As the IoT era is about to dawn in India but the challenge is that there are a lot of confusion in the market in terms of security, networking, process, etc. SME Channels spoke to Bala Chitoor, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer, FlamencoTech to know about the market situation. Excerpts…
What are the challenges that various industry verticals face from the standard software?
IoT is a term interpreted differently based upon whom you speak with. This is the first challenge. Secondly, there are several players solving one specific challenge rather than solving for an industry vertical. Third, there is lack of standardization of protocols, connectivity, information exchange etc. causing systems to remain SILOS. Fourth, there are several platform providers who are claiming great concepts like high scalability, big data analytics but lack the expertise to solve real-world problems. Then finally, IoT is not about things alone. For us, IoT is using technology and the internet to connect people, processes and things, enabling efficiency, effectiveness, cost reduction etc.
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We abstracted hardware out of our equation and hence do not depend on hardware standards or vendors.
Bala Chitoor
Co-Founder and Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer
FlamencoTech
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IOT is at the nascent stage and it doesn’t have sufficient ecosystem to support, so how FlamencoTech is placed in this sector?
FlamencoTech approached this as an opportunity rather than problem. Firstly, we abstracted hardware out of our equation and hence do not depend on hardware standards or vendors. Secondly, we built software adapters that can communicate across multiple protocols like BacNet, Modbus, SNMP etc. & multiple vendors. We built our own IoT platform that is highly scalable and reliable and added contextual domain centric analytical dashboards. We are thus leading the industry from a perspective of integrating multiple protocols, technologies, hardware, systems and vendors.
What is the genesis and growth of FlamencoTech?
FlemencoTech started in 2011 with a vision to unify infrastructures digitally. At that time the concept of IoT was not born. We realized that the industry which was primarily driven by legacy systems will start unifying under the IP platform. When we started to promote our vision, we realized that the industry did not understand the possibilities and the potential and looked at us with suspicion. We then started engaging as a Smart Consultant for companies, defining a vision, use cases, architecture, design and technology. Then when we realized that there is no one to execute this vision, we jumped in to deliver by developing our own IoT Platform and several solutions, under the umbrella of Digital Blanket. We have since then successfullyx engaged with over 40 clients in India.
What is the turnover and growth of FlamencoTech?
Last year we had a turnover of Rs.8 crores and this FY we are on our way to achieve about Rs.14 crores.
What are the specialization areas of FlamencoTech? Does it want to expand its specialization or domain expertise?
FlamencoTech specializes in IoT connecting people, process, information and things and also automating responses to events. We are unique in several ways – one, we solve real-world problems holistically through a consultancy approach rather than just point solutions. Secondly, we see IoT as being things, we call it Internet if Everything and Everyone. Third, we provide domain centric contextual analysis of captured data that provides decision support rather than just analytics or data, fourth, we layer service management on top of events and contextual data for automated actions to resolve issues in near-real time. These are our specialization. Our Industry expertise includes Enterprise, Healthcare, Retail and Manufacturing. Our domain expertise includes Energy, Security, Safety, Customer Experience, Logistics and Service Management.
How do you leverage Microsoft platform?
Our IoT Platform, the Digital Blanket is hosted on the Microsoft Azure Cloud. Microsoft SQL Service has provided us the flexibility to scale on demand and also meets our high availability requirements. Each server instance is protected by built-in Microsoft firewall services.
What is its marketing and sales strategy of the company? Are you getting any support from Microsoft as well?
Our marketing has been more word-of-mouth and we are now getting recognized by our clients and partners. We believe in our client success referencing us to other clients. We thus work client to client and project to project. We have started participating in key awards like Control Trends, where we were global finalist (and the only Indian company) in two categories. We have partnered with Microsoft, first in its Accelerator Plus program and then in its go to market program. We are now invited to participate in Microsoft events and also get leads to customers. Our sales strategy has been through direct sales and we have just embarked on a partner model. We have signed partners in Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and now in the US. Our US partnership with Harbor Industries is very strategic for the Retail Segment across the US, in crafting retail experiences through IoT. In addition, we have partnered with Aurora Solutions for the manufacturing vertical.
Do you have any vertical specific focus?
FlamencoTech is currently focused on Smart Buildings, Smart Worksites, Smart Hospitals and Smart Retail.
Do you have any geography specific focus?
We are directly engaged in India and the US. We have signed partnerships in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines which are now seeing traction. We plan to consolidate our presence in these areas before we embark on new geographies.
What is your growth strategy for this company?
Our growth strategy is based on four distinct pillars – One is geography coverage through strategic partnerships. Here we are choosing very strategic partners who have the client reach but not the expertise, the platforms and the solutions. Second is innovation around domain centric solutions with integrated set of solutions and domain centric decision dashboards. Third is our partnership with technology companies like Microsoft where we can leverage their platform and their reach. Fourth is porting our software adapter on Industry leading hardware platforms, which will make our offering broad based, reliable and more reliable.
