Servify

Brands launch new phones. We buy them. We tend to keep our old phones at the same time. This cycle repeats every year and there is an ever-growing number of unloved devices that are a lost opportunity for consumers and brands alike.

Hackathons. Those marathon hacking sessions aimed to bring out the creative juices of the most talented technology focused young minds. Servify was delighted to be invited at this year's VIT Hackathon event at their Vellore Campus. And boy, what a campus it is, spread over 300-acres of land which is immaculately maintained.

However, we were there to tap the brightest minds in the field of technology. By presenting them with a challenging problem statement which was given to the teams beforehand, so they could prepare their approach.

Opening Keynote

The Hackathon itself was scheduled to begin from the 21st of September, but on the evening of the 20th, there was a keynote which was delivered by two of our key members from technology. Ratnesh Vijayvargiya (or RV, as we call him) who is our Head of Engineering, along with Satish Suggala (aka Sattu) who is our General Manager for Product and Growth.

The keynote gave a glimpse of what kind of problems was Servify trying to solve, how we identified key areas which needed improvement, and how our journey has been about empowering the consumer experience.

Hackers: Assemble!

Saturday morning rolled over with palpable excitement in the air. The auditorium earmarked for Servify’s hackathon was quickly filling up as students from all within the campus as well as from other parts of the country began coming in. Satish took centre stage before the students got underway with a quick presentation of our Problem Statement. In short, the students had to build an app which would allow end-users to:

Add devices to an app by Object Detection (using AR)

Add all devices by scanning the network, to the same app (using ML)

Unique Device Identification Algorithm for Android 10

The first two statements were easy to understand: users can have a great experience on a device platform by first adding them to their ‘device wallet’. But we want to make this process simpler, going forward - rather than manually searching and selecting, users can simply point their phone camera to a device, which uses Machine Learning and predicts the product name, or the app can scan the local Wi-Fi and see every device connected to it, identify it and add it to the ‘device wallet’ of the user.

The third statement was for students to figure out how, in Android 10, can a unique identifier be assigned to devices since reading IMEI was no longer an option. This was a real world issue affecting several businesses. And to come up with a working solution would probably take a lot more than 36 hours, but we were more interested to see the approach that each team would take to try and solve this.

Easier said than done, right?

The students then got down to work, working with Firebase and were told that they will be graded on the quality of their code and functionality of the app. A nice UX will get bonus points.

The Marathon Commences

The first few hours of the Hackathon saw teams settling in and drawing out strategies on exactly which team member will tackle what part of the challenge. Once everyone knew what they were going to do, they began. Doubts were attended to by our tech team members and the right path was shown if our experts felt the students were straying.

The next few hours saw the students really giving shape to their code and cross-checking which bits work and which won’t. There were already some interesting ideas floating around the hall to tackle the problem statement. From AR models that can be shown, to unique sound signatures of each device to a whole lot more. While ‘concentrate on fundamentals’ was the brief our tech experts were repeating, some teams were really thinking out of the box to come up with viable solutions.

It was heartening to see so many curious minds building great algorithms that were hopefully going to impress us the next day. A last round of assessments was conducted late at night and the final round of queries for the day were answered. The next morning, you could see everyone was in top gear. Students really needed to hunker down and begin preparing their finalised version, which would be bug-free and elegant.

The Judging Round

Judging such hackathons isn’t an easy task. But since we’ve built a platform that is transforming the after-sales experience, we know what to look for. What questions to ask. What to ignore. And what really to evaluate within a given set of codes.

To say that each team put in their best effort would be an understatement. Moreover, it was great to see two all-girls team (one who called themselves Estrogen Express) fighting it out with the (traditionally) guys-dominated technical event.

As the teams came up to our judges to present their working solutions, the evaluations began simultaneously. However, these were initial evaluations which needed a further follow-up discussion once every team had presented their project. 36 hours later, we had zeroed on in our winner.

And it was a team that called themselves ‘BottomsUp!’ 2nd prize went to Team ‘Stone Colders’ while 3rd was bagged by Team ‘BugLife’.

Onwards and Upwards

Every year, Berlin plays host to IFA - one of Europe’s oldest industrial exhibitions. It has evolved over the years to give a glimpse of the most innovative products in technology that will set the trend for the next few years. This year I was delighted to represent Servify at the annual event where I experienced the convergence of global tech inside Messe Berlin.

Here are my key takeaways after spending three days at IFA 2019.

Smart Home Goes Mass Market

While AI and Smart Home technology isn't exactly new, it has still been a niche product so far. Only a few are able to afford these high-tech innovations and use them. This year, I feel, smart home is beginning to go mass market. Products are now available at affordable price points, are easy to set up and connect and easy to use via smart apps.

The idea of smart home automation has lingered on the fringes of our society for long and now we will see even more affordable products from this category in the market. One of our customers, Medion, is an example of one such company. Now getting solutions for smart cooling/heating, security, and much more - will be available 'on-demand' to the masses.

Smart Home to Smart City

An unexpected innovation while roaming the booths of smart home automation was to discover the Smart City initiative. There were displays of Smart City platforms that can control every aspect of city life, on the backbone of Mobility and Connectivity. Throw in IoT to the mix and we can see how some of these astounding ideas can easily take shape and be implemented without too big an investment.

