IoT Inc: How Your Company Can Use the Internet of Things to Win in the Outcome Economy

My interest of the Internet of Things (IoT) and its future impact on the world, economics, and my company began in February 2016 after stumbling upon Garner’s IoT Hype Cycle, leading me to an article claiming the famous “50 billion connected devices by 2020”, then to another, then to hundreds of whitepapers, and countless interactions with IoT thought leaders and companies. This led me to visualize a huge opportunity, and that is to add an IoT systems integrator line of business to my existent IT end-to-end solutions company in the Caribbean. This vision inspired me to attend the IoT World 2017 conference in the Silicon Valley, where I met Bruce Sinclair and listened to his presentation, ultimately leading me to purchase IoT Inc. IoT Inc. happens to be released in the perfect time as I have heard countless times that 2017 is the year for IoT, as it begins transitioning from hype to highly effective deployments. Before reading IoT Inc., I figured I was extremely knowledgeable about IoT and did not have much more to learn until I have real world experience, but I was definitely wrong. Bruce makes it clear how IoT is going to have a major effect in practically every industry, business models, and vendor to customer relationships. Bruce emphasizes that IoT has unprecedented potential because of the outcomes/impact it unlocks. Customers ultimately only care about outcomes, they have no interest in the product itself, instead they care about the outcomes products unlock for them. This essential IoT playbook covers everything there is to know to get one started in transforming their business into one that is outcomes oriented. It covers a wide range of subjects such as: developing creative IoT strategies, creating value through IoT, customer-oriented business models, use case examples of IoT in varying industries, building an IoT strategy business plan, analyzing one’s client’s desire for outcomes and how to base your IoT use case to satisfy those outcomes, and much more. The author strategically geared the book to an audience from all industries by giving a comprehensive set of IoT examples. The examples provided range from IoT in surgeries, healthcare, manufacturing, buildings, mouse traps, household appliances, driverless cars, power grid, jet engines, tires in fleet management, and much more. The top five things I like most about this book are: 1) The explanation of the five layers involved in IoT from a business perspective, being the hardware-defined product, software-defined product, external systems, network fabric, and IoT cyber security. Breaking IoT into five layers will allow me to focus on each individual layer as I create end-to-end solutions for my clients. 2) The extensive, interesting range of practical examples. 3) Five classes of IoT business models, including product, product-service, service, service-outcome, and outcome business models. 4) The explanation that success in IoT is highly dependent on strategic partners and planned execution to monetize IoT to its fullest potential through creative business models that allow the seller’s business model to be aligned with that of the customer. 5) The way that the book is strategically split into three different sections (The Business End of IoT, Analyzing Your Business Through the IoT Lens, A Tech Deep Dive Into IoT). Overall, this is truly one of the most practical, nicely laid out books I have ever read, and definitely the best literature I have ever read on the topic of IoT. There is no doubt that I will be referencing IoT Inc. countless times as I build end-to-end IoT solutions for my clients. I highly recommend this book for not just people interested in IoT, but for any entrepreneur, business person or engineer, because IoT is inevitably going to greatly impact your product and/or business before you know it. The IoT wave is coming at an unprecedented rate in the technology era. As a business person or engineer, you can either choose to strategically embrace it or ignore it and allow it to tear your dreams and hard work apart.

I originally wrote a review of this book after reading the first few chapters. That review did not give high marks. I have since finished it and have upped my review from 3 stars to 4. I now understand that my original review was due my frustration with the author's unavoidable software-developer-style writing, most evidenced in Chapter 1, which got the book off to a poor start. More specifically, the author has written a tome true to his DNA - technical, linear, obscurely defined (even when he tries to avoid jargon), and not easy to read. It isn't entirely his fault (another editor would have helped) but I can't say this was a joy for me to read. Note that this still may be the best book yet on IoT but an opportunity remains for someone to write one in less definition/framework-heavy, easily understandable prose.

IoT-Inc is an excellent book for decision makers looking to explore how to monetize IoT. Several books are emerging on IoT, but this book takes the decision-makers top-down view. It explains how to start -- with a value model. Then how to think of the IoT product, whether it is a discrete product (like an appliance), a system (like a group of sensors all working together to ensure a particular system outcome), or an environment (like a smart city). There are several chapters on the technology of IoT but at a level beneficial to leaders. The book also takes a long view, with advice to executives on how to position a corporation to be a leader in the IoT ecosystem that will emerge to structure the future of their industry. I recommend this book to executives, business managers, and technology leaders wanting to capture the value promised by IoT. The author provides additional resources in his book that is of importance to readers. This book is an excellent IoT resource!

