The digital horizon: A connected, adaptive, intelligent landscape for business’

As proud media partners of O’Reilly Solid 2014, we thought we’d fuel some discussion on an area of particular interest to us, before it all kicks off next month. The topic we decided to look at was how the Internet of Things will impact business processes in the future, as one of the more interesting and significant challenges facing modern business, we thought, what better place to start?

To provide some context: as we set out in to a new age of digital automation and intelligence, modern day business requires the adoption of smart, connected technologies in order to: optimise efficiency of their manufacturing processes, increase targeted sales or marketing campaigns, engage and manage their consumer base effectively, or distinguish themselves from competitive advances. But how can the Internet of Things unlock those advantages?

To gain an initial understanding, we will take a brief look at how the IoT could help revolutionise the manufacturing process.

As businesses need more accountability and traceability of their products and goods – with the same trend being reflected in the consumer market – gaining the ability to monitor step-by-step processes throughout manufacturing would enable a greater level of visibility for a business. This visibility may lead to new insights being unearthed:

• Inefficiencies in the manufacturing process

• Potential opportunities in reducing operational costs

• Enable consumers to track their goods from production to point of delivery

• Provide real-time analytics, etc.

There are potentially hundreds of opportunities that are waiting to be exploited in the manufacturing space. The adoption of these technologies doesn’t need to see an extensive overhaul of the already established manufacturing processes however, simply put the hardware needs only to be integrated with a developed intelligent software: this can be done in a variety of ways suitable to the organisation.

Therefore, key individuals in an organisation – the CIO for example – need to realistically start thinking about the opportunities that get unlocked when integrating intelligent software in to all formats of a business, not only the manufacturing machinery; consumer products, FMCG goods, professional services and so forth. There is a real opportunity for those willing to embrace the new technologies available to them.

With all this in mind, the Solid Conference 2014 (San Francisco 21/22 May), no doubt promises to see some interesting discussions surrounding the opportunities that are available to businesses right now. Niall Murphy (Founder & CEO EVRYTHNG) & Dom Guinard (Co-Founder & CTO EVRYTHNG & WoT) will be in attendance and more than happy to chat further – able to provide examples of how organisations have already taken advantage of these opportunities in real life contexts, and also offering suggestions on how others might be able to realise theirs…

They look forward to seeing you there!