Harnessing the Internet of Things for business benefit

The IoT wave has been around in the industrial sense for years. While in the past the technology had been expensive, proprietary and mostly embedded into large machines, IoT today is about making intelligent, every day systems accessible to the masses. A number of market trends are converging to make the modern-day IoT a reality, with research firm IDC predicting that there could be as many as 8.8 billion devices connected to the network by 2020 in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) 

Forward-thinking businesses are already considering how to leverage data from non-traditional sources with customised technology for increased competitiveness. In India, for example, one technologically advanced dairy farm, Chitale Dairy, has created a “connected cows” concept. When the farm experienced low milk yields, it tracked every cow through RFID tags and sent the data about each cow back to the data centre for analysis. The new information enabled farmers to use their mobile phones to obtain more information about each animal and create custom interventions for individual cows, ultimately increasing milk yields.

While milk yields might not be a concern for most companies, businesses of all sizes can benefit from taking an IoT-related approach to their business challenges. One way would be to capture data that is readily available, but to do it over a longer period. 

Capturing the data is just one step in the whole IoT journey. There has to be enough storage to accommodate that data, and an effective network to convey that data to computers powerful enough to analyse it. The data has to be protected, secured, and personal details kept private in accordance with prevailing laws. 

Success hinges on an effective data analysis. Data is meaningless until meaningful insights are extracted from it.

In order to lead successful IoT projects, organisations should: 

Build on existing investments, and expand in areas with which the business is already familiar. 

Design a standards-based IoT solution that maximises interoperability so that more data can be collected. Proprietary protocols will also work to connect IoT devices, but could lock users into a narrow range of IoT solutions.

Implement robust analytics solutions and involve highly skilled data 

scientists. There are few data scientists available for hire for now, and training existing staff may be the way to go. 

Ensure the solution has built-in growth capacity. In our experience the 

solutions tend to grow as users realise the advantages they bring.

Work with partners who have end-to-end OEM capabilities, security offerings and a good understanding of how existing hardware works together. Consider partners with memberships in the Industrial Internet Consortium, the Open Interconnect Consortium and the Intel IoT Solution Alliance, and that also maintain partnerships with key thought leaders for electronics.

With the right planning and execution, companies could well gain a significant competitive advantage from what the IoT can offer.

 

Glen Burrows is general manager, Dell OEM Solutions, Asia-Pacific and Japan.