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5 | COVER STORY

MUNISH MITTAL Group Head – IT and CIO, HDFC Bank

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10 | OPINION Rana Kapoor MD & CEO, YES Bank and Chairman, YES Global Institute

8 | FEATURE

9 | FEATURE

10 | OPINION

IoT will make cities and enterprises operate in realtime mode

How border fencing is secured through IoT

Amitabh Mishra, Chief Digital Officer, Vedanta

By encouraging a huge number of Indian startups and providing the right mentorship, direction and support, the bank has played a pivotal role in the growth of the Indian financial software ecosystem

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Vol 29. No. 6. June, 2018 Chairman of the Board Viveck Goenka Sr Vice President - BPD Neil Viegas Editor Srikanth RP* Delhi Mohd Ujaley, Sandhya Michu Mumbai Nivedan Prakash, Abhishek Raval, Mohit Rathod Bengaluru Rachana Jha

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5 | Why HDFC Bank is India’s first ‘Make in India’ catalyst?

IoT: A game changer for India Inc

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FEATURE 8 | IoT will make cities and enterprises operate in realtime mode

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9 | How border fencing is secured through IoT

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ndia today, is in a sweet spot with respect to IoT. Going beyond the typical use cases, industry leaders are using IoT to radically change their business models. A case in point is the Mahindra & Mahindra Group, which is using IoT intelligently to bring in a differentiated experience for vehicle owners.

Using this platform, vehicle owners or drivers can contact emergency breakdown services or pull up a

While there are many use cases of IoT, the real potential of the technology is shown by some niche start-ups that are attacking unique problems route planner at the touch of a button. Remote diagnostics and reports allow service teams to monitor a vehicle’s health parameters on a real time basis.

Blue Star, one of the most well known air conditioning brands in India, uses IoT to provide proactive predictive maintenance services and use the data collected to prevent further issues in its chillers. Sheela Foam, One of the largest manufacturers of mattresses, uses IoT to provide personalised mattresses to its customers. Bajaj Allianz General Insurance has launched IoT powered

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service called, DriveSmart, which helps customers monitor their driving habits, wherein good driving behaviour gets rewarded with discounts.

IoT also has great potential in the area of smart cities. The Jamshedpur Utility Services Company (JUSCO) is creating the world’s first integrated city management project using more than 100,000 sensors. One of the major highlights of this project is a smart lighting system that uses IoT to reduce maintenance costs and save energy. Because of complete monitoring, the company estimates cost savings of around `700 per light. The company plans to install a total of 15,000 lights in the next five years. Similarly, the Smart City Ahmedabad Development Corporation (SCADL) is using IoT to monitor garbage vans and optimise routes for garbage collection. The corporation also uses IoT enabled parking sensors to create new parking spaces and monitor new and existing parking spaces.

While there are many use cases, the real potential of the technology is shown by some niche start-ups that are attacking unique problems. For instance, a startup called Tyre Express has created an IoT based solution that truck or fleet operators can use to track the performance of their tyres in real-time. Another firm, called Wolkus Technology, has developed an IoT platform that uses sensors to monitor critical farm related parameters such as humidity, agriculture and soil moisture.

IoT is today at a stage where cloud was about a decade ago. Once India has more reference use cases, one can expect the adoption of IoT to accelerate further.

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WHY HDFC BANK IS INDIA’S FIRST ‘MAKE IN INDIA’ CATALYST? By encouraging a huge number of Indian startups and providing the right mentorship, direction and support, the bank has played a pivotal role in the growth of the Indian financial software ecosystem Srikanth RP & Mohit Rathod srikanth.rp@expressindia mohit.rathod@indianexpress.com

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DFC Bank customers are able to get a personal loan disbursed into their accounts within 10 seconds. Or while chatting on Facebook Messenger, they are able to pay bills; thanks to the chatbot. The two examples not only highlight the focus on customer delight by HDFC Bank, but also the importance of leveraging technology and platforms. This leverage is possible as the bank, since its inception, has engaged with Indian technology companies in its quest to offer a range of products and services.

“The bank’s focus on tapping indigenous technology is in line with ‘The Make in India’ initiative by the government. This has been the thought driving the bank for more than two decades and continues to be a guiding principle for us,” says Munish Mittal, Group Head – IT and CIO, HDFC Bank.

While the bank uses the best-in-class international softwares, especially at infrastructure layer or for platforms like ATM switch, it has always encouraged Indian software development companies, Indian System Integrators and Indian vendors, adds Mittal.

MUNISH MITTAL, Group Head – IT and CIO, HDFC Bank

Digital focus Right since its inception, HDFC Bank has endeavoured to adopt technology and digital platforms to offer convenience and experience to its customers. In 2014, the bank launched the “Bank Aapki Muththi Mein” campaign from the banks of river Ganges in Varanasi. This campaign marked the beginning of a concerted effort to offer products and services across digital platforms. Since then, a slew of offerings riding on the cutting edge of technology has been introduced by the bank. From Missed Call banking to all encompassing DigiPOS, 10 Seconds personal loan to Digital Loan against Shares, from chatbots to Humanoids, from Chillr to PayZapp wallet; all of them involve working with vendors and partners to tap the cutting edge of various technologies.

This, says Mittal, has given the bank the edge over competition.

“In order to accomplish this, it is crucial to have solution providers that bring out innovative products and solutions, thereby creating a significant play field for the startup ecosystem, whose business models are primarily dependent on innovations,” comments Mittal.

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We received an unparalleled support, guidance and encouragement from all the stakeholders, be it technology or business or operations, right from walking us through the business requirements, deployment and support Bhavani Shanker Chitoor, CEO, Posidex Technologies

We have worked with HDFC in multiple areas such as analytics and core processing, making sure that the central operations are done in the most efficient way Makrand Padalkar, CFO, OFSS

Mentorship and Intellectual Property are crucial for the startup ecosystem and there’s a lot that needs to be done and HDFC Bank has been playing an active role in this area Pankit Desai, Founder and CEO, Sequretek

Traditional banking systems in India have been largely driven by constraints such as elaborate procedures and compliances checks. In recent years, future technologies such as blockchain, which used to be largely exploratory, is now seeing the development of actual use cases Sanjay Goyal, CEO, ACL Mobile

The journey from inception In the early days, HDFC Bank signed up with Citicorp Information Technology (CITIL) for retail banking implementation with a new software. This was Mittal’s first project in the bank.

“This software evolved into a retail core banking software over a period of 10 years, primary due to our work with CITIL. Then Citi became independent, resulting in I-Flex, which was later acquired by Oracle to become OFSS. In the period from January 1995 to 1999, we worked with an Indian company which later became Servion to create a telephony application. When we first offered computer telephony application in 1996, we created the entire solution from the scratch; following this, we created a computer telephony middleware called RapCTI, a response application platform for state-of-the-art call centre application,” recollects Mittal, who joined the bank in 1996.

Similarly in 1996, the bank signed up with the then called Tandem for the non-stop platform, and ACI for the Base 24 software for ATM switches. Many entities back then didn’t even have a name of their own.

“Nagaraj Maylandla from the present company FSS and Ramesh Mengawade from Opus came together and said that they can help us implement Base 24, thereby giving birth to two system integration and software services companies – FSS and Opus.

Both of these companies created their own software platforms including card management and reconciliation system by FSS, which was first developed for us. Opus created a real-time brokerage platform which we originally used, before migrating to TCS. In 20032004, when we signed up with TCS, we were their second client for a realtime online stock broking for HDFC Securities,” informs Mittal.

