Telit Wireless Solutions is an enabler of the global machine-to-machine (M2M) movement. Its extensive portfolio of cellular, short-range, and positioning products are delivered in over 80 countries. Ashish Gulati, Country Head India at Telit Wireless Solutions discusses the company?s current scale of operations and its plans for India.

Excerpts…

Can you give us a brief background of Telit Wireless in India? How have the operations been in the past year for the company?

Based out of Italy and listed in the London Stock exchange, Telit Wireless has operations across the globe. The company started its operations in India in 2011. The Indian office mainly looks after sales and marketing and works through its distribution partners. Telit has three different companies as its partners in India. These companies are Telit?s distribution arms when it comes to technical support and taking care of the logistics.

Telit works directly with the top tier customers and supports them in their technical and commercial requirements. The company?s key verticals in India are Telematics, handheld terminal markets and energy.

Telit?s product portfolio covers the entire frequency spectrum of wireless, right from the long haul, cellular technology which includes 2G, 3G LTE, CDMA, to short range technologies. The company also has GNSS products including GPS and GLONASS modules.

What is the current level of M2M adoption in India? How is it different from other geographies across the world?

Globally, a lot of deployments on the smart metering side has taken place across the US and UK, as many utilities have already adopted smart metering. In India, smart metering is limited to the upgradation of the old infrastructure and Telit is mainly involved in the retrofit upgradation.

Overall on the telematics side so far the market has been limited to the aftermarket services. But now a lot of traction can be seen in the automotive industry. The automotive majors are calling for telematics solutions to be deployed on some of their high end vehicles. With this, one can see that M2M is picking up in the country. Along with this, even internet of things (IoT) is gaining traction with the increase in the number of applications available.

How ready is the Indian market for the Internet of Things (IoT)?

As far as IoT is concerned, it would include M2M which is restricted to the devices communicating over certain network or protocol. In terms of services, there will be a software platform provided to manage the devices. Apart from this, services in terms of SIM management will be provided. So IoT will be a complete ecosystem comprising of the devices, platform and services. This ecosystem will be interconnected and interoperable.

What are the company?s plans for the Indian market in the next 2-3 years?

For the next 2-3 years, Telit?s focus will mainly be on the automotive telematics and variable devices industry. In terms of investments, Telit along with its partners are looking to invest in the Indian market. On design side, Telit?s design partner in Bangalore is working as well as investing into multiple variable device applications, which will offer an open platform for multiple usages.

What is the typical challenge strategy followed by Telit Wireless in the Indian market?

After having gained an understanding of the Indian market, Telit follows the strategy of having different business models catering to different levels of the company?s customers.

For instance, the first model is for the top tier customers in India. These companies have their own design centres, in house design teams and they only work on product level. So for these customers, Telit directly works with their R&D team and integrates their design in its own modules. For BTSs in India, this model is used, and the company supports the customers directly and takes care of the designs.

The other model caters to tier 3 or tier 4 customers. For these companies, Telit comes up with its own solutions offering the scope of customising it or references solutions that are near completion.  For catering to these companies, Telit works with its design partners.

Then the third business model is of white labeling catering to the set of clients who are strong in marketing. These companies have their very own brands but they don?t do designs or manufacturing. To cater to such clients, Telit works with its design partners to design and produce a complete product. Thus, the company has adopted different business models to fit in its business environment in India.

What are Telit?s prospects in remote monitoring?

The major issue faced by tower management companies is that all the telecom shelters falling in remote areas are unmanned. The shelters comprise of all equipments and there are cases of theft and mishandling. So, all tower management companies struggle to manage those unmanned telecom shelters at the remote locations. Thus the requirement of remote terminal units have come up and Telit?s devices can help them to monitor these shelters. The tower companies have also installed cameras there so that they can have real time video streaming.

What are your plans, going forward?

We have plans to increase the team size during next year.  We are also waiting for the new government to take the right shape and position, as our business is largely dependent on the government policy. And with the market opening up, Telit is looking to tap the emerging opportunities.  Apart from this, the government is planning on implementing smart cities in the country, with the pilots having been conducted in Gujarat and Pondicherry. So after these pilots, there will be deployment, where Telit is looking to play an important role.