BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH - Frost & Sullivan · BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH ... Salesforce and others to access ... customers use Skylight for a variety of issues such as compliance management,

BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH

© Frost & Sullivan 2015 1 “We Accelerate Growth”



Contents

Background and Company Performance ........................................................................ 3

Background and Company Performance ........................................................................ 3

Industry Challenges .............................................................................................. 3

Application Convergence Impact and Customer Impact ............................................. 3

Best Practice Visual .............................................................................................. 6

Conclusion........................................................................................................... 6

Understanding Customer Value Excellence through Application Convergence ..................... 7

Key Benchmarking Criteria .................................................................................... 8

Best Practice Award Analysis for APX Labs ..................................................................... 8

Decision Support Scorecard ................................................................................... 8

Application Convergence Impact ............................................................................ 9

Customer Impact ................................................................................................. 9

Decision Support Matrix ...................................................................................... 10

Research Methodology ........................................................................................ 11

About Frost & Sullivan .............................................................................................. 13



Background and Company Performance

Industry Challenges

Automation in the manufacturing industry is critical to enhancing processes, bringing

efficiency to the plant and making data actionable. Providing the data generated to

workers on the plant floor and helping them manage the process through actionable

insights in real-time, however, can be a daunting challenge. Linking the front-end and

back-end manufacturing processes and systems to provide holistic data to workers

presents yet another lofty challenge. The activities running at the back of the plant are

often disconnected from the enterprise, thus creating a time lag between the two

introducing delays, inefficiencies and potential quality problems. Because of this, the

unmet need for information on the plant floor is a significant and chronic problem facing

the industrial enterprise today. Too frequently, workers receive and physically deliver

information on paper, or they have to find a way to relay the information through other

communication channels, which are most often unreliable and cumbersome, not to

mention that these antiquated communications channels cause delays that can result in

lost production time and errors.

With revenues under pressure, product complexity increasing, and processes 'going lean',

the quality of output is becoming increasingly important. Manufacturing industries face the

challenge of reducing errors in process and output, while keeping costs low and operations

flexible. Plus, worker health and safety on the plant floor are also paramount, making

undistracted and hands-free work another important challenge.

Application Convergence Impact and Customer Impact

Completeness of Vision

The manufacturing industry is rapidly moving towards digitalization as it continues to

adopt automation and communication solutions. Automation is enabling the vision of a

digital enterprise. APX Labs applies the convergence of software and hardware

(wearables) industries for manufacturing, field service and other industrial processes. This

bridges the gap between the users on the plant floor, the machines they work with and

the rest of the data and systems of the enterprise.

APX’s wearable software solution, Skylight, is a hardware-agnostic platform that connects

multiple wearable devices with other machines and personnel. It ties into existing

networked systems and brings information to users, thereby helping them create

actionable data-based insight in real-time right at the point where they are doing their

job.

One of the strengths of Skylight is that it is not middleware or developer tools, but is

rather a configurable and extensible end-user application and real-time enterprise system.



Skylight’s applications cut across industries; from oil and gas to power, from aerospace

and defense to automotive and transportation. While Skylight helps a company provide

real-time information to its workers on the plant floor, it also ensures personnel safety

and process efficiency optimization. The solution is compatible with all major wearable

hardware devices such as smart glasses and smart watches. It can be seamlessly

integrated into existing processes and external systems to create customized processes.

Moreover, Skylight is designed to help companies address issues across a wide spectrum

of areas where personnel are building, fixing, assembling, or monitoring, and require data

feed to enable smooth processes.

Unlike competing 'process-based' point solutions, APX Labs' Skylight is an enterprise-wide

solution that can be used for any industrial process by any employee. It also allows the

enterprise to customize and build their own plug-in applications for specific solutions and

to alter existing processes. Skylight can serve as a ‘browser’ for the Internet of Things,

connecting the users of wearable devices into the digital ecosystem of connected

machines, sensors and applications. With increasing data dependence, data vulnerability

increases. Skylight's solution is highly secure, mitigating such IT risks.

