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FOR THE CIOs. BY THE CIOs. M AY 2 0 1 9
THE FIELD WITH IOT
EXPLORING
Internet of Things can potentially lead to an infrastructural makeover of any business for the better.....p20
CIO TALK - UFLEX
GROWTH OF THE
MANUFACTURING SECTOR ...p16
DELTA :
THE POWER
HOUSE...p18
EDITOR’S LETTER
2019 ELECTIONS : CAN IT BE JUST THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW INDIA? First, I would like to congratulate Narendra Modi, the 15th Prime Minister of India for
retaining his tenure for the second time with absolute majority. This is one of the rare events in India’s political history when a ruling party comes out much stronger in the parliament election. The entire credit goes to the clean image and development activity of PM Modi during his first tenure. Some of the highlighted projects which stood out as the enabler of good image for PM Modi included Jan Dhan Yojana, Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana, Smart Cities Project, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Make in India, Adarsh Gram Yojana, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, Integrated Child Development Services Scheme, Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, Clean Ganga Project, MyGov, Digital India Programme, National Health Mission, Integrated Child Development Services Scheme National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), etc. Under PM Modi, 1420 projects were planned at a cost of Rs 18,05,667.72 crore. Out of which many are under execution and many are in the pipeline which are expected to be accomplished in this tenure. This is a good time for India. From Enterprise IT World, we have some wish list for PM Modi. Globally, India is in an advantageous position. US and
COVER STORY
NEXT MONTH SPECIAL
BLOCK CHAIN OPPORTUNITY AND GROWTH The next issue is dedicated to Block Chain and E-Comerce market. This issue is one of the most important issues in the year as Block Chain is becoming centrifugal component in the entire enterprise scheme of things. Therefore, we would like to take feedback from the CIOs and vendors and create our judgment.
China are not in good terms. US wishes its manufacturing to get relocated from China to India or some other countries. Now the PM can drive the mission of manufacturing to support global manufacturing and indirectly help absorb millions of domestic skilled and unskilled workforces. Secondly, India is becoming a startups capital. There is a trend of reverse journey of the technocrats from US and Europe to India. These people are the architects of global technology innovation. PM Modi can create enough space for innovation that these people can feel comfortable and safe to stay in India and help India become global leader in innovation. Thirdly, MSME is the strength of every country. It is not exception for India too. In this tenure of PM Modi, there should be additional thrust on this sector. And the prime minister should encourage more and more investment to this sector too. Of course, in his speech at NDA Parliamentary Board Meet, where he again got selected as the leader of the party and NDA to form government for the second time, he made it clear and cautioned his followers that he would not tolerate any ill treatment towards the minorities and poor people. This indicates that he would be personally vigilant towards tolerance and peace in the country, which is trust building factor for the global investors. So from my reading, next 5 years are going to be bumper time for India.
S A N J AY M O H A PAT R A S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M
SUPPLEMENT
RETAIL MARKET GROWTH AND MODERNIZATION The supplement story of the magazine would be around Retail industry, which is going to grow manifold.
PLUS
Interviews and Case Studies
Catch interviews, guest articles and case studies of recent applications from the Industry stakeholders, IT/ITES Vendors and IT leaders and CIOs from the Enterprise IT World CIO Community.
Send in your inputs to sanjay@accentinfomedia.com MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
3
CONTENTS V O L U M E 0 4 | I S S U E 0 3 | MAY 2019 | W W W . E N T E R P R I S E I T W O R L D . C O M
FOR THE CIOs. BY THE CIOs.
Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra Chief Editor: Sanjay Mohapatra Managing Editor: Anisha Nayar Dhawan Sub Editor: Pooja Jain / Sailza Kumari Designer: Ajay Arya Assistant Designer: Rahul Arya, Deepak kumar Web Designer: Vijay Bakshi, Sangeet Technical Writer: Manas Ranjan Lead Visualizer: DPR Choudhary MARKETING Marketing Manager: Nidhi Shail nidhi@accentinfomedia.com SALES CONTACTS Delhi 6/102, Kaushalya Park, Hauz
COVER STORY
Khas
20 EXPLORING THE FIELD WITH IOT
Internet of Things can potentially lead to an infrastructural makeover of any business for the better. But it has its fair share of complexities which problematize its deployment.
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FEATURE STORY AI, ML /30
“AI and Ml: Game Changer For The Enterprises”
MORE INSIDE Editorial~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 03 News~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 06
16 30 18 UFLEX
DELTA
MUDIT AGARWAL
DEEPAK SINGH THAKUR
“Growth of the Manufacturing Sector”
4
ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
“Delta : the Power House”
26 UNLIMIT
JUERGEN HASE
“How is IoT Changing the Market Dynamics?”
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ITWORLD
ROUND UP
Salesforce Announces Einstein Analytics for Financial Services B Y S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N FO M E D I A . C O M
Salesforce has announced Einstein Analytics for Financial Services, a customizable analytics solution that provides AI-augmented business intelligence for wealth advisors, retail bankers and managers. Banks and wealth management institutions are facing a rapidly changing industry landscape, as new fintech entrants and consumer technologies are simplifying how people save and invest their money. Customers now expect the majority of their financial transactions to be digital but are also demanding smart, high-touch experiences with their advisors when needed. Salesforce Financial Services Cloud delivers a customized CRM experience for financial institu6
ENTERPRISE IT WORLD  MAY 2019
tions. Now, with the addition of Einstein Analytics for Financial Services, retail bankers and wealth managers have access to AI-powered insights and recommendations specifically tailored to their role and their customers. By bringing together data from Financial Services Cloud and other data sources, users can instantly surface actionable insights to grow their books of business and deepen client relationships. Einstein Analytics for Financial Services includes Actionable insights powered by AI, Built-in industry dashboards, Customizable platform to analyze external data and Built-in compliance with industry regulations.
D ATA BRIEFING
IoT is poised for exponential growth globally, with the number of connected devices expected to grow 5.5X to 20.8 billion and revenue expected to grow over 3X to $3 trillion by 2020. Source: - Nasscom
ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF
Nutanix Hyperconverges Secondary Storage with Nutanix Mine
Nutanix has announced Nutanix Mine, a new open solution that integrates secondary storage operations with the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform, delivering a complete platform for primary and secondary storage within the private cloud. Through native integration with industry-leading backup vendors Veeam, HYCU, Commvault, Veritas and Unitrends, customers will be able to manage their HCI environment and backup operations from a single management console, reducing the operational cost and complexity of standalone back-up and recovery solutions. Mine will streamline overall deployment, and simplify the full lifecycle of data backup operations, including on-going management, scaling and troubleshooting - all while preserving the customer’s freedom to choose the right backup service for their particular infrastructure
CIO
environment. As companies modernize their datacenter with HCI to realize the simplicity, performance and scalability needed to run modern applications, their backup and data protection strategies have remained siloed from their core datacenter environment. With Nutanix Mine, customers will be able to converge secondary storage operations into the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform to deliver intelligent data backup services for all business applications. Integrated with Nutanix’s native HCI data fabric that provides intelligent tiering and advanced data reduction capabilities, Mine will enable enterprises to choose the best data backup software for their organization, optimized for their Nutanix HCI environment; reducing the time and expense of configuring standalone secondary storage solutions.
Mumbai A gathering of IT leaders for a day of thought-leading exchange with keynotes, panels and round-tables. CIOSYNERGY
ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
Red Hat has introduced Red Hat OpenShift 4, the next generation of its trusted enterprise Kubernetes platform, reengineered to address the complex realities of container orchestration in production systems. OpenShift 4 is designed to deliver a cloud-like experience across the hybrid cloud by driving automated updates across Kubernetes deployments everywhere. Paired with enhanced developer flexibility and backed by Kubernetes Operators, this helps to lay a more secure and consistent foundation for modern and emerging cloud-native workloads. More than 1,000 organizations across industries and around the world, including ANZ Bank, Banco Santander, Cathay Pacific, Copel Telecom, GE, Lufthansa Technik, Macquarie Bank, Miles and More GmbH, Paychex, Porsche Informatik, Sabre, Swisscom AG, Via Varejo, and X by Orange, and this year’s Red Hat Innovation Awards winners BP, Deutsche Bank, Emirates NBD, HCA Healthcare, and Kohl’s use OpenShift to accelerate application development and delivery. Designed for diverse environments, Red Hat OpenShift 4 ushers in the next era of the Kubernetes standard to automate and operationalize.
EVENTS
20 JUN 2019
8
Red Hat Redefines Enterprise Kubernetes Through Full Stack Automation
07 JUN 2019
06 JUN 2019
21 JUN 2019
Mumbai The Summit brings together thought leaders in the field of BCM, IT Disaster Recovery, Emergency Response & Crisis management and Security.
Mumbai A unique platform for the participation of leading IT Heads, CTOs, CIOs, CISOs, Chief Risk Officers, Chief Legal Officers, etc.
MANUFACTURING INNOVATION CONCLAVE
INDIA BUSINESS & IT RESILIENCE SUMMIT
INTERNATIONAL CYBER SECURITY
New Delhi The conference highlights the potential of AI, IoT, IP, Robotics, Automation and Digitization based innovation in the manufacturing sector.
ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF
LTI Unveils Intelligent Enterprise Solutions for SAP S/4HANA
S/HE SAID IT
JUERGEN HASE
CEO, UNLIMIT.
“IoT is the next big thing and the transition to a digital transformation of the economy is unstoppable.”
Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd. and Global Strategic Services Partner of SAP, unveiled solutions that aim to help its customers accelerate their SAP S/4HANA migration and save as much as 20-30% effort, depending on the migration scenarios with LTI’s Mosaic Profiler. LTI has developed several domain based solutions: Intelligent Construction Enterprise (ICE), Preconfigured industry solution for Professional Services, as well as an Augmented Reality (AR) based solution for Guided Plant Maintenance. LTI’s other solutions include SAP® Leonardo® based Intelligent Asset Management, LTI’s Mosaic Automation tools leveraging Central Finance Implementation, LTI Mosaic Automation Platform for SAP S/4HANA,
QUICK BYTE ON
Blockchain based Supply Chain, and Financial Compliance solution. As a part of its ICE offering, LTI features “Project Pay-Chain” to address one critical need of industries with projectbased services – managing payment applications and cashflows effectively. The solution is a result of comprehensive co-innovation initiative between LTI and SAP to create differentiated solutions for construction and other project based industries. Project Pay-Chain provides a simplified and automated process for managing the application and payment process designed specifically to support the complexities of the construction industry, including retention, joint checks, and lien waivers.
“AI and ML is for everyone. At the end of the day it’s just a technology which needs to be consumed basis a particular business problem. Its applicability can be seen across industries.” ANIL ARORA P R I N C I PA L D ATA S C I E N T I S T , S A S I N D I A
SECURITY
83% of APAC organizations don’t think about cybersecurity while embarking on Digital Transformation projects, study reveals. Forcepoint and Frost & Sullivan’s study reveals that Asia Pacific (APAC) organizations’ failure to prioritize cybersecurity is hindering their Digital Transformation journey. 72% conduct regular breach assessment to protect themselves against cyberattacks, still 55% of them were at risk. 69% of organizations have adopted cloud, but most of them think cybersecurity is the responsibility of their cloud service provider. 10 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
NEWS BRIEF // IT WORLD
CITIC Telecom CPC Elevates TrueCONNECT Hybrid to Next Level of Innovation
Verizon report reveals the latest targets of cybercrime C-level executives – who have access to a company’s most sensitive information, are now the major focus for social engineering attacks, alerts the Verizon 2019 Data Breach Investigations Report. Senior executives are 12x more likely to be the target of social incidents, and 9x more likely to be the target of social breaches than in previous years – and financial motivation remains the key driver. Financially-motivated social engineering attacks (12 percent of all data breaches analyzed) are a key topic in this year’s report, highlighting the critical need to ensure ALL levels of employees are made aware of the potential impact of cybercrime.
EXECUTIVE
This year’s findings also highlight how the growing trend to share and store information within cost-effective cloud based solutions is exposing companies to additional security risks. Analysis found that there was a substantial shift towards compromise of cloud-based email accounts via the use of stolen credentials. In addition, publishing errors in the cloud are increasing year-over-year. Misconfiguration (“Miscellaneous Errors”) led to a number of massive, cloud-based file storage breaches, exposing at least 60 million records analyzed in the DBIR dataset. This accounts for 21 percent of breaches caused by errors.
