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3i Infotech’s Services BU – ‘Altiray™’looks to enter newer verticals and geographies this year

Digital transformation, Cross-leveraging BUs, Solution-led sales and Multi LOB deals to drive change
3i Infotech Limited (BSE: 532628, NSE: 3IINFOTECH), a global Information Technology company which had recently unveiled a new corporate identity for their services business unit, brand-named as Altiray™, has today announced plans to foray into ‘Retail’ as a new vertical this year. The Company also plans to expand into newer geographies like Canada and Kenya to increase their global footprint, which now encompasses North America, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa and South Asia. Partnership-driven GTM, Cross-leveraging BU selling, Multi LOB deals, Solution-led sales and Digital transformation are some of the key themes that the Company has embarked on propagating this year, as part of their transformational journey.
With deep domain expertise across the Banking & Financial Services, Insurance & Healthcare and Government spectrum, the Company would gradually look to continue to focus on Digital Transformation as an overarching theme. In the Government segment, the focus is on consulting and delivering cutting-edge technical work in the eGovernance space. The Company also announced that their BPO expansion is one of the focus areas from a LOB (Line of Business) perspective this year. The expansion envisioned is globally, and within India they would be focussing on RPA (Robotic process automation) based BPO offerings.
Speaking on the renewed focus, Mohua Sengupta, EVP and Global Head of Services said, “We have chosen not to be everything to everybody, but instead focus on those key verticals where we could make a marked difference for our customers. Digital transformation has been our overarching focus area, and will continue to be one of our key strategic themes this year as well. It would percolate across the entire spectrum of our business & operations – be it building our solutions; be it choosing the right people from the market who have joined us with the specific skill-sets; be it cross-training or cross-skilling our existing employees or be it hiring sales people.”
“Solution-led sales is another key theme that we have been driving and which we will continue to focus on. Solutions & Integrated frameworks are our USP and which we plan to leverage on. We are pleased with our solution landscape which is very well integrated across domains and emerging technologies. Of particular interest is the area of ‘Testing’, which is one of our key strengths. We are having maximum discussions around testing solutions and most of these discussions are led by the solutions that have been built over the last one year,” she further added.
Cross-leveraging the other BUs and Cross-selling across BUs would be another theme that the Company would rely on heavily this year. With Multiple LOBs (Line of Business), which includes ADMS, Testing, IMS, Professional Services and Consulting, their operations were largely disjointed until now. This would witness a paradigm shift.
Altiray™solution landscape includes 5 varied offerings, which include AxES, CRUX, Momenta, Flexib and HybridNxT. Frameworks such as AxES (Accelerate, Enable, & Scale) and CRUX (Customer Reach & User Experience), aim to catalyse the digital adaption for mid-sized and large enterprises with built-in end-to-end framework elements, cutting across B2B and B2C centric options.
Momenta, the Data and Insights Marketplace, a suite of pre-built Analytics apps, supports a multitude of industries and business functions. Each app manages the complete end-to-end process. They also have Flexib, which offers performance, security and automation testing.
The Company also helps enterprises move towards digital transformation with Hybrid Cloud, through their offering HybridNxT. They also invest heavily in the areas of TaaS, DevOps, Agile, and CT (Continuous Testing framework) to meet the demands of enterprises.
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Bitcoin, ether hit fresh highs

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Bitcoin hit a fresh high in Asian trading on Saturday, extending a two-month rally that saw its market capitalisation cross $1 trillion a day earlier.
The world’s most popular cryptocurrency rose to an record $56,620, taking its weekly gain to 18%. It has surged more than 92% this year.
Bitcoin’s gains have been fuelled by evidence it is gaining acceptance among mainstream investors and companies, such as Tesla Inc, Mastercard Inc and BNY Mellon.
Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and daily volume, hit a record $2,040.62, for a weekly gain of about 12%.
Ether is the digital currency or token that facilitates transactions on the ethereum blockchain. In the crypto world, the terms ether and ethereum have become interchangeable.
Ether futures contracts launched on derivatives exchange CME earlier this month.
(Reporting by Vidya Ranganathan; Editing by William Mallard)
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World Bank pushing for standard vaccine contracts, more disclosure from makers

By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The World Bank is working to standardize COVID-19 vaccine contracts that countries are signing with drug makers, and is pushing manufacturers to be more open about where doses are headed, as it races to get more vaccines to poor countries, the bank’s president said on Friday.
World Bank President David Malpass told Reuters he expected the bank’s board to have approved $1.6 billion in vaccine funding for 12 countries, including the Philippines, Bangladesh, Tunisia and Ethiopia, by the end of March, with 30 more to follow shortly thereafter.
The bank is working with local governments to identify and fill gaps in distribution capacity, after they purchase vaccines under a $12 billion World Bank program, and also to standardize the contracts they are signing with manufacturers, he said.
The bank’s International Finance Corp, its private financing arm, has $4 billion to invest in expanding existing production plants or building new ones, including in developed countries, but needs more data on where current production is headed, he said.
“We are eager to be investing in new capacity, but it’s hard to do because you don’t know how much of the existing capacity is already committed to the various off-takers,” Malpass said in an interview with Reuters. New or expanded plants could be used to produce other types of vaccinations in the future, he said.
The bank’s funds could be used to expand plants in advanced economies, if the production was earmarked for developing nations, he said.
Malpass welcomed Friday’s pledge by the Group of Seven rich countries to intensify cooperation on the pandemic, saying it could help jump-start deliveries of vaccines to poorer countries, which are lagging far behind rich countries in getting shots in arms.
Data compiled by Our World In Data, a scientific online publication, showed Israel was leading the world in COVID-19 vaccinations, with nearly 82 of 100 people vaccinated, while India and Bangladesh reported less than one person per 100, Many African countries have not started at all.
Malpass said he was heartened by news about new vaccines coming down the road, and about Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE seeking permission to store their vaccine at higher temperatures, which would ease another obstacle to deliveries in lower-income countries.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Heather Timmons and Leslie Adler)
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Google to evaluate executive performance on diversity, inclusion

By Paresh Dave
(Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s Google will evaluate the performance of its vice presidents and above on team diversity and inclusion starting this year, the company said on Friday in one of several responses to concerns about its treatment of a Black scientist.
Timnit Gebru, co-leader of Google’s ethical artificial intelligence research team, said in December that Google abruptly fired her after she criticized its diversity efforts and threatened to resign.
Alphabet and Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai ordered a review of the situation. While Google declined to share specific findings, the company announced on Friday it will engage human resources specialists during sensitive employee departures.
Pichai in June said that by 2025, Google aims to have 30% more of its leaders come from underrepresented groups, with a focus on Black, Latinx and Native American leaders in the United States and female technical leaders globally. About 96% of Google’s U.S. leaders at the time were white or Asian, and 73% globally were men.
As a result of the investigation, the company also expanded a commitment announced in June to devote more resources to retaining and promoting existing employees, including by expanding a team addressing disputes among workers and their managers.
The diversity component of executive performance reviews was not previously announced, and the company did not immediately share details about what would be measured and how pay would be affected.
Alphabet for years had rejected proposals from shareholders and employees to set diversity goals and tie executive pay to them.
Irene Knapp, a former Google employee who advocated for one such proposal at a 2018 shareholder meeting, said on Friday, “I am pleased that they met our demand from 2018, which was a bare minimum that should have been easy to do immediately.”
Evaluating managers on diversity goals is becoming more commonplace. McDonald’s Corp on Thursday tied executive bonuses to diversity.
(Reporting by Paresh Dave; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)