Another instance is that of Chennai-based Odyssey Technologies. HDFC Bank signed up with it in 2000, when it started corporate internet banking. The bank created a private certificate solution with Odyssey.

Mittal recalls that until 2006-2007, HDFC Bank was probably the largest private certificate issuing entity in the country. Then came registered certificate authorities and so on.

He says, “We created the entire server-to-server authentication, private digital certificate solution, non-repudiation – right from the year 2000, we continued to work with Odyssey. Similarly, for instance, the retail lending platform didn’t exist back then. We signed up with Nucleus between 1999 and 2000, when we were setting up our retail lending practice with Hyundai launching a small car in India as an opener of Auto Loan market in India. When the first Hyundai car was launched in the country, we started our auto loan business, and we were the first client for Nucleus. We incubated the company, which then emerged as the most widespread retail lending platform across banks and NBFCs.” In the years 2000 and 2001, when Mittal was setting up storage based replication for the first time in the country for Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan (DRBCP), today’s Hitachi Data Systems was a small-scale company, just starting its operations in India.

“Storage replication process started in the entire banking space after we

initiated it. Similarly, we created a platform for application deduplication with SAS Institute. SAS didn’t have the application, but we created it with SAS India, which was later sold to multiple organisations,” informs Mittal.

Between 2009 and 2011, HDFC Bank migrated from SAS to Hyderabad-based company Posidex, given its continued commitment towards Indian software companies. HDFC Bank also signed up with CRMNext, which is widely recognised as a huge success story, in 2008 on a rental basis; whereas, in 2010, Mittal converted that into an enterprise agreement. Following this, other banks such as ICICI and SBI also associated themselves with CRMNext.

Another example is that of AugmentIQ startup; HDFC worked with AugmentIQ and later L&T Infotech acquired it. In addition to these, HDFC Bank has worked with multiple other startups.

HDFC has recently signed up with Indian startup Bugclipper, and Resultex for AI based smart campaign management for customers. Another interesting story is of HDFC Bank’s association with an Indian company called ZingHR; the company has been processing the bank’s payroll for 20 years now.

HDFC continued to invest in them for personal and administration reimbursement; and is now also working with them on salary app and other initiatives. “From domestic to international class vendors, from infrastructure to business application software companies, we have encouraged working on the ‘Make in India’ vision,” comments Mittal.

Strategy and support In the journey to create a partnership ecosystem with technology companies, startups and fin-techs, there are many a milestones. One such is the Digital Innovation Summit. Now in its third year, the summit has enabled HDFC Bank to harness the potential of the startup and fin-tech ecosystem and forge a mutually beneficial partnership. Similarly, under ‘Industry Academia’, the bank has joined hands with leading education institutions like IIT Bombay, IIT Roorkee and IIM Ahmedabad to name a few.

Under this initiative, the bank will advise and mentor startups and fin-techs that operate from these educational institutions.

“The symbiotic relationship ensures that the Bank has access to cutting edge solutions, which it can customise, codevelop and evolve over a period of usage. For the partner, it’s an opportunity to deploy its offerings to a client with a huge base,” says Mittal.

Explaining how the organisation bets on the right startup, Mittal states, “For example, when we signed with ACI Worldwide in 1994, we observed that there was no Indian company in this space. We also wanted the best-inclass; hence, from a riskreward perspective, we chose the company due to its robustness and timeproven software, rather than asking someone to develop it for us. Later, Opus developed Electra Switch, which was then implemented by a large public sector bank, but the product couldn’t scale.

Wherever we have best-inclass international solution, we will go with it. However, if there is an Indian alternative, we consider

SOME PIONEERING INDIAN COMPANIES Nucleus Software

Its software powers the operations of over 150 companies in over 50 countries, supporting retail lending, corporate banking, cash management, mobile and internet banking, automotive finance and other business areas

CRM Next

It has to its credit the largest banking CRM implementation in the world with over 325,000 users across more than 5,000 locations and 36 countries

Chillr

Chillr is India's first multi-bank mobile payment app thaat links directly to customers' bank account

Niki.ai

India’s first Artificial Intelligence fueled Messenger Chatbot

Senseforth

Enables humanlike conversation platform powered by Artificial Intelligence. Senseforth can address queries, resolve issues, perform tasks and even help customers shop

that as well.”

HDFC Bank’s strategy doesn’t include using only software solutions and products from startups. In another instance, HDFC Bank worked with I-Flex for its data warehouse. “We believe in starting small, learning from Indian softwares, scaling it up; and if it stops scaling, we then look for alternatives including ones available from overseas,” he adds.

Mittal feels that measuring the success of its associated startups is primarily subjective. The only measurement of HDFC Bank being an anchor client for them, is the fact that many of these companies have emerged as big players today – such as FSS, CRMNext, Nucleus, Hitachi.

Partners in journey Sequretek, together with HDFC Bank, looked at the various dimensions of problems, and had a series of interactions in terms of the current needs and the ways to cater to them. This has given Sequretek a chance to pilot, alongside implementation – HDFC Bank has provided mentorship to the company in a lot of ways, believes Pankit Desai, Founder and CEO, Sequretek.

He says, “Mentorship and Intellectual Properties are crucial for the startup ecosystem and there’s a lot that needs to be done; and HDFC Bank has been playing an active role in this area. The willingness to take risks is the only way a startup will find success, and HDFC Bank has been very supportive. We need more organisations like this which don’t just buy your products, but work with you in your journey. The presence of institutions like HDFC bank is very significant in promoting the Make in India efforts and driving the startup ecosystem. Startups work with risks and it need a lot of management air to be covered. This is where the culture of organizations like HDFC Bank makes a difference, which has a track record for working with startups and promoting the Make in India initiative of the government.”

HDFC Bank is known among Indian companies as an organisation which has steadily created value to the Indian economy, as well as its shareholders. Arun Jain, Chairman and Managing Director, Intellect Design, comments, “Consistent growth with steady bank practices is what is admirable. HDFC Bank are bankers and customers as well. As our customer, HDFC Bank provides challenges which helps us to build great products under Intellect. HDFC’s technology team is great proponent of understanding vendors and technology well, and encourage and mentor to make it world class. They have help build multiple fintech companies out of India. HDFC Bank has

given priority to buy Indian technology in most of the situations. They have helped multiple startups to leapfrog the business.”

Softcell Technologies has been working with HDFC Bank on systems in the retail assets related products for over four years now. D Ventakesh, Director at Softcell Technologies, says, “They are an extraordinary customer to have. They are aggressively ambitious with goals – both in timeline and with lowering costs per transaction. The stand out characteristics of this bank are that they are loyal, very risk-averse, highly compliance driven and operate at a scale that dwarfs all else. Our success is mainly because they nurtured our relationship with a great level of understanding. It also helped that we had innovative products that the big names are not offering yet. We did have issues in the beginning when the software product broke several times. After the eighth major failure, they served us an ultimatum and somehow we turned the corner, they went live and we haven’t looked back since then. The loyalty they exhibited all through the time we have been a supplier to the bank has driven a level of fierce commitment at all levels in our team members and we pull together as one when the demands hit a high.

Retail assets as a business is seasonal; long periods of lull followed by a four-month mad rush.”

The bank’s expectation, according to Ventakesh, is high and they are critical of

It is crucial to have solution providers that bring out innovative products and solutions, thereby creating a significant play field for the startup ecosystem, whose business models are primarily dependent on innovations

all measures. They measure everything that can be measured and drive automation to achieve better measures every week, month and quarter.

