MindScape

Believing on the fact that economic performance and social responsibility can go hand in hand, we have recently made ourselves involved in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes, where we aim to make a genuine consideration of our impact on the communities, and to put our contribution for the betterment of the environment in which we live.

At Vinove Software and Services, we view CSR as a true effort to influence society in a manner that earns the trust and respect for the people living in it. Our members have made notable efforts with the help of whom a significant contribution towards society became possible for us and we are able to fulfill this responsibility aggressively. Our company is actively working in the areas like education, health, skill development, fulfilling needs of poor, empowerment of weaker sections of the society, etc.

Understanding the importance of definition of Kyosie, which is “All people, regardless of race, religion or culture, harmoniously living and working together into the future”, we want to make CSR an important organ of our organization in our own way.

As a part of our first significant CSR activity, we distributed blankets and sweaters to nearly 50 people living near metro construction site. The condition in which these people were living was worse and they were not even provided with proper shelter to cover their head. The next activity we organized was to serve meal and other food items to approx 100 people living in a slum for whom affording two meals a day is difficult. We do not only focus to help these people and fulfill their basic requirements but our responsibility is to work something appreciable, something in favour of our environment.

In our coming blog, we would discuss more on our plans and what contributions we would be making towards social responsibilities as a part of our CSR activities.

New Year celebration does not always mean to celebrate it by partying in a discotheque and get drunk but there are better ways to celebrate this much-awaited occasion. To prove this, we planned to celebrate new year eve in a new way and decided to spend a complete day by being together, playing sports, enjoying water rides, having good food and a lot more.

Yes, the day finally arrived- it was 1st January, 2010. We reached office in the morning with a smile on our face and… excitement in our heart. We were getting ready to board the bus in excitement. Our bus started heading towards the destined spot- Wet n Wild Resort, situated in Gurgaon, Haryana.

Like the name suggests, the place was ultimate wet… as there were several waterslides to enjoy.

As soon as we boarded the bus, we started screaming in joy, wondering how to keep a hold on our throbbing heart beats. People scattered everywhere in the bus, in an attempt to occupy the seats next to their good friends.

Bus ride has always been a part of fun tale, then how could we missed the chance to sing and play Antakshari. Groups divided and we excited! Most enthusiastic among all were Prashant, Bhavna, Neha, Shweta and Manjeet who were enjoying the moment by not following the rules of the game. That was not all, then started the session of taking pictures.

Soon we reached the destination. We shouted in thrill and rushed towards restaurant where we were welcomed with tea, coffee, sandwiches and soft drinks. After having ourselves filled with energy, we geared up to enjoy sports and play other games like bowling alley, pool, carom, badminton, etc. Shweta and Neha soon rushed towards badminton ground to occupy the space, joined with Umar Qazi. A bunch of boys headed towards another ground to enjoy cricket and basket ball.

Not only this, there were some others like Manish Chauhan, Manish Rawat,  Naveen, Saurav, Sameer, Rahul and Prashant who went to pool area and played pool and bowling there. We had never seen someone attempted to score points by rolling balls along the surface so well other than Durgesh, Rajeev, Neha and Manjeet. On the other side, Chandresh and Qazi were silently playing carom.

We reiterated our childhood memories by enjoying rides in children park, where Ruhi and Bhavna caught riding see-saw and Saurav was found playing on a swing. The happening couples of the day, Mohit with his wife, Ashish and his wife and Sanjeev with his wife, were enjoying weather, sitting under a shady terrace with a fishpond view, gossiping and looking others enjoying here and there. To our surprise, Sanjeev with his little daughter did enjoy water ride too in such chilling weather.

We were now tired of playing games. Soon our hungry stomach stopped hearing anything else but the sound of food. So, without wasting time further we headed towards the restaurant to enjoy lip smacking dishes served with delicious cuisines like jalebies, ice creams and dahi bhalle at lunch, oh.. how can we forget them? After our tongue was savored with great tastes, we thought to relax. But the music coming out of discotheque didn’t let our feet to stop tapping on the beats. On this note, we can not forget our two great dancers, Umar and Rakesh who did not feel exhausted and danced to the last tune.

As we were enjoying the moment, a soft romantic song was intentionally played by the DJ to invite couples on the floor. It was great to watch them holding hands in hands and dancing on the slow music.

We did not want the DJ to stop music and come out of disco but we had to keep a check on time also As soon as we reached the hall to had our snacks with evening tea, we were surprised to know that one more activity was waiting ahead for us to take part in, yes that was Tambola. We were overwhelmed once again!

Tambola is always great since it gives us chance to play, enjoy and win few bucks. Unfortunately, each one of us could not be lucky, right! Vishnu was the luckiest among all, who won the game as Full House winner.

