How to find the right IoT Partner

According to MachNation – an IoT industry research firm – worldwide IoT application enablement and device management revenue will be USD1.1 billion in 2016 and will grow to USD83.4 billion by 2025 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 62% over the period. Companies big or small, public or private want to effectively implement Internet of Things solutions. Nowadays, companies are shifting to IoT, to gather data, analyse and make better business decisions. The adoption of IoT has become a necessity rather than an option in today’s technologically advanced world.

Companies planning to adopt IoT solutions believe that the success of IoT implementation/adoption depends on the IoT application and devices, but the fact is that the success and growth of the IoT implementation depend on choosing the right IoT solution provider. There are a lot of IoT solution providers in the market and choosing the right one is a cumbersome process. Here are 5 things to consider while choosing your IoT provider.

1. Determine your business requirements: Just like any other IT project implementation, the first step is to identify the business problems that you want to solve and the ROI you want to achieve. To identify the problems, you can use tools such as DMI Active (DMI’s methodology based on Design Thinking, Lean UX and Human-Centric Design).

   Once you have identified the problems, it’s important to go deep and explore more about the problem before jumping on to the solution. To pick the right solution for your organization, prioritize the solutions based on the complexity of their implementation, the cost involved, and the ROI expected.

2. Scalability of the IoT Platform: While choosing the IoT partner/platform, a business should not only keep their current need in mind but should also consider future needs that might emerge. With rapid growth and changes in the IoT technology, the solutions need to be augmented for future needs and the provider should be able to provide scalability in software-application, security, data, cloud, reliability, user-experience, latency, and support levels as and when required.
3. End-to-end IoT Solution provider: Deploying IoT solutions is more than just technology & connectivity. There are a lot of puzzle pieces that are required to be put together for a smoother IoT deployment. Hardware, software, applications, connectivity, integrations, billing, security, data storage and support are some of the important IoT deployment components. Usually, companies procure these individually or develop them internally before deploying a solution leading to unexpected delay and cost.Many organizations are now shifting to “end-to-end IoT solution providers”. IoT providers are now giving end-to-end IoT solution ranging from hardware to software to applications to support. The one-stop IoT solution providers remove the complexity of the deployment, reduced go-to-market time, and is cost-effective.
4. Security: Without any second thoughts, security is one of the primary concerns for every organization looking forward to deploying IoT solutions. The IoT solution provider should be able to address the security of the data collected by the IoT solution which may include business & customer data.IoT solution provider must be able to incorporate the following level of securities:
   • Network connectivity
   • Data encryption
   • Device security
   • Device-to-cloud network security
   • User app-to-wireless network security
   • Cloud security and more
5. Flexibility: Before starting to deploy the IoT solution it is important for an organization to understand how the IoT solution will be integrated with their present legacy architecture. You must conduct a deep analysis of the present legacy architecture to understand which elements if the infrastructure is vital and which can be eliminated. The efficiency of the IoT deployment is judged by how well the latest technology can be integrated with the existing architecture/solutions/software/systems.

   MosChip is an end-to-end IoT solution provider with 12+ years of experience in M2M/IoT solutions. We provide IoT solutions like smart metering, smart lighting, home automation, diesel generator monitoring, fleet management and many more. If you are interested in learning more about how you can benefit from our IoT solutions or want to discuss any customized solution, send us an email at [email protected] and we’ll get back to you.