Growth Potential

Skylight is a platform that supports multiple scenarios ranging from factory assembly to

material handling on the manufacturing floor. It enables personnel on the plant floor to

get up-to-date work orders, instructions, and checklists while on the go. Integrating the

software into the company’s existing knowledge base helps workers pull on-demand

reference sheets, training guides, help videos, and maps, delivering this knowledge to

where it is needed the most.

As industries increasingly adopt automated processes, wearable solutions will be applied

to connect personnel with machines. Skylight has the capability to become the industry

pioneer and the de-facto standard. It has been applied by top companies in the

manufacturing industry for not only machine to personnel communication, but also

personnel to personnel communication. With wearable devices becoming a natural fit with

manufacturing, service, distribution and related sectors, the potential for Skylight’s growth

is immense.

Disruptive Capability of the Application

Skylight addresses the current challenge of connecting personnel, thus enabling for the

first time comprehensive enterprise connectivity. Skylight enables two-way live audio and

video communication that can help the workers on the floor address critical issues with

back-end support. Live communication can enable experts located anywhere in the

enterprise to immediately help personnel on the factory floor. Instant alerts through text

messages and notifications provide a constant feed of information to the personnel

wearing smart glasses and smart watches. Skylight also provides a comprehensive



platform for staff to view data from various devices, sensors, and systems in multiple

interfaces for instantaneous insight, while controlling the devices around them.

Business Value to Customers

The manufacturing industry is moving towards connectivity of all assets to create

processes and provide value for money to its customers. Skylight enables users with

wearable devices to interact with applications, machines and other personnel, thereby

helping companies extend the connectivity through the enterprise. It enables back-end

processes to deliver information as required while keeping employees 'hands free'. The

display, camera, sensors, and other user input devices help workers on the plant floor

communicate with support teams. As the software platform is hardware agnostic,

companies can use a variety of different devices on a single software platform. The

enterprise-wide and industry-wide scalability to provide real-time information on the plant

floor delivers business value that is unmatched by traditional systems. The latest release,

Skylight R5 has key features such as work order management, integration with smart

watches, voice activation and online/offline interactivity with systems. Shop-floor

personnel can also build on current processes/activities with other systems such as SAP,

Microsoft, Salesforce and others to access asset and product data, service tickets and

other important information. The ability of the platform to bring realistic and connected

user experiences through a wearable system, hands free, is truly differentiated in the

market. One of the deep integrations APX Labs has built is with SAP systems (Work

Manager, Visual Enterprise, HANA and MII). The platform’s ability to seamlessly interact

with enterprise systems and perform data transactions and help enterprise collaboration

are universal solutions. The potential for Skylight as a platform of the future is limitless,

as the company aims on building its ecosystem and driving new-age applications for old-

world problems.

Customer Ownership Experience

APX Labs offers training for customers and partners, reducing adoption time, ensuring an

unrivaled ownership experience. The ownership experience is enhanced by Skylight’s

multi-industry reach, with best-in-class companies having already embraced its solution.

Leading companies in process and discrete manufacturing industries have adopted

Skylight as the application platform to build out applications for the industrial ecosystem.

At a juncture, where companies are pursuing platform-based strategies, Skylight’s vision

to build the industrial wearable ecosystem of the future speaks volumes of the company’s

foresight and ability to capitalize on futuristic opportunities. Skylight counts aerospace,

utility, automotive, oil and gas, telecom and energy companies as key customers. These

customers use Skylight for a variety of issues such as compliance management, best-

practices sharing, error reduction, traceability, productivity improvements and such

others. Furthermore, the platform’s scalability and extensibility is very rewarding to

customers as they expand on applications and roll it as an enterprise-wide standard.



Customer Service Experience

APX Labs understands the technicalities behind the adoption and integration of Skylight

into existing analog plant floor systems. It has, therefore, created a unique service

portfolio to help seamlessly incorporate the solution into a company’s existing network,

thus eliminating the risk of disjointed integration. The solution is designed to meet a

company’s specific needs across the enterprise. It also comes with a developer toolkit that

can further satisfy unmet demands. With the control in the user’s hands, Skylight provides

complete service experience to its customers.

