Why and how the next, rapidly developing, stage in the evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT) is all about IoT data brokerage, exchanges and monetization services.
Data isn’t just a business asset which is key in today’s economy as we reminded once more in a previous post on the importance of industrial data in an Industry 4.0 context.
Data and patterns, analytics and insights also have monetary value as such. And we’re not just talking about customer data or the monetary value of data in the sense of the work that Gartner’s Doug Laney has been doing with regards to infonomics when the idea of data as a business asset really became seriously studied.
In an age of ever more unstructured data and all the tools and platforms to analyze and combine them, data monetization platforms have been growing beyond the traditional scopes of marketing and advertising. Especially in the Internet of Things sphere we see an increasing usage of data brokerage and data monetization platforms.
IoT data exchanges in motion: evolutions and examples
With such exchanges and platforms we don’t necessarily mean the data-driven collaborative innovation initiatives that pop up when several organizations, often with different backgrounds, start leveraging data to offer new services, generate new value streams and even change their business models, in other words the more mature steps in digital transformation.
We literally mean data, data analytics and IoT data service exchanges and monetization platforms, including those offered by, for instance, telecommunication firms that sell anonymized data and insights which can’t be traced back to individuals, are fully in line with personal data regulations such as the GDPR and offer patterns, (real-time) insights and/or knowledge that serves any given organization which can use them.
Yet, when it boils down to the monetization opportunities of IoT data, there is more happening in the field of IoT data monetization, IoT data services monetization, IoT data brokerage and so on.
An example is the July 2017 announcement of Samsung’s ARTIK Cloud Monetization service IoT platform which we covered. As the name indicates it’s about monetization, in this case of IoT data from IoT hardware manufacturers and service providers on the path towards Hardware-as-a-Service and IoT data ecosystems.
This obviously isn’t the only example nor the only ‘user/target group’ ( in this case predominantly device manufacturers). Gemalto, known as a leader in ‘overall’ digital security, IoT security and its ‘out-of-the-box’ IoT connectivity also offers data and solutions IoT monetization with its IoT cloud, for OEMs and cloud computing service providers.
Unlocking the treasure trove of IoT data as we move to 55 billion connected devices by 2022
Gemalto is just one other example of IoT monetization and IoT data brokerage players and mentioned in an August 2017 announcement from ABI Research. Other examples include Ericsson and Bosch who take key steps in the transformation of the IoT landscape by IoT data exchange services as ABI puts it.
Obviously it’s not just about data as such but also about services, data analytics and specific types of data, for instance data which are related with customers or machine data.
According to ABI Research, which released an IoT Data Exchange Services report, many organizations see the rapid shift towards data exchanges but lack a strategy. It’s as Frost & Sullivan’s Dilip Sarangan said at the occasion of the launch of Samsung’s ARTIK Cloud Monetization service: “The problem with IoT is that many hardware companies are selling products without a clear view on sustainable business models. There’s a lot of pressure now to monetize data”.
The evolutions in the exchange and sharing of data services in IoT is the future of IoT, ABI Research states. Moreover, data sharing matters more than data ownership in this reality where analytics are key.
Yet it is all happening very very fast. With an installed base of 27 billion connected devices in 2017 and an expected 55 billion by 2022, according to the ABI Research release, it’s time to formulate that strategy and/or get moving as a potential driver of this transformation seems to be now as the market is ready and asking for it.
Quoting from the ABI announcement: “Even leading vendors across multiple sectors are aware that they are sitting on a treasure trove of customer and machine data but are unable to monetize it to its full potential”.
The last word is for Dimitrios Pavlakis of ABI Research: “IoT data sharing, exchanging, and even selling initiatives will not be just additional aspects of the IoT environment. These services are actually the next evolutionary step”.
Top image: Shutterstock – Copyright: Maksim Kabakou – All other images are the property of their respective mentioned owners.
