Machine Intelligence Landscape Continuing To Grow

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Harvard Business Review Article

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Accredent specializes in the Business of The Internet of Things(tm). Formed in 2009 out a four year strategy, M&A, and business development engagement with companies that pioneered many of today's Internet-of-Things connected technologies, business models and use cases. Contact Us

Accredent has been successful partnering with business leaders of corporations, operations and product teams, and emerging ventures to develop and transform their businesses, accelerate revenue, growth and enterprise value through the Internet of Things. accredent.com

Accredent Selected As Judges For National University Data Analysis Competition

National University Data Analysis Competition Focused On Water Quality

On November 5th, students from all across the United States met in Minneapolis to compete in MinneMUDAC’s University Data Analysis Competition. Two Accredent Principals - Jennifer Nowlin and Kent Strand - were invited to judge the 39 graduate and undergraduate teams in an all-day competition held at United Healthcare's Optum campus.

The students were given the challenge to work with three core water quality-related data sets and derive actionable insights from their analysis. The data sets were ugly, the data transformation messy, yet these students dug in, used their creative and scientific minds to showcase their data story to judging teams that consisted of industry & data experts from companies such as General Mills, Mayo Clinic, Teradata and Accredent.

Hats off to the teams, coaches, the MinneMUDAC organizers, and other judges for doing a great job! Truly excellent analysis of seriously demanding data, professional presentations, and great actionable insights.  

Finalist Presentation

Thanks to all the wonderful students who stopped by our table at the career fair.  It was a pleasure speaking to such talented and enthusiastic up and coming professionals.  We look forward to continuing our discussions with you about future internships and career positions.

Accredent Principal Jen Nowlin at Accredent Career Fair Table

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Accredent specializes in the Business of The Internet of Things(tm). Formed in 2009 out a four year strategy, M&A, and business development engagement with companies that pioneered many of today's Internet-of-Things connected technologies, business models and use cases. Contact Us

Accredent has been successful partnering with business leaders of corporations, operations and product teams, and emerging ventures to develop and transform their businesses, accelerate revenue, growth and enterprise value through the Internet of Things. accredent.com

The Importance The Business Model in IoT Innovation

 

Is Your Internet of Things Innovation Failing The Value Creation Test?

A recent study of Internet of Things projects around the world found the majority of them are stuck in proof of concept.  In many cases, the problem could be traced back to underdeveloped business models.

A fundamental value creation challenge in a connected data-driven offering is finding innovation that creates customer value, changes the basis of competition and creates structural advantages that, in turn, creates sustainable enterprise value. Even the most creative business ideas can fail this value creation test when the innovation discussion centers solely on creating value through an operational process, a product, a services or a market innovation. A study by the IBM CEO Report explored how companies distribute their innovation efforts. While most businesses applied some effort into innovating across the board, business model innovation received the least attention.

Source: IBM CEO Report

However, Companies focused on business model innovation delivered 5% higher five year compound annual growth rates. While businesses focused on product, service, or market innovation saw only slight growth. Those primarily applying process innovation were actually worse off.

Source: IBM CEO Report

The reason is simple, technology is changing the basis of competitive advantage. Whereas it may have taken 18 months for a competitor to copy a new product, service or process in the past, the time is now often down to 6 months or less in many sectors.

A thoughtfully planned and well executed Internet of Things customer experience-driven business model innovation can change customer value, basis of competition, and create sustainable structural advantages that can take even the best "fast follower" several years to emulate.

Internet-of-things customer experience and business model innovation is complex. Difficult to get right, but important to do. Done right, it begins a never ending customer journey that always is capturing insightful data, and using that data to create a continuously improving customer experience and business model. Done wrong, an internet of thing customer experience and business model innovation can place companies into a Sisyphus-like proof-of-concept design and revision cycle, or can add a product to the same junk pile of history that one finds Google Glass. Get it right, your company and your future depends on it.

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Accredent specializes in the Business of The Internet of Things(tm). Formed in 2009 out a four year strategy, M&A, and business development engagement with companies that pioneered many of today's Internet-of-Things connected technologies, business models and use cases. Contact Us
 
Accredent has been successful partnering with business leaders of corporations, operations and product teams, and emerging ventures to develop and transform their businesses, accelerate revenue, growth and enterprise value through the Internet of Things. accredent.com

IoT Partnerships - Are All Your Oars in The Water?

(c) 2016 Copyright Accredent, LLC

Partner engagement is critical for future success in the Internet of Things.

