Microsoft wants a big share in the Indian IoT market which is set to see significant investment from enterprises and technology companies.
A recent market report suggests that IoT market in India will grow at a CAGR over 28 percent during 2015 – 2020. Investment in IoT initiatives is aimed to reduce operational and manpower costs, and increase operational efficiency.
Consumer electronics, automotive & transportation, BFSI, home & building, energy & utilities, retail, supply chain & logistic sectors, and manufacturing are the key emerging application areas where IoT technology is majorly being adopted.
IoT users demand more
Connectivity and protocols are the #1 technical challenges in planning and deploying IoT projects, followed by analysis of IoT data, according to a survey on Internet of Things industry conducted by PLAT.ONE in Europe in Q2 2016.
The biggest business challenge in planning and deploying IoT projects is proving ROI followed by convincing key internal stakeholders that this is the right time.
Over half of all IoT projects in planning are in two sectors, Connected Products and Transport / Logistics. 72 percent claim to have IoT projects in the planning stage, but 9 percent have funded IoT projects.
A report from MarketsandMarkets says the global market size of smart city services and solutions is estimated to grow from $312.03 billion in 2015 to $757.74 billion by 2020, at an estimated CAGR of 19.4 percent from 2015 to 2020.
Scott Guthrie, EVP of the Cloud and Enterprise Group at Microsoft, speaking at Build 2016, said the company has launched a number of updates and features for both its Azure and Office platforms, in a move to bolster its position in the intelligent apps and IoT space.
IoT investments
Microsoft earlier said Ecolab uses CRM online with Azure IoT, not only to help their customers use water systems more efficiently, but also to predict equipment failure and direct field engineers to respond.
Azure IoT processes more than 2 trillion IoT messages each week. Microsoft says new Azure IoT suite streamlines the process of building IoT applications and acts as a hub for managing and monitoring millions of assets.
Companies like Toyota, BMW, Johnson Controls are using Cortana Intelligence Suite, Azure IoT and Power BI to transform themselves as well as their industries.
Siemens is using Azure to connect and analyze data from medical imaging systems around the world, helping providers in their effort to transform healthcare.
Can IoT bring RoI?
Recently, Microsoft India sponsored an event on IoT — organized by leading financial daily Economic Times — in Mumbai.
Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president, Cloud & Enterprise Marketing, Microsoft said that IoT offers key insights into business and consumer behavior.
Sourabh Chatterjee, head – Technology, Digital Sales and Marketing, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company said: “Fundamentally, the product is evolving from hardware to software based. Tesla is pushing a software update to allow for driverless cars. It’s an update over the air. It’s not just about technology.”
The main debate among the attendees at the event was about deriving RoI from IoT investment during a predictable time-frame.
The industry wants to know how Internet of Things will remake the industry, the ways that IoT can improve efficiency and how the technologies will evolve. Industry stakeholders also want to know the return of investment from IoT.
Shirish Patwardhan, CTO of KPIT Technologies; Srikanth Karnakota, director- Server & Cloud Business Microsoft; Puneet Bhatia, director and practice leader, Internet of Things and Emerging Technologies at KPMG India; Sanjeev Kumar, AVP – Manufacturing at Godrej and Tarun Mishra, founder and CEO of Covacsis Technologies, among others attended the program.
Microsoft customers such as ThyssenKrupp Elevator and Rockwell Automation are applying IoT concepts to transform their business. Their deployments reflect the bottom-line impact that is possible with advanced IoT initiatives.
ThyssenKrupp’s preventative maintenance for elevator uptime paved the way for reduced costs and a major competitive advantage.
Rockwell uses their solution to monitor petroleum equipment in remote locations, with support engineers at Rockwell headquarters keeping tabs on the health of their customers’ systems. Because of the flow of data allowed by connecting the pumps through intelligent sensors, Rockwell engineers are able to head off potential problems or reduce downtime if an issue does occur.
IoT is gaining momentum with enterprise IT vendors such as Dell, HPE, SAP, Hitachi, Fujitsu and IBM are flexing their technology muscles. Dell recently announced its IoT partner eco-system to bring more deals from the IoT business segment in India.
Baburajan K
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