The insight, conveniences, and power of the Internet has drawn in thousands of mission-critical assets and systems. With this increased power comes the increased risk associated with Internet-connecting, multi-million dollar equipment capable of causing harm to personnel and other systems. In order to create a modern, pragmatic approach to IoT security strategy, it’s important to pull from both technology and culture equally to be effective.

Bringing a product into the digital age requires a willingness to disrupt outdated business models, and budgeting for an IoT-enabled product implementation is likely to introduce some unforeseen considerations. Remember, when it comes to investing in IoT hardware, software, and human resources, what you pay for is what you get.

Keeping up with the rapidly changing technology landscape is a concern of most Fortune 500 companies and, with analysts predicting 30 billion connected devices by 2020, that unease isn’t going away anytime soon. In “The Organizational Psychology of IoT,” Exosite CTO Mark Benson discusses the idea that although technology is tough when implementing IoT, organizational change and alignment is tougher. He also provides case studies and best practices to help organizations dramatically increase their chances of success. Read the full article on IoT Agenda.

Once you understand the system architecture components to consider when creating your connected product strategy, it’s time to figure out how you actually put that ecosystem together. Determining where to build, buy, or partner is key to ensure you bring a full IoT experience to your users. You can do it all on your own, but it often makes business sense not to.

Designing and developing your system architecture is one of the most important aspects of building connected products. Because you and your customers will depend on the accuracy of the data being collected to make data-driven decisions, it’s important to make sure the ecosystem you create includes all of the integral components and is stable, dependable, and scalable.

As suggested in one of our earlier blogs, the real value of your connected product is its ability to solve tangible problems for your customers or users. Data collection from connected products can be used to identify patterns, alert the right people about system-level performance, understand user behaviors, and help support teams diagnose and resolve issues in the field.

An unrefined business model poses a significant risk to the success of your connected-product deployment. It’s important to carefully consider the applicable business models to identify one that best suits your product, organization, and target market. As you develop your model, make sure you examine the comprehensive impact to top line revenue, investment and ongoing expenses on the bottom line, and competitive positioning in the marketplace.

One of the major first steps in preparing for IoT success is making sure that you have organizational alignment around a clear vision for your connected product.

A successful connected-product strategy starts with the foundational element of understanding your customer needs. This will help direct your go-to-market strategy, inform important technology and trade-off decisions, prioritize your development efforts, and set internal expectations about the results.

The world we live in is changing fast. Devices in our homes, automobiles, factories, and cities are coming online, and this Internet of Things (IoT) phenomenon has profound and exciting implications for businesses and consumers. Connected products can lead to increased revenue, reduced expenses, and a more engaged customer base. But the key to success tomorrow is directly proportional to your organization’s ability to navigate IoT competency barriers today.

In the article "How to Avoid Data Mining Disasters And Capture the Value You Want to Unearth," Exosite's Director of Digital Transformation Services, Ryan Carlson, provides his advice for IoT project success based on his seasoned experience witnessing companies succeed and fail in their IoT endeavors. He discusses the importance of understanding not only what data to collect, but also what value will be generated by collecting that data. Read the full article on IoT Evolution.

As IoT continues to mature as an industry, the technology and culture surrounding it must constantly adapt to address the realities of hacker behavior, mistake-prone humans, and the seriousness of the equipment in play. If it doesn’t, we’re at risk to have more events like the DDOS attacks on Dyn last year that took down popular websites for several hours, which included Twitter, Netflix, and Amazon.

When most people think about security, their brain often defaults to the technology considerations. We’ve discussed the technology concepts, but security is also heavily reliant on the social principles. This blog focuses on the equally important, yet often overlooked, aspect of a comprehensive IoT security strategy—the company culture and values that must be in place to support the technology components of IoT security. There are 7 core cultural concepts that you should encourage as you implement your IoT security.

With summer quickly coming to a close, 2018 planning has probably been on the mind of product manufacturers for quite some time. New products don’t design, develop, and build themselves in short order—they require a significant amount of forethought, planning, and budgeting (the budgeting process is the worst, right?).

To top off your IoT security strategy, in addition to proactive responses to security threats, designing for security, and securing user identities, you should be incorporating governance, risk management, and compliance. They represent the components of process control within an organization that can play an important role in IoT security.