Investments in systems, tools and availability is also at an extreme. This is coupled with an army that measures and audits every step towards improvements and incessantly at that. To that extent mentorship is constant and continuous.

“For the Make in India initiative, we need a dozen more institutions like HDFC Bank – to consume, to nurture and help the startup stay up,” he adds.

The recent launch of the HDFC Bank’s UPI on Chillr benefits customers of 44 banks who are able to conduct digital transactions seamlessly using the Chillr app. Started as India’s first multi-bank payment app, Chillr has been running on IMPS with 11 banks prior to this launch and has achieved a milestone of monthly transaction value of over ` 500 crore. With HDFC Bank UPI on Chillr app, the startup’s base has expanded three-fold as customers of over 33 more banks are able to use it, in addition to existing 11 banks.

Sony Joy, CEO, Chillr, comments, “Chillr started its operations in 2013 end.

We had spoken to many banks in India prior to our interactions with HDFC Bank; however, we observed that HDFC Bank is among the few to support disruptive ideas and is capable of getting new ideas from the market. From a fin-tech perspective, we have been very lucky to have been associated with HDFC Bank and being able to work with them. The brand name of HDFC Bank itself is a success driver for us.

Furthermore, their openness to look at new disruptive ideas and implement them has been a critical factor.”

The bank was also one of the first to create India’s first AI-based banking chatbot, Eva, which could answer millions of customer queries across multiple channels instantly. Eva can assimilate knowledge from thousands of sources and provide answers in simple language in less than 0.4 seconds. Created in association with Senseforth, a Bengaluru-based AI startup, Eva can answer millions of customer queries across multiple channels instantly.

Within the first few days of its launch, Eva answered over 1 lakh queries from thousands of customers from 17 countries across the globe.

Another great example is the AI-based conversational platform on Facebook Messenger called ‘HDFC Bank OnChat’. The platform uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand a user’s intent based on free text input. A user just needs to chat with HDFC Bank OnChat to do any transaction. The bank has developed the

messaging bot with startup, Niki.ai. The bot also facilitates bill payments for utility, postpaid, prepaid mobile plans. Till date, more than 300,000 consumers have interacted with HFDC Bank OnChat and the value of transactions is close to ` 2.5 crore.

Chennai-based Odyssey Technologies has been working with HDFC Bank for over a decade now, and attributes its success to its association with the bank.

The bank chose Odyssey to replace a security product from Israel when it was facing support and network logistics issues. The options the bank had were several and prima facie, all of them excellent ones from established security companies compared to Odyssey which had less than three years of experience in a complicated domain like cryptography.

B Robert Raja, Chairman and Managing Director, Odyssey Technologies, states, “We have been working with the bank for a decade and a half. I can safely say without exaggeration that our relationship with the bank has been the cornerstone of our success as a software product company. The HDFC Bank team had this amazing capacity to pick technologies and more importantly, the people with the technology. We have made it a point to showcase every one of our efforts to the bank, and to be sure, they have turned down a number of our ideas, but never a blunt ‘no’. Always accompanied by invaluable insight into the space which helped us to do the necessary coursecorrections.”

Odyssey has successfully built a suite of cryptography and security related software products which have stood their own in the market in the teeth of competition from international majors. With the exception of a couple of smaller products, these have been either actively mentored by HDFC Bank or at least inspired by them.

Many of these products are used by a large number of financial institutions in the country as well as the global banks operating in India.

“We get enormous guidance and encouragement (and some sharp, essentially valid, criticism) along the way but the IP always was with us and other respective vendors. They seem to have an instinctive understanding of what is important to the bank and they just get it. Similarly, the respect a vendor gets from the bank is only dependent on the value he can deliver.

They never care whether you are representing a trillion dollar multinational or a boutique software company in Chennai. This gives the smaller company the confidence and the pride to move ahead. I know of several innovative ideas from a number of able contemporaries which

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Each of them could have bloomed into a lot of IPs and revenues if only they were as fortunate as us and a few others. There are a number of IT companies which owe their current prosperity and standing entirely to the mentoring by HDFC Bank in their formative years,” says Raja.

Sharing his thoughts on the role of institutions such as HDFC Bank in encouraging technology companies and startups based in India, Raja says, “They just want the best technology/solution at the most competitive price and they just know the fastest way to get it. It just happens to be the best way to nurture an ecosystem. I like to think of it as pure market capitalism in action.”

Indian over global As one of the largest private sector lenders in India, HDFC Bank is massive in terms of scale and reach. This pursuit for innovation by HDFC Bank aligns with the Make in India mission.

For instance, the bank chose an Indian vendor like Drishti Soft to take up an ambitious project of automating its credit card collection process. This creates an ecosystem of mentors and innovators that favors the overall economy of a nation.

Bishal Lachhiramka, CEO, Ameyo, comments, “The business landscape has changed tremendously. This has encouraged large enterprises with massive infrastructure, intricate processes and huge customer base to collaborate with startup innovators with acumen for technology. Ameyo’s journey with HDFC bank has been one of learning and positive influences. It is quite impressive that an institution of its size and proportion could take significant decisions quickly and engage with the internal stakeholders in a goal-oriented and focused way. Their style of working has impacted our own processes and allowed us to break our own benchmark every time. In addition to that, an association with a large bank of repute has other perks. It has brought a brand value to Ameyo. We have made a mark in the BFSI segment and earned the trust of other financial institutions as well.”

Under HDFC’s mentorship, Ameyo has created the largest captive contact centre performing credit card collection. The solution has robust capabilities like rule-based customer bucketization and refine customer module, Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve coverage ratio.

With Ameyo’s solution, HDFC bank collection department was able to achieve an increase of 50 per cent customer outreach and 95 per cent coverage of delinquent customers. These results have also impacted the bank’s internal benchmarking and assessment process.

Another firm, Posidex Technologies, takes pride in its relationship with the bank which has metamorphosed from a vendor to being referred as a valuable partner. The bank is at the forefront of deploying cutting edge solutions and the privilege of associating with them in this endeavor has forced Posidex to continuously challenge itself and come out with more applied innovation. The success of executing challenging

use cases have given Posidex confidence to drive its own growth.

Bhavani Shanker Chitoor, CEO, Posidex Technologies, says, “We received an unparalleled support, guidance and encouragement from all the stakeholders, be it technology or business or operations, right from walking us through the business requirements, deployment and support.

The approach of the bank is very practical and highly process driven.”

Mobile strategy ACL Mobile’s experience of working with HDFC Bank has been exemplary. ACL was a start up in 2003-04 when HDFC selected it as technology partner for communicating with their customers via SMS. ACL had a modest start with sending around 100,000 messages a month across five telecom networks.

SMS has been an integral part of HDFC’s mobile strategy and is required for transactional, promotional and mission critical communication.

In 2009, HDFC had a small requirement of an in-house messaging system of 100 TPS, which ACL developed for it more out of its long standing relationship with the bank, than a viable business case. This is ACL‘s centralised messaging technology platform, AXIOM was born and conceived in HDFC. Today, this system is one-of-its-kind in the world, which processes more than 500 million messages a month for HDFC and integrates with more than 50 internal processes and 20 departments of the bank.

Sanjay Goyal, CEO, ACL Mobile, informs, “Based on this success, 15 other large banks and financial institutions of India have already installed it and many other banks across the Middle East and South East Asia are considering the system. I believe it was HDFC’s ability to identify, trust and work with a promising start-up and founders over a long period of time to achieve together the results as they stand today. We have

been continuous engaged with the bank for the last 15 years working closely with their business and technology teams.

