A spate of high profile hotel launches in Gurgaon including Hilton Garden Inn (201 rooms) on March 1 and Taj Vivanta (189 rooms) on March 7 has again put the spotlight on the NCR suburb. Can the market absorb this fresh supply? Especially as the Vivanta, Hilton are in the same vicinity (near the HUDA City Centre metro station) where a Double Tree (184 rooms) that opened last year already exists. From 1,980 rooms in 2009-10 to 3,782 rooms in 2011-12 it has been a 38 per cent annual growth in room supply in Gurgaon. And the pipeline is pretty long. The latest report by hospitality consultant HVS on ‘Trends and opportunities in Hotel 2012’ pegs the proposed supply in the NCR suburb at 5,818 rooms by 2016-17. During a quick walk-through of Hilton Garden Inn, owner Virendra Bhatia, Promoter and President of Baani Group, shows off the extra large hospital style elevator that can take in stretchers and says with Fortis and Medanta hospitals in the vicinity, there will be enough demand from medical tourism.Rajesh Punjabi, Vice President, Development – India, Hilton Worldwide says, “While the primary market in Gurgaon is business travel, it is developing into an important medical tourism hub. In recent months, the city has hosted several medical conferences. “In contrast, a Taj spokesperson, feels the medical tourism opportunity is nil and says the Vivanta target is going to be purely business and leisure. So who is right? Both, says HVS Global Hospitality Services, South Asia managing director Kaushik Vardharajan. “There is demand for medical tourism in Gurgaon but the demand reduces the higher you go up in positioning,” he says. So, it’s the mid market – 3 and 4 star category that can hope in to pull in the medical tourists.But are we staring at a supply glut in Gurgaon?Rajesh Punjabi of Hilton agrees that with commercial growth extending all the way to Manesar, there has been a sharp increase in the number of hotel projects under development. “Reports suggest, in the past few years, Gurgaon has had the highest completion ratio of projects under development in NCR. In the short term, this oversupply will strain occupancies and room rates. However, the long-term outlook remains positive and growing demand will absorb the new supply,” he says. Vardharajan too feels it’s a short term pain. He feels that Gurgaon is one of the strongest market in the country right now, with almost all hotels busy on weekdays as well. “Every time a new hotel opened – be it the Westin, the Oberoi – we saw new supply getting absorbed without impacting the old supply,” he says. However, he says, what we will see is more conservative hotel pricing in Gurgaon now.
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FireEye, described as Silicon Valley's hottest security start-up, recently opened its R&D centre in Bangalore, India. Ashar Aziz founded FireEye, a network security company, in 2004 after his previous startup, Terraspring, a datacenter automation and virtualisation company, was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2002. Before Terraspring, Aziz spent twelve years at Sun as an engineer focused on networking and network security. At present, Aziz leads both the technical and business strategies of FireEye as CTO and Chief Strategy Officer. In 2012, FireEye went on to win the Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award, the JPMorgan Chase Hall of Innovation Award and three Stevie Awards at the 2012 American Business Awards. Recently in India to launch its new R&D centre, Aziz spoke to BW Online's Poonam Kumar about how FireEye works and what he expects from the Bangalore R&D centre You have been termed as the hottest security start-up in the Silicon Valley. What makes you rock?What made us rock is we have provided the first truly effective solution against unknown attacks that works in real time across all major threat factors. And we have successfully deployed it in close to 30 per cent of the Fortune 500 companies. We have done this while being tried and tested against all acclaimed competitors and winning close to 100 per cent of these bake-offs. It’s a title we have earned professionally as opposed to a merely superficial title.How is FireEye different from other anti-viruses available in the market? The most fundamental difference between FireEye and other anti-viruses like Macafee or Symatec is that they work on something that is already known to the antivirus vendor or some signature has been developed. But the attacks are far more sophisticated today. The attacks are consistently evolving and therefore, solutions with signatures cannot recognise them and cannot block them. We detect and block new viruses in real time. As for the most fundamental differentiator from the products available in the market, we work across all the major attack factors and across all the stages of a virus's life cycle. We