Next biggest technology trend that’s catching up in great momentum is IoT a.k.a Internet of Things. Not to forget a very early post by Sanjay Poonen in SCN that went viral couple of years back, when we all thought that seemed to be like watching a James Bond movie using all the different gadgets.
While the Google, Apple s of the world focus on wearables and B2C use cases, SAP being a company that makes “Businesses Run Better” will focus on the Industrial Internet of Things, and how Businesses can leverage and benefit better.
For any technology trend to pick up real and provide value, the basic question to be answered is if Businesses are ready for it?
This is Big : Its next wave of Digital Transformation
Internet of Things , as SAP’s partner Cisco puts it rather as Internet of Everything, opens up huge opportunity to connect machine to machine to people to processes. But Businesses will now have to rethink how they run their business. This is not incremental, this is not trying to find some small wins with technology, but can really help them do their business in a completely different way. And its just not only business, but also Government that can take citizens life to a different level.
Its almost a new era that we have encountered after internet revolution, the mobile revolution and next wave being “Internet of Things” revolution. This is a key for transforming into being next wave of Digital Transformation.
How do Businesses Get ready for this IoT Revolution ?
I enjoyed reading an interesting interview Mckinsey did with CTO of Cisco, Padmashree. She explained 3 key facets of how IT should focus on IoT for enabling businesses of the future
- Experience – businesses have to focus on how the experience for its customers or its employees or other stakeholders such as partners have to be seamless across the different internet of things. Customers also want instant gratification, and being able to do things from their mobile to other connected devices
- Velocity – This is really adoption of cloud, no longer businesses can wait for a long implementation time, this have to be delivered fast. When businesses are looking for IoT, they would rather like to consume this as service on cloud. See how Amazon has been able to do things fast through AWS. IoT will have to go such an approach only
- Data – We already live in a world that has huge big data. With IoT this is going to be even bigger, as the machine to machine data will grow significantly. Businesses would have to not only collect and manage data, but need to use this data to improve back the process.
Being part of the “Customer Innovations” product management group at SAP, we are starting to work with customers on the IoT area and we really see a clear focus on how IoT can improve business processes. Right now this is all in a “create-prove” approach, for the IT and CIOs to take the step and explain the possibilities with IoT.
I captured 3 key areas where we are seeing great momentum that will help Businesses with IoT, with clear tangible benefits. Offcourse the customer (or citizen) engagement is the top opportunity with IoT
And here is a snapshot of key IoT use case oppotunities
On the consumer engagement side, one of the interesting use cases has been on Smart Vending with has got great interests with our CPG customers.
SAP Launches IoT applications
While we expected certain momentum in the market, its rather picked up way ahead of what we had imagined and at SAP Teched, SAP launched its first set of IoT applications. SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service, SAP Connected Logistics and SAP Connected Manufacturing.
IoT for Business is real and already there, Business have to quickly get ready for it, relook at their business processes for this digital transformation ….
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