Is IoT Relevant to Today’s Companies? Today’s enterprises span a spectrum of engagement when it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT). Some are beginning an exploration around IoT, some are actively implementing new capabilities to build for the future and some are well along in their deployments with expansive plans for transforming their business. Wherever an enterprise is with their use of IoT, they can benefit from expert insight to help them accomplish their goals.
How Can Companies Learn About IoT, Cloud Computing and Creating Awesome Customer Experiences? For large enterprise customers with complex environments, IoT implementations bring both challenges and an abundance of opportunities to transform their business. To help customers on their journey, we began hosting the Azure IoT Leadership Forum on our Redmond campus last May. The forum is part of their broader approach to partnering with customers on IoT, and is a great place to both learn from Microsoft experts and hear from other leading companies on how to realize the value of IoT.
Who Attends These Forums? At the second IoT Leadership Forum they welcomed significant leaders in the IoT space. More than a dozen Azure IoT customers from several industries attended the two-day session to learn from special guests and the executive team. Participants included 3M, Caterpillar, Honeywell, Johnson Controls, Mitsubishi Electric, Rockwell Automation, Rolls Royce, Sandvik, Schlumberger, Schneider Electric, ThyssenKrupp, Weir Group and Grundfos.
What Were The Sessions About? The sessions covered numerous topics but shared a common goal: Helping customers with best practices in making IoT solutions a reality, looking past the hype and learning from right-sized examples. They spoke about the new Azure IoT Suite and how it dramatically accelerates time to value in IoT. Tim Mallalieu described how the Azure Customer Advisory Team (AzureCAT) takes a hands-on approach to helping companies in their IoT journeys and offered best practice advice. There were also expert consultants, including Geoffrey Moore Consulting, The Boston Consulting Group and The York Group. Kurt DelBene who joined the sessions along with other Microsoft execs, all of whom shared insights and lessons learned in IoT.
What is the Most Prevalent Theme in the IoT Forums? Throughout the event, one of the most prevalent themes that emerged was the disruptive role IoT is playing in business already. Whether it is dramatic increases in operational efficiencies, big reductions in costs or enabling entirely new business models, it’s clear that organizations across industries must “disrupt or be disrupted” as IoT technology continues to create new waves of innovation.
Though each customer who participated is in a different phase of its own IoT journey, they all shared a common goal of unlocking new business value through this exciting new technology wave. As entire industries use IoT to transform themselves, they will continue to provide collaborative two-day sessions to arm customers with the best-in-class technology, deep insights and best practices to help them succeed.
Where Can You Learn More? Check out the IoT home page to learn more about Microsoft’s vision and how IoT is already transforming business for their customers.