Together, we have created many innovations which have not only benefitted HDFC but have been adopted by other banks and financial institutions.”

HDFC Bank and ACL Mobile have effectively met changing market demands for the mutual benefit of both organisations and their customers. ACL today, is a successful company with over 500 enterprise customers; and delivers over 30 billion messages a year to over 450 million Indians. HDFC till date continues to be ACL‘s most important customer.

“Traditional banking systems in India have been largely driven by constraints such as elaborate procedures and compliances checks. In the recent years, future technologies such as blockchain, which used to be largely exploratory, is now seeing the

From domestic to international class vendors, from infrastructure to business application software companies, HDFC Bank has encouraged working on the ‘Make in India’ vision

development of actual use cases. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are also being implemented in critical banking use cases, moving beyond chatbots.

With high adoption of messaging, HDFC bank permeates the ‘last mile’ touchpoints and boost financial inclusion across the country,” adds Goyal.

Nishant Singh, CEO and Director, CRM Next, describes HDFC Bank as a progressive customer and a true believer in technology companies. He comments, “HDFC looks at technologies ahead of time. When we started, CRM was completely new.

HDFC Bank was the first to get our concept. The bank was a little skeptical in the beginning, but eventually understood its importance and supported us. The bank is very validated in its approach and has helped us grow and build confidence in us over the years.”

Growth stories What is now

established as the most widespread retail lending platform across banks and NBFCs, Nucleus Software was incubated by HDFC Bank.

Dusad R Vishnu, Managing Director, Nucleus Software, states, “We have a relationship with HDFC Bank of more than two decades. It has been a win-win journey for both, HDFC and Nucleus. A key to this is that we were able to live upto their expectations and this has helped us immensely. This has also created our reputation among other large organisations and has built confidence in the market On the mentorship and support front, we have worked very closely with the bank and Munish Mittal has been a great support.”

Vishnu feels that only if all the large organisations in the country make it a point to adopt Indian solutions and products, the Make in India vision will receive huge boost. “There are many emerging startups

with brilliant ideas. Large organisations should put forward their problems and let the startups to address them with their products and solutions.”

Makrand Padalkar, CFO, OFSS, comments, “We have been associated with HDFC Bank from Day 1, when we started in 1995. We have found that the bank is very innovative in its approach; they use use technology to process to a level which is at the top of the line. HDFC is among the top global banks and we have had a win-win journey with them. We have worked with HDFC in multiple areas such as analytics and core processing, making sure that the central operations are done in the most efficient way. We speak to hundreds of customers and HDFC is among our closest partners. HDFC Bank is the right role model for a lot of BFSI startups, because of its phenomenal ability to nurture and grow talent.

However, many startups

today lack robustness.

Startups should focus on this, because the banking space requires top level of data security and system infrastructure.”

As the examples of these startups show, it requires only a few focused institutions and banks like HDFC Bank to take India’s startups to the next level. HDFC Bank has shown the way and if every major institution or organisation follows the bank’s example, expect many more Indian startups to shine more brightly on the global arena.

“Going forward, we will continue to encourage startups.

While startups give us the benefit of looking at issues from a fresh perspective, we see ourselves as catalysts and facilitators of great ideas, and want to continue to encourage innovative thinking and technologies, which can help the bank maintain its leadership position,” concludes Mittal.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | JUNE, 2018

8 | FEATURE

IoT WILL MAKE CITIES AND ENTERPRISES OPERATE IN REALTIME MODE The active use cases for IoT in India, both in enterprises and Urban Local Bodies are beginning to emerge and it’s making them more nimble and proactive vis-a-vis a reactive approach adopted before. EC’s Abhishek Raval spoke with a few organisations on their experience with using IoT technology. Presented below are perspectives from different thought leaders across India

VIJAY SETHI CIO, Hero MotoCorp

F

rom an IoT perspective, there are multiple use cases being explored. Some have reached the production stage, while a few are in the pilot stage. Using IoT in the area of data centre and smart factory is in production now, while IoT as a product and in the final product segment - in the vehicle - is being tested, and is in a PoC stage. The evaluation period for selecting a cloud and IoT application provider took close to an year.

IoT use cases at Hero MotoCorp There are four areas, where IoT is applied or is in the testing stage. The first area is the product itself.

How can something be IoT enabled, which is the motorcycle in our case. The second aspect is our factory; we are thinking about making all the machines on the shop floor IoT enabled and sensorising certain areas in the factory to tap information, take corrective actions and do analytics. Thirdly, we need to monitor various elements inside the data centre and lastly, retrofitting the IoT devices into the motor vehicles, which are out in the market.

IoT for smart factory and data centre is in production. Whereas, IoT products and retrofitting IoT devices on the motor vehicles is in the PoC stage. The tests are ongoing. The pilots are also being run in some of the global markets. The application has been designed and the IoT platform is up and running.

There are no products currently being launched which are IoT enabled - it will be decided later. A few of the smart machines are already live in the sense that data from the machines is converted from analog into digital data, which is then moved on the IoT platform from the sensors. Subsequently, we run analytics over this data. The data is then available in the required format on mobility devices, dashboards etc.

Cloud based IoT platform The entire IoT application is hosted on a cloud platform. The IoT solution is bought from a startup company, and the cloud platform is from one of the four biggest Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) in India. About three other IoT solution providers were also in the race. The different criteria covered include: Whether the cloud platform can take unstructured data; from what kind of sensors can the data be uploaded - Can it take data from a wireless sensor, a 2G, 3G, 5G device, LTE, whether the data can be taken when the bike is in motion, the security features, which were added further with the specific requirements that we had.

These features were again tested.

From the perspective of the mobile application for IoT, some of the considerations include, the data

display type, the analytics features provided, the algorithms designed, the work being carried out by their data scientists. We also spoke with the CTO of the startup, on his thoughts of taking the platform to the next level. The startup company is nimble, and fast to respond to the requirements. When you get into projects like IoT, it results into a number of unthinkables. If the provider starts getting too trivial and says it will not go beyond a certain limit; it doesn’t work that way. The vendor needs to go that extra mile and go out of the way and work hand-in-hand with the business. They should have the hunger to make the project a success. This is the quality that won the startup the project from us.

Benefits and project ownership The biggest benefit from any IoT implementation is the availability of real time information, which is not fed by an individual, so the information is authentic. The analysis of the data is also accurate because it is based on rules, algorithms, etc. The same information can then be made readily available in case if it is required for decision making. Thus when hitherto, the information trail used to be time consuming, now, it has been made instantaneous, without any manual intervention, which ensures data accuracy and availability.

The ownership of the IoT project is jointly taken by the IT and the business teams. In case of data centres, the administration and maintenance department, helped in giving us inputs on how IoT can be applied.

The use cases include, using IoT for reducing maintenance downtime, electricity consumption, etc.

CHANDRAMAULI SHUKLA Chief Executive Officer, Bhopal Smart City Development Corporation Limited, Bhopal (BSCDCL)

Measurement of RoI and relevance of IoT There are several use cases of IoT enabled devices.

In short, we are targeting the solutions to be intelligent enough to proactively report rather than citizen informing about incidents or interruptions of services to take proactive and informed decisions. In case of citizen services, we don’t emphasise on the RoI in monetary terms. If we are able to provide essential services on time for example, if we are able to help the citizen and save the citizen’s life by providing ambulances at right time, at right places, we can’t really equate that in monetary terms.

With the help of IoT devices, we can now view the real time status of various city functions and devices, it helps us in better management of day-to-day operations, and provide better services to citizen and most importantly, it provides insights and works as decision support system to take informed decisions.

