Many in the business community view IoT devices as interesting consumer gadgets, like the Fitbit or the Apple Watch. Increasingly, though, IoT devices are coming into their own for business and industrial use, and in the process reinventing such industries as healthcare and transportation.
These trends suggest that the first wave of IoT technology has arrived in the form of consumer adoption. The estimates presented in the sidebar, “Internet of Things: Key facts for CIOs,” suggest several million Americans are already carrying IoT devices in their daily life. It’s an exciting trend with much potential for firms that produce IoT products and services.
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As technology leaders, CIOs have a responsibility to evaluate strategic technology for their organization. The consumer examples may lead you to think this technology may not be relevant to enterprise technology. In fact, there is a strong case to be made for using IoT in the enterprise. A closer look at two industries – healthcare and transportation, for instance – show how organizations are meeting their goals with this technology.
Of all the personal data we accumulate in our personal and digital lives, health data is one of the most sensitive categories. Inappropriate sharing of health information has the potential to damage careers, harm reputations and worse. At the same time, digitizing and streamlining the sharing of health data has the potential for dramatic gains in efficiency significant cost savings – Goldman Sachs recently estimated that Internet of Things (IoT) technology can save billions of dollars for asthma care. It’s a challenging dichotomy, as CIOs continue to look for ways to manage the risks of IoT and capture the benefits. Consider the following examples:
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The last major advance for transportation IT was the widespread adoption of GPS. The mobile nature of transportation systems has made traditional IT solutions and infrastructure difficult to use. Fortunately, small IoT devices with connectivity are an excellent fit for transportation. Consider these three examples for what this industry has achieved with IoT.
These examples apply to leaders in that serve large numbers of customers or have complex facilities to manage. IoT devices and services are an excellent approach to monitor a large number of assets and environments. The benefits include improving public safety, managing large numbers of partners and improved efficiency.