A New Model For Enterprise Resource Planning (It's About Time!)

By Joseph Bradley 
President, Business Ventures 
Uptake
 






Today, if you are not creating value through digital business, you are falling behind.
 
But capturing that value demands three core capabilities. Your business must be hyper relevant (with a customized and contextual customer experience); frictionless (that is, fast and efficient); and expanding its community (accessing talent and resources through crowd sourcing and an expanded ecosystem).
 
What do these capabilities have in common? They all create value through insight—those nuggets of actionable intelligence locked up in countless terabytes of data.
 
I believe that insight has become the core currency of the 21st century. But in my opinion, too many organizations continue to manage it badly. The main culprit? Outmoded Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) strategies.
 
ERP was created to help companies deal with their expanding troves of data, which is a noble enough idea—except that it’s tapped out.
 
ERP was all about getting the data in the system. It assumed that the data was correct and the world would forever drive value through “query.” This assumption worked great as long as the data was all in the same context. Today, however, wildly varying data flows are the norm—contextual data, machine data, video, mobile, qualitative, quantitative, all of which is raw and enormous.
 
Querying and cleaning all that data becomes a nightmare. At least, that is, with current ERP systems. And digital transformation—to meet the new challenges—becomes a drawn-out process, demanding outside consultants and straining company cultures and bottom lines.
 
But what if you could find a solution that handles the complexities while charging only for the results you want to drive with data?
 
To me, data management is like building a home. Current ERP systems represent only the tools and resources behind the house (wood, steel, tile, etc.), and the consultant ecosystems represent the carpenters. However, you don’t want tools or carpenters, you want a house.
 
I’m fortunate to be part of the solution to the current ERP problem—that is, selling the house, not the tools and the workers. To do that, the solutions-provider segment must transform into an Outcome-as-a-Service model. That means selling the results from data integrity and insight.
 
To do this, Outcome-as-a-Service providers must first tackle the three T’s of ERP challenges:
 
Technology – With the advances of just the last few years in computing power, Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, analytics, robotics, cloud, and so on, we are now ingesting vast amounts of data—and from an ever-expanding number of sources. Many ERP systems were built to handle data from a limited amount of sources. Today, all of that data from myriad sources needs to be cleaned and verified to ensure data integrity, which must extend to the full journey of your data, with visibility at every stage—including how it was ingested and any processing to put it into a usable format. Just as you have an NOC (network operating center), you also need a DOC–data operating center.
 
Tradition – ERP was built around a traditional model in which the solution was designed simply to ingest the data. It then relied on a series of consultants and dev shops to create solutions, without ownership of the ultimate goal. In other words, this system provides no connection between paid activities and results. So, over the years, the system fed itself despite the fact that it was not the most efficient or economical one. It also did not always result in effective solutions even after vast investments in time and money. Even worse, the business itself assumed all of the risk.
 
Time – In the business world, time has gone from ticking clocks to warp drive. Top companies are driven to extinction faster than ever. And digitized startups scale to vast proportions in months not years. Today, a market leader can be disrupted in practically the blink of an eye, by competitors that arise seemingly from nowhere. A bookseller like Amazon can become a cloud giant. A computer maker like Apple can disrupt music, phones, and video. And a car company like Tesla, can set its sights on the utilities industry.
 
When I think about these three challenges, I’m amazed that the current ERP model hasn’t been disrupted sooner. We’re overdue for a new model that better positions companies for innovation, allowing startups to contribute their entrepreneurial speed and agility on solving complex and relevant industrial problems. This leads to digital transformation and true IoT value, with a minimum of pain and expense.
 
As Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a different outcome. He could have been speaking about ERP.

Joseph Bradley is President of Business Ventures at Uptake, a predictive analytics software company that captures new value for Fortune 1000 companies by connecting and analyzing massive amounts of untapped data. Joseph oversees Uptake’s global sales, marketing and strategy functions, including revenue generation, client engagement, business vertical creation, messaging, thought leadership, and overall customer success.

Previously, Joseph was Vice President of Cisco’s Internet of Everything (IoE) Practice, where he led a team of technology and business consultants counseling CXOs and government leaders on realizing IoE value and digital business transformation. Joseph built the foundation for the IoE Practice by directing the groundbreaking research and production of Cisco’s influential thought leadership, “Embracing the Internet of Everything To Capture Your Share of $14.4 Trillion” and “Internet of Everything Value Index: How Much Value Are Private-Sector Firms Capturing from IoE in 2013?” 

