Defining IoT and IoE

There is a lot of IoT and IoE questions going around and now, and starting from our HANA4IoT event at Palo Alto on November 11^th, 2014- I have been asked more than once to clarify the difference between IoT and IoE.
'Big data is great, but it is worth noting that without big judgment + big intelligence, presenting a lot of data or reports at the end of the day is worth nothing unless we also present business benefits and business intelligence from that data.

At an executive level Stage 1 IoT was a term coined by Kevin Aston in 1999 when RFID was considered a pre-requisite for IoT. Over time it came to include Bar Codes, NFC’s (Near Field communications), QR codes, and digital watermarking. However, most of these were not required to be active (real-time) communication devices. At this stage of maturity the goal was to only have a miniscule, machine readable, unique identifier. Using this technology continuous inventory management could become universal but only in a hub and spoke design, i.e. each device communicating to a central hub. At the same time, some organization's are also postulating their own version of IoT. For example GE is postulating IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things), while other people can come with their own extension of IoT. The fundamental IoT still remains constant other than now we are talking of networked and connected identifiers where necessary. At an executive level IoT simply provides connectivity, it provides data exchange, but little more.  IoT can mainly do is collect and network data. From the IoE point of view IoT is a dumb connectivity with little interconnectivity between the networked devices with any degree of intelligence. Any prediction or prescription is undertaken on a disconnected application server.  

Stage 1 IoE is a term coined by Cisco in 2013-14. As the global leaders in enterprise network and communication systems Cisco is in a unique position to see the SMART, connected enterprise more clearly than most companies can. IoE is the ubiquitous connection of everything to everything with a goal of creating what I am terming as the next QSA Enterprise. QSA stands for Quantifiable and Self-Aware. IoE on the other hand evolves the IoT environment  with intra-connectivity and delve into the domain of sensor and device intelligence. For example our  smart TV is just smart but nothing more. It is not intelligent. If IoT is the cradle for the ideation of connected physical things, IoE is the nursery where  intelligent applications enable actual business benefits via inter-connectivity. The long-term goal for IoE could be building the autonomous and self-aware products, sensors and enterprise of the future. It will lead us into the domain of QSA enterprises.

The best example of Quantifiable, Self-Aware product is the Google self-driving car. Once thought to be the humor of an eccentric CIO, this concept is today one of the major disrupters in the auto industry. These cars are already on California roads and they promise a future where there are zero accidents or deaths due to auto accidents. It is already being predicted that 20% of cars by 2020 will be self-driven. For example Nascar racing cars today have over 2,500 networked devices that continuously communicate to their pit support teams and to Nascar administrators- resulting in a 45% decrease in racing accidents.
Keep a lookout for the Apple announcement of their own version of a smart self-driving car.

However let’s get back to defining IoT and IoE as a starter.

IoT: Our interpretation of IoT includes mostly internal dumb/smart unique sensors, that are data-generators, networked that may be communication enabled devices on an enterprise secure-Intranet. The key in this definition is Enterprise Intranet as security is a major consideration in this environment. So all streaming or data collection from Manufacturing, what is being projected as M2M communications, will happen through the enterprise and partner intranets. So IoT is the interconnection between enterprise assets, products and logistics. So when GE has logically come up with IIoT, or Industrial Internet of Things we can assume this is IoT on their and partner intranets be it collaborative design, a manufacturing shop floor, component networked devices, a jet engine, a power turbine or other closed loop device communication of self-data to a central hub- but DO NOT communicate with each other, i.e. one engine to another, or one engine to the service center.

IoE, on the other hand, is the next evolutionary step from IoT, and includes all internal and external intelligent, data-generating, network and communication devices   with a small addition - autonomous and interconnected smart intelligence. In our example of GE we could have a refrigerator or a washing machine in our home with networked communication devices – these ‘external’ devices would communicate with their owners and GE through public networks in most cases, it would communicate with the grocery store to deliver items that are necessary and, it would identify every item in the fridge along with expired items that must not be consumed. It will continuously interact with public, hybrid and shared clouds. It will require something like the Cisco Intercloud, to truly leverage its quantifiable self-aware intelligence, along with very secure communications between the various clouds as our QSA environment will need to interact various clouds to accomplish their intelligent tasks. IoE would need self aware intelligence to identify an intrusion and either lock itself off or auto-block the intruder. It may may need to harmonize data like local weather, ethnicity, average earning, GPS location, into its self-aware intelligence and enterprise analytics. This scenario requires IoE data that would reside in various clouds across the region or the planet and IoE intelligence to prescribe next actions autonomously. A sound technology that interconnects between these clouds within clouds is critical from a reliability, data governance, security and connectivity point of view.

