Have you ever wished the music on your car radio to change as per your mood without you having to fiddle with the buttons? What if your office building had the ability to alert employees to maintain social distancing when they are within two meters from each other?
Would you be surprised if your vacuum cleaner had the capability to detect certain spots in your house that are prone to dust particles that you are allergic to, and clean those spots more frequently?
Using IoT, experts have been able to find solutions to make these examples a reality. They suggest that businesses should be focussing on initiatives that improve customer experience as the latter drives
businesses. A digital link between the consumers and the manufacturers that can be enhanced and facilitated using IoT whenever the latter has access to the former’s devices is called mapping; even if the manufacturer sold it indirectly to the customer. IoT depends on connectivity, however, the devices themselves do not deliver value, be it to the customer or to the business.
The business model of an organization has the ability to transform their digitized products, and use analytics and data to improve user experience. According to Gartner, digital transformation is “the process of exploiting digital technologies and supporting capabilities to create a robust new digital business model.”
While we expect the Fortune 500 companies to have digitized their product lines, we fail to realize that small businesses are the ones who are leading digital transformation by creating a robust novel digital business model in the process.
Let’s now have a look at how IoT is contributing to the ongoing digital transformation in several organizations that employ an agile approach, adopt analytics for business functions, automate their core business processes, and make strategic investments.
Data Collection and Analytics
Businesses earn from their products and services, be it informational, virtual or digital. However, IoT only works on physical devices that collect data and are able to assist a transaction between a manufacturer and its customer. The physical device collects data in real-time using sensors.
Now, it depends on the manufacturer to convert the data into useful information that helps the business grow. Here, using IoT, the data is converted into the digital payload, packed with network protocols and encryption, and sent to the company’s database.
IoT Platforms
IoT platforms are software-defined solutions that drive the entire process starting from connectivity to data processing, and integration with analytics. These platforms act as an OS driver, managing the interactions between hardware and software.
IoT platforms perform several crucial functions like:
● Analysing data from sensors embedded in physical devices.
● Connecting to public and private cloud, or in-house data centre.
● Delivering power to edge devices.
● Deploying analytics functions in places where data is generated.
Edge Computing
Data processing occurs in data centres owned and controlled by enterprises. Industrial and consumer IoT sensors can be found in drones, auto-piloted vehicles, heart monitors, CCTV cameras, oil rigs and more.
These sensors generate a huge amount of invaluable data.
The importance of this data can be witnessed as automated cars halt when a cat runs right in front of it; the real-time information required when police are chasing a criminal; when doctors are trying to save a patient who has gone into a cardiac arrest.
These situations depict the importance of data collected from IoT sensors.
Several small scale and large scale industries have jumped from pilot IoT projects to bigger and better opportunities driven by machine learning, data, and predictive analytics. Since the day IoT was first introduced, it has been evolving at a constant pace in the novel hyper-connected reality of hyper- converged edge alongside cloud environments. Advances in the IoT sector have given rise to the second wave of digital transformation in both B2C and B2C mediums.
