AMI Global Award Write Up

2018 North American Integrated IIoT Solutions for Process
Equipment Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award
2018

BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
© Frost & Sullivan 2018 2 “We Accelerate Growth”
Contents
Background and Company Performance ........................................................................3
Industry Challenges..............................................................................................3
Entrepreneurial Innovation and Customer Impact.....................................................3
Conclusion...........................................................................................................8
Significance of Entrepreneurial Leadership.....................................................................9
Understanding Entrepreneurial Leadership.....................................................................9
Key Benchmarking Criteria ..................................................................................10
Best Practices Award Analysis....................................................................................10
Decision Support Scorecard .................................................................................10
Entrepreneurial Innovation ..................................................................................11
Customer Impact ...............................................................................................11
Decision Support Matrix ......................................................................................12
Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching, Identifying, and Recognizing Best
Practices .................................................................................................................13
The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best Practices Awards.....................14
Research Methodology ........................................................................................14
About Frost & Sullivan ..............................................................................................14

Background and Company Performance
Industry Challenges
Frost & Sullivan research shows that the major challenge currently facing the Industrial
Internet of Things (IIoT) solution market is the inability of providers to offer one-stop-
shop solutions. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), such as pump, motor and
variable frequency drives (VFD) companies, want to leverage IIoT and bundle their
products with IIoT products. Unfortunately, pump manufacturers must work with sensor
manufacturers, hardware suppliers, software providers, and cloud storage solution
providers in order to achieve this. The market’s inability to offer unified solutions stems
mostly from its failure to properly analyze and comprehend industry trends, causing
market participants to eventually offer solutions that are typically unhelpful and inflexible.
Frost & Sullivan notes that the growth of IIoT has afforded several advantages to
businesses worldwide, especially with regards to enabling access to more data and better
insights. Predictably, some of the key factors that define today’s industrialized world
include the ability to access a variety of sensor data, remotely monitor equipment, and
predict the health of operational assets. This is especially true in the industrial sector,
where companies are shifting their focus towards adopting preventive maintenance in
order to reduce downtime and minimize abnormalities or defects in industrial equipment
at an early stage. Using cloud-based equipment maintenance services to effectively
perform continuous remote monitoring of industrial equipment also allows companies to
assess and perform failure predictive diagnosis, use energy more efficiently, and enhance
equipment performance.
However, Frost & Sullivan points out that one of the most common problems that
companies face with IIoT solutions is cost. Unless the cost of the IIoT solution is
significantly lower than that of the asset being monitored, IIoT monitoring does not
provide a clear return on investment. Other challenges, chiefly with regards to handling
the sheer size and speed of the data collected, includes effectively managing every device
involved in the business process when it is online. In the industrial sector, timing is
especially critical - and delays caused by bandwidth congestion or inefficiently routed data
can cause serious problems and incur large losses worldwide.
Entrepreneurial Innovation and Customer Impact
AMI Global is a leading provider of affordable and cost-effective IIoT solutions for remote
process equipment monitoring.
The company’s offerings include:
• Hardware: Data acquisition infrastructure, sensors, and IIoT gateways (such as
Vapor-X and Vapor-Xi)

