Hitachi Vantara to take the IT industry by storm

Hitachi has launched Hitachi Vantara, a new business entity to leverage the broad portfolio of innovation, development and experience from across Hitachi Group companies to deliver data-driven solutions for commercial and industrial enterprises. This new company will unify the operations of Hitachi Data Systems, Hitachi Insight Group, and Pentaho into a single integrated business as Hitachi Vantara to capitalize on Hitachi’s social innovation capability in both operational technologies (OT) and information technologies (IT). 

Throwing more light on this, Vivekanand Venugopal, Vice President and General Manager, Hitachi Vantara India tells VARINDIA of how the new entity would address some of the latest technologies like Edge Analytics and Fog Computing and how is it driving its channel along with to address major transformational concerns in the industry -    

With new technologies like IoT, Analysis of Things (AoT), AI, Cloud, Big data and predictive analytics, many organizations are rethinking their strategies. As organizations digitize their businesses, the demand for immediate access to information has soared, thus forcing IT departments to focus on modernizing their core IT infrastructures. With the rising adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) and digital business transformation, new doors of opportunities have emerged that calls for associated risks to be mitigated. Gartner sees IT as the lead when it comes to management of governance in a future harmonized IT/OT environment.
The integration of IT and OT will see a major trend in the coming years, especially in the field of data analytics. Most of the analytics that is done in batch mode and vertical integration of industry silos require rich metadata that can be mined and have applications brought to the data rather than moving it to the applications. The efficiency lies in the amalgamation of IT, OT and the data mining process which Hitachi Vantara lays its expertise on.

Birth of Hitachi Vantara
The journey for Hitachi has been widely exciting. Hitachi is number one worldwide for patent applications in foundational technologies for Big Data analysis. These patents are in key Big Data technology categories (e.g. distributed file system/DB, parallel distributed systems, and data falsification protection). 

“If you look at our financial reports, our Lumada business which is essentially the IoT business was about 900 billion Yen which translates to about 8.3 billion US dollars. With the recent launch of our new business entity, Hitachi Vantara, we aim to leverage the broad portfolio of innovation, development and experience across Hitachi Group companies to deliver data-driven solutions for commercial and industrial enterprises for their Digital Transformations.This new company unifies the operations of Hitachi Data Systems, Hitachi Insight Group, and Pentaho into a single integrated business as ‘Hitachi Vantara’ to capitalize on Hitachi’s social innovation capability in both operational technologies (OT) and information technologies (IT),” says Vivekanand Venugopal, Vice President and General Manager, Hitachi Vantara India.

In the coming months, Hitachi Vantara will continue to provide superior infrastructure and analytics technologies that enterprises rely on for their mission-critical data in their data centers, cloud and at the edge of new innovations. With no clear winner in the emerging IoT market, Hitachi Vantara aims to fill this market gap and create an opportunity that will harness businesses and machine data across OT and IT environments to build comprehensive, data-driven solutions. In addition, it will also be driving the development of strategic software and services solutions, including Hitachi Smart Data Center software and services, Lumada and Hitachi co-creation services. 

“Our mission is to help businesses transform into an agile information center with low-risk, rapid, non-disruptive and accurate deployments of our robust infrastructure,” says Venugopal. “With the help of emerging technologies like big data and Internet of Things (IoT), we enable enterprises to find new revenue streams, operate more efficiently, deliver outstanding service and minimize risk.”

Hitachi Vantara - a new entity...
The world’s leading enterprises trust Hitachi Vantara’s products, services, and solutions. This includes more than 70% of the Fortune 100 and more than 80% of the Fortune Global 100. The company’s success is fuelled by its innovation engine. “Our combination of experience and expertise qualify us to help customers truly realize Digital Transformation, bringing it together in a single data management strategy – managing, governing, mobilizing and analysing data to create powerful insights and outcomes,” Venugopal states.

