If the reality of Digital Business is the transformation of Business and Industry sectors driven by ‘everything becoming connected, and therefore ‘smarter’, how do you manage to make sense of the huge amount of data being generated? Big Data is a tough enough prospect today, but in a future world it looks impossible to continue to scale up the current approaches.
The simple answer to the question is that data will not be generated, recovered and analyzed through the reporting tools we use today. Instead the data itself will be ‘smarter’ and structured in new ways that suit being ‘flowed’ through real time analysis capabilities.
Research report now available: The Foundational Elements for the Internet of Things (IoT)
It helps start by reminding ourselves why we think the way we do in managing the use of data. Not surprisingly, much of our current view on Data, including the manner the way in which we make use of it through analytics, relates to the IT Back Office operational model. Our prime data source is from traditional Enterprise Applications focused on internal business operational processes, so sophisticated tools are required to provide reporting on enterprise business issues that are not covered by any single application and its data record of a transacted process.
A further point is that these are historical transaction data records leaving business always working some days, or even months, behind its own activities. Business Intelligence using In-Memory techniques, first introduced into mainstream Business Intelligence by SAP with its HANA technologies, sought to close the time gap by analyzing data as it is written and used, a radical and important improvement. However the challenge of the Application centric nature of the data versus the business view required still remains.
As a result our current views on data, and what can be achieved with it, are largely based on using data from the automation of Back Office internal Enterprise processes. Our current driving forces are coming from new technologies opening up the external business market leading to a focus on Front Office activities. As the nature of business markets is changing the importance of new data from new external sources has grown to be a crucial new imperative to master. The terms Digital Business and Big Data are usually used in connection with Sales and Marketing initiatives to better target sales activities.
Digital Business Social Marketing programs have introduced an impressive new source of data more closely reflective of sales and marketing activities, but Industry sector transformation is a disruptive force beyond this driven by connected and smarter products redefining what and how sales and marketing interact with customers in new smarter business models.
A previous blog, (Sell more today then its Digital Business; Survival is Smart Business), explored the difference between using Digital Business to improve selling the current business model more effectively and the impact of Industry Sector transformation caused by connected smarter products. The term ‘Smart’ is used to describe increasing number of products that are both connected and as a result are able to be used in ‘Smarter’ ways. The example used was the transformation of the motor industry towards having to increasingly compete around the technology of connected, personalized ‘Smart Cars’ rather than more traditional engineered features of power, or styling.
Smart Products produce exactly the focused data on how their use that Sales and Marketing require to define their customers profiles, and to offer further revenue producing services that are optimized to the individual customer this ensuring ongoing revenue a new level of customer supplier relationship.
The Internet of Things, IoT, even the Internet of Everything, IoE, is the generic term for this connected real-time sense and respond environment, and much has already been written about the resulting avalanche of data. And if the techniques in use today were applied to this then the sheer amount of data will overwhelm any useful targeted outputs in realistic timeframes. Fortunately current IoT first generation use of sensors to improve real time information of business process has resulted in entirely different techniques to manage the resulting data.
In previous blogs on IOT the three critical new technology elements have been outlined that together result in the capability to support scaled up ‘smart’ products. First, Fog Computing combining new network functionality with micro Cloud Computing; Second, Sensor alignment, physical mapping and legacy file alignment; Thirdly, and most importantly of all, new approaches to providing real-time Data Flow management.
The term ‘Smart Car’, (doesn’t refer to the Mercedes sub brand), as in the term Smart Phone, has a technology platform of sensors that provide a great deal of information about its use, its performance and many other factors. It also offers the challenge of providing a unique digital identity that would enable the resulting data to have new interactive levels of business value.
Smart Cars, just like Smart Phones, add a world of personalization that offers a new value partnership between the user/owner, and the seller/operator. The user/owner can add features and capabilities that customize the car to suit their personal use and interests, whilst the seller/operator gains the potential to offer upgrades and additional items that increase revenue. Most importantly of all both learn more about the other through a relationship that should prove increasingly intimate and well focused towards a long term relationship around services, rather than a one off purchase of the car.
