ABSTRACT

Business winners The IoT abounds with forecasts about the number of devices which will be connected, the profits which will be generated and the economic benefits to

society. Consultants McKinsey & Co. predict a potential $11.1 trillion economic impact on the global economy by 2025 (Manyika et al., 2015), technology analyst IDC forecasts market revenues for IoT firms of $7 trillion by 2020 (IDC, 2014) and IoT analyst Machina Research sees almost 40 billion connected devices generating this value by 2024 (Machina Research, 2015). These are just a few of the predictions, and the ranges vary considerably. However, as we have seen, there is sufficient evidence to show that an underpinning IoT infrastructure is being built and devices are being connected to the extent that the IoT is becoming a reality. The chapter on business models discussed where the value is likely to be created in terms of profits by companies with the focus being on the data rather than necessarily the ‘things’ themselves. Just as oil formed the basis of a transport and energy revolution in the twentieth century, so data is seen as powering the next economic transformation which some are calling the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Schwab, 2016). While data may be the “new oil”,1 as Michael Palmer from the Association of National Advertisers rightly points out:

Data is just like crude. It’s valuable, but if unrefined it cannot really be used. It has to be changed into gas, plastic, chemicals, etc to create a valuable entity that drives profitable activity; so must data be broken down, analysed for it to have value.