Transforming to an IoT Business

The majority of people are familiar with the Internet of Things (IoT), which was first coined in 1985 and was born according to Cisco Systems in 2008 when more things were connected to the internet than people. In practical terms, IoT is defined as physical objects that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the internet. Now, IoT is ubiquitous, especially in the consumer market, where home automation/monitoring is now quite common. As of 2020, there were over 12 billion connected devices with a forecast of more than 30.9 billion IoT devices worldwide by 2025 (source: Business Insider, IoT Analytics, Gartner, Intel, Statista). There were 5.8 billion connected automotive and enterprise IoT devices by the end of 2020, and it is expected that more than 15 billion enterprise IoT devices will be connected by 2029 (source: Gartner), which is why enterprise IoT is the focus of this book. While over 98% of business leaders have an understanding of IoT, statistics show that many are unclear of the exact definition of the term (source: Fierce Electronics), which undermines the full potential of enterprise IoT solutions and is the reason we decided to write this book. The enterprise market is where IoT is making the biggest impact in terms of digital transformation, with operational cost savings and new business models. By the end of this chapter, you will have a good understanding of the underlying IoT solution technologies and markets, as well as how IoT solutions can be used to transform a business with operational cost savings, improved efficiencies, and new business models.

In this chapter, we will cover the following main topics:

• Understanding IoT technologies
• Leveraging IoT for digital transformation
• Discovering the top IoT markets