INTRODUCTION
As enterprises become increasingly familiar with the Internet of Things (IoT), their activities are moving on from isolated concept testing, trial deployments and pilot projects. There are immense challenges involved in moving beyond the development sandbox and into real commercial, large scale deployments. Several key ingredients are required that trial projects have been able to run without being in place but, with the projected billions of connections poised to become a reality, it’s time to ask the serious and fundamental question: Are you IoT ready?
The toolkit we have assembled here provides six essential resources to demystify, inform and help you identify your level of readiness for the IoT mass market. These resources explore in great depth the six vital areas for success for and IoT projects, which are: IoT Service Platforms, Application Enablement Platforms, Scalability, The Build vs. Buy Question, How to Select the Right IoT Platform, and How to Figure out the ROI for IoT.
Each item in this, The Definitive IoT Toolkit, is accessible below for your benefit:
1. IoT Service Platforms: Some Assembly Required?
This whitepaper is an introduction to designing IoT solutions for designers and manufacturers of consumer major appliances, as well as light industrial applications. Readers will learn about merging IoT service platforms – also called IoT Platforms as a Service (PaaS) – that simplify IoT product and service development and shorten the time it takes to get to market.
2. Five Key Traits of Leading IoT Application Enablement Platforms
The IoT application enablement platform (AEP) market has continued to grow into one of the most critical technology sectors of IoT. According to MachNation forecasts, worldwide IoT application enablement and device management revenue will be US$1.1 billion in 2016 growing to US$83.4 billion by 2025 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 62% over the period. Enterprises realise that a well-built IoT AEP saves significant development time and money in the creation and operation of an IoT solution. In this whitepaper MachNation outlines each trait in detail and explains why these five characteristics should be used by savvy buyers to evaluate best-of-breed AEP vendors and their technology.
3. Scalability in the IoT: Exploring a New Wilderness
IoT is expected to encompass tens of billions of connected devices by 2020, making future scalability a prime concern for everyone involved in the IoT market. But scaling up in IoT means far more than simply increasing the number of connected devices. For manufacturers of connected products, it requires thinking carefully about not only scaling at a product level, but at the cloud, mobile app, data and even business levels as well. This whitepaper covers issues that manufacturers must address as they navigate this new frontier.
4. Build vs. Buy – Manufacturers’ Biggest IoT Decision: Build or Buy an IoT Platform?
From boosting efficiency, to reducing costs, and gaining a competitive edge, IoT is widely seen as the future for manufactured products. When approaching the IoT market, manufacturers are likely to make a huge mistake: underestimating what it really takes to make that leap. That’s because it requires expertise and experience in every aspect of IoT operation – from the communications chips embedded in the connected product, through cloud computing and network security, to end-user control of the product via a mobile or web-based application – to create a high-quality connected product.
Download this whitepaper to find out what's needed to build an IoT platform and what to look for when buying one.
5. How to Select the Right IoT Platform – Considerations Beyond Connectivity -- Security, Flexibility and Data Intelligence
From boosting efficiency, to reducing costs, and gaining a competitive edge, IoT is widely seen as the future for manufactured products. When approaching the IoT market, manufacturers are likely to make a huge mistake: underestimating what it really takes to make that leap. That’s because it requires expertise and experience in every aspect of IoT operation – from the communications chips embedded in the connected product, through cloud computing and network security, to end-user control of the product via a mobile or web-based application – to create a high-quality connected product.
This white paper focuses on three critical considerations when choosing an IoT platform:
- What is most important to consider when evaluating and selecting an IoT Platform?
- What to evaluate in the IoT platform architecture so that your needs are met today, and more importantly, are going to be met in the future as you expand the functionality of your smart-connected products
- What specific features to look for while evaluating to IoT platforms
In this whitepaper we also elaborate on some key aspects of enterprise-class functionality such as security, flexibility and data intelligence. The format of this whitepaper is more like the e-book and we hope you will find it more interesting and fun to read.
6. Figuring Out the ROI for the IoT
For many manufacturers, IoT appears as a shiny new opportunity, full of promise and possibilities. For others, the IoT seems more like a dangerous sinkhole – a vast, untested realm waiting to suck up precious investments.
In truth, both beliefs can be true. That’s because manufacturers today face two seemingly conflicting priorities when contemplating the IoT:
- Keeping costs low and retaining margins
- Adding IoT connectivity and new functionality to products, when doing this will certainly mean additional costs
It’s important to remember that the benefits of IoT will take time to make up for the investments made, even if manufacturers take the best-practice approach of aiming for a minimally viable product (MVP) at the outset.
Download this whitepaper to understand where the best chance for IoT return on investment (ROI) lies, and how best to reach it.
CONCLUSION
It’s clear that the tipping point when IoT deployments start to mature into the mainstream and stop being focused on trials and tests is fast approaching. Those massive projections of connections in the tens of billions by 2020 are now little more than two years away from being proven true or false. The overwhelming perception is that the numbers are right, even if the timescale takes slightly longer than originally predicted.
Within that, there will be those who are pioneers and get to market early. This is likely to be a huge advantage in enabling companies to stake out new territory for themselves. Yes, some of the technology will be challenging to bring together but set against this will be the chance to lead entirely new markets. Arriving late could mean you’re too late to harness the IoT opportunities for your business.
However, arriving too early with immature technology that has not been developed with huge scale in mind could be a disaster as well so careful consideration should be taken with regard to which technologies, systems, platforms and partners you select. At the same time don’t forget the basics such as what the ROI is likely to be and how to deliver the service while generating profit.
Our aim is that this Definitive IoT Toolkit informs and prepares you for the challenging decisions of moving IoT from the test bench to the mainstream, mass market. We hope you enjoy reading the papers and ebooks assembled here and that they help you turning your company’s IoT strategy into a reality that contributes strongly to the whole company’s long-term success.