SOLiD June 2020

SOLiD, INC.

DIGITAL REPORT 2020

SOLiD’s journey in driving digital transformation IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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SOLiD’s journey in driving digital transformation

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SOLiD, INC.

HOW SOLID IS DRIVING BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION IN TRADITIONAL INDUSTRIES WITH DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

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t takes five to 10 years for an ‘overnight’ success,” says Mrinmoy Chakraborty, Vice President and Head of SOLiD Digital

business at SOLiD Inc, Korea. “During my last 10 years in the internet of things (IoT) industry I have learned that, for any great technology business, we typically overestimate what will happen in the next year and underestimate what will happen in 04

the next five.”

SOLiD is a leader in providing wireless solutions offering flagship products DAS and WDM solutions, that improve indoor connectivity and coverage in high-demand and hard-to-reach locations. SOLiD Digital business works with traditional core industries helping to transform them with new, digital technologies such as IoT, AI/ML, RPA and Blockchain.

Chakraborty believes that new technology should be embraced willingly by end users, stating that “even though new technology would bring disruptive change to business, it should bring gradual changes in the lives of people to make the change process natural and organic.”

Chakraborty has been at the company for over three years, but his journey here can be traced back to 2010, when he founded his first IoT startup

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From left to right: Jerry Lee (IoT Program Head), Mrinmoy Chakraborty & JungWook Lee (Business Operations Head) w w w.so lid . com

SOLiD, INC.

“ Our future technology roadmap is geared more towards enterprise software suited for data-based services in large scale distributed environments” — Mrinmoy Chakraborty, Vice President, Head SOLiD Digital Business, SOLiD Inc

after graduating from Stanford Business School. His engineering team and co-founding CEO were Korean, and he became fascinated

by Korean technology and the Koreans’ exemplary work ethic.

“I was excited by the opportunity to combine innovations in Korean hardware and Indian software for the global market,” he says.

His startup introduced cellular technology into the pallet industry in the US market for the first time,

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which paved the way for customers’ digital transformation from a traditional “supply chain company” to a “supply chain information engineering company”. However this technology was ahead of its time. Step forward a few years to 2016, when he met the SOLiD co-founders, Chairman and CEO Dr. Joon Chung and co-CEO Dr. Seung Hee Lee. “These two brilliant visionaries built SOLiD as one of the global leaders in in-building wireless solution space. The following year, they entrusted me to build the IoT business for SOLiD – I saw this as my second chance to create a world class IoT organisation.”

Nirvana IoMT CLICK TO WATCH

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3:42

07 His arrival at the organisation is all

space, our services create action-

the more remarkable given that he’s

able intelligence from returnable,

the first foreign executive in SOLiD

reusable, high value assets such as

Korea’s 22-year history. “This journey

containers, trailers, and chassis in

started as an adventure with a lot of

cold chain and multi-modal logistics

unknowns in a foreign land, but it’s also

environments.

been the best one of my career so far,” he explains.

Chakraborty explains that SOLiD

“In IIoT, our focus is on offering industrial safety, asset monitoring and predictive maintenance as a service.

Digital has two main verticals: the

My team’s priority is to offer solutions

“Internet of Moving Things (IoMT)”,

that are technically feasible, economi-

which is essentially enterprise logis-

cally viable, massively scalable and

tics, and the Industrial Internet of

offer an exceptional end-user experi-

Things (IIoT), which relates to smart

ence that hides the complexity of

and safe factories. “In the IoMT

technology from that user.” w w w.so lid . com

SOLiD, INC.

SOLiD’s tunable WDM solution transmits 96 wavelengths over single fiber

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Chakraborty’s priority is to make

technologies), whereas in the last

SOLiD the preferred “internet

year it has evolved as a total solu-

of value” partner for enterprises

tion provider, focusing more on end

around the world, a term he prefers

application software-driven services.

to IoT, believing that the hero should

“Some of the areas where we are

be the business rather than the tech-

building next generation solutions

nology itself.

and co-innovating with partners are

To this end, the company’s tech-

in seamless universal tracking in

nology roadmap is market driven

indoor and outdoor environments,”

and built for solving complex high-

Chakraborty says. “We’re

impact customer problems. For

using hybrid sensor

instance, in 2018 it primarily focused

technolo-

on its hardware platform on LPWAN

gies

(low-power wide-area network

such

Nirvana: Actionable Intelligence from Whatever, Whenever, Wherever

as WiFi, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Ultra Wide Band (UWB) and GPS augmented positioning technologies.

