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Monthly Archives: December 2022

  • December 26, 2022
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How to Engage Users in Real-time with Omnichannel Digital Experience Platforms

Category : Digital Commerce & Experience Blog

For the longest time, the digital technology ecosystem of a business consisted of multiple products. Web portals, content management systems (CMS), analytical tools and even internal/external search modules were working in tandem to render a satisfying customer experience.

Looking at the last decade of innovation and IT advancement, most of these tools or individual platforms are now converging into one unique, custom platform where organizations can command and control all customer interactions. This is the unified Digital Experience Platform that encompasses core digital technologies while enabling scalability and customization.

Customer interaction with your business can range from catalogue browsing, interacting with customer support or even fulfilment of their online transactions. Throw in virtual payment gateways, and you have the complete “buying” experience for the customer integrated with your web property!

This innovative experience platform conveys your offerings to the digital world and stands as a testament of your brand value and its significance amongst others.

In this write up, we will try to explore various aspects of the Digital Experience Platform:

  • Enhancing customer engagement
  • Business drivers for adoption
  • ore components

Enhancing Customer Engagement

This can only be made possible and effective if you know the context and client preferences/interests.

You should be able to aggregate content, track activities, personalize content and serve the same on the medium of the customer’s choice (mobile, web or even outdoor media, in some cases). To achieve this historically a content management system would be used for information discovery and handling, followed by a deep-rooted analytics system for tracking, a campaign management tool for outreach and re-targeting.

All these can be now achieved through a unified and seamless digital experience platform. This digital experience platform empowers businesses to engage with customers and attract prospects throughout their “browsing” or “buying” journey.

Business Drivers for Adopting a Digital Experience Platform

  • An agile method of developing platforms with a faster time to market and effective GTM for new offerings on the platform
  • Active customer engagement which is device or venue agnostic
  • Unified/360-degree customer view (history, buying pattern, device access metrics)
  • Increased customer loyalty, high retention, increased return buy rates and higher cross sell opportunities
  • Self-service and offerings discovery in real time

We can define the digital experience platform as the melting point of addressing and solving many concerns related to business, technology, operations and digital user experience.

Core Components of Digital Experience Platforms

  • Presentation Services - This would include components such as responsive design, adaptive content, mobile apps, widgets and mobile services.
  • Portals/Web Venues - Forms, pages, page layouts, media carrying frames and localization.
  • CMS (Content Management Systems) - This provisions for the authoring and publishing of content for the website/portal. Templates for uniform structured authoring are also a mainstay of this component.
  • Campaign and Segmentation - Profile attributes, purchase behavior, demographics, social attributes, and context parameters. Targeting and re-targeting for services and offers.
  • Enterprise integration - Pre integrated components which can be used for quick solution deployment. These can be accessed via REST services and micro-services. Usage of JSON data formats and connection of legacy platforms via APIs.
  • Analytics - Tracking of user navigation, downloads, page visits. Creation of predictive packages and recommendations based on tracked metrics.
  • Social and Collaboration - Forums, VOC (Voice of Customer), wikis, blogs, articles, social networking sites, social broadcast sites. These can be leveraged to detect EQ (emotional quotient) of the consumer and be a very effective metric to launch more personal and targeted campaigns based on the sentiments detected.
  • Commerce services - The commerce module provides features such as order / inventory management, product information management (PIM), cross-sell / upsell, promotion, and catalog management.
  • Security services - Include authentication, authorization, and single sign-on (SSO) services.
  • DevOps - To achieve operational efficiency, various DevOps initiatives, such as agile delivery, iterative testing, and continuous integration (CI) should be adopted.
  • Infrastructure services - DXP can be deployed on-premises or on cloud. Monitoring and clustering are also part of the infrastructure services.
Picture1

How do you choose a digital experience platform?

Every enterprise is inclined to undergo digital transformation in their organization w.r.t technology, architecture revamp, or resources optimization. Rapid changes in the company can impact the culture and practices of the ecosystem. This process is different for every enterprise. But the objective of every enterprise is to adapt to a powerful digital experience platform.

Businesses of all sizes and forms can leverage the benefit of digital experience platforms. Digital experience platforms facilitate enterprises to offer smooth, easy, real-time, well-connected, and customized user experiences throughout multiple touchpoints.

However, you will have to consider the criteria below before zeroing in on a digital experience platform.

