Innovation comes in many shapes and forms and transcends the dimensions of time and money, both of which run short during the process. With the coming together of vertical industry capabilities and horizontal IoT functions, further complexity is layered on. George Malim asks whether its possible to define a rationale for successful innovation in IoT?
Inventing something new is difficult enough in itself without having to establish that customers actually want what you’re offering, that they’ll pay for it, that they’re ready for it, that you’re ready to deliver it and that you won’t run out of resources along the way. And that’s for a simple invention, in IoT it’s far more complex because the market landscape is moving as you develop and innovation in a vertical needs to happen in-step with the arrival of horizontal capabilities.
It’s therefore necessary to think of horizontal technologies alongside vertical innovations. 5G, for example, could bring connectivity and low latency that could make a 4G-enabled innovation immediately obsolete.
“In any market, it’s difficult for a horizontal provider to meet all the specific needs of a vertical industry,” says Paul McCreadie, a partner at ECI Partners. “There will be some requirements that all IoT providers need, such as general connectivity, but there will be more specialist requirements that are only pertinent to one vertical, for example a module needed for a connected fridge will differ from that of one needed to monitor a pet. While there is some cross-over, there will always be an element of specific vertical technology that will need specialist technological advancements.”
That’s why innovation needs to encompass both horizontal and vertical. “For horizontal players, it’s possible to think on both axes, but only rarely for vertical players,” says Paul Bullock, the strategic business development director at Wireless Logic. “Horizontal players’ opportunity is to develop their platforms with an eye to a strong baseline of the requirements of adjacent players in a particular vertical. For example, integrated device management functionality for the market leading manufacturers in medical or chain of ownership management for mass distribution in consumer IoT verticals. Horizontal players need to be the platforms on which verticals can innovate and build rather than horizontal players attempting to deliver solutions in isolation.”
Continue reading this article on Page S20 inside IoT Now Innovators Guide