Hitachi Vantara has been launched with the intention of growing, evolving, and further expanding the company’s expertise on Digital Transformation to its customers and partners. It has unified three Hitachi companies that were working on similar tracks but are now working together to bring forth the ‘power of One Hitachi’ through HDS’s data center infrastructure, Insight’s big data software, and Pentaho analytics. Hitachi Vantara has an edge over the competition, given its depth of understanding about the operational needs of various vertical markets as it brings with it a combined expertise of 150+ years in OT & IT. Its next-generation Lumada IoT platform demonstrates Hitachi Vantara’s unparalleled expertise in both OT and IT, and reinforces Hitachi’s commitment to being an innovation partner for our customers in the IoT era.

Hitachi Vantara will continue to provide superior infrastructure and analytics technologies that enterprises rely on for their mission-critical data in their data centers, cloud and at the edge of new innovations. “In addition, we will also be driving the development of strategic software and services solutions, including Hitachi Smart Data Center software and services, Lumada and Hitachi co-creation services. The company will focus on serving global Fortune 1000 companies with best-in-class data management, infrastructure, content, and analytics products and industrial IoT solutions for several industries including financial services and insurance, government, industrials/manufacturing, telecom, and transportation,” explains Venugopal.

India market and Hitachi Vantara...
The Indian market has seen significant success and acceptance as Hitachi Vantara continues to combine technology and expertise to deliver data-driven solutions that enable better customer experience, create new revenue streams and drive down business costs. 

“Our revenue portfolio has changed with a greater focus on software that enables customers to achieve business outcomes. We have solutions designed to handle the entire Digital Transformation journey. Our infrastructure liberates data from underlying systems and makes it easy to add new capabilities. Our data protection solutions help to govern and secure it. Our mobility solutions make it available anywhere, anytime. And our analytics solutions provide real-time analysis, so businesses can instantly adapt,” says Venugopal.

He further added, “Customers and partners who have invested in our trusted, proven experience in data management are expanding their business partnership to include Infrastructure Modernization, build the digital workplace and drive business analytics. Our customers and partners work with us as Hitachi Vantara is the bridge between legacy and digital.  We bring greater relevance in today’s market by bringing stability with a combined 150+ years of expertise in IT & OT and disruptive innovation.”  

Summarizing, Hitachi Vantara elevates innovation advantage by merging operational and informational experience with leading IoT expertise to offer businesses a data partner with unprecedented range and depth. We are data management, analytics, industrial expertise, technology and outcomes rolled into one great solution provider.

Targeting the Indian channel business...
Hitachi Vantara has transformed and moved beyond being just a storage company by diversifying its product and solutions portfolio. Today, it offers end-to-end digital transformation solutions to its partners to help them have a strong presence across markets to remain cost-effective.  Hitachi Vantara’s vision is to create a self-sustaining, value selling and profitable ecosystem of partners which forms the crux of its new and enhanced channel strategy in India. 

“We strongly believe that market transitions and opportunities can be delivered by expanding channels to reach customers,” says Venugopal. “We have brought about significant changes in our channel play and go-to-market strategy with our partners in India. We have segmented our partners into 3 pillars namely - transformational, strategic and growth partners. We are focusing on further enhancing our backend operations and building our systems to support the effort of our partners. Our vision is to create a self-sustaining, value selling and profitable ecosystem of partners which forms the crux of our channel strategy in India. One of our key objectives is to bring about more clarity on partner roles by outlining clear expectations.” 

Hitachi Vantara has leveraged a collaborative channel program with a select few VAR’s called – HEAT partners. They are managed directly by Hitachi Vantara giving them access and benefits, comparable and in most cases better than industry standards. The company has been working on a reverse engineering model where it is exploring to do more with less, thereby giving enough market opportunities to its partners to address and grow their business.  

“The key differentiator here is Hitachi Vantara’s innovative models of selling to customers via these focussed partners. This has been extremely disruptive and we are confident this will continue to transform the way customers buy from our partners. We are actively investing in building a capacity and capability matrix which will help us in achieving our vision of a self-reliant, value selling profitable ecosystem of partners capable of addressing the requirements of every segment of the market. Our enhanced channel framework aims to help partners collaborate and help create more value for their customers,” asserts Venugopal. 

