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Tag: Cisco

  • CISCO sees major opportunities in India, shakes-up top posts

    CISCO sees major opportunities in India, shakes-up top posts

    NEW DELHI: In a major shake-up, three new presidents have been appointed in Cisco by splitting up responsibilities in the enterprise IT vendor.

     

    This follows the exit of, Cisco president of India & SAARC, Jeff White, after a dismal performance in some of the recent quarters.

     

    Cisco India posted 1 per cent decrease in revenue in Q3 fiscal quarter and 18 percent dip in the first quarter of fiscal 2014. Cisco recently said it is expecting a decline in its global revenue in the current quarter.

     

    The new leadership team includes India & SAARC sales president Dinesh Malkani; India Site leader and Engineering president Amit Phadnis; and India and CIO, Asia Pacific and Japan and Greater China strategy planning & operations president VC Gopalratnam..

     

    Earlier, White was responsible for Cisco’s sales and operations in the region. White had the role of leader of a new India Board, which comprises executives from Cisco headquarters as well as India. Earlier, White was reporting to Cisco in Asia Pacific, Japan and Greater China (APJC) president Jaime Valles.

     

    White was supposed to partner with Industry Solutions and India Site leader and industry solutions senior VP Faiyaz Shahpurwala, to drive innovation and talent in alignment with the national agenda to transform the economy through technology.

     

    The mandate for White was to support the growth by strengthening local innovation, and continuing to forge strong relationships with customers, partners and the government.

     

    The new team will accelerate Cisco’s momentum by strengthening its focus on innovation to lead market transitions.

     

    Dinesh Malkani, who takes over from White, will report to Cisco president Asia Pacific & Japan Irving Tan

     

    Malkani’s main responsibility will be to lead the company’s efforts to help transform the country’s economy through technology. He will drive Cisco’s senior level external engagement, including those with government and industry associations, to drive growth and market leadership in India and SAARC, according to Cisco sources which also said the IT vendor was expecting more work with Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasizing on new technologies.

     

    As the new India Site leader, Phadnis will lead Cisco’s focus on innovation, ecosystem and talent development in the country. He will focus on strengthening the interlock between Cisco’s teams, including engineering and sales, and customers and partners and employee engagement.

     

    Phadnis will continue to report into the organisation led by Enterprise Networking Group isenior VP and GM Rob Soderbery in the US.

     

    In the newly created role of president of strategy, planning and operations for Cisco India, Gopalratnam will help create synergies between Cisco’s internal IT organization and the company’s technology roadmap as well as drive infrastructure development and operations to facilitate growth and productivity.

     

    He will continue to report to Cisco’s global CIO Rebecca Jacoby.

  • Cisco to help Portuguese telecom service provider for convergence of IPTV

    Cisco to help Portuguese telecom service provider for convergence of IPTV

    NEW DELHI: Cisco is to join Portuguese telecom service provider NOS for convergence of Internet Protocol (IP) video services and broadband.

     

    Cisco will provide IP-delivered video services of NOS that offers mobile and 4G networks, covering more than 90 per cent of the Portuguese population, and free internet at more than 600,000 hotspots in Portugal and 12 million across the world.

     

    Cisco in a statement said its technology will enable the Portuguese mobile service provider to offer video and broadband (DOCSIS) services over a single access infrastructure. The strategy will be enabling optimised network usage and reduced operational expenses. Cisco does not share specific details on reduction in Opex.

     

    By combining delivery of video and broadband services with the Cisco Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP), NOS can manage its infrastructure to address varying demands on its digital video and IP traffic. Moreover, Cisco said its Evolved Services Platform will support NOS to provide software orchestration that manages the capacity migration from video into DOCSIS on the Cisco CCAP platform.

     

    Cisco said its CCAP will provide operational simplicity, service velocity and scalability for NOS cable business.

     

    The deployment includes the Cisco Universal Broadband Router uBR10K, 3G60, RF Gateway 10 and DS384 line cards, Cisco said.

     

    CTO of NOS Miguel Veiga Martins said: “By converging IP delivered video services and broadband access network, we can invest the right capacity in the right places at the right time. Cisco’s CCAP solution has proven to provide us with the operational efficiency that we need to ensure that we can continue to offer innovative experiences to our subscribers.” 

     

  • Cisco’s technology in six million digital homes of Den Networks

    Cisco’s technology in six million digital homes of Den Networks

    MUMBAI: As India slowly inches towards 100 per cent digitisation, it is the various cable and multi system operators who are to be applauded for the increase of digitisation in the country. One of the well known technology companies, Cisco has announced that its services have reached to six million pay-TV homes on Den Networks.

