It is pertinent to mention here that the deal has already received approval from the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) and the Competition Commission of India (CCI), with certain specific terms and conditions.

The merger deal will see Singapore Airlines acquiring 25.1 per cent stake in Air India.

Of the total workforce, about 6,500 employees are from Vistara whereas about 17,000 are from Air India. In March, Kannan, had confirmed that the merger will lead to the complete absorption of Vistara’s employees by Air India. In other words, Vistara employees, including pilots, flight attendants and engineers, will need to seek new roles within Air India.

It is hoped that the merged entity will be more efficient in terms of operations and will lead to better performance on the domestic as well as international fronts.

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Mynavi, a Japanese HR tech platform brings market exposure and access to a diverse demographic, reinforcing Awign’s position in India’s work-fulfillment sector. Moreover, this partnership and the patient capital will further enable Awign to focus on long-term strategic growth and deeper value creation without getting affected by the fundraising market environment. The company has offices in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Poland, India and the US.

Awign, on the other hand, was launched in 2016 by IIT alumni Annanya Sarthak, Gurpreet S. Khurana and Praveen Kumar Sah. The work-as-a-service platform boasts a robust network of over 1.5 million gig partners and collaborates with over 175 leading enterprises.

This acquisition deal saw IndigoEdge, Anoma Legal and Aeka Advisors advising Awign along with their existing investors whereas Deloitte, Anderson Mori &Tomotsune LPC and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas advised Mynavi.

Annanya Sarthak, co-founder and CEO, Awign, is confident that this acquisition will help the company embark on its “journey to becoming one of the largest HR-tech companies in India and outside.”

According to Sarthak, ever since the pandemic, the Work-As-A-Service concept has evolved and Awign has a deep understanding of the space. Digital transformation has only further helped Awign become a “market leader and value creator in this space”.

Through this partnership, Awign will be able to “scale its operations and go beyond its core strengths” with the “primary focus on strengthening our growth engine by onboarding enterprise customers worldwide and launching new categories in the HR space.”

Hidekazu Ito, managing director, Mynavi Solutions India, a subsidiary of Mynavi Corporation, feels that this “alliance with Awign is not just strategic but also a reflection of our shared commitment to making a significant social impact”. According to Ito, “The synergy between our visions, empowers us to tackle the challenges in the HR sector more effectively.”

With its presence in India, Mynavi wishes “to encourage India’s growth and create shared value.”

Not only will this partnership build a power team of best-suited talent, but it will enhance brand visibility both in India and internationally, investing in technology to expand its digital infrastructure and build better platforms. This will further help Awign onboard and serve more global enterprise customers.

It is pertinent to mention here that Awign collaborates with enterprises in various sectors—retail, FMCG, automotive, education, manufacturing, construction, pharmaceuticals and more—and specialises in streamlining work processes, ensuring high-quality outputs and managing costs effectively for large organisations.

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Post approval from NCLT, integration will happen in earnest, covering migration of data, systems transition and so on, to ensure smooth and seamless functioning of the combined airline.

A consultant has been engaged to work with the human resource teams to help integrate the various functions, including back-office, which involves non-flying employees. Work is on to clearly lay out the relationships between various jobs, departments and people in the hierarchy of the merged entity. This activity is expected to be completed by the end of April 2024, as per media reports.

Earlier this month, disgruntled pilots of Vistara had protested the revision of their contracts post the airline’s merger with Air India. The pilots were worried that the revised contracts/salary structure—aimed at ensuring parity between the pilots of the two airlines— will result in reduced payments in terms of the fixed pay component and increased incentives linked to flying. The pilots were assured at the time that they would be paid for the extra hours they worked, and that the amount would be credited to their accounts post conclusion of the merger process.

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Courseplay empowers over a million employees globally through its 360-degree learning approach, integrating on-the-job, social, and formal learning experiences. This acquisition strengthens CIEL’s HRTech portfolio, which includes platforms like ProSculpt, HfactoR, Jombay, and CielJobs.

“We are thrilled to welcome Courseplay,” said, K Pandiarajan, executive chairperson, CIEL Group. “This acquisition marks a pivotal step towards becoming a leading global HR solutions provider. Integrating Courseplay’s AI-powered platform aligns with our vision, driving innovation and growth in the HR space.”

Recognising the transformative potential of AI in HR, CIEL has seen its HRTech revenue surge by 64 per cent in Q3 FY24. The company actively seeks AI-powered solutions across the employee lifecycle, from candidate profiling to retention and separation management.

“The Courseplay acquisition signifies a significant milestone in our HRTech journey,” stated Mr Aditya Narayan Mishra, Managing Director & CEO of CIEL HR Services. “As technology evolves, so do in-demand skillsets. CIEL sees this as an opportunity to facilitate global upskilling and transform the talent landscape.”

Arjun Gupta, founder and CEO, Courseplay, expressed his enthusiasm: “This acquisition marks a momentous step for Courseplay. We’ve been dedicated to revolutionising the L&D industry, and joining CIEL allows us to amplify our global impact.”

Highlighting the booming L&D market, Gupta noted, “Our research indicates the global corporate eLearning market is estimated to reach $38.5 billion by 2026. Courseplay foresaw this trend and developed a dynamic platform to create engaging and effective learning experiences.”

Rajiv Krishnan, managing director & CEO of Ma Foi Strategy and CIEL Skills & Careers, elaborated on synergies with existing platforms: “Courseplay complements ProSculpt, our college skilling platform, and Helevate, our HR finishing school programme. This integration helps us stay ahead of the curve in the market.”

Moxie Capital, Hreem Legal, NovoJuris, Proficio, and Aeka served as advisors for the transaction.

CIEL’s strategic investment in Courseplay positions the company as a strong contender in the global HR Tech space. The combined expertise and resources will empower them to drive innovation and shape the future of talent development.

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By merging their services, the companies aim to create a comprehensive suite of tools for talent acquisition and internal mobility, catering to organisations globally. Both Workday and HiredScore emphasise the importance of responsible AI, ensuring human oversight remains central to their technology.

“Unlocking the full potential of talent requires innovative solutions,” remarked Carl Eschenbach, CEO, Workday, acknowledging how HiredScore’s technology complements their existing product portfolio. Athena Karp,

HiredScore’s founder and CEO, echoed similar sentiments, expressing excitement about the merger’s potential to advance the use of AI in the workforce.

This collaboration comes amidst a rapidly evolving labour market, with predictions suggesting up to a quarter of jobs may be transformed within the next five years. The combined solutions aim to utilise responsible AI to address these challenges, streamlining hiring processes, improving talent lifecycle management, and enhancing the experience for both recruiters and hiring managers.

Workday, serving over 10,000 organisations, including a significant portion of the Fortune 500, seeks to solidify its position in the enterprise platform space through this acquisition. HiredScore, with its global reach (150 countries) and multilingual capabilities (70 languages), brings expertise in recruitment productivity, internal mobility, and comprehensive talent management strategies to the partnership. This strategic move strengthens Workday’s position in the talent management landscape, equipping them to navigate the complexities of a rapidly changing job market through the power of AI.

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Workex specialises in sourcing, recruiting, and comprehensive employee management, particularly for blue and grey-collar workforces. The combined expertise of both companies is expected to unlock synergies and deliver greater value to customers. Workex’s offerings will complement Brittman’s existing portfolio, providing a holistic range of HR solutions.

This collaboration signifies a focus on forward-thinking solutions, operational excellence, and a client-centric approach. The combined entity looks to reshape paradigms in the outsourcing and staffing landscape, with a focus on worker identity, dignity, and upliftment.

