India set to be a global hub to accelerate digital, IoT adoption

Mumbai: German industrial manufacturing major Siemens on Tuesday launched an open digital business platform in India to accelerate digital transformation and value creation for companies of all sizes globally, including more than 60 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country.

India will play a key role in the global rollout of the 'Siemens Xcelerator' programme, said Peter Koerte, Chief Technology Officer and Strategy Officer, Siemens AG. The accelerator offers a comprehensive portfolio that includes digital and Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled offerings (software, hardware and digital services) from Siemens, and certified third parties.

"With over 6,000 software engineers at our development centres in the country, India will be at the forefront and a key hub to further accelerate the digital transformation efforts of our customers worldwide," Koerte said during the launch event here during the 'Siemens India Innovation Day 2022'.

"With the launch of Siemens Xcelerator, I am confident that as partners, we can scale up the innovation and digital transformation journey for customers in India," he told the gathering. 'Siemens Xcelerator' also includes an evolving marketplace to facilitate interactions and transactions between customers, partners, and developers.

According to Sunil Mathur, MD & CEO, Siemens Ltd, SMEs in India will be the greatest beneficiaries of this platform as it can help them to scale up, upgrade and adopt new designs and components much faster to stay competitive. "Siemens Xcelerator will help to create a powerful ecosystem of partners who can jointly accelerate digital transformation tailored to specific business goals. Our aim is to help companies to increase their performance, flexibility, and sustainability," said Mathur.

Siemens Ltd is the flagship listed company of Siemens AG in India, and had operations of Rs 12,756 crore and 8,608 employees (as last reported). The company has a unique project called 'Digital Twin' which is a virtual representation of a physical product or process, used to understand and predict the physical counterpart's performance characteristics.

'Digital twins' are used throughout the product lifecycle to simulate, predict, and optimise the product and production system before investing in physical prototypes and assets. "Nearly 600 mid to small companies in India are already engaging with 'Digital Twin' product to eliminate the need for physical prototypes, reducing development time, and improving quality of the finalised product or process," said Mathur.