ISG performed an internet of things (IoT) study for an industrial manufacturing company to identify potential differentiating solutions for the company’s digital transformation. ISG positioned the company’s custom blockchain application as an IoT Gateway1, and we aligned the application’s product roadmap to 42% of the IoT ideation use cases.
Opportunity
The company recognized the opportunity to leapfrog the organization’s legacy technology portfolio by exploring emerging technology applications designed to scale with strategic growth plans.
At the conclusion of two separate ISG engagements focused on IoT and blockchain software prototyping, ISG performed an aggregated analysis of engagement artifacts. The analysis identified the following areas where emerging technology capabilities are closely aligned with the company’s business interests:
- Increasing supply chain transparency,
- Enhancing customer experiences with better communications and part availability,
- Reducing critical repair and replacement timelines,
- Aggregating data to predict product replacements, and
- Remote product monitoring (repair and replacement diagnosis).
Imagining IT Differently
ISG performed a consolidated IoT/blockchain assessment based on project artifacts solutioned during two separate ISG engagements (1. IoT Ideation Study, 2. Blockchain Prototype and Business Strategy Analysis). The assessment was designed to:
- Prioritize the company’s IoT use cases (e.g., near-/mid-/long-term priorities, relative levels of value, reduction in installation times, predictive/proactive maintenance, etc.);
- Analyze which IoT use cases required software platforms or software integrations;
- Assess software solutions that support the IoT use cases;
- Structure a business strategy for integrating the blockchain proof-of-concept solution with applicable IoT use cases that require software; and
- Structure a product roadmap to further develop the blockchain proof-of concept solution with IoT use case software requirements.
Future Made Possible
ISG discovered that 42% of the company’s IoT use cases
can be supported by the already developed blockchain proof-of-concept application to address:
- Monitoring and repairing components remotely,
- Monitoring product and warranty claims,
- Facilitating environmental and condition monitoring for energy consumption,
- Supporting a software platform to connect smart devices,
- Generating predictive metrics,
- Creating new data assets and intellectual property,
- Reducing labor expenses, and
- Reducing service repair and replacement times.
The cross-functional project team alignment mitigated the future risk of effort duplication and positioned the company to prioritize product development roadmaps more efficiently.