Commenting on the acquisition, Niren Panchal, managing director, Brittman, emphasised the business potential unlocked by this partnership. He highlighted the focus on workforce optimisation and maximising untapped potential within businesses.

“The real triumph is the business potential it presents. Prioritising worker identity and dignity ensures businesses can tap into their workforce’s potential,” he says.

Nimish Sharma, CEO, Workex, sees the partnership as a gateway to new opportunities: “Our collaboration isn’t just about revolutionising workforce management; it’s a gateway to new business opportunities. Together, we empower businesses with cutting-edge technology.”

This strategic partnership strengthens both companies’ market positions and showcases their commitment to merging industry experience with technological expertise to shape the future of collaboration in the HR solutions space.

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The acquisition was completed at €130 million and will help Gi Group Holding become a global leader in human resource services.

HRKatha had earlier reported on this development previously on November 7, 2023.

Gi Group Holding is working on expansion activities in eleven countries, including France, Portugal and Switzerland. Additionally its services are now being offered in Belgium, Luxembourg and Norway. With Kelly’s distinguished history in staffing services, Gi Group Holding will further improve its brand and image as a trusted, expert and reliable partner.

With this move, Gi Group Holding will be able to offer enhanced services and comprehensive solutions in the areas .

of life sciences, white-collar temporary work and RPO capabilities, which will now be part of its value proposition.

This is Gi Group’s 51stacquisition and also its largest. According to Stefano Colli-Lanzi, founder and CEO, Gi Group Holding, “This goes hand in hand with our emphasis on ensuring a positive contribution to the labour market, and, as such we are grateful to have found in Kelly a complementary partner. We’re looking forward to welcoming hundreds of new colleagues to our family who will undoubtedly give a valuable contribution to further our mission of disseminating and implementing Sustainable Work all around the globe.”

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The acquisition was led by Strategic Capital, the private equity investment and merger and acquisition execution arm for ETS, its subsidiaries and its partners. Wheebox will continue to function independently as a majority-owned subsidiary of ETS, the non-profit educational research and measurement firm.

Education research and assessment are key to ETS’ operations, and by acquiring Wheebox’s scalable assessment and remote proctoring engine, a credible research study such as the India Skills Report, ETS’ journey will get a definite push.

Wheebox presently serves customers across India and the Middle East. With this partnership Wheebox’s GTM strategy in India will become more powerful and its journey to the global markets will be accelerated.

Pankaj Bansal, co-founder and group CEO, PeopleStrong feels that the “partnership between Wheebox and ETS is set to empower organisations at scale with their comprehensive content and assessment solutions”.

Amit Sevak, CEO, of ETS himself is “excited to bring Wheebox into our family of assessment services and solutions,” and feels that it “is a strong addition to our portfolio of capabilities, and we’re thrilled to welcome their talented team into the global ETS enterprise.”

Nirmal Singh and Pawan Kumar, co-founders of Wheebox call this “the beginning of a new chapter in our journey” and mission of measuring the world’s talent potential.”

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Vinod Kannan, CEO Vistara, reportedly revealed to the media that relevant clearances from regulatory authorities will be processed by April 2024. Singapore Airlines will have 25.1 per cent stake in the merged airline.

A team has been constituted at Vistara to look into the final structure of the merged entity. Of course, the Vistara brand will cease to exist. Discussions are also on with pilots and cabin crew. Vistara currently has over 60 aircraft in its fleet. The size of the fleet is expected to increase by the time the merger process is officially completed, that is, in about nine months from now.

After years of struggle, Air India was given a new lease of life when the Tatas took over the national carrier in 2022.

Earlier, there were reports that the proposed Air India-Vistara merger may face hurdles because the Competition Commission of India (CCI) had issued a show-cause notice to the Tata Group (owners of Air India) seeking valid reasons to not investigate the merger. Mint had reported that the Tata Group had received 30 days’ time to present a response to the fair-trade regulator and obtain a nod for the merger without a formal probe.

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uKnowva is a user-friendly cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform. The cost-effective platform uses intelligent software to deliver human capital management, automation and collaboration for midsize and growing companies.

This acquisition is part of HGS’ attempt “to build an end-to-end ecosystem of innovative solutions that support every touchpoint in the consumer journey.”

In line with its ongoing evolution into a digital-led, people-driven customer experience (CX) services provider, HGS has also begun the process of acquiring TekLink International to strengthen HGS’ analytics practice and expand platform and data visualisation capabilities.

In the words of Partha DeSarkar, Group CEO, HGS, “HGS has been investing significantly in developing technology-led capabilities to reimagine the CX journey for our clients in an increasingly digital first world. TekLink and uKnowva, with their transformative solutions in the analytics and financial planning and HR technology segments, respectively, are a good strategic fit for us”.

He is confident that the two acquisitions “will help us strengthen our existing digital portfolio substantially, expand in new rapidly growing segments, co-create solutions, and cross-sell to clients”.

Headquartered in the US, TekLink International is a full-service financial planning and analytics service provider, including design, implementation, and application management services. It has strong presence in Europe and delivery centres in Hyderabad and Indore, in India.

On the other hand, uKnowva has 75+ employees in India supporting over 3,00,000 users across 80+ clients. The acquisition of uKnowva, once completed, will create technology synergies with HGS’ existing HRO/ payroll and finance and accounting (F&A) business that supports several hundred clients with mainly HR operations-related activities in India and the Middle East today.

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It will give a combination of compliance solutions, Tracker I-9, which will be integrated from the initial process of application submitted by the candidate to the first day of work of the employee. Mitratech believes that this powerful combination will also decrease the number of initial drop-offs of candidates.

“Mitratech continues to be dedicated to bringing world-class specialty solutions to our customers, and AssureHire is an example of that,” said Mike Williams, CEO, Mitratech.

“All of our technologies have been vetted and selected for their unique, market-leading capabilities based on where our customers need us most. With our world-class Tracker I-9 solution along with AssureHire’s expertise, our customers will be able to seamlessly and accurately verify and hire new candidates in this really challenging market,” he added.

AssureHire is an accredited consumer reporting agency by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS), while Mitratech is a known player in serving corporate legal, risk, compliance, and HR professionals and claims to serve over 1800 clients across 160 countries.

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The merger is yet subject for an approval of other stakeholders which include, shareholders and creditors of Quess and Allsec, Stock Exchanges, SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India), the National Company Law Tribunal and other regulatory authorities.

Till the approvals from all stakeholders come, both the companies will work independently.

Post the merger, it is expected that it will create more scope for attracting and retaining talent and will also reduce statutory compliance requirements.

Post the merger, all subsidiaries of Allsec will become subsidiaries of Quess.

The synergy between the two companies will strengthen its digital offerings with enhancing RFPs (Request for proposal) from customers and will also enhance the customer lifecycle management of the merged entity. The combined entity will be able to acquire international markets and with the advanced infrastructure of Quess, it will be able to acquire more market share in the tier two and three cities of India.

“We believe this also provides greater opportunities and mobility for our employees. The complementary businesses of Allsec and Quess will make this integration a win-win for all stakeholders,” tells Ashish Johri, CEO, Allsec.

The HRO (Human Resource Outsourcing Services) of the merged entity will become much more robust and stronger post this merger. Allsec’s HRO and Compliance business along with Quess services would form a formidable outsourcing suite for large organisations. The combined entity would have increased geographical penetration given Quess’ strong presence in the Middle East and South Asia.