While there are various use cases of IoT, some of the basic ones are: it can be used to manage traffic especially during traffic jams, peak hours, accidents, and rains. It can be used to manage street lights and automatically switch them off during the day and switch them on at the onset of darkness.

Our ICT solution architecture is scalable and modular in design.We can always add on the numbers of IoT devices. As of now, we have capacity to integrate one lakh IoT devices on our platform.

AI enabled platform Our platform is AI enabled which is able to give us all kinds of insights we require. Our platform is hosted on cloud. As mentioned earlier, we plan to integrate more than one lakh IoT devices through our Command Centre platform including 20,000 smart lights (to be increased in future up to lakhs), environmental sensors, Wi-Fi hotspots, CCTV cameras (approximately 1,000), city wide Water SCADA and Electric SCADA smart metres.

IoT investments We have not categorised investments into IoT and non-IoT categories. In some of the projects, our investment is NIL like in the case of smart poles. Smart Pole project is being implemented on PPP mode with zero investment. Smart poles have environmental sensors, Wi-Fi, smart lights and CCTV cameras.

ASHISH MATHUR Managing Director, Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Company (JUSCO)

Smart to Smarter: Stage set for IoT The IoT technology was adopted to make the current working of various civic services more effective. To move from a ‘lagging KPI’ concept to a ‘leading KPI’ scenario, wherein JUSCO can be more predictive in nature and can take decisions on the basis of real time information and not after the events have occurred. ◗ IoT has been used in the following areas: Fleet management, workforce tracking, water and electricity distribution monitoring, streetlight tracking, transformer health monitoring and waste management ◗ Water and electricity distribution monitoring: We keep tabs on the underground water level; or for finding out which manhole has been choked or is about to choke. The drain monitoring and tower automation PoC is over.

300 electricity substations have been sensorised.

The purpose is to make them secure. An alert is relayed in case of any tampering. It would be an expensive affair to have security guards at these substations, given the locations and numbers. This initiative has reached beyond the PoC stage and is in production stage now. The substations will have approximately 2,000 sensors deployed on them, during the next two-three months.

T

he state mission director of Madhya Pradesh took the decision to create an Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) for the seven cities. This is a pioneering project as this is the first time that seven cities in India will have a common command centre. A technology like IoT plays a critical role in the success of the initiative, as it provides real time data, which helps in analysis and taking more informed and accurate decisions for the citizens.

Areas in which IoT is being used We have planned to implement IoT enabled devices in almost all the upcoming solutions where we need to gather information which can help us in better city operations, management of assets and taking informed decisions. These include smart LED lights, environmental sensors, Intelligent Traffic Management Systems, etc.

always spoke about a city and never a company township. The idea was to provide a productive environment for the citizens. As far as the daily necessities are concerned, the water is so pure that it is consumed directly from the tap; Not only is the electricity available 24*7, the quality of electricity does not require a stabiliser, etc.

On the same lines, the vision behind using IoT is to leverage the technology to improve the quality of living of the citizens. However, in order to make the best use of the advanced technologies like IoT, it was important to lay the ground for them to be used at the full potential. To use IoT in smart LED lighting, it’s important to first provide 24*7 and consistent electricity; to make the best use of IoT in water management, it‘s important to have in place proper water disposal, sewage disposal system. Today, electricity is available 24*7; the drainage system is working properly and waste disposal management has been converted into an opportunity for social entrepreneurship for civic workers. For sewage treatment, Mathur has been able to come up with a packaged sewage treatment plant for those areas where the main line sewage system cannot reach.

The objective of setting up JUSCO was to act as a quasi municipality for the city of Jamshedpur, which provides the basic civic services except traffic management and law and order.

The IoT solution has been developed by Tata Communications by partnering with two companiesMOTWANE and KernelSphere Technologies. It’s based on the LoRaWAN technology. LoRaWAN is a low powered Wide Area Network (WAN), which is designed for transferring tiny amounts of data over long distances, but still maintaining the battery life, whereas the regularly used cellular systems are not equipped to maintain a good battery life and still transfer small data bits inexpensively.

◗ Streetlight tracking: The testing started in September 2017. In the next three months, close to 1,000 street lights will be fitted with sensors.

J

amshedpur is India’s first planned industrial city.

The genesis of the city was laid by Jamshedji Tata. During the times of establishing a greenfield integrated steel plant in Jamshedpur, Jamshedji Tata

◗ Transformer health monitoring: About 400 transformers will be tracked using IoT devices.

Workforce tracking through IoT is also past the IoT stage.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | JUNE, 2018

|9

FEATURE ◗ Waste management: The waste bin tracking is still being tested out. We are taking inputs from Surat, Pune, Barcelona, Sydney, Singapore etc. Jamshedpur is a World Council for City Data (WCCD) ISO 371205 certified city, which enables us to exchange information with multiple cities across the world to benchmark our services with them.

Over the next five-six months, the plan is to fix about 5,000 sensors across various infrastructure used to deliver civic services.

Leading KPIs replace lagging KPIs The IoT implementation will provide real time information about the civic services being delivered and will empower JUSCO to take preemptive action to avert any untoward incident. For example, currently, with regards to the daily water supply, the water quality is changed based on the sample results received from various locations on a daily basis, which is based on a lagging KPI. The next slot of water supply is changed based on the previous samples. After IoT, this can be changed, based on real time information about the water quality information received from the sensors. The quality and quantity can be changed before it leaves the water plant or tower. This is what is known as a leading KPI. Another example can be establishing a predictive Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) network using IoT, which enables us to have 99.8 per cent electricity availability through our network. The most critical benefit is the intimation by the network of what can go wrong and resulting in proactive remediation, which leads to significant improvement in the quality of life of the citizens. We are in a much better position to do online and real time measurements and take corrective action before it’s too late. It improves the system efficiency significantly; for example, JUSCO is able to get information about which areas in Jamshedpur consume more electricity compared to other areas based on the LoRaWAN equipped smart meters. Even to the extent of going to the house level and suggesting the citizen to make changes in the electricity wiring, in case if it is leading to overload of any kind.

The sensor data consolidated on the IoT platform can be used to plan the city activities in a much advanced manner. For example, in case of a construction underway in a certain area in Jamshedpur, it’s quite obvious, the water, electricity and other relevant requirements will shoot up. The data is superimposed on the GIS map and the resource allocation can be done accordingly.

RAKESH SHANKAR CEO, Ahmedabad Smart City

A

t Smart City Ahmedabad Development Corporation (SCADL) our goal is to emancipate the quality of services to citizens, reduce expenses and reduce time to respond to any issues using leading technologies, be it IoT, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. We also tend to get as close as we can to the root cause of problems, draw out necessary patterns by cognitive analytics and figure out a scientific data drive befitting long term solution to these issues. This all will lead us to take governance to the citizens without intermediaries and have maximum citizen connect.

Areas in which IoT is being used IoT is one of the many key technologies which we

technologies including IoT. Using our technology endeavours, citizens can now plan their journey effectively using mobile app and pay using a common open loop card for all the transit services. IoT has helped us to radically redefine the entire Vehicle to Infrastructure transit landscape, leading to effective fleet utilisation and providing us enough data points to take well informed decisions.

Lights Light is a pivotal infrastructure element that a city has to provide to its citizens. With an overwhelming 150,000 light nodes across the city, the management and servicing the same has been a prime area of focus for SCADL. We have used IoT devices to identify and ensure that we get closer to the problem (pole) and solve the problem effectively. We can now remotely mange (on/off/dim), check status of thousands of lights from a single point using IoT. have used extensively across various interventions.

