Companies which want to solve their efficiency issue through IoT, ask the implementors to demonstrate the increase in efficiency
By Srinivasa Moorthy S A
I have been in the Internet of Things (IoT) space for the last two years working with a clutch of startups as well as matured companies in different roles as sales guy, implementor, designer and simply a mentor. One thing I noticed common is, no IoT company has made money, leave alone lots of it!
I have noticed every idea that gets into implementation is good and worth pursuing. But the challenge has been how to make money out of the solution. Most IoT solutions are born out of problems or challenges faced by the companies (let us leave the individuals for the moment). Most of the times I have seen the challenges faced by the would-be customer companies are related to addressing:
A typical IoT solution has three critical components:
If you notice carefully all the three items call additional cash when the IoT implementation is done. So biggest issue that the companies which want IoT solution face is the source of funding if they need go ahead implementing the solution.
Challenges and solutions
This being the case every IoT solution ultimately faces the challenge of how to get the funds for implementation. As we discussed the problems of efficiency, addressing solution which can’t be done manually, and finally totally new solution call for different ways of handling. Companies looking for IoT solutions try to be creative to find the money for the solutions.
As we can see in all these cases sell and support option doesn’t exist, and this calls for a completely different way of doing business. Some of the models that are offered are:
However, these models are making the SMEs/startups in the IoT business to struggle as all of these solutions are capital intensive to implement. Most SMEs/startups don’t have funding to do this.
I always advise these companies to start for the pilot in a small way – go in for one or two cases and perfect the model. Then go in for different funding to rollout in large scale.
Srinivasa Moorthy S A is the Chief Executive Officer of the Andhra Pradesh Electronics & IT Agency. He has over 30 years of experience in the IT industry as Head, Leader & Technocrat in the Electronic Product Design & Engineering Services.
This content was originally published here.
