The Next Generation of IoT and Why Quality is Business Critical

An expansive industry, expanded

Whenever presented with the opportunity to research and talk about the Internet of Things, (IoT), we realize how mind-blowing it really is!

The industry has grown so rapidly, almost unlike any the world has seen, and the power to monitor, analyze, optimize, and make decisions from the data of our everyday experiences is literally at our fingertips.

The fingertips of those affected by the IoT for the most part belong to the consumers of things like a smart refrigerator, Fitbit, a smart toothbrush, and now, even a smart, self-driving car, of which we’re still awaiting the Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard commercial. However amazing and useful these things may prove to be, the IoT is moving towards business.

How the IoT Affects Businesses

Each business is an ecosystem where every individual and process not only affects one another, but is also deeply intermingled and relies on the transfer of information. This information is impacting the way businesses reach consumers through advertising and awareness, and in understanding how we leverage that information through the numerous digital touchpoints we now have.  For businesses this includes TVs, cars, and mobile that now require Quality as part of maintaining those digital touchpoints. Introducing automation and integration to this process is becoming business critical and crucial to both product delivery and operations teams.

The IoT already does, or is soon to affect almost every major industry in the world, so how does this relate not only in your life and home, but to your business?

Industrial Internet: The Next Generation of the IoT

GE recently coined the term Industrial Internet, calling it the marriage of both the industrial and Internet revolution. The applications and devices created for the user are being applied to business processes, from services you provide to the products you manufacture.

The act of delivering instructions, monitoring the outcomes, and adjusting control accordingly has shown to reduce costs, optimize efficient use of resources and time, provide accurate insights through analytics, increase the reach of your message to your audience, and create a customized experience, attributing value and knowledge to your business.

The connection between consumer and service is migrating to the connection between businesses. McKinsey recently published findings from a study involving “150 use cases, ranging from people whose devices monitor health and wellness to manufacturers that utilize sensors to optimize the maintenance of equipment and protect the safety of workers”, which projected that the IoT industry value will attribute to 11 percent of the world economy by 2025.

The Need for SDETs with the Internet of Things

SDETs (Software Developer Engineer in Test) in software and application QA is not a new thing. However, with the IoT revolution at hand, companies are realizing more and more how valuable the addition of an SDET is to their teams.

An SDET will possess a set of skills that can enhance building test and performance automation for network protocols, embedded software, mobile applications, and distributed systems. With a background in programming, development, testing, automation, and QA, SDETs have a meaningful impact on IoT programs and devices.

IoT + You

Take this information and relate it to the services or products your business specializes in, and you should realize how impactful this revolution is. Applications between partners, automating systems to collect data, monitoring the function of your service or product, and building and testing software businesses use, are all related to the Internet of Things.

Predicting where the Internet of Things will take us in the future only starts at, well, unlimited possibilities.

In a world full of smart things, be smart about your business!

To learn more about the IoT and the Industrial Internet Revolution, visit our interview and webinar page, or give us a call to talk some tech.

As a quality assurance service and solution provider of continuous integration and automation, our purpose is to educate and dig a little deeper into the technology of today and how it can be implemented into your business practices.