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Tag: Data Analytics

  • Jigsaw snags ‘Most Promising Research Agency’ crown at Unilever Awards

    Jigsaw snags ‘Most Promising Research Agency’ crown at Unilever Awards

    MUMBAI: In a world drowning in data but starved for real insight, one agency has managed to cut through the noise—Jigsaw. The consumer research and strategy powerhouse has bagged the coveted title of ‘Most Promising & Emerging Research Agency of the Year’ at the prestigious Unilever Insight Excellence Awards. If research had a red carpet, Jigsaw just strutted down it in style.

    This milestone victory is not just about shiny trophies—it’s a testament to Jigsaw’s fearless approach to decoding the Indian consumer. Led by the indomitable Rutu Mody Kamdar, the agency has made a name for itself by challenging conventional wisdom and diving deep into the cultural and behavioural undercurrents that drive consumer choices. Forget stale Powerpoint decks—Jigsaw delivers insights that shake up boardrooms and shape business strategies.

    For Kamdar, this award is more than just industry recognition—it’s a nod to the power of curiosity, culture, and cutting-edge research. “Great clients make agencies do great work, and Unilever has undoubtedly set the gold standard. Their commitment to depth, clarity, and continuous refinement challenges us to push our own limits every day. This award belongs not only to our team at Jigsaw but to every Unilever team that has placed their trust in us, inspiring us to take on complex, thought-provoking projects that truly make a difference,” she said.

    Jigsaw’s meteoric rise in the research world is no accident. The agency’s sharp cultural intuition, deep behavioural insights, and innovative methodologies have placed it firmly in the league of research pioneers. By transforming dry data into compelling, strategic goldmines, Jigsaw is redefining what research means in an era of information overload.

    Winning at the Unilever Insight Excellence Awards cements Jigsaw’s reputation as a trailblazer. With an insatiable hunger for uncovering consumer truths, the agency is all set to scale new heights—turning complex problems into clear, actionable solutions that fuel brand growth.

    So, if you’re a brand looking for insights that don’t just inform but inspire, you might want to get in line—because Jigsaw is playing in the big leagues now.

  • Which Certifications Are Useful To Get A Job In Data Analytics?

    Which Certifications Are Useful To Get A Job In Data Analytics?

    It is well-known that today’s business world runs through data. Data is an essential asset for all organizations as it helps them optimize their performance and growth. Data analytics is gaining popularity day by day as it allows companies to reduce their costs by identifying more efficient ways for production, marketing, supplying, and many more business processes by storing a massive amount of data. It plays a vital role as it helps organizations use their data to identify new business opportunities. It is a b beneficial process for almost every company because it can offer both estimation and exploration capability for information.

    The important role of data analytics is enhanced in every sector and is creating a vast field of knowledge that can offer useful insights into the field. These insights are required for further production, development, and growth. It leads to the increased demand for skilled data analysts who have gained data analytics certification. These relevant certifications are specially designed to provide all the basic knowledge of data analytics tools and techniques which are essential to becoming a successful data analytics. These certifications can help them kick start their career in this drastic domain and help them find their desired job role.

    So this article will focus on some of the important certifications that can help you get a suitable job in this domain.

    What are Data Analytics and Data Analytics Certification?

    Data Analytics- Data Analytics is a process that helps organizations and individuals make sense of data. It analyzes raw data to get meaningful trends and insights. It helps business leaders make data-driven decisions through conclusions. It’s also helpful in automating decisions and connecting intelligence and action.

    Data Analytics Certifications- In simple words, data analytics certifications are the credentials that help you become a skilled data analyst. It provides you with educational study material, project training, real-time experience, and hands-on practice to help you master your skills and expertise in the data analytics field. These certifications can help you throughout your career as earning this certification means you have passed a specific assessment and are ready to work on a given job role as per the industry requirements. It can also develop knowledge and skills to excel in this job title. To become a certified data analyst, you must learn some specific areas such as data visualization, data warehousing, data cleaning, creative and analytical thinking, mathematics and statistics, SQL database, machine learning, Microsoft excel, etc.

    Let us know about some of the certifications that can help you get a relevant job.

    Certifications To Get a Job in Data Analytics?

    The exciting field of data analytics is booming, with a job outlook of 25% growth from 2020 to 2030. There are several certifications provided by many reputed providers that can help you start your journey with your desired job role in data analytics. Given below are some of the important certifications to get a DA job role.