Understanding the Role of the Hacker, the Hipster and the Hustler on the Road to Innovation: Key Take-Aways from the 11th Annual New Product Innovation & Development: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange

By Rajiv Kumar
Senior Partner and Global Vice President
Frost & Sullivan





 

Among the wealth of innovation strategies and best practices shared at the event, we present some of the most useful and critical ideas from key sessions. But don’t take our word for it, read on for the event take-aways that the participants applauded and are most likely to bring back to their teams.
 
From ASK THE EXPERTS! Panel Discussion: Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks: Best Practices for Engaging Every Employee in Entrepreneurship and Innovation 
 
The event’s most memorable terminology: the hacker, the hipster and the hustler are the three types of people who can help companies to innovate more efficiently. Their roles:

• The Hacker is the content or product maker
• The Hipster is the customer experience designer
• The Hustler is the sales team that makes the deals

If your innovation team is lacking a certain skill, ask the functional leaders to augment with one of their team members. The key is to view innovation as a talent development opportunity that makes a conversation about resourcing easier.

To attract talent from various functions, hold information sessions and emphasize the benefits of participation in various innovation initiatives; career change or advancement as graduates bring newly learned skills back to their functional teams; knowledge and skills necessary to start a new business; and networking with local entrepreneurs.

Have top ideas go through an extensive three-month incubation process as part of the corporate accelerator. It is not uncommon for engineers who come out of the program to discover their true calling is to be on the business side and explore career opportunities in product management, for example.

From CHANGE AGENT: Using Artificial Intelligence to Drive Dynamic Product Innovation

 
Artificial Intelligence is driving product innovation – and the biggest areas that will be impacted are robotics, cyber-intelligence and hyper-personalization.

Analytics will continue to play a critical role in our lives and businesses in the future.

There are four kinds of data science analytics:

1. Descriptive Analytics – What happened and why.
2. Diagnostic Analytics – Why it happened.  Analyzes correlations and relationships.
3. Predictive Analytics – What will happen next and  when.  Ask: Can I develop predictive models, statistical real time scoring using data to forecast future trends?
4. Prescriptive Analytics – What actions should be taken and when? What if” questions to decide what to do.

If your organization doesn’t already have a Data Science Manager or Engineer, it probably will in the future.  What are you going to do with all that data you’re collecting?

Other key take-aways:

• In order to achieve some of the growth that we’re going to see in AI, we’re going to see a massive amount of capital that’s going to drive innovation
• AI is going to lead toward transformative innovation – not in the abstract, but in the everyday. It will transform your internal business, and it’s going to happen globally 
• We are going to ultimately have a strong relationship, even an emotional relationship, with our devices. How many of us, if we leave our cell phone somewhere, feel a bit lost without it?

From SUCCESS STORY: Why Intelligence, Speed and Leverage are the Keys to Unlocking IoT Value 

 
The top 5 implications of ongoing and accelerating digital disruption are:

1. Real time information is too late - predicting the near future is critical. We need to get beyond real time and move toward predictive models.
2. If it doesn't work on mobile, it doesn't work. Just stop.
3. Context is King - no two digital scenarios are the same. Just because you know my name doesn’t mean you know me. The context of the interaction is crucial.
4. Innovation is more than ideation. Invention + Execution = Innovation.
5. Insightful intelligence is the currency of the 21st century (Key question: How do I extract value from this data?)

How do you make data actionable and valuable? It involves intelligence, speed and leverage:

Intelligence: There are a lot of players, providing a limitless amount of tools for data services. Intelligence must equal shared risk; in other words, they need to own the outcome – intelligence needs to be delivered as a service
Speed: An average company with all the predictive analytics in the world takes 12-18 months to produce a data science model. A lot can happen in 12-18 months, especially now. Best in class performance now can put a data science model in place in 2-3 days
Leverage: Shift your thinking; don’t view your business as what you do, but how you do it. Businesses are made of core capabilities; you want to be able to draw on multiple verticals to be able to solve your problems

Critical Insights to Bring Back to the Team

In addition to the timely insights above, we asked the 11th Annual New Product Innovation & Development: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MIndXchange event participants to share their most valuable strategy or insight from the event—the take-away they would be most likely to share with their team. Their responses included:

• The need to create and invest in a separate innovation team
• Innovation = invention + execution
• Culture eats strategy for breakfast
• Different stages of innovation call for different metrics
• Activity-based metrics are okay early on, while outcome based metrics are needed later in the innovation cycle
• Innovation can be viewed as a value, not as an objective

From creating an internal organizational culture that supports innovation to leveraging and integrating technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and robotics to help drive innovation, a thorough understanding of these important trends and insights is necessary to drive not only innovation, but more importantly, transformational growth.


