As industries move to the Internet of Everything (IoE), the value is in the connection itself -- not the number of things connected, says Joseph Bradley, managing director of the IoE practice at Cisco Consulting Services.
Cisco defines a connection as having four parts: people, process, data and things. He says firms will be able to extract value from IoE only by including people and processes. Seems the Internet of Things was too focused on the connections and data.
“Coming from Cisco, I’m telling you it’s not about the technology piece, it’s not about things, it’s not about data. They are fundamental, but how do you unlock the power [of IoE]? It’s all in the process and people side of the equation. You have to work through who is going to use the information, how are they going to receive it, and how am I going to change my process to take advantage of this.”
Speaking at an American Chamber of Commerce breakfast session in Hong Kong last week, Bradley asks why should businesses care about IoE? The value at stake to companies worldwide is already estimated by Cisco at $1.2 trillion (€896 billion) this year and $14.4 trillion in 10 years. That sum represents 21% of corporate profits over the next 10 years.
The ability for a company to capture value from IoE, however, is not related to the size of a company – “cloud has leveled the playing field”.
Standout figures among a raft of data points he presented: 87% of companies will experience revenue stall, with up to a 75% decline, and only 11% of firms will recover.
Big data is worth zero without big judgment. Bradley says there is no point in continuing to do the same things you’ve always done once you have new data. “You have to things differently once you have the data.”
Many companies are very good at invention, but fall short on execution. He expects IoE to allow the execution side to flourish, so innovation will pick up.
He mentioned the idea of unconnected dark assets, such as employees and safety gear. As these assets get connected, he says companies can add flexibility, cut costs and improve margins. Examples in manufacturing include biometric sensors that alert works of personal vital sign thresholds and embedded sensors that detect structural defects.
Talking about the need for new toolsets and mindsets, Bradley introduced six simple concepts. Move from:
- Bigger is better to better is better
- Clout to cloud
- Access to information to expertise everywhere
- Big data to big judgment
- Business intelligence to intelligence at the point of decision
- Connectivity to connectedness
From a consulting perspective, he says companies in the past have been looking for insight on what to do. With big data and analytics, businesses can now see fairly clearly what do to. He says the challenge is with “the how and the execution”.
“The type of consultant will change. Typically they have always hired from MBA programs. But they now need industry practitioners, with deep industry knowledge.”