IoT in India: Key reasons to become the next big wave

IoT (Internet of Things), the concept is not new, it was discussed as early as 1982, with a modified Coke vending machine at Carnegie Mellon University. Now it has become a part of our lives, from healthcare to food- processing, manufacturing units to our homes, the usage of the Internet of Things has opened a new era of innovation.

Internet of Things is impacting every industry and driving new business models. As per IDC, Internet of Things spending is increasing at the CAGR of 13.6%. According to a report, in 2016, the IoT market was USD 1.3 billion and IoT Installed Units were60 million. And it is expected to grow by the IoT market: USD 9 billion and IoT Installed Units: 1.9 billion in the year 2020.

But why and what would make IoT more successful in India? Let’s find out the reasons –

Kushal Nahata, CEO & Co-founder, FarEye

End-to-End Control of Logistics Operations: IoT will play a vital role when it comes to executing seamless logistics operations. By integrating SaaS solutions with the Internet of Things devices, logistics stakeholders can gain real-time insights into the delivery status and KPIs.

At any given point in time, they can know exactly where their shipments are, in what condition they are in, when will they be delivered, if there are any delays, so on and so forth. They can also benchmark KPIs based on 3PL performance, route efficiency, OTIF adherence and more.

Ensures Data-Driven Decisions: With advanced algorithms running on real-time and historical data, insightful trends and information can be generated and used by the supply chain managers, making it easy for them to analyze risks, gain predictive intelligence and make data-driven decisions, thus establishing greater control over the supply chain.

Improves Vehicle Maintenance: Insights on the condition of a vehicle at any given point of time, fuel consumption patterns, driving behavior and more can be easily analyzed using IoT-driven solutions. This further optimizes delivery operations by reducing fuel consumption, ensuring the safety of shipments, reducing delivery cycles and more.

Improves Logistics Visibility: IoT-powered supply chains are helping enterprises drive high levels of delivery transparency and logistics visibility to all the stakeholders. IoT-powered platforms can help businesses optimize logistics processes to ensure faster and cost-effective deliveries.

Enhances Warehouse & Inventory Management: Warehouse management is another area that the Internet of Things aims to simplify and enhance. The use of highly advanced, innovative devices enables supply managers to take complete stock of inventory from all warehouses and identify any kind of damage done.

It also helps them ensure that the warehouse space is being effectively utilized. IoT-powered solutions keep supply chain stakeholders updated with information on available inventory to ensure delivery demands are met on time.

Neelesh Salgaonkar - VP Engineering, Karix Mobile.

Internet of Things is set to challenge several paradigms around living, industry, and businesses in the days to come. With the Internet of Things devices collecting tons of data daily, machines shall be able to make data-driven decisions to make our lives more efficient, comfortable and secure in the days to come.

IoT applications can be broadly classified as Industrial IoT and Consumer IoT.

Examples of Industrial IoT are connected vehicles, retail automation, and Smart cities (This initiative by Govt. of India will witness many deployments of IoT projects). Retail companies are investing heavily in the Internet of Things as they understand the importance of data-driven analytics and to further improve customer experience.

Data-driven analytics based on the data gathered from sensors to reach potential customers and for better marketing is now very common. The manufacturing industry is making use of smart machines to improve the overall manufacturing process and to produce better goods more efficiently.

Businesses are using IoT for automating processes; therefore BPM is also an emerging field of research and progress.

Examples of Consumer Internet of Things are home automation, wearable devices, health & fitness monitoring devices. Wearable technology to monitor one's health condition at any time and anywhere is very common now. Sensors are collecting data and at the same time, the data can be visible to doctors. This will help doctors to closely monitor crucial patients from far away.

Satish Kumar V, CEO at EverestIMS Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Increased consumer and industrial applications combined with a strong adopter driven demand, will drive the Internet of Things success in the years to come. These span networks, sensors, standards and virtual, augmented and mixed reality applications.

Further, the Government of India has taken the following initiatives on IoT. The first is the Draft IoT Policy 2016 which lays the foundation for a robust governance context for integrated implementation and execution of policies and campaigns related to the Internet of Things.

The second is the National Digital Communication Policy 2018 which has set aggressive goals (5 billion connected devices by 2022) to address the problem of communications and access to Digital Services in India. We believe that there two initiatives will help drive the roadmap for the Internet of Things expansion and adoption in the country.

We are observing increased usage of IoT devices from Fleet Management for monitoring of vehicles; Agriculture for livestock and equipment monitoring; utilities for outage, safety, automation, and customer management; manufacturing for smart production, equipment, maintenance, materials, and workforce; oil and gas for refinery equipment monitoring and maintenance, surveillance, production process, and analytics. As you can see the applications in industry are vast and we only see it growing to exceptionally larger scales in the future.

The bulwark of the middle class and tech-savvy consumers along with increasing smartphone and mobile Internet penetration is pushing consumer demand for IoT applications in India.

The consumer applications are increasing every day and ushering new experiences and options that span a host of needs from healthcare, fitness, nutrition on one side with smart homes and residential community needs on the other. We are also observing the strong adoption of virtual and augmented applications in customer engagement experience.

There is no doubt about the value that IoT has unlocked so far in India and its potential to transform lives.

Sean Duca, vice president, and regional chief security officer, Asia Pacific & Japan, Palo Alto Networks

The IoT industry is driven by digital transformations across various industries and this is set to continue. Let’s take the manufacturing sector – one of the vital components for many Asian economies – as an example of an industry that has seen technology transforming its business processes.

Manufacturers are constantly looking to deploy sensors, wearables, and automated systems as a way to streamline production, logistics and employee management via data collection and analytics. At the same time, organizations will need to ensure that these connected devices can leverage automated features, such as built-in diagnostics, continuous vulnerability scanning, and advanced analytics to remain on top of threats. All these businesses need to continue to power the growth of the industry.

Selvakumar Natesan, Lead Tech Consultant, ThoughtWorks

In India, for a solution to be successful, it needs to scale. And some of the fundamental principles of IoT (if adhered to) enable effective scaling. IoT will play a key role in the space of Effective Resource Management. All energy, water, and gas (and more) related metering needs that are manual today, can be automated using IoT.

In India, Govt. and Utility Sectors will become some of the large consumers and beneficiaries of IoT. For example, IoT is central to the launch of automatic and smart street lights across the board. IoT is fodder for several interesting product ideas for startups, especially in Smart Home space.

Ashish Kalvakota, Associate Vice President - Engineering, and Praveen Jha, Principal Architect, GlobalLogic

IoT has already taken a center stage in the different stages of businesses. Right from healthcare to food- processing, the usage of the Internet of Things has opened a new era of innovation to achieve higher level productivity and efficiency in operations. The amount of data produced by the Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to reach 4.4 zettabytes by 2020 and still, there would be enough scope for its application in forthcoming years.

Nitesh Bansal, SVP and Global Head of Engineering Services, Infosys

IoT will impact every industry. IoT will help in driving new business models, driving more efficiencies, more value realization from existing investments are some of the key outcomes of IoT. All this leads to more business/revenue to product and services companies alike.

IoT spending is increasing at the CAGR of 13.6% as per IDC. World Economic Forum (WEF) views that the spending on the Internet of Things has the potential to impact and advance the sustainability targets.