The visualization above defines our, Scott Feldman from SAP and I, interpretation of average IoT and IoE domains. As with any enterprise there are three partners that one deals with, i.e. vendors, we the company and customers.

Let’s take a petrochemical company as our example.

The Upstream represents their own, and partner - drilling licenses, contracts, areas, rigs, platforms, inbound logistics, refineries, and such. Upstream is where the raw material and semi-finished feed into the enterprise main operations. Upstream could be leveraging external clouds for parts, service, weather and such. Internal secure servers for production, administration, service, support and logistics. Each of these upstream processes are candidates both for IoT setup if owned by the enterprise or their partner organization, i.e. within the security of the enterprise or partner firewall and domain. There is also IoE potential for integrating the same sensors in an intelligent interaction and to public domains for weather, floods, threats like riots, terrorism, etc.. for intelligent prescription analytics.

The Midstream is represented by the enterprise itself. This would include inbound raw and semi-finished materials, manufacturing, storage, intra-company logistics, finance, sales, planning, and the overall administration and management of the enterprise assets and resources. According to a Gartner 2012 report 98% of enterprise reporting is currently undertaken only in the Midstream domain, where as 95% of business impacts come from outside, i.e. supply chain and/or customer perceptions. As of today it is fair to state that 90% of SAP enterprise customers have a firewall, represented by the mesh in our visualization above,  that only encompasses their self-Midstream block, i.e. the blue box. Some companies extend their firewall to include Upstream and Downstream data access mainly with secure tunnels to partner systems.  Still fewer companies have joint firewall standards that extend towards both sides of the value-chain EDGE defined above- this is the firewall we are visualizing above. The midstream typically deploys bare-metal application, data and network servers that are maintained by the enterprise or their hosting partners on their behalf. Companies are now starting to move towards a cloud environment. Most enterprise customers are initially taking their non-production systems to the cloud but prefer to keep their Production systems on premise. This slowly proceeds to a hybrid cloud models and finally to moving all their applications to a cloud environment. The Midstream could be leveraging internal data generating sensors such as found in manufacturing processes, machineries, service and spares, for parts, weather and such.  The maximum gain in the midstream is to rethink your business model, i.e. what are you actually need to ensure true business benefits that can be benchmarked and audited. Kodak, Fuji and Agfa thought they were in the business of selling films whereas the customers were buying images. The disruption came from digital imaging.  Telex thought they were in the business of replicating a type-written message, whereas the customers were buying copies of documents. The disruption came with the fax machine and then with scanners.  Each of these midstream products are solid candidates for SMART IoE integration into the digital world that is exploding around us. Each of these midstream processes are candidates for IoT as they are owned by the enterprise themselves. There is also exceptional IoE potential for integrating to public domains for weather, floods, threats like riots, terrorism, etc. for downstream analytics and logistics, product positioning, customer emotions, digital marketing and revenue generation on the upstream side.

Finally the Downstream is represented by the Customer at the far right end. It includes finished goods, outbound logistics like Oil tankers, wholesale and retail outlets like gas tank-yards and stations, prospective and actual customers. The Downstream potential is most promising. It is a tremendous opportunity for proactive enterprises to connect directly with their customers. This single capability has the potential to redefine products and services, to redefine customers themselves.  An Oil company could take proactive service steps and mitigate customer sentiments via real-time analysis. A car manufacturer could end accidents with self-driving cars.  A healthcare provider could monitor patients in real-time for proactive services. In each of the above cases the product has changed with IoE as does the definition of the industry and its service capabilities.  Each of these downstream processes are solid candidates for IoT and if done professionally and scientifically they are exploding sales in ways never visualized before. In this model the customer actually becomes your enterprise marketing and polling arm and guides your enterprise to ever higher user satisfaction scores.  The downstream has excellent IoT potential in the value-chain with a whole new world of opportunities in customer satisfaction when combined with things like integrating to public domains for weather, location,

