November 22, 2017
Posted by Mark Henderson

On the 6th of November, Adjuno attended the ‘Getting Smart: How IoT has Revolutionised the Business Landscape’ seminar hosted by The British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. This topical event invited a host of leading industry experts from across the globe, to share their thoughts on the value that IoT has brought to businesses, and the likely future developments for this hot topic in technology.

The brilliant line-up of influential guests included Andrew Mui (Chief Executive Officer, Hitachi), Mark Lunt (Group Managing Director, JOS) and Patrick Kirby (Director- Technology, Media, Telecommunications & Innovation, KPMG). Led by BT’s Managing Director of Products & Services Research and Open Innovation, Jean-Marc Frangos, the panel of experts discussed some of the most burning questions around IoT, including ‘how will IoT change the workplace?’, ‘what can IoT do for Hong Kong?’ and ‘what is next for IoT?’.

One of the main focus areas of discussion was the challenges that accompany the adoption of IoT. It was highlighted how IoT is currently unstructured, as although there are diverse types of devices and ways of connecting them, there are yet to be any common standards put in place. Touching on their expertise within the field, the guests then shared examples of successful and unsuccessful IoT projects.

The main message we heard during the event was “In five years from now IoT won’t exist as a buzzword, it will simply be viewed as part of business as usual.”

Some other key takeaways included:

• Where possible IoT should be combined with machine learning in order to gain the maximum benefits of the network. That said, it’s important to first cleanse the data in order to ensure it can be acted upon effectively.
• Security has become a real concern. In the past security could be safeguarded by the closing of a network, but IoT by its very definition is an open distributed network, and therefore security is one of the biggest challenges that needs to be addressed.
• In the technology sector, IoT has become extremely significant for businesses. But, whilst it is currently a relatively new phenomenon, the concept has been around for many of years, and is yet to fully mature.

This seminar addressed a lot of thoughts around the latest IoT trends and updates, and it will be interesting to see how many of the predictions and insights prove true as we continue to experience IoT expansions and developments.

Did you attend the event? We’d love to hear your thoughts @adjunosolutions