IoT Ecosystems: Reasons to Join a Technology Alliance

In this advanced world, one of the most trending and new technology is IoT. It has the power to transform the business by its ability to analyze disparate data in real-time, which provides a series of opportunities for the developers and the visionaries; and is able to go beyond profit margins. Internet of Things is entirely based on providing new experiences that depend on the new interaction modes, such as IoT design. It helps to create new interaction processes. IoT Ecosystem is created and implemented by specialists to develop a wide network for a smart business and achieve the desired goal. Macro trends in terms of IoT digital ecosystem helps to mould numerous technologies within one place. IoT ecosystem creates an opportunity to develop a single platform that can become symbiotic for every participant in the platform.

IoT devices

IoT devices are hardware devices like sensors, gadgets, appliances, or machines that are programmed to connect to the internet or other networks. The connectivity to the internet has increased its scalability as access to a large amount of data through the internet helps them provide useful business organizations. The use of IoT devices is increasing rapidly, and by the year 2021, it will increase up to 20 billion. The graph shows the statistical analysis of the growth of IoT devices across the globe.

A series of IoT devices includes smartphones gadgets, smartwatches, laptops, and digitized vehicles, mainly reducing costs and time. IoT services introduce machine-to-machine communication that encourages automation and enhances the quality of life.

Including IoT in the existing ecosystem

IoT provides an innumerable number of opportunities to the business framework, but it has its complexities. To adapt this Cutting-edge technology, proper knowledge for the IT managers is essential. According to a recent survey, nearly 30% of respondents have stated that they will implement IoT in their business. Other 44% of respondents have already included IoT in their ecosystem, by giving considerable benefits in efficiency, productivity, and worker safety. The statistics show that nearly 90% of the investors believe in getting the desired results within two years. IoT has proved itself beneficial to business organizations, and most of them are running more than five projects after they got success in their initial deployment. The spending on IoT is overgrowing, and it is expected to cross the $1 trillion mark by 2022. The sensor technology embedded in IoT devices is gaining popularity and has become one of the major reasons for IoT-based technology’s success. A survey conducted by Microsoft in the year 2019 said 85% of business houses are already having at least one project running on IoT, and 94% of the respondents are planning to include IoT in their business by the end of 2021.

Use of IoT based services in business

Adopting the IoT Ecosystem in existing business offers an extensive range of opportunities, which is not limited to cost and risk management only. It offers innovation and productivity, which helps in the long term and sustainable growth for the organization. The concept of IoT involves connecting devices, facilities, networks, and people through sensory devices, which controls operations by using predictive algorithms and analytical processing. Finding new revenue streams is always the main focus of the business. Still, incorporating IoT Ecosystems was beyond only profit and revenue generations. The organizations are adapting to this new-age technology for efficiency, productivity, quality, and cost-effectiveness. The most important reasons for adopting IoT Ecosystems include increased efficiency in operations optimization, employee productivity, and enhanced safety and security levels. The global market of IoT is expected to grow from $139.3 billion in 2019 to 278.9 billion in 2024 with a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 14.6% for 2019-2024. Several renowned companies are providing IT services by acquiring IoT in their business with the use of cloud technologies, for providing an increased level of automation through subscription revenue models. The acquisition of Jasper of B Cisco was witnessed in 2016. Within the year 2025, the revenue generated from the major APAC countries will grow by 10 billion, and the countries include China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and India.

The connected services of IoT are rampant in manufacturing, transportation, energy, and smart cities. Some of the companies that provide data security and analytical services for IoT enabled devices are Symantec, Celcom Axiata, and Avnet. The major vendors for the IoT market and solutions are Accenture, Atos, Deloitte, DXC Technology, IBM, Huawei, ARUBA HPE, Sierra Wireless, Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, AWS, Oracle, and PTC. The use of Application Enabled Platforms (AEP) is a standard design method for business houses. They are extensible, which uses cloud technology for the deployment of services, based on the requirements. The use of open-source software makes them more acceptable and reliable. The small-scale enterprises and renowned organizations are moving towards IoT by using extensible AEP, which helps in designing completely new enterprise systems. The IoT devices are high-level sensory objects that can perform operations like noise removal as they are capable of performing logical tasks. IoTs with the feature of AEPs are easily replicable without any human interventions, which makes them a practical choice for business integration. The flexibility of IoT enabled services makes it the most effective choice for business organizations. The industry had reached 100 billion dollars of market revenue for the first time in the year 2017. IoT platforms provide cheaper, faster solutions for IoT-based products by enhancing network management capabilities, data acquisition, integration, storage, device management, processing analysis, visualization, and application enablement.

The concept of IoT fragments

The IoT fragmentation is essential for incorporating several organizations that work in different functionalities and provides varied services. IoT fragmentation helps to convert a system into a vibrant market, and for that an effective and efficient network needs to be developed. The silos are vertical fragments, which support the specific needs of the organizations. However, the effectiveness for IoT enabled services will be achieved only by crossing the barriers of fragmentation and including different silos for increasing the organization’s functionalities. For providing comprehensive services to business organizations, a strong integration of software and hardware in IoT devices is necessary. The software will provide instructions for the analysis of data gathered in the network. Hardware devices like the sensors will connect with the network for fetching data in real-time. One of the renowned organizations, which is focussing on IoT services, is Thundercomm that has a growth rate of 30% in the serving countries like Asia, North America, Europe, and the Middle East. The devices that are produced by Thundercomm include smartphones, gadgets, cameras, wearables, drones, and medical instruments. TurboX Smart Core Platform is the integrated platform for IoT fragments that is used for effective communication of devices and services. This platform is useful in providing a strong linkage between the software and the hardware devices of IoT enabled services.

Sign U-box has entered into a collaboration with Thundercomm, which has enhanced the capabilities for integrating the fragments and providing a unified platform where several organizations can utilize the IoT fragments according to their demands.

Challenges of Using IoT 

Several challenges are present in deploying IoT Ecosystem. This includes problematic technology use, security, privacy, cyberattacks, and lack of knowledge among the employees. Lack of internal expertise in IoT technologies is one of the most significant challenges observed from the survey, which is nearly 29%. The team or business leaders are not considering its resistance to incorporating IoT in business; only 12% consider it a challenge. According to a survey conducted on 502 employees, Forbes considers the above reasons as challenges in deploying IoT as services. 

• 32% of the respondents considered IoT as a challenge in the security issues of an organization. 
• The challenge of scarce labor was identified by 29%,.
• The disparate data integration was a challenge for 30% of respondents. 

Research shows that cross-departmental co-operation is also a challenge in using IoT services. Similar is evident from Microsoft’s research. 

• Technological complexity is why people do not use IoT devices, which is around 38% of the respondents. 
• Around 29% of people said that lack of knowledge is an issue, while a lack of budget or staff is one of the core challenges in implementing IoT services (29%). 
• At least 97% of the respondents said that security is an issue, but that should not stop the organizations from adopting IoT by the organizations.

Conclusion

From the above report, it is clear that IoT Ecosystem has captured the global market, and several business organizations are moving towards this service for advancement in their business. Innovation has opened new avenues for the organizations, and it is providing flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and new ideas are getting incorporated that have changed the perceptions of business. IoT fragmentation allows several organizations to utilize the features of IoT enabled services. However, several challenges also exist in their use. One of the primary challenges is related to security issues. Cyberattacks like DDoS is widespread and has precedence over such attacks. The technological complications are also prevalent, and lack of knowledge has hindered the progress. But its advantages are enormous, and they can ensure sustainability for the organizations. It is the reason which more and more companies are entering the new era of IoT-enabled business operations.