Synechron opens new office in B’luru; Travelport develops blockchain solution for hotels

Digital consulting firm Synechron opens new office in Bengaluru. UK-based travel tech company Travelport develops blockchain solution for hotels.

Synechron opens another office in Bengaluru

New York-based consulting firm Synechron opened a new office in Bengaluru and announced plans to open another facility in Pune.

The office at Bengaluru will feature financial innovation labs (FinLabs) and offshore development centres (ODCs), an official statement said.

In addition to housing 2,000 employees, the new facility will host training facilities and digital kiosks for demonstrating the digital innovations that the company offers for the fintech sector, the statement added.  

The Bengaluru office at Bhartiya City IT Park will be Synechron’s sixth office in India and second in the city. The company already runs a facility at Bengaluru’s Global Technology Park.

The new office in Pune, which is likely to be opened next week at the World Trade Centre in Kharadi, will be its second in the city and house 170 employees.

Synechron had opened a facility in Mumbai last month.

Synechron is a digital consulting firm that facilitates digital transformation initiatives for banks, asset managers and insurance companies. The company has 18 offices across the world in London, Paris, Singapore and Amsterdam.

Synechron had collaborated with Bengaluru-based enterprise training company SpringPeople to carry out the upskilling and reskilling of its workforce.

Last year, Synechron deployed artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions for its clients in the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) sector. In addition to AI solutions, applications leveraging data science capabilities were also deployed.

Travelport, IBM Services develop blockchain-driven solution for hotels

United Kingdom-based travel technology company Travelport has developed a blockchain solution in partnership with IBM Services and travel management company BCD Travel.

The solution will help hospitality platforms resolve hotel commission settlements, an official statement said. It will also help track commission payments owed to booking agencies by hotel chains.

Travelport, IBM Services and BDC Travel built the solution on IBM Garage, the technology giant’s client-centric innovation platform.

The hotel commission reconciliation solution was unveiled at the GBTA Convention in Chicago, a business travel event, earlier this month.

Last year, Reuters reported that hoteliers have been exploring the possibility of using blockchain technology to by-pass travel intermediary platforms such as Expedia to derive data and undertake bookings from customers.

Earlier this month, professional services company Accenture rolled out an integrated digital platform for the Radisson Hotel Group. The cloud-based solutions give hotels a customer relationship management (CRM) platform to drive growth and make operations more efficient.

Mindtree leader in consulting and services sector: ISG 

Bengaluru-based IT and outsourcing company Mindtree has been named a leader in the consulting and services quadrant, according to a report by research and advisory firm International Services Group (ISG).

The company has also been named a  rising star in the connected cars quadrant in the ISG Provider Lens 2019 IoT report. 

The study, titled US ISG Provider Lens 2019 — IoT report, evaluated the internet of things (IoT) capabilities of 35 software service providers spanning a variety of sectors across the globe.

ISG’s report suggested that Mindtree’s IoT strengths lie in its sector-focused services, integrated strategy and its security services.

The Larsen & Toubro-owned Mindtree has continued to collaborate with companies to bolster capabilities in frontier technologies. 

Earlier this month, Mindtree joined open-source blockchain community Hyperledger to develop distributed ledger technologies for enterprises. 

90% of customers willing to buy from another brand while shopping online: report

As many as 90% of Indian customers surveyed are willing to buy products from another brand while shopping online, according to a survey by Paris-based internet advertising company Criteo. 

In its report titled Why We Buy, Criteo found that more than one in four shoppers said they stopped shopping with a brand whose values were not compatible with their personal beliefs.

Most respondents in the survey ranked customer service above value for money. Product selection and brand value were the other factors the customers surveyed considered when shopping online.

The report also found that most consumers discovered brands through video-sharing website YouTube and social media platform Facebook. 

The survey found that 66% of Indians surveyed prefer online advertisements as a means of discovering new products. 51% of the respondents said that they look to online ads for information on product discounts.