Engaging on the journey of Mobile-Led Business Transformation

Currently, there are 13 Billion connected "Things" on the internet. Only 43% of current worldwide IOT revenue comes from manufacturing, transportation, smart cities and consumer applications. IOT has the potential to disrupt value chains, create new systems of systems in a connected world forcing companies to rethink and retool almost everything: business processes such as after sales service, marketing strategies, executive decision making, product design, customer engagement.

This transformation is likely to affect most industries in the next 5 years where it is expected that 40% of data will be processed at the edge as connected products will overtake more control, optimize and take autonomous decisions. Further development of wireless networks and ubiquitous network connectivity will accelerate the development of business relevant applications and new product categories such as wearables will act as an enabler for new business models and catalyst for new ecosystems. Consumer, Government and Enterprise Segments being equally affected, IT Departments will face the challenge of building new IOT ecosystems to roll out new IT services without jeopardizing data security and leveraging the potential of the generated data.

The new IOT ecosystems have the potential to produce disruptive businesses. In this context, the traditional car industry has good reason to fear the likes of Apple and Google for their ability to offer a superior customer experience in going from A to B in the ultimate mobile device (petrol heads: ignore this).

Independent from the industry you are in, in building your IOT business plan, it makes sense to start today. The following steps offer a good guideline:

• STEP 1 : embrace mobile, cloud and analytics into every step of your value chain

• STEP 2 : implement a bulletproof security concept around it

• STEP 3 : become a leader in building an industry wide IT ecosystem, exposing / connecting your business processes to existing and new partners

• STEP 4: disrupt your value chain, innovate

• STEP 5 : complete the transformation, organisational alignment, support processes,...

Ideally, starting with step 1 and 2 took place several years ago. If not, some facts to stress the sense of urgency, for starting to build your IOT business plan. First, by 2018, 60% of IT solutions will be open source, greatly reducing the entry barriers for verticalized solutions that compete with your business. Second, the millennials population, which will contribute 16% of the population in 2020, will have grown up in a connected world and will expect and rapidly adopt IOT based business models.

In 2020, a projected 30 Billion "things" will be responsible for a 1,7 Trillion USD market opportunity. It is time to start thinking how your business will be affected...

Data sources and conceptual guideline in part from from IDC 2015