    ● Microsoft Certified: Data Analyst Associate– This specialized certification is considered one of the most popular and valued certifications to help you become a skilled, certified data analyst. This certification can help you increase your knowledge about sectors like data modeling, data preparation, data analysis, and data visualization in the context of Power BI. It mainly helps to understand the potential of Power BI that can help business leaders optimize the value of company data. This associate course can develop essential skills to clean and transform data. It also helps candidates design and creates scalable data models.

    ● Simplilearn Data Analyst Master’s Program– This certification program is specially designed to help beginners who are looking to learn how to become a data analyst from scratch. It provides you hands-on curriculum, job guarantee, applied learning, active student community, and career coaching that can help in your journey towards becoming a data analyst. Career-changers and freshers can enroll in Simplilearn’s one of the most comprehensive programs in online mode.

    ● Cloudera Data Analyst Training Course and Certification– This classroom-based certification/training course can help you take your data skills to the next level if you already have some working experience in a technical and analytical capacity. This course is best suited to data analysts, developers, business intelligence specialists, database administrators, and system architects working with big data and getting their skills certified.

    ● DataCamp Certifications– DataCamp Certifications are also considered the top most popular certifications in the world of data. It provides several data analytics certifications that are specially designed for specific specialties. These certifications are diverse and comprehensive programs that are modified according to your career choice in data. Each certification offered by Datacamp can help you gear up your career in your expertise and specialization. It offers certifications like Data Analytics in Spreadsheets, Data Analysis in Excel, Exploratory data Analytics in Python, R, and SQL, etc.

    ● Introduction to Data Analytics for Business by Coursera– It is a beginner-level course that suits freshers or entry-level professionals who want to start their careers with data. It can enhance your knowledge of basic principles of data analytics and how to use them for business decision-making. It is an e-learning program that keeps the latest business analytics best practices. Topics like SQL, Analysis, Data Quality, Data modeling, etc.

    ● Certified Analytics Professional (CAP)- It is also one of the top certifications to get a job in data analytics. The main attraction of this course is that it has global reach through computer-based training. It will help you learn several data areas like predictive and prescriptive analytics, data regression, pattern identification, job task analysis, data visualization, etc.

    Besides these popular certifications, there are many more certifications available that can really help you get data analytics jobs. Associate Certified Analytics Professional (ACAP), Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate, Cloudera Certified Associate (CCA Data Analyst), etc., are some of the best data analytics certifications that help you get your dream job in this domain. Enroll now.

  • Yellow.ai onboards former Google leader Surbhi Agarwal as head of global marketing

    Yellow.ai onboards former Google leader Surbhi Agarwal as head of global marketing

    Mumbai: AI solutions company, Yellow.ai announced on Tuesday the appointment of Surbhi Agarwal, as its senior vice president (SVP) of global marketing. Agarwal joins Yellow.ai from Google Cloud, where she led product and solution marketing for Data Analytics and Cloud AI portfolio, including Contact Center AI.

    “Agarwal comes with over two decades of leadership across product life cycle management, sales enablement, product marketing and product-led growth in early-stage start-ups and large enterprises. Previously, she has also run product management and corporate strategy at Intel Corporation and McAfee,” the company said in a statement.

    Yellow.ai CEO and co-founder Raghu Ravinutala said, “We are thrilled to bring Surbhi onboard at Yellow.ai as part of our executive team.” 

    “This is a crucial appointment for us at a time when we are sharpening our global strategy as a Total Experience (TX) solutions provider. As we scale our operations and expand our capabilities, Surbhi’s leadership will augment our efforts towards defining our brand and driving revenue. We look forward to her leadership and believe her experiences with global industry leaders will be invaluable as we grow across markets,” he added.

    In this role, Agarwal will be managing all of the marketing initiatives for Yellow.ai across geographies to grow business in the US, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Pacific regions. Based out of the San Francisco bay area, she will be actively expanding the automation platform’s global footprint by building a highly impactful go-to-market team that would strengthen Yellow.ai’s position in the market.  

    Speaking on her appointment, Agarwal said, “Yellow.ai is at a pivotal point of entering new geographies with its proven product capabilities, making this a very exciting time to join the executive team. With Yellow.ai’s driven culture, differentiated offerings, leadership and market potential, I believe the company is strongly positioned to define and lead the Conversational AI space. I look forward to building the best-in-class marketing organization at Yellow.ai to increase our market share and achieve new heights.”

    With over 800 employees globally, Yellow.ai continues to hire talent across sales, marketing, product and engineering, the company added.

