India’s IoT investments are projected to reach $15 billion by 2021 from $5 billion in 2019, according to a Zinnov report.
“With initiatives like smart manufacturing, industry 4.0 and smart cities gaining traction, we can estimate that India will be one of the most vibrant IoT ecosystems in the world. In the last year, IoT has enabled real-time communications to take a giant step forward, especially amidst the pandemic,” said Ranganath Jagannath, Director of Growth, Agora, India & SAARC.
From smart cities to smart homes, connected vehicles to devices, automated warehouses to traffic management, smart wearables to smart healthcare, IoT has become ubiquitous.
India takes off
“The use of the internet of things in healthcare is rapidly expanding, enhancing connectivity and altering the doctor-patient relationship. IoT enables remote and real-time monitoring of patients. This has many benefits, including the better collaboration of doctors and patients during treatment and better care delivery,” said Dileep Mangsuli, Head of Development Centre, Siemens Healthineers. “IoT also helps individuals reduce hospital stays and visits, save higher attendant costs and avoid the risk of contracting infections during hospital visits. This is especially important in the current situation.”
Not just health, IoT has application in multiple sectors. One massive advantage of IoT devices is their ability to share data in real-time. “With the growing need for voice and video led engagement in every sector, we foresee huge growth in real-time engagement, powered by IoT in the country. Virtually anything can be an IoT device, and when these physical devices are connected to other devices, they contribute to a new kind of communication, one no longer reliant solely on laptops, tablets, or even smartphones,” said Jagannath.
The digitisation of agriculture, education, electricity, financial services, healthcare, logistics, retail, etc could lead to additional economic value to the tune of $10 billion to $150 billion by 2025, as per the Digital India McKinsey report. And IoT has been a catalyst for digital transformation.
Why it matters
With a 1.3 billion population, India requires solutions and employment opportunities to survive in the coming years. IoT is all about connected devices. In other words, it can connect different sectors, and the network effect will open up new jobs and sectors down the road.
“For IoT to be effective in healthcare, it requires cloud-based platforms hosting applications that will bring together siloed data from various kinds of devices, thereby creating useful data and uncovering healthcare insights to advance medicine and human health,” said Dileep.
“In India, we are currently seeing increased adoption in areas such as customer engagement, supply chain management, virtual conferencing etc. – all led by IoT. The examples range from smart doorbells, CCTV and surveillance to telepresence robots and digital avatars. With a rich talent ecosystem for IoT and increasing investment in digital infrastructure, India is on its way to becoming a leader in IoT and creating a real-time virtual world,” said Ranganath.
‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’ – the two flagship programmes of the Indian government cannot succeed if they work in silos. IoT has the potential to bridge the gap between the two. Hence, strong policy support and public-private collaboration are the need of the hour to boost India’s economy.
