A phrase describing the plethora of devices, software and sensors developed in recent years that are capable of seizing, recording and transferring information in an automated way, Internet of Things or IoT is radically changing the data strategy of many businesses today.
To help businesses make better decisions in real time, new and exciting opportunities are being created by enormous amounts of data from wearable devices, sensors and other connected technologies. But, gathering all this data is half the solution. The other half of the solution lies in making this data actionable and how do you do that?
By combing Internet of Things (IoT) with Machine Learning (ML) technology.
How IoT and ML Combine to Improve Business Decision Making
How do you intelligently manage the overwhelming data created by the Internet of Things (IoT)? With Machine Learning.. A trend that has started in recent years and which is expected to continue in the coming years, the use of ML to manage the enormous amounts of data created by IoT provides valuable insights that businesses can use to make decisions and improve their operations.
It is expected that in the coming years, there will be billions of active connected devices and this will exponentially increase the data created by IoT. This is only going to make data management harder for businesses, unless they turn to machine learning.
Today, many companies including the big names such as Amazon and Netflix are benefiting by using ML to manage the data created by IoT. What are the exact benefits they’re enjoying?
Let’s have a look.
Elimination of Data Junk
Today, a plethora of information is available to businesses, which makes it difficult for them to distinguish the useful data from the ‘junk’. It’s virtually impossible for any human to quickly and accurately perform this function.
But, ML can do that for you as one of its main function is determining which data is useful, and which is not. Even if the big data coming into your organization is unstructured and difficult to sort, machine learning can separate the useful data from the ‘junk’.
Recognition of Patterns
Say, you are provided with thousands of customer profiles with each profile containing the five-year buying history of the customer. Next, your manager asks you to identify patterns in the purchases—throughout the entire customers’ batch and not just by customer.
Sounds impossible?
Well, ML can do this for you and quickly to help you understand your customers and their decision making. With this information, you can determine the product, ad, or incentive your customer is most likely to respond to, which in turn can help you increase sales.
Eliminate Bias and Improve Decision Making
By providing information based on facts and data trends, IoT data managed by ML eliminates bias from business decisions, thus improving business decision making. Additionally, machine learning provides insights in real-time when the data is relevant and meaningful, which again aids the decision-making process.