We wanted to capture all the fun we had that day by clicking a group picture of ours. And we did that. Now came the time when we had to board the bus to go back. We can never forget the day, it was joyous, momentous, and much more.

Thanks to our HR team and Fun team for making the day memorable!

Five great successful years of ‘Vinove Software and Services’ has taken the organization to a new height where imagination, creativity and diversity forms the core. We pride ourselves to possess skilled manpower, not only because they are highly talented but also for the fact that they are dedicated towards their responsibilities. We hire people who are ambitious, who understand their responsibilities well and can give their heart and soul to the work. We encourage ideas and contribution of each member and value it. At Vinove, we devoutly follow the culture of coming together, working together and succeeding together.

Vinove is a platform where you do not only live your dreams but your dreams can turn into reality. Vinove apprehends the importance of building a good team, therefore it requires your support. Give yourself a chance to discover the exciting opportunities at Vinove. It’s the time to take first step towards a bright career.

We have an excellent opportunity for MBA freshers and are recruiting currently for the following positions;

1) Trainee – ONLINE MARKETING (5)

Job description:

• To achieve marketing goals by creating, measuring, analyzing and optimizing online marketing programs.
• Will collaborate with Product Marketing, Marketing Communications, Sales and involve in several other functions (email campaigns, blogs, co-marketing opportunities, online advertising, SEM) to create and deploy highly effective online marketing programs

2) Trainee – INTERNATIONAL/DOMESTIC SALES (2)

Job Description:

• Responsible for all sales activities, from lead generation to close in an assigned territory.
• Support teams for the achievement of customer satisfaction, revenue generation, and long-term account goals in line with company vision and values.

For more details, visit our website.

* Carry your original educational certificates along with you to receive immediate offer letter.

PS: We encourage you to forward this link to your friends.

Till now the main purpose of domains was to just serve Web pages, but from now they will contribute in saving the environment also.

The introduction of a new Top Level Domain (TLD) called .eco in the arena of website domain names will aggregate the environmental information about organizations and individuals. According to the Backers of .eco, “.eco domain is established for individuals who want to express their support for environmental causes, for companies to promote their environmental initiatives, and for environmental organizations to maintain their websites in a namespace that is more relevant to their core missions.”

In order to make it a trust mark for environmental and sustainability information, the .eco domain name is being proposed to ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). It is being considered as a part of a new expansion of domain names which are set to occur in 2010.

The .eco site would be the place where the companies would aggregate all of their green information. All the pertinent eco-information that companies want to reveal about themselves or their products will be now available with their products having an eco label and their registration with .eco domain. Another kind of information could include membership information in environment organizations or efforts as well as the potential information regarding the use of energy.

The .eco TLD isn’t just being proposed for big vendors only, it will be useful for small business and individuals also. As millions of small businesses are looking for a framework that could exhibit their environment progress, .eco could work as that framework. Additionally, .eco will be helpful for individuals to track their own environmental activities and footsteps.

Leading environmental activist Al Gore recently revealed his backing for the proposed introduction of .eco by announcing his support for a new social venture called Dot Eco LLC, which aims to secure the .eco top level domain.

Being closer to customers is imperative for any business and becomes obligatory during this economic slump. During this tough time, finding new customers for your business is quite tough and expensive whereas it takes less effort and is economical to retain your existing customers. Moreover, it is easier to sell additional products to existing clients than to search for the new ones, in this downturn.

Here are some tips that you can undergo to retain customers and beat this recession:

Arrange Regular Personal Meetings: Personal meetings with customers show them that you are interested in their business. With this you will get an opportunity to see things with the customers’ point of view, and enables you to deal with the issues before any problem arises. You can make it simple by putting your email id on website so that customers can contact you directly.

Request an Opinion: Asking customers for their feedback, convinces them to consider that you are always keen to find out what are their expectations. Use of questions like ‘How can we improve our services?’, ‘Could we do better to meet the service standards you expect from us?’ etc. shows to customers that you value their suggestions and take care of their concerns by doing what’s needed, required and important.

Treat them in a Different Way: Your customers value their relationships with you. They are more likely to respond positively to efforts to improve that relationship. They deserve to be treated differently. Out deliver your promises to customers, and they will be delighted to come back for more business from you.

Perform an Inside Job: One quick and effective way to find out what your customers are thinking is to ask your employees as they already have (or should have) relationships with customers so it should be easy. Make it part of their job. Guide and encourage them to have conversations with customers that result in your company knowing more about your customers’ expectations.

Go For an In-Depth Study: Consider going into greater depth with focusing a few representative customers instead of surveying a wide range of customers. Learning the changing habits of your core customers is a better use of resources than focusing on new customers in this economic depression.

“Recession is a difficult time for every business, but don’t allow it to be a time of complete failure.”