 

The Coming Age of Sentient ToolsWhen Tools Think, Socialize, and Are Aware

  

By Brian David Johnson
Futurist in Residence
Arizona State University - Center for Science and the Imagination
Fellow
Frost & Sullivan






Sentient tools are the next stage of intelligent, aware, and social machines 
 
Significant advances in technology and shifts in economies and culture are bringing about a new age of intelligent tools that are aware, can make sense of their surroundings, and are socially cognizant of the people who are using them. Sentient tools are the next step in the development of computational systems, Smart Cities and environments, autonomous systems, artificial intelligence (AI), Big Data and data mining, and an interconnected system in the Internet of Things (IoT). These tools are “what comes next” and emerge from a base of computational, sensing, and communications technologies that have been advancing over the last 50 years.
 
The “awareness” of these sentient tools is not comparable to a human level of consciousness. They are not meant to mimic, mirror, or replace human interaction. These tools are designed for specific physical and virtual tasks that could be vastly complex but are not meant to replace humans. Conversely, they are meant to work alongside the human labor force.
 
The rise of sentient tools will have a significant impact on the global work force and education, leaving practically no industry unaffected.

Sentient Tools: An Overview

Sentient tools represent the next stage of intelligent, aware, and social machines that are designed specifically to interact with people. To better understand this new classification of machines, it helps to first dissect the term’s meaning.

Sentience is defined as the ability to perceive the world and to derive feeling or meaning from those experiences. For a machine or tool, being able to derive meaning infers that the tool is capable of some level of perception, processing, and thinking. In this case, sentience involves both the ability to sense the world around the tool and to process, make meaning, and communicate with that world. To effectively interact with its environment, however, the sentient tool must be socially aware of the people working with it. It must understand a person as an individual so that it can communicate effectively.

The definition of a tool is simple. People have been using tools for millions of years. A tool is anything used as a means of accomplishing a task or purpose, typically a device held in the hand, used to carry out a particular function. The definition of tools has been expanded to include both physical and virtual tools, but one defining element is that they are used by an operator.

By this definition, a sentient tool is a tool that can think and is aware both of its surroundings and of the person that is using it. The tool is, therefore, socially aware: It understands its environment, can make sense of it, and can communicate appropriately with the person using it.

This is an essential component of the sentient tool concept. The tool may have some autonomy for thought processing and movement, but it is designed to accomplish a specific task and to work with humans.

The 4 Components of a Sentient Tool:

1. Situational Awareness: Sensing the outside world via local and networked sensors as well as through data and expertise sharing
2. Intelligence: Processing, understanding, learning, making sense of the world
3. Social Awareness: Understanding who it is working with
4. Communication: The ability to communicate with the human (multimodal interactions, e.g., voice, visuals, audio, haptic)

Sentient tools may have specific abilities that are greater than human abilities (e.g., mathematical computation, physical strength), but they are not designed to replace human labor completely. They are ultimately just tools designed for a specific task to be completed in the company and under the control of humans.

The rise of sentient tools will be enabled by a variety of technologies including artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, Smart Cities, cloud intelligence, robotics, intelligent mobility, and autonomous vehicles.

Brian David Johnson is a Futurist in Residence at The Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University where he engages in research, outreach and radical collaborations to reinvent our relationship with the future. He is also a Futurist and Fellow at Frost & Sullivan. Previously, Johnson was the Chief Futurist at Intel Corporation.

Inspection Technology Strides Power Digital Innovation

By Mark Rosenberg
Vice President, Digital Inspections
GE Oil and Gas






Where to begin in the Digital Business Transformation journey can be overwhelming, and, sometimes paralyzing.  Fortunately, the cost, capability, and performance of several technologies have evolved such that the process of “inspections” now represents a very accessible on-ramp and accelerator of Digital Business Transformation. The key to a successful Digital Business Transformation is to focus your strategy on digitizing functions and processes that drive outcomes important to the business.  Re-thinking inspections and leveraging a digital inspection model can now offer significant benefit to any business looking to increase revenue, minimize risk, and reduce costs.
 
