Colliers launches brand refresh built to own the blue for years to come
BENGALURU, India, March 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Colliers (NASDAQ: CIGI) (TSX: CIGI) announced today the launch of a new visual identity as part of its global brand strategy. Designed for today’s evolving digital era, the refresh is a natural evolution of the iconic Colliers brand.
“Colliers in India has grown from strength to strength in the past year. Our industry leading talent, enterprising services portfolio and growth across sectors is a testament of our brand story. The changes introduced to our iconic brand reinforces our commitment to lead the industry into the future to maximize the potential of property for our clients and people,” said Sankey Prasad, FRICS, Chairman & Managing Director (India), Colliers.
With the long-standing tagline ‘accelerating success’ at the forefront of Colliers business decisions, the rebranding builds upon Colliers’ culture that prides itself on acting with agility, championing new ways to make quick and informed decisions, thinking differently, and bringing passion to work.
Key changes to the visual identity as part of the refresh include:
Updated logo design – The most critical and recognizable element of the Colliers brand. The word “international” has been removed to give more prominence for the Colliers wordmark within the box, allowing for greater legibility especially for digital and small formats.
Colliers gets bluer – The colour palette is updated to be bold, saturated and feature energetic shades that align with the company’s passionate and enterprising culture. The colours also work well in digital settings which cater to vibrant colours.
New typography – The new typography communicates a clean, approachable and confident brand.
Energized and modern design elements – The refresh brings a suite of new design elements, including more prominent use of the Colliers tagline (“accelerating success”), new blocks and keyline design treatments and an updated library of photography and imagery.
Switching to the new visual identity online will be Colliers’ top priority.
About Colliers
Colliers (NASDAQ: CIGI) (TSX: CIGI) is a leading diversified professional services and investment management company. With operations in 67 countries, our more than 15,000 enterprising professionals work collaboratively to provide expert advice to real estate occupiers, owners and investors. For more than 25 years, our experienced leadership with significant insider ownership has delivered compound annual investment returns of almost 20% for shareholders. With annualized revenues of $3.0 billion ($3.3 billion including affiliates) and $40 billion of assets under management, we maximize the potential of property and accelerate the success of our clients and our people.
Media Contact:
Sukanya Dasgupta
Associate Director & Head, India Marketing & Communications
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MUNICH, March 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Esther Mahlangu. Ólafur ElÃasson. Cao Fei. Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Hans Ulrich Obrist. Stefan Sagmeister. Jonas Kaufmann. Jeff Koons. Nadine Ghaffar. Munich Philharmonic. Sir Simon Rattle. Marc Spiegler. Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. Chris Dercon. Victoria Siddall. BMW Group receives congratulatory messages from the international cultural world, reflecting its diverse cultural commitment. For 50 years and with over 100 initiatives in the fields of modern and contemporary art, classical music, jazz and sound as well as architecture and design, BMW Group is an integral part of culture globally.
It started with three large-scale paintings by Gerhard Richter commissioned by Eberhard von Kuenheim, then chairman of the board at BMW AG, in 1971. Since the opening of the four-cylinder building in 1973, the works titled “Rot”, “Gelb” and “Blau” have been on display. Ilka Horstmeier, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, Director ofHuman Resources and Labour Relations: “During times of rapid change, responsibility and reliability are of the greatest value. As is culture. For half a century now, we have established our international cultural commitment as long-term partners. At BMW Group, we believe that our arts cooperations are an integral part of our social sustainability.” With its network of partners, BMW Group Cultural Engagement creates current narratives and connects people worldwide – both physically and virtually. Over five decades, BMW Group has been engaged in partnerships based on mutual respect and curiosity which makes its cultural commitment a reliable partner in the cultural field. BMW Group is grateful for a video campaign that shows congratulations arriving from around the world and presents them via social media throughout the year.
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WandaVision Episode 8 takes Wanda on a stroll down memory lane holding Agatha’s hand. And the revelation earns Wanda her much-awaited title of the ‘Scarlet Witch’
WandaVision Episode 8 shows the major events of Wanda’s life which we all had only heard of till now through her MCU storyline. And it is Agatha Harkness who leads the way in order to find out about her source of power. What she finds out is what we all wanted.
Watch: Ultron Meets the Twins – Avengers Age of Ultron (2015)
Agatha Harkness Is Evil
Before starting with Wanda, WandaVision Episode 8 tells us what really happened with Agnes AKA Agatha Harkness. In the comics, she is depicted as one of the original witches from the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials was a real incident that took place in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693 which included a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft.
