The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of those technologies that are getting a lot of buzz right now as businesses realize its value and start dabbling in it. Enterprises are now starting to include the Internet of Things in their business strategies, proof-of-concept projects, business plans, and others.
How are business leaders seeing the Internet of Things? What are its use cases? Read on and find out.
What is the state of the Internet of Things in the enterprise?
Make no mistake, most companies already have some sort of IoT initiative in place. It could be that they are starting to include it in their future strategies or are already deploying it.
Patterns are already emerging on why companies use the Internet of Things. First is that, most of the time, enterprises adopt the technology because they want to improve on the way they do business and connect with their customers. That may include improving processes, products, and operating procedures.
There is a misconception that to start with your Internet of Things strategy means poring over the devices and sensors that you are going to use. Instead of focusing first on sensors and devices, you should have a clear vision of what you want to achieve.
Another prevalent reason for adopting IoT is that businesses want to keep track of what is going on, and they want to do this in real-time. This technology gives businesses an easy way to know where a particular asset is at any time. It also helps them know the health of the assets that they want to monitor. They would know, for instance, if a vehicle in their fleet needs to undergo preventive maintenance, or if their machinery is getting prone to overheating.
Another reason why businesses are adopting Internet of Things strategies is because they have come to realize what the technology could offer them. Business owners are no longer satisfied with the old way of doing things. Instead, they want to be creative and try out new things. For instance, they may start off with using IoT because they simply want to keep track of their delivery vehicles, but then they realized that they are getting a lot of data that could potentially be used for other things to improve their operations.
Soon, it is no longer just tracking their delivery vehicles, but also planning the best routes for these vehicles to make deliveries more efficient. Plus, they also get the chance to use the location data to know if their drivers are going off route or are spending too much time in a certain area. They could use these data to figure out how to improve and train their drivers.
Where should you start with your Internet of Things strategy?
As we have mentioned, starting with the devices and sensors you want to use is the wrong way to go about your Internet of Things strategy. Start with your key performance indicators that you can monitor and improve with the use of IoT. Knowing which KPI to target, you could now determine what types of data you would need in order to monitor this, as well as where to get that data. Only when you have these figured out can you start evaluating the devices to see if they would be able to send you the data you need.
These are the main reasons why businesses use or consider using IoT:
- Improve operations and service.
- Gain asset visibility.
- Find other ways to collect and analyze data.
For instance, you can use IoT to monitor the location and health of equipment and machineries that are important for businesses in shipping, healthcare, manufacturing, and others. With this type of data, you can help make your operations faster, avoid accidents, and save time and money.
Moreover, being able to improve visibility is a requirement for smart factories. IoT gives factories the ability to see what happened during the day as well at any given point in time.
What are the Oracle solutions for IoT?
The answer is – Oracle Internet of Things Cloud Enterprise! It is a platform as a service offering that gives you easy integrations with several other Oracle products such as Oracle Big Data Cloud Service, Oracle Integration Cloud Service, and Oracle Mobile Cloud Service. The software giant is also planning to add more out of the box integrations to its IoT cloud product.
Oracle Internet of Things Cloud Enterprise has a REST-based application programming interface, so if you want to integrate your own applications for your IoT strategies, you can easily do it using a REST API. This would be perfect for those companies who discover more insights from their IoT data. The IoT Cloud Enterprise also supports and provides machine learning for your sensors and devices. You can do predictive analytics or even create a digital twin of your devices.
In the future, we should be seeing more Internet of Things applications with chatbots, which the Oracle Internet of Things Cloud Enterprise also supports.
Oracle also offers five “as a service” offerings for the Internet of Things.
- Oracle Internet of Things Asset Monitoring Cloud Service: Helps you keep track of your connected assets in real-time.
- Oracle Internet of Things Production Monitoring Cloud: Monitors your production facilities, machines, and products.
- Oracle Internet of Things Fleet Monitoring Cloud: Provides predictive analytics for your fleet vehicles, allowing you to maximize efficiency and lessen downtimes.
- Oracle Internet of Things Connected Worker Cloud Service: This will give you visibility into your worker’s location and health in real-time. It will also tell you more about the worker’s environment. All of these help you guarantee workers’ safety and health.
- Oracle Internet of Things Service Monitoring for Connected Assets Cloud: Helps you serve your customers proactively without having to wait for an issue or problem to be called in.
If you are thinking about using the Internet of Things to improve your operations and services, gain visibility of your assets, and find other ways to collect and analyze data, then Oracle has a number of offerings for you.
Screenshot photo courtesy of Oracle Cloud.
