“GSIAC Smart Cities Alliance (SCA) is a platform established during the 7^TH GSIAC for the council members to deliberate on Smart City’s issues and challenges and creates an opportunity for networking among the stakeholders. The formation of GSIAC SCA consist of cross sector participations from academician, governments and industry players. Thus, forming a new structure comprising founding, core, vertical, innovator, market & funding governed by the strategic objectives, specific roles and responsibilities for the members.

Currently in Malaysia, a number of ‘smart’ initiatives being executed by few parties across the major cities in Malaysia including Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru, Kuching, Kota Kinabalu, Melaka & Ipoh. The GSIAC SCA will be synchronizing the initiatives implemented at the targeted cities in Malaysia towards the specific targets of Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Results-focus and Time-bound (SMART)” – GSCA

The GSIAC Smart Cities Alliance ( GSCA) towards a smarter city, together. We’re proudly associated with these partners! Favoriot is one of the 4 Founding members from the Industry in GSCA – http://www.might.org.my/gsiacsc/partners-directory/

As India is making a fast progress directed towards a digital world, making headlines in initiatives like the smart city or a dedicated center of excellence for the Internet of Things.

The country is evidently stepping towards a better-connected world. Indian information technology (IT) services companies now own about two-fifth of the global Internet of Things (IoT) market. In all, about 43 % or $1.5 billion of the global $3.5 Billion market, says a report by research and strategy consultancy Zinnov Zones.

The share in Western Europe and North America is 27 % and 23 %, respectively. And the report has listed TCS, Wipro, Infosys, HCL, Tech Mahindra, Persistent, Genpact and L&T Technologies among the global leading innovators and market leaders in IoT.

As the Internet of Things is hitting the products and services side of it, creating job opportunities like never before. Statistics below are taken from “IoT India Job Study 2017”

IoT India Job Study 2017 Report

IoT Jobs by Cities:

• In terms of cities, Bengaluru accounts for around 51% of IoT jobs in India.
• Chennai comes a distant second contributing 15% IoT jobs in India.
• Approximately 12% of IoT jobs are from Delhi/NCR.

IoT Jobs by Industry:

• Telecom sector continues to be the biggest influencer in IoT job market. 37% of all jobs posted on IoT were from the Telecom sector.
• 14% of IoT jobs were in Engineering/ Industrial product/ Utilities sector.
• Semiconductors / Electronics sector contributes 13% of all IoT jobs.

Experience Requirement by IoT jobs:

• Around 32% of IoT requirements are looking for candidates with less than 5 years experience.
• Only 3% IoT jobs are for freshers.
• 68% IoT job openings are for professionals with more than 5 years job experience.

IoT Jobs by Salaries:

• The median salaries being offered by advertised IoT jobs in India is INR 6.1 Lakh/ annum. Advertised salaries tend to be lower than actual salaries.
• 34% of all IoT jobs offer a salary range of 3 to 6 Lakh, followed by 33% for less than 3 Lakh.
• Almost 15% of all advertised IoT jobs in India are offering a salary of more than 10 Lakh

There are 10 companies that are hiring IoT professionals in India:

1. Cisco–  IoT Solutions Architect, Customer Support Engineer- IoT cloud, Software Engineers in IoT connectivity team and IoT Software Platform are some of the positions that Cisco is currently offering to professionals in IoT field.
2. Amazon– IoT Systems Architect, IoT Solutions Architect, Software Development Engineer- IoT, Backend Web Developer in IoT are few positions at Amazon in the field of IoT.
3. Wipro– Internet of Things – Component Developer, Predix IoT, Google IoT are few of the areas that hire IoT professionals at Wipro.
4.  L&T– Solutions Architect- IoT and M2M, IoT Engineer, positions in smart manufacturing services and others are some of the openings in IoT at L&T.
5. SAP– IoT Architect, IoT Manager, Application Engineer- IoT platform, IoT Expert, Technology consultant for IoT, are few of the openings in IoT at SAP.
6. Bosch– Bosch hires professionals for various positions such as for Bosch IoT platform, IoT suite and other profiles related to the development of sophisticated IoT applications.
7. Qualcomm– Web Apps Development Engineer- IoT and IoT Engineers are positioned high in demand at Qualcomm.
8. IBM– Application Architect, Business Sales, and Delivery Executive, Cloud Architect, Watson IoT Portfolio Marketing Manager are some of the openings in IoT at IBM among others.
9. GE– It offers Industrial IoT jobs, Software Engineer- IoT, IoT Architect, among others
10. Accenture– IoT connected vehicle, Application Developer, are a few positions for IoT professionals at Accenture.

LinkedIn is an excellent website to seek jobs and network with the professionals. People who subscribed to LinkedIn are mostly genuine whereby they will disclose their professional profile in a transparent manner. Thus, you can clearly see their job titles and experiences.

Five or ten years ago, the job titles that bear the word “M2M” were too common, but things have changed since the last two years. Internet of Things is the most hype word in the business world.

When I decided to embark on the business of IoT three years ago, I decided what will be the name of the company and surprisingly, there is no business is Malaysia have “IOT” in their company’s name. Thus, I chose “REDtone IOT” as our company’s name and very excited to be the first in Malaysia. We also created job titles such as – IOT Specialist, IOT Manager, Lead IOT Engineer, etc. These titles are non-existent in LinkedIn during that time.

And later, when I left the company to set up another IoT company, we still choose IoT in the name of new Startup called “FAVORIOT“. We have added “IoT Business Executive” and “IoT Apprentice” as part of the job titles.

And today (2017), things are very different, we can see many jobs which are now focused and specialised in the areas of IoT such as:

• Chief IOT Officer
• IOT Software Engineer
• IOT Application Developer
• IOT Mobile Application Engineer
• IOT Solutions Architect
• General Manager IOT Software
• IOT Product Manager
• IOT Client Solutions Architect
• IOT Solutions Sales Architect
• Partner Development Manager – IOT
• Service Sales Engagement Manager – IOT
• Sales Director IOT
• PR Manager IOT
• IOT Data Analytics
• IOT Ecosystem Technology Intern
• …..and much more

Rarely you will see jobs have M2M titles and even if they do, they will have both “IOT and M2M” in their job title. Probably, people perceived M2M as an “old” technology. Thus, they fancied having IOT that is more fashionable, trendy and the “in-thing.”

The trend using “IOT” as their job titles shows that Internet of Things is becoming a serious business focus. People that have the knowledge and experience in IOT are rare in the market. We see Universities started to offer subjects related to IOT, and this is a good indication that the industry will get more supply of new graduates that have IOT background.

Personally, I see people that have “IOT skills” are very rare breed. They combined multiple skills both from technology (sensors, mobile, cloud, analytics, etc.) and business acumen (solutions selling, partner development, etc.). IOT is here to stay and thus, need to ensure that we have enough pool of resources to make all the “Smart” applications that IOT promised be a reality.

Let’s create the next generation of “IOT specialists”!

What do you think?

About the Author

Dr. Mazlan Abbas the Co-Founder of FAVORIOT Sdn Bhd. He is an IOT Evangelist and a Thought Leader. He received an award as 50 Most Impactful Smart Cities Leaders by World CSR 2017. He is ranked No. 20th Thought Leader in IOT by 2014 Onalytics Report – “The Internet of Things – Top 100 Thought Leaders”, ranked Top 10 in IoT Top 100 Influencers by Postscapes 2016/2017, ranked Top 100 in Smart Cities Top Experts by Agilience Authority Index May 2016. You can reach him on LinkedIn or Twitter. Check all his presentation slides HERE