Analyst(s): Keith Kirkpatrick
Publication Date: October 2, 2024
Zoho has introduced a customizable, low-code IoT platform, offering vertical-specific solutions tailored to industries such as Industrial IoT, Smart Buildings, Energy Management, and Connected OEMs. The platform enables businesses to streamline operations, gain real-time insights, and enhance customer experience while reducing costs. This launch reaffirms Zoho’s focus on scalability, flexibility, and ease of use for diverse industry applications.
What is Covered in this Article:
- Overview of Zoho’s customizable IoT platform and its features
- Use cases for the four pre-built vertical solutions: Industrial IoT, Smart Buildings, Energy Management, and Connected OEMs
- The platform’s impact on operational efficiency, cost savings, and customer experiences
- Industry-specific benefits of real-time data insights and predictive maintenance
The News: Zoho Corporation announced the launch of its highly customizable, low-code IoT platform designed to help businesses quickly deploy tailored IoT solutions. The platform offers pre-built vertical solutions targeting specific industries, including Industrial IoT, Smart Buildings, Energy Management, and Connected OEMs. These solutions allow companies to gather real-time data from IoT devices, automate processes, optimize energy use, and improve customer experiences. With a strong focus on scalability and security, the platform integrates with third-party hardware, making it adaptable to various enterprise needs.
Zoho Launches Low-Code IoT Platform with Industry-Specific Solutions
Analyst Take: Zoho’s entry into the low-code IoT platform market is a strategic move that meets the increasing demand for simplified, scalable IoT solutions. Zoho effectively addresses the pain points of industries often burdened by complex operational requirements by focusing on vertical-specific solutions. The platform’s low-code capabilities lower the technical barriers for businesses, allowing them to harness the benefits of IoT without extensive expertise. Moreover, Zoho’s use of AI for predictive analytics, anomaly detection, and automation adds significant value, particularly in manufacturing and energy management sectors, where operational efficiencies are crucial.
Industrial IoT: Driving Operational Efficiency on the Shop Floor
The Industrial IoT vertical is designed to optimize shop floor productivity, reduce machine downtime, and reduce maintenance costs associated with high-value assets. In this vertical, businesses can harness the power of IoT to monitor equipment performance in real-time, predict maintenance needs, and automate routine processes.
Use Case – Smart Manufacturing: In a modern manufacturing setting, the Zoho IoT platform can be integrated into production lines to monitor equipment status, identify potential failures before they occur, and initiate preventive maintenance. By leveraging real-time data from machines, factories can maintain peak operational efficiency and minimize production disruptions caused by unexpected equipment failures. Additionally, this solution can provide key insights into machine performance, allowing manufacturers to optimize their processes and achieve higher throughout.
For instance, an automotive parts manufacturer using Zoho IoT could monitor its stamping machines for wear and tear, schedule maintenance during non-peak hours, reduce downtime, and increase productivity. This predictive capability would prevent costly repairs and extend the life of the equipment.
Smart Buildings: Unified Monitoring for Enhanced Building Management
The Smart Buildings vertical offers a unified system for managing assets, tenants, energy consumption, and facilities under one umbrella. This solution is ideal for facility managers looking to centralize their monitoring systems, improve overall operational efficiency, and enhance tenant experiences through intelligent building management.
Use Case – Commercial Property Management: Consider a commercial building management company overseeing multiple properties. With Zoho IoT’s Smart Buildings solution, the company can track everything from HVAC performance and lighting usage to energy consumption and tenant occupancy rates. Facility managers can receive real-time alerts if any system malfunctions, while smart sensors can adjust lighting and temperature based on building occupancy to reduce energy waste.
For example, a property manager might use the platform to monitor energy usage across multiple office towers, adjusting climate controls to optimize energy efficiency when the buildings are less occupied during the evening. This not only reduces energy costs but also contributes to sustainability goals.
Energy Management: Streamlining Energy Consumption
The Energy Management vertical is tailored to businesses aiming to plan and manage their energy consumption efficiently. With this solution, companies gain complete control over energy data, enabling them to identify trends, optimize usage, and cut costs associated with energy inefficiencies.
Use Case – Solar Energy Farms: In the renewable energy sector, solar energy farms can utilize the Zoho IoT platform to monitor the performance of solar panels and other equipment in real-time. The platform’s data analytics capabilities allow operators to track energy generation patterns, detect anomalies such as underperforming panels, and schedule maintenance accordingly. With this level of control, operators can maximize energy output while minimizing downtime.
An example would be a solar energy company using Zoho IoT to monitor panel performance across various sites. When a decrease in energy generation is detected in one particular section of the farm, the company could dispatch a maintenance team to investigate and resolve the issue before it leads to significant losses. Furthermore, energy consumption data could be used to optimize when energy should be stored or dispatched to the grid based on demand.
Connected OEMs: Unlocking New Revenue Streams for Original Equipment Manufacturers
The Connected OEMs vertical allows Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to tap into new revenue streams by enabling real-time insights and remote monitoring of their smart products. By integrating IoT capabilities into their products, OEMs can offer customers value-added services such as predictive maintenance, enhanced product performance insights, and the ability to monitor products remotely.
Use Case – Consumer Electronics: Take a company producing smart home appliances. By using Zoho IoT, the company could offer its customers a platform to monitor and control their devices remotely, receive alerts on device malfunctions, and schedule maintenance. Moreover, data collected through the IoT platform could help manufacturers improve future product designs by identifying common usage patterns and potential product weaknesses.
For instance, a smart refrigerator manufacturer could offer customers an app powered by Zoho IoT. This would allow users to receive alerts when maintenance is due or if certain food items are close to expiring. On the back end, the manufacturer could use the collected data to track product performance and customer usage, enabling them to improve product durability and introduce new features that better meet customer needs.
Looking Forward
Zoho’s customizable low-code IoT platform represents a significant leap forward in making IoT technology accessible to businesses of all sizes and industries. By offering pre-built, vertical-specific solutions in Industrial IoT, Smart Buildings, Energy Management, and Connected OEMs, Zoho empowers businesses to harness the power of IoT without the need for extensive technical expertise. The platform’s real-time data collection, advanced AI capabilities, and robust security measures enable businesses to streamline operations, optimize efficiency, and improve customer experiences.
The availability of a low-code IoT platform also helps Zoho bolster its institutional knowledge around how IoT is captured and used across a variety of industries. This will help broaden the company’s appeal to smaller organizations that may have sought out niche point solutions and may seek to consolidate a number of functions on a single platform. The challenge for Zoho usually isn’t based on price – they tend to align with their target customer base’s budgets – but likely will be focused mainly on demonstrating that its solution can quickly deliver ROI and easily integrate with other critical systems, including Zoho’s (or another vendor’s) ERP, MES, or 3PL, or other back-end platform.
What to Watch:
- Zoho will face competition from major players such as Microsoft Azure IoT, AWS IoT, and Google Cloud IoT, which will continue to dominate the market.
- Zoho’s success will depend on its ability to integrate with enterprise ecosystems that rely on existing cloud solutions.
- The rise of edge computing and AI-driven automation will likely influence Zoho’s platform evolution and adoption.
- Increased investment in smart buildings, energy efficiency, and connected OEMs will likely accelerate the adoption of Zoho IoT, especially in sectors prioritizing digital transformation.
- Zoho’s market penetration could be affected by enterprise preferences for established cloud providers, potentially enhancing or limiting the platform’s reach.
See more of the Low-Code IoT Platform Zoho launched on the Zoho website.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
