Sandhya Gupta

ITT Corporation – Two Brothers Started With First Global Network Of Interconnected Telephone Lines.

ITT Corporation is a diversified leader in producing highly engineered vital components and tailored technology solutions in the transportation, industrial, and energy markets.

About The Company

ITT Inc. is a Connecticut-based manufacturer with operations all over the world. The business manufactures specialized parts for the industrial, aerospace, transportation, and energy sectors. Motion Technologies, Connect and Control Technologies, and Industrial Process comprise ITT’s three primary operating segments. The company’s 10,000 team members work within these segments to provide customer service in roughly 125 different countries and serve as outstanding brand ambassadors for well-known and enduring product brands, including KONI shock absorbers, Goulds, and Bornemann pumps, Cannon connectors, and Enidine energy absorption components.

History Of The Company

The desire for its creators to develop phones is where the history of ITT begins. Two brothers named Hernand Behn and Sosthenes founded the initial International Telephone & Telegraph in 1920 with the goal of establishing the first global network of interconnected telephone lines. The Puerto Rico Telephone Company was the company’s first name, and it started out tiny before expanding swiftly through intelligent acquisitions and the acquisition of telephony patents. The company became a significant global vendor of telephone switching hardware and telecommunications services. ITT purchased more than 350 companies between 1960 and 1977, and its portfolio included well-known companies, including Continental Baking, which produces Wonder Bread, Avis Rent-A-Car, Hartford Insurance, and Sheraton hotels. ITT expanded throughout that time, going from a medium-sized company having $760 million in revenue to a worldwide corporation with $17 billion in sales. ITT started restructuring after the conglomerate era through tactical sales and purchases to divide the business into manageable pieces. The end result was the division of ITT into three distinct, independent businesses in 1995: ITT Corporation, which concentrated on the hospitality and gaming industries; ITT Hartford, which established itself as a stand-alone insurance company; and ITT Industries, which began as a group of manufacturing firms. TT Industries, Inc., the current business, was established in 1996 as an ITT spinoff. Later, in 2006, it adopted the name ITT Corporation. In 2011, ITT Corporation split into three distinct publicly traded corporations and spun off its defence and water-related businesses. ITT’s water tech business became Xylem Inc., and its defence business became Exelis. In 2016, ITT Corporation’s name was changed to ITT Inc.

Controversies

In 2007, ITT Corporation was the first significant defence contractor to be found guilty of breaking the US Arms Export Control Act. The penalties resulted from ITT’s outsourcing program, in which technicians in China, Singapore, and the UK received night vision goggles and sensitive knowledge about defences against laser weapons, such as light interference filters. The company was given the option of using half of the $100 million penalty to fund the development of improved night vision technology. The resultant intellectual property will belong to the United States government. The US Department of Justice also found throughout its inquiry and subsequent ruling that the corporation took great measures, including creating a front company, to avoid the export regulations.

Founder – Sosthenes Behn

American industrialist Sosthenes Behn founded ITT. He was earlier in the US Army, at the rank of lieutenant colonel. After his discharge from the military, he co-founded the Puerto Rico Telephone Company with Colonel Behn, which eventually gave rise to ITT.

CEO – Luca Savi

Luca Savi serves as the CEO and President of ITT. Luca formerly held the position of president and COO of ITT. He started working at ITT in 2011 as the division’s head of Motion Technologies. He has formerly held a number of significant executive positions with Comau, a division of the Fiat Group, in Italy, China, and the United States. He has also held important roles in the past at Honeywell International. He started as an engineer with Ferruzzi-Montedison Group and Royal Dutch Shell. Luca holds an MBA from London Business School.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, Second-Largest Business Services Chain In The World.

PricewaterhouseCoopers or PwC is a global network of professional services firms that operate as partnerships. Along with Deloitte, EY, and KPMG, it is amongst the Big Four accounting companies and has the second-largest business services chain in the world.

About The Company

Founded in 1998, PwC is an international network of services firms providing services like Services Assurance, Risk assurance, Tax advisory, Legal Services, Data & Analytics, and Management consulting. Financial advisory and Forensic accounting. PwC firms have over 2,84,000 employees across 157 countries and 742 locations. PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited is a coordinating body for the worldwide network of firms with headquarters in London. In order to establish a standard and unified approach in areas like risk, quality, and strategy, it oversees the worldwide brand and develops policies and programs. It doesn’t offer customers any services.

History Of The Company

The term “Cooper” in PricewaterhouseCoopers is derived from William Cooper, a London accountant who established a business in 1854 with his brothers. The aptly named Cooper Brothers amalgamated with two North American companies a century later and named it Coopers & Lybrand.