  • SG Analytics brings in Sid Banerjee as advisory board member

    SG Analytics brings in Sid Banerjee as advisory board member

    Mumbai: Research and data analytics services SG Analytics has brought on board Sid Banerjee as an advisory board member.

    The company has been strengthening its senior leadership team by bringing in Dr Chiranjiv Roy (SVP – data analytics & Tmtechnology) Ankit Rastogi (head – Fmfinancial services & consulting), Nishant Singh (SVP – products) and Kulwinder Singh (CMO) in the last twelve months.

    With over three decades of industry experience, Banerjee is an accomplished and experienced professional who has worked with global firms like Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and IHS Markit. Till recently, he was on the advisory board of Bridgei2i, now part of Accenture’s Applied Intelligence practice. Banerjee played a key role in facilitating their stake sell.

    “We are very happy to welcome Sid to advise SG company through our future phases of growth. Sid’s expertise in key areas will play a valuable role in guiding strategic decisions and broadening our client relationships. I am confident Sid’s addition will give rise to new and exciting opportunities and help strengthen SG Analytics’ commitment as a trusted insights and analytics partner,” said SG Analytics founder & CEO Sushant Gupta.

    Banerjee brings in a diversity of thoughts and a global network to help broaden SGA’s horizons for engaging with constituencies and stakeholders outside of its conventional realm.  

    On his joining, Sid Banerjee affirmed, “I am delighted to share that I’m starting a new and exciting journey as Advisory Board Member at SG Analytics. I have known Sushant for many years and have seen how he has shaped this organization from a research company to an impact company which includes stellar work in AI, ML, research, data science, and ESG space. I am excited to be part of this team and keen to play my role in enabling SGA to scale new heights.”

  • SG Analytics onboards Kulwinder Singh as CMO

    SG Analytics onboards Kulwinder Singh as CMO

    Mumbai: Research and data analytics services firm SG Analytics has appointed Kulwinder Singh as its chief marketing officer. In his new role, Singh will be leading the company’s brand management, digital marketing, public relations, and employer branding initiatives. 

    Singh has more than 20 years of experience in senior marketing, communication, and brand management roles. Previously, he was associated with Cadila Pharma, where he chaired the position of chief communication officer. While he was responsible for the digital marketing and communication strategy, he also led the human resource function at Cadila for a year. Singh has held marketing, brand management, and communication management roles at reputed companies including – Edifecs, Synechron, VenSat, and Tech Mahindra. 

    Singh’s appointment is the latest development in a landmark year for SG Analytics wherein the company grew phenomenally and strengthened its leadership team.

    “I am very excited to welcome Kulwinder to the team. It’s because of SG Analytics’ position as a leader in the research and data analytics space that we’re able to continuously attract top-calibre talent across all functions, from sales & marketing to technology, and from innovation to customer experience,” said SG Analytics founder & CEO Sushant Gupta. “Kulwinder’s experience in building powerful brands and driving our digital marketing efforts will be invaluable to SG Analytics as we accelerate our growth strategy.” 

    The new appointment follows the rigorous hiring plans announced by SG Analytics previously. In addition to this, the firm recently announced a company-wide profit share plan for all its employees, reflecting a unique employee-oriented approach. 

    “I’m extremely excited to join SG Analytics – a people-first company with a fantastic management team and a great vision. My experience in developing strategic brand and marketing programs over the last 10 years makes my role as the chief marketing officer at SGA easy to assume,” said Kulwinder Singh.

  • Data & analytics company Ugam completes 20 successful years

    Data & analytics company Ugam completes 20 successful years

    NEW DELHI: Ugam, a Merkle data and analytics company, is celebrating the completion of 20 successful years this month. Over two decades, Ugam has helped global corporations make superior data-driven business decisions. Today, Ugam has long-tenured relationships with 85+ Fortune 500 companies, has over 2,100 employees worldwide and presence in more than 10 locations across North America, EMEA and APAC. 

    This month also marks a year since Ugam became part of the $10 billion Dentsu group. In July 2019, Ugam joined Merkle, a leading data-driven global performance marketing company and part of Dentsu. Ugam represents the largest acquisition in Merkle’s history.  

    Ugam co-founder and CEO Sunil Mirani said, “It has been an incredible 20-year journey and we are proud to have made a mark as a next-gen analytics company. I am grateful to my Ugam family who play a key role in the company’s growth. Over 20 years, we have stayed true to our values and, we continue to nurture and strengthen our culture which we cherish deeply. I am also grateful to our clients, partners and other stakeholders who have been a part of our journey. We are filled with renewed vigour as we move onward, as part of the Merkle and Dentsu family.” 