  • Business Objectives
    Whether you are a vendor selling products or a B2B company associated with partners/customers, you need to streamline your requirements with the company’s business goals. Set realistic objectives based on features and functionality to enjoy optimum benefits from the new IT integration. Do not settle for less when it comes to choosing the efficient digital experience platform for your organization.
  • Technical Requirements
    The platform should be chosen based on the technological requirements for your enterprise. Product computing platforms can be anything and most of the products are supported in the front end. But the real deal is choosing a platform that supports the product back-end as well.
  • Research and verification
    Vendor assessment is the most important step while selecting the digital experience platform. Research should be done based on the deployment capabilities, technology connectors, technical documentation and community guidelines. The digital experience platform should merge well the framework of the software system without enormous changes.
    Look into vendor’s reputation, their client’s success stories, case studies. Verify rankings, review from authentic digital analyst sources like Gartner beforehand.
  • Investment and ROI
    Along with operational cost, there are development, deployment and licensing costs involved too when you go with the third- party service provider. The partnership should yield results and give you ROI. There should be transparency and flexibility in the estimation.
Before we go further ahead on DXP platform, it is time that we tell you about AEM – Adobe experience Manager.

AEM – Adobe Experience Manager

Adobe Experience Manager merges seamlessly with various technology platforms. It comes across as a robust combination for all content and digital asset management requirements. Personalization of content is easy and quick to market with AEM.

The CMS platform becomes significantly powerful when the core is strong. Below is the infographic on the core components that form the Adobe Experience Manager.

[Adobe Core components infographic]

To know more about the AEM and its functionalities, read our most popular insight page here: The rise and rise of Adobe Experience Manager

Adobe has been named as the leader amongst the DXP platforms in 2022 Gartner Magic quadrant.

The graph below shows the market growth for companies adopting digital experience platforms for years ranging from 2019-2025.

Digital Experience Platform Development – Our Case Study

Embitel's client is a leading credit and retail brand in the sub-continent. They have verticals in automotive, insurance, credit lending and housing.

We designed and developed a full-fledged digital experience platform for them to optimize customer interactions.

Here we have shown the overall exchange/flow of information between AEM at the front-end and Magento at the back-end. This particular design is for their flagship seller central store where consumers can interact with nationwide seller's inventory and make purchases.

The main components of the architecture are shown in the diagram here; this is purely a schematic on which there are various integrations for inventory and seller management.

  • The customer journey starts in the AEM run front-end where a mobile-first architecture was devised and used.
  • This interacts with the catalogue stored in Magento and offers a full spectrum shopping cart experience for consumers who will have product selection, picking and add to cart capability.
  • The social support channel is also refined at the front-end and there is an added element of delivery to the customer’s address.

Digital Experience platform requirement specifications by client

  • - Front end content management and design for AEM
  • -Mobile First Architecture
  • -Page and Journey Optimization
  • -Full spectrum production support for AEM
  • -Commerce Integration framework
  • -Search optimization on content within AEM
  • -Content Advisory and Design

Digital Experience Platform Solution and Impact

Key performance metric for the client was to increase web traffic and reduce journey churn, Embitel optimized the load times and content on the various inventory pages to decrease load time and keep the content uniform on various devices.

Mobile First Architecture was implemented to re-engineer certain web components which had not been upgraded since conception. Embitel team used their expertise in MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) and CIF (Commerce Integration framework) to create a 2.0 version for client’s site.

Full spectrum production support by Embitel enabled the customer to perform root cause analysis on support cases. Solutions were archived for future references.

  • December 22, 2022
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How Electric Vehicles Can Be Levers of Change for Automotive Sustainability

Category : Embedded Blog

Today, electric vehicle (EV) technology comes with a great promise – The promise of automotive sustainability that is achieved by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality.

Automotive OEMs are increasingly shifting gears towards electric mobility, while the government and commercial sectors are cooperating to foster an EV-friendly environment.

However, as with any technology, there are questions around their publicized benefits in attaining sustainability.

In this article, we will explore the sustainability of EVs from different angles, including:

  • the environmental impacts of their production and disposal,
  • their potential to reduce emissions and air pollution,
  • and the challenges and opportunities for achieving a more sustainable EV ecosystem.

The Environmental Benefits of EVs

Electric vehicles are gaining popularity as a sustainable alternative to gasoline-powered cars. EVs produce zero emissions, making them an attractive option for those looking to reduce their carbon footprint.

    • Cleaner Air – Potential for Reducing Emissions and Air Pollution

Traditional vehicles run on fossil fuels, such as gasoline and diesel, which release harmful pollutants into the air when they are burned. These pollutants can have detrimental effects on both human health and the environment.

