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Day: November 28, 2018

India’s Top Boutique Investment Banks

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

Boutique investment banks are a recent phenomenon and emerged more as an answer to the market-demands by startups and smaller enterprises. By small we mean deals less than Rs 200 Cr that large investment firms like JM Financial, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley find enviable.

Boutique Services:

Most large banks have large boards and payouts that make them cater to markets with large value and commissions of 0.5 to 2 % on value as their retainers. Small enterprises needing 10 to 100 Cr formed an encashable niche market for boutique investment firms who offered them the services the big banking investment firms refused.
A boutique investment firm will happily offer the same and maybe better services in the fields of fund-raising, bank debt, private equity, managing IPOs and advising on acquisitions, mergers and everything in between. From among the dozen or so firms that have grown overnight literally, we formed a watch-list.

Our Watch-List:

Our favourites on the watch-and-learn list are:
CV Subramanyam founded Veda Corp in 2003. Veda struck its first deal in 2004. They convinced Carlyle to partially buyout Newgen, a technology company for 10 million dollars. Since then there has been no looking back. They have done around 70 deals with a total business of 1.5 billion dollars. Veda is not very big and has a team size of 20 persons and offices in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Chennai. They focus on South India where conservatism prevails, and businesses prefer to raise their funds in debt form rather than trade in equity.
Ripple Wave founders Mehul Savla and Vipul Shah started off in 2008. By May 2010 they had struck their first big deal. With over Rs 650Cr in just 3 business deals and a team of 4, this boutique investment service is going great guns.
MAPE started in 2001 by Jacob Mathews saw success in the same year. They have done business worth a whopping 3.5 billion dollars over 90 or so deals with a perhaps larger team size of 90.
The year 2008 saw Cogence Advisors founded by Rishi Sahai. Two months later they struck their debut deal. With a team size of 6, they have achieved 650 million dollars business over just 12 deals.
Equirius Capital also founded in 2008 by Ajay Garg had to wait till 2008 for their first successful deal closure. They have a volume of Rs 6,300 Cr in business over 52 deals and a team size of 20.
P2P set up its offices in India under Francois Montrelay. Their first deal came through in a few months in 2008 itself. Their business volume is over 100 million dollars and is single-handedly managed by Montrelay himself.
Conclusion:
Looking at our watch list, we find that if the big investors don’t wake up, they’ll find themselves edged out of the lower end (and small financing markets) by such boutique firms who are lean enough to make high profits on smaller deals. Money earns more money they say!
 
Reference:
economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/30183390.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/cover-story/boutique-investment-banks/story/185848.html

Rupee Nears a 3 Month High as Oil Prices Fall

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

 
The Rupee-Rial arrangement could be reviewed by India with Iran to bail out exporters because of the pressure of US sanctions that have made it difficult to conduct any trade with Islamic countries. In the years of 2011-2012, a rupee-rial mechanism was put in place where around 45% of India’s purchases of Iranian crude for items like rice, wheat and medicines that were not sanctioned by the UN.
The rupee rose to a three month high in trade today. This was due to the strong FII flows and increased dollar exporters. At this point of time, India imported more than two third of its oil requirement, and this was aided by a fall in crude prices easing dollar demand from exporters.
Forex dealers speculated that greenback’s weakness against some currencies overseas. There is also a bullish trend in the equity market as easing crude oil prices also helped the rupee’s upward movement. They also mentioned that the Reserve Bank of India was not intervening to contain the sharp rise in rupee in the stock market.
Iran exports could see a hike if the US and its allies go ahead with sanctions. It means that there is potential to put a lid on growth in India’s exports to Iran. India has a good trade deficit of over $ 8 billion with Iran thanks to the oil imports so exports will not face a lot of issues when it comes to rupee. Rice alone also accounts for over 1/3rd of India’s total exports to Iran in 2017-18 and the oil purchases of India from Iran is worth around $9 billion in 2017-18. According to commerce secretary Rita Teaotia, the US move is not likely to cause any major shift in India’s trade with Iran as we have shipped out goods to Islamic nations before as per the sanctions.
One of the major highlights of the rupee rising oil prices fell after US crude inventories swelled to their inventories. India is the largest importer of oil and imports 81 per cent after US and China.
The rupee closed went on a winning streak this year since February 2017 as the currency strengthened past the 71 mark and bond prices gained 8 points on Thursday. The rupee hit the three-month high and gained over 3.1% in seven sessions.
When the dollar weakens against some other currencies, it had a direct impact on foreign fund inflows which supported the rupee. The rupee went up by 76 paise and was at its highest since August 2018 at 70.69. 
India Forex Advisors CEO Abhishek Goenka said, “The US dollar trading weak overseas has enhanced the strength in the local unit.”
Conclusion
As the market fluctuates, we can wait and watch to see how the rupee performs and its direct impact on oil prices. Foreign investors have sold $7.58bn and $5.03bn in debt and equity markets respectively this year.
Reference
https://www.financialexpress.com/market/softening-crude-oil-prices-help-rupee-to-hit-near-3-month-high-will-is-go-below-70-in-near-future/1391208/
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/markets/indian-rupee-closes-near-3-month-high-up-76-paise-to-70-69-against-us-dollar-3207191.html
 