Given the complex nature of the Internet of Things business and technology value chain, ecosystem engagement will be critical to the ability of many businesses to take full advantage of the new growth opportunities offered by, and prevent the disruption possible from, the increasingly pervasive and converging technologies around internet-of-things. The ecosystem, that is, a network of strategic alliances, partners, vendors, evangelists, integrated providers, and specialist business consultants that revolve around a company’s technologies and offerings can make or break sustainable growth in a variety of ways.

Complete the Value Chain. 

 

Internet of Things use cases require differing sensors, gateways, communications, platforms, big data, analytics, visualization, mobile, social, commerce, and security from technology vendors large and small.

Complete Your Place in The Ecosystem.

 

Internet of Things solutions are delivered in the larger context of a large industry ecosystem of differing players, solutions and technologies.  Without a sustainable position for your company within this ecosystem cemented through key alliances and reference customers you will not likely emerge with any value from the Internet of Things tornado.

Accelerate Revenue and Profitability.

Alliances create growth through access to new market opportunities and yield incremental sales. Well structured and properly managed alliances and business development relationships deliver go-to-market efficiency and effectiveness, bottom line improvement, shorter sales cycles and competitive barriers.

Accelerate Access and Reach.

Partnerships give access to companies with whom you would not normally be able to do business. Building alliance strategies with global partners gives you the reach necessary to support new customers worldwide.

Accelerate Market Positioning.

A company's credibility and market positioning improves through close association with brands that have trust and respect in the market. Developing marketing alliances with market leaders expands a company's access to low-cost high-quality sales leads.

Accelerate a Successful Exit.

Companies that see acquisition as their path to liquidity can use strategic partnerships. Deep alliance relationships often become mergers and acquisitions. Building business development strategies sets the stage for a successful exit in the future.

Next article in this series: Changing nature of Internet of Things end-to-end partnerships.

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Accredent specializes in the Business of The Internet of Things(tm). Formed in 2009 out a four year strategy, M&A, and business development engagement with companies that pioneered many of today's Internet-of-Things connected technologies, business models and use cases. Contact Us

Accredent has been successful partnering with business leaders of corporations and emerging ventures to develop and transform their businesses, accelerate revenue, growth and enterprise value through the Internet of Things. accredent.com

Manufacturers to Spend $267B in IoT Over 5 years

Investment in the Internet of Things by manufacturers will translate to billions in spending. BI Intelligence estimates that global manufacturers will invest $70 billion on IoT solutions in 2020. That's up from $29 billion in 2015.

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Accredent specializes in the Business of The Internet of Things(tm). Formed in 2009 out a four year strategy, M&A, and business development engagement with companies that pioneered many of today's Internet-of-Things connected technologies, business models and use cases. Contact Us

Accredent has been successful partnering with business leaders of corporations, operations and product teams, and emerging ventures to develop and transform their businesses, accelerate revenue, growth and enterprise value through the Internet of Things. accredent.com

Where Will Your Business Be in 2020?

(c) 2016 Copyright Accredent LLC

Gartner's recently released Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2017 confirms what leading edge companies and emerging technology ventures have already known for several years now. "The world is becoming an intelligent, digitally enabled mesh of people, things and services. Technology will be embedded in everything in the digital business of the future, and ordinary people will experience a digitally-enabled world where the lines between what is real and what is digital blur. Rich digital services will be delivered to everything, and intelligence will be embedded in everything behind the scenes. Gartner calls this mesh of people, devices, content and services the intelligent digital mesh." This intelligent digital mesh IS the model behind what we have come to call The Internet of Things, and this model has crossed the chasm to begin to become the basis for where every business is now headed in one way or another.

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The Challenge Remains How to Create Business Value From It

Managers and employees need to recognize that Internet of Things is not simply a technology, but a new way of doing business. It means a 24x7 relationship with customers. It means employing analytics to understand and predict product performance. It means adding productivity, efficiency and quality to core business processes. Its means a new ability to create growth, enterprise value and competitive advantage through digital transformation of your business - and a new possibility to lose to competitors and new entrants through digital disruption of your business.

The Gartner report is a very good description of the convergence of the technology pieces that is creating the basis for a modern Internet of Things digital business. The challenge remains how to put these pieces together and transform a business into a digital one that delivers growth and enterprise value, sustainable competitive advantage, compelling valuable experiences for your customers, efficiency and effectiveness for your processes, engagement of your employees, and greater customer lifetime value from your products and services. At the same time, ensuring that new entrants with digital solutions don't disrupt existing business. Having a clear business strategy will be important. As will strong execution that doesn't get bogged down in endless proof-of-concept, and delivery of service failure.

As one can see from the graph at the beginning of this article, there is some urgency to do this. The modern Internet of Things way of doing business is finding its way into more and more industries and more and more "things" at an accelerating rate.