An accounting firm was established in London, England, in 1849 by accountant Samuel Lowell Price. In 1865, Price formed a company with Edwin Waterhouse and William Hopkins Holyland. Holyland left soon after to continue accounting alone, and the company became Price, Waterhouse & Co. in 1874. Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand combined in 1998 to establish PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Following the merger, the company, like other significant accountancy firms, had a sizable professional consulting section that provided the majority of its fees. The adoption of intricate integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems by multinational corporations served as the primary driver of growth in the 1990s.

Acquisitions

Omnilogic Systems, Canada’s biggest SAP consultancy partner, was purchased by PwC in 2000. In 2009, PwC started to rebuild its consulting practice through acquisitions, including Paragon Consulting Group and BearingPoint’s commercial services division. The leading Middle Eastern implementation partner for Salesforce, NSI DMCC, was bought by PwC in November 2016. In 2018, Veritas Capital purchased PwC’s U.S. public sector division and renamed the new entity Guidehouse.

Operations

PwC is a collective term for the PwC network and its affiliated companies, with each company having a distinct legal entity under applicable local laws. Each member company is independently owned and operated, much like other professional service companies. PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, a private corporation limited by guarantee under English law, oversees PwC. PwC is additionally listed as a multifunctional organization that offers legal services. PwC operates globally, with 44% of its operations in the USA as of 2016. The company’s service line consists of Assurance, Advisory, and Tax services. PwC also contributes to data analysis in a variety of fields. In a 2016 analysis, PwC predicted that by 2020, the global drone market would be close to $127 billion, with Poland leading the way in legislation governing unmanned drones’ commercial usage. The Low Carbon Economy Index, which monitors how much the G20 nations are lowering their carbon emissions, is published by PwC. PwC Portugal is working on a lengthy study project called The Economy of the Sea. It is a component of the HELM project, which was started in 2006 and aimed to develop an integrated strategy for effective and sustainable maritime activities. It gathers information from countries that use the sea as well as the sectors that depend on it and analyses best practices from around the world. Total Impact Measurement and Management (TIMM) is a methodology created by PwC to help businesses conduct impact assessments that will enable them to value all their operations, goods, and services.

Founder – Samuel Lowell Price

English accountant Samuel Lowell Price was born in London. The accounting firm Price Waterhouse, which is now a part of PricewaterhouseCoopers, was co-founded by him, William Hopkins Holyland, and Edwin Waterhouse. He began his career as an accountant at a young age, joining the neighborhood business of Bradley, Barnard & Co. He formed a company with William Edwards in 1848, but it was dissolved by 1849. Later in the year, he went solo and founded the now-famous firm PwC.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

KPMG – One Of The Big Four Accountancy Firms.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Sandhya Gupta

KPMG is a network of professional companies offering financial audit, tax, and advisory services on a global scale. KPMG, aka Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdele, has a global footprint and keeps expanding on its achievements. It is one of the Big Four accountancy firms.

About the Company

KPMG International Limited, often known as KPMG, is a global professional services network. KPMG has its headquarters in the Netherlands, even though it was founded in the United Kingdom. The company’s massive network of affiliates has been involved in legal proceedings and regulatory measures during the past ten years.

History

KPMG’s founders were in the spotlight, leading the industry, as the industrial revolution in the late 18th and 19th centuries aided in making accounting a profession. At the age of 17, William Barclay Peat (the P in KPMG) began his profession as an accountant with Robert Fletcher & Co. Peat advanced fast through the positions in the company, and in 1891 he took over as its president and renamed the company to William Barclay Peat & Co. The American company Marwick, Mitchell & Company was founded in New York City in 1897. James Marwick, the “M” in KPMG, and Roger Mitchell, both Scottish immigrants, founded the business. Although many believed there was no purpose or demand for accountants in the city, the two quickly developed a solid reputation. In 1917, the K in KPMG, Piet Klynveld, launched a modest accountancy firm in Amsterdam. The firm later became Klynveld Kraayenhof & Company(KKC) after Jaap Kraayenhof joins it. Reinhard Goerdeler, the final founding father and the “G” in KPMG, enters the picture in 1953, over 50 years later, when he joins Deutsche Treuhand-Gesellschaft (DTG). Peat and Mitchell crossed the Atlantic in 1911 on their way from Europe to America. The two got along well during the weeklong trip and, by the conclusion of it, had worked out a strategy to work together.