Scrum Mythbusters – What All You Should Know About!

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

Scrum is a framework widely used in organisations to address adaptive and intricate problems. The Scrum Guide written by its originators explains roles, artefacts, events and rules of it precisely and succinctly. The greatest strength of this framework is its simplicity and the same causes many delusions and myths regarding it. In this article, we will clarify a few of the many myths surrounding the scrum.

Myth #1: The Sprint Backlog Cannot Be Modified During the Sprint

We can bust this myth by distinguishing between forecast and commitment in the prospect of Scrum Guide. The sprint backlogs describe the work that has to be done by the development team to reach sprint goal. The sprint goal is the target set by the Scrum Team during the planning process. So, as long as it doesn’t divert the sprint goal, the sprint backlogs are open to changes.

Myth #2: The Releases Should Be Done Only At the Completion of the Sprint

This is a clear case of allotting more importance to the framework than its intention. Scrum framework emphasis on feedbacks to refine the problem and find the best solution. This sometimes misleads teams to abide till the end of the sprint to release. However, the objectives of the Scrum framework support improving the methods and processes up to a circumstance where releases can be done throughout the sprint.

Myth #3: The Daily Scrum Needs the Presence of Scrum Master

The Scrum Guide clearly confirms that Daily scrum is owned by the Development Team. Even though the Scrum Master has to assure that a Daily Scrum is taking place, It is the Development team who are accountable for administering the meeting. So, the Scrum Master can join in a Daily Scrum course if he would like to but it is not obligatory.

Myth #4: Prioritized Product Backlog

The Product Backlog is specified as an ordered list in the Scrum Guide. Even though the contrast may look trivial, it has importance. The vital role required from the product owner is undercut by limiting the product backlog as a prioritised list. He/she has to continuously reorder the Product Backlog to maximise the value achieved in each sprint as work advances.

Myth #5: The Scrum Master Has To Fix All the Problem

The Scrum Master is never accountable for solving all the problems. He/she needs to help the Development Team to settle their problem. According to the Scrum Guide, one of the several roles Scrum Master must do is to remove impediments to the Development Team’s progress. The word impediments used here implies the problems that slow down the progress and lie outside the capacities of the Development team.

Myth #6: There Is No Planning In Scrum

As it turns out, a lot of planning is wanted in Scrum. The plans in this framework are hidden in the form of Product Backlogs, Spring Backlog and the Definition of Done. Different from the heavy paperwork what we traditionally understand as plans, we focus on planning as an activity to produce a shared opinion of the next step.
We busted a few popular myths about scrum in this article, and there are more myths concerning this topic. Gaining proper knowledge on the subject is the best way to limit these myths from slowing down the operations of enterprises.

The Future of Fintech and Industry Is Emerging: PM Modi

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

India is today moving fast towards digitisation and focusing on the fintech industry to help it achieve financial stability and inclusion. At the recent Singapore Fintech Festival the Indian PM Narendra Modi mentioned that with the explosive growth seen by fintech enterprises and innovation, India has emerged a good destination for technology and fintech firms. With India showing an ROI of 29% against the global average of 20% according to the Fintech 2017 report, the PM’s account is indeed true!

The Vision and the Prime Minister’s Observations

Delivering his keynote address the Indian PM claimed that Industry and Fintech were emerging. The government’s policy and the PM’s vision is to use financial technology to eradicate financial crimes and money laundering, he said, while launching the APIX banking technology to reach out with banking services to nearly 2 billion unbanked people worldwide. He also commented that adopting fintech and its potential helps reach the marginalised poor people globally and financial inclusion.
Modi emphasised that his government’s efforts in four years gave citizens easy access to credit, bank accounts, and financial pluses when compared to the previous ones aided by innovations from fintech. Demonetisation pushed the total digital transactions to 244.81Cr in 2018 August and is expected to reach $2.4 billion in the next two years as per the Ministry of and Information, Electronics, and Technology.

