KPMG: Digital Infrastructure – The Next Mega Trend to Bring in More Efficiency and Possibilities in the Future

~ The global urban population is expected to grow approximately 1.84 per cent per year between 2015 and 2020, 1.63 per cent per year between 2020 and 2025, and 1.44 per cent per year between 2025 and 2030

~ By 2017 there will likely be 1.4 billion mobile sensing health and fitness app downloads, worldwide and the use of health apps will is expected increase the fastest over the next five years

~ Indian online retail spending will may reach USD16 billion by 2018, where online retail in India grew by 67 per cent in 2013. The number of Indian online buyers is expected to grow to 128 million by 2018

~ Almost all industry verticals will may be touched by digital infrastructure and a tremendous opportunity may exists for early adopters to establish themselves as leading players on a global scale

As the world moves towards converging technologies, many analysts predict that billions of devices will be connectable with an ability to drastically enhance the quality of living and change the way we experience products around us. Digital infrastructure is a key enabling technology for a connected and instrumented world which enables what we now call ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT). We already see a number of technology giants partnering and innovating new products around internet of things, along with smart and intelligent devices like fitness bands and smart watches alreadycreating a lot of buzz in the market. Many of them are monetising the opportunity to take a lead and create a new set of offerings with recurring revenue for the company.

As digital infrastructure goes mainstream, there can be challenges like security, data breach and interoperability which may pose as a barrier for the overall framework. Security couldbe the utmost concern, as data wouldbe exchanged over connected devices and under pinned by data breach of personal information.Theconsumer couldbe one of the most important stakeholders in this scenario.

According to the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), the IoT industry in India is expected to be a USD15 billion market by 2020; it is expected that India would have a share of 5 to 6 percent of the global IoT industry. Digital infrastructure is expected to create tremendous opportunities for various technology players across verticals and in key applications like; smart cities, smart utilities, smart healthcare, smart transportation and more in India.

KPMG in India supported the CII CONNECT Conference 2014 in Chennai today as knowledge partners. Speaking on Digital Infrastructure, Mr K K Raman, Partner, KPMG in India said “Digital infrastructure will power the next mega trend as connected devices converge bringing more efficiency and possibilities in the future. Industry players and society need to leverage digital infrastructure to create more opportunities and economic value. In addition, digital infrastructureis expected to play a major role in the success of the ‘Make in India’ initiative "

The Indian government has declared significant plans to build ‘digital infrastructure’ as part of the ‘Digital India’ initiative intertwining a large number of ideas and thoughts into a single, vision.  Given the transformational nature and benefits, the Indian government has announced investments of over INR113, 000crores to build digital infrastructure. The Indian government needs to ensure various sub-programmes are working in a synergistic and coherent manner to deliver a truly transformative digital infrastructure which can propel India to lead the internet of things revolution.

There may be distinct set of challenges for businesses and consumers. Long-term success of digital infrastructure in a country like Indiacould dependon the how well infrastructure operations work along with technological challenges. India, as a growing nation, could be looking to invest continuously in newer technologies and capabilities, while also driving their mass deployment, overcoming the challenges that manifest as hard and soft issues.

About KPMG:

KPMG in India, a professional services firm, is the Indian member firm of KPMG International and was established in September 1993. It strives to provide rapid, performance-based, industry-focussed and technology-enabled services, which reflect a shared knowledge of global and local industries and its experience of the Indian business environment. KPMG in India provides services to over 4,500 international and national clients in India and has offices in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune.

KPMG International is a global network of firms providing professional services. We have 155,000 outstanding professionals working together to deliver value in 155 countries, worldwide. The independent member firms of the KPMG network are affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative (“KPMG International”), a Swiss entity.  Each KPMG member firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such.

www.kpmg.com/in

The information contained herein is of a general nature and is not intended to address the specific circumstances of any particular individual or entity. The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of KPMG in India.

For more information contact:

Vidya Mohan

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KPMG in India

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Email: vidyamohan@kpmg.com

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