Dan Drum, CEO & Founder, Hardcat, an Australian asset management player (with a footprint in USA, UK and Africa) —and an early-innovator of barcode asset tracking—tells us why “the stars are aligned” for the company’s foray into India
What began as a Hardware Catalogue, has evolved from barcodes to RFID and is now getting ready for the new world of Blockchain, IoT, Metaverse and law-enforcement applications. Dan Drum tracks the movement of EAM across these new terrains.
What brings Hardcat to India and Yotta?
Hardcat has a presence in 120 countries. Whilst India offers great potential with the Software industry going from strength to strength, we wanted to get it right and not jump in without doing our due diligence. As soon as travel opened post Covid, we decided the timing was right to enter India. We reached out to the Victorian Government and AICC and got their views. We were introduced to reputable industry professionals in India who offered their advice. All this body of homework helped in developing a robust go-to-market strategy. Only one thing remained and that was to find the right Partner who could provide us with implementation and integration services. We couldn’t have asked for a better fit than Yotta.
Hardcat has conducted analysis of blockchain technology and its suitability to our Law Enforcement application suite. Hardcat has a substantial grasp on the technology in terms of its implementation and the value that may be derived by different users.
Why so?
The company is young, ambitious and under the leadership of Sunil Gupta has already shown aggressive growth. In the last six months, we also have had the privilege of meeting prospective customers in Law Enforcement, Transport, Education, Mining and other verticals. The response to our Enterprise Asset Management Solution – Lebosi has been highly encouraging. The timing to enter India has coincided with the formal introduction of The Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (AI-ECTA). The stars are aligned.
How serious and tricky has asset management turned in light of new pressures of disaster management, ransomware and data sovereignty regulations?
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) incorporates the management and maintenance of physical assets owned by a company throughout the entire lifecycle of an asset, from capital planning, procurement, installation, performance, maintenance, compliance, risk management, through to asset disposal. Therefore, managing every single asset within an organisation is crucial to the overall performance of the business especially in the light of disaster management, data sovereignty and work-from-home environment. In India, data represents an asset of inestimable value. Data sovereignty is concerned with ensuring that India data resides in India, and the regulations around it form an essential tenet of data privacy and security. Yotta offers highest level of data security, and Hardcat’s asset management software ensures all the data security products are maintained under the right governance.
What implications does the remote-work paradigm have here?
Many organizations have had to rethink their IT asset management (ITAM) processes to ensure that employee offboarding procedures account for assets that are being used remotely.
How pragmatic is the use of Blockchain in asset management?
The technology, by design, is suited to business models requiring inter-connectivity between different groups or systems. Trading, logistics, file storage, identity management, digital currency, distributed voting, authentication, are examples of real-world application for the full blockchain technology stack.
Hardcat has conducted analysis of blockchain technology and its suitability to our Law Enforcement application suite. Hardcat has a substantial grasp on the technology in terms of its implementation and the value that may be derived by different users. Whilst some of the principles might have a business application, the type of blockchain that we are seeing in cryptocurrencies—particularly Bitcoin—where a significant emphasis has been on eschewing centralised control, solves problems that are generally not faced by closed businesses like police.
What about IoT?
In a similar way that we handle barcode and RFID tags, we also embrace the power of IoT. The advent of IoT has radically transformed asset management: remote asset tracking, automated asset workflows, and predictive asset maintenance are just some of the ways in which IoT is revolutionizing asset management. Big Data and IoT in asset management help make things and spaces smart and connected, which is what Hardcat is all about.
Any thoughts or examples of use of ethical hacking, insurance against AI, air-gapping in what you do?
We need to be ever mindful of the threat imposed to our businesses. As technologists, we have a duty to our customers to offer sound custodianship of their valuable data. We need to simultaneously harden our system defences while educating our teams and the public at large to the risks and the dangers. As a technology community we have a responsibility to collaborate, acknowledging that we are competing with the recalcitrant elements, and not with one another.
What’s the progress of asset management in law enforcement areas—like with the Exhibits Forensics Information and Miscellaneous Property System (EFIMS) software?
Law enforcement is a major vertical in the Hardcat world, we supply two major requirements in one solution, Weapons Control and Property & Evidence Control. Hardcat caters for the unique requirements of this vertical which consists of many people, many stations, weapon control and chain of custody of both weapons as well as evidence.
Hardcat has a very good understanding of the workings of police forces worldwide with 25 years’ experience in this vertical. 80 per cent of Australian police forces use the Hardcat solution.
Hardcat has a very good understanding of the workings of police forces worldwide with 25 years’ experience in this vertical. 80 per cent of Australian police forces use the Hardcat solution.
How does Metaverse translate for the space of enterprise assets—would it make things easy or difficult?
Metaverse is a logical extension of asset management, it would allow the user to picture his asset base in 3D. With respect to asset management, at the core of the metaverse is Hardcat, it holds all of the data and its associations that can be fed into the Metaverse. One of the major powers of Hardcat is its ability to capture data and associate the data entities in a fraction of the time taken by other systems in the same field of endeavour.
What is lined up for your action plan for India—in the next 2-3 years?
Our action plan for India is a constantly evolving one. We will seek to leverage our success in verticals such as Law Enforcement, Emergency Services and others. Yotta has already commenced an aggressive marketing campaign to get the Hardcat Lebosi message to the CIOs and key decision-makers using their Yotta CIO Innovation Council (YCIC) platform. The GTM strategy for India is delivering Hardcat’s Software and Services powered by Yotta.
Dan Drum
CEO & Founder, Hardcat
By Pratima H
pratimah@cybermedia.co.in
