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W
hile the demand for IoT
is certainly growing, most
providers are still far too focused
on the technology and not communicating
the business value proposition to their
clients, says Peter Shaw, Engingeer at
Footprint Africa Business Solutions. This
means that they are not translating IoT
solutions into tangible business value
for their clients and that is slowing down
adoption rates in South Africa.
“Many people, when they speak about IoT,
use the example of the fridge that is going
to order the product that you are about to
run out of automatically and it will just get
delivered to your door,” said Shaw.
“That is probably the worst example of IoT
making a real difference in lives. That is not
only what IoT is about.
the client’s requirements, the data they are
looking to harvest, how it will improve their
business and only then look at the technical
requirements,” said Shaw.
“When you think about IoT, you first need to
decide whether it is something real that you
would like to get information from, whether
the information gathered would be of value
and whether that information could make a
difference to the business or to an individual.
Only then is it a true IoT solution.” “For example, in the maintenance industry,
you can gather information from the field
and then optimise your maintenance and
equipment lifecycle to do preventative
maintenance whe n required.
Shaw believes the real value of IoT lies in
being able to solve real problems. “It is also possible to identify equipment that
is about to reach the end of its lifecycle so
that it can be replaced with minimum to no
service disruption.”
“IoT is practical,” he said. “You want to
know how much water is in your soil which
provides an indication as to whether
additional water is required by your crops.
You want to see how many people come
in through your mall and how best you can
accommodate them.
“Take any industry, like manufacturing
or mining and you want to know when a
machine is starting to fail. You want to be able
to put preventative maintenance measures in
place to ensure that you limit downtime and
your business continues running. It eliminates
‘what ifs’ and allows you to spend money on
maintenance when it is required and before a
breakdown occurs.”
Shaw says that if organisations want to
harness the value of IoT, they need to know
what they are looking for.
“For organisations anywhere to adopt IoT
effectively, IoT providers must ensure that
they have a thorough understanding of
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Peter Shaw says the Internet of Things can
transform business and create innovative
new revenue streams
The true value in IoT lies in understanding
the client first and then identifying the
most suitable technology solution to meet
that need.
“Take a bee farmer, for example,” added
Shaw. “If they do not understand the
dynamics of their hives at any given moment
in time, they are unable to manage their
honey producing bee population effectively.”
When a new queen is introduced or born into
a hive, it results in the hive splitting, which
means that the hive loses potential honey
producing worker bees.
“By using IoT to monitor the environment
within the different hives, the bee keeper
would be able to predict when the
environment within the beehive changes,
allowing the bee keeper to intervene by
moving one of the queens and some
of the honey producing bees to a new
hive, creating another honey producing
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