7 lessons learned from real life IoT projects

I am a simple sales guy, working with many different companies across the world, helping them getting their devices connected. I have customers in many different industries such as; telematics, smart metering, asset tracking/monitoring, security, health care, automotive and so on. Working with such a mix, gives me an opportunity to analyze what companies do with their IoT initiatives in different industries. In this blog post, I will share what I see is happening in real life based on my own personal experience.

First of all, many companies are talking about IoT and dreaming to getting their business model changed from selling product to selling solutions/services. Because they want to differentiate their products, get closer to their end customers, better understand how/when/where/why their products are being used etc. I think there is a lot of focus on the technology side of IoT and a lot of companies are lost when it comes to what type of sensory data to be collected and how this data will be converted into increased revenue & reduced costs.

I will divide my experience into 2 separate chapters as Technology and Commercial parts. In my opinion IoT should be very much tied into a commercial goal and just to connect things will not be enough at the end to truly innovate. What I see in real life is that most of the companies start with solving a simple problem, which is nice – as they start small, but missing the big picture of the potential savings/improvements that could be achieved with that specific IoT solution.

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Application Development Platforms used for M2M/IoT

M2M and IoT is emerging with a higher speed than expected. The ecosystem is becoming mature and the players know where to position themselves. As the ecosystem converges with Cloud and big data, businesses need to get ready to address the new wave of connected devices and the intelligence they carry. I do not believe in the story of collecting all intelligence in the center, via the data delivered by edge devices. Because the agility, durability and security of the edge devices will directly impact the results of the total intelligence.

Agility in my term defines the ability of a connected device to adapt different applications. This requires running a flexible software environment that caters for different application requirements.

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Machine to Machine

I should say for a Telecom operator to be successful on M2M requires some serious efforts. A dedicated M2M team (technical, support, operations, agreements, sales in the ground and a strong management etc), different KPIs and goals for the M2M unit, much more flexibility and support from the top management.

Europe is not doing fine economically and people are spending less and less on Telecom services. For Telcos to keep growing, they should invest in new areas like M2M, Cloud and Media & Entertainment Services. However, the success will not come quick and margins are not as good as we got in typical Telecom services. I see that more and more Telcos in Europe are taking serious steps in M2M and leaving the Cloud to IT providers; making M2M a bet of Telcos and Cloud for IT playes.

Teleco industry needs a new push and new units might bring that extra jump for growth. M2M is an opportunity for Telcos and for sure requires a different approach and skills. My recommendation is, select your fight and go for it. But do not expect quick wins.

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Internet of Things (IoT) Vs. M2M

I am part of the M2M global solutions team at a multinational Telecom company and one of our main goal is to follow the trends and make sure that the whole company is moving to the right directions. Being a Telecom company the first thing we want to win is of course the connectivity and also the device platform services.

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So you want to be a Cloud provider?

What do you need to be a Cloud provider? You could be a Telco or an IT Reseller. Once you decided that you will provide Cloud services you need these capabilities.

1. A Cloud enabled data center

2. Platforms (app store, SSO, aggregation platform and so on…) to provide cloud

3. Monetize your services

4. Business development capabilities.

I think yet another important questions that you need to answer are;

1. What do we have internally today? (Because a lot of the things listed above can be outsourced as well)

2. Your ability to handle an ecosystem.

3. Your sales channels and capabilities

4. What will make you different? (Easy to do business with, price, quality, or what else…)

5. Applications and Infrastructure is commodity now, so you need to focus on business models and content instead.

Sit and think twice before you make any move towards Cloud. Make a good business case and take meaningful risks. Because the market is still emerging and Cloud is still “nice to have” not “must to have” at the moment.

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Telecom Cloud Services Summit – Berlin

This year I am attending the Telecom Cloud Services Summit at Berlin by the end of April. I am working with telecom cloud business nowadays at Tele2 Sweden and this event will be quite an interesting one to meet with telecom experts from all around the world. I personally want to see these topics covered in the summit; Where to start a telco cloud, IaaS or SaaS or UCaaS, What is the business case, In house or partnership model.