CITIC Telecom International CPC Limited has announced the expansion of its TrueCONNECT(TM) Hybrid Software Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) solution with enhanced features from VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud, elevating the professionally managed hybrid infrastructure solution to a new level of innovation. CITIC Telecom CPC’s TrueCONNECT(TM) Hybrid offers a compelling full-stack end-to-end solution addressing the growing market need for innovative solutions to meet diverse requirements. It creates more choices for enterprise customers seeking to leverage the powerful benefits of SD-WAN in synergy with CITIC Telecom CPC’s unique value proposition of “global local” worldwide coverage and multiple market-localized expertise. This latest enhancement of TrueCONNECT(TM) Hybrid comes at a time of increasing business adoption of SD-WAN solutions. Unlike the legacy networking paradigm it is disrupting and gradually displacing, TrueCONNECT(TM) Hybrid offers advanced networking technology and smart deployment capabilities. By leveraging both private networks and Internet resources, TrueCONNECT(TM) Hybrid achieves a level of network security and performance quality that previously only traditional private networks could provide. SD-WAN topology also delivers simplicity and automation, zero touch deployment, high application performance and optimized cloud access leveraging any available transport. TrueCONNECT(TM) Hybrid is a game changing solution to facilitate cloud-network integration, empowering enterprises not only with rapid business deployment and high business continuity, but also cost-effectiveness and optimized customer experiences.
MOVEMENT Riccardo Di Blasio appointed by Commvault as Chief Revenue Officer.
MAIT appoints George Paul as its new CEO
Ingram Micro appoints Jyotil Mankad to head its Cloud division in India.
Schneider Electric India appoints Jaya Mahadevan as Director – Distribution & IT Channel Business
Geoff Thomas joins Qlik as Senior VP to Lead Asia Pacific Business
Lotame Promotes Evgeny Popov, the APAC Data Veteran, to Head of Global Data Solutions
MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
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ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF
BOOK
GLOBAL UPDATE
Rockwell Automation Releases AI Module to Improve Industrial Production
Rockwell Automation’s new FactoryTalk Analytics LogixAI module, formerly known as Project Sherlock, uses artificial intelligence (AI) to detect production anomalies and alert workers so they can investigate or intervene, as necessary. Many existing analytics technologies require deep expertise in both data science and industrial processes. But this add-on module for ControlLogix controllers helps to reduce that burden by doing the job of a data scientist. It fits directly into a
control chassis and streams controller data over the backplane to build predictive models. It can continuously monitor a production operation, detecting anomalies against its derived understanding. The FactoryTalk Analytics LogixAI module is the newest addition to the FactoryTalk Analytics platform from Rockwell Automation. The platform includes FactoryTalk Analytics for Devices, which learns about an automation system’s structure to tell workers about problems with individual devices. The LogixAI module expands on this by learning about an automation system’s application and helping identify anomalies with its overall function. Both products work individually, but each will benefit the other in future iterations. The FactoryTalk Analytics platform aggregates multiple sources of data, so workers can discover new insights. FactoryTalk Analytics for Devices and the LogixAI module will both be data sources for the platform going forward.
SHELF
Title - Machine Intelligence: Demystifying Machine Learning, Neural Networks and Deep Learning BY
SURESH SAMUDRALA
PRICE
RS. 399.00 (PAPERBACK) WHERE:
AMAZON.IN
About The Book This book is intended for IT and business professionals looking to gain proficiency in these technologies but are turned off by the complex mathematical equations.
Key Feature The book covers core concepts of machine learning algorithms and explains the intuitive meaning of the mathematics behind popular machine learning algorithms.
Study reveals Cybersecurity hampers Digital Transformation journey Forcepoint has unveiled the findings of an Asia Pacific study conducted by leading IT analyst firm Frost & Sullivan, revealing that Asia Pacific (APAC) organizations’ failure to prioritize cybersecurity is hindering their digital transformation journey. The study finds that most APAC organizations (83%) don’t think about cybersecurity while embarking on digital transformation projects. Although majority of the organizations (72%) conduct regular breach assessment to protect themselves against cyberattacks, still 55% of them 12 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
were at risk. The study reveals that Cloud is a key component of digital transformation (69% of respondents have adopted cloud) but most organizations think cybersecurity is the responsibility of their cloud service provider. The study reveals a big push among APAC organizations, with 95% of respondents having embarked on a digital transformation journey, adopting emerging technologies including cloud computing, mobility, internet of things, and artificial intelligence/ machine learning. However, most organizations, 65% of respondents,
NEWS BRIEF // IT WORLD
HP and Siemens Deepen Additive Manufacturing Alliance to Advance Digital Manufacturing HP and Siemens announced an expansion of their strategic alliance to help customers transform their businesses with industrial additive manufacturing (AM). Siemens and HP will expand their integrated additive manufacturing solution, incorporating new systems and software innovations including overall product lifecycle management (PLM), AM factory optimization, industrial 3D printing and data intelligence, manufacturing execution, and performance analytics. The integration of HP’s new Jet Fusion 5200 Series 3D printing solution with Siemens’ Digital Enterprise offerings enables industrial companies to bring
3D printed parts to market faster, more cost-effectively, more sustainably, and at higher volumes than ever before. The companies announced the expanded alliance at an event to celebrate the addition of a new Polymer Competency Center to the Siemens Additive Manufacturing Experience Center (AMEC) in Erlangen, Germany, where HP also unveiled its new industrial-performance HP Jet Fusion 5200 Series 3D printing solution. The expanded additive manufacturing solution from Siemens and HP integrates hardware, software, data intelligence, and services to optimize the efficiency of the entire manufacturing process.
VMware Cloud on AWS launches in India VMware has announced VMware Cloud on AWS is in early access in India today, with expected general availability by the end of May 2019. VMware Cloud on AWS will deliver a ubiquitous digital foundation to support customers’ and partners’ digital transformation. With the addition of the AWS Asia Pacific (Mumbai) Region, VMware Cloud on AWS is now available in 14 regions globally. VMware Cloud on AWS is powered by VMware Cloud Foundation, the unified VMware SDDC platform that integrates VMware vSphere, VMware vSAN, VMware NSX and VMware HCX technologies and enables customers to run applications across vSphere-based private, public and hybrid cloud environments. Jointly engineered by VMware and AWS, this on-demand service runs on Amazon EC2 dedicated, elastic, bare-metal infrastructure, and provides optimized access to AWS services and robust disaster protection.
IceWarp Launches New Cloud Setup at Netmagic Datacenter Currently, IceWarp is investing heavily in the Indian market; the company has modeled a multi-million investment for cloud infrastructure at the Netmagic site in Mumbai. This site will be operational for their growing set of customers and can also be opted by existing customers as a near DR site in case of contingencies. With this IceWarp is all geared to upscale their infrastructure and meet the growing number of customers. “We have been overwhelmed with the response that the Indian market has given us and thank the community for the acceptance of a new brand so readily. This trust from our
customers has given us a reason to upscale our infrastructure. We are glad to say that we are moving closer to our vision of Vision 2020 of meeting our target of 2 million mailboxes in the Indian market,” said Pramod Sharda, CEO of IceWarp India & Middle East. Email has become a lifeline for any organization today, with large information requirements and aggressive recovery time objectives and companies are more likely to require a Disaster Recovery site. The internal site is typically a second data center and allows a company to recover and resume operations following a disaster at the primary center.
DIGEST FORTINET REVEALS BEST PRACTICES FOR PASSWORD SECURITY Fortinet reminds IT teams and stakeholders to maintain strong passwords and have a password strategy as an essential cybersecurity effort so that every employee and individual plays a crucial part in protecting corporate data. The best password is a strong passphrase, impossible to forget and difficult to guess, even for someone who knows personal details of your life like the name of the street you live. When creating new accounts or updating well-used passwords Fortinet security experts recommend to keep these six best practices in mind to minimize password-based cyber risk - Add an extra layer of security, use multi-factor authentication wherever possible; Never repeat the same password for different accounts; Change your passphrase at least every three months; Ensure no one is watching as you enter passwords; Be cautious when downloading files from the internet as they may contain key loggers as well as password grabber malware variants that will compromise your password; and Use a cloud-based password manager to enable you to create and store strong passphrases. CHECK POINT AND MICROSOFT INTEGRATION DELIVERS PROTECTION AGAINST DATA LEAKS Check Point has integrated Check Point security appliances and the Check Point R80 SmartConsole security management console with Microsoft Azure Information Protection (AIP), to prevent damaging losses and leaks of sensitive business data. The integration of Check Point’s advanced policy enforcement capabilities with Microsoft AIP’s file classification and protection features enables enterprises to keep their business data and IP secure, irrespective of how it is shared. This prevents organizations’ employees from accidently sending sensitive business data outside of the corporate network by Microsoft Outlook and Exchange, and extends complete data leak protection capabilities to popular web services such as Gmail, Dropbox, FTP and Box. According to the 2019 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, 35 percent of all the near-42,000 breaches analyzed occurred as a result of human error. The integration between Check Point’s solutions and Microsoft AIP stops these accidental breaches occurring.
MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
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ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF
MANAGEMENT
MANTRA
“Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.” — David Ogilvy, Father of Advertising and
Oracle Blockchain Platform now available for Everledger
Founder of Ogilvy & Mather
Tata Communications and Cisco redefine enterprise networking in the multi-cloud world
Tata Communications and Cisco have extended their partnership to enable enterprises to transform their legacy network to a customised and secure multi-cloud native hybrid network. The combination of Tata Communications’ IZO cloud enablement platform and Cisco SD-WAN is a fully-managed, global solution that gives businesses greater control over their digital infrastructure, the ability to securely connect any user to any application location, and provide the assurance of application performance needed to support successful digital transformation. The new offering brings together the
expertise of two Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders. Tata Communications has been positioned in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Services, Global. Cisco has been positioned in the Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure. This new joint SDWAN offering builds on Tata Communications’ long-standing partnership with Cisco. The company is a globally certified Master Service Provider in Cisco’s Cloud & Managed Services Program. This means that Tata Communications integrates its own network, cloud, hosting, security and voice services as part of Cisco’s solutions.
Oracle’s enterprise-grade blockchain platform is now available as part of Everledger’s blockchainbased solution following a rigorous development and scale evaluation process. As part of this, Everledger, a global emerging technology enterprise leading the way in real-world applications of blockchain, assessed Oracle’s blockchain offering for its ability to provide extended product capabilities to support enhanced customer solutions. In particular, the alignment will give Everledger users the ability to shadow blockchain transactions into a relational database, making it easier to run analytics on them. This will enable improved decision making, for example, being better able to determine how long it takes to transport gemstones from mine to the wholesaler and the retailer. Some of the new capabilities of Oracle Blockchain Platform are deemed critical by Everledger in the integration of its blockchain-based platform with customers’ existing business and IT systems. As blockchain becomes an important data store in the enterprise, the Oracle Blockchain Platform enables users to capture blockchain transaction history and current state data for analytics as well as integrate it with other data sources.
Skybox Security and Indegy Integrate to Strengthen Cybersecurity Skybox Security to integrate with Indegy to help organizations better understand the security posture of hybrid IT and operational technology (OT) networks. OT networks have been a mystery to IT security teams. But more and more, CISOs are being tasked with getting a handle on security in OT environments. That starts with literally being able to see and understand the connections between the corporate and production networks, visualizing how the two impact one another’s risk of attack. Our integration with Indegy further strengthens the visibility and insight we give customers with hybrid IT-OT networks, so they can accurately prioritize and respond to those risks, “ said Amrit Williams, Vice President of Products, Skybox Security. 14 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
The integration between Skybox and Indegy provides customers with seamless visibility of their IT and OT networks. The combination of Indegy’s passive and active data collection from the OT network is relayed to Skybox where OT assets, services and vulnerabilities are modeled alongside those from the IT environment. With Skybox’s understanding of the hybrid network topology and security controls, it can simulate access between and within networks, and determine the reachability of vulnerable assets. Skybox also provides more context to Indegy’s vulnerability data, highlighting exposed and exploitable vulnerabilities, prioritizing their remediation and generating tickets to kick off the workflow.
NEWS BRIEF // IT WORLD
Vodafone Idea deploys Ericsson and HPE Solutions
The world’s biggest telecom network integration and consolidation is currently underway in India following the successful merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular. VIL is partnering with the best of global vendors
and equipment suppliers like Ericsson to deploy new age technologies with built-in customizations and novel innovations to deliver rich customer experience while building a robust, future-fit network. Ericsson has announced that it has been selected by Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) to deploy its Cloud Packet Core to enhance its existing core network. As part of this deal, VIL will benefit from Ericsson’s market leading core network applications and Network Functions such as Ericsson virtual Evolved Packet Gateway (vEPG), Service Aware Policy Controller (vSAPC) and Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVi) solution enabling fast introduction of new services and providing full service continuity. Additionally, HPE has announced that it has been selected by Vodafone Idea Ltd. to partner for its next generation operations support systems (OSS) platform for Vodafone’s Service & Network Operations Center (SNOC). Vodafone Idea’s SNOC monitors and controls its vast network and service offerings to over 334 million subscribers. The company further plans to streamline its service assurance processes with the HPE Intelligent Assurance solution and expand the SNOC’s existing robotic process.