     

    Cisco’s conditional access and middleware has been used by Den Networks since 2008 in its set top boxes. A range of Videoscape technologies from Cisco are used to cater to its subscribers. Den’s digital head-ends, networking routers, switches and set top boxes have been procured from Cisco.

     

    Earlier this year, Cisco expanded its Videoscape TV services delivery platform to include new cloud video capabilities. This would help media companies increase revenue, reduce operating expenses and enhance agility.

     

    Den currently has about 30 million viewers across the country and is looking at increasing that number through phase III and IV of digitisation. Commenting on the partnership Den Networks CEO SN Sharma said, “It gives me immense pleasure, in this highly competitive market, to reach out to more than 30 million viewers through our digital cable TV services. We expect this number to increase significantly with the completion of the remaining phases of digitisation. Cisco’s global expertise in managing the end-to-end delivery of digital pay-TV solutions gives us a strong competitive edge and empowers us to enable new services and advanced features, resulting in satisfied subscribers and encouraging growth.”

     

    Cisco Service Provider Video Software Solutions Vice President Sales Asia Pacific Sue Taylor said, “Cisco is excited by the success of its customers and would like to congratulate Den for reaching such a major milestone. We anticipate that the current digitisation drive will spur us on to achieve many greater milestones, both in roll-out volume and technology deployment, with the introduction of many new features using the latest designs and technologies. This will lead to overall customer enjoyment in terms of the TV viewing experience.”

     

    Den’s footprint now stretches over 200 cities in India covering markets such as Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Kerala, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar.

  • Live events boost viewing of TV, but need newer digital technologies

    Live events boost viewing of TV, but need newer digital technologies

    NEW DELHI: It is the live events covered by television that boost ratings and help encourage innovation and establish new services, despite the popularity of on-demand content and the proliferation of over-the-top services.

     

    In fact, television viewership has remained near record levels in part because of the popularity of coverage of big events, said panelists in the session “Cisco Presents: The Transition from Live to Event TV” on the concluding day of the National Association of Broadcasters Show in Las Vegas. 

     

    “The broadband world is growing and people are watching more programmes on demand,” said Globo, CTO & general director of ENG Fernando Bittencourt.

     

    “But in the world of broadcasting, I think the future is live programming. I do not think movies will be in primetime broadcast in the next five or 10 years. People will watch those on demand. … There will be more news, more sports and live content like our tele-novelas that are designed to be watched at a specific time.”

     

    “They drive a lot of viewer and social interaction, but they have also been an important driver for the development of TV Everywhere and authenticated services,” said IDC research manager of consumer markets, video Greg Ireland.

     

    He noted that big events like the Olympic Games have encouraged consumers to set up authenticated apps, making it more likely that they would later use the apps for regular programming.

     

    Cisco Systems, VP & GM of ESBI Charles Stucki said, “Big live events have bigger budgets, so you can have a lot of innovation.” He mentioned the recent Summer and Winter Olympics, from which NBC streamed a record amount of coverage to online and mobile platforms.

     

    This innovation also helped boost the popularity of the linear live broadcast, with NBC posting record ratings for its summer games coverage. During the Winter Olympics, viewers who watched content online tended to watch more live games programming on TV.

     

    But finding the right technologies for the digital applications that viewers increasingly demand with big live events can be challenging.

     

    Globo’s Bittencourt said popular programmes on the Brazilian broadcaster regularly pull in 30 million to 40 million viewers. “If only half of those go to the second screen, it is very difficult for the network to support it.”

     

    Such concerns were highlighted right before the NAB Show, when the HBO Go app went down during the season premiere of its hit series Game of Thrones.

     

    “Consumers now have the expectation that a big event will have a live streaming component, but the experience is not always optimal,” Ireland said.

     

    “A lot of extra engineering has to go into creating and surviving big events that require a lot of additional resources beyond those needed to simply produce live programming,” Stucki explained.

     

    He said Cisco sees a growing number of broadcasters building staff to manage CDNs used for big events, in order to assure the best architecture and redundancy.

     

    The general trend toward IT and IP infrastructures raises additional issues of reliability.

     

    Bittencourt revealed while Globo’s viewers would not tolerate the network going off the air, the quality of online streaming can be quite variable. In addition, the lag between the live broadcast and the mobile stream causes complaints. “During the World Cup, viewers will want to watch the Brazilian games on a TV,” he said. “If they watch on the Internet, they will see the goal 30 seconds after it happens” – after their neighbors have already started celebrating.

