The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the hottest topics in business today – and whether you own a small business or a medium-sized company, it's something you'll need to understand sooner rather than later:

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Thursday, March 11, 2021

Forbes

IoT: How It's Making Small Businesses More Efficient

By: T-Mobile for Business

 

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the hottest topics in business today – and whether you own a small business or a medium-sized company, it's something you'll need to understand sooner rather than later. And while the concept may seem overly complicated and somewhat nebulous, like most problems, when you break it down into a few fundamental elements, it becomes easier to understand.

 

What is IoT?

In general, IoT has one goal: to connect all the physical places and things in the world to the internet. By doing so, it will help companies of all sizes improve their systems and processes, increase efficiencies, and even open the door to new products, services, and business models.

 

How does IoT work?

Those “things” connecting to the internet fall into three general categories:

  1. Things that collect and send information
  2. Things that receive and act on information
  3. Things that do both
  • Collect and send - In this category, you’ll find things like sensor equipment that can detect temperature, motion, light, air quality, moisture, or other environmental conditions. Sensors like this could report refrigerator temperatures in a commercial kitchen, motion sensors in a fleet operation, or even moisture levels in a storage location where the connected things require a certain humidity range.
  • Receive and act - Collect-and-send sensors forward their information to the receive-and-act things, which are usually built into a monitoring and analytics system that lets designated humans know a specific action needs to be taken. In the commercial kitchen, for instance, if the refrigerator's collect-and-send sensor identifies a problem with temperature, the receive-and-act sensor would make the assigned person aware of the issue. This way, even if they're not in the kitchen, the person who received the alert can act quickly to help mitigate losses and ensure compliance with any local food safety regulations.
  • Collect, send, receive and act - Those things that both collect information and act on it involve a more comprehensive form of IoT, allowing the system to adjust itself appropriately and minimize human intervention. An example might be an agricultural operation, with sensors that collect information about soil moisture and, when needed, automatically turn on the irrigation system. Going even further, a system such as this could be fed weather prediction information, so it “knows” that because rain is coming it won’t be necessary to irrigate immediately, despite a less-than-ideal soil moisture.

 

The benefits of IoT

While there are many small and medium-sized businesses ready to embrace IoT, others aren't quite sure where they stand – and that's OK. Because the value of new technology isn't always immediately apparent, or within budget, it can help to see others' successes with it before adopting it yourself. To date, just a few of the benefits that businesses owners have seen with IoT include:  

  • Operational efficiency - Because sensors can provide 24/7 monitoring, companies can track performance and key metrics and make sure their equipment is functioning properly. Not only that, but the moment something is amiss, businesses can perform repairs or maintenance and minimize major disruptions caused by serious equipment problems.
  • Improve safety - Simply by using the data available from the sensors, IoT can help you detect and reduce threats to your business caused by temperature fluctuation, power loss, water intrusion, and other potentially damaging events. In addition, if you use sensors on doors, windows and other possible entrances, IoT sensors can also alert you to intrusions due to unauthorized access.
  • Cost savings - Saving money is usually at the top of every business owner's list—and IoT may help. By allowing you to monitor power consumption more carefully, for instance, you can find new ways to save energy. And by reducing or eliminating some of the need for human intervention, you can give your staff more time to focus on higher-priority projects.

 

Real-world examples

These days, businesses in virtually every industry have seen the positive impact of IoT.  So, whether you're still undecided or have already started down the path with IoT, here are a few examples that can help you understand why, and how, IoT can add value to your business:

  • Fleet operators can use IoT sensors to track and monitor vehicles, how fast they’re going, scheduled and actual arrival times, and identify when preventive maintenance is needed. IoT can also help streamline regulatory compliance with electronic logging and reporting.
  • A distribution or fulfillment center could use connected, sensor-equipped robots and drones to take inventory and map it to exact locations. Or sensors on equipment such as forklifts could detect the location of equipment or people, essentially seeing around corners and creating a safer workplace.
  • A large car dealership could outfit each vehicle with sensors, monitoring their location and status in real time to help keep track of inventory and where their vehicles are in the event a salesperson needs one for a test drive.
  • In a parking garage, sensors in each spot or video-fed analytics could provide real-time information on open spots, as well as whether the vehicles in the garage are authorized to be there, and whether each vehicle’s fees were paid properly upon leaving.
  • A smart factory could use production line sensor monitors that notify management if there is a problem, or that communicate directly with robots to automatically adjust the assembly line in response to real-time needs.
  • In office buildings, sensor-based locks could be remotely activated or de-activated, aiding with overall security—especially in crisis situations.

These are just a few of the current and potential uses for IoT. As the technology grows and is adopted even further, industries will undoubtedly develop their own efficiency-enhancing, cost-reducing applications for the technology. But there's no need to wait. Today’s networks handle IoT solutions readily, and with the launch of powerful 5G and LoRa (Long Range) networks, even the most demanding IoT use case is handled with ease.

To hear more about how IoT can help make your business more efficient, give your T-Mobile for Business expert a call at 877-754-6367.

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