outside their organization, coordinate tasks across the value chain and gain insights. All that a user has to do is download the app get connected using the phone number which acts as a primary user ID.

“Microsoft Kaizala, a made for India product, brings together the two disparate worlds of mobile only messaging apps and a digitally integrated modern workplace. The product will make it possible for organizations to interact with everyone both within and outside, seamlessly and with rich content. Microsoft Kaizala has been optimized for 2G networks to enable connectivity in remote locations and offers features with offline support,” said Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India.

Microsoft Kaizala vs Microsoft Teams

But how is it different from Microsoft Teams, the chat-based workspace in Office 365? Maheshwari explains that Teams is designed to extend the power of the desktop world, which is office 365 to a mobile chat based capability. It operates in an environment within an organization where all the users are known as they are all an active part of the Office 365. From there, the users are enabled to use a single chat based platform or a close grouped platform to interact with each other.

“Kaizala on the other hand starts with the assumption that you are mobile first, that you are not part of an organization, that you may be completely independent person. Hence, Kaizala comes in from very large groups to be able to connect with the modern digital workplace. Simply put, Teams extends the office capabilities to mobiles but Kaizala comes from a mobile chat based platform and group chat, is able to access the capabilities inside an office.”

As a conclusion he stated that Teams is from a desktop first environment, where the user needs to be an Office 365 customer. But Kaizala is mobile first, hence the user need not be a Microsoft customer at all.

There are two versions

Coming out of beta, the app has two versions namely, Microsoft Kaizala and Microsoft Kaizala Pro. The regular version is for free, targeted at individuals and entails individual and group chat, media and document sharing, built in actions for polls, surveys and announcements (which is being called ‘Cards’), work management and offline and 2G support.

The Pro on the other hand is an enterprise version and is being priced at INR 130 ($2 approx.) per user per month. It has all the capabilities of the regular app but allows organizations to have full administrative control over their groups. It additionally hosts organization group management, user management, public group creation, custom action publishing, reporting and analytics, and system integration automation using Kaizala APIs.

Enterprise, data and privacy

“Using Microsoft Kaizala, organizations can connect with their employees and the extended value chain. The product offers a simple and familiar chat interface and goes beyond to make everyone more productive using Surveys, Polls, Jobs, Meetings and other actions, right in your chats,” said Rajiv Kumar, Corporate Vice President, Office Product Group, Microsoft India.

The made for India and in India product is focused on connecting the ‘unconnected parts of organizations’ whether they are in large and small enterprises or in the Government. The company claims that it has been optimized for India, as it can work online and offline, letting users work on it from remote areas without data connectivity.

Talking about surveys, polls and all the data that the app generates, Kumar states that all that Kaizala user gathers is owned by the user and the company does not have any say in it, just like an email.

“We give access to all the data which the user has collected and it can be exported to any third party application or tool for analytics. Just like in Office 365, there are huge amounts of data that is exchanged between individuals and companies, we are all about privacy and none of the data is shared or used anywhere. Hence the customer has access to it and if they can build or use a third party solution to analyze that data, we as a company have no say.”

Both the apps are available on iOS and Android, and can be integrated with Office 365. The company claims that the Kaizala app aims to connect the Indian mobile-first and mobile-only workforce and enable collaboration and work management.

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Techseen: What does the global availability of SD-WAN mean for NTT and its clients? How can they leverage this solution for cloud transformation?

Hashimoto: NTT Communications’ new SD-WAN Service Portfolio leverages NTT’s industry first 100% software-defined overlay network to provide optimized performance and connectivity to client branch offices globally, leveraging more than 1,000 local ISPs and network providers across over 190 countries. This is the largest global rollout of any SD-WAN portfolio in the market, leveraging on the software defined technology and platform acquired via the Virtela acquisition in 2014.

The SD-WAN Service Portfolio provides NTT unprecedented flexibility and speed to deploy new services designed to assist enterprise clients to transform their IT environment, respond to their competition and meet their business goals. By leveraging the new SD-WAN service portfolio’s unprecedented global coverage, optimized network utilization at each branch office, cloud based secure web gateway and application acceleration services, as well as optimized access to the major cloud and SaaS platforms, businesses can migrate their current IT infrastructure to the cloud easily and rapidly and better compete in today’s digital economy.

