Double-digit growth is elementary with IBM's Watson: Sanjay Brahmawar, Head of global sales, IBM Watson

IBM expects its Watson Internet of Things (IoT) business in India to grow at a minimum double-digit rate as it taps into and makes sense of the massive data collected through billions of Internet-connect devices, Sanjay Brahmawar, Head of Global Sales for IBM Watson IoT, told ET's Megha Mandavia.

Tell us about Watson IoT?
We started working with Watson 10 years ago. It is little more than artificial intelligence, it is cognitive. You combine unstructured data and get intelligence. Ninety percent of the data collected through IoT devices is not used. It is in form of notes, voice recordings, and images. That is a massive problem to go after. The combination of IoT with Watson as a cognitive engine is a true opportunity.

How do you plan to build it? What is the potential that you see?
Our CEO pledged $3 billion for Watson IoT. We are investing in building technology capability. We are building capability in terms of talent. You need data scientists, research people and cognitive IoT experts.

We are also investing in the ecosystem.Nobody will be able to solve IoT problem on their own. You need to think about devices, connectivity, platform and then service providers on the back of that.

Which industries are you planning to focus on?
We are focused on seven industries right now: automotive, electronics, insurance, retail, travel, transport and manufacturing. In India, we have implemented use cases in the automotive sector with the largest OEM in India. We have worked with Honda, with an insurance company, and the largest agriculture equipment company in India.

What kind of demand do you see coming from India?
By 2020 we will have 20 billion connected devices to the internet globally.In India, we will have 3 billion devices.India and China for us are massive markets. We have to ensure we are working with the right organisations.The challenge is that companies are doing too many things. My advice to companies is to bottle down to 2-3 use cases to have impact improving operational efficiency, customer engagement and shift business model.Speed of change in India is quite fast.Double-digit growth is the minimum we would expect India to move at.

How are you engaged with the startup community in India?
We are giving them access to our platform to experiment and learn. We help them with business coaching on how to scale and monetise. We also give them access to our ecosystem. It is mutually beneficial.

Are you looking at investment in Indian startup sector?
We are constantly looking at spaces that are interesting from the perspective of how we are building our capability. We are not a venture capitalist.Our investment in startup space is not from acquisition angle. It is from growing IoT capability and developing the market. We believe that if more developers and startups know our technology the more economy will grow based on IoT.

What about the data protection laws in India?
At the moment there is a lot of thought and discussion around data privacy.Laws will evolve when people get more conscious about how much data they are sharing and how much access they are giving to their data. Our principal is that our customers' data is not our data. And any insight we derive from it is customer's property.