    In the last 20 years, Ugam has won many accolades and received recognition from independent industry bodies. In 2020, Ugam was featured as a Great Place to Work for Data Scientists by Analytics India Magazine. Ugam enjoys a very high employee boomerang rate. Hundreds of its employees have been with the company for over a decade, and for whom their stint with Ugam has been the longest in their career.

    Celebrations kickstarted at Ugam this week with the theme ‘20 years and onward’. The occasion virtually brings together Ugam employees from around the world for various engagement initiatives related to the milestone. The celebrations will culminate with a company-wide townhall which will be attended by senior leaders from Ugam, Merkle and Dentsu.   

  • Vidnet 2019 to trace major issues related to content protection

    Vidnet 2019 to trace major issues related to content protection

    MUMBAI: While the growing over-the-top (OTT) ecosystem in the country is providing a large number of opportunities to platforms and content creators, it is still riddled with a number of challenges. Streaming piracy along with other challenges of content protection continue to daunt the OTT platforms across the world. Not having proper content security in place not only create technological challenges but can lead to the platforms towards huge loss of revenue.

    In this context, Vident 2019 summit is hosting a very timely panel discussion on the challenge of content protection. The session will have discussions over all facets of content protection and tech challenges platforms face including avenues of mitigating stream piracy where technology leads of major OTT platforms are participating.

    However, the problem of piracy is not brand new as media and entertainment had to deal with it in the past also. A secure service now-a-days not only means that it is impenetrable but also about monitoring and identifying threats in real-time and timely action on the issue. Moreover, advanced data analytics can also help platforms. Several reports also indicated that blockchain adoption is expected to increase soon, enabling OTT platforms to introduce effective access policies and restriction.

    “The ability for operators to deliver content to any device is a must in today’s digital environment – and India is no exception. Operators need to evolve their services rapidly in order to remain competitive against traditional and new competitors and need to be able to offer content on different devices with changing business models. At the same time, they need to keep their content secure to counter the growing and varied number of piracy threats and to meet the requirements of their content providers. With this in mind, a new approach to content protection is required, one that combines technology, collaboration and innovation,” NAGRA GM India  Hitesh Lokhandwala said.

    Apart from technical measures, regulation from authority is also highly needed. More government initiatives based on the discussion among the stakeholders and legislator can also bring more security. The session at Vidnet 2019 on 3 October will dive deep into all the pertaining issues related to topic. 

  • Integrating data analytics, combining diverse generations are challenges for HR department of media cos

    Integrating data analytics, combining diverse generations are challenges for HR department of media cos

    MUMBAI: The digital transformation has not left any niche behind, even if it is the human resources department of the media and entertainment industry. HR has moved far beyond backend and soft skills; data analytics is now in a crucial position.

    Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari held a session “Responding to megatrends” in its first-ever Media HR Summit. MullenLowe Lintas group HR director Heather Saville Gupta, Reliance Entertainment’s Big Synergy CEO Rajiv Bakshi, Madison World executive director Lara Balsara Vajifdar and Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd CEO Abraham Thomas participated in the panel discussion.

    MullenLowe Lintas’ Gupta said that the media industry is most dynamic. Other industries do not have to deal with such face-paced movement. Adding to this, Thomas said, “Two disruptions which have actually changed our lives as consumers and professionals are digital disruption and the huge societal change that has come upon us. We currently have almost five different generations working together.”

    According to Thomas, the role of HR has become a watchdog looking for trends and insights in the industry. The HR department is like a composer, trying to scale the company goals. Thomas is of the view that HR role has suddenly become front-end and frontline. He opined that with digital, HR is the other important buzz word.

    Bakshi added that while that bastion was held by the word ‘transformation’ for the last three years, now HR has arrived to play the role of not just a partner but also an anticipator. HR has to anticipate business trends for the survival of the company.

    “HR is very important for the agency as our business is all about people. HR is not just the HR head’s responsibility; it is each and every senior management’s responsibility especially in an agency business which is full of young people coming with its own set of challenges,” Vajifdar said.

    According to her, media is getting a good share of young employees who are ambitious, impatient, have a sense of purpose for work and don’t want to listen to someone just because they are senior.  She said that they want their leaders to command respect not just demand and expect.

    Gupta’s company delves in producing 30-60 second TVCs where upscaling older employees is a challenge while millennials understand digital faster. Added to this are the budget constraints while hiring, training, recruiting and retaining employees due to smaller client budgets.

