IS CLOUD COMPUTING AN AFFORDABLE SOLUTION FOR SMALL BUSINESSES?
Small businesses generally do not utilize the latest technologies for their businesses. Most small business owners think digital solutions are not relevant and efficient for them. But on comparing, it was found that businesses that did invest in digital solutions earned twice as much revenue per employee, just by integrating cloud-based IoT platforms with the system.
At first, you might think why do small businesses even need automation, they aren’t giant companies like Amazon. Well, let’s compare Amazon to your local pizza shop.
On the surface, it might seem absurd to compare the two, but on close inspection, they are both quite similar. Ease of ordering, scheduled delivery, inventory management, finances, etc. is managed by both companies. The difference is just that Amazon does it at a very large scale and the local pizza shop does it at a small scale.
Now, it is evident that Amazon has to automate the process, but the local pizza shop might not think enabling cloud-based IoT platforms is efficient for them.
But it is found that 80% of the businesses that adopted a cloud-based IoT platform had a higher ROI than expected.
In less than a decade, a lot has changed. Connected devices are now widely deployed at Medium and large scale across nearly every vertical including transportation, agriculture, healthcare, security, and many more.
There are several IoT use cases in the area that we never thought of before as people have been so creative with implementing IoT in their businesses these days.
The role devices play in our lives is being revolutionized by greatly increased computing power, cloud technology, machine learning, and autonomous decision-making.
IoT not only helps the business in automating the process but also has a great impact on customer satisfaction.
WHY DO WE NEED CLOUD-BASED IOT PLATFORMS?
An IoT platform provides a ‘meeting point’ for all the connected devices and serves to collect and handle the data they deliver over the network.
An IoT platform is a group of technologies that provide the building blocks for developing an IoT product. The ultimate goal of an IoT Platform is to provide all the generic functionalities so that you can focus on building the features of the products.
IoT Platforms handle the ongoing management of the product, act as the middleman and allow the user to completely automate the environment.
IoT platforms are required to enable provisioning, management, and automation of smart objects or IoT Devices keeping your data in the cloud and automating the system which can be controlled and managed remotely.
With IoT cloud solutions, it usually takes less time and effort to implement them and significantly lowers the overall cost,
Therefore, cloud-based IoT infrastructure turns out to be more profitable when the time to market is a crucial business factor.
HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT CLOUD-BASED IOT PLATFORM?
Choosing the right IoT platform can be a complex task. If you are trying to choose the right platform for your business, here are some of the things that you should consider.
FEATURES PROVIDED BY IOT PLATFORMS.
END-TO-END PLATFORMS
These platforms provide hardware, software, connectivity, security, and device management tools that can handle numerous device connections.
CONNECTIVITY MANAGEMENT PLATFORMS
These platforms offer low-power and low-cost connections through Wi-Fi and cellular networks.
IOT CLOUD PLATFORMS
These platforms aim to get rid of the complexity of building your own server to offer network and backend services.
DATA PLATFORMS
These platforms deal with combining many tools that are needed to route device data and manage data analytics.
THE STRATEGY OF SELECTING AN IOT PLATFORM
While examining which platform to select, make sure to base your decisions on the following points- Connectivity and method of connectivity
Make sure to check how well is the vendor’s network coverage and if it fits your business’s current and future needs. Also, make sure to check if they provide Wi-Fi or cellular connectivity and what is suitable for you.
MARKET LONGEVITY
Make sure to choose an IoT Platform that has been around for at least 3+ years. They will have enough experience to provide you with the solutions that you need.
TYPE OF SERVICE
According to your business needs, you have to choose what kind of service you would need. Some platforms provide end-to-end solutions, while others are purely connectivity platforms. You need to access each platform according to your business needs.
GEOGRAPHIC COVERAGE
Make sure the platform provider covers the region of your business needs.
DATA PLAN
Is the data plan provided by the platform service provider fair for you? You should also be able to suspend your data services at any time you wish. You should also have the ability to control how much data you use.
SECURITY
Make sure to review their security content and how seriously they take the security of user data. Access how their platform combats any security issues.
DATA ACCESS
Make sure you know how to integrate the data acquired with the enterprise backend and the current cloud service. Also, make sure that your intent with your collected data matches the service provided by the cloud.
DOMAIN EXPERT SERVICES
IoT deployments are complex and you can get stuck sometimes. Ask beforehand if your platform provider helps you with these issues.
HARDWARE
See if your vendor provides developer kits, starter packages, etc for specific use cases that you’re targeting.
CLOUD MANUFACTURING SERVICE PLATFORM FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM BUSINESSES
Service platforms for small and medium businesses can improve the competitiveness between businesses. Cloud service platforms are designed for multiple platforms, support multiple orders, multiple enterprises, and multi-party collaborations. Key issues like an intelligent matching engine for supply and demand, transaction collaborative logic engine, and credit assessment are studied by these platforms. All in all, cloud platforms and services can prove to be very efficient and cost-effective for small and medium businesses and can prove a high ROI.
BEST IOT PLATFORM FOR SMALL BUSINESSES IN 2021
- AWS IoT Services
- Microsoft IoT Azure
- Google Cloud’s IoT Platform
- IBM Watson IoT
- Particle
- ThingWorx
- Artik Cloud
- Salesforce IoT
Also Read: A CLOUD BASED IOT PLATFORM FOR SMALL MEDIUM ENTERPRISES
We at PsiBorg understand that every small business operates differently. So, we come up with unique, tailor-made best IoT solutions just for you. Our highly skilled and experienced professionals make sure you get flawless and at the same time cost-effective solutions.