By 2020, an estimated 50 billion physical objects will be consuming, generating and communicating data; thus turning the world into a giant Datacenter. Hitachi Vantara combines technology, intellectual property and industry knowledge to deliver data-managing solutions that help enterprises improve customers' experiences, develop new revenue streams and lower the costs of business. It elevates the innovation advantage by combining deep information technology (IT), operational technology (OT) and domain expertise.

“We believe in bringing value to our customers through our partner network and understand that a full Digital Transformation is not possible without a strong partner ecosystem. We have transformed our partner landscape to meet the demands for diversified solutions from our customers. Our strategy encompasses all channel facets where we have devised programs and policies for Cloud Service Providers (CSP’s), Master System Integrators, Large System Integrators, Value Added Resellers and Distributors. This has also enabled us to bring about more clarity on mapping the right solution, catering to the right segment via the right channel. 

The Hitachi Vantara Services program focuses on building capacity and capability of partners across our offerings, helping them increase relevance to their customers thereby becoming more profitable,” says Venugopal. 

Edge Analytics & Fog Computing 
Edge Analytics and fog computing are important technologies that are being leveraged to deliver solutions from the edge to outcomes for its customers. When data analysis is done at the edge of a network, that’s known as Edge Analytics - a way to optimize cloud computing systems by processing data near the source of the data i.e. at the edge of the network. Edge computing gives IoT a competitive edge. For example, in smart lighting in smart cities or smart factories in manufacturing, the edge devices capture streaming data that can be used to prevent failures, optimize production, and prevent operational defects.

With its many applications in self-driven cars, remote monitoring in manufacturing hubs & factories, consumer behaviour analysis in retail IoT will drive compute to the edge. Hitachi has been pivotal in addressing this with the formation of a new company - Hitachi Vantara, which integrates Hitachi Data Systems Infrastructure and cloud, Hitachi Insight Lumada IoT platform, and Pentaho analytics. Hitachi Vantara is a new company, purpose built, to address the IoT market and all points in between. 

Hitachi – leading the ‘disruptive' transformation
 

Being described as the era of ‘disrupt to survive’ the IT market is changing faster than ever before.  IT organizations face a choice: Lead transformation or become irrelevant. Businesses today are fast at embracing Digital Transformation to achieve cost efficiency and accelerate time to market. Across all industries, digital disruptors are using analytics, mobility, social and smart, connected devices to transform operations, customer experience, and business models. Like any major business initiative, digital transformation requires changes in process, people, skills, and technology. To succeed, business and technology leaders should completely re-think traditional approaches.

The Intercity Train project in the UK is a fine example that demonstrates the “Power of One Hitachi”. The UK Intercity train systems are an over 40-year-old diesel system. They needed to refresh the trains or convert them to electric. As in IT, technology transformations require virtualization. Hitachi created a “virtual Train” which is a modern electric train with a diesel engine built in the undercarriage so the train can run on existing tracks or electric tracks until they are all converted to electric. Once they are converted the diesel engines are removed so the lighter electric trains will have less wear on the tracks. This train is provided as “Trains as a service”. 

The UK Network Train system only pays Hitachi for on-time service. Hitachi takes on all the capital risk of the rolling stock and maintenance. This is a 27-year project worth $20B. This was managed by Hitachi Consulting, Hitachi Rail built the Trains, Hitachi control systems for the ETC, Hitachi Smart Systems for sensors and analytics, and Hitachi Vantara for the information infrastructure, which was based on the UCP for fast application test and deployment.Big Data projects of this size utilize the “Internet of Things” and require deep expertise and experience in many vertical disciplines. Very few companies will have the scope and scale to deliver these types of Big Data Projects. Fortunately, Hitachi is one of the few companies that can.