“As we take the first step towards welcoming Allsec into the immediate Quess family, the proposed merger reinforces our commitment to our shareholders to simplify our corporate structure. Moreover, the compelling synergies b/w Conneqt and Allsec’s CLM (“Customer Lifecycle Management) business, coupled with the possibility of offering Allsec’s HRO solutions and Quess services as an integrated play, presents exciting possibilities for the future,“ mentions Guru Prasad Srinivasan, Executive Director and Group CEO, Quess.

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While Tata Motors will be investing heavily on the existing infrastructure, to be able to make the Ford plant capable of manufacturing about two lakh EVs a year, it has assured that it has no intention of laying off any of the employees who have been working at the facility for Ford India till now.

The investment is aimed to make the facility a full-fledged EV production hub by 2026, churning out two lakh units annually.

Presently, Tata is producing about 10,000 EVs — Tigor and Tiago models — at a plant in Sanand, which used to earlier manufacture the Nano.

The Ford plant has a capacity to roll out over two lakh cars every year. It used to manufacture various car models, including Aspire, Figo and Freestyle at this plant before closing the same. It closed down the facility in Chennai also. Ever since then, discussions have been on about Tata acquiring the Sanand plant from Ford.

Tata Motors is presently in talks with the Gujarat government to formalise the acquisition and related conditions and incentives, which Ford was eligible for.

The Ford plant employed about 3,000 people directly. The Gujarat government hopes that this acquisition will inspire other manufacturers, local as well as international, to establish their hubs in the area, generating more employment opportunities.

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The MES solution will be fully integrated with Infor’s CloudSuite ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems which will enable Infor to provide its customers and clients in the manufacturing sector, to implement integrated solutions of MES and ERP.

With this integration, Infor expects to shorten the value time.

“MES solutions are critical for manufacturing organisations that want to ensure data consistency and real-time visibility across all plant operations,” says Kevin Samuelson, CEO, Infor.

“Integrating these capabilities with our industry-specific ERP systems will help us deliver even more powerful solutions to manufacturing organisations, as they look to digitise their operations and grow their businesses,” adds Samuelson.

Lighthouse Systems’ Shopfloor-Online product enables smart manufacturing by bringing all manufacturing operations into one central software system, which is accessible 24×7. The system, which can be deployed in the cloud or on-premises, connects the factory with a single thread of critical data that is accessible at the shop-floor level and throughout the enterprise.

“These solutions are not only key to executing production efficiently, they also are essential building blocks for smart manufacturing and digital transformation,” says Tim Barber, director, Lighthouse Systems.

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“By joining forces with OLX People, we will strengthen our portfolio of end-to-end workforce management services and build an employment exchange that can offer employers truly digital and flexible staffing solutions,” said Pravin Agarwala, CEO, co-Founder, BetterPlace.

This acquisition will help BetterPlace, the tech platform for blue-collar workforce management, further its mission to support the over 400 million strong blue and grey-collar workforce in India to find jobs after the challenges brought on by the pandemic.

Earlier in October, BetterPlace had acquired Oust Labs, a mobile-first micro learning platform that facilitates the upskilling and training of distributed workforces. With this latest acquisition of OLX People and Waah Jobs, the Company will be better equipped to offer organisations a full range of technology-enabled solutions.

Blue and grey-collar users on the integrated platform will now be able to enjoy a wide range of services, including salary credit updates, benefits summary, access to financial services and medical advice. In addition, it will also offer vernacular training modules for employees’ upskilling.

“We are onboarding more than 2,00,000 people digitally every month and aim to serve 2,000 enterprises and over three million workforces by the end of this financial year,” said Agarwala.

Tarun Sinha, CEO of OLX People & Waah Jobs, expressed pride in the 400+ OLX People & Waah Jobs team joining the “broader family of believers in technology as the key to improve the daily lives of millions of workers across India”.

Sinha is confident that together with BetterPlace, that has been working in the blue and grey-collar gig staffing ecosystem, they “will continue to improve the service for more than 2000 enterprises and help them hire and manage their workforce”.

BetterPlace recently raised $24 million in a Series-C funding round led by multiple investors including CX Partners, Jungle Ventures, CDC Group, Capria Ventures and 3One4 Capital.

BetterPlace caters to clients across blue-collar heavy industries including private security, logistics, facility management, IT/ITES, on-demand services, retail and construction.

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Referred to as an OKR company, short for objective and key results, Ally.io. helps organisations identify goals and evaluate their progress using certain measurements. By including its tools in Viva, Microsoft will be able to enhance its employee experience platform. With the integration of Ally.io with Viva and other Microsoft 365 apps and services, there will be better alignment between people and teams, with better outcomes.

Ally.io was founded about four years ago, by a former employee of Microsoft, Vetri Vellore. With a 275-strong workforce, Ally.io has its headquarters in Washington. It already has big names — including Slack (from Salesforce) and Dropbox — as its customers from various sectors, such as healthcare, financial services, high-tech and manufacturing, across more than 80 countries.

Objectives and key results or OKR is an emerging space, which is witnessing rapid growth. Over the past few years, it has been embraced by more than 1,000 businesses.

The goal-management framework, OKR, helps organisations in strategy implementation and execution. As a result, companies are able to focus better on the significant results, improve transparency, and ensure better alignment. Through OKR, employees can be better organised so that their work revolves around the achievement of common objectives.

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With this acquisition, SAP will now be able to embed SwoopTalent’s data and machine learning technology across SAP SuccessFactors solutions, which will enhance the human experience management (HXM) systems offered by SAP.

With SwoopTalent’s tools, SAP will be able to focus on individualised employee experiences and dynamic opportunities to boost engagement, enhance the agility of the organisation, and facilitate business transformation. SwoopTalent’s AI-based platform is equipped to manage data from diverse HR systems and combine and analyse information to facilitiate more efficient HR decision making.

With the help of the newly-acquired tools, SAP will be able to provide enhanced reliability and accessibility. This will help its customers to obtain meaningful information that can guide their upskilling and reskilling initiatives for their employees.

SwoopTalent harnesses data intelligence and machine learning in a way that will ensure individualised employee experiences. The two companies are seen as an ideal fit, culturally, sharing similar values.

The co-founders of SwoopTalent will be joining SAP along with the engineering team. The acquisition has been well timed, as SAP has been working on improving its SuccessFactors HXM Suite and enhancing it with new features for some time now. With most organisations opting to digitise their processes post the pandemic, SwoopTalents’ expertise and ML algorithms will strengthen SAP’s offerings.

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This association will give DoSelect the support and resources it requires to create the best assessment automation software matching global standards. Henceforth, DoSelect will be able to further strengthen its products and take advantage of the InfoEdge services.

The Rs 21 crore deal saw the data-driven skill assessment platform, DoSelect, being acquired by InfoEdge, which has already invested in many other firms, including Printo, Rare Media Company, Happily Unmarried, Medcords, Big Stylist, No Paper Forms, Vacation Labs, Shop Kirana, Unnati Helpers, mydala.com, Shihpsy, Coding Ninjas, Adda 247, Univariety, Gramophone, as well as logistics aggregator, Shiprocket.

Bengaluru-based DoSelect was founded by Iliyas Shirol and Rohit Agrawal about five years ago, with investments from Mumbai Angels, 3one4 Capital, Aarin Capital and Mohit Saxena, who co-founded InMobi.

DoSelec caters to over 150 enterprises, SMEs and startups across sectors, including big names, such as DXC, Fractal Analytics, Capgemini, PhonePe, UpGrad and Simplilearn.

The firm will run as part of Info Edge and with this acquisition the former’s offerings will broaden in terms of products and solutions. It will give it a competitive edge in the online hiring solutions space. DoSelect will add its smart decision engine to InfoEdge’s portfolio, which already boasts of a massive jobs database.

