IoT: Connecting the Dots for Better Customer Experience

Throughout the years, organizations, institutions, and businesses became linked by forming this connected environment supported by the startling evolution of the Internet. The large spread of this interconnectivity and the constant seek for new business opportunities and service offerings have introduced a new class of complex products and solutions. Products have become complex and smarter systems combining hardware, sensors, data storage, microprocessors, software, and a variety of way to get connected. These "smart, connected products" [ref. Harvard Business Review] made possible by vast improvements in technologies on creating better processing power device with a reduced footprint, and also helped by the ubiquitous wireless connectivity, which has unleashed a new era of competition. Today, these smart connected products connect nearly everything around us, touching our lives in ways that we are not always aware.

Welcome to the Internet of Things (IoT), from Wikipedia: The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects or "things" embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity, which enables these objects to collect and exchange data. The Internet of Things allows objects to be sensed and controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities for more direct integration between the physical world and computer-based systems, and resulting in improved efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit. Each thing is uniquely identifiable through its embedded computing system but is able to interoperate within the existing Internet infrastructure. Experts estimate that the IoT will consist of almost 50 billion objects by 2020.

Internet of Things Reference Architecture

A multi-tenant, highly scalable, multi-layered and flexible platform is required to support IoT needs, depending on the scope of the solution this reference architecture or part of it, as depicted below, should be required.

This architecture is able to support the following capabilities on device integration layers:

• Ingest data from the different type of devices (ZigBee, BLE, Arduino, etc);
• Use network communications to support connectivity such as Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT), HTTP, Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP), Web Sockets, HTTP/2, etc;
• Provide device gateway to support these protocols and additional scalability needed found in solutions like Apache Kafka. 

The subsequent layer(s) would be responsible for collecting the data ingested from the devices in a scalable way (if the traffic is coming via an MQTT broker and depending on the use case, you may want to use Apache Kafka for additional scalability support for subscribers), apply appropriate business rules/logic, and apply proper action(s). This architecture also should provide mechanisms to integrate with storage solutions like Hadoop HDFS, HBASE, Cassandra, etc. Also, it should offer capabilities to integrate with enterprise business systems such as CRM, ERM and PLM and cloud gateways such as traffic, weather, social media, energy prices, geo-mapping that could provide additional product capabilities and/or contextual information. Given the intermittent nature of the device connectivity, it is recommended to provide a device state management component that could keep track of the device's last known state.

This architecture should provide application development toolkits and libraries for enabling the rapid development of smart, connected business applications using data access, visualization, and run-time tools.

As far as Identity and security, the use of tools and patterns for user authentication and authorization should be applied to secure proper use of the platform as well as to secure connectivity (either user or devices), and cloud layers. This cross-cutting security and identity structure are not depicted in the above diagram. Also, the platform should provide a mechanism for device registration and management.

Sensors & Actuators

In IoT, we would be interacting with so-called transducers devices. These are devices that change energy from one form into another form. An everyday example of a transducer is a musical instrument, like a guitar or a drum kit, that transforms mechanical energy into acoustic energy. A sensor transforms interesting, useful energy into electrical data. By contrast, an actuator transforms electrical data into interesting, useful energy. Our smartphones are full of transducers — the camera and microphone are sensors whereas the speakers and screen are actuators.

Here's an example of putting all "things" together: 

The above diagram depicts the process of capturing temperature and acting on when temperature increase is detected by a sensor, which communicates with an IoT Gateway (for instance, a ZigBee gateway) that posts a message in a message broker -- we're using here an MQTT broker and a Kafka for increased subscriber scalability in real case scenario. The message is routed and processed by the platform which based on business rules (e.g. threshold is reached in this case) sends the action down to the proper actuator device.

The above scenario can well support a variety of use cases depending on which sensors/actuators are being used. For instance, systems that seek to establish a better communication between customers and organizations and/or brand by addressing in real-time (or business real-time) emergent needs in a predictive or more tailored responsive manner. IoT information can enrich the overall view of the customer already existent, when incorporating this information inside a CRM system, for instance, the results will enable sales and customer service departments to have an utmost view of their customers and hence add superior value in that relationship.

Why The Internet of Things?

In the near future, you may no longer need to remember to turn the oven off when the cake is done, turn the heating up when you getting closer to your home, switch lights on when you enter a room or run the clothes dryer when electricity rates are cheapest. Your home will do it for you.

IoT devices are emerging across all sectors. In Healthcare, organizations are starting providing new mechanisms to connect patients and health providers, caregivers, pharmaceutical companies and physicians by using these type of devices like a smart pill box, smart patient monitoring devices attached to medical devices that will connect patients to physicians, caregivers, and possibly with payers. In heavy machinery, this technology is being used, for instance, to reduce substantially elevator wait times by as much as 50% by predicting elevator demand patterns, calculating the fastest time to destination, and assigning the appropriate elevator to move passengers quickly.

These products are part of the IoT, aimed at automating our lives by connecting systems and applications (usually Mobile) to appliances, lights, vehicles, medical devices, home appliances and just about everything.

The connected world will impact consumers and organizations. For instance, it changes how customers and companies come together. The relationship becomes a continuous interaction, which lasts as long as the customer keeps using a product and the corresponding services -- this improves product and brand stickiness as well as better monitoring capabilities for involved parties.

Private users of connected devices will see the new services enriching their relationship to the products, providing a higher quality of life, comfort, security, and fun. Corporate users of these services will benefit from efficiency gains, cost savings, and better allocation of resources.

Connecting the Dots Producing "Information Value Loop"

In 1991 Mark Weiser, while working for Xerox PARC, defined the term “ubiquitous computing,” where he defines the term as many computers serving each person. Deloitte created a process that implicitly captures the Weiser’s model as an Information Value Loop with discrete but connected stages. An action in the world allows us to create information about that action, which is then communicated and aggregated across time and space, allowing us to analyze those data in the service of modifying future acts.

Utilizing IoT can be certainly a win-win for brands and consumers [as per Altmeter]. From a brand standpoint, product voice helps those in consumer-facing functions (e.g., marketing, support, sales, product) achieve common goals: brand awareness, insight, contextual relevance, satisfaction, efficiency, loyalty, innovation, and conversion.

Embrace IoT today, this will add new capabilities to your organization providing features you were not able to achieve before considering time, costs and accuracy required by your business and customers. These new capabilities, responsiveness and awareness bring your organization to have more contextual, fresh and richer information that allows you to act on promptly and provide a superior customer experience.

Here are some other posts I have written:

• Keeping Up With Big Data...
• Enterprise Mobility Strategy, Architecture and Cloud: Why Do They Matter?

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