00:07
Location Weekly Japan 〜位置情報データビジネス最前線〜
今日はですね、Pinmicro株式会社のティビさんに来てもらってます。
ティビさん、よろしくお願いします。
よろしくお願いします。
ティビさん、ちゃんと日本語喋れますね。
大体頑張ってみます。
できると思うんですけれども、日本はちょっと長いので、話すことは大丈夫です。
Pinmicro株式会社さんは日本の会社なんですよね?
そうですよ。でも、私と副社長みんなはインド人なので、
多分、日本の会社と何回も言わないと難しくなります。
日本の会社です。
日本で2015年に立ち上がった会社です。
じゃあ、もう8年目ですかね。
はい、今8年目です。
じゃあ、そしたらせっかくなんで、Pinmicroの会社紹介と
プロダクト紹介みたいなものをしてもらえればと思いますけど、
多分、英語でやってもらった方が伝わりやすいかなと思うので、
Please explain about Pinmicro itself and the product.
So, we started, myself, my two other friends,
we started Pinmicro in 2015.
Initially, we tried to address location-based offerings
like time sales in Japan.
If you go to any supermarket, you can see from 2 to 3 or 3 to 4,
there will be time sales board will be there.
So, we thought maybe we can capitalize that market by digitalizing
and delivering through coupons.
That was the first concept.
Yes.
Yeah, please.
Yeah, go ahead.
Then, we came to know that going to a B2C market,
especially in 2015, it was too early
because we were using the technology Bluetooth
and everyone that time was thinking about Bluetooth is a battery eater.
So, we couldn't go to the consumers.
Whenever we talk, we are using Bluetooth.
Oh, Bluetooth is bad or Bluetooth consumes a lot of energy.
That was the biggest concern.
So, we thought like, okay, the technology which we built was really good
and we could even analyze by analyzing the spending time, etc.
That time, Apple's SDK was just giving entry and exit,
but we customized a little more saying that someone entered into the shop,
he spent 10 more minutes, then only do the action exit.
So, because the B2C didn't go,
we approached another customer space B2B
and fortunately, we got the first customer in event space.
That time, no one was analyzing inside events,
how the visitor is behaving, what the visitor is looking for, etc.
But we could grab the first customer in after first month itself.
It was one of the biggest job fair company in Japan.
So, before we come to picture, everything was paper,
like the job seekers, they will come with a paper resume
or they will print out the paper resume.
They will go to each company booth and hand over the resume.
And at the end of the event,
these companies will take a lot of paper resumes back to their office.
Then the HR will filter everything.
So, everything was a manual job.
And even the organizer,
03:01
they have no visibility about how many people attended
or where the resumes are going on,
what is each visitor's interest, etc.
So, we could convince the customer that,
okay, from a facilitator,
you can change into a big data analytics company.
So, you should be able to know what this person is looking for.
Maybe he is submitting the resume to location interested companies.
So, this person is looking for something related with RTLS.
Or this person is submitting the resume only in financial companies.
So, he is looking for something in FinTech.
Or some person is simply like kind of window shopping.
He is submitting resume everywhere.
So, we don't need to, like maybe, you know, to invest on that person, etc.
So, it was a good game changer in that industry.
So, we could, till 2020, before the corona struck,
we could grow with that industry with a different kind of event players.
So, that was one of the product sector.
And we call it event plus.
Still after the corona, I mean, in the new normal,
we could get the existing customers back.
And we started to do the events again in that space.
That's good to know. Events are back.
Yeah, events are really back.
And people are understanding the value of location
and event-based analytics right now.
So, that's one big point.
And even though, event seems to be a kind of one-time industry,
like maybe when one's done, it's not a sufficient kind of model.
So, we want to change the business model
and focus on more digitalization area,
something like factory, hospitals and smart offices.
So, we started that work from 2017 onwards
with our reselling partners, Toppan and other companies.
And that time, the product name was called Assist Plus.
That time, why we started with the name Assist Plus was,
we thought by knowing the location,
we could assist the business.
It may be an all-day home,
so, we could assist the person.
Or it may be a hospital,
so, we could assist the hospital staff.
That was the concept.
And by September of this month,
we will be renaming that into Descent.
Because when we put the name Assist Plus,
everyone started to think it's a kind of a project home
or kind of an all-day home kind of a business.
So, we thought a better branding is important.
So, we are just renaming that into Descent.
Okay. So, Assist Plus gives the kind of impression
that it's only for the, you know, old home.
Yes.
Somebody who needs assistance.
Exactly.
So, you change the name.
You are going to change the name of the product to what again?
Descent, the data sense.
Okay. You want to show the logo?
Yeah. No. Sorry.
This is the logo.
No. The other side.
This is the logo.
Yeah. Okay.
And maybe it looks like something like Meta,
but it's not exactly like Meta.
The logo defines a concept that the data is continuously flowing.
So, it's a dynamical data is our concept.
06:00
Okay. So, data sense is Descent.
Okay. So, tell me about Descent.
What you are going to offer with this service
and also who will be the possible customers for you?
Basically, the data sense right now built with the three stack.
The entire hardware.
We have our own hardware stack.
More than that, we created a partnership agreement
with the different service providers.
For example, Cisco is one of the,
because once Cisco is deployed anywhere,
Descent can be used there.
Or many like Aruba,
some similar kind of mobile partners, mobile Wi-Fi routers.
So, that capacity can be kept.
Next one, we created a hardware section
starting with the different technologies
starting from Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Bluetooth AOA.
That's a new technology to get the precise location
and ultra wide band.
So, this hardware is the one sector.
And this hardware data can be easily converted into location data
by using a location engine platform.
And this location data can be delivered to any end user
or any customer they want to capitalize the location data.
