In a marketplace where every company is striving to corner every inch of the market, developing innovative products is one of the best strategies to take on the competition. Helping companies gain this competitive edge is the US-headquartered PTC with its field-proven solutions that transform how companies create, operate, and service products.

The company, which revolutionised digital 3D design and Internet-based PLM (product lifecycle management), is now betting on Internet of Things (IoT) and augmented reality (AR) technologies to help customers bring new products faster to the market. Spreading the company’s business in the country is Kalyan Sridhar, Country Manager, PTC India. Sridhar, who has over 24 years of experience in the IT industry, oversees PTC overall business in India and is responsible for market strategy and growth of the business. In this interaction with IPF, he explains the importance of industrial IoT and AR for the manufacturing sector in India.

Kindly take us through the journey of PTC.

Founded in 1985, at PTC, we have been providing our customers solutions and services which revolutionised 3D design. Close to a decade later, PTC was the first organisation to market with Internet-based PLM.

Today, we are providing solutions and services which are enabling our customers to digitally transform themselves considering the fact that the redefined nature and pace of competition in the IoT (Internet of Things) era means that organisations must respond better and faster to customer feedback, while product cycles must be more frequent and driven by real-time insights.

Similarly, we are empowering our customers in the manufacturing sector by continuously improving their operational performance and provide flexibility through digital manufacturing, real-time intelligence, and predictive analytics. Furthermore, in the retail sector, we are enabling our customers to maximise their competitiveness and ability to quickly sense and respond to market trends and supply chain opportunities.

The lifespan of new products is becoming shorter & shorter with innovative technologies replacing existing one. Against this background, how can companies like PTC help product manufacturers compete in the marketplace?

If we look at the solution adoption cycle of our customer, more often than not, a customer replaces their existing technology with a new solution every three to five years. Multiple factors such as technology innovation, higher adoption of digital technologies, an increase in requirements of end customers are leading to the life cycle of the product becoming shorter with each passing day.

To address these challenges of our customers, we have introduced a Subscription model for our solution offerings. A customer can use our solution for a certain time period and pay for it on a subscription basis. This approach helps our customers to reduce their Capex (capital expenditure) significantly and also enables them to upgrade to latest technology solutions, which will further accelerate the growth of their business.

For PTC, which are key end-user industries that offer high growth potential in India?

We are witnessing tremendous growth in verticals such as manufacturing, automotive and retail sectors in India.

How are Industrial IoT (IIoT) and augmented reality (AR) changing the manufacturing landscape – globally & in India?

As per Make in India initiative, the Government of India and private players’ pursuit is to foster best-in-class manufacturing infrastructure in India. The initiative is spearheading the wider adoption of new technologies such as IIoT and AR. Driven by the power of big data, high computing capacity, artificial intelligence, and analytics, the new technologies are digitising the manufacturing sector completely. Digitisation of the sector will enable organisations to have better productivity and reduce the overall Opex (operational expenditure) of the organisation.

Are Indian manufacturers ready to adopt IIoT and AR? Are you seeing some sectors more open to adoption, while few others are not?

Government of India’s Make in India and Digital India initiatives has given the necessary boost to the adoption of new technologies such as IIoT and AR. The expansion of the initiatives has led to a higher adoption of new technologies in manufacturing, automobile and retail sector.

Recently, PTC tied with L&T Technology Services and Tech Mahindra. What is the rationale behind this move?

In July 2017, we announced partnerships with L&T Technology Services and Tech Mahindra to open Centre of Excellence in Bangalore, India. The CoE in partnership with L&T Technology Services is focused on IIoT innovation. The CoE with L&T Technology Services and Tech Mahindra will demonstrate the promise of digital transformations for companies across the globe and will showcase the technologies that make those transformations possible.

The L&T Technology Services CoE will be equipped with the entire PTC technology stack – from product design software through Industrial IoT functionality. The CoE will support L&T Technology Services’ capabilities in the IIoT space and will focus primarily on application lifecycle management (ALM), product lifecycle management (PLM), service lifecycle management (SLM), manufacturing operations management (MOM), and connected manufacturing. Customers visiting the space can experience new-age technology innovations to better inform decisions on initiating new IoT projects or further developing existing ones.

Similarly, Tech Mahindra and PTC jointly conceived and developed a CoE in Bangalore, India. Tech Mahindra chose to partner with PTC as the primary technology provider because of the breadth of the ThingWorx platform and the longstanding success of PTC solution offerings, including computer-aided design (CAD) and product lifecycle management (PLM). As the facility evolves, Tech Mahindra and PTC also plan to use ThingWorx to develop vertical-specific solutions to address mutual customers’ needs and challenges. As a system integrator partner with PTC, Tech Mahindra is trained to both develop solutions and implement solutions based on PTC technology. While located in India, the facility is expected to draw a global customer base.

Automotive industry has been at the forefront of IoT/IIoT. What is the reason for this?

The automotive industry has been at the forefront of the adoption of IIoT solutions as it enables automation of recurring tasks, thus reducing human intervention. By reduction of human intervention and automation of tasks, the organisation can save significantly from an opex perspective, which benefits the organisation in the long term.

Recently, it was reported in the news that Government will not allow the driverless car in India due to the fear of job loss to drivers. Is driverless car sector a possibility in India given the traffic conditions & general infrastructure in the country?

Development of driverless cars is still in the nascent stage not just in India but across the globe. Organisations such as Tesla, Google and Uber are still testing the technology and have not implemented it completely.

Specifically, in the Indian market, the adoption of driverless cars will take a long time, not just due to fear of job loss for drivers but also because we do not have the infrastructure to support such a technology and strong road traffic rules in the country. The traffic density in India is much higher than many other developing countries. The traffic sensibilities, on the other hand, is not matured yet.

We could possibly see a day when cars on Indian roads are driverless, but that is a distant reality.

Going forward what are your growth plans PTC in India?

As a customer centric organization, we will continue to invest in developing technologies that address customers’ demands of not just today but demands that will emerge in the near future. From a geographic reach perspective, we will continue to expand our reach across the country and enable easier access to customers in manufacturing, automotive and retail sector with our latest and greatest IIoT and AR solution offerings.