Internet of Things – Is it a thread to job market or going to transform the industry?

Let us start with some insights in historical need of machines. When human power was unable to meet the demand and supply, inventors started to look forward for machines which can help human power to speed up the delivery of the items. It was applicable in all industries. Eventually, Evolution of machines was triggered where innovators started thinking to improve the quality of deliverable and speed to market with heavy utilisation of machines. 

It was further fuelled with the introduction of computer and forced the traditional business operating models to adapt the technology. Policy makers were worried about the replacement of the labour and unemployment which could be triggered by computer evolution. But, Computer industry had turned on a lot of new opportunities and created multiple jobs in high tech industry.  Same way, people are afraid of automation. But how much IoT area has contributed to this fear directly.  NO, it has not contributed directly.  While IoT is quite helpful in speeding up the solution, improving the quality and reducing the turnaround time. Additionally, it is not new concept. Sensors are already in market from decades. So, it brings me to discuss about what is IoT.

Let us discuss what IoT is not? IoT is not end to end solution. It is not a data server and it has nothing to do with decision making. It is not Robot also. It is not going to replace human power directly.  Then, what is IoT – IoT is backbone system for data gathering and triggering the automatic actions as per machine decisions. These decisions are coming from Artificial intelligence algorithm , and to take decisions machine learning concepts are used where used data is collected using IoT Sensors, actuator etc. This data is used to feed the data visualisation tool which helps business people in taking decisions. IoT is part of an eco-system of decision making and triggering the automated actions which is resulting in improving productivity, decreasing downtime and speedy decisions.

Then what the impact of IoT on job market. The eco-system in which IoT is playing a key role will automate the multiple processes like software update, data visualisation, reporting, simple and moderate decisions of machine actions, manual diagnostics processes will be replaced by automated, onsite repair will be replaced by remote monitoring and providing fixes wherever applicable.  

Yes, this ecosystem is going to reduce the number of jobs in redundant and repeated process areas, while on the other hand, industry is facing huge shortage of the digital skills like IoT developer, AI, machine learning, automation etc.

To conclude the words – when IoT is helping industry in improving the quality and response time, it is also significantly contributing in automation which eventually makes the organisation to skill up their resources on latest technologies.  People who will be flexible and ready to learn new technology will not be impacted by this IoT or IoT ecosystem thread. As of now, IoT is directly impacting the transformation of the industries.