    Bakshi added that one major challenge the industry is facing is creating a value proposition which will attract multi-generation people. This means creating an organisation where there are stalwarts, experienced people as well as energetic youngsters who have to collaborate for the same project. He also added that HR needs personalisation with the help of data analytics. This can be done via customised training programmes and incentives.

    Experts also agreed that younger employees look for direct communication from authority to get a sense of what they are doing. Hence, taking out time for personalised informal communication without any agenda is important. Any key factor is HR management is to align personal goals with the company’s and get employees to look at the bigger picture with greater contribution to society.

  • Media and entertainment industry: hindsight 2018, foresight 2019

    Media and entertainment industry: hindsight 2018, foresight 2019

    MUMBAI: The Indian media and entertainment industry continued to be robust in 2018, aided by the domestic consumption story remaining strong, as well as the impact of one-time events such as demonetisation and GST progressively fading away. The sharp increase in digital access and consumption, with continued investments by telecom operators on 4G and content, was a major growth driver in the sector. Digital video has seen an explosion in terms of consumption, with 250 million online video viewers out of 450 million broadband users in FY18, and platforms already looking at adding the next 250-300 million online video viewers in the next three to four years. However, despite the rapid growth of digital media, India remains one of the unique markets in the world where traditional media continues to grow.

    TMT Convergence – the rise of ecosystems

    The media and entertainment industry in India started witnessing a structural shift in FY18 with convergence across telecom, media and technology (TMT) companies beginning to take shape. While the telecom and technology companies are building competencies to offer content directly to consumers through acquisitions and partnerships, traditional broadcasters and media companies have started building platforms to reach the end consumers directly. One of the recent examples in this space includes the acquisition of two traditional cable companies by a major telecom player. 

    In addition the competition, the industry has also been witnessing collaboration within the TMT ecosystem. Effective bundling of content by telecom players has ensured that the distribution ceases to be a challenge, allowing standalone content players to focus heavily on original content. 

    The advent of 4G and the rise of TMT ecosystems has resulted in the surge in online video consumption with the number of video and entertainment app downloads witnessing a 5x increase from September 2016 to June 2018 and the data usage on these apps increasing by 25x during the same period.

    Despite the industry seeing rapid growth in the consumption of digital media, monetization has lagged behind till now, with AVOD models still dominant and SVOD not seeing significant traction. Introduction of third-party digital measurement, compelling content across languages and an effective micropayments infrastructure are factors which could help monetization in the near future.

    The growing emphasis on rural and regional markets

    With the viewership of regional language (non-Hindi and non-English) content on television close to 40-45 per cent of the overall consumption, the industry is increasingly looking at rural and regional language markets as the key to success. Additionally, while the rural internet penetration stands at less than 20 per cent (as of June 2018), it presents a considerable upside to organizations who have already started developing local language digital content. 

    Key focus areas for the regional and rural markets in the past year have included – continued digitization across phase 3 and 4, increased focus of broadcasters through the launch of language sports channels and adaption of popular reality shows into local languages, inclusion of rural into measurement metrics through BARC and a focus on digital regional content. 

    Data Analytics – moving from ‘good to have’ to ‘must have’

    Increasing digital consumption is resulting in the availability of large consumer data sets which the industry is trying to collect, integrate, analyze and derive value from. Organizations across the value chain are investing heavily in data analytics around areas such as content creation, customer acquisition, pricing, distribution, and content management.

    Implementation of the TRAI tariff order – a game changer

    With TRAI’s tariff order getting the green light from the Hon’ble Supreme Court (effective 29 December 2018), broadcasters have started to publish Reference Interconnect Offers (RIO) and MRPs of their individual channels. The tariff order is expected to bring in the much-needed transparency ensuring equitable distribution of revenue across the players in the value chain. 

    However, the pricing strategies are at an early stage with some leading broadcasters having priced their flagship channels closer to the cap of INR 19 while some of the niche channel broadcasters are seeing a reduction in MRPs and bouquet prices. Further, the outcome of the ongoing litigation over the 15 per cent discount condition on bouquets may also fundamentally impact the strategies of the stakeholders. With only a few days to go for the implementation deadline, consumer education is expected to be a major challenge for distributors. 

    Looking ahead, the media and entertainment sector is expected to continue seeing growth on the back of growing digital access and consumption, strong domestic (particularly rural) demand supported by GDP growth and growing penetration into non-urban and regional user base across media sectors.

    The author is partner and head (media and entertainment) for KPMG in India