provide a very accurate solution in the face of an unknown attack which is a very hard thing to do.How did the idea come to you and did you have any problem getting funds for your start-up?I had sold my previous company (Terraspring) to Sun Microsystems in 2002. When I left Sun, I was thinking about how to spend the rest of my life. As an entrepreneur, my philosophy is to look for hard problems. I was studying the evolution of all cyber attacks and malicious code in particular and there was a lot of talk about how it could evolve in different directions. If that evolution were to take place, it was clear that the existing defences would fail and that we needed a better architecture to deal with these attacks. I began working on that architecture at my home, in my living room. I spent eight months doing that. After coming up with the design and architecture for what is now FireEye, I was looking for some investors. It was a very useful and interesting technology and it took some 2-3-years to get the product right. But once it was ready, the product took off very, very rapidly.Who were the initial investors?Promod Haq from Norwest Venture Partners and Gaurav Garg from Sequoia Capital were the initial investors. Over time, we acquired many other investors including Juniper Networks, JAFCO Ventures. We recently announced a $51-million investment round with Goldman Sachs, Silicon Valley Bank and many others. So, at the moment all these are our investors.Can you describe how FireEye works?We have products which are system level appliance product that deploy at the key gate of the network such as internet gateway, email gateway, file, server, inspections point. We run suspicious objects inside instrumented virtual execution environment which is a proprietary technology that FireEye has. It’s not just ordinary VM technology, nor is it ordinary sandboxing technology. It’s a proprietary virtual execution technology designed to look for malicious activity and to find malicious behaviours. And it can do that in real time. You can put us on the gateway with a gigabit of traffic. And we built to inspect that gigabit of traffic by using virtual execution engine at in our office methodology. The output is incredibly detailed and incredibly accurate. Which is why we have been as successful as we have been because we are not estimating the thousands of false alerts. We have confirmation technology of the attacks built into the product and the information is very rich and very actionable.How long did it take for the business to take off?It took two-and-half-to-three-years to get the first product, FireEye Malware Protection System (MPS) right. Once it was ready, we took off and now it is one of the fastest growing and successful companies in the world.What are your plans for the Indian market? What will be your working model for India?We will invest $50 million in our R&D activities in India in the next 4-5 years to develop cutting-edge cyber security solutions. During its initial phase, we will employ approximately 50 research and development specialists and plan to recruit 250 employees in the next five years.The working model will be to make sure that we will talk to the local business practices. And we find right partners to work with to take us into all the key areas of business for us. These areas are networking, cryptography, network security, and data center virtualization . These tend to be other geography as well as government, financial sector, high-tech, curriculum infrastructure, gas and energy, telcos and we are doing very well in these areas in US and we are hoping to do the same here in India.What is the purpose behind setting up R&D centre in India?The Bangalore office is an important milestone for FireEye's global expansion. We expect the new Bangalore office to play a key role in maintaining cutting-edge technology and innovation in the FireEye line of security products. The Bangalore facility will serve as a hub for the development and testing of new FireEye products. We welcome Sridhar to the FireEye executive team. His extensive experience in building sophisticated product development teams in the US and India is an important addition. We already have first 50-100 accounts here.Do you develop applications for individuals or only for corporate only?As of now, we make products for enterprises only. And we have no such plans to target individuals. In future, we will come up with such products for individuals also. But as of now we don’t have such plans.How many startups have you launched? This is my second start-up. I guess, it qualifies me as a serial entrepreneur.What are your plans for the future?My future plan is to make sure FireEye’s architecture saves gateways from cyber attacks in the world. poonam(dot)kumar(at)abp(dot)in, poonam(dot)bw(at)gmail(dot)com