     

    But for 4K production, he said that IT and IP technologies would be necessary. “You can’t do that with traditional technologies,” said Bittencourt, adding that Globo planned a test 4K broadcast during the World Cup.

     

    Stucki argued that the growing importance of video on digital platforms, where video traffic now accounts for half of all mobile traffic, is forcing the IT and IP worlds to become more reliable.

     

    “They are starting to figure this out,” Bittencourt agreed. “Right now we have very specific vendors for broadcast and different ones for IT and IP. We have to create a third world where there is a combination of IT and broadcast that would be specific for broadcast to get the high reliability we are used to.”

  • Hathway launches ultra-high broadband in Bengaluru

    Hathway launches ultra-high broadband in Bengaluru

    MUMBAI: Hathway Cable & Datacom has launched a 50 Mbps broadband service, targeted at the mass market, on its Docsis 3.0 ultra high speed network. Docsis 3.0 is a widely deployed and dominant broadband network technology (capable of delivering speeds up to 1 gigabit) which powers leading broadband markets like USA, Korea and Europe.

     

     “We are the first company to launch a truly mass market high-speed 50 Mbps retail product in Bengaluru,” said Hathway Cable & Datacom MD & CEO Jagdish Kumar.

     

     “We have experienced a great response to our 50Mbps Docsis offering in Mumbai and Pune and with our CISCO powered Docsis 3.0 network we are in a position to deliver 50 Mbps speeds to every retail customer in Bengaluru. We are confident that the 50 Mbps Docsis 3.0 service will get a huge response in the IT capital of India. Hathway will continue to invest in expanding the Ultra High speed Broadband network in other parts of the country,” he added.

     

    Hathway broadband business head Kunal Ramteke further added. “Our pricing for 50 Mbps speeds is similar to what other operators are charging for low-speed services of 1 to 2 Mbps. The speeds we are delivering on our Docsis 3.0 network are comparable with the speeds in the most advanced broadband markets like Korea and USA. A High Definition video file of 2GB can be downloaded in just 5 to 10 minutes on our Docsis 3.0 network. YouTube in HD and lightning fast responses in internet gaming are other experience enhancing features Bengaluru customers will enjoy on Hathway’s Docsis 3.0 network.”

     

    The Docsis 3.0 broadband network was initially deployed in Mumbai and later expanded to Pune. Delivering a speed of 50 Mbps has revolutionised the user experience in the cities where it has been launched. In Bengaluru, the customers will not only be enjoying the 50 Mbps high speed with a 99.9 per cent uptime guarantee but will also experience Gold Standard Customer Support with fully trained staff to handle any service requirements pertaining to high speed internet access through multiple devices and a guaranteed service issue resolution within 24 hours.

     

     The 50 Mbps Docsis 3.0 broadband service starts with a monthly price of Rs 733. A complete portfolio of 50 Mbps plans is being launched to cater to residential and corporate customers.

  • ISE attracts record attendance and looks forward to largest-ever show in 2015

    ISE attracts record attendance and looks forward to largest-ever show in 2015

    MUMBAI: After attracting more than 50,000 registered attendees for the first time in its history from 4–6 February, Integrated Systems Europe has further cemented its reputation as the world’s most popular event for professional AV and electronic systems integration. The final total attendance of 51,003 surpassed even the organisers’ own most optimistic expectations, with Europe’s recovering economies and a record 952 exhibitors helping to fuel attendee growth of 15% over last year’s figure of 44,151.

    Also acting as key draws to the event were an enlarged Professional Development programme including off-floor training sessions hosted by ISE’s co-owners CEDIA and InfoComm International, with both associations also contributing seminars to the event’s new on-floor Theatres dedicated to Residential and Commercial Solutions. Between them these sessions attracted over 2,400 people, with InfoComm experiencing an almost three-fold increase in its education traffic over 2013 after offering free session vouchers to every 2014 attendee.

    ISE 2014’s pre-show events programme included the third edition of the Smart Building Conference, the all-new Investor Showcase and Audio Forum, and an Opening Keynote Address, ‘Kick-Starting the Market for Building Automation’, by Cisco’s Dr Dirk Schlesinger. Between them these events attracted a further 1,000 attendees, with hundreds more also signing up for partner events during the show such as the SVGE’s Sport Facility Integration Summit, digital-signage market briefings and tours from Invidis Consulting and the Themed Entertainment Association tour.