• Software: Data analysis solutions, such as a cloud-based analytics platform that
leverages an artificial intelligence (AI) engine and data visualization solutions,
including mobile apps and online reports
• Services: The Digital Integration Services from AMI support clients in the
successful execution, integration and continued development to achieve their short
and long-term digital goals in marketing/sales, maintenance/services, technical
support and distribution integration
Market Disruption
Pump manufacturers are industrial manufacturers that typically have no experience
developing electronic hardware, software solutions, or cloud storage. Typically, most
IIoT solution providers offer only one set of products or solutions, such as a data
acquisition system, cloud storage, or data visualization. Pump manufacturers find it
difficult to analyze the maze of available solutions and piece together their required
solution. Moreover, to meet the needs of pump manufacturer, solution providers need
expertise and experience in developing such solutions for the demanding needs of
industrial application; these include the ability to handle a harsh working environment
and meet stringent cybersecurity regulations.
Unlike competition that offers piece-meal solutions (including sensors, IIoT gateways,
analytics platforms, and predictive maintenance solutions), Frost & Sullivan applauds
how AMI Global has truly disrupted this market by offering end-to-end solutions that
address the dynamic needs of the IIoT market. The company’s expertise ranges from
chip to cloud and includes development of silicon design, validation, board design,
operating system bring-up, middleware, communication protocol stacks, application
software development, online analytical platforms, hardware-software integration,
digital integration support services, testing, and test automation. These solutions
clearly help customers reduce cost and accelerate time to market, as clients need not
expend resources to develop their own expertise on each of solutions. Working with
pump manufacturers for the past 10 years, AMI Global has developed expertise in
providing solutions for demanding application. As an illustration of its best practices,
AMI Global is currently working with a leading pump manufacturer, such as DXP, to
develop an IIoT system that enables two-way communications — it not only collects
data from the pump, but can control it remotely from outside. This requires extensive
experience working with various industrial protocols and with the highest level of
cybersecurity standards to ensure safety.
By delivering unified solutions, leveraging best-in-class technologies, and harnessing
expertise in standards and protocols, Frost & Sullivan believes that AMI Global has
impressive potential to disrupt the market, shaking up the competition and making
current solutions obsolete.

Competitive Differentiation
AMI Global’s novel fusion of hardware and software opens up opportunities in affordable
remote asset management of rotating equipment, such as pumps, motors and VFD’s used
in the water and wastewater, oil and gas, chemicals, and power generation industries.
Leveraging proven consumer technology (Wi-Fi, 4G mobile networks, and Bluetooth) for
industrial applications, AMI Global has emerged with the most affordable IIoT monitoring
solution capable of uncompromised performance in demanding and extreme environments
(pumps, boilers, engines, turbines, motors, and generators). With the ability to store
various types of data in the cloud, AMI Global ensures real-time data availability to aid its
fast processing AI engine, which analyzes data and develops actionable insights.
While most of the competition focuses on either hardware or software, Frost & Sullivan
independent analysis reveals that AMI Global’s one stop-shop solution enables it to offer
user interface customization that can be tailored to user preferences — a benefit the
competition simply cannot match. By using real-time data and comparing it with the
historical asset condition, the system produces visual aids regarding the condition of the
asset being monitored and helps predict potential failures in the near future. The volume
of such real-time actionable insights available to users, smart alerts, and real-time
dashboards helps predict asset failure and determine the root cause. By identifying the
machine fault or a failure well in advance, end users can enjoy uninterrupted operations,
thereby reducing downtime and maintenance costs. When end users know the point of
failure, they have time to optimize (purchasing of parts and movement of crews). For
instance, field service dispatchers can identify the nearest technicians with the right parts,
and the user-friendly mobile apps allow technicians to manage real-time equipment data
during inspection. This not only saves on time and expense, but also extends the life of
the asset (due to improved first time fix rates). Another Key Differentiator provided by
AMI to their clients is the Digital Integration Service to support customers during their
Digital Transformation journey. The Digital Integration Manager will support the sales and
marketing team, as well as building a strategy to build a Maintenance and Service model,
create the Technical Support Specification and integrate a successful roll-out in the
distribution channel.
Passionate Persistence
Personally investing in and starting a company in an emerging - yet unproven - market
involves a significant amount of risk. The passion of AMI Global’s founders toward solving
industrial challenges has enabled them to focus on the solution, rather than brood over
risks.
Entrepreneurs are constantly presented with various options; due to scarcity of resources,
availability of funds, time, and workforce, they need to prioritize the best possible steps to
ensure success. AMI Global excels in this arena due to its ability to evaluate the “smart”
risks. For example, competitors focus their efforts on developing complex hardware with
sophisticated logic. As a result, the edge hardware becomes costlier than the asset it is

