Managing the Internet of Things Revolution, an interactive guide to Internet of Things (IoT) strategy from SAP, will help companies profit from the Internet of Things (IoT) in its early stages, then transform themselves when it is fully realized.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the concept of combining sensors and communications chips to link machines, things and people via the Internet, allowing bi-directional data flows and real-time data sharing among everyone needing it. The IoT will transform the economy in the next decade, creating unprecedented efficiency, allowing customized new products, and creating new revenue streams. W. David Stephenson, a leading IoT theorist, speaker and consultant, wrote the guide.
It is aimed at C-level executives who will determine IoT strategy. The SAP guide places particular emphasis on benefits companies can realize today, building on investments they have already made in transactional technology, to optimize their current operations:
- add sensors to equipment and things to report their status in real-time, improving understanding of products’ performance and how they are used.
- adopt predictive analytics, which will allow real-time decision making by combining data about things’ current state with past data such as sales, to optimize supply-chains, pinpoint demand predictions, and improve maintenance.
- adopt big-data tools & cloud computing to manage the IoT’s quantum increases in data.
- improve decision-making, by giving everyone who needs it real-time data.
The guide also looks to the future, when global implementation of the IoT (Cisco estimates only 4% of “things” are now linked) will allow total transformation of companies. The benefits will include:
- new revenues, from leasing of devices that includes giving customers real-time data to optimize performance.
- delighting customers with products designed based on knowledge of how customers actually use them and rapidly refined based on data from the field.
- creating synergistic partnerships between companies based on shared data.
SAP delivers end-to-end real, repeatable, and scalable solutions for the Internet of Things. SAP connects remote devices securely, integrates IoT data into business processes, and analyzes the resulting big data to generate actionable insights and optimize business in real-time. SAP systems run 60% of the world’s GDP.
Stephenson owns Stephenson Strategies, a Medfield, MA based IoT consulting firm. Mahira Kalim of SAP assisted in writing the guide.
