Struggling with Proof of Concept? Read this...
A new study conducted by Cisco shows that 60 percent of IoT initiatives stall at the Proof of Concept (PoC) stage and only 26 percent of companies have had an IoT initiative that they considered a complete success. Even worse: a third of all completed projects were not considered a success! If you need to develop a convincing Proof of Concept (PoC) for an IoT initiative, here's my PoC success strategy.
Put IoT in a real and understandable context
My feeling is that when you're explaining an IoT concept, abstract examples aren't going to work, especially when companies want to clearly understand the ROI on their IoT investment.
Seeing is believing – I demonstrate how IoT fits into a company's existing strategy by showing real-world examples. If you're working as a service provider, or you're in-house at a company and you need to impress the higher-ups, you have to show real, working IoT applications.
My company developed the IQP App Builder, it's a Code Free Application development module that lets you quickly create IoT and enterprise applications that run on PC, Tablet and Mobile devices. No programming or IT skills are needed to use the IQP App Builder. You work with a visual interface, drag & drop operation, and ready-to-use templates that are pre-designed for a wide variety of IoT applications, from fleet management to location tracking. IQP Apps are optimized to look great on all devices. You can customize or modify the apps with just a few clicks.
Discover the IQP Code Free Advantage
IQP can significantly reduce your PoC development time and increase your initiative's success rate by 100+% – rapidly create real working IoT applications to use in your demonstrations and POCs.
There are 3 stages in the sales cycle for most IoT projects: 1) Demo stage 2) POC stage and 3) Commercial stage. With IQP, we offer you an effective and easy way to manage this process.
1) Demo stage: This is where you can show how easy (and feasible) your IoT initiative could be to implement. With minimal training, you can build complex applications in just 10-30 minutes and show the process, real-time, during a presentation. Even cynics will start to think 'hey, even I could do that...'. The IQP App Builder can be used for these functions, and more...
- Working with real-time Human Reporting Data
- Monitoring
- Control
- Interactive mapping
- Working with live streaming data from remote sources (cameras, video...)
- Creating events
- Connecting sensors/mobile to send data to IQP apps
- How to connect to IBM Bluemix and Watson Analytics - option
- How to connect to image recognition engine - option
2) POC stage: It is pretty unlikely that a company will jump into deployment after only a demonstration. While most companies have a high level view of what they want to accomplish, they probably do not have a detailed view of the application requirements. The POC will help people to better understand what the requirements of a commercial deployment would look like. A POC will also help management better understand the ROI and the business case associated with a commercial deployment.
Simple IQP Apps can be created a few minutes, a complex demo for a full POC can be built in just a few days. No more tedious and time-consuming preparation!
3) Commercial stage: The IQP solution was designed to maximize the reuse of the POC solution for the commercial deployment. IQP generates the latest code technologies, such as Node JS and Angular JS, so your company (or customer) can expand the application that you created in the POC stage for their commercial use. The next step is to just upgrade the commercial IQP license. The final configuration will depend on the size and scope of the application.
The IQP App Builder is a simple-to-use tool that can boost the PoC process and ultimately pave the way for a successful IoT initiative. Thanks for reading this, please post a comment or question. - Guy -