    Mike Blackman, Managing Director, Integrated Systems Events, says: “Our big theme this year was content, and we believe we have delivered on our promise to enhance our event – and attract more attendees – by offering a combination of technical training, market intelligence, real-world case studies and networking opportunities that is unmatched by any comparable event in Europe.”

    While the show’s attendance continues to rise impressively, there has been no dilution in the spending power of ISE’s visitors if the show’s exhibitor rebooking trend is anything to go by. By the time the doors closed on Thursday 6 February, on-site rebooking for ISE 2015 stood at 33,450 net square metres, compared with the 2014 show’s total net footprint of 36,035. The rebooking figure is 10% higher than the equivalent a year ago.

    “By all standards of measurement, ISE 2014 was extraordinarily successful,” comments David Labuskes, CTS, RCDD, Executive Director and CEO, InfoComm International. “It was a great way to kick off the industry calendar, and a spectacular way to begin InfoComm International’s 75th year. What started out as a small show in Geneva 11 years ago has blossomed into a truly thriving event. That first ISE was an important early step in our association’s journey beyond its US borders, but would be largely unrecognisable to this year’s ISE attendees.”

    “ISE 2014 was phenomenal in every respect,” echoes Wendy Griffiths, Executive Director, CEDIA Region 1. “This year’s event demonstrated outstanding international growth and CEDIA benefited hugely from this success. More CI companies became CEDIA members at the show than ever before, every CEDIA session in the new ISE Residential Solutions Theatre was jam-packed and CEDIA training courses available off the show floor were also well-attended.”

    The next Integrated Systems Europe will take place at the Amsterdam RAI from 10–12 February 2015.

    Ends

     

    Click here to download a selection of high-resolution images from ISE 2014.

    Additional information is available from: Dan Goldstein, ISE Director of Marketing & Communications, dgoldstein@iseurope.org

     

    About CEDIA: CEDIA is an international trade association of companies that specialize in designing and installing electronic systems for the home. The association was founded in September 1989 and has more than 3,500 member companies worldwide. CEDIA Members are established and insured businesses with bona fide qualifications and experience in this specialized field. For more information on CEDIA, visit: www.cedia.org or www.cedia.co.uk.

     

    About InfoComm International®: InfoComm International® is the international trade association of the professional audiovisual and information communications industries. Established in 1939, InfoComm has 5,000 members, including manufacturers, systems integrators, dealers and distributors, independent consultants, programmers, rental and staging companies, end-users and multimedia professionals from more than 80 countries. InfoComm International is the leading resource for AV market research and news. Its training and education programs set a standard of excellence for AV professionals. InfoComm International is the founder of InfoComm, the largest annual conference and exhibition for AV buyers and sellers worldwide. InfoComm also produces trade shows in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. Additional information is available at www.infocomm.org.
     

  • Record numbers and new emphasis on content for ISE 2014

    Record numbers and new emphasis on content for ISE 2014

    MUMBAI: As ISE 2014 prepared to open its doors today, over 950 exhibitors were putting the finishing touches to their stands, helping to ensure that the 11th Integrated Systems Europe will be not just the largest tradeshow for professional AV and systems integration ever held in Europe, but also the brightest and the busiest.

     

    The 2014 total of 952 exhibiting companies represents an increase of more than 6% on last year’s figure, and over 200 of those companies are completely new to ISE, giving visitors a wealth of new business opportunities in every technology sector served by the event. The show will occupy more than 36,000 net square metres for the first time, while pre-registration also reached record levels.

     

    Yet Mike Blackman, the event’s Managing Director, believes the real story of ISE 2014 lies behind these impressive numbers. “This week we’ve been drawing a parallel between ISE and the B2B magazines that support us as media partners,” Blackman comments. “If ISE were a magazine, the exhibitor stands on our show floor would be our advertising. Like a magazine, that’s where we derive the bulk of our revenue, but also like a magazine, we can only grow if we develop editorial content – and that’s been our big focus this year.”

     

    By ‘editorial content’, Blackman is referring to the supporting conferences, education sessions, networking opportunities and other ‘event experience’ enhancements that increasingly define large trade-shows like Integrated Systems Europe. In the case of ISE 2014, there are more of these than ever – all the result of extensive industry consultation, and many supported by new partnerships.

     

    The day before the show, Monday 3 February, saw hundreds of delegates attend the Smart Building Conference, Investor Showcase and Audio Forum pre-show events, followed by the Opening Keynote Address, ‘Kick-Starting the Market for Building Automation’, by Cisco’s Dr Dirk Schlesinger.

