Sushil K. Baranwal (Sushil), Founder and CEO of Morphedo, in an exclusive conversation with Tanya Aneja from ProfitFromIoT.com (Tanya-PIT or PIT) shed light on the advancement of the Internet of Things (IoT) in India. Sushil is of the view that India needs a lot of execution to compete on the global IoT level.
“Currently, China is leading the IoT market globally with almost 46 per cent market share. Lack of manufacturing infrastructure, as well as dependency on China for electronics procurement, is blocking the fast growth of the IoT market in India,” explained Sushil.
Founded in the year 2015 by two friends Manya Jha and Sushil Kumar Baranwal, Morphedo caters to research, design and manufacturing requirements of businesses. The Indian Government has recognised Morphedo as an innovative startup under its flagship Startup India plan. It facilitates the design and fabrication of customised electronics and IoT plastic enclosures.
Here are some more excerpts from this interaction around IoT:
PIT – Many opine that IoT is just a buzzword that industry Gurus have coined to create hype? Do you agree with that line of thought? Or do you feel that IoT is opening an entirely new market?
Sushil – IoT is not a buzzword. Considering India as well as the global market, right now a lot of innovation is happening in this industry. IoT is at the forefront of driving Industry 4.0 to bring automation and real-time tracking of information in every industry.
It’s one of the most important technologies of the 21st century and is currently a market of USD 212 billion. Forecasts suggest that this figure will grow to around USD 1.6 trillion by 2025. From healthcare to smart homes to connected automobiles to smart factories IoT is opening new opportunities in every field.
PIT – In your opinion, is the Government of India (GoI) playing any significant role in expanding the IoT market right now? If yes, how?
Sushil – Yes, the Government of India (GoI) is playing a significant role in the development of IoT in-line with the Digital India mission. GoI has allocated a budget of INR 7000 crore to develop 100 smart cities, conserve water and power, and improve healthcare, transportation, and security. It is also actively participating in promoting technology and creating awareness around it.
PIT – What are your expectations from the GoI in terms of the initiatives they should take to make India an IoT-super power?
Sushil – The GoI should come up with favorable policies around data security and schemes for promoting and funding startups or MSMEs who are working on IoT products. A lot of data is generated and processed in the implementation of IoT projects and there are potential risks to data privacy.
GoI should address this at the earliest otherwise the technology will become vulnerable. A conducive environment and financial support to startups and MSMEs from GoI will help boost the creation and adoption of IoT in India and the global market.
PIT – Are you satisfied with the rate of deployment of IoT solutions in India?
Sushil – No, a lot needs to be done in India to compete in the global market. Currently, China is leading the IoT market globally with almost 46 per cent market share. Lack of manufacturing infrastructure, as well as dependency on China for electronics procurement, is blocking the fast growth of the IoT market in India.
PIT – How do you see the IoT market evolving in the next 2-3 years?
Sushil – In the next 2-3 years, utilities (smart homes), automotive, healthcare and transportation (fleet management) will see the maximum growth.
PIT – Which industry segments do you believe will be driving a larger chunk of demand? Why?
Sushil – Utilities (smart homes) will see the maximum growth followed by automotive, healthcare and transportation. Security and electricity smart metering for residential and commercial buildings will boost the adoption of IoT among utilities.
PIT – What’s a bigger challenge for you – acquiring customers or acquiring talent? What’s your strategy in resolving the same?
Sushil – It’s difficult to answer as both pose equal challenges. However, I would still say acquiring talent is a bigger challenge for us because finding the best fit for the role and for the company is quite difficult to find.
We look for the best fit rather than great talent in a candidate we hire for any position. For a bootstrapped startup like us finding the right candidate at a certain budget is challenging.
PIT – What is the estimated revenue of your biz that you’d attribute to IoT-related business? What fraction of your overall business is the IoT-related business?
Sushil – Our 70 per cent of the overall business is related to IoT industry. Similarly, around 70 per cent of the revenue we generate is from IoT related projects we do.
PIT – How do you see your IoT-related business growing in the next two to three years both in terms of revenue and as a fraction of your overall revenues?
Sushil – We have a growth rate of 256 percent on a (Year on Year) YoY basis and we see this growing even at a larger rate in the coming years. We are confident about it because now we do research, design, prototype and mass production for IoT related electronics as well.
PIT – What’s your strategy to create a differentiation for your solutions vis-a-vis your competitors?
Sushil – We thrive on delivering value to our customers in providing complete IoT solutions at one place. Best customer experience, quality products, quick turnaround time are our prime focus to create differentiation for our offerings.
PIT – Who is the key decision-maker for you–the technology decision-maker or the business decision-maker? With whom do you start the conversation–and how do you balance the interests of both types of decision-makers?
Sushil – The business decision-maker is always a key decision-maker for us because even if we create a great and technologically advanced product and if there isn’t a market for that, it is of no use and it loses worth. However, this doesn’t mean that technology decision-makers are not important. It is situational, technology decision-maker helps build a great product and business decision-maker helps an organization in commercializing the product.
PIT – Have you come across any successful deployment of IoT in India that’s worthy of being noticed by other decision-makers? If yes, can you share details of the same?
Sushil –Some popular industrial IoT use cases:
1. Application of RFID tags for tracking real time productivity.
2. Predictive maintenance of engines through IoT
3. Realtime tracking of fleet
PIT – How would you describe your solutions to a non-technical decision-maker at the clients’ end?
Sushil – I would describe Morphedo as a product innovation company. We cater to research, design and manufacturing requirements of businesses to engineer technology-based products. We closely work with R&D and new product development teams of firms ranging from Startups, Govt. to big companies helping them reduce their product development cycle and go-to-market time.
PIT – What’s unique about your solution or your firm for them to opt for it–vis-a-vis competitors?
Sushil – We help customers in go-to-market with their product faster and thereby reduce their product development cycle time. We believe that technology readiness is very important for the fast deployment of IoT solutions. With our ideation-to-scale offerings of research, design, prototype, batch production and mass production of electronics hardware and IoT enclosures, we support our customers in quickly making their products market-ready.