It has always been true that inspections are critical across industries to ensure optimal production, quality outcomes, safety, environmental protection, and compliance with regulations. While traditional inspections have been highly manual, technology innovations such as cloud computing, installed sensors, and new data collection methods are enabling a transformation in the inspection community and across industries.  Digital Inspections have gone from simply monitoring asset conditions to prevent losses and manage operations to driving new and better outcomes by increasing organizational productivity and asset life. 
 
The world of inspections has changed and continues to change greatly to the benefit of those organizations that embrace what the new technology can offer and adapt their operations with the implementation of these new technologies.  Inspections have been paper-based and viewed as costly to minimize.  Adding to this, many types of inspections are fraught with human safety risks, such as those associated with descending into vessels and other hazardous confined spaces.  The complications continue in the capture of the data.  Today, results are captured in the field, manually transferred, and stored locally.  The time to access the captured data is often delayed by days to months for use and cannot be leveraged efficiently for organizational learning and operational improvement.
 
With the acceptance of change come  significant improvements to the world of inspection: centralized, cloud-based technology, sensor optimization, and proliferation of new data collection methods and vehicles.
 
Cloud: Cloud technology has enabled data availability, integration, storage without limits, and computation capacity. Inspection data is no longer a representation of a single point in time, but rather becomes an informative and transformational business tool.  Cloud technologies enable easier access, real-time updates, and more effective data storing, integrating and sharing across the business network. Today, less than 10% of the data in oil and gas companies is effectively used (IDC). The cloud unlocks data so that more informed decisions can be made across the enterprise.
 
Installed Sensors: Over the past several years, sensors have become notably more powerful and cost effective, enabling a broader scale and depth of information to  be continuously available.  Sitting on-premise and connecting directly to the cloud, installed sensors can provide real-time visibility across your assets through a simplified, central view of inspection data including thermal and thickness data. Instead of periodic, time-based inspections that leave windows in which a failure can occur, organizations can continuously “inspect” and detect actual problems and predict potential areas of concern.  This enables more proactive asset management that can keep operations both productive and safe.
 
New data collection methods, such as crawlers and aerial drones, enable inspections of assets that were previously hard to reach, a safety risk, or very expensive to monitor.  These tools allow for assets to be inspected and analyzed at a lower cost, more frequently, and more safely with better quality inspection modalities than previously used.
 
The combination of the above three trends also has the potential to generate new inspection methods and outcomes that were previously impossible. When a robot carries sensors or cameras to conduct inspection of a vessel from the inside, the inspection results, such as images or videos, can be mapped onto a cloud-based 3D digital model with precise coordinates of flaw location. The monitoring techniques can then be applied from outside of the vessel and consistently provide data to the same 3D model on the exact spot where flaws occur. The combination of cloud, sensors, and new forms of robotic data collection creates the foundation for brand new ways to conduct inspections and asset management. Paired with advanced analytics and learning systems, a “Digital Twin” -- or digital representation of a physical asset-- can then be used to trend actual versus optimal performance. This enables production and maintenance staff to identify potential operational deviations, expedite root cause analysis, and drive predictive maintenance. 
 
By embracing change and enabling technology, you can take a simple task such as the inspecting of a storage tank and quickly derive financial, health, safety, and environmental benefits:

• Minimize Risk: Using a drone, instead of a human, reduces risk to the health and safety of your workforce or service crew, decreases the time to access and utilize data, and lowers overall costs of the inspection. 
• Enhance Quality: Utilizing digital technology to ensure the quality and consistency of the collection and analysis of inspection readings, for corrosion as an example, drives more consistent, precise, and usable data than those collected by a human, who would typically perform the work with a flashlight, pencil, and paper.
• Improved Uptime: Reducing the non-productive time associated with an inspection shutdown by nearly 70% enables higher productivity of a tank (techna.no). Furthermore, technologies are rapidly evolving that will enable vessels to be inspected with zero downtime and to enable machine learning algorithms to detect previously unidentified anomalies in the data and avert costly disasters. 

Mark Rosenberg, Vice President of GE Oil & Gas Digital’s Product Management Center of Excellence & Digital Inspections Platform, joined the company in late 2016 with a 20-year track record in the enterprise software applications marketspace as a product management leader, product division general manager, functional architect, and consultant.

