TM Forum Community

I have found that when explaining a Smart/IoT/IoE project for a city, the client asks about the cost and the benefits for the city and citizens of such projects. It can be difficult to give key messages that demonstrate the value and the concrete benefits of these initiatives and are accepted by non IT people and therefore the project goes down a level because the political or strategic profiles does not sponsor them.
What are the key messages to tell a potential public sector client to convince him to embark on a substantial IoE project?

------------------------------
Alberto Bernal
Indra Sistemas S.A.
------------------------------

Hi Alberto,

It is true that  success of IoT solution depends on the acceptance and adaptability of people. In most cases, the decision maker  do not understand the benefits of the  solution. The need is to highlight the improvement in quality of life of the citizens and positive governance impact the solution will have on the citizens. It is also essential to indicate the highly agile way being adopted for the IoT solution development that the results are available much earlier then civil construction or mechanical works.

Cheers Avadhut Deshpande

------------------------------
Avadhut Deshpande
Persistent Systems Ltd
------------------------------

If the customer asks about the cost and the benefits for the city and the citizen of a project, then you must provide a RoI (Return on Investment) estimation.

Building a system is usually a long-term investment. The lifetime of a system can be estimated in the order of years, up to 20 years for some systems. In principle, a system is worth building if its lifetime exceeds the Return on Investment (RoI) period.

In practice, eager investors would demand that we get an interest rate with the investment far better than the interest rate offered by other investments.

Let's call B(t), the cumulated savings obtained by the system at year t:

B(t) = A Sum{k=1}_to_t((1+c)/(1+r))^k - M Sum{k=1}_to_t((1+i)/(1+r))^k

Then, we have the Return on Investment (RoI) for B(RoI) = C (see picture attached below):

where:
- A: total savings achieved by the use of the system in its first year of functioning
- M: differential cost of maintenance of the system during the first year (with respect to the old system in use, if any). It can be estimated as 3% of C, see definition below.
- C: differential cost of the system with respect to current system in use cost. You can discount any helps provided by the government to build the system to C, if any.
- c: inflation rate with respect to the energy or other consumables needed by the system
- i: inflation rate affecting the maintenance costs
- r: money interest rate

Numeric example (from a domestic solar energy installation project):
A = 682.76 Eur
c = 0.08
C = 4540 Eur
i = 0.07
M = 137 Eur
r = 3%

Then, t = 7 years.
It means that year 7 you have paid the system with the savings, then you can enjoy the savings obtained as benefits.

If you set t equal to the estimated system lifetime and solve for r, you would get the interest rate offered by the investment on the system, which should be far better than the estimated interest rate of just leaving the money on a bank account. In this case, if t = 20 years, then we get r = 19.4%.

Best Regards,

------------------------------
David Fernández Piñas
Indra Sistemas S.A.
------------------------------

Hi Alberto,

You may wish to look, or even join our discussion group ‘City as a Platform and the Data Economy’ for Smart Cities, where we are looking to articulate benefits to all user groups from the Citizen to the Government (including political leaders)"

https://projects.tmforum.org/wiki/display/SC/City+as+a+Platform+and+the+Data+Economy+-+Stream+Objectives

 

We have a call every Tuesday at 4pm UK time to discuss the use cases and the benefits…please feel free to join and contribute.

Paul Morrissey

------------------------------
Professor Paul Morrissey
Liverpool John Moores University -- School of Computing & Maths
------------------------------

Explaining the concept of IoT/IoE can become very complex - in a nutshell, it is the connection of big data and analytics that power the capabilities.  This includes remote monitoring, device control and real-time data extraction.

To give a simple example - the case of a paramedic called to a patient with a suspected stroke.

IoE/IoT can support with:

1. Allowing the paramedic to transmit realtime information from the patient to specialist consultants at the hospital.  If required, they can also send this same information to a group of doctors; not specifically located in the same country.  Therefore, if they have a complex case, the information can be sent to many specialists to help support the patient.  By using a Smart SIM chip, you can leverage it's capabilities in a global setting, reaching out to any specialist service that is enabled.

2. Allows the paramedic to check current traffic, especially in larger more urban cities.  This aids their journey to the hospital and minimises any traffic congestion issues along the way.

