Sunday, January 31, 2016

REDtone IOT CitiAct and Big Data Analytics

Are you at the stage of planning a Smart City?Do you know where and how to start?Have you gotten the latest feedback...

Posted by CitiAct on Sunday, 31 January 2016

CitiAct - It Keeps Getting Better.

Would you like a better substitute? Better than "Hotline". Just snap and send... Use CitiAct...

Posted by CitiAct on Saturday, 30 January 2016

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Introduction to CitiSense

Did you know CitiAct is more than just a citizen reporting app?More than just a complaint management system?CitiAct is...

Posted by CitiAct on Thursday, 28 January 2016

Join REDtone IOT (RIOT) R&D Program (RRDP)

Be a RIOT R&D Partner and explore various possibilities to connect with new sensors and analyze Smart City's data. Contact us at iot@redtone.com for more information.

Be a RIOT R&D Partner and explore various possibilities to connect with new sensors and analyze Smart City's data.Contact us at iot@redtone.com for more information.

Posted by CitiAct on Thursday, 28 January 2016

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Potholes Has Become A National Issue

Potholes has become a National Issue. If there is an urgent issue affecting road, use CitiAct to report it. Don't wait...

Posted by CitiAct on Tuesday, 26 January 2016

Sense Your Roads and Saves Millions of Dollars

Have you rated your Roads? What if you can use the data to help the city manage their resources? What if the councils...

Posted by CitiAct on Tuesday, 26 January 2016

Join our RIOT Ready Program (RRP)

Join our RIOT Ready Program (RRP). What better way to complete the Smart City Ecosystem? If you are a Hardware or...

Posted by CitiAct on Monday, 25 January 2016

Friday, January 22, 2016

CitiAct CityNoise Measure Your City's Noise Level

Now CitiAct Android users will have "CityNoise" feature that collects and aggregates City's Noise data. It's an...

Posted by CitiAct on Sunday, 3 January 2016

Thursday, January 21, 2016

What if CitiAct can transform your service to Excellent?

Are you a City Manager that have the vision to improve your services?What if we can transform your service to...

Posted by CitiAct on Thursday, 21 January 2016

CitiAct RoadSense - An Excellent Way to Rate Your Roads!

RoadSense from CitiAct will allow you to collect and rate your City's Roads. Contact us if you want to make #bettercitybetterworldEmail: iot@redtone.com

Posted by CitiAct on Saturday, 26 December 2015

Power of Crowdsourcing

Who Benefits from CitiAct?

Who benefits? Smart Cities, Citizens, Help-Desks, Customer Service, Enforcement Agencies, Townships, Communities,...

Posted by CitiAct on Wednesday, 16 December 2015

How-To Derive Our City's Insights?

How to derive our city's insights?The easiest method is via crowdsourcing. Concerned citizens around the world wishes...

Posted by CitiAct on Sunday, 20 December 2015

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

CitiAct - The App That Will Make Your City More Efficient

How-To Become a Big Data Scientist for Smart Cities

As Big Data Scientist, I am able to derive meaningful insights about the cities. My objective is to find solutions to the transportation issues, how to design better roads and understand the community's needs.

Posted by CitiAct on Friday, 15 January 2016

How To Avoid Floods Using Internet of Things (IoT)

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

How-To: Become REDtone IOT (RIOT) Business Partner

Interested to become REDtone IOT (RIOT) Business Partner?Definition of RIOT Business Partner (RBP) - Companies selling...

Posted by REDtone IOT Sdn Bhd on Tuesday, 19 January 2016

Profile Your Cities - Identify Potential Crime Areas!

Here's a simple way to profile your city. Highlights the potential crime areas. The public will be able to avoid these...

Posted by CitiAct on Sunday, 17 January 2016

How Consumer Associations Benefit from CitiAct


Consumer Associations can benefit from CitiAct tremendously. Consumers can easily use CitiAct to directly channel their...
Posted by CitiAct on Monday, 18 January 2016

Use Citizen Engagement App to Make Your Voice Heard

Every citizen of a city has done it at least once – vented out their anger towards public service in social media. But...