The use of IoT has led to enhanced situational awareness, sensor-driven decision analytics, optimised resource consumption and instantaneous control and response in complex autonomous systems.

At present thousands of IoT devices are connected across the city for following key interventions: Environment SCADL is committed to ensure that citizens dwell in a pollution free environment. For the same, we have deployed a number of environment sensors to monitor and act on environmental exigencies.

These sensors are deployed across the city to provide real time ambient environment updates about temperature, light, humidity, PM 2.5 and PM10 levels and issue alerts/warnings in case air quality deteriorates, so that citizens can plan their day accordingly. It also helps us to create pollution related awareness.

Waste Management Cleanliness is one of the most pertinent areas that SCADL focuses on, using IoT, SCADL has been able to effectively ensure that waste in the city is properly and timely collected and disposed of.

Bins fitted with RFID sensors and garbage collection vans fitted with RFID readers and GPS helps keep track of garbage pick-up and in optimising routes of the collection vans. We have more than 15,000 point of interests and over 1,000 vehicles helping us to keep the city clean.

Parking With rapid motorisation, parking has become a big problem that grapples most of the cities. At SCADL, we have relied on IoT enabled parking sensors to ensure we create new parking spaces and monitor new and existing parking spaces using technology.

We have also envisaged to ensure that we give the LIVE parking availability across major malls, theaters, public areas, parks to citizens.

Transit Urban transit is a vital area where we have extensively used IoT to ensure seamless travel experience for citizens. AMTS and BRTS, Ahmedabad’s transit lifeline carries about 800,000 people every day.

At SCADL, we have attempted to redefine the citizen’s journey experience right from ticketing to instation to in-journey experience using various

Applications of IoT As IoT is penetrating deeper into cities, the relevance is becoming unquestionable because of the benefits it is yielding. We are able to get insights which we never used to have previously and thus we are empowered to take more rational data driven and scientific decisions.

This has significantly improved governance and citizen services’ effectiveness. With help of IoT, not only monitoring and tracking, but also controlling of various systems has become possible.

For instance, a garbage collection van’s route can be adjusted if a community bin on another route is about to fill, but could not be serviced because of certain reasons. Another example is, a visitor to a certain area can see availability of parking spaces in the vicinity in advance and book a parking spot for his car.

◗ Increased productivity -Reduction in time to resolve issues- With information about exact problem area, we are now able to respond to citizens more effectively and address them sooner than earlier. This has resulted in improving citizen connect. ◗ Establishing effective citizen connect- As we are able to effectively manage and resolve issues pertaining to waste, light, water, we are able to establish citizen connect ◗ Preventive and Proactive maintenance of busesSince we obtain the driver behavioral and vehicle diagnostic data, we now are able to do preemptive maintenance of our buses and able to save money on maintenance and bus breakdowns. ◗ Reduce pilferages- With most of bus ticketing transactions going digital, reliance of cash is reducing, this has led to significant reduction in cash handling charges and subsequently reduced pilferages

THE SCALE AT WHICH IOT HAS BEEN IMPLEMENTED Sr.No

Intervention

No. of sensors

1

ITMS project (validators, passenger information systems, OBU/DDU, ETMs)

3,500

2

Solid waste management (RFID tags, GPS devices, RFID readers)

12,400

3

Environment Sensors

50

4

Wi-Fi hotspots

600

5

Smart Street Lights

16,000

PERTISTH MANKOTIA

Following are some of the instances where we anticipate some tangible and intangible ROI: ◗ VMD’s- Variable messaging display boards is expected to generate significant ROI, so much so that it might cover the operational expense of the entire Safe and Secure Ahmedabad Project. ◗ Smart Lights- We now can dim the lights at places and at times where no traffic in anticipated or when enough ambient light is there, this is expected to yield us effective savings in electricity bills. Also, knowing which node has gone bad, a significant time and resources are saved in identifying root cause. ◗ Smart parking –Besides helping citizens to plan their journeys better and to book parking spaces (both at closed and open parking spaces) we are expecting to generate good revenue and reduce cash handling. ◗ WiFi- At present our city is offering an unprecedented WiFi experience to citizens by providing 2 Mbps unlimited connectivity. This will help citizens to stay connected and avail necessary services. This service can also be utilized to generate significant revenue.

CIO, Sheela Foam

Benefits ◗ Improved decision making –(taking data driven and scientific decisions)- With availability of data sets collected from different IoT’s, and BI tools we can establish nested correlations and take complex decisions, which were not possible earlier. ◗ Finding root cause analysis- IoT’s have not only given data but have taken us closer to the issues and with corresponding data sets, it has led us to identify root cause of problems. This has resulted in curtailing expenses.

O

ne of the largest manufacturers of mattresses, Sheela Foam is a known brand name in India. We use IoT to provide personalised mattresses to our customers. We have deployed IoT-enabled zones in more than 200 showrooms across the country where we use IoT to analyse the individual pressure points and weight distribution using different types of sensors. We use this information to create personalised mattresses.

We are also using IoT to measure the quality aspect of our mattresses.

How border fencing is secured through IoT WITH RISE IN TERRORISM and challenging security conditions, investment in security and surveillance is a necessity.

IoT based application can be utilised remotely to see the movement and get warnings when movement is identified Sandhya Michu sandhya.michu@expressindia

N

Chandrababu Naidu, wants to repeat the transformation he did in Hyderabad and Secunderabad, when he was the Chief Minister of the united Andhra Pradesh (AP).

After the bifurcation of AP, which gave birth to Telangana, Naidu has set sights on Vizag and a few other cities to be the focus of

technology and products that requires very limited infrastructure and time to install.”

AP’s transformation.

Internet of Things (IoT) based application is catching up fast with several technology companies investing heavily in modernising and digitising the borders. As the Indian government fences its border with Pakistan and installs sophisticated security and surveillance equipment.

Devices would have built-in IoT modules and applications which can talk to one another, irrespective of distance and time. Fast communication and action would be critical in protecting borders from unwanted intruders and terrorists.

Delhi based CRON Systems is a disruptive startup within the multi-billion dollar perimeter security and

surveillance technology space, developing state-of-art Intrusion Detection Systems that implement the latest technologies and designs at a fraction of the costs of other leading products in its space.

Right now CRON Systems are already been successfully deployed by India's Border Security Force (BSF) at the sensitive Indo-Pak and IndoNepal border. CRON has been working on solving issues and automate perimeter security for almost four years now.

Now it is looking at securing camps, other hostile installation in the forthcoming quarters.

While talking about its journey, Tushar Chhabra, CEO and Co-founder, CRON systems, says, “We read some study materials which talked

about how India is importing fencing worth crores from other countries. We spent almost six months on the border to understand the terrain and real on-ground issues faced by our security forces and their pain points.

We came back on the drawing board to realise that we can develop indigenous solutions that can not only solve the problems on Indian borders, but we can also provide these solutions globally. We also realised that there were solutions available, but they were time consuming and expensive with little after sales services. Borders that are as sensitive as India provide limited window and infrastructure to install fencing solutions and that is where we were able to provide

Solutions Kavach Z is a mono-static sensor platform coupled with LiDAR for detection, thermal cameras for accurate intrusion verification and other mono-static sensors. It has a 360-degree range of 200 metres and is capable of recognising friends or foe movement. As soon as an intrusion happens or a movement is detected beyond the perimeter/border, an alarm is raised and an alert is sent to the miCRON (C&C Platform) over CRONet, our proprietary encrypted wireless communication system. Simultaneously, the nearest drone and rover are sent an alert for live surveillance and visual verification.

