The Internet of Things: Challenges and Opportunities Across Industries

Featured article by Sam Ganga, President, Global Mobility Services and Mobile Innovations Officer, DMI

ZK Research reports that the Internet of Things (IoT) will have 50 billion endpoints by 2010 and will create 2.5 trillion new revenue streams in the next 10 years. That represents a huge opportunity for organizations large and small across all industries.

The IoT is described by Gartner Inc. as “the network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to communicate and sense or interact with their internal states or the external environment.” It is a paradigm shift that will impact every person, home, business and public infrastructure in the developed world over the next decade – and likely sooner.

The phrase “Internet of Things” came about as more “things or objects” were connected to the Internet than people, between 2008 and 2009. Perhaps the first officially connected device was the toaster John Romkey invented and presented at the 2009 INTEROP conference. It could be turned on and off via the Internet and was the first glimpse of things to come.

As an example of the explosive growth predicted by ZK Research, the number of global start-ups with IoT-related concepts has grown from hundreds to 10,000+ in the last year alone – and with good reason. New chipset, sensor and communication technology (that is smaller, cheaper, more modular and energy-efficient) is enabling us to realize concepts we only found in science fiction novels until now.

IoT Affects Everything

Over the next few years, IoT will affect every aspect of life and society. For example, you will be able to control the temperature in your apartment from your phone while on vacation in Bali or be able to find out how many people walk into each of your store locations in Hong Kong, Cape Town and Milan from your mobile device in New York.

Public buildings and infrastructure are becoming connected. Personal and public transportation are being transformed by connected vehicles. Our homes are quickly becoming intelligent. The work place is changing everywhere with near-ubiquitous connectivity and processes and tools being mobilized.

Wearables and smart devices are also affecting how we play sports and pursue hobbies.

Soon, by leveraging the information gained from sensors, healthcare products will no longer be used to manage symptoms but will become an integral part of patient health through predictive data.

IoT’s Impact: Four Industries To Watch

City Infrastructure

IoT will create significant opportunities for transformation in cities. Its technology will help cities streamline services, save money and create new experiences for citizens – all by connecting their existing data and services. Data such as sensor use for traffic monitoring, video surveillance, physical access and other systems are already in place in many urban centers. The next step will be connecting all this data for analysis to make it incredibly valuable and leverage it for further use.

Cities will become more responsive to their environment as they are built with high-performance infrastructure. An example of this in current use is the infrastructure for water storage within various cities in the United States, through high-performance green infrastructure developed by Geosyntec. By integrating a building’s rainwater catchment system with software that leverages weather predictions from the Internet, they are able to know when to review water levels in the event of a predicted storm or drought.

Industrial Manufacturing

Connected manufacturing plants have already started yielding impressive results through the use of IoT. In fact, it’s not hyperbole to say that IoT is the second industrial revolution for manufacturing.

Plants equipped with connected machinery and sensors, in fact, are able to go to market faster, reduce expenditure, ownership costs and risk management, improve workforce efficiency, asset use and optimization. By allowing plant managers to monitor these facilities and have a 24/7 global view of efficiency, industrial operations can be improved in real time by eliminating information gaps.

Healthcare

A breakthrough in patient care—as well as remote monitoring—will come with the use of IoT devices and sensors in healthcare. Hospitalized patients who need their physiological stats constantly monitored by physicians will now be able to be supervised by non-invasive sensors. The data will be continuously fed to the Cloud, where further analysis can take place before being shared with physicians for further review. This method not only improves patient care but also reduces overall costs. It will also transform remote monitoring of patients with chronic ailments.

Retail

Remember those IoT “sensors”? Beacons are the retail version, placed throughout a store. These devices are able to send information on the customers’ location in-store, which can then be used to push tailored notifications for a personalized experience. Although there was a huge interest in beacons in 2014, they represent only one piece of the connected retail experience. With wireless sensors and wearables, the retail experience and industry itself will undergo sufficient changes to alter the current retail experience forever.

Change at the Speed of Data

Around the globe, enterprises are using IoT to drive critical processes, introduce new products and services, plan in real time and perform predictive analysis. IoT is enabling us to create systems that are smarter, more self-directed and quickly adaptable to changing conditions. While it is human nature to resist change by stepping out of an established comfort zone, managers need to ensure that the entire organization understands the benefits and feels part of the change through education and training.

It may initially seem overwhelming to conceptualize and drive new products or services based on IoT technologies, but the biggest mistake you can make is to sit on the sidelines waiting for a competitor to figure out how to use IoT to transform their business. The connected world and mobility provide your organization with freedom, while data gives you confidence and insights give you power.

Use that data to your advantage – it’s a resource already available to you, no matter what industry you’re in or whom you serve. That data will help you to pinpoint areas of need or of improvement so that you can create new revenue streams while serving customers better. But don’t wait; IoT moves at the speed of data, and he or she who hesitates will be lost.

For a closer look at how leaders in a variety of industries are dealing with challenges in the age of IoT, download the white paper here.

Author Bio:

Sam Ganga is President of Global Mobility Services at DMI and also serves as the company’s Mobile Innovations Officer. Sam is responsible for Global Mobility Services at DMI, overseeing managed services growth across government and commercial accounts. Specifically, he oversees the Cloud-Based Managed Services, Managed Mobility Services and Government Mobility Services divisions. Sam’s group focuses on providing managed services through DMI’s Data Center, using secure management of mobile devices, applications and data, while reducing risk and complexity for customers.