Over the last decade, the Internet of Things has matured a lot and is continuing to grow at an incredible pace. More companies are investing in IoT systems to improve their operations, streamline their operations, and make their organization more transparent. For most IoT use cases, there are very well-defined approaches to make it a success and companies have a lot less trial and error to manage.
That said, IoT service providers and companies that offer IoT development services have a lot of improve their processes significantly and help businesses reduce the go-to-market time for IoT solutions.
Let’s have a look at how this can work.
Currently, the process of developing an IoT solution is complicated
To develop and launch an IoT device, you need solutions from multiple entities to work together.
For instance, imagine developing an IoT fleet management solution. You’ll need a company that can create the hardware component incorporating the different sensors and communication devices necessary for the use case. You’ll also need to work with a communications provider to connect this device to the internet and a cloud platform to collect and process the data coming from the device.
Once you have these elements, you’ll need to work with another company to develop the applications and dashboards that let the end users read and analyze the data and make changes as required.
Of course in many instances, a single company may handle two or more of these roles. Many IoT development companies have their own proprietary IoT platforms, and the talent, and expertise to develop the hardware and the applications.
There are benefits to the current distributed approach. Companies can focus on what they do best and reduce their overheads. And for the rest, they can pick a provider that works best for their use case. Why spend resources building a cloud platform when you can use a proven solution at a much lower cost? Why invest in building an app development team and risk long development time, unknown security risks, and long-term overheads, when you can work with a partner that specializes in app development?
To a large extent, this approach makes sense. But there’s room for improvement.
The process is time and resource intensive
As you can imagine, the process of working with two or more companies is resource intensive. More than that it takes more time and increases the time it takes for a company to build and launch a solution.
In most situations, these entities are not familiar with the intricacies of the solution that the others have to offer. For example, imagine your company has a hardware team and wants to launch an IoT product. You need an IoT cloud platform to support your device. Even if you have experienced team members who know how to integrate the hardware with IoT platforms, there will be bottlenecks in the integration process.
In the worst-but-not-the-most-uncommon scenario, companies may realize they need a different cloud platform to meet all of their needs.
As you can imagine, this will have an impact on the cost of building and maintaining the solution, and in the case of a consumer product, on the final price point.
This approach reduces the resources any of these parties may need to ensure the security of their solutions, but there’s an overall lack of transparency when you consider the entire solution. The company that takes the product to market may not have complete visibility into the security environment of all of these entities.
So how can these different pieces of a puzzle come together to reduce development cost and time and enhance security?
How can businesses streamline IoT development?
These different service providers in the IoT space — the companies developing hardware, connectivity providers, app development companies, and teams working on cloud platforms — have to work together more closely. These different pieces of the puzzle have to come together in the form of a robust ecosystem to accelerate the IoT development cost.
Currently, when one of these entities, needs to use another entity’s solution, they work in a client-service provider relationship. For instance, if a company has developed the hardware and the application, another firm may offer its cloud platform to support the platform. But what we are proposing is a tighter collaboration, where these entities work as partners — separate of course — working together to create a solution.
All the pieces of the puzzle partner up to build a robust IoT ecosystem.
This would mean everyone is aware of what the other can and can’t do. If a business approaches any of these companies for a solution, they know who they need to work with to bring the vision to reality.
There’s also a clear understanding of security practices. By creating a unified set of security principles, these companies can have more visibility into the security of their devices and mitigate compliance issues.
Ready to create a faster and more secure approach to IoT development? Contact Bridgera
Bridgera is inviting companies and service providers in the IoT space to partner with us to create a powerful ecosystem. With our cloud platform Bridgera IoT and our application enablement platform Bridgera Monitoring, we are uniquely positioned to bring together service providers and solution developers to build better solutions.
Ready to create the next IoT revolution? Contact us now.