Later, the company changed its name to Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. Sir William Peat led the charge to amend the Institute’s rules to allow for the entrance of women. Ethel Watts, the first female ICAEW accountant in 1924, worked with Sir Harry Peat, his son when she was a student. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell Co (International) changed its organisational structure and name to Peat Marwick International(PMI) in 1978. In 1979, Klynveld Kraayenhof & Co. partnered with DTG and McLintock Main Lafrentz to become Klynveld Main Goerdeler(KMG).A little less than ten years later, in 1986, PMI and KMG combined. When the transaction was made public on January 1, 1987, the joint firms changed their names to KMPG, aka Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler. It represented the biggest merger in the accounting industry’s history at the time. The KPMG infrastructure continued to grow into emerging markets in the 1990s and the 2000s. KPMG companies contributed to developing economies and economic growth in nations including Russia, India, and Myanmar.

Global Operations

Each local KPMG business is a separate legal entity and a part of the U.K. Limited Company KPMG International Limited, which was established in London, United Kingdom. In 2003, KPMG International converted from a Swiss Verein to a co-operative under Swiss law, and in 2020, to a limited corporation. In some jurisdictions, some KPMG member companies are registered as multifunctional entities that also offer legal services. Foreign auditing firms are not allowed to operate in India due to regulations. As a result, KPMG conducts audits in India in the name of BSR & Co, an audit company it purchased. B.S. Raut established the auditing company BSR & Co. in Mumbai. KPMG received approval to operate as an investment bank in India in 1992 when India was obliged to liberalise as a requirement of the IMF and World Bank bailout. It then acquired BSR & Co, using that name to carry out audits throughout India.

Founders – Marwick Mitchell & Co., Klynveld Kraayenhof & Co., William Barclay Peat & Co., Klynveld Main Goerdeler

The company’s four founders, Klynveld, Peat, Marwick, and Goerdeler, are represented by the initials KMPG. In 155 countries today, KPMG’s system of member firms has over 2,27,000 employees dedicated to building on a solid foundation while inspiring confidence and enabling transformation for customers, communities, and society.

CEO – William B. Thomas

Bill Thomas is the CEO and Chairman of KPMG International. With more than ten years of executive-level leadership experience, Bill previously held the positions of CEO and Senior Partner of KPMG in Canada. He has pushed the company’s worldwide strategy through local, regional, and global geographies at every step of his career, balancing realism and innovation to produce tangible outcomes.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

From Grofers To Blinkit, Providing Instant Delivery Services For Grocery Shopping.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Sandhya Gupta

Blinkit is an e-commerce platform for grocery shopping. Over one crore Indians use Blinkit to shop for everything from veggies and supermarket staples to electronics and emergency supplies. It is the first company to introduce the rapid delivery concept to India. It delivers over two lakhs orders every day.

About the Company

Formerly known as Grofers, Blinkit is an Indian company providing instant delivery services for grocery and other items. It is headquartered in Gurgaon. Customers of Blinkit can place online orders for groceries and other necessities using a smartphone application. The delivery persons of Blinkit then collect the ordered items from the warehouse and deliver them within 10 minutes to the customer. BY 2021, the company was fulfilling over 1.25 lakh orders every day. In India, Blinkit is presently available in over 30 cities. As of 2021, SoftBank, Tiger Global, and Sequoia Capital have invested over 630$ million in the company.

History of the Company

Saurabh Kumar and Albinder Dhindsa established Blinkit as Grofers in December 2013. They teamed together to enter the supermarket delivery market after getting to know one another while working for Cambridge Systematics in the late 2000s. Their objective was to find solutions to the issues caused by the industry’s lack of organisation (both on the client and merchant ends). Before expanding to other Indian cities, the company conducted a test run in Delhi NCR. After operating as an online service that delivered groceries for seven years, Blinkit offered quick grocery delivery services in India by constructing dark storefronts throughout the country’s cities. The company claimed to have delivered over 7,000 grocery products in Gurgaon in fifteen minutes in July 2021. After completing over 20,000 under-15-minute, deliveries each day across ten cities, it offered 10-minute delivery across the top 12 cities a month later, in August 2021. In keeping with its goal to promote quick commerce, Grofers changed its name to Blinkit on December 13, 2021. To take advantage of the rapidly expanding market for speedy grocery delivery, food delivery network Zomato has agreed to purchase Blinkit for $569 million in an all-stock deal. The deal is currently underway.

Business Model

An online marketplace served as the foundation of Blinkit’s business plan. They took orders through their website or app. Blinkit uses a partnership approach to deliver the goods in less than 10 minutes for all of its business activities. To do this, it collaborates with regional companies and brands, logistics, warehousing, transaction partners, and payment solutions. As a result of the greater visibility, partner retailers received more orders; Blinkit made money by charging a commission based on a percentage of these sales. It presently offers a 10-minute delivery service through more than 250 associate retailers.