Techseen: When it comes to SD-WAN, what are challenges that haunt the APAC market? How important is the India market according to NTT and what are the challenges you think India is facing?

Hashimoto: The APAC region is vast and provides unique connectivity challenges to SD-WAN service providers: from the ability to peer with local ISPs in country/region, to the lack of expertise and local presence, to the challenges around deploying and managing end-end solutions including customer premises SD-WAN CPE. Most SD-WAN providers envision a 100% software defined global network in 3 to 5 years, and deliver country-specific and regional connectivity. NTT’s SD-WAN Service Portfolio, provided over a 100% SDN platform is available today, across 190+ countries including 30+ APAC countries. NTT’s SD-WAN network and presence is the largest in the APAC region, and can help clients build optimized SD-WAN solutions that leverage optimized connectivity to each one of their branch offices.

The limited connectivity to ISPs and local network providers poses a challenge to businesses looking to adopt SD-WAN to connect their global offices, as they may be using ISPs and local network providers that don’t fall into what’s being offered by other SD-WAN providers. NTT’s SD-WAN Service portfolio leverages 1,000+ ISPs and local providers, and provides clients with the flexibility to mix and match connectivity options that suit their needs at each site – NTT provided and managed, or customer provided and NTT managed.

India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and a major hub for outsourcing and software development talent. NTT has made significant investments to address the Indian market needs including the acquisition of Netmagic, a leading managed datacenter provider in India. NTT also recently network licenses in India which will allow customers in India to leverage the full suite of NTT’s global SD-WAN capabilities inside and outside of the country.

But while India has seen major growth in the past few years, the business infrastructure has yet to catch up to fully support the rapidly changing IT market. NTT is leveraging all available connectivity options, including wireline and fixed wireless options, to provide optimized connectivity options to its clients in India.

Techseen: What according to you is the need of the hour for enterprises acceding to the cloud network? How do you think can NTT make that easier?

Hashimoto: Enterprises looking to transform their environment and move to the cloud are looking to leverage cost effective internet access and other network solutions at their branch offices in a secure and flexible way. They need rapid deployment capabilities to meet their business needs, and better visibility into and control over their applications and network utilization.

NTT’s SD-WAN Service Portfolio includes, at its core, groundbreaking real-time streaming network analytics which give CIOs and their IT teams deep insight into the health of their network, allowing full visibility of application performance, network security, utilization and end-user experience, in real time. This enables enterprises to analyze issues at the site, application dimension and individual IP address level, allowing the client to take faster remediation to their IT issues without delays.

In addition, with its newly launched SD-WAN Service Portfolio, NTT can provide SD-WAN solutions for enterprise clients globally in over 190 countries, leveraging 1,000+ local ISPs worldwide to deliver and support the best breed of connectivity options at each customer branch office. The SD-WAN Service Portfolio also includes a rich suite of cloud based security solutions via its Secure Internet Gateways located at NTT globally distributed local cloud centers, where customers can enable, in a few clicks, firewall protection, URL filtering, intrusion prevention services as well as malware reporting functions close to their sites.

These service enable clients to move from a capex to an open model and pay for the services and resources they need in a flexible way, when they need them.

Techseen: In one of your company’s statements, you say that you are increasingly seeing enterprises’ networks struggling to cope with the growth of cloud data, increasing security threats and inflating costs. How do you think your SD-WAN will be able to address these challenges in APAC?

Hashimoto: The new NTT SD-WAN Service Portfolio provides clients with an end-to-end solution, with highly flexible and cost-effective network connectivity options for each branch office, as well as optimized connectivity to major cloud and SaaS providers. The software-defined nature of the platform enables rapid transition of branch office IT services such as application acceleration, firewall, IPS, URL filtering, remote access connectivity to the cloud. This “Asset Lite” solution reduces the amount of equipment required for connectivity and data management at branch offices by having services provided directly from the SD-WAN platform.

With increasing security threats looming over businesses as seen in the recent WannaCry and Petya incidents, NTT can assist clients in addressing security risks through the full integration of SD-WAN security solutions via its Internet security gateways located at NTT globally distributed Local Cloud Centers, including large numbers across the APAC region, where customers can enable web URL filtering, firewall protection and intrusion prevention services.

