iWorld
VIVO IPL 2018 player auction clocks 5X viewership
As VIVO IPL 2018 fever gathers momentum, the player auction for the season witnessed record viewership numbers on Hotstar, India’s largest premium streaming platform. The highly anticipated event – a potent mix of famous team owners, and bids for the world’s best loved cricketers – registered record numbers on the platform with a 5X increase in viewership compared to the previous season.
While IPL has grown each year since its inception, 2018 promises to be an inflection point in its history as Hotstar and Star Sports reimagine it into a 6-month extravaganza, with technology at the heart of the experience.
With the intent to be the singular destination for all things IPL, Hotstar also today announced plans to roll out the fastest cricket scorecard in the country – with load time under 0.5 seconds. The new scorecard unit will be available to all Hotstar users when they open the app.
The seemingly simple feature packs in complex coding under the hood to provide the live score, with zero lag, to over 250 million varied devices across the country. With the fastest load time compared to any other cricket score feed, the feature is designed to minimize friction for the user, completely eliminating the need to search for the score anywhere else. The feature will be rolled out with the first Vivo IPL match on 6 April 2018.
Broadband
Excitel Broadband names Varun Pasricha as chief executive officer
Former COO steps up to lead broadband firm’s next growth chapter
MUMBAI: Excitel Broadband has elevated its chief operating officer, Varun Pasricha, to the role of chief executive officer, handing the reins to a leader who has already spent nearly eight years shaping the company’s rise.
Pasricha joined Excitel in August 2018 and has since been instrumental in building what he describes as “the most loved broadband brand in the country”. Now, as chief executive officer, he is expected to steer the internet service provider through its next phase of expansion in an increasingly competitive home broadband market.
Before his tenure at Excitel, Pasricha held senior leadership roles at Zomato, where he led sales transformation and served as business head for partner growth across India and the UAE. He oversaw the shift in the company’s advertising model from fixed ad slots to performance driven engagement, migrating more than 7,000 paying clients globally while delivering a 20 per cent upsell on the portfolio.
Earlier, at G4S India, he was senior vice president for strategic business, managing a profit and loss portfolio exceeding Rs 1,000 crore. Over two years, he grew the business by around 50 per cent while improving margins through contract renegotiations and cross selling. He also worked closely with the leadership team as vice president for strategic projects, focusing on corporate strategy, restructuring, and new business launches, including entry into last mile logistics.
His career spans strategy and operations across sectors. At Max Healthcare, he was senior manager for business strategy, working on planning and joint venture rollouts in tier II cities. He co-founded Edventure Online, an education advisory venture aimed at helping students make informed career choices. At Indus Towers, he served as senior business manager in the central strategy team, helping convert the energy vertical from a cost centre into a profit engine.
Pasricha began his career at McKinsey & Company as an analyst, building the consulting toolkit that would underpin his later operating roles.
With a résumé that blends boardroom strategy and frontline execution, Pasricha’s appointment signals continuity with ambition. For Excitel, the message is clear: the company is betting on a leader who already knows where the cables run and where the next connections must be made.
