Akshay Bellare, vice president and general manager, Honeywell Technology Solutions India, recounted the company’s growth in India, and also discussed key areas of focus for the company. India was considered a ‘high growth’ region at Honeywell because for the past three years the company has been growing at 15 percent which is two times India’s GDP.
Honeywell is in the process of transforming itself into a software industrial company, he stated, which meant adding a software layer to its products so that they can become connected products. “For example, we sell a lot of sensors. Previously, those sensors were sold as just hardware. Now, we sell sensors and the software with which customers can gather environmental data on a real-time basis so that they can make decisions on the basis of the data they receive.”
Citing another example, Bellare continued, “Honeywell, for instance, is a leader in auxiliary power units (APU) that are used in aircraft. By making those APUs connected, we can get some real-time information on how APUs operate so that an aircraft can do proactive maintenance. We call them smart products with everything connected to the cloud.”
“India has become a very strategic region for Honeywell. India has always been important to us but over the last two to three years, under our new CEO, there has been intense focus on India. There have been a lot of initiatives in India like Digital India, an increasing focus on smart cities, both of which align well with Honeywell’s growth strategy. We are designing products for India, and manufactured, and made for India,” noted Bellare.
