“Internet of things is here next year.”

“Everything that can, will be connected.”

– Some phrases heard in Telia Digitalist IoT Forum yesterday.

The speakers of the forum told how all devices and most of the things will get chips and sensors that will be connected to internet. Then huge amounts of data will be collected in order to build different applications on the bases of the analytics on the data. The biggest question is how the data and the applications will turn into digital services that help people and the planet.

Mikko Hyppönen mentioned that marketers want to collect data about consumers but not always to build better products but instead of to try to sell more. It is though nowadays that data is the new oil.

Industries are showing the way

Fast 5G networks are rapidly build in Finland. For example Telia started a new 5G collaboration network and is looking partners that bring value for the 5G ecosystem.

Traffic like self driving cars and self operating harbours are examples of applications that the 5G networks and internet of things (IoT) are making possible. More examples can be found easily in health care and living environment. 

It is said that industries become fragmented because of the emerging business opportunities. Cooperation between different companies becomes very crucial in the new context.

Water as service

Kemira, a global chemicals company based in Finland, has started to build new services for their customers on the IoT thinking. As a matter of fact the IoT is not a new thing for them as they have been monitoring the waste water plants that they build for their customers for a long time. What is new, is the business model that the waste water treatment can be provided as a service instead of a product and that they can collect monthly fees for that.

Charlotta Nyström who is working on the digitalisation projects of Kemira, said that it is important to support customers’ business plans. And that is what they have done: optimizing process management and costs through automated reports and awareness of process conditions at all time.

As a result the customer waste water processes are more stable and more cost efficient. Kemira has locked in the customers and gets revenue from the new service. They have managed to build a real service platform for their clients.

I think IoT is a great opportunity for service designers to facilitate and create new services. The complexity of the IoT could be taggled for example by an IoT service game like the one that Futurice has developed: check out and download IoT Service Kit.