expected to monitor. This reduces the adoption of such solutions, which has been a
significant challenge regarding the mass adoption of IIoT in the pump industry. By betting
on the growth and proliferation of wireless and cellular communication technology, AMI
Global has focused on a cloud-based approach. This puts the logic in the cloud, makes
devices simple and easy to use, and gives everything a direct connection to the Internet -
rather than functioning through a hub and spoke model. In a hub and spoke model, the
devices used on the equipment are both complex and costly, as they require higher
computational power and storage memory. This increases the initial investment, affecting
the adoption rate of such products. By going against the grain, AMI Global has taken a
significant risk in developing innovative products that have been quite successful in the
end. Frost & Sullivan feels that AMI Global’s ability to forecast the growth of cellular
communication, its utilization of low-cost hardware, and its unique vision all exhibit
entrepreneurial leadership.
Customer Service Experience
Committed to delivering a fulfilling customer service experience, AMI Global’s product
support services portfolio includes hundreds of engineers that work 24X7 throughout the
company’s global support centers. AMI Global’s focus on delivering customers a best-in-
class service experience is illustrated by the fact that several major pump manufacturers,
such as DXP, chose to work with AMI Global.
AMI Global offers 4 types of product support services:
• Engineering Services: This includes network design and planning, configuration,
deployment, migration, field testing, and user acceptance testing.
• Technical Support Services: This involves support services for enterprise networks,
security products, communication and collaboration products, virtualization, data
center products, and M2M solutions across devices.
• Software Deployment Services: This division presents service fulfillment, service
assurance, mediation, core network application, IIoT frameworks, and cloud
infrastructure management software.
• Digital Integration Services: This includes the management of carrier networks,
communication and collaborations, M2M solutions, and cloud platforms, as well as
the Development of short-term and long-term plans to integrate commercial
processes by partnering with Sales, Sales Operations, Commercial Operations,
Sales Enablement and Engineering with their customers
The unique value proposition of AMI Global’s product support services is that it helps its
customers optimize costs, while maintaining focus on improving response time and
support quality, as pump manufacturers are able to better predict equipment downtime
and better understand the reasons for equipment failure. This allows their service team to
be better equipped to fix the equipment.

AMI Global’s service offering helps manage diverse multi-vendor solution portfolios
(including sensors, gateways, and software), as all the integration is done by AMI itself,
thereby helping its customers reduce risk. Furthermore, AMI Global offers complete
support to its customers by building new support delivery models to offer specialized and
on-demand services: weekly/monthly compliance reports, exception/failure reports, and
critical alarm management.
Customer Ownership Experience
The market requirement has steadily shifted over the past decade; while the ability to
remotely monitor assets and predict asset failures has been the primary need, the current
demand is a unified low-cost IIoT solution that can be quickly deployed. Unfortunately,
most solutions in the market do not satisfy this. For example, a leading competitor
provides $20,000 IIoT monitoring with predictive analytics capability based on machine
learning. This system can be deployed on large critical pumps that cost hundreds of
thousands of dollars, but it cannot be deployed on a small process pump that costs $5,000
(due to the lack of return on investment).
AMI Global offers hardware that has a small footprint, a low initial cost, and simple
deployment. On the software side, the company’s open architecture enables data
streaming from many sources - the system records operational values, starts and stops
for excessive use, data related to potential leaks/problems in the system, historical data
from testing, etc. Its solutions require very little upfront cost and instead are based on a
recurring service model. As such, AMI Global offers an operating expenditure (OPEX)-
based model in lieu of a capital expenditure (CAPEX)-based model, which is the direction
the market is currently focused on. The company’s clear understanding of customer
needs has helped it develop products that achieve those outcomes, where there are
currently key gaps in the market.

Conclusion
With IIoT disrupting the process equipment market, pump manufacturers need to quickly
develop and deploy IIoT-enabled products in the market. Faced with multiple technologies
and a lack of experience in developing these solutions, pump manufacturers face severe
product development challenges.
Frost & Sullivan firmly believes that AMI Global has disturbed the market with its one-
stop-shop solution that provides customized hardware, software, data visualization
solution, mobile applications, cloud infrastructure, data communications, and customer
and technical support. By leveraging open architecture, AMI Global has developed a
secure end-to-end IIoT solution that can be rapidly deployed and transform the current
business model of pump manufacturers from a CAPEX-based to an OPEX-based revenue
model.
With its state-of-the-art innovation and unique ability to blend technology, adoption, and
implementation for process equipment manufacturers, AMI Global has earned the 2018
Frost & Sullivan Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award.

