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By Craig Templin

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January 03, 2018

Simplifying IoT

5 Best Practices to Make the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) has reached an explosive period of growth. Next year, spending on IoT hardware will exceed 2.5 Million dollars every minute, and in five years 1 Million new devices will come online every hour. The Internet of Things is in its wild wild west phase, with dozens of competing platforms fighting for dominance and vendors struggling to gain a competitive advantage as quickly as possible. But the promise of IoT is the delivery of a beautifully simple experience. Techno ogy works best when it disappears behind the scenes: complex objects that think on our behalf will be hidden behind simplicity, even when some of those “things” aren’t “smart.”

Real Life Example: A Trip to the Store.

Let’s look at a real life example to illustrate the promise of IoT in a retail environment. Imagine a retailer, with brick and mortar outlets, an eCommerce web site and a mobile app. A shopper walks into a store and comes across a digital sign. The sign springs to life, recognizing her and her shopping history, and automatically changes to display items that match her preferences. The system presents her with the opportunity to purchase these items from a virtual shopping list displayed on a touchscreen, or to send these items to friends from her social media channels, which are also displayed on the screen. Behind the scenes of this seamless shopping experience is a complex orchestration of technological processes. The shopper picks up a floor sample item with a low-cost wireless beacon attached, and she carries a smart digital loyalty card in her coat pocket. The digital sign, wired to the store’s cloud-based eCommerce platform, displays information sent by the proximity service that communicates with the item and her loyalty card. The proximity service pre registers her into the system, mapping her in real-time to online catalogs, her online accounts, her location within the store, and locally available inventory. Our shopper has this experience without having to download an app, configure any settings or even use a smartphone.

5 Best Practices to IoT Simplicity

There are five best practices we recommend so you can provide a similarly seamless IoT experience to your customers

  1. Ensure Your IoT Project Is Driven By a Business Need

    Your IoT projects should be driven by your company’s business needs at 3 distinct levels: business processes, business models and the business moment. An example of an IoT digital moments is when our shopper walks in ready to shop and interacts with the digital sign.

  2. Identify IoT Solution Scope

    IoT projects are generally deployed in three degrees of scope: IoT endpoints, IoT platforms, and IoT business solutions. Published IoT reference models can be used to help identify the key IoT solutions components to understand the roles.

  3. Establish Bi-Modal IT Capability

    When thinking about innovation, Gartner recommends to “Lead at two speeds.” The first speed is “keeping the lights on” using traditional methodologies. The second speed is the innovation speed, and should be handled by a separate multi-disciplinary, often outsourced team, working at a faster pace with some distance from the rest of IT. It is important to find an IT partner that covers both speeds.

  4. Plan & Execute Iterative Approach

    Since we are at the beginning of the IoT revolution for most enterprises, plan to use an iterative approach that allows you to quickly apply lessons learned. Work with a partner who can provide a framework via a very focused, iterative approach for Recognizing, Architecting, Constructing and Evaluating specific solutions for specific business moments.

  5. Evolve Your IoT Platform & Solution

    There is no such thing as a commercial off-theshelf IoT solution, and most IoT platforms do not represent the full set of services needed. IoT projects are all about integration and governance –combining existing apps and data with newly acquired IoT assets to improve overall operational intelligence to produce better business outcomes.

The Promise of IoT Is Here

The Internet of Things is truly realizing the promise of digital commerce by melding bricks and mortar with digital while hiding the complexity of technology to provide seamless and natural experiences to capture those key business moments. Our best experiences happen when complexity disappears behind simplicity. When things just work together harmoniously automated in the background, magical technology experiences occur. Are you ready to take part in the magic?

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