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With just a few days to go for IPL 6 to kick off, there has been a flurry of activity off the cricketing pitch. According to media planners, 80 per cent of ad inventory has been already sold out on SET Max– with most of it selling in the last ten days. What do brands hope to get out of the IPL outing? BW | Businessworld finds out. Excerpts from an interview with Neelima Burra, senior general manager marketing (appliances and sewing machines), Usha International, which is co-sponsor of CSK as well as air associate sponsor of IPL, and is forking out extra crores this year compared to last year.Usha entered the IPL pitch last year for the first time. How was the outing? Usha International entered the IPL pitch last year as a co- sponsor of CSK team. The experience was great and our step in this direction proved beneficial for us. Thus this year, we have strengthened our relationship with IPL from being co sponsor of CSK to on air associate sponsor for IPL.What is the idea behind Usha's association with CSK? What are the expectations from the association?Among IPL teams, CSK is the most successful IPL team so far with great fan following. It has won the tournament twice and reached the playoffs every year. USHA as a consumer durable company has the strongest market in South India, we are also one of the strongest players in there, and hence the association is apt for us.The company is aiming high in terms of brand presence and visibility through CSK and IPL. Several consumer engagement initiatives around IPL and CSK are being planned. USHA will bring a host of exciting contests and activities for the CSK fans across the country to build up excitement.Our marketing plans around the 55 day cricket festival will help us build the Usha brand to a new high.Did you weigh various options — ad time on SET max versus team sponsorship — or are you doing both?We have evaluated all the options and hence this year partnered with Chennai Super Kings as co-sponsor for the second consecutive year and the company has also partnered with Multi Screen Media (MSM) to be associate broadcast sponsor of IPL 6 at SET Max this year.Given that CSK has several associate sponsors, isn't there danger of clutter?Cricket is religion in India and IPL has emerged as the highest engaging event which cuts across age groups, socio economic classes and geographical boundaries. This has been attracting brand engagement across teams. Clutter is reality outside IPL also, however we have several consumer engagement initiatives planned around IPL, and these will be rolled out during IPL. We are committed to adding value to the biggest cricket festival and our association by creating excitement around it. Do you think compared to other media properties, IPL is still the best bet for a brand to gain visibility?Industry report states that the viewership is expected to rise this season. Also numbers of brands’ association have gone up this year which means more marketing/ consumer engagement activations. This ensures IPL outreach to many more millions of people year on year. While IPL6 will see star studded opening ceremony, we will also launch unique activations and are confident of deriving tremendous value from our association.
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Pam Berklich, Senior Vice President, Centers of Excellence for Kelly Services, Inc and global board member of the International Confederation of Private Employment Agencies (CIETT) was in town recently to attend the first conference of the Indian Staffing Federation. The ISF was formed a couple of years ago under the guidance of the CIETT. Excerpts from an interview with BW |Businessworld's Chitra Narayanan. What are the broad trends in talent management?If you look at any of the CEO surveys that are conducted globally, it shows that there continue to be talent shortages all around the world. The challenge is about talent — having the right talent, at the right place at the right time, at the right cost, even when we have a large labour market, for example in India.Between the number of people here in India and those who are considered employable in the high tech sector, healthcare and pharmaceuticals sector, with technical skills, there's a gap. Even with a highly educated workforce: if I use one number I saw recently, each year India is graduating 450,000 engineers but only 25 per cent of those are employable.A lot of MNCs are investing huge sums of money in India, but find that the talent here is difficult to locate. Many of the same trends are occurring elsewhere too. There are certain commonalities in emerging markets such as China and Brazil.To address this shortage, organisations increasingly want to partner with experts who know where to find the talent, who can bring them the best talent. That's the Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) industry.Wouldn't