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EverythingBenefits is a platform that connects employers to all information pertaining to the insurance, retirement and other benefits of their employees. This is UKG’s first big acquisition after Ultimate Software and Kronos merged with the Group a year ago.

With this acquisition, UKG will be able to incorporate EverythingBenefits’ end-to-end tech solutions into its suite of payroll, HR service delivery, and workforce management products. Users will now be able to “streamline data connectivity between businesses and insurance / retirement plan providers”. This means, through a single platform users will be able to manage their data and experience seamless transactions, including enrolment of new hires into the benefits programme.

Post this acquisition, the solutions offered by UKG Ready and EverythingBenefits will be further unified and harmonised. With the addition of the EverythingBenefits existing partner channel to the already existing UKG Ready Partner Network, UKG will be able to expand its customer base and reach out to small and mid-size businesses as well.

This acquisition will help EverythingBenefits to scale up their offering, and speed up the delivery of their product roadmap, ensuring the best levels of service. The New Jersey-based EverythingBenefits is already supporting over 10,000 employers and millions of users. For UKG, there has been a rise in revenues in the second quarter, to $798 million. Subscription revenue has grown 12 per cent year over year, due to the new contracts and increasing demands from existing customers.

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The brand is on the lookout for over 100 people in the areas of engineering, product and design, to expand its team by October 2021. It will hire quality engineering talent, front-end developers, java developers, android and IOS developers and data science engineers.
The technology hub of Lenskart in Hyderabad will be equipped with world-class and state-of-the-art systems and processes, aimed at providing customers and shoppers across channels a seamless experience.

The objective is to employ ace-quality engineers in the vertical, who will facilitatean offline buying experience at home, with technologies such as augmented reality, computer vision and machine learning.

The Hyderabad centre will focus on delivering world-class engineering solutions to help the brand expand its footprint within and outside the country.

The team at Lenskart is also focussing on building a true headless commerce engine, capable of reaching customers through multiple new channels and creating a supply chain tech, which is able to guarantee satisfactory delivery of make to order products.

The expertise that the DailyJoy team has in product, design and technology, aligns with Lenskart’s competencies and values such as entrepreneurship,10x Thinking and customer obsession, making this an ideal acquisition. The team is also capable of building and managing new initiatives cross-borders, which will further facilitate Lenskart’s growth.
Ramneek Khurana, co-founder, Lenskart, shared that, with Satish Sharma, former CEO, DailyJoy joining the team, he is looking forward to growing the company and doubling the current 150-member team over the next 6 months. He revealed the Company’s intention to “make Hyderabad a base for quality and consistent engineering to support the high-growth phase of the company.”

He revealed that Lenskart will focus on hiring “mature technology leaders and young local talent with 10X thinking to spearhead this growth with focus, energy, and innovation”.

Satish Sharma, ex-CEO, DailyJoy, is looking forward to “synchronising our synergies with Lenskart and adding value to their remarkable journey going forward in the ever-evolving eyewear industry.”

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This acquisition will make TapChief a part of the Unacademy Group with a valuation of Rs. 100 Crores.

TapChief leverages a host of technology solutions to empower professionals to interact and learn from experts, work with businesses from across the world, and aggregate their personal brand online. It has over 1,50,000 professionals registered as users. It helps users collaborate with experts from their chosen domains and take up short-term professional projects.

Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and CEO, Unacademy Group, reveals, “Our endeavour at Unacademy has always been to democratise education and make learning accessible and affordable for everyone. TapChief shares a similar ethos in a different space, as evident from the open community of professionals and learners they’ve created. They have delivered promising results in a short span of time.

Sharing Munjal’s excitement, Shashank Murali, co-founder and CEO, TapChief, says, “TapChief’s mission has been to empower the modern Indian professional with access to a wide array of opportunities that enhances their career and growth”. Being part of the Unacademy Group will only help them “carry forward our mission at a greater scale and fervor.”

Founded in 2016 by BITS Pilani alumni, Shashank Murali, Binay Krishna, and Arjun Krishna, TapChief caters to over 150 enterprise customers across sectors such as education, FMCG, e-commerce, enterprise SaaS, upskilling, among others. Professionals on TapChief have completed over 50,000+ gigs for Fortune 500 Companies, Unicorns, Venture-backed Startups and SMBs in India.

Bangalore-based Unacademy was founded by Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh in 2015. It has a growing network of 49,000+ registered educators and over 40 million learners. It is imparting education to students across 5,000 cities in India, in 14 Indian languages.

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Wipro in a public statement revealed the estimates of the first five years of the deal amounts to $700 million. The deal has the potential to spend up to $1 billion if Wipro is able to extend the deal for four more years.

Workers from Romania, India and Germany will move to Wipro with more opportunities for career advancement for them. There will be able to innovate, work with emerging digital tech and adapt to new ways of work that enhance speed, agility and scaling in engineering.

As Metro AG is set to provide all rounded services in the hotel, restaurant and catering industry, Wipro will help out with the logistics part. Wipro’s tech solution for Metro AG will range from cloud, data service, network and workplace services, with application development and operations to provide better, more agile and healthier digital infrastructure to support the German company’s digital transformation agenda.

This partnership with Wipro will help Metro AG streamline and simplify its tech-transformation goals. Wipro had earlier announced that it would launch a Digital Innovation Hub in Düsseldorf, Germany to support its clients in the country. This hub will serve as its flagship centre in Europe to enable organisations easy access to upskill and cross-skill and support local talent growth.

The transaction was overseen by EY-Parthenon, a global strategy-consulting firm. The takeover will close on or before the end of April 2021 under closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

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As a result of this acquisition, 200 Yantriks’ associates have joined Blue Yonder adding to its 5,500 global team. The acquisition is one of the many taking place worldwide for e-commerce companies. This merger combines real-time transactional systems with supply-chain solutions that match the trends of modern commerce.

Yantriks’ expertise will enable Blue Yonder to add more meaningful and specific client-centric services. The Company is now at a better place to provide purposeful supply-chain management solutions for retailers, consumer products and e-commerce companies, in India and globally.

Yantriks lends its expertise to Blue Yonder in performance engineering in maintaining and enhancing commerce, order management and fulfilment capabilities to enable clients to maximise their investments. New recruits and the 200 Yantriks employees joined Yonder’s Luminate Commerce solutions portfolio wing.

Blue Yonder’s expansion comes as no surprise as the growth trajectory of e-commerce in India is expected to go up exponentially. At a time when the pandemic has caused widespread unemployment, scaling up Indian businesses has been critical for the growth of the e-commerce sector and for generating employment.

A recent report, rolled out by Goldman Sachs, shows that by 2024, the Indian ecommerce industry is expected to reach $99 billion, and since 2019 this annual growth rate is at 27 per cent, topped by the grocery and apparel industry as the most profitable.

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This is reported to be the first time that an Indian edtech company has acquired a recruitment company in a 100 per cent acquisition. Hencefoth, upGrad will be completely involved in learners’ lifecycles – right from their education to the time they bag a job. This will create a successful end-to-end source of talented manpower.

This deal will enable Rekrut India to operate independently but at the same time, access all the leaners who have registered with upGrad for its courses — which is more than half a million. Even students who have completed their courses from upGrad can benefit from Rekrut’s hiring network.

Founded by Ronnie Screvwala, Phalgun Kompalli and Mayank Kumar, upGrad has apparently successfully driven more than a 1,000 career transitions this year. Not surprising, since the pandemic resulted in more people acknowledging and accepting online education.