The idea presented in this book while may be accurate & foretelling, is way too abstract for average readers. I consider myself an avid reader who can parse through 100 pages/day when I read Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton. But for this book, I can only progress 30 pages a day because the material is so dull and vague. I also feel so small and inadequate when I read about different layers of technologies required in IoT/Outcome Economy. Where will I fit-in in this future economy? I feel that unless you know big data or machine learning, you're going to be left out. There should be a human centric way to introduce this topic.

Bruce has written a readable book that presents an immediately useful framework to implement the internet of things. He starts with a focus on the business side explaining the importance of creating and then monetizing value. Next Bruce moves to an examination of what a company needs to consider due to changes in competition and the outcome economy. He concludes with high level coverage of the technical aspects of the internet of things. Throughout the book, Bruce explains all aspects in easily understandable terms. He also provides examples of application to a number of different types of businesses and products.

This is an excellent book suitable for anyone who is in the business of making money using technology and the Internet. It covers all the bases as far as defining what the Internet of Things (IoT) really means, how it traces it's genesis from outdated business models and introduces models on how IoT can greatly leverage a companies products in an outcome based economy. Mr. Sinclair is clearly an expert in this field and does a fantastic job sharing years of consulting experience making the IoT concepts he presents come alive. Ultimately, this book presents the requirements needed for a strategic partnership to evolve between manufacturers and sellers on how to use IoT in a smart way. The result is the ideal business model that allows both to synergistically maximize their profit potential. I highly recommended this book as a must read for anyone wanting to understand this emerging field better, and for any company wishing to learn more on how they can leverage IoT and technology to maximize their bottom line.

Bruce has written a book which provides an unbiased guide of how businesses can use IoT. Mr. Sinclair's mathematics background comes in handy, when he evaluates potential IoT applications by dividing them, - Model - Application - Analytics Overall a good text, which should stand the test of time - long after the hype of IoT dies down.

I bought this book back in October 2019 for a personal project centered within cybersecurity in the context of the Internet-Of-Things. With no prior exposure to the Internet Of Things (IoT) industry or its nuances, Bruce Sinclair does an exemplary job guiding the newcomer through the technological chimera that is the Internet Of Things Bruce's findings as an IoT veteran are readily apparent, as he holistically combines the utilitarian analysis of enterprises using IoT within their technology stack with a clear, high-level framework for how enterprises big and small can capture value along several dimensions; not just within the application layer or the leverage that excessive data can provide. The content in this book was also critical in helping me land an Internet-Of-Things internship within the Intel Corporation. I highly recommend this book to managers, engineers, and university students such as myself.

I started reading the book along with the course and I should say it was very in-depth knowledge and easy to understand explanation. The book provides excellent insights about the IoT industry and how things are changing. It helps an IoT professional stay on top of new changes and technicalities in the industry.

An easy to read guide to IOT industry with focus on outcome economy and result driven approach. I warmly suggest this book if you are looking for an exhaustive introduction to IOT

It gives you an interesting business point of view in a well structured way plus giving some insight of the technologies involved.

The beauty of this book is that it makes very clear that the value created has to be greater than the cost occurred. In the IoT space I’d say there is so much hype and many people are so excited about the technology that they forget that they need to address the real customer pain. And without addressing the customer pain you’ll not be able to capitalise on the Internet of Things. Bruce goes deep enough into the technology and he clearly explains how security and privacy play together and at the same time he has so much to say about the business aspects of IoT. In my career I worked in development as well as in product management and Bruce’s book is the first book I read which covers both aspects nicely at the same time. I strongly recommend this book. I believe it sets the benchmark!

Bruce has leveraged on his extensive experience in dealing with IOT strategy. He avoided the technical jargons, kept the material relevant and business ( should I say outcome) oriented. One of the best strategy book I have studied in past couple of years along with Sunil Guptas Driving Digital Strategy( where we have seen a surging volume of literature dealing with Digital Transformation). Highly recommended companions for Senior Level Execs before taking a plunge in the world of IOT as well as Business Consultants. I particularly liked the way the author linked the outcome driven IOT linkages for the frying pan -truly innovative but simple