that be more for junior level employees?No. The trend is that it is now moving into the higher skills. In the past, big BPOs in India had a large volume of recruitment projects around customer service people. Now that the trend is changing towards partnering with RPO companies for highly skilled talent, they would transfer responsibility for attracting, selecting and assessment of talent. That leads me to another trend: the need for improvement in retention.But given the skill shortage you mentioned, is it the same talent going around the marketplace? Is anything being done to bring fresh talent?There is a lot of mobility. It's not really always poaching from one place to fit another but bringing high skill talent in the country from other countries. As a trend, there is a lot of cross border recruitment happening. So if we find there are very highly skilled English speaking engineers in central Europe, we would like to check their cultural fit for Indian companies.Are we seeing this happen on ground?It is more a global trend, but it will hit India as the talent crunch continues.Meanwhile, developing the under skilled population is a major issue for India. We spent time talking about this at the CIETT and ISF conference to government officials, the labour minister and trade organisations. We want to develop the workforce that's here and put them in higher paying jobs, but there are some core issues related to language and the education system here. The system focuses on imparting technical skill but not the important soft skills such as language and thinking analytically. There is a disconnect between business in India and education in India. Meanwhile, companies need the talent. So there is recycling.If we think about why there is such a high turnover at the mid and senior level, then it is because at the front end of the recruitment process you don't have a right selection method in place to see if the individual has the requisite skills to align with the company culture. This is when you have senior people who stay only two years at an average. And at the junior level, it is even worse.So what's the size of the RPO industry in India?For India, it is $63 million (Rs 3.5 billion). That is expected to double to Rs 6 billion ($107 million) by 2016. Both globally and in India, it is a fast growing trend.Why would a company want to partner an RPO? Because of the scale and flexibility we offer: the ability to quickly ramp up and expand or be able to pare down costs in a sustainable manner.How do you flex up and down? One can understand scaling up but scaling down sounds scary… how do you let go of people?It could be through temporary staff or thorough flexible staff. But there's another way of scaling down. If I am an RPO provider, and I provide to many companies and see that company A is scaling up and B is scaling down, I can leverage my recruits across companies.All this sounds very tricky?It can be. First of all, in an RPO, the client owns the database. We sign up to protect so there is never sharing of talent between programmes. However, through right skilling these resources can be deployed across multi industries and that allows portability of resources.What parts of the hiring process are outsourced to the RPO industry?There are two models. One, an enterprise wide outsourcing where all parts of the hiring cycle from the talent acquisition function to helping with induction we take care of. Of course, the hiring manager makes the hiring decision. Then we take over and do the induction training. That is enterprise wide.For some clients, who want to keep their talent acquisition function in house, we offer additional support in interviews, or coordinating, or managing resources.Do you see gender disparity in salaries?I think there is a problem with pay disparity. Even in the US and Australia, a lot of attention is being paid to equal pay, equal work because it's simply not there.The other issue is that there are significant number of women who are opting out of the workforce. Some of the reasons can be cultural. A lot of women are educated in Asia, 50 per cent of the employable age women are educated but they are still not part of the workforce.So there is definitely a gender issue that has to be addressed.Recently Yahoo's Marissa Meyer changed the remote work policy at the company? Do you think it could have repercussions?This is not a woman's issue. But a cross gender issue: working remotely versus battling traffic. It's also an issue of trust. Whether it is women, or men with aged parents who need to be able to work from home to offer care, flexi time is needed.It's disappointing to have what we think are innovative and progressive companies putting a stop to this — or questioning this activity.But my prediction is that this will be a short lived experiment. Or that it will end up creating a talent problem.
