In a freewheeling discussion with ETCIO, Miao Song, Global CIO & Global VP of MARS group emphasized this different Covid-19 challenge which is new for CIOs to tackle and difficult too.

Mashreq bank's preparation for digitization has only helped the bank improve its profits during Coronavirus pandemic while most of its competitors continue to struggle

Several of Federal Bank’s digital initiatives are finally seeing massive adoption as the Kochi-based bank works on automation and self service tools to boost profits.

The insurance company is planning to make more investments in digital selling and workforce management, thus eyeing the covid-19 situation as an opportunity to strengthen the digital posture than a business challenge.

In an interview with ETCIO, Miao Song, Global CIO & Global VP of MARS, talks about the IT & Digital odyssey of the company in tackling the Covid-19 crisis.

Global lockdowns will change the way we work forever. This will make the CIO role more strategic than ever.

To tackle the Covid-19 situation, Kotak General Insurance is trying to prepare rapidly, test critical paths and scale up

As offices start to reopen, Biometric systems could pose a big threat to safety from coronavirus.

CIOs should focus their energy on the resolution of issues that arise as almost 100% of their workforce work remotely and building resistance towards the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The makers of Fevicol are leveraging this time to retrain staff and gear up technology infrastructure for the post-Covid world.

CIOs role is set to evolve post-Covid-19 with new demands coming in from the business. Here’s how they can be prepared.

An executive in a large global enterprise claims to be losing 125 minutes per day due to poor communication, collaboration and information flows!*By unifying your voice, instant messaging, collaboration and mobility together, you can boost efficiency and simplify your operations.

The Art of Connecting is Rethinking the Risk. Be clear on where you stand with BT Security

In the real-time economy, the demand for cloud services keeps growing with the hybrid cloud as the optimal architecture for handling the inevitable complexity of the agile company’s IT infrastructure.

Auto Contact, our range of self-service solutions, can help free up agents to handle more complex and revenue-generating calls –and at the same time improve the overall customer experience whilst reducing costs.

A new study of attitudes towards transport and mobility has identified five groups of travellers. The groups differ significantly in their choice of transport, distance travelled and the impact their transport choices have on the environment in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Recent research suggests that increasing the number of private electric vehicles would have very little impact on electricity consumption in Milan, Italy. However, unless there are suitable regulations, the daily demand for power to recharge the vehicles at peak times could overload the capacity of the electric supply system.

Researchers have identified policies in Denmark, Germany and The Netherlands that have made cycling safe, convenient and mainstream in these countries. Coordinated transport, educational and land use measures have increased the popularity of this sustainable mode of transport over recent decades.

Many workplaces have developed mobility policies to reduce the number of staff commuting to work using single occupant vehicles (SOVs). A new study from Belgium reveals how companies can influence their employees' choice of transport to work and looks at the best ways to promote alternative means of commuting.

Researchers have found that ocean acidification leads to changes in the ways that clownfish normally respond to sound. As many species rely on hearing for orientation, habitat selection, avoiding predators and communication, ocean acidification could compromise auditory behaviour crucial for survival.

New research on climate-driven reductions in Arctic sea ice has predicted that, by 2040 to 2059, new shipping routes will become passable across the Arctic, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. An increase in traffic has implications for the ecosystems of this fragile area.

Public subsidies are important in encouraging organisations to trial and expand electric vehicle fleets, according to new research. The study, based on interviews and reports from 17 organisations, found that the opportunity to test new technology was the most important factor in deciding to trial electric vehicles. However, some smaller independent companies chose not to expand their fleet because of the expense.

TEvery kilometre travelled by car incurs costs to the individual and society that are more than six times those of travelling by bicycle, a new study suggests. The researchers presented a cost-benefit analysis developed for Copenhagen, finding that cars resulted in costs of 0.50 €/km in comparison to 0.08 €/km for bikes.

The measures available to reduce the noise and vibration produced by trains have been outlined in a recent study. The researchers say the most appropriate mitigation should be determined on a case-by-case basis and life-cycle assessments can help analyse the economic costs and carbon footprint of different methods.

Hybrid and electric vehicles emit lower levels of carbon dioxide and air pollutants than conventional petrol and diesel vehicles, yet their market uptake in the EU remains limited. New research provides an assessment of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) — which combines purchase and operating expenses — of different vehicle types. By comparing historical data on hybrid, petrol and diesel vehicles in three countries (Japan, the UK and the USA), researchers found a strong link between TCO and market share of those vehicles. They also identified a number of ways in which policymakers may promote the adoption of cleaner vehicles through the provision of financial incentives.

Electric vehicles (EVs) could play a role in future power supply, but face issues surrounding the longevity of their batteries. This study reconciles two recent contradictory results on the effects of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology on battery life-time, and shows that V2G — a process via which EVs would exchange energy with the power grid to provide ancillary services, such as supplying power during peak periods, and helping to regulate grid frequency — could actually extend the lifespan of commercial lithium-ion batteries.

Benefits gained from the use of logging residues as a fuel depend more on the type of fossil fuel they replace than on the distance the residues have to travel, according to new research. Residues that replace coal produce the greatest reductions in CO2 emissions.

Countries that appear to have reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through reforestation may have simply “displaced” the emissions to another country, by increasing their imports of food, timber and wood. A new EU study highlights the need to recognise this ‘loophole’ in ongoing emission targets.