Future of Fintech

The midterm 2018 election in the US has impacted the emergence of fintech in the USA. With a wafer-thin majority and poor coordination between Democrats and Republicans over a host of issues like the Americans first policy, immigration issues, and sanctions, data privacy, and internet openness policies, India stands to gain.
The mantra of financial inclusion in India has been a success so far with Aadhar based e-KYC, the evolution of digital financial transactions, mobile telephony, internet banking, cashless transactions and many such modern innovations reaching the common man. This definitely benefits the government too as it taps into the huge reserve of the unbanked in India on its way to financial stability and financial inclusion.
India will definitely see the emergence of visualisation and block-chain technology in aiding financial transactions. The dropping prices of the smart-phones and internet services will only spur more people to adapt to digital transactions. The slight setback of the Supreme Court judgment is a small hiccup that India will overcome with the proper use of its fintech courses, tech-savvy personnel and vast potential for innovation in the fintech field.

How Is Fintech Disrupting Traditional Banking?

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

One of the common buzzwords that seem to have taken over the banking industry off late is Fintech. The word simply refers to using technology in all aspects of financial servicing and its functions. It is mainly seen as the replacement to all paper-driven tasks and processes, which take up a significant chunk of the banking industry.
Fintech was initially used for office functions with software used to control and manage transactions, handle personal accounts, manage databases and more. Today, however, fintech has completely transformed and changed the way banks operate. Fintech has become a vital part of customer-facing processes with every digital transaction, now available on the customer’s fingertips. Be it stock investments, transferring money, shopping, forex or even opening a bank account, FinTech is at the forefront of it all.
Here are a few ways fintech is transforming financial services in a huge manner:

Chatbots

Chatbots are software which have been coded to apply machine learning and natural language processing techniques to learn from interactions with humans. It has become a very popular tool, and banks are using it judiciously for a wide range of customer-facing processes like directing customers to departments or handling simple queries. One of Japan’s biggest banks is releasing a chatbot which aids customers to find any relevant information, directly on their website.

Blockchain

Blockchain is seen as the future of banking and as a primary disruptor in the FinTech industry in general. It uses a digital public record of transactions that is decentralised, unchangeable and anonymous. Instead of depending on a bank to maintain a private database of any records, blockchain fintech technology releases all records to the public. The impact it could have is touted as revolutionary and life-changing.

Personal Finance

Personal finance was seen as an industry that was wholly controlled by most of the major financial institutions. There are companies, however, that are making it more transparent and affordable. There are online platforms and even cell phone apps which aid businesses develop budgets, file taxes and invest and more. FinTech courses also allows people to track their expenditures on a daily basis and scan through their financial status whenever needed.

Payment technology

There are a wide array of payment technologies which allow individuals to transfer their money via the internet. By simply using smartphones and the NFC tech, payments can be completed in a flash. These services eliminate the need for a debit and credit card and even cash!
Thus, the FinTech industry is here to stay with many innovations looking to change the way individuals bank.

How AI Drives Innovation in Next Generation Cloud Business Intelligence?

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

Today, we have access to a huge amount of technology and other systems through the internet – Artificial Intelligent systems are one of those. AI is becoming a larger part of our lives with each passing day, and the chances are that AI systems would already have affected us in some way or the other.
AI, in essence, is a predictive technology. The main function of every AI system is to essentially make a prediction based on the amount of data and information that it analyses. Since it can sift through any large amount of data, it is thus a type of technology that improves our lives in a huge manner. Similarly, the role of business intelligence and business analytics has changed too – it is now something that deals with increasing amounts of predictive analysis rather than historical analysis, and is available to users as an interactive, easy-to-use tool.

Thought Spot

Thought Spot is one of the pioneers in the segment of Business Intelligence – the California based company can be credited for creating a Google-like search engine which can analyse large amounts of data quickly and completely so as to provide the user with some great insights into the data. Thought Spot’s Ad-hoc version of data analytics provides various amazing services, like extremely transparent calculations into how each insight was derived, accompanying of natural language narratives with the rendered charts and a guided, curated search experience which generates suggestions for the users based on the role, the data model and the search history of the person. Thought Spot and its data analytics model is truly something to watch out for, in the future.

Anticipatory Models

Companies like Thought Spot and other data-driven Business Intelligence organisations are considered to be the forerunners of the next, and perhaps the largest wave in Business Intelligence called the anticipatory intelligence. They aim to leverage the usage of AI in a number of scenarios, like anticipatory devices, conversations and contexts. In this first one, the aim is to automate something that a large number of users are trying to do in a small time period so that it happens quicker and better. In the second and third, natural language processing systems are used so as to predict what the users are going to say, and thus promote rapid communication.
If all of this fascinates you, you should definitely look at the business analytics training courses and the data science courses that Imarticus Learning has to offer.

