Europe’s largest independent regional airline goes live with FinesseMBS

Europe’s largest independent regional airline goes live with FinesseMBS^TM

FinessesMBS^TM will automate and standardise the entire miscellaneous billing process for Flybe

Mumbai, 26 September, 2013: Accelya Kale Solutions Limited, part of the Accelya Group, the leading solutions provider to the airline and travel industry, today announced that Flybe, Europe’s largest independent regional airline goes live with FinesseMBS^TM solution. The solution will automate and standardise the entire miscellaneous billing process.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Stephen Griffiths, Head of Revenue Accounting, Flybe said, “We process a high volume of inward and outward miscellaneous invoices. The automation and workflow in FinesseMBS has helped us substantially reduce time and costs. We have been extremely pleased with the professionalism and level of support received from the Accelya team”.

Please visit Flybe testimonial video link here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNqHCZ6GpAo

FinesseMBS^TM will enable Flybe to:

·         Ensure compliance to IATA’s SIS (Simplified Interline Settlement) standards for miscellaneous billing

·         Improve productivity by increasing invoicing speed, minimising errors and reducing manual work through automated interface to accounting system and ERP

·         Reduce total cost of ownership through SaaS model (Software-as-a-Service)

·         Improve invoice approval process across various locations and departments with flexible workflow engine

Speaking on this occasion, Mrs. Neela Bhattacherjee, Head – Airlines SBU, Accelya Kale Solutions said, “The new partnership deal marks another significant milestone in our relationship with Flybe.”

About FinesseMBS^TM

FinesseMBS^TM is a SIS-compliant solution that streamlines miscellaneous receivables and payables. Using a single, integrated invoicing and settlement process, FinesseMBS^TM standardises billing and accounting practices across business units. The highly automated solution improves productivity by reducing manual work, increasing invoicing speed, and minimising errors and leakage. A powerful contract management engine helps airlines effectively manage pricing contracts and prevent revenue leakage.

FinesseMBS^TM is a part of FinesseSuite^TM. FinesseSuite^TM comprises miscellaneous billing solution, cost management solution & flight profitability solution which helps airlines manage cost, cash flow and risk effectively.

About Accelya Kale

Accelya Kale Solutions Limited (formerly known as Kale Consultants Limited) is part of the Accelya Group. Visit us at: www.accelyakale.com

About Accelya Group

Accelya helps airline and travel companies manage their financial processes and gain insights into their business performance.

Accelya’s expertise spans across all critical airline financial processes – BSP Processing, Revenue Accounting, Audit & Revenue Recovery, Card Management, Miscellaneous Billing, F&A Processing and Decision Support. Accelya partners with airlines right from the time a ticket or an air waybill is issued, all the way through its entire financial life cycle, until the data is converted into actionable decision support.

With over 200 airline customers, our annual revenue is over $110 million. Our operations are spread across 10 countries and we employ over 2000 professionals worldwide. Visit us at: www.accelya.com

About Flybe

Flybe is Europe's largest independent regional airline with 187 routes serving 14 countries, operating from a total of 82 departure points, 34 UK and 48 European airports* (all routes on sale Sep ’13 – Jul ‘14); operates more UK domestic flights than any other airline and more domestic flights at London Gatwick than any other airline * (UK CAA statistics Aug ‘12 – Jul ‘13); is the largest scheduled airline, measured by air traffic movements, at Belfast City, Birmingham, Cardiff,  Exeter, the Isle of Man, Inverness, Jersey, Manchester and Southampton airports (UK CAA statistics – Jul ‘13); operates 68-strong aircraft fleet – 45 Q400, 14 E195 and 9 E175; has codeshare agreements with British Airways, Air France, Etihad and KLM and is Amsterdam Schiphol’s Airline of the Year 2012 Europe.

* Flown under the Flybe brand, of which 25 routes and 10 airports are exclusively served by Flybe’s franchise partner, Loganair

Tags- Accelya, FinesseMBS, Flybe, Airlines Accounting, Revenue Accounting

DMAi’s CxO RT Series commences Amid Much Applause

DMAi’s CxO RT Series commences Amid Much Applause

Actionable insights to spell business success ; Industry seeks common metrics for social media measurement

New Delhi, 25^th September: Recently New Delhi witnessed a roundtable conference of over a dozen marketing czars & their intense conversations on applications of Social Media Analytics. The purpose of this Round Table conference was to highlight the tools of scientifically learning and interpreting the business impact from actionable insights derived out of Big Data & Social Media.  The session was aimed at the front runners of marketing to immerse themselves in a stimulating roundtable discussion with peers on the need of marketing conversations that drives business today.