Controversies

Groceries, fresh produce, meat, stationery, bakery goods, infant care, pet care, snacks, flowers, etc., are the main items that Blinkit provides. The 10-minute delivery service offered by the business was criticised in August 2021, and delivery partner safety issues were brought up. In a tweet, CEO Albinder Dhindsa defended the quick delivery system and asserted that there had been no accidents because of this.

Founders – Albinder Dhindsa, Saurabh Kumar

Eight years ago, in 2013, Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar co-founded Grofers. In addition to being an IIT Mumbai alumnus, Saurabh earned his MS at the University of Texas in Austin. He served as the head of operations at Rasilant Technologies before joining Grofers and was an engineer at Cambridge Systematics in New York before that. Albinder Dhindsa is currently the CEO of Blinkit. In 2005, he started working as a transportation analyst at URS Corporation after completing his education. He worked for two years before switching to Cambridge Systematics as a Senior Associate, where he met Saurabh. Dhindsa decided to leave his work in 2010 to pursue his MBA in the United States. He worked for UBS Investment Bank for three months in 2011 while living in the US. He has also served as Zomato’s Head of International Operations.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

Target Corporation – Top Retailer In The United States Who Has Donated 5% Of Its Profits.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Sandhya Gupta

Target Corporation is amongst the most recognizable brands worldwide and a top retailer in the United States. Since 1946, the company has donated 5% of its profits, which amounts to millions of dollars per week in today’s values. Target has its stores in all 50 States in the USA.

About The Company

American big-box retailer Target Corporation has its corporate headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is listed on the S&P 500 Index and is the eighth-largest retailer in the USA. In 1962, Minneapolis’ Dayton’s department store created Target as its discount arm. As of 2022, Target has 1,934 stores in the USA and is ranked 32nd on the 2022 Fortune 500 list. In order to provide its consumer base with a wide selection of high-quality products, Target hosts several well-known brands. Top firms like Apple, Dyson, Disney, Johnson, and Johnson, and Fisher-Price are some of the more well-known brands. Target stores sell a wide range of goods, including everything from baby apparel to luxury furnishings and technology.

History Of The Company

George Draper Dayton, a banker, and property investor founded Target as Goodfellow Dry Goods in 1902. The name was altered to Dayton Dry Goods Company the following year, and in 1911 it was abbreviated to Dayton Company. In 1962, the first Target store was launched by Dayton Company as a budget-friendly alternative to Dayton’s department shops. In 1969, Dayton merged with J.L. Hudson Company to form the Dayton-Hudson Corporation. Dayton-Hudson later acquired US retailers like Mervyn’s and Marshall Field and Company. Target became the top revenue generator for Dayton-Hudson by 1975, and by 1979, its yearly sales had surpassed $1 billion. In 1990, the Target Greatland store debuted with a more extensive inventory than typical Target stores. The business built the first ever SuperTarget store in Omaha, Nebraska, five years later. This store had a full-service supermarket, a pharmacy, a photography studio, and eateries. In 2004, Dayton-Hudson sold Mervyn’s and Marshall Field and Company; changed its name to Target Corporation in 2000 to reflect a new emphasis on its Target locations. By 2010, Target had made a name for itself by providing high-end goods at affordable prices. Customers particularly favoured the limited-edition apparel lines produced through collaborations with renowned fashion designers like Zac Posen, Isaac Mizrahi, and Jason Wu. In 2012, Target debuted its first CityTarget store, catering to its urban customers.

International Operations

As of 2022, Target is only active in the United States; although, in the past, Target tried to open stores in Canada. As a result, the Target Corporation does not own other businesses or trademarks that use the term “Target” besides the United States. The stores under question are unrelated to a corporation in Australia with the same name and brand. Given that both the Target Corporation logo and the Target Australia brand’s logo are reasonable candidates for the term “Target,” it is plausible that the branding was copied legally or that the companies happened to have the same name and emblem by accident.

Controversies

In 2013, around 110 million Target customers were impacted by a data breach in Target’s systems. Data on customers’ names, phone numbers, emails, and mailing addresses were compromised. In 2015, Target and the impacted customers settled their class action lawsuit for $10 million. In 2014, a class-action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court on behalf of Ohio residents who bought wet wipes under the Target brand. The Target Corporation was being sued on the grounds that the retailer deceived customers by labeling the packaging of its up & up product wipes as flushable and secure for septic and sewer systems. As a result of their purported ability to block compressors at municipal waste management facilities, the complaint also asserted the wipes posed a risk to the public’s health. In 2018, Alameda County DA O’Malley announced that Target would be fined $7.4 million for throwing out illegal e-waste, medical goods, and personal data.

