Some Technology writers have been trying to wave off IoT as yet another trend, a keyword for the year and what not! Internet of Things or IoT, got into popular media with extensive coverage from major technology research houses; eventually, when IoT did not reach out as extensively to the masses as it was supposed to, many popular blogs declared it yet another fad. If that is the narrative you have been following, you may need to reconsider.

IoT applications will be at the centre of all technology – both Business and consumer facing. Here are the numbers to support that claim:

a. It is predicted that consumers, businesses and governments will put an aggregate of $6 trillion as an investment in IoT by 2020.

b. By 2020, over 30.7 billion devices will be connected globally.

This just shows, IoT is here to stay; that might be more of an understatement. IoT is here to revolutionize pretty much every aspect of consumption and businesses. That is the primary reason why you should be paying attention to IoT.

To put it in the simplest terms, IoT is a connection between devices over the internet in such a way that they exchange data and optimize their individual performance in accordance with that data. These devices interacting with each other may be your everyday appliances like your refrigerator, lights, microwave or more complex machinery like manufacturing equipment, warehouse technology or storage devices. If you still wonder where does IoT fit into your business, here are some foods for thought:

1. If your business has anything to do with Warehousing, Manufacturing or Retail, your business will be transformed. The biggest impact Internet of Things applications are predicted to have is on the warehousing, manufacturing and retail industries.These industries shall be the first ones to massively adapt IoT because these are industries with great space for automation. Whether it comes to operations research for warehousing or display adjustments for retail, IoT can optimize all the processes on all the layers in these businesses. With technologies such as RFID tags and Big Data, businesses related to these key areas will see a great degree of automation in order placements, storage and process management.

2. It does not matter if you are not in the technology business. Imagine this, you may say that you have a small business with supposing hundred clients. Now, these hundred clients place approximately one thousand orders annually for five thousand units from your product portfolio of twenty offerings available for mass customization – did you see it? There is already a huge amount of data being generated by your business. It doesn’t matter if you are in wholesaling, distribution or logistics – if you have more than a few variables that can impact your business processes, there is scope for IoT in your business.IoT simply allows devices to interact at points where humans cannot come and individually programme them to do so. Additionally, IoT leverages the data and analyses it at speeds unreachable for the human intellect.

3. It does not matter even if you are a small business. Many people in business wonder whether IoT will have anything relevant to their business, if their business has a small scale and no integrated technology system. The advancements in cloud computing will only help catalyse the growth of IoT application development and make IoT accessible to all the businesses.IoT can have simplest of applications such as shutting down the lights in the office and locking the doors automatically, when everyone has left the office. At the same time, it can have complex end to end applications where right from detecting the ideal time and quantity of refilling to placing the order, to managing the inventory and its storage – IoT will handle everything. All you need is the right outsourcing partner who can help you with the ideal IoT applications design to fit your business needs.

With more data, IoT will only make your business more efficient!

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