This was a short presentation given at a IoT Panel I had the pleasure of being part of, organized by the Internet Society in Portugal at IST. I talked about microsoft's commitment on IoT and what products and tools we've been delivering to consumers and developers to empower them to be more productive and achieve more.
4. Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO
« Everything is going
to be connected to
cloud and data... All of
this will be mediated
by software.»
5. Empower every person and every organization
on the planet to achieve more
Create more
personal computing
Reinvent productivity
& business process
Build the
intelligent cloud
7. • Provide connectivity to both
existing and new devices
• Facilitate new insights by
harnessing power of untapped
data
• Enable fast solution development
8. Next-gen
architectures
Managed services DevOps Internet of Things
A lot is happening in the cloud
Do you have a strategy in place to harness open source innovation?
Container-based
application
architectures in Azure
Flexible open
source-based IoT
back ends in the
cloud
Cloud-powered
development and testing
with open source
workflow integration
Hybrid use cases
for open sourced-
based LOB apps
18. Microsoft Health and Band
is a core strategic expression of this vision
Create more
personal computing
Reinvent productivity
& business process
Build the
intelligent cloud
24. Stream Analytics
TransformIngest
Example overall data flow and Architecture
Web logs
Present &
decide
IoT, Mobile Devices
etc.
Social Data
Event Hubs
HDInsight
Azure Data
Factory
Azure SQL DB
Azure Data Lake
Azure Machine
Learning
(Fraud detection
etc.)
Power BI
Web
dashboards
Mobile devices
DW / Long-term
storage
Predictive
analytics
Event & data
producers
Azure SQL DW
IoT Hubs
Manufacturing Plant
Manage data remotely from a centralized location and push updates and key notifications to the factory floor, making relevant information available to manufacturing employees.
Monitor whether components are arriving at the plant floor as expected, and slow production if needed to reduce or eliminate excess work-in-process inventory
Predefine rules for equipment use and plant management (e.g. shut down production or equipment based on demand or environmental data), to optimize productivity and profitability
Establish predictive maintenance schedules - with planned maintenance, cost of operations can be reduced and throughput can be increased
Identify and correct quality issues – with IoT and the ability to perform Big Data analytics, manufacturers can increase the number of quality checks that are performed, collect more quality inspection data and analyze more data than ever before. This enables them to spot defect patterns, and correct them more quickly. This also enables manufacturers to create predictive algorithms so that times/places where quality issues may occur are identified ahead of time. (e.g. extra humid day might imply more likelihood of quality issues)
Customer Site and Third-Party Logistics
Continue to collect data from products once they leave the factory floor (e.g. throughout the distribution process and once implemented into customer sites) to help drive predictive maintenance and inform product improvements
E.g. a water pump could send data indicating that it will break down in 2-3 weeks. An analyst at the customer’s OEM or service provider could determine whether the pump is in need of simple repairs, or whether it makes sense to refurbish it. The analyst could also identify a spare parts promotion that the customer could take advantage of so the customer is prepared for future maintenance needs
Access more data than ever before and integrate with 3rd party syndicated data to improve process and quality control (e.g. use data on regional weather patterns to determine locations where weather conditions will result in higher demand, or view data about fuel and other input prices to predict profit margins)
Provide ‘single pane of glass’ visibility across all distribution/sales channels – this enables better inventory management and savings on logistics and distribution costs because the full channel would know would where products are, so redundancies can be reduced
Global Operations
powerful BI tools – derive business insights from Big Data analytics
Make data available to the right individuals for a variety of purposes based on role, such as product development, facility and device servicing, or business and operations management
The Retail industry is dealing with major shifts in consumer shopping behavior, preferences, and expectations, largely driven by new technologies and form factors. As consumers, we expect to access information in ways that are fast but familiar to us in every aspect of our daily lives, including when shopping for groceries, visiting an ATM, or checking out at a store. By building an end-to-end omni-channel solution based on Microsoft and partner technology, you can deliver the seamless, relevant experiences that your customers expect in today’s digital world.
With IoT, almost every interaction among customers involving products and services can be captured, measured, and analyzed. You can gather where the shopper goes and everything they do – on Instagram or Twitter, up and down your aisles, on your website. Which freezer case did they open? What products did they carry into the fitting room? Or, what was weather like at the time? Warm and sunny? Cold and rainy? While you once relied on data from the cash register, with IoT you now can collect data from a variety of store sensors, RFID data, integration with external sources like social media and weather reports, and more. All these points of customer interaction, or touch points, can be considered as a sort of “shopstream” – where data exhaust is produced at each step along the customer journey.