Finally, Microsoft is all set to wrap off its much anticipated search engine named Bing, (formerly coded as Kumo). Going to be fully operational from June 3, 2009, Bing is a replacement for Windows Live Search. Unveiled as a ‘Decision Engine’ by Microsoft CEO- Steve Ballmer on May 28, 2009 at the ‘All Things D’ conference in San Diego, the search engine has been started as an attempt to smack down Google’s domination in the search arena.

Will Bing takeover Google’s dominance?  Is Bing a Google-killer?

We can’t say with a certainty that Bing will dethrone Google or not, but surely there are some unique features which enable Bing to withstand competition against Google and Yahoo.

Home Page: The most remarkable feature of Bing is its homepage which is loaded with nice wallpapers that seem to change on a daily basis. By hovering over the mouse on the image you can also find the story behind the wallpaper.

Search: Bing throws the information at you in a much uncluttered, unconfused and neat manner. Bing includes navigation for search results, including a new left-hand navigation bar and a categorized search feature that groups all search results by topic category. What is liked most about the web results are the snippets of information that are seen beside every search result link.

Other Features: There are other expected features on home page such as Images, Videos, News, Maps along with Shopping and Travel. You can also check out the bits of information at the bottom of the homepage; there’s also a ‘Popular Now’ link that shows you the topics that are currently getting the buzz at Bing.

Well, it might take some time getting used to this new set of search results and finally coming to a judgment  ‘Is Bing better than Google and Yahoo?’ but Microsoft has had a good start with Bing by creating a good amount of buzz as well as receiving some early positive reviews for this nice search engine.

Have you ever analyzed how intelligent your business is? Do you and your employees have in-depth knowledge regarding the processes to drive profits to the business? How do you acquire that knowledge and understanding, and do you exercise them for shaping the future of your business?

Above questions could be answered easily by business executives by simply monitoring the sales and revenue of their businesses. But the real question which can be asked today is how do you achieve Business Intelligence in this Internet ruled economy or simply how do you achieve E-Business Intelligence?

E-business intelligence can be described as Internet market feedback which enables an enterprise to measure and manage return on investment (ROI). Certain facts which drive E-business intelligence are: the ways to maximize traffic on website, having ample Internet affiliations, distribution of company’s products on the Internet, competitors pulling your business to drive their business etc. These facts, in future give birth to business strategies/models.

Internet has an impact over online and offline aspects of a business. These aspects can be related to legal activities, corporate reputation, infrastructure, strategies and interactive activities of the business. Since, Internet is too large to monitor the violations or immoral activities against the business; E-business intelligence is used to implement a step by step process so as to eradicate those iniquitous activities. The step by step procedure follows as:

Step 1 – Know your exposure on the Internet: The correct knowledge of your scope on Internet would assist in forming a baseline for deciding about the trends that need to be tracked over a period of time.

Step 2 – Developing official policies and procedures: Official corporate policies and procedures justify the application of different consequences and treatment for the websites that violate your business.

Step 3 –Use of practical measures: Practical or proactive measures are repeatable and sustainable. These can help in bringing out actions/behaviors that affect your bottom line business and how they can be cured.

Step 4 - Being decisive: The addition of ‘E’ to a business makes it more competitive. Whether your enterprise is big or small, the matter focuses on being attentive and decisive so as to drive more people to your site.

“US President Barack Obama pledged to end tax breaks for corporations that send US jobs overseas.” (Source: Indian express)

According to Obama administration, there will be no tax benefits for US firms that outsource their jobs overseas. As a justification to the decision, it has been stated that it would restore a sense of fairness and balance to US tax code and will create/save millions of the jobs in the country.

Well, this decision of President Obama to clamp down on outsourcing is surely going to affect the Indian tech sector. But the other side of the reality is that US is also going to suffer with this move, as outsourcing has brought a lot of economical and logical changes to the country.

The global competitiveness of US firms has been enhanced with outsourcing which has resulted into a large number of jobs within US economy. This move might damage the global competitiveness of US economy. It is a challenge for US companies such as Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Pepsico, IBM etc., which have outsourced jobs to foreign countries such as India and also to Indian IT and software companies that are proliferating in US. Businesses these days are more global than ever before, the denial of tax benefits can prove to be an obstacle in the path of progress towards globalization and modernization.

No doubt President Obama’s decision is aimed towards the revival of US economy, but in the current economic environment when the entire world is under pressures of global meltdown, it is vital for all countries to collaborate on technology and innovation. Such policies only obstruct the renaissance of world economy.

Considering the current business and economic scenario, the proposed move to discourage outsourcing seems to be more harmful for American companies.