Spirent Launches Industry’s First Standards-based NFV Cloud Test Platform Spirent Communications releases of Spirent CloudSure, the world’s first commerciallyavailable test solution for assuring NFV performance as specified in ETSI GS NFV-TST 001. Spirent CloudSure is designed to benchmark and validate performance and allow service providers to confidently rollout NFV deployments and reap the benefits of service flexibility and agility, without sacrificing performance. Spirent CloudSure delivers value in the form of test packages, consisting of a set of templates that can be easily configured and customized to match service providers’ unique NFV deployments. Configuration is possible via both a graphical user interface (GUI) and an application programming interface (API) for automation users, with Spirent TestCenter Virtual ports and Spirent CloudStress agents generating realistic, multi-dimensional workloads to assess cloud performance. Cloud testing typically generates hundreds of metrics, making it challenging for users to find the most relevant statistics to pinpoint problem areas and gain visibility into performance bottlenecks.
Citrix to Launch Workspace for Google Cloud
Citrix plans to extend Citrix Workspace to Google Cloud, expanding the flexibility and choice companies have in transitioning to the cloud by enabling them to quickly and efficiently deliver apps to Google devices
and operating systems and create a superior digital work experience that unleashes productivity and innovation. The news came during Citrix Synergy, the premier digital work conference taking place in Atlanta this week. Extending Citrix Workspace beyond Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops for companies using Google Cloud will enable them to modernize their apps and deliver unified access across Google devices and operating systems to create a productivity powerhouse for employees and IT administrators alike. Planned interoperability with Google’s Cloud Identity, for instance, will allow for the seamless authentication of users using G Suite credentials to access Citrix Workspace, which will provide a more secure and unified enduser experience. In addition, the integration of intelligent capabilities into G Suite will enable companies to automatically notify employees of important events from their Google calendars through personalized feeds within Citrix Workspace. MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
15
CIO TALK
GROWTH OF THE MANUFACTURING SECTOR With the availability of technologies like IoT and AI, the Manufacturing sector stands to gain a lot in terms of efficient operations and mining of data for actionable insights. BY POOJA JAIN / AND ANISHA NAYAR DHAWAN
Given the scale of operations that Uflex has over four continents, how is it that you deploy technology to bring in efficiencies when the environment across these different operations may be very different? When we are talking about geographical spread, four continents, different time zones, what we have done as an organization, is that we have standardized the way we use IT. The core business applications that we use, is common across the time zones and geographies. In terms of even the infrastructure, the connectivity options, something which is not visible to the end user, but of course what is in the background, has been standardized. The way people access applications, the way they get onto their e-mail, etc. all of that is standardized. So, what we have done is that with the help of this standardization, we have been able to optimize our resources. We have been able to bring back all these support services as far as IT is concerned, back to India. It is all supported and run from India. Now coming to the business operations, these core applications that we have, all business processes are mapped onto these. Every single transaction that happens as far as business is concerned, be it purchase, sales, or in terms of manufacturing, it is all done through IT systems. The optimization, be it in terms of the logistics, how you plan your production schedules, what is to be produced when, what is to be dispatched when depending on the customer preferences, all this gets optimized or is planned in the IT applications. And which brings enormous benefits to the business because we are then able to optimize and economize on the various costs that are there for running the business. At the same time, it has helped us be in better contact with the customers. We have actually deployed a particular portal wherein customers across geographies, are able to check in terms of the status of the order, what has been there transaction history, etc. all of this is available to the customers. This gives them a phenomenal belongingness with us. Being the manufacturing industry that we are into, we are more B2B, than B2C. So, this is how we create our relationship with our customers and that’s has helped the business. Can you give us an example of the business process which you have most recently automated or revolutionized using technology? The business process that we have been working on and the processes that we have been trying to automate is - how do we integrate with our customers. The idea is to look at customer purchase order, which is the order that we get from the customer’s side and how do we integrate that into our application. So until now what is being done is that you get the purchase orders and people are punching the system manually. And there could be errors etc as well. Having said that, with the availability of technology like the RPA, you can automate this process. So irrespective of whether you get 16 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
this document in terms of a soft copy or a PDF or is it coming in an e-mail or maybe on paper, you just scan that document. So, it is that simple from a business efficiency perspective. Since your products are customized to your clients needs. Can you tell us what is the level of automation that you have across shopfloors and what is the human involvement there? The automation that we have done at the shop floor level varies from business to business. There are businesses where we have actually integrated the machine with the IT application. This means that the production that happens on the machines automatically goes into the system without any manual intervention. So that is the kind of integration that we have been able to achieve in some of the businesses. So a lot of these kind of integrations have happened from a shopfloor perspective. So it gives you a lot of you know ease when you bring a production process or the shopfloor processing because the person doesn’t have to necessarily go into the system to make an entry into the system. So all that kind of you know manual effort is reduced to a large extent. What kind of technologies have you deployed here? Is it an IoT based technology? This particular integration that we are talking about, is sensors. This is not exactly IoT. These sensors generate Data which is again integrated into the applications which straightaway goes into the database. As far as IoT is concerned, being a manufacturing organization Industrial IoT actually makes a lot of sense for us. And we are working on certain projects as far as Industrial IoT is concerned, which is to improve some of the capability of our machines as well which we send to the customers. What are the unique challenges faced by companies like yours when it comes to adopting new technology? Are people adopting technology because it is fashionable or are they using technologies because it brings value to their business? The way I look at it is that here’s a Technology and I should evaluate it and see its potential. The way we work at Uflex is, we look at what technology is available and then see if there is a business use case. What is the business value that this particular technology option is actually going to generate. If there is a business value, we go for it. If we don’t have a business value, we evaluate and keep it for later. Uflex has in-premise storage devices. When the industry is moving towards storage on cloud because of the efficiencies and the lower costs involved, why is Uflex sticking to its
CIO TALK
MUDIT AGARWAL
VP & HEAD OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, UFLEX
“The way we work at Uflex is, we look at what technology is available and then see if there is a business use case. What is the business value that this particular technology option is actually going to generate. If there is a business value, we go for it. If we don’t have a business value, we evaluate and keep it for later.”
in-house servers? The way we look at it is that it is a journey. We are on premise, that does not mean to say that we don’t have cloud options, we have good Cloud options. But having said that I’m not sure whether we’ll be moving that core application or the business critical application to cloud immediately. The reason being that all is said and done when you are moving to the cloud, you are not just moving to the cloud. There are different configurations of Cloud. You could be hosting or getting your server or you could actually be working on a shared model. Given the models that are available, if you want to say can I communicate my server there, yes, there’s a possibility. But that’s again just a difference of you know whether you’re placing it in your real estate or someone else’s real estate. So I think, at Cloud, we are looking at it more from the
perspective of development or test environment and not from a production environment at this point in time. Because right now what we feel is our dependency on Cloud and those external partners somehow we are not very comfortable with at this stage. How are technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain or virtual reality changing the landscape of the industry and do you see a good use case for your company, Uflex? There are enough use cases and given the kind expenses and complexities that we have, one way or other we will find a use case. There’s no denying the fact that we have use cases. The point is when we look at these technologies, one thing is to be excited about it, explore and experiment with them. So that’s where the experimentation part
comes in. The question of are we able to come to a situation where we can deploy it in the production environment is another issue altogether. Yes, potential is there. I’ll tell you why I’m saying the potential is there because we are a process manufacturing organization. When you come to a process manufacturing you generate data every second, every mini-second of the process and that data can then of course be mined and I am sure there could be a lot of insights in that data, which is where AI, Deep Learning and other such technologies come in. Blockchain typically, so far has evolved from the financial services industry. But then again as the technology if you look at it and its supply chain solutions which I think you’ll be exploring in times to come. So use cases are there and I am sure we will be able to experiment and actually deploy some of these technologies. So that’s something we are looking at as an option. MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
17
POWER SOLUTION
DELTA ELECTRONICS: THE POWER HOUSE With changing technologies, there is an ever-increasing demand for Power Solutions in the market. Deepak Singh Thakur discusses the position of Delta Electronics within the Power Solutions market in India.
Can give you a perspective on the condition of the power solutions in India? First of all, India is in a transformation stage. Not only India, but the global economy is moving towards technology. India as a country is moving towards more digitization. So, when you talk about digitalization and when you talk about the development of the technologies or adoption of technologies in India, it’s still very low as compared to developed countries. So there’s a huge scope to cover up. This also adds up to various challenges. The industry is becoming more power intensive. And our demand for power, I think by 2025-30, we might require almost 2.5 times to, even three times the power, which is currently available. That is why the government is coming up with renewable power projects, for instance, solar and wind, and a lot of other projects. But this is insufficient to create almost 2.5 times more the power which exists today. The next alternative is that we need to push corporate, which are heavy power intensive to move towards energy efficiency. Every unit saved is two units generated. So, that way the user will see lots of companies coming up with new products, talking about higher efficiencies, and the government putting lot of regulations, seeking much better efficient products. There are OEM players like us who are investing a lot on R&D in terms of creating these kinds of new products which are much more energy efficient. We just call it smarter and greener. As Delta, we are a part of the Delta products group, which is the largest ODM and OEM and the World’s Number One Switching Power Supply Manufacturer. And we are a R&D driven company. We spent almost 8% of our revenue in terms of R&D and we have almost 64 R&D centres globally. We are also coming up with a massive R&D centre in India. So, to sum up our work has always been a challenge and it is also an opportunity for us. What is the requirement of Power today in relation to the immense Data that is generated? The minimum requirement anticipated is 2.5 times. 5G is yet to be 18 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
implemented in India. Once 5G is adopted, then only you will actually see the adoption of AIs, VRs, and various other technologies like IoT, in the true sense of deployment. The current infrastructures are not so digitized. All the infrastructures of every business will get to change according to the new norms and everything will be about data. This new Data has to be stored somewhere. That storage space needs some power and that power is going to be exponentially higher. So, the power generation is proportional directly to the data generated. So the kind of data boom, which we are seeing in the market, you would have experienced yourself in the past three years. The advent of Facebook, Whatsapp and others, everything is getting into more data, videos, downloads, people playing games. So, this is what the power size will be. What is the role of UPS in this context? UPS is Uninterruptible Power Supply. Uninterrupted is the key part. It’s a sort of backup. So, you have to understand everything is getting digital. You need some backup to protect it from power fluctuation. You need an unfettered power supply. The newer side of UPS will come up. The mid size offices and people who never used to have UPS, now have UPS. There is a huge potential. UPS is not going out of the business. In US there was a blackout that resulted in billions of dollars of revenue loss. You have to understand what I am trying to say when I say 100% power is there. So technologies will change but the UPS will still remain. Your paper will go, but your website and your digital destiny will always be there. What is your strategy that you work with in relation to your customers? We are working on new technologies to understand the new concepts which are coming up, so that we come up with the products which meet those challenges of the customer. That’s why our tagline is ‘Smarter, Greener Together’. So smarter is the newer, smarter technologies. Greener is energy efficient and everything that we do, we do together
POWER SOLUTION
DEEPAK SINGH THAKUR
HEAD OF BUSINESS-INDIA & SAARC UPS, CRITICAL COOLING, PQC & DATACENTER SOLUTIONS COMMUNICATIONS & INFORMATION SOLUTIONS BUSINESS UNIT (CISBU), ICTBG DELTA ELECTRONICS INDIA PVT. LTD.
“This new Data has to be stored somewhere. That storage space needs some power and that power is going to be exponentially higher. So, the power generation
is proportional directly to the data generated.”
with out customer. Can you give a sense of what is the current size of the power market? And Delta’s position within it? Currently the market is around 700 to 800
million. And then it is growing at a rate of around 8 to 9%. But the higher capacities UPS are having a growth of around 10 to 12% CAGR. We are currently working only on the branded market. We are among the top three in the market. But then we are investing in the design and manufacturing, we are perhaps
the largest ODM and OEM manufacturers of switching power supplies and also the UPS. We have the widest range of solutions among all players. We always look forward to meet our customers and understand their requrements and provide them with effective solutions. MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
19
COVER STORY
EXPLORING THE FIELD WITH IOT Internet of Things can potentially lead to an infrastructural makeover of any business for the better. But it has its fair share of complexities which problematize its deployment.
I
BY POOJA JAIN POOJA@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM
t has been 20 years since the term ‘Internet of Things’ was first used by Kevin Ashton in 1999. It was in a presentation to Procter and Gamble that Ashton coined the term to talk about the use of RFID in the supply chain optimization. A decade later, the IOT council marked 9th April as the World IoT Day, identifying IoT as a force to reckon with.
