ACCELERATING IoT a s a SERVICE - Elxsi · Accelerating IoT as a Service [email protected] © Tata Elxsi 2019 3 ABSTRACT Operators are facing intense competition from OTT (Over-the-Top)

Accelerating IoT as a Service

[email protected] © Tata Elxsi 2019 1

ACCELERATING “IoT as a SERVICE”

Balaji Krishnamurthy, Marketing Manager, Tata Elxsi

Accelerating IoT as a Service

[email protected] © Tata Elxsi 2019 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................................... 3

IOT DRIVING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION .................................................................................................... 4

VERTICAL INDUSTRIES EXPECTATION FROM OPERATORS ............................................................................ 4

APPROACH FOR SUCCESSFUL DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION.......................................................................... 7

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................... 10

ABOUT TATA ELXSI ...................................................................................................................................... 11

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................................ 12

Accelerating IoT as a Service

[email protected] © Tata Elxsi 2019 3

ABSTRACT

Operators are facing intense competition from OTT (Over-the-Top) players. To remain profitable in the

business in the long run, service providers are leveraging their existing customer base, infrastructure,

and venturing into alternate revenue streams. With the proliferation of connected devices and

integration of Internet of Things (IoT) into everyday lives, operators are trying to capture this market by

providing vertical-specific value-added services, ensuring customer satisfaction by driving digital

transformation and innovation across a range of use cases and sectors.

This enables organizations to increase productivity dramatically, efficiency, automate a business

process, redesign, develop new business models and fundamentally transform their business and

industry

Accelerating IoT as a Service

[email protected] © Tata Elxsi 2019 4

IOT DRIVING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

IoT as a service Operators, embarking on their digital transformation journey usually focus on a single-use case, to begin

with, and may not envision IoT offerings or other digital technologies as a service. However, once the

digitization steps are taken, and the overall ecosystem is built, the operator inadvertently becomes a

service provider for both their internal stakeholders (for instance, their Customer service, R&D, Field

engineers, Logistics and other departments that use the data collected from devices) and external

stakeholders – their B2B and B2C customers.

The image below shows the benefits IoT brings to a company’s internal stakeholders and external

customers:

VERTICAL INDUSTRIES EXPECTATIONS FROM OPERATORS

Figure 1: Vertical Industries Expectations

Accelerating IoT as a Service

[email protected] © Tata Elxsi 2019 5

Smart home:

Increasing penetration of smart devices has led to a dramatic increase in digital access, a significant

enabler for the use of intelligent applications at home. Consumers today want an intuitive and frictionless

experience at their home. Smart appliances, lighting, thermostats, voice assistants, home security

monitoring, and e-health – all require interoperability in terms of connectivity, communications, and

integration protocols.

Smart health:

Operators are attractive partners in the healthcare ecosystem, which is inclusive of – healthcare providers

(hospitals), insurance companies, medical equipment manufacturers, and regulatory bodies. The primary

expectation of the healthcare ecosystem today is to provide affordable care (for end consumers), improve

resource efficiency (as a provider), and meet consumer demands for greater convenience and freedom of

choice. Decentralized care in the form of remote monitoring/remote procedures, virtual medical training,

telemetry, mhealth applications are offerings that leading operators are rolling out to revolutionize the

mode care reaches end consumers.

Smart buildings:

Smart digital buildings span across industries and use cases. Improving operational efficiency and enabling

employees to make more efficient use of space and time, thereby enhancing their productivity is of high

priority for businesses getting into smart buildings. While digital connectivity plays a significant role in

smart buildings (after cost and location), operators, play a crucial role here, providing additional services

on top of it like – energy management, real-time location services, connected/collaborated workspace

through (like virtual conference rooms). Providing these additional services will be a key differentiator for

operators

Smart Cities:

Smart cities are one of the significant verticals where operators can use their expertise and move up the

value chain. It is expected to become a $76 Billion opportunity by 2023. On top of connectivity, there is a

plethora of services – smart grids, smart traffic control, mHealth solutions, smart buildings, in-vehicle

telematics, smart surveillance, etc., that operators can provide as part of a smart city. Together with

government bodies and private players, they can help in creating a vibrant and connected ecosystem.

