It’s clear from the minute you step into Accenture’s Digital Innovation Center (Future Camp) in Kronberg, Germany, that you're stepping into the future of innovation. The writing is literally on the walls, and everything you need to inspire big ideas – from brightly colored furniture to racks and racks of gadgets – is right at your fingertips. This isn’t a space age workspace or a robotic-powered pod. It’s a hands-on meeting place for design thinking workshops and rapid prototyping, among other creative endeavors.
Some of the hottest tech in this center – and around the world – is powered by the Internet of Things (IoT). And what’s powering the IoT? Data. Lots and lots of data.
This is one of the driving factors in a new collaborative initiative between Accenture, Cloudera and SAS. We'll help organizations apply analytics to realize value from the IoT.
Arnab Chakraborty, Managing Director for Accenture Digital Analytics ASG explains, “Big Data capacity is, in essence, a prerequisite to tapping into the IoT. Without the proper data-supply chain in place, it’ll be impossible for businesses to analyze all of the information flowing in from embedded sensors. Working together, we can run analytics on all of a company’s data at scale and in real time, delivering more value.”
As part of this collaboration, our companies will jointly sponsor and develop IoT solutions powered by analytics in the Accenture Innovation Center. One of the solutions showcased in the Future Camp is around Connected Vehicles. It illustrates how operationalizing analytics on the edge – in this case, in the vehicle – reduces the need to stream data over networks to capture value from sensing data.
Tim Stevens, from Cloudera adds, “This is a great opportunity to combine some of the best of the best in analytics and big data business – bundling SAS and Cloudera software with Accenture IP and services.”
“The connected vehicle is an idea that will certainly impact the auto industry, but likely profoundly transform the very idea of mobility in general. It's clear that there's a demand for organizations to understand and capitalize on the IoT, and our partnership will allow us to solve those client business challenges,” according to my colleague Gerhard Altmann who is the Senior Director of the SAS Global Manufacturing Industry Practice.
Just like with other IoT use cases, connected vehicles will impact many different areas: We can expect to reduce risk from greater insights into safety and security impacting driving behavior, we can expect more reliability of vehicles by being able to better predict when maintenance is needed, and dealer operations can be optimized through changes in inventory processes. In addition, travel time can be monetized, for instance by enhanced digital subscription services that have value-added features, like always-on access to emergency services and roadside assistance, or by streaming infotainment and integration between dashboards, smartphones and wearable device. And, this is just the beginning. The impact that IoT will bring to our society is going to be pervasive.
Having worked together for years, Accenture, Cloudera, and SAS have already worked with companies that span many industries, including financial services and telecommunications. Most importantly though, at the end of the day the benefit for organizations that choose to leverage the combination of our three companies can expect to see results from their IoT initiatives faster, with less risk to get to results, and at a lower TCO.
If you’re interested in reading more about IoT, check out a survey from Accenture reporting on how business executives are anticipating IoT will impact their businesses and industries, along with four use cases from SAS that show the real-world impact of IoT.