     

    On the show days themselves, the content theme will be picked up in two new show-floor Theatres, showcasing Commercial and Residential Solutions respectively and between them hosting more than 40 free-to-attend, non-technical seminars from11:00 each day.

     

    The Theatre sessions fall under ISE’s new ‘Professional Development’ education brand, to which the show’s co-owners, CEDIA and InfoComm International, also contribute significantly with their own training programmes. This year InfoComm is offering two free education session vouchers to every ISE attendee, while CEDIA is hosting many new courses as well as exclusive market-research presentations – the latter in the Residential Solutions Theatre.

     

    Elsewhere there is a new Sport Facility Integration Summit on Wednesday 5 February; a new Entrance (F) to reduce congestion and ease access to Halls 7 and 8; a ‘Discovery Zone’ featuring young companies new to ISE, the launch of the show’s ‘M2D’ (‘Manufacturer to Distributor’) match-making portal; and new wayfinding systems and information points to guide attendees around an increasingly diverse and colourful show floor.

     

    “With pre-registration levels indicating that our attendee growth will at least match that of our show floor, we are confident ISE 2014 will be yet another record-breaker,” concludes Blackman. “However, our real achievements are the ways in which we have enhanced our event to make it useful and relevant to new visitor groups, helping to ensure that those who are visiting the show for the first time have a genuine desire to return next year.”

  • Razorfish appoints Anne Davis as senior VP head of multi-national clients

    Razorfish appoints Anne Davis as senior VP head of multi-national clients

    MUMBAI:  Publicis Group’s full-service digital agency, Razorfish, has appointed Anne Davis as the senior vice president head of multi-national clients.

    A member of the Razorfish team since 2009, Davis has over 20 years experience working in client and integrated communication agencies with the last 15 focused on digital. The role is based out of Hong Kong.

    Her new role is to build an operation and culture that is hospitable to multi-national client relationships. “Many client companies are establishing global operations in APAC. We are the only global agency network equipped to support this regional business focus. The creation of my new role supports the ongoing evolvement of Razorfish’s relationships with clients; partnering to navigate the unknown, drive change and enable business transformation.”

     

    She will be reporting directly into global CEO, Pete Stein, and  will work both with the global leadership team and with the organisation as a whole to facilitate multi-national client opportunities.

    Razorfish global CEO Pete Stein commented: “Anne has been working globally for more than 20 years. She’s managed regional and global accounts for brands as diverse as IBM, Cisco, P&G, Unilever, Diageo, Reckitt-Benckiser, Blackberry and Gucci. These experiences, combined with her continued presence in Asia Pacific, position her to deliver unparalleled opportunities for our multi-national clients.”

     

    Via organic growth and acquisition Razorfish operations have grown 25% in the last two years. Of the 3000 global Razorfish employees, 1000 employees are located in APAC regions.
     

  • ‘Mindshare Day’ Celebrated Around the Globe

    ‘Mindshare Day’ Celebrated Around the Globe

    MUMBAI: Mindshare globally recognized 15 January as Mindshare Day and celebrated it by announcing its refreshed global positioning: original thinking driven by speed, provocation and teamwork. In Asia Pacific, the network held a region-wide video conference call where 17 countries and 24 offices – from Karachi to Sydney – dialed in to share thoughts and ideas around the new vision.

     

    Five years ago, Mindshare moved away from the conventional media agency structure and redesigned itself around four integrated and interactive divisions – Client Leadership (account management), The Exchange (media buying), Invention (strategy and ideation) and Business Planning (data and analytics). In a similar way, Mindshare has now redefined its brand positioning to the rest of the world, and aims to bring to life its promise of being the fastest, most collaborative and most adaptive media agency.

     

    In 2013, Mindshare won the Agency Network of the Year award at the Campaign Agency of the Year awards, Festival of Media Asia and the APAC Smarties organized by the Mobile Marketing Association. Mindshare was also recognized by over 200 awards across the region at local and regional levels for clients including Unilever, Kimberly-Clark, Nestlé, Nike, Cisco, Hong Kong Disneyland and many more.

     

    Mindshare has the youngest and most diverse CEO profile in the region, with Australia’s Katie Rigg-Smith being the first woman to lead a media agency in Australia, and Amrita Randhawa taking the lead of Mindshare China at the age of 35.

