STRATEGIES FOR

IMPLEMENTATION
HTTPS://STRATEGYOFTHINGS.IO/PLANNING-IOT-PILOT-PROJECTS
Companies embarking on business transformation are likely asking the following
questions:
 Why should we invest in IoT? What are the opportunities for our business?
 What should we build? Do we have the right capabilities?
 How should we go to market? What steps can we take to validate a go-to-market plan?
• Successfully bringing IoT products and services to market requires a broad set of capabilities that most
organizations don’t have. Success means navigating a rapidly evolving technology space while changing the
way your business operates and goes to market.
• Hence, IoT Strategy and Advisory Services must address the full range of needs,
providing idea-to-market services that bring tangible business products and services to your customers, and
that have demonstrable value.
• NOTE: The go-to-market (GTM) plan is a subset of the marketing plan and addresses how to execute on a
specific growth strategy. Every company, regardless of size, should have a marketing plan. A go-to-market
plan is only needed if you are looking to expand into new markets, sell new products (services), or do both.
CX-customer experience
 PLANNING IOT PILOT PROJECTS: EXECUTION
OPTIONS
HTTPS://STRATEGYOFTHINGS.IO/PLANNING-IOT-PILOT-PROJECTS

• One of the challenges of getting started is that the IoT technology and the use cases are
still evolving. In this environment, it is advisable to start small with pilot IoT
use case projects, experiment, build prototypes and expand as you develop IoT
expertise.
 OPTIONS TO PILOT IOT USE CASES

There are five approaches to start pilot IoT use case projects. Your specific situation will determine
which of these are applicable to you. These options are:
• Internal Part-Time Project Team
• Internal Dedicated Project Team
• Internal IoT Lab
• Vendor IoT Lab
• Independent IoT Lab
These options assume that you have already identified a list of IoT use cases, and have budget to
build a prototype as a pilot project.
 INTERNAL PART-TIME PROJECT TEAM

• This model consists of a small pool of internal part time resources that are assigned to the pilot project.
External consultants may be included to supplement the team capabilities as required.
• This strategy is ideal for organizations that do not have time constraints and/or do not have funding to
support full time resources. Managers use this approach to get data to justify a larger and more ambitious
IoT use case effort. The part time resources typically spend 10 to 20 percent of their time per week on the
IoT pilot project.
• The disadvantages of this strategy include a longer time to complete the pilot project. Without a firm
schedule, these projects tend to get pushed out. In addition, internal teams, at this early stage of the IoT
market, lack IoT expertise and access to the right tools and infrastructure to successfully build and test
pilot projects. Some of this is mitigated by providing focused innovation and IoT training or leveraging
external consultants as subject matter experts (SME) to guide the project team.
 INTERNAL DEDICATED PROJECT TEAM

• This approach consists of a small pool of internal resources who are dedicated full time to the IoT
use case pilot project. External consultants may be included to supplement the team as required.
• This model is ideal for those organizations with specific use case applications, committed project
timelines, and appropriate sponsorship and budget for dedicated full time internal resources. The
main difference between this model and the part time model is the higher level of management
commitment. This model you have a higher level of internal expertise, supporting data from
earlier pilots, or a very specific use case that needs to be addressed.
• The success of this strategy depends on the expertise of the internal resources assigned to the
project. Similar to the part time resources model, this team would need their own set of tools and
infrastructure to successfully build out and test out the use cases. External consultants and SMEs
may be required to supplement the team’s expertise.
 INTERNAL IOT LAB

• This model consists of a dedicated team of resources and infrastructure set up

specifically to focus and pursue IoT projects on a wider scale. This team supports one
or two large projects or multiple smaller projects. This approach is ideal for
organizations with an established corporate innovation lab, and those committed to
building long term IoT capabilities to exploit future opportunities. The knowledge
gained is shared across various teams across the organization. This model
requires executive sponsorship and a more generous budget allocated to the IoT Lab
structure.
 VENDOR IOT LAB