In the IoT and IoE domain, IoE iscurrently replacing the IoT,s lowly at first, asthis isnew territory. However, with Michael E. Porter publishing on ‘How Smart Connected Products are transforming Competition’. More and more companies are enabling their products, and user-experience by building connected and intelligent applications for our complex world. IoE is not only changing how we interact with the digital world but also the very definition of proactive service enablement towards a zero-downtime future. Just like DVD disrupted Vinyl only to be disrupted by iTunes, digital photography disrupted the photographic film industry, Amazon disrupted book stores. Similarly, IoE is predicated to disrupt many traditional industries with SMART, Self-Aware and communicating devices. Our goal is to simplify the business benefit roadmap from vision to routine in the most effective roadmap. SAP projects IoT4HANA potential as a $220 billion market in the next decade, while Cisco predicts this to be a $19 trillion market. So no matter how you look at IoT or IoE we all have to agree this is far bigger than any of us thought.

So what’s in your strategic pocket to save your enterprise in this inevitable future?

Give us 60 minutes we will save you 40% in your HANA Migration.

An Introduction to our revolutionary IQDCT process.
Any partner can increase quality, but it will normally come with a larger budget. Any partner can decrease costs, but it will normally come with lowering the overall quality of deliverables. However, what the maturity of SAP HANA and our experience brings to you is the IQDCT methodology for implementing SAP HANA.

The IQDCT methodology was the result of what was termed as  the 'Mission Impossible' goal by most of my SAP colleagues. My goal was to define a scientific methodology + a repeatable Process as to how to decrease the Cost of a HANA migration, Plus -decrease the time for migration, Plus -  enhance the data-quality of the new SAP HANA environment, when compared to the legacy environment. It took 19 HANA implementations to come to the Eureka moment. It actually took a very large SAP BW customer to crystalize the concept.
Participate in the 2015 HANA IQDCT Audit and enhance your foundation

A. Mission Impossible Components:
1. SAP mostly has a fixed, not-negotiable price for SAP HANA SW license. There are various types of license types but the price thereafter was relatively fixed.
2. SAP HANA HW Appliances price was rather fixed and relatively high compared to legacy HW. One reason may have been that HANA was still maturing and all HW components went through a rigorous SAP qualification process of certification.
3. The HANA Appliance model was and still is a 'Black Box' that commands fixed Service and Maintain costs as annual contracts. However, as HANA is maturing SAP is relinquishing their rigidity of  approved HANA platforms an in mid 2014 introduced the TDI (Tailored Data-Center Integration) process which allows customers to chose the best-of-best partners for the HANA components. For example a customer can today procure Compute from Cisco (fastest growing X-86 server supplier in North America)  , Storage from EMC (World leader in Storage); HANA and IoE network from Cisco (World Leader in Network and communications); and so on. The customer no longer need be tied to the whims and fancies of a single black box appliance.
4. Skilled HANA resources are hard to find: SAP HANA resources along with the rest are a premium too. According to my estimates worldwide there are over 15,000 HANA certified resources. Around 7,000 of them have done HANA installations. However when it comes to optimization, this comes with extensive experience,  there are probably a handful in each region.
 
So the question became where then is the wiggle space. Where does one begin
 
At the same time there were serious Customer Concerns for both BoH (BW-on-HANA) and SoH (Suite-on-HANA = ERP, SCM, CRM)
 
