The March towards a Digitalized India

 Cisco has stated time and again of its efforts to develop Smart+Connected communities with the help of Internet of Everything and of helping create a dynamic digital economy. In fact, it is this Digital India vision that inspired the networking major to unveil its Cisco Smart City initiative a few months back. Underlining this idea at the recent Cisco India Summit 2014 that concluded in Bengaluru, Dinesh Malkani, President - Cisco India & SAARC reiterated the fact that India is to become the 3rd largest IT market in Asia Pacific by 2016 and the digitization wave is to get underway in India anytime soon. 
It was during this Summit that Cisco in order to leverage Internet of Everything to develop digital solutions for India’s infrastructure and smart cities, inked a deal with ILFS Technologies Ltd (ITL), a technology solutions company of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS). The announcement was made in the presence of Prem Saigal, Chairman - ITL, Dinesh Malkani; Anil Menon, Cisco Deputy Chief Globalisation Officer and President, Smart+Connected Communities and Durga Prasad, CEO - ITL.
The collaboration between Cisco and ITL will focus on bringing together the best-in-class, complementary capabilities of both companies. Some of the solutions that will be jointly developed will focus on urban services and smart city infrastructure solutions such as traffic and transportation, public safety and security, command and control services, e-governance and a broader set of next generation urban services such as parking, lighting, traffic and citizen engagement services built on top of Cisco’s City Infrastructure Management. With India having the largest rural population in the world, Cisco and ITL will also collaborate to enable the delivery of cost-effective and efficient citizen services to rural communities too. The collaboration will focus on developing IoE based digital solutions for smart villages and the infrastructure sector.
“The strategy for Cisco will be to focus on any new opportunities in the Enterprise segment, its Commercial business (including both Partner-led and Velocity business) and the global service provider business. A strong partnership with its Channel will also form an important part of our strategy to realize our Smart City model,” shared Dinesh. However, Cisco and ITL are said to pursue joint go-to-market opportunities in India as required in areas of technologies and capabilities.
Meanwhile Cisco's vision of Smart+Connected Communities has been embraced by more than 90 global greenfield and brownfield projects and includes the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor in India, where Cisco is developing the ICT master plan for four pilot cities in the US$90 billion flagship public sector infrastructure project.
Yet another announcement made by Cisco during the two-day event was the showcasing of its three products which have been conceptualised, architected and designed at its India engineering centre to enable the vision of a digitized nation and empower companies to be more innovative, agile and efficient. The three products - ASR 920-O, ISR 800M and MDS 9250i are the latest in a line of industry award-winning products and solutions from India. Innovation being a core part of the Cisco culture, $5.9 billion is invested in R&D worldwide. A total of 830 patents have been filed from India and 500 patents issued for innovations across all technologies.

Dinesh Malkani, President - Cisco India & SAARC
“Today, only 1 per cent of all the things that surround us are connected to the network. In India every day an average of 275,000 devices will be connected to the network. Our vision of the Internet of Everything is that we will live in a world where everything and every one can be connected to everything else. We have the opportunity to embrace the Internet of Everything and help enable a digital India. By enabling a digitized economy we hope to enable safer streets, smarter homes and healthier and better-educated citizens.”

Amit Phadnis, President, Engineering and India Site Leader - Cisco
“The world is changing at an unprecedented pace. More than ever before, the Internet of Everything can play an integral role in driving growth, innovation and productivity in industries such as healthcare, retail, ecommerce and education. Cisco’s belief is that the innovative application of technology can have a positive impact on India’s competitiveness, diversification of its industry base, its ability to create jobs and improve quality of life for its citizens.”

B Raghavendran, Director – Partner Organization, Cisco India
“We are working closely with our partners to harness the opportunity we are seeing in the market place in the area of Internet of Everything. We want to become more relevant from a business standpoint, drive the entire distribution network for coverage into tier 2 & 3 class cities and focus more on Sri Lanka and Bangladesh markets. We look at this focus from basically a technology standpoint. Our focus on advanced technology shows how much our partners are pouring out their hearts into technology architecture, be it collaboration or security or networking.”

V C Gopalratnam, President IT & CIO, APJ&C & Chief of Strategy, Planning & Operations, Cisco India
“IT is no longer in the expense column but is the real business and growth enabler. It requires fast innovation for quicker business outcome and results. IoT which is the new buzzword today is no longer Internet but an amalgamation of Intelligence, Information and Innovation. The top IT Trends for 2015 highlight how the industry is fast changing and major transitions are taking place in the market, technology and economic areas. Fog Computing, a concept which is defined as putting or pushing technology from datacenter out to the edge is going to be a big trend to look out for in 2015.”


samrita@varindia.com