20 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
Today in 2019, IoT is nothing short of a revolutionary technology that holds the power to transform the business right to its core. What began with Digital Transformation pervading all levels of organizations, from the factory floors to supply chain, to the top-most managerial levels, has now led the industry to a point where it is ready to integrate all these individually technologically empowered operations into one giant spider’s web.
COVER STORY
ABHISHEK RUNGTA FOUNDER AND CEO, INDUS NET TECHNOLOGIES
“The fundamental security weakness of the IoT is that it increases the number of devices behind the network’s firewall. More than securing the actual devices, it takes more
to secure IoT devices and it is also necessary to incorporate security into the software applications and network connections that link to those devices.”
Talking about the technological trends that have made IoT a possibility, Asoke K. Laha, President and CEO, Interra Information Technologies, says “Some of the trends that we are seeing include are AI, social, legal, ethical IoT, Infonomics and Data Broking, the shift from Intelligent Edge to Intelligent Mesh, IoT Governance, Sensor Innovation, Trusted Hardware and Operating
System, Novel IoT User Experience, Silicon Chip Innovation and New Wireless Networking Technologies for IoT.” IoT Integrates Data The whole point of IoT is to connect all devices to ensure easy accessibility, operability and management. What in the hands of the end users is unmeasurable convenience becomes a matter of
business value in the context of the enterprise. For the business, IoT signifies a convergence of the digital and the physical world. The first step is to connect all the devices and machines that a business uses – the physical resources and translate that to digital resources by pulling out data from them. IoT then becomes a way for an organization to generate massive amounts MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
21
COVER STORY
JAGAT PAL SINGH CTO, CYBAGE
KAREN RAVINDRANATH DIRECTOR - WEBNMS IOT (IOT DIVISION OF ZOHO CORP)
“The on set of IoT based Digital transformation across industries is a positive sign for increase in the IIoT adoption across enterprises. CIOs and technology leaders have to keenly look into
“Data strategy could be considered as one of the important aspects of IoT applications. It can start from understanding how often data needs to be collected from the end points, to defining any metadata collection and data transformation needs before storing it.”
fortifying their operations with data driven synchronization of IT and OT.”
of Data, something that all twenty first century technologies from Cloud to Artificial Intelligence converge around. Today, Data is the focal point of all organizations. Be it customer data, employee information, companies’ confidential formula or the performance records of the machines, Data holds the key for the success of any business. IoT collects the Data that is a crucial business asset, while Cloud helpsthe enterprise to store this data and the domain of cybersecurity keeps this data safe from potentially hackers or leaks, and evolving technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning helps process the data. IoT then becomes, the foundational step that no business can afford to overlook if it has to survive in today’s Data centric enterprise. With IoT the business can leverage data at multiple levels. Businesses can make strategic decisions based on the actionable insights from the past data, use real-time data to manage operations in the present and use Predictive Analytical techniques to plan the future course of actions based. Commenting on this potential that IoT brings Karen Ravindranath, Director - WebNMS IoT says, “Continuous monitoring of processes and digitization of data allows easier Root Cause Analysis which when fed into AI and ML systems 22 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
can provide insights for predictive maintenance and unplanned downtime saving millions of dollars in OpEx costs and impacting bottom line positively.” SinceIoT streams real-time data, it allows the business the information they need to take immediate actions to ensure streamline operations, say for example, repairing a machine that has been reported to be broken down by the sensors. It strategically times the decision-making process so that potential loss of time, productivity and investment can be tackled as and when a complication arises.An active employment of IoT enables the business to streamline workflow, increase efficiency and reduce capital expenses. Understanding IoT with a use case When it comes to business activities like manufacturing or logistics, it becomes crucial for the organization to ensure that the basic infrastructure is at an optimum working condition. Prior to the use of sensors with IoT, the approach to maintenance has been a fairly reactiveone. Send out a team to repair the damages as and when there is a report of a machine breaking down. The use of IoT sensors in manufacturing equipment enables condition-based maintenance alerts. Adoption of IoT, gives the businesses that real-time data that they can use to predict when a machine needs servicing. So, the sensors will say,
pick up from the room temperature and report that a particular machine needs to be looked at. This brings about a shift from a reactive approach to a proactive approach. There is no longer the need to wait to be notified about a breakdown in order to take actions. By remote management based on real time,the business can considerably reduce downtime and through that cut back the companies’ losses. Commenting on yet another potential use case, Neeraj Sharma, Country Head, UNISOC India, says “One of the biggest technological drivers of enterprise adoption of IoT devices in India is the fast-growing trend of digital payments. We are witnessing an exponential increase in the number of digital payments across the country, with the market expected to touch $500 billion by 2020. “ IoT as a comprehensive re-modeling The interconnected devices, machines and applications that IoT translates to, is not limited to easing operations within the department. But it allows the organization to bridge the gap between its different departments and have a united front when it comes to the management of the business as a whole. What this means is that, the immense Data that interconnected devices is bringing in for the business is open to being accessed throughout the organization. So, the logistics team can keep a track on the manufacturing process and coordinate their activities accordingly. This implies a conflation of information technology
COVER STORY
PREM RODRIGUES DIRECTOR FOR SALES & MARKETING (INDIA, MIDDLE EAST & SAARC) - SIEMON COMPANY
NEERAJ SHARMA COUNTRY HEAD, UNISOC INDIA
“A major challenge is the unpredictability of RoIs. The current level of IoT technology demands heavy investments. And, yet, we don’t have fully defined models of how those returns
will be realised, because there is no historical point of reference.”
with operational technology in the industries. This results in unprecedented levels of operational visibility. Explaining how IoT would impact everyday business operations, Karan Kumar, CTO Hogar Controls, says “IoT devices can help employers ensure worker safety and enhance overall workplace security. Using embedded sensors and wearables, workers in high-risk environments like mining, heavy industries and construction can be continuously monitored and warned against falls and exhaustion. Small businesses can make use of connected video surveillance cameras and smart locks to monitor office premises at all times and ensure the protection of important assets.” Hence, the chain reaction that IoT sets off, leads the enterprise towards a highly transparent business model. The other side of IoT But this is just one side of the coin. Adoption of industrial IoT has its own shortcomings which the businesses cannot seem to get away from. The first being during the process of implementation itself. Because it requires them to overhaul the entire infrastructure or at the very least undertake some extensive upgradation. Addressing this challenge, Jagat Pal Singh, CTO, Cybage, says,“Gearing up the organization
for IoT implementation can be challenging as CIOs will need to justify the costs and predict some ROI on the costs since IoT solutions and systems could turn out to be very costly upfront.” This means that making the business IoT friendly takes its toll on the overall budget. The fact that IoT brings with it an added vulnerability from the security point of view doesn’t help its cause either. The interconnectivity that marks the foundation of IoT, inadvertently increases the risk quotient of the organization as there are now a larger number of devices serving as the entry point for the hackers to breach the firewalls of the company. IoT, though simplifying operations, also complicates security in the same step. There is no point in having massive amounts of data, if a company does not have the infrastructure to keep it secure from prying forces. Another challenge that IoT poses, is the lack of a universal standards that govern the functions of IoT. Being a fairly new technology in the enterprise that has not yet to see a high scale adoption drive, IoT comes with a uncontrolled, unregulated playing fields, where each player in the market is free to make what they will of the technology without being governed by any standardizing authority. This kind of free reign that IoT enjoys, makes it both exciting
“Converged IoT system and devices delivers significant capital and operational savings and sustainability over the life of a facility through benefits like decreasing the number of disparate
proprietary platforms, cutting power delivery cost per device, enhanced flexibility and less costly moves, etc.”
and risky to be deploy. Exciting, because it is open to experimentation. All organizations can unrestrictedly push the boundaries of IoT as there are no prescribed guidelines to be followed. This unregulated exploration in to the unchartered territory simultaneously makes the business vulnerable to failure. If an organization can discover a new use case of IoT, they are equally likely to stumble upon a problematic that can potentially compromise their business. Finally... Therefore, businesses need to be extra careful about where they are heading with IoT. There is potential in the technology waiting to be harnessed, but if not handled with caution, it can also prove to be a rather risky venture. Abhishek Rungta, Founder and CEO, Indus Net Technologies gives a five steps guide to making an organization IoT friendly : 1) Create IoT adoption catalysts within the IT organization, 2) Build a sandbox infrastructure for innovation and experimentation, 3) Prioritize learning projects and pilots, 4) Get the infrastructure ‘IoT ready’ and 5) Partner for success.Adoption of IoT poses challenges for the business at the levels of implementation, management and security. But once deployed well, it can prove to be a game changer for the organization. MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 23
IOT
A BRIEF HISTORY OF INTERNET 2000 OF THINGS
2000
LG brings out the world’s first Internet refrigerator which allowed people to keep a track of the contents of the refrigerator.
LG brings out the world’s first Internet refrigerator which allowed people to keep a track of the contents of the refrigerator.
1999
The term, Internet Of things is coined by Kevin Ashton.
1994
Steve Mann makes the first wearable Internet connected camera.
1993
the Trojan Room Coffee Pot sends images to University of Cambridge servers about three times a minute to be remotely monitored by the workers.
1990
37
YEA
John Romkey succeeded in remotely turning a toaster on and off through the Internet at the October ‘89 INTEROP conference.
1982
A Coca Cola vending machine is connected to the ARPANET to remotely check the availability of sodas in the machine at Carnegie Mellon University.
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IOT
2003-4
The term IoT starts appearing in mainstream publications like The Guardian, Scientific American and the Boston Globe; and book titles.
2005
37
Nabaztag manufacture a WiFi enbabled rabbit was able to speak to you about stock market reports, news headlines, alarm clock, RSS-Feeds, etc
l
2008
The first international IoT conference held in Zurich, Switzerland.
l
The first year when the number of Internet connected devices are more than the number of people on the planet.
l
The IPSO alliance launched to promote the use of Internet Protocol in a smart object network to enable IoT.
l
2009 2010
Google start testing self-driving cars.
The Chinese government announces IoT as a key technology to be dealt with in their long-term development plan.
l
Nest releases a smart thermostat that uses the habitual patterns to adjust the temperature, thereby bringing the ‘smart home’ concept to the forefront.
l
ARS 2014 2016
2019
UN’s International Telecommunications Union, ITU published its first report on IoT.
l
2011 2013
IoT makes it to Gartner’s ‘hype cycle’, a graph that represent the maturity, adoption, and social application of specific technologies.
Google creates advanced smart glasses, a revolutionary step in IoT and wearable technology.
Amazon releases Amazon Echo.
The Mirai Botnet, the first massive IoT malware attack confirmed.
MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 25
IOT
HOW IS IOT CHANGING THE MARKET DYNAMICS? The transformational potential of IoT cannot be denied. Enterprises that harness IoT in accordance with their business needs are able to better coordinate their operations, while enhancing their business efficiency.
What do you think is the most interesting use of the IoT? Nowadays what is driving the enterprise industry curiosity is IoT. What makes IoT interesting is that it can be used in all fields and sectors such as manufacturing, logistics, food & beverage, automobile, banking & insurance, educational, healthcare etc. We might not feel the immediate effects of the IoT, but its potential is enormous. IoT is set to transform the supply chain with both operational efficiencies and revenue opportunities. With the advancement in the technology sector nowadays almost all supply chains depend on the functioning of their machines. When factory equipments or a delivery truck breaks down, it can potentially create inefficiencies. With IoT, smart sensors can now be installed in these tools to provide better maintenance and hence prevent failures. IoT will empower cities to leverage their network to offer advanced smart city applications for citizens and solve problems related to pollution, traffic congestion and shortage of energy supplies. How is IoT changing the digital landscape for the enterprise industry? Given the consistent pace of digital innovation, there is an emerging wave of Internet of Things (IoT) to drive a new era of change. With advance hardware and software solutions and the arrival of virtual and assisted reality, mobile edge computing, machine learning, blockchain and AI, the enterprise industry is soon to witness the second wave of digital transformation. As companies are embracing a range of new, cutting-edge technologies to enhance their customer experience, they are eventually opening new markets and creating ecosystems for their products and services. What sets your IoT solutions apart from the other IoT providers in the market? Unlimit is the only end-to-end IoT solution provider in India offering connectivity to device management and application software to any form of analytics. We have partnerships with 500+ established IoT stakeholders such as BSNL, Cisco Jasper, PTC, Software AG Cumulocity IoT and IBM Watson IoT, to provide dedicated IoT solutions in field of Automotive, 26 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD    MAY 2019
Industry 4.0, Supply Chain, and Government projects. Our breakthrough IoT solutions include, Unlimit Control (Device Management Platform), Unlimit Applications (Device Management & Application Platform) and Unlimit Insights (Big Data, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence & Cognitive Learning. At a time when the risk to Cyber Security is higher than ever before, how does your platform propose to uphold IoT security in spite of excessive interconnectedness, which only makes Security that much harder? We need to continuously improve our network and firewalls to manage potential cyber threats by fencing our system with latest point solutions, antivirus software, IDS, IPS, patching and encryption etc. How will IoT affect the everyday experiences of the people? IoT is truly the next step in the information age. It could change our everyday lives, our everyday work, and our everyday communities.The technology will put our life at fingertips as smartphones become the main center for the rest of our world. IoT is an extension of the current Internet that allows connections and communication between physical objects and devices. In practical terms, it means that we are surrounded by intelligent technology that adapts to the needs of the users. Below are few examples of how the IoT solution developed by Unlimit is simplifying and improving the day to day lives of people.
