MAM
Stanley Seating brings La-Z-Boy to India
BANGALORE: The US-based Leather upholstery specialists Stanley Seating (SS) have partnered with La-Z-Boy Inc., USA (LZB) to bring their world famous reclines to India. SS will bring in bare CKD kits of six models sourced from LZB Thailand to India and tailor the upholstery to customer specifications.
La-Z-Boy is a brand with a recall rate – 98 per cent, this equals Coca-Cola, claims a LZB official quoting the Gallops survey findings. On an average 15,000 recliners are sold daily worldwide and TV and La-Z-Boy have always been a good pair, with their recliners figuring in some o f the most popular TV shows in the USA including the Bing Croby Show, Frasier and Friends.
LZB has been receiving the largest number of enquiries from customers as well as dealers from India, and this has prompted the tie-up with SS. Highly impressed with SS quality of work in India and also the variety of upholstery available with SS, LZB is considering manufacture of the recliners at SS .
Popular personalities such as Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Lisa Cudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer all have their own La-Z-Boy designs named after them.
SS has revenues of Rs 500 million plans to grow the market from the existing three to four thousand to around eight to ten thousand and bring in additional revenues of Rs 250 million this year. SS’s multi-channel distribution system exceeding 200 retail centers and showrooms and over a 100 dealers across India will be utilized to market the offerings from LZB, and SS Brand Manager Nagesh Manay hopes to grow this multi-channel distribution system by appointing more dealers and distributors.
Stanley Seating boasts of an impressive clientele ranging from automobile giants like General Motors, Ford, Mitsubishi, Toyota Kirloskar, Volvo, Honda Siel, Mahindra & Mahindra to corporate clients such as General Electric, DELL, Wipro, 3M, Windsor Sheraton and the Leela Palace.
A print media campaign is on the anvil as per SS founder and CEO Sunil Suresh, while TVC’s are also in the next nine to twelve month horizon. Creatives initially will be sourced out of the US.
Digital
Ethical AI must benefit society, not dominate it, says WFEB chief Sanjay Pradhan at IAA event
At Mumbai event, ethics expert urges businesses and governments to shape AI responsibly
MUMBAI: Artificial intelligence may be racing ahead at lightning speed, but its direction must still be guided by human conscience. That was the central message delivered by Sanjay Pradhan, president of the World Forum for Ethics in Business (WFEB), during the latest edition of IAA Conversations held in Mumbai.
The session was organised by the International Advertising Association (IAA) and the Artificial Intelligence Association of India (AIAI) in association with The Free Press Journal at the Free Press House on 7 March. Addressing a packed audience, Pradhan called for stronger ethical leadership to ensure AI remains a tool that benefits humanity rather than one that governs it.
“Artificial intelligence has rapidly become one of the most powerful technologies humanity has created,” Pradhan said. “It is unlocking breakthroughs in medicine, science and creativity at a pace unimaginable just a few years ago.”
But he warned that the same technology carries serious risks. AI, he noted, can amplify disinformation faster than facts can travel, compromise privacy, deepen discrimination and disrupt millions of livelihoods. Referencing concerns raised by AI pioneers such as Geoffrey Hinton, often called the godfather of AI, Pradhan stressed that the real challenge is not whether AI will shape the world, but whether humans will shape it with ethics and wisdom.
Structuring his talk around four guiding questions, why, what, how and who, Pradhan introduced the audience to WFEB’s emerging AI Ethics Partnership, a global platform aimed at advancing responsible artificial intelligence. He outlined four priority concerns that demand urgent attention: disinformation, bias and discrimination, data privacy and job security.
To make the idea of ethical AI easier to grasp, Pradhan offered a simple metaphor. Ethical AI, he said, is like a three layered cake. The outer layer represents the visible value ethical AI creates for businesses and society. The middle layer is organisational culture that moves ethics from written codes to everyday practice. The innermost layer, however, is the most crucial, the conscience of individual leaders.
Drawing from Indian philosophical thought through WFEB co-founder Ravi Shankar, Pradhan noted that while artificial intelligence can reproduce stored knowledge, true intelligence is boundless and rooted in conscience, creativity and compassion. Practices such as breathwork and meditation, he suggested, can help leaders develop the calm clarity needed for ethical decision making.
The event also featured a discussion with Maninder Adityaraj Singh, chief of staff and head of innovation at Rediffusion Brand Solutions Pvt Ltd, and Yash Johri, lawyer, Supreme Court of India.
Opening the session, IAA India chapter president Abhishek Karnani, highlighted the need for industries to understand and engage with AI responsibly.
“AI has to be befriended and understood,” added Rediffusion managing director and AIAI national convenor Sandeep Goyal. “Its ethical use will determine whether it becomes a friend or a foe.”
As AI continues to reshape industries and societies, Pradhan ended with a simple but powerful call to action. Businesses, governments and individuals must work together to ensure that the algorithms shaping the future reflect human values rather than just cold logic.