Millions of data points available from all of these new interactions enable you to create far more granular customer segmentations and make very accurate predictions about their behavior. You can drive increasingly relevant, personalized campaigns with data collected on individual customer behavior. Apply machine learning to all the ways the consumer is interacting with you and get a 360-degree view of the customer—tracking, understanding and gaining insight across all channels—that then informs marketing and merchandising to enable the delivery of the highest value offers. Improve your business performance by turning data into relevant context—turning all that exhaust into relevant insights. Get the right offer back to the customer at the right time – on the web, on their mobile phone, at the shelf, or at the cash register.
In our example here, we have a customer on their home computer demonstrating the many ways shoppers are informed about the products and services they want. This phase of the customer journey is a lot like Pinterest, as they plan, combine, view, and get inspiration. Wanting to attract customers into your online and physical storefronts, you want to be in the showcases where your customers are. Monitor Instagram behavior, and turn that into knowledge of your customer. Collect traffic from Twitter, Facebook, Groupon, etc., and use that to drive traffic in and yield greater returns based on relevancy and upsell.
The best offers require context and relevance. Use location tracking on carts, cell phones or video cameras to gain a more complete picture of the customer in-store experience. Combine that insight with what you’ve learned from the customer’s pre-shopping experiences, and send personalized recommendations and promotions based on customer location and preferences. Target your customers in store with store apps, so that they continue their product searching in your store. Keep attention in the store with more effective real time offers and segmentation models. Help your customers to see your store as a destination.
In Retail, the recent surge in the presence of edge devices such as point of service solutions, digital signage, kiosks and handheld devices has become just as important in the store as applications for mobile phones, tablets, and PCs for consumers.
Enable customers to simply tap their smart phone at the cash register to pay—and be on their way, excited to share about their recent shopping success.
Create a leading-edge solution based on Microsoft technologies, and you’ll realize the untapped potential of your business data, giving you the competitive edge that comes from providing the best in customer service. Enable a personal, seamless, and differentiated shopping experience.
IoT enables hospitality and travel organizations to create personal, seamless, and differentiated guest experiences while gaining business agility. The following are just a few quick examples to get you thinking.
Airline
With the proliferation of mobile and online applications replacing traditional face-to-face interactions, passengers are demanding a seamless traveler experience. Microsoft is delivering capabilities to transform the passenger experience from the curb to the gate. Provide your customers with the best deal, the best experience, and a real relationship with their favorite company. IoT solutions dramatically improves your ability to understand and serve your customers.
Enable passengers to self-check bags with RFID luggage tags associated with frequent flyer data, reducing baggage loss and infrastructure requirements and providing passengers with more time to shop in retail stores and order services. Retail stores can send context-relevant promotions as passengers walk by. You can also send notifications regarding gate changes or departure times. Then, enable restaurant recommendations for passengers near a new gate assignment.
Save millions of dollars with more accurate arrival time predictions. Use machine learning, sensor data, weather data, and other inputs to fine tune predictions and provide ground crews and passengers with the most accurate arrival information.
Differentiate yourself in the highly-competitive airline industry by offering new in-flight customer experiences. Microsoft is helping transform onboard sales into an online, fast, connected experience. Integrate with payment acquirers so that flight attendants get an instantaneous response when swiping a credit card during onboard sales transactions. Engage directly with your passengers, surround them with brand information and entertainment, and bring the richness of online information to the plane. In-flight engagement solutions enable the comprehensive and connected consumer experience and increased ancillary services.
With modern electronic flight bag applications, pilots employ a single device for planning, filing, and flying, reducing the weight required for paper flight books on-board. The same device provides collaboration and corporate communications over a highly secure connection, whether swapping shifts with other pilots, consuming training, or simply checking and responding to email.
Together, these solutions come together to create a seamless, connected experience for flight crews and travelers.
Cruise
Use business intelligence to analyze the revenue-generating performance of the various venues and activities onboard ships to identify best practices that generate the most profit and deliver the best guest experience. Tap into existing resources to create new business intelligence—gather information from multiple connected devices and systems, including POS terminals, ticketing systems, and in-room amenities. The more information you can collect about guests, the more you can customize your products for them. For example, as ships travel between ports and passenger loads and demographics change, segment passengers by demographic and analyze their propensity to spend and participate in spa, photo, retail, laundry, and other areas of the ship. Dynamically change your offerings, retail inventory, and activities to match the preferences of the guests onboard. Learning behavior patterns by passenger groups and adjusting offerings and programs to better reflect passenger preferences increases revenue and gives customers a better experience.
