The Internet of Things (IoT) is a term that refers to the interconnectedness of physical objects and devices that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies. This allows them to collect and exchange data.
The IoT has the potential to revolutionize the way businesses operate and interact with their customers. The Internet of Things market, which comprises hardware, software, systems integration, and data and telecommunications services, is estimated to reach $520 billion by 2021.
Following are three strategies that can be helpful while trying to apply IoT solutions in your business.
Optimize Your Resources
Many companies try to run multiple systems for several departments without analyzing the resources and costs associated with it. They only install a centralized system or multiple ones, which can not meet the specific requirements of all departments.
Here, it is important to be flexible and handle each department’s needs in a different way. For instance, if a production department is using an on-premise system of software, the marketing department can use some other centralized system where they can integrate social media and other data sources.
Similarly, an ERP system that is already in place can be utilized by multiple departments at a nominal cost.
Automate the Data Collection
Firstly, you have to determine the data that is required for your business. You can also check IoT analytics tools available in the market or go with a custom IoT solution. In case of making a custom solution, you should collect information from various sources like website visits, social media interactions, and so on.
One should be able to understand which data is relevant for a particular business process and how it should be used to improve its performance.
If your company produces goods, then it will be helpful in analyzing and predicting the demand by using predictive data analytics tools available in the market or even through a custom-made solution.
It is also important to automate the data collection process. Nowadays, various IoT platforms and tools are available in the market that automatically collects data from various devices and store it in a database.
Connect Devices/Machinery
IoT is a perfect fit for manufacturing industries where automation is already playing a key role. These industries can take their business operations to the next level by integrating their machines or equipment with IoT solutions.
In many cases, smart sensors are attached to the equipment that sends signals to the main computer in case of any untoward situation or an error occurring in any of its parts. This information can be used appropriately to improve performance or maintain machinery at regular intervals.
Meanwhile, processing power has more than tripled in the last 15 years.
With such advanced tools and solutions available, it is important to understand how IoT can be beneficial for your business as well as what challenges you might face while implementing it.
Predictive Maintenance
Predictive maintenance is a form of artificial intelligence that uses IoT technology to predict when a machine is likely to break down. This information can be used to improve supply chain management and business models.
Smart sensors are becoming increasingly popular for inventory management and other IoT solutions. They offer many benefits over existing processes, including improved accuracy, real-time data, and automated alerts. Smart cities are beginning to adopt these technologies to improve efficiency and quality of life for residents.
How Do I Add Value to Businesses Using IoT Solutions
The business focus for creating IoT solutions is the ability to add value to businesses. The process of creating an IoT solution starts with collecting data about a particular business and analyzing its problems. Next, you select the optimal solution and develop a plan for executing it. Once deployed, this solution can be enhanced over time.
Below are some of the main areas where IoT solutions can create value:
Formulate a Complete Solution
Most businesses do not come up with actionable plans related to their operations on their own. They have to depend on IT departments or consultants who may end up leading them wrong in getting the right results. In fact, it is not risky to say that most businesses lack an IT department or a strong IT infrastructure. Here, IoT solutions can be a game-changer for them.
IoT solutions can help you in developing best practices for your business by using collected data from various sources and analyzing them using tools. These solutions will help you in creating dashboards and reports to identify performance improvements and other issues in real-time.
Get Real-Time Feedback
Most businesses fail to get the appropriate feedback from their customers about their products or services. They just invest in new products and services without getting any customer feedback even after spending millions of dollars on marketing campaigns.
With IoT solutions, it is possible to receive real-time feedback from your consumers about their experiences. For instance, you can use these solutions to monitor the actual customer experience by using customer satisfaction surveys or giving customers the ability to rate their experience with an online review platform.
This will help you identify opportunities for improvement and improve your brand image by benchmarking against other businesses’ performance.
IoT Solutions for Businesses: Where and How
IoT has the potential to transform multiple industries, especially those that are dominated by traditional IT systems. In fact, it can also change the way businesses work by making them more efficient and smooth. IoT can be used in almost all types of businesses. The first step is to identify the best IoT solutions for your business.
How to Identify the Best IoT Solutions for Your Business
Businesses can make use of some common steps while selecting the right solution. It is not necessary to create a custom solution or spend on expensive software tools; you can utilize open-source tools or products available in the market that are ready to use. Check some of these steps while selecting a suitable IoT solution:
Understand Business Requirements:
It is necessary to understand and document business requirements before going ahead with any project. Once you have come up with business requirements, you have to select the right technology, tools, and platforms for your project.
This means that once you have selected a particular platform or solution, it will be comparatively easy to find the right tools and systems to develop your project with ease.
