What is IOT? Why is it relevant?

Internet of things….

I recently read a piece by Phil Meyers (Head of Innovation Inmarsat) whereby Inmarsat are looking to make use of 'connected cows' to help remote farmers in Australia track cattle movement. An interesting way how the Internet of things is helping make a positive difference in rural communities!

When speaking to my customers IOT and connected devices seems to be a very hot topic – very few however seem to know how to monetize IOT and make money from it. In this post I will share what I think IOT is and what I am seeing when speaking with customers. I must stress i am not a subject expert. Just humbly sharing my thoughts and experiences.

What is IOT?

When trying to explain what the internet of things is let’s try to keep it simple. Broadband internet is pretty much everywhere. The cost of connecting to Broadband is becoming cheaper which means that more devices are being created with the ability to enable internet connectivity. Majority of these devices also have sensors which capture information. This means that the volume of devices or things connected to the internet are increasing. IOT is effectively a giant network of things connected to the Internet. This can be anything from your laptop, smart phone, your washing machine, Kettle, Radio and even your Cow! Anything that has the ability to connect to the internet - Now take this example and imagine your business, and all the things within your business that may be connected to the internet. This could be anything from customer facing devices right through to internal devices. The data these devices create is IOT. an example of IOT in practice would be a customer of mine. A rather large delivery company – they have thousands of vehicles in the field. A challenge for them is knowing which vehicle needs to be fully serviced Vs a vehicle that may need part servicing, i.e. a faulty tyre that needs replacing. Until they get that vehicle in the garage they are unable to determine what work that vehicle needs. That incurs both a service and call out charge. As you can imagine this can be expensive as well as then having a vehicle off the road and not delivering parcels! The solution was IOT - By fitting their vehicles with ‘smart sensors’ this company effectively made each vehicle a connected IOT device. This then means at HQ this company can track things like Oil levels, tyre pressure, Engine omissions etc – this information can then be used to proactively service or part service rather than waiting for a failure. End-result being a 10X reduction in servicing costs across thousands of vehicles as well as happier customers as vans are not breaking down on the way to make a delivery. This increase in delivery times and customer satisfaction is all enabled from IOT.   

Why is IOT relevant to my business?

By 2020 Gartner think there will be over 20 billion connected devices and over $3 trillion spent across both business and consumer devices. This represents not only a big business opportunity but a greater opportunity to interact with your customers using new mediums. This is where I feel the biggest adoption of IOT needs to be. It will allow businesses with a churning customer base to be more personable and targeted to their consumer base. Ultimately meaning they can retain customers and increase share of wallet. This is relevant for any business!

How do I implement IOT?

Dependent upon who you speak too the adoption of IOT is still in its infancy – by this I mean the processes and technology to manage this data is still being developed and businesses are still getting to grips with the technology they need to facilitate this change. I would break this down in 5 key areas that need consideration;

• Device
• Communication
• Cloud Services
• Applications
•  Security

The diagram below should act as a catalyst to highlight all the different things you need to think about;

I have loosely talked about technology – business process also needs to be given some thought. My advice would be to think about the following;

• what you are trying to achieve?
• What’s the business goal?
• What benefit would you gain by being able to respond to real-time customer needs?
• What businesses processes will IOT speed up?
• What’s the cost v reward? 

I would use the above questions as a starting point – the adoption of IOT and implementing the toolsets needed to manage the sheer volume of data IOT creates will not happen overnight. However, by understanding the use case and business value it will add will make hings much easier. NetApp have collectively through our partner ecosystem and data management products, developed market leading value propositions that help solve a number of the above questions. Matt Watts the Director of Technology and strategy EMEA @ NetApp has written an interesting piece at: https://newsroom.netapp.com/blogs/enabling-the-benefits-of-iot-through-a-data-fabric/ - in this he talks about how Data Fabric is enabling IOT with our product sets. You can also find out more via; https://www.netapp.com/