Speaking on the occasion, Shelly Singh, CEO DMAi said “We are proud to have hosted such an eminent group. The crux from the conversation was how database of intentions (Search) could correlate with database of actions (Social) using intuitive, real time dashboards and help brands be relevant to consumers to spell business success. The leaders echoed the need for common measurement metrics. As a next step DMAi will constitute an action group for creating findings and recommendations in the interest of the industry. With the grand success of the first one the DMAi will conduct encore of the same in Delhi & Mumbai”

Commenting on the overpowering turnaround for the conference, Mr. Rajesh Kumar, Head Marketing  SAP for Indian Subcontinent stated, “It’s been a pleasure to have associated with DMAi who facilitated to evangelize the increasing importance of digital measurement. We found the roundtable a relevant platform to showcase our advanced intuitive model of social media analytics & feel empowered to have addressed such an evolved audience.”

The conference was attended by several leading professionals who found discussions extremely valuable & thought provoking. Mr. Vivek Bhargava - iprospectcommunicate2 was the moderator for the session. Mr. Sandeep Pandey- Mindshare was the SME[a1]  and Mr. Sandeep Nagpal from SAP was the session evangelist.

Speaking on the impact of the Roundtable, Mr. Shubrangshu Neogi of Religare said “Gatherings such as these are very healthy and useful to discuss and debate topical issues such as social media. I believe social media is here to stay because the consumer and the world at large has already moved in that direction and brands don’t have an option but to embrace this as a critical platform to engage with their customers . That said, I think the one issue that marketers are grappling with and should be worrying about is developing a unified view around the measurement of this media so that we can successfully make the shift from viewing social as not just good to have but a must have for business growth”  

Prasanjeet Dutta Baruah of The Oberoi Group added “It was a useful discussion with peers on understanding how different industries approach Social Media. An evolved form of the traditional 'word-of-mouth' marketing, social media helps brands engage through interactive and meaningful conversations with their consumers. What was interesting to note was the varied measures of success that different industries have derived. The need of the hour therefore is to put all these together and look at evolving a unified yet dynamic measurement of social media."

Some of the Dignitories who attended the forum were:-

Ø  Mr. Sandeep Arora- The Times Of India Group,

Ø  Mr. Salil Kumar- India Today Group,

Ø  Mr. Deepak Shetty-Moserbaer,

Ø  Mr. Prasanjeet Dutta Baruah - The Oberoi Group,

Ø   Mr. Vikas Swarnakar Case-Mate India,

Ø  Mr.Samarth Saxena -Octane.in,

Ø  Mr.Sunil Kumar- Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corp.,

Ø  Mr. Sudeep Narayan - Volvo Auto India,

Ø   Mr. Subhrangshu Neogi Religare Enterprise,

Ø   Mr. Abhishek Sinha - Appllo Munich Health Insurance,

Ø  Mr. Sanjay Signal- Dabur,

Ø   Mr. Anupam Dixit - MTS Sistema Shyam Teleservices Limited,

Ø  Mr. Sanjeev Kotnala-  Dainik Bhaskar Group,

Ø   Mr. Amit Nanda- Citibank  

Ø  Mr. Akash Batra - Nestle.

Speaking at the post event networking session Salil Kumar, CEO, Bag it Today said “It was a great event.  Social Media Analytics as a topic seemed to be most apt for the gathering. It’s incredibly important for all kinds of businesses, and people need to be learning about the importance of Social media, its impact on business, how they can leverage it. The integration of “SAP netbase” solution brought in a great perspective on how the data could be collated and used wisely”

About DMAi

As an apex, non-profitable body, DMAi aims to bring about collective action for advancing & protecting Data Driven Marketing and Advertising. As an active Member of the International Federation of DMA's (IFDMA), DMAi has successfully conducted two annual global convention drawing participation from over 100 companies from India & afar. DMAi also sets stage for learning opportunities & intra vertical networking forums like-Day Learning Events called Masterclasses, peer to peer networking forums like the UNWIND, the CxO power brunch after golf.

As a platform for motivation the DMAi has established a credible Awards & Recognition program with industry participation. The DMAi Awards in alliance with the DMA International ECHO Awards aim at providing global recognition for response driven and result oriented marketing. The Hall of fame awards felicitates individuals with lifetime awards for their noteworthy contribution.

As the key to making marketing relevant and provide sustained customer engagement DMAi advocates for creating industry standards for ethical conduct and effective self-regulation of the Data driven, Marketing & Advertising community.

