Business models are evolving, and data is at the heart of that movement thanks to the explosion in edge computing and IoT connectivity over the last five years. When you think about all of the data available from connected devices, such as security cameras, pressure sensors, smart home devices, mobile phones and more, channel partners have a massive opportunity when it comes to capturing, storing and sharing IoT data. The sizeable market opportunity presents heavy competition when it comes to maximizing this value.

Step-by-step: The Data Maturity Journey

There’s elegance in simplicity, and that’s how we’ve designed our levels of data maturity. The data maturity journey is a step-by-step approach to moving channel partners down a methodical path along with their end users to better extract and utilize data across their organization. One of the main reasons channel partners and end users experience challenges and barriers when it comes to data progression is looking for long-term benefits with a non-systematic, short-term approach.

As a result, we’ve identified four steps of IoT data maturity:

• Foundation: Collecting data from things, people and processes

• Modernization: Organizing data to create a more integrated data experience within the organization

• Insight-driven: Analyzing data to deliver insights to the organization to increase revenue, reduce costs and better serve clients

• Data-driven: Extracting maximum value from data across the organization

Jumping to full data-driven IoT maturity isn’t an overnight process; even taking the first step on the journey is one that requires a full gamut of products, solutions, services, consultation, training and enablement to fully maximize data potential and move along the journey. Simply purchasing an IoT or data solution isn’t enough.

In a perfect world, MEGA COMPONENT and our industry consultants meet with the end user customer to fully establish what the customer is trying to accomplish and what they’re currently doing to achieve that. Consultants can help identify obstacles and explore the solution catalog to address those challenges.

In action: Showing the data maturity journey in the healthcare environment

End users, like a healthcare clinic, for example, desire to leverage their data better than they do today. They want to reach that pinnacle of becoming a data-driven business. A company in the healthcare field may take the following steps at each phase of the journey:

• Foundation: Remote patient monitoring (RPM)

• Modernization: Applications and dashboards that combine the view of all patient vitals

• Insight-driven: Using data to better predict high-risk patients

• Data-driven: Precision medicine and treatment that takes into account all historical, current and predictive data associated with a single patient

Overcoming obstacles: Mitigating risk on the journey

Everyone within the channel needs to find value, but not everyone knows how to fully extract it at scale. Organizations both small and large want to extract as much data as possible, especially when more data is available at our fingertips than ever before. However, there are several challenges commonly experienced when trying to move along the journey:

• Differentiation and specialization

• Industry credibility

• Access to expertise

• Operate new business models

• Mitigating risk

• Gaining market share

Our team of IoT data professionals recognizes and understands these challenges and helps walk through each of them through enablement services, technical support and vertical market expertise. Above all, our partners want to mitigate risk, and these targeted solutions through our Solutions Factory help achieve exactly that.

How we’re helping: Market-ready solutions

Often, we see partners that have customers who want to be at the top of the IoT data maturity journey, so collectively as MEGA COMPONENT and our channel partners, it’s up to us to have those conversations to explain the journey and how to strategically advance along the way. Following this journey is the best way to maximize revenue and reduce costs. The MEGA COMPONENT is a great way to start those conversations and helps to provide market-ready solutions that focus on business outcomes to help remove complexity and increase both agility and speed-to-market. Solutions developed in the Solutions Factory are rigorously tested and monitored to maximize success.

In the end, progression along the IoT data maturity is not just good for our channel partners and their end user customers, but for the entire IT ecosystem, as we maximize the use of the data available in the world and the business outcomes that come with it. MEGA COMPONENT is uniquely positioned within the ecosystem to simplify and accelerate this data opportunity for our partners, thanks to our broad relationships with top vendors in the market and understanding of the most common pitfalls and challenges that end users experience.