Brands
AC Nielsen invests Rs 100 million in hand held terminals in India
MUMBAI: Market research organisation AC Nielsen India has unveiled its plans to create the country’s first ever market research field force equipped with Hand Held Terminals for data collection across the nation.
This announcement marks the culmination of a two-year long plan to bring world-class collection methodology to India. The company will sink in Rs 100 million into the venture.
AC Nielsen’s Hand Held Terminal is a personal digital assistant embedded with proprietary software applications designed to capture retail sales data used by the country’s marketing community. With this investment, AC Nielsen becomes the first market research organisation to deploy Hand Held Terminals across the country.
The company states that the level of investment and technological advancement are unprecedented in the market research industry in India. It is the single largest technological investment since the inception of market research in India with the launch of Operations Research Group in 1961. AC Nielsen states that this move reaffirms its commitment to grow the industry as a market leader and deliver the best quality data to India’s marketing community.
Hand Held Terminals offer a paperless solution for capturing marketing information to be used by marketing decision makers and analysts. Until now, all consumer product marketing-related data has been captured by more traditional means. The company states that the paper-and-pencil methodology, while accepted as a norm, just needs to be improved in tandem with the rapid development on the technology front.
Hand Held Terminals with built-in error-checking mechanisms on the other hand offer marketers leading edge collection of better quality, less error-prone data. This is especially important when the information pertains to over 150 varied product categories and over 17,500 brands from 50,000+ shop shelves across the country’s vast retailing landscape.
Data from 750 individual Hand Held Terminals will be transmitted from over 200 locations across the country to AC Nielsen’s processing hub at Baroda and supported by a technology infrastructure using Compaq Unix and high-end servers for data storage and processing. The company adds that this ability to collect, transmit and therefore process data faster will enable it to reduce turnaround time for delivering market information to marketers from the present 16 days to nine days.
The knock-on effect is faster and more effective marketing actions than ever before. The benefits can range from better sales to more efficient and targeted distribution. The Hand Held Terminal initiative in India has been under planning and conceptualisation for a period of 18 months. The technological enhancement process has also entailed rigorous training of ACNielsen’s mammoth in-house field force with the aid of specialist workshops covering each of ACNielsen field professionals in every state. “
Brands
YES Bank hands the keys to SBI veteran Vinay Tonse as it bets on a new era
Former SBI managing director appointed as YES Bank’s new MD and CEO
MUMBAI: YES Bank is done rebuilding. Now it wants to grow. The private sector lender has appointed Vinay Muralidhar Tonse as managing director and chief executive officer-designate, with RBI approval secured and a start date of April 6, 2026 confirmed. The three-year term signals the bank’s intent to shift gears from crisis recovery to full-throttle expansion.
Tonse, 60, is no stranger to scale. Most recently managing director at State Bank of India, he oversaw a retail book of roughly $800bn in deposits and advances, one of the largest in the country. Before that, he ran SBI Mutual Fund from August 2020 to December 2022, a stint that saw assets under management surge from Rs 4.32 lakh crore to Rs 7.32 lakh crore across market cycles. Add stints in Singapore and four years leading SBI’s overseas operations in Osaka, and the incoming chief arrives with a genuinely global CV.
His academic grounding is equally solid: a commerce degree from St Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bengaluru, and a master’s in commerce from Bangalore University.
The appointment follows an extensive search and evaluation process by the bank’s Nomination and Remuneration Committee. NRC chairperson Nandita Gurjar said the committee unanimously backed Tonse, citing his leadership track record, governance credentials and ability to drive the bank’s next phase of transformation.
Non-executive chairman Rama Subramaniam Gandhi was unequivocal. “I am certain that Vinay Tonse, with his vast experience as a senior banker, will propel YES Bank to its next phase of growth,” Gandhi said, adding that the bank remains focused on strengthening its retail and corporate banking franchises and expanding its branch network.
Rajeev Kannan, non-executive director and senior executive at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, the bank’s largest shareholder, said Tonse’s experience across retail, corporate banking, global markets and asset management positioned him well to lead the lender. SMBC said it looks forward to working with Tonse and the board as YES Bank pursues its ambition of becoming a top-tier private sector lender anchored in strong governance and sustainable growth.
Tonse succeeds Prashant Kumar, who took the helm in March 2020 when YES Bank was in freefall following a severe financial crisis, and spent six years painstakingly stabilising the institution, rebuilding governance and restoring operational scale. Gandhi was generous: “The bank remains indebted to Prashant Kumar, who is responsible for much of what a strong financial powerhouse YES Bank is today.”
Tonse, for his part, struck a purposeful note. “Together with the board and my colleagues, I remain deeply committed to creating long-term value for all our stakeholders,” he said, pledging to build on Kumar’s foundation guided by his personal motto: Make A Difference.
Beyond the balance sheet, Tonse played cricket at college and club level and represented Karnataka in archery at the national championships — sports he credits with teaching him teamwork, situational leadership, discipline and focus. In quieter moments, he reaches for retro Kannada music, classic Hindi songs, and the crooning of Engelbert Humperdinck, Mukesh and Kishore Kumar.
YES Bank has its steady-handed rebuilder in Kumar to thank for survival. Now it has a scale-obsessed growth banker at the wheel. The next chapter starts April 6.
