Internet of Things is a revolutionary technological breakthrough which make your daily life much easier, the newest revenue source of your business and modern trend that will shape the future world. This article will discuss how IoT technologies affect to individuals and businesses.
Introduction
Imagine, you could check the free parking spaces in town, using a mobile app while you’re driving or turn on your house heating system remotely before reach home. All these things possible due to the concept of Internet of Things. This term first coined by Peter T. Lewis in 1985 in a speech he delivered at U.S. Federal Communication Commission. Now it becomes a hot topic in IT industry. Simply put, IoT means connecting any internet-enabled device to the internet. Traditionally, desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones are consider as internet-enabled devices. But, with the development of IoT, device range is extended to automobiles, electronic appliances, house heating systems, vending machines, colour lights, washing machines, wearable devices etc. In future, more devices will add to the list. These devices use the IP addresses or RFID tags to uniquely identify them in internet. After connecting to the internet, these smart devices can establish connection between device-human and device-device.
Technically, Internet of Things affect to many part of our lives, most notably in positive way. It turns the devices into smart devices, homes into smart homes and also cities into smart cities. More connected things means less human involvement to perform everyday tasks. These smart things will improve our living conditions including health and safety. Advancement of internet technologies provides a great platform for the growth of IoT. Gartner, a research company forecast that, by 2020, more than 20 billion of IoT devices will be connected to the internet. When more devices connect with each other or with humans, inevitably, the efficiency of consumer related services will be increased. Internet of Things systems consist of technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), sensors, network infrastructures, smart devices etc. Number of tech companies provide IoT platforms to establish connectivity between devices and data networks in order to transfer information using internet transfer protocol.
These are some popular IoT platforms,
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Microsoft Azure IoT Suite
- ThingsWorx
- IBM Watson
- Cisco IoT Cloud Connect
- Oracle Integrated Cloud
- GE’s Predix
How does the Internet of Things affect our lives and businesses?
In future, more devices will be connected to internet than ever. As predicted by major research and tech companies, billions of devices will take part of this significant technological breakthrough and it will change the shape of our daily life and business processes forever. Even today, IoT has great impact on our daily life and businesses. If you look carefully the impact it caused us, you can imagine that, potential opportunities with IoT are endless. Whatever the business you involved in, IoT would definitely plays a major role in the growth process of your business.
First, let’s see how IoT affects to our daily life. Internet-enabled vehicles can get real time traffic information to the vehicle displays, then drivers can use alternative ways to reach their destination by avoiding traffic jams. Wearable IoT devices have great impact on your health care, they help to collect personal health information and store to analyse later. Smartwatches or fitness bands can track your heart rate and there are some smartphones apps which can be used to measure your stress level too. Wireless sensors can be used to remotely monitor the activities of elderly people, such as heartbeats, sleeping patterns etc. Most common usage of IoT in domestic environment is CCTV security camera system. A smartphone app that connects to CCTV camera system allows you to monitor the home environment from remote locations. In some countries, energy companies allow their customers to control the home heating systems through internet. It also helps customers to better understanding of their energy usage, then they can manage their energy consumption. With these practices, Smart homes concept became a popular term in IoT related discussions. Smart city is another concept where IoT technologies can be applied in large scale. In smart cities, IoT devices can be used in waste and energy management processes.
Since, Internet of Things has become a hot topic in IT industry, most hi-tech companies tend to obtain maximum benefits from this technology. Not only tech companies, government offices, hospitals, agricultural and animal farms, manufacturing companies also realised the potential impact of IoT on their future operations. Profit-oriented companies always seek to increase their revenue through new technologies. On the other hand, new technologies always emerge to improve the productivity of employees and streamline the business processes. Connecting business processes through IoT devices will definitely improve the efficiency of business. Let’s see how IoT affects to businesses. In future, any device which has potential to connect to the internet will be connected. Therefore, market demand for internet-enabled devices are expected to be increased, manufacturing companies will have a great opportunity to make millions of new devices and raise their revenues. Also service companies can use more IoT devices to optimise their business processes. With smart IoT devices, service companies can track their customer behaviours, get feedbacks more efficient manner and later change their business strategies based on the customer demands. In short, smart devices help company management to takes smart decisions. Wearable IoT devices can be used to monitor the employees more closely and improve the productivity of employees.
Connected things allow faster communication between device-device and device-human, in order to increase the efficiency of operations such as decision makings, manufacturing, delivery etc. It also reduce the energy consumption and labour cost as well. Key people in management positions, can remotely access the real-time data while connecting to the cloud based systems to take urgent decisions and pass instructions to employees. If any company plan to continue their businesses and survive in the market, inevitably they have to adapt to the IoT technologies. Even though some industries could survive in the market, they cannot make much profit using only conventional business models. Therefore, they need to embrace the new IoT technologies to keep up with the market competition.
Security and privacy become the biggest risk concern in Internet of Things. Large amount of data transfers between connected devices and systems around the clock. These data is highly vulnerable to a data breach or hack. Therefore, organisations that use IoT technologies have to deeply consider about the safety of their data and operations. Even individuals need to realise the security risks they encounter when dealing with connected things. More connected devices means more threat to the privacy. Not all devices have same type of security measures, If hackers could able to creep into your one device, then they can get access to all your devices and information. Cyber-criminal groups can be tried to infiltrate to the smart city infrastructures and sabotage the energy supply or transportation systems. When considering these issues, organisations have to go through a risk assessment process and take necessary security measures before shift to IoT technologies.
Future of Internet of Things
Many tech companies and research firms have predicted that, IoT will have a great impact on individuals and businesses. Billions of devices already connected to the internet, many more will connect in future. The amount of new IoT devices use in businesses and other operations will exceed the traditional internet connected devices. (E.g. smartphones, laptops, tablets, etc)
Revenue of the organisations will drastically increase with IoT technologies. Because adoption to the IoT solutions will decrease the labour and operational cost. It also increases the productivity of employee, more importantly, through connected systems, companies can find more business opportunities. Organisations will do trillions worth investment on IoT solution, because they know the enormous impact this will have on the businesses. Not only profit-oriented companies, other organisations such as government institutes, hospitals and military will be more dependable on IoT technologies.
