UNLIMIT and IBM, on Monday announced a strategic collaboration that brings together UNLIMIT’s leading industry specific Internet of Things (IoT) solutions with IBM IoT capabilities to unlock new value for businesses in India.

IBM and UNLIMIT will co-create IoT solutions for specific industry verticals including automotive, insurance, utilities, and industrial automation. For example, insurance companies will be able to reduce cost of damage to goods from tampering through real-time tracking of cargo via an ‘asset tracking solution.’

UNLIMIT and IBM are also developing IoT solutions for implementation across Reliance Group companies addressing key segments such as – User Based Insurance (Reliance General Insurance), Asset & Vehicle Tracking (Reliance Commercial Finance), Tower Monitoring (Reliance Communications) and Transformer Maintenance (BSES & Reliance Energy). Through this collaboration, UNLIMIT will have access to IBM’s global ecosystem of partners.

“We are elated to collaborate with IBM to unlock the true potential of IoT in India and bring value to our partners and customers. Currently, India is becoming the hot bed for digital disruption and we believe there is immense scope for innovation. We are confident that our powerful technology platform, with Watson IoT at its core, will provide enterprises with a flexible, scalable and secure solution.’ said Juergen Hase, CEO of UNLIMIT.

"With 2.7 billion connected devices and growing, Indian economy, enterprises and consumers are embracing IOT at a rampant pace. Our collaboration with UNLIMIT is a significant example of IBM leading the global IOT movement with a growing ecosystem of clients and partners. This exciting news underscores how IBM and UNLIMIT are taking the power of IoT to Indian enterprises and capturing the phenomenon of digital disruption for joint client innovation," said Harriet Green, General Manager, Watson IoT, Customer Engagement and Education, IBM.

How it Works:
As part of the collaboration, IBM will provide its Watson IoT Platform to collect and connect data, including sensor data, from devices and provide use- case specific dashboards. UNLIMIT will design IoT use cases for various industries in the Indian market and build them on the IBM Watson IoT Platform, which provides device registration, IoT rules, advanced analytics, visualization, dashboards, reports and cognitive capabilities for each use case.

Looking ahead, all Reliance Group companies and UNLMIT’s clients will have access to the IBM Watson IoT Platform capabilities via the IBM Cloud. As a result, rather than approaching businesses on a one-by-one basis, UNLIMIT will provide customers with access to these capabilities so that they can leverage IoT driven insights and information for business decisions, create new product offerings and create new revenue streams.

Some potential use cases that clients can leverage include:

• For a user-based insurance solution, vehicle insurance companies will be able to improve profitability and overall business through enhanced pricing accuracy, retaining of profitable accounts and lowered claims processing, offering a more personalized experience to clients;
• With a vehicle tracking solution, car leasing companies will have a better visibility of their leased vehicles through GPS and sensor data to prevent fraud and reduce losses;
• For a tower monitoring solution, telecom tower companies will be able to reduce cost of maintenance of towers, fuel pilferage and site down time by having insight into tower health and operations. Instant alerts can be sent for issues that need immediate resolution.

As part of the partnership, UNLIMIT will provide connectivity management platform, design joint go-to-market initiatives and create an ecosystem for development of more use cases.