For more information, please contact –

Rachana Chowdhary |  +91-9619776084 | rachana@mediavalueworks.com

Sudiksha Singhal |  +918285603924 | secretary@dmai.com

---

Rwanda on Path to Self-Reliance, Districts Make Great Strides

Rwanda on Path to Self-Reliance, Districts Make Great Strides

Kigali,  The average performance of all Districts across Rwanda under the contracts signed with the President of the country to meet the targets set in the areas of economic and social development, governance and justice has improved tremendously.
The Office of the President in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government released the outcome of the 2012-2013 fiscal year performance contracts evaluation on Friday. It also signed the performance contracts with District Mayors for the fiscal year 2013-2014.
Revealing the results of the evaluation of the districts performance contracts, Minister of Local Government James Musoni said here on Thursday that he appreciated the level of achievements that all Districts showcased and stressed the need to maintain the momentum in this journey of self-reliance.
“The average performance is tremendously increasing while the margin between the first and the last districts has been narrowing every successive year,” he said. 
Minister Musoni’s observations followed a three-week-long performance evaluation that was carried out in all districts countrywide from 16 July to 10 August 2013, conducted by a National Team comprising senior officials and experts from different sectorial ministries, public agencies, the civil society platform and the private sector.
Nonetheless, this year’s evaluation had a supervisory team consisting of Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government, Senior Officials from the offices of the President and Prime Minister who were monitoring and ensuring efficiency of the ‘imihigo’ evaluation exercise.
“The Imihigo program and its annual evaluations findings have promoted the spirit of competitiveness in Local Economic Development; identifying challenges that impede implementation of government priorities and contributes to identifying solutions for fast-tracking socio-economic development whereas identifying best practices”, Minister Musoni said.
Outlining the way forward for local governments to keep the development path towards self-reliance, he said: “District leaders should maintain the course in improving their planning, coordination, Monitoring and Evaluation and support to lower entities. As we are signing Imihigo for the new fiscal year, local governments understand that, all institutions concerned (both at central and local level) shall consider the challenges observed and address them in the forthcoming planning and budgeting processes.”
“Central Government’s support to Districts remains vital, especially on some challenges where districts capacities are too low compared to the need. Now that Imihigo have been institutionalized in central and local governments, we should all join our efforts and have them institutionalized at village and household levels”, Minister Musoni asserted.
The just concluded districts performance contracts established the following key highlights; 
Increased access to both electricity and clean water; increased kilometers of public street lights; more efforts put in constructing feeder and tarmac roads; construction of classrooms and teachers’ hostels with citizens’ contribution, 1,739 classrooms and 416 teachers’ hostels were constructed in all districts.
Besides set imihigo, evaluators assessed how other cross cutting national priorities are performing e.g. reinstating properties for genocide survivors, use of alternative energy sources among the few and key development challenges encountered by Local Governments.
The total number of activities evaluated was 1846, clustered in pillars of economic development (927); Social Development (381); Governance and Justice (538). The general performance was very impressive in all pillars. The Ministry of Local Government will soon get an opportunity to elaborate further in the course of the next week and thereafter.
For More Information
 Ministry of Local Government, Rwanda
Emmanuel Mugisha
emma2rw@gmail.com
Or
Rachana Chowdhary
rachana@mediavalueworks.com
 

Mr. V Vaidyanathan, Chairman, Capital First, on expectations from the RBI’s credit policy

Towards a Reformist Credit Policy

Mr. V Vaidyanathan, Chairman, Capital First, on expectations from the RBI’s credit policy

 Based on the reformist stance the new Governor has taken, I would expect that he will begin to address the structural issues of our monetary policy, which have a role to play in the macroeconomic order.One of the matters to be addressed is the high SLR rate in India. At 23% SLR which banks have to necessarily hold, the government is never constrained to find resources for spending. Further, the government does not pay real market linked interest rates on their borrowings. Since SLR is at 23%, and the CASA of the banking system is 28-30%, it is obvious that most of the banks’ low cost resources are going for SLR, and higher cost deposits are lent to the end borrower at 12-13%.

From the bank’s point of view, these are raising charges of lazy banking, since CASA is at 3-5% and G Sec is at 8.0-8.5%. In an ideal system, government may have to borrow at real market determined rates. So as part of the reforms, I would expect the RBI to reduce SLR by say at least 1% this time, give further reduce SLR substantially in tranches going forward.

Secondly, I expect that the RBI will reverse the 200 bps increase in MSF from 8.5% to 10.5% that they announced in August 2013. The rates were increased to prevent borrowing at low cost for arbitrageurs. “Better that investors take positions domestically and provide depth and profits to our economy than taking our markets to foreign shores” the Governor had said in his opening statement, clearly indicating that he acknowledges that the trading is happening in other markets like the NDF market, not just by domestic arbitrageurs- which high short term interest rates were meant to address. Based on this I expect him to reduce the MSF back to 8.5%.

