Our Things are Connected...Now What?

Written by Ed Maguire | February 7, 2016

You have sensors on your 'things', and have connected them…now what?

Now we wait for the business to transform in front of our eyes as this is what ‘they’ say will happen with the Internet of Things right?

Not quite!

Here are 5 high level considerations to help you drive a strategy that embodies your ecosystem, with practical and pragmatic steps towards transforming your business:

1 Understand your ecosystem

The Connected Industry is exactly as it implies, everything is connected. Organizations are expanding beyond traditional industry supply chains and silos, and bringing together networks including suppliers, customers, competitors, distributors, compliance and government agencies involved in the delivery of a specific product or service. With this comes great opportunity and also many challenges!
It is essential you start to understand your ecosystem and be aware of your current and future capabilities within the system to bring value through these connections and collaborations. This will even accelerate time to value for innovative development with previously unattainable access to resources at suppliers, partners and customers. These opportunities further emphasize the importance of relationships, partnerships and openness for collaboration across your network.

2 Start where you have immediate impact

When considering where to start, look to your ecosystem and focus on where you can have the most immediate impact and influence. For example, if you are a manufacturer, it would make sense to 'get your toe in the water' with simple solutions with suppliers, or your distributors ecosystems where you have more mature and credible relationships, before jumping in straight off the bat with a new product or service that will transform consumers experience, requiring more of your ecosystem to be aligned.

3 Change the way you innovate

In the past the most complex question with technology led innovation was ‘build or buy’. With the connected industry there is a plethora of technology choices across the IoT technology stack and bringing these together can be daunting to the uninitiated, but exhilarating to those looking to build innovative, agile, lean business solutions.
Ensuring you are always driven by the business need is essential. Nothing has changed here, but how you deliver the outcome may open up new ways of doing business. You may look to corporate venturing, strategic partnerships, acquisitions, in house development or service purchasing for parts or all of your solution, all focussed on time to value and competitive advantage.

4 Understand how our jobs will change

As business gets more connected there will be more transparency across the ecosystem including your internal organisation. As a result, the way we all go about our jobs, and the basis of relationships and interactions will also start to change as we are armed with much more information than ever before. This is an important human consideration that should be addressed by every organisation, as this will create different dynamics across the business for which traditional process and control may no longer be effective.

5 Get the right leadership and external advice

It is essential you have the right leader in place to lead your Connected Industry strategy – a blend of extensive domain knowledge, innovative thinking and strategic agility. The strategy must be leadership endorsed, and widely communicated to ensure success is not a notional way point but a prescriptive and measurable target.
External advisory support from well-connected business partners that are having interactions on a daily basis with the larger connected industry ecosystem will provide you insights, guidance and offer up challenge, all required for effective leadership of an IoT strategy.

So, just getting connected will not bring you the value you desire. However, getting connected to your ecosystem will get you closer!

Do you want to accelerate your Connected Industry strategy? Momenta Partners has a unique ecosystem of traditional IT and OT expertise with deep domain experience and broad networks to support your strategy, marketing and operations for accelerated growth in the Connected Industry.

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