IoT Business (R)Evolution

Sep 4, 2014Opportunities

Let there be Internet, and there were great business opportunities. Since the mid-90s, the Internet reached everybody’s lives in nearly every aspect. Communication became instantaneous; transactions, encrypted; and businesses, online. When companies turned their traditional patterns into Internet-based models, we witnessed the coming of a revolution, the eBusiness revolution. And as it had already happened during the industrial revolution —a revolution radically changing factories—, the change of this particular circumstance did also affect people’s daily life, especially businessmen’s. But evolution is not to be stopped, and the Internet has got to a point where it no longer needs humans to be constantly uploading data on it, it can independently hold a dialogue with daily objects. That is what we call the Internet of Things. And this perspective is making us face a new business revolution (in which FIWARE takes an active part). What lessons can we draw from these previous breakthroughs? What can we then expect from this one?

  1. Reducing efforts: Both the industrial and the eBusiness revolution shared one characteristic, technology can make our lives (and our work) easier. Reducing human efforts allowed people to focus on new ways of development.
  2. A matter of speed: It is undeniable, machines work faster. During the eighteenth/nineteenth centuries, and the mid-90s, this fact made companies more efficient, and therefore, expanded their market possibilities, as they could produce more in less time.
  3. Costcutting measures: The development of new technologies allowed companies to reduce costs on production and manpower, by automating processes. This reduction, combined with the two previous features, made companies more competitive.
  4. Complementary phenomena: The development of industries fostered the development of other complementary phenomena, as it did happen in the nineteenth century with the advancement of the workers’ rights. During the mid-90s, the eBusiness revolution allowed everyone to have access to some goods and services that had been unreachable until then. May the IoT revolution allow a really transparent traffic of data?
  5. Unprecedented possibilities: And the main similarity is that each and every one of these previous revolutions opened the door to unprecedented possibilities and unpredictable new worlds of industrial and business perspectives.

But, considering the facts we have already mentioned, can we really talk about a revolution? Or should we say just evolution? In medio, virtus. We cannot say that the IoT business revolution is a revolution as such, as it does not break with the past radically; but its more-than-innovative nature, just glimpsed still, is to be a turning point in business development and data processing. Evolution or revolution, actually it does not matter. Future in any case.

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