How to create a data strategy for IoT
When it comes to IoT, the potential for our lives, businesses and industries to completely transform and improve has never been greater. From fully connected homes, hospitals and cities that collect and share data, the influence of IoT is endless.
Research predicted that by 2020, there would be 20 billion connected IoT devices. Now, figures state that by 2025 there will be over 41 billion devices connected, according to International Data Corporation 2019. What this means is that the amount of data being collected — and potentially the high volume of low value data collected — is becoming truly overwhelming.
Though 5G and edge computing will make it possible to transmit data through high powered, low latency networks, these technologies are in their infancy with few use cases. Network infrastructure challenges mean that 5G is still some way off and if we are going to be doubling the amount of connected IoT devices, 5G will struggle to deliver unless organizations can quickly begin to understand the value that is locked within the data being transferred.
The question then becomes this: Why does all IoT data need to be sent back to data centers? If organizations want to become truly data driven and be able to have IoT data move their business forward, they must begin by having a concise business strategy in place, teamed with supporting technology.
Define the challenge the business is trying to solve. Just because an organization has connected devices, it doesn’t mean that they’ll necessarily get value from them; value lies within the data. There will be those in the company saying ‘we need IoT’, but organizations must consider what questions the data from IoT devices need to answer to help the business grow, improve processes and enhance the customer experience. Organizations must also ask themselves what insight does the business want to have from monitoring each device, and what does the outcome of the investment need to be?
Less is more. With so much data at their fingertips, organizations must start moving away from the idea of having every device connected and the ‘let’s store everything just in case’ mindset when it comes to their data.