Significance of Entrepreneurial Leadership
Ultimately, growth in any organization depends upon customers purchasing from a
company and then making the decision to return time and again. In a sense, then,
everything is truly about the customer—and making those customers happy is the
cornerstone of any long-term successful innovation or growth strategy. To achieve these
dual goals (customer engagement and growth), an organization must be best-in-class in
three key areas: understanding demand, nurturing the brand, and differentiating from the
competition.
Understanding Entrepreneurial Leadership
Demand forecasting, branding, and differentiation underpin an entrepreneurial company’s
journey toward forming deep relationships with customers and permanently altering the
market with their actions.

Key Benchmarking Criteria
For the Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award, Frost & Sullivan analysts
independently evaluated two key factors—Entrepreneurial Innovation and Customer
Impact—according to the criteria identified below.
Entrepreneurial Innovation
Criterion 1: Market Disruption
Criterion 2: Competitive Differentiation
Criterion 3: Market Gaps
Criterion 4: Blue Ocean Strategy
Criterion 5: Passionate Persistence
Customer Impact
Criterion 1: Price/Performance Value
Criterion 2: Customer Purchase Experience
Criterion 3: Customer Ownership Experience
Criterion 4: Customer Service Experience
Criterion 5: Brand Equity
Best Practices Award Analysis for AMI Global
Decision Support Scorecard
To support its evaluation of best practices across multiple business performance
categories, Frost & Sullivan employs a customized Decision Support Scorecard. This tool
allows our research and consulting teams to objectively analyze performance, according to
the key benchmarking criteria listed in the previous section, and to assign ratings on that
basis. The tool follows a 10-point scale that allows for nuances in performance evaluation.
Ratings guidelines are illustrated below.
RATINGS GUIDELINES
The Decision Support Scorecard is organized by Entrepreneurial Innovation and Customer
Impact (i.e., These are the overarching categories for all 10 benchmarking criteria; the
definitions for each criterion are provided beneath the scorecard.). The research team
confirms the veracity of this weighted scorecard through sensitivity analysis, which
confirms that small changes to the ratings for a specific criterion do not lead to a
significant change in the overall relative rankings of the companies.

The results of this analysis are shown below. To remain unbiased and to protect the
interests of all organizations reviewed, we have chosen to refer to the other key
participants as Competitor 2 and Competitor 3.
Measurement of 1–10 (1 = poor; 10 = excellent)
Entrepreneurial Company of the
Year
Entrepreneurial
Innovation
Customer
Impact
Average
Rating
AMI Global 9.0 9.0 9.00
Competitor 2 6.0 6.5 6.25
Competitor 3 6.0 6.0 6.00
Criterion 1: Market Disruption
Requirement: Innovative solutions that have genuine potential to disrupt the market,
obsoleting current solutions and shaking up competition
Criterion 2: Competitive Differentiation
Requirement: Deep understanding of both current and emerging competition to create and
communicate strong competitive differentiators in the market
Criterion 3: Market Gaps
Requirement: A clear understanding of customers’ desired outcomes, the products that
currently help them achieve those outcomes, and where key gaps may exist
Criterion 4: Blue Ocean Strategy
Requirement: Strategic focus on creating a leadership position in a potentially
“uncontested” market space, manifested by stiff barriers to entry for competitors
Criterion 5: Passionate Persistence
Requirement: A deep belief in the “rightness” of an idea and a commitment to pursuing it
despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles
Customer Impact
Criterion 1: Price/Performance Value
Requirement: Products or services offer the best value for the price, compared to similar
offerings in the market.
Criterion 2: Customer Purchase Experience
Requirement: Customers feel they are buying the most optimal solution that addresses
both their unique needs and their unique constraints.
Criterion 3: Customer Ownership Experience
Requirement: Customers are proud to own the company’s product or service and have a
positive experience throughout the life of the product or service.

