With the advent of possibilities enabled by IoT technologies, service providers are facing increasing pressure to offer their customers new services which in most cases fall outside their core competency. This post is a part of an upcoming series in which Essence experts will shed light on the different smart home cloud-based services available for service providers who are looking to leverage their IoT network.
It is well documented that companies are facing increasing pressure on their IT infrastructure. With a multitude of internal services required to operate the business, manage internal processes and keep track of customers. Issues such as scalability and cyber protection are foremost in the minds of IT managers.
For service providers, these issues are magnified when offering cloud based managed services to a growing number of customers. The issue of scalability has proven to be a roadblock when taking into account the need for the infrastructure put into place when the customer base is low and projected growth unclear, to support massive growth in the customer base. Scalability also goes both ways. Because of the enormous investment required to host, monitor and support all of the required data and processes, when usage is low, such as in off-peak hours and, in some cases, on weekends companies find themselves in the position of hosting expensive infrastructure that is not being utilized.
In recent years, with the advent of the possibilities enabled by IoT technologies, service providers from different verticals have become drawn to what business opportunities this offers them. Aside from security monitoring companies, Telcos, utilities and even insurance companies, are looking towards connected home IoT as an opportunity to offer new services that complement their core activities to augment their revenue and create a higher level of customer engagement.
However, these new services in most cases fall outside the boundaries of their core competency. They are also risky, therefore these new entrants are hesitant to invest the required time and energy in building the necessary infrastructure.
As we know, technology today provides companies with the ability to avail themselves of most online software and services on a per usage basis. Hence SaaS (Software as a Service), which has extended into many new spheres such as VSaaS (Video Surveillance) and even SHaaS (Smart Home). For service providers this is also an opportunity to always be up to date offering the latest software versions and, more importantly, be a platform to enable multiple services.
In an upcoming series of posts dealing with these topics, Essence experts will discuss how these issues affect the marketplace and provide business opportunities to service providers looking to leverage the IoT network in order to offer new connected home services to their customer base.
We will deal with topics such as:
- Cyber Security: how this poses a threat to our privacy and sense of security, as well as ways in which we, as an industry and consumers, can combat this threat. We will also discuss ways in which we can turn the threat into an opportunity by monetizing these technologies and turn them into consumer services.
- Data analytics: we have all read about the immense value of data. We will show how, by intelligent use of the information available, cloud platform vendors in IoT can drastically help their customers by accurately predicting when devices are likely to require maintenance. This can streamline operations and improve customer experience. A good understanding of customer usage patterns can also provide monetization opportunities such as upsell and targeted marketing campaigns.
- 24/7 customer support: For companies that do not have the resources or the expertise to provide their customers with the necessary technical support, with cloud hosting of managed services, the vendor assumes responsibility for this, benefiting service providers and end customers alike.
We hope you enjoy the upcoming blog series from the Connected-Living Blog. Subscribe now and don’t miss any update!