The scene clears our doubts about Agatha being evil from the very beginning. She practiced the darkest of magic. She was about to be snatched off her powers (and maybe even killed) as punishment. But she had become so strong that the ritual ended up in killing the others instead along with the leader. And she escapes after snatching the pendant off from the leader’s neck. This is the same pendant we see her wearing throughout WandaVision.
Agatha wants to find out Wanda’s secret. She wants to know Wanda’s secret and how she is able to pull off such a huge number of spells at once and create Westview. And so, she takes Wanda through all those events of her life that have led to her present state of mind and body.
The first “episode” shows young Wanda and Pietro, both 10 years old (mentioned by Pietro in Avengers: Age of Ultron), having a lovely watching the Dick Van Dyke show, a black&white sit-com. Wanda loved to watch this show and this is what was reflected in the 50s Westview broadcast.
And WandaVision Episode 8 shows something very crucial to us here. Something that we have but known since Avengers: Age of Ultron. And hats off to Marvel for putting it all together in the perfect way in WandaVision after so long a wait. There is an explosion and there is no sign of the parents but only the twins. A missile with the name “Stark Industries” comes and lands right in front of them as they hide under the ruins of their home. However, the missile does not detonate. And the red light on it keeps flashing with a beeping sound. Remember the ToastMate 2000 commercial from the first episode? It too was manufactured by Stark Industries and it too had the flashing red light with beeps. Yes, this falls into place straight away.
It is interesting to note that Agatha cast Pietro long before finding out about him from all these events Wanda is showing her. So, this means that Agatha knew about Pietro quite earlier. The question is how?
The Mind-Stone Experiment
The next “episode” takes us to the event of Wanda being experimented upon using the Mind Stone (then inside Loki’s scepter). This reveals to us how she got her magical powers. At the point she touches the Mind Stone, it reveals itself to her and we see a silhouette. And very clearly it is that of Scarlet Witch with the horned headdress (of herself), the original epic costume from the Marvel comics. This moment is certainly one of the greatest moments of WandaVision Episode 8 and the entire WandaVision show.
However, the scientists do not see any of this on the monitor. All they see is Wanda standing at one moment, and lying on the ground at the very next moment. Then did all this happen inside her mind? Or did the Mind Stone reveal itself only to her? This might mean that she had her powers dormant inside her from the beginning.
Following this, we see her in an isolation ward watching, again, a sit-com. This one has two kids with a dog. Well, does it remind you of anything? Yes, the fifth episode with Sparky. Here, even Agatha says that Wanda got “up close and personal with an Infinity Stone that amplified” her powers. This again raises the doubts of her dormant powers.
Here we, along with Agatha, see Wanda and Vision together in the “first home” they shared. Wanda is again watching a sit-com while Vision enters and an emotional conversation follows. It can be said that this moment is what planted the seeds of love in them. “But what is grief if not love persevering?” And we cannot help but notice Agatha, who with all her evilness, is still unable to stop a tear from her eyes and wipes it off. This proves that she does have good in her, a side that feels love and pain.
Who knows, this might eventually lead her to help Reed and Sue Richards and take care of their son Franklin (going by the comics) in the not-too-distant future in the MCU.
Next Wanda takes Agatha after the events of Endgame. She visits a SWORD facility to recover Vision’s body and properly bury him. However, she finds out that they have dismantled him for better use. However, Wanda makes her way to Vision’s parts but to her misfortune, “I can’t feel you.” And she leaves in pain. And she visits Westview where she and Vision together dreamed of a house where they could “grow old in.” And at that very moment, all the pain, rage, and anger in her manifests itself in the form of a reality that we now know as the Westview anomaly. She manifests Vision as well.
However, we need to note that in episode 5, Hayward tells Monica Rambeau that Wanda has stolen Vision’s body. We now know that this isn’t true. So Hayward lied to Monica just to manipulate her against Wanda.
Finally, at the end of this journey, Agnes brings back Wanda to reality and reveals her true self. We see Billy and Tommy caught in Agatha’s lasso formed of purple magic. And she tells Wanda how truly powerful she is. “You have no idea how dangerous you are. You’re supposed to be a myth, a being capable of spontaneous creation. Here you are, using it to make breakfast for dinner”. She continues,
“…This whole little life you’ve made. This is Chaos Magic, Wanda. And that makes you the Scarlet Witch.”