The Rekrut India team lead by Ajay Shah, managing founder, boasts of a wide network of more than 100 hiring experts, who work closely with several big names in the corporate world, as well as MSMEs and large enterprises. Given Rekrut’s expertise in quality placements, it looks all set to achieve its goal of pushing its current volume ten times. Amidst the uncertainties of the ongoing pandemic, upGrad and Rekrut can together ensure meaningful career results for its learners.

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Another fact that went against Slack is that Microsoft Teams comes as part of many of Microsoft’s office packages, that means, at no extra cost, which is a huge saving for customers and eats into Slack’s potential customer base.

Salesforce.com, the American cloud-based software company, offers customer relationship management service, as well as a complementary suite of enterprise applications to facilitate customer service, marketing automation, analytics, and application development. Acquisition of Slack will only add to its enterprise offerings.

Though the deal is yet to be finalised rumours are that Salesforce will pay in cash for this acquisition, which will probably be its largest till date. Slack’s market value exceeds $17 billion.

Slack’s app witnessed 12.6 million installations this year, that is, 50 per cent more than it did during the same time last year.

The deal is expected to be closed and made public by the first week of December.

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This is part of EY’s efforts to improve its digital competency in India. In 2019, it acquired C Centric, a CRM solutions provider, and the year before that, it acquired Fortune Cookie UX Design.

The tech upgrades will help serve EY India’s customer base better with the aid of Spotmentor’s “software as a service” corporate skilling. It will further help plug any holes pertaining to skill divide and cope with the losses caused by the pandemic.

The Company had been using Spotmentor’s services in the past year for its clientele. Therefore, the acquisition does not come as a surprise as it feeds the Company’s business strategy of strengthening its people advisory portfolio.

Spotmentor was founded in 2016, by Yash Pal, Arpit Goyal, Sekhar Suman and Deepak Singh, to focus on government, enterprises, and industry entities and help them identify the areas that require skilling and then help bridge the gap through intensive personalised learning. Now, EY Spotmentor, will fan out across the company’s value chain.

The ‘new normal’ has forced corporates across the globe to adapt to tech-driven acquisitions and mergers. EY’s acquisition of Spotmentor comes at a time when Deloitte, PwC and KPMG are also upscaling their technology. They are gearing up to compete with firms that are already dominating the AI and ML sphere — BCG, McKinsey, Bain Consulting and AT Kearney.

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While Skillsoft is a company that delivers online learning, training, and talent solutions to help organisations acquire a competitive edge, Churchil II is an acquisition company that effects mergers, asset acquisition, stock purchase, reorganisation, capital stock exchange and reorganisation or business combination with one or several businesses. Global Knowledge is a technology skills training provider, that supports enterprises and tech professionals with its innovative and ‘Anytime, Anyplace, and Anyhow’ learning solutions. It offers a very broad, deep and relevant portfolio of IT training solutions.

The combined entity will function as Skillsoft, and will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Skillsoft and Global Knowledge together will form a global digital learning company offering wide-ranging content, customised learning solutions and accessible modalities. Its expanded course portfolio will consist of next-generation, on-demand and virtual content for enterprise learning.

The move has come at the right time, when the demand for digital learning has shot up. Global Knowledge will no doubt help scale up Skillsoft’s learner-centric platform, given its vast IT course portfolio and global reach. The combined strengths of Skillsoft and Global Knowledge, will enable Skillsoft to provide increased support to its global customers, in their endeavour to respond effectively to the changing workplace requirements and also address the growing skills gap.

The joint entity hopes to become a highly profitable digital learning company by scaling up via organic growth and acquisitions. The combined client base will comprise over 70 per cent of Fortune 1000 companies and over 45 million users across content platforms.

Skillsoft’s cloud-based platform, Skillsoft Percipio will continue to offer personalised, high-quality learning experiences, which will allow organisations to create a future-ready, resilient workforce and to educate, upskill and retain their staff in this ever-changing economy.

Churchill II will offer critical training resources to the over 30 million people rendered jobless due to the pandemic for free or on administrative cost basis.

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Over the past 15 years, CBSI India has enabled clients across industries find the right talent, both contractual and permanent. Formerly called Synova, CBSI was founded by Raj Vattikuti in 2004, who was the founder of the Altimetrik Group (US) and Covansys Corp, which was later acquired by CSC in 2007.

By acquiring CBSI, Sudhakar Balakrishnan, Group CEO, FirstMeridian feels that the Company’s staffing solutions can now be “combined with the operational excellence and robust technology-enabled service delivery” of FirstMeridian, and make a mark in the IT services space.

Despite the ongoing pandemic, some IT segments are expecting to witness increased outsourcing, and this timely acquisition will equip FirstMeridian with all that is required meet this “surge in demand” for qualified IT talent from across the country.

Till now, Affluent Global, which is a part of FirstMeridian, used to service clients in the products and BFSI space. Anurag Gupta, CEO – Technology Staffing at FirstMeridian, believes that with the acquisition of CBSI, it will now be able to serve clients in the services/system integrators space and “have access to 100+ clients across diverse domains to drive the growth of our IT staffing business.”

Since its inception, FirstMeridian has acquired four HR solution providers, namely Innovsource, V5 Global, Affluent Global and HR Cornucopia, with a workforce of over 90,000 associates serving 500+ clients spread across 1100+ locations throughout the country.

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Willis Towers Watson has been question on whether the selling price is in the best interest of its shareholders.

In March, Willis had opted for a merger under which the shareholders were to receive 1.08 Class A ordinary shares of Aon for each share of Willis Towers stock they owned. On completion of the deal, the existing Aon shareholders, would own approx. 63 per cent while the existing WTW shareholders would own approx. 37 per cent of the combined company on a fully diluted basis. The implied combined equity value of the companies in the all-stock transaction was approx. $80 billion.

However, it is alleged that the proxy statement filed with the SEC goes against US securities law, as it offers incomplete and misleading information about the Company’s financial projections and analysis, just so that the shareholders felt the transaction was a fair one.

In May a class action case was filed alleging that proxy statement had many loopholes. It did not reveal how the calculations were done to adjust EBITDA, nor did it reveal the unlevered free cash flow, adjusted net income, levered free cash flow, and adjusted earnings per share, among other things.

Another law firm filed a class action in the federal district court in New York later seeking disclosure of the details that have been skipped in the proxy, and also sought unspecified damages and legal costs.

The allegation is primarily that shareholders have not been revealed important information required for them to appropriately evaluate how far the proposed deal was. This is against SEC regulations making the proxy statement inaccurate and misleading.

Last week, New York-based investor rights firm Halper Sadeh said it has also filed a class action alleging that Willis issued a materially misleading proxy statement.

Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz have also filed a suit on behalf of individual stockholder Shiva Stein, pointing out that the SEC filings had omitted significant financial projections required by stockholders to make an informed decision about supporting the transaction.

Those filing the lawsuits are surprised that the board of directors were party to the “unfair process” that is to lead to the completion of the acquisition process next year.

If the deal is successfully completed, the combined entity, called Aon, will have more than $20 billion in revenue. While Aon reported $11 billion in revenue with $2.2 billion net income last year, Willis Towers Watson reported a revenue of $9 billion and $1.4 billion net income.

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With this acquisition, PeopleStrong’s HR technology suit, will get further strengthened. The group currently offers talent acquisition, workforce management, and talent management solutions.

Sandeep Chaudhry, president and board member PeopleStrong, shares, “Managing performance and productivity is a top priority for a CEO and a key expectation from the CHRO. With Qilo, we will help our clients simplify and measure strategy execution and align individual performance to business outcomes across all levels.”

