Collaboration is the name of the IoT game

Anderson lists the challenges facing IoT in Asia today.

Collaboration will make or break the Internet of Things (IoT) in Asia, says Charles Reed Anderson, Founder, Charles Reed Anderson & Associates and Conference Chair of IoT Asia 2017. In a keynote at IoT Asia 2017, Anderson said that a tipping point has been reached for IoT with big players such as Bosch, energy companies and Amazon getting involved. "Everyone is competing in this space," he said.

Collaboration can take many forms, and Anderson touched on three types of collaboration which will drive the IoT ecosystem:

Internal collaboration

Anderson said internal IoT projects cannot be managed by the IT department alone. They must have senior management to define the business plan, and the support of the finance department to ensure the project is bankrolled, he said. He has seen successful IoT initiatives which have involved these stakeholders and failures when IT has the responsibility for the projects, he said.

Vendor collaboration

Just as a car is composed of different components, IoT requires different vendors to provide different parts of the whole, Anderson said. "Vendors must collaborate...Find your role in the ecosystem. Where are the gaps?" he advised. "Find out who the companies buy from, and partner with them. You're not going to be fronting the deal."

Data collaboration

Data will change the game, Anderson said, citing the example of Under Armour, which acquired three companies in 2015 that yielded 120 million users using wearables. Instead of advertising to a general audience, the sportswear, footwear and casual wear can leverage the data from the wearables to market to an audience of one. For example, Under Armour can determine if a wearable user is travelling and suggest the wearer buy warm clothing if the weather forecast at the destination city is for cooler weather.

Killer apps for IoT will likely be from over-the-top (OTT) services offered on top of the IoT, Anderson predicted. "We have so much information. What we don't have is intelligence around that information," he said, suggesting that companies will be willing to pay third parties to offer useful insights into existing data. As services will be pay-as-you-go, businesses can easily try and leave if they are not satisfied, he added.

Video analytics of data from surveillance cameras is a case in point, he said, as the assets are typically already there and but few have resources to drive value out of the data. "It's not about getting new assets but getting more value out of those assets," he said.

Anderson also highlighted the key role of low power wide area networks (LPWANs) in the evolution of IoT. He explained that the sheer volume of data sent by multitudes of IoT devices simply cannot be accommodated by existing networks. Enter the LPWAN, a dedicated IoT network which can be maintained with very low power requirements, sends information over long distances, and costs as much as 90% less than a traditional connection per device. There are three main contenders for the LPWAN market: Narrow Band IoT (NB IoT), Sigfox, and LoRA, Anderson said, but no clear winners as yet.

"If (smart cities) are ever going to reach their potential they are going to need these networks," he said.

There are still question marks about the success of IoT, Anderson noted, such as limited use cases. "We need tens of thousands, not one or two," Anderson said. People with the right skills for IoT implementations and how operators will make money from IoT are also issues that have to be addressed.

In talking about IoT, credibility will come only for those who can describe the problems they will solve with their IoT portfolio, Anderson emphasised. "This is all about solutions, not about technology. (It's about) who can help me reach my goals," he said.

At the end of the day IoT stakeholders have to build a culture where people are not afraid to start questioning things. "An open culture will really drive innovation," he said.

Interested?

Read the TechTrade Asia blog post about Singapore's reorganisation of tech policy makers

Read the TechTrade Asia blog post about Sigfox distributor Unabiz's partnership with Airbus

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