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The sixth edition of the Indian Premier League is a few days away – and although the organisers are still at sixes and sevens with the Tamil Nadu government, which has raised the political bogey to queer the sporting pitch, brands are getting into the field hoping to score a six! Last year, the high television ad rates during IPL telecast saw many a brand staying on the sidelines resulting in unutilised inventory. It also led to a lower rating for India’s biggest sporting property as a whole. This year, things appear to be looking up for the business of IPL. Media buying and planning agency MEC India and WPP’s analytics company Meritus in a joint study has forecast that TV rating for the season will perk up from 3.8 last year to 3.9.Another study called CRIC (Consumer Response to Investment in Cricket) conducted by Domor Communication Consulting and powered by media buyer Vivaki Exchange is a bit more circumspect – forecasting that ratings will remain stable or show a marginal increase. The study was conducted on the basis of an audience survey (10,000 strong with a 60:40 male is to female ratio) and merging it with a study of ratings. Read Also: Usha Intl Bats With Chennai Super Kings AgainOn the whole, however, the CRIC study suggests a good season for brands at the IPL (a good IPL season is classified as a year of higher average television viewer ratings (TVR) while a poor season has lower than average TVRs). Reach and salience are the two biggest things that brands are looking for in IPL associations, says Mona Jain, CEO Vivaki Exchange, which is one of the biggest media buyer for IPL.So how effective has the IPL property been for brands in this respect? According to Jain, telecom brands have scored well on the IPL pitch. “FMCG brands don’t typically see as much value. But consumer durables brands, telcos, and banks have been able to build a whole campaign thanks to the pan Indian high reach of the property – especially with male and youth audiences,” she says.Marketing consultant Lloyd Mathias of Greenbeam Ventures which advises telecom start ups feels that IPL is the perfect platform for telecom brands because it offers a ready connect with the relatively younger, urban, male dominated audience who are the primary driver of telecom ARPUs (average revenue per user). “The IPL provides a cost effective platform to build both reach and salience with this vital segment,” he says.Also it helps that category definitions in telecom tend to be less stringent than say beverages, points out Mathias. So while a Vodafone can come in as a primary sponsor as a mobility service; a Tata Docomo can also be an associate sponsor on the back of the Tata Photon wireless broadband service and yet advertise the Tata Docomo Mobility service. Similarly, Airtel could become an associate as a DTH provider. This, besides the fact that other mobility providers — Idea, Uninor, Reliance, MTS — can also buy TV spots- within a limit. According to Vivaki’s Jain, short burst (just six weeks) though the IPL season is, it's actually now where a bulk of the marketing monies of several brands is going in. “Brands are putting as much as 35 per cent to 50 per cent of their annual marketing spends on IPL. They find that if you plan it well, and amplify presence through various social media, it pays off pretty well, says Jain.The CRIC study analyses effectiveness of brand performance on the IPL pitch. Interestingly, the survey points out that 13 out of the Top 15 gainers in brand awareness during the IPL 2010 event period were on the IPL while 12 of the top 15 gainers were on the IPL during the 2011 event period– implying that being present on the IPL brings the brand into the consumer’s memory far better than any other media property during that period. Significantly, the study points out that a mega event prior to IPL has an impact on effectiveness. For instance, when the ICC world Cup preceded the IPL, that played a role.And what is the likely impact of IPL6 going to be on brands? The study says that “In the absence of a mega event like the ICC Cricket World Cup before the IPL 2013, brands will not enter the IPL with very high awareness levels, leaving such brands to show a higher gain in awareness by the end of the tournament.” It has stuck out its neck and given some estimates tooWell, brands on their part appear pretty hopeful. Neelima Burra, Senior GM Mktg (Appliances and Sewing Machines), Usha International, which is co-sponsor of Chennai Super Kings, says, “Industry reports say that the viewership is expected to rise this season. Also the numbers of brands’ association have gone up this year which means more marketing/ consumer engagement activations. This ensures IPL outreach to many more millions of people.” Is IPL 6 Worth The Investment For Marketers? The CRIC study by Domor Communication Cosnulting and Vivaki Exchange has come up with a five point strategy for marketers considering investing in IPL.Think about ‘Does my brand absolutely need to grow in consumer memory during the period of the IPL – 6 weeks?If the answer is a ‘Yes’, then a marketer has no choice but to be on IPL, irrespective of whether the IPL is will deliver a high or on a average ratingHowever, the marketers expectations from each IPL should be tempered year on year – based on the situation around the IPL – Cricket events preceeding the IPL and ratings expected for the IPL that seasonThe price that the marketer is willing to pay for any season on the IPL should depend on his expectation from that year rather than the fact that he ideally should not avoid the eventIf there is a mismatch of price and expectations, the marketer should seriously reevaluate the need to grow in awareness during that 2 month period and look at delaying his marketing thrust by a 6 week period
