CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Surya Varanasi, Chief Product Officer, Kloudspot
- Can you give us an overview of Kloudspot and its business model?
Founded in 2016, Kloudspot’s advanced location analytics and situational awareness platform utilize Wi-Fi and sensor data to generate intelligence that is tailored for the specific requirements of enterprises. This intelligence can take the form of intelligent spaces, smart surveillance, or hybrid work solutions, depending on the enterprise’s needs.
We assist clients in utilizing the Internet of Things (IoT) via a comprehensive platform, enabling them to optimize their investments in physical assets such as offices, retail malls, airports, and manufacturing sites. Currently, the market for this solution is mainly dominated by System Integrators who offer customized or semi-customized software development solutions. This undertaking can be costly and time-consuming, making it accessible only to large companies. However, with Kloudspot, the unified IoT platform is accessible even to mid-sized businesses.
Our business operates on a Software as a Service (SaaS) model, generating recurring revenue. Our primary focus is collecting information from various sources, including hardware and software systems located on-premises. We then use our ML/AI engine to process this data and create insights about the physical space. Recently, we have introduced a Digital Twin service, which offers an immersive management experience to businesses through a virtual replica of their physical spaces. With this service, they can manage their spaces remotely and even interact with them using features like “Remote Hands.” Essentially, we transform physical spaces into intelligent environments using our AI engine and offer a Digital Twin so that businesses can remotely engage with these spaces.
2. What is a Unified platform? How can you use it for edge intelligence?
A unified platform for businesses is a comprehensive technology solution that integrates various components, such as people, systems, and data, to create a collaborative and streamlined ecosystem. The primary goal of a unified platform is to improve operational efficiency, enhance collaboration among team members, and drive business growth by eliminating the need for multiple disparate tools or applications. Kloudspot offers a unified platform for managing a network infrastructure and data analytics. Our platform is designed to help businesses and organizations manage their WiFi networks, gain insights into user behaviour, and provide personalized experiences to their customers.
Unified platforms can be used to enable edge intelligence, which is the process of collecting and analyzing data at the edge of a network, where devices and sensors are located. Edge intelligence can help organizations make real-time decisions, improve operational efficiency, and reduce latency and network bandwidth usage.
Kloudspot’s platform leverages the advantages of the Internet of Things (IoT) by collecting data from a wide range of sensors, including HVAC and lighting controls, plumbing controls, and parking lot cameras. However, managing and making sense of all that data can be a significant challenge for most organizations. The platform addresses this challenge by gathering information from various IoT edge devices and camera feeds and providing real-time or historical data through Wi-Fi or other available connectivity. The result is an “intelligent space” where sensors are integrated, and outcomes can be delivered quickly and easily.
Our technology also collects data from all communication devices, such as signage or mobile apps, and funnels them into a central platform, allowing system administrators to route relevant information to the right device. It can be customized based on the type of data a business requires, providing a central edge intelligence platform that cuts across various disparate views to create outcomes across systems. Kloudspot’s ability to work with existing systems is valuable, especially as clients can use the platform without replacing their current systems. By unifying siloed views, Kloudspot can augment data and deliver unique outcomes across the board, providing significant business value.
3. What are the benefits of Unified Data Platforms?
Unified Data Platforms can provide businesses with a variety of benefits. One of the most significant advantages is improved data management, as these platforms enable businesses to integrate and manage data from different sources in a centralized location. By bringing all data together, businesses can improve the accuracy and completeness of their data, which is essential for making informed decisions.
For example, Kloudspot has developed a solution called Immersive Work, which allows hybrid workers to access the same environment, regardless of their location. With the help of Kloudspot’s unified intelligent spaces and smart surveillance platform solutions, airports can reduce security line waiting time, enabling passengers to spend more time shopping, and ultimately increasing airport revenue. The platform also allows camera feeds to track license plates to ensure proper parking, while management can search video feeds with tagged metadata using natural language commands to track suspicious activity and improve security operations.
4. Can you tell us more about the future of intelligent spaces in businesses?
As businesses increasingly adopt Internet of Things (IoT) devices and edge computing technologies, they are generating large amounts of data that can be used to improve operations, enhance customer experiences, and drive business outcomes.
Intelligent spaces bring together the physical and digital worlds by incorporating sensors, cameras, and other IoT devices to collect and analyze data in real time. This enables businesses to gain insights into how spaces are being used and make data-driven decisions about how to optimize those spaces for maximum efficiency and productivity.
The future of intelligent spaces is presenting this actionable information in a visual and easily understandable format so that relevant stakeholders can make decisions quickly. This helps businesses save money and improve efficiencies by providing timely and contextual information through a single, user-friendly interface.
5. What is the roadmap of Kloudspot for the next 2 years?
The roadmap over the next 2 years will focus on two key areas
- Increased functionality tied to specific verticals to deliver turn-key solutions.
- Interactive and immersive experiences for the users and operators
As Kloudspot continues to deliver on key functionality required to address Intelligent spaces across various verticals, some vertical-centric solutions will become focus areas for the company. The goal will be to deliver an increasing amount of turn-key solutions addressing multiple use cases within verticals like mass transportation hubs like Metros, Airports, etc. Additionally, the surrounding vicinity of these hubs will become part of the overall ecosystem and Kloudspot is already starting to engage with the notion of Smart Cities surrounding these hubs.
On the interactive and immersive experience front, Kloudspot has already started delivering a Digital Twin experience to a select set of customers. This virtual replica of physical spaces now delivers real-time information in a very interactive experience for operators to simply manage their complex ecosystem and provide an almost out-of-the-box Central Command and Control center. Kloudspot Digital Twin will be further extended over the next two years to include end users as the solution development continues into select verticals.
