Q. What is the scenario of the energy industry in India?
A. Energy industry in India needs to go smart, because the losses here are mainly non-technical loses that costs significantly to the large power companies. So, the smart meters or smart energies in general is a big opportunity in India. This development is a little behind when you compare to the US or China, but it is expected to change in the next two years.
Q. How do you adapt to any modern technologies at Honeywell?
A. First, we understand the technology properly and then figure out what can we do to improve it with the expertise we have at Honeywell. Then, we put them together and figure out how this tech is going to enable us to solve a customer problem. Until we can link them to a real customer problem, we monitor it and think about it, but do not hype it. We are a very focused company and we focus on how a technology can enable growth and ultimately revenue. For an engineering organisation, the major metric is organic growth and revenue, so eventually it must be that. Just because there is a cool technology that people are talking about, we are not going to hype about it until we are able to articulate that connection between real-world problems and create value for the customers and us.
Q. What is the future roadmap for your business unit at Honeywell?
A. We want to be the innovation engine of the company. After spending years in the US and then coming here, what I have realised is we have domain expertise and incredible software developers. With this combination of the software expertise, domain expertise and the technology, we have a unique position to be in the forefront of any modern technology. I see us being that organisation within the company that is developing IoT solutions and being a leader in the industry.
Q. What would be your advice to the engineers and developers working towards cutting-edge technologies?
A. Always understand the problem that you are solving. One of the things that I have observed is sometimes we get so enamelled by the technology that we lose sight of the customer problem that we are solving. When people come to me with cool apps or gadgets that they have built, the first question that I ask them is what customer problem they intend to solve. So first talk to customers, understand the problem and process customer problem they intend to solve. So first talk to customers, understand the problem and process and use technology to as an enabler to solve that problem.