     

    The agency also brought in large pieces of business in 2013 – including NAB, Origin Energy and Nike in Australia, booking.com in China and Dyson across the region. Cosmetics giant L’Oréal and pharmaceutical giant GSK were successfully retained in all markets, and the former was added to Mindshare Korea’s portfolio.

     

    It was also a successful year in terms of partnerships for Mindshare. The agency partnered with Geometry Global and Ogilvy Action to create ECC (Emerging Class Consumers) – a comprehensive framework and communications planning tool for rural areas in Asia. This has been implemented with Unilever and Friesland Campina in Vietnam, and will be expanded in 2014.

     

    Another exciting partnership was with McLaren F1 Racing at Cannes, where Nick Emery, Mindshare Global CEO and McLaren F1 racing driver Jenson Button shared the stage to talk about the importance of being adaptive – whether on the race track or in advertising. Mindshare drove yet another innovative partnership between Manchester United and Unilever, where Unilever became the club’s first official Personal Care and Laundry partner in South East Asia. In a mobile study conducted towards the second half of the year, Mindshare toured the region with Yahoo! to share findings of a smart device study that could change the way clients think about mobile altogether.

     

    Ashutosh Srivastava, Chairman Asia / CEO Emerging Markets Group at Mindshare, said – “At Mindshare, we believe it is not just about size and scale, it is about speed and provocation, and challenging the status quo. That’s how we continue to relentlessly adapt to changing trends in the industry; changing needs of clients and consumers; devise new and varied tools and technology and find new ways of thinking and collaborating together. It is testament to our exceptional teamwork that we have been recognized as the strongest network in Asia Pacific by industry leading organizations like Campaign, CSquared and MMA. “

     

    With a consistent desire to be its clients’ lead business partner, and a deep-rooted belief that everything begins and ends in media, Mindshare is evolving the way it talks about itself to adapt as the industry evolves around the world.

     

    Nick Emery, Global CEO, Mindshare, said: “We see everything as a medium.  We aim to be our clients’ lead business partner and work together with our clients from beginning to end.  Our adaptive approach creates new revenue streams, platforms, communities and partnerships as well as new products and new ways of working.  This allows us not only to mirror our clients’ ambitions but also to go one step further.”

     

    Find out more about Mindshare Day here: www.facebook.com/MindshareAsiaPacific 

  • Karthik Srinivasan joins Ogilvy as Social@Ogilvy national lead

    Karthik Srinivasan joins Ogilvy as Social@Ogilvy national lead

    MUMBAI: Ogilvy India today announced the appointment of Karthik Srinivasan as Social@Ogilvy national lead.

    Srinivasan, who was previously Flipkart AVP corporate communications, comes with over 14 years of experience, both as a client as well as an agency professional. He has led PR, digital and social media agency mandates for brands like Intel, Lenovo, ARM, Cisco, Cricinfo, General Motors, BlackBerry, LinkedIn and Infosys, among others. 

    Besides being a regular in major social media and digital events in the country, Srinivasan is also a prolific blogger, with two blogs – one on communications, branding and PR, and the other on music reviews.

    Ogilvy, as a brand, is all about bright, path-breaking ideas says Karthik Srinivasan

    Ogilvy India chief digital officer Kunal Jeswani said, “Social@Ogilvy is already India’s largest social media agency practice. Our ability to connect strong social skills with creative and content capabilities has driven dramatic growth for us over the past five years. The social landscape is constantly evolving and Karthik has the right skills to help us shape the future of Social@Ogilvy. His experience in handling large social media mandates will also help us offer truly seamless social solutions to our clients.”

    Social@Ogilvy is Ogilvy’s cross-discipline specialist social media offering which has highly skilled social media leaders collaborating with the agency’s digital, public relations and creative practices to create seamless and effective social media solutions for client businesses.

    Social@Ogilvy asia-pacific director added, “Karthik’s appointment further strengthens our market-leading position for social media in the asia-pacific region. The strength of our team is directly derived from our ability to attract leaders of Karthik’s calibre. His knowledge and experience will immediately bring great value to our clients in India and across the region.”

    Srinivasan, on his new role at Ogilvy commented, “Ogilvy, as a brand, is all about bright, path-breaking ideas. And social media, as a function, has moved its focus away from run-rate platform management to creative ideas that work at the intersection of multiple client functions – marketing, corporate reputation, customer relationship, supply chain and human resources, among others. With the kind and nature of clients Ogilvy has in India, I see tremendous potential in the use of social media to make a tangible difference to their businesses.”