IoT, Cloud and Mobility Driving Smart Appliances Market Growth

Pradeep Bakshi, Managing Director and CEO at Voltas

In an interaction with Industry Outlook, Pradeep Bakshi, Managing Director and CEO at Voltas shares his views on how the smart appliances market is evolving with adoption of new technologies.

How do you see the current Smart Appliances market in India? What are the major factors driving its growth?

While at a nascent stage, the smart appliance market in India holds immense business potential. The category is growing steadily with sufficient headroom to grow. At a macro level, IOT has been enabled by a rise of more efficient computing power, on demand cloud computing, decreasing cost of connectivity and increasing smartphone penetration.

As the market matures, the application and software ecosystem will also develop and see rapid changes. Category adoption of smart appliances has also been aided by the rise of smart homes and home automation. Increasingly, the more affluent consumer segments are adopting home automation solutions. This creates opportunity for smart appliances.

At Voltas, we want to utilize the immense potential of technology to better serve our consumers. Voltas home appliances like Dishwashers and Washing Machines offer remote monitoring features enabled through smart applications. As an increasing number of people get familiarized with smart home systems, the market size is bound to expand in the coming years.

How do you assess the impact of pandemic on this sector? What were the major challenges thrown up by the pandemic and how did manufacturers address those challenges?

With the disruption caused by the lockdown and Covid-19 in 2020, people are spending more time at home than ever before, juggling their professional and household responsibilities. In the ‘new normal’, consumers are likely to invest in automated, technologically superior products to ease their lives. Convenience led product categories such as washing machines, microwaves and dishwashers will continue to see a spike as people aim to become more self-reliant.

In the past few months, the overall appliances sector has seen a healthy growth due to pent up demand. In addition, with consumers having higher need for convenience, categories like Dishwashers and Microwaves have seen healthy traction.

As many consumers continue to work from home, the need for convenience, connectivity and greater productivity has increased. Consumers now have even greater need for smart and connected appliances to save time and effort into doing everyday tasks.

But the most dramatic change in the past few months has been the accelerated adoption of digital solutions. Consumers are now far more willing to embrace digital solutions than before. This is equally applicable for new product categories as well as new digital channels for purchase.

The challenges that were faced by most manufacturers during the pandemic were particularly to do with availability of skilled labor and disruption in supply chain. Having said this, it is important to understand that the temporary interruption in the industry was not due to lack of demand. There was enough demand for functional and entry level products. And hence, to address this growing demand for cooling products and home appliances, we took some key steps like shifting stocking focus to high demand goods, penetration in more rural, less affected zones, and increasing the manufacturing capacities to keep up with the demand. We will be looking to further enhance our production capacity of air conditioners in the coming years, through another plant in the South.

One of the key points that I would like to highlight and stress upon is that during this period of economic crisis we reduced our dependency on important and stressed on MADE IN INDIA products, I am proud to say that in the case of Voltas BEKO, 80% of the products sold are made from our factories in India, this way we not only support the governments initiative of “ATMANIRBHAR BHARAT” but also strive towards all making all our products “MADE IN INDIA”.

How do you see the level of technology maturity and its adoption in the smart appliances sector in India? Which new technologies are being leveraged by businesses in order to manage and monitor operations effectively?

Although the size of consumer durables market in India is massive and has a great potential, the level of technological adoption is still at a nascent stage.

However, the technological adoption within this existing base is expected to grow at a fast pace. Although the size of consumer durables market in India is massive and has a great potential, the level of technological adoption is still at a nascent stage. However, the technological adoption within this existing base is expected to grow at a fast pace.

This is enabled by rapid technology adoption from a manufacturer as well as consumer side. Increase in average internet speeds, rapid adoption of Wi-Fi, rise of on demand cloud computing and increase in sheer computing power have been some of the developments which will continue to aid the growth of the sector.

When it comes to Voltas’ projects, the Company’s Remote monitoring cell conducts predictive maintenance of Chillers in Hospitals and Pharmaceutical companies. During the lockdown, Voltas has addressed 50,000 TR of Air conditioning across 100+ hospitals and served 25,000 beds and 25 pharmaceutical companies to help manufacture life savings medicines. Our international projects across the Middle East were operational throughout the pandemic. From Factory acceptance tests to material inspection and overall project management, were all, with the help of technology, operated remotely.

