Internet of Things(IoT) today

“If the outside temperature is more than 35⁰ C, turn on AC at my home when I am about to reach in 15 minutes”. Internet of Things (IoT) has grown at a higher pace like many experts predicted few years back . Today, IoT extends from smart homes to wearable watches to healthcare instruments.

The smartphones are multiplying and the electronic sensors are getting cheaper and smarter. At the same time on the infrastructure side, many are adopting cloud with high speed networks. The connection between millions of devices and sensors has become cost efficient now.

These are facilitating the rise of IoT and indicate that many industries are adopting it. Manufacturing, Health Care and Pharma, Heavy machinery, Energy and Utilities, Agriculture, transportation, aerospace industries get greatly benefited with IoT. Also this is helping them to give customers altogether a new experience.

Energy & Utilities:
We would have seen the ads in TV for Philips where lights in home are switched on/off automatically based on our needs.

Manufacturing:
There are companies like JBL, heavy machinery that uses IoT to monitor its vehicles and gets alerted before a break happens in any of it equipment. The cost of fixing the break is way higher than fixing before it occurs.

Aerospace:
Virgin airlines recently implemented IoT for a set of its airplanes, that most components on the planes are connected to internet, making the it more live and reducing the maintenance costs.

Agriculture:
IoT can enable agriculture by creating a network of connected devices, providing real-time information on weather, data and alerts on soil condition for a type of crop, monitoring for floods etc. There are applications like identifying a sick animal in the cattle and remove them before they infect others

Healthcare:
There are already IoT applications that reminds elderly patients to remind the time to take pills, give the cups with prefilled medicines with push of a button. There are devices that monitor the body temperature, urine flow etc and can alert before a heart failure, kidney injury happens.

More work to do:

Like any other evolving technology, IoT has its own obstacles. Some are concerns on data security and privacy – and others at core is skill or expertise to design and implement the IoT. Reports and surveys show there are not enough skilled professional to implement the IoT that meets the current demand. IoT is still as of now complex in nature to implement. However, with many advantages of IoT and need for it, we are sure it will be used widely across globe!

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Overcome immediate hurdles in IT industry

With the new economic activities in US, there has been a growth in jobs in US, at the same time more work offshored to India. Also the positive sentiment is shown in Britain and Europe that in turn helps India in getting more work. A global economic recovery is good news for those who are relying on the IT budgets. Even the Software product development companies are also benefited with this trend. These all looks like a positive trend in the IT industry.

(image taken from trackworks website)

But, there are two main reasons that are having a negative impact on the growth of IT industry in a short term. It is majorly on the decreased margins or the increased costs with relatively less increase in topline.

• The annual pay raise to its employees
• Higher visa costs for the employees in the customer locations

Solution: The way the margins can be increased is by:

• Automation of routine tasks, so that increases in staff productivity will stay ahead of costs
• Indian IT companies should gain confidence of the clients’ core activities such as research and development areas so that those core activities can also be offshored, increasing the work that can be offshored.

There is a very possibility that Indian IT companies can cope up with the margins, but as mentioned, it may be difficult to have it done in the first quarter.