Wednesday, July 29, 2015

INTERNET OF THINGS SPECIAL................ Hooked to everything

Hooked to everything


Why large Indian enterprises, startups and global service providers are tapping into the Internet of Things opportunity

An NCR based two wheeler company tracks its fleet of trucks across the length and breadth of the country using GPS technology. Another Chennai based auto manufacturer is toying with the thought of launching connected vehicles. The company also tracks pollution levels and productivity across its shop floors using connected devices. Technology companies and hospitals are talking about how doctors will be able to monitor sugar levels of diabetic patients real-time in the near future. That's what the Internet of Things (IoT) is all about.
After surpassing the human population on the planet in 2011, internet-connected devices are expected to number between 26 billion and 50 billion globally by 2020. These devices, which in the past could only be thought to be mobile phones, laptops and desktops, now include ATM machines, gas pipelines, street lights, transportation vehicles and even the soil that is used for agriculture.
This highly interconnected world is something that the industry calls Internet of Things--a new industry that the Indian government expects to cross $15 billion by 2020. As per market research firm Gartner, the total revenue generated from the IoT industry would be $300 billion and the number of connected devices would be 27 billion by 2020 globally. It has been assumed that India would have a share of 5-6% of global IoT industry. To support this industry, the government has already come out with a draft IoT policy that aims at building an entire ecosystem around IoT and to incentivise the players in the ecosystem. Experts believe this is a step in the right direction as enterprises in every industry vertical are looking at IoT to solve their business problems.
“IoT can generate a lot of value for every industry ­ be it manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, or even agriculture. It is helping enterprises not only reduce costs, energy consumption and downtime of machines, but also significantly improve efficiency and customer service,“ says Ganesh Ramamoorthy, Research Vice President at Gartner.
Take for example Hero MotoCorp. The largest two-wheeler company in the country needed a way to improve its visibility on the fleet of vehicles that are available in different locations so that the dealer clearly knows by when certain vehicles would be available. “We started with GPS-enabling our fleet and getting real time data of truck location and linking that with our sales and distribution data to take actions as may be required. This also helped our dealers and sales teams to get real time information on location of goods,“ says Vijay Sethi, Vice PresidentInformation Systems & CIO, Hero MotoCorp.
Similarly, Hindustan Petroleum is using IoT to automate many of its processes and create real-time insights into the business. The company has installed sensors in field units to capture information such as temperature, pressure, flow rates, density, product levels, GPS coor dinates, condition of devices, speed and other physical attributes. “These systems enable us to operate our facilities efficiently and provide real time visibility of the status of the condition of these systems,“ says S.T. Sathiavageeswaran, Executive DirectorInformation Systems, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation. “The retail outlet automation systems help us to monitor the performance of our outlets in real time and enable us to proactively attend to any issues immediately.“
Similarly, Apollo Hospitals is using IoT to transform healthcare.“We are exploring IoT in disease management. SUGAR is our diabetes management initiative. Constant monitoring of the specific blood sugar levels using disruptive IoT enabled technology and transmitting them seamlessly to our personal health record system has been effectively piloted and is now getting ready for wide scale usage,“ says Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals. The hospital chain is also looking at IoT in effective inpatient care, post discharge care and overall preventive health and wellness. According to Gartner, IoT is something that needs to be seen as a business initiative by enterprises, “IoT is not a technology initiative. It is all about business process improvement. Enterprises need to put down their business pain points and then look at how to resolve them with the help of IoT.“
Manufacturing, healthcare, insurance, retail, utility and power generation are some of biggest beneficiaries from IoT, according to Arnab Basu, Partner & Technology Sector Consultant, PwC. “It's important to note here that IoT will work in conjunction with other technologies like analytics, data protection, cyber security and data governance,“ he says.
Cisco is investing heavily in the space by building large teams and localised products. “IoT has been the biggest focus area for Cisco in India.We have increased our IoT team by five times in the last one year. We focus primarily around the digital India program and on digitising enterprises with the help of IoT,“ says Nalinikanth Gollagunta, managing director, commercial sales at Cisco India & SAARC.
