Hitachi has announced the formation of a new company to unite its digital and connected technology solutions in a bid to accelerate IoT growth.
The new corporate arm, Hitachi Insight Group, will be based in California and will drive the company’s Internet of Things business and market strategy worldwide.
It currently has one of the biggest IoT portfolios in the world, totalling 33 solutions on the market today, and made $5.4 billion in revenue last year.
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High-growth market
By combining its digital and IoT solutions, Hitachi believes it can position itself to lead in the fast-growing IoT market. Globally, it’ll be worth $14.4 trillion by 2022, according to Cisco.
The firm has already collaborated with industry heavyweights such as AT&T, Eurotech, Intel, Microsoft, PTC and SAP on a variety of projects, and it sees major potential in the industrial and enterprise IoT markets.
Hitachi’s IoT portfolio includes a plethora of solutions and services for areas such as public safety, smart cities, sustainable energy, intelligent transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, urban development and construction.
Driving IoT research
It says these solutions are delivering and driving intelligence and insight to enable better business decision-making and real-world outcomes, including increased productivity and safety, streamlined business processes and cheaper operation costs.
This new group will also aid research and development around IoT, particularly in key market segments like smart cities, smart energy, smart healthcare and smart industry.
Bright future for enterprise IoT
Vernon Turner, senior vice president of enterprise systems at Hitachi and an IoT research fellow at IDC, believes industrial and enterprise IoT offer strong opportunities and benefits.
He said: “The greatest opportunity for IoT lies in the enterprise, industrial and public sector markets, which stand to benefit significantly from digital transformation.
“Although the market is still nascent, digitalization is already disrupting traditional product-based business models, driving demand for solutions and an everything-as-a-service approach.
“Few companies possess the expertise and breadth of resources required to deliver IoT solutions and services and drive real business value at scale.
“With today’s announcements, Hitachi is making good progress toward positioning itself to be one of the few likely IoT powerhouses as the market shakes out.”
IoT critical at Hitachi
Kevin Eggleston, general manager of the Americas at Hitachi, said: ”IoT represents a critical inflection point, in which the interests of business, industry and society are now intersecting and aligning like never before.
“Our repeatable solutions are already helping businesses, cities, municipalities and industrial companies around the world. The formation of Hitachi Insight Group will now enable us to take Hitachi’s vision for Social Innovation to the next level, as we move our IoT business into the next critical phase of its evolution.”
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