IoT: It’s One Smart Cookie

I’d like to take a moment and depart from our typical blog structure at KORE. Why? Because I just had a chance to taste the cookies we’ll have at our booth later this month at Mobile World Congress Americas. Not only are they extremely tasty (thanks, Milk Jar Cookies – you’ve outdone yourselves!) but they also got me thinking – IoT and cookies have a lot in common. I mean, the simplest cookie isn’t really all that simple when you consider all the steps that go into making it. Even a sugar cookie requires coordination, timing, and attention to detail to ensure it’s worthy of dunking in a glass of milk – especially when making large batches.

The same is true of launching an IoT solution. End-users only see the simple product they’re using – they have no idea of the steps that go into bringing the solution to market. To effectively reach your end-users and grow your business, you need to manage multiple network providers and achieve desired coverage while also ensuring the right mix of edge devices, sensors, network security measures, servers, and analytics are in place.

For a moment, let’s imagine you’re running a premiere cookie company. Your objectives include ensuring your product is not only good, but that every single batch is consistently delicious and that shipments get to stores on time. That means:

• Sourcing the right suppliers: Your suppliers need to guarantee crops that can yield the quality and consistency necessary to deliver the best possible ingredients for your cookies. IoT can help suppliers with agricultural sensors and analytics solutions that measure the moisture in the soil for wheat and sugar cane to ensure a good crop.
• Ensuring freshness: Top notch cookies start with top notch ingredients. And once they leave the farm, the field, or the processing factory, you have to ensure that your eggs, butter, flour, and sugar arrive to you at the peak of freshness. IoT helps with cold chain and inventory management ensuring your ingredients aren’t past their prime. With sensors that measure the temperature, moisture, and light at the warehouses and trucks that store and transport your goods, IoT has the power to make sure the final product is the best possible.
• Preventing productivity disruptions: It’s critical to monitor and optimize equipment in your bakery and packaging facility to make sure everything’s working smoothly – and that you can make enough cookies to meet ever-growing demand. Industrial IoT sensors and machine learning make sure equipment is working as it should and that output is optimized.
• Keeping deliveries on track: Making make sure the cookies reach their final destination on time can be facilitated by asset tracking sensors that give insight when deliveries are being made and allow you to make the appropriate decisions if they’re running behind.

There are many kinds of cookies, each type can have any number of recipes depending on the cook and who they’re making them for. Similarly, each business is different, even within industries. For example, the needs of a large cookie manufacturer will differ from the needs of a local bakery. And, just like IoT, the complexity of what you’re making can vary wildly – from a basic sugar cookie to a gluten-free, browned butter, dark chocolate and marshmallow macaron. But, no matter the complexity, success starts with adequate preparation and the organization to manage all the moving pieces.

IoT success is about more than just the technology, it’s about understanding how it helps each organization meet its unique needs and goals, while gleaning insight from analytics goals to drive greater efficiency and reduce costs. And organizations that can centralize IoT services via a single connectivity platform can reduce the time spent building relationships with multiple service providers and have more time dreaming up the next big cookie.

If you’re attending Mobile World Congress 19 in Los Angeles, Oct. 22-24, visit us at booth 2328 and grab a cookie. Or schedule a meeting with us to find out how you can taste the future of IoT innovation!