Founder – George Dayton

American entrepreneur and philanthropist George Dayton is known for founding Dayton’s Department Store, which ultimately evolved into Target Corporation. He bought land on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis in 1902 and Goodfellow & Co., reorganizing it as Dayton’s Dry Goods, which developed into Dayton’s department store.

CEO – Brian Cornell

Brian Cornell serves as both the chairman and CEO of the Target Corporation. In 2014, he replaced Gregg Steinhafel as the CEO and chairman of Target. Cornell was behind the closing of the loss-making Target Canada during his leadership. Cornell was selected “Business CEO of The Year” by CNN in 2019.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

Mentor Graphics, Leader In Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Technology.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Sandhya Gupta

Electronic design automation (EDA) technology leader Mentor Graphics offers hardware and software design solutions that help businesses create superior electronic devices more quickly and affordably. The company provides cutting-edge solutions and products that assist engineers in overcoming the design difficulties they encounter in the escalatingly complicated realms of child and board design.

About the Company

Founded in 1981, Mentor Graphics is an American electronic design automation(EDA) multinational company for electronics and electrical engineering. The company is headquartered in Oregon, United States. Since 2021, Siemens EDA has been the name of the old Mentor Graphics division. Mentor Graphics is known for selling products that automate electronic design, analogue mixed-signal design simulation tools, VPN services, fluid models, and heat transfer software. It is the only EDA firm with an embedded software solution. The company has the widest range of best-in-class products in the market.

History Of The Company

Tom Bruggere, Gerry Langeler, and Dave Moffenbeier, all of whom had previously worked for Tektronix, formed Mentor Graphics in 1981. Greylock, Venrock Associates and Stutter Hill contributed the initial $1 million round of funding. A third round, which raised another $7 million in April 1983, raised over $2 million through five venture capital groups in the next round. The first hardware platform was chosen to be Apollo Computer workstations. The founding members of Mentor Graphics initiated their first meetings with Apollo, a Massachusetts-based startup when it was barely a year old. Mentor Graphics used Apollo Computer workstations to distinguish its software and hardware in the computer-aided engineering (CAE) sector. When Mentor first entered the CAE industry, the organization had two distinguishing technical features: its software and hardware. While CAE companies like Daisy and Valid built their own hardware, Mentor ran all of its programs on the Apollo workstation. All EDA companies stopped using proprietary hardware in the late 1980s in favor of workstations by firms like Sun Microsystems and Apollo. Mentor Graphics, one of the three leading electronic design automation (EDA) businesses, stated in 2013 that it would start paying a quarterly dividend. In 1999, James Ready quit Mentor to create the embedded Linux business MontaVista. When Accelerated Technology Inc. was acquired by Mentor Graphics in 2002, Neil Henderson joined the company. Following the purchase of Project Technology in 2004, Stephen Mellor, a pioneer in the UML field and co-creator of the Shlaer-Mellor design approach, joined the company.

Acquisitions

Between 1995-2015, It acquired several companies, including Microtec Research, VeriBest, Accelerated Technology, Innoveda, Project Technology, Tanner EDA, LogicVision, and Calypto Design Systems. In 2008, Cadence Design Systems made a leveraged buyout proposal to takeover Mentor Graphics in June 2008. Later, Cadence retracted this offer, citing its inability to secure the required funding and Mentor Graphics’ management and reluctance to consider it. In 2016, the company announced that Siemens would be acquiring it for $4.5 billion.

Founder – Tom Bruggere

Tom Bruggere founded Mentor Graphics in 1981. In the early to mid-1970s, Bruggere worked as an engineer for Burroughs Corporation Medium Systems Plant in California, and in the late 1970s, he worked with Tektronix, Inc. He has held positions on the advisory committees of Mercy Corps, Technology Management Program at UCSB, OpenMarket, Will Vinton Studios, and Sirigen. He holds degrees in business administration from Pepperdine University; a master’s in computer science from the University of Wisconsin, and a bachelor’s of arts in mathematics from the University of California.

CEO – Wally Rhines

Before the Siemens acquisition, Wally Rhines served as the company’s CEO and president until November 2018. In 1993, Rhines took over as CEO of Mentor Graphics, which had a yearly revenue of around $340 million. In 2011, the business’s revenue surpassed $1 billion for the first time. Rhines has guided the corporation into new business ventures, such as software for the automotive industry.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

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