A major technological development that happened at Voltas during the lockdown was the transition to remote customer service solution that enabled the Company to enrich its relationship with the consumers. In order to help customers with servicing issues, Voltas was one of the first AC brands to upload ‘Do it yourself’ videos on YouTube to help them with basic maintenance that will result in immediate solutions.

What role is IoT playing in the evolution of Smart Appliances market? How can it bring the much sought after automation?

From Air conditioners, Refrigerators and Washing Machines to Dishwashers, there is integration of IoT in almost all product categories. Despite this, it is safe to say that most of the IoT features are largely limited to the high-end models. Voltas was the first AC brand to have a collaboration with Amazon Alexa thus offering remote control and voice assistance features to our products. For some of our select home appliances, we have an application called Home Wiz that helps to control our appliances remotely. This adoption of IoT in smart home appliances has further been propelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as people seek touch-free experiences as well as mobile-based control of their appliances. People need to be made aware that IoT is not just about controlling the devices but also for troubleshooting issues with ease through a few clicks on the phone and customizing programs.

With the increasing popularity of voice assistants, how do you see their integration with smart appliances?

The demand for speech and voice recognition technology has seen a tremendous growth over the last few years. The ability to communicate your needs and wants to products, in and around your home, provides consumers with the luxury that were once only imagined. With the need for automation that provides comfort and convenience to consumer gaining momentum, this segment is likely to grow even further.

With voice technology becoming ubiquitous, increasing number of appliances are now connected to voice. So, voice becomes the bedrock of the smart appliance ecosystem, which further increases convenience offered by appliances.

Voltas launched Smart ACs in 2018 that can be controlled using simple voice commands with Amazon Alexa. These Smart ACs from Voltas can be controlled using Amazon Echo smart speakers, other Alexa-enabled devices such as Harman Kardon Allure as well as the Alexa app for iOS and Android smartphones. Customers can enable their Voltas Smart ACs from the Alexa app and just ask Alexa to discover new devices to get started. In addition, the AC can also be controlled through the Voltas Smart AC App for smartphones over a wi-fi connection. Using the app, customers can access a host of other features such as changing modes based on weather conditions, switching on the timer function, and setting the fan speed based on comfort level.

How can security of data and privacy be ensured in a scenario where all smart appliances are connected to each other and operate on a knowledge sharing basis?

Today, the need to ensure data privacy has definitely become a rising concern for many. Customers are extremely cautious of the same. And hence I believe with the rising need for technology and digitization, there also lies a growing concern around security. It’s important for all smart appliances brands to ensure a strong security system as part of the product architecture.

Which technologies do you think have massive potential for this sector but are yet to be implemented in the industry?

Our consumer durables business focuses on India specific technologies. The other businesses, of course, owing to their presence across the globe would adopt technologies that are compatible with the business environment existing outside India. Having said this, owing to our joint ventures with international players we do draw international best practices to customize them to the local needs.

We are also constantly engaging in extensive R&D to anticipate the needs of our consumers and accordingly develop products to suit their requirements. For instance, we discovered in 2012 that the Indian consumer expects his AC to be useful beyond the summer months, which lead to the concept of "Climate Control''. Hence, we launched the Voltas All Weather AC, which could deliver comfort across extreme and diverse climatic conditions, like summer, winter and monsoon. Being a leading brand, we had to ensure that there is enough traction for the category throughout the year, and with the Voltas All Weather AC we saw even festivals like Diwali witnessing active consideration of ACs by consumers.
             
On the Home Appliances front, based on an intensive immersive study across 7000+ people, Voltas Beko introduced washing machines with features like GentleWave™ that provides effective washing that is gentle on all kinds of fabrics, including Indian sarees.

Technology as a subject is extremely dynamic. Every day you are met with a new technology derived from design thinking methods. Hence, I would say the potential for appliances is immense considering that penetration levels for the same are low, this coupled with easy and cheap access to internet bandwidth would see a huge surge in IOT products making them affordable and within reach to most consumers.