Of course, while we have seen how connectivity and IoT is shaping up, we haven't fully seen the mass adoption of e-mobility. Perhaps an Internet of Mobility revolution is imminent. First home appliance manufacturers are entering this business segment, with Vestel being one example.

E-Mobility Scoots Over

2019 has been a clear breakthrough year for electronic powered vehicles. At IFA, many OEMs showcased scooters, e-bikes and other e-mobility devices. Some which weren't expected to enter this line of business, like Trekstor which have their roots in PC business.

SHIFT Automotive – held on September 10 & 11, saw the convergence of startups, car makers, big tech and city planners.

Smartphone and TV are Converging

Streaming content is now the main way of watching TV. Cord-cutters are invested in the content-on-demand services that the traditional way of consuming content is becoming less appealing. This is changing the classical TV eco-system into a platform play.

Smartphones were where streaming really took off and it is no surprise, that now almost every OEM at IFA has Android TV in their portfolio. It feels like TV becomes a smartphone with a large screen, where users have access to their favourite apps as well. A number of TV manufacturers are not clear yet, if they go for Android TV as mass market or if they should develop their own Linux-based TV platforms. Differentiation is key, but so is scale and time to market. We’ll see...

OEMs are also coming up with new formats, along with adding more pixels - giving rise to unique high-resolution TVs. The one that clearly blew me away was the transparent TV by Panasonic.

Offline Retail goes Device Lifecycle

During IFA, I also spoke to offline retail chains, which have the challenge of attracting millennials. This target consumer base typically buys from online retail channels.

All of the offline retailers are working on online offerings and on leveraging their local footprint for establishing an attractive, sustainable services business.

There is a clear need for a mobile first, device lifecycle offering with attractive VAS to improve their proposition especially to Millennials.

-Thomas Mueller

Despite the growth of digital initiatives in recent years, IoT promises to be an advancement which will revolutionise our interactions with our devices. One which will see us move away from typing on keyboards and interacting with screens, to simply talking and gesturing to our devices.

We're now seeing smart appliances thrown in this mix, which can be controlled with the same voice commands, gestures and more. In 2020, about 20.4B IoT units will be installed and IoT-related spending will reach nearly $3T, according to Gartner estimates.

All these devices will typically have a long lifecycle. And OEMs have a responsibility to support their end-users buying their products. But in an IoT driven economy, there might be multiple OEMs making up various blocks of a chain. Who, then, can support the after-sales service?

1. Compatibility when purchasing a new device

While end-users still struggle to fully grasp how new-age technology works, there are similar doubts in their minds when it comes to compatibility. While OEMs may decide to build IoT products with limited interoperability, end-users may be unaware of this limitation. So when users are looking to buy a new device, they will run into an obstacle at the very first stage.

At Servify, we are aware of such hurdles. Our platform is one where users have been adding devices they own. Suggesting compatible IoT devices is, therefore, an easy undertaking for us. Especially for brand agnostic end-users who won't know if the new IoT device will work with their existing set of appliances and gadgets.

2. Installation issues and usage of new devices

OEMs will also need a trusted partner when it comes to installation of IoT devices. While the current scenario of smart devices has a limitation of installing only the sold product, setting up communications with existing devices is not part of their scope.

Even the Field Service Technicians who will be alloted such complex assignments, will need guidance. This is another area where our platform can help OEMs, with our Field Service Management mobility extensions. Our solutions can not only be configured to provide apt reinforcements but also be updated for advancement in technologies.

3. Multiple pain points during service instances

A key area in after-sales service is when any device service is required. This could be for simple instances like tasks not being executed or a more grave scenario like a complete breakdown. Since IoT requires inter-communication of multiple devices relying on multiple services, pinpointing faults will be a major challenge for every brand in the IoT ecosystem.

For example, a simple voice command to a smart speaker can trigger an a chain of actions. It could simply be 'set the living room to comfort mood'. The speaker will read this command, relay it to the smart bulbs to change its colour to a soothing one and the thermostat settings will be auto-adjusted based on the sensor's readings of the ambient temperature outside. A simple command, triggering a complex chain of events, with various products, possibly made by different manufacturers.

But what happens when the command doesn't execute as expected, even though the smart speaker seems to be working fine? Will an end-user even know where to begin diagnosing the underlying issue? And which product's support team is he going to reach out to?

Leveraging a tech platform like Servify, is tremendously beneficial in such scenarios, as we work with various brands to develop self-diagnosis tools and can provide turnkey customer assistance solutions.

4. One platform, multiple advantages

Building a solution for such a complicated network of devices isn't easy. Being a tech platform, however, gives Servify an added edge. Our insights from serving end-users have helped us eliminate inefficiencies in every step of the after-sales service process. This has led us to truly develop empathy to the challenges every end-user faces during a product's lifecycle.

By working with some of the top global technology brands, we have developed capabilities that enhance the device ownership experience. While IoT will have an array of products from different OEMs, our platform can provide proactive tips to every end-user, based on our learnings.

Building for the future

While we are in the 'smart' era of device ownership, not all our devices are smart. We can thus estimate that mass adoption of IoT devices will take quite a few years. But it is certainly on the horizon and we are prepared and ready to adapt to an IoT driven economy, for all our OEM partners.

- by Ranjeet Walunj