During his product management career prior to GE, Mark spent 11 years creating, growing, and setting the direction for the PeopleSoft Asset Lifecycle Management solution suite and 15 years working in a similar capacity with the PeopleSoft Projects solution suite at Oracle. He served as the leading voice representing a portfolio of 16 products to customer, partner, and analyst communities; launched and scaled multiple new ERP and analytical applications; and drove product positioning across a dozen industry verticals, including Oil & Gas.

Why The Consumer IoT Is Stalling

By Mike Farley
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder 
Tile






Builders of the Internet of Things (IoT) have long promised consumers a more convenient future: We will all live in “smart homes” where surveillance cameras, thermostats and garage door openers will turn on and off automatically, our groceries will order and deliver themselves into our refrigerators, and our speakers will know our taste in music. In our “smart cities,” always-on surveillance systems will crack down on crime and sensor-driven roadways will put an end to traffic.

Yet this hyper-efficient, IoT-fueled future is years away and plenty of pundits and investors are talking about consumer IoT as a too-hyped trend that’s failing to take off. According to a   recent survey, consumer demand for smartphones and IoT devices is stalling. So why aren’t consumers snapping up the new technology?

Industry insiders say the barrier is a lack of standards: connected devices can’t talk to each other, and each device comes with its own app, rather than being managed from a single point of control. Others think jargon-y marketing is to blame: Consumers still scratch their heads when they hear “Internet of Things.”

I think the problem runs deeper than standards or labels. People don’t think IoT will make a real difference in their lives.

Yes, interoperability and ease of use are essential goals that will unleash the long-term potential of the technology. Yet, I believe it’s more realistic and effective to grow the consumer IoT now by starting simply. Instead of convincing consumers that they need complex systems to serve needs they don’t know they have, we should fix real problems people struggle with every day. It might be less sexy than showing off the latest whiz-bang tech but it sure would help more people—and therefore sell a lot more.

Case in point: Uber has been growing exponentially not because people felt it was their natural-born right to have cars on-demand, but because everyone can relate to the red-hot fury of standing outside waiting for a taxi that never comes. The dramatic disruption of the taxi industry proves people are willing to pay for peace of mind.

So how can we start by addressing real pain points – and providing peace of mind – with IoT? Solve simple problems that strike an emotional nerve, like the following:

1. Safety for Seniors. Product developers and innovators have a tremendous opportunity to use the IoT to help older Americans live safely at home, and even save lives. An AARP survey found that 87 percent of people over 65 want to remain at home or in their community. Those of us with aging parents know the tension between supporting your mother or father’s choice to live at home and fearing a possible fall, slip or medical incident that could change everything in an instant. I was inspired by a recent application from Temboo that showed how a microphone, a motion sensor, a paging service and streaming data can work together to establish a baseline for independent seniors’ activity at home and then alert adult children or caretakers if something has gone wrong. With the older population expected to double by 2060, this is a perfect example of how the IoT can be deployed to solve problems that matter.
2. Security. If your home has ever been burglarized, you know that feeling of violation is something you would do almost anything to prevent. Home security products like Ring, DropCam, SimpliSafe and Canary can do just that. Those companies aren’t using IoT for the sake of engineering bragging rights; they take advantage of the Internet because it makes it easier to keep tabs on your house from your smartphone. Keeping families and homes safe isn’t a futurist convenience – it’s a priority that strikes an emotional nerve, right now.
3. Loss. Location tracking connects any individually “dumb” object to the IoT so it can be easily located, integrating location-aware sensors, mapping software, Bluetooth wireless, GPS, smartphone apps and network effects to give people the ability to always know where their belongings are. But, more importantly, it solves a problem we can all relate to: the sinking feeling in your stomach when you realize you’ve lost your wallet or bike. As manufacturers begin to integrate location-aware capabilities into their products as a way to deliver added value and peace of mind, the technology will drive significant growth in the number of objects that become part of the consumer Internet of Things. Ensuring people can find their stuff and lowering anxiety may seem like relatively small problems compared to running cities more efficiently, but they’re universal issues.

WiFi reliability is a fundamental threat to consumer IoT growth. At home, I’m the IT guy. When Netflix  is rudely interrupted by buffering, I do what everyone else does: I get up, mutter under my breath and restart the router. As the number of connected devices in a home grows, so too does competition for valuable WiFi. That’s why new cloud-based, mesh networking WiFi products like Eero have a role to play in fueling the consumer IoT. Seamless interoperability is the long game, but reliable WiFi and consistent performance of networked devices is what consumers demand now.

