“The Early Bird Catches the Worm - First Mover Advantage through IoT Adoption for Indian Public Sector Retail Oil Outlets”

ABSTRACT

This paper identifies the various significant factors that contribute to the Internet of Things (IoT) adoption at the Indian Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs') Retail Oil Outlets (ROO) and empirically tests the model of constituents for the same. The logistic regression analysis was applied, using a survey of 402 respondents, to predict the adoption of IoT at the OMCs' ROO. Using the 7 factors as predictors, the regression analysis output showed a significant impact from 5 factors-People, Technologies, Processes, Data Security, and Competitive Advantage. To transform the existing ROO into “smart pumps, and to fully realize the expected benefits from the investment in IoT, the OMCs' need to give increased emphasis to these 5 factors. It tests the applicability of the PolySocial Reality (PoSR) framework and Thing Theory at the OMCs' ROO extending the literature by incorporating 'processes' to the existent framework of people, devices and communication technologies within the IoT ecosystem. “Data Security” and “Interoperability” tie up these four components together enabling a seamless flow of digital data among them and empowering the organization to realize “competitive advantage”

KEYWORDS:

• Internet of Things
• polysocial reality
• IoT adoption
• new technology adoption
• Indian public sector retail oil outlets

Acknowledgments

The author would like to sincerely thank Vishwanath K for his valuable help on SPSS tool for few days inspite of his hectic schedule, Nabendu Paul for his help on access to a book, Dr. S.K. Pokhriyal and Dr. Geo Jos Fernandez for their support, Dr. Jitendra Singh for access to a few journals. The author would like to thank his mother Sandhya Das for her blessing; wife Shampa Das, son Sujoy Das and daughter Sushmita Das for their support at home. Finally, the author owes his gratitude to the Almighty and the Master for their grace.

Notes

1. The enclosed questionnaire was sent to the 1st respondent and based on his/her inputs, the questionnaire was modified. Thereafter, it was sent to the 2nd respondent and the same process was followed till the saturation of the variables occurred.

2. The response rate is the percentage of people who respond to a survey.

3. Source: Indian Petroleum and Natural Gas Statistics by Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

4. As per Cisco’s report ’A New Reality for Oil and Gas’ (Moriarty, O’Connell, Smit, Noronha, & Barbier, 2015), there is a 3.7% increase in consumer demand at ROO due to adoption of IoT.

5. 1 metric ton = 8.53 barrels (Petrol) http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/docs/unitswithpetro.cfm.

6. 1 metric ton = 7.46 barrels (Diesel) http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/docs/unitswithpetro.cfm.

7. The Gross Refining Margin (GRM) of refineries ($/barrel) in April-June 2015 for IOCL was 10.77, BPCL was 8.55 and HPCL was 8.56, respectively. The simple average was taken as 9.29, i.e. mean of 10.77, 8.55 and 8.56.

8. Exchange rate 1 USD = Rs 64.5 has been considered https://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/ReferenceRateArchive.aspx

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sudip Das

Sudip Das is a Senior Client Solution Manager at Infosys Limited, Bangalore currently. He has 18 years of work experience in the information technology industry. He was educated at the IIT Roorkee, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES) and Jawaharlal Nehru Agricultural University. He has published in peer reviewed journals such as the 'Economics and Policy of Energy and the Environment' and 'Economic and Political Weekly'. He has presented papers at the prestigious IMR Doctoral Conference 2017, IGIDR CoRe Doctoral Colloquium 2017 and 17th COSMAR IISc Bangalore 2017. He has received the Infosys Annual Award for Excellence in 2018 for outstanding achievement and the second prize at Infosys Bangalore for two consecutive years in 2018 and 2019 for being the Infosys Ambassador.