How the internet of things is changing the enterprise

JB: CEOs and CMOs are increasingly coming to the CIO to help them with data collection, analysis and response, whether it's data storage or using data for greater efficiencies and business optimization, defining new business models or potentially creating new business opportunities.

As the volumes, varieties and velocities of data continue to increase, existing infrastructure approaches are struggling to scale. And point applications are failing to keep up with the rapid evolving needs of the business.

To meet the CIOs needs, new agile platforms are needed that can scale to handle the IoT computational explosion of sensory inputs and reference data. To be highly productive IoT use cases, toolkit capabilities should be included out of the box, such as connectivity to common sensor collection platforms, useful analytic routines, useful dashboards etc.

TRP: In the enterprise space over the next three years, which areas and sectors do you believe IoT will have most relevance and gain most traction?

There is really no limit to where IoT will gain traction. Hot areas include:

i. Enhanced marketing/promotion with the monitoring of the behavior of people, things or data through time and location (i.e., location-based promotion and payment based on the location of a consumer as well as inventory/supply chain monitoring and management).

ii. Enhanced, real-time situational awareness (i.e., location of transport units coupled with other elements such as weather, fuel use, and other environmental conditions coupled with potential threats, like criminal elements).

iii. Sensor-driven decision analytics such as assisting decision-making though deep analysis and data visualization (i.e, oil well head drilling with 3D visualization to determine optimum drill depth or the continuous monitoring of patients to help doctors determine the best treatments).

iv. Higher levels of automation and control such as process optimization, optimized resource consumption (using energy grids, smart meters), complex autonomous systems (i.e., collision avoidance systems in cars) and surveillance and risk management systems (to safeguard and protect a firms capital markets trading.

Desire Athow
Managing Editor, TechRadar Pro

Désiré has been musing and writing about technology during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled in website builders and web hosting when DHTML and frames were in vogue and started narrating about the impact of technology on society just before the start of the Y2K hysteria at the turn of the last millennium.