People as Part of the IoT Story

Wolfgang Möller, our Global Director Discrete Industries and Internet of Things, had the chance to talk to three international IoT Architects from itelligence. The topic was how to match different IoT ecosystems in organizations. The full round table discussion is splitted up into four interesting video snippets covered in the following blog series.

This blog is the fourth and final article in our “Matching Different IoT Ecosystems” blog series. During the three previous blog articles, we dealt with processes and technology. Now, we are coming to the element that is starring in the digital transformation and design of united ecosystems – people.

In my eyes, people within the organizations are the major challenge for matching different ecosystems. I found that a proven way is to have value-oriented discussions. Just as I did in the three blog posts before, I asked my international colleagues what their thoughts and experiences were.

People Have to Be Forced to Collaborate Across Silos

Looking at the situation in companies, you might agree that most departments are working in their own silos. They are directly focused on their processes. That’s their job so far. Through change that comes from the outside, companies are now forced to think outside the box. E.g., for efficiency reasons, workshops are conducted to optimize (or rather integrate) the value-creation chain. People across departments and sometimes across company borders are establishing dialogue with each other. This has been a positive development, so far. But the next big question as far as the processes are integrated is: “Who owns the data?” In most cases, this is a pretty complex discussion, because people are focused on their point of view. Today’s times call for a more open-minded view to create added value. This huge task could be tackled by a new role within organizations: the ecosystem engineer.

The Ecosystem Engineer

In my opinion, this is a personality with T-shaped skills, meaning a person who has the ability to collaborate across disciplines and is specialized in some fields, e.g., processes and technology. This innovative role could be compared to a conductor of an orchestra. Bringing business partners from a horizontal perspective and different business units from a vertical perspective together to establish dialogue and create value-added outcome would be the core task of the ecosystem engineer. However, to hire such a person is not the entire solution to the problem. But it is a good start. In general, we have to internalize an open mind for evolution and change across all business entities and networks.

Evolution of Change on All Sides