• This model involves partnering with an IoT platform vendor (e.g. Microsoft, IBM, GE, etc.)
who has a lab to help your organization build out use cases. This model includes having a
hybrid model of either part time or full time dedicated resources working very closely with
the IoT vendor resources. The vendor IoT lab provides most of the infrastructure and
processes. You access the lab remotely or physically through the vendor facility. Your
specific access method will differ depending on the level of engagement and the stage of the
use case build out process.
• This model assumes that the vendor provides a significant portion of the expertise and
resources. One major disadvantage with this model is that you are locked in to the vendor’s
solution ecosystem suite with limited to no options to test alternative products that may be a
better fit. It is also likely that you may have to use their preferred resources and/or
integration partners for downstream implementation efforts.
 INDEPENDENT IOT LAB

• This model involves partnering with an independent IoT Lab vendor who is not a
solutions vendor. This approach provides the advantages of the vendor IoT lab model
with the flexibility to work with multiple vendor solutions that best fit your needs. The
Independent IoT Lab vendor offers multiple solution models for you to choose from.
They have a SME network with both breadth and depth to cover a variety of use cases.
This is ideal for those organizations with very industry or solution specific use cases
that the vendor labs may not have the capabilities for. This model assumes that the lab
provides a significant portion of the resources, expertise and the infrastructure.
 WHICH OPTION IS RIGHT FOR ME?

Depending on your specific situation, some or all of these approaches are available to you. How
do you narrow down which options are right for you? Start with the following six criteria to
help you assess and evaluate your options:
• Cost to Pilot IoT Use Cases
• Availability of Dedicated Resources
• Access to IoT Expertise/SME Network
• Access to IoT Infrastructure/Tools
• Flexibility to Assess Multiple Vendors
• Speed and Agility to Pilot Use Cases
 PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS TO GUIDE
YOUR DECISION
• The six criteria shown above is a general list. Consider adding in additional criteria,
such as culture, strategic goals, internal capabilities and your past experiences to this
list. This will allow you to create a set of criteria that is specific to you.
 SPEED, EXPERTISE AND RISK

• If your goal is slow incremental research that moves the needle steadily then your best
option is to use the “Internal Part-time Project Team” model or the “Internal Dedicated
Project Team” model. The “part time” model is ideal if you want to build out your use
case in a lower risk environment, or want to do something with minimal resources.
The “dedicated” model is ideal if you have a firm idea of the IoT use case and a
specific problem to solve. The internal project team approach is a good fit if you or
your team have some expertise in innovation management and IoT.
• The lab model (internal lab or external), is ideal if you don’t have the expertise, or
want to innovate faster. It is less risky in that the lab provides the processes,
infrastructure and expertise. However, this approach requires a larger commitment and
more budget.
• Within the lab model approach, consider setting up an internal IoT Lab only if your
organization has the expertise, capabilities and past success in operating an innovation
lab. Ideally, the IoT Lab is established within the corporate innovation or digital
transformation center (if one currently exists). If your organization has not set up a lab
before, then you should select the “Vendor IoT Lab” model or the “Independent IoT
Lab” model. Both these lab models provide the ability to ramp up your IoT efforts
quickly without having to invest substantially in IoT infrastructure or resources.
 FLEXIBILITY AND OPTIONS

• If you are already aligned with one of the major vendors with IoT solutions, it is easier for
you to leverage their lab for your pilot projects. However, you are tied to their product suite
and may miss out on solutions that may fit your needs better. With the lack of standardization
and the continuing fragmentation of the IoT vendor market,  it’s a good idea to keep your
options open. One advantage with the “Independent IoT Lab” model is that you don’t need to
be tied to any one vendor and you can negotiate your desire to assess multiple vendors in
advance. The “Independent IoT Lab” model  gives you the opportunity to test multiple
solution approaches using multiple vendors to solve the same use case. This provides you
with the ability to compare and contrast performance of the overall solution prototypes.
 FORMULATING A 6 STEP STRATEGY FOR IOT
IMPLEMENTATION IN THE ORGANISATION
HTTPS://WWW.ANALYTICSINSIGHT.NET/FORMULATING-6-STEP-STRATEGY-IOT-IMPLEMENTATION-ORGANISATION/