Customers can also benefit from NTT’s malware reporting service to identify and isolate any machines infected by viruses and other security threats to their organization.

Techseen: Earlier this month you launched API Gateway as a Service, scheduled to be rolled out in July. One of the major aspects of this is strengthening your ties with SaaS players globally, where according to you do countries like Singapore and India stand?

Hashimoto: Many SaaS players have extended their presence/platforms to Singapore and India to cover the Asia-Pacific region. NTT has extensive local cloud center and network presence in the region, including India and Singapore and API gateway services will also be available in India and Singapore.

Techseen: You have recently launched the largest SD-WAN network, what will be your influence in the APAC SD-WAN market during this time?

Hashimoto: NTT has the world’s largest footprint in APAC among global or regional service providers and continues to invest heavily in the region. With all these capabilities in hand, we are looking to be a market leader in the region and drive the deployment of SD-WAN solutions for our customers in the APAC market and beyond

Techseen: Network and security go hand in hand, how closely does NTT communications work with NTT Security? Do you have a combined solution that you offer in the region?

Hashimoto: NTT Com and NTT Security work very closely together and our customer benefit from seamless service that we deliver to customers. For example, Distributed through NTT Com Local Cloud Centers around the world, NTT offers a fully integrated SD-WAN security solution via its Internet security gateways and the security logs can be processed and analyzed by NTT Security platform.

NTT Security can also provide a variety of managed security solutions for enterprise clients, including security threat diagnosis and endpoint security solutions. The power of NTT Com and NTT Security combined, leveraging the full suite of our SD-WAN cloud based security capabilities together with NTT Security’s multi-layer professional security solutions can provide a very comprehensive answer to our customers’ security needs.

Techseen: You acquired Virtela sometime back, do you see consolidation of more SDN players in the near future?

Hashimoto: The SDN and SD-WAN market is still in its early stages, and includes a large number of vendors today from established, to newly converted, to emerging technology companies. Consolidation is quite likely and customers should be careful when selecting their SD-WAN providers, and make sure they will get the long term support they need on their SD-WAN solution. NTT offers long term stability and proven track record to deliver global enterprise network services to customers.

Techseen: How do you differentiate with your peers in the segment? Companies like AT&T, Rackspace, Datapipe, IBM or even Google for that matter, are making heavy investments into this sector with APAC at the core. Do you think you will be ahead of the curve?

Hashimoto: Through our expertise in networking, and Virtela’s technology and expertise in software defined networking, we are able to accelerate the development of NTT Com’s SDx+M solution and strategy. We’re already ahead of other service providers in terms of global SD-WAN coverage as no other provider has announced SD-WAN service availability in more than 190 countries.

NTT Com is also the first provider to deploy a 100% global software defined network when others have plans to get there in the next 3 to 5 years. NTT Com is ahead of the industry and we continue to innovate and invest in services that will provide value to our customers.

For example, NTT’s real-time streaming network analytics gives CIOs and their IT teams deep insight into the health of their network, allowing full visibility of application performance, network security, utilization and end-user experience, in real time. This enables enterprises to analyze issues at the site, application dimension and individual IP address level, allowing them to take faster remediation to their IT issues without delays. This capability is far ahead of any of the reporting tools available in the market today, and we will continue to strengthen the offering to provide clients with enhanced visibility and control over their network

Techseen: Where do you see NTT communications in APAC 3 years from now? Which countries will play a major role in the coming future when it comes to network cloud and what are your future plans with these countries?

Hashimoto: NTT Com is committed to serve the APAC markets. Our goal is to continue to provide customers innovative services backed by passionate support in both the major APAC markets and emerging countries with infrastructure requirements where NTT Com can grow its business in APAC.

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Techseen: Should a cybersecurity threat be tackled by an individual, an enterprise, by the government, or should it be a combined effort (personal, commercial and administrative)?

Walia: Digital technology – from the ubiquitous smartphone to IoT devices for the home or office – has become widespread across APAC, with India being one of the fastest adopters of new technology. In this landscape, it is impossible to expect any one sector of society to shoulder the responsibility of cybersecurity alone.