3. The Civic Services have control of the traffic signals, they can aid in helping these journeys - making them faster and smooth.

4. By controling the events from start to finish, this helps to speed up the services and reduce the triage time in A&E.  For many non-urgent events, the patient can be treated at the scene; so there is no need for them to go to hospital.  This can help to reduce pressure on hospital services and reduce the processing time for admissions.

This example is really simple and can be expanded into a more technical discussion, but for me - if you understand the challenge, you can use the technology to help support the solution.  The beauty of IoT/IoE is that potentially everything can be connected allowing seemless connectivity.  No doubt there are challenges along the way, but the concept is very exiciting and worth investing in the journey.

Hope this helps.

Thanks
Pearl

------------------------------
Pearl Neveling
Torry Harris Business Solutions Pvt Ltd
------------------------------

Great Question Sir, thought provoking. Here's few pts, I can think of:

a. At every bus stop, free WiFi availability and an app which will tell me the bus route to reach a destination, will be so exciting. Add to that the potential waiting time for the next bus on the route, and being able to see the route on a interactive map.

b. For drivers, being able to warn of potential congestion and suggesting alternative routes (something which google map already does to some extent).

c. Paying the bills , using an app or on the web, with quick easy steps.

b. Being able to find out property (rental or buy), not just based on size , price (which many web apps offer), but based on the demography of the area, ex: the kind of ppl (ethnicity) staying in the neighborhood, availability of schools, medical facilities etc.

e. Cost of commuting to a destination, using Uber (ie potential cost), tourist places in the city, hotels, restaurants.

f. Smart parking system, being able to find parking places using a app, and to be directed to the nearest parking vacant parking spot, and being charged using automatic metering system.

g. Warning on entering potential high crime zones, and safe time to go to these areas.

------------------------------
Anirban Konar
Cognizant Technology Solutions
------------------------------

Smart city project is one tough nut to crack. If we were to embark on Opex business model, we might be wrong in estimating the ROI and risk of not getting the ROI as predicted. Capex model is almost out of question due to economic constraints.

------------------------------
Mazlan Abbas
REDtone IOT
------------------------------

Benefits are better management of public assets, resource conservation and a quality of life for the citizens.
definitely if we can do some data analytics and showcase the inefficiency of the current manually controlled systems  and tell them how IoT will make it efficient.

simple example I have seen in recent times is the smart energy meters, with the energy meters having SIM cards and ability to push data at regular intervals to the centralized servers and being monitored continuously have countered the problems of meter tampering, analytics of energy consumption with respect to time of day, day of week, area wise etc can be achieved. 

Regards
Bhushan K 

------------------------------
Bhushan Kelewadikar
Infosys Ltd.
------------------------------

The concept of SmartCity is very broad. It could fall into one or more of these areas:  Environment, Waste Management, Resources(Water, Energy), Health, Property, Education, Safety, Emergency Response, Governance, Transportation, Finance, Recreation.

For creating key messaging, it is important to identify the areas that are the focus and how it relates to the particular city. Every city is different and so are their issues and drivers. Once you have the area identified, then understanding the key issues/ problems and the right metrics is usually the next best step. This will directly lead to technology and solutions and hence messaging.

At a high level a smart city project is aimed at improving any of these areas in the city and improving transparency for citizens.

------------------------------
Vinoo Jacob
Vector Communications Ltd
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 02-08-2017 04:12
From: Bhushan Kelewadikar
Subject: Key messaging for SmartCity/IoT projects

Benefits are better management of public assets, resource conservation and a quality of life for the citizens.
definitely if we can do some data analytics and showcase the inefficiency of the current manually controlled systems  and tell them how IoT will make it efficient.

simple example I have seen in recent times is the smart energy meters, with the energy meters having SIM cards and ability to push data at regular intervals to the centralized servers and being monitored continuously have countered the problems of meter tampering, analytics of energy consumption with respect to time of day, day of week, area wise etc can be achieved. 

