Over the last three years I have been following the Internet of Things (IoT) sector very closely. It has been an interesting journey, not least because the IoT sector is continually evolving and new startup companies appear on the market on an almost daily basis. Some would argue that IoT has been around far longer and for some elements of the technologies used in an IoT environment that is certainly true. But let’s focus on the here and now.
Cisco started the ball rolling in late 2013 when they introduced one of the first conferences dedicated to IoT, the IoT World Forum, and this was the event that sparked my interest in this sector. In 2014 GE, now GE Digital, became a provider of IoT solutions, mainly focused on the analytics sector. At the same time PTC, my former employer, went on a serial acquisition trail to help position themselves as a leader in the sector.
Today, we seem to be entering a period of IoT partnerships, with SAP partnering with Vodafone for edge connectivity and more recently with Bosch for industrial based solutions. SAP also announced a $2Billion investment in the IoT space over the next few years.
IoT is an interesting sector as it has applications in our our home, work and leisure related activities and startup companies are still evolving to capture each of these very different sectors. It is interesting to see so much partnership and investment activity in the IoT sector at the moment.
For one reason or another, IoT seems to be struggling when it comes to standards, it would appear that most of the regions around the world have yet to settle on a standard IoT definition, let alone define standards for information exchange and communications. In North America the market is heavily driven by the Industrial Internet, with GE Digital driving the sector, with support from a host of Silicon Valley high tech companies. In Europe, Industry 4.0 leads with large industrial companies such as Bosch and Schneider Electric establishing internal software divisions to develop solutions for this sector. Then you have Japan with their Value Chain Initiative and China with Internet Plus. So which IoT definition is likely to win here? I think it is too early to say just yet.
IoT stands to transform supply chain operations, with more connected devices across the end-to-end supply chain, IoT will enable an almost macro level of visibility that supply chain and logistics leaders have simply never had before. From Pervasive Visibility, to Proactive Replenishment and Predictive Maintenance, IoT stands to transform tomorrow’s digital supply chain operations. So what exactly is an IoT Platform and how can it support tomorrow’s supply chain?
Well this is the theme of a webinar on demand that OpenText is sponsoring called The Next Big Opportunity? IoT for Your Supply Chain. Hosted by SupplyChainBrain.com, an online publisher of news and information relating to the supply chain sector, the webinar features a lead analyst from Gartner, Benoit Lheureux. Benoit is a VP of research at Gartner and his focus area relates to IoT. Benoit covers some of the key trends that Gartner is seeing in the market today and provides some interesting insights into some recent research relating to the five key building blocks for an IoT platform.
I was fortunate to co-present with Benoit at Enterprise World in July and I am pleased to be presenting with Benoit once again in this webinar. One of the key enablers to establishing an IoT platform is being able to seamlessly integrate between ‘things’, enterprise systems and external trading partners. Pervasive Integration, especially when combined with a global network such as OpenText’s Business Network, can provide the key foundation to an IoT platform. So in summary the webinar covers the following areas:
- Discuss some of the key IoT trends today
- Introduce the concept of an IoT platform
- Discuss a number of use cases for IoT in the supply chain
- Learn how OpenText Enterprise Information Management (EIM) solutions align with the five key components of an IoT platform
- Understand the importance of pervasive integration in the context of IoT
So if you are currently thinking about deploying IoT across your supply chain operations be sure to check out the webinar.
