Internet of Things: Revealing the secrets of your customer needs
This article originally appeared on Capgemini ‘s: “Capping IT off” blog A future where we have more interaction with our devices then with our beloved ones? Not that I am looking forward to a future where we are more in contact with our devices then the people we love but… Imagine what insights we will have about human life, the city around us and the world we live upon. We are trying to track these summed up items already. Just think about movements such as the quantified self, smart cities and so on. Wearable technology around, upon and in us are measuring all kinds of things we do. Cities full of sensors sensing the way people live and how to build a smart system around our lives. The reason why I ask you the question is because devices tell us more than you might think. When we translate these devices into business perspective we are going to see whole other of the customer- and client we ones knew.
“Traditional industry drivers are struggling to hold their Fortune 500 position by not knowing how to really step into the world of the Internet of Things.”
To really understand our customers & clients we need actionable insights. Even if the IoT is ‘the insight’ promise we all waited for, you might think it is not that easy. On the one hand you are right, on the other hand you are not. The data all these connected objects and devices are giving you about your company, business processes or clients are need to be actionable. If you cannot make data actionable you can have silos full of data but it will not make any sense. To make the data actionable you need a few different elements.
- You need devices that monitor the inner state or external environment of the process you want to steer on.
- The next step is to collect and store the generated data in the cloud. The cloud is scalable, flexible, it reduces costs on your own technology infrastructure, improved accessibility and so on.
- After you have collect and stored the data you need to analyze it. When you analyze the collected data with specialized tools you will find out patterns and you can analyze every relation you want.
- Now the data has been analyzed you have actionable data about the inner state or external environment of the object you let sense
So to sum up: Generate it, distribute it, store it, analyze it, make it actionable and create insights where you can, and want to steer on to reach your business goals.And, that is what the future will be like…When re-thing the position of traditional successful companies we talked about at the start of this article it made me think. Let us think the complete opposite of a traditional company who is struggling with IoT and ask an Internet of Things start-up why it does what it does and how they are reacting on today’s market changes.For that reason I had a conversation with Steve Sanders, Director of Strategic Alliances of Buddy Platform, Inc. Buddy just has launched its new platform and I talked with Sanders on how customers of Buddy benefit of their new platform and why companies should enter the era of Internet of Things.
1. Buddy Launches New Platform today, what is it about?
Buddy Platform, Inc., has launched its new platform that hosts and manages data generated by any connected device, enabling measurement of a device from the moment it’s turned on throughout its entire lifecycle. This data, often referred to as “telemetry data,” conveys information about the performance and usage of the device, and is now accessible from any common BI tool.
2. What does this mean for Buddy’s customers?
By giving product management, engineering and support teams access to this data, and the insights that are derived from it, organizations can dramatically increase their ability to build better products and support the customers of these products in-market.
3. Why should companies step into the noisy Internet of Things technology?
Quote from Sanders:
“‘Things’ can tell you a lot about your processes. Obviously, not every company can benefit from Thingification, but many will. Ultimately, not enabling electronics, machinery, automobiles, aircraft, etc. to tell their story will be a mistake.”
4. Why is it so important for organizations to provide, collect and analyze data?
Organizations that fail to leverage device data are flying blind. Getting IoT data into the right hands, at the right time, then doing the right things with it, can be the difference between success and failure for many business units or businesses.5. How can Buddy help them with that?
Buddy works by hosting a series of regionally sandboxed, global Buddy API endpoints to which devices can send their raw telemetry data. This data is pushed into a secure storage infrastructure called BuddyVault, whereupon it is then managed, queried and exposed back to the customer in any form they wish with BuddyView. This may take the form of integrations into common business intelligence tools, or as raw APIs that can be plugged into any customer or M2M scenario.With the addition of a few lines of code, the Buddy Platform offers the lowest overhead solution for extracting telemetry data from a device, and can make an unprecedented amount of device performance data broadly accessible to an organization, including:
- How is this device being used? Is it performing like we designed it to, is it working as expected?
- What error codes is my device reporting, and how is that affecting the customer experience?
- How many of my devices are being used?
- Where are they?
- When are they used and how often?
- Are they on or off?
- How are my devices communicating with one another? If not, what’s not working?
- How are my devices performing with connected ecosystems like smart homes or industrial infrastructure?
6. What tip you would you have for companies which wants to start in the Internet of Things segment?
Work with consultants and software vendors that are willing to “play nice” with one another, and are focused on your solution’s success as the ultimate prize. Buddy’s CEO David McLauchlan Quote:
“Now that devices as varied as door locks, light bulbs, kiosks and cars are all becoming connected, there’s a huge amount of data that can give manufacturers exactly the information they need to support and improve their products.”
said David McLauchlan, CEO of Buddy Platform, Inc.
“Device manufacturers are not cloud infrastructure companies. They’ve built technology into their products to control the device, but haven’t built the infrastructure to access and use the device’s telemetry data to improve the product and delight customers. Buddy makes it fast and easy to access those insights and immediately understand more deeply how customers are using these kinds of IoT devices.”
continued McLauchlan.To finish this article I would like to take you to a quote from Buddy Platform Inc. its website: “Devices have a story to tell.Are you listening?” When we start listening to the devices, what they see, what they hear, what they sense, we are able to get a more and more 360 degree view of our business processes and customers. And when we really know what is going on, we can really steer on situations, processes and customer needs. When we have that we can provide everything IoT has promised us…