PeopleStrong was set-up in 2005. In 2017, Multiples Alternate Asset Management had bought a controlling stake in PeopleStrong for an undisclosed amount and in 2018, PeopleStrong acquired Capability, a mobile first learning platform and Grownout, a B2B SaaS referral platform and added them to its PeopleStrong Alt product suit.

Qilo is the third acquisition by the company in the last two years.

Based out of Noida, Qilo delivers services such as team alignment, real-time visibility, business digitisation and performance management.

Qilo was co-founded by Arun Verma, Vikram Kohli, and Vipul Mathur in 2015.

According to Vipul Mathur, co-founder, Qilo, “It is very rare that the vision of two organisations and products gets aligned, which is what happened in our case. We hope to create a larger impact for enterprises globally.”

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BSNL presently has a workforce strength of 1.76 lakh, while MTNL has 22,000, across India. It is estimated that 16,000 MTNL employees and half of BSNL staff will retire in the next five to six years. A revenue impact of Rs 6,365 crore and Rs 2,120 crore is expected due to the VRS schemes being offered to BSNL and MTNL employees, respectively.

Ways are also being looked into to make use of the land assets of the two companies. The merger and revival plan will involve ? 56,000 crore, and has been approved by the Cabinet.

The two companies will be allotted spectrum for 4G services at the prices that prevailed in 2016. The Government will bear the cost of the same, and also issue sovereign bonds worth Rs 15,000 crore to be serviced by the two companies. Monetisation of assets worth about Rs 38,000 crores is also being planned over the next few years.

The Government of India will be investing in these PSUs to fund the 4G spectrum. The goods and services tax (GST) amount of ?3,674 crore will also be borne by the Government.

For some time now, MTNL and BSNL have been suffering losses and have been struggling to clear staff salaries. In fact, the salaries for September were paid with great difficulty very recently.

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Aspiring Minds claims to have over 3000 customers worldwide, and provides AI powered assessment tools and interviewing solutions. The company which has operations in US, China, India, Middle East, Philippines and Sub-Saharan Africa, was founded in 2008 by Varun Aggarwal and Himanshu Aggarwal.

These capabilities are expected to complement SHL’s existing line of products and services.

SHL was founded in 1977 by two psychologists Peter Saville and Roger Holdsworth. In 2012, UK- based SHL was bought over by The Corporate Executive Board Company (CEB) for $660 million in cash. The business was renamed as CEB Talent Assessment, though the brand SHL was retained.

In 2017, Gartner had acquired CEB,  and SHL came under the Gartner stable. However, in early 2018, Gartner sold CEB Talent Assessment (SHL) to Exponent Private Equity, a UK-based private equity firm, for $400 million.

“This acquisition infuses Aspiring Minds’ advanced AI technology throughout SHL’s portfolio at a platform level, and will leverage our rigorous science to enable the technical, emerging and leadership talent required for our 10,000-plus customers to succeed in the digital era,” says Andy Bradshaw, CEO of SHL.

Varun Aggarwal, co-founder and CTO of Aspiring Minds, adds, “Our focus is on real-world applications of AI and we see an opportunity for unprecedented innovation in joining SHL.”

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The decision to merge smaller banks into larger units was actually started during the UPA government’s tenure, but was implemented by the BJP government. The first instance was the merging of SBI’s five associate banks with the PSU giant. Similarly, last year, the merger of Vijaya Bank and Dena bank with Bank of Baroda was proposed and finally approved by all three banks this January. In both instances, the country has seen the repercussions of the decisions, which may be one of the factors causing unease among employees across the country.

Ramamurthy Balaji, general secretary, SBIOA, Chennai circle, talked about the cause behind the workers’ continued unrest at the decision.

The thought behind the Centre’s decision was to create big banks “with an enhanced capacity to create credit…with a strong national presence and global reach,” as explained by our finance minister, during her speech. However, the unions are saying that the rationale behind this decision is flawed.

Bigger does not equal stronger

Merging two weak banks to create a strong one or merging a strong bank with a weak one will not create a strong entity by itself. Instead, it will create a weak bank or a less strong bank. This is one reason why the rationale behind the decision does not hold. To add to that, the bigger the bank, the bigger the risk of falling when something goes wrong.

Moreover, the merger will see the closure of many branches, as the branches under the newly- merged lender will see overlap. Thousands of employees will be left with the decision to either move to the location of the new branch or to ‘disassociate’ themselves from the new emerging banks, because of the impending reorganisation of the workforce. Since the government has assured that no jobs will be lost, the new entity will not be able to trim its workforce.

‘Disassociate’ is exactly what they did last year, during the Bank of Baroda merger, where Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank offered the option to disassociate, under which employees could forego the remainder of their service period and be paid pensions as per their existing pay scales. Employees will feel the pressure to relocate, and will have to quit. Even though the government says no jobs will be lost, it cannot guarantee it.

“It is a lengthy process and merging different technological platforms poses a problem for customer service and smooth transactions”

Integration of IT services and HR

The integration of technology services will be one of the key challenges during the merger.Every bank uses a specific technological platform for its core banking solutions, which is again customised according to its needs. The government announced the merger partners according to their IT compatibilities and not according to their geographical synergy. However, even so, integration is easier said than done. Let us take an example.

A year on now, Bank of Baroda continues its attempt to integrate its IT systems. According to numerous media reports, the Bank is still working with three separate core banking systems. It had already stipulated a 12 to 18-month timeline, which it would take to migrate to a newly unified core banking system. “It is a lengthy process and merging different technological platforms poses a problem for customer service and smooth transactions”, says Balaji.

Second, integration of human resources issues will be another massive obstacle. Many of these banks face staff shortages and the ones who are going to leave on account of the merger will further add to this shortage. Recruitment is not at par with this high vacancy. The idea from the Centre is that digitisation will help manage this shortage. However, to do that, employees will have to be trained accordingly in the digitisation process so that they can keep the system running. Coupled with the IT integration, this will require massive training which, with the already shorthanded staff, is going to be difficult. Further, it may impact customer service as well.

Other big little concerns

Along with the IT and HR integration, the newly-merged entities will have a lot to accomplish. Due to the merger, a lot of branches and ATMS will have to be closed owing to overlaps. These have to be identified and shut down. A similar situation occurred during the SBI merger when 7000 branches had to be shut down and thousands of employees lost their jobs.

With lesser number of branches catering to the same group of customers, the quality of services mayt also take a hit.

Another concern is customer integration. The aim is to provide a seamless transition for the customers, where fresh banking products including their cheque books, passbooks, Indian Financial Systems Codes (IFSC) and Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) codes are reworked and provided afresh.

Customer integration seems like an obvious process but it is difficult to pull off and may take up to two years to fully materialise.

While the priority of the Government should be to revive the economy, for the next one to two years, the major PSUs will be tied up with merger activities. While it does not provide a solution to the slowdown crisis, it certainly takes the attention away from it.

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The unions had opposed the recent announcement of the proposal to amalgamate 10 public-sector banks into four in order to create fewer but stronger banks of global size. The mergers are aimed at giving a push to economic growth.

Due to the mergers, the number of state-owned banks has come down from 27 to 12.

The merger of Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank is the biggest one, as the three will together fuse to form the second-largest bank in the country after the State Bank of India (SBI).

The finance minister had also announced the merger of Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank; Union Bank of India, Andhra Bank, and Corporation Bank; as well as Indian Bank and Allahabad Bank.

Earlier, Banking Secretary Rajeev Kumar had also assured that employees will not have to face any negative effects due to these mergers. In fact, there will be an improvement in employee benefits and human resource conditions.

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A share subscription and shareholder agreement to this effect was signed on 31 August , which makes Meru a subsidiary of M&M. All the subsidiaries of M&M, that is, Meru Mobility Tech, V-Link Automotive Services, and V-Link Fleet Solutions will also become subsidiaries of M&M.

