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The Hindu
14-07-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Creating the right talent and grounding key to attracting GCCs, says Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan
Creating the right talent and grounding is key to attracting Global Capability Centres (GCCs), said Tamil Nadu Minister for Information Technology and Digital Services Palanivel Thiaga Rajan in Coimbatore on Monday. Speaking at the GCC Coimbatore Summit 2025, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) – Coimbatore, he said, 'The greatest challenge for GCCs is to avoid over-reliance on niche specialists. The need is for well-rounded professionals who can work across functions and integrate easily with global platforms. The more we produce such talent, the more attractive cities like Coimbatore become for global firms.' He said GCCs seek professionals who can grow as they would in any global city, and that Coimbatore's culture of inclusion, openness, and entrepreneurship sets it apart. Retaining this spirit, along with fostering innovation, is key to the city's next phase of growth. The theme of the summit was Coimbatore: India's Twin-Engine GCC Hub, highlighting how the city's traditional strength in industrial engineering is now intersecting with digital innovation — all within the cost structures of a Tier-II city but with the capabilities of a Tier-I metro. Mahalingam Ramasamy, Convenor of the GCC Taskforce, CII Coimbatore, said, 'The transformation is happening at Tier-II cost structures without compromising on Tier-I capabilities. This makes Coimbatore competitive and future-ready. Unlike congested Tier-I metros, the city offers scalability without saturation. It provides a robust platform for companies to build multidisciplinary centres focused on high-value work.' R. Nandini, Immediate Past Chairperson of CII Southern Region and Managing Director of Chandra Textiles Pvt. Ltd., said one of the city's key strengths lies in its educational ecosystem. 'The city has nine institutions in the top 100 of the NIRF national rankings and produces over one lakh graduates every year, with more than 50,000 in STEM disciplines. Yet, more than 50% of this talent migrates to metro cities. Retaining this talent pool is critical. GCCs can serve as a catalyst for Coimbatore's emergence as a global industrial and digital hub.' The summit featured sessions on infrastructure, quality of life, and GCC readiness. Guidance Tamil Nadu outlined investment schemes, and panels discussed office space, talent, and digital transformation. The summit also saw the launch of a report by Zinnov and CBRE, focusing on the potential for GCC expansion in Coimbatore.
Time of India
02-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Volatility is a growth opportunity: Nasscom president
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Geopolitics, trade tariffs, and rapid tech shifts are creating constant unpredictability but this volatility isn't a threat but a growth opportunity, Nasscom president Rajesh Nambiar said on Tuesday at the industry body's People Summit. He believed India is well-placed to lead through its strengths in GCCs, ER&D, and a rising tech-driven talent opened the Summit with a call to reimagine work and reposition talent for a changing world. In an era defined by uncertainty, he outlined why leadership must evolve, starting with people."We look at the uncertainty as a challenge and then the fact that there is so much opportunity," he said. "This is not going to happen without a significant focus on people and talent becomes the undercurrent for everything. Our business leaders have to be people leaders and our HR leaders will have to be business leaders."He went on to add that culture and engagement will be a driving factor and that hiring should focus on skills, not degrees. Further, he felt that HR tech and AI must be embedded into workflows to stay competitive. Nambiar highlighted that in order to build a hybrid future of humans and AI, learnability should be at the the Summit, Tamil Nadu's minister for Information Technology and Digital Services, P Thiaga Rajan spoke of the intersection of technology, people, policy, and infrastructure. He highlighted the need for AI to touch the lives of citizens at every level of society."The only real long term solution is that it has to be ubiquitous, it has to be comprehensive and it has to be across all levels of interaction," he said. "It can't be only people with smartphones or only people with laptops. It needs to be at every level of society. Technology on the government side and citizens on the other side. It has to be comprehensive."Nasscom also announced the formation of its new Talent Council — a strategic industry-led initiative dedicated to building a future-ready, globally competitive digital workforce . It announced Satish H. C., chief delivery officer at Infosys , as the chair of the Council."With over three decades of experience in global talent strategy, innovation, and digital transformation, Satish will lead the council's efforts to shape a globally competitive, high-trust industry workforce," Nasscom said in a Council will seek to unlock new models for talent mobility, retention, and models, while driving regionally distributed employability programs. Equally, it aims to strengthen data-driven decision-making by enabling access to exclusive research, market intelligence, and global best practices to shape organisational strategies.