One of the key environmental benefits of EVs is that they produce no tailpipe emissions. Unlike gasoline-powered cars, EVs produce no emissions at the point of use. This makes them a much cleaner option for urban areas, where air pollution is a major concern.

In addition to producing no tailpipe emissions, EVs are also more efficient than gasoline-powered cars. On average, EVs convert about 60% of the electrical energy from the grid into power for the wheels, while gasoline-powered cars only convert about 20% of the energy stored in gasoline into power for the wheels. This means that EVs require less energy to travel the same distance as gasoline-powered cars, leading to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

    • Reduced Dependence on Fossil Fuels – The Role of Renewable Energy in Sustainability

One way to increase the use of renewable energy in the transportation sector is through the development of renewable energy infrastructure. This includes investing in renewable energy generation, such as solar and wind farms, as well as building charging stations for EVs.

Another way to increase the use of renewable energy in the transportation sector is through the implementation of renewable energy policies. For example, some governments have implemented policies that require a certain percentage of electricity to come from renewable sources, such as the Renewable Portfolio Standards in the United States. These policies can help to drive the development of renewable energy infrastructure and increase the use of renewable energy in the transportation sector.

The sustainability of EVs depends, in large part, on the source of the electricity used to power them. If the electricity comes from fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, then the environmental benefits of EVs may be limited. However, if the electricity comes from renewable sources, such as solar or wind power, then EVs can provide significant environmental benefits.

Lower Operating Costs

Another advantage of EVs is that they are less expensive to operate than traditional vehicles. Since they run on electricity, EVs are much cheaper to fuel than gasoline or diesel vehicles. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the cost of electricity is typically much lower than the cost of gasoline, so EVs can help save money on fuel costs over time.

Additionally, EVs require less maintenance than traditional vehicles because they have fewer moving parts. This means that they are less likely to experience mechanical issues and will require fewer trips to the mechanic, which can help save money on maintenance and repair costs.

Improved Driving Experience

In addition to the environmental and financial benefits of EVs, many people also find that they provide a better driving experience than traditional vehicles. Since EVs produce instant torque, they can accelerate quickly, which makes them fun to drive.

Furthermore, EVs are quiet and smooth to operate, which can make for a more enjoyable driving experience.

Motor controllers that drive the EVs now come equipped with regenerative braking feature, which means that the braking system captures the kinetic energy and transfers it into the car’s batteries. Regenerative braking functions by turning back an automobile’s electric motors. It functions as a generator and transfers power back into the electric or hybrid system to extend the range by a small amount. When used often, even a modest increase in battery range can add up and boost productivity over time. Also, this technique uses lesser energy than normal friction braking.

Technology Advancements for EV Energy

Energy storage and efficiency should work together in a technologically synergistic way for mainstream EVs to achieve greater vehicle driving range.

energy

  • Energy Storage and Vehicle Batteries

    • One of the most expensive and heaviest components of an EV, lithium-based batteries can make up as much as one-third of the overall weight of the vehicle. Their scale and the on-demand supply of massive amounts of electricity must be balanced. The good news is that technological advancements in batteries have effectively quadrupled energy storage capacity, and battery prices have decreased over the years.

    Can battery manufacturers keep up with the enormous rise in the production of EVs? Similar to the present supply chain issue with semiconductors, there are already concerns about the lack of batteries.

    Due to China’s dominance in battery manufacture—which accounts for more than 70% of all battery cells—EV battery production may potentially have geopolitical implications.

  • Power Electronics and Energy Efficiency

    • The onboard charger (OBC) for an electric vehicle transforms AC power from the charging station into DC power to charge the battery. This battery’s DC energy is transformed into the AC needed by the electric motor by the traction inverter. Efficiency, space, and cost issues related to batteries are shared by traction inverters and OBCs.

    The development of lighter, smaller, and far more efficient OBCs and inverters is made possible by recent advancements in power semiconductors that outperform conventional silicon systems.

    The enhanced driving range that mainstream customers expect is made possible by lighter automobiles that utilise the battery’s stored energy more effectively.

    Our blog on how software advancement propels the growth of electric vehicles discusses this topic in more detail.

Environmental Sustainability from EV Cells

Since fuel cells use the chemical reaction between oxygen and hydrogen to produce energy, they are environmentally sustainable. Besides being affordable, they provide comparable performance and durability to alternatives, that are currently reigning the market.

If used, they are anticipated to significantly reduce unit prices and may end up being more cost-effective than both batteries and traditional engines.