A primary investment of Rs 103.5 crore will help M&M acquire 55 per cent stake in Meru, which will happen by issuing new shares. M&M has the option to purchase the remaining 45 per cent stake in Meru from existing investors for up to ?98 crore. It is expected to make the first round of investment in Meru by October end.

Meru, which was incorporated in December 2006, is the only profitable Indian cab aggregator presently. With M&M investing, Meru will be able to progress further on a new course of growth. Now, M&M will look at tapping the sharing and rental mobility space with Meru since car sales alone cannot ensure growth, more so when the automobile sector is going through the worst phase ever.

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NGA-HR brings with it high quality innovation, service, HR and payroll expertise to more than 250 clients which represent around three million employees. It is one of the largest multinational payroll providers and delivers across 188 countries.

“As Alight continues to grow its core businesses of health, wealth, HCM and financial solutions, adding NGA HR’s global HR and payroll capabilities will allow us to expand the breadth of solutions we deliver for clients around the world,” explained Chris Michalak, CEO of Alight. “Providing multi-national companies with access to benefits administration in North America, along with global payroll and HR solutions, supported by superior technology will allow Alight to better serve our clients in every geography in which they operate.”

Together, NGA-HR and Alight Solutions will be able to bring greater service to its clients and the millions of employees they serve. The financial details to the deal were not disclosed. The transactions is to be closed in the fourth quarter with Goldman Sachs International acting as the exclusive financial adviser to NGA-HR.

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The new designation architecture is being explained to the staff through regular communication.

Consisting of five bands and the associated designation prefixes, the new structure will have no semblance to the structures that existed before the merger of the two entities. The new, unique and more modern banding and designations will be implemented across the Company starting next month.

Not all employees are reportedly happy about the new designations, as people with differing levels of experience and qualification have all been given the same designation.

However, the Company is confident that the new structure will be well accepted once there is better understanding of the logic behind them amongst the employees.

Vodafone Idea believes that the new and contemporary banding will attract new talent and also help retain the current ones and play a positive role in career progression.

The management has requested employees to refrain from comparing the new designations with the earlier ones and accept the fact that they are now employees of a brand new company, and hence will carry brand new designations. The new bands will have no traces of the past and will promote more uniformity.

The revamped structure will facilitate job assessment and systematic grouping of similar-sized jobs. The Company also clarified that the bands assigned to the employees have nothing to do with their individual abilities or performance. The re-banding will also ensure that newcomers don’t feel they are too far below in the hierarchy to be able to contribute meaningfully.

The objective is to have the workforce as close to the customer as possible so that there is faster communication flow.

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The primary objective of this strategic and selective acquisition was to build competencies, while generating more revenue. Talents, such as customer experience architects and cloud architects were hired.

Earlier this week, IBM reportedly sacked 300 employees from its Indian services, most of whom were software professionals. The Company was also criticised for giving preference to young employees over senior ones in its hiring process, and also for systematically sacking older employees to replace them with younger ones despite their good performance. However, IBM has been denying all these allegations.

The products bought by HCL include Appscan, for secure application development; BigFix, for secure device management; Unica, for marketing automation; Commerce, for omni-channel eCommerce; Portal, for digital experience; Notes & Domino, for email and low-code rapid application development, and Connections, for workstream collaboration.

HCL outdid Wipro with a revenue of $8.63 billion in the last financial year. This indicates an increment of 10 per cent from the last fiscal year.

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In 2013, TCS had acquired French SAP service provider, Alti SA, for 75 million euros. Ever since it has been concentrating on growing gradually.

The Indian multinational IT services and consulting firm is on the lookout for intellectual property that can help widen its market reach and accelerate growth.

Last year, many organisations in the IT sector were busy acquiring firms. Infosys acquired consumer insights company, WongDoody for $75 million. Wipro acquired Designit and Cooper in the IT sector. TCS itself had acquired a London-based digital design studio, W12 Studios to give a push to its digital and creative design capabilities. Not long after, it again acquired an American consulting firm, BridgePoint Group, and managed to integrate them both very well into its system.

TCS reported a 17.7 per cent increase in profits at Rs 8,162 crore and 18.5 per cent growth in March 2019 quarter revenues to Rs 38,010 crore! The Company clearly continues to remain optimistic about growth this financial year too. No doubt it is well positioned for the future.

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The Lakshmi Vilas Bank Employees’ Union (LVBEU), which has approx. 5000 employees, will be seeking clarifications from the management and making its own stand clear at the meeting.

The merged entity will have more than 14000 employees. Even though it has been assured by the MD and CEO of the Bank that there will be no cultural issues, the employees are naturally concerned. Culturally, the Bank and the NBFC are rather different, and the merger may affect the traditional ways of the former, which may not agree with the new and relatively modern culture of the latter.

The Union will also discuss the merger and its repercussions for the employees with the parent organisation of the Bank, the National Confederation of Bank Employees.

Founded in 1926, the objective of the Lakshmi Vilas Bank was to cater to the financial needs of the population in and around Karur, comprising mainly traders and agriculturists. It was incorporated under the Indian Companies Act, 1913, and obtained the certificate to operate on November 10, 1926. It obtained its banking license from the Reserve Bank of India on 19 June, 1958. It became a ‘scheduled commercial bank’ on 11 August, 1958 and by 2014, the corporate office was moved to Chennai.

It has a wide network of 569 branches as well as six extension counters, across the country today.

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Most of those who have been laid off were from the retail and sales departments. Few from the administration and finance departments were also asked to leave. The layoffs will continue, with more expected to be rendered jobless in the next three months.

There has been a spate of consolidations in the Gulf nations owing to the slow growth of the economy and dipping oil prices. While Al Hilal will function as a separate entity within the merged bank, the merged entity will probably be the third largest bank in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) year.

This three-way merger will comprise a statutory merger between ADCB and UNB, wherein the former will issue 0.5966 shares for every UNB share, corresponding to a total of 1.64 billion new shares issued to UNB shareholders and valuing UNB at nearly $4 billion.

ADCB and UNB are both listed in Abu Dhabi. Al Hilal, on the other hand, is unlisted and wholly owned by the Abu Dhabi Investment Council (ADIC), which is a part of state investor Mubadala Investment, and holds the majority of the shares in ADCB and UNB.

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If the merger comes through, the Government of Germany, which has a 15 per cent stake in Commerzbank, will probably retain a stake in the merged business. If this happens, the staff rightly fears that the focus of the bank will shift more to its home market.

With so much uncertainty and the merger process expected to take months to be finalised, significant staff members may look at joining rival banks and hedge funds, which will further affect the already dipping performance of the Bank.

Last year, Deutsche Bank had announced a reduction of approx. 7000 employees globally. This included a 25 per cent cut in trading as well as equities sales positions, with a good number in New York, where it had been underperforming.

However, experts feel that job cuts in Germany will cause stronger political repercussion that in the US. About 5,000 jobs are under threat in Frankfurt alone.

Even if Deutsche Bank decides to retain its US operations, the staff feels that there will be a significant dip in pay and bonuses. Commerzbank, which primary deals in personal and commercial loans, is known to pay its employees less than Deutsche Bank. If the German government ends up retaining a stake, payouts will be controlled.

Deutsche Bank’s equities sales department is already demotivated having received smaller bonuses in 2018.

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In a bid to acquire Mindtree, L&T is trying to buy the shares of Mindtree’s strategic investor, CG Siddhartha, who owns the Café Coffee Day Group.

