Wednesday, April 16,2014: Agilent Technologies’ Electronics Measurement Group (EMG) will transform into Keysight Technologies this year. So what will change, and what will remain the same? To get a clearer picture, Dilin Anand and Atul Goel of EFY spoke to Sudhir Tangri, country manager, electronic measurement group, Agilent Technologies India Pvt Ltd.
EB: What actually led to this spin-off?
Over the last decade or so, we have capitalised on the electronics test and measurement business (EMG), and created a new entity which we call LDA (life sciences and diagnostic analysis). It’s a very sizeable and highly competitive business now. These two differently focused companies are well positioned now for individual growth–they are distinct industries that require greater customer focus, and they have enough individual strengths to stand on their own, especially when considering that they are each almost 50 per cent of the entire company.
EB: What does the term ‘Keysight’ imply?
It’s a combination of key and insight. We believe that through what we do, we give our customers the ability to have insights into their electronics designs and make the right measurements. This is what enables them to be first to the market and to develop new and innovative products. We provide them key insights into their electronics design and development. The name connects with what we do, what we are and what others cannot do. This is essentially what the name represents. Our logo is a stylised waveform of a typical electronic signal, and it shows the 100 per cent focus on electronics test and measurement (T&M) that Keysight will have.
EB: What differences can we expect to see in the operations of Keysight?
The most important difference is the benefits that will come out of a focused business. Keysight, by becoming a dedicated electronics T&M company, will have 100 per cent focus on this business alone.
From now on, the top opportunity in the electronics measurement business will be Keysight’s top opportunity at any level. Another difference is that our corporate headquarters will be in Santa Rosa, while Agilent is headquartered in Santa Clara.
EB: What are the things that will not change as Agilent’s EMG transforms into Keysight?
Our products and roadmaps attached with Agilent’s EMG will remain essentially the same under Keysight. The same team with a global footprint will run it. Moreover, all IPs and patents connected with our business will also be carried forward. Once the split is completed, the new company will be better able to implement growth strategies, business policies and practices uniquely suited to the T&M market and to its customers’ needs.
The customers will see no change at this time. At the time of separation, they will be notified of changes in business processes. We expect very little disruption in our customers’ day-to-day experiences when the transition occurs.
EB: What’s the action plan for the transformation?
We will continue to do business as Agilent until August 1, this year. Post August, we will begin to do business as Keysight in a majority of countries. We are working on a very detailed branding and awareness strategy, which will be rolled out in the next month or two.
EB: What about the challenges that could arise as part of the rebranding exercise?
This will not be that difficult a task for us because we have very deep relationships with our customers, and we are positioned at the top in the T&M market. In fact, we are well positioned with the entire ecosystem in the market, be it chip vendors, product vendors, services vendors, and so on. This branding and rebranding exercise becomes easier because we will be leveraging our customer relationships that we have built over the last 75 years.
We are not starting from scratch. Our customers and partners have a very deep engagement with us, and these are the things that will help my marketing colleagues in this rebranding exercise.
EB: What is your view on how the T&M world has changed over the past decade?
I think the entire technology landscape is changing very rapidly. Just look at the hand phone that you are carrying now, and the one that you were carrying three years ago. There’s a huge difference. The user expectations from instrumentation are also changing. That’s one perspective.
Another is that the hardware components in any product used to account for about 70 per cent of the product and software would be 30 per cent. I think it’s the reverse now. All these technology landscape changes are creating a different set of expectations from an instrumentation vendor like Agilent, and that is why we have to be two steps ahead to meet and exceed these expectations.
EB: Apart from advances in functionality, what is being done to make test engineers want to work with their instruments?
Moving forward, one of the important things that we would like to implement is to provide a better user experience for the test engineer. This means that, as a long-term strategy, we would be coming out with products that enhance the user experience and create customer value.
EB: Could you give us the gist of these trends in changing user expectations?
If you went out to an R&D bench 20 years ago, you would have seen engineers who loved their instruments, and wanted to spend time with them—they almost lived with their instruments.
Today’s R&D engineers, who are shaping the world, want quick measurements; they don’t want long setup times because they are under pressure to be faster to market.
If you went into a handset organisation 10 years ago, the product lifecycle was probably five years. These handset organisations are now launching products every three months! So the pressure is coming on to the R&D engineer to create new products in a much shorter period because every company wants to be first to market. These are the trends that are changing expectations from instrumentation vendors like us.
EB: What are some interesting features that you have observed, which have been applied irrespective of functionality?
We have heard that people want remote monitoring, and if you look at our portfolio now, you can see that it has been implemented a lot.
For something as minor as a small 8.89 cm (3.5 inch) multimeter, we have enabled remote monitoring through Bluetooth, and so forth. This shows how this technology has gone through, and extended its effects to even the lowest end of our spectrum of products.
Another example is in oscilloscopes. We witnessed that people are more used to tapping, swiping and poking on their phones and other handset platforms. We went ahead and implemented touch-functionality on our oscilloscopes so that users can continue to have the same experience.
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