CONNECTED VEHICLES According to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), approximately 25 million vehicles have been sold in the financial year of 2018 in India alone. The rising number of vehicles on roads have raised concern about their safety and smooth functioning. At Unlimit, we offer smart breakthrough solutions to Connected Vehicles and create a seamless infrastructure that not only avoids accidents but also helps save us environment by reducing harmful gas emissions.
IOT
JUERGEN HASE
CEO, UNLIMIT
“IoT is the next big thing and the transition to a digital transformation of the economy is unstoppable. Today, we are at the forefront of this new era on a global level and companies should start taking advantage of this by using these data-based insights.”
INDUSTRY 4.0 Industry 4.0 refers to complete digital transformation of production that makes it possible for humans as well as machines to gather and analyse data, enabling maximum output with minimal intervention. Hence, it helps in saving time, money, and energy which results in achieving the vision and mission of an organization. Our IoT solution establishes connection between devices working in synchronization and give real time data which helps user to analyse the performance of the system on a real time basis.
SUPPLY CHAIN
While India’s logistic expenditure is 13% of its GDP surpassing the US that reports just 8.5%, there lies a great scope to bring down the costs through a revolutionary solution for transport and logistics. Unlimit has come up with a breakthrough system that not only gives you the control over all the vehicles but also makes you aware of their whereabouts so to prevent the damage or resolve the issue in a jiffy. What advice will you give to business leaders who are interested in incorporating IoT in their business models? IoT is the next big thing and the transition to a digital transformation of the economy is
unstoppable. Today, we are at the forefront of this new era on a global level and companies should start taking advantage of this by using these data-based insights. Companies can start taking advantage of this by using these data-based insights to come up with more effective marketing tactics and get to know their target demographics on a more specific, qualitative level. IoT will revolutionize how companies track and manage their inventory. In future, smart devices will be able to keep tabs on inventory changes automatically, freeing up workers for more important, cognitively demanding tasks.
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IOT
GYAN PRAKASH
Vice President – Enterprise IT, SCADA Geoinformatics
“The key benefits of IIoT are Increased Profits, Increased Revenue Flows, Lower Operational Expenditures and Improvement in
Operational Processes by Analytics.”
UTILIZATION OF IIOT
AUTHORED BY: GYAN PRAKASH
Technologies do not exist in vacuum. There is a context and environment that they emerge from and can be implemented in. For IIoT, the use cases span across sectors.
T
he IIoT provides a way to get better visibility and insight into the plant operations and assets through integration of machine sensors, middleware, software, and backend cloud compute and storage systems. The business gains are achieved through operational efficiency gains and accelerated productivity, which results in reduced unplanned downtime and optimized efficiency, and thereby profits. It is focusing on a new strategy, which is customer centric product/service availability in market.
WHY IIOT NOW? Due to advancement in Technological & Social environment, IIoT demands now for following reasons: • IT systems can now support widespread of business functions due to a fall in the costs of IT systems. • Cloud computing solves the issues with remote data storage; In addition, Analytic tools provided by Cloud service providers results in 28 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
process of massive amounts of information. • The maturity and subsequent growth in networks solutions have enabled remote monitoring and control of assets. • Cloud-computing model allows organizations to gather and analyze large amounts of data at low cost.
KEY OPPORTUNITIES OF IIOT The following sectors have some potential to harness the IIoT • IIoT in Water Treatment - Fresh-drinking water companies/ water-waste recycler companies can use the IIoT for remote asset management and predictive maintenance. By using a strategy of sensors, remote communication, and Big Data analytics, organization can anticipate equipment failures and respond quicker to any critical situation that may arise due to inclement weather. • Inspection of Oil and Gas Lines - Using drones and autonomous vehicles to inspect Oil and Gas lines in inhospitable areas to using autonomous mining equipment. Organization can use
an autonomous underwater vehicle to inspect sub-sea conditions. The unmanned vehicle travels around the ocean floor and monitors conditions for anything only by wave motion. • Health Care Industry - The best metric for a health care company to be judged is how long their patients survive in their tender care, so this is their focus—improving patient care. Hospitals can improve patient care via nonintrusive data collection, Big Data analytics, and intelligent systems. The improvements to health care come through not just the medical care staff but the initiatives of medical equipment manufacturers to miniaturize and integrate their equipment with the goal of achieving more wearable, reliable, integrated, and effective monitoring and analysis equipment. By making medical equipment smaller, multi-functional, and usable, efficiency is achievable through connecting intelligent devices to a patient’s treatment plan in order to deliver medication to the patient through smart drug delivery systems, which is more accurate and reliable.
CISCO
SERVION STRENGTHENS ITS SECURITY POSTURE WITH CISCO Servion improves its network visibility, control access and contains threats with Cisco.
IT’S WHAT WE DELIVER TO OUR CUSTOMERS THAT DEFINES WHO WE ARE. It’s no easy feat delivering world-class omnichannel customer experience solutions. Servion is in the business of building next-generation contact center solutions. It prides itself on creating efficient and seamless solutions that help its clients deliver exceptional customer experiences. “We have to ensure impeccable quality, and that becomes especially critical when our clients include some of the world’s leading enterprises that collectively touch the lives of millennials with over 10 billion customer interactions each year, across 60 countries in 6 continents,” says Jayan Narayanan, Head IT at Servion Global Solutions. Servion enables business transformation for enterprises in the area of customer experience management (CEM) with platform-led solutions that automate and integrate customer interaction channels. It has IP platforms such as ServDesignSM, ServIntuitSM, ServInsightsSM, ServCloudTM and ServCareSM that enable enterprises to drive the true value of their CX investments and build their Customer Engagement Hub.
TO BE LEADERS IN CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT, WE PARTNERED WITH THE WORLD LEADER IN IT AND NETWORKING. Over the past two decades, Servion has evolved from being a single channel (voice) interaction expert to being an industry pioneer in omnichannel customer experience. From the start of its journey, Servion has come a long way – growing manifold both in terms of its customer-base as well as its offerings. Along its journey, the company realized that to really make the leap to the next level, it needed the right technologies. Servion, like most large organizations was wrestling with its legacy systems that worked insilos. The company had multiple solutions from multiple vendors, most of which were not smoothly integrating with each other. Servion
knew that it was not able to tap into analytics and business insights from data because of its disparate infrastructure. “When your livelihood depends on delivering digital transformation to your customers, you need to ensure that you are on top of the game,” says Jayan, “we needed our systems to talk to each other, seamlessly.” In addition, this also exposed the company to security threats. And with ransomware attacks becoming commonplace, Servion could not risk the loss of sensitive data – not just its own, but its customers’ as well. With this in mind, it started assessing available solutions in the market. “Cisco’s vision and roadmap appealed to us and resonated with our own, and it made perfect sense to choose them as our partner. Our journey with Cisco began eight years ago, and over the years we have assessed and implemented a large array of Cisco solutions, and we look forward to exploring more in the future,” says Jayan.
CISCO SOLUTIONS IMPLEMENTED BY SERVION To enhance its security posture, Servion implemented the following security solutions: Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE), Cisco Umbrella - the industry’s first Secure Internet Gateway in the cloud Cisco Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) for endpoints, and the nextgen firewall
JAYAN NARAYANAN, HEAD IT AT SERVION GLOBAL SOLUTIONS
“The difference between success and failure for a business, is customer experience.”
THE RESULTS It’s more than security, it’s peace of mind: During the 2017 ransomware attacks, when most companies were nervous about possible breach, Servion was secure in the knowledge that it was protected by Cisco’s intelligent security solutions, that not just block but predict and uncover even emerging threats. Servion’s infrastructure is stable, and the company feels far more in control than before. Better productivity, efficiency and speed: When all the systems talk to one another, everything becomes more efficient. There are fewer system downtimes, and that means employees can focus on higher value tasks than fixing system issues. Network automation helped increase operational
simplicity and speed.
IN CONCLUSION When all systems work together, it’s like a welloiled machine, or even better, an orchestra that’s in perfect synchrony. Servion is now able to truly deliver world-class solutions to its customers, and focus on innovating further to improve customer experience. This is made possible by technology that takes away the worry and ensures that infrastructure that is supposed to run smooth, really does. MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 29
FEATURE
30 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
FEATURE
AI AND ML:
GAME CHANGERS
FOR
THE ENTERPRISES Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are two of the disruptive forces in the industry today. Being in their early stages, they already have the potential to absolutely change the way business decisions are made in the organization.
BY POOJA JAIN / POOJA@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM
C
onversations around Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning began in the 1950s. It was then that people started talking about these technologies academically, in relation to the business and what they could generally mean for the development of computer science. In 2019, AI and ML’s all-encompassing presence within the business operations have transformed them from merely a niche solution to a mainstream disruptive force. Anil Arora, Principal Data Scientist, SAS India notes that an explosion of data sources, low costs of computational power and advancements in methods and algorithms are the catalysts that have led to the advancement of AI and ML over the last decade. MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
31
FEATURE
STEPHEN PRATT
CEO, NOODLE.AI
ANIL ARORA
PRINCIPAL DATA SCIENTIST, SAS INDIA
“AI/ML favors companies with significant data stores on historic operations. So, it favors companies with scale and those who have invested in ERP, CRM, MES, Sensor Data, etc. and kept historic data. Very small companies and those
“Artificial intelligence is poised to unleash the next wave of digital disruption, and companies should prepare for it now. AI promises benefits, but also poses urgent challenges that cut across firms,
AI AND ML FOR THE ENTERPRISE
for instance. It allows the system to identify a pattern of use, mannerisms, data transfers, accessibility, etc. At any slight deviation, say irregular log in requests by employees or accessing of data base through unknown systems, AI tracks the disruption and alerts the authorities immediately so that the crisis can be averted. Hence, by intercepting and mitigating potential breaches or leaks, AI and ML become crucial tools for prevention from the security point of view. Below are some testaments from business leaders on how Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have proved to be a game changer for their business. Commenting on how AI has shaped their business activities, Gail Moody-Byrd,CMO, Noodle.ai, says, “We have a not-so-secret plan to create a world without waste through the Enterprise AI apps we deploy to manufacturers
that have thrown out historic data will be at a disadvantage
AI and ML are revolutionary technologies. These learning algorithms have the potential to fundamentally reform the way operational decisions are taken by the enterprise. In 2018 the NITI Aayog under the National Program on Artificial Intelligence, adopted a three-pronged approach – undertaking exploratory proof-of-concept AI projects in various areas, crafting a national strategy for building a vibrant AI ecosystem in India and collaborating with various experts and stakeholders. The Indian enterprises are gradually moving towards AI-ML friendly business operations, as they have identified and plan to benefit from the advantages that an organization stands to accrue if it deploys these technologies. AI and ML are extremely useful for Security, 32 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
developers, government, and workers. The workforce needs to be reskilled to exploit AI rather than compete with it.
KARTIK WALIA
HEAD INDIA OPERATIONS, AMPLIFY.AI
“Conversational AI is a frontier technology, offering capabilities that most companies are not yet aware of. This includes everything from making marketing conversational, interactive, and personalized to making
customer support more immediate, effective, and cost-efficient.”
and supply chains. Our products focus where the waste is – companies that make things and move things. We think traditional rules-based software is failing business leaders, so we work with our customers to leverage artificial intelligence to do things like improve quality, reduce downtime, improve fill rates and recover lost sales – all while reducing waste.” Talking about how ML has benefitted their business, Ajay Trehan, Founder & CEO, AuthBridge says, “We have used AI/ML to reduce the turnaround time for our customers, to deliver lower costs and serve better quality. Vault, our Criminal Records search product, has become more efficient through ML and is getting even better with time through self-learning driven by additional data sets. Instant results from searching millions of records are getting precise reducing the time considerably to deliver the service.”
