Successful IoT partnership

IoT Fragmentation

IoT solution vendors worldwide are working on different parts of the ecosystem, each trying to race to stay relevant. Fragmentation of the IoT space is multi-fold, no company offers a single end-to-end product including design, development, prototyping, certification, industrialisation, data-analytics, visualisation and logistics. 

Even if difficult, “93% of enterprises are believed to have adopted IoT technology by 2019.” Source: Aruba Networks

From a customer’s perspective, it becomes both a costly and time-consuming experience to test multiple solutions from different vendors and integrators, and at the end, the result not always reflects the expectations. There’s a lack of solution adapted to clients’ needs.

Moreover, “business investment will account for more than 50% of the overall IoT spend in 2020.” Source: PwC

Companies can’t be masters of all trades, with working knowledge of every function in the ecosystem. For example, I could observe this at the latest Hannover Messe 2019 in early April. Here a very interesting short article with “The top 20 Industrial IoT trends – as showcased at Hannover Messe 2019”

During Hannover Messe, I had the chance to meet with Zekat group’s amazing french team. And they told me a great success story about fragmentation and partnerships.

Picture: Chloé Morin, Ludovic De Nicolay, Julien Pérochon from Ercogener - Zekat Group in Hannover Messe with Liliana Mellinger

Partnerships are critical to succeed your IoT projects

The IoT market players have the challenge to remain competitive in a very dynamic environment of changing requirements and outcomes. In this layout, partnering is an accelerator for business management strategy that will make the difference between staying relevant and not going out of business. 

“The main revenue driver for 54% of enterprise IoT projects is cost savings.” Source: IoT Analytics

Besides, strategic partners are a good way to “test drive” a company to see if there is customer traction and fit. In order to develop partnering as a core competence, vendors and customers must consider the partnership selection:

• what you are partnering for - partnership type, 
• how you work with each other - partner relationship, and
• the scope of the partnership engagement.

The ideal supplier is a partner, because it’s a win-win situation, they will have the same goal and put the same energy to achieve their common projects.

To come back to Zekat Group example, its CEO Pascal Denoel is building an ecosystem with 8 companies linked to the electronics and IoT market ready to help clients thanks to a collaborating partnership with them. One of Pascal’s model is the extended enterprise and he is really willing to apply this concept to increase partners experience, because is a better way to do business and more efficient than just supplier-customer relationship.

Picture by Dineslav Roydev

Pascal has the vision to create customised solutions with ZeKat’s customers. He is a courageous, perseverant and a real visionary leader, working closely to answer clients’ needs. And thanks to the diversity of his teams of experts they accelerate and make work their clients’ projects.

Picture: Pascal Denoel in Aconcagua - Chili

Humility and Leadership, a perfect combination

Company values matter, and even more if you are looking for partners with a similar vision. 

Every successful company has a set of company values to assist their employees in achieving their goals as well as the company’s. They are the essence of the company’s identity and summarises the purpose of their existence.

Companies with a strong culture and a higher purpose perform better in the long run. As a continue to grow, it strives to ensure that their culture has a tight connection with the why of the organisation. 

To finish with Zekat example, their vision is really inspiring: “We are an audacious and committed team who target performance with humility”

The idea of being "Partners" instead of a "Supplier-Client" relationship, what do you think of it? Have you tried this with your clients?

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments. I'll really appreciated.

Thanks for reading.

By Liliana Mellinger

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