Over the last decade, enterprise software has evolved tremendously and has transcended global businesses from materials requirements planning to enterprise resource planning and from on-premise systems to the cloud. Today, the ever-changing landscape is witnessing another shift of sands, as companies worldwide are venturing into the IoT to build advanced data integrated enterprise software. IoT data plays a significant role in organizations’ digital transformation as it is driving new insights into how assets and products are performing in near real time.  If these insights are leveraged, it can drive new business models and opportunities. Many companies are investing heavily in the research and development of IoT to go beyond using data from connected devices for analysis. There are possibilities to trigger business transactions and processes in enterprise software, automating workflow processes throughout the organization. 

Although sensor-enabled machines are now common in sectors such as manufacturing, we are still in the initial stages.  Till date, manufacturing is driven by data from programmable logic controllers (PLC) which is sent to the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems to monitor, control and schedule manufacturing processes. SCADA could be considered the foundation of modern IoT.

Looking ahead, enterprises thrive to extend the availability of data beyond SCADA, making it available throughout the organization rather than just the plant floor.  Data can be gathered from a series of flow sensors, temperature sensors, humidity sensors, vibration sensors and many other devices that can enable smart support of on-field equipment deployment rather than just PLCs. According to a study from Telecoms and Computing Market Reports, the global manufacturing analytics market will grow at an annual rate of 21.9 percent between 2018 and 2022.