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The rapid increase in mobile and wireless connections are driving the growth of internet penetration in India and key beneficiaries are new media segments including internet advertising, online classifieds, and gaming, says the Ficci–KPMG Media & Entertainment 2013 report. However, traditional media including print, TV and radio is still growing strong in India.The Indian media and entertainment industry grew from Rs 72,800 crore in 2011 to Rs 82,000 crore in 2012, registering an overall growth of 12.6 per cent. While, 2012 was a challenging year for the industry, with some improvement likely in the global economy in 2013 and India’s real GDP expected to be in the region of 6.1 per cent to 6.7 per cent, the prognosis for the Industry looks much better going forward. The industry is estimated to achieve a growth of 11.8 per cent in 2013 to touch Rs 91,700 crore. Going forward, the sector is projected to grow at a healthy CAGR of 15.2 per cent to reach Rs 1,661 crore by 2017.Television continues to be the dominant segment; however, there was strong growth in new media sectors, animation/ VFX and a comeback in the films and music sectors on the back of strong content and the benefits of digitization. Radio is expected to see a spurt in growth at a CAGR of 16.6 percent over the period 2012-2017, post the rollout of Phase 3 licensing.Total advertising spend across media was Rs 32,740 crore in 2012. In light of continued economic slowdown, advertising revenues saw a growth of 9 per cent in 2012 as against 13 per cent in 2011 and 17 per cent in 2010. Print continues to be the largest beneficiary, accounting for 46 per cent of the advertising pie at Rs 15,000 crore.Key TrendsDigitization of Film and TV Distribution InfrastructureDigitization of distribution has brought in the promise of more sustainable and profitable business models across media sectors. It has enabled the films sector to make a comeback this year. The industry has achieved 77 per cent digitization of screens and expects to be close to 100% digitized in the next 18 months to 2 years. Growth in New MediaThe rapid increase in mobile and wireless connections continues to drive the growth of internet penetration in India. With better access, through cheaper and smarter devices, audiences (especially the youth) are consuming more content and are getting increasingly engaged.Key beneficiaries are emerging new media segments, which include internet advertising, online classifieds, and gaming, all of which are on a rapid growth path. Going forward, better uptake of 3G connections and the beginnings of the 4G rollout are expected to spur growth further.Traditional Media Still Going StrongIndia remains a growth market for 'traditional' media evidenced by the growth last year in TV audiences, radio listenership, and footfalls in theatres. India is an outlier country where print is still a growth market. There is growing overseas demand for quality Indian animation/VFX work at affordable pricing. Traditional media is also increasingly offered on new media platforms. The need of the hour, of course, is the development of models for broader reach and monetization of audiences for traditional media content on these new media platformsGreater Sophistication of and Segmentation in ContentTV digitization is likely to be a great catalyst for greater diversity and niche television programming. Digitization is expected to improve broadcast economics significantly which in turn, could drive more investments in production quality, niche and targeted genres of content/packaging in the medium term.Regional Markets Key Centers of GrowthAdvertisers continue to see higher growth in consumption from key regional markets. Hence regional media continues on a strong growth trajectory especially in the print and television sectors. Key media players are focusing on cherry picking acquisitions and expanding their presence in regional markets based on higher rates of advertising revenue growth, and better insulation from the slowdown than in metros, which may be close to saturation in many cases.Coming LIVE To You…With changing lifestyles, there is an increase in media consumed out of home. Brands are also increasingly keen to connect with consumers via 'experiences' to ensure greater recall and amplification of brand values. Activations/events are now increasingly a key facet of Radio and Print media solutions.Live music events/festivals have been successful in attracting widespread audiences and engaging youth across key cities. Increased consumption of music/radio/video on-the-go via mobile and in cars provides opportunity for real time mobile geo-location advertising. The Out of Home (OOH) advertising sector has also seen higher rates of growth in transit advertising.Revenue Models Still Advertising Dependent – But Subscription Grows for TVM&E is still an advertising dependent industry in India. Hence, it remains sensitive to the impact of the economic slowdown.While the print sector saw some increases in circulation revenues, and increases in cover price in some areas, cover prices are still significantly lower than global counterparts. In the TV sector, digitization has potential to increase (Average Revenue Per User) ARPUs and improve the share of subscription revenues to the broadcasters. Increasing subscription revenues is key to the long term stability of the broadcasting sectorRegulatory and Policy SupportRegulatory interventions have been a key enabler of growth for the sector. Anticipated events in 2013, such as continued cable DAS rollout, Phase 3 licensing for Radio and 4G rollout, will spur growth from the medium term.There is a need for measures to aid curtailment of piracy and encourage investments to support further growth. Co-production treaties, rationalization of entertainment tax, government support to encourage formal skill development and training and incentives for animation/VFX and gaming are important areas of policy and regulation that need attention.Gaps in Availability of Skilled M&E ProfessionalsThe media and entertainment sector could be a noteworthy employer across creative, technical and business areas. With potential mushrooming of TV and Radio broadcast channels and growth in skill intensive sectors of film, animation, gaming, VFX, this is only set to escalate. In the talent driven media sector, companies could potentially differentiate based on ability to attract and retain the right people.