Some Challenges Posed by EV Production

  • One of the main concerns about EVs is the environmental impact of their production. The production of EVs requires the extraction and processing of raw materials, such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel, which can be environmentally damaging if not done responsibly. In addition, the manufacturing of EVs involves the use of energy, which can generate greenhouse gas emissions.
    However, it is important to note that the environmental impacts of EV production are not necessarily greater than those of gasoline vehicles. A study by the European Commission found that the production of EVs results in slightly lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to the production of gasoline vehicles, due to the lower emissions from the electricity used to power EVs.
  • Another concern related to the sustainability of EVs is their disposal. At the end of their life, EVs must be disposed of in an environmentally responsible manner, which includes recycling the valuable materials they contain. Fortunately, most EV components can be recycled, including the batteries, which can be repurposed for stationary energy storage or other uses.
    In the recent past, various countries have enacted regulations to ensure responsible handling of EV disposal.For instance, India enacted regulations for handling battery waste that mandate expanded producer responsibility by demanding manufacturers to offer recycling facilities for used batteries. The government also offers cash incentives to encourage recycling efforts.

Summing Up

Though still a newer concept, EVs will evolve and become more sustainable in the long run.

EVs provide consumers and companies with a sensible option for a cleaner future, as the air pollution brought on by operating ICE vehicles has risen to a great level of concern.

On EV adoption, the way we power our automobiles is about to undergo a revolutionary change that will have a significant impact on the environment. We can only continue to connect the power of governmental policy, popular consumer behaviour, and technological innovation in profoundly novel ways if we want to see such substantial change.

  • December 15, 2022
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Software and Hardware Development for DC-DC Converter ECU

Category : Product Engineering , Vehicle Diagnostics

About the Customer

Our customer is an automotive after-market organization delivering excellence through a wide range of automotive components. Within a few years of its inception, our customer has been able to carve a niche for itself due to its commitment to quality and disruptive innovation.
 

Business Challenge

Harnessing green energy in an efficient manner can bridge the looming energy gap, especially in the automotive industry. Our customer’s ambitious project had ‘solar energy harnessing’ at its core. In technical terms, the project aims at developing a DC-DC converter for passenger vehicles. The role of the DC-DC converter is to take in the energy from a solar panel and convert it to a voltage component that can be supplied to charge a vehicle’s battery.

The challenge that our customer was facing in realizing this project were manifold:

  • Our customer’s team was not well-versed with MATLAB and other MBD tools required to develop such an application.
  • Lack of expertise in LIN based bootloader and platform software

We got on-board the project due to our extensive experience in both software and hardware design and development using a model-based approach. On top of it, our ready-to-integrate LIN stack and pre-built platform software modules gave us an edge.
 

Embitel’s Solution

We were entrusted with end-to-end development of the DC-DC converter, i.e., software, hardware, and platform software (BSW) development.

The software and hardware teams at Embitel worked on the project simultaneously as we were on a strict deadline to finish the project.

Major highlights of the DC-DC converter ECU:

  • The ECU takes voltage and current (V,I) input from the PV (photo voltaic) cells of the solar panel and generates the required voltage (12/48 volts) for the battery to charge.
  • The ECU connects to the energy management ECU via LIN protocol to measure the voltage required by the battery for charging.
  • It is a closed loop control mechanism with a feedback loop that measures the output and instructs the DC-DC converter ECU to optimize the output voltage if it deviates from the expected value.

Here’s a snapshot of our complete DC-DC converter solution for vehicle ECU:
 

Software Application:

  • The software part comprises of a DC-DC converter ECU with closed loop control algorithm to generate the required voltage.
  • It is a configurable solution which can be modified for different vehicle and battery variants.
  • We have developed the complete platform software (BSW) for the solution.

 

Hardware Design:

  • Our hardware team has performed hardware design and simulation.
  • Board bring-up and pre-compliance test have been performed successfully.

 

Vehicle Diagnostics and Bootloader

  • We have provided vehicle diagnostics powered by UDS over LIN.
  • Flash bootloader over LIN is a part of the solution to enable ECU reprogramming.

Embitel’s Impact

We had a strict timeframe to complete the first leg of the project. Our ready-to-integrate LIN stack, pre-built platform software and expertise in MATLAB Simulink were instrumental in helping us stick to the deadline.
 