Operators can become co-creators of smart cities.

Industrial IoT:

Advances in cellular connectivity are helping to drive the development of the Industrial IoT, as mobile

operators all over the world roll out Mobile IoT networks using LTE-M and NB-IoT. Within the next few

years, GSMA Intelligence predicts IoT connections within smart manufacturing will grow at a rate of over

30% annually, increasing the number of devices to well over 600 million. In industry, demand is rising for

the abilities these technologies can bring, including tracking valuable assets, relaying sensor data for

Accelerating IoT as a Service

[email protected] © Tata Elxsi 2019 6

environments and machines, collecting data for quality records, and reducing costs. How can operators

generate the value?

Increasing expectations from vertical industries, as discussed above, also means massive demand on the

bandwidth and networks. It is also evident that across verticals improving customer experience is a key

priority. Traditional tactics like more data, better coverage etc., will not help in creating a point of

differentiation for operators. Adopting new technologies and reinventing themselves is a key to

transformation

Introduction of 5G is expected to play a major role and create significant business opportunities for

operators, helping them gain revenue in the business-to-business (B2B) opportunities such as smart cities

and the Internet of Things (IoT). It will also provide the ideal environment for operators to employ

“network slicing” to customize their offerings. In the context of 5G, this will enable sharing of a given

physical network to run IoT, mobile broadband, and very low-latency applications—including many

connected-car and connected-home functions that have the potential to create entirely new revenue

sources for providers in 2019.

New forms of architectures like SDN/NFV are the ones that will save operators and help them achieve the

most aspired autonomous networks where they can automatically manage the capacity and network

demand.

Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) will supplement the 5G network as it will enable support of larger

number of IoT devices and reduce latency through local processing of information in applications like V2X,

smart transport, city-wide surveillance, etc.

Transformation to Newer Operating Models: DevOps and NetOps offer easy automation and agility that

is significantly reducing time and cost taken to develop and deliver products.

Accelerating IoT as a Service

[email protected] © Tata Elxsi 2019 7

APPROACH FOR SUCCESSFUL DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION When it comes to implementation of the above mentioned technologies, infrastructure, and platform,

market competition does not allow a lot of lead time before they hit the market with their offerings. It is

a greenfield project for most operators and in such a scenario, buying a platform overshadows building it

in-house when time to market is an important factor.

Figure 2: Build Vs Buy Decision

Accelerating IoT as a Service

[email protected] © Tata Elxsi 2019 8

IoT services do not stop just with the right infrastructure in place. To be successful in innovative rollouts

the platform should be flexible, scalable, and reliable for Minimal Viable Services (MVS). Operators should

consider the subsequent Lean Investment Framework before launching any new offerings

Figure 3: Lean Investment Framework

The Lean Investment Framework includes the following steps: Define As a first step, the operators should conduct a primary analysis of the market to understand the current trends and gaps in existing products to identify a target core area for a new Service. This analysis could be per region-specific customer needs. The current trends and corresponding indicators should be noted and analyzed. Examples of indicators that can help Operators define new smart home services are:

o Number of smartphone users o Data consumption o Sales of smart home products

Empathize and Discover The core service area identified in the ‘Define’ phase should be narrowed down in the ‘Empathize and Discover’ phase. This is done by surveying customer needs and aligning different use cases to fulfill those needs to identify the best fit. Evaluating the pricing models from the existing customer base and market competition is also vital. Survey can be conducted using smartphone apps or other visual means. If there are no competitors in a region for the identified core service, then geographical areas with the same per capita GDP can be considered for pricing data collection purposes. Minimum Viable Service After analyzing the data collected in the previous phases, a core Minimum Viable Service should be identified in the targeted core service area. Insights from customer needs/expectations data can guide the SLAs that customers expect. Accordingly, the core use case(s) should be shortlisted and implemented as part of the minimal viable service.

