Internet of Things: Today’s business approach is tomorrows suicide

Today we are talking about the disruptive shift from doing business via a traditional approach vs. tomorrows business eco-system. Disruption is a buzzword these days. Whether people talk about Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud or the Internet of Thing, everything is disruptive. Not that they could be right… But today we would like to talk about real disruption, eco-system disruption.

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This article is written by Steve Sanders & Rick Bouter

Eco-systems

When talking about eco-systems let us take a look at the definition first. According to the Investopedia dictionary, business ecosystems can be described as follows:

“The network of organizations – including suppliers, distributors, customers, competitors, government agencies and so on – involved in the delivery of a specific product or service through both competition and cooperation. The idea is that each business in the “ecosystem” affects and is affected by the others, creating a constantly evolving relationship in which each business must be flexible and adaptable in order to survive, as in a biological ecosystem.”

With this in mind we would like to have a look at our current technology business environment. Let us take you to Bosch Software Innovations, which posted the following update on twitter:

CXO’s optimizing their business models

Technology trends are shaking our traditional business models and CXO’s are trying to find ways to optimize their business model with the same thinking that invented it. Remember that Einstein quote? Maybe you think but we are just invested in innovation X. That might be, but today’s innovation is tomorrows legacy system. Where you in prior times bet everything on continues improvement, nowadays you have to create an environment of continues adoption. Not only new ways of business (like all the know start-ups examples) are entering your market. It brings a whole new business eco-system with it!

Your company, your suppliers, your partners, your competition, your customers… Where all these terms were lose entities a few years ago, now they are creating that one word: “Business Eco-system…”

Business Eco-system

As an emerging Internet of Things software startup, Buddy Platform is always looking for better ways to serve their customers. In Enterprise or Industrial Internet of Things, companies are looking for holistic solutions to their complex needs. Buddy plays an important role in that ecosystem by collecting data from any device or sensor, then storing and making that data accessible in any format. Buddy fully believes that customers benefit, and will grow, as a result of participating in these Business Ecosystems.

First, we ask a lot of questions.

How are you collecting device and sensor currently?

  • What is the most important question that you are trying to answer today?
  • In one year’s time, where would you like to be?
  • Who are you currently working with to accomplish your broader IoT goals, and what function are they performing?
  • Of your partners, who should we be getting to know in order to serve you better?

A Holistic View

Companies recognize that there is a lot of confusion and apparent overlap in the Internet of Things space. There are a lot of vendor hands raised. Vendors should understand that. At the same time, they should know the true value they can bring to their customers and not land-grab at the expense of the customer. Vendors fighting vendors ultimately serves the customer poorly. Buddy is willing to partner with seemingly competitive companies in situations where it benefits the customer. In this environment, vendors willing to look at the bigger picture will benefit the customer, and the space, in the long run. To that end, vendors might consider partnering with hardware, software, system integrators, internal IT departments, and more where it makes sense. The idea of interoperability in this space is a good one.

Flexible Data View

Device complexity and innovation is increasing at unprecedented rates. Harnessing complex, disparate data sets is a hard thing to do. Managing data streams from millions upon millions of devices is even harder. Buddy thinks making device data consumable by any BI or visualization tool is important for the Enterprise. That’s why they offer data in any format. It’s surprising how many very sophisticated, smart companies just haven’t reached the point of ingesting, storing, and making sense of their valuable data. It’s typically the next most important thing they have to do, but it’s a hard problem to solve, and they are so busy putting out the daily fires that getting to the data can come last. Buddy is happy to help customers solve this challenge. Strong Business Eco-system alliance will further this cause.

“Healthy ecosystems put the customer first. We’re proud to be in a position to provide tremendous value to both the customer and our trusted Business Eco-system partners”

Get ready…

The conclusion is the same as we would have given Kodak back in the days. In a continually evolving technology landscape it is important to adopt the current shift from physical to digital. Companies cannot hang on to the traditional way of doing business. To survive, companies need to tap into a network of connected business processes and determine how you can, on the one hand save money from optimizing your business processes, and on the other face new market opportunities.

Not only a connectivity revolution is going on with the IoT knocking on our doors, Not only our business models are changing. No. The way we do business is changing. Get ready for it or be the next Kodak. The only question we would like to let you think about is:

“Are you the next business eco-system disrupter, or are you the one being disrupted…?”

Meet the authors
Steve Sanders is the Director of Strategic Alliances of Buddy Platform, Inc. Buddy makes IoT data usable. Buddy offers a cloud endpoint against which any connected device can stream telemetry data. In real-time, Buddy hosts that data, shapes it and then pushes it into any standard business intelligence tool in the market. Customers use Buddy to take raw data from millions of connected devices in the field, and consume that data using common BI tools.

Rick Bouter is International traveling and operating PMO for the Capgemini University via Sogeti. In his role Rick focuses on program management, process optimization & defining business needs. Rick has a passion for new technology and loves to write about the Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, Internet of Everything & the Industrial Internet and other disruptive technology at the Sogeti Labs blog, his own “My Thoughts” blog & on his own LinkedIn profile.

Do you want to know more about the Internet of Things? Join our LinkedIn group about:Industry 4.0 & the Industrial Internet” now!

One Reply to “Internet of Things: Today’s business approach is tomorrows suicide”

  1. Clive Roach

    Thought provoking. I read another blog recently about Kodak but talking from their point of view. Sometimes you could be staring the future right in the face but it seems farcical to thing it will take off. Nokia had the same issue. Did not think people would accept charging a phone everyday. Seemed farcical. It’s not easy to change until you are on the slope down then it’s too late.

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