USAToday Column

September 19, 2016
Small businesses will be big winners from IoT

By Bob O'Donnell

NEW BEDFORD, Mass.— When it comes to a lot of the latest technologies, it’s easy to presume that they’re really only relevant for bigger companies in more advanced industries.

That’s certainly been the case for the Internet of Things, or IoT, especially for business applications. Most of the attention has been given to big smart cities projects or advanced manufacturing advancements that are really only relevant for a tiny part of the business population.

Recently, however, I’ve seen a number of intriguing examples of IoT projects being focused on tiny businesses in old traditional industries, such as fishing, winemaking, plant nurseries and more. Specifically, I, along with other tech industry press and analysts, got to spend some time in the old whaling town of New Bedford, MA. There we met with some folks from Dell and Inex Advisors, a New Bedford company that’s doing some great work with other small businesses in the area to put IoT concepts into practice.

We got a chance to see everything from how local fishermen can reduce paperwork while at the same time meeting compliance regulations through a simple network of sensors and cameras, to how local vintners are tapping into tiny weather stations to better care for their vines.

The more I’ve thought about these kinds of applications, the more I’ve come to realize that the biggest potential impact for IoT is, in fact, going to be in small businesses, not big ones.

To be clear, these aren’t eye-popping, world-changing ideas or innovations. In fact, most of them are pretty simple and, arguably, pretty boring, especially if you’re not familiar with the day-to-day needs of these kinds of vertical industries.

However, for the millions of small businessmen and businesswomen running these types of organizations, the simple, but potentially very useful, information that these kinds of applications generate can make a difference. Whether that’s accurately knowing how much water is available in a well, or measuring temperature fluctuations in a greenhouse, the type of data that a simple network of sensors can generate helps small businesses make better decisions. That, in turn, translates into sustainable, real-world savings.

Individually, these savings might only be measured in the hundreds of dollars, such as to help fishermen avoid paying someone to monitor their catch on certain days or to help nurseries generate one extra crop of microgreens over the course of a several week period. Collectively, however, given that just over 89% of all US businesses have fewer than 20 employees, according to the latest US census data, these savings can add up to much bigger numbers. Plus, for many small businesses, even the several hundred-dollar savings can make a meaningful difference.

Even better, in an era when many are concerned with technology replacing jobs, many of these simple types of IoT applications could potentially help small businesses create new jobs with increased working capital through better efficiency. It’s a classic case of working smarter and not harder.

In fact, one of the more intriguing aspects about IoT is that the best kinds of implementations are focused on very practical, real-world benefits just like these. Sure, there are lots of pie-in-the-sky discussions around IoT involving highly paid data scientists working to do advanced analytics on terabytes of incoming data. But in the real world, basic improvements in efficiency that directly result in lower costs or higher output are where the greatest benefits of IoT lie.

Of course, it’s one thing to talk about the potential benefits of new technology and a whole other thing to actually make it work. In the case of many small businesses, that means finding people who know how to use the technology and know at least enough about how the business operates or what it needs to put together something useful. It’s definitely not an easy task to find people with the right combination of knowledge and skills. It’s also not easy to scale these ideas out past a few proof-of-concept projects.

But as the people in New Bedford are proving, it’s definitely possible. In fact, there’s a growing opportunity to match the often dirty, messy “analog” world with some of these new efforts to digitize the real world around us. By leveraging simple sensors, wireless networks, and cloud-based software, even today’s old industry small businesses can benefit from the latest tech innovations.

Here’s a link to the column: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2016/09/19/small-business-internet-of-things-column/89677178/

USA TODAY columnist Bob O'Donnell is the president and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, a market research and consulting firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. His clients are major technology firms including Microsoft, HP, Dell, and Qualcomm. You can follow him on Twitter @bobodtech.