How ‘Internet of Things’ can boost businesses

The power of internet was conceived in its early days and is turning out to be true. From the start of ARPANET to the early 90’s, innovation in this field hasn’t stopped and is reaching every corner of the world at a very fast pace. With its increasing progress, the internet is now targeting a scenario in which everything will be connected and reachable on the air. The ‘things’ in the term Internet of Things sounds vague but has a wide scope. By ‘everything’ it is meant that any living or non-living entity will be able to connect and respond without the need of human-computer interaction. From monitoring the number of eggs kept in the refrigerator to tracking the whereabouts of your car, everything is thought of to be seemly possible by using sensors for data collection

So what really is powering the IoT? The wizardry that is going to handle this, a very common term and most of the readers would be aware of, is an IP address. With IPv6 providing a huge address space, it is being said that more than 3 million devices can be powered per square meter of the earths’ surface. The other things are the sensors fitted in the devices that are collecting data. Collectively, these devices with sensors and IP addresses communicate with other systems thus driving the change.

What role can it play in enhancing businesses?

Connectivity is the salient feature in any business today. For business expansion there are two prime factors, new infrastructure and connectivity between each branch office. A providential business is a business that is spread globally and the processes within are handled smoothly at all the different locations. If your business is into product manufacturing, then delivering a great and aesthetic product isn’t alone sufficient. Today customer needs end to end support. A business failing to address such needs can’t survive in the existing competitive world. Below are the features that IoT provides that can help uplift businesses:

• Increased efficiency by having more data sensed by sensors and accessing this data over the cloud
• Monitoring the processes remotely i.e. Mobile Device Management
• Connected business point solutions
• Real time operations and efficient results
• More control, time management and cost savings
• New business opportunities

With this being said, IoT can act as the right platform for such businesses by providing more scope for communication, large marketing base and increased efficiency in the demand-supply statistics.

What role can it play in encouraging business collaboration and engagements?

With IoT, opportunities are immense. The high performance systems will not only produce intelligent data, but now, as they are connected, this data would be communicated across other devices at a great speed thus establishing cognizance. The devices though at different locations, would be well aware of the things happening in the organization. Such business models with superb inter-connectivity and massive operational efficiencies will enhance business collaborations and engagements in the coming time. With everything being affixed and business expansion in progress, the IoT has the potential to power new partnership possibilities in this connected enterprise world.

How the organizations need to prepare for IoT?

• The first item to be addressed is to define the information that needs to be sensed and propagated. Too much data would be difficult to assess so there needs to be a control on what you would like to see.
• Secondly, with a running network come cyber security and privacy concerns. In the enterprise world this holds a great importance as data needs to be protected from intruders. These powerful things powered by internet are distributed at different and untrusted locations. The information they share can be sensitive depending on the work they are assigned to do. Like a payment gateway is secured and supports confidentiality and integrity, in a similar way a lot has to be done from the security perspective of these data things.

A number of organizations like Cisco, AT&T, Ericsson and Microsoft are contributing to the world of IoT. Cisco being the prime competitor as it provides you with a secure network infrastructure that is a must for implementing IoT. With IoT taking over the world in the coming years, lives of people will become much improved. Almost every sector is thought of to be affected by IoT in which healthcare, IT and public welfare are the loftiest. According to SAP technologies, now is the time to connect, transform and re-imagine.