Telecom Lead India: SAP has outlined its machine-to-machine (M2M) strategies for Indian telecom market.
The company is currently working with a couple of telecom operators in India and several others in the Asia Pacific region.
SAP’s M2M activities are aimed at assisting telecom operators who work with enterprises in verticals such as automobile, retail, energy, healthcare and manufacturing.
According to a research note published in MarketsandMarkets, the total M2M market is expected to reach $85.96 billion by 2017 at a CAGR of 26.1 percent from 2012 to 2017.
Speaking with TelecomLead.com, Adaire Fox, senior vice president Industry Business Solutions Asia Pacific Japan, SAP, said: “We consider Asia as the rapidly growing markets for M2M deployments. The growth will be faster here thanks to the fact that the telecom players in Asia do not have too much legacy infrastructure.”
The M2M growth in Asia-Pacific is mainly attributed to the growing technology awareness and rapid fall in availability of human labor for execution of critical tasks, according to a report in MarketsandMarkets.
As per a study on behalf of SAP AG, 30 percent of IT decision makers say thatsmart cities would be the most beneficial outcome of deployment of M2M technologies.
This would include intelligent cities capable of collecting and analyzing large amounts of data from smart, connected devices and citizens’ social media activity in real time to vastly improve urban life.
56 percent of IT decision makers in China says their company uses BYOD and provides productivity apps for one or more mobile platforms.
The survey says that most IT decision makers in all six countries view M2M as the natural evolution of the “consumerization of IT,” with India and China at 92 percent and 90 percent respectively.
SAP’s Adaire Fox says the rise of cloud computing and smartphones market is fuelling the potential of M2M in Asia.
In addition, there have been growing numbers of regulatory mandates in favor of M2M technology, which have been driving M2M-based innovations for use across different applications.
Telecom industry analysts are cagey about the growth in the short term. They say lack of technology awareness and the initial high cost associated with the development and deployment of the M2M solutions are hindering the market growth.
SAP does not want to disclose the name of Indian mobile operators who are working with the company for M2M implementation.
SAP’s key suggestions to Indian telecom operators, who are keen to deploy M2M solutions, are aimed at offering excellent services. First, telecom players should focus on high quality M2M deals. Second, they need to excel in their execution strategies.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
