Internet of Things

What is IoT? 

The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to smart objects which are provided with a distinct identity and they have ability to communicate with each other without requiring any human interaction. In other words it involves sensors being used to create a virtual representation of physical objects in a network who can interact with each other by transferring data.

If people are given mobile devices that have sensors, creating and sending data to the cloud in some format which can be used, shared, parsed and analyzed in real-time, offers the opportunity to create revolutionary solutions that has much more than what we can think of.

IoT-enabled objects should be able to share information about their condition and the surrounding environment with people, software systems and other machines. So far, the Internet of Things has been most closely associated with machine-to-machine (M2M) communication in various verticals like manufacturing and power, oil and gas utilities etc. Products built with M2M communication capabilities are often referred to as being smart.

As per a current Research there are more than 10 billion wireless-connected devices in the market today with over 30 billion expected by 2020

No matter what industry you operate in, IoT has potential to change the way you do business in the very near future!

In a recent report by Cisco, the Internet of Things was officially born between 2008-2009. This was the point where the number of devices exceeded the number of people on earth.

The number of connected devices per person reached 1.84 in 2010. It is estimated that the number of connected devices per person would rise to 6.58 by 2020.

IoT Benefits

Competitive Benefits   

Regardless of industry you belong to, data generated by connected devices on the IoT will deliver new customer insights and has the potential to transform your business in various ways. It can help in streamlining the delivery of products or services, improving the efficiency of product research and development, Monitoring manufacturing plants to increase efficiency and productivity or the optimization of the deployment of resources, data generated by connected devices enables you to compete like never before possible. An innovative and extensive Internet of Things strategy can transform the way you do business and you will be in a different league altogether where there is no competition.

Taking benefits of existing assets and resources

Meanwhile you develop a long term strategy to use IoT in transforming your business processes, you can start gaining value from IoT with your existing information technology investments and build upon them. For Example Add a few new devices, connect them to the cloud, and enable them to interact with each other, providing data to your employees, partners, and customers and benefiting them in various innovative ways. To implement this kind of solution you can implement a more comprehensive and efficient Big Data solution on the cloud.

Creating New Business Opportunities

IoT is creating various new business prospects for an organization. It enables to go beyond your IT assets and think about how you interact with customers, and partners in a more smarter way. Businesses should Start experimenting with how connected devices and objects can transform those relationships.  

For Example Some of the ideas for building smarter cities using IoT, Transportation companies can use IoT to save energy, improve transportation and improve public safety, Retail industry can work towards providing customers with real time offerings based on their shopping cart navigation patterns and purchases and send offers based on customer's current location etc.

IoT Implementations

IoT is benefiting Individuals in their day to day activities like Health, Security etc. and also Businesses in various sectors like Manufacturing, Energy, Retail etc. IoT sensor enabled devices sends data via wireless technology which is gathered and stored on servers installed on cloud. This data can now be used for real time analytics to generate and send real time responses which is instant and can help in smart communication within devices.

Following are some of the IoT initiatives:

Smart Cities

• A smart city delivers multifold improvement in Social, Economic and Environmental levels leveraging convergence power of Information, Communication and operation technologies.
• Citizens would have real time and convenient access to services such as Citizen Services, Healthcare, Transportation, Education, safety, Utilities etc.
• In a smart city communities are connected to each other through an integrated service architecture which allows for a state of the art information sharing
• IoT can enable smart moves like Remote patient monitoring, Emergency Management Solution, Connected homes, Connected education, Connected transportation, environment, lifestyle, entertainment, public safety, citizen services etc. 

Revolutionizing Manufacturing 

• IoT can help increasing efficiency and drive higher profits by helping in industrial automation. 
• Now the equipment performance can be monitored in real time and timely measures and actions can be taken which can help in reducing downtime of machines and hence help in reducing costs.
• New business prospects and improvements can be derived from various data insights and can provide long term benefits.
• With a vision of creating a smart manufacturing plant monitoring system, many progressive industries have started IoT initiative and are investing towards interfacing their current systems with IoT sensor based technology and have started gaining benefits out of it.

Retail

• As online shopping is getting more popular now a days, online retailers are adopting IoT devices and Big Data analysis to provide consumers with personalized experience while shopping including content and promotions. Product recommendations are made based on user's browsing behavior, past transactions and other transactions. 
• Location based personalized retail offerings based on POS data and past transactions can be sent to customers. Geo Fencing Apps can send consumer's current location and based on current location Retailers can send alerts based on consumer's buying patterns and present offers available.

We can say that the number of linked sensors and devices has already started growing around us and businesses would definitely figure out new and amazing ways to utilize the streaming data from these sources and create intelligent interconnected systems which would interact themselves and make our life easy and more comfortable to live in. 

IoT welcomes us to a new connected world by providing intelligent connected Solutions!!