It's the Data, Not Things, in the Internet of Things

Organizations today are grappling with the Internet of Things (IoT), a large network of devices and sensors that extend beyond your typical computer networks, industrial equipment, and other products.

Increasingly everything that is being built will feed into IoT, from cars to buildings to oil rigs to infusion pumps etc.…and products in our homes!

While IT vendors across the board are all trying to grab IoT market share (software, hardware, services), it is important for organizations not to focus their strategy solely on products, technology, or bit pieces. Instead, the focus should be on the most important, vital and valuable part of this equation -  the data.

Simply put, the IoT is of little or no value if the data isn’t accurate, secure, and actionable. The data should always drive an organization’s strategy, period.

This strategy needs to start at a business level based on well defined requirements and then filter down to the applicable products.

Data Accuracy Matters

A metrics driven former boss of mine had the motto “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” when referring to sales forecasting and pipeline management. While this rings true, if you can’t measure it accurately then there is probably no point because bad data leads to bad decisions, especially when one doesn’t realize the data is wrong.

The data itself is quite often inconsequential. Measuring the value of data is a process with endless options and approaches, and it is only as valuable as the business outcomes it makes possible.

It is not the amount of data that matters, it’s how smart organizations are with the data they have. In reality, they can have tons of data, but if they’re not using it intelligently it seldom delivers value.

Data Security

Assuming an organization (manufacturing, healthcare, energy etc.…) has done a good job of designing the deployment of sensors with input to guarantee the accuracy of the data, the next step is ensuring that the data is securely collected and the integrity is maintained as it moves throughout the system.

In IoT, businesses may be start with a sensor that could be wishing the four walls of a facility or out in the field, operating remotely. Data is collected, moves through a gateway through a series of servers and applications before it comes to the datacenter, where it can be analyzed and actioned.

Each step along the way requires security and consistency to ensure that the data integrity is maintained. Within the datacenter there is much focus on security and maintaining systems, but often at the sensor / collector level or the initial gateway (which increasingly could be in the Cloud), data may be more vulnerable.

One cannot truly ensure the accuracy of the data unless it can be secured through the whole process. 

Data should be actionable

All the data in the world is useless if it can’t be acted upon by the business. This is where the business units (not the IT department) need to be driving the IoT strategy.

There is zero value in implementing IoT if there is not an analytics engine behind it to make sense of all this data being captured. An organization needs to be able to act on any outcomes from the IoT data. It does no good to capture large amounts of data, structure it, process it, and not leverage it effectively.

IoT data should be used as a real-time feed to aid in the decision making process and accelerate action, driving business agility in an organization.

Data being collected and stored without an actionable purpose becomes a liability for an organization. In a world of increasingly tight IT budgets, opportunity cost can be a bigger driver than many think as every dollar spent to store unused data is a dollar that is not available for other projects with a measurable ROI.

Conclusion

As organizations begin to take stock of IoT solutions, it is important to think through the real aspects of what one is trying to accomplish and the plan to use the data.

• Companies need strong analytics capabilities to handle IoT data
• Sharing data helps get more from IoT technology
• Securing the data is paramount
• Organizations need an effective strategy to define, implement & maintain an ongoing business relationship with IoT devices

In the end, IoT is a technology, but managing the data and the relationships around that data is the most important part of the equation.

Disclaimer: The ideas, views and opinions expressed in this Linked In post are my own and not a reflection of current or previous employers.