Express Tribune
30-06-2025
- Business
- Express Tribune
Canada scraps digital services tax, paving way for renewed US trade talks
US President Donald Trump meets with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, May 6, 2025. REUTERS Listen to article The United States will resume trade negotiations with Canada immediately after Ottawa scrapped its digital services tax targeting US technology firms, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Monday. "Absolutely," Hassett said on Fox News Channel when asked about the talks restarting. US President Donald Trump had asked the Canadians to take the tax off at a G7 meeting in Canada earlier in June, he said. "It's something that they've studied, now they've agreed to, and for sure, that means that we can get back to the negotiations." Canada halted its plans to begin collecting a new digital services tax targeting US technology firms just hours before this was due to start on Monday in a bid to advance stalled trade negotiations with the US. Canada's finance ministry said late on Sunday that Prime Minister Mark Carney and Trump would resume trade negotiations in order to agree on a deal by July 21. "Thank you Canada for removing your Digital Services Tax which was intended to stifle American innovation and would have been a deal breaker for any trade deal with America," US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick responded in a post on X. Stocks hit record highs on Wall Street on Monday morning as sentiment in the markets rose amid optimism about US trade negotiations with key partners, including Canada. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also struck an optimistic tone over the potential for "a flurry" of trade deals ahead of a July 9 deadline, after which 10% US tariff rates on imports from many countries are set to snap back to Trump's April 2 announced rates of 11% to 50%. But Bessent, speaking on Bloomberg Television, warned that countries may not get extensions from that deadline, even if they are negotiating in good faith as he suggested previously. Any extensions would be up to Trump himself, Bessent said. Trump abruptly called off trade talks with Canada on Friday over Ottawa's digital services tax, saying it was a "blatant attack." He reiterated this on Sunday, pledging to set a new tariff rate on Canadian goods within the next week, which threatened to push US -Canada relations back into chaos after a period of relative calm. "We have countries that are negotiating in good faith, but they should be aware that if we can't get across the line because they are being recalcitrant, then we could spring back to the April 2 levels," Bessent said. "I hope that won't have to happen." Trump and Carney met at the G7 summit, with the Canadian prime minister saying they had agreed to wrap up a new economic agreement within 30 days. Canada's planned digital tax was 3% of the digital services revenue a firm takes in from Canadian users above $20 million in a calendar year, and payments were to be retroactive to 2022. It would have impacted giant US technology firms, including Meta, Alphabet's Google and Apple. The tax collection slated for Monday will be halted, a statement from Canada's finance ministry said. Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne will bring forward legislation to rescind the Digital Services Tax Act. Canadian business groups applauded Carney's decision as well as the US Congress' removal of a "revenge tax" provision from Republican tax legislation, known as 899. "The decision to eliminate the DST makes sense. This tax would have fallen on Canadian consumers, businesses, and investors in the form of higher costs and hurt our economy at a critical time," said David Pierce, vice president of Government Relations at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in a statement. Some observers said Carney's decision ran counter to his campaign promises, however. Carney's Liberal party won an election in April pledging to stand up to Trump. "It feels like we're standing down really quickly," said Vass Bednar, managing director of the Canadian Shield Institute for Public Policy, a think tank. Opposition Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre said Carney needs to demand concessions from Trump. "Canadians need certainty that Liberals will put Canada First and defend Canadian sovereignty in these negotiations," Poilievre said on X. Canada is the second-largest US trading partner after Mexico, and the largest buyer of US exports. It bought $349.4 billion of US goods last year and exported $412.7 billion to the US, according to US Census Bureau data. Canada had escaped Trump's broad tariffs imposed in April but still faces other duties, including 50% on steel and aluminum exports to the United States.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
An HP president says AI isn't coming for everybody's job, only the jobs of people who don't learn to use it
