IoT: The next wave of digital transformation

The consumerization of technology was an opportunity for IT organizations to become strategic business partners. Unfortunately, the opportunity was missed by many. There is a new opportunity to transform IT’s corporate standing, but don’t blink and miss it.    The Internet of Things is enabling a new wave of digital business transformation and will be the catalyst for IT leaders to become innovation engines for their businesses.

The first evolution of IT, decades ago, was caused by the Internet and eCommerce. During the internet boom, IT organizations had time to figure out how to craft and architect solutions that ultimately would allow for ultra-rapid iteration. Technology teams learned alongside their business counterparts because the technology was still something primarily used only in business. When technology consumerized through mobile, social, and media hype, business expectations skyrocketed and many IT organizations were left with bruises and black eyes. Business tolerance for slow legacy processes and systems was nascent, and IT was disinter-mediated swiftly by SaaS providers promising quick implementation of point solutions that don’t require IT involvement.  

Connected devices are projected to double over the next four years. Much of the media attention will focus on consumer use cases demonstrating the ease of automating our daily lives.  The magical combination of media hype and abundant consumer solutions were also the catalyst for the consumerization of IT.  Innovative consumer companies simplified technology raising the bar for all other IT organizations.

The nature of IoT will give all companies a new means of digitizing legacy business models regardless of their current level of business dependence on technology. In other words, IT organizations that have never been highly relevant in their companies due to slow technology uptake by their business model need to buckle their seat belts. IoT will enable the most manual and mundane business processes to become competitive differentiators through digitization, regardless of industry.

For IT organizations to earn their place at the strategic table, they will need to look back at lessons learned during the Internet age and from SMAC (social, mobile, analytics, cloud). They need to insist on implementing extensible platforms for IoT that easily integrate on top of their legacy architecture. A solution that enables business partners to rapidly prototype various IoT offerings. These platforms must be data, protocol, and device agnostic because IoT solutions will evolve across traditional industry and technology boundaries, requiring a variety of devices and protocols to work together in harmony.

IT cannot wait for standardization to occur or they will miss the business need that is about to envelop them. Solutioning IoT around individual use cases will not suffice. Innovative use cases will evolve too rapidly for bespoke technology initiatives to keep up. Business models deserve to iterate, test, and fail fast with IoT, just like they do with eCommerce. Legacy excuses for not keeping up with the IoT demand that is coming will seal the fate of many IT organizations. Be prepared for consumer-like time-to-market IoT expectations at work, expectations that are derived from todays simplified, digitized day-to-day lives.