Consulting Solutions

Hitachi Consulting is committed to helping clients bring their business visions to life through industry- led solutions and services. This year, Hitachi Consulting has kicked off its Go-to-Market initiative in India with a special focus on cloud computing, big data, innovative analytics, management consulting and solutions around the social innovation business. Today, Hitachi Consulting in India employs around 1,700 people, with development centres at Hyderabad, Pune and Bangalore, supported by satellite locations at Gurgaon and Kolkata.

Hitachi Consulting has globally identified four pillars for driving growth: Digital Customer Experience, Digital Enterprise, Smart Infrastructure and Digital Operations. Hitachi seeks to deliver real business outcomes to customers by leveraging its consulting expertise with its innovation and intellectual property. With its foray into the Indian market, Hitachi Consulting is now focusing on helping Indian customers drive transformative solutions and build development capability that could also be taken across the world. Feroze Mohammed, Executive Vice-President of Hitachi Consulting India, throws more light on this and other subjects. Excerpts:

Clients require a holistic approach to problems. How are you addressing this need?

Our consulting solutions are grounded in a rich combination of domain, technology and behavioural aspects. We propel performance with measurable, sustainable and comprehensive solutions to uniquely address the nuances of a client’s business operations.

To ensure a holistic transformation led approach, we leverage our ‘5 box’ model that encompasses process, systems, people and skills in driving behaviour and sustainability. Our set of offerings include strategy advisory, solution design, implementation support and sustenance to ensure a 360-degree partnership with our clients for driving sustainable outcomes.

What benefits can be derived from your customer-centric solution, Ambient Customer Experience?

Ambient Customer Experience is a part of our portfolio of Digital Customer Experience Solutions. The solution is geared towards providing customers an impeccable experience in any ambient setting through enhanced personalisation while allowing organisations to effectively monetise that enriched experience.

How can Asset Monitoring & Maintenance Optimisation improve returns on assets?

In the manufacturing and other capital intensive industries, asset management is a key cost driver and accounts for an estimated 5-10 % of the bottom line. Our Asset Monitoring & Maintenance Optimisation suite helps achieve the right sweet spot by effectively managing & maintaining the assets in a most optimal manner leading to both enhanced productivity and reduced maintenance costs.

How is your business synergised with the overall management vision and Social Innovation?

Our consulting led approach provides us a rich comprehension of the challenges facing organisations and societies at large. We apply deep insight to leverage the Hitachi Group offerings and translate them into impactful solutions which address key societal challenges. Our solutions are focused on core infrastructural aspects including Energy, Transport, Water, Public Safety etc. that hold a transformative potential for making our society safer, smarter and sustainable. Our key solutions based on the underlying foundations of Security, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics spanning across the core themes of societal upliftment are a testimony of our keen focus on Social Innovation. Our Business at Hitachi Consulting envisions the creation of increased ownership, engagement and interest in Hitachi and its solutions for sustainable economic growth. These solutions are manifold in nature and can help make a profound difference to the society we live in. Collaborative Creation with customers to solve complex problems is at the heart of our strategy.

Can your business be aligned with other Hitachi verticals to offer solutions under “Collaborative Creation”?

Hitachi Consulting brings a rich ‘Market-in’ perspective based on our consulting led engagement with c lients. We f irmly believe that tapping into the respective strengths of the pertinent Hitachi Group companies definitely helps us offer differentiated solutions which drive business value. We have been collaborating with other Group entities e.g., Hitachi Data Systems and Hitachi India to deliver integrated business consulting solutions: with Hitachi Infrastructure to provide process and IoT solutions to clients seeking industrial equipment and systems; and with the Hitachi Insights group to provide functional expertise (operations technology) to existing IT and Big data skills.

All our IoT solutions are leveraging necessary skills from across Hitachi verticals to deliver a commercially viable and competitive offering to market globally. In this vein, we are aligned with other Hitachi verticals to offer solutions under “Collaborative Creation”.

