Experts Explore the Ways IoT Is Disrupting American Industry

A panel of pros from all corners of the tech world share their insights into the future of business as well as both the benefits and challenges of IoT adoption.

In your experience, when have IoT solutions been most beneficial?

IoT solutions offer the most benefits when they are built on a strong business case and a clearly defined application for data analytics. Through the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence, we’ve moved beyond simply collecting high volumes of data to contextualizing it. Companies that line up the technology, talent and processes needed to contextualize data will benefit most from the IoT. They’ll be the ones enabling leaders to make business decisions based upon the system’s findings.

What is an emerging trend within the IoT industry that readers should be aware of?

Advancements in technology are making IoT solutions more affordable. Semiconductors are getting cheaper, smaller and faster. More technology partners are entering the space. As adoption spreads, decision-makers are becoming more open to IoT investments. This lower barrier to entry brings positive effects, such as more opportunity for smaller business cases, and negative consequences, such as increased confusion about the competency or specialization of providers. It’s already challenging to create sound business cases and manageable partnership structures for IoT, so more organizations are looking for partners to guide them through the entire process.

How will IoT continue to revolutionize the customer experience?

IoT has the potential to transform both businesses and their customer experience models because it enables companies to collect data and use it intelligently. If more organizations begin to truly apply machine learning and artificial intelligence to both their IoT applications and business processes, they’ll be able to anticipate customer needs — and the potential barriers to their satisfaction — before customers even notice. Businesses could also take this one step further and apply this to personalization based on user patterns.

Within which industries have IoT solutions had the biggest impact?

We’ve seen success across multiple industries such as industrial, medical, retail, transportation and the smart city. For example, a startup named Owlet created Smart Sock, a health monitor for newborns that notifies parents if heart rate and oxygen levels fall outside preset zones. In a recent longitudinal observation, the device notified parents to 47 clinically verified life-threatening cases. It also showed that 82 percent of Owlet users adhered to safe sleep guidelines. It is not only helping give anxious parents peace of mind, it has also amassed the largest dataset of infant cardiorespiratory home monitoring that’s ever existed.

What are some of the challenges of IoT adoption, and how are they being overcome?

Businesses are struggling to scope and deploy IoT initiatives. Compared to traditional IT projects, they require different hardware and software expertise and more integration. IoT also challenges traditional business models — typically involving a long list of internal stakeholders and an even longer list of potential service providers. The key to a smooth implementation is your partnership structure. Search for a solution comprised of a limited number of companies that you can count most on and a lead partner that will take responsibility for it — maintenance and all.

In your experience, when have IoT solutions been most beneficial?

IoT solutions have been most beneficial when they are used to modernize or digitize a manual process that can then drive increased efficiency or greater insights into the operation of the business process. Whether that helps the organization realize unique cost savings or provide improved quality of care and customer experience.

What is an emerging trend within the IoT industry that readers should be aware of?

Many of the trends in IoT today are around the ability to provide greater real-time analytics on previously disconnected and distributed systems. Collection of data manually from machines, valves, tanks, etc. would always provide a lag in the time it took to collect, analyze and adjust operations based on the knowledge learned. Emerging abilities to connect data points across vast distant and remote areas and leverage insights to provide more proactive operational changes is greatly increasing the advantage an organization has over one that does not. This trend is fueling the disruption across nearly every industry on earth.

How will IoT continue to revolutionize the customer experience?

Anytime a customer’s expectations and needs can be met before they need them or the friction is taken out of a normally painful process, IoT can be at the forefront of that ability. Personal touch will always be the staple of true customer satisfaction, but so much can be automated behind the scenes, leveraging IoT to enhance that personal touch and experience. Abilities that leverage sensors, data collection, visual analytics and artificial intelligence will help transform the way organizations interact and provide more agility to the services they provide.

Within which industries have IoT solutions had the biggest impact?

Industries closest to the user experience have seen the biggest impact, from health care to entertainment/hospitality, and community/public sector. Solutions are being developed, piloted and deployed that bring a more modern and intelligent experience to the consumers of these organizations. Who wouldn’t want to benefit from gained insights, abilities and intelligence in their health care, their towns and their sporting events.

What are some of the challenges of IoT adoption, and how are they being overcome? 

A primary IoT adoption challenge is around the security risks involved with undertaking an IoT initiative. Threats encountered through the introduction of IoT devices as well as new and enhanced digitized processes and data collection present some formidable challenges to integrating an IoT solution into full business operation. To address these challenges, organizations should ensure security considerations are transparent to all key business stakeholders and executive leadership. This directive helps ensure the proper adherence to security frameworks and investment in technologies that help identify, segment and enforce IoT traffic within an organization.

