Nivid’s new IoT-as-a-Service innovation enables faster and more cost-effective IoT implementations at scale.
N-Smart, an IoT-as-a-Service platform from Nivid Technologies, resolves various lifecycle challenges of IoT use cases. The fully managed solution helps enterprises to implement, enrich, and manage their Internet of Things (IoT) implementations without requiring extensive in-house expertise. N-Smart aims to lower the barrier of entry to deploying IoT solutions in the enterprise and thereby accelerate IoT adoption.
Top challenges for IoT adoption
Despite the promising benefits of IoT, adoption has been slower than expected. Enterprise IoT use cases involve many technical and business challenges. According to an estimate from Gartner, 75% of IoT projects take up to twice as long to implement as initially planned[1]. In addition to an extended implementation time horizon, many other challenges prevent enterprises from going across the adoption threshold.
IoT converges several technologies that connect sensor-enabled devices across networks and integrate sensor data with the cloud for processing, analytics, and insights. Complexity increases as the IoT solutions use multiple layers of technology sources requiring different strategies and skill-sets for integration, operations, and maintenance.
The converged technology stack of IoT solutions involves several standards, protocols, device types, and networks. Each layer of the stack has associated security implications and must comply with privacy laws and industry-specific regulations. The lack of in-house talent to deal with the numerous protocols, standards, and security as well as interoperability requirements across different devices, networks, and platforms have constrained the potential growth of IoT.
In addition, every IoT solution has to factor-in an ecosystem of vendors offering point solutions and technologies at various layers of the IoT stack. Handling multiple vendors is not easy and different vendor-sourced technologies further add to interoperability headaches during deployment and lifecycle sustenance.
Most IoT use cases involve significant upfront investment both in terms of Capex and talent acquisition. Time to market typically extends to two or more years. At the outset, business leaders often lack clarity on how the IoT solution would augment and add value to the bottom-line. Significant capital investments with unclear return on investment make enterprises hesitate before they adopt IoT.
IoT-as-a-Service — a Gamechanger
Major players like IBM, Microsoft, PTC, Cisco, and others offer IoT platforms as a service (PaaS). Six hundred and twenty publicly known IoT platforms were recorded as of the end of 2019, more than twice as many as in 2015[2]. The growing number of PaaS solutions usually focus on specific layers of the IoT stack, such as analytics, device onboarding, monitoring, etc.
Most PaaS solutions work only with new devices and do not support retrofitted existing devices. Limitation in legacy support is one of the top reasons for lower than expected IoT adoption rate as industrial use cases are predominantly brownfield. Thus, IoT platforms are helpful but not enough to alleviate the challenges for IoT adoption.
IoT-as-a-Service (IoTaaS) changes it all. IoTaaS spans across the entire lifecycle of an end-to-end IoT solution covering deployment, integration, operations, and management. As a full-stack OpEx modeled service offering, IoTaaS addresses the IoT adoption barriers.
IoTaaS that supports existing assets minimizes upfront CapEx. Moreover, now enterprises no longer require in-house niche expertise to operate and manage different devices, networks, and interoperability issues. IoTaaS offerings are more accessible and less expensive with better cost-to-value comparison and as such, they lower the barrier of entry to deploying IoT. A single vendor IoTaaS is far more practical to manage security, compliance, and privacy aspects of the end-to-end solution.
As the IoT market evolves, service providers with system integration expertise across the stack are more likely to emerge as preferred IoTaaS providers. Their inherent competency to integrate technologies sourced from multiple vendors into a single as-a-Service solution offers new vantage.
To learn more about Nivid’s IoT-as-a-Service offering, contact our team of experts.
[1] https://www.raconteur.net/technology/iot-business-2018/iot-challenges
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1101483/global-number-iot-platform/