Internet of Things - Innovations & Business Models

How many times have you’ll fought with your loved ones for – Leaving the water tap open, forgotten to switch off the lights, not buying the groceries on time,  leaving the plants un-watered etc. Well, to solve such many more problems & to make our lives easier here comes “Internet of Things”.

I happened to attend ThoughtWorks Converge Conference last Saturday, in this post I will share some of my learning on “Internet of Things”(IoT).

-          IoT term was first used in the year 1999

-          7 things a device must have to be IoT (Connectivity, Sensors, Processor, Security, Quality, Cost efficiency, Energy Efficiency)

Some of the disruptive Innovations in the space of Internet of Things:

Builders constructing Smart houses:

A house where your room temperature is auto set depending on the current climate temperature, will timely water your plants, lightings change as per your moods. All this is done without human interference with the help of IoT.

Connected Refrigerator:

Imagine your fridge scanning through your grocery items inside & preparing the grocery order list & sending a purchase order to Big Basket & when you come home all the materials are waiting at your doorsteps. Fridge sending out emails suggesting you based on the items present the Dinner menu to be cooked.

Google Car:

 Well google car needn’t be explained. That’s what I need as I am hopeless in driving. So practically eliminating driver’s cost you have a car which will follow google’s map & take you to your destination without any effort.

Healthcare enabled Smart watches:

 Today your Smartphone’s will warn you before your chances of heart attack, when your glucose level is going high & how much your BP is in control. Makes you feel your doctor is in your hand.

IoT Business Models:

Internet Business Models are revolving around Likes, Shares, Eyeballs, Views etc. With IoT there is an evolution of new business model:

-  Build a solution which will solve problems of people & they would be ready to pay for that solution

-    Solve the customer real time problem “now”

-    You may not have consumers directly paying for the solution, but have to identify a third party who would be ready to pay for it

-   Design BM around partnership & alliance for a bigger WIN

Some successful IoT Business Models:

  http://www.patientslikeme.com/

A community where-in people discuss about their health issues & all this discussed business intelligence is shared across clinics & hospitals so that can generate leads.

http://www.getchui.com/

"The world's most intelligent doorbell." Chui's facial recognition technology replaces keys, passwords or codes, allowing you to disarm a security system with facial recognition

Top10 Internet of Things Startup 

Way to approach a problem via IoT:

1.       Identify the problem

2.       Come out with 10 diff IoT solutions

3.       Design feasibility study for each of the solutions & finalize one which is more doable

4.        Develop Business Model

5.       If you know your idea is profitable & scalable go ahead with it

Few Tips for business in IoT:

-          Never startup because you have a great idea, startup because you have a problem to solve

-          Find the most easiest technical solution

-          Don’t design solution just for one market – plan it as a global solution

Today Refrigerators can send Malicious Emails, so my question to you is - Are You Yet there ?

Brands Product Strategy

We all know how dynamic the Mobile market is getting & we have many new players entering the game. The new game changers in this space are Mi & Motorola.

So what makes a product succeed in a new market?

How brands can make a comeback?

How Engaging with Customers is becoming a must for Brands?

I will try answering to these questions in this post.

It’s well said - “Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it”.

In today’s diverse market you can’t have a product for all. So be very clear with your Target Group & Market them the products with a strong message. Remember – Customers are Smart, so win their heart first the mind will be automatic taken care.

A product has 5 characteristics that engage a Buyer

1. PRICE

2. SERVICE

3. ACCESS

4. QUALITY

5. EXPERIENCE

PRICE:

There is only one price – Honest Price & that is the price a buyer things is right

SERVICE:

Basic level of service is expected. The question is how farther would you go?

ACCESS:

How easy should it be to access and navigate both offline & online?

Quality:

Consistently good or one off best ? Good enough is good enough for most


EXPERIENCE:
Intimacy matters. Buyers demand respect and being cared for

Three customer relationships levels – that define the depth of a buyer engagement:

(LEVEL 1):
Be considered little effort to maintain loyalty

(LEVEL 2):

Be favored – Deeper Engagement – Favored over Competition

(LEVEL 3):

Be desired. An Ideal state – Favoured + Desired

“Together they define an Engagement Plan & hence the Product Strategy”

Look at the below 2 charting a Product Strategy

 

So go back & have a look at your product strategy – Don’t try to perfect it as a product with all its imperfections can just be as perfect.

New Role, New Responsibilities, New Goals with Emotion UI

I believe “that the best things that you receive in life are those things you never asked for”.

Being enjoying my role as a Business Developer for Strategic Alliance at Huawei Devices; much satisfied I couldn’t have asked for anything better…but destiny proves itself every time.

This month I officially took up a new role -“Business Operation for Huawei Devices Global ROM Emotion UI”

Emotion UI:

Emotion UI is a skin over the base android that would define Smartphone experience on all Huawei Devices. It provides various features such as, interesting navigational experiences that can be easily customized based on one’s personal needs, rich pool of personalized themes that bring a more vivid visual experience with interactive animation that can be changed by simply shaking the phone, pre-installed performance enhancing functions, easy Widgets management, and Presets for driving, attending meetings, and outdoors.

The surprise element in the UI is the way applications are managed (moved, installed, or uninstalled) directly from the home screen without using an app launcher. Widgets can be easily added by pressing and holding a blank section of the wallpaper.

My favorite feature is "Me Widget" - a folder of grouped widgets that the user can customize as a single unit providing quick access to favorite contacts, photo galleries, or music player.

Major responsibility of my team would be to:-

• Brand Emotion UI: Show how apart from hardware Huawei is also very serious about software innovation
• User Engagement: Get most of the current Huawei Smartphone users to experience Emotion UI
• Android Upgrades : Release latest android upgrade along with enhanced user experience with Emotion UI
• Community building: Creating & building fan clubs who will help us in making Emotion UI the best design for smartphone in the coming days.

Like the fact that Emotion UI was not designed to make users say “wow”, but to make them say “wow that's nice and I did that!”

Yes! I am very excited and getting all set to deliver my best in this new role.

Join & Follow us: Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter

Huawei leads in 2012 - Smartphones & Datacard

IDC's latest report on global smartphone shipments for Q4 2012 is out.

I am super happy to share the excitement as Huawei's market share jumped by 89.5 percent over the year higher than any other smartphone maker.

Huawei is now ranked third among smartphone vendors with 10.8 million units shipped last quarter.

We continue to lead the Datacard market in India for 2012.

Wifi Hotspot

Innovative Dialer skinning

Cloud + services

6k worth VAS

All the above features not only kept Huawei ahead of innovation but it was interesting to receive amazing feedbacks from our customers.

Today we get around 2 million page views for our landing page and this is going to grow bigger

Taking this opportunity to thank all my business partners for believing in Huawei & working with us in making this success story for 2012. 

And now you would know why I love my job so much... its always worth working for a company like Huawei which is amazingly growing year by year. 

Be ready for 2013 as Huawei is getting ready to set a new benchmark!