Despite the rise of the IoT across virtually every industry, its complexity continues to create challenges. Organizations attempting to navigate the IoT ecosystem often experience delays in time-to-market, slow revenue realization, technology incompatibilities, budget overruns, and even complete project failures. According to a survey conducted by Cisco, 60 percent of IoT initiatives stall at the Proof of Concept (PoC) stage and 33 percent of all completed IoT projects not considered not successful1.
Even the simplest IoT solutions require the integration and management of several different components, services, systems, and processes. While a company may be inclined to turn to its own IT department to manage an IoT project, unfortunately, traditional IT expertise generally does not directly translate to IoT capability. Companies must “expect the unexpected” and examine all potential considerations and components when deploying an IoT project.
The following critical IoT capabilities, many of which often are overlooked, are crucial to successfully launching of IoT projects, maintaining the success of an active IoT implementation, or reversing the fate of a deteriorating IoT initiative:
The foundation of any successful IoT implementation is establishing a strategy that accurately assesses its organization’s current IoT maturity level and resource availability, targets specific business processes, and covers all areas of deployment and management.
Tip: Start small, targeting specific business processes. According to a Forbes Insights report, 66 percent of companies that succeed with an IoT project report that they first pursued smaller, strategic IoT initiatives in order to develop expertise for larger subsequent projects.
The potential benefits of IoT applications and the data that they generate are just as important – if not more important– than the capabilities of the IoT solutions themselves. However, many businesses miss the opportunity to drive revenue and generate actionable business intelligence with IoT.
Tip: Take an open-architecture approach to accelerate the development of new and proprietary applications, as well as simplify their integration into existing platforms, applications, and back-office systems. These services enable companies to accelerate time-to-deployment, and set the stage for generating a rich dataset leading to a robust, cross-functional analytics.
Effective reporting and its associated analytics are critical for long-term return on investment. By configuring, tracking, and monitoring key business and operational metrics, businesses can practice continuous improvement and optimization of their IoT solution to improve day-to-day decision making and business outcomes.
Tip: Gain the most consolidated, detailed view possible of IoT solution performance data to maximize efficiencies and productivity while controlling costs. Key business metrics will be unique to each organization, however performance attributes most businesses measure include network status, asset health, job efficiency, operator compliance, and maintenance requirements.
For IoT solutions to live up to their potential, reliable, scalable, and efficient network connectivity – and the appropriate IoT device technologies – are critical. Just researching the hundreds of carrier, network, and equipment options can become overwhelming.
Tip: When selecting a network provider, seek a partner that can provide secure connectivity on a global basis, multi-IMSI and eSIM capabilities, as well as recommend and provide IoT devices and related services. By utilizing a single end-to-end provider for multiple, related IoT services, businesses simplify, accelerate, and scale their IoT deployments.
Securing and controlling IoT networks, devices, applications, and data transfer is essential for optimal IoT performance and reliability. Inadequate or substandard network infrastructure and IoT security protocols can prevent businesses from properly scaling their IoT deployments and expose their solutions to costly—sometimes devastatingly costly-security breaches.
Tip: Select a partner that is optimized for IoT deployments. Businesses should leverage network technologies that are secure, scalable, and adaptable to support specialized monitoring capabilities often needed for IoT functionality and performance.
With IoT strategies in place, individual components vetted and selected, and pilot solutions in testing, many businesses feel they are ready to bring IoT solutions to market. However, organizations are often unaware of how difficult it can be to deploy, manage, and sustain a healthy IoT deployment.
Tip: To achieve long-term IoT success, businesses must carefully plan for the entire IoT lifecycle including the deployment, operational management, as well as sustainment and support phases. By properly executing best practices in each of these areas, businesses are presented with a clear path to optimal solution performance and continuous ROI generation.
Next Steps: Partnering for Success and Mastering the Six Critical Capabilities of IoT
Mastering the technologies, acquiring the skillsets, and dedicating the resources required to manage each area of IoT solution management in-house are not always realistic next steps for most organizations. This is where IoT partners come in, providing the expertise, products, and services needed to support successful IoT initiatives. Stay tuned for upcoming blogs focused on best-practice recommendations and real-life examples for successfully navigating each of these six capabilities, featuring insights from KORE’s Team of IoT Experts.
Looking for more information now? Visit the KORE web page dedicated to the six critical IoT Management Capabilities.
Source: 1. https://www.slideshare.net/CiscoBusinessInsights/journey-to-iot-value-76163389
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