• The Internet of Things, or IoT for short, is changing the landscape how companies do business, interact with
their customers and offering new opportunities to drive internal efficiencies to drive businesses across
geographies.
• Internet of Things (IoT) technologies have seen an evolution and this continues to change as more devices are
connected with the internet offering heightened decision making which is often mediated by machines. The easy
accessibility to technology, combined with a fall in the prices of communications technologies and sensors, and
the increased adoption of how these technologies can be applied to verticals is driving a seamless IoT adoption.
• Organisations are increasingly adopting to novice IoT application development by leveraging building blocks,
and fostering strategic partners focused on the space. Here is a six-pointer IoT strategy for the modern
enterprise-
  IOT STRATEGY BLUEPRINT IN 6 STEPS 

 Step1: Understand Use cases of Early adoption

• For an enterprise to begin with IoT, it needs to understand how does this technology
work and what difference it will make to the enterprise when implemented. The best way
is to study, brainstorm use cases from other verticals to comprehend the early signs of the
transformative impact of an IoT pilot. Unlike technology trends encompassing network
and telecom connectivity, IoT use cases and strategies can vary across the industry.
While zeroing upon identifying applications to access sensor data, it is critical to
understand the enterprise goals and what the enterprise is trying to accomplish before
taking the IoT plunge.
Step2: Identify applications to access Sensor Data
• The second step is to formulate an IoT capability, by understanding that the prospective IoT
capability will consume data from sensors and the current sensors under testing with may no
longer be available when the IoT application goes live. Hence, it is a good practice to ensure
that an enterprise IoT application accesses its sensor data through a secure IoT platform.
• A recommended layer of abstraction improves the sustainability of the IoT applications by
paving way for flexibility to incorporate pluggable configuration of new sensors. It also helps to
keep up with the innovations in sensor technology by allowing to transform and configure data
from new sensors to be compatible with the existing application without changing the code.
Step3: Have a strategy to keep your data private
• IoT involves massive data, which is the same across large enterprises to start-ups. To
increase the potential value from IoT activities means it needs to access more sensor
data. Many publicly hosted IoT platforms provide data access, storage and analytics
that support IoT applications, but they need to be double-checked with 
data privacy, security standards and policies.
Step4: Riding the Cause of Digital Twins
• IoT technology relies on collaborations from support vendors, hosted IoT platforms
and so on.  This causes a need to enable virtualization at any level of the systems
architecture. This virtualization of IoT capabilities is commonly referred to as creating
a “digital twin” of an enterprise’s IoT environment, this can be a full environment
replication or a creating a twin of specific components in the environment these may
include sensors, applications, etc.to be used for testing or development activities in
parallel to the live production environment.
Step5: Predictive Maintenance of Sensor Health
• Innovation in network connectivity and IoT sensor capability can be increased through
the sensor ability to consume data from a variety of sources.
• Over time, it is understood fact that these sensors require maintenance and repairs. It is
thus critical to building a predictive maintenance strategy in place to report any faults
before they occur, this will save massive downtimes due to low battery, failed data
transmission, sensor destruction, etc.
Step6: Identify Collaboration Opportunities
• IoT is one of today’s most promising technologies, but it is still at a nascent stage. For
an IoT strategy to be full-proof, it is thus vital to create conditions for value creation.
Strategic partnerships and technical collaborations, with smaller or mid-size players
having a proven history of expertise, will provide a solid source of competitive
advantage to start with. That will help enterprises to accelerate their IoT
implementation and better position themselves to become IoT leaders.