How Can You Develop an Agile Mindset? Top Ways to Develop an Agile Mindset

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

Learning how to consciously approach every task at hand with an agile mindset, gives individuals and organisations an ability to foresee problems and provide solutions in an incremental fashion.
Adopting agile way of thinking in today’s dynamic, volatile work environment is expected. Most organizations, especially the IT sector has embraced agile with vigor and have brought about an instrumental change in the way they conduct business. In order to be agile adept, one needs to first learn the agile methodology through any agile business analyst courses available online.
But what is agile? How do you adopt an agile mindset in order to pursue an agile career? What opportunities does it provide? These questions might come to your mind when you hear the word ‘agile’. Agile in short is a sprint based methodology predominantly used in software developer to address customer needs and provide efficient solutions thereby aiding incremental growth. Agile thinking gives professionals the opportunity to anticipate problems, hit milestones and work in ‘sprints’ as opposed to a more traditional sequential approach.
Those who navigate the realms of their careers successfully, first and foremost have the ability to adapt to any business environment, challenge issues and arrive at decisions quicker than the rest.
An agile business training will provide you with the right mindset to make timely decisions and accelerate growth. Here are the top ways to develop an agile mindset.

Embrace Flexibility

One of the key attributes of agile methodology is the ability to work in a flexible manner on any given problem. In a business ecosystem, one should be able to strategy in a flexible manner in order to enhance performance. For instance, an agile business analyst course will equip you with the knowledge to work with agility.

Leveraging Ecosystem

In any business setting, there are a lot of parallel programs and ecosystems which can be leveraged to derive a measurable output. One of the best approaches to developing an agile mindset is by leveraging ecosystems available within an organisation to arrive at a solution.

Providing Exponential Value

As an agile business analyst, you will be able to understand the customer needs, collaborate, hit milestones and achieve results faster, thereby creating an added value for your clients.

Harness Abundance

Opportunities are abundant to those who seek it in any business environment. To work in an agile way is the ability to see the various options available before taking an executive decision.

Conclusion

To be agile is the ability to foresee problems, think through solutions and embrace risk in a swift and efficient manner. Today, to be agile is a way of life and adopting a mindset to be agile will prepare you for the future.
Reference
https://www.seattletimes.com/sponsored/developing-your-agile-mindset/

How Can You Paint Yourself Outside from Agile career Development ?

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

Agile or scrum methodology is transforming the way organisations do business today. In order to thrive in this environment, one must be able to look at an Agile career trajectory.
Being agile has become an important attribute for any individual in today’s digital era. In order to match the pace of a digital transformation journey of an organisation, teams within the place must have the ability to cope with change. Coping with change entails, taking risks, learning new things and creating a lasting impact on the business and its growth.
Suppose you are working for an organisation that is undergoing massive changes in their structure. For you to access your own career trajectory, you must be able to adopt an agile outlook by asking the right questions such as ‘What is my foreseeable future here?’, ‘What is my learning curve and success quotient?’, ‘What are the needs of my customer and how can I meet them?’, ‘What are the potential risks involved?’.
Today, workplaces are dynamic, vague and flexible and to match the pace, individuals must look externally as well as internally before aligning their career goals. Individual development must undergo a similar agile transformation to switch gears effectively.
Successful career navigators have the ability to adapt to the changing business environment, customer needs, and competition and are able to process real-time information before making decisions and proceeding further.
As an individuals, here are the top things you can do after undertaking any agile business analyst courses

Embracing Risks

The ability to think on your feet and embrace risks comes easily to agile analysts. Using the sprint methodology, at every step of the way you will be able to assess pitfalls, take decisions and mitigate the loss thereby producing faster results.

The Future Is Agile

Pursuing an Agile career early on will have rewarding prospects in the future as workforces are moving towards an agile environment. From agile workspaces, teams with agile competencies, the future of workplace is about agility.

Providing Exponential Value

As an agile business analyst you will be able to understand the customer needs, collaborate, hit milestones and achieve results faster, thereby creating an added value for your clients.

Thrive In Change

You will not only embrace change, but you will also be able to thrive in it in an agile methodology. Teams working in an agile fashion have the opportunity to re-prioritise and refine, test several times and providing incremental growth before going live.

Conclusion

Businesses today are increasingly looking at individuals who are willing to ‘sprint’ with them. In an environment where change is dynamic, volatile and evidently present, being an agile analyst is rewarding.

