Behind the IoT: Success Hinges on Reliability, Scalability and Security
On April Fool's day of this year I fell victim to a common household oversight. Planning to do some laundry, I quickly discovered we were out of detergent. Coincidentally, the day prior, Amazon had introduced its DASH button, which lets you replenish household consumables with the push of a button.
The rather curious looking push-button device quickly sparked speculation as to whether Amazon was playing an April Fool's Eve joke on the public, or maybe even having a laugh at the fear, uncertainty and doubt of its rivals. Contemplating sorted piles of clothes that would remain on the laundry room floor until we could get to the store, I was led to some considerations in a marketing vein.
The fate of Amazon's DASH button and its success or failure as an Internet of Things (IoT) device that creates consumer touchpoints and harvests conversion opportunities is yet to be decided. But Amazon's first foray at innovation in this area highlights both the irresistible draw of opportunities that are attracting marketers, coupled with the uncertainty of what forms the marketing spaces and interfaces might take in the coming IoT of smart devices and smart environments.
According to Gartner, by 2020, more than 7 billion people and businesses, and close to 35 billion devices, will be connected to the Internet. (Gartner, Seize the Moment: Driving Digital Business Into 2015, Jorge Lopez, October 2, 2014). Whether its Amazon with DASH or any other connected device, success to market via the IoT is dependent on what happens after the DASH button or any other IoT user-interface is activated.
The promise of the IoT means nothing if it's not reliable, scalable and secure. Therefore the very first key to unlocking success is to secure confidence in your working infrastructure and its management.
In other words, as marketers experiment with smart devices and the smart environments of the IoT, the user-input end of the system is still only the doorway to a larger and much more complicated infrastructure where all the data transfer and information processing is done. While value is key, such as the DASH button's convenience, even the most well-designed, user-friendly, intuitive and convenient front-end will be for naught if the back-end of the system is not reliable, scalable and secure.
An awkward or less than stylish front-end user-interface can still work if the back-end can deliver. But without a dependable back-end system and management even the most user-friendly front-end can result in a poor holistic customer experience. Performance is the measure of success in all things and in the online world - whether cable, fiber optic or wireless, stationary or mobile, and cloud-hosted or managed on-premise - performance relies on the quality and ability of back-end infrastructure and its management.
Reordering household consumables is one thing. But going beyond the DASH button and its pre-agreed, pre-configured order amounts and single item selection lies a far larger IoT of more involved data exchange and complex interactions than push-button orders.
Consider, for example, exercise and home health aids relaying vital signs and other health metrics back and forth to remote data centers for processing. The importance of reliable infrastructure support and management of the back-end is beyond debate. Your customers' touch points in the IoT, whatever forms they'll take, need to be supported with a reliable, scalable and secure infrastructure that as a marketer you'll most likely choose to not manage yourself – but rather instead pass on the responsibility of to experts, most notably to a managed services provider.
Remember, the 'coolness' of the device, the immersive experience through your smart home, smart car or phone is only 50 percent of the journey. If an order is lost or it takes longer than expected to exchange information, you run the risk of ruining the customer experience early on.
Today, due to the data processing demands of their interactive nature, even the most well-designed campaigns risk imploding if not supported by a robust and expertly managed back-end.
Tomorrow, despite whatever forms the marketing spaces and consumer touch points will take in the IoT, the demands on data processing and capacity will make a robust, scalable and expertly managed infrastructure even more critical to your campaign's success.
