Enterprises are going to need any large scale deployment of IoT sensors not only grouped into standalone IoT functional Services, but in turn those IoT Services will need to be integrated into the Enterprises overall existing operations. However valuable IOT driven functional Services might be, if they are standalone, then all the lessons of the last twenty years of IT in creating automated end to end operational business efficiency through integration are being ignored.
Research report now available: The Foundational Elements for the Internet of Things (IoT)
Question; if you have full sensor data as to the possible, or actual, failure of a critical machine, then aren’t you going to need to ‘kick off’ your existing fault management process to turn the IoT data into a successful response?
Really ramping up the number of sensors we can use, and widening exactly what can be sensed, in line with the expectation of what low cost IoT will introduce into Enterprise use has big implications. Forget the mass of Big Data argument and think instead of the massive increase in the ‘real time’ awareness triggers that are going to need responsive actions. We are glibly saying that this is a good thing as preventative, or corrective actions will happen more quickly, at less cost, but it looks like a heck of a lot of manual intervention!
Standalone IOT reporting Services have the same challenge as standalone online Web based ecommerce systems a few years back. Great for pilots and proof of concepts, but sooner, or later a victim of their own success and requiring proper integration into existing order systems.
For some fifty years the challenge to any technology project has always been the consequences of scale, and no that doesn’t mean cheap virtual machines are now the answer. IT Architecture arrived in the mid nineties simply because of the need get the integrated and automated efficiency in line with the ERP based Enterprise Business models. The technology innovation of PC based Client-Server created ERP as we recognize it today and in turn the rethinking of operational process flow. Adding e-commerce in the early 2000s and shifting towards Web based technology didn’t alter the need to continue to recognize the need for integrated processes.
Adding IoT will, as with past technology innovations, introduce some genuine competitive breakthroughs initially justifying a higher cost of operation. In time this well become the new competitive norm resulting in a refocus on the cost of provisioning, and requiring integrated automated capabilities within an Enterprises overall operations. It’s back to good IT system practices around ‘Integrate, Automate and Scale’.
But how real are the capabilities to achieve this level of integration today? Most IT professionals rightly fear that this could turn into a really nasty internal integration effort that should be avoided! Trying to get an update on IoT integration from the Enterprises mainstream IT partners often seems to get a blank look from account managers struggling with the breadth of existing product portfolios. Sadly, it usually takes a determined member outside of the IT department to make the connection after they have seen, or discussed a real deployments by others at a business event for their industry sector.
All the mainstream technology providers have dedicated business units for IoT staffed with the necessary expertise in the use of their products to build IoT solutions to integrate with their existing products. An Internet search will normally get you in contact with the IoT team, then let them manage their colleagues in your Enterprise account team!
Fortunately, and encouragingly, there are some very real capabilities matched with thought provoking business case studies around. Salesforce ran a briefing session for industry analysts in London a few weeks ago that provided both product and reference updates. Salesforce has been steadily releasing capabilities for some time, though often at different events, which have made the full big picture difficult to see. Salesforce strategy not surprisingly focuses on supporting sales marketing and customer satisfaction with the recent blog post; “Five Ways the Internet of Things will make Marketing smarter” providing some views on how this will be achieved.
Salesforce product capabilities support using existing building block functionality to assemble a new process, or link to an existing process, in the same way as any other Salesforce requirement is built and deployed. If you are a Salesforce user this provides really familiar territory, so there is no excuse not get started with IoT pilots that are integrated and will scale. At their briefing Salesforce offered several case studies that offer insights into how companies in different industry sectors saw ways to really break through in their Digital Business with radical competitive capabilities using integrated IoT and Business Process.
As an example; Stanley Black & Decker Connected Tools strategy links IoT sensing on the high-end large professional powered tools via the Salesforce1 Customer Platform to the rest of their business. Visibility of worn, or failing, tools allows Stanley Black & Decker to offer the right support, including selling a replacement, at a critical time for their customers. Find the full story here, and another one on how Dependable Auto Shippers moved beyond tagging cars in transit to offering their customers visibility of where their cars are, even after they have been delivered.
These case studies are compelling in the manner in which IoT has resulted in rethinking customer relationships and service by being aware of triggering events. Its arguable that any ‘mature’ Digital Business Model will have to use IoT to automate its capability to ‘sense’ key events, and that its capability to competitively ‘respond’ will depend on how well its capabilities are integrated to the IoT inputs.
Salesforce obviously have an advantage with their customer base being Internet savvy, and that their technologies/products designed for Internet based solutions. If your Enterprise ‘go to market’ CRM etc. is based on Salesforce there is obvious sense in adding and integrating your IoT services through Salesforce too. However, if you are not a Salesforce shop then don’t despair as SAP, and Microsoft have been working on their own capabilities for IoT too.
So far this blog has focused on good strategic planning for IoT, but so-called ‘Shadow IT’ has landed many Enterprises with a need for simple ways to provide a more cohesive working environment right now for key staff facing IoT and other event triggers.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in the deployment of multiple and different Social Collaboration tools as each user group took it on themselves to solve their problems in finding answers to a new generation of questions arising from Digital Business customers. These front line users turned to Collaboration tools to gain the advantage of collective experience in determining how to relate customer’s queries into the Enterprises processes. Failure to strategically address this as discussed in this blog leads to users finding their own solutions and answers, a point that was explored in the previous blog “Turning Big Data Upside Down to become Smart Data”.
One outcome of this blog and its definition of the need for ‘Smart data’ was a briefing by harmon.ie on their new product aimed squarely into this space. Called Collage and announced this week it aims to solve the problem harmon.ie defines as; “Enterprise cloud services provide information to workers but each one surfaces information in a separate app and in a different language – making workers struggle to manage the information overload”. And the result;
“End users are increasingly overwhelmed and can’t make sense of the data being pushed to them from disconnected services and apps. What workers need is need is an intuitive way to see the big picture by piecing together the right information, at the right time and within the right topical context so they can make intelligent business decisions.”
A simple explanation might be if you have multiple tools, such as Yammer, Chatter, and others from the long list of products, that are really working well in different use groups then making this a single shared environment should further boost the benefits. Collage makes it seem like a one screen environment, see for yourself by watching the concept video and the demonstration on YouTube. Assuming that Collage does what it says on the tin then you should have an easy way to bring the benefits of enterprise level integration to overcome shadow IT fragmentation. For many enterprises Collage could be a quick win to get both scale and integration of knowledge and experiences into enterprise wide ‘smart data’.
Digital Business is usually characterized as ‘Sense’ and ‘Respond’, a recognizable business model for optimizing online success. But IoT sensing with resulting ‘triggers’ cascading into the enterprise changes the scale, and requires a corresponding change in the scale of integration with existing processes and automation optimized responding. The time has come for a serious look at your strategy for your Enterprise Digital Business Architecture and the inclusion of IoT.
Research report now available: The Foundational Elements for the Internet of Things (IoT)