Unfortunately, a survey by Sweden's Tele2 (Nasdaq: TLTO), found that 60% of respondents picked "lack of strategy" over considerations including finance, technology and "lack of competence" when asked what they believed was the chief barrier to Internet of Things adoption within their organization. The feedback suggests many organizations are holding back on making Internet of Things investments because they do not have a clear understanding about what they are trying to achieve.

Connecting Business Strategy with Internet of Things for Eight Years

Many professional services organizations large and small are now entering as Internet of Things end-to-end digital business advisors, changing their business cards from whatever they said last year to now say Internet of Things experts. Accredent has been connecting business strategy and Internet of Things for eight years. We can help.

Learn More:

Connected Data-driven Business Strategy for Competitive Advantage and Business Transformation

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Accredent specializes in the Business of The Internet of Things(tm). Formed in 2009 out a four year strategy, M&A, and business development engagement with companies that pioneered many of today's Internet-of-Things connected technologies, business models and use cases. Contact Us

Accredent has been successful partnering with business leaders of corporations, operations and product teams, and emerging ventures to develop and transform their businesses, accelerate revenue, growth and enterprise value through the Internet of Things. accredent.com

Following the Money in Today's Internet of Things

IoT has become the foundation of an entirely new way of doing business, as well as giving rise to entirely new businesses. There will be 100 billion connected devices expected by 2025, leading to a trillion sensor ecosystem. 1 billion digital natives expected to join the workforce over the next 7 years.   That said... Where is the money going today?

Breakdown of IoT Projects Worldwide as of August 2016   Src: IoT Analytics

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Accredent specializes in the Business of The Internet of Things(tm). Formed in 2009 out a four year strategy, M&A, and business development engagement with companies that pioneered many of today's Internet-of-Things connected technologies, business models and use cases. Contact Us

Accredent has been successful partnering with business leaders of corporations, operations and product teams, and emerging ventures to develop and transform their businesses, accelerate revenue, growth and enterprise value through the Internet of Things. accredent.com

Internet of Things - The Modern Connected Data-driven Customer Journey

 

How can Internet of Things (IoT) and Analytics creating compelling digital customer experiences and customer journeys while increasing business agility?

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With 86% of customers willing to pay more for a great customer experience, and 89% to switch brands due to a poor one. Internet of Things and Data-driven experiences offer a pathway to business performance.

Internet of Things and data analytics are fundamentally redefining customer intimacy and brand affinity, changing how we compete for customer attention, and even how we operate our businesses.

Accredent's business and connected customer journey(tm) approach can increase market share, customer satisfaction and profitability.

Internet of Things (IoT) is radically changing the nature of consumer experiences and brand marketing. Turning physical venues (retail, hotels, offices, stadiums, malls, casinos, concerts, events, hospitality) into real-time engaging customer experiences. Turning products from simply physical "things" into platforms for delivering services to deliver customer experiences. For consumer goods - online experiences, retail space experiences, and post-purchase product usage experiences combine to create a two-way dialogue pre-purchase, post-purchase and back again across the entire customer journey in a way that was never before possible. Data can be collected to understand patterns of behaviors and wants and needs, and used to deliver contextual and detailed real world customer experience to those wandering the space or using the product, or rather the services delivered by the product platform.

Accredent's "IoT Connected Customer Journeys" at Innovation Conference

Physical Space Customer Experience

Disney Magic wristbands, Taylor Swift 1989 tour wristbands, and other early pioneering efforts proved that brilliant new physical space customer experiences can be created, and the pain points within existing experiences be removed by Internet of Things. This capability has expanded with the advent of proximity beacons and digital displays which enable hyper-local, -contextual, - personalized experiences in physical spaces not dissimilar from that offered by the best e-commerce sites and internet 2.0. Building understanding of behaviors and wants and needs, and delivering contextually detailed physical world experiences to match them. 

Beacon, RF sensors and digital displays' ability to generate new business from passersby and loyalty scheme incentives, to turn physical spaces into subtle and overt two way conversations, to eliminate pain points and process bottlenecks, and to deliver richer customer experiences and associated brand value have driven rapid adoption.

Product Customer Experience

While the brand experience within physical spaces is becoming more like web and e-commerce spaces, products and services themselves are also changing to be more like smart phones and apps. Products are becoming smart service platforms offering hyper-local, -contextual, -personalized services, and delivering deep insights into behaviors and preferences, and wants and needs, to learn contextual insights and deliver new interactions for better services, compelling customer experiences, frictionless customer journeys, interoperability with other product/service experiences and increase spend and loyalty.