With the rise of AI, many employees and recent graduates are concerned about their job futures. Faisal Masud, president of HP Digital Services, shares his advice for how fresh grads can leverage AI. He also shares how, with the right mindset and upskilling, people can turn AI into a great sidekick. If you're a recent graduate, you're probably feeling some anxiety about entering the workforce. Employees — especially Gen Zs — report feeling burned out, while return-to-office mandates are affecting people's work-life balance. And as CEOs bluster about AI wiping out half of all entry-level white collar jobs, employees and soon-to-be employees naturally feel concerned for their future. It's often said that millennials grew up with smartphones, and in a similar way, today's grads are getting in on the ground floor with AI. When I graduated from college in the 90s, most people in the workforce could barely use the internet, so my generation thrived because we were fluent in the online world. In a similar way, it's early enough for fresh grads to be a part of this first wave of AI use. AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini all provide free options, and you can gain a competitive advantage by learning to use them now. But AI isn't coming for everybody's job — it's coming for the jobs of people who don't learn to use AI. I feel confident that AI will make work more rewarding and enjoyable if you give it the opportunity. AI won't be leading a meeting with your biggest client anytime soon, or finalizing the plans for your spring offsite, or hiring the next VP of sales. Despite CEOs arguing that AI will take over entry-level work, enterprises are not ready to roll AI out across the entire organization. Instead, AI will help by doing the tedious parts of your job that you don't enjoy, freeing you up for more meaningful work. You'll still lead your client meeting, but an AI tool will crank out a draft of the presentation and summarize the meeting notes afterward. You'll still make the important decisions about your offsite, but AI will find you 20 locations to choose from — and email them all to check for availability. In this way, AI operates much more like an assistant than a new colleague who you'll have to compete with to keep your job. Your intelligence, judgment, and awareness will remain indispensable for this type of work. So yes, AI may be taking components of entry-level work, but it's not eliminating job opportunities entirely; it's evolving what entry-level work looks like. This kind of automation will allow you to gain more high-quality work experience early in your career, leading to faster growth and career advancement. Tech has a history of creating more jobs, not fewer, and AI is no different. Now is the time to start learning and using AI tools to get ahead of the curve. Forget generic résumés that get lost in the pile; AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini can dissect job descriptions, pinpoint essential keywords, and supercharge your résumé and cover letter so that they make it past automated screening systems. AI tools can also generate realistic mock interview questions to assist with interview preparation. Think of AI as a 24/7 career assistant. Powerful AI agents like OpenAI's Operator function can even scan job boards and submit applications on your behalf. These capabilities are still emerging, but the outcome is that you'll be able to expand your job search and apply for many more roles with precisely targeted applications. Just don't over-index on your AI use. If you use AI to spruce up your cover letter, read closely to ensure it's accurate and still sounds like you and doesn't exaggerate your capabilities. Otherwise, you run the risk of falling short of expectations when potential employers meet you in person, or winding up in a job where you're out of your depth. AI will also streamline the tech experience at work. I often think about how good the tech experience has become in our personal lives. My smartphone updates in the background and connects automatically to my TV and car. AI-powered apps like Uber and DoorDash have made my life so convenient that I take them for granted. But tech in the workplace hasn't kept up. For example, I was about to join a board meeting recently when my videoconferencing system decided to install an update. Last month, I was building a presentation when the software crashed without saving my last changes. AI will analyze the experience of millions of users and learn when it's the best time to update your Zoom (hint: it's not right before a meeting). It'll also recognize that your computer is slowing down and automatically alert the IT department to fix or replace it, saving you the hassle. In addition, AI will handle interactions with internal departments like IT, HR, and payroll. You won't have to waste time submitting expense reports, filing tickets, or asking questions about benefits and leave policies. These are all tasks that will be made faster and easier with AI. If your company dumps a new set of technologies onto you when you're already feeling overwhelmed, it's likely to cause frustration rather than make your job easier. Here's how you can get the most out of AI tools and actually look forward to using them: Ask questions about how AI will impact your role. Don't wait for clarity — be proactive and find out how these tools will affect your day-to-day