“Our future technology roadmap is geared more towards enterprise software suited for data based-services in large scale distributed environments.

Edge intelligent solutions for 5G or private LTE environments will be some of our core future offerings.”

In the last three years SOLiD has worked closely with several industry leading customers, mostly with $1bn+ revenues, to help them launch their early or even first digital transformation initiatives. One of these was a leading Korean bank, for which the company helped launch asset monitoring services for managing collaterals.

This resulted in over 360% RoI over a period of nine months. In areas of safety and compliance, last year they conducted proof of concepts (POCs)

E X E C U T I V E P R OF IL E :

Mrinmoy Chakraborty Title: Vice President Company: SOLiD Industry: Global technology Location: Korea Mrinmoy is a serial IoT-preneur and a ‘business artist’ with 17+ years’ experience and a proven track record in building and leading global technology businesses in Korea, India, the US, and the UK. He currently heads Digital Business at SOLiD, Korea, and had prior leadership roles at Cypress Semiconductor, Xchanging, Onmobile and at Boston-based startup, Senaya, as a co-founder.

Mrinmoy holds 23 US and one Korean (filed) IoT patents.

in one of the largest factories in Korea.

“We intend to take this service to production this year and it’s expected to be one of the world’s largest industrial safety services,” he says.

The benefits to transforming the traditional industries the company w w w.so lid . com

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11 works with using digital technologies include operational efficiency, safety and compliance, and productivity.

“Some of our new customers are also looking at servitisation, or creating new service revenue business models. Once the customers see

“ I saw this as my second chance to create a world class IoT organisation” — Mrinmoy Chakraborty, Vice President, Head SOLiD Digital Business, SOLiD Inc

the value of digitalisation in areas of cost saving, productivity and safety, I believe they will gain more confidence and look at IoT as their new revenue earner. We have started seeing this happening, and expect to see more in the next two to three years.”

Genesis DAS meets wireless coverage requirements of venues of any scale, coverage and capacity w w w.so lid . com

SOLID, INC.

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SOLiD — Driving Extreme Edge Connectivity CLICK TO WATCH

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1:40

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1998

Year founded

$198mn+ Revenue in US dollars (2019)

488

Number of employees

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SOLiD, INC.

AI and ML are also key to transforming customer operations. “In our business, these technologies have significant implications in predictive maintenance, location positioning, edge intelligence and also in areas of industrial safety for predictive situational awareness solutions and in building a more resilient supply chain. Every IoT service is a databased service, and applying AI/ML can make each service more responsive, predictive and proactive.

“At the same time, we are conscious 14

of not force fitting technologies just because they’re cool and trendy.

Our approach is to find appropriate

“ Every IoT service is a data-based service, and applying AI/ML can make each service more responsive, predictive and proactive” — Mrinmoy Chakraborty, Vice President, Head SOLiD Digital Business, SOLiD Inc

technologies that create maximum impact for our customers.”

Chakraborty explains that managing this digital change must be done with a human-centric approach.

“Any new technology introduction is change management,” he says.

“It changes people’s lives and even people’s vocabulary. Digital technologies make data transparent, and at times eliminate middlemen, which can be scary for people that are part of the ecosystem.”

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Looking ahead, he sees an expansion

outlook for the post-Coronavirus world,

in the company’s services. “In the past

especially for my friends and partners

three years we have created a track

working in technology industries. I

record primarily in the Korean market.

believe that digital transformation was

In the next few years, I see more large

never a question of ‘if’, it has always

scale business expansion globally, in

been a question of when. COVID-19

South east Asia, the UK and the US. Also,

has decided one thing for us – the

our services will be more data intensive

time is now.”

and more suitable for the 5G world.”

For many in the technology industry, the COVID-19 pandemic has fasttracked digitalisation. Chakraborty is optimistic. “I have a very positive w w w.so lid . com

10F SOLiD SPACE 220 PANGYOYEOK-RO BUNDANG-GU SEONGNAM-SI GYEONGGI-DO 13493 REPUBLIC OF KORE A T +82 31 627 6000 www.solid.com

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