Thought Leaders in Internet of Things: Triax CEO Robert Costantini (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Are all your work sites construction sites?

Robert Constantini: We provide solutions across a lot of industries like construction, energy, mining, manufacturing, and heavy industrial. One of the key issues is that the robustness of our technology works in these challenging environments. That’s where our technology shines.

Sramana Mitra: I assume COVID has been a big accelerator for you.

Robert Constantini: COVID has been a big accelerator for tech generally. People are solving problems that had never existed in their management experience. When you frame it in that context, you say to yourself, “How do I address this problem?” A lot of people look at digital technology these days to help them with insights that they were not able to collect before. I would say IoT specifically. 

Sramana Mitra: When you look at the universe that you have visibility into, what are some open problems that you think new entrepreneurs should go after?

Robert Constantini: Beyond things that we’re focused on, entrepreneurs should go after solving large-scale problems. IoT is what I know. I’ve worked on the connectivity side, and I’ve worked on the supply side. I think the potential it brings to businesses and consumer environment is enormous. A couple of white spaces that come to mind would be things like smart retail, smart agriculture. Supply chain but not the mobile piece. Connected health would be another one that comes to mind.

I’ll give you a couple of examples. I mentioned smart retail. If you think about the on-demand world we live in, this is not translating into the in-store experience. You go into the store and it hasn’t changed in a long time. Stores can get smart in terms of the way people shop and the way shelves are stocked. Questions I think you’d want to ask yourself is, “You have this in your cart. Maybe you want this?” We see that all the time in the online world. It’s really about having intelligence around helping the consumer. That would be one area.

Another would be smart agriculture. I’m not an expert in agriculture at all. When you think about the supply chain, how do you alleviate this farm-to-fork dynamic that’s in play? About 14% of what is produced and grown never goes to the supermarket. There’s farm growing and harvesting on the frontend. On the backend, there’s distribution in the retail environment which presents opportunities.

The possibilities are endless for IoT. You have to be embedded into your clients business when you do this in a way that you’re providing indispensable data so they can run their business in ways that they don’t even know is possible. 

Sramana Mitra: You mentioned digital health earlier. I look at the Apple Watch. It’s saving lives literally. There’s no other way of monitoring arrhythmia right now at home. There many such other examples. It’s not really connected to the doctor’s office.

Robert Constantini: No. My mind works on the industrial side of things. On connected health, there are going to be a few players and certainly Apple will be one of them. You’re certainly right about that. The Apple Watch is pretty awesome.

There’re also elements in the healthcare space of managing productivity in a healthcare environment. This is an environment that has hypersensitivity to personal data protection. Rightfully so. I like to think that the data on an anonymized basis can be equally powerful.

It’s not always about a click-through or some way to generate ad revenue. IoT can really provide concrete ROI. Even things like, where are your janitorial services? How long will it take? What is the staffing level required to get the level of cleanliness that you’re aiming for.

Sramana Mitra: Great. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Thought Leaders in Internet of Things: Triax CEO Robert Costantini
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