Traditional company “silo mentality” can be a barrier to success in an Internet of Things world
Open, openness and interoperability are often used to describe a willingness of companies to allow their technology to play nicely with others.
However, to take advantage of the heralded benefits of the Internet of Things (IoT), winning players are moving beyond openness (the willingness to play) to interoperable (designed to collaborate) across brands, devices, services and platforms.
Device manufacturers, core technology and service providers are developing their offerings to be much more interoperable than ever before as connect- and control-friendly, perhaps even virtually shaking hands with known competitors.
Few companies, if any, will succeed in the emerging IoT ecosystem by pursuing closed models, in which they operate as self-contained silos with limited or no role for third parties in the solutions delivered to their customers. Many notable companies that were often cited as closed models are today leading examples of interoperability.
Why are companies now willing to design for interoperability? Customers demand choice, which means interoperability by design.
Interoperability between products and their underlying service make it easy for consumers to connect and control their devices—and, ultimately, their lives—and gives them far more options when choosing products to integrate with other solutions and services.
For service providers, offering customer’s interoperability requires a certain amount of fortitude, since companies will, in some measure, pass control of their device, or appliance, or service to somebody else to render some or all of the product experience, because that’s what customers demand.
The technology is already there to make it happen; it’s more a question of enablement at this point.
IFTTT.com (If This Then That) is one example of a consumer-facing company that hosts cross product and service integration, albeit with the participation of the respective brand (product, service, etc.). The service essentially enables the integration of “things” on the Internet, a set of what IFTTT calls channels, which are devices, services, or content.
A really simple example: If you have a connected thermostat, you can log on to IFTTT to determine if your thermostat manufacturer “plays” with IFTTT. If so, you can create an instruction message such as, if sunrise then set thermostat at 72 degrees.
That kind of simplicity increases utility and thus the ability to sell more products—and accelerate the adoption of the IoT.
The bottom line is that if a company integrates with IFTTT (or similar platforms), it can defer otherwise costly company-to-company integration initiatives and provide the types of IoT services customers are demanding.
The added benefit for service providers of using an intermediary is maintaining their individual relationship, and branding, directly with the customer. In an ecosystem where data security and privacy are critical, maintaining control of certain customer attributes only enhances the adoption of IoT products and services.
Other examples are Validic and Net Pulse, which are B2B integration platforms for health care and fitness wearables data. These platforms allow fast and simple cloud-to-cloud data sharing between companies when authorized by end users who have authorized the sharing.
Several questions to consider:
- How can retailers remain relevant by enabling their customers to take advantage of interoperability, particularly at significant scale?
- Does the emerging landscape allow retailers to develop an ongoing relationship with their customers without building their own IoT platform?
- Or, are there multiple paths for the retailer as products become conduits for building a new kind of customer relationship—more connected, more intimate, and more satisfying?
The connected world of the IoT makes new demands and raises new and important questions for companies. The traditional company silo can no longer stand alone, but is one of many nodes within a network of connected products, services, and content.