“The real challenge for us was to develop a product that can be used with ease by the end user. In the harsh climatic condition and terrain, it is important to provide solutions and technology that can be used with ease by our soldiers.

Keeping this in mind we built the QRT, which is present in the Morchas with two communication keys which can be further augmented to eight for easier communication. In QRT you just need to press the button and the relevant alert and message goes to the higher

authority,” he narrates.

Major learnings The company spent large amount of time at the borders to understand the on-ground realities and pain points for soldiers at the front. It realised that each border, especially in India, with diverse climatic and terrain condition, requires specifically designed products in a cost effective way.

Accordingly it went on to develop products to support the first line of defence for country. “We had to test our products in real life situations, come back with feedback and further innovate to build on it.

Finally we were able to build an end-to-end solution that worked efficiently for our security forces. IoT-based security system must be easy to design, install, maintain and use. And one size does not fit all. To maximise the potential of IoT in the security and surveillance field, it requires an in-depth knowledge by suppliers who understand how each feature or component works together, can design a solution that can be used to solve specific challenges, and are able deliver it as an integrated offering whose long-term value has more value than just the sum of its parts,” he explains.

“During the journey to develop an indigenous solution for Indian security forces, we realised that any product that is successful in India can be deployed across

Borders that are as sensitive as India provide limited window and infrastructure to install fencing solutions and that is where we were able to provide technology and products that requires very limited infrastructure and time to install.

Tushar Chhabra, CEO, CRON Systems

the globe looking at the diverse and difficult terrain and weather. Realising the opportunity, we are now expanding our global presence where we are looking at markets like Asia, Africa and Middle East,” Chhabra informs.

In the coming years, there would be greater use of Video Management Systems (VMS) to search big data in order to pull up relevant events, people, locations, times, colours and keywords. Such tools will assist business operators to turn big data into critical information that aids in loss prevention, marketing, operations, and customer service.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | JUNE, 2018

10 | OPINION Rana Kapoor MD & CEO, YES Bank and Chairman, YES Global Institute

Top social impact use cases of Blockchain

I

n a recent report, the World Economic Forum defined Blockchain as a ‘mega trend’ that will shape society and the economy in the next decade.

Grand View Research, a market research company, estimates the total global market size for the Blockchain technology at US$7.74 billion in 2024.

According to the Swiss financial institution UBS, the Blockchain technology will add as much as US$300 billion to US$400 billion of annual economic value globally by 2027.

Global investments in Blockchain are on the rise as the successful implementation of use cases demonstrates the disruptive potential of the technology across industries. In parallel, international institutions, governments, incubators and accelerators, as well as private companies and nonprofits, are discovering how the technology can bring about positive social impact in multiple ways. First, by creating trusted permanent records.

Consider identity management. According to the World Bank, over a billion people are not officially recognised by any government today. This means that they cannot enjoy the protection and services afforded to the citizens of a state. Microsoft and Accenture are addressing this issue under the framework of Identity 2020, a PPP promoted by the United Nations. These

two companies have created a tool that processes biometric data and creates a permanent and universal identity by registering it on Blockchain.

In other applications, trusted permanent records can positively impact sectors such as land regulation. In India, governments of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have launched pilots to record land ownership in Blockchain, with the aim of resolving issues related to the acknowledgement of land rights and land property disputes.

Second, by transforming the way international aid is distributed. When a government is unable to

NITI Aayog has announced that it is building IndiaChain, a Blockchain network infrastructure

provide essential services to its population due to a natural disaster or a civil war, the international community catalyses funds to bring relief to the affected communities.

Despite this noble aim, foreign aid is often subject to scrutiny by civil society due to numerous cases of financial leakages, high cost of operations and the lack of

transparency about how funds are spent. Blockchain provides the much-needed transparency and ease of operations. In a refugee camp in Jordan, a start-up graduated from the World Food Programme accelerator is applying Blockchain to distribute food rations to Syrian refugees. In real time, the technology tracks the cost

of the aid programme, informs donors on how their money is spent, and guarantees that rations are distributed to the right beneficiaries. The same solution is being deployed in another camp in Pakistan and aims to scale up to 100,000 recipients by the end of the year. Blockchain improves the efficiency of the programme and enhances the reputation

of international aid agencies, thanks to the transparency offered to its donors.

Third, by making financial inclusion truly universal.

Micro-finance has proved to be a fantastic tool to bring large sections of unbanked population into the realm of financial services. However, high rates of interest and operation costs associated

with the disbursement and repayment of loans, along with cumbersome procedures to assess identity and credit risk, have still left more than two billion people unbanked, according to the World Bank figures. The Blockchain technology can support financial inclusion by using verified individual data to assess identity and creditworthiness, hence making opening and operating a bank account fast, easy and cost-effective.

Additionally, Blockchain can unleash new business models based on micro-payments due to low transaction costs and reduced settlement time, thus facilitating the creation of new products and services in segments such as insurance, loans, savings and investments.

In India, Blockchain is attracting the interest of both the government and the private sector. In the public sector, the NITI Aayog has announced that it is building IndiaChain, a Blockchain network infrastructure that would complement IndiaStack and could even use Aadhaar. The announcement is extremely welcome as it puts the country on a similar path as that of the most advanced nations.

Estonia, for example, has built its competitive advantage on its Blockchain infrastructure and the public services offered through it.

In the private sector, Indian and global banks have come together under the BankChain consortium to

explore, build and implement Blockchain-based solutions.

The consortium is focusing on developing use cases for KYC identification, contract management, loan syndication and peer-to-peer payments, among others.

The Indian market presents unique opportunities to identify globally scalable solutions, such as in the remittances sector. India is the largest recipient of personal remittances in the world, and at YES Bank, we are looking at Blockchain to make international transfers fast, secure and affordable for all.

To achieve this goal, we are partnering with Ripple, a USbased company, to realise the enhanced efficiencies of Blockchain for real time cross-border payments.

Blockchain will bring about a massive transformation in traditional business models and generate new opportunities to create social impact. Through initiatives such as IndiaChain and the ethos of DICE (Design, Innovation and Creativity-led Entrepreneurship), India has the opportunity to leverage its unique characteristics as a large, fast-growing, emerging economy, its immense IT talent, and the potential of the Blockchain technology to achieve a more inclusive and sustainable economic growth for the coming decade.

The article first appeared in Financial Express, April 12, Thursday

Amitabh Mishra, Chief Digital Officer, Vedanta

What is Digital, and how you can participlate? ◗ Pick three skills you’d like to master: Just three to four are enough to perform effectively in a function, depending on the industry, company size and level of specialisation in the function.

Let’s say, going with the above example, you pick the following three skills: data warehouse, SQL and shell scripting.

Y

ou must have heard of ‘Digital’ and ‘Digital Transformation.’ Are you sure you understand the word, the phrase? Let’s run a quick test.

Is ERP considered part of the Digital domain? (Answer: no, it’s more commonly thought of as a part of the IT portfolio). Is Analytics different from Digital? (analytics is part of digital, dealing with generation and analysis of data from multiple sources – software systems as well as machines). Is there a place for mathematicians in Digital?

(Yes, in robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning). What’s the difference between Digital and digital? ('Digital' commonly means a broad technology domain, while ‘digital’ refers to data that is transmitted in 0s and 1s).