The potential power of IoT is truly awe-inspiring, but in order to boost sales and drive demand beyond the early adopter set, we need to stop making toys no one cares about and instead work on building simple solutions to real, everyday problems for real people.

Michael Farley is a pioneer of the Location of Things and Co-founder and CEO of Tile, a technology company in Silicon Valley that is giving everything the power of smart location. Farley started Tile to help his wife find the many things she lost. Tile’s first product is a small square that fits on your keychain, in your purse or on almost anything else, and uses Bluetooth technology to help you locate the things that matter to you most. The company launched with a crowdfunding campaign and has gone on to sell millions of Tiles online and in retail stores such as Apple, Best Buy and Target. The Tile community helps people find items around the world and locates more than half a million items every day. 

Prior to starting Tile, Mike spent eight years at Green Hills Software developing real-time operating systems for products such as flight control systems and networking hardware and was recently awarded EY Entrepreneur of The Year award.

Growth, Innovation and Leadership: Silicon Valley

THINK TANK 1
Monetizing the IoT: How Organizations are Making or Saving Monet with IoT 

MODERATOR
Dilip Sarangan, Industry Principal, Internet of Things (IoT) Frost & Sullivan

PANELISTS 
Sukamal Banerjee, Executive Vice President and Head of IoT, HCL Technologies
Jesse DeMesa, Venture Partner, Momenta Partners
Christoph Inauen, Vice President, IoT, GTM, SAP
Makarand Joshi, Director, Product Management, IoT Platform, Schneider Electric
Abhi Rele, Director, IoT Product Marketing, Samsung
Faraz Shafiq, Associate Managing Director, Global IoT Practice, Verizon Enterprise Solutions
Pavan Singh, Vice President & Business Head, IoT Security, Covata

SESSION ABSTRACT
IoT transcends industries and vertical markets with solutions that range from automotive to healthcare to energy. This panel discussion featured industry leaders discussing how they work with organizations from the planning stages to deployment and post-deployment with the goal of helping them save money and monetize their investments in IoT.

KEY TAKE-AWAYS

• Proven ways that IoT could help your organization save money
• Use cases illustrating how organizations have maximized their potential with IoT
• An assessment of the relevance and importance of IoT
• Key areas where IoT could help your organization save money
• Use cases illustrating how organizations have maximized their potential with IoT

OVERVIEW
The purpose of the discussion was to help the audience gain a deeper understanding of monetizing on IoT deployments. Most of the panel believed that the easiest current opportunities present themselves in the cost reduction cases. Revenue generation will be the next step. As illustrated in the chart below, a recent Frost & Sullivan global survey of 1,980 IT decision makers across verticals revealed that 34% of companies have already invested in IoT solutions, and 39% plan to invest over the next 2 years. Over one third of the respondents are providing small trials and proof of concept; live services with customers, distributions, and suppliers; and deploying next-generation solutions.

  
Some industries are further along the IoT curve than others, but almost all are on the path.

BEST PRACTICE 
Each of the panelists shared case studies to provide success stories around IoT to the audience. Below, please find highlights:

Christoph Inauen, Vice President, IoT, GTM, SAP:

Customer cases are categorized into 3 areas:

1)  Save money – Port of Hamburg

• Problem: The increased capacity of the port created huge problems with traffic flow due to the additional number of shipments and vehicles.
• Solution: They deployed sensors along the port and in parking lot areas that needed to be managed. The also installed dashboard units in the trucks to notify them of accidents in real time and then give them instructions on where to park or where to go to avoid congestion.
• Results: In the one year they have been up and running, they have improved conditions and enhanced capacity.

2)  Create revenue streams – Trenitalia (The primary rail transport company in 
     Italy)

• Problem – They needed to increase efficiency - every car that had battery issues had to be taken out of commission.
• Solution – Sensors can now share the status the battery, allowing trains to stay in the system much more of the time.
• Results - Trenitalia saves 7% of maintenance costs. 

3)  Change business model – Under Armour was discussed as an example of a   company that had reinvented itself. Its vision is connected life. They are embedding sensors into shirts and shoes to monitor health and give each consumer tailored recommendations on their body. Specific diet plans can be provided to each individual based on their personal data and goals. This gives the company new revenue streams.

