Any description of the Digital Services Economy will focus on the development of marketplaces through hyper connectivity, and massive data flows. Those enterprises that become competitive winners have learnt how to read and respond in an optimized manner to new business opportunities. The Digital Enterprise Business model demands new levels of Enterprise activity integration. To gain external Agility in responsiveness requires deep [S1] insights into internal operational performance in near real-time as well as the ability to orchestrate the optimum response. Clouds based Services and Apps are reality, IoT sensing is gaining ground, and now AI is coming; deployed together in an integrated solution these technologies transform the Enterprise capability.
Whether the context is human, machine or computer, increasing the richness of any ‘Network’ has always led to improvements in business outcomes, and operational Enterprise efficiency. From 2000 onwards the Internet has driven the transformation of business starting with the Web, moving to the use Clouds, and Apps. Now the Internet of Things, with its implications to providing the Digital World that AI requires, is literally connecting these changes together.
It was the same 25 years ago when the individual technologies of the PC, Ethernet and Client-Server, even eMail, combined to form ERP enterprise applications transforming the basis for business competitiveness. It is easy to recognize the value of ERP, with its data subsequently enabling the development of BI, and over look that it’s catalyst was a new business model termed Business Process Re-Engineering, or BPR.
Business Process Re-Engineering defined a new, and highly competitive, Business Operations model by showing how to redesign Business Operations by incorporating these technologies. As BPR/ERP early adopters transformed the competitive dynamics of the market place, late adopters were forced to play catch up to compete, even survive. It’s no coincidence that this period corresponds to the sharpest increase in the rate of corporate failure.
In 2017 the leading management consultants are united in their vision of the new Digital Economy created by the combination of Internet centric technologies collection. Less clear is the detail defining the formation of a connected online, dynamic, Enterprise capable of operating to win business through semi autonomous AI based decisions. An Enterprise that will be using IoT sensing to render the physical world in Digital form, and gaining the benefit of Cloud based resources as on-demand Services.
Sadly the skill to achieve this from the disparate technology and products is lacking, and for most Enterprises is a serious concern holding back their strategy.
Enterprise Management knows the risk, and expense, of achieving this through a custom deployment is high, it is even difficult to have enough knowledge to establish the right achievable business requirement. The desirability of a ‘packaged’ solution that both establish the business case, as well as ensuring the outcome is safely delivered is obvious.
But the market is maturing and now two leading IT Technology vendors and one Solution Integrator, (the IoT equivalent of a System Integrator), are offering well integrated solution portfolios that avoid much, if not all, of the identifiable risk. Each solution Portfolio covers an Enterprise activity in a comprehensive manner, but each focuses on a different aspect of an Enterprise business model. The following brief outline of each draws attention to these significant changes in the IoT business market. (see footnote on selection of three vendors).
- SAP
SAP positions IoT as a further stage in Enterprise operating efficiency integrating with SAP ERP, Business Intelligence and S4/HANA. The value of data flow integration through the ‘real time’ in memory rapid processing of the latest upgraded S4/HANA is a key aspect in the SAP architecture. SAP initially built in house expertise in utilizing IOT sensing to extend the range, and types, of data used in SAP vertical sector ERP solutions, (example). Then in the autumn of 2016 SAP announced a 2 billion euro major program of investment including the acquisition of Plat.One with its proven IoT Platform as an acceleration of its IoT activities.
The result was the introduction of the SAP Leonardo a comprehensive portfolio of IoT capabilities each aimed at improving an individual Enterprise activity, but complete with integration architecture comprising of three major elements to ensure across the Enterprise integration and business value;
SAP Leonardo Bridge combines real-time information from connected things with business processes through a range of packaged enterprise end-to-end solutions for connected things from products to people across line-of-business and industry use cases
SAP Leonardo foundation best of breed business services to rapidly build IoT applications including digital twins, reusable application services, as well as applying predictive algorithms, all running on the SAP Cloud Platform.
SAP Leonardo for Edge Computing manages data collection, and offers edge based processing if required, managing connectivity, latency, and device protocols.
To encourage Enterprises to take advantage of this integrated environment SAP offers the Leonardo Jump Start Program with fixed time frames and costs to achieve the selected solution outcome.
2) Salesforce
Established as the major innovator in the provisioning Cloud Based Business Services focused on maximize Enterprise sales and revenue, Salesforce fully incorporates the Data from IoT devices and sensing to drive measurable outcomes. Salesforce IoT Cloud is a specialized Cloud based set of capabilities architecturally integrated with the other Salesforce Clouds. An approach that allows IoT data to be combined with any other data, rules or processing actions that form any Salesforce Business [2] outcome.
IoT Cloud is a platform transforming connected products into engaging customer experiences. With partners providing the capability to manage at massive scale the connectivity and data collection/collation originating from IoT devices and sensors, IoT Cloud marries customer context to IoT data to enable real-time customer engagement. The processing capabilities are, in common with other Salesforce Clouds, provided by Salesforce Thunder, termed as a "massively scalable real-time event-processing engine." Salesforce Thunder provides a common processing service using definable state based Business rules that allows IoT data to be used in conjunction with other non-IoT data to trigger events. Salesforce plans to add Einstein AI capabilities to further extend the business value.
Salesforce aim to provide an integration between all data inputs, now extended to include IoT, existing data, established business rules and AI created relationships to achieve the maximum impact in managing customer experiences. The Salesforce ‘as a service’ deployment model encourages a low cost and low risk adoption path.
3) Capgemini
A Solution Integrator for IoT and 3D platforms is an obvious role, often claimed as a simple extension of Systems Integration. Though the concept of combining ‘best of breed’ elements into a strong customized offering is similar, there are substantial differences. Few Systems Integrators have the depth of both business and technology skills in Digital Markets, combined with the width of Enterprise Business activity understanding, to not only compete, but to develop an Enterprise transformation portfolio.
Capgemini’s Digital Manufacturing Services Portfolio requires the support of their extensive network of Capgemini experts working with a wide range of partnerships with leading IT vendors in its ecosystem. The result is a cohesive, integrated portfolio of offerings that redefine Product and Asset Management, and Manufacturing Operations from beginning to end to suit the Digital Economy. The individual offerings are part of a range of Capgemini ‘Ready2Go’ prebuilt business solutions, such as Digital industrial Asset Lifecycle Management (DiALM) and eObjects IoT Platform, all of which are part of fully integrated processes across an Enterprise.
The Capgemini Portfolio approach enables Manufacturers to start by improving activities initially selected to deliver the highest business value, whilst being able to continue their transformation by adding more activities always secure in the ongoing integration.
Summary
Many Enterprises have been reluctant to invest in IoT enabled Digital Transformation fearing that the market was too immature, that project failure or expensive over runs were likely, or even that the initial investments would turn into technology dead ends restricting future options.
SAP, Salesforce and Capgemini are all offering ‘easy start’ entry into significant Enterprise Business activity solutions. Interestingly, each has used their expertise to develop a different focus, thus incidentally proving how wide the overall transformation of the market will become. Existing Customers of any of these three vendors should seize the opportunity to discuss their options to start a lower risk high Business value project.
Footnote; Constellation has identified these three vendors on the basis on market interest and client enquiries, and there selection does not form either a recommendation, nor imply that other vendors do not have competitive offerings.