CIO OPINION
CIO
opinion
Chris Pope, VP of Innovation,
ServiceNow
CIO OPINION
“
AS BUSINESSES
BECOME TRULY DIGITAL, THEY
WILL DISCOVER THAT THEY KNOW
MORE CLEARLY WHAT THEY WANT
TO GET FROM THE UNIVERSE OF
DATA THAT IS BEING CREATED.
//////////////////
Managing IoT
data securely and
successfully
While there is a
widespread acceptance
that the IoT will change
everything within a
decade, there is little
appreciation about how
it can impact businesses
right now. Chris Pope, VP
of Innovation, ServiceNow,
tells us that with too many
IoT devices developed
without adequate
security, CIOs need to
not only form a strategy
to safely lock down their
IoT data but also drive
commercial action from
the information produced.
44
INTELLIGENTCIO
U
nless you’ve been living under
a disconnected rock, you’ll
know that the Internet of
Things (IoT) has developed to become
a new substrate layer of web-driven
intelligence that is helping to connect
our world. Fuelled by data from sensors,
cameras and all manner of gyroscopes
and accelerometers, IoT gives us a new
power to monitor, track, analyse and act
upon the data being created in the world
around us.
But you already knew that part. The
issue at hand for us now is what
happens next in the Internet of Things.
We need to focus on how we build the
infrastructure that serves the IoT and how
we create the higher-level technology
fabric that feeds off it. A crucial factor
for organisations looking to channel
IoT is the need to create new business
models. New operational frameworks
must be customised to the needs and
requirements of the machines and people
populating the IoT ecosystem. We have
reached a few watershed moments with
IoT already. We know that the initial
years saw too many products developed
with inadequate – or non-existent –
security provisioning. The security debate
will always be there, but services have
now come to the fore in terms of how we
lock down data in the IoT.
People – users and sometimes also
wearers of technology – will now be
central to the debate going forward. The
fact that people will be carrying wearables
so much more means we will know a lot
more about the status of every individual
in every situation.
A more ‘consumable’ future
Let’s think of possible future scenarios. For
example, there may never be a standard
health insurance policy needed anymore,
because insurers will know more about
people from the get-go. Users will really
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