tasks and long-term career. Identify how AI can enhance your workflows. Look for ways these tools can save time, reduce manual effort, or improve decision-making. Your goal should be to build a reliable, repeatable motion that can scale. Take charge of your learning. Invest time in mastering the tech's capabilities and understanding its limitations. You can accelerate learning through experimentation, trial and error, and by using GenAI tools. Stay informed about your company's goals and AI strategy. Pay attention to leadership's messaging and align your efforts with how AI tools are being positioned to support the company's objectives. Advocate for transparency and collaboration. If something isn't clear or feels off, speak up. An open dialogue with your manager can help ensure these tools benefit both you and the organization. AI isn't here to replace you—it's here to help you thrive. With the right mindset and a little upskilling, you can turn it into your ultimate sidekick, simplifying tasks and freeing you to focus on what truly matters: creativity, big ideas, and making an impact. Faisal Masud is the president of HP Digital Services, where he oversees the development of HP's Workforce Experience Platform (WXP), which uses AI to anticipate employees' IT needs and address them automatically. Before joining HP in 2023, Faisal was a former Amazon VP, Alphabet Wing COO, and Staples CTO. Do you have a story to share about AI's impact on your job? Contact this editor, Jane Zhang, at janezhang@ Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Upturn
29-05-2025
- Business
- Business Upturn
BlueCheck Expands with Enformion in Race to Provide Age Verification to Half of America by 2026
AUSTIN, TX & SACRAMENTO, CA -, May 29, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — BlueCheck, the U.S. leader in privacy-first age verification, has partnered with Enformion to supercharge its real-time decision engine as demand accelerates nationwide. BlueCheck now protects more than $1 billion in annual online spend across digital properties that collectively serve billions of user sessions monthly—all while maintaining industry-leading 99.5% approval accuracy and 95%+ fully-automated pass rates. With double-digit quarterly growth while maintaining profitability, BlueCheck is on track to verify half of all U.S. adults by 2026. BlueCheck partners with Enformion Massive Market Opportunity Since 2024, more than a dozen U.S. states have enacted or are actively debating comprehensive age-verification requirements, creating an evolving regulatory landscape that's driving platforms and merchants toward proven, low-friction solutions. Why This Partnership Matters Accuracy at scale — Enformion's comprehensive identity graph delivers richer data signals that enhance BlueCheck's industry-leading 99.5% accuracy without adding user friction. Proven market leader — BlueCheck has earned recognition as 'Top Identity Verification Software' for eight consecutive quarters while processing billions in protected transactions. Industry standard-setter — BlueCheck sits on the Age Verification Providers Association board and actively shapes IEEE P2089 (Age-Appropriate Digital Services) and P2089.1 (Age Assurance & Parental Consent) standards. Policy influence — BlueCheck executives regularly engage with attorneys general, lawmakers, trade associations, and lobbying groups while presenting at premier forums including Stanford's Internet Observatory and Liminal's Age Assurance Summit. Executive Commentary Alex Zeig, CEO, BlueCheck: 'We're building effortless trust—verifying legitimate adults instantly while protecting their privacy. Enformion's data depth lets us enhance our accuracy advantage and fuel the explosive growth this market demands.' Chris Lundquist, CEO, Enformion: 'Our partnership with BlueCheck demonstrates how leading-edge innovators can leverage Enformion's identity data to power secure, compliant, and privacy-forward digital experiences. BlueCheck's expertise in age verification, combined with our robust identity intelligence, creates a powerful solution at a time when fraud prevention and consumer protection are more critical than ever.' About BlueCheck Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Austin, BlueCheck delivers real-time, API-driven age verification for hundreds of major online platforms. Its privacy-first architecture and 99.5% approval rate protect billions in online transactions while maximizing user conversion rates. About Enformion Enformion is a leading identity data and analytics platform that powers consumer and business identity verification, sales and marketing intelligence, investigations, and collections. Harnessing a 40+ year historical consumer and business identity graph that covers over 98% of the US population, the platform forms the foundational data layer for understanding the individual and business behind every identity and marketing interaction. Media Contacts BlueCheck — [email protected] Enformion — [email protected] BlueCheck, Top Performer, Spring 2025 Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with GlobeNewswire. Business Upturn takes no editorial responsibility for the same.
