Hive Technology, Leo Technosoft to empower IoT channels in India

Hive Technology has aggressive plans to dominate Indian market with its value proposition around IoT and other newer technologies. With this aim, it has appointed Leo Technosoft, Pune as the technology distribution strategists for Hive One ID in India.

Hive One ID provides a totally secure wireless single identification and sensing technology that enables optimal horizontal integration across multiple applications.

Hive Technology’s partnership with Leo Technosoft will create an offering targeted at the Indian smart townships and smart cities and specific industries such as healthcare, retail and infrastructure in the first phase of its local implementation.

Hive Technology will be leading a completely channel driven GTM. “India is a huge market and is very difficult to penetrate directly. Since we provide technology as the layer, the best suitable route is indirect, comprising of channel partners, OEM partners, consulting partners, SIs and solution providers,” says Mohideen Shaikh, director – strategic business, Hive Technology.

Talking on the alliance of Leo Technosoft with Hive Technology, Satyen Jain, managing director (operations and technical), Leo Technosoft, India says, “We bring new technology and convert that technology in a big way. India as a country is getting more mature. We decided to introduction this technology in India because the ecosystem is there.”

“India has infra (IoT), software (solutions) and SIs who can provide the right mix of solutions and services. The goal is to strategize this technology and find the right partners to help the customers consume the solutiions built in the right manner,” says Jain.

Hive Technology will adopt the vertical-first route to market. “We will be identifying two to three verticals initially. We will solve the pain points so that we can start replicating similar solutions for other verticals. We are seriously targeting the healthcare and pharma as key verticals. In the private sector, we will look at large constructions, smart communities and smart townships,” says Shaikh.

After verticals, they plan to go horizontal. “We first have to do education so that the end user can understand how it can be more efficient, secure and productive,” says Jain.

The strength of Hive Technology is that it can plugged into any application. “Dubai is at the cusp of becoming a smart city with road transportation, energy and govt services getting plugged together. We are taking a top-down approach to start identifying and evaluating this technology across different government organizations to provide a single identification layer,” says Shaikh.

The channel play

Hive Technology will try to forge the alliances with big SIs like TCS and Wipro as they do integration and implementation of IT. “But the first focus is on people developing solution. Once we have alliances and integration of our tech with their devices or solutions, it is easier to move to big SIs and take the solution to the industry,“ says Jain.

We are mainly looking at solutions-led channels, says Shaikh. “Most large tier 1 SIs have their own IoT practice, but they don’t necessarily develop all the products. They engage in tenders and RFPs and then they look for people or companies developing those solutions. It makes logical sense for us to engage with tier 2 channels, help them build solutions and then enable them to directly plug into larger SIs,” says Shaikh.

What are the credentials of Hive Technology’s prospective channel partners? “They should have good knowledge and technical competency to build solutions in the IoT space. We want people who are engaged in developing smart solution,” says Shaikh.

“We are looking at channels with strong commitment towards this business as we don’t want to be part of too many things,” says Shaikh. He says that, Hive One ID being a niche product, needs quality partners and it is not a quantity game. “We are equipped to have quality partners with right competency, right commitment, good financially background and the reach into this industry,” he adds.

India has infra (IoT), software (solutions) and SIs who can provide the right mix of solutions and services .The goal is to strategize this technology and find right partners to help the customers consume the solutiions built in the right manner. –Satyen Jain, managing director (operations and technical), Leo Technosoft, India.

“People want context-based technology for IP and data. Channels understanding IoT and data are ideal partners for Hive Technology,” says Jain.

Everybody is on the IoT bandwagon, says Shaikh, but he believes that organizations with clear-cut value addition and technology differentiation for both private and public segments will be beneficial for channels and their customers. “IoT is here to stay. Once technology companies build IoT-savvy solutions in India, we are opening doors for them globally,” says Shaikh. “In the future, we will build Hive marketplace to promote our partners’ solutions across different verticals to motivate them to have a bigger global exposure,” he says.