Today, about 9 billion devices are connected to the Internet—primarily smartphones and computers. Within the next few years, that number will surge toward 50 billion.
That’s 50 billion things that will soon be streaming, talking, texting, updating, sensing, triggering, and enriching companies’ ability to have extreme visibility into the world around them.
Some companies are preparing to exploit this new reality, while others don’t seem to have a clue about what’s coming and will surely be exploited by it. To get a sense of which camp you and your company are in, please have a look at these questions:
- Will you and your company be ready for the everything-connected world that the Internet of Things will be serving up?
- Will you be ready to tap into that massive and always-on stream of data?
- Will you be able to identify, extract, manage, store, analyze, and act upon massive data sets that are wildly dynamic?
- Will you be able to snatch business insights from those torrents of data?
- Will you be prepared to turn this machine-to-machine (M2M) communication into rich opportunities, new revenues, new products, and new approaches?
- Are you preparing today for this M2M future that’s rushing toward us much faster than most of us can anticipate?
Concrete manufacturers are embedding sensors into their mixes to transmit data about the product’s integrity and level of readiness.
Architects and engineers are integrating software into buildings to actively monitor the “health” of the building: from air quality to structural integrity to power usage.
Home appliances will soon be chattering away with their owners via texts, voice messages, email, and even red-light warnings about food that’s gone bad or why it’s unwise to wash red socks with white shirts in hot water.
Consumers armed with the latest smartphones will cruise through stores and malls and expect to be able to use their devices to instantaneously reveal inventory levels, available sizes and colors, prices, discount opportunities, and more—all without any human interaction.
So if you think the volumes of data we’re dealing with today are huge or overwhelming or too big or too fast or too complex, then I’d suggest you start looking into a different line of work because the coming era of the Internet of Things, with tens of billions of devices streaming out astounding volumes of bits, will make what’s going on today look like Tiny Data by comparison.
Accordingly, the Machine to Machine world of tomorrow will force companies in every industry to think differently about all of the following:
- How do we tap into this world of limitless data?
- How do we use it to make our products and services more intelligent?
- How do we exploit the M2M opportunities in customer engagement, product design, and optimized processes?
- How will the Internet of Things change how we price our products and services?
- How will the Internet of Things change how our customers want to engage with me?
- How will 50 billion interconnected devices change our distribution channels?
- How will the M2M world change how our customers perceive value?
- How will this always-on, always-streaming flood of data change the skill sets we need?
- How do I create and maintain competitive advantage in such a turbulent environment?
In the midst of all those questions sits one bit of certainty: companies that don’t prepare for this profoundly different world will be unable to compete in it, unable to meet the rich and rising expectations of customers, and utterly unable to keep pace with a business environment that’s no longer predicated on what companies make but rather on what consumers demand to have.
Do you have an M2M strategy? Are you prepared for the Internet of Things?
Because it’s coming. And it will change everything.
And it’s coming incredibly fast.
RECOMMENDED READING:
The Top 10 Myths About Cloud Computing
Thomson Reuters Transforms Big Data Into Big Business
Oracle Software Chief Thomas Kurian: 10 Strategic Cloud Computing Insights
The New and Dangerous Threat to Cloud Computing
The Oracle Cloud Chronicles: Simplifying IT and Driving Innovation
Cloud Computing And The Integration Quagmire
Larry Ellison Doesn’t Get the Cloud: The Dumbest Idea of 2013
The Cloud Revolution and Creative Destruction
Oracle Cloud Success Triggers Oracle-Derangement Syndrome
Oracle Cloud Tops 10,000 Customers and 25 Million Users
Cloud Industry Rockets Toward $100 Billion; McKinsey Bullish
