Internet of Things (IoT) is not a buzzword or a temporary phase!

“By 2020 IoT is expected to connect 38 billion “things” to the internet, ranging from wearable devices such as smartwatches to automobiles, appliances, and industrial equipment”, a latest research from Harvard Business Review states. That is an increase of over 285% compared to the 13.4 billion devices in 2015. Take a moment to re-read that statement and also try to realize this is merely five years away! No sci-fi, it is real!

After all, Internet of Things is a good idea only if it’s profitable. And in turn, for profitability, you need a well thought-out business model that is suitable and flexible. Nowadays, figures are showing that mostly R&D and IT departments are those responsible for implementation of the concept, rather than the top managers with the business background. Most companies are taking the approach of upgrading their technology and making the Internet of Things fundamentally possible hoping that an idea will eventually materialize. Everyone who is willing to embrace IoT need to be ready to face the bitter truth – at the end it may not work out from the first attempt. In order to truly innovate, businesses should be ready to fail. Then recover, quickly rectify, learn a lesson and move on. And that is some new responsibility for both CIO and CTOs – to expand their roles, looking more at nurturing innovation than information, and embracing transformation instead of technology within the business.

Speaking about IoT as something abstract is also very wrong. IoT is an idea that can only address complex situations or uses. In fact, nowadays some of the more common successful case studies linked to IoT are in manufacturing, retail, patient healthcare and even restaurants/hospitality. With the fully saturated market for various technological solutions, it is still surprising that they are not widely implemented and easily deployed to become part of a coalescent ecosystem of ‘smart’, connected devices. To become successful businesses have to follow some pretty basic principles to attract customers: to be relevant, to be up-to-date and to deliver simple solutions that are practical and ready to use.

If we focus on the current healthcare situation, for example, here are some of the big concerns patients face:

• It’s time consuming – physicians are preoccupied, results from studies happen very slowly, patients wait for medical examination for hours
• Availability – best doctors are absent, special services are hard to find, collaboration is interrupted
• Security – unauthorized access to health information has the potential to damage careers, harm reputations and worse.

Modern wearable IoT devices like medical wristbands or smart surgical systems and imaging apparatus can all deliver data for flexible patient monitoring, improve collaboration and assist administration. Digitizing and streamlining the sharing of health data has the potential for dramatic gains in productivity and significantly complement cost savings. Learn more about our solution for all of the above here.

Conclusion

IoT is the future, not a temporary phase. Moreover, it is expanding across the globe and across industries and will continue to gain momentum, as more use opportunities for mobile apps, smartphones, wearables, beacons, location-based services, data analytics and everything in-between emerge. The best advice we can offer is to immediately start thinking about how IoT can and will impact your very own business or life and what you can do about it, because it inevitably will.

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