MAM
Macmillan’s Bangalore facility launched
BANGALORE: Publishing firm Macmillan India Ltd has opened its book typesetting division in Bangalore. With this entry, the company aims to become a major supplier of books and major references typesetting.
MIL’s new book typesetting unit is spread over an area of 23,000 sq ft and five floors in central Bangalore. The state-of-the-art facility with a modern data centre can accommodate more than 500 staff.
The centre was inaugurated by Macmillan India LTD chairman and Macmillan UK CEO Richard Charkin. Macmillan (UK) director Michael Barnard and Macmillan India LTD (MIL) director Rajiv Beri were present at the occasion.
Speaking at the inauguration, Richard Charkin said, “Macmillan has been present in India for more than 100 years now and our substantial investment in this new facility marks a significant next stage in this long and successful association. The Bangalore operation will rapidly become a global center of excellence for Macmillan, playing a key role in providing new and additional world class services for our customers.”
At present 175 people are working from this new site and Macmillan has plans to have 300 people in 2005 and 500 by 2006. Current capacity is fully booked by present customers and they are planning rapid expansion to enhance production capacity. With their new expansion plan for book typesetting, they expect to generate revenue of around $4 million by 2006 from this division.
Macmillan India head Rajiv Beri said, “Information Processing division of Macmillan was formed way back in 1977 and since then we have been the leading supplier of typesetting, data processing and information processing. In an indirect way, we could say we were already outsourcing from here 28 years ago, even before Bangalore became well established for its role as the leading Indian city for locating offshore operations. Our highly skilled workforce prides itself on the best quality at highly competitive prices”.
Brands
Zepto sets up mini delivery hub at AI Summit
Quick commerce goes live at venue with 1,700 daily orders
NEW DELHI: At a summit devoted to the future of artificial intelligence, quick commerce quietly stole the show at ground level. Zepto set up a compact Delivery Hub at the India AI Impact Summit, turning the venue into a live demonstration of instant retail in action.
Built at roughly one third the size of a standard 4,000 sq ft dark store, the scaled down hub was engineered for speed. Despite its smaller footprint, it was stocked with more than 10,000 stock keeping units curated specifically for summit attendees. From mid morning cravings to late afternoon slumps, the shelves were primed for every possible need.
Till Wednesday, the hub was processing an average of 1,700 orders a day. Lunch hour emerged as the clear rush period, as delegates swapped panel discussions for paneer puffs and product demos for Diet Coke. Snacks topped the order charts, followed by tea and other beverages.
Among the fastest moving items were samosas, plain Maggi, chicken puffs, Bisleri packaged drinking water bottles, Coca-Cola Diet Coke cans and Lay’s India’s Magic Masala potato chips. In short, comfort food met cutting edge tech.
The on site hub gave attendees near instant access to essentials without stepping outside the venue. More than just a convenience counter, it served as a real time case study of how technology led operations can power seamless commerce even at large scale events.
While speakers debated how humans and intelligent systems will co create and co work, Zepto offered a practical reminder that sometimes the smartest innovation is simply getting a hot snack into hungry hands, fast.