FEATURE
NEERAJ GOYAL
HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY INDIA, RBS INDIA
“The rise of AI and ML in the financial industry proves how quickly it’s changing the business landscape even in traditionally conservative areas. We are witnessing and delivering transformational changes in how we make
decisions, manage risk, prevent fraud and automate processes – for an improved customer experience.”
Addressing the issue, Sandeep Geol, Senior Vice President – Technology, Moglixsays, “We have deployed AI and ML based solutions to address critical business problems such as Data Quality, Buyer’s behaviour prediction, supplier selection and more. We are using AI and ML for supply chain optimizations through initiatives like Data Cleansing and Catalogue Management, Purchase Recommendations and Supplier Performance Management.” But the Transformation journey is hardly as smooth as it seems to be.
PROBLEMS WITH AI AND ML DEPLOYMENT The challenge that arises with such technologies, that are still, in many ways, only in the early years
JOSEPH JAYAKUMAR
CEO, AMSTAR TECHNOLOGIES
“AI and ML is going to impact every vertical/ sector dynamically or anywhere where primary customer and operational data is
the lifeblood of an enterprise.”
of development, is that there is not enough information or awareness about it. “Many customers in the Indian market are not aware of the difference between a report, a BI dashboard, a simple analytics service and a ML or AI service. The awareness factor also is dependent on the steep learning curve ML and AI as a domain warrants,” says Anand Subramaniam, Head - Artificial Intelligence Practice, Aspire Systems. All the highly skilled personnel that any business already has, would be people who are trained in technologies that have already gone through the initial stages of development and are now an established norm. But as far as adoption of AI and ML is concerned, businesses cannot proceed without either acquiring a new tea or training its existing one. “AI projects require a multi-functional team,comprising of domain knowledge experts, data scientists and programmers,” says Ajay Trehan, Founder & CEO, AuthBridge. So, even though AI and ML have immense potential for the businesses, it cannot be realized unless and until there is a considerable growth in the number of professionals available in the market who have a thorough working knowledge of AI and ML. Addressing the problem of the extensive lack of
MOHAR V
CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, TECHVED CONSULTING.
“Businesses subsist for the customers and if they feel AI and ML give an easing experience, giving them that would be the right solution.”
skills and tools for the adoption of AI, Anil Arora, Principal Data Scientist, SAS India, says, “Majority of the organization want to embark upon AI journey but with lack of skills and relevant tools it becomes almost impossible to build and deploy AI in their system. It’s imperative to have highly skilled resources at disposal to be able to build any AI application.” Another challenge that needs to be mentioned here, is the problematic of Cybersecurity. AI and ML primarily uses huge volumes of Data to make intelligent decisions, which makes it imperative for a business to safeguard Cybersecurity to ensure that security concerns like Data Breach and Identity Theft are under control. Finally…
Like every other Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, come with their fair share of potential and challenges. At the end of the day, it all comes down to how well can a business overcome the challenges, in a cost-effective manner, so that they can overhaul their activities in a way that is only for the betterment of the organization. It is only after a business excels at this, that Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning can prove to be a game changer for them. MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 33
AI, ML
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AND MACHINE LEARNING
70 YEARS
1965
1950 Alan Turing publishes ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’ in which he proposes ‘the imitation game’ which will later become known as the ‘Turing Test’.
Joseph Weizenbaum develops ELIZA, an interactive program that carries on a dialogue in English language on any topic.
1955 1959
John McCarthy coins the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’.
1952
Arthur Samuel wrote the first computer learning program, a checkers playing program.
34 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
1985
Terry Sejnowski invents NetTalk, which learns to pronounce words the same way a baby does.
Arthur Samuel coins the term Machine Learning.
1957 Frank Rosenblatt designed the first neural network for computers (the perceptron), which simulate the thought processes of the human brain.
1979 1961
The first industrial robot, Unimate, starts working on an assembly line in a General Motors plant in New Jersey.
Students at Stanford University invent the ‘Stanford Cart’ which can navigate obstacles in a room on its own.
AI,ML
2016
1995
Richard Wallace develops the chatbot A.L.I.C.E (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity).
2006
2014
Geoffrey Hinton coins the term ‘Deep Learning’.
1997
IBM’s Deep Blue beats the world champion at chess.
Facebook develops DeepFace, a software algorithm that is able to recognize or verify individuals on photos to the same level as humans can.
2011
l Google Brain is developed, and
Google’s Artificial Intelligence algorithm beats a professional player at the Chinese board game Go.
its deep neural network can learn to discover and categorize objects much the way a cat does. l IBM’s Watson, natural language question answering computer, beats its human competitors at Jeopardy.
2015
l Amazon launches its own
machine learning platform.
l Microsoft creates the Distrib-
uted Machine Learning Toolkit
2019 MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 35
AI IN HEALTHCARE
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CHANGING HEALTHCARE LANDSCAPE
Healthcare and Insurance sector are not untouched by Artificial Intelligence. There is immense potential for this sector to deploy AI based solutions to enhance efficiency and reduce costs.
SANJAY PATHAK
Head Healthcare and Insurance Solutions, 3i Infotech
AUTHORED BY : SANJAY PATHAK
“AI or any new age technology adaption will face ‘Iron Triangle’ of healthcare (access, quality, and cost) test to prove its worth. For an industry which has always lacked skilled manpower to manage
L
ooking at the upcoming trends globally and across industry ‘Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML)’ tops the charts. Generally, first thing which comes to mind is machine/cyborg taking over human elements and this has been depicted to various degree in many sci-fi movies.While, the reality is far away from that, it will be unjust to ignore how healthcare is evolving and adopting AI in real life to reduce cost and improve patient outcomes. In current context, AI means simulation of human elements by machines/computers, where they acquire information (learning), process it to reach reasonable conclusions (action) and adapt themselves to situations (course corrections). AI leverages various technologies like Machine/ Deep learning, Vision, NLP, Robots or autonomous machines etc. Below are areas where AI has already made its way or can bring in difference in future. l Leveraging vision, deep learning on sensor based vital data, physicians will be better equipped to diagnose ailments. Medical imaging can be taken to new levels where AI on top can accurately diagnose and in some cases even predict diseases. l Hospital re-admission has been a grave concern and millions wasted due to lack of post operation care. AI can help predict situation like this and can assist providers take extra precautions. l Based on the patient case and required procedures, AI can help in planning surgery, help 36 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
everyone’s health, AI can do wonders in times to come.”
doctors in accurate measurements, and assist during surgery by tracking vital and other data. and help surgeons understand surgery outcomesbetter based on correlations from similar cases. l Using NLP and vision, AI can assist doctors with diagnosis, running pharmacy correlations with other drugs, allergy, food etc. and help physicians with transcripts and voice assisted case management. All these integrated with EHR system will bring in the best of the best values. l Virtual health assistants are tools like chat bots or a conversational service using smart speakers helping customer answer health related quires, symptoms checker or assist them with appointments etc. l AI can assist hospitals in better management of assets, emergency management and better planningof the hospital processes and functions. l In the field of telemedicine, AI can bring wonders by enabling accurate remote health monitoring, predictive diagnosis leading to cheaper & effective remote/rural health management. If we flip to other side of healthcare, i.e., ‘insurance’, AI can bring many value added services together with care side to bring down the overall healthcare spending globally. l Outcome, risk and cost comparison for similar cases in different hospitals/cities will help insurance companies compare cost and better optimize the plans offered and their premiums. l Predictive element of care can assist providersin better reach out to patients and proactive care management, which can save significant
amounts for both sides. Predictive AI for care, claims and other information can also help providers come up with health plans, which are cheaper and more effective. l AI systems can sift through clinical and claims data to highlight errors in diagnosis, payments, frauds and workflow issues, thus providing a true value based care system. The real test for AI system will depend on solutions’ ability to integrate with the hospital or doctors’ workflow. AI systems should not be perceived as extra process, as that will reduce the value such systems can potentially bring. Adoption of AI in healthcare, both clinical and insurance will be slow and will face some challenges like: l Ethical concerns due to reduction in Hu element- who takes the liability for a negative event? l Regulation& compliance will play a big role in adaption of AI as they will govern the process and procedures that are followed. l Initial adoption both by physicians and patients will see hiccups mostly related to trust factors, till the time both parties build confidence in such systems. l Lack of requisite skillsets for technology adoption, followed by trainings of end users. Finally, AI or any new age technology adaption will face ‘Iron Triangle’ of healthcare (access, quality, and cost) test to prove its worth. For an industry which has always lacked skilled manpower to manage everyone’s health, AI can do wonders in times to come. l
AI IN BANKING
CONVERSATIONAL AI IN BANKING — HOW INDIAN FIS ARE TALKING TO CUSTOMERS In today’s marketplace, the focus is on offering the best customer experience. Conversational AI platforms are an excellent differentiator for this.
RAM MENON
Founder and CEO, Avaamo
“Chatbots and other AI initiatives in banks can lead to faster regulatory compliance, and reduce costs involved
AUTHORED BY : RAM MENON
in compliance as well.”
L
akshmi, Disha and IRIS. No, we are not talking about baby names; we are talking about chatbots. Indian banks and other financial institutions have not just taken baby steps to automate customer support processes but have already begun to see the benefits of conversational AI-driven solutions. According to an Accenture survey of 800 banking executives across 25 countries, “79 percent of bankers believe that within the next two years, AI will work next to humans in their organizations as a co-worker, collaborator, and trusted advisor.” And chatbots are one such visible form of AI being launched in Indian banks. Lakshmi, innocuous as it sounds is in reality a bot rolled out by City Union Bank to help customers find answers to their queries in real time 24/7. These queries cover a range of simple requests includ-ing questions such as which is the nearest ATM or a password reset for online banking. Lakshmi has today grown into a popular channel and is accessible on the bank’s web and Facebook channels. From the time the bank deployed Lakshmi, its operating expenses have dropped by nearly 30 per cent. What’s more, the bot handles over 10,000 customer queries every week with an accuracy of over 92 per cent. Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance rolled out a chatbot called Disha to enhance customer experience and to manage their increasing business flow. This bot again answers commonly asked
queries on insurance. It also helps customers get premium quotes, and resolve any issues they might have. The company typically receives a huge number of policy requests, especially as the financial year comes to an end. The AI-based chatbot successfully helps the bank handle high volumes of queries effec-tively during such high traffic periods. IRIS, rolled out by IndiaFirst Life Insurance, offers a live chat experience. Lowered dependence on agents and contact centres allows the company’s sales force to function more smartly and efficient-ly. Customer experience is another key responsibility of the IRIS platform.
CHATBOTS AND SUPERIOR CX These three use cases show how conversational AI platforms are excellent for enhanced customer experience. In the era of the customer, offering a superior customer experience is the key brand dif-ferentiator. Chatbots ensure that customers effortlessly access information, therefore leading to brand loyalty and higher retention rates. What’s more, an increasing number of consumers are com-fortable with the idea of AI. A Capgemini Research Institute report on AI shows that 73 per cent of its respondents were aware of having AI-enabled interactions, including chatbots for customer ser-vice, facial recognition for consumer identification, etc. While aSalesforce report says that 71 per cent of all customers it surveyed in India say AI is already or actively transforming
their expecta-tions of companies. By using chatbots, customer waiting times are lowered, leading to lesser or zero frustration. In the case of Disha, the chatbot deployed by Birla Sun Life, response time to complete quote creation and application process has dropped from a 24-72 hour window to a mere 5-15 minute window. This automatically means satisfied and happy customers. For the bank, it leads to customer retention. Another benefit for customers is that AI delivers a personalized experience, thanks to the power of big data, analytics and machine learning.
CONVERSATIONAL AI BRINGS BENEFITS FOR BANKS AND FIS By eliminating repetitive and time-consuming tasks, agents can improve their productivity and focus on tasks that need human attention and insights. Also, AI has a direct benefit in terms of lowered costs for banks/FIs. This benefit can be passed on to customers as a result. A 2018 Juniper Research report says that bank savings via use of chatbots will touch $7.3 billion, come 2023. The time saved for banks will touch 862 million hours by 2023. This is equal to almost half a million working years, the report adds.
To read the entire artical log on to www.enterpriseitworld.com
MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 37
WHITE PAPER
TOP 5 REASONS YOU NEED EDR
E
ndpoint detection and response (EDR) tools are built to supplement endpoint security with increased detection, investigation, and response capabilities. However, the hype surrounding EDR tools can make it difficult to understand how exactly they can be used and why they are needed. Making matters worse, today’s EDR solutions often struggle to provide value for many organizations as they can be difficult to use, lack sufficient protection capabilities, and are resource intensive. Sophos Intercept X Advanced with EDR integrates intelligent EDR with the industry’s top-rated endpoint protection in a single solution, making it the easiest way for organizations to answer the tough questions about security incidents. Here are some additional reasons to consider an EDR solution.