Best Practice Visual

Conclusion

APX Labs has brought convergence to the manufacturing industry with its hardware-

agnostic software platform through Skylight, a product that enables personnel to build,

monitor, and operate processes hands-free. The platform has disrupted traditional

analogous plant floor communication and digitized it with wearable technology, thus

connecting machines to personnel in real-time. Skylight has also helped companies

generate efficiency and value for money. It can be extended to create customized

solutions with the help of the developer toolkit, thus giving complete autonomy over an

enterprise’s wearable strategy. Because of its strong overall performance, best-in-class

solution, pioneering technology and cutting-edge applications, APX Labs is recognized with

Frost & Sullivan’s 2015 Customer Value Excellence through Application Convergence

Award.



Significance of Customer Value Excellence through

Application Convergence

Application convergence drives a spectrum of opportunities for value-enhancement as new

applications and ecosystems get created. Further, application convergence leads to

extension of customer value and unique points of differentiation. At its core, application

convergence or any other type of convergence can only be sustained with leadership in

three key areas: customer demand, business value, and competitive positioning.

Understanding Customer Value Excellence through


Application convergence leads to opportunities for new value creation in here to

undiscovered ways, resulting in new applications which outperform existing approaches

and drives superior performance by utilizing multiple system inputs.



Key Benchmarking Criteria

For the Application Convergence Award, Frost & Sullivan analysts independently evaluated

two key factors— Application Convergence Impact and Customer Impact—according to the

criteria identified below.

Application Convergence Impact

Criterion 1: Completeness of vision

Criterion 2: Growth potential

Criterion 3: Ability to drive application ecosystem interest

Criterion 4: Disruptive capability of the application

Criterion 5: Impact of applications over legacy approaches

Customer Impact

Criterion 1: Business value to customers

Criterion 2: Customer's perception of value

Criterion 3: Customer ownership experience

Criterion 4: Customer service experience

Criterion 5: Brand Equity

Best Practice Award Analysis for APX Labs

Decision Support Scorecard

To support its evaluation of best practices across multiple business performance

categories, Frost & Sullivan employs a customized Decision Support Scorecard. This tool

allows our research and consulting teams to objectively analyze performance, according to

the key benchmarking criteria listed in the previous section, and to assign ratings on that

basis. The tool follows a 10-point scale that allows for nuances in performance evaluation;

ratings guidelines are illustrated below.

RATINGS GUIDELINES

The Decision Support Scorecard is organized by application convergence attributes and

customer impact (i.e., the overarching categories for all 10 benchmarking criteria; the

definitions for each criteria are provided beneath the scorecard). The research team



confirms the veracity of this weighted scorecard through sensitivity analysis, which

confirms that small changes to the ratings for a specific criterion do not lead to a

significant change in the overall relative rankings of the companies.

The results of this analysis are shown below. To remain unbiased and to protect the

interests of all organizations reviewed, we have chosen to refer to the other key players

as Competitor 2 and Competitor 3.

Measurement of 1–10 (1 = poor; 10 = excellent)

Customer Value Excellence through


Application

Convergence

Impact

Customer

Impact Average Rating

APX Labs 9.0 9.0 9.0

Competitor 2 7.0 7.0 7.0

Competitor 3 6.0 5.0 5.5


Criterion 1: Completeness of Vision

Requirement: Ability to showcase a long-term vision and pioneer industry transformation.

Criterion 2: Growth Potential

Requirement: Ability to leverage the benefits of converging technologies and drive growth.

Criterion 3: Ability to Drive Application Ecosystem Interest

Success of application convergence depends on the ecosystem maturity, its partners and

strategy to build-out industry-specific solution

Criterion 4: Disruptive capability of the application

Requirement: The new application’s capability to replace existing market incumbents and

provide a path to long-term sustenance.

Criterion 5: Impact of applications over legacy approaches

Requirement: Capability of applications to deliver a set of superior solutions is key to win

support from customers.

Customer Impact

Criterion 1: Business Value to Customers

Requirement: Capability to deliver superior business value instead of simple substitution.

Criterion 2: Customer's Perception of Value

Requirement: Customer view-points on blurring of application and its potential to create

new revenue streams.