Criterion 4: Customer Service Experience
Requirement: Customer service is accessible, fast, stress-free, and of high quality.
Criterion 5: Brand Equity
Requirement: Customers have a positive view of the brand and exhibit high brand loyalty.
Decision Support Matrix
Once all companies have been evaluated according to the Decision Support Scorecard,
analysts then position the candidates on the matrix shown below, enabling them to
visualize which companies are truly breakthrough and which ones are not yet operating at
best-in-class levels.
High
Low
Low High
CustomerImpact
AMI
Global
Competitor 2
Competitor 3

Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching,
Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices
Frost & Sullivan analysts follow a 10-step process to evaluate Award candidates and
assess their fit with select best practice criteria. The reputation and integrity of the
Awards are based on close adherence to this process.
STEP OBJECTIVE KEY ACTIVITIES OUTPUT
1
Monitor,
target, and
screen
Identify Award recipient
candidates from around the
globe
• Conduct in-depth industry
research
• Identify emerging sectors
• Scan multiple geographies
Pipeline of candidates who
potentially meet all best-
practice criteria
2
Perform
360-degree
research
Perform comprehensive,
360-degree research on all
candidates in the pipeline
• Interview thought leaders
and industry practitioners
• Assess candidates’ fit with
best-practice criteria
• Rank all candidates
Matrix positioning of all
candidates’ performance
relative to one another
3
Invite
thought
leadership in
best
practices
Perform in-depth
examination of all candidates
• Confirm best-practice criteria
• Examine eligibility of all
candidates
• Identify any information gaps
Detailed profiles of all
ranked candidates
4
Initiate
research
director
review
Conduct an unbiased
evaluation of all candidate
profiles
• Brainstorm ranking options
• Invite multiple perspectives
on candidates’ performance
• Update candidate profiles
Final prioritization of all
eligible candidates and
companion best-practice
positioning paper
5
Assemble
panel of
industry
experts
Present findings to an expert
panel of industry thought
leaders
• Share findings
• Strengthen cases for
candidate eligibility
• Prioritize candidates
Refined list of prioritized
Award candidates
6
Conduct
global
industry
review
Build consensus on Award
candidates’ eligibility
• Hold global team meeting to
review all candidates
• Pressure-test fit with criteria
• Confirm inclusion of all
eligible candidates
Final list of eligible Award
candidates, representing
success stories worldwide
7
Perform
quality check
Develop official Award
consideration materials
• Perform final performance
benchmarking activities
• Write nominations
• Perform quality review
High-quality, accurate, and
creative presentation of
nominees’ successes
8
Reconnect
with panel of
industry
experts
Finalize the selection of the
best-practice Award recipient
• Review analysis with panel
• Build consensus
• Select recipient
Decision on which company
performs best against all
best-practice criteria
9
Communicate
recognition
Inform Award recipient of
Award recognition
• Present Award to the CEO
• Inspire the organization for
continued success
• Celebrate the recipient’s
performance
Announcement of Award
and plan for how recipient
can use the Award to
enhance the brand
10
Take
strategic
action
Upon licensing, company is
able to share Award news
with stakeholders and
customers
• Coordinate media outreach
• Design a marketing plan
• Assess Award’s role in future
strategic planning
Widespread awareness of
recipient’s Award status
among investors, media
personnel, and employees

The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best
Practices Awards
Research Methodology
Frost & Sullivan’s 360-degree research
methodology represents the analytical
rigor of our research process. It offers a
360-degree-view of industry challenges,
trends, and issues by integrating all 7 of
Frost & Sullivan's research methodologies.
Too often companies make important
growth decisions based on a narrow
understanding of their environment,
leading to errors of both omission and
commission. Successful growth strategies
are founded on a thorough understanding
of market, technical, economic, financial,
customer, best practices, and demographic
analyses. The integration of these research
disciplines into the 360-degree research
methodology provides an evaluation
platform for benchmarking industry
participants and for identifying those performing at best-in-class levels.
About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth
and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's
Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined
research and best practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation
of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages more than 50 years of
experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses, and the
investment community from 45 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership,
please visit http://www.frost.com.
360-DEGREE RESEARCH: SEEING ORDER IN
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