What is The Impact of Agile Methodology on Businesses?

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

Go agile. Companies today are switching to the fast lane of agile methodology when it comes to running the business.

Suppose you have gotten into your car and it is not working due to overheating. You have some experience fixing cars, so you immediately decide to tinkle with it a little bit, get into the car, start it and then maybe decide to do some more testing before proceeding to drive off. This is a real-life example of what being agile means. Businesses today are increasing going agile due to the fact that it is collaborative, transparent and flexible.

Agile business training gives organisations the opportunity to pivot quickly when the time comes and make swift decisions, rather than following a sequential process.

Let us first understand what Agile is? In a traditional software development set-up, the project follows a waterfall method. This means that a client will not receive the end product until the entire project is complete. Agile, on the other hand, is like a sprint. Throughout the lifecycle of the software development, there will be incremental changes which will ensure that the product goes live quicker.

Business Analyst Course with Placement are disruptive and swift and enable companies to take quick decisions along the way rather than wait till the end. Companies today in different sectors are matching the Industry 4.0 wave by leaping onto the agile methodology in their digital transformation journey.

Now, how does going agile benefit a business? While you may be under the impression that slow and steady wins the race, in the era of digital transformation, going agile gives companies the ability to access risks as and when they appear and mitigate it immediately.

It means faster to market products, more efficient teams with digital capabilities. For example, with the use of agile methodology, an Agile business analyst will be able to identify a glitch in the system and rectify it before taking it live or testing it.
Here are the top benefits of adopting an agile methodology

Identifying Problems Early On

With agile, the ability to spot problems every step of the process is much easier and faster, thereby addressing along the way and fixing it. Teams working on projects are most efficient, performance improves benefiting the company overall.

Addressing Customer Needs

Organisations are increasingly using agile to understand customer needs better and deliver faster outputs. Agile teams are more intuitive, can make swift decisions and thereby address the customer needs leading to enhanced customer experience.

Faster Feedbacks

As mentioned in the article earlier, a traditional methodology such as waterfall, takes longer to turnaround feedback, whereas in agile, feedback is faster, as there are tangible milestones throughout the delivery
Conclusion
For any business to grow today, agile is the new norm. In order to flourish in a digital era, going agile will not only help companies scale costs but also harness abundance and embrace risks.

Household Electricity Consumption – Machine Learning Algorithm

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

Power supply, generation, and its billing generate a huge amount of data. ML actually makes it possible to learn from this data and use an algorithm to accurately predict future occurrences like volumes of load and its demand, snag identification, efficiency and power loss reduction, problems and logistics involved in metering and billing and everything in between from power generation to its billing and beyond.
Machine learning courses in India could teach you how to understand ML and data analytics, so you aid ML to perform at its best in predicting outcomes. The Algorithm in ML for household electricity consumption works on data drawn from smart meters, solar panels, and data regarding the usage of electricity at different times of the day.
This huge data comprises the multi-variable time-series, and the algorithm can successfully predict future consumption. In real terms, the ML algorithm can predict such information as to help make the power generation and supply system more efficient.
Obviously, there are many steps involved in helping the machine take data in its raw multivariate form and enabling it to arrive at the future consumption prediction. This is where Machine learning courses come in handy. You can learn the techniques of ML involving predictive strategies like the direct methods and the recursive ones.
A good idea is to also incorporate learning of Big Data Hadoop training courses that can help one understand strategies, working of ML and data analytics. The logic of the process of algorithm development would be developing

  • The framework development for evaluation of non- linear, linear, and ML ensemble algorithms.
  • Evaluation of ML as it uses the strategy of forecasting the time-series both by the direct daily method and the recursive method.

Again such processes involve

  1. Describing the problem.
  2. Preparing and loading the data set.
  3. Evaluating the model.
  4. Recursive forecasting.
  5. Multi-Step direct forecasting.

Through highly accurate predictions ML helps the algorithm to plan future power generation, reduce transmission losses, tweak the metering, billing and collection systems and so much more. Once you master such algorithms, ML and data analytics, the scope of applying ML to various and everyday issues on a real-time basis, open the wide world of opportunity and good remuneration to you.
Yes, ML and data analytics use Python framework which has immense scope for progress basically because it can predict the outcomes of simple and complex tasks, single and multi-variate tasks, and even makes single and complex predictions by learning from the data, filling in the missing values, creating new values and so on. And to learn an ML course is essential. Start today and soon you will be able to master such tasks quite easily.

Reference:
https://machinelearningmastery.com/multi-step-time-series-forecasting-with-machine-learning-models-for-household-electricity-consumption/