Centrally monitor critical ship assets and reduce equipment downtime. Streamline formerly manual maintenance processes with proactive response to near real-time data. Meaningful data from sensors and intelligent edge devices are all available securely in the cloud to provide access to needed information on mobile apps, via a Web browser or through text alerts. Provide an advanced field maintenance solution, enabling work flows for utility work crews through hand-held devices. Instead of going to an office, maintenance technicians can get work orders electronically from anywhere on the ship or dock. In the past, it may have taken more than 30 minutes just for technicians to pick up a new work order and return to the site. But now they can quickly retrieve a work order on their devices, finish the job, and notify people that the project is complete.
Connecting handheld devices with existing IT infrastructure and food storage equipment can improve workflow throughout the ship, including reducing food-inspection time. To monitor food temperature, deliver inspection tasks and checklists to handheld devices. An employee can use the device’s built-in RFID sensor to read tags installed in coolers. Within seconds, the device downloads temperature records collected during the previous visit and compares them to the current reading. The device immediately alerts the user if the cooler is non-compliant and suggests corrective actions to resolve the problem. Then it sends a message to the facility maintenance team to check the cooler, and the employee moves on to inspect the next station. Use an integrated temperature probe on devices to monitor food temperatures on buffet lines and other open areas. The automated processes replace digital kitchen thermometers and paper logs. Instead of manually transferring records from logs to spreadsheet software, inspectors can immediately run reports against the data collected.
Rail
Ensure passengers reach their destinations on time and in the greatest comfort possible. Provide passengers with a better experience—for example, supply information on digital signs and to passengers’ mobile devices.
Improve on-board service for passengers and gather data to understand purchase patterns and make accurate stock decisions. Implement a point-of-sale solution that connects remotely to financial and business systems and aid transactions from train carts and cafes.
Reduce service delays and the cost of equipment downtime. Streamline formerly manual processes with proactive response to near real-time data. Meaningful data from sensors and intelligent edge devices — to closely monitor temperature, vibration, humidity, fault warnings and system alerts — are all available securely in the cloud to provide access to needed information on mobile apps, via a Web browser or through text alerts. Provide an advanced field maintenance solution, enabling work flows for utility work crews through hand-held devices.
Centrally monitor critical station assets, such as escalators, elevators, and HVAC control systems. Connected security networks and personnel heighten security visibility to save more lives.
Hospitality
Drive improvements in your business by reducing travel stress and uncertainty, and by encouraging collaboration among your customers and employees. Implement technologies that offer a more consistent and personalized experience across various channels.
Provide guests with a connected tablet to personalize and customize room settings, including the thermostat, lighting, windows shades, and stereo—and save their preferences. When they visit any of your other hotels around the globe, their room can automatically sync with their preferences. Enable the property manager to view room statuses as well, and send staff to repair any issues or change a light bulb as needed.
Create a more unique and on-brand experience with guests; device apps can provide guests with information about the hotel, its offerings, and local attractions and act as a valuable source of information that you can use to build customer connections.
Offer guests interactive touch-enabled computing to enhance their social experience at your hotels with personalized, highly secure computing experiences. With custom apps, such as an online concierge, capture guest information to improve service delivery and increase competitive advantage.
Quick Service Restaurant
Improve service with a solution that is fast, secure, and reliable, and drive better decisions with greater data access.
Ease business expansion and management. Cut time to open new restaurants and easily push the latest data to existing locations. When you open a new store, create a package that you can deploy quickly though the cloud, and deliver all the necessary information with the click of a button. You can also update software, menu items, prices, coupons and more across multiple locations. Managers have instant access to current sales, inventory, and workforce information.
Improve efficiency and enhance the customer experience. Install a point-of-service solution with easy-to-use, engaging self-service touch screens as well as kitchen displays and order confirmation boards connected to a corporate network and cloud-based services. Take orders faster and more accurately so that customers feel good about their visits. Electronically store and search receipts.
Control food and labor costs to improve profitability. Managers can look at daily inventory of food items as well as when employees signed in and out of shifts. Connected inventory management enables much more accurate correlation between actual and ideal cost.
With alerts from sensors installed in cookers, refrigerators, coffee machines, and more, easily identify mechanical problems and address them quickly. Configure notifications on employee devices of restaurant equipment maintenance needs. Use built-in RFID sensors to read tags installed in coolers. Use devices with integrated temperature probes to monitor food temperatures on buffet lines, in food cases and in other open areas.