In your experience, when have IoT solutions been most beneficial?

IoT solutions are beneficial when they focus on a narrow, concrete business issue that, if addressed, can generate measurable business value. Too many IoT solutions have focused on the novel instead of elevating the business. Secondly, in addition to the more sophisticated automation that IOT enables, one of beneficial ancillary effects of everything having an internet connection is that large amounts of seemingly-minute data suddenly become possible to collect, especially around the interconnected behavior of devices (versus just on-device data).

What is an emerging trend within the IoT industry that readers should be aware of?

IoT allows for greater object utilization and the concept of “pay only when you use it.” As connected devices continue to last longer, companies look for new business models to remain competitive. For example, as robotics become more capable of replacing human labor, they also become more costly. One way that they’ll reach more people is with this sort of a model. The full cycle would have occurred, meaning we might someday pay robots hourly like humans.

How will IoT continue to revolutionize the customer experience?

As IoT components get cheaper and more embedded in technology around us, they’ll have greater impact. Things like throwaway sensors will become common in packaging, leading to new insights on consumer habits that can drive minute changes to products at scale. Connected products will enable more informed design choices, and future products will better cater to our needs because of this, as well as provide increasingly real-time responsiveness to in-context consumer needs.

Within which industries have IoT solutions had the biggest impact?

The industrial, agricultural and medical sectors have seen the greatest adoption and success with IoT because applications have addressed specific needs. Understanding data in these industries had been labor-intensive; with IoT, not only can you access more data, you can generate more insights because disparate sources are now directly talking to each other. Companies trying to enter the connectedness playing field need to know that IoT applications succeeding in other verticals won’t necessarily cross over to their world.

What are some of the challenges of IoT adoption, and how are they being overcome? 

Security is a challenge that must be addressed in connected product design. With the proliferation of connected devices, there’s an exponential increase in potential vulnerabilities. The connected network is only as strong as its weakest point. Creating barriers to unwanted access must be a priority as the industry matures. Security can be enhanced by utilizing third-party middleware and pre-built connectivity layers, which allows vendors to do the heavy lifting while creating a quicker path to production for designers.

In your experience, when have IoT solutions been most beneficial?

IoT solutions have to be more than just cool technology. They are beneficial when they solve real business challenges, and for manufacturers, that’s the ability to compete. Even small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are now competing globally, often against much larger companies. For manufacturers, IoT gives them connected equipment that increases output while reducing manual errors and injuries to human workers, and that provides real-time data to optimize production.

What is an emerging trend within the IoT industry that readers should be aware of?

Automation and IoT have traditionally been difficult and expensive, but collaborative robots (“cobots”) are changing that. Cobots are versatile, lightweight and affordable, and are easy to program with powerful software that makes it easy for integrators to connect them to other equipment, sensors and cameras, and cloud-based monitoring and control systems. And with ecosystems like the Universal Robots+ platform, any vendor can certify its IoT plug-and-play products for these robots, making IoT accessible to any size company and ready to address a wide range of manufacturing challenges. We’re seeing these tested, interoperable IoT systems deployed in SMBs, to retrofit older factories as an option to build a full turnkey Industry 4.0 facility and to automate companies of all sizes in developing countries.

How will IoT continue to revolutionize the customer experience?

Knowledge is power, and getting that knowledge anywhere and anytime will help manufacturers stay competitive. That supports customers’ desires for innovative new products, customization, high quality and fast delivery. Flexible, easy-to-use cobots are enabling that revolutionary customer experience. They can be easily reprogrammed and redeployed in-house with no special skills. That allows manufacturers to respond almost instantly to changes in demand, to prototype new products or to automate even low-volume, specialized production runs to lower costs, speed output and improve quality and consistency.

Within which industries have IoT solutions had the biggest impact?

In many industries, IoT is being held back by siloed solutions that don’t interoperate with products from other vendors. That’s changing rapidly in manufacturing, where cobots and ecosystems like Universal Robots+ are making the IoT accessible and affordable for almost any company. We’re even seeing smaller companies able to create lights-out manufacturing operations with cloud-based monitoring and control. They’re using connected cobots for third-shift operations to prepare material for human workers during the day, to meet seasonal peaks or to complete processes that are unsafe for human workers.

What are some of the challenges of IoT adoption, and how are they being overcome? 

Certainly, a concern in every connected system is security. In the past, manufacturing systems were largely closed networks. With IoT, a wide range of systems and equipment from multiple vendors are being connected to each other and to the cloud, so manufacturers must invest in securing their networks to protect them from unauthorized access. That includes training employees — who can now access those systems from laptops and smartphones — so that they understand and comply with secure practices.