So, it seems that the Scarlet Witch is someone who is considered one of the most powerful beings capable of spontaneous creation. And when Wanda saw the silhouette in the Mind Stone, it was but that of her future self. We can say that more of this will be explored in the final 8th episode of WandaVision. But what we do know is that the magic Wanda owns comes from a place yet unknown to us. And it is something that even a powerful hundreds-of-years-old witch like Agatha Harkness finds risky.
The White Vision
The post-credit scene tells us why Hayward did not want to give away Vision’s body to Wanda. It is because he wanted to bring Vision, a sentient being, back to life and use it for his own means. And this he does by harvesting power (of the Mind Stone) from the drone that Wanda (who got her powers from the Mind Stone) destroyed in WandaVision episode 5; the same power that was the life source of Vision. Who knows, we may even see Wanda and Vision in a face-off?! How would you like that? The epic finale.
AMSTERDAM, March 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Atradius Collections has acquired the Portuguese collections agency Gestifatura and expanded its presence to 34 countries.
After opening new offices in Dubai, Morocco, and Indonesia in the past two years, Atradius Collections has expanded its international presence into Portugal. The acquisition supports the long-term goals of Atradius Collections of continuously advancing its knowledge of and presence in local markets.
Knowledge of local business practices and culture is key to success in debt collections. A presence in Portugal allows Atradius Collections to provide better debt collections services to its customers with debtors in the region.
Portugal’s GDP has climbed back to the level before the financial crisis and its labour market reform has increased the employment rate significantly. Even though its economy is under stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Portugal’s business climate is attractive and it has increasing strategic importance to businesses in Western and Southern Europe.
“Customers expect us to collect their outstanding receivables while respecting the local business practices and culture. By opening a location in Portugal, we meet those expectations and it follows our strategic direction to strengthen even more our understanding of local businesses and our service delivery,” says Rudi De Greve, COO at Atradius Collections.
Through a presence in 34 countries, Atradius Collections provides trade invoice collections services in 96% of the countries across the world. Its wide breadth of services, ranging from accounts receivable management outsourcing and third-party collections to legal collections, helps companies around the globe recover outstanding invoices and manage accounts receivable efficiently.
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The last date to nominate companies that have successfully managed to integrate sustainability into their business is March 31, 2021
MUMBAI, India, March 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Frost & Sullivan and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) will jointly host the 12th edition of ‘Sustainability 4.0 Awards‘, virtually on August 20, 2021, to recognize the efforts of companies in India that have successfully integrated sustainability into their business and investment decisions. The awards aim to recognize organizations that have been able to fast-track their sustainability strategies even during the pandemic and strive for excellence in sustainable development.
Companies interested in participating in this edition of the awards can submit their nominations on or before March 31st, 2021. Please download the application form here: http://frost.ly/59v. For any queries or clarification, please reach out to Vivekananda Bhat at VivekanandaB@frost.com, with your full name, company name, title, telephone number, and company e-mail address.
Sarwant Singh, Managing Partner and Regional Leader for Middle East and South Asia at Frost & Sullivan, hopes that the awards will encourage more companies to embrace a structured sustainability program. “As digitalization and sustainability merge into two of the most powerful market influencers in today’s corporate landscape, the Sustainability 4.0 awards program will evaluate how organizations are interweaving their digitalization initiatives with the sustainability strategies, and provide them with a better understanding of what they need to do to be future-ready”, he said. “Sustainability is an essential tool for long-term value creation for stakeholders. Our partnership with TERI has provided the right impetus to this commitment as we continue to leverage this partnership for increased adoption of sustainability practices in business”, he added.
Speaking about the impact of COVID-19 on sustainability, Dr. Ajay Mathur, Director General at TERI, said, “What we have seen is that companies that are sustainable also create more value because they use fewer resources, minimize waste, and consequently overall, they are better corporate citizens. As we move ahead, we are looking at companies that are pushing their profits and minimizing their waste management, we are looking at companies that use sustainability as a tool to enhance their performance.”
Sustainability 4.0 Awards emphasizes the four pillars of sustainability – Purpose, Partnership, Planet, and People. These elements are sector-agnostic and are the foundation of any organization’s sustainability agenda. The highest-scoring, top two companies of the year will be recognized with Super Achievers Award: ‘Sustainable Business of the Year‘ and ‘Sustainable Business of the Year – 1st Runner-up‘ Award, respectively. This year’s awards will also include –Safety Excellence Awards, the Jury Special Mention Award, the Renewable Energy Consumption Index, and Sustainability Analytics.