A CASE IN POINT

Looking to solve the world’s problems related to energy, environment and urbanisation, projects are underway to develop smart cities that utilise advanced technology to optimise infrastructure and to make urban life safer and more secure. One case that has been gaining attention not only in Japan but also internationally is the Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City Project in Kashiwa City in the Chiba Prefecture. The project is a collaborative effort between governmental agencies, universities, other research institutions, Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd., Nikken Sekkei, Ltd. Hitachi, Ltd. and others. The project is working towards three goals to make the city an urban model for the world’s future: to create a city that co-exists with nature, to make a city that supports the health and longevity of its residents, and to develop a city that fosters the creation of new industry. Hitachi has participated in this project since the planning stage, communicating extensively with Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd. and Nikken Sekkei, Ltd. about how to create the area’s energy management system and how to work in close collaboration with the local community and facilities. Initial goals included the reduction of CO2 emissions and the utilisation of energy from renewable sources. After the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, emergency energy planning was added to the agenda. The result is Kashiwa-no-ha Area Energy Management System. The goal of this urban planning is to improve the quality of life in terms of safety, convenience and comfort in a way that is also in harmony with nature. The solutions being developed are in line with the goals of Hitachi’s Social Innovation Business.

IT Infrastructure Solutions

There are billions of people out there handling many terabytes of data, music, words and images. What is needed to handle this massive online movement of information is absolutely fantastic IT infrastructure, which includes hardware and software.

As leading technology players like Hitachi make great strides in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), they are simultaneously working towards a significantly higher level an IT infrastructural backbone.

Mr. Tarun Seth, Managing Director, Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic, believes the consumerisation of IT has forced infrastructure to be more robust, agile and innovative so that the user is empowered more and more. He also sees a growing need for better IT infrastructure. Excerpts from the interview:

In which sectors do you foresee a great need and scope for infrastructure enhancement?

The IT industry has led the economic transformation of the country and a ltered the perception of India in the global economy. Various sectors like Government, PSU, hospitality, healthcare, telecom, manufacturing, retail, BFSI and education have a huge requirement of IT infrastructure setup and upgrade.

Big data management poses many challenges, even as it throws up several opportunities. Can you dwell on some of them?

Big data management is maturing to a point where more organisations are prepared to pilot and adopt Big data as a core component of the information management and analytics infrastructure. One of the reasons Big data is so underutilised is because Big data technologies present many challenges, such as: installing and operating suitable infrastructure, access and connectivity for gathering data, identifying right data and its usage, and so on. Recent studies also showcase and agree that shortage of qualified resources is the biggest challenge while security is the least of the challenges, as Big data offers business benefits to all stakeholders.

There is a lot of interest in IoT and AI. How are these relevant to your segment?

IoT and AI are interdependent in business. IoT today is not only impacting business segments but also consumers. From our business perspective, these have huge applications in segments like retail, healthcare, manufacturing, public services and hospitality, where we have our core focus.

We are committed to creating advanced services that deliver measurable business outcomes. These outcomes provide an increasing role in differentiating businesses by enabling them to become 21st century enterprises.

How is your business synergised with the overall management vision and Social Innovation?

The growing digital era is accelerating Social Innovation, while opening up new market opportunities, as are we. With our advanced IT initiatives, we are trying to create the better tomorrow that will lead to a digital India.

Can your business be aligned with other Hitachi verticals to offer solutions under “Collaborative Creation”?

As you know that Hitachi is looking into lot of Smart Cities and Digital India initiatives, we at Hitachi Micro Clinic will be the SI for implementing all IT projects.

A CASE IN POINT

In this era of rapid online information exchange, IT infrastructure has emerged as a critical factor for business success. Transformation in all spheres, segments and functions of business is accelerating with the emergence of new technologies. And even the government sector isn’t lagging behind. The Government of Punjab has set up e-Sewa Kendra kiosks across the state to reach out to and communicate directly with the common man. Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic has played a vital role in setting up the IT infrastructure in these centres. The aim was to have the fully digitised Kendras provide citizen-centric services from various departments over the counter under one roof. This entailed the implementation of e-governance and the setting-up of e-Sewa Kendras, operating as front-end service delivery outlets, mainly in rural areas. The e-Sewa Kendras provide transparent, timebound and affordable “Government to Citizen” (G2C) services. Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic has worked on enabling and setting- up complete IT infrastructure at 2,147 e-Sewa Kendras across the state of Punjab, of which 1,758 e-Sewa Kendras are in villages. The total number of counters to be set up was 3,380. The project involved a need assessment of the conditions of the Kendras to start the work and the management of over 13 OEM vendors to ensure delivery.

Owing to the complexity and multi-dimensionality, the formulation and implementation of e-governance posed a wide variety of challenges and barriers. Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic was able to pave the way for translation of the broad vision into reality. The idea and the goals match Hitachi’s vision of social innovation. We, as a company, are happy to have helped people in villages realise the power of technology to reap the benefits of e-governance.

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