Many public and private sector organizations are adopting digital transformation as a key initiative to optimize processes, implement broader efficiencies and improve interactions with their customers and constituents.

Hitachi is the latest to join them with the launch of its IoT division, the ‘Hitachi Insight Group’, specifically to target the opportunities in the growing Internet of Things market. Headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, the new group will spearhead Hitachi’s unified Internet of Things (IoT) business and go-to-market (GTM) strategy worldwide, through its IoT platform – Lumada.

Lumada will serve as the core foundation on which all of Hitachi’s IoT solutions are built and will enable the creation of IoT business ecosystems. By uniting its digital and IoT solutions and services businesses, Hitachi is positioning itself to lead in the fast-growing IoT market.

Since, Lumada incorporates expansive expertise in operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT), blending powerful and proven data orchestration, streaming analytics, content intelligence, simulation models, and other Hitachi software technologies; it will accelerate synthesis of actionable insights, delivering faster time to value and supporting better decisions that lead to increased productivity and safety, streamlined processes, reduced operational costs and carbon footprint, improved quality of life, etc.

As such, the application of IoT solutions that can deliver valuable insight to support transformation is rapidly becoming a strategic imperative in almost every industry and market sector. However, building IoT solutions that provide real value can be difficult – especially without the right underlying architecture or the deep understanding to properly simulate and digitalize operational entities and processes. IoT platforms are necessary, but often introduce new layers of complexity and rigidity to IoT solutions, making them difficult to modify and incapable of holistically supporting all the elements of digital business and market ecosystems at scale.

Thus, Lumada was specifically designed to address the challenges associated with IoT solution creation leveraging Hitachi’s rich OT and IT expertise and technologies. Its uniquely open and adaptable architecture makes it broadly applicable for a wider array of industries and use cases, providing an extensible, flexible platform from which Hitachi and its customers and partners can easily tailor solutions or co-create.

Hitachi Ltd. Chief Executive of the Americas Jack Domm, states, “Digitalization is driving transformation in every aspect of business and society, fundamentally changing the way that businesses interact with their customers and governments interact with their constituents. With all the hype surrounding IoT these days, it can be difficult to understand what its real world applications are, or what will net the best return on investment.”

Further, Hitachi Insight Group will be collaborating with market leading innovators to co-develop digital and IoT-optimized solutions, including SAP, PTC, AT&T, Eurotech S.p.A., Intel, Microsoft, and others. The global IoT-focused team has more than 16,000 employees from Hitachi Insight Group and various divisions across Hitachi Ltd. and its Group companies, including Hitachi Data Systems and Hitachi Consulting among others, to collaborate for the acceleration of solution delivery.

Hitachi Insight Group’s leadership team includes veteran executives Kevin Eggleston, general manager for the Americas, and Patrik Sjostedt, general manager for EMEA. The group will receive strategic direction and support from Hitachi Ltd. regional leaders Jack Domme, chief executive of the Americas; Klaus Dieter Rennert, chief executive for EMEA; Ichiro Iino, chief executive for Asia-Pacific; and Kenichi Kokubo, chief executive for China. Hitachi said it plans to establish regional operations for Hitachi Insight Group in APAC later this year.

“IoT represents a critical inflection point, in which the interests of business, industry and society are now intersecting and aligning like never before,” said Kevin Eggleston. “Our repeatable solutions are already helping businesses, cities, municipalities and industrial companies around the world. The formation of Hitachi Insight Group will now enable us to take Hitachi’s vision for Social Innovation to the next level, as we move our IoT business into the next critical phase of its evolution.”

Hitachi has also established global Centers for Social Innovation in multiple geographies staffed by cross-disciplinary researchers, data scientists and solution architects to work closely with customers on solution development to solve unique challenges, ultimately verified through a proof-of-concept process. These labs will work closely with Hitachi Insight Group to apply the Hitachi’s market-in strategy and solve real world challenges in areas such as energy & natural resources, transportation, telecommunications, and healthcare.