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The traditional system of ‘setting passwords that are easily remembered’ is being challenged in the recent days. While naïve employees would set predictable passwords, it is likely that the same would be exposed to threats from brute force attacks, keyloggers, socially engineered cons, and just breaking in and outright stealing them from a database. Passwords are only as effective as the security of the organisation storing them. Incidents of password breaches indicate that most internet users do not use strong passwords. Most find long, combinations of numbers,letters and symbols challenging and “password” is often the most common password among those stolen. While some aware employees might go for the longest, most cryptic password possible, someone breaking and stealing it from the organisation due to a data breach just makes the whole exercise futile. According to the November 2012, Symantec Intelligence Report, security breaches where user information becomes publically exposed or stolen — are a serious issue for an organisation. The exposure of customer data such as a password can lead to a loss of confidence in the organisation by its users. Even worse, the organisation could find themselves in violation of data privacy laws or on the receiving end of a lawsuit by its users. Moreover, in the workplace, users are likely to utilise the same password to access any number of personal and business resources. In fact, businesses can lose millions of dollars if just one employee’s account is compromised, leading to the loss of sensitive corporate data.Strong Authentication Is The Key To Keep Employee Data Secure Strong authentication is key to keep employee accounts and information secure, Strong authentication practices have been around for some years now; security tokens that generate one-time passwords on a small, portable device are a case in point. In such cases, even though a malicious user gains access to a machine, the risks of information theft are relatively lower. But with the advent of mobile workforces and remote workplaces, organisations are finding it tough to manage each employee carrying a token.Other Authentication AlternativesKnowledge-based systems: One of the most commonly used strong authentication alternatives is the use of knowledge-based systems. Banks use this method very commonly. In addition to the password, a user is asked a question based on prior knowledge. While, this is better than a password alone, there are certainly some shortcomings. One of the biggest shortcomings is related to the growth of social media. Large amounts of personal data is available on social networking platforms making it easy for social engineering attackers to guess the answer of a question such as the name of one’s pet. This then limits the value of knowledge-based authentication. Risk-based authentication: The risk-based method analyses user behaviour to determine the proper amount of security to apply depending on the current situation. For example, it will analyse the user’s location and the device being used to attempt logging in. When it’s the user’s workstation in office premises, and one is accessing relatively insignificant information, this would be considered a “low-risk” situation and little or no additional security is required. But if the user is requesting access on an unknown device from an IP address in another country, or trying to access financials or intellectual property, that will send up red flags, depending on the parameters enabled in the system. The user can then be required to perform additional authentication measures, in addition to entering a password, in order to be granted access.Public Key Infrastructure (PKI): PKI refers to the technology, infrastructure, and practices that support the implementation and operation of a certificate-based public key cryptographic system. The system uses a pair of mathematically related keys, called a private key and a public key, to encrypt and decrypt confidential information and to generate and verify digital signatures. (Digital signatures are used to sign transactions or to authenticate users or machines prior to granting access to resources.)The main function of PKI is to distribute public keys accurately and reliably to users and applications that need them. The process employs digital certificates which are issued to users or applications by an enterprise certificate.Apart from these methods, there are a few other promising methods of strong authentication on the horizon that are making their way into the real world. “Somewhat continuous” authentication not only looks at behaviour while logging in, but during the session itself to make sure you remain the person in control, which is useful in cases of highly sensitive information in the world of espionage. And other biometric-based methods are in development to further ensure user identity.Some of the methods, organisations can use