Coming to inflation, August Inflation numbers at 6.1% as compared to 5.79% in July 2013. This is a tricky sort of number. It’s a marginal increase over the last month, and in absolute terms cannot be considered very high if India has to aspire for growth. A good portion of this inflation is primary articles (up 11.7%), food articles (up 18.18%) and vegetables and this sort of inflation cannot be cured by higher interest rates. The manufacturing index rose only 1.9% in August 2013.

The issue though is from the savers’ point of view as the real interest rates have been negative for a long period of time. (This has turned positive only recently, that too marginally, with August CPI was at 6.1% and bank FDs at 8-9%). With negative or low savings rates, there is a tendency for the savers to move their money to property or gold. Even gold too can get into bubble territory, as it is like any other commodity. Coupled with historical returns over the last 10-15 years on these asset classes, it is becoming irresistible for the savers to move their money to these non-financial investment classes. Which is the reason why the savings rates are dipping in India below the 34% we saw a couple of years ago.

Since real interest rates are negative, I see little chance for any reduction in policy rates, particularly Repo Rates, which will at best be left at current rates. In fact, it should not come as a surprise even if the RBI raises repo rates by say 25 bps, and withdraw the recent 200 bps increase in MSF, and reduce SLR simultaneously. This will establish that the RBI means to be tough on inflation, at the same time would like to release funds for productive lending.

In a way, this could even be more effective than Inflation indexed Bonds, as the retail customer will find it much more convenient to park money into fixed deposit of banks as he habitually has, rather than in bonds where he has to worry about mark to market.

Post October 2013, food prices will come down on a good harvest when monsoons retreat, and the real interest rates will turn significantly positive, giving the RBI room to reduce interest rates. Since the Rupee has significantly improved of late, the imported inflation too should come down. They may give even give guidance that they expect inflation to come down in the coming few months based on good monsoons, and guide that as the government introduces newer fiscal measures to reduce fiscal deficit it will give the RBI headroom to reduce rates later.

Interpret Big Data & Social Media into Actionable Insights

-         DMAi announces CxO RT Series

-         Inaugural session on Sept 19th at The Leela, Gurgaon   

                                

Mumbai, September 17, 2013: DMAi today announced their forthcoming CxO Roundtable series. The first such one is scheduled for September 19th, 2013 at The Leela, Gurgaon. These sessions are aimed at the front runners of marketing to immerse themselves in a stimulating round table discussion with peers on the need of marketing conversations that drives business today. The inaugural session will focus on social media analytics.

The CxO round tables are targeted at the Next Generation CMO’s and Marketers’, with leaders being part of the panel and sharing forward thinking. The inaugural session will be immersive on how analysing social media interactions can spell business success for brands and will have some of the foremost names form airlines, banks, consumer goods, FMCG, Automotive and Electronics participating in the intense discussion.

 Speaking on this announcement, Vatsal Asher, CEO of DMAi said, “DMAi, a ‘not for profit organization’ which  has been curating several forward thinking platforms for marketing professionals. These meaningfully curated CxO Round Tables will have derived insights that will be made available to the larger community. What separates the DMAi round tables is the guarantee of a follow through action on the ideas discussed by the eminent panelists. We are thankful to SAP to support the DMAi initiatives by hosting the inaugural RT”.

 Speaking on the occasion, Rajesh Kumar, Head of Marketing - SAP Indian Sub-continent, said, “We are delighted to partner with DMAi for the inaugural CxO Roundtable on the topic of Social Media Analytics. The session will help amplify the possibilities from intuitive Social Media Analytics that extracts public perceptions from terabytes of social media buzz in real time and presents them in dashboards for business decisions.

About DMAi

As an apex, non-profitable body, DMAi aims to bring about collective action for advancing & protecting Data Driven Marketing and Advertising. As an active Member of the International Federation of DMA's (IFDMA), DMAi has successfully conducted two annual global convention drawing participation from over 100 companies from India & afar. DMAi also sets stage for learning opportunities & intra vertical networking forums like-Day Learning Events called Masterclasses, peer to peer networking forums like the UNWIND, the CxO power brunch after golf.

As a platform for motivation the DMAi has established a credible Awards & Recognition program with industry participation. The DMAi Awards in alliance with the DMA International ECHO Awards aim at providing global recognition for response driven and result oriented marketing. The Hall of fame awards felicitates individuals with lifetime awards for their noteworthy contribution.

As the key to making marketing relevant and provide sustained customer engagement DMAi advocates for creating industry standards for ethical conduct and effective self-regulation of the Data driven, Marketing & Advertising community.

For more information, please contact –

Rachana Chowdhary |  +91-9619776084 | rachana@mediavalueworks.com

Sudiksha Singhal |  +918285603924 | secretary@dmai.co