B. Customer Concerns  (What we have heard from Customers):
1. Sticker Shock: The first hurdle is the sticker shock that customers experience when planning to migrate to SAP HANA. This blog is all about mitigating that one concern. The HANA costs are distributed across SW, HW, SI and migration costs. We have consistently targeted a 40% reduction in initial and annual SLA costs and exceeded it with 5 out of 5customers we have worked with.
2. HANA needs considerable Landscape Readiness: Because HANA is a net new  Platform it also needs net new HW. With over 8 customers we have held one day workshops and made solid benefit proposals to Landscape optimization. With one of the worlds largest US CPG customers we achieved our IQDCT target in this one-day workshop alone. The HANA HW has to be new that is not negotiable, however with the TDI approach we can reuse your existing partners and bring in world class providers and assist to considerably reduce Landscape costs thereby directly impacting TCO. We are so confident of this approach that we are willing to give your migration totally Free-of-Cost if the customer will just pay us 20% of the money we save them.
3.HANA is evolving very rapidly: This was true around one year ago when there could be multiple patch upgrades in a single month. Now HANA has around 1 patch per quarter recommended. With the right partner, i.e. one placing experienced SAP HANA resources on your projects and support the HANA patch is a few hours effort today. If your environment is cluster edit can even become a zero-downtime evolution with one cluster at a time approach. At the same time as HANA I a new platform each Patch represents the effort SAP is undertaking to enhance the functionalities and capabilities of their HANA Platform.
4. Show me the business Benefits: Our statement since 2010 and the launch of HANA has always been 'HANA is a business solution and not simply a technical install or upgrade'.  The August ASUG poll results always garner questions from proactive customers. My response is detailed in this blog. However, let us not forget that our prime reason for implementing any new technology is Business-Benefits. So companies that forget the Business Benefit audit and planning and treat their HANA initiative simply as a technical install will get exactly that. We encourage customers to keep their eyes focused on 'Strategic Business Benefits' and choose their partners accordingly. They must consider Big-Data, Cloud, IoT, IoE and HANA in conjunction to make the right strategic business decision.
5. Scarce Access to Knowledgeable HANA resources: See section A.4 above as that answers this question. However, it all depends on the partner you choose. Here are some points to consider:-
i. HANA is a brand new SAP Platform so resources with knowledge will be difficult, resources with experience will be rare, and resources with multiple HANA projects still more rare. Resources with HANA Optimization experience are like Unicorns.
ii. Your Big-SI partners would like to up-skill their thousands of legacy resources at your projects.
iii. We are spending more time optimizing HANA environments that were built by legacy resources, on legacy best practices, that simply do not work or apply in HANA.
iv. Just as an example we have built our company from the ground up with SAP HANA as our foundation, skill and competency. We are also North America's leading TDI partner for SAP HANA.
6. How can we enhance Business Benefits: Part one of this goal is to ask the partners - Show me the business benefit (section B3 above) . Part Two of this endeavor is to ask 'what do you have in your pocket to enhance our BVA (Business Value Attainment score). Just as an example we have a process we call the RBS (Rapid Business Solution). This process has delivered 100% custom business solutions for companies in a fixed bid, as-a-service, offer. Customer satisfaction scores are stellar in every one of these RBS solutions. The RBS is a scientific process that is repeatable across time and space.  
7. Should we migrate our SAP BW 'As-Is' to HANA: More than one customer has asked us this question because their triad partner has recommended this path to them. Our answer to this is a solid and absolute NO!. In 2012 Gartner reported that over 2,500 CIO's indicated that 'Fewer than 30% of global BI initiatives would met business expectations'. Our translation of this is that 'Over 70% of the reports in your BW Production environment are not being used, or will never be used, by your business users'. Note: I have asked this to every CIO and BI manager since 2010 and 100% of them have agreed to this translation of ours.

So my question to you as a SAP HANA key Stakeholder is these two. Answer in True or False
1. Less than 50% (Gartner's 2003 report) of  the reports in your Production Bi environment are not being used by your business users'  (True/False)
2. There is Zero benefit in improving the performance of a report from 817 seconds to less than 1 second if business will never use it. (True/False)
then go an take the IQDCT audit above

The IQDCT methodology
1.Is a proprietary methodology consisting of automation tools, partners and solutions that has a target of decreasing your db by 40%by cleaning your database
2. A 40% reduction in db represents a 40% reduction in your initial SW, HW and migration costs (TCO Saving 1)
3. A 40% reduction in db represents a 40% faster SLA turnaround
4. A 40% reduction in db represents a 40% reduction in annual SW,HW and support costs
5.Target is 40%,probability of achieving it is 90%. last 5 customers success is 100%

The ball is now in your court

Data Is The New Gold In The Digital World

Thanks to the Internet we have gazillions of data-bits are being created every day. On the positive side we have millions of songs at our finger-tips that are being listened to and liked or disliked, billions of transactions that are being conducted and an equally larger number of emotional statements that signify what customer like our companies, our products or our services. On the negative side   we have millions of songs no one ever listened to, millions of fraudulent transactions, and social emotions and comments criticizing some company, product or service. All this is changing the very definition of how we select, market and take, or will take, decisions in the connected enterprise being created around us right now. In this process of the connected value-chain, our evolution to a data and information driven economy where the most valuable currency is the underlying data. This new economy, as every change before, is going to replace traditional tasks and jobs with new ones. In this economy we are seeing the first glimpse of Peter Drucker’s ’knowledge workers’ of the early 60’s being replaced by ‘Business Value Workers’ (BI Valuenomics,2010) of the 21^st century.