to solve the problem of passwords:Educate employees on information protection policies and procedures, then hold them accountableImplement two factor authenticationIntegrate information protection practices into businesses processesAssess risks by identifying and classifying confidential informationDeploy data loss prevention technologies which enable policy compliance and enforcementImplement an integrated security solution that includes reputation-based security, proactive threat protection, firewall and intrusion prevention in order to keep malware off endpointsEstablish automated policy compliance solution to detect and remediate areas of non-compliance immediatelyProactively encrypt laptops to minimise consequences of a lost deviceConclusionSimple password protection may be history soon. Moving to a world where alternative authentication systems are the norm won’t be immediate. For the time being attackers are likely to attempt entering networks with legitimate, albeit compromised, access credentials. Businesses cannot afford to take chances and must soon evaluate an authentication method that will work best for them. (Prakashkumar, is Senior Director, Development, Symantec)
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Advertising is all about getting the timing right. The ad for Ford Figo created by JWT India, that has raised many hackles — from the Kardashian sisters to former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi — is a piece of communication that will go down in the advertising history as a case study for getting ad timing awfully wrong. The ad was one among the several scam ads that are created by Indian advertising agencies to compete at India’s biggest ad awards show Goafest coming up next week.The ad, which shows a caricature of former Italian PM Berlusconi in a car flashing a peace sign, with three women bound and gagged in the boot of his car (the agency wanted to highlight Ford Figo’s extra large boot space), caught public attention at a time when diplomatic relations between India and Italy were at an all-time low over the prosecution of the Italian marines who are standing trial in India for allegedly shooting Indian fishermen in Indian waters. Also, after the Delhi rape incident and the public outcry that followed, the agency should have reckoned that any piece of communication showing women in a negative light would come under even more intense scrutiny. The irony of the situation: the ads caught public imagination, just a couple of days after Indian Parliament passed the anti-rape bill.Why are the Kardashian’s contemplating legal action? Because another version of the same ad shows the Kardashian sisters – Kim, Khloe and Kourtney — in the boot of friend-turned-foe Paris Hilton’s car. The ads that created a global furore, particularly after the Ford Motor Company, one of JWT’s biggest clients, stated that the ads were run without their approval, have caught both the agency and its parent WPP, the world’s largest advertising holding company, on the wrong foot. With an intended piece of humour turning into a bad joke on both the brand and the agency behind the ad, WPP fired JWT’s chief creative officer, Bobby Pawar who had joined JWT in end-2011. The developments have cast a long shadow on Goafest, India’s primary advertising festival. After ad agency Ogilvy said it will not participate in this year’s awards, another agency Creativeland Asia that has been among the top award winners in recent times, also opted out saying it will return to Indian award shows only after the scams are weeded out.To be sure, Goafest is no stranger to scams and the ensuing controversy. In 2008, Leo Burnett was left ashen-faced when it was alleged that the ads created by the agency for Luxor Highlighter did not have the approval of the client. Worse, the agency for Luxor was Lowe Lintas and not Leo Burnett. However, Leo Burnett came out of the controversy by producing a letter from the client citing that a former marketing head of the company had indeed approved the Luxor ads. The following year, controversy visited Rediffusion DYR when client Colgate took umbrage to the fact that a commercial of Colgate Gel was entered for the awards without client approval. The Chief Creative Officer lost his job. In 2009, Publicis was also caught in the act when it actually entered a work for a local soup brand under the name of one of its employees at Goafest. When the employee (individual posing as an agency) won a lot of awards at Goafest, Publicis took more interest in the ad and entered the work at the advertising Oscar Cannes under its own name.In the latest case, JWT seems to have got its timing wrong even on these counts. We live in a different world than we did even in 2009. Social media ensured that word travels faster than light, and JWT was caught even before the jury delivered its verdict whether the Ford Figo scam ads were award worthy or not.
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