2021 promises to be another year of growing IoT opportunities for system integrators. With an ever-broadening range of affordable connectivity, device management and sensor options, the ability for system integrators to rapidly develop and deploy solutions that fit their customers’ needs is greater than ever. Here are the three key strategies that system integrators can do to capitalize on IoT market growth in 2021.
1. Develop prototypes and proof-of-concepts (POCs) that get your customers engaged right from the start.
According to a recent survey, up to 60% of IoT projects never make it beyond the POC stage. Lack of time, technical complexity and running out of budget are the key reasons why most IoT project ideas fail.
By developing field-ready POCs that customers can test drive, system integrators can engage customers support and feedback from key deployment constituencies at the onset of an IoT project. In the near-term, this puts you ahead of competition and in the long-term, this can help your team avoid costly “feature creep” that can kill a project before it even gets over the finish line.
2. Leverage ready-to-use solutions whenever possible.
Let’s face it – each customer feels like their situation is special. At the same time, most customers deploying an IoT project or network want two things:
To get their project deployed as quickly as possible.
To leverage as much of their existing machine network as part of the solution to avoid unnecessary rip and replace costs.
Leveraging ready-to-use sensors, device gateways and software, such as Machinechat’s JEDI One ready-to-use edge IoT data management software, can enable system integrators and developers to achieve several outcomes:
More quickly develop field-ready POCs and transition to field-ready deployments without having to reinvent the wheel.
Reduce technical resource complexity and cost by allowing developers to spend less time on building IoT solution layers and more time on the user experience and integration with enterprise requirements. By combining off-the-shelf or ready-to-use sensors with ready-to-use IoT software, developers and system integrators can spend less time and resources on developing custom middle layer software – and more time on enhancing the user experience and integrating the IoT project with a customer’s enterprise business applications and goals.
Allows customers to adapt and add legacy investments to their IoT strategy.
3. Focus on simplifying your customers’ experience and path to expansion.
IoT is an industry that is ripe for innovative ideas – but system integrators and developers need to be careful not to confuse the concept of innovation with customer success.
For an IoT solution to be successful and desirable to a customer, it must be:
Simple to implement, maintain, control and expand;
Cost-effective and timely in delivering a quick path to ROI; and
Easy to use, deploy and incorporate into their existing enterprise infrastructure.
The bottom line? IoT remains a market with an abundance of opportunities (and growth) for system integrators who can move quickly to deliver field-ready solutions that are aligned with not just your customer's technical needs - but that can be easily adapted to their near and long-term business needs.
Want to learn more about how your team can develop and deploy IoT projects faster with ready-to-use IoT software? Stay up to date with Machinechat by signing up for our newsletter or check out our other blogs.