The best case scenario of this comes from the movie Moneyball where Billy Bean, a manager of a small baseball team in San Francisco, uses data to almost win the World Series. Here is a conversation between John the owner of Boston Sox and Billy Bean as he tries to convince Billy to join the Boston Six as their manager..

Quoting the conversation between John and Billy at Boston we find a lot of lessons, I have put my analytics reference in (brackets) :  "One of the greatest things about money (data) is that it does not care what baseball (Analytics) thinks or what it doesn’t think" he continues "You have won (Successful BI Projects) the exact number of games the Yankees won. But the Yankees paid $1.4 million per win (successful BI Project) and you paid $260 thousand. The first guy through the wall (with a new idea that actually works) always gets bloody, always. This is threatening not just the way of doing business, but in their minds it is threatening the Game (traditional experts) . But, what it’s really threatening is their livelihood, their jobs. It's threatening the way they have been doing things and every time something like that happens whether it’s the government or the way of doing business or whatever it is, the people who are holding the reigns holding the switch -they will simply go bat-shit crazy" and with a slow pause he continues, "Anybody that's not tearing down their team right now (adapting their SAP HANA methodologies) , and rebuilding it using your model (Scientific principles of a net new platform) - they're dinosaurs. They'll be sitting on their backside, on their sofas, watching the Red Sox (your company) win the World Series (deploy HANA with higher quality at lower cost and SLA than competition)”. The data principles of Billy Bean became legendary and slowly established global scientific standards and processes in baseball team management, replacing the traditional ‘gut-feel’ processes.

Data has already began to disrupt the very essence of global businesses, legacy industries and redefine how we all must conduct business today. As we move forward this acceleration on big-data driven solutions will further disrupt traditional, and technocratic, ways of doing business. While we review and try to understand the power of data, there are companies like Amazon that has already changed the  books and now retail industry, and Google and Amazon that are still in the pure data-play game now expanding to enterprise services, iTunes and Spotify that is already changing the music industry,. For example the music industry that was once dominated by conservative talent hunters, whose sole job was selection of new artists very much like the coaches in baseball, who kept hiring and working in accordance to traditional and subjective methodologies.

The digital and IoE impact on the music industry:-Today an artist like Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Sia and a host of new mega singers no longer depend on the personal whims and fancies of traditional talent manager.  New customers today buy music based on peer-to-peer approvals in the form of likes and dislikes. The new breed of musicians are no longer dependent on traditional recording studios or music companies. Traditional music companies that used to find one great track to sell a whole DVD have to now face the disruption caused by likes of iTune’s and the world of 99 cent single songs. The music industry is now dominated by the digital selection, success and marketing. Predictions in the music industry will be determined by identifying digital success prior to competition.

The changes being brought by the digital and big-data disruption is similarly changing how defense forces fight battles on the digital front, how farmers optimize fertilizers and watering to get every higher yields, how mining industries are heading towards the IoT managed future of mine operation without humans and IoE connected devices, where healthcare and hospitals are now entering the totally connected environment of IoE devices and 7x24 remote monitoring of critical tasks. Every industry is facing an explosive fork to their future with one path leading towards the adoption of the digital optimization with the future of big-data, IoE networked devices and the high volume, velocity and variety of data these devices are generating every minute.

At the foundation of the digital IoE, the logical evolution from IoT, solutions is data. Just above the data foundation is network and communication devices. How we generate, communicate, store, select and filter all this data is now defining the strategic future of most enterprises.

