Euridice: Logica's freight transport soln

BANGALORE, INDIA: Logica, an IT and business company, announced that it will be soon launching an innovative freight transportation solution, the Euridice, which can harness information from a range of track and trace technologies such as RFID, GPRS and satellite positioning to provide information about goods in transit and also briefed upon the company's future commitments at a press meet.

Euridice

Logica has come up with a transport solution project, Euridice, an intelligent cargo system, which will establish the most advanced information services for freight transportation. Euridice, European interdisciplinary Research on Intelligent Cargo for Efficient Safe and Environment-Friendly Logistics, the brain child of Logica's Spark innovation centre in Bangalore, is being trialed by the European Commission and the current phase of the project is scheduled to be completed by 2011.

G.B.S. Bindra, global innovation director, Logica, said: "We will soon change the very shipping scenario. Euridice will help solving some of the main problems affecting freight transportation. The system will address various challenges around the logistics, business and public policy aspects of freight transportation. Once completed, it will enable cargo (from complete shipments to individual items) to interact with its surrounding environment and actively notify its presence and identify requirements. We have collaborated with 12 companies in this project."

What is in store for the future?

"We want to bring in our expertise, in five verticals, such as energy and utilities, industry distribution and transport, telecom and media, financial service and public sector, into the Indian domestic market," said Bindra.

"Right now, we are into the BFSI and telecom segments. We are working with RBI, Bank of Baroda and ABN Amro Bank, and have a major presence in bank-to-bank transfer. Soon, we have plans to venture into hydrocarbon accounting and mobile virtual network space. We may venture into the government service space in another one year from now," he added.

Abhay Gupte, CEO, Logica India, noted: "We have a very small presence in the Indian domestic market. However, India is opening up for newer technologies, and being an already established company in providing solutions, we are confident of tapping them at the early stage itself. Once, the government makes policy announcements, we will be there.”

“A new centre will come up in Chennai by early August with a capacity to house around 3,000 people. The centre will focus on application service, infrastructure management and BPO service. By the end of the year 2009, we will double up our headcount, which is at present 3,000,” Gupte added.

"If we go by the trends, in the past six to nine months majority of the deals announced, in India, are European deals. This is in itself is a good sign for us and shows where the fulcrum is moving. And since the US is facing a slowdown and we being a Europe-based company will be cashing in on the benefits of offshore servicing," he averred.

Logica's innovative spree

Bindra pointed out: “Logica's Global innovation Centre for Excellence (GICE) is into incremental, breakthrough, product and service, process and strategy innovations. We have a vision to become the most trusted innovation partner creating sustainable business value using our local insight and global talent. In Logica, we combine intelligence and technology.”

Logica has also proposed a couple of innovative products that would open up newer vistas for companies on business models.

Logica has partnered with Volvo, BMW, Bosch and Siemens, wherein, with its proposed 'emergency button', it proposes to save one life in every four hours and up to 26 million Euros.

It has also proposed a solution by which insurance can be paid on the go from now onward and can be 'topped-up via mobile phones' as per the dynamic parameters like distance traveled, speed, distance, time and locale.

In an attempt to ‘go green’, Logica has devised a system for cars, wherein the fuel emission data is transferred using emission readers at fuel stations. Once this comes into existence, the fuel price, road tax and insurance tax will be calculated according to the data recorded, which will persuade automobile users to go for cleaner technologies.