Location Maps are the Key to Solving many Real Problems: Abhijit Sengupta, HERE Technologies

Those of us who are frequent travellers will most likely be accustomed to using location maps to reach our choice of destination. However, location maps are no longer only limited to taking commuters from one point to the other. Technologies such as artificial intelligence, and big data analytics are being used to enrich user experience in this segment as well like various other verticals. In an interview with DataQuest, Abhijit Sengupta, Director – South East Asia and India, HERE Technologies, talks about what the company has to offer for the India market, and how services offered by HERE are different from other existing players.

Excerpts

Q. How are mapping solutions offered by HERE Technologies different from those offered by Google Maps, other competitors?

“Location” is the key to solving many real problems such as 1) travelling to point A to point B 2) Search as a point of interest 3) industry specific problems such as in transport and logistics, public sector, and automotive. HERE Technologies’ open location platform (OLP) and HERE Product suite are addressing such specific requirements by industry segment to deliver the best experiences.

Additionally, when we talk to our customers, we offer assets - a map, a platform, service, or application – that helps them build and grow their business. Our customers know what they’re getting when they work with us. We are not looking to monetize the data of customers’ customers.

Q. Could you provide some information on what more we can expect from HERE Technologies from the automotive industry perspective?

HERE Technologies is addressing market specific product requirements. In India, we have seen a larger population use 2 wheelers for their daily commute, and 2 wheelersare also used for various other segments such as delivery. We are currently working on 2-wheeler products in India, addressing specific needs for the country.

Open Location Platform (OLP): The OLP is a collaborative big data platform to accelerate the development of innovative location-centric products.

The OLP accelerates the creation of location-based products and services and the go-to-market process, minimizing costs and utilizing new monetization options.

Using our highly accurate map and location content, you can enrich your data and make it more useful transform data using built-in location processors and services that reduce development time create map-based visualizations as well as perform analysis and machine learning using easy-to-use tools and enablers.

The OLP sees us go beyond simply offering HERE data and HERE location services for consumption. Now, as a multi-sided collaborative platform, participants can both consume data from HERE and other platform participants, as well as provide their own data and services to others through the platform. With the latter, we are providing participants new avenues for them to monetize their own data.

While we will continue to provide developers self-service access to our current location services such as Mapping, Geocoding, Routing, Traffic, etc., with OLP we will also enable additional use cases such as:

Bring Your Own Data – Customize or enrich the results of HERE Location Services by providing your own location data

Location intelligence – OLP will provide insights on customer location data

Develop analytic services – OLP will facilitate rapid development of analytic services based on ingestion of location data

Publication and distribution of location content – Devices, vehicles, users and apps can subscribe to notifications and updates of various location content.

In addition, OLP will provide the following internal benefits for HERE:

Rapid development of new HERE services

Closed-loop feedback to enable data-driven improvement of HERE services

Aggregation, reuse and sharing of location data (across HERE internal teams and to customers) through the HERE Reality Index

Q. Automation is now the key for every industry to thrive. What are some of the trends we can expect on the same in the coming years?

Yes, we are seeing multiple areas in automation across the value chain and multiple levels in the industry.We are empowering the autonomous world: From Highly Automated Drive (HAD) to availability of multiple platforms for consumers such as e-commerce, on demand transportation to Smart cities as examples are emerging in the recent years and will established in coming years as well

One of the key trend we see is Machine Learning algorithms and Artificial Intelligence to handle “Big Data”.Take for example what we are doing in our HD Live Maps (HDLM), HD Live Map creates a highly detailed and dynamic representation of the road environment, enabling a vehicle to effectively “see around corners” beyond the reach of its on-board sensors. It is a map made by machines for machines. It has a precision of 20 cm and we’re developing it to be updated in near real-time.

Q. What would your GTM strategy be in India?

We are focusing on the following segments in India with special focus on Transportation &Logistics and the public sector

Automotive (local, global and 2Wheeler)

Transportation &Logistics (Fleet, On-demand, linehaul, tracking)

Public Sector (State and Central)