Individuals, enterprises and government – each has their own part to play in fighting cyber threats. End-users of technology, often identified as the weak link in cybersecurity, need to take charge of their own security needs and ensure that they use devices and services in a manner that is safe and responsible. This will drastically reduce the attack surface area exposed to cybercriminals and cut risk of cyberattacks. Enterprises, on the other hand, can do their part by setting up sensible cybersecurity policies, taking proactive steps to prevent cyber breaches and being prepared in the event of a successful attack. In particular, manufacturers of connected devices must ensure that security considerations are built into the very design of the hardware and software, rather than as vulnerabilities that can be patched as needed.

Governments, besides having the responsibility of setting up big-picture frameworks and legislation, also have a key role to play in stopping cybercrime across borders. In particular, they need to ensure that their own legal frameworks around cybercrime, as well as their law enforcement officials, are well-connected to, and compatible with, laws and law enforcement processes in other countries. By its very nature, cybercrime is generally not restricted to a country’s borders. Rapid, rigorous cooperation between law enforcement officials across national borders is increasingly important to all jurisdictions interested in policing cybercrime.

Likewise, there is a greater need than ever now for collaboration and information sharing in the private sector, especially within industries. For example, banks and financial institutions need to put aside commercial differences and do more to share threat information in order to efficiently protect the whole industry from cyberattack. Similarly, the public and private sectors also need to work more closely together to ensure legislation is well drafted, and is feasible to implement from a practical standpoint.

Techseen: Like the EU adopted the NIS Directive, have other countries come together to form a cybersecurity legislation? What are the roadblocks that countries face when cybersecurity is a global issue?

Walia: Each country and region faces its own unique challenges to establishing cybersecurity legislation. While there haven’t been any major cross-border legislative actions taken outside of the EU, most countries have stepped up collaborative efforts to tackle cybersecurity, particularly in this region.

Last year, Singapore played host to the inaugural ASEAN Ministerial Conference on Cybersecurity, a significant step forward in efforts to boost cybersecurity in the region. As a result, the ASEAN Cyber Capacity program was launched, aiming to enhance cybersecurity resources, expertise and training among Southeast Asian member states with initial funding of S$10 million. This is meant to fund a wide variety of mechanisms aimed at empowering businesses and public servants in the region to form cybersecurity legislation and strategies.

However, establishing cross-border legislation can be difficult owing to different levels of infrastructure and cybersecurity maturity across markets. Markets with highly developed digital infrastructure such as Japan and Hong Kong face vastly different challenges than emerging economies such as Vietnam or Myanmar. With different needs and priorities, it can be difficult – or even ineffective – to implement blanket cybersecurity legislation across a region.

Techseen: You have mentioned in your report that regions such as APAC keep updating standards in their policies to adapt to new challenges and threats. How often is this needed? How important is it for countries to understand the threat matrix and comply?

Walia: There is no specific, optimal length of time following which governments should revisit their standards for security. As technology development speeds up, naturally policies will have to be updated more frequently as they become out-of-date.

What is important is that policy-makers are proactive in consulting businesses and security experts regularly rather than reacting to major cyber breaches that have exploited vulnerabilities in existing policies. This ensures that policies and legislation are effective, adequate and up-to-date.

Techseen: Why is there no framework for APAC or Latin America, like the EU-US Privacy Shield?

Walia: The EU-US Privacy Shield is a framework governing the exchange of personal data for commercial purposes between the European Union and United States, between which there have been longstanding business partnerships, similarities in attitudes towards data protection and privacy, as well as developed technological infrastructure.

In contrast, countries across Asia Pacific face varying levels of technology development and adoption, even within their own borders. This makes it difficult for a unified framework to be set up across countries. However, countries in Asia Pacific have already begun making strides to establish their own common standards for cybersecurity. The ASEAN unit has been particularly active on this front recently, with the first ASEAN Ministerial Conference on Cybersecurity convened last year at Singapore’s International Cyber Week (SICW). In years to come, we expect even greater collaboration between countries to bring us toward a common cybersecurity standard across the region.