I still think some points are not clear in telco cloud. Business case is very tricky and it also restricts you in type of service you provide if you are fix only or mobile only provider. Yet another interesting topic is that, how to provide telco grade IT to SMEs and how to sell it? Are SMEs ready to pay for Telco grade IT or expect to get it for free? I think all of these questions will be answered in the event and then I will write another blog post to review the summit. You can check the aganda of the event from here.

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Open Source High Definition Video Conference System

Yesterday I got a phone call from one of my fellow student from KTH (Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm) regarding their project final presentation date. They are working on a project aiming on providing open source high definition video conference system. The presentation and exhibition date of their project are this 16th of October 2009 and next 19th of October 2009, and they sincerely welcome you to their presentation and exhibition.
 
Press Release.

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SAP Systems Integration Master Thesis Final Presentation

I have presented my master thesis last week and started to work for HP as a junior product chef. I have spent more than 4 months to complete my master thesis and the most single difficult part for me was the writing part. I think it is crucial to have good communication with your academic supervisor, since he/she decides how you should write and how much you should write. After this master thesis I began to abhor the communication problems. Giving an example, I wrote 100 pages at the beginning and spent almost 3 weeks to write it, then my supervisor wanted me to cut it down to 30 pages (max.). It was a very big hassle. Moreover, my supervisor did not want me to do those changes with alacrity. Because of that I had to wait two more months before I present my master thesis. Any way it is still good that I have the rights to decry my supervisor and my own work. By the way, my academic supervisor was Gustaf Juell-Skielse from KTH and he is a very experienced Accenture consultant. I have learned a lot from him and he has incisive comments which make me work harder and harder. But my recommendation for those of you, who will write master thesis, is that; talk to your supervisor very very clearly at the beginning. What he/she wants you to do, how much and how does he/she want you to write and so on. Because time management is difficult and you might waste your time if your supervisor changes his/her mind.

However, it was a priceless experience to work in one of the biggest energy companies at Europe and has an experienced academic supervisor back at school. Even if I had some difficult times to finish my thesis, I liked it and enjoyed a lot. In case you need, I am sharing my final master thesis (believe me, this is the real final version:) ) and my final presentation down here:

SAP Systems Integration Master Thesis Real Final Version

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SAP Systems Integration Master Thesis Final Report

I have written my master thesis about SAP systems integration at one of the biggest energy companies in Europe. The company is called Vattenfall and owned by Swedish government. Since the size of the company is large, so that the data size which will be transferred within and outside of the company is also large. Thats why systems integration plays a very crucial role in Vattenfall’s IT concerns. The company is very much SAP centric and the SAP systems are increasing in number and size. This increasing trend intensifies the need for SAP systems integration and an integration platform, which is the most plug and play integration engine for SAP systems, could be of benefit. That’s why I made a qualitative study to evaluate SAP NetWeaver PI to help Vattenfall Nordic to decide whether it can be used as main integration platform at Vattenfall Nordic instead of BizTalk.

SAP PI is coming! I think the product will be used more commonly once SAP solves the core problems. For example SAP PI is a dual stack product and complex to configure, use and manage. The product is very much based on hub and spoke, centralized architecture. But I think it must be (will be) 100% java based, distributed product. Also SAP NetWeaver BPM and PI are emerging more and more. These are all good things for the future of the product. As I mentioned before, PI is coming and will be used commonly in SAP depended companies!

I do not want to write all of my finding again but, you can download my master thesis from here: SAP Systems Integration Master Thesis Final Report. I look forward to hearing from you.

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In Pursuit of Elegance: 12 Indispensable Tips

Matthew E. May is the author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing and the ChangeThis manifesto called Creative Elegance. He spent nearly a decade as a close adviser to Toyota and works with creative teams and senior leaders at a number of top Fortune companies.

1. Question: How do you define elegance?

Answer: Something is elegant if it is two things at once: unusually simple and surprisingly powerful. One without the other leaves you short of elegant. And sometimes the “unusual simplicity” isn’t about what’s there, it’s about what isn’t. At first glance, elegant things seem to be missing something.

2. Question: Why is elegance so important?

Answer: Elegance cuts through the noise, captures our attention, and engages us. The point of elegance is to achieve the maximum impact with the minimum input. It’s a thoughtful, artful subtractive process focused on doing more and better with less. That’s especially important during this economic crisis when everyone is trying to move forward while consuming fewer resources.

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