The economic outlook for 2017 doesn’t look too good in many countries. One of the first things any companies will do will try to cut down costs. A lot of projects that was planned earlier will have to re-prioritise based on the criticality and urgency of the situation. Most projects, which don’t have a big, impact, too much risk and unproven are likely to be axed or become a lower priority.

But how do most companies see projects regarding Internet of Things? Can the big promises of IoT overcome that reprioritisation process hurdle? Are they considered as a higher priority when the risk is high when the impact not immediately proven?

The Chief IoT Officer (if this position CIOTO exists in your company) need these skills to ensure that IoT is not left behind.

1. New technology – Replace the older processes with new technology such as IoT. Previous physical activities can be done remotely and automatically. Data-driven decision-making process will be critical. All of this will reduce costs and increase productivity.
2. Lean & Agile – Lean startup approach in developing new service, testing them, learn from any mistakes and adapt quickly.
3. Shifting priority – CIOT needs to adopt a constant change of priorities. What was planned in the early part of the year can be different by mid-year?
4. Smaller, faster implementation – Big and long term projects are no longer a luxury. Develop smaller projects across the organisations. Small wins but big impact.
5. Change agents – CIOTOs must be the change agents. They can no longer hold on to the old legacy process and systems. Communicate clearly and be the champion.

Do you have an IoT Champion in your organisation? Will IoT be pushed to the back seat when it comes to budget rationalisation? How do you defend IoT projects in your organisation?

Internet of Things (IoT) will not be able to maximize its impact if the applications and data are still operating in silos. If it’s data remained privy to only certain individuals, groups or organizations, it will not be able to reap its full potential. Machine-to-Machine applications traditionally work in silos. IOT promises better decision making, and there’s no better way to get insights unless we can get as much data as possible from various sources. For example, why flood happens? Is it because of drainage issues, the river bed swells up due to rising in silt, torrential rains or the effect of increasing in tide? It’s only when you can correlate various data that you can find the source of the problem. Thus, we need integration from multiple sources of data.

Will it be the same thing for Smart Cities? What sensitive data a city generates from IoT? Tons of data can be generated from Transportation, Health, Waste, parking, lighting, Energy and much more. It makes better sense if we can “blend” these data together. Below are some of the benefits of data blending:

Many new and innovative applications can be developed when different data are compounded. It will become a platform for application developers in generating new IoT services.

• Cost Savings – Instead of managing and connecting to several platforms, a single platform, will simplify and reduce operational costs.
• Better decision making – more data means more information and more knowledge about the city. An event happens in one application can also trigger another event in other application.
• Smart City’s Index – This can become a hub for calculating the healthiness or safeties of a city.
• Creating Innovative Applications – Sharing of various sources of data will open up limitless innovative applications. It makes better sense to monetize or fully utilize the data rather kept in someone’s database.

What are the success factors to make data blending of a city successful?

Smart City seems to be one of most hyped topic in 2015 and will continue in 2016. India has recently named and launched 100 Smart Cities initiative. If you Google the word “Smart City”, news from Smart City India will be the listed in the first ten. But Smart City is not a new term, it has been coined many years earlier when it has been mainly driven by IT companies and telcos. Many cities have tried and many have failed to achieve. And many initiatives stopped at Framework stage only. So, what makes Smart Cities successful? There are many factors, but I feel there are three (3) basic, but critical elements need to be in any Smart City plans.

These three factors are:

1. The Visionary Government – Who can champion better other than the authority themselves? Visionary leaders and citizen-focused leaders need to be appointed. They want to see how smart cities can become an engine of economic growth and to do that they have to make the cities to be a liveable one. The local authorities must be very transparent and customer-focused in serving the people.
2. The Smart Citizens – Who make or break the cities? None other than the citizens themselves. What’s the use of significant infrastructure when assets are vandalized, and laws are being broken? Civic-mindedness is critical to ensure resources are well maintained. Citizens can become handy in providing ideas and critical feedback to improve the cities.
3. The Innovative Technology – Many technologies will fail if the above two elements are ignored. Internet of Things (IoT) is seen to be one of the key element in gathering insights about the city. Many of the city’s assets need to be properly monitored with the objective to optimize resources. Cities can start with basic monitoring to controlling and finally to automate many of city’s IT infrastructure.

Let’s have further discussion about this. What’re your thoughts?