So, we redesigned the platform in a way
the customer can define what is the use case.
So, he can create his own custom dashboards.
For example, if it is a hospital,
the doctor or the head of the hospital
can define what he want to see.
Maybe he want to see the operation
the outpatient department in real time to know the crowd.
Or he want to see the MRI room to know the utilization.
Or he want to know how the hospital rooms are clean
based on the time spent by the janitor.
So, this kind of dashboard can be customized
based on each visit
or each visitor's experience and business experience.
That was the bigger change.
So, even though it help us to explore
into many different business sector.
Right now, we are simply focusing on three areas.
One is smart offices.
So, smart office features basically come
with the office room utilization
and automatic attendance
and automatic collaboration analysis
and office equipment utilization.
These things can be automated
and it can get without any...
with zero coding, you can get all this data in your dashboard.
That's one thing for the office use cases.
Second, of course, locating your coworker
is the key of the smart office or any RTL assistant.
And second one is coming with the healthcare.
So, healthcare is basically...
In Japan, we haven't penetrated to the market much.
But in other countries like in India or Middle East, etc.
Most of the use cases which we are getting
is the hospital or digital clinic.
So, what we created in the defense using this one is like
09:03
we will be able to know where the doctor right now,
how much time the doctor is spending with each patient,
how much the utilization of an equipment.
Even with the help of external APIs,
we can see each equipment's parameters.
For example, this MRI machine is used 10% only
or this is the...
This MRI machine is powered right now
only 3 hours it is used, etc.
So, it will give a complete digital view
of what is happening inside the hospital.
From there, they can easily track the asset,
they can plan the utilization,
they can onboard more customers, I mean, more patients.
So, right now, outside Japan,
most of the projects are happening in healthcare sector.
Okay, you said three.
And the final one is Industry 4.0.
That is happening too much in Japan right now.
That may be because we...
Right now, we are the only company who is offering
ultra-wideband-based precise location.
So, we have that advantage.
So, even in Japan, even outside Japan also,
many factories and warehouses,
they want to track while man and machine working together
the exact location of machines to avoid collisions
for safety, for efficiency, etc.
So, I cannot name the customers right now,
but in Japan, big, big manufacturers are trying our product,
especially most of them are in POC mode,
and that is providing, giving a good accuracy to them
compared to the previous technology which they are using.
So, the DSense brings all the technical stack
which can be used for RTLS,
starting from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth,
Bluetooth AOA, ultra-wideband,
and even AI-based camera too.
So, that will provide a complete stack,
saying when, what, who, how long,
that kind of information we'll say.
For example, TB is doing this work for 20 minutes at this spot.
So, this complete information is there
that helps us to create a perfect digital training of physical space.
Okay. So, you provide the complete solution, right,
from hardware like UWB, Bluetooth,
Wi-Fi, whatever that might be,
and also you'll be able to work with some solutions like Cisco
and any Wi-Fi platforms and all that.
So, but it all goes up to the,
connected to the cloud of DSense, right?
Yes.
Okay. So, what if I do have a dashboard of my own for my company,
but want to work with solutions that you provide,
but, you know, I maybe don't want to use the UI cloud.
Can it still be done?
Yes, it is possible.
And one thing is like we can pump the data,
we can put the location data directly to your cloud
12:01
or maybe any third-party cloud to an NQTT.
But only one thing which we request them to like the device management
because our device management module has the ability to track
if the device is going down or the battery is going down
or any malfunctioning the device we can know in real time.
So, the device management, we want to keep it in our platform.
Of course, nobody wants to do that anyway.
The data can be pumped from NQTT,
so they can create their own dashboard.
They can do their own business analysis.
Yes, and we are supporting such customers too.
Similarly, we are getting the data back from some other players.
So, for example, Kyocera is one of our partners.
So, when we are using the Kyocera hardware,
the data we are collecting from Kyocera cloud through NQTT
and integrating with our solution.
Okay, that's nice to know.
So, the last question,
what is your significance against any other solutions?
I mean, what's your uniqueness
compared to whatever the solution out there?
Actually, this is one of the questions we used to face.
One thing which we can offer is like,
because the entire stack is ours,
we can provide cost-effective, accurate solutions.
Because all our data transportation is efficiently optimized
because the hardware is ours, the cloud is ours.
And based on use cases,
say, suppose in the same hospital,
they want to know doctor in which room,
but some others want to know precise location on equipment.
We can combine both
because all the hardware and all the platform
are from the same company.
So, I think that's a unique feature of PINMicro
comparing with any other competitors right now.
Okay, thank you for your time.
And by the way, you do have the Japanese staff
who, you know, if I want to work,
let me introduce that in Japanese.
もし日本の我々お客さんが
PINMicroと話してみたいよって言った時に
英語じゃなくて日本語で大丈夫ですかね?
もちろん、日本の営業の担当も
日本語でそのサポートも日本人なので
日本語で全然問題ないでサポートできます。
今もPINMicroの9割ぐらいの仕事は
全部日本からなので
日本語なければ難しいですよね。
でも日本語でできますからね。
はい、わかりました。
はい、えっとじゃあ今日はですね
PINMicroの秘密にしてもらいました。
Thank you, Kawashima-san,
for setting up a very beautiful platform like LBMA.
I do remember when the LBMA started,
PINMicro was one of the founding companies.
Yes, you were.
And from like around I think 14 people
to right now it's reached above 50.
It's something great.
It's 66 now.
Yeah, we can see big logos there.
So I feel like the collaboration inside the LBMA
can help each other to go to the next level.
Thank you very much for your efforts.
Let's do more collaborations with everybody else then.
Thank you.
Thank you.
15:00
Thank you very much.
