TEKTALK STRATEGY

Trends: What Is “IoT” & What It Means to You, Your Business

Level Set – What Is the Internet of Things or “IoT”?

Wikipedia summarizes IoT well – The Internet of Things is the network of physical devices, vehicles, home appliances, and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity which enable these objects to connect and exchange data.

Each thing is uniquely identifiable through its embedded computing system but is able to inter-operate within the existing Internet infrastructure. Experts estimate that the IoT will consist of about 30 billion objects by 2020. It is also estimated that the global market value of IoT will reach $7.1 trillion by 2020.

“Things”, in the IoT sense, can refer to a wide variety of devices such as heart monitoring implants, biochip transponders on farm animals, cameras streaming live feeds of wild animals in coastal waters,[11] automobiles with built-in sensors, DNA analysis devices for environmental/food/pathogen monitoring, or field operation devices that assist firefighters in search and rescue operations. Legal scholars suggest regarding “things” as an “inextricable mixture of hardware, software, data and service”.

Sample IoT Use Cases

-Retail: Mobile point-of-sale (PoS), inventory management, online purchase to store, analytics

-Manufacturing: Interactive robotics, machine-to-machine communication, real-time machine health/efficiency data, analytics

-Agriculture: Centralized planting, irrigation, harvesting and even soil monitoring with high-precision GPS technology, IoT arrangement

-Healthcare: Real-time medical device health data, shared patient records

-Marketing / Comms: Customer tracking options, geo-targeted mobile messaging, analytics

Is IoT Just for Big Business? or Can the SMB Play Too?

According to Business Insider, “The Internet of Things might seem like it only benefits large corporations with massive budgets, but the IoT has already started to bear fruit for small businesses, too. In fact, approximately 57% of small business think the IoT will have a significant effect on their bottom line, according to an AVG survey.”

Monetizing IoT

There are a variety of ways to help customers capitalize on the benefits of IoT and get compensated at the same time. TekEfficient can help with suppliers who offer IoT networks, IoT device management platforms, IoT managed/professional services and other IoT services.