Internet of Things (IoT) is already becoming the next evolution of the Internet

How do you see the evolution of IoT- has it passed the hype curve and on the road to adoption?

Infosys has been providing services to industries on various technology enablers related to Machine to Machine (M2M) over the past 2 decades. Advances and maturity of Technology over the years for example, Sensors, Devices, Embedded Software, Communication, Connectivity, Big Data and Analytics has resulted in mass production, affordability and mass deployment. IoT adoption has seen across the industry verticals over the years. While Industrial IoT (IIoT) adoption is contained and gradual due to brown field environment, IoT in consumer space is beyond imagination. Clearly the adoption of IoT has seen an exponential increase in the industry delivering business value.

We all are moving towards a world where everything that we can imagine are literally getting ‘connected’. Internet of things(IoT) is already becoming the next evolution of the Internet with its dynamic ability to gather, analyze and distribute data into information and knowledge. IoT is the most talked about technology currently and is poised for an exponential growth in the coming years, mostly because of its ability to provide convenience, asset usability, operational excellence and better customer experience to end users through automation, exchange data over internet and enabling useful business insights.

According to Gartner, IoT is still at the pinnacle of emerging technologies that have the potential for significant impact and business transformation. Infosys as well believes that IoT is going to be the next face of Industrialization. It spans across consumer, industrial and ecosystems. With tremendous market for IoT across almost all the industry segments that includes automotive, aerospace healthcare, consumer products industries, manufacturing, energy & utilities, telecommunications etc. this equates to a massive global impact on productivity, jobs and quality of human life. Hence, IoT is definitely on its way of adoption by many of the global firms in their quest to connect the digital and physical worlds.

But given the state of the present IoT boom, security, privacy and reliability concerns are the main barriers which needs to be addressed.

How are service  providers approaching IoT?

While IoT adoption is becoming stronger and more significant in businesses, customers are looking for partnering with service providers who can help in their IoT initiatives. Clients are looking for service providers to build up proof of concepts first, realize the true benefits and then take up the full blown approach.

There are a few apprehensions associated with IoT such as security, privacy, reliability etc. and service providers are creating their own frameworks, build consultative approaches, conceptualising business solutions to address these. Building right skills and investing into right technologies are another important initiatives that service providers are undertaking in order to build successful IoT use cases. Sometimes these skillsets reside outside the organizations and hence service providers are also investing in building the IoT ecosystem with external entities such as start-up companies as well as academia. Service providers are also willing to co-invest along with their clients and put their skin in the game.

What is Infosys doing in this space?

Infosys is an ecosystem integrator. Infosys apart from its strong Engineering, Industry Vertical expertise and IT skills has a well-established ecosystem of partners in the areas of sensors, devices, M2M platform and Device Management Platform. Infosys has invested and developed an open source based Big Data and Analytics platform named Infosys Information Platform (IIP) that is providing insights to enterprises for informed decision making. Supported by industry specific analytical models.

Infosys is driving technology blueprints and frameworks through forums like Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), Industrie 4.0 through Aachen University in Germany as well as demonstrations at Hannover Messe 2015, GE Minds and Machine, Bosch Connected World, etc.

IoT is one of the important themes and Infosys has been bolstering its leadership position in the Engineering space. IoT is a broad-based and applicable across various industry verticals. Infosys has been active in all facets of IoT including B2B, B2C and IoT ecosystems. As an Ecosystem Integrator, Infosys is able to provide end to end services, for realizing IoT solutions for our customers focusing around top line improvement and bottom line reduction resulting from operational efficiency, asset efficiency, automation and customer experience.

We have also conducted the  Industry 4.0 survey with the prestigious FIR Institute of the University of Aachen across five countries (US, UK, France, Germany and China) polling 433 industry executives across Aerospace, Automotive, Electronics, High Tech Machinery and Process industries to measure the maturity of their asset efficiency initiative. Industry 4.0 is synonymously known globally as cyber-physical systems where electronics, intelligent sensors, computation, and networking are embedded into physical systems and processes. Infosys has defined Asset Efficiency across four dimensions: operational, maintenance, information and energy. The research revealed that the largest improvements planned over the next five years are in the areas of information interoperability, data standardization and advanced analytics. Manufacturing being energy intensive, the majority (88 percent) of the companies surveyed have identified energy management as a critical factor for achieving asset efficiency. However, only 15 percent have systematic and integrated implementation of energy efficiency throughout the lifecycle of assets in place.

Infosys has created an ecosystem through various partnerships, ready-to-deploy IOT solution components and reference solution architectures for industry vertical use cases. We have delivered solutions in the following areas:

• Connected Car
  • Driver behavior analysis, usage based insurance, infotainment, distraction prevention and identification, location services and eCall for automotive
  • Driver behavior analysis, usage based insurance, location based services with geo benching and alert notifications for insurance
• Connected Retail
  • Vending machine monitoring and supply chain integration, digital signage, context aware consumer advertisement for retail
  • Smart supply chain, fleet management solutions
• Connected Care
  • Remote patient monitoring, in-hospital device management, intelligent medical devices and wearable devices for health care and life sciences
• Connected Home
  • Home security, automation and connectivity solutions, residential gateway devices for operator and smart home
• Connected Factories
  • Plant automation and control systems (PACS), digital oil fields (DOFS), integrated vehicle health monitoring (IVHM)
  • Asset tracking and tracing, asset utilization improvement (Asset Efficiency Solution)
• Connected Stadium
  • Creating engaging end-user experience by unlocking business opportunities to entertainment centers such as stadium. Infosys rich Entertainment Experience Platform, together with Huawei’s market-leading Wi-Fi infrastructure, unlocks this value.

What is your outlook for IoT and the opportunities for Indian services industry?

IoT services is one of the key growth engines and we are confident that the IoT practice will contribute significantly to the overall business over the next 5 years. Infosys has already invested heavily in scaling the team, increased partner engagement, new platform development, Co-Creation and Co-Innovation. Infosys Industrial IoT services (Asset Efficiency) is a strategic IoT Services offering as a result of Industrie 4.0 work alongside leading German University Aachen. It is a great opportunity to partner with industries along the IoT journey as overall industry is in exploratory mode. This is the reason Infosys has adopted Co-Creation, Co-Innovation along with our customers to show Infosys belief in the opportunity in Infosys.

We at Infosys believes that IoT is definitely going to transform the way of doing business and delivering value to industries and enterprises. According to IDC, the worldwide market for IoT solutions will grow from USD 1.9 trillion in 2013 to USD 7.1 trillion by 2020. This figure looks promising for all the service providers – as Internet of Things is definitely here to stay for a long while.

There are tremendous opportunities that are going to be created for Indian services industries across sectors including auto, retail, energy and utilities, telecom, healthcare etc. IoT is creating the ecosystem of connected devices such as mobile phones, laptops and desktops, now include ATM machines, gas pipelines, street lights, transportation vehicles and even the soil that is used for agriculture. IoT would not only help services industry in reducing costs but also prevents in downtime of machines, improve the efficiency of the entire value chain, decrease energy consumption and improve customer service. It would also create the automation opportunities where human intervention is difficult due to hazardous environmental conditions e.g. mine field etc. In healthcare, it would create the opportunity of remote patient monitoring that would change the dynamics of healthcare treatment. Usage based insurance using wearables or dongles can change how insurance companies are designing their policies – both in life and non-life insurance domains.

Hence with the maturity and proliferation of IoT, the service industry across India is poised for transformation.