Techseen: What role do private technology giants such as Google, Apple, IBM or Facebook play when it comes to cybersecurity legislations? Do you feel that the private tech sector is anti-establishment when it comes to privacy laws?

Walia: Greater collaboration across the public and private sectors is a critical ingredient to effectively countering cyber threats. By combining threat intelligence and technical expertise with the law enforcement capabilities of public sector organizations, the scope of attack for cybercriminals can be greatly reduced.

Earlier this year, one of the co-conspirators behind the Operation Windigo malware attacks pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in the United States. Through the operation, over 35 million spam messages were generated daily, gathering millions of dollars in fraudulent payments.

ESET researchers had helped the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) lead the investigation by providing technical expertise in identifying affiliate networks used by the Ebury gang, sharing sinkhole data to identify victims and produced a thorough technical report of the groups’ activity. This helped lead to the extradition and arrest of Maxim Senakh from Finland in 2016.

Techseen: ESET has talked about developing a global cybersecurity culture. How is it possible to have a unified plan of action when the laws and regulations of each country are different?

Walia: Legislation can be effective in regulating behavior, but, as you rightly have pointed out, it can also be difficult to align meanings and concepts of privacy, freedom of expression or security policy across borders.

It would be extremely challenging to standardize cybersecurity legislation across countries. However, organizations and governments can take effective, and aligned plans of action across borders if they are able to make cybersecurity a priority in all aspects of operation, and work towards a common goal of a more secure cyberspace.

Developing a global cybersecurity culture is more than just about creating and standardizing legislative action. Countries also need to set up channels and platforms that allow them to share information and resources to better anticipate and block cyberattacks. The need for this has been highlighted by the Bangladesh Bank heist last year. The approach taken by cybercriminals to carry off this operation was highly similar to an attack on Ecuadorian bank Banco del Austro SA in 2015, and could possibly have been foreseen and prevented with greater threat sharing within the industry.

Techseen: Which are the countries that you think should take measures when it comes to developing and creating cybersecurity laws? Which are the countries that have not yet taken cybersecurity threats seriously?

Walia: All countries that use digital technology – that is, all the countries in the world – need to conscientiously take steps to develop and create cybersecurity laws.

While most technologically developed nations already have their own legal policies and frameworks in place to deal with cyber threats, developing nations must act now to defend their digital assets. Thankfully, cybersecurity has quickly climbed to the top of the agenda for most countries, and is now a priority across most regions.

Techseen: What do you think will happen in the future, when it comes to countries collaborating for countering cybersecurity threats? Will everyone go their own, individual way or will they come together?

Walia: Time is of the essence in any cyberattack scenario. Having timely access to information and threat intelligence can make a big difference in protecting organizations and individuals.

Across the globe, we have seen cybercriminals banding together, with highly organized crime rings running large-scale cyberattacks in which their tools, data and expertise are shared across criminal organizations. The rise of easily available exploit kits has also significantly lowered the costs of attack for cybercriminals. This has made it far harder for any one organization to protect users on its own.

Fortunately, today, we are already seeing more organizations, governments, and even competing security vendors, put aside commercial interests to combat the growing threat of cybercrime together. As the cyber threat landscape continues to evolve, this will no longer be a choice, but an imperative for organizations that want to survive in the digital age. By banding together and collectively making a stand against cybercrime, we can quickly react to emerging threats, prevent major security incidents and create a safer cyberspace for all.

Techseen: What would you suggest a country’s government should do to develop and pass cybersecurity legislation?

Walia: Developing legislation – on any topic – is a complicated matter involving a large number of actors and political factors. However, on account of the number, frequency and impact of cybersecurity incidents worldwide, countries around the world have stepped up efforts to establish strong policies relating to cybersecurity.

Legislators need to consider the elements necessary for security in their own specific territories, including capacity to respond to large-scale incidents, the protection of critical infrastructure, ability to collaborate with other countries, and even to consider the development of a security culture which can be instilled in the population.

To do this efficiently, governments should work in close collaboration with private sector security experts and business organizations to get a holistic and realistic understanding of on-ground concerns and possible solutions to cyber threats. Matters such as data privacy and access are often debated between government and industry, and greater understanding and agreement between the two is important to set up effective, well-designed legislative frameworks.

