Throughout history, the business world has been driven forward by new technologies, with these developments rapidly redefining what companies are capable of doing. As early business adopters take advantage of these technological opportunities, it often becomes apparent to industry observers that there exists a mutually beneficial relationship between new technologies which impact the growth of both.
Were seeing one example of this phenomenon today, with the growing importance of both the Internet of Things (IoT) and analytics technologies in businesses worldwide.
Most industry observers already understand that each of these technologies will play a tremendously important role in the business world of the future, but by looking at the symbiotic relationship between the two that we can best understand what each has to offer.
What is the Internet of Things?
The Internet of Things is a collective term for all smart devices in the world capable of generating and delivering data without human intervention. The Internet of Things is set to redefine our understanding of how our industrial systems operate, and the potential upside for the business world is massive.
How does Analytics fit in?
The development of analytics technology closely mirrored the beginning of the big data era. As organizations saw the exponential growth of business data, it became clear that the simple act of gathering the data would not drive value. There needed to be a way to quickly and consistently draw useful insights (and business value) out of big data.
By doing away with data silos and building a single organizational data platform, analytics seeks to connect business professionals to data they can use as quickly as possible.
IoT and Analytics: A Symbiotic Growth
The widespread use of new smart devices has created an unprecedented opportunity to capture new business insights, but yesterdays analytics systems cant be used to capitalize on todays opportunities. IoT which generates massive amounts of raw data is, therefore, bringing on the next major challenge on the horizon for todays analytics industry.
Organizations need new and more advanced analytics systems to make the most of IoT, and forward-thinkers are already starting to show whats possible with these kinds of systems. In turn, advanced analytical products are helping uncover valuable insights and predict outcomes pushing the business benefit of IoT devices far faster than initially expected.
Lets look at some industry examples at how these two new technologies are symbiotically helping each other out.
Making Smart Devices Smarter
Weather is an important use case for IoT, specifically because it has the potential to greatly affect businesses. After acquiring the Weather Companyand its network of smart sensors IBM is now working towards using its analytics solutions to deliver insights from IoT weather data to businesses directly impacted by weather conditions.
According to Bob Picciano, senior vice president, IBM Analytics, The Weather Company and IBM partnership can be a catalyst to making critical business systems even smarter.
Exploring New Applications
The existence of advanced analytics systems that can draw value from IoT data has opened up a seemingly endless set of new uses for IoT technology.
As an early technology adopter and industrial leader General Electric had a lot to gain by putting IoT insights into action. The company today, uses new analytics software to process and act on the data provided by sensors on its wind turbines, which have in turn enabled GE to create the worlds first digital wind farm.
Improving Operations
The connected car is projected to be one of the major driving forces behind IoT over the next decade. Using real-time analytics will help keep these cars connected to one another and the infrastructure around them, helping to make sure they are able to continue operating safely.
Cisco estimates $19 trillion in economic benefits over the next decade from IoT-related improvements. Andreas Mai, director of Smart Connected Vehicles, Cisco Systems is urging IT organizations to be prepared to manage far larger amounts of data. As this expected growth in IoT will demand more scalable infrastructure and greater employment of analytics.
“Big Data is the fuel of the connected vehicle,” according to Mai. “It is analytics which gives you the true value.”
Pursuing the Future
The industry use cases provided here are just a few simple examples of how together the Internet of Things and analytics will potentially, change our world.
With as many as 75 million connected devices going online by the year 2020, the symbiotic relationship between IoT and analytics is geared to become more pronounced in the future; analytics systems will continue to enable organizations to draw value from IoT data, while IoT will force organizations to pursue advanced analytics systems that can help them keep up with the massive influx of data.