CONFIDENTLY REPORT ON YOUR SECURITY POSTURE AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT IT and security teams are often motivated by attack and defense metrics, yet the hardest question for most teams to answer is “are we secure right now?” This is because most networks have sizable blind spots that make IT and security teams struggle to see what is going on inside their environments. Lack of visibility is the primary reason why organizations struggle to understand the scope and impact of attacks. This often manifests itself when an incident occurs and the team assumes they are safe because that incident was detected. Intercept X Advanced with EDR provides additional insight that determines if other machines were impacted. For example, if a suspicious executable was found on the network, it would be remediated. However, the analyst may not know if that executable exists anywhere else in the environment. With Intercept X Advanced with EDR, this information is readily available. Being able to view the other locations where threats exist allows the security team to prioritize incidents for additional investigation and potential remediation. Generating a clear view of an organization’s security posture also provides the benefit of being able to report on compliance status. This information will help identify areas that may be vulnerable to attacks. It also allows administrators to determine if the scope of an attack has impacted areas where sensitive data is housed. For example, if malware was detected that exfiltrated data out of the network, an analyst would need to determine if impacted machines housed medical information that was subject to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and 38 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
Accountability Act – US regulation). This would be a much simpler exercise with Intercept X Advanced with EDR. As an added compliance benefit, it would also be much easier to demonstrate that patient information is being protected thanks to increased endpoint visibility.
Figure 1: Sophos Intercept X Advanced with EDR displays all the additional locations where a threat exists
DETECT ATTACKS THAT HAVE GONE UNNOTICED When it comes to cybersecurity, even the most advanced tools can be defeated given enough time and resources, making it difficult to truly understand when attacks are happening. Organizations often rely solely on prevention to stay protected, and while prevention is critical, EDR offers another layer of detection capabilities to potentially find incidents that have gone unnoticed. Organizations can leverage EDR to detect attacks by searching for indicators of compromise (IOCs). This is a quick and straightforward way to hunt for attacks that may have been missed. Threat searches are frequently kicked off after a notification from third-party threat intelligence: for example, a government agency (such as US-CERT, CERT-UK, or CERT Australia) might inform an organization that there is suspicious activity in their network. The notification may be accompanied by a list of IOCs, which can be used as a starting point to determine what is happening. Sophos Intercept X Advanced with EDR provides a list of the top suspicious events, so analysts know exactly what they should be investigating (coming in 2019). By leveraging SophosLabs machine learning capabilities, a list of the top suspicious events is presented, ranked by their threat score. This makes it easy for analysts to prioritize their workloads and focus on the most important events. Suspicious events also highlight a common scenario where analysts are being called upon to determine if something is truly malicious. This pertains to activity that does not appear to be malicious enough to automatically convict but still appears suspicious enough to warrant a deeper look.
Think of it as falling in a “grey area” where additional analysis is needed to confirm if it is malicious, benign, or unwanted.
Figure 2: Sophos Intercept X Advanced with EDR offers the ability to search for indicators of compromise across the network. It also leverages machine learning to determine the top suspicious events that should be investigated (suspicious events functionality coming in 2019)
RESPOND FASTER TO POTENTIAL INCIDENTS Once incidents are detected, IT and security teams usually scramble to remediate them as fast as possible to reduce the risk of attacks spreading and to limit any potential damage. Naturally, the most pertinent question to ask is how to get rid of each respective threat. On average, security and IT teams spend more than three hours trying to remediate each incident. EDR can speed this up significantly. The first step an analyst might take during the incident response process would be to stop an attack from spreading. Intercept X Advanced with EDR isolates endpoints on demand, which is a key step to stop a threat from spreading throughout the environment. Analysts will often do this before investigating, buying time while they determine the best course of action. The investigation process can be a slow and painful one. This of course assumes an investigation occurs at all. Incident response traditionally relies heavily on highly-skilled human analysts. Most EDR tools also rely heavily on analysts to know which questions to ask and how to interpret the answers. However, with Intercept X Advanced with EDR, security teams of all skill levels can quickly respond to security incidents thanks to guided investigations that offer suggested next steps, clear visual attack representations, and built-in expertise. When an investigation is concluded, analysts can respond with a click of a button. Rapid response options include the ability to isolate endpoints for immediate remediation, clean and block files, and create forensic snapshots. And if a file is mistakenly blocked, it can be easily reversed.
WHITE PAPER
Figure 3: Guided incident response offers suggested next steps and on-demand endpoint isolation to quickly and safely resolve incidents.
Figures 4: Action buttons are located throughout Intercept X Advanced with EDR that offer multiple remediation options, with “clean and block” being the most common. ADD EXPERTISE WITHOUT ADDING HEADCOUNT By a large margin, organizations looking to add endpoint detection and response capabilities cite “staff knowledge” as the top impediment to EDR adoption. This shouldn’t come as a great surprise, as the talent gap for finding qualified cybersecurity professionals has been widely discussed for several years. This barrier is especially pronounced with smaller organizations. Top reasons why organizations have not implemented EDR
Figure 5: Staff knowledge was cited as the top reason why organizations have not adopted an endpoint detection and response (EDR) solution (Source: Sapio study in conjunction with Sophos, October 2018) To combat the staff knowledge gap, Intercept X Advanced with EDR replicates the capabilities associated with hard-to-find analysts. It leverages machine learning to integrate deep security insight and is enhanced with curated SophosLabs threat intelligence, so you can add expertise without
having to add staff. The intelligent EDR capabilities help fill the gaps caused by a lack of staff knowledge, reproducing the functions of several types of analysts: l Security analysts: These are the front-line analysts tasked with triaging incidents and determining which alerts need to be immediately addressed. Ideally, they’re also able to proactively hunt to detect any attacks that may have gone unnoticed. Intercept X Advanced with EDR automatically detects and prioritizes potential threats (coming in 2019). Using machine learning, suspicious events are identified and given a threat score. The events with the highest scores are the most immediately important. Analysts can quickly see where to focus their attention and start investigating. l Malware analysts: Organizations may rely on malware experts that specialize in reverse engineering suspicious files in order to analyze them. Not only is this approach time consuming and difficult to achieve, but it assumes a level of cybersecurity sophistication most organizations do not possess. Malware analysts are needed to decide if a file that was not blocked is actually malicious. They also may look at files that were convicted but may actually be false positives. Intercept X Advanced with EDR offers a better approach to malware analysis by leveraging machine learning. Using the industry’s best endpoint malware detection engine, malware is automatically analyzed in extreme detail, breaking down file attributes and code components and comparing them to millions of other files. Analysts can easily see which attributes and code segments are similar to “known-good” and “known-bad” files so they can determine if a file should be blocked or allowed. l Threat intelligence analysts: Investigations may rely on third-party threat intelligence (often at an additional cost) to add insight and context into threats. Analysts are needed to interpret and integrate this data to ensure it adds value. Threat intelligence can be used as a starting point to investigations, as a means for asking the security community what it thinks of a suspicious file, or to determine if an attack is targeting the organization. Intercept X Advanced with EDR provides IT and security administrators the ability to gather more information by accessing on-demand threat intelligence curated by SophosLabs. To maintain full visibility into the threat landscape, SophosLabs tracks, deconstructs, and analyzes 400,000 unique and previously unseen malware attacks each day in a constant search for the latest and greatest attack techniques. This threat intelligence is collected, aggregated, and summarized for easy analysis so teams that do not have dedicated threat intelligence analysts or access to expensive and hard to understand threat feeds can benefit from one of the
top cybersecurity research and data science teams in the world.
Figure 6: Machine learning analysis displays the attributes, code similarity, and file path analysis for powerful yet simple analysis. UNDERSTAND HOW AN ATTACK HAPPENED AND HOW TO STOP IT FROM HAPPENING AGAIN Security analysts have recurring nightmares where they have suffered an attack: an executive screams, “How did this happen?!” and all they can do is shrug their shoulders. Identifying and removing malicious files solves the immediate problem, but it doesn’t shed light upon how it got there in the first place or what the attacker did before the attack was shut down. Threat cases, included with Intercept X Advanced with EDR, spotlight all the events that led up to a detection, making it easy to understand which files, processes, and registry keys were touched by the malware to determine the impact of an attack. It provides a visual representation of the entire attack chain, ensuring confident reporting about how the attack started and where the attacker went. More importantly, by understanding the root cause of an attack, the IT team will be much more likely to prevent it from ever happening again.
Figure 7: Threat cases provide a visual and interactive representation of the attack chain MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 39
STARTUP
STARTUPS TO LOOK OUT FOR IN THE IOT, AI AND ML DOMAIN RAHUL GANAPATHY, Contact Number: +919940688577 Email: rahul@atsuyatech.com
CEO, ATSUYA TECHNOLOGIES.
Address: 74, Daffodil Tata Glendale CHS Ltd., Gladys Alwares Road, Off Pokhran Road No. 2, Thane West, Mumbai - 400 610.
“Adoption of IoT in Enterprise market is still in infancy. We recommend Enterprises to deploy IoT as not only an operational improvement tool but also utilize the power of IoT to derive business insights for the top management.”
Atsuya Technologies
About the startup - Atsuya is an end-to-end IoT-based refrigeration monitoring and analytics company. With Atsuya’s IoT-based refrigeration monitoring and analytics solution, businesses can bring greater visibility and transparency into management of their refrigerated assets, offering auditable, time-stamped electronic record for internal and external auditors, and eventually the consumers. Funding - IAtsuya has been through one seed round (including one institutional investor) and is preparing for Series A fund raise. Specialization – Atsuya has developed its own sensors for multiple telecoms protocol and offers an analytics solution for powerful Big Data analysis to enable better corporate decision making. Market reach - Atsuya has presence in Chennai, Mumbai, and Bangalore.
RANJAN KUMAR,
FOUNDER AND CEO, ENTROPIK TECH
Contact Number: +91 80 4375 9863 Email: info@entropiktech.com Address: Entropik Technology Pvt.Ltd.1st floor,Solaris D,Urmi Corporate Park Opposite L&T gate no.6,Saki Vihar Road,Solaris Complex Rd,Powai,Mumbai,Maharashtra-400072
“EmotionAI with ability to recognize human emotions has better capacity to interact with people and meet their needs. At Entropik Tech we are dedicated to building an EmotionAI that solves real world problems.”
Entropik Tech
40 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
About the startup - Entropik Tech occupies the space of EmotionAI in India. The online SaaS platform ‘Affect Lab’ is a one stop Emotion Intelligence platform that combined EEG, Facial Coding & Eye Tracking with integrated workflows to support end-to-end consumer research. Funding - In February 2016, they raised $200,000 in seed funding from angel investors Dileep Bhatt (President, Downstream Operations), JSW Steel Ltd, and Milind Chaudhary (Director, Sea Global Services Pvt. Ltd). In July 2018, Entropik Tech raised $1.1 million in a pre-series A funding, led by BIF (Bharat Innovation Fund) and co-invested by IDFC- Parampara, Arthavida Ventures and Jitendra Gupta (MD, PayU). Specialization – The Emotion AI Platform, Affect Lab is used to quantify consumer’s cognitive and behavioural response to content or product and predict its likely performance in the market. Market reach - Entropik Tech helps brands across multiple industry verticals including FMCG, Media, Automotive, Education, Healthcare, Advertising, Consumer Durable, E-Commerce, Banking & Finance.
STARTUP
ROHIT CHATURVEDI, Contact Number: +91 9319977101 Email: sales@transporthub.in
CEO, TRANSPORTHUB
Address: TransportHub.com 310, V Times Square, Plot No. 3, Sector 15, CBD Belapur, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra 400614, India.
“Adoption of IoT in Enterprise market is still in infancy. We recommend Enterprises to deploy IoT as not only an operational improvement tool but also utilize the power of IoT to derive business insights for the top management.”
TransportHub
About the startup - TransportHub is a SaaS based first technology platform for surface transport, powered by intelligent algorithms, analytics and IoT. Funding - Initially bootstrapped, the Startup is being funded by HNI since October 2017. Specialization – An AI driven algorithm for automated placement of vehicles through the entire value chain from dispatch planning, in-plant and out-plant movement to delivery. Market reach - Currently we are catering to the transport sector only in India and evaluating the options abroad.
VARUN BHUTANI,
FOUNDER AND CEO, WORKKEY
Contact Number: 01149091557 Email: hello@workkey.com Address: Trihund Solutions Pvt. Ltd. B-87, First Floor, Baba House, Shahpur Jat. New Delhi - 110049. India
“We are an ISO 27001 certified organisation and have cleared the security protocol requirements of multiple Indian and International enterprises including leading consulting firms, private banks and insurance players.”