Accelerating IoT as a Service

[email protected] © Tata Elxsi 2019 9

Execute In the ‘Execute’ phase, the Operators need to make a lean investment to procure hardware from different players (use a different term may be) and develop an integrated platform to create a services ecosystem offering catering to the identified minimum viable service offering. The new service should undergo rigorous testing to ensure all the edge cases and environmental parameters are thoroughly tested to offer maximum QoS. Friendly Trials The new service offering is provided to a pre-identified set of customers for a friendly trial. The following parameters are studied by taking the customer’s feedback :

o Required changes to the deployed service o Frequency of service usage o Wear and tear of the device and performance of the platform

Minor changes should be accommodated immediately, and the service should be redeployed and re-tested for quality and customer satisfaction. If the service did not fulfill the core use case or has major flaws, then the Operator has to go back to the drawing board to identify a new solution. If the service trials are successful, the full-fledged service can be launched in the identified markets. The Operators should monitor, manage, and enhance the devices regularly through Over the Air Updates (OTAs) to ensure that the quality of service continues to stay optimal. OTAs can be done for software updates or for adding new features, both of which help significantly with the original goal of keeping customers engaged and loyal in the long term.

Accelerating IoT as a Service

[email protected] © Tata Elxsi 2019 10

CONCLUSION

IoT poses huge opportunities for operators in terms of tapping new revenue streams. In order to capitalize on these opportunities, operators need the right set of technologies and tools that can enable them to effectively manage their networks, devices, and data. However, the focus should be just on the technical aspects. Operators need to develop the right strategies, focus on the select promising verticals, create the right go-to-market and service model for each segment, understand the end consumer and craft compelling technical solutions

Operators that move first to seize this opportunity will have a head start in what promises to be a massive marketplace for the future. Put simply, there’s no time to lose. With the existing pressure to improve ARPU, reduce costs, operators cannot spend resources in building a solution from scratch. It is imperative for them to partner with system integrators who can provide them with a hands-on solution and also act as a consultant in rolling out services and thereby help them expedite revenue realization

Accelerating IoT as a Service

[email protected] © Tata Elxsi 2019 11

ABOUT TATA ELXSI Tata Elxsi is amongst the world’s leading providers of design and technology services for product

engineering and solutions across industries including Broadcast, Communications, Healthcare, and

Transportation.

Tata Elxsi provides technology consulting, new product design, development, and testing services. Tata

Elxsi also provides solutions and services for emerging technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things), Big

Data Analytics, Cloud, Mobility, Virtual Reality, and Artificial Intelligence.

Tata Elxsi’s TETHER IoT Platform is a key example of imparting a comprehensive method in the IoT platform market. Tata Elxsi’s IoT offering focuses on providing our customers with a powerful generic cloud-based IoT

platform - TETHER. In addition to the IoT Platform, Tata Elxsi also brings in rich experience of IoT solution

rollout across various industry verticals we serve.

Accelerating IoT as a Service

[email protected] © Tata Elxsi 2019 12

REFERENCES

1. Evolving roles for Operator - https://www.gsma.com/iot/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/New-

Roles-for-Operators-in-the-IoT-k.pdf

2. Telecom operators are attractive partners in the healthcare -

https://www.ericsson.com/en/networks/trending/insights-and-reports/5g-healthcare

3. Four considerations for creating people-centered smart, digital workplaces

https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/topics/digital-transformation/smart-buildings-

people-centered-digital-workplace.html

4. Scale and Vertical Specialization Are Keys to CSP IoT Success

https://www.iotworldtoday.com/2018/10/23/scale-and-vertical-specialization-are-keys-to-csp-

iot-success/

5. How Mobile IoT is changing the industrial landscape - https://www.gsma.com/iot/wp-

content/uploads/2018/09/201809_GSMA_Industrial_IoT_Feasibility_Study.pdf