Faraz Shafiq, Associate Managing Director, Global IoT Practice, Verizon Enterprise Solutions:

 “We, as in Verizon, can’t just focus on cellular; with IoT we have to be network agnostic.” The platform can take care of IoT needs for cellular as well as fixed lines with connectivity and security. A key question is “what do you do with the data?” 

Shafiq gave an example of a situation where there were hundreds of containers on a ship and fourteen people to monitor the containers. With a small form factor sensor attached to the container, they no longer need monitors on board, but only the mechanics to fix any problems when they are alerted. The devices also provide preventive information so problems can be fixed before they become huge ones. Another benefit of this solution is that any data can be sent to customers on their mobile phones. Customers can always check in on their shipments. This reduced operating expenses  and capital expenditures.

Makarand Joshi, Director, Product Management, IoT Platform, Schneider Electric:

Schneider makes Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) products for data centers. Often these were returned to Best Buy because buyers failed to read the manual. Now, buyers have the capability to register their UPS purchase on theirs smart phones and Schneider can monitor their usage. This way, Schneider can tell the customer when the battery runs out and it needs to be changed. This prevents buyers from simply throwing the UPS’ out. Also valuable is that when there are a lot of UPS’ low on battery, the utilities can be informed.

Sukamal Banerjee, Executive Vice President and Head of IoT, HCL Technologies:

A medical devices company wanted to track and trace inventory and equipment needs for surgical cases. The ability to manage inventory and ensure all the equipment needed for the surgery, and for potential emergencies, is in the surgery room, is critical to maintain costs, and save lives. Previously, a lot of time was lost, when the right tools were not in the operating room when needed. 

TAKE-AWAY 
The barriers to deploying IoT include security risks, cost of integration, managing data protection and privacy requirements, cost of connectivity and the time it takes to develop the solutions.

This should not deter companies in any industry from taking action today to capture the opportunities that lie ahead with the integration of IoT.  Start with implementing solutions utilizing IoT to reduce costs. At the same time, start planning for how to create new revenue streams, or how to change a business model.

The key drivers for investment include the ability to boost customer service and marketing programs, automate manual processes, collect customer usage data, and optimize field or on-site operations. 

Ecosystems are going to be critical for IoT to really take off. Below are some key quotes from the panelists:

 “If you can connect the ecosystems and work together, it can really make IoT implementations successful.” -- Jesse DeMesa 

“What’s different about Samsung’s IoT solution is its end-to-end solution, which includes hardware modules, IoT, cloud, and partner ecosystem. It is integrated (saves 9 to 24 months), interoperable (you don’t have to “do the plumbing”), and easy (everything is API driven).” -- Abhi Rele

“Someone who understands the whole ecosystem is important for the solution.” Verizon has implemented a new strategy where the professional services group, rather than the sales team, is the front door to discussing opportunities that IoT can create. These are multi-year engagements, so creating the right relationships is very important to the success of this solution. -- Faraz Shafiq

ACTION ITEM 

1. Use the case studies you heard about as a starting point. Consider how these case studies can be applied to our organization.
2. Discuss IoT implementation costs with your executives – especially the ones that are no-brainers.
3. Plan for ways to utilize IoT to create new revenue streams or new business models.
4. Understand that every industry is already looking at IoT opportunities – now is the time to get started on your roadmap.
5. Talk to Frost & Sullivan if you have any questions – we can support you in a number of ways throughout your planning, implementation, and monitoring process.

FINAL THOUGHTS FROM THE PANELISTS  
“IoT is not something you can buy. You buy solutions such as sensors that alert you when there is a problem or you add predictive features that warn before things happen.” --Christoph Inauen

“The common denominator is information; value of information depreciates with time. Aparking spot won’t wait for you for a half hour. [The] right application and analytics in real time is critical.” -- Faraz Shafiq

“Once you implement IoT, it’s critical to recognize that it has to be run in a very different way than you run IT because it has to be a much smaller percent of the cost for each transaction.” -- Sukamel Banerjee

“Why now? [More] connectivity available, [the] cost of sensors down, cost reduction needs, [and] we can process a lot more data effectively. [We] need to position IoT based on industry trends. Data exchange is a big part that IoT will drive towards when the connectivity issues become resolved.” -- Pavan Singh

How IoT Data Can Improve New Product Development

Co-authored by
Susan Harman
Product Line Director
ShareFile SMB  
Citrix

Eugene Yamnitsky
Director, Product Management
ShareFile
Citrix 






There’s a lot of buzz, hype and confusion regarding IoT.  What is it?   How will it impact you? What is the value that it could provide to business – for new product development, for customer acquisition and retention, and for ROI?  We’re going to define what it is, discuss the importance to product development, highlight some challenges we see on the horizon, and lastly, present our point of view. 

