Commonly the IoT (Internet of Things) is the network of physical objects or “things” embedded with electronics, software, sensors and network connectivity – features that enable them to collect and exchange data.
Make no mistake. These “things” mark the beginning of a revolution for business.
Notice I say business and not IT. IoT is not an IT revolution; it is an IT evolution. For business, however, it brings a seismic shift in businesses’ ability to look inwards, at processes and digital assets and outwards at customers – thereby enabling new revenue opportunities and operating efficiencies.
In short, IoT massively increases the resolution of the lens through which businesses are able to look at every aspect of themselves.
Data is only data until such time as it can be analysed and transformed into information. Without the ability to analyse, that huge data resource remains untapped. What’s more, as we start to mine the data, pick out the trends and turn the data to information, a virtuous circle begins – one in which the business is able to focus on areas where more data drives better insight and adds more value.
The ability to analyse data produced by these devices and to convert the data into useable information makes IoT the next sensible step forward in making businesses more intelligent. Crucially, it is insight from information that will fuel the revolution.
IoT as it stands today is predominantly consumer led, and the sectors that can envisage value are those such as healthcare, retail, manufacturing and construction. These are industries that are looking to revolutionise their customer interaction experience – they are considering how the IoT can enhance the services they provide to their customers. As IoT takes off, businesses will also have access to a new source of customer data gathered from mobile applications that they can draw customer insights from.
By 2020, the IoT ecosystem, according to IDC, is projected to reach more than 29 billion connected autonomous things, driven by rapid development in digitisation and networking and from growing efforts by companies to bring all electronic devices under the digital umbrella.
IoT is expected to have a significant impact for companies in the Asia Pacific region, accounting for 8.6 billion devices or one-third of the global market and growing to become a US$583 billion marketing opportunity by 2020. It will continue to surge from the growing connectivity of consumers in Asian nations such as Singapore, Korea, Japan and China, rapid urbanisation and development of the telecommunication infrastructure and investments by government and companies in digitisation.
To take advantage of the IoT, however, all these businesses will need to import new skills – they will need partners with expertise in all the technologies that ultimately unlock the value of the data in all these “things”.
These include technologies such as:
- Converged and intelligent network platforms that are able to connect “things” to each other and the systems that control them, be that wired or wireless
- Data centre infrastructure that can scale to accommodate the flood of data, that is agile enough to leverage process changes and powerful enough to analyse all the data in the first place
- Next generation security that provides the visibility and control the business will need to ensure that the “things” do what they are meant to, and don’t create holes ready for exploitation
- Business analytics that provide meaningful insight, and that are able to visualise information in a way the business understands
Businesses will need to build partnerships and collaborations with others in the IoT ecosystem, either at a strategic or operational level. IoT is one area where the expertise of one company may not be sufficient.
These partnerships will assist businesses to achieve such crucial tasks as product and service development, creating new channels to market, or adding value to applications and services.
They need to identify a host of potential partners including device and model manufacturers, M2M and IoT platform providers, connectivity providers such as mobile network operators or fixed line communications service providers, solution providers and system integrators.
Perhaps more importantly, these partners cannot be ‘technology first’. They must be genuinely customer and business orientated – putting customers at the centre to truly understand their markets.
Only that combination of customer centricity, insight and technical excellence will allow these partners to navigate the complexities inherent in IoT; to identify and seize the value IoT represents for every customer.
James Tay is CEO, Logicalis Asia