“Our solution in the e-scooter boasts a host of smart features on its telematics platform” – By, Mr Sameer Mahapatra, Vice President and Country Sales Head-India & SAARC, Aeris Communications
What are the key responsibilities of Aeris India and how are those aligned in supporting the global operations?
Aeris India was established in 2016 and since then we have been working very closely with telecom operators and enterprises helping them use IoT to increase revenue, bring operational efficiency and delighted customer. We are an integrated IoT player with a diverse portfolio working across sectors. IoT is a revolution impacting all industries across globe and in India too. Aeris specializes in Telecom, Utilities, Manufacturing, Automotive, Insurance and Finance, Agriculture, Fleets with specific IoT solutions and services. Aeris India operations has the scope of managing the business across India, SAARC, SEA and Africa geographies. Team here is responsible for acquiring and building business across Automotive, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Agriculture etc. with various IoT solutions. A large engineering and GSOC team responsible for global operations and support is also based in India providing 24/7 development and maintenance support to India and global customers.
- With the recent partnership between Aeris and E-blu, what changes can be witnessed in society at large?
The biggest achievement out of this partnership has been the vast employment opportunities that has been provided to people in rural and sub-urban areas. We have been able to successfully deliver 450 vehicles to 28 dealers in 28 cities and 06 states in India. Besides providing employment opportunities, this partnership lays emphasis on driving society towards cleaner surroundings. Many social groups and activists have turned the attention towards vehicles that vehemently pollute the environment. Unlike many of those vehicles, these e-rickshaws run on lithium-ion batteries, which are non-polluting and a great alternative as a clean way to commute. This partnership is expected to see expansion in more states in the coming time.
- Does your solution portfolio have anything about vehicle tracking? If yes, then can you elaborate on the uses of the same in Covid-19
Vehicle tracking by Aeris has entered a high degree of sophistication with our platform creating data sets much beyond the vanilla track and trace. Customers are able to draw deeper analytics like predictive maintenance, driving behaviour, fault prediction, immobilisation, theft reduction, geo fencing and much more. People tracking using devices has picked up and sales teams, health practices, kid monitoring, employee safety are all driving growth in this space and Aeris solution helps provide accurate location and movement analysis on this. With the recent launch of Aeris Mobility Platform, we are now providing round the clock support to authorities in tracking vehicles. Tracking has become extremely efficient as all the updates are provided in a single dashboard and the emergency response time for the authorities has reduced from 15-20 minutes to 5 minutes.
- What are the benefits you encountered post the deployment of your solution in the e-scooter by BattRE? What are the plans with your customer?
Our solution in the e-scooter boasts a host of smart features on its telematics platform. The riders and owners get the live location of the vehicle through GPS as well as driving behaviour and trip reports. The GPS also has features like remote immobilization, geofencing, secure parking, etc. Owners can set a speed lock that sends an alert to the connected smartphone whenever the prescribed speed limit is crossed. The customers can get live updates of their scooter and gives them a complete e-mobility experience.
- Where do you see the automotive industry in the next ten years? Do you think this pandemic has affected the growth of the auto sector in anyway?
Many auto manufacturers are currently affected by production, shipping, and distribution delays as well as demand variability due to Covid-19. As supply chains get disrupted and demand patterns change, real-time supply chain visibility is proving to be extremely important. Thus, technologies enabling remote asset access, digital twins, live tracking & tracing tools, workforce collaboration platforms and smart cities data platforms are now mission critical. These technologies enable workforce to remotely communicate with machines and perform virtual inspections, remote diagnostics, remote support and have better visibility on productivity and delivery schedules; while the governments can utilize data coming from the smart cities platforms to better plan, execute, assess risks and evaluate trade-offs to speed or automate decisions. During Covid-19 itself, we saw a surge in the investments in digital technologies by the auto manufacturers and post Covid-19, they will be forced to invest in complete automation leading to rapid rise of smart factories, smart fleets and smart assets and connected workforce. By 2030, electrification could lead to electric vehicles (EVs including battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and hybrid electric vehicles) holding a substantial share (up to 50 percent of new vehicle sales in a breakthrough scenario) of the global automobile sector.