Identify Industry Challenges
Once you have identified business requirements and started working on them, it is important to understand the industry challenges associated with your project. The industry challenges are a significant aspect. These can be taken into consideration while selecting the tools and systems for the development of your IoT solution.
For instance, if you want to work in the healthcare industry, then it is essential that you understand how the medical industry functions. This will help you in creating a better solution for tracking patients’ health conditions by using IoT solutions.
Understand the Business Process
The business process of your business plays a crucial role in determining the requirements and processes needed for developing an IoT solution. For instance, if you are working on an HR management platform and want to use it to manage employees or suppliers, then you have to analyze each of them and understand how they work with each other.
For example, you can see how the HR process includes the assessment of employees, payouts, and rewards. You have to figure out which employee requirements will work best if you develop a particular solution.
Decide On a Platform
Businesses should not try to go for open source solutions or custom software because the initial setup and development process might take too much time and cost them more. The best way to go about this is to choose a platform that is already compatible with existing systems and other existing tools.
Popular platforms include Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Rancher Labs. Choose the system that suits your business needs for an IoT solution development project.
Build an IoT Solution
Once you have selected a platform and selected tools, you can now start building your business solution. The creators of these tools and platforms make it easy for you to build a solution by helping you in creating a plan.
These tools also help in automating several aspects of the business process including building, deploying, and managing cloud applications. These tools also allow businesses to use APIs to communicate with each other or device without having any technical expertise in programming.
Consultants should not just stay with the basic guidelines set by the business owners as these might not be ideal for their clients. These consultants should work together with the clients to understand all the aspects and develop a better business solution.
The above steps will help in providing you with the best IoT solutions without having to invest in too many tools. However, if you want to go ahead with custom solutions, then it is important to choose a platform that is flexible enough.
How Do I Create an IoT Strategy for my Business
Every business is different, and the strategy that works for your business might not work for another. However, there are some basic steps you should follow to create a successful IoT strategy and get maximum benefits from it.
The first step is to determine if this IoT project will help in improving your business processes or not. You must also focus on what your business really wants to achieve from an IoT solution and how it can improve your organization’s productivity levels.
Planning
Planning is the next important step. Before implementing the IoT solution in your organization, you must make sure that there are clear goals and expectations from it. Make sure that you have included the timeframe for completing various steps in your business IoT strategy.
Identify the Limitations
Identify the limitations of your existing systems and processes. Make sure that you have identified the existing limitations of your business so that you can make the decisions regarding IoT solutions based on them. If a tool or technology available to help you in creating the necessary solution is not compatible with your business processes, then you cannot use it.
Business Profitability
Think about the business profitability that will be affected by an IoT solution implementation. You will need to take into account every aspect related to this IoT project and also how it might affect your organization’s operations and profitability.
How Can I Monetize my IoT Data
You can make your IoT devices generate money by doing something with the data you get from them. Some platforms and solutions mentioned in this article are free of charge, but many others provide commercial services to help businesses monetize their products or services.
IoT solutions and tools mentioned here are available free of charge as well as available for a price. These tools provide commercial solutions to help business owners connect their products and services to the Internet.
When you choose a tool to build your solution, it is important that you understand how it works. These tools use the current open standards of HTTP, HTTPS, or MQTT protocols to connect your device with an IoT platform. Make sure that you choose a platform that is flexible enough for future requirements.
Here are the top three business solutions and tools for monetizing your data:
IBM Watson IoT Platform
IBM Watson IoT Platform provides an integrated solution to help businesses find and analyze their data. The platform also helps in parsing incoming data from devices and then using it to provide useful insights.
It also provides information about the devices, equipment, and topics that are being discussed in real-time by customers. This makes it easier for businesses to get real-time feedback regarding their services and products.
Amazon IoT
Amazon Web Services or AWS provides a cloud-based solution to help businesses connect, analyze and monitor the data generated by their products and services. This solution is being used by many companies including Bosch, Cisco, GE, Intel and Microsoft.
The Amazon IoT platform lets you receive data from your devices using the MQTT protocol and then analyze it for making informed business decisions.
Microsoft Azure IoT Suite
Microsoft Azure is one of the most popular platforms that provides various tools to help businesses build IoT solutions that provide real-time insights about trends based on past data. This helps in improving the efficiency and productivity of your business processes without having to spend more money or resources on it.
Benefits of IoT in Business
As the world becomes more and more connected, businesses are starting to see the benefits of incorporating the internet into their operations. The industrial internet, or the internet of things, is transforming business processes and making them more efficient.
By connecting devices and machines to the internet, businesses can collect data and use it to improve their operations. IoT projects are becoming more commonplace, as businesses strive to stay ahead of the competition.
