Honeywell strives to address customers’ toughest challenges through innovation

Honeywell in India has been developing transformative technologies to serve its local and global customers alike across sectors, including aviation, oil & gas, industrial workers, supply chain, and more and has taken active participation in initiatives like 100 Smart Cities, Digital India, and Make in India initiatives. Akshay Bellare, Vice President and GM, Honeywell Technology Solutions, India tells VARINDIA of the opportunities it sees in the country and the digital transformation projects it has undertaken -  

What potential does India market show in terms of digital transformation and other such initiatives? 

India is on the cusp of two major revolutions – first, its transformation into a manufacturing hub and second, the digital transformation of the economy, which is effectively changing the way enterprises operate and function today. With the manufacturing sector attracting investments, we have customers who are coming and talking to us about the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). 

While most of our peers are on the “Internet” side of IIoT, Honeywell has the unique advantage of being on the “things” side. Thousands of our products are inside, buildings, refineries, aircrafts, factories, and warehouses are listening, watching, measuring, and monitoring processes, and how the industrial side of Internet of Things (IoT) functions. Given this unique position, we have access to a lot of Big Data. 

We are engaging with several manufacturing companies to go out there and do cyber security projects, IIoT projects, data analytics projects, etc. with them. A lot of our industrial businesses are working on that in the manufacturing sector. 

Software is a big component of Honeywell’s growth plans over the next few years. To help drive the people, processes, and culture, we are executing our software strategy with a strengthened and centralized organization called Honeywell Connected Enterprise (HCE) that is serving as the software innovation engine for all of Honeywell.

Why is India an important market for you? What business advantages are you able to drive?  

For Honeywell, India is a very important geography and there are a few reasons -
•    First, India being the 6th largest economy in the world presents a growth opportunity for Honeywell’s businesses. India is a High Growth Region (HGR) for Honeywell. Organic growth is one of our core performance criteria and is a key priority for our business here, and India is a big contributor to that. In the past few years, because of the decisions we have been making, we have been growing more than 2X the GDP, which is high and contributes in a big way to the overall growth environment.   
•    Secondly, we are developing software technologies and driving cutting-edge work from our global engineering centers set up in India. We contribute a lot to the world from here. Our 5,500-engineering workforce is creating technologies that not only tackle toughest challenges in energy efficiency, safety, security, and productivity in India, but for the world. 
•    Thirdly, all our businesses are well-aligned to the country’s mega trends, which we are watching very closely and are investing -
    .    BS IV to BS VI emission targets is one – we are creating local solutions that are required for refiners and automakers to meet these emission standards by 2020. 
   .    Similarly, with rapid urbanization spurred by the emerging middle class, the opportunity for offering mass-mid products are huge. 

How is the mass-mid segment evolving and what are Honeywell’s contribution in this space? 
Today, India is one of the largest economies with a steady increase in purchasing power parity, which is expected to be ~$19T by 2025. Therefore, the consumption pattern may change dramatically over the next 20 years. Emerging middle class population, rise in purchasing power and consumption, demand for locally suitable products and solutions will continue to be critical drivers for Honeywell to invest in the mid-mass segment space.

We believe that we have tremendous opportunities ahead of us. A lot of customers, both B2B and B2C, are entering the middle-class segment. We are in a great place to customize our products and offerings to serve India’s unique needs. And we’re doing this already on every platform and product in the Indian market, via our Buildings Technology business, our Safety and Productivity Solutions business and our industrial Process Solutions business, just to name a few.

India is soon going to be the ground zero of innovation and production, of the emerging new middle class products and services, for India and for the rest of the world, and we are well-positioned with our diversified technology portfolio to capture the new urban population and 1.2B emerging middle class in HGRs and in India.

What new transformative technologies would you be looking forward to in coming days to serve your customers?
Honeywell transforms the way the world works, solving our customers’ toughest challenges through relentless innovation that is grounded in a heritage of innovation. Therefore, we are creating an organization within Honeywell with a singular purpose – to accelerate the creation and invention of products that solve big problems.

Our focus is to bring together the physical world with data and digital intelligence, including next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) technology and advanced analytics. 

In India, we have used advanced technologies as part of our smart city initiative. Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Block Chain, are all buzzwords today, and as world’s premier technology leader, we are leveraging every technology to provide an integrated experience to our customer. 

What will be your future expansion and investment plans for India? 
Honeywell has been deeply investing and making in India for the past eight decades, and we continue to do that. In 2017, we invested ~$200M in a new facility in Bangalore that houses ~4,000 employees today. 

We have a strong manufacturing footprint in the country with three manufacturing facilities and five global technology development centers already and presence across 50 cities.