Stuck in IoT Proof of Concept (POC) Mode


Stuck in POC mode!

Anyone that has been involved with IoT for some time knows that most IoT projects start as a Proof of Concept that in the great majority of cases never evolves to full-fledged business implementations. It is called ‘Stuck in POC’ mode, an all too common ailment in the IoT industry. What are some of the reasons for this? Let us look at a few.

Exploratory  Projects: Projects like these are often started with the best intentions – let us put together a small team to explore IoT and what it can do for our business. The problem is that these projects are seldom staffed with the complete IoT stack expertise (Thing – Connectivity – IoT Cloud – Apps) and are underfunded from a lab and equipment perspective, leaving some engineers with limited resources to try to bring up a proof of concept that has no resemblance to a complete IoT solution.

Proper Budgeting and Staffing: When a new product or system development project is started, proper budgeting is key. If started as a new strategic program focused on IoT, multi-year multi-million budgets must be approved and in place. No one would launch a relatively complex product and system startup with $300k in funding. IoT is no different and the only way to get beyond POC is proper funding and staffing.

Organizational Alignment: Unless broken out as new strategic business initiatives, IoT must be aligned with current business organizations whether Lines of Business or Strategic Business Units and be part of regular business planning cycles. Only then will a business be forced to make all the decisions and resource allocation in line with bringing up a new initiative and taking it through development, manufacturing, organization support, marketing and sales all the way out to successful product launches and sales growth.

IoT is a Life Cycle Business? For nearly all companies, IoT means building a new type of business, one that is an ongoing operation from product design to deployment all the way to the end of the life cycle of the product. For consumer products this can mean years after the product sale, for industrial products it can be decades. The most telling example is that a company suddenly finds itself managing the connectivity and data flow to and from thousands or millions of products. The upside of this is the tremendous amount of valuable information and insight that is derived from the use of products and all the applications they serve.

Stuck in POC mode results from starting IoT efforts without a clear long-term strategy for IoT that is aligned in Strategic and Business plans and supported by proper budgeting and staffing. Properly planned and executed, no IoT project should be in the POC mode for more than a couple of weeks on the road map to a pilot project.

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