Stepping up partnerships with the private sector has already been outlined as a key priority in Singapore’s recent National Cybercrime Action Plan, with the focus on upgrading capabilities to respond to cyber threats. However, there is still more that needs to be done in extending these partnerships in consultation with security experts to strengthen legislation in order to create a criminal justice framework that is nimble and effective in real-world contexts.

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Apparently the two-month period agreement does not stop BigBasket from being on a lookout for fresh financial investors. However, the agreement makes Amazon the sole player to acquire the e-grocery firm in the stipulated period.

Eyeing grocery

Recently the ecommerce giant’s CEO Jeff Bezos had announced that the company will be investing $3 billion more in India bringing the total investment of Amazon to $5 billion. Various media reports also suggest that the company will spend at least half a billion dollars on online grocery endeavors in the country, even though it has been spending big-bucks for entering the brick-and-mortar grocery market.

Having said that, Amazon itself is also biting into the online grocery pie in India. But its reach is only limited to specific cities. The ecommerce firm launched a 2-hour grocery delivery service in Bengaluru last year and has spread across, Delhi NCR, Mumbai and Hyderabad since then.

The company has positioned Amazon Now as a separate application only for groceries and has tied up with local hypermarket stores or groceries stores (depending upon the locality), in these cities. But, the app still does not have enough penetration when it comes to users and vendors, as compared to BigBasket. The Amazon Now model is very similar to how Grofers (another hyperlocal online grocery app) operates.

E-grocers realm

There were speculations in the market two months back about BigBasket and Grofers merging and SoftBank investing from $50 million to $100 million in the combined entity. A report by Inc42 stated that the talks were in early stages and the stakeholders were yet to agree upon a Valuation.

BigBasket is currently valued at $450 million post its $150 million round of funding last year. From Abraaj Capital. Few media reports cite that the company is pushing for a price of $700 million, which apparently has been an obstruction in a successful sale. TOI also reports that the company had assigned rights to Morgan Stanley for a $150 million fund-raise, which was expected to close by April this year. Seems like the funding did not go through, and now the company has turned to Amazon.

Amazon’s interest?

So what will happen if the deal goes through? Apart from Amazon tapping into BigBasket’s network and channels, the company might just make Amazon Now available to Prime customers and pit Big-Basket against Grofers and Godrej Nature’s Basket app. Or the company might just shut down the hyper-local model and invest in BigBasket’s own warehouses and in-house private labels as its own. The ecommerce entity might also shut down the e-grocer after customer, vendor and merchant data acquisition. Or it can merge BigBasket with Amazon now and call it Amazon Now.

But why does Amazon want to acquire BigBasket? It seems when Flipkart, which is the strongest contender of Amazon in India, acquired Myntra and Jabong, it conquered the fashion space. Flipkart also claims to lead in the online mobile phone sale segment and is soon planning to get into the grocery side of the industry. With the acquisition of BigBasket, Amazon may be able to take a lead in the online grocery part of the race.

Harish Bijoor, Chief Executive Officer of brand and business strategy, Harish Bijoor Consults, feels that Amazon has been progressive looking at consolidating itself as a one stop shop for everything. “Any ecommerce player looking at establishing that kind of play can do it beautifully in its core competence areas. For Amazon, core competence area is everything that every other ecommerce player has, but the non-core competence area is fresh fruits, meats, vegetables, groceries,” he says.

“Again there are different specialists in this area. if you look at fresh fruits, groceries and vegetables its BigBasket. So Amazon plus BigBasket plus tomorrow maybe Nitsches which is all about meat, these are competencies that will give the one stop shop attitude to Amazon in India. So it makes sense for these investments and deals to happen.”

Bijoor further adds that its not about taking a leadership position, its about saying that there are so many spaces that can give the customer a 360 degree approach to shop at home. “Flipkart’s move into fashion by acquiring Myntra was reasonably close to what it were doing. But grocery, vegetables, fruits, meats etc. are totally not contiguous and are separate areas. Amazon’s step into this space will make more significance than Flipkart stepping into this space. Clearly saying that at the end of the day, Amazon is likely to be the leader.”

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