Internet of Things for Business: SAP Is Making It Real

The huge opportunity and deep business impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) is now widely acknowledged and accepted. Organizations that are adopting the first wave of IoT technologies are already capitalizing on it and staying well ahead of their competition. The journey from “Internet of Content” to “Internet of People” to “Internet of Things” is well on its way. If we all, collectively, are able to connect information, people and things together to derive new insights (and in turn more human) then we all have a chance to completely transform the world and make it a better place. Such is the potential force and opportunity of IoT. It is indeed a great time to be in software industry!

SAP has been actively investing and co-innovating with our customers and partners in IoT over the last few years.  At the recent SAP TechEd & d-code event in Las Vegas Michael Lynch, Global Co-Lead, SAP Internet of Things presented SAP’s IoT strategy, our point of view, and how this market is shaping up for SAP, and our partners, to jointly participate and harness the power of IoT for our customers’ advantage.

IoT Business Opportunities – Connect, Transform and Re-Imagine

From 2014 till 2020 about 50 Billion devices are anticipated to be connected and this creates a huge business opportunity.  There is $14.4T dollars in increased revenues and lower costs from 2013 to 2022 expected because of IoT across Retail, Mining, Oil & Gas, Transportation and Industrial Machinery & Components (IM&C) industries.

So, how do you do it?

SAP’s vision and positioning is around the following three foundational elements:

1. Connect – with billions of internet enabled things to gain new insights by combining transactional and social sentiment data, with intelligent analysis of new signals from devices and networks.
2. Transform – the way you do business based on the new insights that you get from the edge of the network to the core
3. Re-imagine – your customer’s experience by empowering innovative business models, value added services and customer responsive products

SAP’s place in the IoT Market

Per Michael, we at SAP are solely going to be focused on IoT for business. That is, “We are going to be helping organizations drive real time value in their businesses and for their customers,” said Lynch.  And he added “SAP is very uniquely positioned to do so at Platform, Business Networks and App levels to ensure business outcomes as desired by our customers.”

The slide below captures what Michael talked about. Plus, Michael also touched on the tremendous opportunities our ecosystem partners can participate in and around connectivity as well as apps powered by SAP HANA Cloud Platform.

 
Michael showcased some compelling customer solutions and successes and brought the whole notion of Connect, Transform and Re-imagine to life as well made it real.

Here’s the listing of IoT co-innovations with customers across the globe:

• John Deere – transforming from manufacturing company to a solutions-based enterprise
• Kaeser Kompressoren – transforming from selling compressors to compressed air
• Port of Hamburg – building smarter port logistics to overcome traffic congestion challenges
• City of Nanjing, China – smarter city and traffic management
• Harley Davidson – smarter manufacturing plant and automation

Please do take the time to watch Michael Lynch’s strategy session. It is a terrific ½ hour use of your time and should help you get started on your IoT plans and projects.

It is a great time to start harnessing the power of IoT for your business. And as Bjorn Goerke, head of products and innovation technology at SAP said the other day at TechEd – “What are you waiting for? Start the journey and come & partner with us. We are providing the one platform to offer non-disruptive innovation.”

Additional resources:

• SAP TechEd Executive Keynote by Steve Lucas. Steve covers some compelling IoT examples that you don’t want to miss!
• SAP HANA Cloud Platform – The Secret Sauce to Make IoT Run Simple – by Tim Clark. Tim covers 5 really cool IoT demos from SAP TechEd & d-code event
• IT 2020 Vision Driving Business Innovation through Simplification by Irfan Khan. Irfan covers IoT as one of the three mega trends in his 2020 vision!
• Discover more about IoT and the Networked Economy, check out this SAP sponsored site
• Follow @SAP_IoT for latest IoT news

Neetin Datar leads Industry Marketing at SAP America. He has over 20 years of SAP and enterprise software experience. He is passionate about technology and its use by organizations to run better. Follow him on Twitter @neetin_datar