Mahindra launches 'Bring the Showroom Home' for a 360 degree Virtual Showroom experience

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (M&M Ltd.), part of the USD 19 billion Mahindra Group today announced an industry first initiative in the automotive retail space with the launch of its ‘Bring the Showroom Home’, a portable, mobile based, interactive Virtual Reality experience. This is a unique initiative wherein a customer would get a 360 degree, all-encompassing and immersive virtual showroom experience.

Screen Grab from the App

Bring the Showroom Home is part of a series of initiatives under Mahindra’s Digital Transformation Strategy. Through an immersive technology experience, the customer can co-create and identify his Mahindra vehicle with any specification, in the convenience and comfort of his home as well as involve his family in the decision making process.  ‘Bring the Showroom Home’ platform will have 3 salient features of Virtual showroom, Self-explore and Make my SUV which will enable customers to experience the vehicle of their choice, in its entirety.

Speaking at the launch of the initiative, Veejay Nakra, Chief of Sales & Marketing – Automotive Division, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.  said, “At Mahindra we have always been at the forefront of disruption with the customer at the epicenter. Hence we reimagined the whole customer purchase experience by embarking on a digital transformation journey for an end-to-end solution from the pre-purchase stage to the post purchase ownership phase. These include industry first initiatives such as SYOUV and With You Hamesha, in addition to our multiple tie-ups with portals for online booking of our vehicles. Now, we are ready to take this disruption to the next level by changing the way automotive retail is perceived in India. Bring the Showroom Home is one such industry first immersive experience.”

Mr. Nakra further added, “In India, where vehicle purchase decision is mostly influenced by the family, Bring the Showroom Home will get the showroom closer to our customers and their families. After all, we want to take customer experience to the next level through convenient, transparent and personalised services at every step.”

Pre-Purchase Stage: Redefining Auto Retail 

The Mahindra SYOUV platform fortifies Mahindra’s engagement in the pre-purchase phase by providing class leading customer experience. The Platform integrates the virtual world with the real world and is the core offering under the pre-purchase phase. We have also ensured a robust backend mechanism to ensure superlative customer experience. Key features of SYOUV platform are as follows :-

• Dealer Stock Availability: The user gets complete transparency of the stock at dealerships in his vicinity. In case a stock is not currently available, the user can view the estimated next availability date for the selected stock at a particular dealership of his/her choice.
• Collaborative Exploration (CE): Co-create your SUV with friends/family online

• Talk to Our Expert (TTE): Connect with a Mahindra expert either through chat, audio call or video call.
• Compare Cars: Compare your prospective Mahindra SUV with other market leading SUVs. A key feature of the platform is photo compare which is not available on other platforms.
• Finance & Insurance: The user gets to browse several finance and insurance options offered by leading banks and insurers. Basis their selection, they can request a quote from the bank or insurer.
• Test Drive – Anytime, Anywhere: The user has the option to browse available slots online and block a slot for test drive. He can also track the TD vehicle coming to his location through google maps.
• Book Your Customized SUV Online: The user can book an SUV online and also add accessories available for the selected variant. He also has the option of selecting a vehicle model, variant, colour as well as viewprices and available offers/schemes online.

In the next phase of SYOUV, we plan to include on-road price, online order tracking, deal maker and several other differentiating features. SYOUV is a one-stop destination for Mahindra in the pre-sales phase of the auto-purchase journey which promises three customer benefits – Transparent, Personalized and Convenient.

The Bring the Showroom Home platform will allow customers to research a new vehicle by enabling them to view the vehicle in a virtual showroom, in city or off-road environments. At the pre-purchase phase, it will feature a 360-degree voice assisted virtual reality (VR) experience powered by state-of-the-art Samsung VR Gears. All of these can be experienced from the comfort of the customer’s home without compelling him to visit the showroom.

Purchase Stage – Convenience of Online Booking

Mahindra has redefined automotive retail through multiple tie ups with key auto portals for sales of its automotive products, thereby providing customers with the convenience to book their vehicles anytime, anywhere. The company has tied up with Cardekho, Carwale, IBB, Car&Bike and M2ALL.

Under the digital initiatives for enabling sales, Mahindra has also installed tablets and kiosks across most of its dealer network. Meant to assist customers in making suitable buying decisions, these gadgets offer realistic visual depictions of Mahindra vehicles, with various options related to accessories, colours etc.

Post Purchase Stage – With You Hamesha 

The new generation With You Hamesha platform provides class-leading customer convenience in the ownership phase.