The Safety Excellence Awards recognize organizations across five key criteria – safety management, process safety, equipment safety, behavioral safety, and occupational health. The Jury Special Mention Award will be conferred to programs that are best-in-class, scalable, and replicable across industry verticals. The Renewable Energy Consumption Index aims to recognize the industry’s transition to RE while aligning with India’s commitments under the Paris Agreement. Sustainability Analytics will evaluate how companies are effectively using analytics in their sustainability management in three aspects: Effective Data Collection, Usage of Smart Analytical Tools, and End-to-End Visibility in the value chain.
About Frost & Sullivan
For six decades, Frost & Sullivan has been world-renowned for its role in helping investors, corporate leaders, and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models, and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success. Contact us: Start the discussion.
About TERI
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) is a leading think tank dedicated to conducting research for the sustainable development of India and the Global South. TERI was established in 1974 as an information center on energy issues. However, over the following decades, it made a mark as a research institute, whose policy and technology solutions transformed people’s lives and the environment. TERI’s key focus lies in promoting clean energy, water management, pollution management, sustainable agriculture, and climate resilience. TERI’s Council for Business Sustainability connects its research work with the corporate sector. The Council guides the Indian corporates to frame and implement their sustainability agenda.
Media Contacts:
For Frost & Sullivan:
Priya George, Corporate Communications – South Asia
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The Web of Science Author Impact Beamplots encourages responsible research evaluation
LONDON, March 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Clarivate Plc (NYSE: CLVT), a global leader in providing trusted information and insights to accelerate the pace of innovation, today released a new interactive tool that showcases the range of a researcher’s publication and citation impact in a single visualization. The Web of Science Author Impact Beamplots will enable users of research metrics to engage more actively with data and provide new opportunities to conduct research assessment in a responsible manner.
Unlike single-point metrics, a beamplot reveals the volume and citation impact of an individual’s publication portfolio through time and provides context for comparison with a broad range of data. The information provided should be considered alongside contextual information such as working location, role, nature of collaborative projects and type of research involved. Each paper’s citation count is normalized (i.e., benchmarked against other similar publications) and measured as a percentile and therefore avoids some of the bias present in other researcher metrics.
Lutz Bornmann and Werner Marx of the Max Planck Society first introduced and developed the use of beamplots for scientometric data in 2014 and Clarivate has continued to emphasize the importance of profiles over metrics1, which draws attention to the information that is lost when data about researchers and their institutions are squeezed into simplified metrics.
Lutz Bornmann, sociologist of science at the Max Planck Society said: “Beamplots combine more information than the popular h-index output and impact data (of single scientists) by showing the data for single papers and in aggregate form. I look forward to seeing how beamplots facilitate more successful research evaluation.”
Martin Szomszor, Director at the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) said: “Individual researcher evaluation can be done in a responsible manner when appropriate quantitative and qualitative indicators are considered together. Presenting the data in this way allows deeper insights into an individual’s publication portfolio.”
Joel Haspel, SVP Strategy, Science at Clarivate said: “Everything we do at Clarivate centers around improving the researcher experience and supporting the integrity of the research community. This alternative evaluation tool will enable researchers, universities and funders to step away from oversimplified, problematic metrics and towards a more responsible and successful approach to research evaluation, to offer a fairer and more accurate assessment system for all.”
Notes
Interpreting the citation performance of individual researchers with beamplots, a whitepaper published by the Institute for Scientific Information provides guidance on how to interpret beamplots and includes a hypothetical hiring scenario as a case study. It emphasizes the need for context and informed judgement beyond the metrics.
About Clarivate
Clarivate is a global leader in providing solutions to accelerate the lifecycle of innovation. Our bold mission is to help customers solve some of the world’s most complex problems by providing actionable information and insights that reduce the time from new ideas to life-changing inventions in the areas of science and intellectual property. We help customers discover, protect and commercialize their inventions using our trusted subscription and technology-based solutions coupled with deep domain expertise. For more information, please visit clarivate.com.
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Middle East cloud market expected to reach USD 4.5 billion by 2024, highlighting the growing opportunity in the region
Tencent Cloud will capitalise on Bahrain’s position as a regional cloud services hub
HONG KONG, March 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Tencent Cloud, the cloud business of Tencent, today announced its collaboration with the Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) — the Kingdom of Bahrain’s Investment promotion agency. The two parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), with the aim to drive the Kingdom of Bahrain’s Internet Data Centre (IDC) development and support its rapid emergence as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s hub for the cloud and IDC sectors. The MoU signing also marks a significant milestone for Tencent Cloud as it deploys its first public cloud infrastructure in the MENA region.