Similarly, in our BI world the question as to whether we should continue to use the skills of partners, experts and resources who remain experts in traditional BW and DW as solutions architects, modelers and designers. Experts who that have delivered global BI solutions where ‘Fewer than 30% of BI projects will meet business expectations’ (Gartner’s 2012 BI report), is a question we need to critically analyze as we step into the big-data environment. Once we enter the Big-Data arena we will realize that Big-Data is less about accumulating data and more about identifying the business drivers and using that to filter data into bite-able chunks, without this by 2016 most companies will be exploding at their seams accumulating 99% of data that they will never need, modeled into un-optimized containers that contribute to waste.

Big data is not an area where you want to start wrong and then correct the path as you go along. You need blueprint your five year strategy today and then plan on how to achieve the highest quality at the lowest cost today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Je Suis Charlie Hebdo

Nous sommes tous Charlie too!
Je Suis Charlie Hebdo.  Je Suis Ahmed Merabet. Je Suis Stephane Charbonnier. Je Suis Jean Cabut. Je Suis Georges Wolinski. Je Suis Bernard Verlhac. Je Suis Bernard Maris; Je Suis Philippe Honoré. Je Suis Michel Renaud. Je Suis Elsa Cayat. Je Suis Frederic Boisseau. Je Suis Mustapha Ourrad. Je Suis Franck Brinsolaro.
BE VERY CAREFUL YOU DON'T LET THE TERRORISTS WIN INSIDE YOUR OWN MIND

This was a terrorist attack on Democracy, Freedom of expression, Secular thinking, thinking itself, caricature, peace, love, caring, and most important of all civilized tolerance.

Remember each and every one of us is the person above. This act was done without any consideration of nationality, race, sex or religion. This could happen to any one of us or to the ones we love dearly. What matters now is how each of us reacts to this dastardly act of uncalled violence. do we become a solution or simply part of the problem itself.

More important REMEMBER that fundamental aim of the terrorists is to create a divide. A divide between people. We all win together if we we stand together  and protect what these cowardly acts were attempting to create - a  divide between people on the basis of religion. By falling into this trap we only feed the frenzy of hatred by the end of which we firstly force the fringe people to join this dastardly movement. Also by falling into the trap of anger and hatred we remain no better than the demented terrorists who pulled the trigger in Paris.

MOST important to REMEMBER is that we must be careful about what we think for our thoughts become words. We must be more careful about what we speak or write for that becomes an image of us. We must altogether be careful of our image for soon that becomes us.  
It is our choice whether we live by the code of Charlie or the terrorists.

• We can choose Freedom of expression, secular thinking, democracy, peace, love and caring, or become angry and fill ourselves with kill, hate and segeregate. Fear and hate makes us do unpredictable things and takes us into dark corners where we do not ever want to go.
• We can choose to smile at our neighbors, friends and colleagues, or start to divide them into containers of hatred and suspicion. 
• We can choose to remain humane and civilized, or start to blog, participate in hate processions and degenerate our nation, city and ourselves.
• We can choose to protect our neighbors and their children irrespective of their religion or nationality, or start to divide our selves and our children into buckets of hatred on fellow humans, be they neighbors, colleagues or total strangers
• We can choose to protect our sanity and minds from what the terrorists want us to do, or simply slide down the  path of fear, hate, segregate, divide, hurt, punish, kill and eradicate families who have nothing to do with any of this.

It matters little as to what type of people committed this crime our worst crime will be if  we stereotype fellow humans and display hatred for no sensible reason but out of ignorance and illogical hatred.
I for one choose Charlie. These were lunatics with guns and we must catch them and continue to be democratic and secular. I choose to live free of malice, hatred or fear because of some terrorists and their warped way of leading their lives. I choose not to let the terrorists win inside my head. My country, mind and thoughts are mine and I will not let any terrorist take control or sway me from my fundamental beliefs.

Building the next generaation QSA ‘Quantifiable Self-Aware’ Enterprise

 

 

I am launching the QSA enterprise concept, expect an executive book soon, of the future self-aware, autonomous enterprise that will consist of self-aware, autonomous components that intelligently talk to other self-aware, autonomous things in a seamless Edge to Edge system across the total enterprise value chain. This is but the beginning of the IoT, IoE technologies and when we have connected to everything's we shall be but beginning.

