Internet of Things' Tips for Start-ups

When the Internet of things starts playing a role, it will create plenty of Job opportunities, new business models, new start-ups, & benefits all kinds of business to the next level of achievements.

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Procedure to Win IoT projects

Internet of Things (IoT) projects come in all shapes and sizes. You may be a designer or manufacturer seeking to bring a brand-new connected device to market or improve an existing one. Your project is on the deployment side – you’re introducing an IoT product or suite of products to your existing operations. Or you’re thinking more in terms of data – IoT-enabled devices that are part your existing setup, and you want to work harder to translate the data they capture into strategic decisions. Believe it or not, there is more continuity in terms of ensuring success across all these different permutations of IoT project than you might think. In this article, I am calling on you to remember one simple strategy, whether you’re a product designer or developer, a recent IoT convert or an old hand seeking new ways with your existing data.

Here it is.

Focus less on the technology – more on the business value.

This might seem counter-intuitive. The Internet of Things is, after all, a technology-driven phenomenon. It’s built on technology. It’s about hardware, and software, and connectivity. Getting the technical elements of the IoT Is vital, no matter where on that spectrum your project falls.

But think about it. IoT projects aren’t launched for the sake of engaging with new technology. They’re launched to solve business problems, to improve business performance, to increase businesses competitiveness. It’s just that these realities are all too easily forgotten in the enthusiastic rush to play with the latest smart device or analytics engine.

By retaining a sharp focus throughout the entire life-cycle of your IoT project on the business value to be gained from that project, rather than the precise tools and technologies being used, you will automatically free yourself up from restrictive thinking. You’re less likely to be locked into particular technologies or approaches, and, most importantly of all, your project remains targeted throughout on benefits for your organization.

That’s the theory, anyway. But what does a focus on business value look like in practice? Here are the key elements:

1. Set out the goals of your IoT project before you begin.

Each should be a clear business benefit that you hope to achieve, from a new revenue stream to greater visibility into a particular dataset, from a speeded-up business process to a longer asset lifespan. These goals should be precise, and they should be measurable.

2. Communicate those goals to all the project stakeholders and participants.

No matter how minor or precise someone’s role in the project, they should understand from the outset what the business value being sought is. This is essential for helping each individual workflow within your project to build towards those value-driven goals.

3. Revisit the goals at regular intervals throughout the project lifecycle, and measure your project’s progress against them.

There may, of course, be times where you need to update the goals in line with lessons learned or changed business priorities. But returning to them regularly helps to retain your focus, and remind your organization of why the project was undertaken in the first place.

Evaluate your project’s success at completion by referring back to those goals.

If you chose goals with tight metrics attached, then measuring the impact of your project on those metrics should be relatively straight forward.

The reason we fail IoT projects

We focus often on IoT success stories. From exciting use cases in different industries to narratives of how start-ups can go from intangible idea to concrete reality, we’ve covered a range of different examples of how connected operations can – and do – power impressive accomplishments.

But that isn’t to say that IoT projects are easy to pull off. In fact, a significant proportion of them fail – indeed, according to a survey by Cisco[1] in May 2017, as many as 60% of corporate IoT projects stall at the proof of concept phase, while only a quarter of survey respondents said they considered their IoT deployment an overall success.

What, then, were the problems?

The key point to take from the Cisco survey is that the problem was rarely, if ever, a technological one. The top reasons for IoT project failure were as follows:

Time – the project took too long, which in turn meant that budgets were liable to spill over. Managers underestimated the time that an IoT project would take to complete, and wasn’t agile enough when it became clear that the time estimates were inaccurate. Appropriate contingencies weren’t in place.

Expertise – the organization didn’t have the appropriate skills in-house, and didn’t outsource. The IoT is an ecosystem rather than a single product or technology, and this means that a wide range of skills and experiences are necessary for project success.

Integration – different teams within the organization operated different policies and communication channels and had differing ideas of the importance and application of the IoT project.

Data – the data collected was of poor quality. Since IoT success is all about harnessing data for tangible decision-making, if the data is poor, then subsequent decisions will be poor. Indeed, good quality data sits at the heart of all IoT success stories.

The Cisco survey tells us, then, that culture and personnel are far more critical to the success or failure of an IoT project than the technology deployed. When you think about it, this isn’t particularly surprising. The sheer complexity, variety, and range of IoT systems in the market already mean that any organization should be able to select and apply a platform that works for them. But people are the driving force behind where technology is deployed within an organization and the cultural shifts that need to take place for its benefits to be maximized.

How, then, can your organization avoid the above pitfalls?

Time – managers of IoT projects need to be flexible and adaptable, familiar with project management methodologies that can cope with moving goalposts. Because IoT projects should capture previously untapped data, and generate brand-new insights into how your organization operates, it is very difficult to accurately predict project length and scope from the outset. Far better, then, to plan with a ‘stretchy’ timeline in mind.

Expertise – it is unlikely that your organization will start off with all of the in-house expertise you need to fully harness the benefits of the IoT. Tackle this by thinking about IoT training and up-skilling from the very outset of your project, and don’t be afraid to bring in temporary or contract staff to cover certain aspects if needed. Draw on all of the available training and support provided by technology vendors, manufacturers and solution providers, and plan training and development programmes as part of your project.

Integration – this is a task for both the IoT project manager and senior management within the organization. It is vital that they understand that the IoT marks a major cultural shift in terms of how your business operates and that they communicate that shift to all departments within your organization.