According to research by MarketsandMarkets, the Middle East’s cloud market is expected to reach USD 4.5 billion by 2024, with a CAGR of 17.5 percent over the same period, highlighting the growing opportunity in this region.
The MoU between Tencent Cloud and the Bahrain EDB will allow for substantial opportunities to boost the local digital economy, empowering local organisations to expedite their digital transformation journey. It will also allow Tencent Cloud to leverage on Bahrain’s regional position, and the EDB’s connectivity with local and regional stakeholders, including Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat.
The terms of the MoU include:
Tencent Cloud’s firstIDC in Bahrain and MENA:Tencent Cloud will launch a brand-new IDC in Bahrain, which will go live by the end of 2021.
Promoting the deployment of Tencent Cloud: Bahrain EDB, together with public and private stakeholders will encourage the continued adoption of cloud services to further the digital transformation agenda. Additionally, support will be offered to partner companies to leverage cloud services in collaboration with local stakeholders such as Tamkeen.
Local talent development:Tencent Cloud will explore and set up training initiatives jointly with the local government in universities and educational institutions across the Kingdom to allow for further knowledge transfer and qualified digital technology talents.
H.E. Kamal bin Ahmed Mohammed, Bahrain’s Minister of Transportation and Telecommunications, said, “This is an important milestone in Bahrain’s journey to become the MENA region’s cloud and data centre hub and I commend the EDB for their ceaseless efforts in developing the partnership with Tencent and ensuring that Bahrain is a favored destination for investment. Tencent joins leading global cloud giants in setting up in Bahrain which will drive massive growth in data traffic towards MENA. Moreover, the launch of the new data centre stands to create a clustering effect as other global providers turn their attention to the increasingly attractive region, with Bahrain positioned as the destination of choice with proactive initiatives such as the Government’s ‘Cloud-First’ policy and nationwide 5G.”
Poshu Yeung, Senior Vice President, Tencent Cloud International, said, “While the local government in Bahrain has been making significant efforts to grow the local IDC industry, Tencent Cloud is excited to collaborate with Bahrain EDB as part of our ongoing efforts to ramp up the global IDC landscape. We will launch all necessary steps to set up a brand-new IDC in Bahrain to provide better coverage all over the Middle East and North African regions along the Belt and Road, fully supporting Bahrain’s ‘Cloud-First’ strategy.”
H.E. Khalid Humaidan, Chief Executive, Bahrain Economic Development Board, said, “As a global leader in technology, innovation and cloud services, the EDB is very proud to be partnering with Tencent to set up their first MENA data center hub in Bahrain. We are confident that Tencent will be able to leverage on the Kingdom’s regional connectivity, local talent, and business friendly environment to expand their services and reach clients across the region.”
Raed Fakhri, Managing Director – Investments, Mumtalakat, added, “Innovative technologies, including cloud services and other content driven services, are an area that Mumtalakat is keen to explore and support as Bahrain progresses with its ‘Cloud First’ policy. As one of the first organisations in the Kingdom to achieve full cloud migration we are excited to witness this milestone that will only further enhance Bahrain’s diversification strategy.”
In 2017, Bahrain introduced the region’s first nationwide “Cloud-First” policy to enhance government information and communication technologies, driving the adoption of cloud across state entities and reducing IT costs by up to 90%.
Operating in 27 regions and 60 availability zones worldwide, Tencent Cloud is a secure, reliable and high-performance public cloud service provider that integrates Tencent’s infrastructure-building capabilities with the advantages of its massive user platform and ecosystem. By harnessing Bahrain’s track record of agile and forward-thinking data regulation, as well as its strategic location within the region, Tencent Cloud will enhance its rich array of global services to both the public and private sectors in the region.
About Tencent Cloud
Tencent Cloud is Tencent’s cloud services brand, providing industry-leading cloud products and services to organizations and enterprises across the world. Leveraging its robust data center infrastructures around the world, Tencent integrates cloud computing, big data analytics, AI, Internet of Things, security and other advanced technologies with smart enterprise scenarios. At the same time, we provide a holistic smart enterprise solution for sectors including finance, education, healthcare, retail, industry, transport, energy and radio & television.
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