All well and good, but to do this means the car companies must manage individually, with unique identifications thousands, even millions, of cars. This is something that Tesla Motors can do today, but at the level of thousands of individual cars. This is a different commercial proposition to the generic retail market for, as an example, household items such as Washing Machines, where the scale massively rises, but at the same time size and price of the products to be tracked decreases.
There are many consumer items that could benefit from being ‘Smart’ to allow customization, and an ongoing Services centric relationship, to do so requires provisioning with a unique IP v6 address for each, and understanding the use of the Internet of Everything, IoE, as a business platform.
There are some big conceptual differences in Internet of Everything, IoE, versus the Internet of Things, IoT, or the Industrial Internet of Things, IIoT. Both IoT and IIoT, have strong similarities in being deployed for business operational benefit as opposed to sales, marketing and consumer benefits with IoE. Where, and for what Business benefit, IoT/IIoT is deployed has been explored in the blog Defining the Business Benefit and knowledge requirement for your IoT/IIoT project.
In IoE and the consumer retail market the slogan of market leader EVRYTHNG.com (sic) defines the basic proposition and shifting to the open Internet and Web environment with its ubiquitous coverage and scale based on open standards, architecture and protocols;
www.EVRYTHNG.com Smart Product Platform makes products smart, interactive and trackable by connecting them to the Web.
The immediate value to the user lies in extra capabilities that make the product more desirable and a better ‘fit’ to their on going use; whilst the value to the manufacturer or retailer lies in increased intelligence as to what their customers want as well as additional ongoing revenue streams in supplying it. There should be value to both in the resulting development of a stronger interactive relationship.
EVRYTHNG generate an ‘Active Digital Identity’ or ADI based on their production of a unique IPv6 Internet addresses for each physical product, as long as there is Internet connectivity regardless of location, or even dynamic movement, the product is always connected to the EVRYTHNG Smart Products Platform. However the really important three further parts of the Platform beyond the services of managing protocols and interoperability and similar ‘house keeping’ tasks lie in;
1) The Temporal, Semantic Data Store channels temporal data streams through a semantic model into use through what EVRYTHNG call a Big-Little Data Store. A more straightforward description might be the ability to stream real time data into Business defined customizable headings in a data store. This makes the identification and value of the data to specific topics immediately accessible thus rending the huge amount of unfocussed Big Data into recognizable and relevant Small Data with its attributes and relationships intact.
2) The Rich SDK Toolkits to support quick development of new specific Apps, or the integration with existing consumer, and business, Services running on the Cloud. The range of Java Script libraries also extend to support traditional Applications in ERP Suites, all using only open standards protocols and services. The SDKs allow third party Business Intelligence, or Analytics Engines to be used if preferred to the EVRYTHNG provided capabilities.
3) Fine Grained Access Control via REST Parameters supports full authentication with, if required sign in User Identification Services that can link to Social Logins from Facebook or similar.
EVRYTHNG offer a white paper for download that provides full details on their Smart Products Platform and its capabilities.
In a relatively short period of time connected Products will become the norm as the buyers require them to be ‘smart’ in terms of their usability and customizable capabilities; Similarly the manufacturers/retailers will require the connections to deliver ‘smart’ data that will allow them to both delight their customers as well as support them with additional items that create revenue and strengthened relationships.
Note;
EVRYTHNG were chosen to be featured in this blog as an example of an advanced product set on the basis of their abilities today to deliver the business capabilities outlined in this blog, and on the basis of their wining several awards for the quality of their technology. EVRYTHNG as with other Technology companies featured in this series of Blogs provided a briefing on which this extract of their key features is based.
Research report now available: The Foundational Elements for the Internet of Things (IoT)