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6 Tips For Anticipating The Impact Of The Internet Of Things Posted on : Feb 18 - 2017

In a previous blog, we looked at the reasons businesses—especially those with physical assets—need to start planning for and anticipating the impact of the Internet of Things. But how should they approach these strategy sessions?

A recent Forbes Insights report, “Harnessing the Internet of Things: How to Derive Big Business Benefits From the Connected World,” sponsored by Pitney Bowes, offers some recommendations.

Look to the leaders. Be aware of how your competitors and industry leaders are using IoT in their consumer-facing offerings and for differentiation, as well as for internal optimization. Be aware of changing business models and consumer expectations around IoT. Partner with IoT technology leaders.

Make IoT a board-level agenda item. Senior leadership should be taking the long view to understand how the threats and opportunities of the IoT impact their industry and business. Don’t stop with the immediate business case for cost savings. Think ahead to potential differentiation and transformation opportunities (e.g., use your data to set your customer experience apart; then gather data from your customers and feed it back to them in useful ways, including how they compare with others, to help them rethink and optimize their own operations).

Centralize analytics. Harnessing the IoT is going to require a level of data and analytics literacy that many organizations lack today, especially with the integration that will be necessary between structured and unstructured data. Businesses need to become, to an extent, analytics-driven. Now is the time to lay the foundations so that decisions can be made faster and more easily down the road.

Take a top-down approach. The IoT ecosystem is already huge and fragmented, lacking clear common standards at this point in the game. Estimates indicate there are more than 200 IoT platforms already—so start with the problem that needs to be solved and fill the gaps with the right technology from there. It’s like assembling puzzle pieces in the best way to produce an efficient solution.

Anticipate security. Anticipate security and privacy concerns, and center those in the architecture development right from the start. Cleansed and de-duplicated data plays a vital role in this process, laying foundations that allow for real-time detection of security breaches and fraudulent activities.

Think incrementally, expect change. There’s still a lot of uncertainty about the specifics of the IoT; there’s no common platform for devices to communicate (although GE’s Predix is an early contender for industrial applications) and no universal standards for security or other elements at this stage. So a pragmatic approach that doesn’t lock the organization into a particular path is needed. Early adopters should experiment, but expect change and allow for the risk of placing a few wrong bets. Source