‘With you Hamesha’ (WYH) is Mahindra’s digital platform for its existing customers and aims to sustain their satisfaction levels by constantly offering various online services. The platform has undergone a complete digital transformation and offers a customized and convenient experience with a whole lot of transparency. WYH is a versatile platform that offers a range of services, including:

• Convenient Service Booking: Convenient service booking facility from anywhere as per required date and time slot (Like Book My Show), with a facility of creating own e-jobcard and get cost estimate (for scheduled services)

• Smart Notifications: Service reminders and RSA/extended warranty/PUC/Insurance renewal reminders
• Instant Chat: chat with our executives to address customer’s queries
• SOS: SOS button for raising assistance request with location capturing facility
• RM Video Call: Video call with the relationship manager to get updates on vehicle service and other queries (Available for XUV & Rexton)
• Online Payment: Online payment facility with all credit/debit card and wallets

In the next phase of WYH, we plan to include Driver tracking, Breakdown Van Tracking and Vehicle tracking in workshop and many differentiating features. We aim to redefine the future of auto retail by providing transparency, convenience and a personalized experience to our customers with our integrated digital offerings across the consumer lifecycle journey.

Read More

Portronics launches he new portable and foldable laptop stand "My Buddy Lite" for Rs 1099

Portronics today announced its all new “My Buddy Lite” – A convenient, easy to use and a light weight Portable and Foldable Laptop Stand. It is the latest addition to the famous Mybuddy Series of laptop stands.

In the modern world, every person has a hectic schedule, which includes their most of the time devoted on gadgets and laptop is one of the most prominent of them. Parallel to the work, it is really essential to take care of the health too; “My Buddy Lite” gives you the comfort while using laptop in any posture or at any place, which will help you to keep balance between work and health.

My Buddy Lite - portable laptop stand

Solid Structures:

The comforting laptop stand is summed up with the best quality of materials making it strong and flexible to take the weight of up to 4Kgs / 17 inch laptops. The structure makes it light weight for the users with the help of Silica rubber yet sturdy with the help of steel. The easy to use laptop stand has a basic size of 288 x 46 x 30 mm, that is, easy to be placed or kept anywhere at your workplace or at home. The best part of this laptop stand is that it is light weight", that is of 350 gm, thus, easy to carry. It comes with two adjustable angles for your laptop to make it suitable as per your comfort. The light weighted solid laptop stand suitably supports laptop with up to 17 inches and laptops which are comparatively smaller.

Impressive and comforting features:

The light handed laptop stand comes up with exciting features making it worth its value. It has an impressive ergonomics making you work very comfortably and also, keeping you more efficient at work. It is easy to go just with a pair of thumb and forefinger to be pressed outward and hence, opening it smartly at a quick time. It is highly adjustable as it can be folded, hence, occupying less space and it also offers the exact height to your eye lens keeping your body more comfortable and lean. It has an absolute worthy feature of minimalism, that is, a part to show your laptop off as a classy one and it can be suitable present for the people who use laptop on regular basis. The laptop is designed with superior quality material making it smaller in size and helping you use your laptop more comfortably keeping all your work sorted, thus it has Ergonomic design, helping your back and wrist to get less or minimum fatigued using laptop. One of the most suitable, worthy and best feature of the stand is that it is very light in weight and easily portable to the device thus efficient for office use and it’s carrying purpose at different places.

Salient Features:

· Design: It is made up of ergonomic design which helps you balancing your health and work by keeping your back and wrist less tired.

· Material: It is made up of Nylon, steel and silica rubber making it rough and tough to use.

·  Easy to carry: Very light weighted and handy to use, hence, easily transportable.

· Portability: Along with the advantage of portability, it also serves the feature of being foldable.

· Stability: It is highly suitable in carrying a good amount of weight being stable along with its magnetic pads and metal skeleton.

Pricing and Availability:

This comforting device comes with a price tag of INR 1099/-. You can buy it for yourself and as well as for your loved ones online or from offline stores.

Read More

Huawei Honor's rising as one of fastest Growing smartphone brand in India

Honor the sub brand from Huawei no longer needs introduction in smartphones world. Honor has made a name for itself in mid-range priced devices. The devices from the brand has brought premium quality devices with latest innovations to Indian market across the price spectrum. With innovative and best in segment products like Honor 7X, Honor View 10, Honor 9 Lite; Honor has shown momentum and growth in the India market.

Huawei witnessed a massive overall growth of 165% in CY 2017 as per Counterpoint, Q4 2017 report. While Huawei focused on wearable devices, it was Honor that played an instrumental role in brand building, and launched global best sellers that became India best sellers. The budget bestseller smartphone, Honor 7X was pivotal in the growth of the brand towards Q4, 2017.

Further, the launch of Honor View 10 and Honor 9 Lite has paved the way for greater recognition of the brand in India, thereby, reinforcing its global leadership. Honor 9 Lite has been a sold out all four times on Flipkart making it one of the most popular Honor smartphone to date.

We talked earlier about rise of OPPO as one of top brands globally, Honor seems to have followed the suite as well as learnt from the mistake of former. OPPO which has seen a phenomenal rise in its market share in 2016, is now slipping from its place. One of the reason for this drop is said to be lack of options in different price segment. Honor has filled this gap with its balanced distribution of devices from Honor6x to Honor View10. 

