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ANITHA KRISHNAN: Looking at global RFID from India
PART TWO - March 6, 2008 – Anitha Krishnan, an RFID solution provider in Bangalore, India, talks about differences in international markets.
What is your opinion of the differences between the Indian, European and U.S. markets in RFID?
Krishnan: It is a well-known fact that the European and U.S. markets are largely regulated by government mandates, which is absent in India. But there is one more point that is largely overlooked, and that is the ample availability of manual labor in India, at much lower costs than the technology warrants. This is a major hurdle, especially for non-critical applications.
We had a very interesting meeting once, when we met with the owner of medium sized factory, and tried to pitch to him about using RFID for access control. And he pointed a very simple alternative to RFID, stating that he could position 5 security guards for the same amount it would cost him to implement an RFID solution.
Another important difference is that, the Indian market is more enterprise-driven than consumer-driven. Hence, enterprise RFID solutions are significant, there are very few players in the embedded RFID market space. The ones that exist design and develop solutions for the U.S. market. We expect that to change in the face of the retail boom that the Indian economy is now witnessing. Also, there is a greater level of awareness pertaining to RFID in markets abroad. As a technology, RFID seems to have penetrated industry and academia as well. In the Indian market, there is still a lot of room for educating the market and evangelizing RFID. A lack of awareness about the basic merits and, more importantly, the limitations of the technology gets people to set unrealistic expectations of the technology. And then they eventually feel let down when they realize RFID cannot turn lead into gold.
How robust is the interaction, in your view, between companies in your country, and in ours here in the U.S.?
Krishnan: I think the question has a well-established answer to it, considering the huge amount of outsourcing that goes on these days.
But I find it interesting to compare interaction between companies in India versus interaction between companies within the U.S.? I think it is easier to approach people in India. They are not averse to talking over the phone or meeting in person; but I suspect that small and medium-scaled enterprise owners do not rely heavily on emails.
This is in stark contrast to the behavior seen in the U.S. My experience there has been that emails are considered less obtrusive than phone calls or meeting in person, and people do respond to emails fairly well. Here, emails can easily be ignored or overlooked, since that is really not a preferred mode of communication outside the IT industry.
Are there any ways we should all be trying to enhance our growing RFID together?
Krishnan: I think evangelization is the key. It helps to have forums like these where people can get together and discuss issues they have solved, and share their findings and solutions with each other. This being a relatively nascent technology, it is very easy to be driven by the whims of the market; but I suppose we all together should have some sort of a grand vision and drive the market accordingly, instead of getting driven.
Last edited by AndreaC : 03-06-2008 at 11:12 AM.
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