What is IoT?

The internet of things (IoT) is the network of physical devices, vehicles, buildings and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity that enable these objects to collect and exchange data.More simply defined, it’s the ability of virtually any smart electronic device with WiFi/Bluetooth/NFC (mobile phones, washing machines, refrigerators, cars, wearable devices, etc.) to communicate with other such devices, and connect to the internet, where the usage data is collected and exchanged without human intervention. Virtually every device we touch or are in proximity of will be IoT enabled in a not so distant future. Some research firms estimate that by 2020 there will be over 26 billion connected devices…

What does this have to do with product innovation/development and customer value?

There is tremendous value in leveraging IoT to collect meaningful, contextual data that can help organizations solve a myriad of business problems, contribute to better decisions for new product development, and craft innovative and disruptive new product offerings that solve important customer problems in new and exciting ways.

Imagine a hospital where a patient is moving from room to room receiving treatments over a course of days, interacting directly or indirectly with devices from various manufacturers. The experience may vary from patient to patient, while none of the vendors is in the room to observe and identify ways to improve the care or identify new problems to be solved. Now imagine that all the devices, rooms, and even doctors and nurses with wearables, are connected in a way that enables the vendor to collect product usage data in the context in which the product is being used. Not only will the individual vendors gain insight into the stand-alone product usage, but now they will be equipped with the contextual data for interaction with other devices and humans (patients, doctors and nurses). 

And there are several examples of companies doing just this today. One recent example is Coca-Cola vending machines, which track the user’s interaction with the machine and use the collected interaction data to come up with new flavors. Other examples include mobile application functionality changing based on the phone location with respect to various sensors, smart meetings that start when participants enter the room, and smart irrigation systems interacting with soil quality sensors to determine the right quantity of water to be dispensed.

Key challenges exist

IoT is not without challenges. A big challenge that exists in many organizations today is that many times product and marketing people don’t have access to even the most basic data. Take SaaS applications.  They can be instrumented to measure usage (Google Analytics, Pendo, MixPanel, etc.) so product teams have access to rich data on how an application is really being used. Strangely, though, many product development teams still don’t use this information (let alone instrument their applications). Why?  Existing products might not have been architected to support measurement, or limited resources are working on more exciting new features, as well as a multitude of other reasons. 

Another challenge is a lack of uniform standards when it comes to data exchanged by devices from various vendors. There are several startups that have recognized this problem and turned it into opportunity to develop vertical digital platforms; one notable example is Durham, N.C. based Validic.

Conclusion

IoT is here to stay. It will help us solve many complex problems. It may or may not be chasm crossing. Regardless, we believe that IoT brings tremendous value to new product development by enabling context-aware applications and devices which can provide meaningful product use data to vendors, and enable these vendors to innovate based on data which they couldn’t collect before.

Susan Harman has an extensive career as a leader in innovation, product management, product marketing, voice of the customer, identification of new markets and launch of H3 offerings in a broad range of business and consumer products and services. She is also an experienced intrapreneur and entrepreneur.

She joined Citrix six months ago as the Business Leader and Product Line Director for the ShareFile SMB, and an innovation mentor.  For three years prior to joining Citrix, Susan was a Vice President at LexisNexis, responsible for innovation and the development of a global cloud offering. Susan is author of Digital Handshake, Finding Revenue in New Relationships, published by the ASAE in 2002. 

Eugene Yamnitsky is an innovation catalyst & product development leader with sixteen  years of experience getting things done in conditions of uncertainty and fast paced change. He has a proven track record of success in early and late stage startups and large companies and has built high performance Agile teams delivering Cloud/SaaS Enterprise and SMB apps to millions of users. Eugene has consistently hired top talent and leveraged that talent for innovation. 

He is currently Director, Product Management – ShareFile at Citrix. Previously, he was Senior Manager, Product Management & Innovation at Citrix, where he led the ShareFile Product Management team responsible for mobile, desktop and web applications, as well as the key infrastructure components and the developer program. He also leads the Innovation Center of Excellence and acts as a catalyst for innovation, prepping teams for the Startup Accelerator.