Here’s why understanding

this new field is key. A massive shortfall in Digital talent is in the offing. According to Gartner, by 2020, up to 30 per cent of technology jobs will go unfilled due to scarcity of talent in Digital. The biggest shortfall is likely to be in the following specific areas: 1. Front-end developer 2. Product manager 3. UX/UI designer This is, ofcourse great news if you’re a young technology professional. But what exactly are the skills you need to develop? If you’re confused, you’re not alone. The structure and execution of Digital organisations are so different that the natural question arises, 'Is there really an uniform understanding of Digital?’

The answer is ‘no’, because the perspective of an organisation will necessarily be from the prism of what that

industry requires. For example, an industrial company producing large electrical equipment views Digital and IoT (Internet of Things) synonymously, while an end-customer-oriented B2C company views Digital as the primary vehicle to provide an enhanced user experience.

Please see figure on the right for a representative matrix of the skills needed to succeed in Digital. We’ve listed nine areas that are broadly understood to constitute Digital: What are your next steps? ◗ Pick an area and role: You can’t be everything at one time. While some of the areas above are inter-related, you’d need to pick an area that is aligned to your strengths, and a role you’re comfortable with; for example, Analytics – Solutions Architect.

◗ Determine the level of skill you wish to develop: No employer would expect you to master every skill to the same level. For each of the three skills you picked, select the level of proficiency you wish to develop: Basic, Intermediate, or Advanced. For example, you may say: Data warehouse Advanced, SQL - Basic, Shell scripting - Intermediate.

Now that you have a list of skills you wish to develop, and the level of proficiency you want to acquire, all you need is to put together a plan of action with your specific objectives and timelines.

As digital transformation disrupts businesses in the coming three-five years, there will be one factor which, more than any other, will determine if organisations can turn Digital to their advantage.

That factor is people. It’s the most critical element for a company to transform and grow. By equipping yourself with the appropriate skills and competencies, you’ll position yourself to take advantage of the Digital revolution and establish a stellar career for years to come.

NINE AREAS OF DIGITAL Field

Role

Skills

System Integration

Solution Architect

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management), SCM (Supply Chain Management), MES (Manufacturing Execution System) – e.g.

SAP, Oracle, etc

Programmer

One or more of the systems above, plus APIs (application programming interfaces)

Front-end developer

Visualization tools, integration tools, web application development, UI/UX tools

Software engineer

IoT platforms, Digital Twins, Industrial Engineering, IT-OT integration (information technology/ operational technology), sensors

Internet of Things (IoT)

Augmented/ Virtual Reality

Analytics & Big Data

Robotics

Front-end developer

Visualisation tools, integration tools, web application development, UI/UX tools

Software Engineer

Native app development

Front-end developer

Web development, visual scripting language

Solution Architect

Data warehouse and business intelligence tools, Extract Transform Load tools, SQL and shell scripting

Front-end developer

Visualization tools

Robotics Engineer

Computer-aided design and drafting (CADD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), electronics, mathematics

Mechanical and

Mechanical, Electronics engineering,

Electronics Engineers

mathematics, understanding of CADD and CAM

Cloud Computing

Software Engineer

Databases, programming languages, Operating System-level languages (e.g.

Linux), DevOps

Cybersecurity

Security Architect

Analysis tools, incident response tools, data science

Engineer

Scripting languages, data science, DevOps

Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning

Software Engineer

ML/AI programming languages such as Python, C++ or Java, probability, statistics, applied mathematics, algorithms, distributed computing

Project Management/ Agile Leadership

Scrum master

Sprints, scrums, requirement pipelines, storyboarding

Project manager

Communication, stakeholder management, sourcing, budgeting

EXPRESS COMPUTER | JUNE, 2018

| 11

EVENT

GeM to transform government procurements in Andhra Pradesh TO CREATE AWARENESS ABOUT Government eMarketplace (GeM), Express Computer, in partnership with Dell EMC, organised a GeM conference in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh

Mohd Ujaley mohd.ujaley@expressindia

W

ith an aim to promote greater understanding of Government eMarketplace (GeM), the Vijayawada edition of Dell EMC GeM event was organised by Express Computer magazine in partnership with Dell EMC. Senior government officers, policymakers and IT leaders from the state came together to discuss and debate the great potential that Andhra Pradesh offers and how new platforms such as GeM could be used for the benefit of government departments.

Arvind Bhardwaj, Marketing Head, Vertical Business, Dell EMC India

Suchitra Kolluru - Sales Leader, Commercial, Dell EMC, India

Mayur Mahajan, System Consultant, Dell EMC India

Vidur Sehgal, National Head, GeM Business, Dell EMC India

Sankar Lingam, CSG Specialist, Dell EMC India

Dharmendra Srivastava, Government Head, South and West, Dell EMC India

While emphasising the importance of platforms like GeM, Arvind Bhardwaj, Marketing Head, Vertical Business, Dell EMC India in his opening note said that GeM was a bold initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi government, as the government was trying to set up a platform like Amazon and Flipkart for government department, which will change the way governments buy and enterprises sell to the governments.

While giving the welcome address, Suchitra Kolluru Sales Leader, Commercial, Dell EMC, India explained the reason why GeM is a good platform. She said, “GeM has

functionalities of GeM 2 and GeM 3.

“While GeM has already been rolled out in the pilot phase, the full potential of GeM is yet to be realised due to its low awareness. For government departments, GeM can bring about significant benefits in terms of cost saving, quality of services and time taken to procure,” said Sehgal.

Sehgal explained how government departments can leverage rich listing of products and services to buy the exact products or services they need. How they can improve the efficiency of the procurement process by leveraging the easy order

and actionable insight the Dell EMC offers which can help government department deliver fullest benefits.

During his presentation, Lingam gave a broad overview of laptops, computers and other devices that Dell EMC offers for governments. He explained the benefits and key features of these devices. He also informed about the best practices of buying goods. He said, “It is important that you know what technology is prevalent and what is going to be phased out before you place an order. If you buy something that has an old configuration, the life of devices will be shorter,

improved service delivery, transparency, and ease of procuring goods for government departments.

Going forward the entire procurement process will be streamlined.”

With the help of presentation, she showcased some of the futuristic work done by Dell EMC in this area and how the company was trying to power the whole ecosystem of GeM. Participating in the conference, Vidur Sehgal, National Head, GeM Business, Dell EMC India shared his views on the significance of GeM. He presented a detailed overview of GeM platform, explaining about different

placement and payment processing. On the challenge of adoption of GeM, he was of the view that it is a noble effort of the government and all the states will start using it gradually. “The architecture is simple and with the new version, the speed of the system will also improve, leading to better user’s experience,” said Sehgal.

Senior Dell EMC officers such as Sankar Lingam, CSG Specialist, Dell EMC India; Mayur Mahajan, System Sonsultant, Dell EMC India and Sandeep Nidamurthy, Business Manager, Dell EMC India were also present to explain the suite of solutions

leading to the extra cost.”

Similarly, Lingam’s colleague Mayur Mahajan who is an expert on servers, storage systems, and data protection technologies focused on the evolution of storage and how the capacity has improved over the years.

Mahajan with the help of presentation explained the difference between the generation of storage and server technologies and their capabilities.

Participating in the event, Sandeep Nidamurthy talked about the Dell EMC servers offering. He explained about different benefits of various servers and how government department could use it.

REGD.NO.MCS/066/2018-20, PUBLISHED ON 28TH OF EVERY PERVIOUS MONTH & POSTED AT MUMBAI PATRIKA CHANNEL SORTING OFFICE, DUE DATE 29 & 30 OF EVERY PREVIOUS MONTH, REGD. WITH RNI UNDER NO. MAHENG/49926/90