Data – finally, we arrive back at that hallmark of IoT projects, the core from which everything else hangs. How can you be sure of collecting good quality data? There are two elements to bear in mind – first, understanding from the outset the knowledge gaps you want the IoT to fill – that is, knowing what data you need to capture. And second – deploying sensors and analytics engines that are able to capture and analyze precisely that data.

Project failure may still be too common in the IoT world – but some simple steps can massively mitigate the risk.

Advice for Starting an IoT Project

The Internet of Things. It’s no longer the new kid on the block as far as technology innovation is concerned – but it’s still a long way from maturity. So, if your organization quietly sat back while the hype died down, and is now convinced that investing in connected devices is a sensible strategy, it can still be difficult to know where to begin.

Here, then, are three key strategies to enable you to get on board with the IoT in a strategic, long-term way.

Begin with real business problems

This is the crucial foundation of any IoT programme, and the difference between getting caught up in the hype, and deploying technology that will genuinely help your business thrive and grow. It’s true that the IoT covers a huge spectrum of different applications, and can drive tangible benefits across a wide range of sectors and organization types – but to realize those benefits, you need to know what you’re trying to change.

As such, any corporate IoT strategy shouldn’t begin with questions around what kind of technology to deploy, but around what kind of business challenges you are trying to meet, or what kinds of valuable data are currently going untapped. May be you are wasting time and money performing manual checks or tests that you suspect could be automated via the IoT. May be you want to better understand how a particular machine is working, or gain greater visibility over a fleet of vehicles. Beginning with this business context will not only help you make sensible decisions as to the technology you deploy; it will also help you to better evaluate the success of your IoT programme, and adjust it if needs be.

Choose your platform wisely

Data-capturing sensors are the endpoints of your IoT architecture, but the system that binds them all together is your IoT analytics engine or platform. And while those sensors are typically quite simple pieces of kit – they might be measuring something as straightforward as location or temperature – the analytics engine is a far more complicated beast.

Your IoT platform needs to be able to collect all the data generated by connected devices and sensors throughout your organization, analyze it, and translate it into tangible business intelligence. Ideally, it should also integrate machine learning and augmented reality solutions so that you can truly maximize the value of your IoT strategy. It’s likely to be the biggest financial investment when it comes to introducing the IoT to your business, and the intelligence it generates needs to make sense to a wide range of staff within your business, not just the IT team, so it’s vital to choose wisely.

Think in terms of process, not solution

Enterprise IoT programmes should never be thought of in terms of a one-off solution. The great potential of the IoT in business settings lies in its ability to drive tangible action – which means you need to build those actions into your IoT strategy from the start.

Of course, if you have followed the first two steps, then implementing action from your IoT data should be relatively straightforward. You know the problems you are trying to solve, and you have a powerful analytics engine to inform your answers to those problems. All that is left, then, is taking that IoT data and using it to shape tangible action.

Advice for IoT Deployment

The first challenge a business faces when it begins to think about the Internet of Things is to understand where the opportunity lies.

But once you have a strategy in place, where are the risks?

There are three main risks in any deployment:

Connectivity and Interoperability

One of the great strengths of the internet of things is the breadth of possibilities it invites us to imagine.

What if we could combine our automated irrigation system with live sensor data in the field and future weather forecasting?

What if we could continually improve our products by understanding how they perform in use?

But how do we connect this disparate sources of information? Each of the new devices, systems, data sources and products that make up the Internet of Things is likely to have some degree of its own proprietary technologies and specific communication protocols. In the absence of agreed standards, connecting these devices, therefore, will represent its own degree of complexity.

Interoperability between devices and machines is the biggest challenge facing the Industrial IoT.

Security

When every device is connected, every device becomes a vulnerability or potential point of attack. No business wants their product to be that source of potential vulnerability.

For companies producing smart connected products, then, security is no longer an afterthought. It can no longer by only the responsibility of IT. Security becomes fundamental to a good product.

Acceptance

Acceptance for any IoT deployment is two-fold: internal and external.

Thinking about customer acceptance – through user-friendly interfaces and exploiting customers need for competitive advantage – is the “easy” part.

Acceptance here must be weighed equally with acceptance within the business. This goes beyond user experience – and might involve some pretty serious change management as the business rethinks business models and competitive strategy.

Workshop IoT India2020 YouTube channel (Launch Date: August 15th 2018, will be active from Jan 2020)

Workshop IoT India2020 is an new youTube Channel to motivate Start-ups towards boom in IoT, smart infrastructure and IoT-Cybersecurity

After Mirai botnet and Reaper attacks on IoT devices, it is important as a developer or a manager who is working on building these smart devices to understand the security risks related to it.

In Workshop IoT India2020 YouTube Channel, We are planning to give a brief introduction on awareness of IoT-Cyber security, how security is implemented and how it can be exploited to hack into the device. 

KickStart Your IoT-AI Adventures with Workshop IoT India2020 YouTube Channel

Nowadays, IoT with AI is a fast growing technologies used in several different verticals. We are also planning to describe how to perform and showcase some interesting use cases for solving real-world challenges.

Our Action Plan Goal to make Smart Everything and Motivate our viewers in Building a Brighter Tomorrow

Our cities, our homes, our means of transport, our appliances, our wearables are all becoming smarter and with that comes the opportunity to build a brighter tomorrow tailored for efficiency, progress and most importantly - better living. Think optimized traffic and public services; Think less crowding, less time to reach a destination, less stress; Think cleaner air and a safer and healthier environment.

In Workshop IoT India2020 YouTube Channel, we are planning to showcase how connected “Things” can see what we cannot and can provide us a richer context of our world, in real-time.