The internet of things is a topic of conversation in almost every Fortune 500 company boardroom, according to Homaira Akbari, president and CEO of AKnowledge Partners, and a member of four different corporate boards. Some companies are evaluating their opportunities to capitalize on new technologies and others are asking whether they need to act defensively in order to stay competitive in a rapidly changing world.
Akbari spoke this week at the Enterprise IoT Summit, where executives from the energy, real estate and retail industries met with IoT solutions providers and network operators. One of the key themes that came up in several discussions was the importance of planning and budgeting for companies that want to connect assets to the internet.
“Many times … we’ve started on the technology side, put a lot of time and effort into that, only to find out the [return on investment] isn’t there. So now we always start with the ROI,” said Aron Bowman, COO at ELM FieldSight.
Chris Moorhead, VP of strategic accounts at Gemalto, listed several choices companies need to make when planning to deploy IoT technology. Gemalto makes modules for machine type communications and has been connecting devices to cellular networks for years.
“We’ve seen hundreds, if not thousands, of cellular integrations using our modules and so we can see really clearly at the really early stages of the development, whether or not someone is going to be successful, whether that be how well their technical requirements are panned out, how much time they’re budgeting for their development, what resources they have dedicated to their development, what their certification and deployment strategies are and then just who they want to use as a contract manufacturer,” Moorhead said. “We really see that having the right partners involved in your integration will help you be successful.”
