Technology partnerships enable IoT applications & fuel new service-based business models

In the past I wrote about software revolution enabling digital transformation and how it is creating a world where data is king, software is queen, and partnership is gold. To expand on these ideas I would like to share several real-world examples that illustrate how partnerships enable companies in all segments and industries to reinvent their businesses and compete in a connected and data-driven world.

First up is Hagleitner Hygiene International GmbH. For almost 50 years, Hagleitner has prospered by manufacturing durable hygiene products for washrooms, kitchens, laundries, hospitality, and custodial work.

While the company’s business is strong, its competitors are fierce and exerting significant commoditization pressure. Rather than engage in this race to the bottom, the company’s managers decided to go all-in on digital innovation and use data, software, and partnerships to introduce a new a line of smart hygiene devices and value-added services.

To enable this transformation, Hagleitner partnered with SAP and in just six months created senseMANAGEMENT, an IoT-based intelligent monitoring system. This system uses wireless sensors embedded in the devices to communicate real-time data to a local SAP SQL-Anywhere edge database and then sync it to a larger SAP HANA database service on the SAP Cloud Platform. The system delivers a full analytics reporting using SAP Analytics Cloud to generate insights for predicting usage, optimizing maintenance, enabling just-in-time deliveries, and further leveraging data-driven decision-making. With access to these tools, applications, and components, Hagleitner, a traditional equipment manufacturer, is well positioned to use IoT and real-time monitoring services to drive ongoing innovation.

As this engagement reveals, digital transformation is about more than sensors, data, and software. Companies also need to find a partner that is able to help them achieve their goals and one that helps them act on the outcome. The measure of a partnership success can be done by looking at these two metrics and asking the question; Were we able to move forward and utilize the expected outcome from the partnership? In the case of Hagleither the answer was affirmative. Not only are they now able to utilize the information gathered, but they can also do forward planning using this data, there by helping future projects, partnerships and at the end of it revenue.

To lean more & see the details on Hagleitner including their architecture diagram check out the full case study, “Using the Internet of Things and the Cloud to Disrupt the Hygiene Business.”