Regards
Bhushan K 

------------------------------
Bhushan Kelewadikar
Infosys Ltd.
------------------------------

Alberto,

I believe it's much easier to explain the benefits at the use case/service level (say Smart Parking, Air Pollution, Street Lighting, etc.) than as an aggregate Smart City which as many other posters highlighted can mean different things and/or address different needs per City. Technology needed will only follow once the use case(s)/service(s) will be accepted along with their business case(s) in terms of added revenues and/or decreased costs.

HTH,
Pedro

------------------------------
Pedro Paiva
IoT/Digital Strategy
Etoy - Switzerland
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 02-09-2017 15:41
From: Vinoo Jacob
Subject: Key messaging for SmartCity/IoT projects

The concept of SmartCity is very broad. It could fall into one or more of these areas:  Environment, Waste Management, Resources(Water, Energy), Health, Property, Education, Safety, Emergency Response, Governance, Transportation, Finance, Recreation.

For creating key messaging, it is important to identify the areas that are the focus and how it relates to the particular city. Every city is different and so are their issues and drivers. Once you have the area identified, then understanding the key issues/ problems and the right metrics is usually the next best step. This will directly lead to technology and solutions and hence messaging.

At a high level a smart city project is aimed at improving any of these areas in the city and improving transparency for citizens.

------------------------------
Vinoo Jacob
Vector Communications Ltd
------------------------------

Absolutely!
Just discussing smart city with general ideas does not make much use of time.
For benchmark use case discussions can we find out the most successful implementation worldwide of interconnected systems, and how they are helping mankind. We can then build over them.

Cheers

Sanjay

------------------------------
Sanjay Mehrotra
DirectorMindShift Ltd
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 02-10-2017 04:09
From: Pedro Paiva
Subject: Key messaging for SmartCity/IoT projects

Alberto,

I believe it's much easier to explain the benefits at the use case/service level (say Smart Parking, Air Pollution, Street Lighting, etc.) than as an aggregate Smart City which as many other posters highlighted can mean different things and/or address different needs per City. Technology needed will only follow once the use case(s)/service(s) will be accepted along with their business case(s) in terms of added revenues and/or decreased costs.

HTH,
Pedro

------------------------------
Pedro Paiva
IoT/Digital Strategy
Etoy - Switzerland
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 02-09-2017 15:41
From: Vinoo Jacob
Subject: Key messaging for SmartCity/IoT projects

The concept of SmartCity is very broad. It could fall into one or more of these areas:  Environment, Waste Management, Resources(Water, Energy), Health, Property, Education, Safety, Emergency Response, Governance, Transportation, Finance, Recreation.

For creating key messaging, it is important to identify the areas that are the focus and how it relates to the particular city. Every city is different and so are their issues and drivers. Once you have the area identified, then understanding the key issues/ problems and the right metrics is usually the next best step. This will directly lead to technology and solutions and hence messaging.

At a high level a smart city project is aimed at improving any of these areas in the city and improving transparency for citizens.

------------------------------
Vinoo Jacob
Vector Communications Ltd
------------------------------

Having been on the extremely deep side of IEO/security/management, I can say that starting an explanation with the term "Smart City", "IoT" or "IoE" ends the conversation before it is started.  Technical speakers spend the rest of the time trying to avoid going too technical and nontechnical folks, used to the technical jargon, automatically tune out.

More to the point, the technology does not matter - and it never has.  You are not selling a Smarty City/IOE project, you are selling a solution to a problem.  If you cannot immediately discern that problem, lay out why that problem persists and then provide a succinct solution then you are wasting everybody's time, including your own.  These problems have to be business problems and the solutions need to be completely nontechnical in nature.

I have also found that 90% of what I think is important (as the techno-geek) is just not important.  When I talk with potential customers, I often find a global issue about which they care and then I attempt provide a solution in under 2 minutes...quite often spending the next 2 hours explaining how things would work!  

Sure Bear provides security and management and a whole bunch of other things but I tend to promote a low-cost way to cut down on maintenance cycles, save energy and proactively deal with consumer privacy concerns.  It took a LONG time to get there but, by completely ignoring the tech (and really what customer cares if an IoT device or a mainframe computer delivers the solution?), we have found buy-in to be a much easier process.

------------------------------
Ken Tola
Bear Systems
------------------------------