The subject of the IoT has a broad range of interpretations in the market. It varies from industry to industry. A home appliances industry thinks of it as a world of connected appliances while for the logistics industry it seems like tracking each asset (even the goods asset carry) they have in real time. Some industries think of it as establishing products into services. Some interpretation works around Big Data and dealing with 3V’s (Volume, Velocity and Variability) of data for predictive analysis. Even though term IoT was coined way back in 1999 and developments have started since then, but we are yet to realize the true influence of it.
Consider the example of iPhone, ten years back it was small touch phone with a 3.5-inch screen and think of what it is today. Similar is expected in case of IoT today. In the coming future, the term IoT will become superfluous as more and more things will get connected. Simply putting it forward, it will be much more significant than smart connected lighting. Connecting everything will radically change the things around us and the way we interact with things. Following are the current thoughts on IoT:
Adoption of IoT is Pacing Up
IoT is extensively used in utility, oil & gas and logistics industry. Other industries like home appliances, construction machinery, healthcare etc. are also pacing up their investments in IoT. These industries are now in a phase of developing the clear picture of benefits of IoT investments.
Tremendous growth expected in IoT Monetization Market
IoT monetization is the way of generating revenue from IoT enabled products and services. Due to the increase in penetration of IoT devices in the market, significant amount of data is generated which is used today to gain business benefits like cost-cutting, improved efficiency, reach a new market, re-engineer operations etc. According to Research and Markets [1], the global IoT monetization market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 53% during the forecast period 2016-2023.
Evolution is at the core of IoT Lifecycle
There is an enormous progression in IoT solutions from primary sensing to controlling and much more. Today IoT solutions are created to address problems in specific industries. Consider an example of IoT in fleet management. Initially, 5-6 years before the only GPS was used to track the fleet. Fleet owners were only able to know the location of the assets in real time. But now with advancement in sensor technologies, fleet owners can also monitor health and performance of their fleet along with predictive maintenance. So those GPS enabled smart sensors solutions are replacing systems today but how long will these last?
In this unconnected world, it would be difficult to understand the capabilities and benefits of IoT. As we start to connect more and more devices and collect data, more and more opportunities would spurge.
Advancement in Infrastructure and Sensor Technologies will be needed
Although the sensors are getting cheaper, amount and diversity of data they collect, reflect how powerful they are. We will need complete redefined architecture to handle the 3V’s (Volume, Variety and Variability) of data generated from sensors in the future connected world. To analyse this large velocity of data more advanced computing tools will be needed in future to get insights.
IoT has a tough Journey ahead
IoT seems to be easy as the prices of sensors have gone down and Bluetooth, Wi-Fi is available everywhere. It is easy to mount a sensor and start collecting data for analysis, but the challenges lie whether the sensor can be remotely monitored or updates can be pushed to the sensor. Whether the sensor is safe, disposable or serviceable, or whether sensor system is secure and cost-effective.
We are in the early stages of connecting our world. It will be hard to predict that what will be future of IoT in with limited visibility in today’s environment. But it’s for sure that connected world will altogether have different benefits and will become the backbone of future customer value.