Criterion 3: Customer Ownership Experience

Requirement: Customers are proud to own the company’s product or service, and have a

positive experience throughout the life of the product or service

Criterion 4: Customer Service Experience

Requirement: Customer service is accessible, fast, stress-free, and of high quality

Criterion 5: Brand Equity

Requirement: New application enhances the company’s brand, creating and/or nurturing

brand loyalty

Decision Support Matrix

Once all companies have been evaluated according to the Decision Support Scorecard,

analysts can then position the candidates on the matrix shown below, enabling them to

visualize which companies are truly breakthrough and which ones are not yet operating at

best-in-class levels.

High

Low

Low High

Cu

sto

mer I

mp

act


APX Labs

Competitor 2

Competitor 3



The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best

Practices Awards

Research Methodology

Frost & Sullivan’s 360-degree research

methodology represents the analytical

rigor of our research process. It offers a

360-degree-view of industry challenges,

trends, and issues by integrating all 7 of

Frost & Sullivan's research methodologies.

Too often, companies make important

growth decisions based on a narrow

understanding of their environment,

leading to errors of both omission and

commission. Successful growth strategies

are founded on a thorough understanding

of market, technical, economic, financial,

customer, best practices, and demographic

analyses. The integration of these research

disciplines into the 360-degree research

methodology provides an evaluation

platform for benchmarking industry players and for identifying those performing at best-

in-class levels.

360-DEGREE RESEARCH: SEEING ORDER IN

THE CHAOS



Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching, Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices

Frost & Sullivan Awards follow a 10-step process to evaluate award candidates and assess

their fit with select best practice criteria. The reputation and integrity of the Awards are

based on close adherence to this process.

STEP OBJECTIVE KEY ACTIVITIES OUTPUT

1 Monitor, target, and screen

Identify award recipient candidates from around the globe

Conduct in-depth industry research

Identify emerging sectors Scan multiple geographies

Pipeline of candidates who potentially meet all best-practice criteria

2 Perform 360-degree research

Perform comprehensive, 360-degree research on all candidates in the pipeline

Interview thought leaders and industry practitioners

Assess candidates’ fit with best-practice criteria

Rank all candidates

Matrix positioning all candidates’ performance relative to one another

3

Invite thought leadership in best practices

Perform in-depth examination of all candidates

Confirm best-practice criteria Examine eligibility of all

candidates Identify any information gaps

Detailed profiles of all ranked candidates

4

Initiate research director review

Conduct an unbiased evaluation of all candidate profiles

Brainstorm ranking options Invite multiple perspectives

on candidates’ performance Update candidate profiles

Final prioritization of all eligible candidates and companion best-practice positioning paper

5

Assemble panel of industry experts

Present findings to an expert panel of industry thought leaders

Share findings Strengthen cases for

candidate eligibility Prioritize candidates

Refined list of prioritized award candidates

6

Conduct global industry review

Build consensus on award candidates’ eligibility

Hold global team meeting to review all candidates

Pressure-test fit with criteria Confirm inclusion of all

eligible candidates

Final list of eligible award candidates, representing success stories worldwide

7 Perform quality check

Develop official award consideration materials

Perform final performance benchmarking activities

Write nominations Perform quality review

High-quality, accurate, and creative presentation of nominees’ successes

8

Reconnect with panel of industry experts

Finalize the selection of the best-practice award recipient

Review analysis with panel Build consensus Select winner

Decision on which company performs best against all best-practice criteria

9 Communicate recognition

Inform award recipient of award recognition

Present award to the CEO Inspire the organization for

continued success Celebrate the recipient’s

performance

Announcement of award and plan for how recipient can use the award to enhance the brand

10 Take strategic action

Upon licensing, company may share award news with stakeholders and customers

Coordinate media outreach Design a marketing plan Assess award’s role in future

strategic planning

Widespread awareness of recipient’s award status among investors, media personnel, and employees



About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth

and achieve best in class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's

Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined

research and best practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation

of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages almost 50 years of experience in

partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment

community from 31 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit

http://www.frost.com.

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Documents

BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH - Frost & Sullivan · BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH ... Salesforce and others to access ... customers use Skylight for a variety of issues such as compliance management,