ARC India

The 11th Asian Downstream Summit in Singapore, hosted by the Energy Market Authority, attracted over 800 attendees, 80 speakers, and 28 sponsors and exhibitors. ADS, considered the anchor oil and gas event of the Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW), provided a platform for networking, seeking partnerships, and showcasing technologies through relevant case studies. The three-track agenda focused on core refining & petrochemical technologies, innovation, asset management, energy efficiency, Industry 4.0 and digital transformation in the oil & gas sector. KBC (a Yokogawa company) held a readiness assessment workshop to help people identify the gap between their own organizations and the industry leaders; in particular the characteristics behind the digital leadership and change management practices of other organizations as these apply to digital transformation.

ARC Advisory Group held the company's sixteenth India Forum for the process and discrete industries, from July 5-6, 2018 in Bangalore, India. This year’s ARC India Forum, Digitizing and Securing Industry, Infrastructure, and Cities, attracted over 250 delegates. The Forum session topics covered industry and infrastructure moving towards digitization; automation trends, cybersecurity; smart technologies and smart cities; and several end user experiences. At the event, Ankur Goyal, Head – Strategic Business Development (Industry 4.0), Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions, presented an end user presentation entitled, “Unleashing the Potential of Industry 4.0.”

India’s information technology (IT) services industry continues its upward momentum as most of the IT services companies covered in the report exhibited above average growth.  In this report, we analyze the revenues of India’s IT services sector for the second quarter of financial year 2018-19 and compare these with the same period the previous year.

Siemens’ presentations at the recent ARC India Forum emphasized the huge impact that digitalization has had (and will continue to have) on business and industrial operations. It is now imperative for manufacturers to have a well-planned digitalization strategy – both for greenfield and brownfield projects. The company believes that manufacturers and other industrial organizations must transform their businesses into digital enterprises and, ideally, this should extend across the entire value chain. The presentations by Siemens shared a common message: “digitalization changes everything;” and this message came out clearly in the keynote address.

IBM and IIT Bombay announced that the university will join the AI Horizons Network as part of a multi-year collaboration to advance AI research.

Today’s gradually increasing oil prices have helped drive economic growth in energy-producing nations and supported renewed growth in the global operational technology (OT) industry.  However, rising energy prices have not been so good to countries such as India, which – while a major energy consumer – is neither a major energy producer or global OT supplier.  In fact, the rising fuel prices are putting additional pressure on India’s falling rupee.

India’s information technology (IT) services industry continues its growth trajectory as most of the IT services companies covered in the report exhibited above average growth.

After months of preparation, checking the itinerary, getting speaker resumes and presentations we get set for our annual India forum. Most of the presentations at ARC’s 16th India forum were on the digital transformation journey. Although the behind-the-scenes work process is the same, there is that niggling anxiety about a zillion things that range from a speaker’s flight being delayed to the mike/laser pointer not working properly. Once the delegates begin to trickle in and the sessions begin smoothly, the team heaves a collective sigh of relief. Those at the registration desk constantly check the number of attendees who come in against earlier confirmations.

As the countdown begins for ARC's 16th India Forum there is palpable excitement in the air. Our office becomes the back stage where we prepare the list of speakers, finalize the agenda, check the numbers registered, ensure the requirements at the venue are in order, etc. Besides all this, it’s a rich learning experience for all of us about new technologies and their applications, across a spectrum of industries. As the presentations come in I begin to wonder how these will capture the forum’s core theme of Digitizing and Securing Industry, Infrastructure, and Cities.

Solar power in India is a fast growing industry. The World Bank has described India as having “among the best conditions in the world to capture and use solar energy.” The country's solar installed capacity reached 20 GW in February 2018. According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), India doubled solar capacity in 2017-18 and is rapidly upscaling capacity to strive towards achieving 100 GW of solar by 2022. As part of India's ambitious solar program, the central government has set up a $350 million fund and the Yes Bank has committed to loan $5 billion to finance solar projects.