The first step is to dream, then to imagine, then to make it a reality. The Focus of QSA is Business Benefit from our HANA4IoE solutions

We already have mind controlled prosthetic devices available today. In California we already have Google’s driverless car operating on the road, pilotless drones and cruise missiles are a reality of yesterday. What we are witnessing is a disruption of unprecedented proportions that will impact every process, industry and process of our lives in the very near future.  The self-aware world of science fiction is a reality today, it will only become commonplace sometime tomorrow.    My motto for this is ‘Dreams yesterday, Reality today and routine tomorrow’- and this cannot be truer today than anything else. You’re Big-Data, Cloud, IoE and HANA better have a QSA component embedded within it to assure strategic customer benefit built into the matrix

Our starting point is IoT and then we raise the bar slightly and move on the IoE platform.  Whereas IoT plans to communicate with things that are networked the IoE has a vision of communications between everything that needs to be monitored. Once IoE was blessed by Michael E. Porter and Harvard in the November 2014 HBR issue IoT has simply become a familiar acronym while we all need to  be thinking IoE in its true sense.

The real value of smart gadgets may ultimately not be in what data they generate, but what benefits can be extracted from the data of everything feeds. It will be defined by how the data can be designed to tells a service administrator, a production manager, an airplane service group, the Tesla support group all with a goal of zero-downtime. It will be defined by how the data can be modeled to tell your doctor, your cardiologist, your surgeon about critical alerts that lead to a proactive health-care awareness.

The real value of the data is in the business-benefits we can extract from the volumes of data that can avoid an impending accident, improve critical services, catch a terrorist before they cause damage, and proactively alert about possible issues that can or may lead to a shut-down or an accident.

The future is not about collecting data but about how we synthesize, reduce, visualize and amalgamate all these disparate data streams to become self-aware, real-time, self-correlating and intelligent administrators.

From an executive level the most critical component in the QSA methodology is Business Benefit. This focus will eliminate redundant data, Identify true opportunities and enable the QSA concept to evolve to every higher benefit-potential.

Elimination of redundant data is most important because in the future world of networked and connected devices one thing we will have plenty of is data. It is critical to realize that 99.9% of this data will be redundant. Enterprises that focus on data collection will have over 99% of useless data, something that should not be desirable. It is very easy to reach there without QSA planning.

Automobile Industry Example: Modern cars have hundreds of devices onboard the car. There is more computing power in an average car today than there was in our PC and Desktop two decade ago. Most modern cars have over two thousand devices that collect information. Tesla is a leading edge example of this segment. Your average Tesla talks continuously to your dashboard smart visualization. It also recognizes engine components in real-time and updates Tesla service administrators. Detroit is already forecasting the  Google driverless cars becoming available by 2020 to 2030. These cars represent the QSA automobile that will recognize voice-commands and hand-movement signals. The business benefit goal here is not just to decrease accidents but to eradicate accidents altogether.

So whatever industry you are in make your strategic QSA goal as ZERO. Zero accidents, Zero downtime, zero defective components leaving the plant, zero collateral damage to our soldiers in a battle situation, etc.

Airline Industry Example: Modern jet engines have hundreds of devices onboard the plane. For example, each engine generates around 4TB of data every hour of operation from many devices. A four engine airplane from New York to London would thus generate (4x4x8) or 128 TB of data. In a good flight, where the engines perform perfectly and there are no issues the 128TB of data technically is redundant for each device simply keeps stating ’I am well’. Our QSA factors come into effect when we identify what are the kinds of things that go wrong in an engine that our devices can track. Next we need to identify a signals tree that identifies different signals that identify an issue of some sort. Next each issue signature needs to be identified into a severity and criticality matrix. So the key to a QSA methodology is that if and when there is an issue signal it gets segregated by the self-aware algorithms and then it gets quantified as to who needs to be alerted. For example the pilot, the on-board engineer, the next airport the engine manufacturer, etc. Note that in this example if the total value chain has QSA enabled manufacturing, monitoring, maintenance and support we should be able to achieve a Zero crash rate due to engine failure in the foreseeable future.

So one way or another your competition will be heading for the QSA environment, product, support and maintenance. Plan your QSA strategy along with your IoE, Big Data and HANA Strategy. Just like the internet era changed the definition and existence of industries QSA will have a similar impact in the next decade.

Your QSA focus must remain razor-sharp on End-user benefits