Kathy Gibson reports from AfricaCom in Cape Town – The next wave of connectivity – where devices are connected into an intelligent network – offers huge value potential, but much of this potential is being left on the table.
Cisco’s Ian Kennedy, points out that, currently, only about 1% of the devices that could be connected are currently connected to a network.
“There is massive opportunity in the Internet of Everything,” Kennedy says.
A Cisco study on the value at stake in the new environment finds that the value is about $19-trillion, broken into $14,4-trillion in the private sector and $4,6-trillion in the public sector.
For the ICT and telecommunications sector, the value at stake in 2013 was $118,3-billion, with about 65,4% of the value having been realised – a higher percentage of realised value than in general industry.
“This is because ICT’s appetite for technology, and its ability to support connectivity puts it in a better place to realise the value,” Kennedy says.
Of course, ICT is an important enabler for other industries as they move to realise the value of connected devices.
In the Internet of Everything, Kennedy adds, it’s not simply a matter of connecting “things”, but there is a need to connect people, processes, data and things.
“When these connections combine we are solving higher order business problems,” he says.
The value at stake in the machine to machine (M2M) environment is $7,4-trillion, with much of this being realised today.
Machine to person (M2P) connections could generate $4,6-trillion; while person to person connections or collaboration could generate $7-trillion of value.
“The highest value Internet of Everything is where people, processes and things thins can all be connected,” Kennedy says.
Achieving the Internet of Everything is not simply about broadband delivery, Kennedy stresses. It’s about the value on top of the connection.
“There is a whole raft of opportunity in each of those domains about different solutions being delivered in different ways, via different devices. Each of them is about creating value – and capturing that value will determine success or failure.”
Leveraging the Internet of Everything demands a new technology delivery model, Kennedy says.
“Businesses need to be hyper-aware, predictive and agile. This means the infrastructure needs to be automated, run as a service, be application-centric and offer security.
“In addition, there are two key success criteria to creating value from the Internet of Everything,” he adds.
“They relate to people and process – the technology should be relatively easy to achieve, and the innovative application of technology is required to improve the people and processes elements.
“Plus, superior management capabilities are required. It takes insight to envisage how you can improve operations.”
There are a number of challenges facing organisations hoping to enter the Internet of Everything market, Kennedy adds, headed up by their investment in new technologies, their integration with legacy IT; and updating processes to take advantage of the technology infrastructure.