Godrej innovates to make products with AI and IoT

If innovation is a buzz word for companies, Internet of Things (IoT) probably follows in tow. Nishant Bhaskar, Founding Head of the Innovation Cell at Godrej Appliances, said that IoT tops the list of their many innovations for the future.

However, he feels that despite the buzz, it’s not a smooth road ahead in IoT..

While it is not difficult to make a connected device, being able to answer the bigger question of where in the ‘fast evolving landscape of IoT they stand’, is more pertinent, Bhaskar pointed out.

Financial implications concerning data storage and servicing for the next five years, how to share information and the mode of engagement for data sharing are some of the concerns he highlighted. “With IoT, you can only speculate and derive some kind of strategy based on that,” he added. Artificial intelligence (AI) is another buzz word in innovations that they have also being toying with.

They are currently working with external partners concerning AI, but they might have to make huge investments later on, he pointed out.

“A physical product loses value with time, but a product with AI gains value over time,” he said.

However, he said “I don’t think AI will percolate so easily with appliances as such. It is very specific to a context. The implications of AI on appliances will be slightly slow,” Bhaskar said.

A better approach would be to go “beyond the jargon”, and look at the whole system and keep a tab on how things are changing.

The first layer would be to understand, on an aggregate level, how people are behaving, then decide the next layer of applications one must build, and further expand the network by adding more layers with the ultimate focus on how to make lives easier and better, he explained.

User engagement by conducting researches, studies and events with consumers to understand evolving lifestyles, engagements with academic institutions, engagements with startups and hackathons are some of the many ways Godrej Appliances looks at innovations. Category expansion is another innovation plan, while explaining that even if one has ten products on a user-testing level, only five might see the light of the day.

Another main focus regarding innovations at Godrej Appliances revolve around a capability-centric thinking as opposed to product-centric thinking.

He said that while products can be copied, capabilities are very hard to copy, citing the example of the later versions of a particular product far surpassing the original one.

“The knowledge network that we have created with user engagements through research, studies and interactions is where the real merit lies,” he said.

A shift to how people interact with appliances at their homes as opposed to a feature-based approach is another approach they focus on.

“If you make a device that is just feature heavy, with too many options, the reason may be that you really don’t understand what the customer wants,” he said, while adding that this approach would have worked out ten years ago when gadgets were still an exciting and new prospect.

COMMENT NOW