Integrated On-line, App, Physical Space and Product Customer Experience

New modern connected digital experience and customer journeys form as on-line, app, physical space, and product customer experiences merge seamlessly into one experience - pre-sale, post-sales, and re-sale - across the entire brand journey. Each touch-point capturing data for customer insight and each delivering better customer experiences based on that insight. All the while introducing new levels of business agility. This is the where all business is migrating in one form or another.

The new internet-of-things based connected customer journeys of interlinking on-line, app, physical and product touch-point insights and customer experiences is a complex one. Difficult to get right, but important to do. Done right, the process of creating the new modern customer journey is a never ending one that always is capturing insightful data, and using that data to learn and create continuously improving customer experiences and business processes. Done wrong, the process of creating new modern customer journeys can place physical venue and product innovation into painful Sisyphus-like proof-of-concept (PoC) design and revision - a 2017 Cisco study shows about 60-70% of IoT and data projects end their lives in this kind of "PoC Hell" - and ultimately end up in the same junk pile of history that one finds Google Glass. Get it right, your company and your future depends on it.

In 2018, 67% of organizations plan Internet of Things (IoT) initiatives. Just 1.5% of executives have a clear vision of what IoT will do for them.

A well executed customer-focused IoT connected data-driven business strategy build upon an effective framework has proven to separate those who win the IoT game and move past Proof-of-concept (PoC) from those who lose it or get stuck in PoC Hell.

Accredent IoT Connected Data-Driven Business & Customer Journeys

For nine years Accredent has been distilling ”What the Best Companies Do To Create Successful Internet of Things Data-driven Products and Services?" into strategy, innovation, monetization, transformational frameworks for digital business development.
Utilizing its IoT Connected Data-driven Customer Journey(tm) and Business frameworks and in-depth use cases Accredent helps companies to increase customer satisfaction, profitability and market share.

Accredent enables companies and organizations to quickly transform customer journeys to digitally IoT connected data-driven ones that deliver the compelling customer experience and business agility required of modern business.

Contact Us to learn more about how we can help you create digital experience, frictionless customer journeys with compelling customer experiences, and deliver transformational insight and new levels of business agility to your organization.

(c) 2015-2017 Accredent, LLC - All rights reserved

Internet of Things - Water Management Solutions.

Last month's 2016 Water Technology Summit featured an in depth session on Internet of Things based Water Management Solutions led by Accredent - a leading Internet of Things business and technology advisory firm with deep experience in Industrial, Smart Cities, AgTech, Connected Home and other areas of water usage. The session focused on Internet of Things in water management using sensors, actuators, remote monitoring, data analysis, and artificial intelligence to intelligently manage water infrastructure and water resources. Key topics in water technology including water's use in agriculture, food and beverage, national and local perspectives of water, and opportunities to accelerate technology adoption.

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Accredent specializes in the Business of The Internet of Things(tm). Formed in 2009 out a four year strategy, M&A, and business development engagement with companies that pioneered many of today's Internet-of-Things connected technologies, business models and use cases. Contact Us

Technologies behind Internet of Things in 2016?

Internet of Things' Primary Technologies 2016+

INFORMATION AGE article: IoT demands an extensive range of new technologies and skills

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Accredent specializes in the Business of The Internet of Things(tm). Formed in 2009 out a four year strategy, M&A, and business development engagement with companies that pioneered many of today's Internet-of-Things connected technologies, business models and use cases. Contact Us
 
Accredent has been successful partnering with business leaders of corporations, operations and product teams, and emerging ventures to develop and transform their businesses, accelerate revenue, growth and enterprise value through the Internet of Things. accredent.com

Where are Things Becoming Smart in 2016?

Internet of Things - Areas of Emerging Application2016

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Accredent specializes in the Business of The Internet of Things(tm). Formed in 2009 out a four year strategy, M&A, and business development engagement with companies that pioneered many of today's Internet-of-Things connected technologies, business models and use cases. Contact Us

Accredent has been successful partnering with business leaders of corporations, operations and product teams, and emerging ventures to develop and transform their businesses, accelerate revenue, growth and enterprise value through the Internet of Things. accredent.com

How big is the IoT and how fast is it growing?

Growth of The Internet of Things Through 2020

 Sept 2nd 2016 Forbes article by Gil Press


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Accredent specializes in the Business of The Internet of Things(tm). Formed in 2009 out a four year strategy, M&A, and business development engagement with companies that pioneered many of today's Internet-of-Things connected technologies, business models and use cases. Contact Us

Accredent has been successful partnering with business leaders of corporations, operations and product teams, and emerging ventures to develop and transform their businesses, accelerate revenue, growth and enterprise value through the Internet of Things. accredent.com