The founders of Mindtree, however, are certain that a hostile takeover is pointless in an industry where employee relationships are of utmost importance. They believe that it is impossible to ‘buy a family’ and liken this deal a ‘dowry marriage’.

The staff has been tweeting about the ‘unique culture’ of the Company using the hashtag #MindtreeMatters. Some of these Twitter accounts seem to have been created recently. The barrage of tweets happened after co-founder, Subroto Bagchi, announced that he will return to protect the Company even if he had to give up his role in the Odisha government for it.

Senior executives have also joined the Twitter campaign stating that it is impossible to ‘buy values and family’. The employees tweet that if the takeover happens, they will not be able to show the same love to L&T.

Their tweets have created quite a stir, with people wondering whether the HR at Mindtree had asked the staff to canvas on Twitter. Some are of the opinion that if the employees have actually been asked to tweet, it is not really fair, since it is not right to ask the staff to take sides in such a matter.

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While Xoxoday also offers Storefront, an API-driven digital rewards platform that simplifies rewards, incentives through a global catalogue of over 5000 experiences, 1000 gift cards and 10,000 perks, FamousEnuf allows employers to not only manage and run customer and employee-engagement programmes but also their rewards and recognition schemes and affiliate programmes. It also offers the option to share content on social-media platforms, such as Facebook.

The Xoxoday and FamousEnuf combination will be a hit with talent managers who seek new and innovative ways to engage their staff. In addition, FamousEnuf’s new popularity score and fame score is also a useful tool for assessing talent and managing teams.

Xoxoday has more than 500 clients across Australia, APAC and the US.

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Approximately 10 lakh bank employees will participate in the strike, opposing the merger of banks at a time when their services are required in the rural areas.

As per AIBEA, the merger of six banks under the State Bank of India last year has not really resulted in any concrete benefits nor has the Bank grown in any way.

With a non-performing asset (NPA) ratio of 11.04 per cent and business of Rs 1.72 lakh crore , Dena Bank is the least strong of the three entities to be merged. Bank of Baroda has an NPA of 5.4 per cent and business of Rs 10.2 lakh crore, while Vijaya bank has an NPA of 4.10 per cent and business worth Rs two lakh crore.

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The retail company has already merged Appsfly’s small team of six members with its giant customer experience engineering group.

Soon, it will merge the three-member team at Int.AI, which is into data analytics and machine learning, with its customer technology team. The team at Int.AI has developed tools that analyse data and share it with users over e-mail and collaborative tools, such as Slack. It is working on automating the work of business analysts with the help of natural language programming and latest clustering algorithms.

There are more acquisitions on the cards. This model of roping in rival start-ups requires little or no investment, and works well at a time when there is paucity of technical talent.

The model attracts the engineers of the start-ups because, like in the case of Walmart, it gives the engineers of the acquired smaller companies an opportunity to use their algorithms on the retailer’s huge volumes of data and create actual value for the organisation, in measurable terms.

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The transaction, which covers products, such as Unica (on-premise), Appscan, BiFix, Commerce, Portal (on-premise), Connections and Notes & Domino will be completed by the middle of next year. However, the ongoing licensing pact between IBM and HCL will continue for five of these products. IBM will be focusing on strengthening its hybrid cloud computing wing. To further this effort, IBM had acquired Red Hat, a specialist in this field, in a $34 million deal.

The products being acquired by HCL will contribute to the Company’s strategic segments, that is, security, marketing and commerce. Once the deal comes through, although the revenue will go down owing to the transition phase in the first year, in the second year, the revenue is expected to increase to $650 million.

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This is probably the biggest deal in the background screening industry in the country, which currently caters to only five to seven per cent of the potential market, which is estimated to be more than a billion dollars in market size.

Given the changing socio-economic dynamics in a country, such as India, the demand for employee background verification services has been increasing steadily across industries and cities. It is required for the lowest rung of the employee chain — drivers, delivery boys— as well as the middle and top-level management. However, there exists a huge demand–supply gap mainly because the Indian market is catered to by an unorganised segment that lacks the relevant technology to collect and secure data.

Ajay Trehan, founder and CEO, AuthBridge, said, “India is changing and so are the employee-employer dynamics. Companies are operating in an evolved environment where brands and people’s reputation are extremely important and can be tarnished by the slightest misdeed of a single employee, irrespective of the designation. Thus, it becomes imperative and crucial for all companies and brands to ensure that the people who represent them are in sync with the company’s ethics and vision, and comply with them.”

When AuthBridge was established more than a decade back, employee screening was a niche concept. Today, it caters to 30 per cent of the market. The acquisition of Footprints has given the Company a strategic advantage in terms of a highly proficient team, delivery locations and clients.

“India is changing and so are the employee-employer dynamics. Companies are operating in an evolved environment where brands and people’s reputation are extremely important and can be tarnished by the slightest misdeed of a single employee, irrespective of the designation. Thus, it becomes imperative and crucial for all companies and brands to ensure that the people who represent them are in sync with the company’s ethics and vision, and comply with them.”

The Company aims to contribute towards building India’s trust infrastructure through its databases, technology, network, customer relationships and scale. It will also look out for other businesses that will complement its portfolio and strengthen its capabilities.

Col Vijay Reddy, director & founder of Footprints said, “As a competitor, we had always admired AuthBridge for its processes. It is just the right kind of organisation that could have done justice to our clients and employees. This deal ensures that Footprints’ clients stand to gain hugely from AuthBridge’s industry-leading tech-enablement.”

AuthBridge’s offerings include instant identity verification, employment background screening, customer screening and partner due diligence .

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It is reported that First Meridian will go for additional minority investments/buyouts in areas such as HR technology, staffing, recruitment-process outsourcing, compliance management and managed services.
Sudhakar Balakrishnan, former managing director and chief executive of Adecco India, will be co-investing in the platform and will also head First Meridian. As per reports, the other senior managers will also invest in the platform along with the institutional investors.

According to a report by The Economic Times, the acquisition has been made for Rs 350 crore ($50.8 million). It is reported that a third acquisition is in the pipeline.
Innovsource is a Mumbai-based manpower outsourcing company established in 2004. It works in the area of temporary staffing in India, and has a workforce of 55,000 associates. Operating in over 30 cities, it caters to companies in retail, e-commerce, manufacturing, BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), logistics, and more.
New Delhi-based staffing solutions provider, V5 Global Services was launched in 2005, and boasts of a profit of Rs 5 crore in March 2016.

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While the details of the deal have yet to be disclosed, the acquisition will give the business social network enhanced insight into the morale and skill levels within organisations.

Daniel Shapero, vice president-talent solutions, careers and learning, LinkedIn believes that Glint’s new-age HR best practice should be followed by all companies, and that obtaining regular feedback on work, culture and leadership is rather important.

Being a customer of Glint, LinkedIn has tested its tools that provide leaders the means to gather knowledge about their respective companies and then take necessary steps according to the insights gained.

Stating his vision for the integration of Glint and LinkedIn, in a blog, Shapero highlighted the fact that Glint’s tools help executives answer questions related to the wellness and happiness of their people, and also allows managers at all levels gain much-needed insight to bring about improvements.

LinkedIn and Glint can now together offer to change the insights and feedback received (on Glint) into a personalised LinkedIn experience for managers. Since the focus will be on the areas that require improvement, the feedback received will end up being rather meaningful and something on which action can be taken.

On formal completion of the acquisition deal of Glint by Microsoft, by the end of this year, the former will function as a subteam of LinkedIn.

Jim Barnet, CEO and founder, Glint will be reporting to Shapero, and over the next year or so, the teams of Glint will be incorporated into LinkedIn.

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