Another important factor for this rise in country is company's commitment to provide India with Global Best Price which is evident from one of latest launch Honor View 10 which is priced at Rs 29,999/- while it was launched for Euro 499 in European markets which turns out to be around INR 38,000/- .

Honor is the first smartphone brand in India to introduce Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven smartphone, Honor View 10 at very pocket friendly cost, in line with brand’s commitment towards the Indian market. The launch of Honor View 10 marked the beginning of a new AI era, making consumers shift from the smartphones to “Intelligent phones. The latest offerings from Honor, Honor 9 Lite and Honor 7X have reshaped the budget smartphone category in the Indian smartphone market, owing to competitive hardware and software features, and have been termed as best budget smartphones by media critics.

Huawei, well known for its excellent R&D, brings out the best innovations in every offering. It invents consumer-centric technology that not only enhances the overall performance of the device but also creates brand loyalty amongst its consumers. Honor has been on a high success streak in 2017 with in-house premium technology and constant innovation.

While there is a lot of stress on innovation and listening to voice of customers , marketing team of Honor has also done commendable job with organizing events in different cities, educating the dealers, partnering with e-retailers etc to keep the ball rolling. The man we know behind all this is Mr P Sanjeev, VP Sales, Huawei Consumer Business group. The team deserves a pat on back to have achieve staggering growth in neck to neck competition. 

In one of the event, the team has announced its ambition to capture 10% of smartphone market share in India by 2019, the task might look tough seeing number of brands (competitive) in the arena. However, the growth rate achieved by Honor has left behind the likes of Xiaomi and OPPO makes it look achievable if they manage to be on the right track and get ahead of competition in making use of available technology if not innovate on its own for all devices.

Read More

Honor 9 Lite Sold Out in 120 Seconds in 3rd Flash Sale on 23rd January

The most loved and admired budget smartphone from Honor’s portfolio, Honor 9 Lite was yet again sold out on 23rd Jan in just 120 seconds during the 3^rd flash sale on Flipkart. Continuing success owing to overwhelming consumer response has catapulated Honor 9 Lite to become the best selling smartphone on Flipkart.

It was just a day before when Honor had announced that the elegant looking smartphone,  Honor 9 Lite in its first sale on 21^st January midnight has set a series of sale record on Flipkart.com. On 23rd Jan, the new smartphone was sold out in just 6 minutes in the first flash sale and to ensure Indian consumers get their hands on the device, Honor had extended the sale with a second flash sale till 12 PM on 21^st January, which also got sold out in 3 minutes.

“We are seeing terrific response and would like to thank our consumers for such great support for Honor 9 Lite. All three flash sales have been sold out in just few minutes, making Honor 9 Lie the best selling product on Flipkart. We are confident that Honor 9 Lite will continue to add to Honor’s momemtum.” Said Mr. P Sanjeev, Vice President, Sales, Huawei Consumer Business Group

The Honor 9 Lite is a 5.65-inch smartphone with a 18:9 IPS display, designed with dual cameras on both the front and rear, and runs on Android 8.0 Oreo with EMUI 8.0. The quad-camera smartphone that delivers unparalleled images for the selfie-lovers, will be available at an extremely competitive price point of INR 10,999 for the 32 GB variant and INR 14,999 for the 64 GB variant. Honor is an industry leader in its creation of reasonable value products, combining top-end quality and performance at a highly competitive price point. Compared to other smartphones in the same price bracket, the Honor 9 Lite leads the way in combining value with the all-important wider screen, bezel-less display and a series of high-end features; from the premium double-sided 2.5D glass unibody, 13MP quad-lens camera, a 3000 mAh long-lasting battery with unmatched durability and quality.

Read More

ASUS ranked as one Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies for the Computers category

• ASUS receives Fortune's World’s Most Admired Companies ranking for the Computers category
• Fortune conducted a worldwide survey of 1500 candidates and selected ASUS as one of the leading companies
• This is the third time ASUS has been recognized with honors from Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies survey

ASUS today announced its honourable recognition as one of Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies. The company has been ranked as a leading enterprise in the Computers category, reaffirming its leading position in the industry as a strong brand that continues to deliver excellent products and services.

Survey Method:

Fortune collaborated with its partner Korn Ferry on this survey of corporate reputation. Beginning with a universe of about 1500 candidates, the 1000 largest US companies were ranked by revenue, along with non-US companies in Fortune's Global 500 database that have revenues of $10 billion or more. The highest-revenue companies in each industry were then selected, totalling 680 in 29 countries. The top-rated companies were picked from that pool of 680; the executives who voted work at the companies in that group.

To determine the best-regarded companies in 52 industries, Korn Ferry asked executives, directors, and analysts to rate enterprises in their own industry on nine criteria, from investment value and quality of management and products to social responsibility and ability to attract talent. A company’s score must rank in the top half of its industry survey to be listed.

Read More