LTI’s internet of things (IoT) journey began in 2013 and has steadily progressed as the company has expanded its program to apply IoT solutions to manufacturing, assets, supply chain, services, facilities and sustainability efforts that improve the enablement of sustainable and reliable operations. IoT is part of LTI’s digital services practice, which has grown its revenue since 2016. The company has concentrated on building a partner ecosystem to offer end-to-end solutioning to its clients. LTI also has focused on a few key industries, including manufacturing, energy and utilities, automotive and aerospace, high tech and life sciences, and recently expanded to include healthcare and consumer packaged goods.
ISG has observed LTI’s investments in analytics, IoT, artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, which are manifested in its centers of excellence (CoEs) in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Chennai, India. These investments apply across LTI’s IoT platform technology, user-experience design, business intelligence, cybersecurity and more. The company also has stood up labs and innovation centers in North America, Munich, Paris and India to work with global clients looking for digital transformation solutions.
As lead author for the ISG Provider Lens™ IoT study for the U.S., I found many examples of LTI using the right balance of consulting, technology and partnerships as it expanded its IoT practice. One important investment has been the evolution of its own IP platform called Mosaic™, which it uses to leverage big data analytics. Mosaic, an IoT platform, uses the data captured through connected sources to generate meaningful and actionable insights. This platform helps not only in analyzing the huge volume of data but also in homogenizing it before drawing insights from it.
Speed and agility of connectivity projects are important for producing a positive return on enterprise investments in IoT. Providers are helping organizations build quicker responses and solutions for easy and effective implementations. Equally important is engagement with the right ecosystem of partners. While LTI has been building a strong partnership ecosystem across devices, sensors, platforms, telecom service providers, cybersecurity services and other areas of implementation support, it also has been incorporating a consulting approach with the appropriate technology partners to help maximize the business benefits realized by its current clients’ ecosystems.
Through a series of briefings and onsite visits, ISG has gained a better understanding of LTI’s IoT partner ecosystem. LTI calls its program IoT 2.0, and considers the right mix of people, domain expertise, platform and partners the core of its offerings. LTI’s ecosystem partners are spread across various areas including devices, platforms, networks, applications and other software, as well as academia, along with some consortia and startup communities.
To leverage gateway devices and push edge analytics, LTI partners with Dell, Cisco, Kontron and Ubisense. The company collaborates with platform partners like GE Predix to deliver innovative digital-industrial solutions and PTC ThingWorx to leverage capabilities in the industrial IoT space. Through its partnership with Microsoft, LTI helps clients with their data center through cloud infrastructure services and cloud operation services at a reduced cost. LTI works with Oracle on IoT solutions for specific industries and functions, notably utilities, oil and gas, transportation, industrial manufacturing and supply chain. LTI partners with Salesforce on application development, implementation and support. Other important partnerships are with IBM Bluemix to leverage the Bluemix platform for IoT and AI solutions, Nutanix for providing enterprise cloud environments, and SAP for solutioning, building CoEs and providing required training and certification programs for client workforce development.
LTI’s IoT portfolio includes managed services that incorporates a 24/7 monitoring and service desk offering, incident management, platform support services, administration services, compliance management, change management and training services. LTI leverages its own tools and other IP like the ARCoT Framework, Mosaic™ automation and more for business process automation to enhance its managed services offerings.
ISG is encouraged by these developments in LTI’s IoT ecosystem. We expect that LTI will continue to leverage its heritage domain expertise to improve asset connectivity, fabricate industry-specific solutions, co-innovate with their partners, apply digital twins and enable robust cybersecurity.
LTI claims to be solving industry and business challenges and enabling its customers with significant ROI. ISG believes LTI should expand its scope of implementations in verticals other than manufacturing. ISG did see LTI’s trial use cases in other areas like elevators and retail, and implementations are likely to happen. While LTI seems to lag with larger clients as compared to its competitors, it has made impressive investments in emerging technologies, and ISG expects its investment in IoT will continue to improve its relationships with its clients.