Tools and Technologies

  • Ti TMS320- Microcontroller platform
  • Code Composer- IDE and Compiler
  • CANoE – Communication
  • Matlab – Application Development
  • OrCAD- Hardware Circuit Design
  • Altium- Hardware simulation
  • December 13, 2022
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Cloud-Based Platform Development for a Virtual Reality Gaming Company, USA

Category : Digital Commerce , Digital Experience

About the Customer

The customer is one of the renowned Virtual Reality (VR) gaming companies headquartered in Ohio, USA.

Objective Reality (OB) gaming company has got its licensing agreement from Ubisoft (one of the most prestigious billion-dollar gaming companies in the world). Objective Reality has developed numerous virtual reality escape rooms for people to witness larger-than-life multi-player VR games on the cloud.

The Company intends to grant greater access to VR by pairing cloud computing capabilities with immersive content.

Virtual Reality gaming

Business Challenges

Our customer had a brick-and-mortar store prior to the pandemic. Post-pandemic they wanted to opt for online services and reach out to their users across the state and country. They were looking for an intuitive and user-friendly site for better connectivity with the new and existing users.

They were also looking for a technology partner with VR competency who would help them execute this project successfully and boost their product/services portfolio.

How Does it Work?

  • Escape Rooms: Authorized users are allowed into the OB’s Game lobby which loads into the VR headset (preferably Meta Quest 2 – an immersive all-in-one VR headset) of the user to experience virtually. This experience is developed in-house by OB and is called “Abstract”.Abstract is the world’s first-ever cloud-based VR game streaming service. In partnership with Amazon AWS, NVIDIA, and EverGrow Coin, they are able to bring a dynamic VR space with all the social connections and competitive gaming of a brick-and-mortar VR arcade to the comfort of a home. The UI is designed for the VR headset.
  • Arcade: Based on the allocated time, users get access to play a real online game.

 

Embitel’s Solution

With our patent-pending compression algorithm, the client built a cloud-based platform that gives users access to high-end VR games, escape rooms, and simulations anywhere with minimal latency, high refresh rates, and no expensive hardware required.

Two apps were developed by our team including ITC, full stack developers and QA for Objective Reality VR:

    1. The Abstract VR app:
      This application provides a user interface to fetch the data that is required for the user to play games.

      Workflow:

      1. The user will book a slot on a website. Once they get the slot with the email id, he/she needs to login to Meta Quest.
      2. Once the user opens the application in Meta Quest, there will be two options to enter in play mode.
      3. Users have to enter the email id that they used on the website for booking.
      4. After the user submits the email id, it will check the slot data in AWS S3 bucket.
      5. AWS S3 bucket is the place where the users’ data and instance ids are stored. With email id, the slot data can be fetched for a particular user.
      6. Once data is received from the AWS S3 bucket, the timer will start (if there is time left for the user to start playing the game).
      7. Once the timer has reached the point where the “Launch Game” button appears on the screen, he/she can hit the button and play the streaming game.
      8. In case the user is not able to fetch the slot data, there is one more option available where they can enter the IP address manually and hit submit button to start the streaming game.
    2. Abstract Steamer app:
      This is a native Android application where the user receives the IP address and connects it with the Cloud XR server.

      Workflow:

      1. Once a user hits the play button in the Abstract VR, IP data is sent to Abstract Steamer.
      2. When Abstract Steamer receives the IP Address it will send IP to CloudXR client SDK.
      3. The CloudXR SDK will connect CloudXR server with the received IP Address.
      4. On the other end, a server has to be started with NICE DCV Client.
      5. Once the connection is established, the user can start playing streaming games.

The Scope here includes integrating the VR Headset with the AWS cloud to retrieve the user’s credentials. These credentials are used to validate and authorize logging into online gaming instances.

The offline VR (called Abstract) experience is hosted and managed by the Objective Reality Team. The entire gaming experience is developed on the UNITY platform. The gaming app is cast and integrated with the VR devices’ UI which runs on Android.

 

Embitel Impact:

Our team of digital experts was committed to understanding the entire project architecture, building the UI for VR headset and APK, integrating with offline ‘Abstract’ content, and merging the APIs for social apps such as Facebook and Google. There has been a consistent rise in user engagement for the client ever since cloud computing and integration. Both online and offline services are availed in huge numbers.

Tools and Technologies:

Tech Stack:

  • Cloud hosting – AWS
  • Platform – UNITY
  • VR Device – Meta Quest 2
  • Tech partner – NVidia
  • UI/UX – Android platform
  • Language – C++, Python
  • Version Control – Bitbucket, Plastic SCM
  • Code Scanning – Android Lint
  • Reports – Trello, Discord

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