by Exosite, on February 7, 2017
In order to make the most of a connected product, you need to be able to differentiate that product from the crowd. To do that, there needs to be calculated measures taken when developing your IoT strategy. This week in the IoT framework series, we’ll be investigating how to come out on top of the pack, no matter what industry you’re focusing on.
What an organization must provide their customers (the IoT product or service) is a separate decision from the means by which the solution elements are developed and deployed (e.g., a detailed build/buy/partner analysis for each subcomponent of the system). Often these two decisions are conflated, leading to strategic resource planning mistakes that increase time-to-market, cost, and distraction from high-value activities that maximize competitive differentiation.
In many industries, IoT is altering partnership ecosystems, injecting ripples into the competitive landscape, changing customer expectations, and disrupting supply chain dynamics. Successful organizations evolve their competitive IoT strategy to:
Focus on the areas of historical strength. Organizations that get caught up in the IoT frenzy and start reinventing the wheel face steep learning curves in areas they are not differentiated in. Instead, leading organizations focus on product performance, algorithms, and analytics that are enhanced because of their historical knowledge and user experiences. All other areas of an IoT solution are strong candidates for organizations to purchase or partner on.
Develop user experiences that customers want. Although seemingly simple, in practice user-centered design is complex. Even with business-to-business sales, understanding the customer along with their pains and potential gains is critical to success.
Embrace the emerging digital ecosystem. Technology is changing more rapidly than any one company can keep up with on their own. Companies that look only to internal resources to develop IoT solutions are missing the strategic picture and wasting time. Leading organizations make intelligent build/buy/partnership decisions that enable and reinforce their focus on core IP, while relying on outside vendors to provide everything else. See our Solving the IoT Puzzle: Build or Buy white paper for more information on this topic.
Stay tuned next week for our final installment of the IoT Framework for Industrial OEMs blog series. To download the full white paper, click below. If you want to start on your organization’s connected-product development, sign up for a free trial of our enterprise IoT platform, Murano.