Woodlands in the grounds of old manor houses or castles can provide high quality habitat for numerous forest species, a recent study from Estonia concludes. The researchers found that, compared to nearby forests, old rural park woodlands appeared to be better at supporting biodiversity.

The impacts of drought on European trees are of high concern, especially under a changing climate. New research has indicated that, if summers become continually drier, sensitive species, such as larch and spruce, will suffer reduced growth in some Alpine areas. This could potentially compromise ecosystem services provided by forests in these areas.

A reforestation project has revitalised its surroundings just 80 years after its inception. In the late 1920s, the Saldaña badlands in northern Spain were a barren region, with a thin layer of intensely weathered soil, and only 5% vegetation cover. Now that cover has increased dramatically to 87%, the soil quality is improving, and the water flow in the area has stabilised, bringing greater environmental security to the local community.

A study of two forest ecosystems in Spain has found that land-cover maps of watersheds, ecosystems hosting key interactions between vegetation, wildlife, and water, are made more accurate by the inclusion of LiDAR data — a type of remote sensing that pulses laser light at a target to measure vertical distances for use in 3D-mapping an environment. This has important implications for ecosystem monitoring, flood mitigation, and forest management, fields in which accurately characterising an environment is key.

Subsidies support economic sectors and grant advantages to consumers, but can harm the environment. A new study has tested a number of existing tools for assessing environmentally harmful subsidies (EHS), developed a comprehensive methodology for identifying and analysing EHS and highlighted opportunities for reforming them.

Recycling waste products between companies in industrial recycling networks can bring environmental and competitive benefits. A recent study on whether such networks can be used to advance sustainable development more broadly suggests companies first need a clear, shared network identity before other types of sustainability-oriented cooperation can take place.

Outputs of conservation planning research are likely to be translated into action more quickly and successfully if a transdisciplinary approach is adopted, according to a recent study. The researchers have applied a transdisciplinary framework 'pyramid of knowledge' to aid in understanding the process of converting research into action, which may also be applicable to other academic disciplines.

The recent recession has prompted the adoption of 'return to growth' policies but the tools used to assess growth often have a narrow economic focus. A new report has assessed current macro-economic models and suggests they need to incorporate the impact that environmental factors can have on the economy, and vice versa, and recommends they should consider limits on resource and material consumption.

Only three EU Member States – the UK, Germany and the Netherlands - have explicit legislation for monitoring the economic, social and environmental impacts of marine activities. This legislation embraces Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP), a promising tool to improve decision-making on the planning of human activities at sea.

With ever-increasing global consumption, the impacts of resource depletion, land use change and pollution are being felt worldwide. A new study reveals how international trade is shifting the environmental burden from the consuming nation to other parts of the world, and calls for changes in the way national material use is accounted for.

Researchers have proposed a new approach to identifying sustainability indicators for Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM). It consists of three steps: identify the most important factors in ICZM for coastal stakeholders, model relationships between these factors, and analyse these factors to identify the most relevant for use as indicators.

Relatively simple, low-cost measures, such as insulating walls and installing solar collectors and efficient heaters for hot water can significantly reduce energy consumption in housing developments, according to a recent study from Portugal. Energy-efficient homes not only benefit the environment, but were found to potentially reduce residents’ energy bills by over half in an apartment block studied by the researchers.

Researchers have developed a new tool to help policymakers access and use data regarding the environmental impacts of consumption and production. Using the EUREAPA tool, decision makers can analyse data from a range of perspectives and create scenarios to understand the implications of changes in consumption and production.

Improving the efficiency of industries and products has not led to overall reductions in the consumption of goods and services, a new study has found. The research looked at the historical relationship between efficiency improvements and resource consumption across 10 different activities, including electricity generation and passenger air travel. However, shorter decade-long periods, where efficiency improvements outpaced resource consumption, suggested that legislation and price pressures could be effective at reducing resource consumption.

A new five-step method has been developed for assessing the resource efficiency of products and improving the reuse, recycling and recovery of material at a product’s end of life. The Resource Efficiency Assessment of Products (REAPro) method allows the identification and testing of practical measures to improve resource efficiency at both the product and policy level.

Policies and programmes providing technological solutions to improve household energy efficiency alone may be insufficient to actually reduce overall household energy consumption, finds new research. The research examined home renovators’ motivations, behaviours and use of green technologies. Overall, reduced energy consumption was often undermined by other considerations, such as installation and maintenance costs, aesthetic considerations and daily routines or social concerns.

Urban green spaces provide important ecosystem services in cities, from recreation to the mitigation of noise and air pollution. This study quantified the ecosystem services (ES) provided by green spaces in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, using new methods to evaluate high-resolution land-cover data. The findings show that different types of green space provide different ES, highlighting the importance of careful design during city planning. The authors say their method to map ES supply will aid the design of healthy, climate-resilient cities.

‘Network bridging organisations’, such as farmer unions, Regional Nature Parks and Local Action Groups, promote cooperation between farmers, non-state collective actors and state actors under the Common Agricultural Policy. This study finds that farmers who have regular contact with these organisations show a higher commitment to long-term practice change. This could represent an opportunity to improve the effectiveness of payments for environmental services in Europe.

Researchers have provided a set of guidelines to help policymakers, designers and operators develop sustainable solutions for energy-storage systems for electricity grids. The guidelines cover a range of energy-storage technologies and grid-integration options.