Posted by CitiAct on Tuesday, 19 January 2016

Monday, January 11, 2016

IoT Target Market - Reduce Operational Costs vs Increase Revenue



Recently I posted a discussion topic in one of the IoT LinkedIn group. Traditionally, IoT is seen as a monitoring technology such as tracking assets via GPS or reading meters remotely. Those are the days of using technology to optimise the operations and thus reducing costs is seen to be the primary focus. However, when all these data can give better insights than just understanding where we can optimise the operations - it can also provide ways to enhance our businesses, expanding into new horizons and create the new source of revenue growth.
If we were to compare both pains points i.e. to reduce operational costs or to enhance revenue, which one will be the most attractive proposition for IoT to solve and easily get the buy-in from the enterprises
Antero from Enkom Oy said that the energy sectors are more interested in costs savings. Al Hamilton, president of SignalFire Telemetry said,
"Cost Reduction is usually the easier sale because it is much more easily quantifiable and under much better institutional control. Getting to simple cost comparison and payback or ROI much easier than proving that you can increase revenue. If you can provide a compelling case for economic payback based on cost savings, then the sale is direct.
By comparison, while revenue increases are very compelling they come with a lot more issues associated with them. Competitive dynamics, customer perception, distribution, warranties to name a few. Further, the decision-making process is likely to include a much broader set of actors (marketing, management, sales force, customer service, etc.). "
What's interesting is regarding the decision maker for both implementations. Al Hamilton interestingly pointed out that," They are two different animals. The guy that can decide to save his company $100,000 a year by adopting an M2M application is different than the guy that decides he can sell $1,000,000 of an M2M application, and they go through very different approval and decision-making processes."
However, Sunalini Sankhavaram, Director Product Management from Motorola argued that "IOT is about visibility. Visibility implies data. Data to be meaningful requires Analytics. Analytics leads to actions that geared towards increasing the top line." She further commented that "the principal benefit of IOT needs to focus on the revenue increase. Otherwise, the ROI will not work out in the long term."
"Selling an IOT solution always means extra costs in the beginning. You have to build up the infrastructure, invest in the development of the end units (IOT's) and educate your customers and own personnel.", said Antero." Marketing needs to be done, as well. So when talking about quick wins, please keep this in mind. It is also mandatory to think about five years ahead; is my IOT solution still a sound investment or will there be something else, instead? If the IOT solution saves extra work (manual labor, travel, time), it will be profitable in the long run.", he further commented.
Capturing sensor data in "real-time" will be good for "efficiency", "optimisation" and cost reduction.But aggregating data from various sources will help in making a better decision and thus creating higher revenue. What do you think?
There are interesting points raised in this discussion that you can still continue here.
[It was originally published - “IoT Target Market - Reduce Operational Costs vs Increase Revenue”]

Friday, January 8, 2016

How to Create Knowledge from Raw Data Using Internet of Things (IoT)

If you have ever owned some assets or wish to know the condition of other assets, you might ask usual questions like the ones below. How many of us have been asking these issues either daily or at least a couple of times in a month? Questions such as:
  • Where are my online orders? How much longer will they arrive?
  • I need to maintain the quality of my goods. Are they in excellent condition?
  • Am I considered healthy? Am I reaching my health goals?
  • Is my house fully locked? Who is the intruder?
  • When is my next bus and when will it arrive?
  • Can I reduce my electricity bill? Which electrical equipment is consuming a lot of electricity?
  • Where can I find the nearest car park? Where did I park my car?
I considered these questions as the “pain points” of the consumers or businesses. Unless there is a way for us to track and manage these assets, we will never get an accurate and timely answer.
Now imagine that all of these assets or “things” have ways to communicate and send their data to the cloud. Can we turn these data into something useful? With individual sensors and device IDs, we might be able to convert the data into some level of “information” such as the answers to the “who”, “what”, “where” and “when” questions. However, turning the “information” into “knowledge” will be more beneficial - the answer to the “how” questions.
In the example of a smart city with smart parking, we will have answers to questions such as:
  • How to reduce the motorist frustrations due to the traffic jam?
  • How to see real-time and reliable parking information?
  • How to locate cars that overstayed their limits?
  • How to provide efficient routes?
  • How do we optimise our parking space?
And probably the ultimate value to the data that being extracted and analyzed from the sensors will be to answer the question “Why”.
The answers to all these issues will be made possible through Internet of Things (IoT). An IOT service provider plays a critical role to get all these assets connected to the Internet and stored in the IoT cloud. Application developers will be able to use this data to create many innovative applications. Visualisation applications and dashboards will be every useful for end-consumers and businesses to monitor their assets.
Thus, the value of sensor data will only fully uncover when we turn them into “knowledge” and “understanding”. Of course, machines and computers have yet to reach the limit of “wisdom”. Probably that will be the era of “Terminator”. :-)
Please share your thoughts about this article. Thanks!

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Bring The Early Adopters of Internet of Things (IoT) Onboard!

Gartner predicts that by 2017, 50 percent of IoT solutions (typically a product combined with a service) will originate in startups that are less than three years old” - Source
If you noticed that most IoT companies came from startups such as the ones that introduced their early products through Kickstarter crowdfunding. Only recently, we can see bigger companies like Apple, Samsung, Google are developing IoT solutions. But who are their customers? I believed the customers are the early adopters.
Who are the early adopters? Are you one of them?

But who are these early adopters? Early adopters are larger group at 13.5 percent of the population. Early adopters are well-known opinion leaders. Because of their leadership, early adopters command attention and respect, and they function as cross-pollinators. Like bees fertilize flowers by bringing pollen from one flower to another, early adopters spread new ideas from innovators to others. IoT requires these opinion leaders to spur the industry.
IoT startups are the innovators - they are the evangelists and the believers. They will take whatever risks to be the leaders in this new business. The more reasons we can also see the early customers are also the ones that wanted to be the first mover of the industry that adopt such solutions even though they know the IoT solutions might not be 100% perfect. They are willing to take the risk of an 80% matured product. That's the price if one wants to become an early adopter.
Begin by bringing on board the opinion leaders—the adventurous innovators who spearhead new practices—and the early adopters, who are not far behind. Encourage the opinion leaders to mobilize the majority of staff—the early and late majorities—to understand and adopt the new practice or set of practices.
The early adopters are known to be revolutionist, evangelist, futurist and visionary. Bring them to the IoT industry and we will see IoT become a reality. Nurture the startups because they are poised to shape the future of the Internet of Things.
[Originally published in LinkedIn - “Who Are the Early Adopters of Internet of Things (IoT)?”]

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