“Severe migraine attacks during Sunday evenings…”
“Six million people per year take sick leave from work…”
“Maximum number of heart attacks during office hours…”

These are some of the headlines published these days in the Health column of daily newspapers. Research studies have proven that the only reason behind these unhealthy situations is the Workplace Stress. According to a survey, ‘63% employees say that the job pressures interfere with their personal life and 60% say that the job is negatively affecting their physical and emotional well-being.’

We all know what Workplace Stress is, right? Struggle to beat the clock, deadlines to meet, targets to catch up on…etc., etc…

However, it is not true that workplace stress is always negative. It can yield positive results also. In fact, people perform better when they are under ‘stress’. While stress and pressure are productive for a short time, their long time influence can affect a person’s mental, emotional and physical perspectives. Negative stress turns out when the job is mismatched with what was really wanted, little on-the-job flexibility and no time to relax and recover.

Over the past few decades, stress in the workplace has been greater than before. Occupational Stress can be one of the most devastating types of stress. Employees are not acknowledged properly by their Managers. Attitudinal problems among superiors cause lack of communication due to which subordinates feel isolated, unsupported and stressed.

Perhaps, this so called epidemic can be cured by taking immediate actions to control the causes of stress. Employees themselves can deal effectively with stress on the job. Proper time management and planning can help create a routine and get organized. Respect and appreciation at work, mix of a little fun and smile with work also might help to ease the stress of workdays. Sometimes small words of acknowledgment like ‘Thanks’ can create big wonders.

It was the last day of ‘2008’ and we all were eagerly waiting for ‘2009’ as we were anxious – what New Year is bringing for us, GOD knows!

But the Vinove team, so optimistic as usual was totally geared up for the New Year. There was one more reason to celebrate- we all were going to ‘Fun town’- A beautiful resort near Bahadurgarh on Jan 1st, 2009.

And the great day arrived. We all gathered up in the office premises wishing each other, Happy New Year! All were so excited for the lovely excursion- Thanks to HR team for all arrangements done.

Our bus arrived and everybody was screaming with joy. Some new Vinovians - Amit, Vishal, Saurabh and Manish Rawat were on the top of the bus jubilating and giving different poses for the photos which were taken by our very own creative cameraman Naveen.

The bus started heading towards our destination. There was excitement in the air. This was going to be great. Everybody was enthusiastic to reach Fun Town. Swati, Tripti, Manju and Kanika started singing songs and soon we were playing ‘Antakshri’- A game in which a team has to sing a song at the alphabet on which the other team has finished. It was going great and soon we reached ‘Fun Town’.

As we came out of the bus, we uttered ‘WOW’ in joy! Situated in the suburbs of Haryana, the platinum resort was known for its aesthetic appeal.
Without wasting time we entered the resort and our session started with a brunch. The food was great and after that we all started exploring the resort. The DJ was playing awesome music, there were breath taking swings and a beautiful water park.

First of all everyone tried the great “Columbus”. As it started swinging fast to-and-fro in the air, everybody started screaming and were feeling the goose bumps. Out of all, Vijyata was having a tough time.

Mohit, Gulshan, Pankaj and Charanjeet were busy with table tennis. Khem Raj, Manish Chauhan, Naveen, Chandresh, were playing pool. Everybody was so into their games but soon all this came to an end when Neha and gang intervened in the game.

Abhijeet, Akash, Amit and Piyush accompanied by other members went to the water park. Without taking much time all were in their trunks enjoying mighty water rides. The boys were elated and living the moment to the fullest.

Soon the music became loud and everybody started heading towards the dance floor but to our surprise some of our members Vishal, Kanika, Vibha, Naveen, Umar, Tripti were already shaking their legs on the dance floor. Soon the DJ podium was filled by the Vinovians and everyone was dancing so elegantly.

Other members were playing football and cricket but they too joined the DJ.
After dancing to the music for hours, we all went to take the lunch and again the food was delicious!

We all finished our lunch and were again ready for the next session and this time we were playing “Tug of war”. One team was headed by Mohit Malik and the other was headed by Ashish Thapiyal. Both the teams were shouting and their entire strength was in pulling the rope towards their respective side. But the game came to an end and the winner was Mohit’s team.
Soon all were back to the dance floor and this time it was Khem Raj dancing to the music. We all gave our best dance steps. But soon were told to get on the bus by our HR head-Bhavna.

Not a single one of us was ready to go back. Everyone felt that the fun has just begun but evening was getting colder by the minute. Soon we were in the bus and started heading back home.
All in all it was a fabulous trip and its moments will be cherished for many days to come.
A trip down the memory lane will be worth having a laugh and ecstatic hysteria will remain forever.

Let us forget the sorrows of the past.
With determination and unflinching will,
Let us renew our lives, our good habits and our success to give ourselves
and all our near and dear ones a great year ahead.
Wishing you all divine happiness for the New Year.

VINOVE FAMILY