Apart from working with IT services companies such as Wipro, Infosys and TCS, Cisco says most of the IoT projects now involve industrial equipment companies such as Honeywell, Rockwell, Schneider. “In IoT, we are generally moving away from enterprise environment and into operational environment where typical companies such as Wipro and Infosys have little to play,“ he says.
Tata Elxsi is similarly scaling up its IoT team rapidly as it sees this market as the next wave. “At Tata Elxsi we believe that IoT drives fundamental changes in the way products are conceptualised by manufacturers and utilised by customers. In the new paradigm, products serve as an extended platform to provide services to customers,“ says RR Bipin, VP, Digital Services IoT, Embedded Product Design Division at Tata Elxsi. He adds, “In addition to the broader theme of smart cities, telehealth, fleet management and connected car are some of the important verticals that we are focused on right now.“
According to IBM, the insurance sector could be the next big adopter of IoT and would transform the way healthcare and insurance businesses are run today. “Caring for the elderly or people with chronic illness could become a lot easier with the help of wearable medical devices such as fitness bands that can track your health and inform your doctor about your deteriorating health so that steps can be taken to heal before it is too late,“ says Dr. Prashant Pradhan, director-Smarter Planet Business, IBM India.
He explains how insurance companies could give incentives to customers for allowing them to track their fitness records from devices such as fitness bands and then offer them proactive health tips based on the customer's physical activities that'll not only help the customer remain fit but also save the company millions of dollars from mediclaim. Car insurance companies similarly may mandate customers to put sensors in your car and charge premiums based on your driving style.
IoT provides an opportunity not only to large vendors but also a plethora of startups who are attracting big investments. Companies such as Cisco, IBM and Intel are using their venture funds to invest in some of these companies to grow inorganically in the domain.
Bengaluru-based IoT startup Altimetrik is working with some of the largest retail and FMCG companies in India to bring in efficiencies in their business. “We try and define business outcomes and then we tell them (customers) that for them to cause this outcome, what all data they need and where it is residing,“ says Madhavan Satagopan, CTO at Altimetrik and a member of Nasscom's Engineering and R&D Council. “The sensors in IoT only provide a way for sensors in your business network to talk more and provide the essential data. More than analytics, IoT helps companies to get real-time correlation of events and then tie that back to the company's business outcomes,“ he says.
Cisco launched a $40 million fund in June last year to seed startup companies under its “India Innovation“ program, which focuses on IoT solutions. The company has already invested in Mumbai-based Covacsis Technologies, an enterprise software firm, and Mobstac, a cloud-based company offering a publishing platform for mobile websites and apps and is still scouting for more. “We are looking at startups who can provide IoT solutions in the enterprise and government space,“ says Gollagunta.
Intel similarly is scouting for startups through its venture fund, Intel Capital. In November, Intel Capital said it would invest $62 million in 16 technology startups working in wearables, data analytics and IoT.
Despite huge investments going into the space, experts say IoT is still at a nascent stage in the country.There are also concerns about skillset availability, security of data that these sensors transmit and the need to build a regulatory framework around IoT. However, the government has already taken positive steps by initiating an IoT policy, while industry associations such as Nasscom and IESA are working together to suggest to the government how IoT could be used to build the nation.
IoT at work
Leading two wheeler manufacturer, TVS Motor uses IoT for process automation, process quality control and traceability in shop floor, pollution control and monitoring, measurement of water flow and power consumption. The auto maker is also working on connected vehicles. IoT has resulted in productivity improvement, quality control, cost control and above all agility of business.
2 ICICI Lombard General Insurance is leveraging use of telematics in transportation solutions to minimise loss of cargo during transit of goods. The technology is used for the benefit of customers covered under the marine insurance policy (transporting goods by land or sea). It enables real time tracking of goods through the transit to ensure that the carrier doesn't deviate from the course. If there are any unscheduled stops they get reported real time thus reducing incidents of theft, pilferage and the rate of loss.
3 Telecom tower infrastructures provider Bharti Infratel is using IoT for management and live monitoring of its passive infrastructure like tower, fuel management, energy distribution, alarm monitoring, surveillance on the site and security. IoT helps the company optimise manpower, analyse data points, trends and in fault detection.
By Varun Aggarwal and Sneha Jha

CDET10JUL15

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