SPONSORED INTERVIEW
Bernd Gross is the chief technology officer of Software AG, having joined the company following its acquisition of Cumulocity, which he founded in 2012 as part of a management buy-out from Nokia Siemens Network. With 25 years of international experience in the IT industry and in management positions, including in the UK, Finland and Silicon Valley, USA, he is one of Germany’s pioneers and thought leaders in the areas of digitisation, cloud computing, the Internet of Things and Industry 4.0. Here he tells IoT Now managing editor, George Malim, that we are entering the third generation of digitalisation and that this is introducing a truly connected world which will transform how we interact, transact and innovate, as well as facilitate far-reaching changes to society.
George Malim: You have been strongly promoting the vision of a truly connected world. What does a truly connected world mean?
Bernd Gross: Technology is facing the third generation of digitalisation. The first wave was the emergence of PCs and IT systems in businesses with enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and databases which created a massive amount of automations. The second wave was the internet. With that came a huge disruptive force and digitalisation that has affected every industry. The third generation of digitalisation is the ubiquitous, connected network.
This is truly a driver for massive disruption in many industries and vertical markets. The consequence of pervasive connectivity is huge because it connects the physical world of machines with apps and, in the business-tobusiness (B2B) context with enterprise, on-premise IT. The convergence is between the physical world of operational technology (OT) with IT.
It is driven by three domains; enterprise on-premise IT, physical OT and cloud applications. Companies describe this in consumer terms but forget to mention the enterprise. With our WebMethods integration technology we have nearly 20 years of heritage in understanding the connected world and that’s why we emphasise this new world as truly connected.
GM: How can organisations remain competitive in today’s connected world?
BG: When you look at this truly connected world in the B2B context it drives companies into a new direction, one centred around the connected customer experience.
This is a massive shift for some enterprises. For example, at Tesla Elon Musk is able to respond to a tweet from a customer suggesting an improvement to a vehicle and say it’s a great idea, we’ll make it available in the next software update. That’s so powerful because it provides a connected way of continuously improving the customer experience through software and services. Previously, a car maker would have had to delay introduction of a new feature until the next new model was introduced in several years’ time. Now it can simply be added to the next over-the-air (OTA) software update.
It’s not just the automotive industry that is transforming in this way. We’re working with companies from wind farm makers to paint shop robot manufacturers and industrial pump providers. These companies are transforming their business from selling products to [...]
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by IoT Now Magazine, Khareem Sudlow