Furthermore, the global number of IoT-connected devices is expected to climb to 43 billion by 2023, nearly tripling from 2018. IoT can help organizations in many ways which are:
IoT in Manufacturing Systems
IoT solutions can play an important role in helping manufacturers make better decisions when it comes to production and inventory levels.
By using IoT solutions, manufacturers will be able to improve the quality of their products as well as their production efficiency levels. Indeed, expenditures in IoT technology are expected to expand at a 13.6 percent annual rate until 2022.
IoT uses internet connectivity to turn your devices into smart devices which then make data available for real-time monitoring by the manufacturer. Using this data, manufacturers can predict problems before they occur based on the historical data collected from them.
For example, when a device like a fire extinguisher runs out of fuel, manufacturers might replace it based on past instances of this event. By solving such problems in advance, manufacturers will be able to improve the quality of their products as well as their well-being.
IoT in Banking and Finance
IoT solutions can help with customer service in industries like banking and finance. In these industries, you will have a large customer base with different requirements based on their time zones and personal preferences.
To meet these customers’ needs, you will need an infrastructure that is reliable and quick to deliver information that is relevant to them at the moment they require it.
By using IoT solutions for your financial system, you will be able to track accounts for your customer base using mobile devices or internet-enabled devices like door openers, etc.
IoT in Security
IoT solutions can help in making your systems of security more reliable by using technologies like voice recognition, facial recognition, and wearable cameras. With these technologies, you will be able to add a human element to your existing security systems which are particularly important for ensuring the safety of facilities and people.
This will allow you to use your existing resources more efficiently and prevent human error from leading to any kind of damage or loss.
IoT in Healthcare
Healthcare is a space where a lot of developments are happening all the time. With this fast pace, new technology has to be accessible to healthcare professionals as well as, to their patients. As with any other industry, IoT technology can help in improvements in healthcare processes that will benefit both patients and healthcare providers.
IoT solutions will provide you with real-time data regarding the medical treatment that you might be referring to your hospital. Data like this is crucial as it will allow you to make better decisions on how to proceed with a patient’s treatment.
IoT in Smart Buildings
Smart buildings are going to be around for a long time, but they have certain things that have to be addressed before they become even smarter. Like any other business, smart buildings need to focus on their security systems as well as the overall maintenance and management of their infrastructure components.
With IoT, smart buildings can be equipped with sensors that will analyze and break down the data collected by them. This data can then be used to improve the overall working and maintenance of the building.
IoT in Transportation Systems
IoT solutions in transportation will allow people who use public transport or vehicles for their own purpose to track their vehicles in real-time. By using IoT-based solutions, people will be able to track their vehicles in real-time and identify possible problems while they are still small instead of waiting until they become really big problems.
This will allow people to save on their time and money by having quick access to information regarding the condition of their vehicles.
IoT in Home Automation
IoT solutions can help with making your home more efficient, green, and secure. You will have a connected home that has a number of smart devices providing you with information that can be useful while you are at home and away.
For example, when you are at work and run out of water, you will be able to use IoT-based solutions like smart water timers to check if there is water available at your house. This would help save on costs as well as time which can be used for other things.
IoT in Agriculture
In agriculture, IoT can help to improve the efficiency and production of plants. With IoT-based solutions, you will be able to monitor the soil conditions of your farm as well as track other plant health parameters like temperature and fertilization levels.
This will help make better decisions when it comes to crop production and saving on costs. You can also use data acquisition solutions to map the entire farm so that you have a clear idea of where your plants are located and how they are responding to the changes in their environment over time.
IoT solutions can also help farmers using drones for monitoring crop health which will tell them about irrigation needs, pest problems, weed problems, etc.
Future of IoT in Businesses
IoT is already making its way into businesses of all sizes and is helping a lot of industries to improve their services. With new technologies being developed all the time, IoT will continue to grow and become more common in the business world.
The percentage of firms that adopt IoT technologies has risen from 13% in 2014 to almost 25% now.
As you begin using IoT, get ready to see improvements not just in your business but also in your personal life as well. You will have better information on how you can save money, reduce your carbon footprint and save yourself time.
The IoT market is growing rapidly as more and more companies are looking to adopt IoT solutions to improve their customer experience. The manufacturing industry is one of the most active adopters of IoT, with many companies implementing IoT solutions to improve their operations.
The future of IoT looks very bright and is definitely something that you will want to invest in for your business if it isn’t already part of it. This technology has unlimited possibilities for growth which means that you can achieve real ROI with its help.
Last Updated on October 12, 2023 by Priyanshi Sharma