WorkKey
About the startup - WorkKey integrates with legacy databases and provides a simple intuitive product to ensure future developments including automations, AI or other tools which helps in planning and execution. Funding - Received one round of angel funding in the early stages of the company and initial commitments for the second round. Specialization – Its simple patent filed infinite level nested task structure reduces the time spent on tracking items. Market reach - Working with and in talks with large and small enterprises across the globe from varied sectors.
SATYAKAM MOHANTY,
FOUNDER & CEO, LYMBYC SOLUTIONS.
Contact Number: +91 (0) 80 2258 2225/0263 Email: contactus@lymbyc.com
Address: 423, 10th Cross Rd, Sector 2, 1st Sector, HSR Layout, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560102
“With time, organizations are looking for solutions that have greater focus on user centricity and less on capability. They want to adopt point solutions rich in business understanding and domain knowledge.”
Lymbyc Solutions
About the startup - Lymbyc Solutions is an insights technology startup, conceptualized with a vision to empower the business leader with insights available at the point of decision making and in real time as opposed to human centric processes which runs into weeks and months. Funding - Primarily a bootstrapped start-up, received an initial seed funding from Ma Foi group. Specialization – Its virtual analyst LENI curates embedded intelligence across all data sources and provides predictive insights driven by its adaptive ML engine. Market reach - Leni is deployed across sectors like Pharma, CPG & Retail, E-Commerce and Consumer Technology in sales, marketing, and commercial functions largely.
MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
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CASE STUDY
ANALYTICS TURNS SERVICE REPAIR DATA INTO COST SAVINGS American Honda Motor Co., Inc. uses SAS to improve warranty claims and forecast usage for parts and services.
W
hen a car or truck owner brings a vehicle into an Acura or Honda dealership in the US, there’s more to the visit than a repair or a service check. During each visit, the service technicians generate data on the repairs, including any warranty claims to American Honda Motor Co., Inc., that feed directly into its database. This includes what type
of work was performed, what the customer paid, service advisor comments, and many other data points. Now, multiply this process by dozens of visits a day at over 1,200 dealerships nationwide, and it’s clear – American Honda has big data. It’s up to people like Kendrick Kau, Assistant Manager of American Honda’s Advanced Analytics group, to draw insights from this data and turn it into a useful asset.
EXAMINING WARRANTY DATA TO MAKE MAINTENANCE MORE EFFICIENT Like any other major automobile distributor, American Honda works with a network of dealerships that perform warrantied repair work on its vehicles. This can be a significant cost for the company, so American Honda uses analytics to make sure that warranty claims are complete and accurate upon submission.
BUSINESS ISSUE KENDRICK KAU ASSISTANT MANAGER, ADVANCED ANALYTICS GROUP AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO.
• Analyze warranty data to refine warranty claims processing. • Use service data to forecast future demand. • Gain insight from customer survey data to find ways to optimize design, support and other functions.
SOLUTION SAS® Analytics, SAS® Enterprise BI Server, SAS® Forecast Server
“Looking backward on a year-byyear basis, we’ve been within 1 percent of where we forecast to be.”
42 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2019
BENEFIT • Reduced time for a claims processor to find a potentially noncompliant claim from three minutes to less than a minute. • Reduced the cost of labor on 52 percent of the company’s labor codes. • Predicted future demands within 1 percent accuracy.
CASE STUDY
In the case of warranty claims, Kau’s team helps empower dealers to understand the appropriate warranty processes by providing them with useful information via an online report. To support a goal of reducing inappropriate warranty costs, Kau and his team must sift through information on repairs, parts, customers and other details. They chose a visual approach to business intelligence and analytics, powered by SAS, to identify cost reduction opportunities. To decrease warranty expense, the Advanced Analytics team used SAS Analytics to create a proprietary process to surface suspicious warranty claims for scrutiny on a daily basis to make sure they are in compliance with existing guidelines. The effort to identify and scrutinize claims was once fairly manual, tedious and time-intensive. “Before SAS, it took one of our staff members one week out of each month to aggregate and report warranty data within Microsoft Excel spreadsheets,” Kau says. “Now, with SAS, we populate those same reports on an easily accessible online dashboard automatically, and we recovered a week of manpower that we could put on other projects.” By applying SAS Analytics to warranty data, the Advanced Analytics group gave the Claims group and field personnel the ability to quickly and accurately identify claims that were incomplete, inaccurate or noncompliant. The results were impressive. “Initially, it took our examiners over three minutes on average to identify a potentially noncompliant claim, and even then, they were only finding a truly noncompliant claim 35 percent of
the time,” Kau says. “Now, with SAS, it takes less than a minute to identify a suspicious claim. And in that time, they are finding a noncompliant claim 76 percent of the time.” The effort to increase warranty compliance has paid off for American Honda. Through more complete analysis of warranty claims – and more education at the dealerships – American Honda saw a reduction in labor costs for 52 percent of its available labor codes.
USING SERVICE DATA TO FORECAST FUTURE NEEDS The American Honda Advanced Analytics team also uses service and parts data to develop stronger bonds with customers by ensuring dealers have in-demand parts available for customer repairs. Having the right parts available – at the right time – is paramount, so vehicle repairs data feeds directly into American Honda’s marketing and customer retention efforts. “For the marketing team, we provide strategic insight to help shape their programs that are designed to drive customers to the dealers, and ultimately, keep them loyal to our brand,” Kau says. “The goal of Honda is lifetime owner loyalty. We want our customers to have a good experience, and one of the ways to do that is through exceptional service.” American Honda uses SAS Forecast Server to assist with business planning to ensure adequate resources are available to meet future demands for services. Using historical information on repair orders and certifications, they developed a time series using years of previous repairs. By combining time series information with sales
data, Kau’s team can project where the company’s greatest opportunities are in the years ahead. “Our goal is to forecast the number of vehicles in operation in order to predict the volume of customers coming into the dealerships,” Kau says. “And that translates to how many parts we should have on hand and helps us to plan staffing to meet customer demands. Looking backward on a year-by-year basis, we’ve been within 1 percent of where we forecast to be. That’s extremely good for a forecast, and I attribute much of that to the abilities of the SAS software.”
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK THAT DRIVES THE BUSINESS Another way American Honda uses analytics is to quickly evaluate customer survey data. Using SAS, the Advanced Analytics team mines survey data to gain insight into how vehicles are being used and identify design changes that are most likely to improve customer satisfaction. On a weekly basis, the analytics team examines customer survey data. Kau’s team uses SAS to flag emerging trends that may require the attention of design, manufacturing, engineering or other groups. With SAS technology, users can drill down from high-level issues to more specific responses to understand a potential root cause. “We can look into the data and see what the customers are saying,” Kau says. “And that leads to a number of questions that we can tackle. Is a component designed in the most optimal way? Is it a customer education issue? Is it something that we should address at the manufacturing process? Because of SAS, these are critical questions that we can now identify using our data.” MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 43
ROBOTICS
ROBOTICS IN INDIAN HEALTHCARE: ARE ROBOT CARE-TAKERS THE NEXT BIG THING?
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ROBOTICS
JAYAKRISHNAN T
IEEE Member and CEO, ASIMOV Robotics
Technology has a way of pervading all industries. Healthcare has not been untouched by the recent technological advancements. Robotics is the next game changer in the Healthcare industry where robots have the potential to be the new care takers.
A U T H O R E D B Y : JAYA K R I S H N A N T
In recent years, the Indian healthcare sector has grown exponentially owing to the increased investment, both in public as well as private sectors. According to a report by NITI Aayog, the Indian government will increase public expenditure on healthcare from 1.1% to 2.5% GDP in the next four years and subsequently to 5% in the following five years. At present, the rising incidences of lifestyle diseases and growing demand for affordable healthcare coupled with increased role of government in healthcare investment space and emergence of technologies such as artificial learning (AI), machine learning (ML) and robotics are the major driving factors in Indian healthcare industry. The affordability and accessibility of technology is reverberating the healthcare sector in India. AI & ML is becoming increasingly sophisticated at doing what humans do, but more efficiently, quickly and at a lower cost. India produces only about 50,000 doctors every year - not nearly enough to get to minimum standards. To get to the WHO recommended minimum of a doctor patient ratio of 1:1000, India and emergence will need 2.3 million doctors by 2030 of technologies such as and the nurse: patient ratio is 1:483, artificial learning (AI), implying a shortage of around two machine learning (ML) million nurses. Intervention of AI and robotics are the major is not only a novelty but also prove to be a vital part for the sector. A driving factors in Indian discussion paper floated by Indian healthcare industry.” government’s Niti Aayog places healthcare among one of the focus areas for AI intervention. According to the Global Health and Aging report presented by the World Health Organization (WHO), “The number of people aged 65 or older is projected to grow to nearly 1.5 billion in 2050, with most of the increase in developing countries.” Additionally, by 2050, the number of people aged 65 years or above is expected to be significantly higher than the number of children younger than 5 years of age. Many people develop disabilities related
“At present, the rising incidences of lifestyle diseases and growing demand for affordable healthcare coupled with increased role of government in healthcare investment space
to the wear and tear of ageing or the onset of other chronic diseases which requires 24x7 continuous care and monitoring, attention, love and affection to address their physical limitations and to get rid of their boredom and frustrations. Why is it even more important from the India context? • In India we don’t have shortage of health issues. Millions of people do not have access to the basic health care /medical care even • Ageing population is not considered as an issue in India when it comes to the ratio between old and young. But is an issue when we think about it along with our increasing population. Additionally, youth is either finding it difficult to get time or they are disinterested in general caregiving. The increasing number of old age homes are proof for this Same time, technology like robotics has grown to a level of maturity that it is able to come up with practical solutions to these problems. Considering the above two aspects, robotic health care can come to rescue for country like us. However, the affordability and lack of indigenous solutions are the two short-term aspects working against it. In the coming years, we are certainly going to see a robotics play a key role in the global as well as Indian healthcare market. We already have robots that are capable of 24x7 monitoring, sending emergency alerts to humancaretakersandautomatic food& drink dispensing robots. Other than that, these robots can be used for dispensing medications, sterilizing equipment and moving patients. In a developing country like India, while we are witnessing increase instances of robots being used for laparoscopic surgery, automated pharma, etc. robot nurses as a concept still needs a familiarization. But with growing ageing population and medical staffing issues, it will be a necessity soon and the trend is sure to catch up.
MAY 2019 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 45
THE STUFF // PRODUCTS & SERVICES
CIO TOYS
CISCO USHERS IN A NEW WIRELESS ERA WITH WI-FI 6
Cisco’s innovative solutions that help customers embrace a new age of wireless connectivity. Wi-Fi 6 (also known as 802.11ax), the new standard for
Wi-Fi networks, is redefining what’s possible for businesses — powering a new era of immersive wireless experiences and the connecting of
billions of things. Cisco is also extending the industry’s most extensive campus networking portfolio by delivering a campus core switch purpose-built for cloud-scale networking. By coupling powerful automation and analytics software with a complete array of next-generation switches, access points, and controllers for the campus, Cisco enables the industry’s only end-toend, wireless-first architecture. Built on the same fundamental wireless innovations as 5G, these new standards will reshape how businesses and consumers interact with the world. Beyond being significantly faster than the previous generation, Wi-Fi 6 delivers up to 400 percent greater capacity and is more effective in high-density settings like large lecture halls, stadiums and conference rooms. Latency is vastly improved, allowing for near real-time use cases. Wi-Fi 6 is also easier on connected devices’ batteries and provides an overall more predictable user experience.
B Y S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N FO M E D I A . C O M
ECS AMAZON ALEXA BUILT-IN MINI PC Moreover, ECS also showcased the complete LIVA Mini PC Family including mini-size Q ECS LIVA One with Alexa, LIVA M520, Whirlseries, cost-efficient X series, energy saving Z series, AI built-in M series and high-performance wind and Bora bolsters the existing range of One series for different applications like home entertainment, smart office, retail, schools, digital products in India. ECS brings in the latest series signage and more. of Products across multiple platforms such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistance or Windows Cortana to help people accomplish daily tasks, entertainment, home devices control and more via simple voice control. As Artificial Intelligence plays a seemingly important role in today’s life; ECS brings Amazon Alexa built-in Mini PC integrated with AI technologies to the ubiquitous market. Besides this, the brand aims to produce and design cost-efficient and advanced platforms in the coming times. The LIVA M520 new generation of LIVA PC with Intel AI engine built-in, features low power consumption design, 802.11ac Wi-Fi connectivity, RS232 headers extension to provide the powerful livestreaming analytics solution through real-time artificial intelligence. LIVA M520 can help you gain access to the AI platform faster and easier.
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RNI NO: DEL ENG/ 2017/ 69906 Postal Reg. No.: DL-SW-01 / 4200 / 17-19
Date of Publication: 28 of Every Month Date of Posting: 1 & 2 of Every Month
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